A Response to Sam Harris
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What's up? What's up? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I'm Dave Smith. He's Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How you feeling, brother? Doing good. How are you, Davey Smith? Very good. Very good. I had a great time with you out in Philadelphia. It's good to be back. I'm coming off...

one of the just craziest stretches of big shows and a ton of travel. And I have a stretch of not traveling for work now and being home, so I'm very excited about that. I don't know. I'm an old man, dude. I don't bounce back the way I used to. But anyway, and I also just, you know,

you having having a wife and kids it has this tendency it just uh it it ruins you for the outside world like even when you're doing the coolest and you're traveling around i'm just like homesick the whole time so anyway i'm excited to uh i'm excited to to have a nice break and going on a little family vacation um in a couple weeks um but yeah so i'm good and the world is pretty interesting these days is it not

I spend one day at home and I'm like, all right, it's time to start putting together the next thing. I used to be the same way, man. I used to, I remember when I first started standup comedy, I just loved doing the road so much. It was just like the best. I loved living out of a hotel. I loved all of it. I was like, I would just do this. If, if there was enough work in it for me, I would do this always. I would just always be on the road. And then I

as I got older and I, you know, I started making a few bucks. I met my beautiful wife. We ended up getting together, having kids, all this stuff. And then I realized it wasn't that I loved hotels as much as I just hated my home.

And then when I started liking my home, I was like, oh, this is awful. Like, I could kill myself. I'm in the same goddamn room in the same goddamn hotel, even though it's a different hotel in a different town, and it's all the time. Now, I mean, listen, I love my job very much. I love doing shows. I love meeting the fans. I love doing live podcasts. I love it. But...

I do not love traveling. I do not love being on an airport and being in a hotel room. So anyway, I don't know. I didn't plan on spending the first three minutes of the show just ranting about my life. You don't know how hard I have it, people. I have to talk into a microphone. Anyway.

But yeah, it's nice to be home with the family and have a little stretch there. Okay, so let's jump in to some things. Oh, first off, before we do that, I should mention, if anybody has not already, make sure to go watch Rob's debut comedy special. It's hilarious. It's getting an unbelievably great response. Make sure to go check that out. We have like a little...

a shortened version of it on our YouTube channel here, but the full thing is over at Rob's YouTube channel. What's your channel? Handle or whatever? Robby the Fire, all one word, and it's called Live from the Denver Comedy Garage. It's phenomenal. Make sure to go check it out. Support Robby the Fire Bernstein for all of his...

All of his years of great work that he's put in. Okay. And then aside from that, I'm not traveling for the month of December or the remainder of November for work. But...

Our 2025 calendar is starting to get filled up comic Dave Smith.com. We'll be back on the road in January and coming all over the country. So go come check us out live. I apologize. My bald head is blinding into the audience today. It's this new aroma light therapy I'm doing where I don't have the window fully blocked. I'm just hoping to regrow the follicles.

Make sure you get it even, Rob. Get every spot there. Yeah, just like that. All right, so... It's like a yarmulke. I'm on Team Jew again. There it is. And genocide. No, you're cool. Doing genocide. Okay, so I did... I tweeted yesterday...

um, about Sam Harris. And I said, is it even, is he even worth responding to anymore? You know, is, is just so garbage. Um, but,

I gotta say, it's just a weakness of mine, so I'm gonna do it anyway. I know, I know you could accuse me of kicking a man while he's down, but sometimes it is appropriate to kick a man who's down. He seems unaware. Sam, there are some clues. The concrete pressed against your face. That's a clue. And I know you're sitting there and trying to convince yourself that, in fact, I'm not down, and the entire Earth has shifted to move the concrete up to my face, but I'm telling you, dude, you're down.

Was he at least dignified enough to state your name, unlike the Wall Street Journal or Ben Shapiro? Yes, he did not go the Ben Shapiro, Wall Street Journal route. He actually uttered my name into the ether. And in a way, I respect that he did that. But also in a way, now I have to eviscerate you.

It's I mean, you said you said my name. That's the rules. And it is funny because I have such a weakness for this. But I just don't. It's my own brand of libertarian autism or whatever. I'm only a day walker after all. I'm half one of them. And so.

I just, I can't stand bad arguments. And it just, I want to tear apart bad arguments when I see them, especially when they're directed at me. And it was funny though, because I tweeted like, I don't even have to waste my time on this, right? It's Sam Harris. He's been totally discredited. Like nobody, everybody knows this at this point. And then a bunch of people were like, yeah, don't even waste your time. And then I saw one person tweeted, he got, nah, tear him apart. And I was like,

The people have spoken. The people have spoken. That one guy, he represents the will of the people. And so, yeah, let's do it. All right, let's just jump in. And here we can play the clip. This is what Sam Harris had to say about me on a show the other day. Who have some professional scruples and reputations to protect among people who actually know something about medical science. RFK Jr. has none of that. He's just a cowboy taking shots at the establishment.

The Joe Rogan podcast is not a substitute for the Wall Street Journal or the Kennedy School at Harvard. It is simply not progress to have a comedian like Dave Smith, who's apparently done his own research, interviewed about the history of the Middle East or the war in Ukraine like he's the next Henry Kissinger. All of this free access to information is making us dumber.

Oh, all right. So hold on. Let me give this a shot because there's really only one way to respond to Sam Harris. So let me just, hold on. Let me get in my zone for a second here. Okay. You see, emotional thinking can lead to errors. And so we must only rely on rational thought where we look at objective reality and do our best to deduce what is true objectively. You see...

Only when a critical thinker examines an issue can we understand on a deeper level what's really going on here. And that is our responsibility. And only then, when you start to look at the world rationally, will you recognize that Sam Harris's entire argument is what we would classify as a logical fallacy. It's known as an appeal to authority. Literally, a logical fallacy.

