TRIGGERnometry - Our Thoughts On Interviewing Dave Smith, Hasan Piker, Sam Harris and Ben Shapiro

00:00:01.000 Let's start off talking about Dave Smith.

00:00:03.900 When was the last time you saw people who strongly disagree about political issues

00:00:08.840 have that kind of conversation?

00:00:11.300 We released the Ben Shapiro interview.

00:00:13.720 One of these anonymous rage farmers clipped Ben out of context,

00:00:18.680 completely misrepresent what he was saying,

00:00:20.980 and try and make him out to be saying that's something that he was absolutely not saying.

00:00:25.520 What these people tried to do to Ben is exactly what the mainstream media

00:00:30.920 used to do to people that it hated.

00:00:33.140 It's so much easier to pull something down, to break something,

00:00:37.560 than it is to build something up, to create something, to be of genuine worth. 0.96

00:00:42.100 And if you look at woke people, they're absolutely miserable. 0.99

00:00:45.160 The people who are going down the route of bitterness and resentment on the right,

00:00:50.060 they will discover that it doesn't lead you anywhere.

00:00:52.800 Who was your favorite guest and why?

00:00:54.040 I always like guests that are going to piss everyone off,

00:00:56.360 so for that reason I'm going to say Sam Harris.

00:01:24.040 All right, Francis, we are wrapping up our U.S. trip.

00:01:33.400 This is the 33rd interview that we're recording, the final one.

00:01:38.180 Dana Wise just walked out of the studio.

00:01:40.320 By the time people see this, it'll be a couple of days since.

00:01:43.280 And kind of a lot has happened,

00:01:44.880 and we've only released like five of the episodes that we've done.

00:01:48.480 I know, it's been amazing.

00:01:50.700 Look, firstly, what an amazing trip.

00:01:52.900 We have done four different cities, three different states, three different time zones.

00:01:59.040 That's right.

00:01:59.720 I don't even know what time it is.

00:02:01.820 I mean, we all get up now anywhere between four and five o'clock in the morning,

00:02:05.600 like Buddhist monks, because our body clock's broken. 0.98

00:02:08.760 But it's been an amazing...

00:02:09.380 We don't spend our evenings like Buddhist monks.

00:02:11.220 No, that is true.

00:02:12.260 Buddhist monks don't eat takeaway pizza.

00:02:13.880 But anyway, it has been an amazing trip with some incredible guests.

00:02:18.840 Look, let's start off talking about Dave Smith, who we recorded a matter of days ago.

00:02:24.580 I mean, what a brilliant conversation.

00:02:26.920 And props to Dave for coming on the show, number one.

00:02:29.700 And number two, being an all-round good bloke.

00:02:32.440 He was great.

00:02:33.240 And actually, one of the things that I thought that happened is,

00:02:38.040 when was the last time you saw people who strongly disagree about political issues

00:02:42.980 have that kind of conversation on YouTube, on a podcast?

00:02:48.000 When was the last time you saw that?

00:02:49.840 Two and a half, three hours, if you're a supporter of ours on Substack,

00:02:53.380 where you got to see another extra half an hour.

00:02:55.260 Three hours of three people, two people, it doesn't really matter how you frame it,

00:03:01.240 who disagree about a lot of things,

00:03:04.840 having a genuine conversation the way you would do with your best mate in the pub.

00:03:09.240 We don't see it anymore.

00:03:10.560 And that is the real, that is the beautiful thing about the conversation.

00:03:17.060 But it's also, there's a sad element to it, which is we've lost that ability.

00:03:22.020 And one of the things that made me really proud of being part of that conversation

00:03:26.300 was that we kind of helped to model a form of behavior,

00:03:31.500 which I think we're in, not that we're in danger of losing,

00:03:35.000 but that has kind of been lost.

00:03:36.760 Well, it's been lost.

00:03:37.680 People don't do this anymore.

00:03:39.040 So what you've got is, what we had was mainstream media, Kathy Newman style interviews.

00:03:47.560 So what you're saying is, you're a terrible person. 0.53

00:03:49.760 Here's a quote you said, represented out of context, you're a terrible person.

00:03:53.660 And we went from that to what was an exciting moment in new media, YouTube podcasting,

00:03:59.740 where it's like, let's not try and misrepresent other people.

00:04:03.300 Let's just have a conversation.

00:04:04.540 But what that's morphed to is, let's just invite anybody on, whatever their crazy views,

00:04:10.520 however much you disagree with them, or don't, because nobody knows,

00:04:14.700 because you don't challenge them and you never debate the issues.

00:04:17.880 Or that's one option, which is, you know, what people like Tucker have been doing with people

00:04:22.960 like Nick Fuentes and Daryl Cooper and all these other people who've got, in my opinion,

00:04:26.960 horrific and terrible and most importantly, wrong ideas.

00:04:31.440 And on the other hand, you've got like this fake conversation debate thing where you've

00:04:38.400 just got two people going at each other and trying to win.

00:04:42.000 And I've done some of those debates, because that's how those shows are set up, right?

00:04:46.660 But what I think, as you rightly say, we did is we modeled a different way.

00:04:49.720 And I'm incredibly proud of it.

00:04:51.260 And the person who deserves most of the credit for that is Dave.

00:04:53.840 Because if Dave had come in here and acted like this was a debate where he was trying

00:04:59.320 to win, we would have probably had no choice but to respond in kind.

00:05:03.300 But because of the way that he carried himself, we could conduct ourselves the way we'd normally

00:05:07.080 like to do.

00:05:08.520 And I think that's what actually, that's what we need more of.

00:05:12.780 We absolutely need more of it.

00:05:14.280 Because this approach, the approach A and approach B, which you've just presented, is ultimately

00:05:19.880 a zero-sum game.

00:05:21.460 And you just, you don't get anywhere with it.

00:05:23.940 Okay, one person comes out and they're the victor.

00:05:27.100 And you go, well, great.

00:05:28.260 But where does that actually lead us?

