TRIGGERnometry - Dave Smith vs. TRIGGERnometry 2

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00:00:30.000 Dude, that is a disgusting piece of shit, a human being.

00:00:35.880 Donald Trump launched a war of choice.

00:00:38.320 Everyone knows it's a lie.

00:00:39.560 No one believes it's true.

00:00:40.780 It's driven costs up.

00:00:41.920 It's hurt the economy.

00:00:43.080 It's hurt our chances to win the midterms.

00:00:46.240 Everybody's been waiting for it.

00:00:47.620 Let's talk about Churchill.

00:00:49.380 I have the utmost respect for functioning alcoholics.

00:00:52.960 Okay, so what is it you want to argue about?

00:00:54.660 He single-handedly kept Britain in the war

00:00:57.980 long enough to win the war against the greatest evil of the 20th century.

00:01:01.840 The reason you have to undermine the World War II narrative,

00:01:05.060 it's the one counterexample to the overall worldview that you have,

00:01:09.500 which is war is always bad, right?

00:01:11.040 No, I don't think... My worldview isn't that war is always bad.

00:01:14.000 The front is obviously where you want to be in the human centipede.

00:01:16.640 Well, I'm glad we've worked that one out.

00:01:19.020 You're not going to give me any pushback on that?

00:01:20.540 No, no.

00:01:20.700 You're just going to let me come on your show and dominate the human centipede portion.

00:01:24.180 I feel like it's an era of expertise of yours that I'm not qualified to challenge.

00:01:27.980 this episode is sponsored by our friends at hillsdale college right after this episode go

00:01:34.880 check out the incredible online courses which are absolutely free at hillsdale.edu slash trigger

00:01:41.600 dave smith welcome back to trigonometry dude thank you guys so much for having me oh it's

00:01:46.480 great to have you man listen uh we thought the last conversation we had from you know

00:01:50.920 completely different perspectives was really special actually and uh that's you know sure

00:01:56.440 will take some credit but i thought it was credit to your approach well i appreciate that um i

00:02:01.620 literally was just saying to you guys i feel the same way uh it was one of that that show that we

00:02:06.500 did last year like stood out to me as one of my favorites of the year uh and just because we we

00:02:10.920 did disagree but it was really good faith i thought and i thought there was a little bit of a thing

00:02:14.740 going into it where like none of us were exactly sure like we kind of thought it would go this way

00:02:19.080 like we weren't exactly sure yeah um and i don't know it's really i really do value it you know

00:02:24.440 Obviously, when we make these things, we put them out.

00:02:26.460 It's kind of not up to us what that was anymore.

00:02:29.300 Everyone's got an opinion on it, and that's fine.

00:02:32.140 But I think to all three of us, we were like,

00:02:34.040 yo, that was cool.

00:02:34.660 That was cool that we were able to do it in the way we did.

00:02:36.560 I saw, you know, it's so funny after it, man,

00:02:39.100 because you have the reaction that kind of we all had,

00:02:42.040 and then you see the way other people take it.

00:02:43.800 First, I saw people, you know, you never try to,

00:02:46.480 obviously, you guys might do a show

00:02:47.860 where there's a million views on it,

00:02:49.720 and there's 5,000 comments.

00:02:51.600 The comments don't reflect the majority

00:02:53.240 of what the people who watched it think necessarily they reflect kind of the loudest but i saw people

00:02:57.320 being like how could you guys be friendly with dave you know and then i saw i saw my supporters

00:03:01.640 being like dave destroyed those guys and your people being like they destroyed dave and you're

00:03:05.640 like guys just to be clear none of the three of us think any of this happened like literally no one

00:03:11.400 none of the three of us think anyone got destroyed nobody really thinks that like it was um and and

00:03:16.760 also i don't know i guess it's just it was kind of crazy to me to see people be angry at you

00:03:23.240 for just being cordial with me which at least from what i know your show has kind of been your

00:03:29.580 calling card the entire time like that's what you do that is what we do but a lot of people

00:03:35.100 most people i would say just want their opinion reflected back at them and that would be true of

00:03:41.560 your audience as it was it's just everyone but actually the thing that we always try and do is

00:03:46.580 have people on from the political spectrum but the reason it was so rewarding for us speaking with

00:03:50.380 you back then by the way we're going to get to our disagreements of course i hope so but the reason

00:03:56.140 it was so rewarding is that increasingly now when we talk to people from positions that they don't

00:04:03.980 agree with us this is particularly true of the progressive left i have to say because it's

00:04:07.440 factually accurate is they don't even know what a conversation is anymore it's like you're having

00:04:12.620 a discussion and all they want to do is interrupt and derail and okay in a 10 minute pierce morgan

00:04:19.900 debate this is the only way to do it and i get it but once you're sitting down with somebody for two

00:04:24.060 hours which is what we often do it just like it's like like why why are we doing this like what what

00:04:29.740 is the point yeah i think the um the thing that i noticed and i've seen this in several of your

00:04:34.620 interviews with with more left-leaning people which really i gotta say i only see this with

00:04:38.620 the progressive left and and i will say at some times maybe with elements of like the war hawks

00:04:43.260 like the worst of the war hawks but where they they do this thing it's very hard it's very

00:04:47.260 frustrating because you can't really prove it but you're like you're actively intentionally not

00:04:53.340 hearing the point that i'm making like you're working hard it's not even like you're you're

00:04:57.640 not you're working to not hear the point that i'm making and you know you're doing that and like

00:05:02.200 it's just a very frustrating thing so yes i do i also i think whatever it is i think the three of

00:05:08.400 us have this is a similarity despite very different views maybe this is more of a personality trait

00:05:12.980 but it's almost a thing where like i want i don't want to just like win the exchange i want to

00:05:18.640 actually be correct you know and like the way to be correct right is for me to have a good counter

00:05:24.480 to what your argument is so like i want to hear the best version of your argument and it's gonna

00:05:29.340 bother me if i don't have a good counter to that and by the way you might change your mind if you

00:05:34.080 hear a better argument i mean for example uh if we move on to like issues and stuff i mean the

00:05:39.920 one run it hasn't gone well and we've been saying that from basically day one which is very counter

00:05:45.660 to what people expected us to be saying but we talk to people and we ask them questions and we

00:05:51.520 went i actually don't have a better answer than the one that robert papes just sat there and gave

00:05:56.220 right right and we interrogated him for like two hours trying to like find the chink in the armor

00:06:01.520 i couldn't find one yeah i mean i've i'm almost like my the only chink in robert papes armor that

00:06:07.080 I can kind of find is just

00:06:08.980 any time an academic is

00:06:10.900 ever going, I have the model

00:06:12.780 and it's gonna work this way,

00:06:15.060 I immediately go like, hey, don't speak with

00:06:17.020 certainty on that. There's a lot of different

00:06:18.960 factors here that none of us are ever going to be

00:06:21.000 able to create a model where we account for every

00:06:23.120 single factor. That being said,

00:06:25.820 the way he's

00:06:26.820 mapped out how an escalation trap

00:06:29.160 actually works, I mean, it's been enormously

00:06:30.940 beneficial for me to read his stuff.

00:06:33.220 Also, by the way, I just gotta say, because he's

00:06:34.920 blown up off the escalation trap thing, and

00:06:36.960 And I don't know if ever, I found Robert Pape back in like 2008, 2007.

00:06:42.360 All right, we get it.

00:06:43.020 You're a political hipster, Dave.

00:06:44.320 So I was, when no one was buying tickets to Robert Pape's shows, I was out there jamming with, I actually don't like his later stuff so much.

00:06:54.220 I do like the escalation travel a lot.

00:06:55.940 But his first book, I'm sorry, I shouldn't know this is his first book.

00:06:59.140 This is the first book I read of his.

00:07:00.320 I don't know what his first book was.

00:07:01.380 but his book dying to win on uh it's like the biggest study on um suicide terrorism is just

00:07:07.540 phenomenal really highly recommend it i believe i gave you a shout out on rogan for this but it

00:07:13.840 may have been wrong you and this is something that's very interesting to me you were like the

00:07:17.940 only guy i saw who supported the 12-day war who once this war launched was like eh no i don't

00:07:25.180 think so now i'm there might be how that happened well sure but i'm just saying there's one i just

00:07:30.100 find it very interesting you would just kind of think there would be a lot of people in that camp

00:07:36.360 and yet i don't see almost anybody else because from my perspective as you could imagine when i'm

00:07:42.300 arguing about the 12-day war the the defenses that so many people who were defending the war gave me

00:07:47.440 are all destroyed by this war you know no u.s troops have died it didn't cost a ton of money

00:07:53.020 it hasn't turned into a disaster like all these things and so it would have just made sense to me

00:07:57.540 that a lot of the people using those defenses when they all were different with this war would

00:08:02.540 have been like, well, wait, this is a different thing. And yet, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.

00:08:05.700 I can't think of another prominent person besides you two. I think I've certainly met a lot of

00:08:11.080 people that would say some more privately or maybe. Paul would suggest there's a lot of people

00:08:17.280 who feel that way. We're OK with the 12 day war, but aren't OK with this one. But in the commentary

00:08:22.180 podcast-a-stand class.

00:08:24.460 Yeah.

00:08:24.840 I just, all the,

00:08:25.900 it seems like all the people,

00:08:27.140 the Mark Levins and the Ben Shapiros,

00:08:28.620 all the people who are defending this,

00:08:30.400 who are defending the 12-day war,

00:08:32.040 very explicitly, like, on the grounds,

00:08:35.040 mocking people like me,

00:08:36.560 you're all concerned about

00:08:38.120 what we're living through right now happening.

00:08:40.900 Just from, you can understand,

00:08:42.220 from my perspective,

00:08:43.420 I was getting mocked last year

00:08:45.140 for being worried about

00:08:46.080 what we're living through this year,

00:08:47.820 and none of them seem to be phased by it.

00:08:50.180 Well, look,

00:08:50.780 there is a steel man version there which which we can talk about which i think um so so the reason

00:08:57.300 for example that we we're perfectly happy to be pro the 12-day war and anti this war is i don't

00:09:02.840 think these things had to happen like you could have done the 12-day war and even if you realize

00:09:09.160 we didn't get all the nuclear material you still go well taking this next step doesn't make sense

00:09:14.380 right so those things don't have to be connected there's nothing in the laws of physics that said

00:09:18.720 we had to go to this war because we did the 12-day war however if people like me were like

00:09:25.080 warning and people like say paper warning about an escalation trap warning that like we shouldn't

00:09:29.680 have gotten involved in this at all because it does make it that much easier to get more and

00:09:33.620 more and more dragged in there's probably a point to that too like it's probably so your point is

00:09:38.120 absolutely correct it does not like you could have done the 12-day war and stopped there there's

00:09:42.420 nothing there's no laws of logic or physics let's say you couldn't have stopped there it's also

00:09:46.500 probably true that you're more likely to get this war after the 12-day war maybe maybe but but i

00:09:52.400 don't think it's a causal relationship the mentality of a president who would do the 12-day

00:09:56.680 war to begin with you're more likely to have there's a reason why no other president did the

00:10:00.640 12-day war or this war donald trump did both of them there's something to that the fact that he

00:10:05.540 was willing to go to war with iran once that same guy went back again but see i'm not being

00:10:11.180 argumentative for the sake of it but to me they're just completely different situations like

00:10:15.480 if i know you have a gun in your house and you're planning to shoot me with it someday and i send in

00:10:21.780 an elite unit to snatch the gun out that's one thing if i start a gangland war in our entire

00:10:28.960 district that's like a whole based off the gun after you claimed you already smashed the gun

00:10:33.040 right yeah that makes it a little bit tougher i'm not denying that it's a whole different kettle of

00:10:37.640 fish which brings us to the other thing i was sure i was going to raise with you about this

00:10:41.560 which is, um, I can see the perspective. So this is what I want to explore with you on this issue,

00:10:47.440 because I actually think it's genuinely interesting. The answer that we're going to

00:10:51.460 get Robert Payne back on the show. And the thing I want to explore with him is about the nuclear

00:10:55.980 weapon thing, because the rationale from the people who support dealing with, dealing with

00:11:01.600 Iran, right? Is, well, look, look, Dave Smith, Dave Smith's a clever guy. And his argument is

00:11:06.800 if Iran had a nuclear weapon, like they'd be really safe. Right. And that's why they want a

00:11:10.760 nuclear weapon, right? I'm sorry. I'm just not lying. My argument is that if they had a nuclear

00:11:15.900 weapon, they'd be safe. Well, I think you'd agree that, for example, North Korea has nukes because

00:11:19.540 from the perspective that you have, they want to be safe from foreign aggression, right?

00:11:25.540 Well, I mean, is that just my perspective? I think we'd probably all agree that, yeah,

00:11:29.440 a deterrent is at least part of the reason why all these... Right, that's fair. And also,

00:11:32.800 certainly, with maybe the exception of, well, obviously, with the exception of what's going

00:11:36.260 on in ukraine with the exception of the drone bomb campaign in pakistan um but overall like

00:11:41.600 say since world war ii since nuclear proliferation we don't really mess with nuclear armed countries

00:11:46.340 that's true yeah that's totally fair but what i mean is everyone would agree on that right so

00:11:51.000 so then the question is from a american and western perspective more broadly is

00:11:56.900 are we okay with iran having that level of safety from our ability to do stuff given that their

00:12:04.720 other their actions are incredibly hostile well i guess it's like the the word okay there is doing

00:12:10.560 a lot of the the lifting like are we okay i mean i don't know are we prepared to tolerate a nuclear

00:12:15.620 run are we the the question is are you going to launch a war of aggression to stop that um and

00:12:21.340 and look i know i would like if that were the question if it was to me from my perspective if

00:12:26.700 it was iran is dead set on getting a nuclear weapon they are breaking out let's just say

00:12:30.900 hypothetically you know before the 12 day war they had kicked the iea inspectors out they had

00:12:35.540 announced we're breaking to to weapons great and we're building a nuclear weapon no i wouldn't say

00:12:40.100 launch a war over that i don't think it's worth it i we sat as a country and watched uh joseph

00:12:45.420 stalin develop nuclear weapons we watched mao seetong develop nuclear weapons we watched kim

00:12:49.640 jong-il develop nuclear weapons we didn't launch a war of aggression over any of them these are

00:12:53.620 it is i just don't think you can convince me that these are not the most evil regimes ever

00:12:58.680 now say tong had nuclear weapons like this is no i wouldn't say launch a war of it that being said

00:13:04.740 as i think we argued about this last year and we can do again that's not what the situation was

00:13:09.580 i mean it just wasn't that we had a situation going into the 12-day war where we had ie inspections

00:13:15.560 we had uh we had verification of what was going on we had our own cia massad an annual threat

00:13:22.900 assessment all saying that they had not made the decision to start getting nuclear weapons yet so

00:13:26.860 launching a war over that to me is really crazy to your point no i don't like nuclear weapons at

00:13:32.880 all existing and i think um you know i don't know to get into like abstract libertarian theory or

00:13:39.380 something like that but it's not a just weapon it's not like a gun a gun can be used with a just

00:13:44.060 purpose uh even maybe you could argue a bomb can be used with a just purpose a nuke really can't

00:13:50.100 a nuke is civilians being destroyed by definition or its uses um i guess that's not true but

00:13:57.300 typically that's where you're going to drop a nuclear weapon so no i don't like the idea of

00:14:01.520 iran getting nukes i think u.s policy has pushed you know incentivized but you would you would

00:14:06.580 accept that happening over fighting a war right yes and there are people but so this is what i'm

00:14:11.320 saying is there are people who have a different threat assessment of that they believe that iran

00:14:16.560 getting a nuclear weapon would be very dangerous for the Middle East. It would upset the balance

00:14:20.180 of the Middle East. It would mean that there was the Saudi Arabia would need to get nuclear

00:14:24.800 weapons. And effectively, you get escalation throughout the world now. And now everyone's

00:14:29.100 got nuclear weapons, right? I mean, that's someone could make an argument. Sure. I'm not

00:14:34.500 arguing. Well, I don't know if it's a reasonable argument to say this is the way it would happen

00:14:39.780 for sure. I mean, but I remember I said if Iran gets nuclear weapons, then we will have to. If

00:14:44.360 Saudis get nuclear weapon than other people in the region. Yeah, but China got nuclear weapons

00:14:49.000 and Japan didn't. It's not that. And they may have said because America prevented them. Yeah,

00:14:53.000 perhaps. I'm just saying lots of things like that could happen. Perhaps America prevents Saudi

00:14:56.500 Arabia from getting them. I don't know. I mean, I'm just saying, like, it's not it's not a given.

00:15:00.960 I don't I'm not trying to downplay the dangers of nuclear proliferation. That being said,

00:15:07.960 there's also like, I don't know you. I remember I'm old enough to remember people horror stories

00:15:13.400 about if india and pakistan get nuclear weapons then this is going to be like a they you don't

00:15:18.140 understand it's a blood feud they hate each other they will use the nuclear weapons like

00:15:21.460 there can also be alarmism about what will happen if a country develops nuclear weapons and

00:15:26.440 quite often like in the case of north korea essentially what it just means is no one can

00:15:31.440 mess with them now and now that's not great in the case of north korea i mean i'm not saying i

00:15:35.120 want outside nations to mess with them but it's allowed them i guess the regime is in

00:15:38.840 question at the moment but it's allowed them to continue oppressing their people all this time

00:15:43.520 it's not great i don't think george w bush invading north korea would have been a better

00:15:47.680 alternative though you know i also think as well if you look at the iran one of the main reasons

00:15:52.720 that i was behind it was against it sorry the second one is it's pure pragmatism i was talking

00:15:58.260 to a guy who's ex-special forces and i said to him what do you think and he went look this isn't

00:16:03.280 going to work let's take everything out purely on a geographical level yeah it's not going to work

00:16:09.160 and so then you have people going oh it is going to work and this is what we should do you go my

00:16:14.020 man you've never been in the military you've never fired a gun i've just spoken to someone

00:16:18.820 who's ex-sas for about 10 years and he's just broken it down in five minutes so an idiot like

00:16:25.060 me can understand as you're saying this i was literally i'm laughing because i'm just remembering

00:16:28.780 when you guys had

00:16:30.060 what's her name on the show

00:16:31.980 and she really doesn't like me.

00:16:33.140 I'm not trying to bash her or anything

00:16:34.220 but it was just a funny moment. 0.90

00:16:35.400 The Iranian expat lady

00:16:37.440 who I've debated on

00:16:38.220 Piers Morgan before. 0.59

00:16:39.640 And you had her on the show

00:16:40.460 and I literally felt

00:16:41.540 she was like making her case

00:16:42.780 for the war

00:16:43.340 and I feel like you guys

00:16:44.400 just broke her by

00:16:45.240 after she said everything

00:16:46.100 you just went

00:16:46.480 you know like it was just like

00:16:48.460 like she just goes

00:16:49.140 Reza Bhali has an army

00:16:51.300 of two million people

00:16:52.300 and you were like

00:16:52.780 and what's your source on that?

00:16:53.720 And she goes 0.98

00:16:53.940 his office

00:16:54.600 and you're like

00:16:55.020 you know like

00:16:56.280 and that just kind of made

00:16:57.360 the whole thing fall apart.

00:16:58.420 i'll tell you this has been shocking to me through this forget the 12-day war this latest war in

00:17:03.280 iran uh i've seen this from both the the kind of arch neoconservatives who are still alive like uh

00:17:09.980 what's his name um not i keep wanting to say bill crystal but not bill crystal um the other one the

00:17:16.540 other neoconservative who's that but hearts um they were saying this on their podcast hey you

00:17:21.880 guys we don't support this war this is crazy yes we've been advocating for war in iran for for 25

00:17:27.540 years but like no not like this this logistically doesn't make sense i recently debated alan

00:17:32.300 dershowitz on the war the topic of the debate was the war six months in and he just refused to

00:17:38.980 debate this war he just goes no in theory i'm for and you're like dude at a certain point

00:17:44.440 no matter what you're for in theory you gotta deal with the logistics eventually if you're

00:17:50.080 trying to put something into policy and it has been shocking i mean i gotta say man i think

00:17:55.220 because it's donald trump he's such a unique president in a lot of ways it's also like i mean

00:18:01.060 if donald trump is not being honest it's like yeah it's donald trump obviously he's gonna

00:18:05.000 you know but this war it's it's unlike any of the ones i've ever seen not in terms of a

00:18:10.820 humanitarian catastrophe so far but just in terms of how incoherent the sales pitch has been from

00:18:17.920 the very beginning like there was just never any plan it was always like these crazy announcements

00:18:23.500 like regime change, total surrender, people take over the government,

00:18:28.600 straits open, all the nuclear dust, like all these things.