You'll notice Sam has said nothing about any of the content of my arguments about Ukraine or Israel. He is not pointing out a flaw in my logic. He is simply saying that I am not the Wall Street Journal or Henry Kissinger, and therefore we're dumber for listening to me. Does that get through?

Does that get through to you, Sam Harris? No, I'm not Henry Kissinger, the fucking war criminal. Okay, yes. That was his appeal to authority was Henry Kissinger. He's like, I don't even know where he pulled that one out. Listen, nobody, myself or Joe Rogan included, is claiming that we are a substitute for the Wall Street Journal. We're certainly not claiming to be responsible for the slaughter of millions of Vietnamese people like Henry Kissinger.

The point is this, Sam Harris, here's the reality, okay? I understand, even though it is a logical fallacy, it's a blatant just appeal to authority, blatantly, I understand the appeal, no pun intended, of this argument. Yes, it is kind, we could use a Wall Street Journal that was really good. We should have some expert who's great, but the thing is this, despite the fact that we're not any of those things,

If me and you, Sam Harris, debate Ukraine or Israel, or how about COVID? How about your track record on COVID versus my track record on COVID? If we debated any of those topics, I will eviscerate you.

Like, tear you to pieces, dude. So what do you want me to say here? Yes, it would be great if we had not corrupt, honest institutions with experts who gave great information. We don't, unfortunately, okay? We don't have those. And so now we're actually left in a situation where, like, a jerk-off comedian who reads books will tear all of you guys apart on the most important issues.

Now, I understand that's like more of an assertion than an argument, but you're not giving me an argument to counter. There's no argument here. Listen, here's the truth, right? The reason why all these people on Twitter were telling me not even to waste my time on responding to Sam Harris and, you know, your point about him not realizing he's down is

The reason why you refuse to... The reason why you won't take me up on my offer and prove me wrong, let's debate it. You pick the topic.

You pick the topic that I'm wrong about and we'll have a debate about that and we'll see how that goes. But the reason why you won't do that, the reason why you won't debate your former friend, Brent Weinstein, the reason why you wouldn't have a conversation with him throughout COVID is because Brent Weinstein will rip you to shreds. He will humiliate you worse than you've humiliated yourself through these years. Here's the reality, Sam Harris.

When the biggest challenge came, when the moment to fight came, you can't overstate it. Totalitarianism swept not only this country but the civilized world because there was a nasty cold going around.

And when that happened, you failed. You fail and you can sit here and make all your arguments of like, "Well, just change a few factors. Imagine the vaccine did work. And imagine COVID killed kids. Well, then I'd be right." That's what you're reduced to at this point. When the biggest moment came where we needed real intellectual bravery and you had build yourself as that, as the embodiment of that, you failed.

Okay, that's it. And now your opinion is discarded. Nobody cares. No one is moved by you saying Joe Rogan isn't as good as all that because the problem is that we just had the biggest test of our lifetime, which was the COVID insanity. Okay, by the way, go read Diary of a Psychosis by Tom Woods. He graduated from Harvard and got a PhD from Columbia. So is he allowed to have an opinion now?

Could he go on the Joe Rogan Experience and explain how you were completely wrong about everything? Read his book. It was all, there is no argument anymore. If you actually want to pour through the data,

If you go through the areas that locked down versus the areas that didn't lock down. If you look at the areas that had mask mandates versus the ones that didn't have masks mandates. If you look at the areas where there was high mask compliance versus the areas where there was very little mask compliance. Go through whatever test you want to. Vaccine passports versus the areas that didn't have vaccine passports. Large gatherings versus the areas that didn't have large gatherings. Go through all the data. There is no trend.

There's none. You cannot point, none of the areas that did all of these things ended up having lower infection rates or lower death rates or low, none of it. It,

It didn't make a difference. This is data. This isn't even like an opinion. You can look at it. Tom Woods made the thing. It was so great. Did you ever take a look at that, Rob? But it's the, I forget what it was called, like COVID quiz or something like that. But he put up, he would put up charts and you were supposed to figure out, like, is this a chart of a state that had mask mandates or one that didn't? Is this a chart of a state? And the joke of the quiz is that nobody can pass the quiz.

Because there's nothing there's no trend that you can look at and be like, oh, things were better, you know, when when they had lockdowns. I mean, the best you could do is what, you know, Donald Trump very foolishly tried to do through the primary with when he was running against Ron DeSantis is you just look at it in the aggregate and go like, oh, look, more people died here. But as soon as you control for age, that all goes away.

It doesn't matter. It's just that Florida had an older population. And obviously, if you're talking about COVID deaths, that's the whole game. Old people die from COVID. Or only old people die from COVID, essentially. So in other words, all this totalitarianism didn't even help. You got it completely wrong. And now you're too much of a moral coward to admit that you got it wrong. And so you're just furious that all these other people who got it right are reaping the rewards of that.

Look, yeah, it's crazy. I know. It's crazy to think we don't have a CNN news desk. We have the Joe Rogan experience, right? But the thing is, when totalitarianism swept our nation, people were so much better off listening to Joe Rogan than listening to CNN. You know, like if you had taken Rogan's advice, which was what? Be healthy, exercise, get vitamin D,

You would have been better off taking his advice than taking Fauci's advice. And so you could sit there and say, well, Fauci, which he said before this clip, but Fauci has a reputation to uphold and he knows science. And even if he's a little bit corrupt, he's a lot better than Joe Rogan. No, he wasn't.

on the most important thing. He was much, much worse. So where is that? Where those forces of his scientific knowledge or him having a reputation that he must uphold didn't stop him from getting it catastrophically wrong at every single turn. And by the way, intentionally.

