I'm Voting For Trump
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What's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I'm Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. We are getting on some planes tomorrow morning to head out to Kansas City. Looking forward to seeing some of you fine people out there. Love the Comedy Club of Kansas City. Great club. Looking forward to that. How you doing, Rob? How's your day going? Uh,

Uh, doing good, making some tweaks on the special, and I can't believe I'm already leaving, and I got a wildly early morning tomorrow, but hell yeah, back on the road, baby. Usually I'm the one who takes these early morning flights, but you got a crazy one tomorrow. Yeah, I got an early flight, and with no car, it's going to be some subway action to get there, but we'll make it happen. Maybe the hitchhiking, we'll pull that off tomorrow. Oh, that's right, I completely forgot, you don't have a car. It's all good. I will be there, and I'm looking forward to it.

Rob has to crawl to Kansas City to get there. Oh, man. Yeah. The early flights. See, I'm a big I'm a fan of the early flights home. The early flights there. It's just oh, you always get there and like your hotel rooms not ready yet. And then you're just like, I don't know. It's never it never works out good. Train station hobo for a couple hours. Yeah, there you go. Now take you back to your roots, Rob, where you got your start as a train station hobo.

Okay, so there's a lot of stuff that I wanted to talk about today. Let's jump right into it. Of course, PorchTour.com for all Rob's dates, ComicDaveSmith.com for all of our dates together. So listen, man, and I just want to preface this by saying this is not me walking back the things that I said on yesterday's episode. I still stand by everything I said there, but I think I might vote for Trump.

Wow. That's a bombshell of breaking news. I just and I'll you know, I'll tell you what it did it. And it's funny because literally we when we finished the show yesterday, just like an hour after we were done recording or something like that. I was just literally just on Twitter and I saw Kamala Harris campaigning with Liz Cheney.

And I'll play you the clip in a second. And it was, I was just so disgusted by it.

that i was just like it was just like oh you like god damn do you just deserve to lose like as if there were not that there were there's already enough reasons and listen if i'm not even trying to make like a big thing out of this like i'm making an announcement that i'm supporting trump or anything like that and i don't even know it'll probably like i'm registered i it'll probably depend on how i'm feeling you know what i mean like but there's just

It's like nothing. I'm not changing anything. I'm not like a Trumper now, and I'm going to continue to criticize Donald Trump at every turn where I feel like he deserves it. It just was like, oh, man, this thing just disgusted me so much. Dude, did you? I don't know. By the way, have you seen this clip, Robert Kamala Harris talking about World War Two? I don't think so. But I'm going to suggest while you're endorsing Trump, I'm going to suggest the viewers do what I do, which is just show up and pull a bunch of levers and see what happens.

That's another strategy. Listen, there's arguments to all of these strategies. No, I mean, I don't like I'm still so goddamn frustrated with Donald Trump and not for any of the reasons that other people are frustrated with Donald Trump. Like, it's like I like I hate Donald Trump for opposite reasons that like the entire corporate media hates him. And it's just it is. And look, man, like people could criticize me. Maybe this is like.

You know, like there's an argument where people will be like, oh, you libertarians, you always love to feel like you're better than everybody else. And so you can kind of like say like, oh, well, I rise above all of this and I'm better than the Democrats and the Republicans. But if you don't ever actually get in the fight, then you're like you're just patting yourself on the back while nothing changes. Like there is an argument to that. There's also –

I think an equally strong argument where libertarians can come back and say like, yeah, but what is falling in line with the Republicans do? Does that ever actually lead to anything? Or does that, you know what I mean? Like at a certain point you have to, there has to be a line and you're like, okay, beyond this line, I just can't support you. And for Donald Trump, those, I mean,

Lockdowns and keeping Fauci on the job and Yemen and Israel and Iran. And there's just like government spending. And there's just a lot of them that it's like, I just kind of can't forgive him for, you

But at the same time, man, just seeing like... It's not just that the Cheneys endorsed Kamala Harris. It's that she is actively embracing that endorsement and campaigning with Liz Cheney to attempt to rehabilitate the Cheney legacy or something like that. And that is just... Oh, my God. I mean, the people who ruined the 21st century, that's who you're embracing? It's just... It's like...

A bridge too far is an understatement. It's just like, ah. You might as well campaign to fart in my mouth. Yeah, I'd prefer it. I'd prefer it to this. Here, let me play the clip so you can see it. I mean, man, talk about a Kamala Harris moment. Here you go. Bringing the allies together is because they are fully aware of and remember, to the congresswoman's point, World War II, remember this concept of isolation, right?

