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What's up everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How are you, sir?
Nice to actually be home for two days. Yeah, you've been traveling quite a bit. Yeah. There you go. Home for a little bit, but not for long. Where are you off to next? Already off tomorrow. Got a show in Long Island, then Santa Barbara, California, then Agawanga, California, and then Hawthorne, L.A., and then a red eye after my show with Brian Wick Williams. Back to New York City.
Robbie the Fire Bernstein, getting some frequent flyer miles going. I was going to get a free flight out of it at least. Well, listen, this Friday, I am going to be speaking at the Young Americans for Liberty Conference 2024 down in Orlando. Young Americans for Liberty, by the way, if people don't know, is just a fantastic organization. They started as students for Ron Paul during the Ron Paul presidential campaigns. And then after he stopped running, they became this just like
They just advocate for good liberty policies and stuff. And it's all young people, which is makes you feel like maybe the future is not doomed. So I always like going going down there. It's been a couple of years since I did an event for them. So I'm looking forward to that. And then, man, me and Robbie the Fire Bernstein together are going to be all over the road. Hyenas were hitting Fort Worth and Dallas.
Then Stanford, Connecticut at New York Comedy Club. We got I believe we're going to have V.K. Chris coming with us as well on that one. Casper, Wyoming, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Detroit, Michigan, Kansas City, Poughkeepsie. I think Chris is coming with us on that one as well. And then Philly. Maybe I'll try to get Chris on that one as well at Helium in Philadelphia. It also looks like we I'm not sure if it's finalized yet, but I think there's a Montana.
date that we're going to be at as well. Comic Dave Smith. That's right. Comic Dave Smith.com for all of the ticket links to all of that, to all of those live dates. And of course, as you guys watching live already know, part of the problem.com is now the home of the part of the problem podcast.
All of our episodes stream there live, uncensored, ad-free. If you want to get the episodes live, you got to go sign up at partoftheproblem.com. Plus, the Thursday, fourth episode of the week, which is only for subscribers, also at partoftheproblem.com. And one more quick announcement, and this one, please, this is if you want to help out the show, this is a great way you can do it. We just started a new YouTube channel. It's at DaveSmithClips.com.
It'll be clips from the show, plus clips from my appearances on other shows and just a bunch of great stuff over there. So if you could go subscribe to that, that would help us out very much. Thank you. Okay, let's get into the show today. I was kind of debating on which topic to start with, but I think let's jump in with Kamala Harris, who has... You know, Rob, as we get older, we all grow, right?
You know, you sometimes you find yourself me and you. We were once boys. We are now men. So I think growing is a is a sign of maturity. And I think that's what we're seeing out of our out of our presidential candidate here. So let's check in with Kamala Harris, her latest campaign stop. Do it again in 2024. Yes, we will. Yeah. Kamala Harris has evolved into this.
That's who she is now. Preach, sister, preach. Amen. Let me tell you something. I love it. She's basically running the, oh, no, she didn't campaign. Yeah, pretty much. It is...
this is such a by the way she's not the only one to do this like uh she's the first indian to do it though that is true that is that is absolutely true but barack obama used to do this uh hillary clinton famously used to do this it is something that is it's it's like something to behold if
Because like only politicians do this where they will just completely reinvent themselves for the crowd that they're in front of. You know what I mean? And just like be like, I could totally get away with this. If I was doing an arena of black people in Atlanta, I would be a Def Jam guy for a night. That's really funny. We just picture your comedy that way. You just stop and go, DJ, hit that shit. I'm scared of you motherfuckers. Yeah.
How else are you supposed to be? How do you not turn into Chris Farley up on that stage? I'll tell you what is nice is that, you know, for all the people talking about how scared the Republicans are and how good Kamala Harris is doing, that is a nice reminder there that, yeah,
she's not doing that good. And by the way, you know, people will be like, Oh, Hillary Clinton did this shit to go. Yeah, but it really hurt Hillary Clinton that she did that. It really hurt her that she was seen as so phony. Now there's also the flip side of that, which is that it does kill in front of that crowd. It's, it's kind of remarkable to see, isn't it? That you would see something like that and go, wouldn't that be so off putting to the crowd that it like wouldn't get a good reaction. Cause you would think like the crowd would right away go, no, that's not,
Like, have none of you seen her before? Wouldn't you kind of go like, what? Oh, my God, she's so clearly pandering to us. But it does seem to work on at least some people. I'm standing by my words that I think Kamala cannot win this election and that she's so overwhelmingly stupid and unlikable. The public will catch up.
And I'm going to stand by that saying that even with the recent news, who knows, maybe this will be the bold prediction, the thing that we state that we're finally wrong on. But I'm still willing to say based on everything I've seen, unless she was doing some charade previously where she was playing the idiot while privately behind the scenes being the sharpest individual with this rally.
it certainly does seem to showcase that there's actual enthusiasm and a theater of people or stadium of people willing to show up to see her. However, they stack the card behind before her with, I guess, free gigantic musical acts. And there's rumors that people were even walking out during her 20 minute speech. Um,
which also in the world of campaign finance laws, I don't know how free performances stack up. That sounds to me like that would be a pretty large single donation from a person who gets millions of dollars to perform. I don't know. They might do across the board. I guess Chris Rock also did. I mean, Kid Rock also did it with Trump. So I guess I guess it's fair game. But the point being, it's unclear.
at this point, whether or not this is organic enthusiasm or people that found out that they could catch Megan Thee Stallion for free. Yes. Well, look, it's funny, too, from my perspective, because like I don't even know who any of these people are until there's like an event like this. Then you find out they're huge. You know what I mean? But like that's just it's that's something, by the way, for people me and Rob's age, because we're the exact same age.
