The Joe Rogan Experience - April 10, 2025


Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray


Episode Stats


Length

2 hours and 58 minutes

Words per minute

170.53487

Word count

30,449

Sentence count

2,196

Harmful content

Misogyny

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

125

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the world's most popular podcaster and podcaster joins me to talk about his new show, the war in Ukraine, and his thoughts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Joe Rogan Experience" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:01.000 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!
00:00:03.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.
00:00:05.000 Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night!
00:00:08.000 All day!
00:00:12.000 Alright, we're out.
00:00:13.000 Good to see you guys.
00:00:15.000 What's happening?
00:00:16.000 Are you going no headphones?
00:00:18.000 Oh. Keep the do?
00:00:19.000 I'll do that.
00:00:20.000 I'm not quite sure what they add, but yeah.
00:00:22.000 Alright. The goal of this is every time I see people that disagree We're good to go.
00:00:22.000 All right.
00:00:23.000 The goal of this is every time I see people that disagree with anything that's happening, any gigantic world events, it's one of these retarded shows where they're screaming. 1.00
00:00:36.000 There's the word again.
00:00:37.000 We brought it.
00:00:37.000 We were just talking about that.
00:00:39.000 You did it.
00:00:39.000 The word retarded is back, and it's one of the great culture victories that I think is spurred on probably by podcasts.
00:00:50.000 These things are always like Pierce Morgan-y, which is fine.
00:00:53.000 You know, where everyone's screaming over each other, and there's five different people talking over each other.
00:00:57.000 There's never just...
00:01:00.000 Rational conversations where you discuss things.
00:01:03.000 And I respect both of you.
00:01:05.000 I think both of you are brilliant.
00:01:06.000 And I thought, I bet you agree on a lot of things.
00:01:09.000 I bet you disagree on a lot of things.
00:01:10.000 And it'd be fascinating to see your perspectives on these things.
00:01:14.000 So that's why you're here together.
00:01:16.000 Okay. Can I ask you something?
00:01:20.000 Yes, sir.
00:01:21.000 Since the war in Israel began, and since the war in Ukraine began, you've had quite a lot of people who are very against both.
00:01:29.000 Yes. I don't know that word, enough, if that's a good word.
00:01:44.000 Instead of wild critics.
00:01:45.000 Well, I've had a few.
00:01:47.000 I mean, I believe God Sad is on the side of Israel. 0.99
00:01:50.000 For sure.
00:01:51.000 Jordan is on the side of Israel.
00:01:53.000 You had Mike Baker, Coleman Hughes.
00:01:55.000 Yeah. Coleman did it for like 20 minutes.
00:01:57.000 That wasn't why he was here.
00:01:59.000 No. I mean, none of them is why they're here.
00:02:03.000 You know?
00:02:03.000 It's a good question.
00:02:05.000 Do you think you've tilted one way?
00:02:08.000 Um, me personally?
00:02:10.000 No, no, no, just with the guests you've had.
00:02:11.000 The guests?
00:02:12.000 Yeah, probably more tilted towards the idea that perhaps the way they've done it is barbaric.
00:02:20.000 But why do you think that is, just out of interest?
00:02:23.000 I'm just interested in your selection of guests because you're like the world's number one podcast.
00:02:27.000 Yeah, it's not...
00:02:28.000 I don't...
00:02:29.000 I don't think about it that way.
00:02:33.000 I just think I'd like to talk to this person.
00:02:35.000 But... Can I just, sorry, it's your show, but if you're going to interview historians of the conflict, or historians in general, why would you get somebody like Ian Carroll?
00:02:48.000 Yeah, but Ian Carroll, I didn't bring him on for that purpose.
00:02:50.000 I brought him on because I want to find out, like, how does one get involved in the whole conspiracy theory business?
00:02:55.000 Because his whole thing is just conspiracies.
00:02:58.000 Sure. You know?
00:02:59.000 But do you have any, I mean...
00:03:02.000 There's been a tilt in the conversation, in both conversations, in the last couple of years, and it's largely to do with people who have appointed themselves experts who are not experts.
00:03:14.000 You mean like Ian?
00:03:15.000 I don't think he appoints himself an expert in anything.
00:03:18.000 Who's that other dude who thinks he's an expert on Churchill?
00:03:22.000 Oh, Daryl Cooper does not think he's an expert.
00:03:25.000 In fact, I think it's everybody else is always calling him an expert, and he's like, I'm just a historian.
00:03:29.000 Have you ever absorbed any of his material?
00:03:32.000 Have you ever consumed any of his podcasts or anything like that?
00:03:34.000 I tried.
00:03:35.000 Yeah? It's pretty hard to listen to somebody who says, I don't know what I'm talking about, but now I'm going to talk.
00:03:44.000 Or, I don't know about this.
00:03:45.000 Or, I'm not capable of debating this historian, but I'm going to just tell you what I think.
00:03:50.000 Yeah, but that's not exactly what Daryl was saying.
00:03:53.000 I mean, Daryl's point of view, however you feel about this, what Daryl's saying is he doesn't really like doing debates.
00:03:59.000 He likes to do long format stuff where he can really explain his position.
00:04:03.000 But if you throw a lot of shit out there, there's some point at which I'm just raising questions is not a valid thing.
00:04:11.000 You're not raising questions.
00:04:12.000 You're not asking questions.
00:04:13.000 You're telling people something.
00:04:15.000 Do you think Daryl's doing that?
00:04:17.000 I think there's a whole bunch of guys doing that.
00:04:20.000 Dave is doing that, very obviously.
00:04:22.000 Dave's a comedian, but he's now mainly talking about Israel.
00:04:29.000 No. I don't know if I'm mainly talking about Israel, but I have opinions.
00:04:32.000 Well, that might be what you've seen, but I don't think that's...
00:04:35.000 But that is also your shtick now, isn't it?
00:04:39.000 Well, what do you mean by that's my shtick?
00:04:41.000 Well, you're not a geopolitics guy in general, are you?
00:04:44.000 I don't even know exactly what you're asking.
00:04:47.000 I'm saying you've decided...
00:04:49.000 Being a comedian, you've decided now to become somebody who talks about Israel.
00:04:53.000 I think you're incorrect.
00:04:55.000 I don't think it's a decision.
00:04:56.000 I just think you have long-form conversations, multiple of them.
00:05:00.000 It's a huge event that's in the news, so it comes up.
00:05:03.000 I don't think it's a thing.
00:05:04.000 I think if you're on the outside, you'd say, oh, look, they're trying to get attention by talking about this very polarizing issue publicly.
00:05:11.000 But you do get attention from that.
00:05:13.000 If you'd spent the last year speaking about Myanmar, you would not be...
00:05:18.000 Yeah, but he does talk about Yemen constantly.
00:05:21.000 He talks about a lot of things that aren't in the news.
00:05:24.000 Well, I tend to talk about the conflicts that my government is directly involved in, which I think is reasonable to me.
00:05:30.000 But I don't quite get, like, what's all the appeal to authority stuff?
00:05:34.000 I mean, what, you have to be an expert?
00:05:36.000 No, I think authority matters.
00:05:38.000 And I think that if you just throw a lot of shit out there and then say, I'm not interested in the alternative views on this, and particularly when it's a counter narrative that is wildly off.
00:05:49.000 And when you get people, look, I just feel we should get it out straight away.
00:05:54.000 I feel you've opened the door to quite a lot of people.
00:05:57.000 You've now got a big platform.
00:05:59.000 You mean Daryl?
00:06:05.000 Are you talking about Daryl?
00:06:06.000 Daryl, who's the other one?
00:06:07.000 I don't think Daryl has...
00:06:09.000 I don't think there's anything dangerous about what Daryl...
00:06:14.000 What's his name?
00:06:14.000 Cooper, is it?
00:06:15.000 Which one is it?
00:06:16.000 No, that's Daryl Cooper.
00:06:17.000 Who's the other one?
00:06:19.000 There was one I just checked on the way here.
00:06:22.000 Daryl Cooper and then...
00:06:23.000 Yeah, Daryl Cooper, Ian Carroll.
00:06:26.000 Look, these guys are not historians.
00:06:28.000 They're not knowledgeable about anything.
00:06:30.000 No one's calling Ian Carroll a historian.
00:06:31.000 No, but then why listen to their views on Churchill?
00:06:34.000 Daryl is incredibly knowledgeable.
00:06:36.000 He's not.
00:06:36.000 He's not.
00:06:38.000 He's wildly...
00:06:38.000 Several reasons.
00:06:40.000 One is, when he was offered, To debate the current greatest living biographer of Churchill, he said I can't because he knows much more than me and I admire his work and I've learned from it, but I can't possibly debate him.
00:06:57.000 That's Andrew Roberts.
00:06:58.000 But you don't have to be able to debate people to have opinions on things.
00:07:02.000 No, no, no, you don't have to debate people.
00:07:04.000 If it's not your thing.
00:07:05.000 But if you, for instance, well, okay, but if you say I've decided that Churchill is the bad guy in World War II.
00:07:12.000 It's not what he said.
00:07:12.000 It's not what he said.
00:07:13.000 Neither Carol nor Cooper have said that?
00:07:15.000 Well, listen, I don't know what Carol said, but Daryl Cooper has not said that.
00:07:17.000 What he said was he jokes with his friend Jocko, who's an Anglo-Saxon.
00:07:23.000 He jokes with him.
00:07:24.000 You know, I think that Churchill was the secret villain.
00:07:30.000 Of World War II.
00:07:31.000 And what he's saying is by Churchill's actions, the war escalated.
00:07:35.000 He's not saying anything.
00:07:38.000 He's not just asking questions, then, is he?
00:07:41.000 No, but the claim isn't that he's just asking questions.
00:07:43.000 He has a point of view.
00:07:44.000 You can explain this better.
00:07:45.000 He literally says he's joking.
00:07:47.000 Yes, he said in the comment, he goes, listen, I'm being hyperbolic.
00:07:49.000 And then he once again disclaimed, he goes, and I'm not claiming Churchill committed the most atrocities or was the worst part.
00:07:56.000 But in many ways, I do view him as the chief villain.
00:08:02.000 What's the point of this?
00:08:04.000 Pat Buchanan wrote an entire book on this.
00:08:06.000 Is he not allowed?
00:08:07.000 Is he not an expert?
00:08:08.000 Is he not allowed to be interviewed?
00:08:09.000 He's certainly not an expert.
00:08:10.000 He can be interviewed.
00:08:10.000 I've watched Pat Buchanan debate.
00:08:12.000 I watched Pat Buchanan debate against Churchill historians and he was absolutely leveled because he doesn't know what he's talking about.
00:08:18.000 When did Pat Buchanan debate and get leveled?
00:08:20.000 About 20 years ago.
00:08:21.000 He debated against Andrew Roberts and several other historians at Intelligence Square in London.
00:08:27.000 I was there.
00:08:27.000 He didn't know what he was talking about.
00:08:28.000 He had a contrary view and it was interesting and stimulating to hear.
00:08:32.000 But if you only get the contrary view, which is, isn't it fun if we all pretend Churchill was the bad guy of the 20th century?
00:08:40.000 At some point, you're going to lead people down a path where they think that's the view.
00:08:44.000 And that's horseshit of the most profound kind.
00:08:49.000 I don't think that's what he's trying to do I mean, your own platform has come about because you're a very successful comedian and much more.
00:09:01.000 And you do ask questions.
00:09:03.000 And you are interested.
00:09:05.000 But there are a lot of people who have come along, partly, I think, because they've come on this show, who have come along and they've decided, I can play this double game.
00:09:13.000 On the one hand, I'm going to push really edgy and frankly, sometimes horrific opinions.
00:09:21.000 And then if you say, that's wrong.
00:09:25.000 They say, I'm a comedian.
00:09:26.000 But wait a minute.
00:09:27.000 How can you tell me I'm just a comedian?
00:09:30.000 I'm just throwing stuff out there.
00:09:31.000 What horrific opinions that's wrong are you talking about, specifically?
00:09:36.000 Once guys like this get into very obvious stuff, which is...
00:09:40.000 Guys like Daryl?
00:09:41.000 The ones I'm describing.
00:09:42.000 You need to listen to Daryl to really understand what he's...
00:09:45.000 If you take Daryl's words out of context, Daryl has some of the most nuanced, balanced, and charitable views On all the figures in history.
00:09:58.000 Well, particularly Hitler, it seems. 0.88
00:10:00.000 No! No, you're wrong.
00:10:02.000 You're wrong.
00:10:03.000 He doesn't.
00:10:04.000 What did he call him?
00:10:05.000 How did he describe him?
00:10:06.000 I think he compared him to a methed-out psychopath who was holding an entire nation of people hostage, I believe was the way he put it.
00:10:13.000 He also said on here that he...
00:10:16.000 Wasn't anti-Semitic until the Holocaust.
00:10:19.000 There were no speeches of Hitler's in the 1930s.
00:10:23.000 No, he said he was not public about it.
00:10:26.000 He said there was a period where he was downplaying it to win over popular support in Germany.
00:10:33.000 There is no historian of World War II.
00:10:36.000 Who thinks that Hitler was downplaying anti-Semitism in the 1930s. 0.70
00:10:40.000 That was what he was doing.
00:10:42.000 He wrote a book about it in the 1920s.
00:10:45.000 He got to power on it, and he grew his power on the back of it.
00:10:49.000 The idea that you can argue that in the 1930s, Adolf Hitler was downplaying the anti-Semitism.
00:10:56.000 Like, there's no historian who would agree with that.
00:11:00.000 So why would you throw out the idea that in the 1930s, Hitler was not being anti-Semitic in public?
00:11:06.000 That was what he was doing in public.
00:11:09.000 He announces to the German parliament.
00:11:11.000 Okay. I mean, I think that it's kind of hard because I don't think I don't know exactly what Daryl's point on that was,
00:11:30.000 and so I'm not really in a position to argue what he was saying there.
00:11:34.000 I don't think you're giving him the most charitable interpretation.
00:11:37.000 I don't need to give him the most charitable interpretation to be able to see what he's doing.
00:11:42.000 Okay, I think you're strawmanning him, I should say.
00:11:43.000 Look, anyone can look up what he said on this show and others, what these two guys in particular have said on repeated podcasts with both of you.
00:11:52.000 It's an attempt to downplay Hitler and always to do down church. 0.89
00:11:57.000 I don't think you downplayed Hitler. 0.88
00:11:58.000 You're saying I've downplayed Hitler?
00:12:00.000 No, I said in conversations with you and others, this is the shtick of these guys.
00:12:05.000 They've decided it's edgy and funny.
00:12:07.000 And I think this is very, very interesting and also very dangerous because we live in an era now that the right has got some mojo back in America, we saw years of crazy left overreach.
00:12:21.000 I don't think you downplayed Hitler. 0.88
00:12:22.000 I agree with that.
00:12:35.000 I don't think I think it's partly being mainstreamed by the two people I just described.
00:12:39.000 And both of you have kept speaking to these people.
00:12:42.000 And you don't get on the historians who know about this.
00:12:46.000 And that's just a lot of...
00:12:49.000 Alarming to me.
00:12:50.000 Well, can I just say, because I kind of do agree with part of what you said there.
00:12:54.000 Like, I do think it is true that almost as a reaction to, like, the woke insanity that we've seen on the left, and I think nobody's been a more effective critic of that than you, I do think there has kind of been a right-wing reaction that has embraced racialism and is...
00:13:12.000 Dangerous and not a good path to go down.
00:13:14.000 And now they're flirting with Holocaust denial and Hitler and absolving Hitler of blame and much more.
00:13:18.000 I think you're wrong to include Daryl in that group.
00:13:21.000 Now, the other thing is, I'm sorry, because maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.
00:13:24.000 You're saying people that I've had conversations with have downplayed the Holocaust?
00:13:28.000 These two guys are examples of this.
00:13:28.000 Well, who are the two guys?
00:13:29.000 Daryl Cooper.
00:13:30.000 I just told you, Cooper and the other friend of Daryl.
00:13:32.000 Ian Carroll.
00:13:33.000 I've never podcasted with Ian Carroll.
00:13:36.000 I have podcasted with Daryl Cooper once, and he absolutely did not downplay.
00:13:41.000 I think that if we're zooming out here a little bit, maybe this is kind of part of the disconnect.
00:13:49.000 Broadly speaking, in American culture, the idea that it has not been driven into people enough that the Nazis were bad and that Adolf Hitler was a...
00:13:59.000 He is literally the modern devil.
00:14:02.000 He is much more so than the actual devil.
00:14:05.000 Adolf Hitler is what's viewed as the most evil thing to the point that...
00:14:10.000 I mean, just my entire life growing up, if there was a guy who sold soup on Seinfeld who was like authoritarian, he's a soup Nazi.
00:14:17.000 Everyone was Hitler. 0.92
00:14:18.000 The left called George Bush Hitler, and they called Obama Hitler, and they called Trump Hitler.
00:14:22.000 Every single enemy that we've gone to war with is always called Hitler.
00:14:27.000 Saddam Hussein's the new Hitler. 0.97
00:14:29.000 Muammar Gaddafi's the new Hitler. 0.82
00:14:30.000 Putin's the new Hitler. 0.86
00:14:31.000 It is so...
00:14:32.000 So the idea that like...
00:14:34.000 We haven't driven into people enough that Adolf Hitler was a really bad guy. 0.89
00:14:39.000 I'm not saying that at all.
00:14:40.000 I'm not saying that at all.
00:14:41.000 I'm saying, just as the left likes to play with very dark, ugly stuff, and they've done it for decades.
00:14:48.000 They have played down Chairman Mao's murder of the Chinese throughout his era in power.
00:14:55.000 They played down Stalin.
00:14:57.000 They still march on occasions with posters of Lenin.
00:15:02.000 They've spent decades trying to do down evils that were done on their side.
00:15:08.000 And I would suggest that one of the things that is going on at the moment is despite or maybe because of what you just described, there are movements now on the right in America, subcultures, including people who follow both of you,
00:15:23.000 who are very interested in playing with this absolute...
00:15:30.000 Why somebody like Jake Shields wants to play around with Holocaust denial?
00:15:35.000 Why? I can't answer for Jake Shields.
00:15:38.000 I don't know.
00:15:38.000 Why do you think?
00:15:39.000 I have no idea.
00:15:40.000 I think a lot of people get captured by audience capture.
00:15:45.000 Captured by their audience.
00:15:46.000 Yeah, I think that's the thing.
00:15:47.000 You get a lot of positive reinforcement from a bunch of...
00:15:51.000 Twisted people.
00:15:51.000 Well, it's also, I mean, there's something about, you know, Michael Malice had that great line.
00:15:56.000 He goes, when you take the red pill, you're supposed to take one and not swallow the whole bottle.
00:16:00.000 And I think there's like this dynamic.
00:16:02.000 What happens is, and of course, people know the red pill is the analogy from The Matrix.
00:16:06.000 The idea that you wake up to realizing that so much of the stuff you believed was bullshit propaganda and it's all lies.
00:16:13.000 And this is a real danger when the establishment and the institutions are all caught with their pants down having sold a bunch of very consequential policies based on lies.
00:16:25.000 And then once people realize that, they go, well, what else have they been lying to me about?
00:16:29.000 And then they almost want to look into every single thing and go, yeah, I think the whole thing was lies.
00:16:34.000 Now, I agree with you.
00:16:35.000 There's danger in that.
00:16:36.000 And I think that there are some things that then people jump to conclusions that are totally wrong.
00:16:40.000 But I guess I tend to look at that and go, well, then maybe the people with power, not random podcasters, but like.
00:16:56.000 Maybe you have power, both of you.
00:16:58.000 We live in an era where podcasters have a lot of power.
00:17:02.000 If you go on a podcast with Jake Shields, and Jake Shields goes on to another podcast and says he doesn't think six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, what do you think's happening there?
00:17:12.000 That's an exercise of power.
00:17:14.000 Okay. And I agree with you about the breakdown of trust.
00:17:19.000 Absolutely. We have lived through an era where, in real time, we saw something called a conspiracy, the lab leak, which turns out to be true, as you and others said it might be from the beginning.
00:17:32.000 I find that to be very racist.
00:17:34.000 And... How dare you?
00:17:37.000 Both of you.
00:17:38.000 It used to be racist when we were saying that it was likely that the COVID...
00:17:44.000 Variant had come out from the place making COVID variants.
00:17:47.000 Especially since it's in the exact town.
00:17:50.000 It just seemed like it.
00:17:51.000 It seemed like it was possible to us.
00:17:52.000 Ask yourself this.
00:17:54.000 Who has access to your medical history?
00:17:57.000 In theory, it's just you and your doctor.
00:17:59.000 But in reality hundreds of shady companies called data brokers are keeping tabs on every symptom you google every treatment you research and Every pre-existing condition they think you might have That's valuable intel for advertisers
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00:19:18.000 And if you're watching on YouTube, you can get your four free months by scanning the QR code on screen or by clicking the link I was referencing the New York Times calling the lab leak racist, which is just the funniest thing ever.
00:19:33.000 They go, it's racist to think that there was a sophisticated lab where they were developing gain-of-function research.
00:19:40.000 And they go, no, what happened is these freaks were eating bat heads. 1.00
00:19:43.000 That's not racist.
00:19:44.000 The other one was racist.
00:19:46.000 They were eating pangolins.
00:19:48.000 That one fell apart in front of our eyes.
00:19:53.000 It took four years.
00:19:57.000 I've said repeatedly, it's kind of inevitable to me that if you see something that is called a racist conspiracy theory fall apart and become also what we used to call true in a few years, it's likely to blow a lot of people's minds.
00:20:12.000 But the question then is, do you help those minds that have been blown?
00:20:16.000 Blow themselves out some more by doing a whole load of other conspiracy stuff.
00:20:21.000 Do you decide to go, hey, what else have we been lied to?
00:20:24.000 Maybe Churchill wasn't a great guy.
00:20:26.000 Maybe Hitler wasn't such a bad guy. 1.00
00:20:28.000 Maybe the Holocaust, etc. 0.95
00:20:29.000 Nobody is saying that.
00:20:31.000 No one is saying maybe Hitler wasn't such a bad guy. 1.00
00:20:34.000 You are saying that.
00:20:35.000 In the 1930s, Hitler kept the anti-Semitism down.
00:20:39.000 No, that's not what he's saying.
00:20:41.000 What he was saying is that he didn't do it as publicly.
00:20:45.000 He was doing it in I've seen this.
00:20:53.000 I've seen this before.
00:20:54.000 I know exactly what these guys are drinking.
00:20:56.000 They're drinking a couple of very, very discredited historians like David Irving, and they are just regurgitating it.
00:21:05.000 And it was always been the same thing.
00:21:09.000 It is always an attempt to minimize Hitler's anti-Semitism actions.
00:21:14.000 Eventually, down the road, you get to minimizing his actual involvement in the Holocaust, and then you can go on to the next stage.
00:21:20.000 Yeah, but you can't say that about Daryl.
00:21:21.000 It's not true.
00:21:22.000 What you're guilty of here is kind of similar to, I think, something that the woke left has done, which is this concept creep where you're talking about some people online who are doing this thing, and then you're lumping in other people with them.