00:18:30.980 Like, how are you going to accomplish any of this?

00:18:33.200 Never. It's never been clear that there was a strategy.

00:18:37.220 The American Revolution wasn't just a row about taxes.

00:18:40.540 It was an argument about who gets to govern, where our rights come from,

00:18:44.120 and what government is actually for.

00:18:45.960 That argument never really ended.

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00:19:43.620 slash trigger. And it's really interesting that you brought up Trump because

00:19:49.360 this is the one thing that it's really damaged him well you know we've spoken about is this the

00:19:56.460 end of trump more times than i care to remember but you look at this and you go this is a real

00:20:02.380 thorn in his side not only politically but economically as well oh yeah it's a well there's

00:20:07.900 something about there's certain things that just uh you tie your presidential legacy to launching

00:20:14.260 a war is one of them you know and that's not necessarily i'm not you know because we talked

00:20:17.680 about this last time i'm not claiming that everyone cares about war like as much as i do or as much

00:20:20.820 as the three of us do you know and for understandable reasons but you know iraq how iraq

00:20:26.700 goes that becomes george w bush's legacy how obamacare goes becomes obama's legacy you know

00:20:32.300 you overhaul the health system like how this works out is gonna be part of your legacy and

00:20:36.600 the the bottom line here is that donald trump launched a war of choice everybody kind of knows

00:20:45.060 this was a war of choice even you guys i i don't even think you guys really argue with me on the

00:20:49.220 12-day war being a war of choice you just kind of would think it's a it's a higher stakes choice

00:20:53.280 where there is a potential threat but you're not arguing like we absolutely had to go to war we did

00:20:58.280 not have an option in the way that say like if canada bombed hawaii you'd say we have no choice

00:21:06.720 but to respond to this or something like that right it's a little i'm putting it making you

00:21:10.320 amount let me let me just say in my language and then you can carry on i would say that the 12 day

00:21:15.120 war was the percentage play robert paper disagree he would say you had no chance of taking the

00:21:20.400 nuclear material i think that's a little certain yeah not being a military expert but nonetheless

00:21:25.360 you know i don't think these things are as predictable as people claim so to have a go

00:21:30.400 at getting rid of their nuclear program is no bad thing very little cost you know in terms of

00:21:36.640 lives and and all well no right i don't think anyone got killed right uh i don't know that it's

00:21:41.120 killed that no i don't know if it's if it's clear that no no i think some iranians died i think some

00:21:45.400 israelis might have died in in counter-strikes but you know they're both both those regimes are

00:21:48.780 very hard to get like real information no americans died and there certainly was very low civilian

00:21:53.560 and by the way look when you fight a war you know people dying is tragic but it was part of the

00:21:59.540 calculus and sometimes as a country you might want to go to war i mean that's probably where we get

00:22:04.560 into disagreements but you might want to go to war to protect things that really matter to you

00:22:08.240 and sometimes tragically that means some of your people would die but that didn't happen with the

00:22:11.860 12 so to me it was like you roll the dice you're not guaranteed to get a good result but you haven't

00:22:17.400 really lost a huge amount by doing it so to me it was the percentage play so okay this is an

00:22:23.540 interesting point no that's an that's an interesting point let me say this because i do think in the

00:22:27.280 spirit of how we were saying about our last show and kind of the different camps in some ways that

00:22:32.020 we tend to represent. I'll say this. It's definitely true that there were some people

00:22:37.620 who I admire very much, and people like, I think, Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer,

00:22:44.200 Tucker Carlson, who I would say got a little bit out over their skis and kind of said with

00:22:48.420 certainty in the 12-day war, like, if you do this, Iran will respond. And they were kind of saying

00:22:54.480 Iran will respond more the way they did to this war. And there was a clear, very different

00:22:58.200 calculation and a different response that iran had to the 12-day war and to this day now if you

00:23:04.220 go back to 12-day war the big thing that people like me were arguing um is that that risk wasn't

00:23:12.100 worth it like so so look it's kind of impossible to know on the 12-day war like if it's russian

00:23:18.660 roulette and and i'm telling you don't put this bullet to your head and spin and you're going i

00:23:22.520 like these odds i will concede you won in the sense that you pulled it and it didn't blow your

00:23:27.760 head off it didn't the the iranians calculation after the 12-day war was still to essentially go

00:23:33.920 we just really don't want it man and we so they they did this response where they gave advance

00:23:39.720 notice they hit an american base nobody was hurt so they could say look we did respond we had to

00:23:44.700 do something we can save face with our own people but enough that and trump took the off ramp now i

00:23:49.420 even told you last year at the time i gave trump all the credit in the world for taking that off

00:23:52.780 ramp. But just to be clear, had the Iranians responded to the 12 day war, which is every

00:23:58.100 expert concedes they could have the way they did to this war. We don't get out of the 12 day war

00:24:02.980 easy. It's it becomes this. We get we get sucked into. So so you're right in the sense that I will

00:24:08.640 grant you. Now, I would, from my perspective, I'd compare this more to like you had eight shots of

00:24:13.400 whiskey and I told you not to get in your truck and drive home. You didn't listen to me. You did

00:24:16.980 it. But like you made it home in one piece. There's a problem. You're right. You could have

00:24:20.040 stop there you got away with it oh hold on hold on there's one thing that's worth i think saying

00:24:24.260 is those both of those analogies you're presenting it as pure danger for no game right you're you're

00:24:32.140 so putting a gun to your head and playing russian roulette drinking eight shots of whiskey and

00:24:36.620 driving home the upside is very low on driving home you could okay there was an upside that you

00:24:42.160 you got rid of an imaginary nuclear weapon or whatever fine fine i listen from my perspective

00:24:46.800 there isn't okay now you're being a little unfair right yes you're being caricatures which is fine

00:24:50.960 and it's all fun and games but let's just be real for a second the potential upside if you are

00:24:56.880 concerned about iran developing nuclear weapons which a lot of people i think understandably are

00:25:01.540 is you had a chance to destroy their nuclear program solving this giant problem with a very

00:25:08.640 low risk someone like me would argue of escalation because you're not creating i mean the robert

00:25:15.820 paper analysis of this the reason they didn't react to that war the way they have is it wasn't

00:25:21.920 existential now you're making it existential you are now at a point where they well clearly yes

00:25:26.860 clearly the calculation was changed after the first strike of of this war where they took out

00:25:30.820 the ayatollah and his family also new leadership was put in position so that changes things it's

00:25:34.900 different people making well you're killing their leaders which you weren't before sure but also

00:25:38.480 whoever right so the event of killing leaders and the emotional charge of attacking your country

00:25:43.480 killing the family members of leaders i'd imagine that'd be a pretty emotional thing you know like

00:25:46.820 if you killed even people who like are right now don't like obama and are saying like michelle

00:25:51.160 obama has a dick on the internet or whatever even people like that if a foreign government murdered

00:25:55.820 uh uh his girls you know who are adults now at this point but we knew them in america as these

00:26:01.660 little girls if someone else murdered those girls that'd be a serious thing so that also just saying

00:26:06.460 the person or the group of people making their own risk tolerance is different because they're

00:26:11.500 different people and from everything i've read younger and seemingly more radical um but yes so

00:26:16.200 the calculation changed there and they went hey if we don't give america a black eye this is

00:26:20.300 existential whereas the calculation after the 12-day war was like if we give america a black eye

00:26:26.360 that's existential like if we give him a black eye trump's going to respond in a crazy way therefore

00:26:30.360 so then the 12-day war analysis is not russian roulette it's very high potential upside for

00:26:36.960 relatively low risk? No. The reason, OK, listen, it's a separate argument. I still agree that it's

00:26:41.900 Russian roulette, but I grant that making the example Russian roulette presumes that I'm right

00:26:46.140 about the fact that you didn't even get some big victory. It's a very useful example to your point.

00:26:48.900 But the point I'm making is kind of separate. And the point I'm making is that when you talk

00:26:53.420 about this with Donald Trump, right, when you launch this after you've already claimed that

00:26:59.060 we get four, we played Russian roulette or a different example you come up with where Russian

00:27:03.240 that shoots a tumor out of your brain there's a big upside to it but we played we got away with

00:27:07.640 it we've destroyed that but now we just want a little more like it's it's even presented as a

00:27:12.840 choice from the beginning and in order to make it not a war of choice donald trump now has to tell

00:27:19.200 again he gets a little cover because he's trump he's the most bombastic you know hyperbolic human

00:27:24.040 has ever existed but donald trump has to tell the biggest whopper of a lie that absolutely nobody

00:27:30.260 thinks is real literally no i've never seen a president lies into war and i've seen a lot of

00:27:34.980 them where no one believed the official story no one but right now donald trump is saying his latest

00:27:41.220 by the way he just upped it the other day it's not la anymore it's the world but iran was two

00:27:46.500 weeks away from a deliverable nuclear weapon and they were about to destroy america and that's why

00:27:51.300 we had to go to war everyone knows it's a lie no one believes it's true you've launched this war

00:27:56.340 that pretty much there was consensus in the country we really don't want to fight any more

00:28:00.380 of these stupid wars and he's actually admitted that yeah this is costs this has had costs it's

00:28:06.300 driven costs up it's hurt the economy it's hurt our chances to win the midterms this is it's just

00:28:12.700 such a remarkable moment where you have like he's literally telling you that for this thing that you

00:28:18.100 don't really care about that you that we didn't need to do i'm sacrificing all the things that

00:28:24.160 you put me in for which are to stop the democrats to to get prices lower to turn to make america

00:28:30.660 great again drain the swamp all this stuff we're sacrificing all of it um it's it's crazy to me

00:28:36.020 this is it we're you guys are here in the united states of america on the last two weeks before

00:28:40.520 it's all over the democrats take the house back and you already know what the next two years of

00:28:44.520 politics are going to look like it's just going to be relentless impeachments trials shows you

00:28:49.900 know it's crazy so I guess the question following on from that is is this the end of MAGA well I

00:28:59.000 guess that depends on what you mean by MAGA and what you know like MAGA at this point has come

00:29:03.680 to just mean the people still supporting Trump at least that's what it seems like to me you know

00:29:08.080 make America great again which was not Trump's original I think some I think Reagan used it or

00:29:12.740 something it was yeah but he jumped on it and made it his it's a really brilliant you know

00:29:18.060 you ever think about it it's really incredible it's four words that convey at least four crucial

00:29:24.520 thoughts like one crucial thought per word it's make america great again i'll let you know in one

00:29:29.760 like little thing we used to be a great country we are no longer a great country the situation is

00:29:35.280 fixable and i'm the guy who's gonna turn it away like it's so much information in one little thing

00:29:39.680 it was a brilliant you know political strategy donald trump is a to say he's a unique figure

00:29:47.120 is like the understatement of the century i mean there it's like who could have taken out the

00:29:52.580 bushes and the clintons who could have you know against the will of the obamas against the will

00:29:58.400 of brennan's deep state and clappers nsa like who could have done this you know like almost if you

00:30:03.940 were writing it on paper it's a video game we need to draft a player who can do this okay make

00:30:09.100 him the richest guy ever and the brashest guy ever and the most famous guy ever and the most

00:30:13.380 callous guy ever and the most camera ready guy ever and like it's such a so when you say like

00:30:18.100 is that well yeah trump's gonna be done something else has to come after this um i think like

00:30:26.420 much of the principles much of the things that donald trump ran on and got americans excited

00:30:31.540 about there's still mass support for i think that you know i'd like to think the areas where i really

00:30:38.020 do look at us as like brothers in arms like soldiers like the areas like like i mean this

00:30:44.100 very sincerely even though this sounds kind of douchey to say it like this but like the people

00:30:48.580 fighting against woke insanity with big platforms are like i don't know man there is a really

00:30:53.700 important service done in all of this this is like absolute societal madness that has swept the

00:30:59.460 western world over the last 15 years and it needs to be combated and it also can't stand up to

00:31:04.100 daylight you know and so that's like what's so amazing about guys who do what you do with like

00:31:08.840 topics like that but anyway that we still won that fight like it's 80 try reintroducing trans and

00:31:14.960 kids today in america dude there it's unpopular like so i don't know if someone who's against

00:31:20.940 that can still be popular in elections that open borders is still unpopular trans and kids is still

00:31:26.100 unpopular fighting stupid wars is still unpopular debasing your currency is unpopular so like we

00:31:31.200 just kind of need like there is potential there for that movement to continue i guess i mean the

00:31:37.800 old adage the very famous adage is it's about the economy stupid and you're looking at the american

00:31:44.160 economy you're looking at diesel prices diesel prices are affecting his base because these are

00:31:51.320 people you know who've got you know they work in haulage they work in farming they work in manual

00:31:55.860 labor these are the people who need diesel the most and these prices rising are going to affect

00:32:01.940 them yeah i mean it's uh whatever percentage of people who just have a pickup truck you know i

00:32:06.800 mean not every pickup truck takes diesel but a huge percentage of them do um and and of course

00:32:11.620 you know the as as you guys know well like the price inflation was such a huge part of his mandate

00:32:17.160 you know to uh for success or excuse me for his second term and i've always felt politically

00:32:25.160 speaking you know joe but like if i want to be completely fair here if we want to give the devil

00:32:29.620 his due you know donald trump benefited a little bit from the fact that he lost the election in

00:32:36.760 2020 went away as the ramifications for the year that were 2020 kind of came due in 2021 like in

00:32:44.380 2020 and i don't know as much about the way uh england handled it but we locked down 49 out of

00:32:51.500 states for at least some period of time we put like tens of millions of people out of work and

00:32:57.280 we printed like i think five or six trillion dollars and passed like five trillion extra

00:33:02.300 dollars of spending bills in the congress just to like hold things over my point being the next year

00:33:07.080 there was going to be some price inflation no matter who was sitting in the oval office and yet

00:33:11.040 joe biden inherited that and then all the trump supporters got to say look at how bad this biden

00:33:14.880 economy is now biden kept printing the money and spending the money so he kept making the problem

00:33:18.860 worse but anyway as donald trump comes in here now all those guys that you're talking about

00:33:23.480 they've not only had to deal with the price inflation of the last few years which is still

00:33:26.920 with you the prices haven't gone down they've gone higher under trump the wages going up are

00:33:32.200 like pathetic uh and and now you have higher diesel prices so it's like yes it's literally

00:33:37.760 being told that the like people whose families are falling apart who are slipping through the

00:33:43.120 cracks that you're gonna have to tighten your belt a little bit more when explicitly i think

00:33:47.320 that's what you know so much like what you talk about like the climate agenda the woke agenda

00:33:51.480 so much of that was always telling people to tighten their belt a little bit more over both

00:33:55.480 like sacrificing for something that isn't even this grander you know like that's the climate

00:34:00.360 like um demand essentially right is like you sacrifice your standard of living for this great

00:34:06.720 which by the way won't make a difference it won't even make a difference in the greater scheme of

00:34:09.980 things i think that's the way a lot of people feel about the wars as well how many of these

00:34:14.000 projects do we got to sit here and wait when does the you know when i benjamin netanyahu guaranteed

00:34:20.400 me in 2002 these positive reverberations that we're going to sweep through the region well

00:34:26.060 we've been launching as wars ever since well it brings us we get them it brings us to the so

00:34:30.560 the interesting part of this conversation here because with all of this stuff and i like with

00:34:35.760 the israel gaza debate the only reason i personally get involved in it is i really dislike people

00:34:41.340 being dishonest and right now i'm seeing trump basically using zelensky to divert attention away

00:34:47.880 from his iran i mean that's what's happening oh clearly like the diesel prices have fuck all to

00:34:51.960 do with ukraine and and he's done this amazing deal with russia nothing yeah i was just reading

00:34:56.860 about it the other day like it's not in this month they will deliver 0.27 percent of global

00:35:03.200 monthly diesel supply like it's literally got nothing to do with ukraine dude it's so crazy

00:35:07.100 because i i've been on and i mean i don't know that we i wouldn't maybe we're not exactly at

00:35:11.300 this point on polar opposite ends of it but at a certain point we certainly were on polar opposite

00:35:15.140 ends of the issue with ukraine but man i gotta say and my politics much more would have been like

00:35:21.640 we shouldn't be backing ukraine in this flight we shouldn't have entangling alliances we should

00:35:25.120 do business with everyone including do business with russia because we have 90 of the world

00:35:29.440 stockpile nuclear weapons let's have good relations between the country is kind of my

00:35:32.760 default starting place but like you said it's also just to after years of first of all

00:35:40.500 ukraine didn't just pick a fight with russia okay ukraine has been told explicitly since at least

00:35:48.820 2014 by the entire west we got your back hey if you have this fight we got your back and i'm sorry

00:35:56.000 like as i've been saying by the way you don't need nuclear weapons well well look and this is after

00:36:00.500 that i'm talking about way after they they denuclearized which i don't know exactly how

00:36:04.160 that would have worked like around you know ukraine staying a nuclear state there were lots

00:36:07.800 of problems with that but even way after they denuclearized no we're saying like stand up to

00:36:11.960 vladimir putin who's trying to put all this pressure on you to join his economic deal join

00:36:15.400 the eu instead we got your back he won't mess with you you're with us don't worry okay even if we

00:36:20.180 can't give you nato membership we'll give you joint military exercise if he attacks you we'll

00:36:23.980 back you up like it's it's literally going to a bar with your uh your smaller friend and being

00:36:29.780 like anyone messes with you i got your back for years and years and years i've been i've been

00:36:33.660 talking about the moral hazard that comes with this type of policy for years but then at the

00:36:37.680 end of that when you're still in the fight to snake you in the back and do business with the

00:36:43.120 other guy just like as you said just so you can have a headline not even to solve the problem

00:36:49.260 but just so that a couple weeks before midterms there's a headline that says big diesel deal

00:36:54.640 maybe the markets react by coming down a little bit some voter the guy you're talking about who's

00:36:59.560 struggling a little bit goes i just read in the paper trump made a big a big diesel deal because

00:37:04.060 if they read into it the way you did they'll find out it's nothing it's like that's dirty man that

00:37:08.440 i'm sorry i'm i got to agree with you on that there is now you have steve whitkoff in the

00:37:12.320 kremlin calling vladimir putin a humanitarian and you're just going like shut up like you just

00:37:18.080 this is just dishonest and it's despicable it really is also it would i would have respected

00:37:22.660 it more man if like as you know because you you know you you've followed this thing for years

00:37:27.520 it's not as if there wasn't a conflict going on through trump's first four years right like i

00:37:31.700 mean vladimir putin had not invaded the country yet but there was a there was a civil war vladimir

00:37:35.620 putin had certainly spent sent forces and maybe hadn't invaded with the whole army but was

00:37:40.700 certainly there were russian special ops or whatever the hell they call special operations

00:37:44.740 forces over there in the country there was russian money and weapons flowing in there was a hot war

00:37:49.380 going on where people were dying right so like donald trump in this period of time in his first

00:37:53.900 four years sent weapons into ukraine uh uh tore up treaties with russia put additional sanctions

00:37:59.820 on russia he's also been in this time for two years he's had to do he's doing this right before

00:38:04.580 midterms my point is almost like hey if you wanted to break with u.s policy of like supporting

00:38:09.400 ukraine and you wanted to have they taunt with russia and rearrange it there you had all the

00:38:13.560 opportunities in the world and you just didn't have the courage you just didn't ever want to

00:38:17.000 spend political capital on any of this so it's uh particularly kind of cowardice i think to do it

00:38:23.340 at the last minute well that it's interesting that you use that word because it is a word that

00:38:27.220 i think is appropriate and and the thing is he's it's not only about the headline of big diesel

00:38:33.380 deal it's also about the headline of zelensky being unreasonable so you can put the blame on

00:38:39.520 him when the blame does not belong there well i've always thought i've always you know um when

00:38:45.940 john meersheimer said in uh 2015 i guess it was and i always give him credit for this because

00:38:52.040 like in the context of 2015 at least in the western media i mean everyone was celebrating

00:38:57.240 at this point the success of the maiden revolution and and the i guess the yanukovych i'm sorry the

00:39:03.220 um the uh um why am i blanking on his name who's the guy who followed yanukovych um yes the order

00:39:09.260 he might have even been poroshenko was before yes that's right he came right before um but so

00:39:15.560 they were celebrating victoria newland was talking about how they've joined the eu this is now they're