Intentionally, go look through his private emails, which we have. I'm not suggesting you break into his computer. But go look at through the email. The way he was talking to his scientist buddies and the message he was giving to the American people were not the same. He knew what was up. He was on record saying it would be years before we would even know if any vaccine, if any vaccine for one of these coronaviruses would work at all. It would take three to five years, he said,

This is after the COVID pandemic had started, but it was in the lockdown regime before the vaccines were out. Then he said, oh, it'll be three to five years at least before we could even know whether the vaccine for this would do more harm than good. That was until he was, you know what I mean? Until the vaccine regime rolled out. And then there were big pharma profits to go around and, you know,

Then he changed his tune. So no, Sam Harris, I'm sorry, you're wrong. You're wrong. And yes, it's true. I don't have credentials. I'm not an expert. Which, by the way, I disclaim on almost every single appearance I do on Joe Rogan. It's like, the thing is this, right? I'm not the expert. I just know enough. And what I know is narrative shattering.

Does that make sense? It's like, I know enough to know that you are full of shit and your entire argument is wrong. And all of the things you're saying are not sound. You don't have to be an expert turns out to know that. But I'll also tell you this. Look, I'm where I'm at for a reason.

Joe Rogan's where he's at for a reason. And I'm not like you, Sam Harris. Like my mom didn't make the Golden Girls or whatever his background is. I wasn't born into like this unbelievable wealth and privilege that you were born into. I'm where I'm at.

Wherever that is, 600,000 Twitter followers or whatever. I'm not the biggest, but I'm where I'm at because I built this. Okay. And the reason I built this up is because I make excellent arguments. I don't know what to say.

Come find out. All this bullshit that you do with your dumb NPR voice where you try to hypnotize people into thinking you're being a rational thinker or something like that, that shit won't work on me, dude. Come debate me on any of these topics. You brought up Ukraine and Israel. Either one. You pick. Let's do it.

Let's see how that goes for you. Hey, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Ground News. It's no secret that the corporate media is not exactly known for being unbiased and giving you accurate information. And now that Donald Trump's back in, it's more of a concern than ever before.

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And right now, my viewers can get 50% off their top-tier Vantage plan by going to ground.news.com. Or you could just scan the QR code. That's ground.news.com. Thanks to Ground News for sponsoring this episode. All right, let's get back into it. You know, and so, okay, you could sit here with your appeals to authority. By the way, I kind of get it. But the truth is that

This is always a bullshit argument, right? Because... And I like when Bobby Kennedy makes this point a lot, too. Like, someone...

There was just another clip of him that was going viral making this argument. But they go to him, they go, they're like, hey, you know, you say all this stuff, but you're not a scientist. You're not a doctor. And he was like, listen, in every case that I ever brought that, you know, where he was going after whatever people dumping in a lake or whatever, you know, he goes, there'd be some giant corporation. We were suing them. He goes, they'd have experts who testify. We'd have experts who testify. The experts would say the exact opposite thing.

You know what I mean? So it's not as if like that in itself proves anything. And so you're going to me,

and just being like, oh, this jerk-off comedian, like, he's the guy. But there are experts who agree with me, too. But then you just dismiss them. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's never, there was never a moment for people like Sam Harris when, like, say, the Balfour Declaration got Israel on the brain. When the Great Barrington Declaration happened, it's not like Sam Harris went, whoa, we got to change everything here.

The experts just told us that actually lockdowns are evil and stupid and counterproductive, right? Was there any one? I mean, I shouldn't say that. I'm sure there were some people in the world. But was there any one, Rob, of these public figures who, after the Great Barrington Declaration, changed their mind? Can you think of any? Not that I remember of. I can't think of a single one. Certainly wasn't Sam Harris. So they use this appeal to authority until someone has that authority and makes the argument, and then they just ignore that?

Just pretend it's not real? I mean, okay, you disagree with me on Ukraine and on Israel. Well, you know who agrees with me? John Mearsheimer. Is he not an expert? The world-renowned political thinker who's got all your fancy degrees? I don't even remember where he went to school, but he's got all the fancy degrees and all that. Jeffrey Sachs, you know, like, is that guy not enough of an expert for you? Harvard doesn't do it anymore?

So as I just mentioned, Tom Woods, you know, like it's like and this is I'm just rattling off a few names. There's there's experts and experts and experts all over the place who take the same position that we take on this. So like you just see how this falls apart immediately. And again, I mean, look, Jimmy Dore has the goddamn best bit on on this. This is so funny. Do you know the bit I'm talking about on the do your own research stuff?

Uh, dude, I'll send it to you, uh, after the show. You know what, Natalie, could you just look that up? If you just put it into Twitter, go, Jimmy Dore, uh, do your own research. This is an excellent joke. God, I love it. Um, but this, this idea of like, oh, you're a comedian who does your own research and you're like, you say that as if it's a pejorative, like that's an insult to do research. Like what, did you get it, Natalie? Cause I do want to play this if we, uh,

If we have it, it's so funny. I don't I'm I feel like I can't even talk about this because I'm just going to end up giving away the joke of it. But it is like one of my I think maybe the best bit about COVID that I saw during COVID. I'm really surprised I haven't shown this to you before, Rob. Oh, here we go. All right. I love this.

around covid i never noticed this before in any other time of my life but you weren't allowed to ask questions and at any point during this you just had to you had to do what the man on the tv said right you had to do what the man on the tv said without questions and then you're a good person but if you question it then you're a white supremacist trumper not they're like whoa no no no i didn't vote for trump i just have questions jimmy

Only dumb people ask questions. Isn't that weird? It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Even comedians would get on stage and they would shame people for trying to get informed about a medical treatment that was experimental that they had to take or they would lose their jobs and they wouldn't be able to travel. And when people tried to get informed about that, other people shamed them. They would say, please tell me you're not going to do your own research.