00:21:34.000 Listen, I'll just say this right now.
00:21:36.000 Daryl Cooper is currently, I believe, We've almost finished, or he's working on, a big World War II series.
00:21:42.000 And when this comes out...
00:21:43.000 What's it going to be on?
00:21:44.000 We can see...
00:21:44.000 The podcast?
00:21:45.000 Yeah, he does long-form podcasts.
00:21:48.000 When this comes out, I am quite confident to say beforehand that if you're going into it expecting him to be downplaying the atrocities of the Nazis or downplaying the evil things that Adolf Hitler did, you're going to be disappointed.
00:22:01.000 My point is, why are we even talking about this guy?
00:22:03.000 Because you brought him up.
00:22:04.000 Yes, because he comes on podcasts like this.
00:22:07.000 My point is, this is not a serious historian.
00:22:10.000 He's not a historian.
00:22:11.000 He never claims to be.
00:22:13.000 He's been doing these long-form podcasts on these subjects for over a decade.
00:22:17.000 And if you go back to 2015 and listen to Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem, it's an incredible piece.
00:22:26.000 How many hours long?
00:22:28.000 And it literally starts from the persecution of the Jews, where they're being driven out of Europe.
00:22:34.000 It's like this horrific account of what happens to these people.
00:22:38.000 What he's trying to do is paint a picture of how...
00:22:44.000 The world goes mad.
00:22:45.000 And how the world goes sideways.
00:22:47.000 And he's doing it from the perspective, initially, of these Jewish people that are living in Europe that all of a sudden their neighbors are turning on them and they're being attacked.
00:22:58.000 It's incredibly charitable.
00:23:01.000 But what he's trying to do is show what happens.
00:23:05.000 To human beings when they're confronted with unbelievable atrocities and how things go so incredibly sideways.
00:23:13.000 Lots of people have written and spoken about that.
00:23:16.000 So why is he not allowed to?
00:23:18.000 He is allowed to.
00:23:19.000 He is allowed to.
00:23:21.000 I'm saying that there is a...
00:23:22.000 There's a weird way in which figures like him, whose ideas are not being counted when they are raised, are given platform after platform to spread their views.
00:23:31.000 They are welcome to those platforms.
00:23:33.000 I'm not saying they shouldn't be platformed.
00:23:34.000 I'm saying these are very, very fringe figures who are pushing ideas that are either debunked now, have been debunked before, or they will not stand up against somebody who disagrees with them.
00:23:45.000 Okay, I would just say, maybe this is the disconnect here.
00:23:48.000 When you say there's not pushback, Daryl's one...
00:23:51.000 One line on Tucker Carlson, this one line where he himself said he was being hyperbolic and kind of says this to prod at his buddy, got more pushback than any one line I've ever heard on a podcast.
00:24:02.000 There were numerous articles written by historians, numerous shows that covered it.
00:24:07.000 People went through.
00:24:08.000 There were Twitter threads about it.
00:24:09.000 So I don't exactly get your point.
00:24:11.000 Like, there was lots of pushback.
00:24:13.000 If you're saying he should go and debate somebody who's giving him pushback on that.
00:24:18.000 Okay, maybe.
00:24:18.000 I also think it's reasonable for him to say I don't really do debates.
00:24:21.000 Yeah, I think it's weird to mainstream very fringe views constantly and not give another side.
00:24:28.000 I think that's weird.
00:24:29.000 Well, I mean, okay, I think there's a little bit of a contradiction here.
00:24:32.000 You're saying now that these are fringe views, but then you're also saying that these are enormously powerful views.
00:24:37.000 No, no, no.
00:24:37.000 There's no contradiction.
00:24:38.000 Let me clear it up if you think there is.
00:24:40.000 I think there are very fringe views.
00:24:43.000 That have become mainstreamed on the right.
00:24:45.000 But then aren't they not fringe by definition?
00:24:47.000 Sure, you can play an epistemological game.
00:24:49.000 No, I'm just saying what's behind it.
00:24:51.000 But you do understand the concept, don't you?
00:24:52.000 That fringe ideas become mainstreamed?
00:24:54.000 Okay, sure.
00:24:56.000 So that's it.
00:24:57.000 Okay. I'm not exactly sure.
00:25:00.000 So you're saying that what Joe shouldn't have Darryl Cooper on?
00:25:03.000 I'm saying that there will have that if you mainstream very, very fringe views, which are easily able to be debunked, if you mainstream them, at some point, that view that was so fringe will be
00:25:19.000 what eager, very disconnected, unhappy people are going to start playing with, too.
00:25:26.000 And if these people are such experts in how you see a society go weird, they can look at what is happening to a portion of the right everywhere on this stuff.
00:25:37.000 There is a portion of the right across.
00:25:48.000 I agree with that.
00:25:49.000 I don't think Daryl Cooper is doing that.
00:25:51.000 But I do agree with your characterization.
00:25:53.000 I think it's a pretty important distinction there.
00:25:55.000 You're just taking this one statement and then this where he's trying to joke around with his buddy.
00:26:02.000 This Churchill statement.
00:26:03.000 And this is the basis of this.
00:26:05.000 He and these other guys are all doing the anti-Churchill stuff now.
00:26:08.000 But he's not doing an anti-Churchill stuff.
00:26:11.000 He and the other people in the orbit I described.
00:26:13.000 Churchill was the author of this whole Operation Unthinkable, right?
00:26:16.000 Where they wanted to use the Nazis to invade Russia. 0.66
00:26:19.000 Wasn't that Churchill?
00:26:23.000 Is that not true?
00:26:25.000 We're going to have to get into the weeds on Churchill.
00:26:27.000 There is always going to be a corner which you can get me on on a bit of Churchill.
00:26:34.000 But that's the point.
00:26:35.000 But that's the point, is to have a comprehensive view.
00:26:38.000 Churchill was never working with the Germans to invade Russia.
00:26:43.000 No, no, no.
00:26:43.000 This was a plan that was drawn up.
00:26:46.000 Do you know about Operation Unthinkable?
00:26:48.000 Pull it up, Jamie.
00:26:51.000 Operation Unthinkable was at the end of the war, I believe, Churchill was concerned about the rise of Russia, and the rise of the Soviet Union.
00:27:01.000 And the idea was, and we'll find out what the historical facts are about this, Operation Unthinkable, the name given to two related possible future war plans developed by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee.
00:27:13.000 Against the Soviet Union during 1945.
00:27:15.000 The plans were never implemented.
00:27:17.000 The creation of the plans was ordered by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on May 1945 and developed by the British Armed Forces Joint Planning Staff in May 1945, the end of World War II in Europe.
00:27:28.000 One plan assumed a surprise attack on the Soviet forces stationed in Germany to oppose...
00:27:34.000 The will of the United States imposed, rather, the will of the United States and the British Empire upon Russia.
00:27:39.000 The will was qualified as a square deal for Poland, but added that that does not necessarily limit the military commitment.
00:27:46.000 The assessment, signed by the chief of army staff on 9 June 1945, concluded it would be beyond our power to win a quick but limited success, and we would be committed to a protracted war against heavy odds.
00:27:59.000 The code is...
00:28:00.000 Yeah. This is...
00:28:01.000 Okay. First of all, I never do Wikipedia.
00:28:05.000 Okay, we don't have to do Wikipedia.
00:28:06.000 No, no, that's okay, that's okay.
00:28:07.000 This is just what Jamie pulled up.
00:28:09.000 Okay, but first of all, yes, at the end of the war, a plan requested that wasn't seen through that suggests that after the defeat of Nazism, communism of the Soviet form is also going to be a threat to Europe was simply evidence that,
00:28:26.000 I mean, it was obvious.
00:28:27.000 True. It's what Churchill had worried about throughout the 40s.
00:28:30.000 Worried about it in Yalta.
00:28:32.000 He worried about it everywhere.
00:28:33.000 I'm sorry, but I have to return to this point that this man manages to do one of the most heroic things in human history in standing alone against evil in its most concentrate form.
00:28:47.000 And he does about as much as any human being can do to save the civilized world.
00:28:54.000 If you just park that and you go on to a Plan in 1945 to try to counter Soviet domination of Europe.
00:29:07.000 You see what I'm saying?
00:29:08.000 This is not doing something in the round.
00:29:11.000 Yeah, it's also, look, I mean, look, I'm not even, like, I'm not at all the expert on World War II.
00:29:17.000 And I'm not, like, going to debate with you about World War II.
00:29:20.000 But I would say that like that is there's a lot of room for nuance and disagreement with what you just said.
00:29:28.000 You know, in the 20th century, we had two world wars.
00:29:31.000 They're the worst thing, objectively speaking, the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of the world.
00:29:37.000 And the second world war is the biggest bloodbath in human history. 0.86
00:29:40.000 And it ended with handing the man who you just mentioned.
00:29:43.000 So, listen.
00:29:47.000 If you want to argue, I'm Jewish of German descent, so I'm not against the argument that the Nazis had to be defeated and that was the most important thing, but there still is just the basic facts that it almost couldn't have gone worse. 0.73
00:30:01.000 It was like just a nightmare for civilization.
00:30:04.000 And if people want to look back at that and go, man, was there any other way this could have been handled?
00:30:09.000 Were there blunders that were made here?
00:30:12.000 Now, personally, what I feel much more comfortable arguing would be that I try to blame everything I can on Woodrow Wilson as much as I can, because also he created the income tax on the Federal Reserve and did so much to damage my country.
00:30:23.000 But I think American entry into World War I was really a disaster, and imposing the Treaty of Versailles on Germany was a disaster.
00:30:32.000 I also think that's kind of fairly mainstream history.
00:30:37.000 That's not a particularly controversial view, that imposing the Treaty of Versailles on Germany ended up in disaster.
00:30:43.000 Well, no, except that, as Martin Amis said, the only way to not...
00:30:46.000 Get to the Treaty of Versailles would be for Germany to win World War I, but yeah. 0.87
00:30:49.000 Yeah, but we're not talking about the Nazis winning the war.
00:30:52.000 We're talking about, you know, listen, I think that...
00:30:55.000 But secondly, sorry, I just have to address that fundamental.
00:30:59.000 You say the outcome of World War II and everything that happened in it was the worst thing that's ever happened, and the worst thing imaginable, worst possible outcome, you said.
00:31:08.000 Just about.
00:31:09.000 You said worst possible outcome.
00:31:10.000 Let me give you a much worse possible outcome.
00:31:13.000 Hitler wins. 0.97
00:31:14.000 Right, okay.
00:31:15.000 Okay, so it's not the worst possible outcome.
00:31:17.000 That's true.
00:31:17.000 I mean, listen, but okay, Hitler, yes, okay, I'm not saying you can't dream up a worse outcome.
00:31:21.000 I'm saying what you have...
00:31:22.000 It's not dreaming up.
00:31:23.000 That's just what my country of birth and others went through.
00:31:25.000 But what did end up happening was the, what, 60 million people died, including the Holocaust, and then Joseph Stalin takes half of Europe. 0.56
00:31:33.000 So, okay, fine.
00:31:33.000 I should, I'll correct that.
00:31:35.000 There is a worse outcome.
00:31:37.000 Right. But that's not a great one.
00:31:40.000 No, nobody said it was.
00:31:41.000 There's a very weird argument that you now hear about.
00:31:44.000 This attempt to revision this, and I know why it's happening.
00:31:47.000 I don't think there's anything that's revisionist.
00:31:49.000 I think there is.
00:31:50.000 But this attempt to sort of say, look, at the end of World War II, what have we got?
00:31:55.000 Stalin has half of Europe. 0.89
00:31:57.000 What was the point?
00:31:58.000 And so on.
00:31:58.000 That's going on.
00:31:59.000 That's going on.
00:32:01.000 And there are people who are feeding it.
00:32:04.000 That argument is very similar.
00:32:06.000 This particular school of, as it were, history.
00:32:10.000 It's doing something that I've seen happen with American history as well, particularly with Lincoln.
00:32:14.000 Lincoln's an interesting comparison to make with Churchill on this.
00:32:17.000 There are people who will criticize Churchill for mistakes made, not hard to do, quite hard not to make mistakes while fighting at a war of total annihilation against your country.
00:32:30.000 People will say, oh, he didn't sort this out in 1945.
00:32:34.000 You know, it's rather like Lincoln.
00:32:36.000 He didn't solve every problem in the world for all time, but he solved a hell of a big problem for his time.
00:32:43.000 And that requires some kind of generosity of spirit and understanding in hindsight, as opposed to, I will find something that he did that I wouldn't have done, because if I'd have been running the British Empire in 1939,
00:32:59.000 I'd have known exactly how to do it, and I'd have known how to hold the whole thing together, and I'd have kept Stalin back, and he'd have been great at Yalta. 0.87
00:33:07.000 But I don't think anybody's saying that.
00:33:08.000 Yeah, I agree with you.
00:33:09.000 I think there's a tendency of woke left kids to do this, but I don't think that's what, certainly not what I'm saying, and I don't think what Daryl's saying.
00:33:17.000 I do also think that one of the bigger, kind of the bigger picture dynamics to all of this is that we have, at least since 9-11, been in a state of perpetual war.
00:33:30.000 And all of these wars...
00:33:32.000 ...have been disasters.
00:33:34.000 They have been so many lies involved in selling all of them.
00:33:38.000 I mean...
00:33:39.000 The whole Iraq war, the whole war in Afghanistan, just lying the whole way through. 0.62
00:33:44.000 I mean, I remember literally having conversations with Green Berets in the middle of the war in Afghanistan, and they're like, George W. Bush is telling you that the army we're building up there is really successful?
00:33:54.000 This thing's gonna fall in a week without us.
00:33:57.000 And then all through the Obama administration, it's just like lie after lie after lie with disastrous wars.
00:34:02.000 And so this does create a fertile...
00:34:04.000 Ground for people to say, I wonder if they were lying about all these wars.
00:34:07.000 Again, I'm not really trying to argue about World War II.
00:34:10.000 I'd rather argue about these wars today.
00:34:11.000 I think the interesting question is whether you're busy watering it.
00:34:15.000 Well, should you not talk about mistakes that were made overall?
00:34:19.000 You should.
00:34:19.000 Absolutely. Okay, you should.
00:34:20.000 Absolutely. I have all four going back and looking at mistakes.
00:34:23.000 So what is your argument then?
00:34:25.000 It's a very weird thing to go back, zone in on a man, say this one thing.
00:34:30.000 ...is a mistake and should characterize him, and you ignore everything else.
00:34:34.000 You're taking him out of context when you're talking about Daryl, who's done, what was it, 30-plus hours?
00:34:40.000 So what?
00:34:41.000 30-plus hours of podcasting.
00:34:43.000 You do that in a week.
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00:36:02.000 See you next time.
00:36:07.000 Yeah, but it's a very different thing.
00:36:09.000 He's not doing a podcast like talking to people.
00:36:12.000 Okay, nor is he doing scholarly work, nor is he working in the archives.
00:36:15.000 Come on.
00:36:16.000 He is not the historian of our era.
00:36:19.000 He's not complaining to me.
00:36:21.000 This is the thing, Joe.
00:36:22.000 This is like punching jelly.
00:36:24.000 No, but you don't consume his work.
00:36:27.000 Because I don't need to consume endless versions of a revisionist history I understand.
00:36:34.000 But it's not revisionist history.
00:36:36.000 If you listen to his work, it's not revisionist history.
00:36:39.000 He's basing it on historical work.
00:36:42.000 Okay, so this is my point about jelly.
00:36:45.000 It's a shape-shifting thing.
00:36:47.000 Comedian or historian?
00:36:49.000 He's not a comedian.
00:36:51.000 Historian or podcast?
00:36:53.000 Would-be historian or actual historian?
00:36:55.000 You say he doesn't claim to be a historian, but he's pumping out tens of hours of history.
00:36:59.000 Neither does Dan Carlin.
00:37:01.000 He doesn't claim to be a historian either.
00:37:03.000 You see my point about the move?
00:37:05.000 It's like some weird jiu-jitsu move where you say, hang on, you know all about this as well.
00:37:10.000 You say, I'm not a historian, but I'm going to spend my time talking about history.
00:37:17.000 I'm not a journalist, but I'm going to spend my time talking about this thing.
00:37:20.000 I'm not an expert on this, but I'm going to spend my time talking about this thing.
00:37:24.000 It's a weird move, yeah?
00:37:25.000 No. You don't think?
00:37:27.000 No, I'm a free American.
00:37:28.000 I can talk about what I like to.
00:37:29.000 You can talk about what you want.
00:37:30.000 So what is the point here?
00:37:31.000 I've noticed you can.
00:37:32.000 But what's the point?
00:37:34.000 The point is, what are you pushing?
00:37:36.000 What are you watering?
00:37:37.000 What am I pushing?
00:37:39.000 Liberty, free markets, peace.
00:37:42.000 Prosperity? Not getting in another stupid catastrophic war which we're on the precipice of right now?
00:37:46.000 That's what I'm pushing.
00:37:47.000 What are we on the precipice of?
00:37:49.000 Well, I think you, weren't you just talking about it the other day?
00:37:51.000 Everyone I hear on the inside says we're about to attack around.
00:37:56.000 I think you just said something about that the other day.
00:37:58.000 Am I wrong about that?
00:37:58.000 I thought I saw in one of your interviews that you did.
00:38:00.000 Possibly. That doesn't mean we are on the verge of a war.
00:38:04.000 I mean, you keep referring to we being in wars.
00:38:06.000 There's a very big difference between a country having a military that's engaged.
00:38:11.000 And a country being at war.
00:38:13.000 This country has not been at war for 25 years.
00:38:16.000 You have not been fighting for the American homeland for 25 years.
00:38:20.000 Yes, that's true.
00:38:20.000 We haven't had a war on our shores.
00:38:22.000 We've been picking on third world countries halfway around the world. 1.00
00:38:24.000 Well, you haven't been randomly picking on them.
00:38:27.000 I mean, Afghanistan, you went...
00:38:28.000 I didn't say it was random.
00:38:29.000 Yeah, right, okay.
00:38:30.000 It wasn't like you suddenly decided to bomb, again, Myanmar or something.
00:38:34.000 You went to Afghanistan to find bin Laden and take revenge for 9-11 and stop. 0.85
00:38:41.000 An attack like that happening again on the American homeland.
00:38:43.000 That is very different from a country being at war.
00:38:46.000 Yeah, but that's a total mischaracterization of the war in Afghanistan.
00:38:49.000 It's one thing to say that might be an accurate characterization of the special operations mission in late 2001, but then we fought a 20-year regime change war against the Taliban.
00:38:58.000 Because you got dragged into the quicksand of war.
00:39:02.000 Okay, fine.
00:39:03.000 But I thought it wasn't a war.
00:39:04.000 I don't get your argument.
00:39:06.000 No, I said it was a war.
00:39:07.000 It's your use of we.
00:39:09.000 As if you're personally, like, suffering this war.
00:39:11.000 Yeah, you're a taxpayer.
00:39:12.000 We're taxpayers, so we pay for it.
00:39:14.000 Okay, fine.
00:39:15.000 Douglas, if I went back and corrected you on every time you've used the term we to refer to your government or something like that, like, if I were to say, oh, we just imposed tariffs on China, would you point out that I didn't and it was the Trump administration?
00:39:26.000 You take it, obviously, very personally, and that's your right to do so, of course.
00:39:30.000 I'm just trying to make sure we're accurate here.
00:39:32.000 What do you think I'm taking personally?
00:39:34.000 Just that, the American wars.
00:39:36.000 Sure, yeah.
00:39:37.000 I think they've killed hundreds of thousands of people and cost my country $8 trillion and degraded my country very much.
00:39:45.000 And there's a very good argument to make on that.
00:39:47.000 I'm still slightly bemused about this move from I'm an expert on this and I have views to I'm a comedian.
00:39:56.000 I've never claimed to be an expert on anything.
00:39:59.000 This is the problem, Joe.
00:40:01.000 I mean...
00:40:02.000 If somebody says...
00:40:04.000 Wait a minute, you have to claim to be an expert on something to have an opinion on something?
00:40:07.000 No, you don't have to be.
00:40:08.000 You don't have to be.
00:40:09.000 So what's the issue?
00:40:10.000 I'm not a historian, but I'm pumping out history.
00:40:12.000 I'm not an expert, but I'm talking all the time about this thing.
00:40:15.000 But you're not even talking about specifically on what he just said.
00:40:18.000 No, I'm saying, this is my point about this.
00:40:20.000 You say, I'm not an expert.
00:40:23.000 So what's the solution?
00:40:24.000 To not talk about it?
00:40:25.000 No, it's to have more experts around.
00:40:29.000 Well, the expert class hasn't done a great job.
00:40:31.000 This is follow the science.
00:40:33.000 I agree with that.
00:40:35.000 I just said to you, I agree with that.
00:40:37.000 I know.
00:40:37.000 So Douglas, during all of COVID, I will put my track record against any of the expert class on COVID.
00:40:44.000 I'm glad to do that.
00:40:46.000 So should I have just shut up?
00:40:47.000 Should I have shut up by opposing lockdowns and opposing vaccine mandates?
00:40:50.000 No. That was the argument at the time.
00:40:52.000 You realize that, right?
00:40:52.000 That's the entire argument that you're making.
00:40:54.000 Let the experts handle this.
00:40:56.000 You're wildly not listening to what I'm saying.
00:41:02.000 I think you have to take, I think we should agree perhaps on the following, that One major thing can break down in front of your eyes, or many major things.
00:41:12.000 And it does not mean that every single one of the sewer gates should be lifted.
00:41:17.000 Okay? Yeah, I get that point.
00:41:19.000 But who's saying it should be?
00:41:21.000 I'm saying this is a chatter on what is part of our side at the moment.
00:41:26.000 Is that a lot of the sewer gates are being lifted, sometimes by people who know that they're doing it, sometimes by people who don't, sometimes by people who say, I don't know, I'm just throwing it out there.
00:41:39.000 But at the very least, there's some damn hygiene that should be required, isn't there?
00:41:45.000 Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, but sure.
00:41:48.000 Just that.
00:41:49.000 Let's have a bit of hygiene on our own side, not lift every sewer gate.
00:41:53.000 And when you say our own side, you mean the right wing broadly.
00:41:56.000 Broadly speaking.
00:41:57.000 And I'm sort of funny about libertarians.
00:41:58.000 I'm never quite sure.
00:41:59.000 I always think libertarians are essentially the bisexuals of politics. 0.95
00:42:04.000 They should just choose, Joe.
00:42:05.000 They should choose.
00:42:07.000 They just want everything at the buffet. 0.95
00:42:10.000 That's very funny.
00:42:11.000 Well, I think we want some things.
00:42:13.000 I don't know.
00:42:13.000 Okay. That's a weird way to put it, but I get your point.
00:42:16.000 I see your point.
00:42:16.000 All right.
00:42:17.000 Well, I mean, I don't know.
00:42:18.000 Look, I mean, essentially, I just don't.
00:42:20.000 Maybe there's something I'm missing here.