It is a, it's just, it's an interesting thing. It's not just getting older, but it's also just that the world changed where like you just kind of, when we were kids, you kind of knew who every famous person was. And part of that's because we were young and somewhat with it. But also it's just because it's like, well, they were on TV and there was only so much stuff on TV or they, if they were on the radio, you knew what was kind of on the radio. Like it was just, you just knew it. Whereas now they're just, there's these entire worlds you don't know about anyway. Yeah.
Your point is a very good one. And I think it kind of speaks to this larger dynamic, which is that the establishment, this isn't their first rodeo. They know how to create the illusion of organic support. It's, you know, Noam Chomsky manufactured consent, essentially, that they create the world like that you can't.
you end up seeing as organic. Like I remember just because I happen to have read a lot about this, but
but uh so as i've talked about before on the show but so in uh in the maidan revolution what happened was so the essentially the west wanted to overthrow yanukovych who was the ukrainian president who you know had decided to go with a deal with the russians rather than join the eu for a bunch of reasons we i've talked about it before we talk about it some other time again but anyway so they start this uh this protest movement
And then it's late 2013 when they first started. So it's going into the Ukrainian winter.
OK. And so what they did was to keep the protesters out there. They started getting all of these celebrities to come down and then like all of these like performances and stuff like that. And then they brought out like heat lamps and like, oh, you know what I mean? And then you could keep it going like, look, there's these sustained protests still going into the winter. And it could seem like, oh, wow, there's a popular uprising. Right.
You know what I mean? But like, if you actually look into it, it's like, no, it was totally like AstroTurf. It was created. And this is another part of how they get stuff like that. So yeah, you have like who you got, like some huge concert going on. And then you're like, oh, look, she saw, she packed out this many people to her live performance. And it's like, well, that's not exactly clear. It's not exactly clear who was there for what. Now, some people were there for her, I'm sure. But again, like,
You just look, all I'm saying is and it's not it's not a foregone conclusion how this whole thing is going to develop. We also just live through wild times where like who knows what's going to happen in the next day, let alone week, let alone four months. But I got to say, I still I'm with you. I just have a really tough time believing that this Kamala Harris train can catch fire.
It's amazing the extent by which they're selling it and even Republican media is reporting that she's closing the gap in the polls.
And that, uh, yeah, I mean, you had said it that I guess the Trump team was so sure that they had it locked up against Biden because he was old and senile. Um, I just don't, I just don't believe any of this storyline at the moment. You know, sometimes, sometimes the storyline sits around for long enough that you got to start changing your tune and go, maybe there actually is something here, but thus far, this just feels like early hype and that they're totally lying to me. I,
I agree with you. That's that's how I think of this, too. I also think that, you know, in terms of what you were saying, like with the polls, you got to kind of keep perspective that Hillary Clinton was way up in the polls and Donald Trump won. Joe Biden was way up in the polls.
And the polls ended up being wrong again. And it was super close. And who knows exactly what, you know, went down. But even with all of the shenanigans that we know about, it was like the polls were wrong.
So just to clear, Joe Biden has been such a disastrous president and was such a bumbling old fool that even in the polls, Donald Trump was killing him. And then they swapped him out. Kamala gets in. She's in this honeymoon period. You no longer have the senile guy. And it's gone back to even what it is now.
is like, depending on the poll you look at, there's a couple where Trump's still up by a slim margin. There's a couple where they're tied. There's a couple where she's up by a slim margin. But just to be clear, if you keep a broader perspective, there's still nothing like the polls that Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden had over Donald Trump. So I think if you're really assessing this, you'd go, oh no, things are still looking really good for Donald Trump compared to his last two runs for president.
even right now in the initial wave of trying to create this illusion that there is massive support for Kamala Harris. And like, you know, one of the things that's interesting and you know, on Twitter where they'll do those things, uh,
Do you know what I'm talking about, Rob? It's almost like a template where they'll show two tweets from people that totally contradict themselves. Like the person who's saying this now a year ago was saying something totally different. I've seen so many of those with Kamala Harris where there were people who were openly admitting like a year ago that like, yeah, she'd be a terrible nominee or like obviously she couldn't win. And now they're like Kamala Harris cannot be stopped and all of this stuff. And it's like, yeah, all right. I'm just...
You know, when you spend enough time in this world and you realize that it's all fake, you do start to go like, okay, no, this is fake. This isn't real. I do not buy it. So that's, I'm...
I tend to agree with you on that. And, you know, one of the problems, again, is I used to have an old bit about this. It was on my first comedy special, Libertas. It's up for free on YouTube if you want to go check it out. It's from 2017, I think, but some of it's still relevant. But there is something where, you know, the game of running for president has always been about being charming. And there's something where, like, you know,
Obviously, almost everyone who runs for president has a group of people who hate them. So I'm not saying they're like beloved by everyone. But there is something where you look like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, even George W. Bush in his own way. Joe Biden, you know, before he became so old that he couldn't remember his name like but and even Donald Trump. They have a thing where like they're able to meet someone. They're able to meet, you know, Trump.
a mom and say a little thing to her. And then the mom goes, Ooh, he's so lovely. He's so charming. You know what I mean? Like there's just a charm factor that you kind of have to have. And one of the major reasons why Hillary Clinton couldn't win. One of the major reasons why Kamala Harris, I don't think can win is that they have none of that.
They simply do not have that. That little charm thing that you're supposed to have, they don't have it. Oh, Rob, it looks like I don't know. You guys into that? I think I might have to unplug and replug. It's not it's not the worst look for you. Well, guys, this is what you get when you do a live show. Yeah, go ahead, Rob. Unplug and plug back in and I'll keep yapping at these people while they do. But I think people know what I'm talking about, that there is this there is this
charm factor, this charisma factor. And with Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, it's like they just lack all of it. And then what they'll say if you bring that up is you go, well, that's just your sexism or something like that. Like you're just a bigot because you see these guys as charming, but not these two. But that, of course, is complete bullshit. It's like, no, there's plenty of charming women.