00:39:19.520 now part of the west they're a european force everyone was celebrating it gideon rose was uh

00:39:24.100 bragging on the colbert report about how he stole robin away from batman and john meersheimer said

00:39:29.700 the west is leading ukraine down the primrose path and i remember that phrase because i had

00:39:35.500 to look up what primrose path meant and i was like that sounds awfully nice what does that mean

00:39:39.900 exactly like you could almost kind of figure out what it meant with shakespeare like leading you

00:39:43.700 down the path to your death that has nothing but beautiful roses next to it i'm sorry i'm not a

00:39:47.880 well-educated person but i was like oh that's a beautiful way to put it but that's kind of been

00:39:51.540 my perspective this whole time and so i don't look at it like you know is zelinski zelinski is a

00:39:58.200 leader i you know political leaders as we said last time they're all mafioso leaders i'm not

00:40:02.680 saying any of them are angels they're all corrupt but like no like the west used ukraine very

00:40:08.900 clearly like used ukraine as like a thorn to kind of jab russia with and this ended up getting

00:40:15.460 ukrainians just like absolutely decimated and you know to turn around and and blame zelinski for it

00:40:22.780 now yeah i don't know i don't but this is what i'm saying is i don't even think it's about blaming

00:40:26.980 zelinski because trump is real trump is oh no yeah he's just using him to distract from the

00:40:32.420 consequences of his war that he is actually having said by the way that he would end the war in

00:40:37.620 ukraine on day one and by the way my view is he actually had the opportunity to do that when he

00:40:42.940 came in for a second term. The only problem is he cut off his leverage at his own knees with his

00:40:49.420 rhetoric, because the way to end the conflict was to say to Putin, look, we can do a deal that

00:40:54.240 neither you or Zelensky are going to be happy with now, or I actually will give them all the support

00:40:58.780 that you fear. And again, you might say that risks escalation. I would say this is negotiation

00:41:07.260 one on one, one on one, which Trump is very familiar with and regularly uses, which is

00:41:12.360 big threat, big reward. And yeah, I mean, like in pure theory, it's not that threat versus reward,

00:41:18.640 like a carrot and a stick can't be used in negotiations effectively. But I mean, I guess

00:41:22.420 I'd be a little bit skeptical after the huge weapons packages that Biden and the EU had poured

00:41:27.380 in there that that was going to get him to back down. I think at that point he had kind of

00:41:31.100 understood, like, I'll win it grinding it out. And Vladimir Putin doesn't seem to very much care

00:41:35.220 how many people got to get grinded out and um you know i think that perhaps you know probably

00:41:40.740 because donald trump i don't think really has a deep knowledge of any of these things but he

00:41:45.420 probably knew that there was a point early in the war where vladimir putin was willing to make this

00:41:50.140 deal if you'd carve him off the donbass and so trump probably just figured i'll be willing to

00:41:54.140 do that i'll carve him his little piece of ukraine and that's how easy it'll be to solve this whole

00:41:58.400 thing you can solve it in a day the problem was that by the time donald trump got in there

00:42:02.720 vladimir putin was saying was gone you're offering to give me what i already have

00:42:06.600 that's not really anything like there's not and then i do i also think that once once he got

00:42:12.020 sucked into the talk about the mineral deals and all of that it ended up just being so convoluted

00:42:17.120 and corrupt and now just getting more and more entangled into this situation it's just you know

00:42:21.860 i don't know it's the i guess it's just like he never came in with a clear vision of like this

00:42:28.860 is what my parameters are this is how we're going to make this peace it was always just the war

00:42:33.560 wouldn't have happened if i was there then i'll solve it and sorry it's going to require a little

00:42:37.940 bit deeper of an understanding and speaking of the deeper understanding i think it's worth

00:42:42.140 explaining to people that the reason uh ukraine can't do what trump is asking is they're basically

00:42:48.800 they've made a defensive position called the fortress belt in the donbass so putin doesn't

00:42:54.960 have all of the Donald Trump. That's true. No, he doesn't have all of it. He does have other

00:42:58.900 territories in addition. But the Ukrainians are effectively defending the most effective

00:43:03.780 defensive line that they have. For them to give that away in this negotiation so Trump can lose

00:43:09.500 slightly less badly in the midterms means the end of their country because they are now unable to

00:43:15.360 defend their country, not only now, but the next time something like this happens, which it will

00:43:20.000 because ukraine has been going through this for centuries right so but but what trump's doing is

00:43:25.760 putting pressure on the guy he actually has leverage over uh to try and do a deal that he

00:43:30.300 can't do because it would be suicidal for ukraine to do that deal anyway uh what's interesting to

00:43:35.320 me is uh returning your compliment about being honest is you're one of the few people i think

00:43:40.440 because you're not wedded to maga that can say this whereas loads of people as we know from

00:43:47.820 speaking to people in America on the right, think this was a terrible mistake, but don't quite say

00:43:54.300 it in the way that you have. Yeah, I guess that's right. I guess it's because I just never was.

00:44:00.760 I don't I never saw Donald Trump in the same way. A lot of Americans saw him where they got super

00:44:05.680 emotional about him. He was either Hitler or he was the savior. It was never any of that to me.

00:44:10.960 You know, I had already decided that I hated everyone. They were all a bunch of criminals

00:44:15.860 who led us into war and they were all just there to extract wealth from the people and benefit

00:44:19.700 their friends. So when Trump came along to me, it was always just like, oh, well, this is funnier

00:44:24.260 than it was before. This is more entertaining. And also, yeah, I'm just I guess I'm I'm much

00:44:29.540 more wedded to my principles than I am to any politician. I also kind of got dragged into

00:44:35.100 supporting Donald Trump. Not that I exactly got dragged in, but it was like I called it at one

00:44:39.460 point the most unenthusiastic vote in human history. You know, like I just I don't like

00:44:43.540 politicians i don't like democrats or republicans i didn't i was so disgusted by the democratic

00:44:49.940 establishment and what they had handed us over the years and i i still stand by being disgusted

00:44:54.420 over all that stuff uh that definitely contributed to it there were some signals you know to suggest

00:45:00.260 that maybe he wouldn't go in this direction i do think it's been a bit shocking what's happened

00:45:05.140 over the last year i think perhaps part of it is like uh like an incentive kind of snowball thing

00:45:13.380 You know, like once you've lost Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene, but Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin still love you, you might as well play to them instead of playing to the people who don't like you or something like that.

00:45:22.440 But it's almost just seemed like it's gotten crazy how like where we are now from where we started.

00:45:30.540 I don't I think that Donald Trump.

00:45:34.420 You remember, this is kind of painful to admit, right, even though we all knew this was true.

00:45:39.140 you know liberals would stand up 10 years ago and they'd go he's a disgusting person you know what

00:45:45.000 a creep and you're like well yeah okay we know that we know but you're running hillary clinton

00:45:50.420 and he's calling her out for what a fraud she is and i'm kind of enjoying this creep pointing out

00:45:54.540 that actually she's acting like she's such a creep your husband's a creep too like i don't

00:45:58.040 know there was something where what but look i'll tell you the one that really got me um was when

00:46:04.680 when joe kent resigned uh over the war i feel however you feel about that this is the counter

00:46:11.440 terrorism director there's a very high position to be you know we've seen a lot of wars a lot

00:46:17.280 of innocent people have died over the last 25 years over wars we were lied into um that's maybe

00:46:23.620 the highest level resignation we've ever seen i don't know is there a higher one i know some

00:46:27.080 people resigned on biden over gossip at nothing that high level um so he resigns he goes i can't

00:46:31.980 be a part of this i'm sorry like i just can't be a part there's a guy who's a decorated veteran

00:46:35.400 himself who lost his wife serving in in a war under donald trump donald trump's response to

00:46:41.960 that is to immediately talk about what a loser he is and then talk about how he remarried too

00:46:47.100 quickly dude that woman died in syria under president donald trump's watch and he immediately

00:46:53.980 like what like dude that is a disgusting piece of shit human being and i'm just not gonna not

00:47:01.040 say that you know what i mean like i don't care what i voted for last last like i it's not to me

00:47:05.920 the thing that really and me and you have talked like off air about this a little bit but like the

00:47:10.180 thing that motivates me more than anything else about this podcast to stay on space and whatever

00:47:14.500 it is that we're doing where the three of us have these conversations and make way too much money

00:47:18.660 for it whatever this is there's a public record and my son is going to be a man someday and he's

00:47:24.840 going to know where i stood you know like in what i said and like the idea that i would just like

00:47:28.840 bite my tongue on that not point out what a horrible man you are like just as a man as a

00:47:35.580 man who's married with kids someone lost their wife dude you should never your president of

00:47:39.820 the united states should never talk about their wife that way but she died under your watch in a

00:47:45.200 war we never should have been involved in that you promised to get us out of and then failed to

00:47:49.400 i mean i sometimes i wonder like are people not afraid of god are they not afraid that god exists

00:47:55.900 Like if I ever did something like that, it would terrify me that my son's going to know this one day and that I'm going to be confronted by my maker and have to explain this.

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00:49:22.360 Built like it matters

00:49:23.780 Because it does

00:49:25.180 For me, it was Rob Reiner

00:49:28.360 Oh yeah, that was bad too, man

00:49:30.600 You know, him and Rob

00:49:32.520 They disagreed

00:49:34.240 But the fact that his son

00:49:36.040 Who was a paranoid schizophrenic

00:49:37.780 Murdered his father

00:49:39.840 And his mother

00:49:41.440 And then Trump came out

00:49:43.340 And basically, you know

00:49:45.040 Shat on both of them

00:49:46.640 you know this guy just died you're the president of the united states yes yes and to be clear it's

00:49:52.120 that part because it's like i'm a stand-up comic i know you guys started and you still do stand-up

00:49:55.960 like there's i'm not against shane gillis in a nightclub or tony hinchcliffe down at a comedy

00:50:00.240 club making some vicious joke about it because you almost go in there going like listen we're

00:50:05.420 coping with obvious tragedy here but yeah dude and also man this is this is the most boomer thing

00:50:11.440 i'm ever gonna say that you guys got on record here but rob reiner was part of americana man

00:50:16.880 like forget what the local the the latest little fight over the latest fad for five minutes is but

00:50:22.920 like a part of america just died man that's rob reiner all the family like but just i mean i don't

00:50:29.640 know it's just for that it's such a sad thing when something like that happens i actually forgot about

00:50:34.200 that till you just brought it up but yeah the kent one got me more because it's just like she died

00:50:38.320 under you as the commander in chief but so also as as i've been saying for years like i'm against

00:50:43.920 all these wars because i'm really against them i'm against government spending because i'm really

00:50:48.080 against i really believe in all these things and from my perspective trump has been terrible

00:50:52.960 it's just a a travesty of an administration so i mean the one thing that he has done that's

00:50:58.400 undeniably impressive is dealing with the border done great with that's incredible but i i want to

00:51:03.760 come back i mean you bring up joe kent and it uh speaks to a very important portion of this as

00:51:07.840 as well because i feel that i said what pisses me off is when people are being dishonest and i have

00:51:13.600 to say when i look at the narrative of israel tricked america in trick trick donald trump

00:51:18.960 specifically into war to me that's just a cop-out and a lot of people in maga use that cop-out now

00:51:25.280 because they don't want to acknowledge the reality donald trump wanted to go into this war it's like

00:51:30.800 my four it's me saying you know what you know what happened dave my four-year-old tricked me

00:51:34.720 into buying ice cream for him yesterday.

00:51:36.440 Oh, my God, I just got so tricked.

00:51:38.600 Well, if your four-year-old was Benjamin Netanyahu,

00:51:40.380 people might believe that more than they would.

00:51:42.580 Benjamin Netanyahu is a more effective politician

00:51:44.600 than my four-year-old, but you get the point.

00:51:46.760 A country of nine million people, right?

00:51:48.980 Very little power, actually.

00:51:50.920 Along with every other country in the world

00:51:53.140 tries to, quote-unquote, air quotes,

00:51:56.060 trick America.

00:51:56.760 Every country in the world is trying to trick America

00:51:59.340 into doing what it wants.

00:52:00.340 Hold on, let me finish my point, right?

00:52:02.280 Every country in the world is trying to influence America. 0.58

00:52:04.720 because it's the hegemonic power.

00:52:06.060 Of course you are.

00:52:06.840 Every country in the world is trying to influence China

00:52:08.680 in its direction as well, right?

00:52:11.120 Donald Trump went into this war,

00:52:12.860 and this is why we changed our opinion over the time,

00:52:15.080 because I mentioned you want to hear

00:52:16.960 how we got to our view on the run.

00:52:19.900 We came to the US, and the first thing we did

00:52:21.980 was we went on Rogan, and we were talking about this,

00:52:24.020 and people can look this up.

00:52:25.520 And I'm there going, the coin's in the air.

00:52:28.120 We don't know how this is going to end.

00:52:30.160 And my thing was, like, there's a plan.

00:52:33.480 there's gotta there's there could be a plan there's sure yeah there could be a plan and

00:52:40.580 they they you know they the american military the american for all of these giant institutions they

00:52:46.480 have massive budgets of i i've you know a lot of people in outside america like to make fun of

00:52:51.820 americans as dumb and whatever there's a lot of dumb americans but the smartest people in the

00:52:56.400 world that i've met have been yeah we got some geniuses too you got some geniuses too right

00:53:00.780 so a lot of these geniuses are working in these big well-funded departments crafting shit and

00:53:06.620 thinking of shit and and then we spend three weeks in america actually talking to people

00:53:12.380 close to the halls of power people who are in the room or just outside the room or talk to the guys

00:53:17.100 and we quickly realized there is no plan this was just somebody who got carried away after

00:53:24.120 venezuela very excited by the possibility of like doing cool shit and look at how powerful we are

00:53:29.980 whatever and that's basically and we were like we spent three weeks going like no that come no that

00:53:35.620 can't be the reason that the world's most powerful nation ever launched the war halfway across the

00:53:40.700 world because the people at the top just got together in a room and there's a bit of group

00:53:45.700 think and the guy has made sure that he's surrounded by people that agree with him

00:53:49.260 so information that's counter doesn't really reach him but that is exactly what putin got

00:53:54.560 that's why putin is in a four four and a half year three day special military operation in ukraine

00:53:59.420 I mean, they really did. And I've, I mean, I've read a lot about this and I really am pretty convinced that the neoconservatives really believed that if you put a Hashemite king into Iraq, that the Hashemite king with control of Iraq could convince Hezbollah to be friends with Israel. Like they really bought.

00:54:22.500 but that's at least a plan but that's at least a plan it's wrong but i'm just saying okay but

00:54:26.400 the plan here was right this is it's a dumber plan but the plan was it'll work no it's not

00:54:31.520 no no it's not a plan it's more of a hope okay but like yeah i mean honestly it's kind of just

00:54:37.200 a hope that a hashamite king put into iraq would get hezbollah to be friends with israel like my

00:54:43.700 point being that i would say don't underestimate the hubris that men in positions of power can

00:54:50.180 find themselves in you know it's like a thing that we're very vulnerable to power and we're very

00:54:55.340 human beings i mean general like men in the we're vulnerable to power and we're vulnerable to hubris

00:55:00.780 and we're uh especially you know like say like look coming off something like venezuela that is

00:55:05.560 like i'm just saying don't underestimate how much that can play a factor of being like yeah i'm on

00:55:10.520 a roll oh i i don't underestimate that anymore i don't even see like yeah audience but but that

00:55:15.140 was shocking to us yeah i well i agree but that is all right that is our understanding of what

00:55:19.720 actually happened right so so why is it israel tricked america this is the bit i really don't

00:55:24.720 let me just say real quick because i want to i want to answer that but i just real quickly want

00:55:27.900 to say on the joe kent thing and the reason why maybe i'm a little bit more forgiving of him than

00:55:32.260 that because i do i do certainly agree with you that in the tone of a lot of things i've seen

00:55:37.640 him say he's almost excusing responsibility for donald trump you know like it's almost like

00:55:43.720 mr the president was like almost as a force that did it you know the the israel i'm not talking

00:55:48.480 about tent specifically it's just the narrative but i want to make the point specifically about

00:55:52.780 tent which is that i did notice him doing that quite a bit and then he would almost be kind of

00:55:57.400 ass kissy with trump where he'd be like you and only you sir can walk away from this right now

00:56:02.520 and you have the unique strength and all this but i always did take that as like look this is the

00:56:07.240 only way you're going to maybe reach donald trump and this is his former counter like this isn't

00:56:12.060 just me on a podcast saying this this is literally a guy who he picked to have the most important job

00:56:17.120 keeping Americans safe from terrorism so like maybe that's the way to play it from that percent

00:56:22.240 there was a while before Tucker broke with Trump where Tucker was very clearly like against all

00:56:28.340 the things Trump was doing but still wasn't quite bashing Trump and I think it's a little bit of a

00:56:32.380 weird thing J.D. Vance is in this position too you're in a little bit of a weird position if

00:56:35.780 you're at all in Trump's orbit and you want to continue to have his ear then yeah yeah you can't

00:56:41.620 bash him or you're you're done that's a separate that's a separate that's fine but but the broader

00:56:46.160 point that you're saying like should uh trump you know have his agency or whatever diminished or

00:56:51.300 should he well clearly my position is no on that i mean donald trump is responsible no matter what

00:56:56.440 exactly is the story of how he got it now the official story from the newspaper of record

00:57:02.380 in the united states of america is that it was benjamin netanyahu and the head of massad who

00:57:07.800 convinced him that it would be easy and that they could get the guy they didn't convince him

00:57:11.560 nobody knows who convinced who what we know is that they made the case and that they presented

00:57:16.660 information to him we know we know they presented information and that nobody else in his cabinet

00:57:21.460 really bought into it even the most war hockey of the people in his cabinet were like marco rubio

00:57:26.140 said fanciful right or whatever the new york times but that that makes my point which is nobody

00:57:31.740 convinced anybody they present we don't know hold on hold on so if if all of his cabinet thought this

00:57:37.840 is bs right he is the outlier here right it's not about him being convinced he clearly wanted like

00:57:46.460 you said he was on a roll and he was like let's do this as well let's see i'm not i'm not admitting

00:57:50.280 that that's a huge part of the story here but you're also can't just completely omit which is

00:57:54.600 just objectively true that first of all netanyahu immediately afterward bragged about he was just

00:58:00.480 bragging his major pitch to uh during his election right now to israel was what his 5 000 hours on

00:58:06.620 american television and meeting with american presidents culminated in this war in iran he said

00:58:11.560 this is the culmination of my life's work lindsey graham of the late lindsey graham was on record

00:58:16.340 talking about going to israel and meeting coaching netanyahu on how to get uh donald trump to be

00:58:21.940 persuaded by this idea of going to war the israel lobby in this country has been advocating for this

00:58:26.960 war for 25 years this is the neoconservatives crown jewel wesley clark seven countries on the

00:58:32.740 list of seven. So now listen, none of that is a direct argument about exactly what convinced

00:58:37.540 Donald Trump in that room this time to go. However, I think when you omit all of that,

00:58:42.960 it's not as if people are just making something up out of thin air that Israel persuaded Trump

00:58:47.460 to go to war. I'm not saying the Israelis didn't present Trump with information that they believe

00:58:52.560 to be accurate, I imagine, about what would happen if he started this war. But what I'm saying is

00:58:58.680 there will be chinese delegations going into the white house for the last 25 years saying

00:59:03.880 we we really think this would be in the best interests of america and there will be russian

00:59:08.480 delegations there'll be chinese uh british delegations somali delegations go and we need

00:59:14.120 more learnings whatever right uh there will be lots of this going on it's ultimately up to the

00:59:19.760 president united states to make those decisions 100 and it's also it's responsible look if i

00:59:24.720 have a tough time buying that there's not something more to the story than either of us

00:59:30.480 have just brought like it's just he got convinced that this would be easy it's just it's a bit tough

00:59:36.100 perhaps that's true perhaps that's the case it's a bit tough for me to go but really you never

00:59:42.040 thought to yourself like i'm really rolling the dice here and what if the regime doesn't fall and

00:59:47.660 what i mean there must also i know reading because this has been much more detailed but i know that

00:59:52.620 I've read a bunch. In fact, John Mearsheimer wrote a bunch about this. And Scott Horton in his book

00:59:56.900 Enough Already has a great portion on this stuff where in 2007, you know, when Dick Cheney was

01:00:02.320 trying to get George W. Bush to invade Iraq, like George W. Iran. I'm sorry. Iran. I'm sorry. So

01:00:08.840 this is by late in Bush administration. He's like, we got to go for Iran now.