00:42:22.000 But if your argument is that, like, You're saying, I claim to be an expert, but then I have, like, a parachute to get out of it by being like, hey, I'm just a comedian who's just saying this.
00:42:29.000 But I don't think I've ever, like, really claimed to be an expert.
00:42:32.000 I have opinions on things.
00:42:35.000 Because I'm interested in these topics.
00:42:37.000 Yeah, I know.
00:42:37.000 But isn't it weird to go around, for instance, let's get to the last year and a half.
00:42:43.000 It's a bit weird to be simultaneously saying, I'm not an expert on a conflict and talking about it everywhere.
00:42:50.000 I don't think so.
00:42:51.000 Not really.
00:42:51.000 I mean, I don't know.
00:42:52.000 I don't think, like, I don't see how you...
00:42:54.000 Do you talk about these things?
00:42:57.000 Which things?
00:42:57.000 All these things that we're talking about.
00:42:59.000 Some of them, yeah.
00:42:59.000 Are you an expert?
00:43:00.000 I am on some, yes.
00:43:01.000 On some, but not...
00:43:02.000 But you talk about some that you're not an expert on.
00:43:03.000 Right, so what should you do?
00:43:05.000 What should you do if those subjects get breached?
00:43:07.000 Well, I think that you educate yourself as much as you can.
00:43:09.000 Shouldn't you say I'm not an expert and then give your opinion if you're in the middle of a conversation?
00:43:13.000 I think it's, as I say, I think that it's a weird move to say I'm not an expert on this, but I'm going to talk about it nonstop.
00:43:20.000 I think that is strange.
00:43:20.000 Listen, I will certainly concede that I am weird.
00:43:23.000 So I'm not disagreeing with you.
00:43:24.000 It's weird that I'm as obsessed with all this stuff as I am.
00:43:27.000 I mean, like, okay, I'm a weird guy.
00:43:28.000 I tell jokes at nightclubs and then get obsessed with politics and monetary policy and, like, okay, fine.
00:43:36.000 But I just, like, fundamentally disagree with this idea, which I really do think is quite anti-democratic in spirit and quite...
00:43:45.000 You know, elitist.
00:43:46.000 That there's an expert class.
00:43:48.000 They can have opinions on all of these things.
00:43:50.000 It's weird for any regular person who's just read about it.
00:43:54.000 Not my view.
00:43:55.000 Seems like what you're saying.
00:43:56.000 I conceded already.
00:43:57.000 I said a long time ago that I believe much of the expert class let itself and us all down very badly.
00:44:04.000 And I think that happened in foreign policy in areas.
00:44:06.000 Not every area, but it happened in some areas.
00:44:09.000 I think it happened with COVID in many areas.
00:44:11.000 But that does not mean...
00:44:14.000 That it's just a free-for-all.
00:44:15.000 No. There are some things we can still verify to be true and can still agree on as baseline levels of agreement in a free society.
00:44:25.000 And yes, everyone is free to air their views, but it does not mean that everyone who sounds off on an issue, whether it's World War II, the war in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, has an equally valid point of view.
00:44:41.000 No. I certainly wouldn't argue.
00:44:43.000 To me is just batting down a straw, man.
00:44:45.000 I mean, I certainly wouldn't argue that everyone has an equally valid point of view.
00:44:48.000 And I certainly wouldn't argue that there shouldn't be some standards of, like, who you would want to find interesting and talk to and who you wouldn't.
00:44:56.000 But also, it's like, so let's have the conversation that, like, I don't know, like, if there's...
00:45:01.000 If there are experts out there who can smack all of this stuff down or just destroy every point that I make over the years or whatever, like, okay, so then do it.
00:45:12.000 And then let's see.
00:45:13.000 Well, that's a bit weird because also then it's like the debate me bro thing.
00:45:18.000 But you just criticized Daryl for not debating.
00:45:21.000 No, it's fine.
00:45:21.000 It's fine.
00:45:22.000 Yeah, I know.
00:45:23.000 Let me just make the main point.
00:45:25.000 I think what I'm trying to get at, Joe, is that it's a bit like the Twitter algorithm thing.
00:45:29.000 Which is, yes, everyone is and should be free to say what they like on Twitter apart from whatever the very fringe things of like immediate incitement to violence and all that kind of thing.
00:45:42.000 But we all know that one of the oddities of Twitter, including since Elon took over, is that what you hope is a restored marketplace of ideas ends up pushing you really crazy shit.
00:45:54.000 Yes. And that is what I'm suggesting is happening on a podcast level and maybe on a wider level beyond that.
00:46:01.000 I get stuff on Twitter.
00:46:03.000 I just do not want.
00:46:05.000 I do not want a guy with one half thousand followers who's got some zany new view on something who isn't an expert, but is an expert to be pushed at me.
00:46:15.000 And effectively, what is happening with the Twitter algorithm is happening everywhere else as well.
00:46:20.000 And we're all for the open marketplace of ideas.
00:46:23.000 I want that.
00:46:24.000 I thrive in it.
00:46:25.000 But it is.
00:46:31.000 Is the algorithm being pushed on me?
00:46:34.000 Why am I being given this?
00:46:35.000 Why am I not being given that?
00:46:37.000 Why am I being constantly pushed this view?
00:46:40.000 And I think that the answer to a great degree is the same thing in your world as it is in the Twitter world, which is if you go straight online and you say, you know...
00:46:53.000 JFK file drops.
00:46:54.000 Watch live stream of Kennedy historians reading the papers live.
00:47:00.000 You're not going to get any views.
00:47:02.000 No one's going to watch it.
00:47:03.000 That's kind of what's needed is for the people who know the documents to go through the documents.
00:47:08.000 But you and I know that if, as there was some guy who did immediately, you do something like live stream Mossad involvement in JFK, you're going to milk it.
00:47:19.000 You're going to cream it online.
00:47:21.000 The money comes in.
00:47:22.000 I'm saying that there's a similar algorithm in all of our lives that we're not as aware of as we should be.
00:47:28.000 Because we all know this at some level, that there are certain things that get a bit of your base going or get people going interesting and crazy and then they start debating it and all that sort of thing.
00:47:43.000 And that algorithm of online seems to me to be spilling into the real world.
00:47:49.000 I don't disagree that there's certainly more sensationalist stuff will get you more clicks.
00:47:54.000 I also don't think it's not really unique to social media or podcasting.
00:47:59.000 No, believe me, I write for the tabloids.
00:48:01.000 Yeah, right?
00:48:01.000 This has always been true.
00:48:03.000 So yeah, okay, so it's kind of one of the problems of humanity.
00:48:06.000 Yeah, I don't think anybody's arguing against that.
00:48:08.000 You know, it's certainly never my intention when I talk to someone to try to get more views.
00:48:14.000 It sounds crazy, but I'm only talking to people that I'm interested in talking to.
00:48:17.000 And in Daryl's case, it's because I've been a listener of his podcast for years.
00:48:26.000 That's it.
00:48:27.000 This is like genuinely how I pursue things.
00:48:30.000 I believe you.
00:48:31.000 That's why you're here.
00:48:32.000 I'm genuinely interested in your views as well.
00:48:36.000 Even though you completely disagree with him.
00:48:39.000 I mean, this is the marketplace of ideas in real time.
00:48:43.000 I agree.
00:48:45.000 Although, as I say, I think you've massively underrepresented the pro-Ukraine argument and the pro-Israel argument in the last two years.
00:48:55.000 I don't know.
00:48:58.000 I mean, well...
00:48:59.000 That's my observation.
00:49:00.000 Okay. You're totally allowed to have that observation.
00:49:04.000 What is the...
00:49:09.000 Well, my broad view is that, again, something to do with the algorithm, that anything that is conspiratorial about Zelensky or the Ukrainians in the conflict does very well.
00:49:27.000 anything that says actually the Ukrainian army is fighting to try to retain as much of their country as they can doesn't do as well.
00:49:37.000 I think that everything that is pushing the idea that, for instance, the Americans caused it or something like that does well.
00:49:47.000 I think everything that says actually in February 2022 Vladimir Putin's tanks invaded Ukraine and they shouldn't have done,
00:49:56.000 I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that what Vladimir Putin did wasn't horrific.
00:50:06.000 The point is that after that, there's a whole set of things.
00:50:10.000 Let's look at, for instance, the issue of corruption.
00:50:13.000 Ukraine is a pretty corrupt country by EU standards, by World Bank standards.
00:50:21.000 And it's been a problem, as it is in that neck of the woods.
00:50:25.000 And it's understandable that if the US is one of the countries putting money and arms into Ukraine, then it's going to be a subject of legitimate interest to the American people and others, the European taxpayers.
00:50:38.000 Nevertheless, you end up in this, and I know this because it's the same thing in the old media.
00:50:43.000 You end up on the new bit of the story, and there's always a risk that you will lose sight of the beginning of the story.
00:50:52.000 For instance, I mean...
00:50:54.000 Putin's corruption is legendary, gargantuan, and not as interesting, it seems to me.
00:51:04.000 The algorithm doesn't push that.
00:51:06.000 And I think that's, to a greater extent, the case with the Israel-Hamas war as well.
00:51:13.000 Well, isn't there a little bit of a concern?
00:51:15.000 I would say a couple things here.
00:51:17.000 Number one...
00:51:19.000 I don't know how the algorithm works or what it's pushing.
00:51:23.000 It's an interesting thing that we probably should all know more about.
00:51:26.000 But I think there's a danger to just classify everything as, well, the algorithm pushes this and doesn't push this.
00:51:32.000 It could also be that some ideas are just resonating more and some ideas are more popular than other ideas.
00:51:37.000 And probably both of those things are at work in that dynamic.
00:51:40.000 But I also think that something like the reason why, say, talking about Ukrainian corruption is more interesting in a lot of ways.
00:51:48.000 I don't know.
00:52:02.000 He says he only got $70 billion of it, but we've spent closer to $170, so whatever.
00:52:07.000 But the point is that, obviously, if there is a country that we are propping up, funding, arming, and they're corrupt, I would say my starting point would always be to be more concerned with that corruption than an enemy country,
00:52:23.000 which it's almost kind of a given, is a corrupt country.
00:52:26.000 I'm sure there are fringes of the right who might say, like, Vladimir Putin's some great guy or something like that.
00:52:32.000 But that is, I really do not think that is the argument that most people who are critical of this, of Biden's policy, are making.
00:52:39.000 Sure. I mean, I think one of the interesting things that happens in this is the old cliche of losing the wood for the trees.
00:52:47.000 It just happens an awful lot.
00:52:48.000 And it's the nature of the old news cycle, let alone the current one, the social media era.
00:52:55.000 Actually, I remember that...
00:52:57.000 Sorry, I would like to go back to World War II.
00:53:00.000 Let me just very quickly...
00:53:00.000 I remember this debate with Pat Buchanan when he was debating much more learned historians on the subject of the origins of World War II. And the whole thing got lost in all of this sort of mad puzzle of views about iron ore production in the Bavarian forest and this sort of thing.
00:53:16.000 And I remember everyone was all over the place.
00:53:18.000 And the moderator turned to the historian Andrew Roberts and said, Andrew Roberts, why did World War II begin?
00:53:23.000 And he said, World War II began because Hitler invaded Poland.
00:53:28.000 And those moments come along quite often at the moment, which is...
00:53:38.000 There's a lot of very interesting things going on which we should all be able to talk about and do talk about.
00:53:42.000 But... Sometimes you have to remember the origin causes of things as well, and you have to stick to keeping that in mind.
00:53:51.000 And I think that a lot of people are pretty bad at the moment of keeping that in mind.
00:53:56.000 You can concede Ukrainian corruption, you can concede all sorts of things, and still not lose sight of the thing of if Russia rolls tanks into neighboring countries. 0.67
00:54:10.000 Yeah. It can't be allowed.
00:54:12.000 Oh, well, listen.
00:54:13.000 Okay, so on that, I think we have an area of agreement.
00:54:16.000 And I do think, like, even while I much prefer the path that Donald Trump is pursuing to the path that Joe Biden pursued when it comes to the war in Ukraine.
00:54:26.000 And of course, this is, you know, Donald Trump's thing is once you piss him off.
00:54:31.000 He's going to call you every bad nickname that there is.
00:54:33.000 And sometimes when you don't piss him off.
00:54:35.000 Well, sure.
00:54:36.000 The Danes come to mind.
00:54:38.000 I believe he said that Zelensky started the war.
00:54:41.000 Yes, he did.
00:54:42.000 Which is like, okay, all right, that's a little bit ridiculous.
00:54:44.000 He said Zelensky started the war and that Zelensky was the dictator.
00:54:47.000 Yes, okay.
00:54:48.000 What? Trump said that?
00:54:49.000 Yes. But it was after Zelensky pissed him off.
00:54:52.000 He said Zelensky started the war?
00:54:54.000 Yeah. Really?
00:54:54.000 This is how Donald Trump is.
00:54:56.000 Love him or hate him, for better or for worse.
00:54:58.000 Donald Trump, it's like, if...
00:55:00.000 If he feels that you disrespected him or came at him, he's going to be ten times more vicious to you.
00:55:05.000 By the way, this happened two weeks before the disastrous Oval Office meeting.
00:55:10.000 Yeah. And I wrote the next day the cover in the New York Post, which was a big picture of Vladimir Putin with the headline, This is a dictator.
00:55:18.000 Just, again, as I say, not to lose track.
00:55:22.000 In all of the melee, not to lose track.
00:55:26.000 Well, look, I will say this.
00:55:28.000 As somebody who is very anti-war, broadly speaking, and I do agree with you that we should be able to have conversations about all the things that led up to the war and all the different blunders that were made,
00:55:44.000 and also still recognize that Vladimir Putin invaded a country and is responsible for, you know, I think it's the best book that's been written on the history leading up to the war between,
00:56:03.000 it basically takes you from the collapse of the Soviet Union up to the war in Ukraine.
00:56:07.000 And even in that book, the book is called Provoked, and the argument is that Western policy was very provocative toward Vladimir Putin, and there were a lot of off-ramps that could have been explored and should have been explored.
00:56:19.000 But he has an entire chapter in the book where he is saying like, look, Putin had a lot of other options.
00:56:25.000 He didn't have to do this.
00:56:26.000 It's not as if any of that justifies his invasion.
00:56:29.000 And so I do agree with you that whenever we're talking about a war, particularly a war of aggression, That should always be in the front of people's minds.
00:56:38.000 I mean, you can criticize, you know, I would say, I think I'm consistent on this across the board, you can criticize lots of things about the insurgency in Iraq, certainly, but you should remember that George W. Bush invaded the country when he shouldn't have, and based off lies.
00:56:55.000 So I say that when my government does it, I'll say it when the Russian government does it also.
00:56:59.000 That being said, there's a very strong argument that there were Many policies that the US, you know, NATO and Europe as well, but mostly the US, pursued that were just almost like if you wanted to come to this inevitable conflict,
00:57:17.000 this would have been the policy to pursue to give you the best chance to end up there.
00:57:20.000 I was with a British military friend recently and somebody asked, what does the fog of war mean?
00:57:29.000 And he gave a brilliant...
00:57:31.000 Example of what it means on the battlefield, which a lot of people don't understand.
00:57:35.000 There's a version of the fog of war in history as well.
00:57:38.000 The great Czech writer Milan Kundera had this beautiful phrase in a book of his from the 90s called Testaments Betrayed, where he said the odd thing about mankind is, he said, we walk through life in a fog and we stumble along a path and we create the path as we stumble along it.
00:57:57.000 He said that's not the interesting thing.
00:57:59.000 The interesting thing is, That when we look back, we see the man and we see the path, but we don't see the fog.
00:58:06.000 Everything looks inevitable when you're standing in the present.
00:58:11.000 Everything looks like it was going to happen this way, and you have these endless, often fascinating, often futile, explorations of what might have been.
00:58:23.000 But it doesn't take into account the fog.
00:58:26.000 That's a very good point.
00:58:26.000 And the fog of Russia.
00:58:29.000 After the fall of the Soviet Union, it was pretty considerable.
00:58:33.000 The efforts in the 1990s to bring them into a more obvious part of the international order failed.
00:58:40.000 My own view has always been that in part we missed an opportunity to pay a kind of civilizational respect to the Russians, which they deserved.
00:58:54.000 But also, throughout the period that people now say there are all of these off-ramps, and now so many people claim that NATO went around the region desperately trying to provoke the Russians into some kind of war or inevitably leading them that way because of NATO expansionism,
00:59:11.000 they never take into account what was in my memory and experience very clear, which was NATO didn't go around recruiting.
00:59:22.000 People came to NATO.
00:59:24.000 Countries came to NATO wanting to join, precisely because they feared the aggression that Ukrainians have suffered since February 2022, and indeed before.
00:59:32.000 I was in Georgia just after the 2008 war began.
00:59:36.000 The country, not the state.
00:59:38.000 Always has to be confirmed, otherwise people are like, what?
00:59:41.000 Who invaded Georgia?
00:59:42.000 Did we attack Georgia?
00:59:44.000 They're no bastards.
00:59:46.000 But I was in the country of Georgia, and...
00:59:49.000 Putin had tried to invade them and had seized Setia and Abkhazia.
00:59:54.000 And they were desperate to join NATO.
00:59:57.000 In fact, they were desperate to join the European Union.
00:59:59.000 I rather frivolously said to a Georgian friend, if you want, we can swap. 1.00
01:00:03.000 You can take our British membership of the EU.
01:00:06.000 But in the NATO thing, they were desperate for it.
01:00:10.000 And they were desperate for it precisely for the reason that many of the Ukrainians were desperate for it, which was only way to stop Putin expansionism.
01:00:19.000 So, you know, in the whole fog of the post-Soviet era, that is one of the many things that gets left out of the conversation.
01:00:28.000 And by the way, Putin's actions in February 2022 and since, all he's done is provoke...
01:00:40.000 That's true.
01:00:41.000 Finland and Sweden wanted to join.
01:00:42.000 And the only reason Finland and Sweden wanted to join was because they too are scared.
01:00:48.000 It's a heck of a thing to get the Swedish to join a military alliance.
01:00:51.000 It doesn't come easy to them.
01:00:52.000 It doesn't come natural.
01:00:53.000 And these countries joined because like Georgia, like Ukraine, they desperately feared Putinist expansionism.
01:01:04.000 And they weren't wrong.
01:01:05.000 Okay, but I get your point.
01:01:08.000 First off, the war in Georgia in 2008 actually came, was it two or three months after the Bucharest summit where NATO announced that Georgia and Ukraine would be entering NATO.
01:01:19.000 So just making that point that the NATO aspirations came first.
01:01:22.000 But listen, I don't think you're wrong.
01:01:24.000 I don't think anybody is ever implying that like we've expanded NATO through force and that the countries who were joining or at least the governments of the countries who were joining didn't want it.
01:01:33.000 Although in the case of Ukraine, there's a great piece in the Washington Post about.
01:01:37.000 You know, the question I think isn't...
01:01:50.000 I mean, look,
01:02:09.000 there was, as you know well, in the 90s, in the late 90s during the first round of NATO expansion, there was a lively debate.
01:02:17.000 I don't mean a debate amongst outsiders or non-expert experts or whatever.
01:02:22.000 I mean, within the real deal experts, the wisest graybeards in the national security apparatus, there was a real debate with at least three secretaries of defense who warned against this.
01:02:32.000 Robert Gates, Robert McNamara, William Perry, the secretary of defense at the time, almost resigned, said his biggest regret in life is that he didn't resign over it.
01:02:39.000 George Kennan was able to see right through that fog.
01:02:42.000 He literally said, the cold warrior, founder of the containment strategy, saw right through that fog.
01:02:47.000 This will inevitably lead to a conflict with Russia.
01:02:50.000 And his exact words were, and then when there's a Russian response, everybody will say, look, this is why we needed to expand NATO.
01:02:57.000 But the point here is, okay, even within that deep debate, which there were lively debates about, even the people who were on the pro-expansionist side of things, like Henry Kissinger, even he said Ukraine would have to be a special arrangement.
01:03:13.000 Ukraine will not come into NATO because obviously that's leading to a war with Russia.
01:03:18.000 And so I don't think it's unreasonable and I think this is a fair thing that we should do in all conflicts is like...
01:03:25.000 To, as Mearsheimer puts it, to have strategic empathy.
01:03:30.000 To say like, hey, listen, let's reasonably place ourselves in the other person's shoes and say, how would we react if somebody was expanding their military alliance that is explicitly anti-us and is bringing it up to our borders and now is openly for years and years and years saying that we are going to bring your largest neighbor,
01:03:51.000 where you have very important strategic interest from your point of view into our military alliance and you are saying over and over again this is our brightest red line do not do this and then they keep flirting with doing this over and over then they back a street push that
01:04:06.000 overthrows the government there don't you think maybe that would be a provocation
01:04:10.000 First of all, two things.
01:04:14.000 If you want that strategic empathy, which I'm not an admirer of...
01:04:21.000 But if you want to do that, you can do it the other way around as well, surely.
01:04:25.000 Yeah. I mean, do the same thing with the Ukrainians.
01:04:29.000 Absolutely, yes.
01:04:29.000 Do the same thing with the Latvians and others.
01:04:31.000 Yeah, but I would never, Douglas, but my response to you was never, I can't understand why the Latvians or the Lithuanians would want to be in NATO.
01:04:38.000 I understand, yes.
01:04:39.000 And I can understand why Russia thought that Ukrainian membership in NATO was a red line.
01:04:44.000 I can understand that.
01:04:45.000 But that wasn't why Putin invaded in 2022.
01:04:49.000 And I think there's an oddity, if I can say so, maybe this particularly comes across on the libertarian, bisexual side, but I think there's an oddity of the... 0.74
01:04:59.000 Let the record show him, a happily married heterosexual man.
01:05:02.000 They all say that.
01:05:05.000 I think there's an oddity that sometimes particularly happens on the libertarian side, which is a presumption that things only really happen in the world because we make them so.
01:05:17.000 You know, Russia invades Ukraine because of American policy in Eastern Europe post-1989, 1990.