But Kamala Harris ain't one of them. She's just not in that list. So that's the issue. It's her. I think that's going to be a major problem for her. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Lumen, the world's first handheld metabolic coach. It's a device that measures your metabolism through your breath.
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L-U-M-E-N dot M-E slash problem for 15% off your purchase. And thank you to Lumen for sponsoring today's episode. Let's get back into it. You know, so I was on, I did the Young Turks last night.
And they were kind of asking me. So I was on with Cenk and Anna. And at one point they asked me, you know, they were like, hey, where do you think the libertarians are going to go? Who are they going to vote for? I was like, well, you know, some libertarians will go for Trump. Some libertarians will go for RFK. Some libertarians just won't vote. You know, it's kind of like breaking it down and why everyone feels the way they do. And then they were like, well, not why not Kamala Harris?
Like, what, you know, how do you think she'd do amongst liberals? And I was like, oh, no, I mean, I think she's going to get next to no support. And then they were like, why? And I talked a little bit about like her track record as a prosecutor. But then I kind of realized like that. I was like, that's not really it. You know, like as I was saying it and I was kind of thinking about it, it's like, that's not really it. But so what is the answer? And it's like.
I don't know, just because she's got nothing like there's just nothing. I mean, of course, she's a Democrat. So she's kind of going to just say I'm for the next big government thing, whatever it is. And libertarians don't really like that. But it's also just because, like, there's something about Kamala Harris where you just I don't believe that she believes anything.
other than I want power. You know what I mean? Like, does anyone think like that Kamala, I think I said it recently, but like, you know, she was like a real aggressive prosecutor in California. Does anyone think if she was a prosecutor today in California, she'd be the same way? No, she'd be one of these progressive prosecutors. We can't arrest people for like, you know, carjacking that's racist or something like that. You know what I mean? And that's like, she's just, that's the issue. And I do think that, um, you know, like all I'll say is that
Forget that. Maybe people know better than me. I'm sure like the deep state has some, some tricks up their sleeves and has some plans for this next election. Let's hope it's not anything that destroys the country too bad, but, but,
If you if you weren't in that club where you knew like exactly what they might pull off and you're just like a Democrat or a voter or a supporter of Kamala Harris, I would you should be nervous. You should not be comfortable because I just do not see how this woman is possibly going to pull together a victory. Someone who's never won a national election before, never even done OK in a national election. You could you could say she won as vice president. But come on.
That's very different than no one really votes. Like that's like saying Mike Pence won a national election. Like, yeah, did he really though? No, he was just the guy Trump picked and all the people who supported Trump were going to support him, whether he picked Pence or somebody else.
I just, I do not see it happening. And I don't understand why Trump's pussyfooting about trying to debate her. Like, get in the ring. You will demolish her, same as Trump. What are you waiting for? I mean, same as Biden. What are you waiting for? Well, what is it that you, you know, like, what exactly is the deal there? Is Trump, like, what, do you know exactly what he said? Is he just hanging on to the, like, he wants the conditions to be different or something like that? Or is he saying he won't debate her?
Because he had said initially that he would. Yeah, so he was kind of pressed by Laura Ingraham and he started off not giving a clear answer and just saying, what's the point? I already did a debate with Biden. And then she kept pressing it and goes, I'll debate her. It sounds to me that I can figure one of two things. One, he's trying to negotiate for better conditions.
Or maybe he wants to, maybe he's being really smart and he just wants to do it later into the cycle so that they don't have time to replace her. Yes. Which again, I could see that. You'd be like, oh, now I'm going to debate her. Then I got to debate a third person. Like, come on. Right.
So if that's his strategy, that that would make sense. Or if he's just negotiating for better conditions and trying to pretend that he's unwilling to do so, so that maybe he can negotiate better terms, that's possible. I mean, it's somewhat fair for him to say, hey, we did the last one all by your rules. So this one has to be on Fox or it has to be with my moderator and then flip it back to her to say, hey, you're being the wuss here. But I think get in there.
Hash it out. Expose, expose the dumb assery. Well, if you can, and I know like this has been, um, I gotta say with, with only, only maybe like March of 2020, um, or maybe like, uh, I also thought whatever the month was, um, what was it? June, uh,
or was it May or June? Whenever the Black Lives Matter protests started in 2020, that month, are
Are the only ones that would like the last month has been the craziest month in politics that I've ever seen. I just know there's really nothing except for those months. There's nothing I could think of that even could compete with that. And arguably it was crazier than that. You could argue that the month they, you know, they shut down the country or something like that was crazy, but that we were coming off.
the craziest month ever. But this is a kind of interesting thought experiment or thing to grapple with a little bit, right? But think about this, okay?
At the time, so rewind in your mind, before Joe Biden drops out of the race, before Donald Trump gets shot, before Donald Trump and Joe Biden debate, okay? If you put yourself back a month ago, right before this was going to happen, at the time, right, the narrative in the media is cheap fakes and what is that, uh...
Oh, it went off now. OK. At the time, the narrative is cheap fakes and sharp as a tack. OK, if you can remember that time where that's what everyone's saying. Joe Biden is sharp as a tack, sharp as a tack, behind closed doors, behind closed doors, cheap fakes. None of this stuff is true. OK, they come to Donald Trump with this this proposal of a debate. Will you debate Joe Biden on CNN?
with no media allowed in the room. And we're going to cut your mic, you know, when, when it's not like, like where they were trying to stage it. And many people, and understandably so many people said, well,
you shouldn't take this for Donald Trump. They were saying, you shouldn't agree to this debate. You remember this Rob, right? Cause they were saying you, this is going to be, it's stacked against you. And Donald Trump was like, well, no, if I say that, if I say no to the debate, then they get to spin it as he wanted to debate, but Trump was unwilling. And then they can avoid ever doing a debate with me. So just think about it like this. What if he didn't do it?