00:05:30.280 It doesn't lead us anywhere.

00:05:31.720 Because one of the things that we know about our civilization and why it's in crisis is

00:05:36.880 because it's divided.

00:05:38.380 It is because we're looking at the people who disagree with us and failing to see the

00:05:43.580 humanity.

00:05:44.780 And you know, I've had messages and so have you, oh, Dave Smith says, I'm telling you

00:05:48.740 right now, I like him.

00:05:50.660 I thought he was a good bloke.

00:05:52.240 He was a good bloke.

00:05:52.920 Yeah, exactly.

00:05:53.460 His crime in many people's eyes is that he's wrong.

00:05:58.300 But that's like, when we were in our 20s, like that's what debates look like.

00:06:04.760 It was like two people coming together, having mutual respect, arguing the points and saying

00:06:10.080 this guy's wrong about everything.

00:06:11.980 That's what it looked like.

00:06:13.380 You know, Peter Hitchens debated Christopher Hitchens, two brothers, and they were debating

00:06:17.880 in this way.

00:06:19.620 That's how it used to be.

00:06:21.660 And I just think the mainstream media forgot that that's how it's supposed to be.

00:06:25.960 And then the new media forgot how that's how it's supposed to be.

00:06:28.980 And I hope that we collectively, people who do this for a living, not just me, you and

00:06:34.720 Dave, but lots of people, take this on as an opportunity to go, okay, well, this is a

00:06:39.740 new phase now.

00:06:40.940 We can do this now.

00:06:42.340 We can have the actual disagreements and debates out in the air.

00:06:46.200 And what happened was interesting because the day that we recorded the conversation with

00:06:49.660 Dave and we walked out of here feeling some sort of like reconnection with the good in

00:06:53.840 humanity, basically, despite the disagreements that we explored, that was the day that we

00:06:59.720 released the Ben Shapiro interview, which we'd done a couple of days prior, which was a great

00:07:03.960 conversation about Zoram Amdani, about his disagreements with Tucker, about his views on

00:07:08.920 Nick Fuentes.

00:07:10.360 And what happened with that interview is a perfect example of how the new media space is becoming

00:07:15.940 deranged as well.

00:07:16.680 Because you had one of these anonymous rage farmers on Twitter clip Ben out of context,

00:07:23.780 completely misrepresent what he was saying, remove all the context of what he was saying,

00:07:29.080 and try and make him out to be saying that something that he was absolutely not saying.

00:07:34.340 And that, you know, that meme about which way, Western man, that to me is the which way,

00:07:40.060 Western man thing.

00:07:41.360 Are you going to engage with ideas that you don't like?

00:07:45.280 Or are you going to lie about the people who you don't like so that you can mobilize your tribe?

00:07:52.620 And by the way, make money on Twitter from lying about somebody and clipping them completely out

00:07:58.020 of context.

00:07:58.860 That's the choice that people now have.

00:08:01.580 And the vast, vast, vast majority of people are not taking the good choice in that situation.

00:08:06.540 And that's a disappointing thing, because the reality is, is that if we're going to get better

00:08:12.600 as a society, everybody needs to play their part.

00:08:15.380 Everybody has responsibility, whether it's the people in front of the camera,

00:08:19.340 whether it's the production crew, the social media people, but also the people at home

00:08:23.640 in their own lives and when they're engaging in content.

00:08:26.960 And the worrying thing to me is that people just, they don't care about the truth.

00:08:32.360 And when you don't care about the truth, what happens is that the truth will ultimately die.

00:08:38.660 And we need to be very, very, very careful as a society, because if we want this to carry on,

00:08:44.140 if we want Western civilization to carry on, to flourish, to thrive, then it's important

00:08:50.320 that we have good faith discussions.

00:08:53.320 It's also very important that we realize what is truth, because when you start celebrating

00:08:59.060 things that are not true, when you start celebrating things that are falsehood,

00:09:03.200 not only are you promoting them, you're effectively dementing people around you,

00:09:08.140 because people don't know what's true anymore.

00:09:10.660 And when people don't know what's true anymore, that's when things start going very, very, very dark.

00:09:16.540 Well, that was the worrying thing to me.

00:09:18.740 And not least because what these people tried to do to Ben is exactly what the mainstream media

00:09:24.860 used to do to people that it hated.

00:09:27.000 And while we have been here in the U.S., there's been a gigantic scandal.

00:09:32.160 Tim Davey, the director of the BBC, had to resign.

00:09:35.800 The CEO of news at the BBC had to resign.

00:09:39.260 And the reason they had to resign is they did precisely what these people have done to Ben Shapiro.

00:09:45.680 Right?

00:09:45.940 And this is a point I made when I wrote an article and did a video about the debate

00:09:50.680 between Douglas Murray and Dave Smith on Joe Rogan, is we've got to a situation where

00:09:56.260 everyone in the new media screams that the mainstream media has no standards

00:10:00.240 while having none of their own.

00:10:02.760 Right?

00:10:03.060 And unless we self-impose standards on ourselves, and also, as you rightly say,

00:10:08.140 unless people realize that, yes, the gatekeepers are gone, and yes, that's great in some ways,

00:10:14.380 but the flip side of that is, well, you as a consumer of information,

00:10:18.180 as a consumer of content, you now have the ultimate responsibility as a gatekeeper to your own mind.

00:10:26.420 You have to actually, and look, unfortunately, this is going to happen more and more and more

00:10:30.940 with AI, you're going to have to go out and make sure that this thing that you are predisposed to

00:10:37.920 believe is actually correct, is actually true, is actually the full context.

00:10:43.020 Absolutely, because here's the thing. You have to take responsibility, like you said.

00:10:48.800 You get the politicians that you deserve, you get the public intellectuals you deserve,

00:10:53.880 you get the YouTubers you deserve. There's a reason Tucker is number one for conservative media.

00:10:59.700 It's because more people consume it. So if you don't like that type of media,

00:11:05.340 if you don't like that type of information, give us money. Yeah, exactly. You keep it going.