01:05:26.000 Something happened in the Middle East because of American policy.
01:05:29.000 And I think it's a very blinkered and parochial view of things.
01:05:34.000 Because my experience in countries around the world is that there's a heck of a lot going on that America is frankly...
01:05:42.000 Not really involved in.
01:05:44.000 Well, that's certainly a straw man of my position.
01:05:46.000 I'm not saying that America is...
01:05:48.000 No, no, no.
01:05:48.000 But what I'm saying is, it is very...
01:05:50.000 In fact, it's partly since you very kindly raised the issue, Joe.
01:05:54.000 Your book.
01:05:55.000 It's one of the things...
01:05:56.000 Democracies and death cults.
01:05:57.000 It's one of the things I find very interesting about this with democracies, which is that it's one of the things in the nature of a liberal democracy that because we have the right to air our opinion, because we have the right to criticize our government and much more, But
01:06:24.000 when a liberal democracy comes against the kind of rock,
01:06:42.000 Like a death cult, a totalitarian regime, a dictatorship like Russia or the Iranian revolutionary government.
01:06:53.000 There's always this temptation to say, to focus our attention on our own side because we can't do a darn thing about the other one.
01:07:02.000 It's a version of, you know, the great late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said when he was ambassador to the UN.
01:07:08.000 He had this great rule.
01:07:11.000 ...known among those who know about it as Moynihan's rule, which is, he said, if you sit at the UN, or the UN Human Rights Council, or any of these bodies, you would come away with the belief that the most abused people with the fewest rights in the world live in America and other Western liberal societies.
01:07:29.000 And he came because we're the ones that talk about it.
01:07:33.000 You know, if there's one incident of racism in America, the whole world knows about it.
01:07:38.000 Everyone reads it.
01:07:39.000 There'll be protests everywhere.
01:07:40.000 If there's one incident of racism in North Korea, it's not going to make any news.
01:07:46.000 And then you have on top of that the fact that the way in which despotisms and death cults and dictatorships work, the information just doesn't come out.
01:07:56.000 And Moynihan's rule ended up being that the...
01:07:59.000 In an interesting point, he said...
01:08:03.000 That his rule by the end of his time in the UN was that the number of human rights violations that occur in a country happen in exactly inverse proportion to the numbers of claims of human rights violations.
01:08:15.000 Because only the countries which care about it and which such things can be aired in are ever going to get it out.
01:08:22.000 But the point of Moynihan's law and the warning of it is be careful not to come away with the mistaken idea.
01:08:31.000 That the freest and most liberal societies are the worst.
01:08:35.000 And I think there's a version of Moynihan's law that applies, whether it's to the Middle East, to Ukraine and Russia, which is, we come away with this, people may come away with the impression that the bad things in the world effectively all come from here.
01:08:52.000 And there is quite a lot to be said for some of that, but there's not everything to be said.
01:08:57.000 Much of the world runs on a dynamic and a dynamo, which you can't do a darn thing about, other than to try to understand it.
01:09:06.000 Yeah, okay, so I mean, again, I certainly...
01:09:11.000 There is truth to a lot of that, and I think that is a fascinating kind of dynamic where there is something about kind of like, you know, I noticed this even just with my own kids.
01:09:20.000 When you have kids and you raise them really, you know, like you're really sweet to them and you don't hate them and you give them a good life, small things end up becoming huge things in their mind.
01:09:30.000 Like someone pushed me at the playground and it's like, whoa, this is, whereas like the way I grew up, that would have just been kind of like a non-event.
01:09:37.000 But anyway.
01:09:39.000 I think it would be certainly incorrect to assume that everything that happens bad in the world is somehow a consequence of U.S. meddling.
01:09:47.000 I also think that there's people on the other side here, maybe the people who are more neocon leaning, more war hockey leaning.
01:09:56.000 They have a tendency to only focus on the bad things that everybody else does and act like our policies have no impact on this.
01:10:04.000 Yeah, which would be ridiculous.
01:10:05.000 Right, so very specifically, you know, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and I'll just get two, like, bullet points on this, and we could talk about a lot of this, but look, number one, in 2008, as you well know, right, the...
01:10:18.000 Joe Biden's CIA director, who was the CIA director for the entire war up until Donald Trump just came back in, he wrote the Net Means Net memo to Condoleezza Rice, a private cable to the then Secretary of State when he was ambassador to Russia, to let her know that this flirting with bringing Ukraine into NATO is going to end up in a war.
01:10:38.000 And by the way, the Russians don't want to do it. 0.87
01:10:40.000 His words exactly.
01:10:41.000 If you keep pushing with this, the Russians are going to have they are going to have to make a decision that they don't want to make, which is whether they intervene or not.
01:10:49.000 And number two, Strahltenberg, if I might be butchering that again, but the head of NATO, he himself said that Vladimir Putin sent him a draft draft.
01:11:00.000 I admire your appeal to authority to the head of the CIA.
01:11:17.000 It's not an appeal to authority.
01:11:19.000 How is that an appeal to authority?
01:11:21.000 You regard the view of the CIA director on that occasion as being useful for your argument.
01:11:26.000 But secondly, there's an oddity to believing.
01:11:33.000 What Vladimir Putin says.
01:11:35.000 No, wait, hold on.
01:11:36.000 You didn't let me finish my point.
01:11:37.000 So don't believe what he says.
01:11:38.000 I'm not going to pretend to read his heart and mind or something like that.
01:11:41.000 But at the very least, you handed him the giant excuse in order to do it.
01:11:46.000 I mean, maybe he doesn't really believe it, but this is his argument to his own people and to the world that it's like, look, and we put him in a position.
01:11:54.000 You know, if you hate Vladimir Putin, he's such a terrible guy.
01:11:57.000 Well, we put him in this position where he gets to now very plausibly say to the international community in the same way that if the Soviet Union had survived and the United States had.
01:12:06.000 He doesn't very plausibly have the opportunity to.
01:12:10.000 Well, I mean, okay, the whole place wasn't run by Nazis.
01:12:19.000 There's certainly worse than Nazis there. 0.92
01:12:24.000 Oh, he also brought up...
01:12:26.000 You can lie an awful lot when you're a dictator and you have the ability not just to run all of the media but to kill your political opponents.
01:12:33.000 I mean, you can do an awful lot.
01:12:34.000 Sure. None of this...
01:12:38.000 You know, I just got back from Ukraine again the other week and it's so weird.
01:12:44.000 I saw the Oval Office meeting as it happened from a trench in the front line between the Russian and Ukrainian positions in the east of the country.
01:12:51.000 And it was so weird seeing the way in which this country's territory was being talked about by outsiders, particularly by America.
01:13:06.000 And there's so many oddities about it, but the people who are fighting there, the soldiers on the front lines, the ones I was with, they're not fighting.
01:13:47.000 um... But that's not...
01:14:13.000 I'm not disagreeing with any of that.
01:14:15.000 I'm not saying...
01:14:15.000 The Ukrainian people were fighting because they wanted to keep their country.
01:14:18.000 People don't very much like being invaded by foreign countries.
01:14:21.000 I understand that completely.
01:14:23.000 And I've also always said throughout this whole thing, that is their right.
01:14:26.000 They have a right to do that.
01:14:27.000 We as Americans have a right to, you know, have an opinion on whether our government ought to be funding and arming the thing.
01:14:33.000 But all I'm saying is that I'm not making an appeal to authority here.
01:14:36.000 I'm just saying that you have...
01:14:38.000 The top people in the Russian government...
01:14:41.000 All unanimously saying, like, this is our red line.
01:14:44.000 You keep flirting with NATO expansion into Ukraine.
01:14:47.000 And then you have all the people at the top of NATO and at the top of the U.S. government admitting it, too.
01:14:52.000 And going, like, yeah, this is the whole beef.
01:14:54.000 So why is it, like, these two things aren't mutually exclusive?
01:14:57.000 No, no, they aren't.
01:14:57.000 But, I mean, they weren't going to expand NATO to Ukraine.
01:15:02.000 Well, they kept flirting with it, and you know this.
01:15:04.000 The Ukrainians wanted membership.
01:15:07.000 And it was very unwise whenever anyone from the rest of the West even flirted with it.
01:15:11.000 Didn't Kamala Harris openly say that NATO was going to join you?
01:15:14.000 Yeah, shortly before the war.
01:15:16.000 Ukraine was going to join NATO?
01:15:17.000 Yeah, I never saw her as the Kissinger of our era.
01:15:21.000 Which I agreed.
01:15:23.000 There's some area of agreement, Douglas, that we can come...
01:15:25.000 He's the guy for that.
01:15:28.000 Well, obviously, that guy's the future.
01:15:29.000 But, okay, but it is still the Vice President of the United States of America.
01:15:34.000 And it's, listen, it's not just...
01:15:35.000 Again, that's not why Putin invaded.
01:15:37.000 He invaded because of the thing he's dreamt of since falling down in the Soviet Union.
01:15:43.000 Do you know how he dreamed?
01:15:44.000 We know a lot from...
01:15:46.000 What he said and what he's done.
01:15:48.000 Since the fall of the Soviet Union and his statements, certainly very early on in his presidency.
01:15:53.000 But if he does have a red line and you violate that red line, is that because he's following his dreams or it's because...
01:15:59.000 His dream is, as he's said many times, is the reconstitution of the Soviet Union's territory.
01:16:04.000 I don't think that's exactly what he's said.
01:16:06.000 He's alluded many times to how great the Soviet Union was and what a tragedy it is that it collapsed and things like that.
01:16:14.000 But regardless...
01:16:15.000 Something we can agree is...
01:16:17.000 What? A fiction on his part.
01:16:19.000 Oh, I think the Soviet Union collapsing is one of the greatest things that's ever happened in the history of the world. 0.95
01:16:24.000 One of the most evil regimes, if not the most evil regimes.
01:16:27.000 I will certainly concede that us luring them into Afghanistan No, 1.00
01:16:46.000 9-11. But okay.
01:16:47.000 But you know, that's...
01:16:49.000 The Soviet Union did not fall just because of Afghanistan. 0.82
01:16:52.000 I didn't say, I said it played a role.
01:16:53.000 I didn't say it was just because of Afghanistan.
01:16:55.000 Also because communism as an economic model just doesn't work and it was a disaster and it was destined to collapse.
01:17:02.000 All centrally planned, totally socialist economies are destined for bad results.
01:17:07.000 I don't like the word destined in that because my experience I thought when I went to North Korea some years ago, that couldn't go on for much longer, and on it goes.
01:17:19.000 Yeah, no, okay, so fair point there, but certainly it's gonna be the, you know, it's a much different dynamic for a communist country like North Korea, who is a relatively small and not a
01:17:33.000 Not expansionist, whereas the Soviet Union was trying to maintain an empire, which is a much tougher thing to do.
01:17:38.000 Look, the United States of America is going broke trying to do it.
01:17:40.000 So it was pretty tough for them to do.
01:17:42.000 All I'm saying here is that, like, if you if the dynamic again, it's not just that, like, first off, in 2008 at the Bucharest summit, we announced we were doing it and we didn't give them a map plan, but we announced they are coming into NATO.
01:17:57.000 Over and over, not just the Kamala Harris comment, over and over and over again through the years, people at the highest level of the U.S. government asserted that this is going to happen, that it's a matter of time.
01:18:07.000 And then 2014, this was a major, major provocation toward the Russians, that we backed this street protest against the democratically elected government there.
01:18:19.000 That's, again, it's tricky because the Maidan protests were...
01:18:24.000 Genuine students in the center of the city who were uprising against a corrupt government.
01:18:30.000 I'm not even arguing with that.
01:18:31.000 You know and that again it's like it's the people of Ukraine like other countries when they do have agency beyond what Washington.
01:18:41.000 Yeah, I'm not claiming any of those people don't have agency.
01:18:44.000 I'm just claiming that Washington poured a hundred million dollars into the thing and sent our politicians over there.
01:18:49.000 Our politicians openly saying we're on your side where you have the backing of America looks historically historically
01:18:56.000 Historically, you know, America does like to be, has liked to be on the side of people who desire freedom over autonomy.
01:19:02.000 When it's convenient.
01:19:03.000 Not so much when it's not.
01:19:05.000 Not in Saudi Arabia.
01:19:07.000 Not in Egypt.
01:19:08.000 I'm glad you joined me in my dislike of the House of South.
01:19:11.000 Okay, fine.
01:19:12.000 But look, it does attack...
01:19:14.000 I was worried for a moment there.
01:19:15.000 Yeah, but it does attack your central point there, that it's like, no, I'm sorry.
01:19:18.000 See, this is my...
01:19:19.000 My beef isn't ever with talking about the corruption or the evil things that other governments do.
01:19:24.000 What I don't like is this whitewashing over our own corruption and the evil things that are...
01:19:28.000 The idea that America...
01:19:30.000 We have a history of just standing with the people because we love democracy so much.
01:19:34.000 No. We use that as an excuse when we think it's in our strategic advantage.
01:19:38.000 We will overthrow democratically elected governments with no problem, which, by the way, Yanukovych was democratically elected with elections verified by the EU.
01:19:46.000 But I'm not denying any of those kids had agency, and I'm sure a lot of them were protesting against their own corrupt government.
01:19:52.000 But the point is that, like, look, imagine on, I think Jeffrey Sachs came up with this, this isn't mine, but imagine on January 6th if, like, Chinese politicians We're coming over and handing out sandwiches to the rioters and saying,
01:20:09.000 we have your back.
01:20:10.000 I mean, listen, we would lose our collective minds if another country came in and did something like that, okay?
01:20:16.000 I mean, we lost our collective minds about...
01:20:19.000 Vladimir Putin installing Donald Trump and it was all just completely made up.
01:20:22.000 It wasn't even a real thing.
01:20:23.000 But so to think, okay, those people...
01:20:25.000 Well, we didn't lose our minds on that.
01:20:26.000 A certain subset of mainstream media lost their minds, yes.
01:20:30.000 It wasn't even a subset.
01:20:31.000 No, a main set.
01:20:33.000 For me being the bisexual libertarian here, you have corrected me on my collectivism several times here, and you are right. 1.00
01:20:39.000 Yes, we didn't lose our mind, but others, many other people here did.
01:20:43.000 But, look, I mean, you're pouring...
01:20:46.000 $100 million into a street protest against a democratically elected president of Ukraine, and the whole issue is over, essentially, whether he's going to tilt toward an economic deal with Europe or tilt toward an economic deal with Vladimir Putin.
01:21:02.000 I mean, Douglas, if anyone did that in our region of the world, we would, D.C. would overthrow that government, invade in a moment.
01:21:11.000 If China... 0.91
01:21:12.000 ...poured a hundred million dollars into Mexican protests and was able to overthrow the democratically elected government?
01:21:18.000 What do you think D.C. would do?
01:21:21.000 Qatar pours hundreds of millions of dollars into this country, billions indeed, and tries to change policy in this country.
01:21:31.000 And nobody's trying to overthrow Qatar.
01:21:34.000 Nobody's trying to overthrow the Emir or his family.
01:21:37.000 And they've been poisoning American universities, American institutions, buying up American politicians.
01:21:42.000 They put billions into this country.
01:21:44.000 I think I just sent you something about that this morning.
01:21:46.000 Yes, I mean, well, okay, but that is a little bit different than overthrowing our neighbor government and trying to install a hostile government toward us.
01:21:54.000 You're saying that we'd lose our mind if anyone tried to interfere here.
01:21:57.000 There are lots of people...
01:21:58.000 But I wasn't saying if anyone...
01:21:59.000 And the most obvious one is Qatar, which has poured money into D.C. and into elite institutions and universities in this country.
01:22:08.000 And I don't find from one week to the next anyone who's particularly riled up about it.
01:22:14.000 Well, so they've been...
01:22:15.000 I mean, so they're pouring money into D.C. And so do you think that they are influencing U.S. policy through doing that?
01:22:23.000 I think they're trying to, yeah.
01:22:24.000 Maybe. They are trying to.
01:22:26.000 I mean, I don't know.
01:22:27.000 They're definitely succeeding with the universities and others.
01:22:30.000 Maybe. For sure.
01:22:31.000 They should try with the political class more if they're trying to turn us anti-Israel or something like that because both major parties in this country will fund and unconditionally support Israel no matter what.
01:22:41.000 So, I mean, I don't know.
01:22:41.000 Well, no matter what.
01:22:43.000 But, I mean, Qatar is definitely trying to influence things their way as other countries are.
01:22:49.000 I mean, I cite it as an example of something that's very interesting.
01:22:53.000 An attempt to interfere in American public life, which gets almost no attention.
01:22:57.000 And indeed the governments, whether Democrat or Republican, still seem to adore the Qataris, even as they act as one of the backers of terrorist groups across the Middle East and elsewhere. 0.96
01:23:14.000 And I cannot understand why it doesn't get more attention.
01:23:17.000 Well, according to the former defense minister of Israel, they were begging.
01:23:23.000 No, that's not what happened.
01:23:26.000 Well, that's what he said.
01:23:27.000 His words, begging.
01:23:30.000 You're referring to the funding of Hamas in the 2010s?
01:23:34.000 Yes. The Qataris poured the money in.
01:23:38.000 And the question on the Israeli side was, what are you allowed to do with funds that were going into Gaza?
01:23:43.000 And the Israelis allowed the funds to go from Qatar to Gaza.
01:23:47.000 I think a little bit more than that.
01:23:48.000 I think when the funds dried up, Netanyahu sent the head of the Mossad in there to beg him to keep the funds going.
01:23:54.000 Again, I'm not sure.
01:23:55.000 It's like quoting the head of the CIA, quoting the head of the Mossad.
01:23:59.000 Maybe. Maybe?
01:24:00.000 But that's not the evidence of the last 18 years.
01:24:04.000 I mean, it's...
01:24:05.000 Okay, so I...
01:24:06.000 I mean, I guess...
01:24:08.000 I think I'm allowed to quote powerful people when they admit what they're doing.
01:24:11.000 No, I know, but again, it's just an interesting thing, because again, it's a discipline about this, which is, do I only quote powerful people when they say the odd thing that I agree with, or do I simultaneously distrust all powerful people?
01:24:27.000 It's just an interesting rhetorical...
01:24:30.000 Well, no, I mean, I think that obviously, like, I don't blindly trust anyone in the political class or the media class, for that matter, either.
01:24:39.000 But when they admit things that are, like, very against their interest to admit and kind of give away the whole game that now they're pretending doesn't matter...
01:24:47.000 Are you sure whether it's the CIA or Mossad that it isn't just if they say something that you happen to want?
01:24:54.000 Well, this is kind of like saying if I were to end on trial and I were to, like, I'm the prosecution and I'd enter into evidence a written confession by the defendant.
01:25:03.000 And you go, well, are you only entering this in because this kind of goes along with your case?
01:25:07.000 Like, I suppose we're all guilty of having these incentives to some degree.
01:25:11.000 But I do think it's a relevant detail that the former defense secretary admitted this.
01:25:15.000 And by the way, Netanyahu's admitted this.
01:25:17.000 Ehud Barak has admitted this.
01:25:18.000 They admitted that they allowed funds to go from Qatar to Hamas because Hamas was governing.
01:25:23.000 For the Gaza. 0.95
01:25:23.000 For the reason of preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state. 0.95
01:25:28.000 No, that was not the case.
01:25:29.000 That is what Netanyahu said.
01:25:30.000 That is what Ehud Barak said.
01:25:31.000 It's all up and down.
01:25:32.000 There's one claim.
01:25:34.000 There's one recording of Netanyahu saying something along those lines.
01:25:39.000 But look, I mean, we should get on to it.
01:25:42.000 I could read you the quotes from Ehud Barak as well.
01:25:44.000 All of them have talked about it.
01:25:46.000 The situation, let's get on to it.
01:25:51.000 The situation there, On the war of the last 18 months now, more than 18 months in the Middle East, is a result not of that, but of Hamas deciding to start another war with Israel and trying to annihilate their neighbor.
01:26:06.000 But you don't think if they were being propped up by Israel, that has nothing to do with the group?
01:26:11.000 They were not being propped up by Israel.
01:26:12.000 The reason why Hamas were in power, as you know, much, much against the interests of the Israelis, was that they were voted into power Thank you. 0.87
01:26:23.000 Israelis withdrew from Gaza in 05. Condoleezza Rice and other American states folk insisted that the Palestinians should have elections straight after the Israeli withdrawal.
01:26:35.000 They had elections
01:26:37.000 perhaps unwisely and Hamas won and then didn't have another election again and ruled the Gaza for 18 years until they finally got the great fruit of their labors on the 7th of October 2023 and went around southern Israel 0.94
01:26:53.000 massacring everyone they could including young people at a dance party and then caused in turn the destruction of the place that they were meant to be governing it's a the whole thing
01:27:09.000 is a great tragedy
01:27:10.000 I certainly agree with you that it's a great tragedy.
01:27:19.000 And I do, you know, I think it's, you know, when you accuse me of using the quotes that kind of, you know, back up what I believe, I think it's very convenient here to remove all responsibility from the Israelis. 0.98
01:27:33.000 Like, even if I'm telling you that you have these quotes, I mean, again, I'm not talking about fringe figures.
01:27:39.000 We could read through the list of people who have admitted what the strategy was with them funding Hamas and propping them up.
01:27:45.000 But hold on, let me just say, so if you're going to tell me Israel props up, This terrorist organization, in order to kill the peace process, in order to make sure that the international community gives them a known...
01:27:56.000 By the way, Smotrich, right?
01:27:58.000 The finance minister, okay?
01:28:00.000 He's on record.
01:28:02.000 He's on record saying, look, Hamas is an asset. 0.74
01:28:05.000 The Palestinian Authority, they're the liability. 1.00
01:28:08.000 Hamas is an asset because then we can tell the international community, well, look, what do you want us to do? 1.00
01:28:12.000 There's a terrorist organization here.