If he didn't do it, Joe Biden doesn't have that epic meltdown and the media doesn't have their excuse or their reason for turning on Joe Biden. So it's just now I'm not even saying because there's levels to this, like maybe that actually would have been better for Trump because then Joe Biden stays in the race and we might have gotten to a point where it was too close for him to to back out of it. But.
So now you think about this with Kamala Harris and now you wonder what's the calculation here? Like, do you even want to go debate her and do so good? Like maybe if you do really good, you knock her out of the race altogether. Maybe you don't do good. And then you know what I mean? That helps her or something like that. But it is very interesting to think about what a remarkably different world we might be living in right now if Donald Trump had not decided to do that debate on CNN. Yeah.
Everything might be different. Yeah, I mean, it almost seems in retrospect like they purposely put Biden up there so that they'd have time to replace him. I just it's still shocking to me that they replaced him with Kamala. And so I could see not trying to push off the debate that they can't replace her again, even though I'm still wondering who the wild card up their sleeve is. I still don't know who in the Democratic camp they actually have to replace her with.
Yeah, I don't think they have a wild card that's great. I mean, all the ones that have been floated out and you kind of know who the possibilities are, even even ranging with the more unlikely ones like, you know, Michelle Obama or Hillary Clinton or something like that. And not the more likely, you know, Gavin Newsom or Whitmer or something like that. It's like.
none of these are exactly an ace in the hole. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like that's what they're going with. But I do think, I mean, there's a couple things to think about in this calculation, because the other thing, too, is that it's like, if you are Trump, and this is what a lot of people were making the argument, again, I think, you know, all of this is like hindsight being 20-20 type stuff. I'm not even saying these people are wrong. I understand the argument they were making. I also understand the calculation Donald Trump made by agreeing to the debate. But
If you think about if you're Donald Trump, you do have to have a little bit of a thing. And I don't even know if he thinks this way, but where it's like, look, you're the biggest show in town. You're Donald Trump. When you do a CNN town hall, it's going to get huge ratings. When if you do a CNN debate, it's going to get huge ratings. And you're like, do you want to give that to your enemies?
Like, do you want to give that to the people who are the ones who are going to like be up there saying you're a Russian agent or you're a rapist or you're an insurrectionist or all of these things? Why wouldn't you say like, hey, get Elon Musk on the phone?
You know the guy who's like my big supporter who's just like taken over social media and like completely moved the needle on how much we're allowed to have free speech or whatever? Let's plan a big thing. What do we want to do? Let's do the first thing.
Twitter spaces with video. Like, can we do that? Like, I don't even know. I'm not a tech guy. But like, could Donald Trump make that happen? Probably is my guess. Like, could we do it? Certainly you could do a live to Twitter. You know, I don't know if exactly. But you could, there's all types of possibilities of who Donald Trump could maybe try to throw that to. Now, it doesn't mean Kamala Harris would agree to it. But Donald Trump also has an ace up his hole, which is Robert Kennedy.
And that Bobby Kennedy will agree to do any of that stuff.
Now, I don't know if Trump wants to debate Bobby Kennedy because that actually might, you know, that's no easy task and he's going to get held to account for all types of other things. But I'm just saying you would have to think about this if you were Trump. It's a real, you know, if you could put like, let's just say for a second, me and you, we put aside all the issues we have with Donald Trump and me and you are working for his campaign. He hired us to run his campaign. We'd have to sit down and really think about this. What is the move here?
Do you just agree to this debate? You know, the decisions that you were talking about? Should we wait? Should we hold off? Give it till the convention. I'm not convinced you're the nominee. Let's wait till after the convention. Maybe that's the way to play it. And maybe the way to play it is to go like, no, I came onto your territory before. You know, there's a real good way you could spin it, too. Like I came into the lion's den and destroyed your candidate so bad he dropped out of the race.
So now you got to come over to me. You know, like I'm not sure exactly. Maybe that's why I do this and I don't run campaigns, but I'm not sure exactly what the right move is. But I could tell you it's at least debatable. No pun intended. There's a question over whether what exactly is the right way to play this. I don't know. I would. All right. Just I
I would, I would go for two more debates because you're going to win. And even if you, if for somehow she pulls some miracle and you don't beat her in debate, number one, I would think the more rounds you go with Kamala Harris, the better opportunity you have of showcasing just, you know what I mean? It's like a longer fight. Um,
So I would give them the first one and say, listen, let's do two. First one can be on your territory. Second one's on my territory. And you can pick either Fox or I love your Twitter idea. That's great. And you can say it's going to be with this moderator, but then put the kicker on it, which also makes them look weak of if I demolish you so bad that you have to replace your candidate once again, there will not be another debate.
Yeah, that's a you know, that's not an unreasonable way to do it, too. That would be that would be a really good way to put it. That is just like, OK, listen, but I can't keep having to debate people. And then you switch who the candidate is and then do this and that. And I also do think that like Donald Trump would be wise to play off the fact that he doesn't he's not convinced that she's the nominee.
Because that is something that I think is in the back of a lot of people's minds here. And I don't know about how you feel, but at least I certainly feel like there's this a tremendous amount of like overcompensating right now.
On the Democratic side, where it's like they're going all in on how certain they are of her. And it's like, yeah, all right. I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced that you guys even believe that 100% she's going to be the nominee. And that is a crazy thing, a crazy thing to be saying in August. Right.