We were once there as a nation and then Pearl Harbor happened. Let's remember recent history. Europe remembers it well. Then when we got attacked, Pearl Harbor, we jumped in. And it is because America jumped in that we were ultimately able to win that war. And it should be a constant reminder to us, we have to remember history.

that isolationism, which is exactly what Donald Trump is pushing, pull out of NATO, abandon our friends. Isolationism is not insulation. It is not insulation. It will not insulate us from harm in terms of our national security. So I say that to emphasize a point that the Congresswoman made. And the other point I'd make is also check out where he's been on how he thinks about America's military and service members.

One of the great, great American heroes, a prisoner of war, John McCain. Remember how he... Oh, right. So this is...

Thank you. Historian Kamala Harris, just thank you so much for really. Did you know that, Rob, that we were attacked on Pearl Harbor? And this is in recent memory and Europe still knows. And oh, by the way, Rob, there's brilliant insight. Did you know that if we hadn't gotten involved in World War Two, we couldn't have won World War Two? You know, it's like I never really thought about it like that.

It's just, and the whole thing is, and look, like, obviously this is just like one dumb thing, but you get my point about why I was so disgusted about this is like, and what is with her, her vivid, deep understanding of history. What conclusion does she make? That's why you can't be isolationist. Remember lessons of history, world war two isolation is not insulation as she sits next to freaking Dick Cheney's daughter. Like, and, and look,

I don't even know what to say. Obviously, like the woman has no fucking clue what she's talking about and is literally just spouting like the most shallow talking points. But imagine like this is your funhouse mirror version of history. The lessons of history prove that you always got to be involved in war, right? Because of World War II. Oh, like there's no, there's no lessons of history that could be drawn out of like

the Korean War or Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria or Libya or Yemen or Somalia. There's no lessons that could be drawn out of, you know, the current war in Gaza. There's no war out of the war in Ukraine. There's no how about, you know, World War One.

It's like, oh, isn't it so funny that like the way they have to tell this story is that like, like even if you know nothing, if you know nothing, if in your mind I go, I went, hey, before World War II, we were an isolationist country. What, what comes into your mind? Like what, it doesn't even like the layman, like who doesn't read about any of this shit. Don't you kind of go, but wasn't that World War II? Yeah.

Like, wasn't there just recently a world war before that? Because that doesn't sound like what? Listen, forgive me. I'm not as smart as Kamala Harris, but the term world war and isolationist just don't seem to go together. It would seem like you would have to be either a country leader.

embarked in a world war or you'd be a country that just minds its own business and doesn't get involved internationally. It's gonna be kind of hard for me to imagine that you're both of those things. But yeah, it's like, oh yeah, no, we actually, we got involved in the biggest intervention in world history at the time, which was World War I. And that's the reason why there was a second world war. By the way,

This is like what I learned in public school as a kid. Like this, even government schools taught you that it was like, oh yeah, it was like we...

We dominated in World War I. We imposed the Treaty of Versailles on Germany, and that kind of led to the rise of the Nazis, and then we had to fight another world war. This isn't even like a controversial view, but it's just like, oh, no, no, no, no. We were just being isolationists, Rob. You know what the problem with the lead up to World War II was? We just weren't fighting wars. We just weren't fighting wars, and then you see what happens when you don't fight wars. Then you got to fight a war.

So you got to make sure you keep constantly fighting wars so that you don't have to fight a big war. Then just, I guess, like, let's just pretend there wasn't a world war that, like, preceded World War II. I like...

I don't know. It's just the dumbest fucking shit in the world. It gets everything complete. And like, look on, on what still is the biggest, most important issue. She's sitting there next to fucking Liz Cheney arguing against ever having the notion, which by the way, is the popular feeling amongst Americans right now that like, we don't want to get involved in other wars. And it's just like,

I don't know, man. There's like I'm I'm I've resided myself to the fact that I have imperfect choices in this election. And I'm not even saying like I don't believe any of the stuff that I've always said. But man, I just looking at that and I'm like, fuck, you deserve to lose so badly. Just and also just to be humiliated. Like, goddamn, I hope she fucking loses by 50 points. She won't. But whatever.

She sounds like such a dumbass. It's surprising that we live in a reality where she's the presidential candidate. And then even if you were to take this premise that World War Two is worth fighting and that if it wasn't, the Nazis would have taken over. It would almost be like if you said, hey, Anderson Silva had the longest winning fight streak in UFC history of champions. So clearly he should go fight again. But then you'd be overlooked in the last four years where he was forced to retire because he wasn't winning anymore.