01:28:14.000 We can't do business with them.
01:28:15.000 And then even Ehud Barak admitted like this was also so that liberal Israelis, you know, if it was the Palestinian Authority, they'd be like, hey, we should make a deal with them. 0.80
01:28:24.000 But since it's Hamas, they can't. 0.99
01:28:26.000 OK, so if Israel props up this terrorist organization and then as a response to them committing a horrific act of terrorism decides to level the entire place and just slaughter women and children. 0.60
01:28:36.000 Well, it didn't decide to do that, and it didn't do that.
01:28:39.000 But, yeah.
01:28:40.000 It didn't level the place.
01:28:41.000 Gaza hasn't been destroyed. 0.99
01:28:42.000 Gaza is pretty leveled by now. 0.60
01:28:44.000 Yeah. But it did not go in to level the place like that.
01:28:46.000 No. Okay, they went in and leveled the place, but that wasn't their intention?
01:28:49.000 Let's just go back to the beginning if we can.
01:28:52.000 Sure. Because it's important.
01:28:55.000 Since you're interested in the question of the Palestinian state, the Palestinians were given another state in 2005 when every single Jew was removed from the Gaza by the IDF.
01:29:07.000 and when even the graves of Israelis in Gaza were dug up and taken into the rest of Israel.
01:29:13.000 Of all of the what-ifs of Palestinian Arab history, the era since 2005 should be one of the great what-ifs, which is what if the American taxpayers'money that was poured 0.57
01:29:29.000 into Gaza, the European Union taxpayer money that was poured into Gaza, had been used by a government in Gaza
01:29:36.000 To build a state that lived side by side with their Israeli neighbors and flourished.
01:29:44.000 And it's not like the money wasn't there.
01:29:46.000 It's not like there wasn't the international will.
01:29:49.000 Ismail Haniyeh and the other leaders of Hamas used that money, as you know, to make themselves billionaires and to buy themselves and their kids condos in Qatar and to live extremely well whilst withholding the money from the Palestinian people.
01:30:06.000 Whilst building their network of tunnels throughout Gaza and building an infrastructure of terror. 0.88
01:30:11.000 And that's what they did with 18 years in Gaza. 0.72
01:30:16.000 And of all of the what-ifs, just consider that that one was in their hands.
01:30:23.000 The Israelis did not make them vote in Hamas.
01:30:27.000 The Israelis would not want a terrorist entity that wants to annihilate the state of Israel.
01:30:34.000 That is there on their doorstep, constantly firing rockets, starting wars every few years.
01:30:42.000 Why would the Israelis want a group there that means that if you're living in towns like Sderot or Ashkelon or Ashdod, your children grow up all the time knowing that they might have to go to the bomb shelters. 0.98
01:30:54.000 And that's during...
01:30:57.000 Well, according to them, the reason they want it there is because then it kills the peace process.
01:31:01.000 And then you have no one to negotiate with certificate.
01:31:06.000 it. And then you can keep your eyes on building up settlements in the West Bank.
01:31:09.000 There are, as now, many people to negotiate with.
01:31:14.000 Mahmoud Abbas may be, I don't know, as the joke goes, currently in something like his 20th year of his first four-year term as head of the Palestinian Authority.
01:31:21.000 But Mahmoud Abbas is there in Ramallah.
01:31:24.000 The compounds of the Palestinian Authority, which I've been to many times in Ramallah, are there.
01:31:31.000 They
01:31:31.000 their portions of the West Bank.
01:31:33.000 They could be there to negotiate with at any moment.
01:31:36.000 The Israelis have said they want to negotiate with them at any moment and come to the deal.
01:31:40.000 In fact, Netanyahu, you're so fond of quoting, said again before this war began that he would come to the table with no protection.
01:31:50.000 Red lines to begin with to start another negotiation with the Palestinian Authority.
01:31:56.000 But let's just get back to this thing because this is so crucial.
01:31:59.000 I am so startled by the post-October 7th world, not just in Israel and Gaza and everywhere where I've spent most of the last 18 months, but in what's happening here in the United States of America.
01:32:14.000 It blows my mind much of the response here.
01:32:19.000 And the desire to leap over the first victims of this and go on to all of the proximate causes, theoretical causes, what-ifs and so on.
01:32:33.000 I was, as I described in the opening of this book, I was in New York on the 7th of October and I woke up and started seeing what was happening and discovered that later that day already there were plans to organize a protest in Times Square.
01:32:48.000 And what was the protest in Times Square?
01:32:51.000 Massive protests in support of Hamas as the massacre was still going on.
01:32:56.000 And one of the things I just cannot get out of my head is why in the last 18 months, when Hamas did what they did, have so many people made excuses for them or decided to side with them or deny their actions or excuse their actions? 0.86
01:33:14.000 Why do you think that is?
01:33:16.000 Several very, very big things.
01:33:19.000 One is, I think people wanted to ignore the nature of the atrocity because it was so appalling that it went against much of their narrative.
01:33:31.000 I was at a reunion of one of the survivors of the Nova Party on one occasion and he said to me, what would you do if this had happened in your country?
01:33:41.000 And I thought, well, it hasn't happened at this scale.
01:33:45.000 But something like it has happened.
01:33:47.000 The Ariana Grande arena bombing in Manchester in 2017.
01:33:52.000 The Bataclan massacre in Paris in 2015.
01:33:55.000 The Pulse nightclub shooting in 2015.
01:33:58.000 But all of these occasions when young people were murdered for being at a pop concert or a nightclub, the world's attention, the world's empathy, the world's sympathy went to the victims.
01:34:11.000 Only in the case of the young Israelis dancing in the early hours of the morning on October 7th, 2023, do the victims become victimized again and not believed.
01:34:23.000 The era we lived through in the late 2010s was the era of believable women. 1.00
01:34:30.000 And of all the Israeli women who were raped that morning, much of the international community does not want to listen to them at all and certainly doesn't want to believe them.
01:34:39.000 And there are many reasons.
01:34:41.000 One, at the most fundamental level, is that I think a part of a generation that's coming up has been told there is something especially wicked about Israel, that there is something especially wicked about Israel's existence and its actions and its people,
01:34:59.000 and it means that when their people are burned alive in their homes or raped at a music festival and shot in the head, they are uniquely undeserving of sympathy.
01:35:09.000 And I think that people have been indoctrinated by very bad actors into this and as a result have excused atrocities or make excuses for them, make excuses for the people who do them.
01:35:23.000 I think in addition it plays to some of the darkest things of the regional mind
01:35:33.000 The aims of Hamas, their stated aims, Include the annihilation of the Jewish people.
01:35:42.000 And October 7th, they had their best go at doing that.
01:35:47.000 And the fact that in a decision between whether or not you're on the side of the people who want to dance and live in peace with their neighbors, or whether you're on the side of the people who want to rampage through a dance party bar in the early morning,
01:36:04.000 macheting at people.
01:36:07.000 i find it amazing that there are so many people who don't know which side they're on but there are a lot of them there are a lot of reasons for that but one of the foremost reasons is the fact that the state of israel
01:36:19.000 It has been uniquely libeled, has been uniquely lied about.
01:36:23.000 Its history has been uniquely lied about.
01:36:25.000 It has been uniquely put under an international spotlight and then misrepresented in a way which I cannot think of many other countries in the world that have been treated that way.
01:36:37.000 And there are deep reasons for it and shallow reasons for it.
01:36:43.000 The deep reasons include some of the most ancient bigotries of the human heart, and the shallow reasons are people who don't know what the hell they're talking about.
01:36:54.000 Okay, I think that there's...
01:36:58.000 Look, I'm not going to speak for what every...
01:37:02.000 I think what a lot of...
01:37:29.000 I'm not arguing that there are no people who are actually pro-Hamas or there are no people who are actually like hate Jews or something like that.
01:37:37.000 I do think that what happens is that a lot of people get put in that category who do not belong there.
01:37:44.000 Much like we've seen this over the last year and a half where a lot of people, you know, you have John Podhoretz calling Thomas Massey anti-Semitic scum.
01:37:53.000 Because he said, we're dead broke.
01:37:55.000 We can't afford to fund everybody else's war here.
01:37:58.000 People have been calling Tucker Carlson anti-Semitic all over the place.
01:38:02.000 These are two guys, Thomas Massey and Tucker Carlson, who have never uttered the words the Jews in their life.
01:38:08.000 They're just not anti-Semites at all.
01:38:11.000 So there's a lot of people, I think, who are, when they're critical of the Israeli government's response to this, get...
01:38:17.000 Lumped in as pro-Hamas. 0.91
01:38:19.000 I will certainly say, that's certainly not my position.
01:38:21.000 I think your description of them, death cult, by the way, the same term that Daryl Cooper used to describe Hamas, I think is an accurate one. 1.00
01:38:30.000 And it was horrible.
01:38:31.000 But I think that the, you know...
01:38:35.000 I think that your characterization, first of all, that they gave the Palestinians a state in 2005 is just wrong.
01:38:42.000 I just think that is not at all an accurate way to describe the disengagement, which we could get into more if you want to.
01:38:47.000 But first of all, I would just point out that if the two-state solution was achieved, I assume you're arguing it was taken away after that.
01:38:56.000 You're not still arguing that the Palestinians have a state, or are you saying they have had a state since 2005?
01:39:01.000 They were given a state in Gaza.
01:39:03.000 And when was it taken away?
01:39:05.000 Well, they kind of screwed it up for themselves on the 7th of October.
01:39:09.000 So you're saying from 2005 all the way till October 7th, there was a two-state solution.
01:39:13.000 It had been achieved.
01:39:14.000 Well, it was another state, yeah.
01:39:16.000 Okay, but that would be two states then.
01:39:17.000 No, it was another state.
01:39:18.000 It was different from the PA.
01:39:21.000 Okay, right.
01:39:21.000 But I'm saying a Palestinian state.
01:39:23.000 Yeah. Okay.
01:39:24.000 So what's interesting about that is that this is not how...
01:39:27.000 This is not how any of the leaders really describe it.
01:39:32.000 Netanyahu himself is not claiming that they had already achieved a two-state solution.
01:39:36.000 Why are you talking about this?
01:39:37.000 What happened in 2005, in the disengagement, was that essentially Israel went from occupying the place to surrounding the place.
01:39:45.000 And they've had it under a brutal blockade since 2007.
01:39:49.000 And yes, you were right.
01:39:50.000 Why do you think?
01:39:51.000 I don't agree.
01:39:53.000 Blockade was brutal by any means.
01:39:55.000 You don't think the blockade of Gaza was brutal?
01:39:57.000 How brutal do you think the Egyptians are?
01:40:01.000 Pretty brutal.
01:40:02.000 Yeah. They allowed stuff in.
01:40:07.000 Okay. I mean, some stuff has gotten in.
01:40:10.000 Yes, that's true.
01:40:11.000 No, more than some stuff.
01:40:12.000 More than some stuff.
01:40:13.000 Okay. I'll say this, right?
01:40:15.000 Because there's been different levels of blockade, even before 2007, going back.
01:40:19.000 I know in 1996...
01:40:21.000 They had like a pretty strong blockade that year.
01:40:24.000 According to the World Bank, it contracted 40% of the GDP of Gaza.
01:40:29.000 So just for reference, the Great Depression was a 30% contraction.
01:40:35.000 This was in 1996.
01:40:36.000 For one year, they gave them something worse than our Great Depression.
01:40:40.000 That was just one year.
01:40:41.000 From 2007 on, there's been a blockade of that country.
01:40:45.000 You don't think that's kept the country poor?
01:40:47.000 Why do you think there's a blockade of any kind?
01:40:50.000 Why is there a blockade?
01:40:51.000 Well, I mean, the argument from Israel would be that...
01:40:55.000 No, why do you think?
01:40:57.000 I would say, okay, I think that the disengagement, I think Smotrich was correct when he said, I'm sorry, my mistake there.
01:41:05.000 I think the, which another quote that I'm sure you're familiar with, but Dov Weissklaff, who was the senior advisor to Sharon, who was the prime minister at the time, he essentially said, the reason we're doing the disengagement, the reason we're doing this, is so that we can put the peace process in formaldehyde.
01:41:21.000 You're not answering my question.
01:41:22.000 You're continuing to cite very right-wing Israeli politicians.
01:41:25.000 But what do you think is the reason?
01:41:27.000 I'm getting there.
01:41:28.000 I'm saying, so I think they disengaged in order to kill the peace process.
01:41:31.000 I think they put the full blockade around the country for the reason that they've always kind of done it there.
01:41:36.000 That, yeah, they don't want too much stuff getting in.
01:41:38.000 They want to keep them, as they put it, on a diet.
01:41:40.000 And they don't want rockets to fly into Israel.
01:41:44.000 The second one is a kind of important one, isn't it?
01:41:46.000 Yeah, it is.
01:41:48.000 If the Palestinian leadership in Gaza after 2005 had not from the get-go decided to use Gaza as a stockpiling place for rockets to fire into Israel,
01:42:03.000 all of it would be different.
01:42:05.000 If they had just resisted the temptation that so many of us do in our lives to stop keeping RPGs in our cellars and then Katyusha rockets in our children's bedrooms, all of it could have been different.
01:42:18.000 If that desire to live in peace beside your neighbors had superseded the desire to stockpile rockets, it would all be different.
01:42:28.000 Yeah, or if Israel just hadn't occupied them for 60 years, it would all be different too. 0.68
01:42:32.000 They weren't occupying.
01:42:33.000 Well, you believe in self-determination, I'm sure.
01:42:39.000 Yes. I believe in individual rights, yeah, sure.
01:42:41.000 Okay, individual rights.
01:42:42.000 And that includes the right to make bad decisions.
01:42:45.000 Yes. The Palestinians in Gaza, when they voted in Hamas, made a very bad decision.
01:42:51.000 Yeah, of course.
01:42:52.000 Hang on.
01:42:53.000 Hang on.
01:42:54.000 And in the years after that, they made bad decision after bad decision.
01:42:59.000 It was a very bad decision to continually fire thousands of rockets.
01:43:04.000 It was a very bad decision to use what boats came in early on and to use the smuggling networks from Egypt, not to bring in supplies you could actually build a thriving society with, but to bring in rockets. 0.58
01:43:19.000 It was a very bad idea.
01:43:21.000 No, there was not starvation in Gaza after 2005.
01:43:25.000 No, there was no deficit of goods coming in.
01:43:27.000 I've been plenty of times.
01:43:29.000 There was no deficit?
01:43:29.000 No. No goods were kept out?
01:43:31.000 There are plenty.
01:43:32.000 Have you been to the crossing points?
01:43:34.000 No. When were you last there at all?
01:43:37.000 I've never been.
01:43:40.000 You've never been?
01:43:42.000 Well, am I not allowed to talk about it now?
01:43:45.000 Have you ever been to Nazi Germany?
01:43:47.000 Are you allowed to have feelings about them?
01:43:48.000 You can't time travel, but you can travel.
01:43:51.000 Okay, but so what?
01:43:52.000 So what's the point?
01:43:53.000 Lots of people have been there and agree with me, and lots of people have been there and agree with you.
01:43:57.000 Yeah, but if you're going to spend a year and a half talking about a place, you should at least do the courtesy of visiting it.
01:44:02.000 Alright. I just think this is a non-argument.
01:44:05.000 You don't think?
01:44:07.000 No. I think it's a non-argument.
01:44:09.000 But you have to go and touch the ground to be able to talk about it?
01:44:12.000 I think it's a good idea to see stuff, particularly if you spend a career talking about something.
01:44:17.000 Yes. I have a journalistic rule of trying never to talk about a country, even in passing, unless I've at least been there.
01:44:24.000 Okay. It's a normal thing to do.
01:44:28.000 You're talking about crossing points.
01:44:32.000 And not only have you never been to a crossing point in either Egypt or in Israel, but you've never even been to the region.
01:44:38.000 Okay. Again, I think this is a non-argument.
01:44:39.000 No, no, no, it's not a non-argument.
01:44:41.000 Yeah, it is.
01:44:42.000 It's not a non-argument if you're insisting that you're an expert of some kind, or not claiming you're an expert, but still talking about it, about the provisions going into Gaza or not, if you've never seen any of this going on.
01:44:57.000 So you're not allowed to speak about things that you've read about.
01:44:59.000 You can only speak about things that you've seen with your own eyes.
01:45:02.000 You can talk about what you want, as you're proving.
01:45:07.000 But that is a different matter from spending an awfully long amount of time talking about an issue in a region you haven't even had the courtesy to visit whilst developing all of these views about it.
01:45:26.000 I mean, now I slightly get an idea of where you're coming from.
01:45:30.000 You've read about this blockade, and so you imagine that that's what it is.
01:45:36.000 I imagine you've read all the people who say that Gaza was a concentration camp, and you probably think that too. 1.00
01:45:45.000 Am I right?
01:45:46.000 I mean, again, literally a concentration camp?
01:45:49.000 It shares a lot of similarities, I would think.
01:45:52.000 Wow. Well...
01:45:54.000 As I say, you can't time travel back to the Nazi era, but you could go to the Middle East and actually visit.
01:46:01.000 It's not hard to do.
01:46:02.000 The World Bank said in 1996 for the one year of the blockade...
01:46:06.000 Now the libertarians are quoting the World Bank.
01:46:07.000 I love it.
01:46:07.000 It doesn't mean anything.
01:46:08.000 This is a non-argument.
01:46:10.000 Yes, I'm saying the World Bank did their own analysis of this, and they said that it was a 40%...
01:46:14.000 Why don't you do your own analysis?
01:46:15.000 Hold on.
01:46:16.000 You've got to stop interrupting and let him finish the sentence.
01:46:19.000 The World Bank said that 40% drop in the GDP of one year due to the blockade and there's been a blockade from 2007 on so are you saying that this hasn't had an economic effect?
01:46:31.000 Is that the argument?
01:46:32.000 No, of course it'll have an economic effect So you're saying you have to be on the ground and do an audit of the blockade?
01:46:37.000 I think that's the best way.
01:46:47.000 It's not the only way, but it's the best way.
01:46:49.000 For sure.
01:46:50.000 For sure.
01:46:51.000 If you have never seen the countries in question, you've never spoken to the people in question, you've never interviewed anyone, you've never gone around, you've never seen the terrain, and so on, and you've used Wikipedia, I'm sorry, no, that's not the same thing.
01:47:05.000 Okay, well, I've not just used Wikipedia, but didn't you write a big piece when the war in Ukraine first came out titled something like, I've been to Ukraine and they can win, they can repel the Russians? 0.83
01:47:16.000 So you could go there and still get it wrong, right?
01:47:19.000 No, I was with the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 2022 when they were retaking territory from the Russians.
01:47:24.000 Right, the last time they had any advances, yeah.
01:47:27.000 Yeah, I said I can see how they can win, which would be advances like that, yeah.
01:47:30.000 You said if we just fund them, or if we just arm them, that they can then, they can rebel.
01:47:34.000 I said that the Ukrainian Army was making great successes, which it was when I was with them in the fall of 22. Okay, listen, there were lots of people who went to Iraq and said, we'll be greeted as liberators, and it'll be paid foreign oil, and democracy will spread through the region.
01:47:45.000 So, I don't know, either take on the arguments or don't, but I don't.
01:47:48.000 But I'm saying that your argument is incorrect.
01:47:51.000 Okay, fine.
01:47:51.000 Well, then present a counter-argument to it.
01:47:54.000 But to just tell me I'm not allowed to talk about something because I'm not an expert.
01:47:56.000 I'm not saying you're not allowed to talk about it.
01:47:57.000 Okay, fine.
01:47:57.000 Well, you're not an expert, so you shouldn't talk about it.
01:47:59.000 You haven't been there.
01:48:00.000 Yeah, I know.
01:48:01.000 But you keep playing this game where it's like the whole opening to this podcast was like the non-experts talking about this is such a problem.
01:48:08.000 Now you're saying because I haven't been there, I can't talk about it.
01:48:10.000 Is there a blockade there that's causing economic devastation or not?
01:48:14.000 According to the World Bank, there is.
01:48:16.000 First of all, I don't think it's a game.
01:48:19.000 I don't think it's a game at all.
01:48:21.000 Me neither.
01:48:22.000 I'm not playing a game.
01:48:24.000 Okay? Okay, but this is semantics.
01:48:25.000 No. But this is important.
01:48:27.000 Mm-hmm.
01:48:28.000 I've seen plenty of this up close.
01:48:31.000 I've seen plenty of this with my own eyes.
01:48:34.000 Because I do believe that one of the things you should do if you're talking about something is to see it.
01:48:39.000 Yeah, you've established that.
01:48:40.000 Okay. Is there a blockade?
01:48:42.000 The blockade that existed to the extent it existed was a blockade to try to make sure that the Israelis and the Egyptians knew what materials were going in and out of Gaza after the first rocket fires when Hamas, in fact, before Hamas was elected.
01:48:55.000 The Israelis and the Egyptians, the Egyptians didn't do a very good job of it, were meant to be trying to make sure that the materials that went into Gaza were not materials that could be used to build up the Gaza and Hamas war machine.
01:49:07.000 The reason why trucks...
01:49:11.000 Is not because the Israelis want to search through grain or flour.
01:49:18.000 It's because they wanted to stop the trucks containing the arms and the munitions that the Gazan Hamas... 0.75
01:49:27.000 And Islamic Jihad fighters were going to use the fire against Israel.
01:49:30.000 And I'm sorry, it just makes the most obvious strategic sense.
01:49:34.000 As the late, great Joan Rivers once said, as an appeal to authority.
01:49:41.000 That went all well.
01:49:42.000 That one I like.
01:49:43.000 She also said that Michelle Obama's a man.
01:49:45.000 Yeah, I know.
01:49:46.000 She did that. 0.99
01:49:46.000 That's what I'm saying. 0.99
01:49:47.000 She got everything right.
01:49:48.000 So continue.
01:49:48.000 Go ahead.
01:49:49.000 But as Joan Rivers said, if New York was being rocketed from New Jersey, we would level New Jersey.
01:49:56.000 I don't think you need to level it, by the way.
01:49:59.000 But you would at least try to make sure that rockets weren't being imported in larger quantities into New Jersey.
01:50:05.000 Of course.
01:50:05.000 Okay. That's all the Israelis were doing.
01:50:08.000 And they haven't turned away any food aid?
01:50:10.000 They haven't said you can't bring potato chips in or you can't have cookies because they have dual use?
01:50:14.000 Isn't this their whole argument that there's anything that could be used to build a rocket has to be excluded?
01:50:19.000 Anything that could be used to build a rocket.