You've heard people say that. Please don't do your own research. You know, before COVID, doing your own research used to be called reading. Now you're shaming me for reading?

at the behest of Big Pharma? It's like I woke up in the middle of a Bill Hicks bit. Well, looks like we got ourselves a reader. That's how much people internalize the propaganda for Big Pharma was that they would be anti-intellectual enough to shame people for reading while they're wagging their finger at them for doing it. You would never shame people for trying to get informed no matter what other subject it was, no matter how unimportant. Like if I say, hey, I'm going to go buy a car. Don't look into it.

well how will I know which car to get ask the salesman he's the expert that's it um what are you Henry Ford like isn't that just perfectly it it's like what this guy who does his own yeah I read books about stuff what are you even talking about what how is that an insult

How is that like a, you know, whatever? But it is, it really does let you know when Mr. You know, intellectual over here doesn't even have a, doesn't even go attack any of my arguments. Doesn't even attempt to be like, oh, look, he said this and this is just wrong. Like, you notice how that's what I do when I'm talking about Sam Harris. I'm constantly like, you said this and this is wrong.

No, we don't get that same courtesy on the way back. I don't know. Any thoughts, Rob? I'm done kicking a man who's down. It's almost remarkable to just do the appeal to authority. I would think you'd have to go, hey, it's dangerous to have non-experts pretending like they're experts, and here's what this guy got wrong, and here's why that's dangerous. But to not even try and take on the ideas and go, here's what this person got wrong—

You know, what's the, then what are you saying? You're not really bringing anything to the table. Yeah. And that I think kind of perfectly sums up Sam Harris. And by the way, for people, I just have thrown down the gauntlet to debate him. I like it. Maybe we'll take the bait. The thing is, he's just, he's so bad on everything that matters.

And he's been so bad forever. And he always was. There's a lot of people think he like fell off or something like that. It's just now you were just under a spell, dude. The new atheism thing was always stupid. His support for torture and the war on terrors was always stupid. And then it was the same thing. He used to do the same. And like, I don't know. I remember like reading his articles and just like,

Being like this is what passes for intellectual thought, you know, and like and by the way again That's the whole thing that he refuses to address is that it's like yeah, there's a reason there's a reason why you lost your audience There's a reason why CNN lost their audience. There's a reason why nobody trusts the institutions anymore because they're liars They get everything wrong. Now. I remember reading back. He he had like um, I

Like these back and forth articles with Glenn Greenwald back in the day. Glenn Greenwald just tore him apart. And the thing is, his argument for defending torture was almost identical to his argument defending his position during COVID, which essentially were like, imagine a hypothetical where I was right and you were wrong.

Like, and it was so it was whole case for defending the national security experts have said that this is an important tool and who are we to question the experts. Well, it was like, essentially, that was the, you know, the underlying implicit point, but he would do he would say it was, it would be like, you know, imagine a scenario.

where we know that a terrorist has vital information that could thwart a terrorist attack, and we knew that the only way to get that information was to torture it out of him. Is it so obvious in that case that we should be against torture? You know what I mean? It's like that.

And it was so easy to just like look at that and be like, oh, anyone could paint a hypothetical where some awful policy might be good. You know, it's like if you're like, hey, we're going to legalize stabbing four year olds in the stomach or something like that. You'd be like, well, that's horrible. That should.

be against the law. That's not good. He goes, well, imagine a scenario where inside of that four-year-old, there's a key that can open a cage where there's a hundred four-year-olds. It's like, all right, but that's not an argument for why this should be legal. How about this? In that scenario where you've got this guy and you know, he has this information and you know, torture is the only way that you're going to save all of these people's lives. So torture them and then get arrested for it and then explain it to a judge.

Problem solved. We still don't have to legalize torture because that will go very, very bad. Problem solved. In that one crazy example, do what needs to be done to save all those people's lives, and then you're guilty of a crime, and you have to try to explain that to a jury of your peers. I know I did it, but here was the scenario.

The onus is on you then to have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you did this for a legitimate reason. Because the starting point is torture is illegal. Like this isn't smart. I don't know what to say. I've always seen through this stuff with Sam Harris. And it's only because COVID was so insane and so horrific that all of the people around him woke up to it and he just refused to. And then they started recognizing how terrible all his arguments were.

But they always were. He was always bad. And for whatever reason, you know, on every single issue that matters, he's always on the CIA's side. I'm sure that's just a coincidence. But every single time. Every single time. I'm sorry, I just looked at the chat and saw Adam wrote, Dave buried Chase Oliver yesterday. Today, Sam Harris.

That made me chuckle. Yeah, well, they both deserve it. So what can I say? All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show. Brand new sponsor we're thrilled to have on board, and that is Public Rec. If you're tired of squeezing into stiff dress pants for the holiday party, this season, unwrap the gift of comfort with the Game Changer Pants from Public Rec.

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All right, let's move on to burying someone else. How about the Wall Street Journal? The Wall Street Journal, and maybe I'll go through a little bit, not just them, but some other stuff people have been criticizing me for. But the Wall Street Journal went the Ben Shapiro route.