So our legacy of wars since World War Two wasn't wasn't even if you want to look at World War Two as a win, you'd have to ignore all the wars after that, which I don't think made us any any better off. But then just speaking to the bigger issue here, it's that I mean, she invokes John McCain at the end and she's just clearly going, I pledge allegiance to the deep state and the nest, the nest, the nest.

the necessity of us fighting more wars and being active globally in the world, making money for our arms manufacturers.

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dot com slash Dave to get that $20 credit. Thanks to Kalshi for supporting the show. Let's get back into it. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly it. It's like there is something. It's not just the fucking...

Like, I really... I'm trying my best not to exaggerate this here. And, like, I have small children, so, like, if you have kids around, like, a little bit older than mine, maybe you'd know better than me. But I'd say...

third grade level. Like if a third grader said this about the history of World War II, I'd kind of nod along if I were the teacher. I'd be kind of like, all right, I guess that's kind of what you're supposed to know about World War II. I mean, okay, not me. If I were the teacher, I'd be a different type of teacher. But you know what I'm saying? Like I could understand where it would be appropriate if a third grader gave you like that summary of World War II, you could kind of nod along with that. I really do think

if a sixth or seventh grader said that, you'd be like, hey, you gotta do a little bit of work. Like, I'm sorry. You gotta like, you actually have to read a book on this subject if you're gonna do a book report on it. Like, this is just, but my God, if a high schooler ever like turned that in,

As like a history paper, you'd be like, you know, you're failing. You get an F like you've done nothing here. This is all. But yes, to your point, it's like, right, right. And of course, like I completely agree with you. Even give say give someone World War Two. OK, that's controversial. This is the only lesson of history. We're not allowed to draw lessons from any of the disastrous wars because the funny thing is that none of these people, none.

None of them, including Kamala Harris and including Liz fucking Cheney. I mean, she might squirm while she defends her father's track record, but none of them actually want to look in the camera or, God forbid, make eye contact with someone in that room and argue that any of the post-World War II wars were real.

were great decisions that they worked out really good. Nobody wants to say nobody is arguing for the Korean war for Vietnam. Um, nobody's going to even try to argue. I mean, they at the time like to argue that George HW Bush's first war in Iraq was a good war. But the problem with that is that it all collapsed after that and was nothing but a disaster. Um, no one's defending any of the terror wars. Um,

You know, maybe some of them will like defend Serbia, like the Kosovo war in the 90s. But that's that's only because they'll lie through their fucking teeth about what happens. It's all bullshit. But again, all of that aside for a second, I do think that you kind of hit the nail on the head. It's more there's something symbolic about sitting next to Liz Cheney and invoking her.

while you make this point. It's essentially like that, you know, isn't it such a weird, like a dynamic politically where you have the 20 years ago, the Republicans were just, you know, objectively worse than the Democrats. The was the absolute low point for Republicans was post 9-11. And just it was so, you know,

So they were so war crazy. They were so drunk on militarism and nationalism and and this like intense anti intellectualism, like this, like allergy to thinking. I mean, they they used to shut down conversations with like.

Literally, you'd have people sitting there and arguing that, like, well, all of the evidence points in the direction that Saddam Hussein is not in bed with al-Qaeda and they do not have nuclear weapons and they had nothing to do with 9-11 and all of your claims are wrong. And they'd be like, you either support us or you're with the terrorists. No exaggeration. That was the line, you know, and.

The George W. Bush administration ends in disaster, like in every sense, whether the wars, the economy, Katrina, just anything you could think of. It was an absolute disaster. By the end of George W. Bush's administration, he has a record low approval ratings. It's just and he's so bad that.

Barack Obama, who's a junior senator with a funny name and who was at the time considered very progressive, he's able to win the nomination because

almost exclusively because Hillary Clinton voted for the war in Iraq. If you remember back to the time in the 2008 primary, that was the big issue. Barack Obama wasn't in the Senate yet when the war in Iraq started, but Hillary Clinton was, and she was on record. She voted for the thing, and his hands were clean. And he was like, oh, I was against it the whole time. Now, he was a state senator when it happened, but still he was saying it was a bad idea, and so he had that kind of like anti-war street cred saying,

And so he beats her and then just it wins a landslide against John McCain. John McCain, by the way, is the Republican standard bearer at this point. But the embodiment of the military industrial complex, the guy and he ran on literally no exaggeration. He ran on keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years.