Well, I wish he would have done that. It's July 31st, but it's basically all I wish he would have done that on Laura Ingram. To be honest, he looked like he looked tired. It was tired Trump out there. And when she asked him about it, he really pussyfooted around until he finally said, yeah, I'll debate her. But if the first words out of his mouth was she is unelectable, I don't even think the Democrats are going to support her. I'm giving this a little bit of time so I can see who I actually have to debate.
And if it turns out closer to the election, they're sticking with her. Happy to debate her. I'll put that to rest. But I don't think she's going the distance. So why don't we wait till I actually see who the candidate's going to be? That would have been brilliant marketing. He wasn't that smooth. Well, I'll tell you that I would say, you know, Donald Trump. So in presidential debates, he's let's just say I'm just saying hypothetically, this does end up happening.
a pretty, what do you, you know, how, how you feel like a debate with Donald Trump and Kamala Harris would go. And in his debates, obviously he did a lot of primary debates in 2016, the famous ones with Jeb Bush and little Marco and all that lion Ted and all that stuff. Um,
Then he did the debates with Hillary Clinton. He did. He did. He debated to debate Biden once or twice in 2020. Once because of COVID. Right. Right. Right. That's right. The second one got canceled because he got COVID. And then but he still did a thing.
You remember that was one of the weirdest things too. He still did like an interview on the night the debate was supposed to happen because he was better from COVID. They just totally used that as an excuse. But anyway, and then obviously he had the debate, what will be known as the knockout punch of Joe Biden about a month ago. Of all of those debates, pretty clearly the one that's most like Kamala Harris was the Hillary Clinton debates. And
You know, in the sense that they were one on one debates against not just a female candidate for president, but a female candidate who has some similarities to Kamala Harris, you know, bursts into cackles, has a lack of charisma, is possibly a lizard. All of the characteristics that both Hillary and Kamala Harris share. And.
He, you know, he was able to really damage Hillary Clinton in those debates. And I would say that I think while not being quite as hated as Hillary Clinton was,
Kamala Harris, I think, is coming from a weaker position than Hillary Clinton was. One of the things Hillary Clinton always had that was to her benefit was that she was most closely associated with the Bill Clinton presidency. Even though she didn't technically have an official position in his cabinet and she was the Secretary of State under Barack Obama,
Her name is still Clinton. You know what I mean? And if you're old enough to remember the 1990s, they ran on like two for the price of one. And she was like kind of involved in that presidency. And whether fairly or unfairly, and probably it's a bit of both, the Clinton presidency is still kind of remembered as, broadly speaking, good times.
Good times for America. Peace and prosperity. OK, now it's not that's not exactly true, but that's what a lot of people remember it from a booming economy, a balanced budget, you know, and certainly it was much better than like Bush and Obama. And Kamala Harris just doesn't have that.
You know, what she has is being tied to the last four years and all of the problems that that come along with that, again, fairly and unfairly, because, you know, the truth is that guys like us know is that a lot of the let's say the inflation and a lot of just the issues with the economy since Joe Biden's been in there, a lot of them were because of what this country did in the year 2020.
Like you're not going to have a year like 2020. It's not like you're, if you lock down the economy and print $6 trillion, the next year, isn't going to be smooth sailing no matter who took over the white house. In some ways it was, uh, it benefited Donald Trump that he lost that election and then could just sit there and say, Oh look, this is all the Democrats fault for the fallout of all of this. Um, how,
However, that's not the way most people think. And the bottom line is that the price inflation happened on Joe Biden's watch and that Kamala Harris was the vice president through all of that. And so I do just think that she has a lot more. It's not just her personally. It's also the administration she's tied to and also the fact that much like Hillary Clinton,
The problem you're going to face with Donald Trump is that if you get up there on the debate stage with him, what he's got to do is control himself to not be the one who throws the first punch. He did a very good job of this with Hillary Clinton. He did a very good job of this in his last debate with Joe Biden. But he can let you like.
Kamala Harris can't debate Donald Trump without like attacking him. You have to. This guy's literally Hitler and he is the end of democracy. And so when you get face to face with that guy, you got to tell him that. And then if you tell him that,
He's got license to hit you back really hard. That's that. That was what Donald Trump did just right in his debates with Hillary Clinton. If you remember them, if you could go back to it, he came. He would start the debates calm and nice. And he would be like, I respect her. And.
she's you know and like be kind of calm and then she'd say something like she'd be like well it's just a good thing someone with donald trump's temperament isn't in the white house and he's like because you'd be in jail and then the guy's like you know it's like he could i could very easily see him doing something like that to kamala harris we will see who knows does it even ever happen you want to talk about her sexual histories i spoke to jim brown he said you weren't even good
She did say something recently about... He said something right about her not even being really black or something like that. Which is... It's pretty funny because it's like... Look, I mean...
It's not it's like with Donald Trump. It's always like he like always finds a way to say the thing that you're not supposed to say. But that does kind of leave you with a little like, hey, it does have a point. You know what I mean? Like it is it is kind of fun to see that video that we just played of Kamala Harris. And you're like, yo, this chick is the first off she is she's half Indian and half Jamaican.
It's not like you have the same culture or you're the same. You know what I mean? Like, and this is all this stuff she's doing. It's funny for like the, you know, the people who get all upset about like a cultural appropriation or something like that. Like, what do you think she's doing right there? That's not her. That's not who she is. She doesn't talk like that. She's never talked like that a day in her life. Her parents were like college professors or something like that. Like this just isn't you. But anyway, it's just, it'll be interesting to see how Trump, Trump is very good at,
finding like the vulnerability in someone and then bullying them about that vulnerability. We'll see how he does with Kamala Harris going forward, but it'll certainly be entertaining to watch. I'm sure of that. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is, you know, I'm you love them. Sheath underwear dot com, the best underwear company in the
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Anyway, it does seem like, you know, of course, last episode we played the whole weird compilation. It does seem that going after J.D. Vance seems to be a big part of the playbook right now. And it is kind of interesting. You know, the truth to me is that I don't think...