They had an opinion piece about – the topic was like about Donald Trump Jr. and the influence that he's having in the appointment selections. And –

And then they brought up me because he had responded to my tweet. If you guys didn't see that, I said a whole thing about keeping the Warhawks out of the Trump administration. And the president's son responded, I'm on it. Agree 100%, something like that. So this is the Wall Street Journal. They said, quote, one online MAGA acolyte,

tweeted Sunday that the stop Pim the stop Pompeo movement is great but it's not enough right now we need maximum pressure to keep all neocons and war hawks out of the Trump administration Donald Trump jr retweeted it uh and said agree 100 I'm on it so I do always find this bizarre um and I I think it's uh you know like when when Ben Shapiro did it too I I do think it's

It shows kind of this weird lack of integrity to just intentionally omit my name. Like, if I'm not relevant or important enough to talk about, then don't talk about me. But it's just very... Especially in this one, to call me a MAGA acolyte, which is, I think, fairly ridiculous, but...

whatever it's like you're almost you're working harder like dave smith is shorter than mega acolyte you know what i mean like why not just say so it's this very like conscious decision that we want to go after this guy but we don't want to boost his signal at all you know and you don't want to like actually send anyone to him because they're they're you know they know they know that showing

You're showing your hand right away. Firstly, if you say if you call your MAGA acolyte, you're saying, hey, this is not truthful reporting for one. And then the fact that they don't want to actually say who you are shows their next hand, which is we're looking to protect our industry. And we don't want people necessarily to be able to consume all information or know what other arguments or information are available. So we'll just let you know that some random Trump supporter said this and you don't need any additional context.

You know what I mean? You're kind of showing your hand of what business you're really in. Exactly. That's exactly right. It's a mix of dishonesty and really insecurity. And I remember, you know, over the years, you know, I've had people upset with me because I've, you know, what they say, platformed.

People would remember that old dumb woke argument that like you're platforming this bad person if you have them on your show or whatever. But I always said my response always to it was like, okay, I'm not like, I think I'm right. So if I'm right in what I'm saying, then I should have the more compelling argument and I'm not scared of people being exposed to the other side of the argument. And the reason why Ben Shapiro in the Wall Street Journal want to talk about me

without mentioning my name is because they do know on some level that if someone went and just listened to what I had to say, some people might find it compelling. They might be convinced. And so they don't want you to even be exposed to the other side, but they want to control the narrative. So they do this game where they try to insult you and then like not mention you. It's a very strange thing. Again, it just feels like,

I don't know, maybe it's my own personality or whatever, but I would just, I would feel like such a bitch if I did that. You know what I'm saying? Like if I was trying to take apart someone's argument, but I wouldn't mention their name. And so I just smear them. And then I would just be like, oh, I'm like,

I'm such a bitch. I can't do that. And it's weird when people don't have that feeling about themselves. Um, but yeah, I mean, I, I'm certainly not a MAGA acolyte. I think that I've been an anti-war guy for many years at this point. Um, and, uh,

That's right. I'm trying to use whatever little bit of influence I have to keep the Warhawks out of Trump's administration. I don't have any pie in the sky. Like, I don't have any illusions that like, yeah, this is a lock. I got the president's son on my side and we're going to do this. Listen, there's a lot of forces at play here. I only have so much influence, but it's not nothing. And so might as well use it.

Might as well try to, you know, I've seen it's been very, it's been kind of, you know, a surreal few years for me. And this year really was the biggest by far. And one of the things that happens as like you, when you get bigger, you're

and you get more successful in this world, there's, you get a lot more, you get more followers, you get more fans, you get more people agreeing with you and you get more people disagreeing with you. You get more people, you know, criticizing you. And then,

For me, luckily, I'm just kind of built for this and I kind of enjoy it and it doesn't bother me. It has been interesting to watch. And I will say this, you know, someone someone asked me recently and it was a fan.

And I was having a conversation with them at it was at the Patrick Bet David event in the in the green room there. And he asked me after saying a lot of nice stuff like he loves the show and enjoys both of us.

He asked me at one point, he said, "Do you ever question yourself? Do you ever question if you're getting this wrong or if you...?" Because I'm totally... Everything you say makes sense to me, but I'm always questioning myself, like, "Am I getting this right? Am I getting this wrong?" And I was like, "Yeah, I do." And I have for many, many years. But the truth is that I question myself much less than I used to. And part of that is because

As I'm, you know, like even now, it's like all the criticism I'm getting, and I was looking through, my daughter's at school and my wife took my son out, so I was just like alone in the house before we started the show. And so I'm looking through social media and looking through, and all of the criticisms are so weak. And it just like makes me more convinced that I've got this thing right. And I know that's not, there might be a fallacy in there somewhere, but it is like everybody who's coming out, it's all just so weak. So,

I'm getting weirdly that one of the things people are coming at me for is like they'll be finding old tweets where I've criticized Trump and they're like, well, look at you. You're contradicting yourself because you used to say this and now you're saying this. And it's like there is no contradiction. I don't know what to say. People are like, you called him a war criminal. Like, yeah, and I'll probably do it again.

I don't know. I guess I kind of just did. Yeah, that's right. I criticized Donald Trump for everything he was bad on in his first term. I will criticize him for everything he's bad on in the second term. And also, I...

I recognize that he has like this unprecedented opportunity right now. There's really never been anything like this. Donald Trump is not coming into this. Donald Trump is coming into this now as a guy who has been burned by the system in a way that no other political figure, perhaps in American history, certainly in my lifetime. I mean, I guess, you know.

that jack kennedy got it pretty bad uh but he's been he's been burned by the system he's got some very good people around him he won a landslide victory and has the house and the senate and the supreme court tell me when that happened before tell me when there was anything like this before and so in this moment

I'll try to use whatever influence I have to influence this administration in the right direction. I have no illusions about this. What are the odds that he's going to disappoint? Yes. Is it true that he did all of these horrible things in his first term? Yes.

Is it also true that I threw my support behind him at the end because Harris was just that awful and there were some opportunities for some positive things to happen with him and none with her? Also, yes, there is no contradiction here. And to all the MAGA people who want to see Rubio get the State Department or whatever, who are going like, oh, you weren't loyal. You only threw your support behind him in the fourth quarter. You weren't loyal to him the whole time. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. I'm not loyal to anyone other than my wife and kids and a little bit to Rob. But it's not like I'm loyal to my friends and to my family. Not loyal to any politician, any any ruler. Like, of course not. This is like what you think it's a badge of honor that you were just loyal to a guy that you were loyal. What?