00:11:11.380 Then you can't engage with it, and you can't consume that content. Because if that content

00:11:17.620 wasn't profitable, people wouldn't make it. Of course. And it really is that simple.

00:11:23.240 It's that simple. And here's another thing. It's very easy in life to go around and point the fingers

00:11:29.260 and go, you know what? You should be doing that. And you should be doing that. And you shouldn't

00:11:32.960 be saying that. And you shouldn't be lying. What about you? What about you? It's easy to point

00:11:38.780 the finger at the BBC mainstream media. Look, they're a nest of pedophiles. Ha ha, joke, joke. 0.99

00:11:43.320 Yeah, but what about you? Do you, are you rigorous with what you consume? Do you secretly enjoy

00:11:49.840 watching Candace Owens come out with the latest demented conspiracy theory, which we all know to be 0.98

00:11:55.460 complete nonsense? Are you sharing that? Are you talking? Because if you are, then you're kind of

00:12:02.340 part of the problem, even though you don't want to admit it. And the reality is, we all have our

00:12:07.460 part to play, and no one's perfect. And part of the reason the mainstream media did those sneaky

00:12:12.800 little tricks, it's because... They work. Exactly. And because maybe, deep down, you secretly like that,

00:12:20.320 and you're engaged with it. Yep, that's why, you know, the gatekeepers aren't coming back, and I think

00:12:25.600 there's amazing things about that. But ultimately, as consumers, it's the same with food, right? If you

00:12:32.240 want to be healthy, you're going to have to be pretty careful. I mean, one of the episodes we

00:12:35.740 recorded that hasn't come out yet is a conversation with Rhonda Patrick, Dr. Rhonda Patrick, about

00:12:39.860 microplastics. And we've totally changed, like, she basically ruined our lives. 0.87

00:12:45.000 Mate, there's plastic everywhere. Yeah. She basically ruined our lives for, I think, very, 1.00

00:12:49.480 very little actual gain. But we now changed our consumer behavior in terms of, like, we bought some

00:12:54.600 metal mugs that we use, stuff that my wife's been banging on at me for about 10 years about.

00:13:00.480 Speaking of Rhonda, we, of course, recorded that interview in LA. We also recorded a conversation

00:13:04.980 with Sam Harris, in which we addressed the first time he was on the show. Indeed, we did.

00:13:11.040 In great detail. He had a lot to say about President Trump that people are, I think, going to find

00:13:16.220 challenging. He had a lot to say about Joe Rogan, which, you know, we had a robust discussion

00:13:21.720 about. You know, and that was interesting. That was really, really interesting. We also

00:13:27.080 sat down with Hassan Piker. Now, it was early in the trip, so we weren't able, I think, because

00:13:32.820 we hadn't spent as much time communicating with him. We did not go as hard at him as we did with Dave.

00:13:41.000 And, you know, I wish, in many ways, Hassan came after Dave, because I think we probably would 1.00

00:13:45.820 have handled that in a more robust way. But still, we had an interesting conversation in

00:13:49.520 which he basically sort of, he didn't say the words, I'm a communist, but he's currently

00:13:54.040 in China celebrating being given Mao's little red book. And he did say in our interview, I

00:13:59.200 don't have a problem being called a communist or something like that. So that was pretty

00:14:03.480 intense. And then, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear, we went to San Francisco and we recorded a very,

00:14:09.860 very good conversation with Owen McCabe, who runs one of their companies there. But we also

00:14:15.400 had a little look around and we talked to a bunch of people in the world of AI. And you're walking

00:14:22.080 around San Francisco, like a good third of the cars there don't have human drivers. And here in New

00:14:28.740 York, we were walking home the other day and there was a gigantic billboard from someone who I don't

00:14:35.660 think has really thought this through, which said, stop hiring humans. The age of the AI employee is

00:14:42.240 here. And they may be right. And in fact, I suspect they are right. But I don't think people understand

00:14:49.420 what's coming. Something we've learned doing this show is that people's thoughts about a given issue

00:14:56.160 often depend on where they get their news. That's why we use ground news to see how the same story is

00:15:02.040 reported across the political spectrum. For example, take the story about Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson

00:15:07.700 signing an executive order creating so-called ice-free zones. Follow along at ground.news

00:15:14.420 slash trigonometry. Using ground news straight away, we can quickly see that the story is being covered

00:15:20.060 by sources across the board, but with more coverage from outlets on the right. Scrolling down the page,

00:15:26.420 ground news allows us to easily compare the headlines. We can see the Chicago Sun-Times,

00:15:31.840 which is on the left, focused on the city's decision to declare municipal buildings ice-free.

00:15:38.180 Meanwhile, The Hill, a centrist newspaper, simply stated that Chicago's mayor signs ice-free zone

00:15:44.980 executive order. But the New York Post on the right went with White House blasts sick Chicago mayor for

00:15:52.180 aiding illegal immigrant killers. Same news story, completely different takes. Ground news compiles

00:15:58.420 these divergent perspectives in one place. Another feature we use heavily at Trigonometry is the blind

00:16:04.560 spot feed, which highlights where coverage is lopsided, lets you compare bias across the political

00:16:09.840 spectrum, and shows what's being emphasized or ignored. If you care about getting to the truth by

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00:17:01.180 I found San Francisco as a place incredibly sobering because people might be surprised to know this,

00:17:09.720 but I'm not really up on the whole AI, I think. It's not really something that I would call an area

00:17:14.600 of expertise at all. The most I've delved into it is being on Joe's show, JRE, where he spoke to us

00:17:23.120 about AI and afterwards, and that got me pretty worried. But then when we went for a dinner with

00:17:30.000 some people from AI, some people from the AI world, these were fairly high level people in AI.