01:00:12.680 Well, this is the George W. Bush has finally like had it with Cheney at this point. And,

01:00:18.300 you know, he's like, everyone hates me because I've been listening to you this whole time,

01:00:20.920 You know, so but I know for a fact that like the Pentagon really sat George W. Bush down and we're like, hey, here are the real hardcore.

01:00:29.040 Now, you got to remember, this is also at a time when the war in Iraq and Afghanistan were going on.

01:00:33.900 So we had hundreds of thousands of troops in the region.

01:00:35.540 So like what you're seeing right now is nothing compared to what the targets around would have had.

01:00:39.700 But I just it's hard for me to imagine.

01:00:42.540 No one gave Donald Trump this.

01:00:44.220 Like you're telling me no one in the Pentagon got to him and went what we would have known.

01:00:48.700 you know like you were just talking about how impressive some of these people in the pentagon

01:00:51.940 are no one went so they will close the straight up for most so they will touch our bases so this

01:00:55.540 will cost hundreds of billions of dollars this will not you know there will be casualties there

01:00:59.820 will like that just seems hard for me to believe but i guess perhaps that's true either way whether

01:01:05.560 that's true look if there was something else that persuaded donald trump or if donald trump let's

01:01:11.700 say in the most conspiratorial version you have donald trump is a is a pedophile in the epstein

01:01:17.160 files and they have evidence that he was a pedophile and they're blackmailing him to get

01:01:21.380 him into the war. It's still 100 percent his fault. OK, don't go into a war. Come out and

01:01:28.300 admit they're blackmailing me like. So no matter what the scenario is, I am holding Donald Trump

01:01:33.400 100 percent responsible for it. That being said, I don't think he's a pedophile who was caught in

01:01:39.640 the Epstein files. I certainly don't have reason to believe that. I do think that the Likudniks,

01:01:45.600 the neocons, and the broader Israel lobby, are very largely responsible for why we're in this

01:01:50.320 war, why we're even in this conflict to begin with. No, that doesn't make sense, Dave, because

01:01:55.920 you just said, I hold him 100% responsible, and then you say the Likudniks are mostly responsible.

01:02:01.040 Okay, so let me be so clear to this. Let me try to say this. If I hire you to kill a person,

01:02:08.960 I hold you 100% responsible for doing it, for killing the person. I'm also 100% responsible,

01:02:14.920 like for higher. So I don't know what that means. You have no less agency. I have no less agency.

01:02:19.040 We're all responsible for the things. But it's a whole different situation here because

01:02:23.020 President Trump is somebody who spent his entire life having stuff pitched to him. Right. One of

01:02:29.340 the things that happens when I don't know if you I'm sure you've discovered this as well. When you

01:02:32.960 have money or people think you have money, suddenly all these people emerge out of the

01:02:36.600 woodwork. Amazing ideas for how to convert your money into their money. Yes. So he's been dealing

01:02:43.800 with this his entire life people coming to him and saying you know mr trump this is a great deal

01:02:50.620 this is a great idea we should do this we should do that and a lot of them are going to be well

01:02:54.200 intentioned but wrong about the reality of what it's going to cause now if you are someone who

01:03:00.440 takes a deal of that kind or takes information that those people genuinely believe let's say

01:03:05.540 and you act on it and you get a wrong outcome that's 100 on you yet what i see particularly

01:03:11.620 in the new media spaces literally no one wants to say except you donald trump is responsible for

01:03:16.800 this war it's all israel tricked america no so i'm saying that's but listen dude and it's it

01:03:21.240 makes no sense to even be more israel more angry at israel like even if that's your perspective

01:03:26.560 it's like so you should be angry at your own leaders for going along with that also as you

01:03:30.820 said why would israel even have to trick america right because america's the superpower because

01:03:36.360 this is where we got the the weapons this is where we make that stuff i mean that's like right so

01:03:40.920 like that's i would be more angry at donald trump either way but like to your example to use your

01:03:46.420 example if i pitch a capitalist on investing 10 million dollars in some idea i have and i just

01:03:53.000 lose all of the money because it's a terrible investment yes that's on him he chose to invest

01:03:57.440 the money it's also on me that my pitch was that bad that i like i don't know it's on both of us

01:04:02.160 we both failed together in that venture so look i'm just saying if you're if you're a uh uh just

01:04:10.720 a pundit on cable news or something like that and you've been advocating for war in iran all these

01:04:15.420 years i'm not saying you're responsible for for the president going but it's like hey look you

01:04:20.100 got your policy that you've been advocating for all these years now i'm gonna look at you as it's

01:04:24.160 a disaster and point out i was right the tricking thing seems to me like uh excusing the real

01:04:30.740 decision maker everyone's always trying to trick everyone though you know like if you get tricked

01:04:34.500 that's on you like i don't even know you know i mean like yes it was it like from my perspective

01:04:38.920 and I think probably yours, too, right?

01:04:40.540 Like, I've heard you say this before.

01:04:42.140 Israel's goal in this was always regime collapse

01:04:44.360 or regime replacement, right?

01:04:46.160 Or degrading Iran's military.

01:04:47.280 Right, but I'm saying they have their own angles

01:04:49.140 and they have their own...

01:04:49.800 So if they come to you and go,

01:04:51.440 no, this nuclear threat is really a problem,

01:04:53.140 it's like, okay, well, if you believe that

01:04:55.600 rather than believing that they're also somewhat motivated

01:04:58.000 by their other goals here,

01:04:59.380 which have nothing to do with their nuclear program.

01:05:01.080 I do actually think they reasonably believe

01:05:04.640 that Iran wants to develop a nuke

01:05:07.380 because that's what iran would want to do i absolutely believe so number one yeah and number

01:05:12.540 two that they rightly believe that would be massively destabilizing to the middle east so

01:05:17.520 i believe they're right to be concerned about that the issue here is i think one of the reasons

01:05:22.180 people say israel tricked america into the war is the assertion is there's a divergence in foreign

01:05:28.440 policy interest between israel and america which there is because they're two different countries

01:05:32.140 right therefore israel actually knew that this war would go badly but they were quite happy with

01:05:39.200 that because it's not going bad for israel from israel from people this is the argument people

01:05:43.460 make i'm not saying it's my opinion right the reason people say israel tricked america is what

01:05:49.640 they mean is israel knew this benjamin netanyahu let's say it's not israel benjamin netanyahu and

01:05:54.460 mossad knew this war would go like this but they're quite happy with that outcome because

01:06:00.120 they've used american power to flatten the run that's what people would say that to me is a very

01:06:05.140 bold claim it may be true it may not be true but you'd have to have a tremendous amount of evidence

01:06:09.300 to say the israelis knew this war would go like this it's very possible just like elements of the

01:06:15.540 american military and intelligence of a time said you know if we do this this is what will happen

01:06:20.640 and it's not turned out that it's just i guess it's it's hard yeah look i mean i'm not even

01:06:26.580 arguing what you said. It's possible people believed. Like I said, I've read enough about

01:06:30.560 it that I genuinely believe people believed Iraq would be a cakewalk. I'm convinced of that. Like,

01:06:35.620 I don't think they were lying about that. So that's probably what's happening. This I find

01:06:38.400 a little bit tougher because it's like, I don't know, dude, after the examples of Iraq and

01:06:43.160 Afghanistan and Libya and Syria and Somalia and Yemen, that you'd still come back to this and not

01:06:47.500 even be a little bit concerned with the like, OK, I think there's going to be a cakewalk,

01:06:51.980 but there is at least this, you know, like, OK, I understand that initially. Right. This is the

01:06:56.300 thing that uh which i'll be happy to get corn to with coleman he was next week but the thing that

01:07:00.820 uh we we were arguing over the last time right when when general wesley clark said that he saw

01:07:05.340 that memo that the plan was in the next five years just in five years we're going to take out seven

01:07:10.060 countries and then john kiriaku has an interesting footnote that was similar that goes along with it

01:07:14.480 that he said i think it was in late 2002 early 2003 that he was in the room where one of the cia

01:07:19.660 director his assistant said next year we'll be in tehran you know like the mentality really was

01:07:24.180 we're gonna wrap this up quick and we're gonna move on to the next one um okay but after that

01:07:29.940 turned into an eight-year civil war where a million people died you'd think at least you

01:07:34.840 know like on the next one you'd have a little bit of like and everybody i know like on all sides of

01:07:41.840 this you know i've been into in this world for like 20 years now i'm in the anti-war.com guys

01:07:47.060 are all my friends and i've like these uh this has been the war on the table for 25 years that

01:07:52.460 everyone's been writing about. Everyone predicted this. Everyone said Iran's three times bigger.

01:07:57.940 It's a much more mountainous region. It's much more difficult than Iraq or Afghanistan. This is

01:08:01.780 what they will do if you attack them. They can choke off the Strait of Hormuz. They can hit

01:08:05.820 American targets in the region. I guess it's just, look, man, I've read my Thomas Sowell. I'm a good

01:08:11.340 libertarian. I never want to think that government cannot be way more incompetent than you even give

01:08:17.320 them credit for. But like you said before, with all the smart guys in government, it is a little

01:08:20.780 hard to believe that like this wasn't envisioned and particularly for the israelis look i'm i'm

01:08:27.800 speculating here i do tend to think yeah they probably knew there was a chance it would go

01:08:33.240 this way benjamin netanyahu's a little too savvy of a guy he at least knew like it's possible the

01:08:38.060 immediate decapitation won't work but if we get that we've at least drawn the americans in the

01:08:42.800 conflict is at least going to degrade around a little bit and maybe it'll degrade them so much

01:08:46.440 that the regime collapses and we really get what we want. So I agree with you that probably there

01:08:51.120 are real concerns. Definitely there are real concerns in the Israeli security apparatus about

01:08:55.680 the nuclear Iran. But I think what you might be leaving out there is that there's other concerns

01:09:00.480 about Iran that have nothing to do with the nuclear program. And in fact, one of the things

01:09:05.040 that Israel likes about the nuclear program is that that's the thing that moves Americans to be

01:09:10.840 concerned about Iran. And in fact, this is why Benjamin Netanyahu specifically freaks out every

01:09:16.100 time a deal might be made it freaks out every time that they might be halting that nuclear program

01:09:20.820 because it removes the pretext for war which is what he's always really wanted dude they were the

01:09:25.140 ones and it was all the hawks and this is where i'll say there is something to be said for like

01:09:29.300 the argument that the israel lobby or whatever maybe if you want to call them like is advocates

01:09:36.180 of israel in america when when donald trump was in the negotiations for the first round before

01:09:42.060 the 12-day war. If you remember, Donald Trump had said publicly at one point, which he repeated

01:09:46.700 again the week that we were doing the Memorandum of Understanding, they're like, they can have some

01:09:51.180 nuclear program. We're not going to say they can't have a nuclear program the way all normal

01:09:55.280 countries have nuclear programs for energy and medical, you know, radiation. They can have a

01:09:59.820 nuclear program. And it was the Hawks' insistence that, no, it must be zero enrichment. And

01:10:05.600 ultimately, they convinced him. And that was where he went with the, you have 60 days, we got to get

01:10:09.760 to zero enrichment and that was just like a non you know but i'm saying to me the only reason why

01:10:16.740 you would have insisted on sneaking a poison pill like zero enrichment because none of you guys care

01:10:21.000 if iran enriches to three percent so that no that's not true that's not true well you don't

01:10:25.140 care you care if they have a nuclear program just for civilian power well it's these two things are

01:10:31.200 connected civilian power is very easy to convert into military yeah but it's also very easy once

01:10:36.100 you have the scientists who know how to do it and you've mastered the fuel cycle they can break

01:10:39.640 out if they want to you're i mean listen i'm not saying like like bombing the bunker busters

01:10:43.660 doesn't do any damage or set them back the point being more that like i think if your real concern

01:10:48.880 was the nuclear weapons and you had the opportunity to have a deal that would bring in iaea inspectors

01:10:55.120 lock them in at a low enrichment rate and and monitor the situation seem like you'd be happy

01:11:00.760 about that no i take your issue off the table again see i'm all i'm doing is i'm not even

01:11:05.140 expressing my own opinion particularly i'm just passing what you're saying for logic and and what

01:11:09.280 fails for me here is it adopt the position of someone who uh thinks that iran having nukes

01:11:16.960 is a terrible threat to the world by the way it's not an unreasonable position sure right

01:11:22.160 from that perspective you want to hold them back in the journey towards nuclear weapons as far as

01:11:28.320 you can as far as you possibly can therefore we know a civilian nuclear program is a facilitator

01:11:35.360 for a military nuclear program because you create the front the possibility of enriching etc right

01:11:41.600 so from a maximalist position of iran having nuclear weapons is the worst threat in the world

01:11:47.680 it's perfectly logical to want to keep them to no nuclear program whatsoever i guess i'm making

01:11:54.400 the point that it's not i'm not suggesting that it's not logical if you don't want iran to have

01:11:58.400 a nuke to not want them to have a nuclear program at all i'm saying that in the context of the

01:12:02.800 the reality where you know that this is going to kill the deal they're not going to accept zero

01:12:07.180 percent enriched uranium because no country is going to accept that and they're no different

01:12:10.900 than that but knowing that they have just a few years ago accepted 3.5 they're at the negotiation

01:12:16.180 table you got a real chance for that the fact my point is the fact that you'd rather blow up the

01:12:20.440 deal than get it down to 3.5 demonstrates that your number one concern isn't the nuclear program

01:12:24.940 so you're not taking on the line by saying i also don't i think there's also a challenge to that

01:12:29.140 which is if you are someone who is really concerned about Iran developing nuclear weapons,

01:12:33.880 that seems to me, in my experience, highly correlated with also thinking that Iranian regime leaders can't be trusted.

01:12:40.040 OK. All right. Fair enough. I'm just saying that I think it is not that unreasonable,

01:12:43.980 given this entire track record, to assume that, like, yes, Israel, the Israelis are savvy enough to be well aware

01:12:51.100 that the decapitation strike probably was not going to take out the regime and that they were going like,

01:12:56.460 Yes, we still want to push for this war regardless.

01:12:58.920 I don't find that to be, like, wild speculation.

01:13:02.080 A little bit speculative.

01:13:03.600 Yeah, well, we don't know the answer to that, but maybe that's possible.

01:13:07.120 Moving on from that, one of the things that I really wanted to talk to you about, Dave,

01:13:10.940 is something that a lot of people aren't talking about.

01:13:13.580 We're focusing on MAGA, we're focusing on Trump,

01:13:16.600 we're focusing maybe on the collapse of MAGA.

01:13:19.220 We're not really talking about the Democratic Party.

01:13:22.060 So what's going on with that?

01:13:24.680 I don't know, man.

01:13:25.840 doesn't look good to me um well so there's what's going on with the democratic party is interesting

01:13:32.680 you know 10 years ago in this country there was essentially politically speaking a civil war on

01:13:39.140 the left and the right uh in the presidential elections right the bernie sanders hillary

01:13:43.020 clinton and the donald trump verse everyone okay now what happened in the on the right if you guys

01:13:48.660 might even remember in 2016 uh what's his name uh previs who was the head of the rnc he floated

01:13:54.480 out late into the primary season that they might change the rules at the Republican convention to

01:13:59.480 not allow Donald Trump to have the nomination, because they can arbitrarily just say, oh, we

01:14:04.120 decide you need to have 100,000 more delegates and no one meets it. Therefore, we get to pick

01:14:08.300 who the nominee is. He floated this out. And I'll never forget in one of the moves of pure political

01:14:13.400 genius. This is the first time I ever looked at Donald Trump and I thought, I think he's a

01:14:16.840 political genius. Was Donald Trump in his press conference the next day said, and I quote,

01:14:21.700 there'll be riots in the streets if you try to take the nomination from me and it scared the

01:14:28.080 rnc out of doing it he literally went like he really threatened them and he went listen man

01:14:32.600 every barrel chested man in america is a fan of me and i'm telling him to like do there we will

01:14:39.500 not let you steal this from us which by the way he kind of had every right to do he had won the

01:14:43.480 democratic process okay so on the right side there was a civil war but the north burned the south

01:14:49.960 Donald Trump won. He took over the Republican Party for better or worse. That's what the Republican Party is now. And in fact, ultimately, even though Donald Trump was the anti neocon, no new wars, he's now been in a weird way.

01:15:04.260 You know, it's Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro's favorite president who anyway, it's just kind of a stretch. But the only way to take that back over was to take over the Trump administration, not to find someone else to beat him.

01:15:13.920 bernie on the other hand lost but he lost after getting cheated so the democrats had their

01:15:20.900 revolution but the establishment kept control with the insurgency knowing that it was dirty

01:15:26.520 the way they kept the control so that's kind of been like what's been bubbling for for years now

01:15:31.720 on the left now from my perspective kind of like the outbursts of the young leftists like wokeism

01:15:39.580 uh covet insanity whatever over over the last few years that i guess all that stuff has been

01:15:46.060 really soundly defeated in in the grown-up public argument or whatever and so it does seem like

01:15:52.800 that's kind of been left there was a very strange dynamic which i still even being me do not

01:15:58.900 completely understand where after october 7th um the left after just not really caring about

01:16:05.300 foreign policy and war since george w bush all snapped back into really caring about it but that

01:16:11.780 changed the dynamic a lot um the you know it really changed the dynamic politically in 2024

01:16:18.420 now going into this new these last two years i think what's happened here is that there's this

01:16:22.740 the left wing of the democratic establishment has been firmly against israel's destruction of gaza

01:16:28.980 firmly against u.s support for israel and firmly against the war on iran and these are all

01:16:34.500 enormously popular issues at this point you know every bit like i think people on the center right

01:16:40.060 or people on the right got to be honest if we're just admitting what's going on here every bit as

01:16:44.460 much 80 20 issues as the trans and kids and the open borders and all the 80 20 issues that we love

01:16:50.260 that we're on the right side of well opposing the u.s supporting israel's destruction of gaza

01:16:54.980 and opposing this war those are 80 20 issues in this country as well are they yeah i mean if you

01:16:59.980 Now, support for Israel overall, maybe 70-30,

01:17:03.720 but support for Israel's destruction of Gaza, close to...

01:17:06.540 Not being douchey, I'm genuinely curious.

01:17:08.240 Billy, would you check that?

01:17:08.920 Yeah, yeah, sure.

01:17:09.440 Would you check that on Venice AI?

01:17:10.860 And check the popularity for the war, too.

01:17:13.980 I mean, I might be slightly hyperbolic if I say 80-20, but 75-25.

01:17:18.280 So the war, if it was 80-20, wouldn't surprise me,

01:17:20.980 although I don't think it's probably that high.

01:17:22.680 But, Billy, can you check U.S. support for Israel?

01:17:25.900 Is that a fair question?

01:17:27.520 I think that's what...

01:17:28.240 Yeah, I think, if I'm right, I think it should be somewhere in that ballpark.

01:17:31.720 But carry on.

01:17:32.500 But I could have gotten that wrong.

01:17:33.600 Again, not being douchey at all, just curious, genuinely.

01:17:35.780 So I think, and then either way, within a Democratic primary, there are very, very popular issues.

01:17:42.360 And so I think all these guys have the wind at their back to some degree.

01:17:45.800 You know, a guy like Mamdani has the wind at his back by just being against this stuff within his own base.