So therefore, if you supported Trump, you support Fauci being on the job through all of 2020. Okay, so if you support Fauci being on the job through all of 2020, I'm not the one with the issue here. You know, you are. It's your problem, not mine. And yeah, I don't know. There's just a lot of other just ridiculous stuff being thrown at me. But I do kind of look at it and just feel like, what, this is what you guys have?

This is what you're criticizing me for? Yeah, it's not really making me question myself whether I got this one wrong, if that's what you're coming at me with. Go ahead, Rob, you can criticize me now. I don't like the shirt you're wearing today.

I think it's a little Mr. Rogers-esque, but it's not fully committed. It's like, are you going to wear a sweater? Are you going to wear a shirt? If you can't make up your minds about such simple things, should we be listening to you on such topics such as the war in the Middle East or whether or not Sam Harris is an actual intellectual? But I feel like we're in light sweater weather.

You know, I don't want to go full sweater. It's like in the 50s outside, you know, but then at the same time, I won't be going outdoors today. Well, I thought I might be a little chilly in a t shirt. And so I don't know, get off my back. Although I will say Rob, Wall Street Journal, Sam Harris, the people I've been seeing on Twitter,

That was the best criticism of me that I've heard yet. There was a point there. It's at least debatable. I'm not sure how I feel about this shirt, to be honest. And so, all right, I'll give you that one. Rob Bernstein, guys, he eked out a win. I'll pop into the chat in a minute and see if anyone has any questions that they want to ask. Oh, Eomar says,

says rob likes the shirt and he felt gay and that's why he's attacking it now now we got a fucking conspiracy theory on our hands okay i've you know what i like that i like that one much better um

Ryan says, I like the sweater, Dave. Wow. Well, look at Rob losing the popular support. And this is what happened. This was Rob Sam Harris moment when all the people turned on him and realized, you know what? I think this guy's been full of shit for years. I've always dreamt of being able to do a part of the problem sweater episode. All right. Hold on here. I got a question here. Dave, what are your thoughts on if Dems will manage to learn from this election? Will they, um,

Will they properly go further from the center or will the fringe left keep them on the extreme trans and kids, anti-free speech, racial divisions, DEI versus uniting, etc.? Well, I don't know. What do you think about that, Rob?

I think the Dems are going to be in a weird position over the next four years where they're upset about the lack of rape in this country and that they don't have a reason to complain about their kids not having the abortion access that they still have.

I genuinely thought that the media machine was going to be forced to have cooler heads and stop the temper tantrum. And I have seen some moments of that. I saw Jim Jordan and he had an interview on MSNBC the other day. And it seems like there are some cooler heads, but there still is a lot of the traditional insanity that we've seen over the last couple of years that hasn't quite died down.

My guess is in the next election cycle, they'll have to duke it out, which means that you'll have your Elizabeth Warren's who I don't think Elizabeth Warren's running the next time around. But what I mean is you'll have like an AOC who will who will represent the extreme left of the party. And then I think you'll have someone that is a little bit more center, almost a Joe Biden type character to go, hey, I can actually win this thing.

and let's not be the ultra-woke party. That's what cost us the last time around. And if I had to guess, that center person will beat out, and I don't think they're going to take as many licks as they did the last time where they all had to swear allegiance. All your children will be able to get their dicks swapped, and we need more migrants coming over the border.

I think a lot of the stuff that became very unpopular because it's so incredibly stupid is going to have to fall to the wayside at least for a little bit. I don't think you're going to see that the next time around. Yeah, you know, so I agree with what you're saying completely. I think it has been interesting –

to see the dynamic right like within the the corporate media world where there are some people who as you said are at least attempting they're at least kind of attempting to grapple with what just happened which is by the way it's so crazy you know tucker carlson had um the the example

uh which i always really loved but he he's like uh you know donald trump getting elected he was talking about 2016 um but it it applies equally to 2024 if not even more so but he was like you know you wake up one day and you find out that your wife has left you and the guy that she's left you for uh for is like uh he's uglier than you and shorter than you and fatter than you and makes less money than you

And so like, okay, like at first your reaction might be like, you know, screw her. She's terrible for doing this to me. But then you would think like at some point you might go like, I better reflect on myself. Like how exactly did I let this, how awful was I that she would leave me for somebody who's, you know, uglier than fatter and makes less money than me or whatever. And you see like glimpses of that in a few people, right?

in the corporate media who are at least trying to go like, maybe the trans and the kids stuff isn't something we should run on. You know, maybe this actually hurt us. Maybe we got to do that. Maybe we can't just be, you know, we can't just shriek Nazi and try to win an election. And then you see the other people who outnumber them, who are just like, nope,

Stay in here. Staying at... Nope, the thing that happened is that actually the country is just a bunch of Nazis. That's the lesson that we take away from this. You know, they voted for racism and sexism. So it's interesting to see that dynamic. I do think that... I'm not saying it was the overwhelming issue in this election. I don't believe that it was. I believe that...

you know the inflation and the immigration crisis are really what got donald trump the the win um and kamala is just being so overwhelmingly stupid that people are like i can't have that yes i i think that's right that that was a big part of it and i think that the the way the regime went after donald trump is what got him the the nomination so easily

and ultimately what, you know, moved a lot of people to his side. I will say, though, that I think there's really no question that not just in this election, but over the last few years and in the trajectory of, you know, very influential people, Elon Musk being the one that comes to mind, but the transing the kids thing,

was just a step too far for a lot of people, a lot of people. And a lot of people were kind of like willing to play the woke game up until that point. And I think it, you know, I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, not playing the woke game, but it makes a lot of sense that that would be the, there's just something like you really look,