I don't think attacks on the vice presidential candidates are typically very effective. I don't know. Maybe this one will be. It kind of worked.
Yeah, but also, I don't know. You know, they certainly went after her. I don't know exactly how much that had to do with the results of that election. You know, the truth is that after eight years of George W. Bush and particularly with the wars being such a disaster, I mean, the reason why.
Like, I mean, there's OK, there's a few reasons why. But in terms of policy, the major reason why Barack Obama won the primary against Hillary Clinton in 2008, if there was a policy, there was one. It was because she voted for the war in Iraq.
And he had been against it. He wasn't a senator at the time of the invasion, but he had like been on record against it. And he didn't have dirty hands on that. He hadn't like voted for it and then come out against it. Hillary Clinton voted for the war and Barack Obama didn't. And that's,
that was a huge thing. You know, this war had been such a disaster. And the idea that after eight years of Barack Obama, that John McCain was going to win was just like not going to happen. You couldn't put the most war hockey Republican up there and think he was going to win. And so, you know, I think no matter who he picked as VP, it was going to the election was going to go that way. In general, I don't think like that, dude, how many people even remember that
Cain was Hillary Clinton's VP pick in 2016. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, right. Wasn't it? I don't even remember. I, you're saying it and I'm just, I don't even remember her. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That's, that's my point. More or less, even as I say it, I'm like, was that, that is who it was. Right. Anyway, it just doesn't really matter. Mike Pence was not, they tried to do this with him too. Mike Pence is this scary guy. I didn't really think that worked.
it does seem to me like they're kind of like okay well look
We we've attacked Donald Trump and turned it up to 11 on him for eight years now, including impeachments and frame jobs for being a traitor and, you know, charges. And all of this just keeps backfiring. But they got he's got this VP who's new to the national scene. So let's like really go after him. Let's turn it up to 11 on him.
I don't know how effective this is going to be, but just in case you want to see how deranged it can be.
Let's check in with MSNBC. This is how they're going after J.D. Vance. The stats are there. More and more Americans choosing not to have kids, which again emphasizes why J.D. Vance's comments about childless Americans, childless cat ladies could be so politically damaging. Well, so what's interesting is this is this natalism that comes from an authoritarian playbook, right? That there need to be more white children.
Right. That's the idea that there's you know, this is about great replacement theory, racism. Right. This is what this is. So don't misunderstand it for him wanting more children. He wants a certain kind of, you know, racist thing. The stats are there. So.
Just think about this. Okay. First of all, the clip, I believe we played this clip. They're referring to back when he was on Tucker Carlson. And he said that like, you know, the problem is that we have all these childless people like AOC and Kamala Harris and people like that who are like making decisions about the future, but they don't have children. And her take on this is that, well, that's code for, he just wants more white children. Right.
Okay. It comes from an authoritarian place. Oh, the major issue that you're going to have with this is that J.D. Vance does not have white children. He is married to an Indian lady and they have biracial children. There's his family right there. So just think about how how
How insane it is to take the line that he said, which is like you could agree with it or disagree with it. Myself, I'm not. I get the point that he's making and I see some merit to it. I don't know that it's completely like, let's just say I'd much rather have you making decisions, Rob.
than a whole lot of congressmen who do have kids. So I don't think it's anything like a foolproof plan, but there is a point to be saying like, hey, when you have kids, you got real stakes in the future in a different type of way than people who don't have kids have. But to read into what he's saying, that he was just saying like,
Essentially, I'm a Klansman and all I care about. I mean, how the hell? How the hell do you say someone's like a secret racist who only cares about white kids when they married an Indian woman and presumably don't hate their own children? Right. Isn't that a tough sell? She must not have got the memo on that. Or she wants to declare that they're not brown enough to be considered Indian. Maybe maybe that maybe she's taking that stance. Pull up that picture again, Mr. Brian.
or not we can move on it wasn't that important we don't really have to evaluate the shades of his children let's move on from that uh i will say like look it is the the big question here with all of this stuff is that it is like how it will how it plays with
the swing voters slash independent slash undecided people. It is one of the things that's amazing. Did I talk about this? So anyway, I'm just gonna use this as an example.
Um, because, okay. So when I was on, uh, Pierce Morgan last time and I got in an art, you know, it was a, one of these panels with way too many people on it, man, I wish peers would have less people on these panels. I do enjoy doing the show and he's been very cool and I, I enjoyed doing it, but let's, let's cut it down a little bit. Um,
But so I'm arguing and I had mentioned that like I did not have a good audio connection. They were having some tech issues because I couldn't hear the other panelists very well. And when I would speak, it was very like there was a lot of static. And so when people would if they'd interrupt me while I was speaking, I wouldn't really hear. There was also a delay. Anyway, just a little bit annoying. But it is what it is. You know, tech tech issues happen. So.
there was one point I did not catch this till someone's I posted the clip on Twitter and I saw it but so there was one point where I was speaking and then this lady this progressive lady like started interrupting me and I was like hold on one second let me just finish what I'm saying and then I finished my point but I didn't hear what she said but
But it was I I was saying something, you know, about Joe Biden and what she said, which I heard on the on the clip once it was online, was she goes, well, at least he's not a president who praises white nationalists and says there's good people amongst them.
And I wish I had heard it at the time because I would have just gone off of that because that actually was way more interesting than what I was saying. You know, I think I was making an interesting point, but that one was more interesting where you're like, yo, wait a minute. You still believe that one's real?