01:17:51.360 And then it seems to me that there's been a very, which clearly seems a very conscious pivot,

01:17:56.500 um to like the democratic socialism stuff the economic populism stuff that we're going to get

01:18:03.260 away from you know even aoc is out there saying woke one was crazy or whatever so they're kind of

01:18:08.120 saying we're going to get away from that and we're going to go toward um running on the unaffordability

01:18:12.200 crisis uh unaffordability which i just just drives me crazy it's like it's currency debasement we

01:18:17.960 already had a term for this anyway but that seems to be what they're going with and i gotta say

01:18:23.000 at least as of right now electorally it seems like that's a much better game plan than anything

01:18:28.500 that the kamala harris uh camp had and that does concern me because i have a lot of worries about

01:18:33.300 who some of these people are well why do you have concerns about them um all right well let me say

01:18:38.760 it like this this is where i usually start first of all i think there is something so fundamentally

01:18:44.220 dishonest that all these guys call themselves democratic socialists and don't run as socialists

01:18:49.900 and then also say um you're creating a boogeyman if you call it socialism it's like very strange

01:18:55.880 like okay so mom donna you're a democratic socialist so your your position here is that we

01:19:00.920 should what democratize the workplace and like uh um nationalize the means of production no

01:19:09.160 we should open four more grocery stores like with 30 cheaper meat like wait that's socialism so

01:19:16.560 it's already a moving target like what are you even saying you stand for are you saying you're

01:19:20.580 a welfarist who wants slightly more welfare than the big welfare state that we already have because

01:19:25.120 that's what you call a moderate democrat what do you mean you're a socialist okay and then number

01:19:30.480 two it's um they do the thing that i do think uh really liberal democrats who hate the socialists

01:19:36.920 have no one to blame except themselves for this but they do the thing where they just pretend

01:19:40.520 government services are free and that you're against free stuff that seems to be the basic

01:19:45.540 thing i'm for free stuff for people and you're against it so you're a bad guy and like you're

01:19:50.580 like that's the extent of the conversation so like why am i not but mom donnie has this proposal you

01:19:55.540 know it's like the minimum wage reducto absurdum arguments mom donnie has a proposal for four

01:20:00.020 supermarkets with 30 percent cheaper grocery okay i say we do six 40 cheaper am i a better socialist

01:20:06.260 am i a better person you know so it's um there's a lot of that and then i'll also say at the risk

01:20:12.020 of being maybe a little bit more controversial and i know this does bother some even some of my own

01:20:18.020 audience when i talk like this but like um i don't know i find there being something a little bit

01:20:23.620 weird about new arrivals being revolutionaries i don't really like it i don't really like people

01:20:29.380 who are brand new to your country telling you how we should reorganize the whole thing you know if

01:20:33.620 this ever hits the fan in this country but like i'm pretty damn convinced i was born here i'm

01:20:38.420 I'm gonna die here and I'm gonna raise my kids in this country but if this thing ever falls apart

01:20:42.780 to the point that I really decide like you know I gotta grab what I can in my family and I gotta

01:20:47.420 get out of here and like Japan is kind enough to let me in and let me be in their country and I'm

01:20:52.540 thriving the last thing I would ever do is be like let me tell you about how you have to

01:20:57.700 revolutionize everything they tell you about what's wrong with everything like dude you just

01:21:01.420 got here um no I'm not saying I'm me I'm not saying I would shut up and I'd still be like

01:21:05.600 I think I got some really good points about economics and stuff like that. But I just don't

01:21:09.020 like kind of revolution being led by people who are very hostile to the country and very new to

01:21:14.240 the country. And the question that I think is on everybody's lips is this. It's you see Mamdani

01:21:20.640 and you see the Democratic Socialists. How much support do they have away from the

01:21:27.540 from the New Yorks, the L.A., the Columbia graduates? Is the average American going to

01:21:34.020 vote for these people or do they just see them as socialists and therefore crazy loons i you know

01:21:39.600 it's such a good question and you know even perhaps even we don't even know say mom donnie

01:21:44.520 we didn't even really have an experiment of him running here in mayor that wasn't against andrew

01:21:49.120 cuomo like it is so it is hilarious like it's a this is something out of a monty python sketch

01:21:54.720 that the best the establishment could come up with was the face of lockdowns who went down

01:22:00.880 for sexual harassment and had a me too violation whose side hobby is being best friends with

01:22:07.440 benjamin netanyahu and the way he attacked mom danny in the democratic primary was to go you

01:22:13.740 won't promise to go visit israel right now like just the dumbest i mean while we're on that shall

01:22:20.120 we bring up the stat billy about israel support yes roughly from a few stats around 36 percent

01:22:25.160 americans support israel which is quite a sharp down shift in three years earlier so it's fallen

01:22:30.660 from 54 to 36 but 36 supporting israel i was more saying supporting u.s financial support of israel's

01:22:39.280 destruction of gaza more so i was saying that would be like 10 points lower than i imagine if

01:22:43.380 you're willing to say in the present climate that you support israel you're probably maybe you're

01:22:47.700 right so maybe i maybe i i over kind of but it's but certainly still super majorities oppose 65

01:22:53.940 OK, sure. Fair enough. Yeah. So anyway. And then within the Democratic primary, I think I mean, I've seen polls that said 75 percent call it a genocide.

01:23:03.620 So to your same point, if you're calling it a genocide, you're probably not supporting your money going toward it.

01:23:08.260 That would be real weird if you met that one person. It's genocide and I think his name is Ben Gavir.

01:23:14.400 But anyway, yeah, it's Ben Gavir and Smotrich might actually meet that that camp.

01:23:19.540 but um i'm sorry we're what we were talking about the democratic socialist and we were talking oh

01:23:25.000 yeah yeah so so now even like it wasn't even cuomo didn't even come at him like hey man like

01:23:30.560 there's jewish new yorkers who are worried for their safety there's synagogues that have armed

01:23:34.460 like he didn't even come at him with like in a he went you won't commit to going to this foreign

01:23:38.540 country so my point being let's just say it had just been a democrat not responsible for lockdowns

01:23:45.560 not tied with israel not me too violations not murdered old people by forcing them the senior

01:23:54.380 citizens to take in covid positive patients as they screamed for help and pleaded please don't

01:23:58.780 do this you'll kill people that's that guy let's say it was just cardboard democrat we don't even

01:24:04.540 know if mondani beats that guy so to your question of like out of the city we don't even know

01:24:09.500 necessarily if he wins we haven't even really run that experiment the the uh uh the general election

01:24:14.420 was pretty close actually i tend my guess to your question tends to be i don't think it has that

01:24:20.340 much play i don't think i think a lot of this left-wing stuff plays very very well in specific

01:24:24.920 areas but is gonna turn people off the the broader you get in the american voting base that's kind of

01:24:31.100 my feeling about it um but i'm not entirely sure and i think that there's a lot's been done over

01:24:40.020 the last five six years particularly with the covid stuff to kind of upend like the traditional

01:24:44.740 you know where the american voter is exactly and what the constituencies are so i'm not sure

01:24:50.500 but i think that it's quite possible that after particularly after these midterms the next two

01:24:56.760 weeks i think probably the republicans are gonna have a really really bad day um they're gonna

01:25:01.100 lose the house i think they might lose the senate as well and i think that there's probably going

01:25:05.180 to be a lot of feeling um amongst the left like they may get a little cocky over the next couple

01:25:10.120 years and be like yeah this socialism stuff is really popular everyone hates donald trump we're

01:25:14.480 on the ascendant but we'll see how that goes in in 28 because the interesting thing is i look at

01:25:21.120 the democrats and i don't see a figurehead yeah i don't see a figurehead i don't really see

01:25:26.120 anybody who i think that's the potential to be you know the next leader i mean who who really is

01:25:32.460 there no if you go through them it's like you could just tell you all the reasons why they won't

01:25:35.680 work you know what i mean like each person you could go well this is why this won't be aoc here's

01:25:39.620 why it won't be gavin newsom here's why it can't be this guy um i think that yeah that's real it's

01:25:45.400 really interesting and i actually think on both sides to some degree even though you know the

01:25:49.260 republicans have jd vance and marco rubia some people who kind of like logically would make

01:25:52.720 sense it's kind of wide open on both sides it's really amazing that no one kind of established

01:25:59.480 themselves as the leader or even a major leader of kind of the leftist movement right now i think

01:26:04.640 aoc was kind of positioned to be it but she just kind of lost it by not she she didn't become kind

01:26:12.240 of like the face of the pro-palestinian movement she kind of wanted to like ease into it and not

01:26:17.820 upset the establishment too much either and then it wasn't until it was really really popular that

01:26:22.660 she kind of like came into it i think that hurt her a lot i think that's kind of like why mom

01:26:26.800 donnie and el saeed have become kind of like the leaders where she was more positioned bernie's

01:26:32.100 just too old and gavin is just too tied to california and too much of a snake too much of

01:26:38.420 an obvious traditional politician you know the democrats need like their own trump they need

01:26:42.860 someone who can like credibly be like i'm against this whole thing that's what they're looking for

01:26:47.140 and but they they've never been able to identify that guy you know and and that to me is the real

01:26:53.440 very sexist well i mean let's be real they've tried it the other way yeah and it didn't work

01:26:59.220 but they've never but they've never identified there are options you could go half and half

01:27:05.720 right yeah you got trans yeah so it's kind of a bit of both oh that's true that is true

01:27:09.960 depending on what year it is i don't know what what you are i mean isn't it wild though i do

01:27:14.360 think there's something to like you know is it true by the way fact check me on this but isn't

01:27:18.900 is it true that aoc took her pronouns out of her twitter right that is true and i think like a

01:27:25.860 couple of them right yeah and there is there's something about that do you find i'm sorry from

01:27:32.340 your perspective right because you're probably kind of similar to me on this when they when guys

01:27:35.860 like that do something and you've been a guy you gave the speech at oxford you've been fighting

01:27:39.460 wokeism like professionally for on a high level for years you know and then you see something like

01:27:44.420 that like the tide has turned man like after after losing and losing and losing and losing oh shoot

01:27:49.620 this this take that was very unpopular you know i remember um someone just shared uh this actually

01:27:54.420 made me proud but someone just shared a clip of my podcast from april of 2020 when i'm just railing

01:27:59.300 against the lockdowns and how all the numbers all and i'm like in i'm in my mother-in-law's

01:28:05.220 house while i'm doing it like ready and we can see why you were angry yes listen you want to get

01:28:10.740 get me angry you don't want me to rant i'm running my phone in my mother's house anyway i actually

01:28:15.440 like her she's cool uh but and i'm like oh i'm proud of that because it was so unpopular at the

01:28:20.020 time you know what i mean and it aged so well so there's like a lot of yeah yeah and but there's

01:28:23.460 a feeling so when you're almost like dude this was so unpopular i stuck my neck out there now

01:28:27.020 it's the the super majority consensus and they're taking their pronouns and there's a part of it

01:28:31.500 that you almost feel like good but then there's also a part of you that goes like you coward

01:28:36.760 you lie no go down with it you pin this to you forever it should be tattooed to your forehead

01:28:43.220 your pronoun every one of you like no you have to defend this because you you acted like you

01:28:47.640 really believed it you not only acted like you really believed it you acted like we were nazis

01:28:51.620 for opposing it and i i do think that there's something that trump captured that jd vamps does

01:28:59.100 not capture that aoc does not capture that's you can't be that you can't be the person who put your

01:29:06.520 pronouns in and then takes them out when they're not popular either go down with this that either

01:29:10.840 go down believing in this or don't ever do it at all it's it's going to be very hard to like lead

01:29:16.460 a movement if you don't have that like perceived authenticity billy give us the fact check so we

01:29:21.520 know whether the last five minutes was all based on the complete fabrication so she does not have

01:29:26.120 her pronouns in her twitter or her linkedin but she used to have them in her instagram

01:29:30.720 okay oh she's really making sure she did used to have them on her twitter so it's like all right

01:29:36.020 look man you're still i get points for that still totally i get half points for the first one full

01:29:41.220 full score but it makes sense because when when when elon took over twitter you know what happened

01:29:45.960 right it's like all the people who were left leaning they basically went to instagram yeah

01:29:49.960 right all right so there well there you go so it's not risky over here it's like it's like uh

01:29:53.640 when the coca-cola will have like their pride flag in their that you know their their billboard here

01:29:59.160 but then their billboard in Saudi Arabia you know they don't got none of that Instagram is

01:30:03.540 the Saudi Arabia I would actually argue I don't think woke has gone anywhere I just think what

01:30:09.580 happens is it moves on to the next issue and the next issue is economic populism yeah well it's

01:30:16.120 Israel and Israel and economic populism but and I think this economic populism has got way more

01:30:23.480 the potential for way more traction than any of the other previous issues because people are

01:30:29.180 feeling the pinch people are feeling the pinch and the stats in some ways are undeniable Dave

01:30:33.520 you know the ever-growing gap between rich and poor the people who can no longer afford to make

01:30:39.100 ends meet or barely and they did nothing wrong the fact that there's a group of people getting

01:30:44.400 richer and richer and richer etc etc AI I mean look this is fertile ground here let's be honest

01:30:51.500 oh no oh and and and um well look like the major hole that it plugs up moving to like the economic

01:30:59.020 populism is that you're just uh one of the major problems with wokeism as a political strategy 1.00

01:31:04.060 is that it was all um well it well yes but it was all uh it was upper middle class white women 0.98

01:31:14.540 world like like um hierarchy of priorities you know like the which is and again not for nothing 1.00

01:31:21.680 like nothing against being like an upper middle class like woman and you know in fact i i'm

01:31:27.580 married to one and i support her and i really like her quite a bit um and i like that but like

01:31:32.300 as you i'm sure no right there's just the things you're dealing with like say in your day when

01:31:37.460 you're say like you know are just different and the problems that a college kid has might be who

01:31:42.280 offended them but that's not the problems that like a guy on the job site has that's not the

01:31:46.600 problems that a guy in the military has that's not a you know it's like and one of the major

01:31:51.220 electoral issues that wokeism had is that just like the gender decisions of three-year-olds or

01:31:56.240 climate change or what at microaggressions are not on the top 10 of anyone's issues like no one

01:32:01.840 really cares about these these issues and one of the problems the the war hawks have is that

01:32:06.340 the iranian nuclear program is not on the top 10 of anybody's issues you know people care about like

01:32:11.080 how what we all by the way the only reason we care about all of these more uh kind of

01:32:17.680 abstract issues that we're spending this whole show talking about is because all of our immediate

01:32:21.980 issues are taken care of like if your wife was not okay if your kids were not okay you'd be much

01:32:27.340 more concerned with that than you are with any other issue and most people who are living paycheck

01:32:31.380 to paycheck are gonna be most concerned with like the price of their mortgage the price of their

01:32:36.580 health care their grocery bills they're like their immediate life making sure their kids are okay

01:32:41.240 and so yes when you're doing economic populism you at least are speaking to those issues and i will

01:32:46.580 say that like you're right in the sense that a major major issue of our time and i think it's

01:32:53.280 probably the same in the uk but it's definitely the case here is that um like i would have said

01:32:59.320 it's currency debasement we've destroyed the currency or damn near destroyed it we've made

01:33:03.780 the price of everything out of control and i mean if there is one stat that i think sums up

01:33:09.000 the problem in the with the united states of america it is that the um the median age of the

01:33:17.520 first time house buyer is 40 the at or average either average or median i can't remember but

01:33:23.820 either way it's the average person's first house they buy it 40 years old now but you know there

01:33:30.260 that is and to me is purely a result of the currency destruction so anyway oh i say all of

01:33:35.840 that to say that yes the democratic socialists are talking to the issue to the crisis to the

01:33:40.940 real concern that's a big advantage from what the woke 1.0 had but the one thing they kind of can't

01:33:47.080 answer is like well what created these conditions what causes prices to go out of control what is

01:33:53.000 a price what is an economy like they don't have it's really something they don't have thoughts

01:33:57.120 on any of these most basic things.

01:33:59.080 Like, they don't really have thoughts on, like,

01:34:00.880 why... Look, we had a whole debate

01:34:03.040 in the Biden administration over forgiving

01:34:04.920 student loan debt, and it almost never

01:34:06.900 came up why prices of college are so

01:34:08.860 expensive to begin with. I can tell you why.

01:34:10.920 It's very much the point that you made earlier,

01:34:13.100 which is, Francis and I were talking about

01:34:15.020 it today, and you're not supposed to talk like this

01:34:17.040 and you're a bad person if you do, but

01:34:18.840 wokeness is fundamentally a feminine 1.00

01:34:20.860 ideology. And feminine 0.96

01:34:22.820 ways of being are actually really 1.00

01:34:25.020 valuable for certain things, like looking

01:34:27.060 after people so wokeness is about there's a bad thing happening how do we look after people

01:34:32.560 which is a great attitude but you also your point is you sometimes have to go well how did we get

01:34:39.880 here exactly and that's less that's no that's that's sort of more masculine it's almost always

01:34:45.580 anytime you're taking on wokeism you're almost always bringing masculinity to a feminine

01:34:51.540 conversation yeah going like guys i understand why we're having this conversation and by the way

01:34:55.800 listen after being married and having little kids you really appreciate why there is femininity it's

01:35:00.360 like oh why are they so emotional because you try dealing with a toddler right okay and also by the

01:35:04.880 way like when a toddler's you know when you have human beings all that they're so precious and

01:35:09.400 they're so easy to to die and they're and they're like if you have a one and a half year old they're

01:35:13.740 basically just trying to kill themselves all day long like all day long they're trying to commit

01:35:17.400 suicide and you're going no no no that will kill you you can't and if a car if somebody isn't paying

01:35:22.560 attention to the kid and a kid's about to wander in front of a car the reaction is not to explain

01:35:27.560 to them how that is logically not a good you know like you go no and you freak out and you make

01:35:32.040 because that's what you need that emotion for to protect little ones and as you said to take care

01:35:36.060 of vulnerable people it's not how you make political decisions it's just a very sloppy way

01:35:41.480 to do it i would say it's definitely gotta be this is why i'm not right or left genuinely people

01:35:47.200 don't believe this you know both left and right call us right wing because the right wants us to

01:35:51.740 be right wing and the left also wants us to be right wing so they can attack us but actually

01:35:55.420 i think the compassion and empathy side that the left brings to political conversations

01:36:00.680 is important it's just not you can't only make decisions from the perspective of how do we look

01:36:08.700 after vulnerable people because if you did that you'd never create any wealth or do anything of

01:36:14.580 any kind in the first place agreed and when you lean right so i uh concern

01:36:21.500 for the marginalized and the vulnerable

01:36:24.380 is something that any decent society needs

01:36:26.660 to have some people are there.

01:36:27.900 So if the left serves a purpose,

01:36:29.280 I guess it's to, you know,

01:36:30.480 encourage us to have that.

01:36:31.780 The problem is that when you get emotional

01:36:33.800 about these things,

01:36:34.860 it's also easy to get sloppy.

01:36:36.640 That's just, that's why you don't want

01:36:37.880 to be emotional in a crisis.

01:36:39.640 It's the exact reason why you want

01:36:40.960 to be calm and rational

01:36:41.940 is because you get sloppy.

01:36:43.020 You miss factors, you know?

01:36:44.340 You're so focused on the fact

01:36:45.540 that this schizophrenic homeless guy's a victim

01:36:47.320 that you didn't think to yourself like,

01:36:48.820 hey, this mother, this pregnant woman

01:36:50.180 on the bus is also a victim there's other victims to protect here you know um and so i do no so i

01:36:56.360 agree with you right there's always kind of the the i think there's something masculine about

01:37:01.540 what's this going to cost where's it going to come from who's going to like that's the father

01:37:07.740 advice right like this is the father you know that you your your son comes to you and goes i want to

01:37:12.040 i want to go and make it big and show business i want to start a business and do this the mother's

01:37:16.120 like i believe in you you're a star your father sits down and goes rent is going to be 2100 a

01:37:20.960 month you're going to need to make at least five thousand dollars a month you know like that's just

01:37:24.120 that's the way fathers are but if you're going to sit here and go like isn't it an interesting

01:37:28.820 question if you just go hey we all grant we're having an unaffordability crisis okay the price

01:37:35.680 of everything is crazy people can't buy homes until they're 40 well look let's look at things

01:37:39.920 here okay my grandfather could buy a house when he was 21 he worked at a factory he went and got

01:37:45.500 a job and he could buy a house his wife never had to work now why would it be in such a more

01:37:49.320 productive economy with technological advances the way they are that we can't get to a point

01:37:53.880 where 20 year olds who have a job can afford a house okay what this is an interesting question

01:37:57.620 you know if you go why are the okay then you you add in that in the last 25 years and i don't

01:38:03.660 exaggerate this we have embarked and because your currency is tied to ours you guys have as well

01:38:08.760 embarked on the biggest printing spree in human history right okay like once you have that piece

01:38:14.660 of information, wouldn't you then go, well, golly gee, maybe there's a connection between the two.