00:17:38.500 There's a mix of perspective. There's a mix of perspective. As there is in any industry. As there

00:17:41.920 is in any industry. But there is one extreme of perspectives, which I found particularly concerning,

00:17:48.840 if I'm being honest. Well, we had this discussion with Owen McCabe in that interview, which is like,

00:17:53.560 my big worry is not even people's desire to make money. It's a bunch of people on the spectrum who are

00:18:00.780 super excited about playing with this cool toy, who I don't think have any understanding of the

00:18:06.700 repercussions of the thing that they're playing with, because they only see the upside. And the upside of AI

00:18:12.540 is enormous. It could transform the way we do health. It could transform the way we defend

00:18:20.460 ourselves. It could transform the way we communicate. It could transform not having to have humans do

00:18:27.500 dangerous, demeaning, boring, unfulfilling, repetitive jobs. But in the process, we are opening

00:18:37.480 a Pandora's box. And this is the worrying thing is that when you talk to people, if they're honest,

00:18:44.120 and you go, what's coming down the line? If they're honest, they go, well, we think this might happen,

00:18:50.520 but actually we don't know. And you're going, well, you, the person who's one of the forefront of this

00:18:56.520 particular technological innovation movement, you don't know what's coming next? Well, they're like,

00:19:02.200 well, we think we do, but there's going to be on stuff that we don't. No one knows what's coming next.

00:19:06.440 And that is, that's a very, it's concerning. I'm going to be honest with you. It's concerning.

00:19:14.780 Look, man, truthfully, I've got to be honest. I don't think anyone actually knows whether there's

00:19:20.400 going to be such a thing as a job 10 years from now. The world needs podcasters, mate.

00:19:26.520 I don't know if there's going to be podcasts 10 years from now. Now, you know, Joe and I disagreed

00:19:31.040 about this when we were on his show, but, you know, let's be honest, like as a podcaster,

00:19:34.660 we all have an incentive to believe that we are necessary. But what, but, but he said that

00:19:39.500 20 minutes after playing us AI music, that's better than any human music I've ever heard.

00:19:44.320 If we don't need human musicians, why do we need human podcasters? It doesn't make that much sense.

00:19:49.400 No. Right. Now I get it. You know, he's, his argument is, well, you know, people like a perspective.

00:19:54.880 I, I just, I think the vast majority of people have absolutely no idea what's coming.

00:20:05.040 No.

00:20:05.400 And the reality is maybe talking about it is kind of pointless because you can't stop it.

00:20:11.920 No. I, I would push back on it because I think what talking about it does is it helps people to

00:20:19.740 understand. And if you helped to understand something, you can strategize against it more

00:20:25.680 effectively. Understand what? Like you said it yourself, the people running the industry don't

00:20:29.220 understand. But you will gain a greater understanding. The more you talk, the more you

00:20:35.340 investigate, you will gain a greater level of understanding. Okay, Francis, we've gained a

00:20:38.440 level of understanding, right? You know, I have a three-year-old son. Which career do

00:20:42.700 you think is going to exist by the time he's ready to go into the workplace? Based on your

00:20:47.180 understanding? I would say, if I would say, I would say things like restoration.

00:20:52.360 Restoration? Like restoring old buildings.

00:20:56.100 Okay. Plumbing. I would say from the people that I spoke to when I was in San Francisco and

00:21:03.660 other people privately, they were like, those are the types that are going to be electrician.

00:21:08.440 The things that you're going to be working with your hands. Skilled manual labour. Skilled manual labour.

00:21:14.400 All right. Well, everyone's got to become a plumber. What percentage of people are going to be doing

00:21:20.980 those jobs, man? Well, this is it. And you're going to look at driving jobs? Right. Compare that to

00:21:25.540 trucking. Yeah. Well, trucking in the United States employs around 80,000 people. I think it's way more

00:21:32.000 than that. Driving jobs as a whole employ over half a million. Right. And then you go, and those are

00:21:37.820 going to be, those jobs are primarily done by men. They're primarily done by men of a certain age,

00:21:43.840 younger men. What are we going to do with those men who don't have access to that type of job?

00:21:49.380 Because the last thing you want as a society is a group of young men who don't have a job, 1.00

00:21:57.140 are disenfranchised, and feel angry. That's when things start getting a bit funky politically.

00:22:03.180 That's when it starts getting worrying, because young men directionless and angry, that's how

00:22:09.740 political movements start getting a bit more extreme, shall we just say.

00:22:13.360 Well, of course. And you're seeing it already. You know, Nick Fuentes, who just people keep

00:22:17.180 asking us. We've invited him on the show. He may come on at some point. We'll handle it in exactly

00:22:22.060 the way that we handled Dave, you know, with strong, robust challenge of ideas.

00:22:27.340 You're seeing that there was a whole big blow up with the Heritage Foundation. There's basically

00:22:33.720 a battle being fought on the American right over what it means to be on the right, whether

00:22:38.920 basically neo-fascist ideas are welcome in the movement. It's kind of a worrying situation of

00:22:44.940 itself. But I don't think it's as ideological as it is a frustrated group of young men who've

00:22:50.120 been shat on their entire adult and teenage lives, told that they're the worst of everything.

00:22:55.000 And it's interesting because a friend of mine messaged me and said, well, you guys keep talking 0.92

00:22:58.500 about, you know, men have had a bad deal. But I think back 30 or 40 years, boys in the education

00:23:05.320 system, if they didn't sit still and didn't behave, they'd get beaten, right? They'd get physically

00:23:11.340 punished. And I explained to her, because I think the sexual dynamics here are important, that for a

00:23:18.380 young man being hit is nowhere near as bad as being humiliated. And what the generation of young men

00:23:26.300 coming up now have been through is their entire life, they've heard that their group, everyone else

00:23:32.900 is great. If you're a black trans lesbian, you are on the pedestal and you are to be celebrated, 0.86

00:23:38.860 right? If you are a young white man, you are literally a piece of shit and you are at the 1.00

00:23:47.220 bottom of the hierarchy and you need to step aside. And by the way, it's important to say it's, it may 1.00

00:23:52.200 well be true that historically speaking, women have had a raw deal in society. I don't know if it's 1.00