Like you're still going to it's like, are you just lying or are you so in your own bubble that you've never even heard the takedown of this? Because this one, this is I don't know if you remember this particularly, Rob, but the very fine people say this was a hoax. This never happened. It's on video. It's on. He literally says that there was he goes, you had this debate. This was right after Charlottesville.
Donald Trump had a press conference like the next day or a couple of days after. And, you know, the Charlottesville march had been over a statue of General Robert E. Lee being taken down or like his park being named something else or something like that. And he was like, look, when it comes to taking down these statues, you have very good people on both sides.
Of that issue, it's like a totally reasonable thing to say. And then he goes, you had very good people on both sides. And then he said something about the Charlottesville event. And he said you had very bad people on both sides there. So he was saying it's not just that the white nationalists were bad, but these Antifa guys who showed up, these like commies who showed up to cause violence. There are also some bad dudes in that group.
And it's not just that the media took that as him saying there were very fine people on both sides. The immediate follow-up question in this press conference was someone in the media going, hey, did you just say there were very fine people on both sides? Like you're saying some of those white nationalists were very fine people? And Trump goes, no.
No, that's not what I said. I said on the debate over taking statues down, you had very fine people on both sides. Don't try to mislead people into what I just said. So like he clear, he cleared it up right there, right there. And then ever since that,
The corporate media has run with this talking point. Even though you can go back and find people when this episode comes out, post the clip. Sorry, you guys do work for me. I don't feel like doing it, but it's all on video. It's total bullshit. And yet...
For those people, all these years later, that's all it takes. You know what I mean? So there is a certain percentage of people that no matter what you're lying about, they will just continue to believe it. It will stick. You know what I mean? And so but then the question becomes like,
But is that are those people who buy this shit, just the ones who were dug in who you could have just said they're voting Democrat, they're voting blue no matter who anyway. So screw that. Like what what is it? What is the impact actually on the broader world? That's a little bit more unclear, if that makes sense. I think Charlottesville was a terrific moment in this country's history because we learned that violent Nazi uprisings can be easily defeated with urine. And if
If only the allies had had that information in World War II to think how much quickly it's a who knew it was their kryptonite the whole time. That's all you need is a little bit of urine. You could have just like showed up to the Manhattan Project and be like, guys, guys, everybody can go home. Everybody can go home. You guys are working very hard for no reason. Don't worry about it. Yeah, it doesn't matter. This race is just a good cup full of piss.
That'll get rid of them. Next scene, it's the bombers going over Germany with cups of urine and then just flash forward to us raising American flags over the whole country. It is something. Hey, listen, this episode is racing by. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Nom Nom. Nom Nom delivers fresh dog food with every portion personalized to your dog's needs so you can bring out their best.
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to this RFK
moment from the Bitcoin conference the other day that I spoke at. And Donald Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy, a bunch of people were there. But I did want to play this. You had highlighted this, Rob, and I thought it was interesting and we would have some interesting things to say about this. So let's check in with Bobby Kennedy from a few days ago at the Bitcoin conference there. The absence of a gold standard, there is no way
to prevent savings from confiscation through inflation." End quote. Inflation, as we all know, is theft. And it's almost always theft from the poor. The Fed has engineered an uber-efficient money printing machine to perpetrate the systematic robbery that has gutted the American middle class and decimated America's working poor.
The obscene money printing has drained our citizens of their purchasing power with a hidden tax of inflation. And it was the Trump and Biden administrations' reckless embrace of money printing that have pushed the middle class over the tipping point now. American households are now buckling under this rain. Let's look at it simply. If you had $1,000 six years ago,
That $1,000 has a value of $520 today in terms of its capacity to purchase goods and services. Mortgages have doubled in four years. No wonder half of the 18 to 30-year-olds are still living at home, unable to afford the homes that provide the first step toward the American dream. No wonder our younger Americans are marrying later, delaying or even abandoning the choice to start a family.
Their dwindling purchasing power forces them into these sacrifices. The hopelessness of the task of steadily growing savings, which we all assumed that that was just part of our lives, it has pushed. And now today, this generation is facing these moving goalposts. They make money, they think they're doing well, and then the money disappears. And not for anything they did, but because inflation.
and it has pushed this whole generation into a kind of financial nihilism, and it's contributed to the epidemics of depression, of suicide, of hopelessness, of alienation, of dispossession, of the loss of pride in our country, the loss of hope for their own generation and their own futures.
Among young Americans. All right. You can, you can stop it there. That's a, that's what I wanted to get. Well, first of all, I would say, yeah, just excellent. And, and right on track. I mean, this, this, if you, if you listen to that,
And then you found out later that I had written Bobby Kennedy's speech. You'd go, yeah, that makes complete sense. Like if you found out me or you, Rob, had written that for him, you'd go, oh, that's so cool that he said that thing that you wrote. I would have if someone had written that for me, they were like, here, I want you to say this. I go, I'll sign my name at the bottom of that. Perfect.
Okay, absolutely perfect. And that's just it's completely true. It's undeniable. I you know, as much as some people on the left will try to blame any other culprit other than the Fed's money printing for the devaluing of the dollar. It's like, no, you just can't get around that. It's the most.
Common sense, basic law of economic supply and demand. If you, you know, increase the supply of something, the value of it is going to fall. And he was absolutely right about what like the subsequent consequences of robbing from people through inflation are. I guess perhaps...
My only frustration with Bobby Kennedy, again, it's kind of like when we played the clip of J.D. Vance talking about taxes. It's like, OK, but then just follow this to its logical conclusion. What should you be supporting here? And so how is it? Look, I'll say a couple of things. Right. Number one.
You go, OK, so the federal government currently spends over six trillion dollars a year. Now, we cannot tax nearly enough to raise that money. And you know what? We can't even borrow enough to get there. So we have to print money in order to get to that level. So if you're against the money printing, then you would have to say that you're for a drastic reduction in the size and scope of government.