01:38:20.740 It is the most intuitive thing ever. This is the most basic law of economics. It's supply and

01:38:25.880 demand. You can't just flood the economy with trillions of dollars every year and think that

01:38:31.160 you're not going to end up. And by the way, the fact that we have military dominance and dollar

01:38:35.640 hegemony, or maybe hegemony is not the right word anymore, but there is so much of the world that

01:38:41.780 still use the dollars a reserve. We're able to keep it to the level that it is right now. And

01:38:46.960 if we didn't have any of that and just printed the money, we'd be in Weimar wheelbarrows full

01:38:51.740 of cash at this point. Anyway, we've had an experiment for 25 years in big government spending

01:38:57.920 and money printing. That's been the experiment, objectively. And it's gotten us here. And I just

01:39:03.280 think this was very predictable. I think it's just kind of demonstrated that, yeah, all the

01:39:06.800 free market economists were right. That was real economics. This is what happens. You can sit here

01:39:11.680 promised the government will give you a whole bunch of stuff it does not work and that goes

01:39:16.980 back to you know being daddy not in a sexual sense but going talking about that's the relief

01:39:22.720 talking about the one thing we don't want to talk about in your country and in mine in my country

01:39:30.840 the deficit has just hit three three trillion in our country yours is on 40 i mean what are we

01:39:36.240 going to do we can't can we can we keep going like this no oh no no no there's no and it's so

01:39:41.140 everyone's so irresponsible man it almost feels like everyone in leadership it's like the you

01:39:46.100 know the boat's going down and the rats are just get you know nancy close is like dude i'm making

01:39:49.860 stock trades i i get yes we got i mean if you just do the math out for like the next 20 years

01:39:55.780 if we continue on this trajectory i think it's like 6.5 trillion dollars a year just to pay for

01:40:00.580 the interest on the debt we will not make it to that point something will crack up in this system

01:40:04.740 before we go there but it's like uh the great ron paul said uh in a speech was but it's like the

01:40:10.260 most just basic wisdom from a previous generation. If you live above your means, you're destined to

01:40:15.840 live below your means. It's true on a personal level. It's true on a family level. It's true

01:40:19.620 on a government level. The bottom line that no one will admit, you know, either political party

01:40:25.240 or really just like in this never even really comes up much in podcasts or in news shows is

01:40:30.980 that we cannot afford the government that we have. We just can't afford it. And it's not we

01:40:36.200 can't afford the entitlements and we can't afford the the military we don't have the money and so

01:40:41.480 we we can't tax nearly enough to pay for it and we can't even borrow enough to pay for it and so

01:40:47.780 we just have to print the money and so that's what you've got now and then that comes and that

01:40:51.720 that brings in a bunch of other economic factors because it forces you to live in an inflationary

01:40:56.960 environment where you're always printing the money you know the fed is targeting two and a half

01:41:00.480 percent they're trying to keep the goal is inflation but just like not too bad that it

01:41:04.480 crushes you. So you want to keep it in place. But then, of course, what that does is it forces

01:41:08.320 everybody to speculate. Now, you're losing money on your you're losing value on your money. If

01:41:12.620 you're just holding money, you got to give it to Wall Street. You got to speculate. You invest

01:41:16.320 into things that you wouldn't otherwise have invested into. It creates like all this malinvestment.

01:41:20.100 And of course, in an environment where prices are going up and up and up and up and up,

01:41:24.040 people who own assets do fine. They benefit from the price inflation at times. But who it destroys

01:41:29.900 is the more vulnerable. And of course, the young, the people coming into the workforce who don't

01:41:34.280 own anything. They're the ones who get it the worst. Yeah. And one of the reasons I think it

01:41:39.080 doesn't really get talked about, I mean, we talk about it all the time and you've got, I think,

01:41:42.840 a very good articular summation there. But let's be honest, the majority of the people want this.

01:41:49.120 This is what they want. It's the same in our country. People will say, they will say that

01:41:55.700 they are against tax and spend. If you poll people on tax and spend, they're against it,

01:41:59.480 like 30, 30 something percent. It's the lowest it's ever been in the UK or the lowest it's been

01:42:03.560 in decades but if you ask them about specific measures should we cut this should we cut that

01:42:09.640 should we lower taxes oh no no no no no no no they want more tax and they want more spent and

01:42:15.540 that's right and it's um you know like this is stuff that you know i know the stuff is a little

01:42:20.080 bit dry and maybe boring especially in today's like kind of sensational internet we're gonna

01:42:24.620 get to winston church like i'm telling you the jews killed charlie kirk just bear with me for a

01:42:29.400 moment but if we could just get if we could just get through thomas hole's basic economics here

01:42:33.060 you know like it's like there is like the the fact is that look something like uh like this

01:42:38.100 old milton friedman stuff right but it's really true something like the sugar quota you know you

01:42:41.960 have like a sugar quota where this might mean that all of us pay like seven dollars a year more for

01:42:48.240 sugar than we all otherwise would but for the sugar industry dude this is worth like a hundred

01:42:53.600 billion dollars i mean not that much but like it is worth billions of dollars and so how can we

01:42:58.720 ever compete when like just one little inch of spending is such a concentrated special interest

01:43:04.600 and it's only screwing everybody else over like this much you know and this is true with every

01:43:10.260 inch of government it's true look we saw this with uh donald trump his big mass deportation

01:43:14.860 you know effort right so you have this thing where really joe biden moves the country to the

01:43:20.440 right on immigration further than really imaginable in my life by the end of joe biden like the

01:43:24.660 majority of the country support mass deportations they're like screw this open borders nonsense

01:43:28.840 um and then almost immediately like a few months in donald trump announces that we're not going to

01:43:35.380 be deporting farmers and people who work at hotels well ain't that a random choice right

01:43:40.300 like why did you read oh in other words big business likes the cheap labor and we just ran

01:43:45.940 up against two you know you so this is the problem is that you create as milton friedman would have

01:43:50.480 said when you have government spending you create this thing that is against the general interest

01:43:54.960 but is very in this special interest or this special interest and they will fight like hell

01:44:00.020 to keep that little privilege that they have so it's a very difficult situation but that's big

01:44:04.500 business and special interest i'm just talking about the ordinary person oh yeah and people also

01:44:08.820 want their benefits people also don't want you know people um you know i thought it was very

01:44:12.960 interesting which you know of course it became like a like a trending kind of hot button issue

01:44:19.220 But, you know, when there was that $20 burrito thing, like a few, because there's an interesting thing for young people where, look, there is a point, and I even understand, I'm very harsh on boomers in general, but I do understand where boomers at a certain, some of them will look at this and go, dude, do you know how much harder my life was than like a 23-year-old's life is today?

01:44:38.740 and in many cases that really is true like they just the amount of luxuries that like a 23 year

01:44:44.140 old today has this boomer and also by the way this boomer's like getting beat with a belt

01:44:47.740 was like had a very different life than you you know led um that being said boomer could get a

01:44:55.220 summer job and pay for his college boomer could get a job pretty easily and you could support a

01:45:00.080 family off that and so it almost becomes a thing where it's like yes you've got a much cooler tv

01:45:04.920 you have much better medicine you have much better you know food but it's really hard to say how do

01:45:11.700 you weigh that verse being able to own a house because i gotta say in my life you know as with

01:45:18.300 you guys right we're kind of lucky we get to have cool careers we do a career that like you know

01:45:22.460 this is kind of like a dream job you get to do what you really love to do and it's a very

01:45:26.160 narcissistically rewarding job you're in front of the camera you have fans you walk down the street

01:45:30.860 someone recognizes you hey you're the guy from that show that i like you know it's cool but like

01:45:36.080 if i had to compare that to like dude just how cool it is being the head of a household it's just

01:45:41.320 like the most awesome thing man like being a dad is just the best being a husband and a dad like

01:45:46.000 i'm the man of this house i'm like the benevolent king of my little fiefdom i got little people who

01:45:51.520 just adore me like in this insane way like this the cutest little seven-year-old girl in the world

01:45:56.780 runs up and adores me and this wife who adores me for some reason puts up with me like that's so

01:46:03.080 much cooler and i don't know it is really sad that that's the thing everyone can have not everyone

01:46:09.000 can have this not everyone's gonna have like a kind of be a quasi celebrity or something but

01:46:13.620 like everyone can have their own little fiefdom everyone could be the you know that and so i do

01:46:18.720 just think there's something like that was almost missing from that whole burrito debate where it's

01:46:22.820 like it's not either or dude it's not it's not like like who had it tougher or hey it's like

01:46:27.960 there is something to be said for like well i did if the burrito's twenty dollars then like cook it

01:46:32.160 home you know you're 20 i don't know how broke i was at 20 it's a but at the same time you kind

01:46:37.480 of can't downplay how much has been robbed from them and that has been robbed by policy of

01:46:42.340 politicians who have gotten filthy rich as they've done it yeah well it's not about i guess what

01:46:47.380 you're saying it's exactly the same in our country it's not about the twenty dollar burrito it's

01:46:51.600 about the million-dollar two-bedroom apartment, right?

01:46:54.320 Yeah, yeah.

01:46:55.160 Why does an apartment cost that much?

01:46:56.920 And I remember, in fact, I really apologize

01:46:59.640 if I said this last time we were on the show,

01:47:02.200 but there is, I just, this stuck out with me

01:47:04.840 that I'd bought a house, like, four years ago,

01:47:08.180 and I got, maybe a year and a half ago,

01:47:11.880 I got a letter from just, like, the realtor.

01:47:14.500 So this isn't, like, an official appraisal,

01:47:16.200 but just, like, the realtor who sold me my house goes,

01:47:18.240 We've estimated that your house has gone up like $200,000 and something.

01:47:23.000 And I'm thinking about this.

01:47:23.940 And at the exact same time, I got my baby brother is moving out of New York to go to

01:47:29.620 a cheaper city where he can afford it because he's not my baby brother anymore.

01:47:33.880 He's in his 30s and he won't take money from me and he won't come live at my house.

01:47:37.740 And so he wants to make it on his own.

01:47:39.420 So he has to leave New York in order to like be able to afford to make it on its own.

01:47:43.200 And at the same time, I just got an extra couple hundred grand of like net worth for nothing other than the privilege of living in an inflationary economy and being in the owner class.

01:47:55.260 And so it does look, man, this is where the socialists almost have a point, but they're idiots for being socialists.

01:48:01.000 There is a socialism to the current system that is favoring the rich over the poor.

01:48:06.640 You know what I'm saying? Like that is essentially welfare that I just got.

01:48:09.600 I didn't earn. It's almost a quarter million dollars. I didn't earn it.

01:48:12.820 i just sat on owning a thing and there is something being said you you got like in my

01:48:17.900 okay so there's a younger brother who's coming up in the world very bright kid very good kid by the

01:48:22.480 way but is not financially established yet has to work hard i'm the older one who is established

01:48:27.940 doesn't need the welfare and we're giving it to me like that's kind of insane and so there i don't

01:48:33.560 know there's something to that no there definitely is there definitely is look everybody's been

01:48:38.700 waiting for it let's talk about churchill i'm not even the church i'm just the proxel the proxy

01:48:44.400 way too much agreement so far right and this is just i've literally just i'm the best people

01:48:51.680 to speak to all of your friends right this is outrageous okay well what happened now what is

01:48:57.420 the latest controversy with the latest controversy did he get us in another war it's the same

01:49:00.960 controversy okay right about winston churchill the worst blah blah blah he's putting in another

01:49:07.640 nicotine pouches. You're probably going to need two, mate. You're going to put a bunch in, right?

01:49:11.640 It's nothing. These are Tucker's pouches. They'll get me through this. Tucker Carlson,

01:49:15.400 Jacob Rees-Mogg, all this. Look, we believe in free speech. Everyone should have whatever

01:49:20.700 opinion they want. But if we came to your country, right, and started slagging off George Washington

01:49:26.180 and saying he was the greatest villain of American history. No, that's not cool. I don't think you'd

01:49:32.260 respect that. I didn't like it. I didn't like that very much as we ran that experiment. I didn't

01:49:36.380 care for it. Yeah, I bet you didn't. The accent did make

01:49:38.440 it worse, too. Yeah, well, exactly.

01:49:40.460 But your accent is superior.

01:49:42.600 Anyway, my point is... But George Washington

01:49:44.520 is such a badass, man. He won the

01:49:46.360 revolution. It's a purely defensive war.

01:49:48.540 He gave up the presidency. It could have been king.

01:49:50.600 Gave it up. You know, I mean, come on. I don't deny that

01:49:52.420 because I'm historically illiterate, but

01:49:54.280 these historically illiterate people

01:49:55.900 with whom you are friends, right?

01:49:59.440 It's just too...

01:50:00.440 What do you not... Okay, let's...

01:50:02.000 What do you... Listen, I want to be

01:50:04.360 objective here, and I don't even think me and

01:50:06.320 you necessarily have that far of a disagreement on this there is something comical about in this

01:50:11.620 conversation with the three of us calling daryl cooper a historic illiterate the just objectively

01:50:16.640 speaking the guy has forgotten more about history than any of the three of us know having it like

01:50:21.900 that's true you may say he's gotten some things wrong and that's fine but having only reading

01:50:26.720 one side of the conversation i promise you he has not only read one side i promise you i promise

01:50:31.420 you this is just a it's nothing we could ever solve i promise you daryl cooper has read more

01:50:36.300 mainstream history about World War II

01:50:40.040 than everyone in this room combined.

01:50:42.280 I promise.

01:50:43.240 Whatever.

01:50:44.400 Come back.

01:50:44.940 First of all, you said George Washington,

01:50:46.640 really cool, right?

01:50:47.380 What do you know about Winston Churchill

01:50:49.080 and how cool he was?

01:50:51.100 I can tell you.

01:50:52.120 Dude, if you want my...

01:50:53.440 Listen, dude,

01:50:54.520 I have the utmost respect

01:50:56.900 for functioning alcoholics.

01:50:58.840 And I just want to make that clear.

01:51:00.020 I want to make that very clear

01:51:01.280 on this broadcast.

01:51:02.280 Like, I just do think they are...

01:51:03.480 That is actually what keeps a society running.

01:51:06.300 And they're one of the most demonized and underappreciated groups.

01:51:09.540 The line, as a comedian, the line that you'll still be ugly in the morning, but I'll be sober, is almost, we should all just stop trying.

01:51:20.700 Like, comedy's already been done.

01:51:22.360 Like, no one even needs to come out with another special.

01:51:24.340 If I may say, you're looking at some of the superficial aspects of his career.

01:51:28.080 I would really argue, I think this is very substantive, what I'm talking about.

01:51:31.280 The functioning drunk thing?

01:51:33.020 Okay, so what is it you want to argue about?

01:51:34.480 I don't want to argue about anything on this.

01:51:36.640 I just, I don't think people in America who talk about this stuff

01:51:40.180 appreciate why we all get triggered, right?

01:51:43.580 Because it's incredibly inaccurate and disrespectful

01:51:46.960 the way that people talk about a man that we as a country

01:51:49.780 voted as the greatest living Britain,

01:51:51.740 in the same way that George Washington probably would be, right?

01:51:54.960 Winston Churchill became an MP at the age of 24, 25 for the first time.

01:51:58.760 He was a war hero, served in war.

01:52:01.080 He has written more words in the English language

01:52:03.740 than anyone, including Shakespeare.

01:52:06.220 Is that true?

01:52:07.220 Wow, that's pretty crazy.

01:52:08.040 He has a Nobel Prize for literature.

01:52:11.140 Okay.

01:52:12.260 And this is where we might disagree.

01:52:15.080 He single-handedly kept Britain in the war

01:52:19.720 long enough that things would change on the ground.

01:52:23.300 Get the Americans in.

01:52:24.060 That was part of it, for sure.

01:52:25.520 Long enough to win the war

01:52:27.080 against the greatest evil of the 20th century.

01:52:29.120 Well, I think any time you're conducting a war

01:52:31.780 to try to get another country into a war,

01:52:34.960 there's going to be criticism for that.

01:52:35.880 He didn't conduct a war to get another country.

01:52:37.020 Oh, I should say, well, you just said that's part of it.

01:52:38.480 I'm sorry, you said that was part of it.

01:52:39.520 No, Churchill's strategy was...

01:52:40.860 Well, let me see.

01:52:41.640 Hold on, but this is one part of the historical literacy.

01:52:45.640 Churchill wasn't in charge of Britain

01:52:47.100 when World War II broke out.

01:52:48.880 No, I'm well aware of that.

01:52:49.760 Churchill was deeply unpopular

01:52:51.640 for saying we need to confront Hitler.

01:52:54.660 Yes, he was an advocate for confrontation for Hitler

01:52:57.240 and then later became...

01:52:58.060 He was an anti-appeasement advocate.

01:53:00.200 Sure, sure.

01:53:00.520 the appeasers were in charge they were in charge they pursued the policy of appeasement which well

01:53:07.960 aware of this yes but but but i think the people who who are talking about this don't seem to get

01:53:14.440 this part of it tucker carson is one of these people well i don't they don't seem to understand

01:53:19.000 that churchill didn't cause world war ii churchill was the voice in the wilderness who everyone

01:53:24.280 mocked for saying this will happen and then it did happen and they said oh you were right come

01:53:31.060 and run the country now please that's what happened sure sure you know let me just say by the way just

01:53:35.540 like to preface any of this conversation because despite uh the accusations of douglas murray

01:53:40.780 i don't actually think i'm guilty of of what he accused me of so i do just want to disclaim i think

01:53:45.760 i've read three books ever about world war ii i've probably seen 25 documentaries about it because

01:53:51.320 it's the most documentary-tized thing

01:53:53.360 ever. And I'm currently listening

01:53:55.460 to Daryl Cooper's series

01:53:57.400 on it. But so, I just

01:53:59.020 disclaim, I don't

01:54:00.520 really have a very high level of expertise

01:54:03.200 on World War II, and I've never read

01:54:05.340 like a biography of Churchill. But if you

01:54:07.400 want to recommend one, I will read whatever

01:54:09.320 you think the best documentary of Churchill is.

01:54:11.380 So, video, Andrew Roberts, Walking with Destiny

01:54:13.540 on our show,

01:54:15.860 and his book is called Walking with Destiny.

01:54:17.580 I have a, what was it?

01:54:19.760 He wrote the Rothschild.

01:54:21.320 book right the house of the rothschilds i don't know maybe i might be wrong about that but i have

01:54:25.800 that book i think it might be him but anyway anyway walking with destiny so i would say this

01:54:29.860 um first of all i think obviously like daryl and tucker are aware that uh winston churchill was not

01:54:35.580 the prime minister in 39 okay maybe not but i also think certainly um daryl i know has talked

01:54:41.540 about this quite a bit but yeah look there's no question that neville chamberlain and adolf

01:54:47.820 Hitler humiliating Neville Chamberlain were a huge factor that led to the war. And it's really, I

01:54:54.100 think, even Adolf Hitler, I'd say up there with one of the worst things he did, even with somebody

01:55:01.780 like Adolf Hitler, who is guilty of the worst crimes in human history, because Neville Chamberlain

01:55:08.920 was the most powerful figure in Europe who desperately wanted to avoid a war. And he

01:55:13.860 humiliated him in front of the world. And I think that that was probably pretty devastating to

01:55:18.300 the prospects to not fighting the war. But so look, I'm aware of all the stuff you said.

01:55:23.360 My take on World War II is more kind of this. I mean, this is more broadly speaking. There is a

01:55:28.560 strange dynamic, and there's reasons for this dynamic, but World War II is radioactive in a

01:55:33.700 way that no other war is. You know, if I were to come on your podcast and say we never should have

01:55:38.780 fought World War I, which I've actually read a bit more about than World War II, that would not

01:55:43.740 be controversial at all in fact i'd be right you should both agree with me the war was stupid it

01:55:47.780 was destructive it was horrible never should have fought vietnam you know you might get some push

01:55:51.620 back if i say we never should have fought the war in korea but it's not going to be radioactive

01:55:54.620 pushback world war ii is different world war ii is this it is the it is the worst calamity in human

01:56:01.540 history it involves the holocaust in it too it involves the creation of the u.s empire it involves

01:56:06.720 the creation of the state of israel like it is such a powerful kind of force that it just sets

01:56:13.340 off a reaction when you talk about it almost unlike any other issue and also it is weaponized

01:56:20.220 to justify every war i don't know if you guys watched which i don't even recommend it's a waste

01:56:25.700 of time none of you watched me debating alan uh um uh for the very reason you articulated i'm afraid

01:56:32.640 it was not a good debate listen man i really do like the good ones more than the it wasn't like

01:56:37.040 a show and like it didn't like turn like i mean he called me an anti-semite and flipped out at one

01:56:41.560 point calling me names but it was kind of whatever um but literally and i'm not exaggerating when i

01:56:46.300 say his entire argument was world war ii his entire argument is we're living in 1930s this is germany

01:56:52.340 and so my beef with it i find the you know the period in time like i shouldn't even say i haven't

01:56:58.740 read by the way i've read a lot about the holocaust particularly but that's almost like a different

01:57:02.540 thing than just reading about world war ii um it's a fascinating period in time it's a the most

01:57:09.340 horrific period of time ever and it is what's used constantly to justify more and more military

01:57:17.420 activity and so so that is kind of like what i find interesting about the whole thing well i i

01:57:23.540 know and i when i wrote about what i termed the woke right it's a very controversial term blah

01:57:28.360 blah blah blah blah but my central argument was and i think this applies to you actually

01:57:33.180 the reason you have to undermine the world war ii narrative it's the one counter example

01:57:38.320 to the overall worldview that you have,

01:57:41.060 which is war is always bad, right?