The trans issue in general, if we're talking about, like, transgender adults, you know, most Americans will, if they're pushed on this, be fairly libertarian on the issue. You know, if you say you have a right to call yourself what you want and live your life the way you want to, and that's, you know what I mean? Like, that's your choice. Now, they pushed it a little bit far when they would make certain demands that were kind of ridiculous, you know,

It's you can live your life however you want to, but you don't exactly get to demand that all of society now caters to the way you want to live your life. And the kind of like incessant demand that you acknowledge, like the trans women are women stuff was, you know, kind of ridiculous. And, you know, but even then you got to not, they got most people to do it. They got most people to just go like, even though,

Nobody, literally nobody, actually believes that, even though nobody actually thinks you can change your gender. Everybody knows that there are biological realities, and you can know, you can't, like, you could pretend you can live your life that way, but you can't, like, I can't make myself a girl any more than I can make myself a tree. We just all know that that is true. That is an objective belief.

Factually correct statement, but most people were willing to just kind of go along with that I don't really want to get in a fight over that. I'll just call you a woman Okay, but it was when they started pushing it on kids that that an enormous percentage of the country just went whoa what I

Yo, that's like, that's a whole different level. Like, look, it's just, it's very blatant. It's clear. It's child abuse. It's grotesque child abuse to put these ideas into kids' heads and then to, look, even just socially transitioning a kid is abusive. It's like, that's not, they're not in a position to make that decision. And children, I don't know if you've spent any time around children, but they are malleable. It's like, that's an understatement. Ideas...

like get put into their heads. They are constantly just mimicking the world. That's how kids are. And so, you know, it's never...

At the very least, you would never be able to actually know that this idea is originating organically from the child and not being put in their head by an adult. Or perhaps it's a phase that they will grow out of, as the data seems to suggest that between 80 and 90% of them do. Rob has a great bit about that.

But so but so going after and then like, dude, doing like the puberty blockers or the hormone treatment, which is has happened to tens of thousands of kids and like young kids. I mean, it's it's crazy. It's one of the things about getting old is you you realize how young young people are.

I don't know if that makes sense. You know, like when you see like an 18-year-old today, Rob, and you're like, oh my God, like 18, I thought you were seven. That kid's 18? Like 18 just looks so young. I don't remember it feeling that young, but it looks really young when you see it. And

dude you're talking about prepubescent kids are these are babies you're chemically castrating babies i mean this making permanent life decisions we won't let them get a tattoo

Like, this is crazy. And I do think that it's within reason that that issue will be one thing that the Democrats walk away from, that they're just like, yeah, this is too... They all think it's crazy, too, and they now at least have a little bit of permission to say it, and they recognize that it's a loser politically, and really what these people are motivated by is political power. So I think it's possible. The...

What you're not going to see is them walk away from like the corrupt institutions because that's what they're in the business of serving. But you might you might actually see some movement on like some issues like that. I think Rob is essentially right that they're going to the challenge for Democrats now is that they have to try to find a way to present themselves as somewhat reasonable. Then they recognize this already. Again, the problem like we were getting into on on

the other show, on the show the other day, is that the Democrats, as they are currently constructed, do not have the ability to do any of that. They don't have the ability to go on Joe Rogan.

They just don't. They can't go talk for three hours. Like, you know, it just won't go good for them. And so, you know, that to me seems to be the real issue that they have going forward. And, you know, they've lost voting blocks that it's unclear that they'll ever be able to get them back, you know? There's something about, like...

Cracking Pandora's box in a sense of like going over and voting for Trump. They you know, they they want less inflation and a secure border. And I don't know how Democrats are going to become the party of that seems like a tough question.

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and put it to work with monetary metals. Check them out at monetary-metals.com to learn more about growing your wealth in ounces today. All right, let's get back into the show. I guess we should just briefly talk about, before we left, that it is being widely reported that Marco Rubio is going to be the Secretary of State. This has not been officially announced yet, but it is being reported, and man...

That is a disaster. That is really, really bad. It's also not completely shocking. He was appearing at more speeches at the end of the campaign. My guess is when they sat down and he finally cut a deal with them and they floated the list of names they'd like to see, Marco Rubio is less objectionable than Mike Pompeo or Nikki Haley because he hasn't been as in the limelight. Yeah.

But he's essentially the same thing. Yeah. And and on top of all that, I think you had said that he was at one point a front runner for the VP slot. So if he was in that good graces with Donald Trump, I'm sure behind the scene, that means he's actually probably been an advocate for Donald Trump amongst the Republican Party. I'm sure he's actually you know what I mean? Like there's some political dynamics here. That means that he's been kissing Donald Trump's ass.

And that he's the preferred or on the list of regime players of Warhawks that they like to see at least getting their representation. So I guess the fact that he's not vice president's a win, but the fact that these people still have a seat within the administration is not great.

The one thing that's nice about Marco Rubio, though, is he kind of stinks. And I don't really see him being a person who can very well sell the agenda of the deep state, nor do I know that he really has Donald Trump's ear if he's getting the consolation prize of not getting the VP slot. So while it certainly is channeling, hey, there's going to be some establishment deep state kooks as a part of this administration, I

Marco Rubio might not be the most threatening amongst those characters. Yeah, the thing... Secretary of State is a much more consequential, important job than Vice President, right? But Vice President sets you up to be the next guy in a different way. I mean, Hillary Clinton tried to go from the State Department to running for President. It didn't work out for her, but she almost...

did but typically the vice president is kind of the one you look to to run and and with donald trump only having one term that's only a few years away unfortunately if the effort was to get him out of the vp slot and then he ends up at the state department for the time he's there he has a much more powerful position than he would as as vice president look i mean they're

Look, we always knew. We knew what Donald Trump was the last four years he was in there. And we know that he has a lot of these people around him. What can you say? Let's hope that some good people get in there and that something positive can come from this. But much like we found out in 2016, you know,

The hope that a lot of us, you know, maybe had that this really would be like a drain the swamp. This really would be like a major break from the establishment U.S. policy.