01:50:21.000 Yeah. Right.
01:50:23.000 Yeah. Yeah, but that's a good reason, again, not to build rockets and fire them at your neighbours.
01:50:28.000 It's almost like there's a cost to pay.
01:50:30.000 It's almost like there's a cost to pay for, instead of living in peace with your neighbour, constantly trying to wipe them out.
01:50:37.000 And that is what Hamas did for 18 years. 0.87
01:50:40.000 18 years.
01:50:41.000 This is why I think it's so unbelievable taking agency away from the Palestinians of Gaza, is that Hamas had 18 years, and 18 years is Obviously, the time from the birth of a child to the end of their formal education.
01:50:57.000 They literally had the opportunity to create a generation in Gaza that wanted to live beside their Israeli neighbors.
01:51:04.000 And from everything I've seen since the 7th of October in the region and from all of the dead and the survivors and the family members I've seen, so many of them, particularly the people in the south who were attacked on the morning of the 7th, were literally people who dreamed of living in peace with their
01:51:20.000 Palestinian neighbors.
01:51:21.000 They were people like Vivian Silva, whose body wasn't identified for months because there wasn't enough of her chard remains left to even extract DNA from.
01:51:29.000 She spent every weekend, like so many people in the communities in the south of Israel, every weekend driving children with the most rare medical conditions that couldn't be treated in one of the Hamas-run hospitals in Gaza into very specialist
01:51:45.000 units inside Israel.
01:51:46.000 And she spent every weekend doing that and working with Bet Sulem and all of these radical left Israeli groups.
01:51:53.000 And it didn't matter a bit when Hamas came in because they burnt her in her own home anyway. 0.97
01:51:57.000 My point is, in all of the counterfactuals of this conflict, the most important one is what?
01:52:21.000 You think any of the people on the kibbutzim in the south...
01:52:25.000 Although young people dancing at the Nova Party weren't dreaming of the day that the Palestinian government in Gaza would have created those conditions for them to live beside as well.
01:52:36.000 Of course!
01:52:38.000 Right. Everybody argues against...
01:52:41.000 Nobody's arguing.
01:52:42.000 Douglas, it's just...
01:52:43.000 No, I mean here.
01:52:44.000 I mean, it's not what I'm saying.
01:52:46.000 Look, I'll say this again because you bring up the point about agency again.
01:52:50.000 And I hear this a lot as a counter.
01:52:53.000 Much like I said in Ukraine, it's not denying anybody agency.
01:52:57.000 I'm not saying that...
01:52:58.000 Believe me, if I was in control of how people acted, I would certainly...
01:53:04.000 There are...
01:53:05.000 This... There are...
01:53:07.000 Palestinians could have handled things much better. 1.00
01:53:09.000 And there are different points where we probably all would agree that we wish they had done it this way and not this way.
01:53:15.000 And I think that embracing for those Palestinians who embrace terrorism, which from, you know, which. 1.00
01:53:24.000 I think the most interesting counterfactual,
01:53:44.000 well, maybe I'll give you two.
01:53:46.000 Would be Chaim Weizmann, who was essentially supposed to be the David Ben-Gurion, like he was in line as like the number one ranking Zionist.
01:53:54.000 This is pre the creation of the state of Israel, who urged all of the Zionist militias to not embrace terrorism.
01:54:00.000 And he ended up losing that battle ultimately.
01:54:03.000 In many ways, this is how terrorism was introduced.
01:54:05.000 He was the first president of the state.
01:54:07.000 David Ben-Gurion was.
01:54:08.000 I was saying Haim Weissman.
01:54:09.000 And he basically ended up losing his position to David Ben-Gurion because they just wanted to be more hardcore.
01:54:16.000 By the way, the Ergon and the Lehi and the Haganah, they openly embraced terrorism to drive out an occupying force. 0.82
01:54:25.000 This is literally the story of the creation of the state of Israel.
01:54:29.000 The Palestinians fell into a terrible, tragic mistake early on.
01:54:36.000 And I'm saying, listen, I reject terrorism as we all should just because killing innocent people is wrong.
01:54:40.000 I'd like to get to that a little bit more in a second because it's interesting that we haven't really gotten into what I think is a great humanitarian crisis here.
01:54:49.000 But they were following, I think in some ways they were very influenced by the Algerian model that they were like, hey, look, we could embrace...
01:54:56.000 Which Algerian model?
01:55:01.000 The first Algerian war.
01:55:03.000 Yes. But look, there's a lot of these scenarios where we look back at Nelson Mandela, for example.
01:55:10.000 Nelson Mandela was not imprisoned because he was making picket signs.
01:55:15.000 There have been people who have embraced violence as a means to achieve a policy end, including the early Zionist settlers, including the Israeli government, including the U.S. government, and lots of governments around the world.
01:55:27.000 The tragic, tragic mistake in terms of political outcome from the Palestinians is that they really just underestimated the fact that these Jews had no home to go to.
01:55:38.000 This was their home.
01:55:39.000 And you could drive out the French from Algeria because they'd go, screw it, we're going back home to France. 1.00
01:55:43.000 The Jews had been so persecuted in Eastern Europe that there was no home to go.
01:55:47.000 And of course, then after World War II.
01:55:49.000 They were here to stay.
01:55:50.000 And so of course it's been a tragedy.
01:55:52.000 And of course a lot of Palestinian actions I wish would be different. 1.00
01:55:56.000 I wish Hamas didn't exist.
01:55:57.000 It should be pointed out, by the way, that in 2005 you did mention that it was really part of the Bush administration's exporting democracy around the world that put pressure on them to have these elections.
01:56:07.000 It should also be mentioned that Hamas did not win a majority in one single precinct.
01:56:11.000 They won pluralities all around.
01:56:13.000 So just saying, when we're bringing up this election, half the population of Gaza today is under the age of 18. They were toddlers if they were alive in 2005.
01:56:22.000 Of the other half that maybe, maybe half of them voted in these elections, it was never a majority that supported Hamas.
01:56:30.000 They eked out a victory.
01:56:32.000 And then, of course, there was an attempted coup after that, and that's when Hamas seized complete control.
01:56:38.000 The coup failed.
01:56:39.000 I agree with you that, like, yeah, the Palestinians have agency.
01:56:46.000 And I wish some of them had made better decisions.
01:56:48.000 Now, many of them have made better decisions, and it's still resulted in nothing better happening for them and their people.
01:56:54.000 And so I do find it kind of hard to lecture a group of people who are going through so much.
01:57:00.000 Like, the level of human suffering that's being inflicted on the people of Gaza right now cannot be overstated.
01:57:05.000 And so, you know, to lecture them about how you're supposed to handle that exactly.
01:57:10.000 But I will say, man, I think there's kind of this selective empathy that you have here.
01:57:17.000 Like, I agree with you.
01:57:19.000 You know, talk about these teenagers being slaughtered at a music festival on October 7th.
01:57:23.000 It's like, my God.
01:57:24.000 Like, I have little kids.
01:57:25.000 I can't, like, imagine the nightmare of this happening to somebody's children.
01:57:30.000 But at the same time, we're not having this conversation on October 9th or in November or December of 2023.
01:57:36.000 We're having it in 2025 where I mean,
01:58:03.000 in any recent war.
01:58:04.000 I mean, this is like, it does, I do think there's almost like a fundamental framing bias that you get into when people have these debates.
01:58:13.000 And I've had several of them as you have also.
01:58:15.000 But it seems to me that there's almost an implicit difference
01:58:21.000 the value that you place on Israeli life versus the value that we place on Palestinians'life.
01:58:27.000 And to even like, we've gone this far into the conversation and haven't even talked about the fact that like, Israel has
01:58:34.000 Feel however you feel.
01:58:35.000 If you want to argue, I haven't been there.
01:58:36.000 Stuff does get through the blockade.
01:58:37.000 Okay, fine.
01:58:38.000 This is a captive people, you know, that Israel has dominated since at least 1967. 0.98
01:58:44.000 Many of them are there because of the creation of the state of Israel, who used to live in what is now called Israel.
01:58:51.000 And they are just, I mean, the amount of human suffering that's being inflicted on them, when even as you kind of acknowledged with the George W. Bush exporting democracy, Hamas in many ways was forced on these people.
01:59:03.000 In fact, we saw protests against Hamas just recently.
01:59:06.000 So I don't know.
01:59:08.000 I mean, that to me seems to be the greatest human tragedy.
01:59:10.000 And I think much more so than you can characterize it as people being pro-Hamas or people being anti-Semitic.
01:59:16.000 But I actually think that the mass movement around the world of people who oppose this war.
01:59:20.000 Okay, quite a few things.
01:59:29.000 First of all...
01:59:30.000 Let's just get one term correct.
01:59:32.000 Because you said you do think it's a concentration camp.
01:59:36.000 I said it shares many...
01:59:37.000 And you also say that there's a disproportionately heavy youth population in Gaza.
01:59:45.000 Yes. Do you think that's not accurate?
01:59:48.000 I think the second one is accurate.
01:59:50.000 But it's a very strange thing to say that there's a population boom in a concentration camp.
01:59:58.000 In Auschwitz, in the 1940s, there was not a doubling of the population.
02:00:01.000 He didn't say it was a concentration camp.
02:00:04.000 He said it shares many of the characteristics.
02:00:06.000 Auschwitz was a concentration camp.
02:00:09.000 It was ultimately a death camp, no?
02:00:11.000 Yes. It started as a concentration camp.
02:00:13.000 You'll notice that people were not...
02:00:17.000 doubling in size their number because of the children they could have in Auschwitz.
02:00:21.000 Yeah, but nobody's calling a concentration camp because it's the same as Auschwitz.
02:00:26.000 Okay, but let's just at least tidy up the language a bit.
02:00:30.000 Either you think the place is a concentration camp or you think it's not a concentration camp and I don't think it can be a concentration camp or any such term is suitable when you're talking about a place which you yourself have admitted has a disproportionately young population.
02:00:42.000 So that's the first thing.
02:00:42.000 I don't think breeding in any way argues against...
02:00:46.000 I didn't call it a concentration camp.
02:00:47.000 You said it has many of the same...
02:00:49.000 But you asked him if it did.
02:00:52.000 You asked him if it had any of the characteristics of a concentration camp.
02:00:55.000 Yes, because he said earlier that it did.
02:00:56.000 Okay, so let me be much more precise.
02:01:00.000 Let me be much more precise, okay?
02:01:01.000 So I'm not claiming that it is a concentration camp or that it is akin to Auschwitz.
02:01:05.000 I'm saying that it's been under full blockade since 2007.
02:01:09.000 Israel rules the seas, the airs. 1.00
02:01:11.000 They control electricity that goes in.
02:01:12.000 They're not allowed to have an airport.
02:01:14.000 They're not allowed to have a seaport.
02:01:15.000 They don't have the freedom to leave without permission from the Israeli government.
02:01:18.000 They don't have the freedom to trade with the world.
02:01:20.000 They don't have a freedom to vote over the government that rules them.
02:01:23.000 I don't know.
02:01:24.000 Call it whatever you want to.
02:01:25.000 That's the situation.
02:01:27.000 All of which is a result of the election of Hamas. 0.89
02:01:30.000 None of it's Israel's fault.
02:01:31.000 Israel's not responsible for one of the babies that have died, the bombs that they're dropping.
02:01:35.000 Let's get on to that then, because you say it's one of the most brutal wars.
02:01:39.000 It's a very brutal war.
02:01:40.000 It's a very brutal war.
02:01:42.000 It's certainly not even sadly among the standards of our time by any means the most brutal.
02:01:48.000 We don't need to get into the rather statistician.
02:01:51.000 Ugly debate about whether or not you follow the Hamas government in Gaza's figures for the death counts, which most of the world's media rely on and which I don't think are reliable to the least extent.
02:02:06.000 But you don't need to rely on that to say that even by the standards of a conflict in neighboring Syria, the highest Hamas death count inside Gaza for the appalling last year and a half...is less than an average year has been for the last decade in Syria during the civil war.
02:02:29.000 The whole decade?
02:02:30.000 I mean, total, far more people died in Syria.
02:02:33.000 I'm not arguing that, but you're saying it's less than any year?
02:02:36.000 I think there were years that were pretty...
02:02:37.000 Six to eight hundred thousand people have been killed in Syria during the civil war there.
02:02:41.000 And I give it as an example.
02:02:45.000 There are far too many examples of wars in the region and in the wider world to go to, but...
02:02:50.000 I think we get, once again, back to the issue of language on this.
02:02:54.000 One of the most brutal wars is simply obvious that it's an appalling war, but it is not, by any numerical or other standards, the most appalling war of our time.
02:03:05.000 It's a war that Hamas started because they shouldn't have invaded their neighbor and they shouldn't have tried to genocide their neighbor.
02:03:11.000 Now, if the war can be prosecuted, could be prosecuted, it was always for two reasons.
02:03:18.000 Always for two reasons.
02:03:19.000 The first one, as stated by the unanimity of Israeli politicians and others, was to retrieve the hostages, who we also haven't spoken about, but there are still hostages in Gaza held for the last 18 months by Hamas, including young Eden Alexander from New Jersey.
02:03:37.000 But if Hamas had not stolen the hostages and hidden them in their tunnels and hidden them in civilian homes, this war would have all been different. 0.52
02:03:46.000 If they had have given them back and they could give them back tomorrow, it would all be different.
02:03:52.000 But they didn't.
02:03:53.000 They decided to do what they did on the 7th and to hold on to the 250-odd hostages as it was at the beginning from the beginning.
02:04:00.000 The second reason why the war is still being prosecuted is because of the stated aim to destroy Hamas, which is the stated aim of the Israelis.
02:04:11.000 Neither of these things is remotely easy.
02:04:14.000 OK? And just from a point of humility, I think, on everyone's side, we should concede none of that is easy.
02:04:22.000 It is not easy to get 250 hostages back when they have been distributed across the Gaza to civilian homes, hidden in tunnels, surrounded by munitions and much more.
02:04:33.000 Hamas is not an actor like Denmark. 0.91
02:04:39.000 Its backers don't behave the way that...
02:04:43.000 Our governments do in the West.
02:04:45.000 They have a totally different time scale that they think along.
02:04:49.000 They have a totally different scale of values as well.
02:04:53.000 The taunts of Hezbollah's leadership, of Hamas's leadership, of their backers in Tehran are annihilationist to their core.
02:05:05.000 But at any point in the last 18 months, the Qataris, for instance, or the Iranians, The Iranian Revolutionary Government or the Turkish government or others could have put their pressure on Hamas to return the hostages who are still being held in captivity and everything would be different.
02:05:25.000 Secondly, as you know, I'm sure, you don't have to have seen this with your own eyes to know it.
02:05:31.000 As I'm sure you know, the way in which Hamas built up the structure of the Gaza throughout the 18 years that they had was precisely to flout and use every law of war against the Israelis.
02:05:43.000 Every army in a conflict has certain rules of war that you're meant to abide by.
02:05:52.000 One of the most obvious is that you are identified as being a combatant not as a civilian.
02:06:00.000 Okay? Another is, you don't put weapons in civilian houses and civilian buildings.
02:06:07.000 You do not fire from houses of worship rockets.
02:06:11.000 You do not launch attacks from hospitals.
02:06:15.000 You do not keep detention facilities where you can torture and disappear people inside hospitals and other medical facilities.
02:06:22.000 All of these laws of war are the laws that Hamas breaks every minute of every day. 0.84
02:06:30.000 So if you want to get the hostages back, and if you want to destroy Hamas, when you're fighting against a force which does not only not follow the rules of war, but uses your following of the rules of the laws of war against you,
02:06:49.000 at least concede this is a highly specific and complex military operation.
02:06:56.000 And if you have or anyone else has, and I say this genuinely, a better way to get
02:07:06.000 the hostages and to destroy Hamas, I at any rate am all ears. 0.89
02:07:11.000 Okay.
02:07:13.000 Okay. Okay, well, there's a lot there.
02:07:15.000 So, number one, like, I do agree generally with your point about having some humility in these complex situations, but I would also say, like, Do you not then, at any point, as you're like a very well-known public figure who's supporting this war, think about the level of human suffering that is being inflicted on these innocent people and go like,
02:07:34.000 man, is there another way?
02:07:35.000 Maybe I'm getting this wrong.
02:07:37.000 Maybe this is the Iraq war all over again, which you also supported, that maybe that was a big mistake.
02:07:42.000 I don't need to think about it.
02:07:44.000 I've seen it.
02:07:45.000 I know it.
02:07:46.000 I describe it in my book.
02:07:48.000 I describe what I see in Gaza with the Palestinians when they're... 1.00
02:07:54.000 Okay, let me just respond to some of the stuff you say.
02:07:57.000 Okay, so then I guess it's not really that much of humility involved in this, but there's two very different goals that are being stated here, right?
02:08:05.000 Like, there's the retrieving the hostages, and then there's taking out Hamas. 0.58
02:08:08.000 Now, the...
02:08:10.000 Retrieving the hostages, and actually many of the families of hostages who were taken have been some of the only people really protesting this war in Israel, because of course, you know, if you imagine, if you have your family over there, and your government is leveling this place, that is not the best path to pursue to make sure you get all the hostages out alive.
02:08:27.000 I would say that it fell apart, but Donald Trump having his envoy, Witkoff, go over there and work out this ceasefire deal that they had for a few weeks.
02:08:37.000 They did get, I believe, 30?
02:08:40.000 Hostages back during the phase one of this ceasefire.
02:08:44.000 Seems to me like that would be the method to pursue to try to get the hostages back.
02:08:49.000 But if you're talking about eliminating Hamas, and I think there's something kind of interesting that you touched on there.
02:08:54.000 I disagree with much of your characterization of it, that Israel are the good guys who always follow the rules.
02:09:01.000 We could kind of get into some of that.
02:09:02.000 There's lots of rules that Israel does not follow.
02:09:06.000 That being said, yes, of course.
02:09:08.000 I mean, you're describing guerrilla warfare, terrorist organizations.
02:09:11.000 That's right.
02:09:12.000 They stated differently.
02:09:14.000 Gaza doesn't have an air force or an army or a navy.
02:09:18.000 They're just basically militias running around, terrorists who are trying to do everything they can to fight an asymmetrical war.
02:09:26.000 And just like we helped teach Osama bin Laden how to do the Soviets and then Osama bin Laden successfully did to us, the whole game in these asymmetrical wars is to get exactly what Hamas got out of this, right? 0.84
02:09:38.000 Like Osama bin Laden knew that he couldn't bankrupt the United States of America by taking down the Twin Towers, but he thought he could lure us into a war in Afghanistan that would bankrupt us. 0.94
02:09:48.000 It didn't completely, but it came pretty close.
02:09:52.000 That being said, well, I just mean in terms of how much it drained the treasury, it was way more than any terrorist attack could have possibly done.
02:10:01.000 That being said, the idea that...
02:10:17.000 That's the goal.
02:10:17.000 Justice for October 7th.
02:10:19.000 You know, there's lots of governments around the world that we would, and Hamas isn't exactly a government, but there's lots of regimes around the world that...
02:10:27.000 We would all like to see removed, but that doesn't mean that we would approve of any means by which to get there.
02:10:32.000 You know, if you were like, hey, I think Kim Jong-un's government should be dissolved, I'm sure we would all agree with that.
02:10:39.000 But if you were like, I'm going to level the place and just like slaughter people in order to do it, you might be like, okay, hold on.
02:10:45.000 But aside from that, this has been acknowledged at the highest levels of Israeli intelligence and U.S. intelligence.
02:10:52.000 There's just no way to get rid of Hamas without it being replaced by more Hamas or Hamas-like group because it's the basic understanding of this whole situation, right? 0.82
02:11:02.000 It's General McChrystal's insurgent math.
02:11:05.000 There's still Hamas. 0.88
02:11:06.000 Hamas are popping back up in the areas that Israel's already leveled.
02:11:11.000 And the more innocent people you kill, the more radicalized you're going to get this population, the more these people are going to hate Hamas.
02:11:17.000 I just think that to...
02:11:22.000 Use the justification that we're trying to get rid of Hamas. 0.97
02:11:25.000 And therefore, it's not like...
02:11:27.000 It doesn't matter how many innocent women and children die in the process?
02:11:31.000 Of course it doesn't.
02:11:31.000 Or there's no responsibility on you?
02:11:34.000 You now are not responsible for the bombs that you drop?
02:11:36.000 How many people they kill?
02:11:38.000 No, of course you're responsible.
02:11:39.000 So Israel is responsible then? 0.98
02:11:41.000 They're responsible for the means of their retaliation and their war aims.
02:11:44.000 Yes, of course.
02:11:45.000 But first of all, let me just say...
02:11:48.000 I totally disagree with your characterization of Osama bin Laden and what he wanted to do, and I don't think that Osama bin Laden's stated public utterances were along those lines.
02:11:58.000 But anyway, the reason why the hostages have been released, the numbers that have, is because of constant kinetic force by the IDF.
02:12:10.000 Hamas does not come to the table and ever hand over hostages out of goodwill.
02:12:16.000 It doesn't do it out of the goodness of their own heart.
02:12:19.000 It does it because of the constant kinetic force of the IDF in Gaza.
02:12:24.000 And if it weren't for that, all 250 hostages would still be there.
02:12:30.000 Second thing is, when it comes to Hamas itself,
02:12:35.000 totally disagree with the presumption that if you tackle a terrorist entity, Thank you.
02:12:42.000 Yeah, no argument there.
02:12:42.000 You will create more terrorists.
02:12:44.000 Ergo, you should not attack the terrorist entity.
02:12:47.000 That's not the argument that I'm making.
02:12:49.000 It's a commonly held argument that if you respond to terrorism, you create terrorism.
02:12:55.000 And of course, the only thing in that case is you just have to sit back and take it.
02:12:58.000 The argument that I'm making is that when you slaughter innocent people, those people around them tend to hate your guts.
02:13:04.000 That's the argument that I'm making.