01:57:42.580 No, well, I don't think...

01:57:43.280 My worldview isn't that war is always bad.

01:57:45.580 But, like, no, I mean,

01:57:47.560 I don't necessarily agree with that.

01:57:49.680 I mean, World War II isn't as if it's, like,

01:57:51.540 some example where, like,

01:57:52.640 look, everything worked out well here.

01:57:54.600 It's like, no, things went really horrible,

01:57:56.420 and you could argue they would have gone

01:57:57.940 even really more horrible without the war,

01:58:00.180 but it's certainly not as clean-cut of an example.

01:58:02.720 And I was always...

01:58:03.760 It is a clean-cut example,

01:58:05.540 because we know what the alternative would have been.

01:58:07.780 We know.

01:58:08.320 Well, it's a clean-cut example of what?

01:58:10.300 It's a clean-cut example of there is a time and a place, just like in your own life,

01:58:14.420 and you're someone who's courageous, and, you know, there's different forms of courage.

01:58:18.160 I don't know if you'd be the first running into battle with a machine gun,

01:58:22.120 but you speak up for what you believe.

01:58:23.940 This is something a lot of people fear doing, right?

01:58:26.800 You're a courageous person, and you're prepared to make a stand on things you believe in.

01:58:30.300 And I believe if a portion of your audience wanted you to go in a direction that you didn't agree with,

01:58:36.380 you would not go in that direction.

01:58:38.080 you would actually stand up to that,

01:58:39.480 as we have done on numerous occasions on our show, right?

01:58:41.520 Yes, that's for sure, yes.

01:58:42.280 So in the same way that sometimes you stand up

01:58:45.480 for something that you believe in

01:58:47.320 or what is the right thing to do,

01:58:48.640 even though it might cost you, right?

01:58:50.820 It might cost you heavily, even.

01:58:52.860 We admire people who do that,

01:58:55.080 and the outcome of that is the terrible thing

01:58:58.100 doesn't happen as a result of that.

01:59:00.480 World War II is the perfect example

01:59:03.300 of why sometimes you have to fight,

01:59:06.540 even though it's horrible,

01:59:07.360 even though the losses are catastrophic

01:59:09.140 because the thing you are preventing

01:59:11.080 would have been way worse even than that?

01:59:14.100 I don't know.

01:59:15.060 I just don't know if I agree that it's a clear example.

01:59:17.100 Well, let me just say, first of all,

01:59:19.060 I would just say that I think,

01:59:20.400 and this is what I have read a bit more on,

01:59:22.160 but I think the pretty obvious takeaway from all of this

01:59:25.800 is that there was the intervention in World War II,

01:59:28.020 the total victory, the Treaty of Versailles,

01:59:30.100 the international humiliation of the Germans

01:59:32.360 that perfectly kind of led the table

01:59:34.280 for all of this to happen.

01:59:35.620 And so, no, what starts is you have Woodrow Wilson saying he's going to make the world safe for democracy.

01:59:41.000 You have this huge intervention explicitly with the goal of policing the world and democracy spreading that works out in the catastrophe that results in the rise of Lenin, Stalin and Adolf Hitler.

01:59:51.640 So you already, if you start there, no, you don't have a perfect example of why intervention is the case.

01:59:57.420 In fact, it's a real like non-interventionist example of how we never should have.

02:00:01.140 Now, if you want to say, after making this horrific intervention, after making all of these bad decisions, but we get up to this point and we can't change the past anymore, so we're right here.

02:00:09.540 If you want to argue that World War II was a just war at that point and the examples would have been worse, there is a real argument there.

02:00:15.900 I'm not denying there isn't.

02:00:17.060 Look, obviously...

02:00:17.940 Oh, so you're basically saying you agree with that argument.

02:00:20.500 I'm saying if you want to say that when Adolf Hitler was in 34 or something like that,

02:00:27.560 if England had just invaded and toppled Adolf Hitler at the time or whatever,

02:00:31.100 maybe England invading wouldn't have been the most logistical, whatever.

02:00:34.700 Yes, probably in hindsight, knowing everything we know.

02:00:38.940 Yeah, that probably would have presented prevented a lot of human suffering.

02:00:43.040 Also, when the Bolsheviks were just 12 guys reading Das Kapital in a basement somewhere,

02:00:47.960 if you had put a bullet in every one of their heads probably would have saved a lot of uh you

02:00:51.720 know suffering in russia it's hard to know these things at the time you know and we can't prosecute

02:00:55.940 future crime but yes no i'm not denying that like i'm not saying that intervention or aggression

02:01:04.360 could never lead to a better result than non-intervention would i think that would be

02:01:09.020 a silly claim right to make but there is a point where like people very intentionally try to

02:01:14.780 extrapolate the lesson of World War Two is that the guy who doesn't want to fight the war is

02:01:20.940 always the appeaser. And the guy who does want to fight the war is always the guy getting Adolf

02:01:25.740 Hitler in the basement before he becomes Adolf Hitler. And I'm not like saying like some guy on

02:01:29.920 the Internet used this logic. I'm saying Harvard law professor, president of the Israel lobby,

02:01:35.160 Alan Dershowitz, uses this. George W. Bush used this justification. The neocons have called

02:01:40.180 everyone Hitler who they don't like and I've every single war that I've been that I've opposed

02:01:45.040 which in my young career is I already got like seven under my belt every war that I've opposed

02:01:50.260 in real time I've been called Neville Chamberlain for opposing it so that's the mythology that I

02:01:54.860 think most people want to blow up whether you think World War II look and I'll just say this

02:01:58.960 my last thought on it one of the books I've read on World War II was Pat Buchanan's uh book which

02:02:04.980 i kind of left it feeling like i don't know that his thesis is correct i think he's got a reasonable

02:02:13.100 case in the same way that people argue hey if we had taken him out earlier it could have maybe led

02:02:18.620 in this direction his argument is that the war could have been avoided if you didn't have the

02:02:22.420 war you wouldn't have the holocaust how could the war have been well you got to read the book

02:02:25.540 but his argument his argument essentially is that um the war guaranteed to poland is what led to all

02:02:31.600 that the yeah this is the argument again i'm not prepared to like make the argument i'm saying the

02:02:36.920 guy wrote a book on it i read the book i thought it was compelling if people who are more uh um

02:02:41.380 have counter arguments to that have superior arguments i'm willing to look at them i did see

02:02:46.100 which douglas murray recommended i did see that big debate that pat mucannon uh did where he said

02:02:51.340 he got destroyed and i didn't see it that way but it was a very interesting debate i didn't think he

02:02:56.000 got destroyed at all in it well you say yourself you it's not an error of expertise no it's not

02:03:00.160 mind no listen i'm way more like if it's again this is why i invoke the douglas murray thing

02:03:04.680 like i will like if we're arguing about the iran war the iraq war things that i just feel like hey

02:03:10.580 i really do feel like i've done my due diligence here and i'm very convinced of my position i'll

02:03:14.720 argue it this one i'm like i don't know because i do grant that yet look you have a point and you

02:03:20.700 have some look there's also there's another whole angle without it even being like an argument

02:03:25.740 between the two of us on is that dude if adolf hitler which is almost always the case right if

02:03:31.800 he had just chilled a little bit he probably could have won it wasn't really his nature no no but

02:03:38.140 but isn't it a thing but there is a thing about that that it's almost like like even like you

02:03:42.600 look at someone like bernie madoff dude like you could have been like a hedge fund manager but that's

02:03:46.920 you did this to yourself dude if hitler just hadn't declared war on america and hadn't invaded

02:03:51.160 Russia. Right. He probably could have controlled Europe and none of us would have done nothing.

02:03:55.380 And this is why we have the disagreements or you have disagreements with people who think Iran

02:04:02.300 really must be dealt with, because what they would say is your framework of seeing the world

02:04:08.460 does not include the fact that some people will not stop. You say, basically, that Iran is run

02:04:16.560 by people who are rational, acting in their own interest,

02:04:20.740 and we would act in similar ways if we were in their position.

02:04:23.940 And so we do tit, they do tat, right?

02:04:26.980 So we escalate in this way, they escalate in this way.

02:04:30.840 And the reason that there are people who disagree with you about these issues,

02:04:34.140 and again, I'm not even committing myself to that position,

02:04:36.280 I'm just trying to explain why World War II matters in all of this,

02:04:39.840 is that we recognize through history

02:04:42.620 that sometimes there are people who will act in ways

02:04:46.340 that are not rational,

02:04:48.220 but who will do things in perpetuity

02:04:51.480 if they're allowed to get away with it, right?

02:04:54.100 And so the reason World War II matters here

02:04:56.580 is precisely what you described,

02:04:58.360 which is Hitler was not the sort of person

02:05:01.180 who would be reasonable and stop,

02:05:03.380 because all this shit that Tucker Carlson says

02:05:06.080 about how, well, you know,

02:05:07.400 the Sudetenland was actually populated by Germans

02:05:09.620 and it was taken from Germany afterwards.

02:05:11.600 It's true.

02:05:12.620 It's absolutely true.

02:05:13.980 And I've often said, as someone who's very pro the Western intervention in World War II,

02:05:18.740 obviously, and very anti-Russia and Putin in the current war,

02:05:22.600 Vladimir Putin had as much justification for invading Ukraine

02:05:25.640 as Hitler did for invading the Sudetenland.

02:05:30.920 Because basically, Germany was broken up after World War I, right?

02:05:34.180 And he was trying to collect the pieces back together.

02:05:36.320 I think he had more of a reason.

02:05:37.800 But anyway, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm listening to all you.

02:05:39.820 It's similar.

02:05:40.220 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get your point.

02:05:41.720 But the broader point is, are you dealing with a rational actor?

02:05:46.580 And actually, I think with Putin, you're much more dealing with a rational actor, certainly, than you were dealing with Hitler.

02:05:52.080 Or are you dealing with a one-of-a-kind, once-in-a-century kind of person who is absolutely not going to do that?

02:06:01.340 And by the way, I mean, one of the other things that people like, who are critical of the Allies' conduct in the world,

02:06:06.860 what you like to bring up, is the same conversation as it is with Gaza, which is why this all matters so much.

02:06:10.980 is why i'm bringing up with you with you is the amount of destruction that the west did to germany

02:06:16.180 and japan right dropping nuclear bombs firebombing all of this now let's set aside it was a totally

02:06:21.780 different technological environment you didn't have precision blah blah blah the reason that

02:06:27.540 germany got bombed into the ground is that hitler wouldn't surrender which was absolutely the

02:06:31.860 rational thing to do because it was clear they'd lost the war i mean to many people historians

02:06:36.260 would say, it's clear they lost the war at the Battle of Moscow in 1941, right? You tried to

02:06:41.260 take Moscow, you fail. And from that point on, for the next three years, you're basically doing

02:06:46.820 very, very well, but moving backwards all the time. And eventually you find yourself within

02:06:51.420 the borders of Germany. Like, at this point, a rational leader who cares about his people

02:06:57.140 goes, okay, we might have lost this one, guys. We've got to surrender, right? But you see with

02:07:03.880 Hamas and Gaza, that that is not the case. So what my point is, sometimes you are dealing with

02:07:08.960 people who are not rational actors. And when people talk about World War Two as a thing that

02:07:15.460 informs their views about other conflicts, that's what they're pointing to. Whereas your argument

02:07:21.280 is always, well, let's look at it rationally. They do this. We would do this in their position.

02:07:25.720 This is what exactly the same thing that we would have done. I don't think you're summing up my

02:07:29.440 position exactly i mean i'm not well first of all i guess it depends on what you mean by a rational

02:07:33.700 actor exactly i mean like like rational like like what do we mean exactly by a rational actor i'm

02:07:38.760 not exactly claiming that other people are rational actors and to the extent that i say like

02:07:42.800 we should put ourselves in their shoes and say hey we'd react the same way if this happened to us

02:07:46.940 there are situations where i feel that way but that doesn't mean that i'm saying that we're all

02:07:51.660 the same we all have the same motivations that there aren't enormous differences so like okay

02:07:57.340 to be the reason why i think the um the the israelis or the israeli government or the pro

02:08:05.520 israeli you know the israeli defenders invoking world war ii constantly over the destruction of

02:08:10.000 gaza the reason why this has resulted in whatever it's been like a 50 point collapse in support for

02:08:15.460 israel in the polls the reason why this isn't convincing anyone is because on some human level

02:08:21.200 The only real way to convince people that the atrocities that were committed by the allies in World War II were justified in the more meta sense is that you have to have Hitler controlled all of Europe.

02:08:35.300 You have to have how evil Imperial Japan was and what they did to China.

02:08:38.680 You have to have this feeling that at least the argument has to be for this to be justified that something on the scale of this bad was going to happen if we hadn't done that.

02:08:50.900 right like there's there's got to be like it would have been so bad in a similar way that i always

02:08:55.240 felt throughout covid uh the great shout out to the great tom woods who wrote the best book on

02:08:59.800 covid diary of a psychosis but like he would always say like look dude when you look at the

02:09:04.280 the non-lockdown areas and they're doing about the same as the lockdown areas that should devastate

02:09:09.320 the case for lock it's over because you have to in order to support lockdowns you have to inherently

02:09:14.300 argue that things would have been so much worse what exactly that standard is is arbitrary when

02:09:20.600 you have adolf hitler controlling basically all of europe that's one argument when you have hamas

02:09:26.880 that doesn't even really control the gaza strip i just don't think anybody's buying that like

02:09:31.560 things would have been so horrible if israel hadn't destroyed the entire strip you don't

02:09:36.320 have the same level of like what would have happened over here now to your point i'm not

02:09:43.020 even denying that some of the people care about the legacy of world war ii for the reasons that

02:09:47.980 you're explaining. What I have seen that I'm aware about is that so many people care about

02:09:55.540 World War II and protecting this legacy so that they can advocate for the next war and so that

02:10:01.960 they can dismiss concerns about targeting of civilians or treatment of civilians. This is

02:10:06.420 the entire Israeli defense. Hey, you guys did it during World War II. I've watched Netanyahu use

02:10:10.640 this defense 40 times. I don't think it's a very good defense, but I think the point

02:10:17.960 point i'm trying to make to you is um you don't see the threat to israel as existential in the

02:10:26.380 way that we would see the threat that hitler posed and the japanese imperial armies and project posed

02:10:33.180 i think there's no question that hitler was an existential threat to his european neighbors and

02:10:38.800 when you say existential threat i mean the what like that you would take over the country that

02:10:44.020 they would actually fall not just a threat that like this could hurt us but that this could be

02:10:47.940 the end. And the end, meaning the regime falls, I guess I would describe it. The end could also

02:10:52.000 mean the people are slaughtered. The end could mean, you know, could mean several different things.

02:10:54.760 A very significant portion of your population would be killed, including many of its leaders.

02:10:58.700 I certainly think Hitler was an existential threat to France and Austria. You got me on the record.

02:11:04.200 No, he was an existential threat to Russia. Sure, sure. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I wouldn't.

02:11:08.040 And the entire continent, right? And obviously all the countries that he

02:11:11.120 overtook, for sure. So, now look at it from an Israeli perspective.

02:11:15.980 See, you see the Gaza Strip as

02:11:18.940 the Gaza conversation, but from an Israeli perspective, if we zoom out

02:11:23.100 a little bit, objectively speaking, Israel is

02:11:26.600 a country that is surrounded by people who hate them.

02:11:31.140 That's a fact. And not only because, look, we had this guy...

02:11:34.520 And not only for good reason, also for some bad reasons. Well, it's interesting you say that

02:11:38.560 because I was going to do a slightly more steel man version of this,

02:11:41.740 which is we had this guy called Thomas Small on our show, not Thomas Small.

02:11:45.580 It would be great if you could get Thomas Small.

02:11:47.220 I think he's like 93.

02:11:48.440 Yeah.

02:11:48.820 Is he alive?

02:11:49.520 I think he's still alive, right?

02:11:50.560 He is. He's great.

02:11:51.720 So Thomas Small, he's the co-host of the Conflicted podcast.

02:11:55.240 He's a Christian guy who spent a lot of time in the Middle East.

02:11:57.960 And he said, you know, a lot of people talk about Israel being a Western country.

02:12:01.660 And when you do, their actions don't make any sense.

02:12:04.080 Yeah. I think that's a very good point.

02:12:05.760 But if you look at them as a Middle Eastern country, then their actions make perfect sense.

02:12:11.560 So Israel, in his conception, is another country in the Middle East.

02:12:15.180 Now, if you take that perspective, stop applying Western moral rules and all this other stuff to them.

02:12:20.660 They're basically a country in a region where everyone else hates them.

02:12:24.900 And they don't just hate them for geopolitical and geostrategic reasons.

02:12:28.980 They just hate them because they're Jews.

02:12:30.860 A lot of them do.

02:12:32.160 That's just a fact, right?

02:12:33.240 And Francis, who has, you know, him and I talk about this all the time.

02:12:36.520 He has relatives in the region or his family is from the region.

02:12:40.540 It's not it's not just Muslims either.

02:12:42.960 It's just there are a lot of people in that region that do not like Jews.

02:12:46.600 Right. So Israel is surrounded by people who hate them, who repeatedly say that they will wipe them off the face of the earth and then try to wipe them off the fence of the face of the earth to the very best of their ability.

02:12:59.900 And the only reason Israel is still there is it's strong enough to resist that.

02:13:05.520 Now, when it suffers an atrocity like October 7th, it's not unreasonable for the leader of Israel in that situation to go, well, we're actually dealing with an existential threat.

02:13:16.400 This is part of a bigger thing.

02:13:18.160 This is being funded by Iran.

02:13:20.220 And if they could kill us all on October 7th, that is exactly what they would have done.

02:13:24.640 And that's why people make that argument.

02:13:26.320 Yeah. And I just think the reason why the argument isn't persuading a lot of people and the reason why this argument is kind of losing in the marketplace of arguments is because, look, even as we look back now with all the stuff that's that's come out about October 7th.

02:13:40.300 and there's some real questions about what exactly happened um clearly now this is kind of weird on

02:13:46.860 the timeline here but benjamin netanyahu we now know has been was warned by egyptian intelligence

02:13:52.580 also got warnings it seems like from the president of the uae this haretz had a big piece on this the

02:13:59.140 new york times then backed it up benjamin netanyahu i think is threatening to sue haretz over

02:14:03.640 this and it's not exactly clear but it does seem like the timeline kind of laps up of like he's

02:14:08.160 getting all of these warnings and this isn't just like george w bush like one in a million you know

02:14:12.820 flyers oh ben laden determines attack this is like the president of the aeu going like no dude they're

02:14:18.020 planning a thing from gaza that's gonna be really really big um then on top of this is the same time

02:14:24.280 it overlaps with where netanyahu is still sending the head of massad to qatar to beg that the funding

02:14:28.320 keep going in to to hamas then there is this massive security failure on october 7th so like

02:14:35.220 however you want to use this words like existential yes the people who broke out of

02:14:41.720 gaza on october 7th were trying to kill as many people as they could kill i think there's no

02:14:45.140 question about that the idea that like october 7th would have just happened again and again and

02:14:50.280 again and again i think is ludicrous i mean israel had been existing next to hamas for all of this

02:14:55.540 time israel's been living next to palestine since they've existed and they've been dealing with

02:14:59.020 Hamas since at least 2005, uh, they'd been dealing with those 2007 officially. They didn't have to

02:15:06.120 do that. It wasn't an existential threat. Like if we don't do this to them, we will be completely

02:15:10.400 destroyed. I don't think anyone believes that. Well, but you're, you're, you've narrowed it back

02:15:14.540 down to Hamas and I am zooming out with you to the position of Israel as a country within the

02:15:21.380 region. Israel, let's say Israel wasn't full of Jews. It was full of, I don't know, bluehead people

02:15:26.500 or whatever it doesn't matter and everyone in the region and hated blue-haired people

02:15:30.580 and hated the blue-haired people stay and had its tensions and whatever and they kept invading the

02:15:36.180 blue-haired people over and over again every single time they could and it's only because

02:15:40.580 the blue-haired people i mean it's a bad example this isn't right this isn't the history blue-haired

02:15:44.740 people aren't great at defending themselves militarily but right but let's say they said

02:15:49.620 that they were you could see why blue-haired people when something like october the 7th happens

02:15:56.500 would say oh me when they said they meant to kill us all they really they really really did

02:16:01.360 right so we can't allow we cannot allow the we have to do and this is what actually israel

02:16:08.800 i think should have said better which is we want to do in gaza what the allies achieved

02:16:15.500 successfully in world war ii which is win the war and then win the peace that's what we want we want

02:16:21.320 to rebuild society in that part of the world so that the hatreds that animated the beginnings of

02:16:27.060 World War II cannot be allowed to exist. And that means you're not going to be in a place where in

02:16:32.840 Gaza they teach you to hate Jews in school. We can't have that because the result of that is

02:16:37.260 October the 7th. Well, I mean, I guess I couldn't have thought of a better example of using the

02:16:43.020 World War II model to go, oh, so this is what we do now. We just completely destroy civilians. We

02:16:47.700 You'd have a total war against the civilian population.