00:23:57.780 exactly true in the way that, you know, crazy feminists think it is, but I think there's some truth to that, 1.00

00:24:02.160 historically speaking. But it was never the fault of 15 year old Zoomers. They neither created that 1.00

00:24:08.960 system nor benefited from it. They've grown up in the system where they've been the punching bag and

00:24:14.500 the punchline. And this to me was one of the main reasons why we push back against wokeness,

00:24:20.560 progressivism, whatever it is that you want to call that movement. Because for me, there was even

00:24:25.540 when they were talking about issues that I thought, actually, you've got a point. It was done

00:24:31.900 in a spirit that I found profoundly, profoundly worrying because it was done with the air of

00:24:38.520 somebody wanting revenge. And the problem is, as Gandhi said, an eye for an eye and the world will

00:24:44.560 soon be blind. Because if you enact revenge on someone, particularly someone who doesn't deserve

00:24:50.120 it, hasn't done anything wrong, and you punish them, particularly men, once they grow up, you know

00:24:58.140 what they're going to want? They're going to want revenge.

00:25:00.180 And that's what you've got going on right now.

00:25:02.300 Yeah. And it's like, all right, you've made me feel miserable. You've told me that I'm not worth

00:25:07.700 anything. You have demeaned me. You've smeared me. You've laughed at me. You've humiliated me.

00:25:13.620 You know what, princess? It's time for yours. And that's what's happened. And that's what we're seeing

00:25:18.760 now.

00:25:19.140 And that's why you are seeing, I think, on the left and right, you know, movements that are becoming

00:25:24.680 bigger and bigger that literally have zero constructive agenda whatsoever. There's no

00:25:30.020 constructive agenda to them. I mean, if you think about this thing that's happening on

00:25:34.480 the right, really, and, you know, this is a debate that's important to have, is the people

00:25:39.900 who are trying to push all these horrific ideas into the mainstream of the right, they

00:25:45.380 are not helping the Republicans who are currently in charge to deliver the things that the American

00:25:52.060 electorate voted for. They are, in fact, making it easier for a Democrat to come in and to

00:25:58.280 reopen the border as one of the many other things that will happen in reaction to this.

00:26:02.980 So what you have is you simply have groups of people who now view pulling everything down

00:26:08.520 and destroying everything as the only thing worth doing.

00:26:12.100 And there's many reasons for that. Number one, because you get a sheer visceral thrill out

00:26:16.660 of destroying something. Everyone does. You kick in a window. You get a little bit of excitement.

00:26:23.880 I've never done it, man. I'm middle class.

00:26:26.560 But, you know, you do something, you kick in a window, whatever, you feel, you get a little

00:26:30.160 bit of adrenaline, you get a little burst. But there's something more profound to it.

00:26:34.060 But it's so much easier to pull something down, to break something, to desecrate, to mock than it

00:26:42.100 is to build something up, to create something, to be of genuine worth in the world. Because when

00:26:47.980 you build something, as you know that we do, as many other people do, or even people who go to work

00:26:53.120 every day and they do a job to the best of their ability, it's hard. It's not glamorous.

00:26:58.420 Even people going, oh, but you're on YouTube. 98.9% of this, there is not

00:27:03.980 glamour to it. It is a grind like every other business. And it's hard. And you get up and you

00:27:09.600 go, right, we've got to sort out this out. We've got to do this. You've got to be on the phone to

00:27:13.120 them. We've got to go here. You've got to do... Because that's...

00:27:16.220 We're victims.

00:27:17.280 Yeah. Because that's what it needs. That's what it needs.

00:27:20.280 But we talked about this in a conversation with Dana. Like, we've been at this for seven and a

00:27:23.780 half years and almost the entirety of that time. You spend, forgive me for the metaphor,

00:27:27.800 but I think it's exactly appropriate, eating shit. 1.00

00:27:29.880 Yeah. 1.00

00:27:30.060 Hearing no, no, no, no. I mean, Dana himself, we've been trying to get him on the show for

00:27:34.540 like two years. And he's a busy guy. The fact that he came on now is like a testament both

00:27:41.300 to his openness, but also to our tenacity and trying to get him on. And every other interview

00:27:45.600 we've done, it's been a process of every single guest almost is a process of either you have

00:27:52.240 to work really hard to get them on, or you have to work really hard to get big enough that

00:27:56.380 they want to come on themselves. So it's nonstop hard work. It's a lot easier to just complain.

00:28:02.860 It's a lot easier to go on the internet, be incendiary and say, oh, we should do this,

00:28:09.720 burn this, pull this down, get rid of this. 0.59

00:28:12.500 This person is bad. This person is wrong. This person is evil. And look, 0.59

00:28:15.720 we've criticized a lot of people, but we're always coming at it from a constructive place.

00:28:19.760 What we're trying to say is we're brilliant.

00:28:21.140 We are. We're brilliant. Thank you.

00:28:24.200 By the way, spending more and more time in America, I start to realize that all these

00:28:28.520 sarcastic jokes, I don't think a lot of them get it. So if you're American, we're not saying

00:28:33.360 we're brilliant. No, what we're saying is we are brilliant, but we're also British. So

00:28:37.320 we pretend that we're not saying it.

00:28:39.140 I remember there was one quite awkward moment a few months ago when I was like, yeah, we're

00:28:44.020 brilliant. And this guy went, yeah, you are. And I went, no, we're not. I mean, oh God,

00:28:47.780 no. And they just like that awkward Britishness thing came in. It's kind of a, anyway, but 0.98

00:28:53.360 and what, the reason we approach a Dana interview the way we did, and I hope people get this,

00:29:01.020 is trying to send a positive message to young men to go, look, you can still achieve. There

00:29:08.380 are things that you can do if you strive, if you believe, if you have ambition, if you know

00:29:13.640 where you want to go, if you're prepared to work really hard, you can achieve something.

00:29:18.640 Don't go down the other path. Because while you may feel good at the time, it's like scratching

00:29:24.660 eczema. It may feel good at the time, but you're, it's only going to make you feel worse.