02:13:06.000 First of all, your characterization of the slaughter.
02:13:09.000 It's horrible, the war in Gaza.
02:13:12.000 It's horrible that young Israelis have to go in yet again to Gaza and try to find Israeli hostages and try to get the leadership of Hamas.
02:13:21.000 That's what's horrible about it?
02:13:22.000 It is not the case.
02:13:23.000 Yes, because I think there's a consequence to starting wars.
02:13:26.000 But so it's not horrible for the people who didn't start a war?
02:13:30.000 Why do we become like these collectivists as soon as a war starts?
02:13:33.000 It is horrible for everybody involved.
02:13:36.000 No, it's the most horrible for the Palestinian people in Gaza right now.
02:13:40.000 That is the group of people who are being fucked over the most right now.
02:13:44.000 No? And if Hamas had acted differently or the Palestinians had voted in different people to govern them,
02:14:08.000 it would all be different.
02:14:09.000 But again, that's a hypothetical.
02:14:11.000 The reality of the war on the ground is that in this incredibly heavily built up area with weaponry hidden everywhere, with soldiers...
02:14:23.000 I've spoken to too many of them.
02:14:25.000 They go in, you have a group of people coming out of a civilian building with their hands up, and from their midst come a bunch of Hamas terrorists firing at you, in the hope that the IDF will fire back at the civilians.
02:14:39.000 Gadi Eisenkot, one of the members of the war cabinet in the early stages of the war, lost his own son and then his nephew.
02:14:45.000 His nephew was killed in a firefight in Gaza because the Hamas terrorists were firing from a mosque.
02:14:53.000 And that was why Gaddy Eisenkot from the Israeli cabinet's nephew died.
02:14:57.000 The whole operating theatre is hideous because of what Hamas has done to the Gaza. 0.99
02:15:04.000 The reason why Sinoir cropped up in Rafah, finally the mastermind of October 7th, one of the most brutal, sadistic psychopaths, to use an overrated term you can ever imagine. 0.97
02:15:16.000 In an Israeli prison, by the way, for having strangled Palestinians to death in the 2000s.
02:15:21.000 But anyway, the reason why Sinoir crops up in Rafah late last year is because there was nowhere else for him to run because of the actions of the IDF to pursue the leadership of Hamas that was responsible for the 7th.
02:15:35.000 Now, can all of Hamas be destroyed? 0.69
02:15:39.000 Probably not.
02:15:41.000 Can you make it effectively impossible to function?
02:15:46.000 Or incapable of functioning?
02:15:49.000 Unable to fire rockets?
02:15:51.000 And govern the Gaza? 0.87
02:15:52.000 Yes. Right, but it comes at the price tag of slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent people.
02:15:57.000 No, no.
02:15:58.000 And you're accepting that price?
02:15:59.000 No. Every single war of this kind will include civilian casualties, and you and I will almost certainly disagree on the numbers.
02:16:07.000 I'm not claiming that the health ministry's numbers are perfect.
02:16:10.000 But there will be, almost certainly, the best case analysis is that one innocent Gazan has been killed for every one terrorist.
02:16:21.000 That's the best case scenario you can hear.
02:16:24.000 But that would be almost unparalleled in the laws of war, and it's not how the American or British militaries operate in terms of casualties to terrorist ratios.
02:16:33.000 But when we had the campaign against ISIS a decade ago, after ISIS's fighters had gone and massacred people at the Bataclan theater in Paris and so on, We used Turkish fighters, 0.83
02:16:48.000 brilliant, brave fighters from the Peshmerga militias, to work on the ground.
02:16:53.000 And the French and American and British air forces bombed like hell from the air.
02:16:59.000 And we made ISIS effectively touch wood ten years later, operationally incapable in capital cities in Europe.
02:17:09.000 Has ISIS as a whole gone away?
02:17:12.000 No. They still have pockets in...
02:17:15.000 Syria and in Iraq.
02:17:17.000 But we stopped them from being able to do what they most desired to do.
02:17:22.000 And the same is possible with Hamas. 0.97
02:17:25.000 Will they be replaced by some other group?
02:17:28.000 Again, then we get to one of the crucial decision points for the Palestinian people.
02:17:33.000 Is it inevitable that they constantly have to elect people who want to annihilate their neighbors?
02:17:40.000 Or will there ever be a generation that can find a way to live in peace with their neighbours?
02:17:45.000 I agree, most people don't like being bombed.
02:17:49.000 In fact, nobody does.
02:17:51.000 But if the people of the Palestinians in Gaza can find it within themselves to realize the thing they asked for in the elections is the thing that has destroyed the area they live in. 0.55
02:18:05.000 And like that brave young man two weeks ago in Gaza who rose up against Hamas and was identified by the people who remain in Hamas and was tortured and his body thrown onto his parents'doorstep in the Gaza.
02:18:19.000 And the parents started a or the family, the clan started a bit of a war against Hamas.
02:18:25.000 But that's how that's how Hamas treats Palestinian dissidents.
02:18:29.000 But if there were more people like that young man.
02:18:31.000 And of course, as we all know, the history of totalitarian and terrorist groups running societies is.
02:18:37.000 Yeah.
02:18:42.000 It's a horrible thing you have to contend with.
02:18:46.000 But if more people like that young man had come about in Gaza in the last 18 months or before, yes.
02:18:53.000 Yes, it would all be different.
02:18:54.000 And if they could avoid electing a terrorist group that invades their neighbours and fires rockets at their neighbours, yes, it could all be different.
02:19:03.000 It could all be different tomorrow.
02:19:04.000 And I'll tell you...
02:19:05.000 Sorry, again.
02:19:06.000 There is not a person living by the Gaza in the south of Israel who does not dream of the day that such a generation of Palestinians emerges. 1.00
02:19:15.000 Yeah. I think that I...
02:19:18.000 Okay, a few things here.
02:19:20.000 On Syria there, because it is true. 1.00
02:19:24.000 I mean, I think...
02:19:25.000 Okay, so John Brennan and Barack Obama, the head of the CIA, and of course the...
02:19:31.000 The former president of the United States of America had a policy of committing literal treason.
02:19:36.000 Before they ended up accusing Donald Trump of treason, which was all bullshit.
02:19:40.000 But they had a policy of committing literal treason by funding Al-Qaeda and ISIS in the Syrian civil war.
02:19:46.000 Poured billions of dollars and tons of weapons into that conflict.
02:19:50.000 Now it is true, by the way, you are correct, that there certainly were military actions taken against ISIS after they invaded Iraq, which was not supposed to be part of the plan.
02:20:01.000 There was also a lot of military actions taken by Vladimir Putin.
02:20:04.000 ...against ISIS after he came in on Assad's request, as you know.
02:20:09.000 In 2017, when Donald Trump came in, one of the best things Donald Trump ever did, he cut off the CIA program to fund the anti-Assad rebels.
02:20:18.000 And this was also a big part of what ended up taking the energy out of ISIS. 0.80
02:20:24.000 Also, I think there was a lot of good reporting that they turned enough people on the ground against them.
02:20:28.000 They were even just too radical and people ended up hating them.
02:20:32.000 It is true that they receded for quite a while, although the former emir of Al-Qaeda, al-Jilani, is now ruling Syria, which does not seem like a great deal or something that people in America should support.
02:20:44.000 The true enemy of the American people, Al-Qaeda, now being in charge of Syria. 0.73
02:20:50.000 I think that it's easy to talk about how if the Palestinians had done this different, then maybe things would have worked out different. 0.59
02:20:59.000 But I just think, again, When you look at things, when you say, which essentially I think is your point here, right?
02:21:05.000 Which, I mean, I tried to push you on this, but you're saying, look, we can degrade Hamas, but the cost of that is going to be slaughtering a whole bunch of people.
02:21:14.000 It's not slaughtering, it's war.
02:21:16.000 Okay, I think you're, okay, they're not being slaughtered, they're being killed, okay, whatever word you want to use.
02:21:22.000 They're being killed in a brutal war started by Hamas, yes.
02:21:25.000 Yes, it's babies.
02:21:27.000 And little kids screaming out for help under rubble and no help is coming.
02:21:32.000 They sit there under the rubble until they die.
02:21:34.000 That is the level of human suffering that's being inflicted.
02:21:37.000 And if you want to say, well, listen, that's a price that I'm willing to pay to try to degrade Hamas, even though you yourself recognize that we can't totally eliminate them, but we could maybe degrade them or maybe take them down a peg. 0.95
02:21:48.000 And the price for that is these babies being tortured to death, essentially, whatever you want to call it.
02:21:55.000 Okay. But, from the other side of that story, like, if there's, like, I got little kids, I don't know if you have kids, I know you have kids, Joe, if anybody ever was saying to me that, like, my kids were the acceptable price for this policy that we want to put into place, I'm saying,
02:22:10.000 I don't think there's any scenario, any scenario, Douglas, where there would be any time where you would accept Israeli kids dying like that as an acceptable price for a policy that you're going to be advocating for.
02:22:23.000 First of all, again, Go back to what is actually happening.
02:22:30.000 There is no desire or aim by the IAF or the IDF to go into Gaza and kill women and children.
02:22:39.000 Well, they're doing it, though.
02:22:40.000 Hang on, hang on.
02:22:41.000 There is no desire for that.
02:22:43.000 Does it happen collaterally?
02:22:45.000 Certainly. Certainly.
02:22:47.000 And that is one of the very ugly rules of war and things that happens in war.
02:22:51.000 And it's another of the reasons why it's almost like you shouldn't start a war and hide your rockets and your terrorists inside civilian buildings. 0.63
02:22:58.000 Yeah, but hang on.
02:22:59.000 You've made this point a lot of times, but OK.
02:23:01.000 Well, it clearly can't be made enough because there is no intention on the Israeli side.
02:23:09.000 Oh, come on. 0.87
02:23:12.000 Hang on.
02:23:12.000 Why do you think the Israelis would want to go and kill children in Gaza?
02:23:18.000 Listen, let me just...
02:23:19.000 How about I say it like this, okay?
02:23:21.000 And, by the way, when I say it like this, I'm not claiming that disputes between nations are the same as handling dispute domestically.
02:23:29.000 I'm just saying on the idea of intentionality or who wants to do this or whatever.
02:23:33.000 Look, if you, even if you had the right, let's say, somebody broke onto your property and killed some of your family members and you want to go kill this guy.
02:23:42.000 If he goes back to his...
02:23:44.000 ...apartment building, and you know that there's women and children in that apartment building, and so your move is to blow up the building, what you would be charged with is murder in the first degree.
02:23:55.000 Cold-blooded, premeditated, intentional murder.
02:23:58.000 And you could sit there and tell the judge, I didn't want to kill all those people.
02:24:02.000 Why would I want to kill all of those people?
02:24:05.000 I just had to kill that one guy.
02:24:06.000 But that's bullshit.
02:24:07.000 That's not what counts.
02:24:08.000 You did it intentionally.
02:24:10.000 You dropped a bomb knowing that there were women and children in that building. 1.00
02:24:14.000 You're taking an action knowing that these innocent people are going to die.
02:24:17.000 Then that is by definition intentional.
02:24:20.000 And, you know, you could sit here and talk about and it is true.
02:24:22.000 There have been documented cases of Hamas placing missiles in mosques and in schools and things like that.
02:24:28.000 But when you look at the aerial footage of Gaza, that does not describe every single strike that Israel is that Israel has launched.
02:24:36.000 There have been tons of bombs dropped where it's simply and we have very good reporting on this where they've literally just have.
02:24:51.000 And so they blow up the building.
02:24:52.000 That is intentionally murdering innocent people.
02:24:55.000 And if you're going to advocate for this war, I don't see how you can do it without saying that, like, at least bite the bullet that Madeleine Albright did when she was asked, we've played this clip on the show before, when she's point-blank asked about the sanctions on Iraq,
02:25:10.000 and are 500,000 children, is that price acceptable?
02:25:14.000 And she said, yes, we believe that price is acceptable.
02:25:17.000 You're saying, if you're going to support this war, you know this is...
02:25:20.000 Because, first of all, I don't agree with any of the characterization you make.
02:25:32.000 Any of it.
02:25:33.000 Okay. You say that the Israelis get some information, as if this is like, what, they're making it up?
02:25:42.000 Or you think the Israelis want to drop a bomb?
02:25:44.000 No, they act...
02:25:47.000 They act on information about where the terrorists are, just like they act on information of where the hostages are.
02:25:54.000 Secondly, when you talk about the destruction in the Gaza, something you probably haven't realized, but is one of the reasons why the destruction looks so bad and is so bad, is because when the IDF were clearing the areas that they'd asked the civilian population to leave,
02:26:13.000 And we're going house to house, and it isn't just stories here or stories there.
02:26:19.000 It's every second or third house in Gaza that has either munitions or tunnel entrances.
02:26:26.000 Every second or third house.
02:26:27.000 This is not the odd case.
02:26:30.000 One of the things that everybody who has been there knows is that you go into a mosque and you know there will be either rockets and or tunnel entrances.
02:26:39.000 You go into a hospital and you know.
02:26:42.000 That there will be grenades or tunnel entrances or dungeons or whatever, just on a lighter note, early in the conflict when the Shifa complex, which is used as a Hamas headquarters and has also been used as a hospital, but even in 2014 the BBC said this is where Hamas are operating from.
02:26:59.000 When that was shown by the Israelis to have massive weapons stores in the tunnels and cellars underneath it, the...
02:27:08.000 They had grenades, RPGs, Kalashnikovs, and the BBC's chief Middle East correspondent was asked live on air, why would these things be in a hospital?
02:27:17.000 And Jeremy Bowen said, well, it's perfectly possible, because there's a lot of guns in the Middle East, it's perfectly possible the security department of the hospital had the Kalashnikovs.
02:27:27.000 I said, yeah, and did the grenades belong to the cardiologists?
02:27:31.000 I mean, why?
02:27:32.000 Why is this so normal that these...
02:27:35.000 Every civilian mill building like this and every second or third house in Gaza is a weapons dump or a place that you enter the tunnels from. 0.98
02:27:43.000 But the reason why the devastation, which it is in the north in particular, but also in Rafah and elsewhere, is what it is, is because every time the IDF went into an area where they had told the civilians to leave, the Hamas terrorists that remained We're in civilian buildings and booby-trapped a very large number of the buildings. 0.79
02:28:11.000 So what they did as they proceeded through those areas of the Gaza to clear them was to set off munitions, which the American military and others use, which sets off secondary explosions in places that are booby-trapped.
02:28:23.000 And much of what you see in the photographs that you see and many other people have seen from Gaza is the result of that.
02:28:30.000 It is the result of the IDF trying to clear an area which has been very carefully and well booby trapped for years.
02:28:39.000 Let me make one other very quick point about the bigger picture that you see.
02:28:43.000 I think again it's really important to keep this in mind, what I said earlier about let's not think we...
02:28:56.000 Are the primary actors everywhere?
02:28:58.000 Or even that important?
02:29:01.000 I remember the debate over the Syrian intervention issue.
02:29:05.000 And at the time, despite being in many cases an interventionist, I said on that occasion, we didn't know what we were doing.
02:29:12.000 Clearly didn't know who we were going to back.
02:29:14.000 If you remember, John McCain went to Syria to speak to some rebels and one of them immediately turned out to be a kind of head-hacking jihadist.
02:29:21.000 That wasn't great.
02:29:22.000 And I said, I don't have any confidence that we know who to back.
02:29:25.000 And despite many Syrian friends of mine imploring me otherwise, I say I don't think it's something we can get involved in. 1.00
02:29:32.000 However, if you look at the last 10 years or more, what is it now, 13 years of conflict in Syria, the US and the Western powers are not remotely significant actors in that conflict.
02:29:44.000 The significant actors in that conflict were, always have been, the Russians, the Iranians.
02:29:54.000 One of the things that blows my mind in the analysis of the region is the fact that the prime mover in the region, the revolutionary Islamic government in Iran that has been oppressing the Iranian people since 1979 and has been holding a great civilization in captivity,
02:30:13.000 that the Iranian revolutionary government in Tehran has literally been colonizing the region.
02:30:19.000 I have this rule about, I took it from Vasily Grossman, the great Soviet Jewish writer, who had this great line about, tell me what you accuse the Jews of and I'll tell you what you're guilty of. 0.98
02:30:29.000 This absolutely runs as well with the accusations against the Jewish state in the region.
02:30:34.000 The Iranian revolutionary government is constantly accusing the Israelis of colonialism, of expansionism.
02:30:40.000 It is the Iranian revolutionary government that has been colonizing Iraq, colonizing Yemen.
02:30:45.000 colonizing and destroying Lebanon and colonizing Syria and the amazing thing when you look at the disaster that has happened in Syria in the last 13 years and I don't see it getting especially better under the current jihadist the disaster is not of our making primarily We are bit players. 0.89
02:31:07.000 America is a bit player. 0.80
02:31:08.000 In Iraq?
02:31:09.000 In Syria.
02:31:09.000 We are a bit player.
02:31:10.000 Yeah, but you mentioned Iraq in there, too.
02:31:12.000 I know.
02:31:12.000 Well, the great idiocy of that was that Iraq notices our failings, our lack of staying power, our desire to get out as soon as possible and much more, which is all understandable.
02:31:25.000 No. Hang on, hang on, hang on.
02:31:27.000 And they moved in.
02:31:28.000 And they moved in.
02:31:29.000 Of course.
02:31:30.000 But I was talking about Syria.
02:31:32.000 In the Syrian theater, The main actors are not us.
02:31:38.000 And one of the things I'm still interested in about this mindset that you have is why does it always have to be us?
02:31:45.000 It's other people who have actions in the world.
02:31:49.000 The Russians, the revolutionary government in Iran, they are so busy.
02:31:54.000 See, I think this is all about framing here, because I don't think I've ever once made this claim.
02:31:59.000 You've made this point several times so far, but I've never once made the claim that everything is always us.
02:32:04.000 I think you're the one who's downplaying the influence and impact that we have.
02:32:07.000 We are, after all, when I'm saying we, I'm saying the United States of America's federal government, is the largest, most powerful organization in the history of the world.
02:32:14.000 It is the world empire.
02:32:15.000 And to sit there and say Iran colonized Iraq, no, George W. Bush invaded the country on a bunch of lies, a war that you supported.
02:32:26.000 He went in there and overthrew Saddam Hussein and installed democracy in the Shiite majority country.
02:32:32.000 Of course, he handed the thing over to Iran, but to say that that had no impact on Syria or that the U.S. military.
02:32:39.000 I'm not claiming the entire thing is America.
02:32:46.000 Bashar al-Assad was an actor.
02:32:47.000 There were other forces there aside from the U.S. meddling there.
02:32:52.000 But at the same time, you've got the most powerful government in the history of the world, who, as we all know, put Syria on its seven countries in five years list of who we're going to go overthrow. 0.52
02:33:01.000 And it's had a profound impact on the region.
02:33:04.000 Of course it did.
02:33:05.000 It was a huge contributing factor to that civil war to begin with.
02:33:09.000 I think America is obviously a major actor, certainly could be, is meant to be the major actor on the world stage.
02:33:14.000 I think that the history of the region and many other regions around the world is that America does not have either the staying power, the capability, the intelligence, the kind of people that you would produce in order to have the kind of impact that you actually think it has.
02:33:27.000 American weakness in the Middle East has been, I mean, I say this as somebody obviously from Britain, but when Britain was a dominant world power, she produced the type of person who...
02:33:42.000 ...was keen to go and be a governor of, you know, a stan somewhere and learn the local dialects and, you know, run the civil service.
02:33:50.000 You guys were better at empire than we are.
02:33:52.000 The point is they produced that sort of person because they wanted to stay.
02:33:57.000 America has never produced that sort of person, and it certainly hasn't in the Middle East in particular.
02:34:02.000 it acts militarily on occasions and in my view sometimes well sometimes poorly but the reason why america was so badly outplayed by the mullers in iraq was simply that as you say after the war
02:34:26.000 And so, yes, if we create a vacuum like that, or somebody else creates a vacuum, and after all, we did not cause the beginning of this, we, the West, I'm saying on this occasion, did not cause the beginning of the Arab Spring, as it was optimistically called at the beginning,
02:34:42.000 or the beginning of the revolutionary uprising in Syria in 2011.
02:34:47.000 These things were ground up and the actors in the region moved in much more deftly and effectively than we did.
02:34:56.000 It's the same with Lebanon. 0.98
02:34:58.000 It's the same with Lebanon. 0.98
02:34:59.000 America doesn't even have eyes over Lebanon.
02:35:01.000 Iran has an army that has a checkpoint at Beirut airport that will check you on behalf of Hezbollah when you come in there.
02:35:11.000 You can't tell me that America is...
02:35:21.000 There are so many people who outwit America in the Middle East all the time. 1.00
02:35:25.000 Yeah, but you can't tell me that there hasn't been an impact from the $8 trillion that we've spent there and the multiple regime changes all around the Middle East that were done by America.
02:35:34.000 These weren't just going to happen on their own.
02:35:37.000 Are you saying that didn't have an impact?
02:35:38.000 Iraq was certainly done by America, of course. 0.97
02:35:40.000 Okay, so Iraq was certainly done by America.
02:35:42.000 Libya? NATO.
02:35:44.000 Right, but NATO is the European wing of the American empire.
02:35:49.000 I mean, let's get real.
02:35:50.000 That's an American decision. 0.63
02:35:52.000 Right, I'm saying it's not because some random European country decided.
02:35:56.000 Just because, I mean, the Libyan intervention I was pretty iffy about at the time.
02:36:04.000 that was done not to create an empire or anything like that.
02:36:09.000 It was done for one very clear reason.
02:36:11.000 And I remember the debates in the European capitals and in Washington DC at the time.
02:36:16.000 There was a belief that after the uprising against Gaddafi began, that there would be a mass slaughter genocide carried out by Gaddafi.