02:16:50.500 I think, well, essentially, that's the World War II model.

02:16:53.180 No, no, no, no, no. That's not what happened in World War II.

02:16:55.820 Germany, as I said before, did not have to be bombed into the ground.

02:16:59.620 It didn't, just like Gaza.

02:17:01.420 Well, parts of it did, but...

02:17:02.920 But, no, it didn't, because if Hitler had surrendered when he was playing, he lost the war.

02:17:06.480 Oh, okay, fine, fine. All right, fine.

02:17:07.760 So, at that point, the same thing could have happened without this.

02:17:10.760 And it's the same with Gaza.

02:17:11.640 Okay, well, let me...

02:17:12.260 But, Dave, it's the same with Gaza.

02:17:13.900 I'm stress-testing the argument here, right, with you.

02:17:16.600 And you know I'm not having a go at you. It's a respectful conversation.

02:17:19.000 No, sure, sure.

02:17:19.940 So it's exactly the same with Gaza, because you go,

02:17:23.340 well, if Hamas had handed over the hostages and the terrorists who took them

02:17:28.620 and surrendered on the first day of this war, this war wouldn't be going.

02:17:32.240 And Gaza would not have been bombed into the ground.

02:17:34.980 Yes, but again, you could just as easily go,

02:17:37.820 and if Israel hadn't been occupying Palestine and if...

02:17:41.520 Leah, like, it's perhaps possible that people could have done things different ways.

02:17:44.780 I certainly would have hoped that Hamas would have turned over all of the hostages or whatever,

02:17:48.560 would have made a deal.

02:17:49.480 And then, in fact, there's actually some conflicting reporting about, like,

02:17:51.960 what deals were offered versus what deals were taken.

02:17:54.500 Look, the story that Israel are these nice Jewish communities

02:18:00.180 who everybody just hates because they're Jewish and everybody just...

02:18:02.900 Wait, wait, I didn't say that.

02:18:03.880 Your blue-haired...

02:18:04.160 I didn't say that.

02:18:04.780 Your blue-haired history is a cartoonish version of one side being hated purely for existing

02:18:10.000 and then being constantly invaded.

02:18:11.380 Let me show you, Dave, no, no, Dave, hold on.

02:18:13.240 We conduct this discussion by not misrepresenting each other,

02:18:16.500 and we've done that for two hours.

02:18:17.760 Well, I didn't think I was misrepresenting.

02:18:18.940 The blue-haired example?

02:18:20.360 Yeah, because I made it very clear that Israel...

02:18:23.480 Remember when I said, Thomas Small,

02:18:25.740 Israel behaves like any other Middle Eastern country,

02:18:28.060 which basically wants to be dominant in the region

02:18:31.200 and will beat up its neighbors

02:18:32.900 if it feels it's in its interest to do so,

02:18:35.200 and the hatreds go both ways.

02:18:36.840 I think they do.

02:18:38.240 So the blue-haired people...

02:18:40.060 I'm not saying no country in the Middle East is innocent.

02:18:43.240 that they're all fighting for, like every other country,

02:18:46.000 they're all fighting for survival, whatever.

02:18:48.060 But it's also undeniably the case

02:18:49.880 that their neighbors absolutely can hate them.

02:18:52.640 And it's not the leaders as much as it is the population.

02:18:56.460 This is why a lot of Muslim countries

02:18:58.580 are actually kind of pro-Israel, the leaders are,

02:19:03.120 but they are very wary of their populace on these issues

02:19:05.720 because their populace hates Jews.

02:19:08.240 Yeah, our SOC puppet governments,

02:19:10.040 we bribe them to be friends with Israel,

02:19:11.960 but their population, 100% of them, hate it.

02:19:14.740 No, we don't bribe them.

02:19:16.800 The governments of the UAE and Saudi Arabia,

02:19:20.460 they're not pro-Israel because they've been bribed.

02:19:23.700 They're pro-Israel because they perceive it to be in the national interest of their country,

02:19:27.040 which they're trying to take in a different direction.

02:19:29.280 They don't want to be a royal...

02:19:30.140 It seems to be a weird splitting hairs.

02:19:31.340 I mean, I guess we're both just arguing over what their motivations are.

02:19:34.500 But I would just say that it's like...

02:19:35.720 Yeah, come back.

02:19:36.040 Look, again, if you want to say Israel is just another country in the Middle East

02:19:41.660 and they aggress against their neighbors sometimes.

02:19:43.940 Like, sure, I guess I would agree with that.

02:19:47.300 I'm certainly not painting any of the other countries

02:19:49.580 in the Middle East as being angelic or something like that.

02:19:52.720 I just think that, look, Israel,

02:19:55.300 you kind of can't remove from the project of Israel

02:19:57.980 that it really has depended, at least in 67,

02:20:01.200 and before that on Western, you know, backing them up.

02:20:03.820 Like, this is a project of Western power

02:20:06.860 that is propping up this country in this part of the world.

02:20:09.960 And so, like, look, if you want to say, well, look, from the Israeli perspective, this is how they feel.

02:20:16.320 It's like, OK, that's probably true.

02:20:18.760 They probably perceive these people circling them as a threat.

02:20:21.080 From the Palestinian perspective, they have a lot of reasons to perceive the Israelis as threats.

02:20:25.640 You know, I'm looking at this from the American perspective.

02:20:28.680 And I'm saying this is not, first of all, I do, as you said, I don't look at a Middle Eastern country with Middle Eastern values as we all do.

02:20:35.220 we look at Middle Eastern countries with Western values and we are like outraged at the way they

02:20:41.040 fall short of those Western values. Israel is explicitly claiming that they are a Western

02:20:46.580 country, even by your own, you know, like construct here. They're lying, claiming there's something

02:20:51.100 they're not in order to get this unique funding in this unique relationship. I personally think

02:20:56.140 that what Hamas did on October 7th is horrific. I would never want my government supporting any

02:21:01.260 organization who would do something like that i also think israel's destruction of all of gaza is

02:21:05.500 horrific and i don't want my country supporting that i'm not the blue-haired people or the

02:21:09.740 other-haired people i'm the american over here you just don't want to be involved at all yeah and

02:21:14.700 what if um just a hypothetical but i mean we are talking about one small country surrounded by a

02:21:21.740 hell of a lot of countries that don't like them what if um as a result of america's withdrawal

02:21:27.820 the entire population of israel is slaughtered by his neighbors well i certainly wouldn't want

02:21:33.000 the entire population of anything to be slaughtered and if you were going to say that like

02:21:37.020 the um the withdrawal process you know like if you compare it to like leaving afghanistan or

02:21:42.840 something like that you really will try try to do it in the way that doesn't get as many people

02:21:46.720 killed as possible you know try to like at least protect this on the way out but if you're telling

02:21:51.380 me that this experiment that this this country started in 1948 and we're now in 2026 and they're

02:21:58.980 not only dependent on foreign aid but you're telling me like the second this aid stops

02:22:02.520 everyone's getting slaughtered i'm not saying that if that's the case i'm not saying let everybody

02:22:07.180 get slaughtered like okay we got to figure out some other type of transition plan here but there

02:22:12.020 is information in that and the information is that this whole project has failed if you if you

02:22:17.100 still are at the point where you are relying on us supporting a country which is unpopular our

02:22:21.880 people do not support your country or what you're doing to your neighbors but you need our support

02:22:25.840 or your not only your nation falls apart but you're saying like worst case scenario all your

02:22:30.700 people are slaughtered then this is not a sustainable project well no i i actually

02:22:35.520 personally think israel needs to get to a position where it's not relying on western support not least

02:22:40.640 because i don't think it's going to have a lot of western support for the foreseeable future

02:22:43.880 um but i i was asking you more of a hypothetical because in your conception of foreign policy more

02:22:50.220 generally it's like non-intervention so i'm guess i what i'm getting at is if 10 million people get

02:22:56.860 slaughtered as a result of non-intervention is it still the right thing to do well i mean you

02:23:01.220 got to get real specific i guess about what that case would be all the neighboring countries of

02:23:06.080 israel invade and say uh it's it says in our holy book that we'll find the jews sure okay

02:23:11.380 so we're killing them it's kind of hard like october 7th but look i'm just saying they have

02:23:15.940 superiority something like that like israel is militarily the most powerful country in the

02:23:22.660 region it is also just very hard to imagine going from not only the place of like complete full

02:23:27.700 unconditional support special relationship to not only are we not giving you you know it's it's so

02:23:32.540 hard to fathom us just cutting off the financial aid or cutting off the military support but the

02:23:37.240 idea that like if actually israel was about to be slaughtered we just don't lift a finger and just

02:23:42.360 allow it to happen look but that is what you believe isn't it i'd say look in pure theory

02:23:48.920 i don't think like and this is philosophical theory yeah i don't think the role of i think

02:23:54.900 the role of government ought to be the protection of liberty of its people i don't think the role

02:23:59.260 of government ought to be the policeman of the world and i do think that like one of the moral

02:24:03.920 issues that look obviously you've created like this is really interesting thought experiment stuff

02:24:07.920 you've created a very real thought experiment like hey this non-intervention will lead to

02:24:12.760 this amount of deaths and the the problem on the other end of this equation right is that if you

02:24:18.560 if you accept that the role of government is that like okay maybe just in those worst case scenarios

02:24:22.740 when there's a genocide about to happen we we go in and we intervene in that right well now you've

02:24:28.500 put the most powerful people in society you've given them the power to decide when to use it so

02:24:33.640 already just like with the free speech issue that we always have you got this major problem of who

02:24:36.980 decides what is and isn't hate speech who decides what is and isn't because if you want this is the

02:24:41.700 the brilliance of uh maybe not technically a founding father but one of our most brilliant

02:24:45.780 sons of a founding father uh john quincy adams i think he was the worst uh villain of world war

02:24:50.500 i think he said you know if you want to look around the world for monsters to destroy you'll

02:24:56.540 find no you'll find a limitless supply it will become the dickatrice of the world but will no

02:25:00.940 longer be the rule of our of our own spirit i think there's real wisdom in that you know you're

02:25:05.000 gonna you're there's always catastrophes going on all around the world so number one you've now

02:25:10.380 given a blank check to government to all though you could right now if you just on that stage

02:25:14.940 well we got sudan we got gaza we got ukraine we got i mean there's a ton of things in the world

02:25:18.520 we'd have to right and then on top of that you create this moral condition by which

02:25:23.820 look if there's a humanitarian crisis going on halfway around the world and i i turn to my

02:25:30.320 neighbor to ask him to to help like hey man i know things are tough for you but can you contribute a

02:25:35.220 little bit to this effort i think there's nothing wrong with that but like by what right do i have

02:25:39.540 to compel him by force to threaten to you know when you're talking about what we use government

02:25:44.260 for you're talking about like what are we ready to throw someone in a cage for this is why i'm

02:25:48.580 very libertarian on all these issues so it's not so much if you want to get very specific it's not

02:25:54.560 so much that like there couldn't be an example where intervention might you know like i said

02:25:58.900 with killing the Bolsheviks when they're reading

02:26:00.500 Das Kapital. There's an example where maybe

02:26:02.680 it could save lives. I think

02:26:04.440 there's a recognition with

02:26:06.580 the understanding of what the Founding Fathers had, the understanding

02:26:08.780 of limited government, small-L

02:26:10.660 libertarianism, that

02:26:11.920 creating this power is

02:26:14.640 going to do more to undermine liberty and prosperity

02:26:16.880 than restricting the power of government 0.94

02:26:18.760 would. So, in a more general

02:26:20.760 sense, not applied to Israel, like there's a

02:26:22.720 genocide going on over there. Do I

02:26:24.840 think we should intervene?

02:26:26.080 generally no i kind of don't think so i know it's a very like that's a very bitter pill to swallow

02:26:32.920 and i will say like just with the caveat of like not all government interventions are equal there

02:26:38.640 might be some you know there was um hold on can we just pause there yes i'm so by that logic

02:26:44.100 you're perfect you believe israel is committing genocide in gaza you while you don't approve of

02:26:50.600 genocide if if america wasn't giving israel help you'd be like well that's not that's not our

02:26:57.140 issue yes yeah and you wouldn't be complaining yeah no that's right i mean look i mean i'm not

02:27:01.460 saying i wouldn't be complaining about it like i might say something about it or yeah if you asked

02:27:05.440 me if you asked me about what's going on in sudan i'm quite happy to i didn't it sounds like a dirty

02:27:10.060 trick no no no it's not no i think it's a fair question and i i do think it's like a tough you

02:27:13.880 know there's a weird i had um recently a very like kind of christian conservative said to me

02:27:20.180 that they go you know the flaw in libertarianism is that you have to allow you have to legalize

02:27:24.720 all this stuff that you know is bad that you know you hate whereas like my system i can have all the

02:27:30.000 liberty for the good stuff but i can also outlaw all the bad stuff so this is a problem you have

02:27:34.780 with your system and i my rejoinder to that was like no this is a problem we all have with every

02:27:40.140 single system even if you go to north korean style communism you still have this problem so and i

02:27:45.660 asked her she's a christian conservator i said are you gonna outlaw lying are you gonna outlaw

02:27:50.560 coveting your neighbor's wife are you gonna outlaw adultery are you gonna you know like there's a

02:27:54.640 million sins a lot that you're not yeah yeah well maybe no but actually i don't you know they might

02:27:58.800 want to say they would on twitter but it's all larping kind of i'm not saying this person

02:28:02.440 particularly was larping but i just mean that like no like look it is a bitter pill to swallow

02:28:06.680 if you believe in a free society that like someone has a right to ruin their life someone has a right

02:28:10.920 to do something really really you know and likewise in the non-interventionist idea which

02:28:16.180 is the same thing not intervening the government domestically and not intervening abroad look if

02:28:20.920 israel if israel was just doing what they were doing and they were able to do it without western

02:28:27.020 support number one i would find there to be something more honorable about just doing it

02:28:30.940 on your own than doing it with other support um i would still be against what they were doing

02:28:36.480 okay yeah i think that's horrible i don't think you should just bomb a building because you suspect

02:28:40.400 to terrorists is inside of it but yes it would not be the issue that i'm spending all my time on

02:28:44.680 it wouldn't be i'm an american i'm i'm to the degree i'm trying to affect any type of thing

02:28:49.040 it's like i want to talk to my fellow americans about the policy of our government you know

02:28:52.760 so that's because otherwise i mean there's just always tragedies going on all around the world

02:28:57.700 you'll never find an end of them dave it's been an absolutely brilliant interview thank you so

02:29:02.360 much for coming on final question is always the same what's the one thing we're not talking about

02:29:06.300 that we really should be hmm all right i gave the last time you asked me i gave you the debt so i'm

02:29:11.380 not it's still a good answer but i'm not going to give you that one but i will say man and maybe

02:29:15.180 this will be the more controversial one i think you guys have talked quite a bit about this

02:29:18.420 but the big thing is the complete demographic change of all of western civilization it's just

02:29:23.600 kind of happening it's it is it's it's a weird kind of like you know boiling frog thing i don't

02:29:30.900 even know if that experiment actually works but i know it's a good uh thing to bring up in there

02:29:34.580 but there is something that like you know if you had ever told anyone in 1965 that the london

02:29:42.500 immigration policy and the demographic policy was going to be what it is like but you know like they

02:29:46.500 would have lost their minds about that but because you did it to them slowly it's just kind of been

02:29:51.940 accepted i think we live at too high a standard of life that no one's really going to be revolutionary

02:29:57.380 or violent over it but very slowly the greatest thing that's ever happened to humanity which is

02:30:03.140 western civilization is like completely being erased demographically i find that to be a pretty

02:30:08.860 big deal i mean i think there's a couple eastern european countries that have like a replacement

02:30:13.760 rate and just about everybody else like the irish people are going to go extinct i mean this is like

02:30:19.040 a tragedy that's hard to put into words and meanwhile during the rise of like when it became

02:30:26.980 clear that all of these demographic changes are are taking place happened to be during the rise

02:30:31.180 of wokeism when no one was allowed to talk about any of it. And if you even tried to talk about

02:30:35.860 it, it was only the people who said, all right, screw it. I'll be alt-right. I'll be an alt-right

02:30:40.720 Nazi. Only those people were allowed to talk about the issue. And every other reasonable person just

02:30:46.020 got shamed as a Nazi. If you ever even brought it up, if you ever even went like, hey, is this a

02:30:51.220 good idea? This seems like a big change. Well, I think that's going to shape a lot of our politics

02:30:57.040 going forward it's interesting you say that because to me that's a very european concern

02:31:02.720 whereas the united states um from my understanding as an outsider and correct me i'm wrong

02:31:09.920 has always been a country that didn't have a rigid demographic profile that is kind of being eroded

02:31:17.280 but we were always much more fluid that's for sure well look i mean america i think unlike european

02:31:22.960 countries where european nations are kind of true nations in the traditional sense of the word like

02:31:27.480 they're a people you know there's the irish are a people like you said before you've talked about

02:31:31.980 this like it's not just that like british are racist and that's why if you're born in saudi

02:31:37.380 arabia you can never really be british it's like you're just not it means this group of people and

02:31:43.240 you're not one of this group of people italians ira like now america has the united states of

02:31:48.580 America has had demographic upheaval its entire history. And it's always had, like, a radically

02:31:54.280 open definition of what it is to be an American. And, you know, I think sometimes when people look

02:31:58.740 back and if they see the language of, like, what is it in the initial, like, 1801 immigration

02:32:04.660 statute, you know, where it said, like, all white men, all European white men of good standing can

02:32:09.560 come to America. And people today might look at that. Daryl Cooper makes this point a lot. People

02:32:14.080 today look at that like it's restrictionist. You know, they see it today through the modern

02:32:17.520 woke lens and go oh so just white europeans you don't understand how radically open that was

02:32:22.120 for the time it's like when people read quotes of abraham lincoln being racist and they think he was

02:32:27.380 a racist and you're like no dude for the time that was like the most progressive thing where

02:32:32.020 he was like look i'm not saying black people are equal but like they should have some rights

02:32:35.740 you're like no that was cool at the time that was really really cool so america we had massive

02:32:41.200 waves of immigration we had massive demographic change from blacks in the south moving up to the

02:32:45.400 North. We've always been reinventing who we are. However, who we are was always kind of like 90%

02:32:53.240 European white, 9% black heritage of slaves, 1% other. So even though the definition of American

02:33:02.540 identity was not as clearly rigid or defined as British or Irish or something like that,

02:33:07.140 it wasn't nothing. And now that has just been, you know, kind of like now in one generation,

02:33:14.320 we've transferred that from being what we always were our entire history

02:33:17.840 to being completely different demographically.

02:33:21.080 So it's not like, I guess it's not as clear as like,

02:33:24.300 oh, the Irish are going extinct.

02:33:26.280 But there is something, I think, radically transformational going on.

02:33:30.900 Yeah. Dave, thank you so much for coming on the show.

02:33:34.100 It's been a pleasure as always.

02:33:35.780 Make sure to follow us on Substack where you get to ask Dave your questions.

02:33:40.880 Let's imagine a world where your foreign policy is implemented

02:33:43.820 and the U.S. announces that they are no longer going to police the world.

02:33:47.180 Do you believe that no other country will step in to take that role

02:33:50.320 on a global or regional level,

02:33:51.900 or is that just something you're willing to accept?

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TRIGGERnometry - October 24, 2026

Dave Smith vs. TRIGGERnometry 2

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