00:29:29.280 It's only going to inflame. And I don't think young men are going to particularly listen to

00:29:34.220 us if I'm honest, or even to Dana necessarily. But what they will find out as time goes on

00:29:38.740 is just like being woke wasn't fulfilling. And if you look at woke people, they're absolutely

00:29:45.100 miserable. The people who are going down the route of bitterness and resentment on the right, 0.68

00:29:51.400 they will discover that it doesn't lead you anywhere. It doesn't lead you to the place that

00:29:55.320 makes you happy. It doesn't like, look, look at some of the people who are at the top of this.

00:30:00.000 None of them have a family. None of them have kids. None of them have a partner. None of them have

00:30:04.920 the things that actually make life meaningful. I mean, before we started the conversation with

00:30:09.500 Dana, we talked about how kids are the best thing ever, right? And anyone who becomes a parent will

00:30:14.760 tell you. Now, look, kids don't make you happy in and of themselves. What kids tend to do, I saw a

00:30:19.880 great post from our former guest, Sarah Hader, who said, what kids do is they expand the range of

00:30:26.240 emotions you get to feel. So on the upside, you now have levels of happiness that were unattainable

00:30:32.800 previously. On the downside, you have levels of, you know, horror and fear and misery that also

00:30:39.320 weren't available to you potentially. But meaning comes from the connections you make with other

00:30:43.800 people, from having a family, from having friends. It doesn't come from being angry and sort of

00:30:51.720 attacking people that you don't agree with. It comes from building things. I mean, this is one of the

00:30:57.720 things I think that made Charlie Kirk such a special person in many people's eyes is he built

00:31:02.720 an institution that was actually affecting change in the world in the way that he believed it.

00:31:10.240 Whereas if all you're doing is tearing things down, you're going to very quickly find that it's an

00:31:14.440 incredibly shallow, miserable, and disappointing path to go down in your life.

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00:32:58.120 be prepared. That's why I remember 988 Canada's Suicide Crisis Helpline. It's good to know just in

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00:33:16.520 Yeah. And I hope young men start to realize that because we say it all the time, but we can't

00:33:24.840 carry on like this. If the people in your life, if the people who you follow are destructive,

00:33:31.880 are angry and miserable, who are highly conspiratorial, they're not going to lead you to where you want to

00:33:37.400 be. Because as somebody, everyone can have a drink, who's taught kids. I remember when people were

00:33:43.000 saying to me, oh, some kids, you know, they don't want to learn, they don't want to do. No one wants

00:33:47.640 to be a failure. There is no single person in life who goes, you know what I want to do? I want to fail

00:33:52.920 at everything. Oh, you know, my dreams, which we've all got, I don't want to achieve them. I don't want

00:33:58.040 to have money. I don't want to have a nice house. I don't want to have a partner or a spouse that I

00:34:03.480 love. That's not true. Everybody wants to succeed. And what's really important is that we actually

00:34:10.440 realize that if you want to succeed, you need to have a positive message. You need to be inspired.

00:34:17.640 You need to be inspirational to others. That's the only way to achieve things. That's the only way to

00:34:23.160 drive yourself forward. And by doing that, drive other people forward around you. And then if

00:34:27.880 there's enough of a chain reaction, being able to mobilize your town, then the city, then your

00:34:33.080 district, your state, and then a country. But the other, the other way, if we go down this other path,

00:34:39.640 this will lead to a desperate, dark, broken place. And we just can't have it. We can't have it because

00:34:46.600 if nothing else for yourselves and your family, do you want to live in that? I don't. I don't.

00:34:53.400 Well, I mean, as part of the, one of the problems, I think for, for the young people who,

00:34:56.520 who, young men in particular, who feel this frustration is they don't have a family and

00:35:00.760 they don't have kids and they're not attached to anything. And they're just bitter and resentful,

00:35:05.160 but it just, it's just not a sustainable thing. It's not going to work for you if, if that's the place

00:35:12.760 you. And so you're going to have to, uh, dig yourself out of that, um, and realize that

00:35:18.200 this isn't leading you anywhere that you actually deep down want to be. Um, I mean, another thing

00:35:25.640 that we, you know, this is something we talked about with Ben in our conversation that's happening is

00:35:30.120 obviously there's a far left movement that's also happening. And, you know, one of the things you and

00:35:36.760 I've been talking about for a long time and trying, by the way, to get people on the right to

00:35:43.080 acknowledge is that affordability, particularly of housing is a gigantic issue and you can't skirt

00:35:50.520 around that. Now, look, I think Ben made a fantastic point that has been badly misrepresented. He said,

00:35:57.240 if you want to deal with affordability, you have to change the policies, but if the policies aren't

00:36:01.720 going to change, you have to, in America, in American history, actually the seeking of opportunity

00:36:08.520 elsewhere is literally America. Yeah. Right? And look at the content creators in our space. Uh,

00:36:16.440 let's take a look, go down the list. Joe Rogan moved from California to Austin. Why? Because he didn't

00:36:21.640 like what was happening in California. He didn't sit in his basement and wine, did he? Uh, Dave Rubin,

00:36:28.040 uh, Ben Shapiro, they've all moved, uh, lots and lots and lots of people. I mean, there's lots of

00:36:33.080 people in Austin who have moved to Austin. There's a lot, you know, other people are in Scottsdale,

00:36:37.720 Arizona. Like, uh, the reality is that the, the, if, if, if politicians feel that you are captive

00:36:45.640 in the city in which you live, they're not going to change anything. No. And no matter how many times

00:36:51.000 you elect, you know, far left socialist or communist or whatever who promise you free stuff, they're not

00:36:56.120 going to change anything. They're not going to make housing more affordable because the only way to

00:36:59.720 make housing more affordable is to build more housing. Like president Trump's come out with

00:37:03.400 this 50 year mortgage. Yeah. Okay. That's going to help some people buy a house that can't buy a house

00:37:07.880 now, but that's also going to massively inflate prices. And then a generation from now, or not a

00:37:13.160 generation, a few years from now, again, you're going to be in this position where fewer and fewer

00:37:17.000 people can buy a house because as we discussed with Dave, and this is where we really agreed is asset

00:37:22.120 inflation, uh, is making people who don't have assets incredibly, incredibly poor. And there's

00:37:28.840 graphs, uh, including in that recent video I did just showing this now. If people need to understand,

00:37:36.520 if this does not get addressed, you are going to have absolute chaos in politics because if young

00:37:44.040 people can't pair up, they can't settle down, they can't have kids, they're going to burn the whole 0.97

00:37:49.000 thing down. And we're starting to see that now. Yeah. We're starting to see that now.