It's not looking great. Well, with all that said, this might look a lot different than what the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris run look like. However, you might see a war with Iran or at least a much stronger stance towards Iran, a longer free pass for Israel to continue whatever the hell it's doing.

and a tougher China policy, which as to how the leverage of tariffs actually work out is anyone's game. But I would venture to guess an end to the Russia-Ukraine problem, which is in part, I think if you want to go after Iran, you'd prefer to make peace with Russia first. Yeah, that...

That's a good point. That might be how it goes down. You know, I guess one of the other criticisms that I'm getting from people is, you know, like now that Rubio is being floated around, they're like, see, good job, Dave. You know, you picked him and now he's going to do this. And now you own it. You know, where people are saying you sold him as the anti-war candidate. And then it's like, listen, guys, I never said anything like that.

And I don't know. It's like, no, my calculation was that it was better for the nation for her to lose and him to win. There are some possibilities of some good things coming out of his administration, and there were none about hers.

So, yeah, that's the that's the reality. And let's you know, like, let's hope for the best. But there will be disappointments. And this certainly would be one. And Rubio might not last in Rex Tillerson basically make it two or three weeks and then said, I can't work with this guy. Yeah. Which, well, I did see some people who are trying to say I never buy into any of these 4D chess arguments. But they were like, nah, dude, he's going to remove him from the Senate and then fire him.

I don't think he's going to fire him, but I do think if Rubio does something dumb or tries to push something that Donald Trump doesn't actually want, I think Donald Trump is already showing he's willing to wield power a little bit more this time around and he's not going to let the administration get away from him. Even just in what I've been seeing from him thus far of, what do you say, removing the education or the federal board of education or something?

Um, and then, and he said he's going to start going after, uh, um, school grants. I forgot for what they're doing, but I also know he for sure said that he was going to make, uh, train, um, uh, making changes to little kids and puberty and all that stuff. He was going to make that illegal. Yeah. Uh,

And he also said that he was going to make it illegal for the government to talk to social media companies. Yeah, he's already stepping in with a little bit. And also right away, he hired his old staff, including that ICE director who's like Officer Hardass. I don't know that I agree with his morality, but if you want a disciplined soldier who's going to go round up illegal immigrants, that's that's the face you're looking for of a guy who's like.

Yeah, I will. Listen, I will say about that, because I just wanted to make this point quickly. But there's you can already see it, the writing on the wall here that it's like the mass deportations are going to be very, very difficult to implement. And I'm not even saying like, however you feel about them. I'm not even making an argument about like whether it's moral or immoral or anything like that.

Just the logistics of it. It's going to be very difficult to do that and not be handing like low hanging fruit to all of your political enemies because it's just going to be messy and ugly and people are going to be able to make a humanitarian issue out of that. If I were Donald Trump, if I were in the administration, I would say like first things first, plug the hole.

Like, cut off the flow of illegal immigration. Cut off the flow of asylum seekers. That's because that job should be easy and you have a mandate to do it. Like, get the wall built. Get this thing shut down. Then you can start looking into this question. But I think it's going to be very tough to do that without giving every, you know, corporate media outlet the thing to be like, here, look what he's doing. It's so terrible.

I don't think they're going to do it. I think what they're going to do is their best job to go after criminals. Once they're done going after criminals, the next low-hanging fruit is in certain protected industries where you can make the argument that they're undercutting jobs that you think you can actually win over the demographic of workers.

Um, that's the next, that's the next one to go after. And then the one after that, which is politically, um, less viable, but it kind of goes along the lines of, uh, what I was saying with, uh, some sort of a political amnesty. Um, but you, you're not allowed to become a citizen. You're not allowed to have benefits. I like that idea a lot. Um, is that there is an argument for, uh,

But unless the Democrats are willing to come to the table and change the laws about congressional representation and that, let's say, you know, three million illegal came over and now they're in California. We're changing the census law where you guys aren't getting more representation in Congress. There is some leverage to actually starting to go into those liberal areas and go, yeah, we also don't want to deport these people. But fair is fair. And you guys can't get more funding because you've immigrated illegals here.

I don't know how that actually plays out, though. I wouldn't put my money on... I don't think they're going to actually get there because I think all of the press will be so bad about deporting just typical hardworking people that have actually integrated into society. Yeah, I think you're probably right. All right, listen, we got to... Just to finish the point I was making before. Sure, sure. Donald Trump seems more willing to me to actually...

be in boss mode and wield political power. I think the last time around, because there was so much bad press, including the fake Russia collusion story, he was a little bit of a bitch. He didn't get the wall built. I think for the country, he didn't want to quite shut it down for COVID. But even there, he kind of got suckered by all the screaming and yelling of, hey, everyone's going to die.

I think this time around he already seems a little bit more willing to be like, no, I'm going to challenge everyone and we're going to get some of this agenda done. So with all that said, we've just channeled that, yes, he is going to take some deep state picks. I do seem to think that they are going to be quite hawkish against Iran and China to start out. But I do think there's a possibility that if Rubio is doing some stupid shit that he's not all that into, he'll throw him out pretty quickly.

Yeah, well, hopefully he never ends up getting in there, but maybe you're right. We will see. All right, that's our show for today. Thanks for watching. Catch you next time. Peace.