02:36:28.000 So we're talking in 2011?
02:36:31.000 And it was 2011, yeah.
02:36:33.000 There was a belief.
02:36:34.000 Everybody believed it.
02:36:35.000 He had started his son, if you remember, Saif Gaddafi, formerly of the London School of Economics, showing that we can produce the best.
02:36:43.000 Saif Gaddafi stood up and said, we will fight to the last bullet and so on.
02:36:48.000 And everybody believed them.
02:36:50.000 And the desire to intervene was caused in an attempt to not to People do not want the resources of Libya. 0.52
02:36:58.000 Nobody wanted Libya to fall apart or anything like that.
02:37:00.000 They did it because there was a genuine belief in what was called at the time, which has gone out of fashion, but right to protect.
02:37:07.000 And that was why they went in.
02:37:10.000 So it's just important to keep that sort of nuance around.
02:37:13.000 Well, I don't think it's correct.
02:37:15.000 I mean, you always kind of like ascribe the best of motives to Israel and the West and nothing but the worst of motives to all of their enemies. 0.72
02:37:22.000 So just riddle me this then.
02:37:24.000 If we just went in because there was this uprising in 2011 and because we were worried that Gaddafi was about to go genocidal, something that your own, the UK Parliament, did an investigation into and found out was just completely wrong.
02:37:37.000 But why is it then that I got four-star general Wesley Clark?
02:37:42.000 Supreme commander of the NATO forces.
02:37:46.000 Why is it that he told me that he saw the plans in 2001 to overthrow Gaddafi, and that this was part of a strategy to overthrow seven governments in five years, and all of them except one have been done at this point?
02:38:00.000 So you're telling me it's a complete coincidence that he saw that the neoconservatives had this plan to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, and then ten years later we happen to do it when we have the opportunity?
02:38:09.000 The two aren't related at all?
02:38:11.000 First of all, it's nice to hear the N-word again. 1.00
02:38:15.000 The N-word?
02:38:16.000 Did I say that?
02:38:17.000 Oh, that one.
02:38:19.000 I was thinking of a different one.
02:38:20.000 First of all, I would assume, I would hope that there's American military planning for absolutely everything.
02:38:28.000 I would hope that there is a scenario for absolutely everything somewhere in the American...
02:38:35.000 Yeah, but he didn't say we're drawing up war games.
02:38:38.000 He said this is the plan that we're going to impose.
02:38:40.000 I would assume that, I would hope that, any major power like America would have plans in place for almost everything that is likely.
02:38:50.000 America should have started planning for some kind of kinetic force in Libya from the 1980s, of course.
02:39:03.000 Of course there'd be plans.
02:39:03.000 Yeah, but again, this is not what Wesley Clark's like.
02:39:07.000 He wasn't saying, like, we've drawn up war games.
02:39:10.000 We've drawn up war games with everybody.
02:39:12.000 We have war games with China, war games with Russia. 0.90
02:39:14.000 We've mapped out how a kinetic war would work, even with countries that have nuclear arsenals, like, just in case we have to fight a traditional war and nukes aren't being used.
02:39:22.000 That's not what he's talking about.
02:39:23.000 He said that not only are...
02:39:25.000 He was told, we're in Afghanistan now.
02:39:28.000 This is late 2001.
02:39:29.000 He goes, next we're going to Iraq.
02:39:32.000 After that, we're going to Libya.
02:39:33.000 After that, we're going to Syria, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off with Iran.
02:39:40.000 He laid out the path of what we're about to do, and then we did it.
02:39:45.000 In the next administration, you don't think there was any connection between those two?
02:39:49.000 What, we did Somalia and Sudan?
02:39:51.000 No, I'm sorry.
02:39:52.000 If you look at the list of seven countries, it was Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya.
02:40:01.000 I believe Somalia, Sudan, and Iran, I believe.
02:40:06.000 Why would America want to do any of those things? 0.98
02:40:09.000 Who wants to do it?
02:40:10.000 Well, what he said is that essentially these plans...
02:40:13.000 He said later in an interview with Piers Morgan that he had seen the plans at first in 1991, that they came from Paul Wolfowitz, that basically then they got...
02:40:21.000 What? What's funny about what the four-star general said?
02:40:25.000 It's okay.
02:40:25.000 Go on, continue.
02:40:26.000 No, I'm just curious.
02:40:27.000 What's laughable about this?
02:40:31.000 Paul Wolfowitz is a great figure for almost any deep conspiracy in this country because he was a deputy secretary of defense at the highest in his life.
02:40:44.000 He is forever being ascribed almost supernatural power.
02:40:52.000 The highest position he ever got to was as Donald Rumsfeld's deputy.
02:41:00.000 It's a very strange thing, always, when Wolfrids' name comes up, because he was a relatively low-level person to whom almost everything can be ascribed.
02:41:11.000 Well, I didn't ascribe...
02:41:12.000 Again, this is such a straw man.
02:41:13.000 I didn't ascribe everything to him.
02:41:15.000 I'm literally telling you what the...
02:41:16.000 No, I'm telling you what the four-star general said about him, and I wouldn't say Deputy Secretary of Defense is like a nothing position.
02:41:24.000 It's a pretty consequential position.
02:41:26.000 Not as important as Rumsfeld or Cheney, but yeah.
02:41:29.000 Yeah, agreed.
02:41:30.000 But who said it was?
02:41:31.000 No, fire on.
02:41:32.000 I just feel like you're batting down straw men.
02:41:34.000 I never said that he is the creator of all conspiracies or anything.
02:41:36.000 I'm literally saying that the four-star general said that he first saw the plans from him, that he had brought this to the National Security Advisor, and it had basically been like, eh, we'll look at this after the election, and that then it was resurrected later by Richard Perle, and that these guys were producing...
02:41:52.000 Again, not me saying this.
02:41:53.000 This is four-star General Wesley Clark.
02:41:55.000 He said, in a study paid for by the Israelis, and yeah, you can laugh at this all you want to, Douglas, but you can go read the clean break memo for yourself. 0.78
02:42:03.000 This was the neoconservative strategy, along with their counterpart, the Likud's in Israel, that they wanted to remake the region in a way, and I'm sure by their own justification, they believed that democracy would sweep the region and it would be better off for them.
02:42:17.000 nonetheless, they pursued this path that has ended in nothing but disaster.
02:42:21.000 And I don't think that to say that in 2011, it was like a purely humanitarian mission to go overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, I do not think is right.
02:42:29.000 Well, first of all, before I get to the stuff,
02:42:30.000 Why would they want the current situation in Libya?
02:42:35.000 Huh? Why would they want the current situation in Libya?
02:42:39.000 Well, because they wanted Gaddafi out.
02:42:42.000 Why? Well, okay, if you read the Clean Break memo, what their argument essentially is, is that you wanted to have regime change against the hostile surrounding Muslim countries.
02:42:52.000 But... Was Gaddafi not hostile to Israel?
02:42:56.000 To Israel? 0.59
02:42:57.000 Yeah, sure.
02:42:57.000 But he was...
02:42:58.000 I mean, the Europeans and everybody else in NATO found that Gaddafi was a really relatively easy person to get on with, latterly.
02:43:06.000 Right? Yeah, no, I think it was an insane policy.
02:43:08.000 No, no, but you'll notice that...
02:43:11.000 After he hands over the nuclear program and thus makes himself very vulnerable, unfortunately, for the future of world peace, Libya has been unutterably disastrous for Europe. 0.97
02:43:24.000 Hang on, hang on.
02:43:25.000 Unutterably disastrous for Europe.
02:43:27.000 I agree with you.
02:43:27.000 And Somalia and Sudan, why does America or Israel want to...
02:43:33.000 Did I do regime change in Somalia?
02:43:35.000 Can I just ask you a clarifying question on this?
02:43:38.000 When you say that was a disaster for the prospects of world peace, you mean overthrowing Gaddafi was a disaster?
02:43:43.000 I say that him being...
02:43:45.000 Sorry, I should have clarified.
02:43:46.000 My thing is...
02:43:48.000 Him being overthrown after he's given over the nuclear weapons is a disaster because it leaves on the table this thing that you have to hold on to nuclear weapons and if you don't hold on to nuclear weapons you could be dead.
02:43:58.000 Do you think maybe the Israelis should stop using the term the Libyan model to push for negotiations with Iran?
02:44:04.000 No, I don't think anyone should use...
02:44:07.000 Lib what happened to Gaddafi as being a good precursor.
02:44:10.000 Well, we certainly have a lot of agreement there.
02:44:12.000 It was an absolute disaster, particularly to do it, to let a guy get sodomized to death after he denuclearized is not a good precedent to set.
02:44:22.000 I agree, and that's one of the reasons why...
02:44:23.000 One of the reasons why Iran wants a nuke so bad.
02:44:28.000 I'm not sure it's just being sodomized to death, as you put it, but yeah, they want a nuke because they...
02:44:35.000 I mean, if you like what the Iranian revolutionary government's done since 1979, you'd love what they'll do with the world when they've got a nuke. 0.99
02:44:41.000 But anyway, put that aside for a second.
02:44:43.000 I mean, I just...
02:44:45.000 I'm sorry, we've slightly come back to where we started, but when you start talking about Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, I just...
02:44:54.000 It's all awfully...
02:44:56.000 noxious-smelling.
02:45:01.000 Richard Perle was...
02:45:04.000 A member of the Defense Policy Board, which had an advisory capacity toward the Pentagon in the early 2000s, but it was by no means a policy board that dictated Pentagon policy.
02:45:19.000 Okay. In the last 30 years of American foreign policy, there have been many major actors.
02:45:29.000 Paul Wolfowitz is a relatively major one.
02:45:33.000 But we come slightly back full circle.
02:45:36.000 In my view, I'm not saying you're guilty of this, certainly not knowingly.
02:45:40.000 In my view, when people start talking about Paul Wolfowitz, I always remember that line of Mark Stein's many years ago.
02:45:46.000 And he said, you can't help thinking that one of the reasons why people find Wolfowitz so appealing to talk about is that his name starts with a nasty animal and ends Jewish. 0.75
02:45:57.000 That is a funny thing to say.
02:45:58.000 People love St. Wolf of It.
02:46:00.000 It's such a great name.
02:46:05.000 He's perfect for it.
02:46:06.000 And he looks perfect for it.
02:46:08.000 You'll say, oh, the crafty Paul Wolf of It.
02:46:11.000 His crazy eyebrows.
02:46:12.000 So you're a bigot.
02:46:13.000 You're a Jew hater if you mention the neocons.
02:46:15.000 No, no, no.
02:46:15.000 Just let me continue with the thought.
02:46:17.000 So I remember those days and his boss, Donald Rumsfeld, Was like the ruler of the world at that time.
02:46:30.000 He had such charisma, such genius was attributed to him for the initial invasion of Iraq.
02:46:41.000 People, you can't imagine the admiration that existed in the defense establishments around the world for Rumsfeld.
02:46:50.000 Dick Cheney was so powerful that...
02:46:55.000 People of right and left, particularly on the left, spent all those years in the W. Bush administration saying W. wasn't the real president.
02:47:04.000 He was being run by Dick Cheney because he was the brilliant, etc., etc.
02:47:08.000 You're certainly listening to him at the beginning.
02:47:10.000 Okay, but I'm just saying it goes back to this thing of when certain ideas catch hold and what's really going on in them.
02:47:19.000 To attribute American foreign policy in the last 40 years to Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Pearl is, knowingly or otherwise, to encourage a conspiracy that has very obvious legs.
02:47:34.000 And I just urge you not to do it.
02:47:36.000 Okay. Let me respond to this a little bit.
02:47:38.000 First of all, I did not...
02:47:41.000 It is not at all saying that these guys, therefore, just control everything.
02:47:47.000 I'm just pointing out what a four-star general claimed, where plans originated, and that they ended up being implemented.
02:47:54.000 That doesn't mean that they were the absolute ruler or arbiter of what was going to happen.
02:48:01.000 I never said you couldn't.
02:48:06.000 I just laughed.
02:48:09.000 But the implication is that I'm unwittingly giving fertile ground to some, like, Jew-hating conspiracy if I bring up a guy who's got a Jewish last name who was a consequential person in our government.
02:48:21.000 This is, like, identical to the arguments of the woke left.
02:48:24.000 That would just be like, oh, if you even say something, you know, if you bring up the crime rate in Chicago, you're basically a bigot because other people could take this and run with it.
02:48:34.000 Come on.
02:48:34.000 No, you come on.
02:48:35.000 What's the argument?
02:48:36.000 If you said to me...
02:48:37.000 I said a four-star general said something, and there's no—what's the response?
02:48:40.000 If you said to me, or somebody said,
02:48:44.000 I think I'd be right in saying there was something a bit...off about the character of the person doing that because it seemed like they were playing to some kind of lazy old trope.
02:49:15.000 And I think similarly that if you give the implication that a cabal of people, particularly, and you should be really careful about this because of the people who will come up underneath you, if you give the implication that these cabals exist and you decide to...
02:49:35.000 To elevate the Jews, or people with Jewish names in it, and then play down the non-Jews. 0.98
02:49:42.000 I can tell you, you will be opening up a world of madness.
02:49:47.000 Am I really playing down the non-Jews? 1.00
02:49:50.000 I mean, go look at the stuff that I've said about Obama, about George W. Bush.
02:49:54.000 Middle East policy is Dick Perlin.
02:49:57.000 Paul Wolfowitz.
02:49:57.000 And I said, how about if not?
02:49:58.000 No, no, no, no.
02:49:59.000 I mean, this is why I'm saying this is a woke leftist tactic.
02:50:01.000 I literally just mentioned that a four-star general said this.
02:50:06.000 I'm quoting him.
02:50:07.000 And now you're telling me that this is the same thing as promoting...
02:50:10.000 Don't pretend to me that when you quote somebody, it's a totally arbitrary thing that you just pluck out of the air.
02:50:15.000 You decided to pluck that out.
02:50:16.000 I'm not arguing that it's arbitrary.
02:50:18.000 I'm saying I'm using the quote for a reason.
02:50:20.000 I was connecting it to an argument.
02:50:22.000 And I'm saying to you...
02:50:25.000 I'm giving fertile ground to Jew haters to mention that.
02:50:28.000 I think that when you decide to elevate what is a conspiracy of people who are overthrowing the governments of various countries, some of which haven't been overthrown and others of which have, but by the way, were not overthrown by American dominance,
02:50:45.000 certainly not in Syria.
02:50:47.000 And then you say that the people who are doing it are these people with Jewish names.
02:50:53.000 I think you should be...
02:50:56.000 More judicious than that, because you probably know what bubbles up underneath you online by now.
02:51:02.000 Yeah, look, I mean, there's no question that there are, you know, no matter what, and by the way, you know, it's funny just hearing you say this to me.
02:51:10.000 I mean, look, and by the way, I completely agree with you.
02:51:12.000 I think you've been one of the best champions on opposing Europe's insane immigration policy.
02:51:18.000 I also think the United States of America's had an insane immigration policy.
02:51:21.000 I'm happy to see that.
02:51:22.000 Point of agreement.
02:51:22.000 That seems to be being reversed.
02:51:25.000 But imagine you made a point about immigration, and I were to say to you, be careful what's bubbling up online, because now you're getting...
02:51:32.000 Look, the fact is, if you are taking a position that opposes, say, Muslim immigration into the UK...
02:51:40.000 Then yes, it is quite possible that a lot of people who really just hate Muslims are going to end up liking what you had to say or following you.
02:51:47.000 But that doesn't mean you're responsible to it.
02:51:49.000 And if I were to say that to you, you would be the first to very eloquently point out that that is a complete non-argument.
02:51:55.000 The question is, is this policy good or is it bad?
02:51:58.000 And whether there's not – and if you want to say to me, hey, I should, like, disclaim when I make this point that, like, hey, I'm Jewish.
02:52:06.000 I love Jewish people.
02:52:08.000 The fact that there were some Jewish people involved in our foreign policy establishment does not mean that it's the Jews.
02:52:14.000 Then fine.
02:52:15.000 Uh, yeah,
02:52:34.000 sure. I think kind of what Israel's doing in this war and the U.S. funding and arming it have been something that is really a great facilitator for that stuff to bubble up. 0.85
02:52:43.000 We could go back to that, but I disagree.
02:52:45.000 I think that Israel has every right to go in and destroy the terrorist group that carried out the massacres.
02:52:49.000 Yes, again, but no one's arguing that they have the right to destroy the terrorists.
02:52:53.000 The question is they have the right to kill innocent people.
02:52:55.000 Let's not go around again, which I think we've done.
02:52:57.000 We're just not answering what I'm saying.
02:52:58.000 I think I've already answered that, but just to go back to the meat of that, I think you don't realize that actually People like me who have a voice and write and much more do think about that all the time.
02:53:14.000 It's a profound concern and responsibility.
02:53:19.000 I agree with that.
02:53:20.000 Right, right.
02:53:21.000 And don't think I don't worry all the time and make sure I intervene.
02:53:28.000 ...into the debate very carefully at times when I think some people have picked up something that I've been saying and are going to go wrong with it.
02:53:37.000 That scares the hell out of me.
02:53:40.000 And I do it regularly.
02:53:42.000 And I do it because I have to.
02:53:45.000 Yeah, listen.
02:53:45.000 Okay, so that's a point of agreement too.
02:53:47.000 But you don't stop believing in that policy for it and you won't stop bringing that up.
02:53:50.000 No, but you do say...
02:53:51.000 But you do say on occasion, I mean, most obvious one on that, if there is something where something really fetid happens, something really terrible, and there's a bunch of people that decide to riot or commit violence or something like that,
02:54:12.000 I know that I have to, as a duty, say absolutely this is to be condemned.
02:54:21.000 If it is people trying to pretend that all Muslims this or all that, absolutely I intervene to stop that.
02:54:29.000 But I think that this is one of the responsibilities that comes with putting out ideas in the public square.
02:54:37.000 And I think that none of us are blame-free, but all of us have some kind of responsibility to know that what we...
02:54:49.000 put out there is very carefully watched, very carefully followed, and that we have to tread well.
02:54:59.000 Well, okay, so I agree with that, but when you say you intervene, what exactly do you mean by that?
02:55:04.000 You mean you voice opposition to it.
02:55:06.000 You say, hey, that's not what I'm saying.
02:55:07.000 I'm saying that we have to have the same immigration policy that's good for our country.
02:55:11.000 Or make sure I say which politician I think can deal with it decently and which ones will not.
02:55:17.000 I mean, I've made plenty of enemies in the European right by saying who I think is bad and who will not do this well.
02:55:24.000 I just put it out there.
02:55:26.000 I literally say it as a point of caution.
02:55:31.000 Yeah, well, I mean, I don't disagree with that, and I've certainly done the same thing, and said that, like, I don't know, like, I don't like the, I don't like Jew hatred on Twitter, and I don't like people jumping to wild conspiracies that they don't have enough,
02:55:47.000 nearly enough evidence to, you know, actually back up, which I've seen quite a bit of.
02:55:52.000 That being said, I also think there's a whole lot of real conspiracies, and I'm not going to stop talking about those just because some people on Twitter might take it in a bad direction.
02:56:01.000 As the great Michael Malice said, and as you quoted, one red pill, not the whole bottle.
02:56:07.000 I've been trying to limit people to one red pill.
02:56:09.000 One red pill a year is all you need.
02:56:10.000 A lot of people, they take one of those things and they just get hungry.
02:56:14.000 Sort of like boosters.
02:56:15.000 Like boosters.
02:56:16.000 Well, it ends up...
02:56:16.000 Yeah, exactly.
02:56:18.000 Take none of those.
02:56:20.000 No, you're supposed to take one red pill.
02:56:21.000 By the way, what's the one in front of you?
02:56:24.000 Which one?
02:56:25.000 That one there.
02:56:25.000 This? That one, yeah.
02:56:26.000 It's nicotine.
02:56:27.000 Oh, that's the chewing one.
02:56:29.000 It's like a pouch.
02:56:31.000 Chris Williamson showed me yesterday this one that you...
02:56:34.000 He said weightlifters are using in Austin.
02:56:38.000 It's like a powder or something.
02:56:40.000 Weight lifters?
02:56:41.000 A nicotine powder?
02:56:43.000 No, it's not nicotine.
02:56:44.000 It's something like it.
02:56:45.000 Creatine? No, it's to sniff.
02:56:49.000 Oh, no, no, no.
02:56:51.000 That's smelling salts.
02:56:52.000 Smelling salts.
02:56:53.000 That's right.
02:56:53.000 Smelling salts.
02:56:54.000 For silly.
02:56:55.000 We do that to be silly.
02:56:56.000 I hadn't heard of that since, like, 19th century women who thought they had the vapors, and he said these are smelling soft.
02:57:01.000 Well, they used to use it for boxers when they got knocked out to wake them up.
02:57:05.000 That was it?
02:57:05.000 Yeah. Does it work?
02:57:07.000 Well, it works for weightlifters.
02:57:09.000 You sniff it before you lift incredible amounts of weight, allegedly.
02:57:14.000 Powerlifters use them.
02:57:15.000 That's literally why they sell it.
02:57:17.000 It just jolts your entire central nervous system because it's so horrific.
02:57:22.000 Want a smell?
02:57:22.000 No! This is, by the way, a little insight into the comedy community.
02:57:28.000 The deal is that Joe will help advance the careers of comedians unlike anybody since Johnny Carson, but then the cost is you do have to sniff smelling salts.
02:57:37.000 We all have to do that.
02:57:38.000 It's a...
02:57:39.000 It's about the embargo of sorts, but it is what it is.
02:57:43.000 Do you have a hard out, Douglas?
02:57:45.000 Kind of.
02:57:46.000 I've got to get to D.C. Okay.
02:57:48.000 One of my least favorite...
02:57:52.000 Another area of agreement.
02:57:53.000 There we go.
02:57:55.000 Thank you.
02:57:56.000 Thank you for doing this.
02:57:57.000 Appreciate it.
02:57:57.000 It was very, very good.
02:57:59.000 I enjoyed it very much, and thank you, Dave.
02:58:01.000 I do.
02:58:01.000 Yeah, of course, thank you to you, John.
02:58:03.000 Thank you, Douglas, very much.
02:58:04.000 I do appreciate that.
02:58:05.000 While we do fundamentally disagree on a lot of this stuff, I do admire that you will have these conversations.
02:58:10.000 I'll show everyone the book here.
02:58:11.000 Oh, Jesus Christ.
02:58:13.000 Avoided on myself, luckily.
02:58:16.000 On democracies and death cults, Israel and the future of civilization, Douglas Murray.
02:58:20.000 Did you do the audiobook?
02:58:22.000 I did do the audiobook.
02:58:23.000 You can hear these mellifluous tones.
02:58:25.000 Yes, love it.
02:58:26.000 It would be a tragedy if anybody else did it.
02:58:29.000 I trust you.
02:58:30.000 Yes. All right.
02:58:31.000 Beautiful. All right.
02:58:32.000 Goodbye, everybody.