00:37:53.560 And what's the one thing that I find particularly, uh, actually really frustrating. And I'm going to

00:37:59.640 be honest, it is the right, the right, the way they talk about this, where they talk about people 1.00

00:38:04.040 who voted for Zoran Mamdani and they're like, oh, they're stupid. They're ignorant. They're lazy, 1.00

00:38:08.920 whatever else. And it's like, hang on a second, hang on a second. You got upset when people on the

00:38:16.280 left said the same thing about Trump supporters. When Trump was addressing very real issues that

00:38:23.720 people from blue collar jobs, the left behind towns in the Rust Belt, we all know that we all

00:38:30.600 know the narratives when he was talking to them and you were angry when the left criticized and mocked

00:38:37.320 them. But now you're mocking people who are moving to the populist left. Can you not see that there's

00:38:43.800 actually more in common with both sides than you might want to pretend? I would quibble with your

00:38:50.120 analogy a little bit, although I think there's a lot of truth to it. But look, uh, President Trump

00:38:55.400 was going to close the border and did. Zoran Mamdani is not going to solve New York's problems.

00:39:01.000 I'm talking more about how people particularly talk about supporters. Yeah. Yeah. That's not helpful.

00:39:06.600 Of course it's not. But I do think there's a, there's a, uh, a qualitative difference between

00:39:11.960 these two things. And it's not because I'm pro Trump and anti-Mamdani, although, you know, 0.88

00:39:15.960 I, I'm no fan of Mandani, of course. Um, but yeah, I, no, I take your point. I mean, look,

00:39:21.320 demonizing millions of people for having a different voting preference to you is never smart

00:39:26.360 because you're not going to win any of them over. That said, I mean, look, there's a lot of,

00:39:30.200 there's a lot that's been written about Mamdani's election. One of the things that's been pointed out is

00:39:34.120 like Mamdani only did well with people who weren't born in America as a, on a group basis.

00:39:42.680 And that's another thing, which is, you know, there are, there do seem to be quite a lot of

00:39:46.280 people in all of our countries in the West who've come from other places. And instead of embracing the 1.00

00:39:51.000 things that made the West great, they seem to, for some reason, want to make our countries more like

00:39:58.760 the countries they've come from, which I think you and I who've either come or whose parents have

00:40:04.040 come from other places, just really struggled to understand. And one of the great interviews we

00:40:09.080 recorded on this trip was actually about your family's ancestry and country, which was Venezuela.

00:40:15.720 We had this great guy called Daniel DiMartino on the show. You absolutely smashed it, uh, talking

00:40:20.600 about Venezuela. Yeah. And to me, that was one of the highlights of the trip because look, I don't

00:40:26.280 mind jokes are jokes. Fine. But when you see a country perpetually used as a punchline and the,

00:40:35.000 but people never engage, they never actually talk about it, honestly. And I think it's really

00:40:40.760 important for people to actually understand what socialism genuinely means. What does it mean to have

00:40:46.440 a country that's socialist? What does it mean to have a country that it should actually be the

00:40:51.640 Dubai of South America? Because we're, we're richer than Dubai, but technically could be richer than

00:40:57.240 Saudi Arabia if we're run properly. But we have socialism. And as a result of that, everything

00:41:03.640 was decimated. The country was plunged into poverty. Nine million people left. Nine million people.

00:41:11.800 And it's one of the reasons I'm so proud of it was because of the way we handled the conversation,

00:41:16.040 because Daniel was magnificent in the way he put forward and explained what happened in Venezuela.

00:41:21.480 But also because it's, you know, we're so far away now from socialism in what many people experience

00:41:30.360 that to them, it's like they're rediscovering this new idea. Hey, you know what? Maybe the world can be

00:41:35.240 fairer. You know, there won't be poor people. We'll all be equal. And no, that's not how it works.

00:41:41.880 It's a magic trick. You get shown something and you think, isn't this brilliant? And then you get

00:41:47.560 the reveal at the end of it. And the reveal is there is no freedom. There's no free speech.

00:41:53.720 If you criticize the government, you're going to be in jail. And you know what? We're all going to be

00:41:57.880 plunged into desperate, miserable poverty. Sounds like Britain, mate.

00:42:02.840 Well, yeah. And, but that's the thing that we, they still have here in America, which is,

00:42:08.360 and it's why I loved our conversation with Dana. And it's why I love the coming here and having

00:42:13.720 conversations. It's because there is still optimism here. And that is so important and it's so

00:42:19.640 powerful. And I know it's what you love about being here. Of course, it's fantastic. And you know,

00:42:23.960 every time we come here, it's not just about having great conversations with fascinating people.

00:42:29.400 It's also, it changes us every time we're here. We become better as interviewers. We have better

00:42:34.120 conversations. Like the way we would have interviewed Hassan Piker if we interviewed him

00:42:41.160 after Dave Smith would have been very different. Yeah. And that's because Dave made us better as

00:42:45.960 interviewers. Yeah. You know, the, the things we engage with here makes us better as interviews.