Like it just already, if you understand this, the conclusion is start moving toward libertarianism.
There really is no other answer than that. The only thing is to start limiting the Fed's ability to print, limiting the government's ability to spend. That's what leads to these disastrous consequences. It's also something, by the way, that right-wingers need to realize because the whole stuff he's saying about the lack of families, the lack of young people getting married and having kids, that's a direct consequence.
of this stuff. You know, the reason why we have an advantage over these guys is just because whenever they talk about economics at all, it's like they just, dude, Austrian economics is just the only real economics and everything else is all bullshit. It's the only real economics is Austrian economics. And what this is the next level that guys like Bobby Kennedy, I think don't get is that,
Inflation is not a rise in prices. A rise in prices is oftentimes the result of inflation. Inflation is the creation of new money and credit. That's what inflation is. And so if you actually understand, if you're gonna say like, okay, inflation is robbing
from people and as he says there particularly the middle class and the working poor it's like yeah that's the money creation not just the prices going up you may not feel it as directly but again if let's just say hypothetically speaking like if you lived in a healthy economy what's the opposite of this what's the opposite of inflation well that would be deflation
And that is what you get in a healthy economy. And in fact, even in our very unhealthy economy, that's what you get in the healthy sectors. Prices go down. Things become cheaper. If prices going up robs from the middle class and the working poor, as Bobby Kennedy said, well, what would help the working class and the working poor?
Prices falling. This is what happens as an economy grows naturally. If you have labor saving devices and new technology, things are going to be cheaper to produce and therefore cheaper to purchase. OK, now, if prices were about to fall by 20 percent and you print a ton of money and so they don't fall by 20 percent.
you've robbed from the middle class and the working poor every bit as much as you have if prices go up because they were about to get a savings and now they lost that. So you can't measure it in terms of just the prices because in that example I just gave you, the price stayed exactly the same.
But they still got robbed. They still got robbed of that 20 percent savings they were about to get. Right. So it's not a matter of just the prices. It's a matter of the new creation of money. If you're going to agree with what Bobby Kennedy is saying here, then just take it to its logical conclusion and promote less government, which has not really been the center of Bobby Kennedy's campaign.
So anyway, that was my thought. But I do I love at least that these ideas are being injected more and more into the mainstream, even though it's like, man, read some Austrian economics, Bobby, and you'd really understand what you're talking about a lot more. Any thoughts, Rob?
This is nerdy, but I agree with everything you just said. But I do think it's necessary to point out the kicker that for everyone that holds debt, deflation is a scary phenomenon as it will become more expensive to actually pay it off. But that doesn't change what you said as being true.
And then additionally, it's I guess it's the silver lining and having inflation actually rear its ugly head is that it's an opportunity to actually point to the cost of big government and government spending and go, look, I know that they're promising all this stuff and it sounds real nice, but look.
It's actually costing you money and they're actually stealing from you. Well, the thing about it is, though, is that and of course, the central banks, they all it's like they screw you coming and going. So the thing is that and this is kind of the, you know, the deal here is that because even when when Bobby Kennedy says like, oh, the mortgage has doubled in four years, part of that is that interest rates went up.
And we'll see what the Fed's going to do. They kind of signaled today that they might be cutting rates before the election. We'll see. I wouldn't be surprised if they do. But what happens is that inflation gets out of control. It ends up being so bad that then the Fed has to raise interest rates in order to rein it back in. So while theoretically you're right that like inflation is good for debt holders and deflation is bad for debt holders, what happens is that then interest rates have to go up to rein in the inflation. And then,
if you're living a life where you have to accumulate debt, it ends up becoming more of a burden on you too. So in some ways, the fact that we had such bad inflation now makes it tougher for debt holders because they had to raise rates so that inflation wasn't run away. So there are other like elements to this too, but yeah, what you really want are market prices and sound money. That's how you avoid all of this. That's how you avoid this awful cycle where,
the working class and the middle class are just getting screwed at every turn. So anyway, Bobby Kennedy getting there, getting there. Stop trying to fund wars. Okay. Um, real quick before we get out of here, let's go. And I'll answer a couple, uh, questions from the live chat. Of course, the live chat, you can only get it at part of the problem.com. All right.
All right. Evie writes, why is RFK incapable of connecting that so much of the inflation and financial damage in this country is also due to war? He's so good on some things, just awful on Israel. Yeah, I don't even know if I can add anything to that. That is correct. All right. Rector, too, says despite his views on Israel, if he got Fauci's job, that would be so much better.
Yeah, I don't think you're going to get any pushback from from either one of us on that one. Fauci's job or just like some type of some type of job in that world at all. He doesn't need to be like the head of the NIH or anything like that, but just like give him some type of job where he gets to like hold those hold those, you know, people accountable as best as best he could.
What? Twight1062 wrote, he bought butt plugs from Rabbi Shmuley. That I cannot confirm or deny that, Rob. When they're stuck in there and Rabbi Shmuley will only take them out if he supports Israel. That's as fun of a conspiracy as I've ever heard. I do like that. He's like, fine, fine. Just kill the Palestinians. That's actually... Oh, Jesus. He actually has a normal voice.
You know what? We're not going to top that. Let's just leave on that note. Thanks to all you guys who have signed up already. And thanks to all you guys who are going to sign up at partoftheproblem.com. Reminder, go check out at Dave Smith Clips, the new YouTube channel with all types of cool clips that we are starting. Please subscribe to that because we've got to get those numbers up. Of course, theporchtour.com to come see Rob's Summer Porch Tour. Comicdavesmith.com to see us together throughout the rest of the year. And of course, go check out Run Your Mouth.
Rob's other phenomenal podcast if you have not already. All right. That's it for us. Thanks for listening. Peace.