00:42:51.640 I, I know these might seem like minor details to people, but for fans of the show, these probably

00:42:55.720 are interesting observations. Like Brandon Tatum, officer Tatum, when we had on, he spoke for 35 minutes

00:43:03.480 uninterrupted and answering our first questions. I dare you to find one interviewer on the internet

00:43:08.840 who would let somebody speak for 35 minutes and say nothing. And the reason we do that

00:43:14.360 is when we've learned that when you have someone who really has something, something to say,

00:43:20.040 a story to tell, you just get out of the way. And when you have someone who needs a little help,

00:43:25.560 or maybe just speaks in shorter sentences, or maybe, you know, you quite haven't quite found the way to get

00:43:30.360 in. Uh, then you, then, then you, then we've got to jump in and do our job in a different way.

00:43:35.800 And by the way, we're talking about all the serious stuff. We have some hilarious episodes

00:43:40.920 recorded in this trip. I mean, we, we had Christina P, James McCann, Jeff Dye, who was just absolutely

00:43:47.000 incredible. Greg Gutfeld as well. They all smashed them. Those are really interesting, but very funny

00:43:51.960 conversations. Um, and that's again, another thing, you know, it sounds like we're blowing smoke up our

00:43:56.760 own asses here, but like we've got so much range and the types of, we can do funny, we can do serious,

00:44:03.320 we can do, uh, educational. I mean, we, our conversation with Scott Galloway about masculinity, 0.97

00:44:08.840 our conversation with Nick Freitas about masculinity, our conversation with James Sexton,

00:44:14.520 the divorce lawyer. It's one of the most powerful things that we've ever experienced sitting across

00:44:19.560 from somebody because he is such a great speaker and has so many interesting things to say, so balanced,

00:44:25.160 but also was willing to go to places emotionally that very often people climb up. So, you know,

00:44:31.000 being here is transformative. And every time we come here, it transforms. That's why we love America.

00:44:36.200 We do. We love America because the ambition, the talent, the talent here is incredible. You just,

00:44:43.800 there's some people who just walk in like Daniel, who just come in and they smash it from beginning to

00:44:49.800 end. And you go, you're not even 30. You're not even 30. I didn't like him for that reason.

00:44:56.760 Too good, too young. You know, you're not even 30. And the talent here is incredible. The conversations

00:45:03.880 that you can have here. And you know what I think, and this is good, people are going to roll their

00:45:07.640 eyes, but I do think, I think part of it is the first amendment. I think it's, they have a culture of

00:45:12.680 free speech. And when you have a culture of free speech, it automatically makes everything that

00:45:18.040 little bit lighter because you know, that's the culture. So you can, it's like Dana said in our

00:45:24.120 interview, in the UFC, you can go out and you can make a comment about politics and it can be as 0.99

00:45:30.040 bad shit as you want, but it's the first amendment. It's America. You're entitled to your opinion. 0.99

00:45:35.240 I'm entitled not to like it, but that's life.

00:45:37.560 Well, that is the attitude. And one of the things we explored with a lot of people is the sort of

00:45:41.320 proclivity for conspiracy. And we talked to a few comedians about that. You know,

00:45:45.320 why do people so interested in that? I think that's probably the flip side in that when every

00:45:52.200 opinion is accepted, you know, people are going to come up with some pretty wacky opinions.

00:45:55.880 Yeah.

00:45:56.280 Um, and you know, it, it's an interesting place to be because of course, right now,

00:46:01.160 that conspiratorialness on the right, I think is a real threat to the right's electoral success.

00:46:08.520 I just, I don't think the American general public based on our conversations and the people that we

00:46:15.320 speak to, I don't think they're into that. They might enjoy watching somebody, but when it becomes

00:46:20.920 the central thing of the political movement, you know, uh, I just, I don't see that as a winning

00:46:27.240 strategy, particularly when you're bringing in very toxic ideas that a lot of people in this country,

00:46:32.680 thank God still have a natural aversion to. Look, you've absolutely nailed it. And I think

00:46:37.480 people in politics and I think people in our space and in the YouTubers, I think we all need

00:46:44.280 to remember something. Look, we're all highly political people in this little space. And look,

00:46:49.080 that's fine. And we're obsessed with politics and that's what we do. And that's what we talk about.

00:46:55.080 But there's something bigger at play here. And that's America and the West. And by that,

00:47:00.440 I mean the soccer mom taking her kids to practice. The dad getting up every day,

00:47:06.360 going to do a job that he probably doesn't like, but he does it because he's got a family and then

00:47:11.800 he comes back. The young people who want to get ahead with their lives and they just want an 0.89

00:47:17.320 opportunity and a chance to succeed. The guy looking at the girl going, I want to marry her and one day be

00:47:23.880 able to be able to have kids. This is more important than people online talking and be

00:47:31.160 trying to be provocative. And we all need to remember that what we do bleeds out into society

00:47:37.320 and we have a responsibility. You have a responsibility not to indulge in these conspiracy theories,

00:47:45.080 not to be extreme because it affects people in a way that is incredibly profound.

00:47:51.960 To those people, you may feel like you're just ranting to a camera. You're not. People are

00:47:56.040 watching. They're ingesting this stuff. And that's what concerns me, if I'm being honest.

00:48:02.040 Well, we will see how it all plays out. Everyone has a small role to play in it.

00:48:06.840 We are going to go to triggerpod.co.uk where our fans are going to ask us questions,

00:48:11.960 or rather we'll take their questions and ask them of each other. So head on over there now.

00:48:16.440 And if you're not already a subscriber, we do think you're morally inferior.

00:48:22.840 Do you think you help keep each other honest? And how much do you think the fact that you

00:48:26.680 somewhat balance each other out has contributed to your success?

00:48:43.240 A claims program for harmed Canadians has begun as a result of a landmark tobacco settlement.

00:48:58.680 If you smoked regularly before November 20th, 1998, and were diagnosed with lung cancer,

00:49:05.320 throat cancer, emphysema, or COPD, you may qualify for a significant payment.

00:49:11.480 To learn more, call 888-482-5852 or go to tobaccoclaimscanada.ca.

TRIGGERnometry - November 17, 2025

Our Thoughts On Interviewing Dave Smith, Hasan Piker, Sam Harris and Ben Shapiro

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