For people who are old like me, you can remember this. This is what he ran on. Keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years. He was like, look, we still have troops in Germany and Japan. Why the hell can't we have troops in Iraq forever? And bombing Iran and all types of other shit. He just gets totally destroyed. He gets so destroyed...

That is Obama comes in eight years later, the Republicans now in 2016 are running a candidate who's a repudiation of the Bush administration. That's how bad think about like how profound that is. Like imagine if right now Kamala Harris was running on what a disaster Barack Obama was.

Think about how bizarre that would be, right? Like if she was running and she was, and not running like, not like, oh, Obama's economy wasn't that good or Obamacare didn't go far enough. Like it'd be more like her saying Obamacare, Obama lied through his teeth so he could sell you Obamacare just to make the insurance company's money. Like it was that. Donald Trump got on the debate stage in 2016, looked at Jeb Bush and said, your brother lied us into a war.

He didn't protect us on 9-11, and then he lied us into a war that's been a disaster. So now the neoconservative George W. Bush administration has collapsed so much that even the Republicans, those same people who voted for these motherfuckers, were cheering as Donald Trump said they lied you into war. And these were people whose sons fought in those wars.

You know, this is a thing that it's one of the things that really separates liberal America. And by the way, I'll include myself in the broader liberal America because like I'm from Brooklyn, New York, and I'm, you know, I'm

was raised by a single mother and you know what i mean like i'm from that world nobody in this world nobody at nyu nobody in new york city nobody in san francisco they don't know people who served in this war in in any of the terror wars like they i have very few like i know people but not from growing up like from you know

in my career and stuff. Like I've met them, but like people, it's not the kids of progressive blue state America who go and serve in the wards. It's those, it's these guys. This was by the way, when, when Donald Trump said that that was at the South Carolina debate in 2016, it's one of the most militarized States in the union at a Republican primary debate. These are like the military guys who are there cheering for him. And so in this moment,

When George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have been so discredited that even their own people have turned against them, the Democrats go and say, let's make allies with them. We'll take the mantle of being the war hawks.

It's just like too, it's too goddamn crazy, too goddamn crazy. And that has to just be destroyed. It has to be fucking destroyed. And, you know, I do think like, especially getting kind of the realignment over the last year where, you know, the anti-war sentiment is,

for whatever reason, has been rising on the left. Particularly for whatever reason it is, and lots of people have their own theories on this, but whatever it is, this war with Israel and Gaza revived the anti-war left to some degree. And I think that like,

There could be a major push on that side. Like the same way the neocons got kicked the hell out of the Republican Party, they should get kicked out of the Democratic Party now too. And that only happens if they lose. It doesn't happen if they win. But yeah, I just, that, I don't know why, man, but that moment with Kamala Harris just fucking made my blood boil. Like, fuck this woman. And then I've already hated her pretty good, but that one really got me. I don't know. And the neocons packing. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. And, you know, and don't get me wrong, I have I have no illusions about what a Trump government will look like. It will it will disappoint. But man, these people just need to lose. And who knows? Who knows what's actually going to happen? I don't. Do you or do you still, Rob, like lean toward you think Trump's going to end up winning? That's my gut. That's that's the way I'm reading it at the moment.

I'm coming around more to that. You know, it does just seem like it's I also was looking at I don't know, have you have you read up on any of like the you know, the early voting numbers? It's it looks good for Donald Trump so far, which is he's losing, but they always lose. You know, it's like the there's this there's essentially like.

There's like the early voting, there's the mail-in voting, and then there's the on election day in-person voting. And it's like Donald Trump's killing it on the day in-person voting, but he's losing, you know, like that same thing that happened when he ran against Biden. But he is doing much better in the early voting as of right now than he's projected to do.

So I was like, that does that looks pretty good for him. Republicans don't harness as many votes out of old age homes. That's true. They got it. They got to step up their game on that one. By the way, this was also fairly interesting to me, but I don't know if you saw. So Mark Halperin, who you guys might remember, I brought him up when so he was the guy who first broke the story that Biden was out.

And he was and he was right about it. It was like on it was it was a Sunday when Joe Biden dropped out of the race. And on Friday, Mark Halperin broke the story that the letter was already being drafted and that Joe Biden was going to drop out of the race. Now, he didn't get it completely right. He said that Joe Biden was not going to endorse complacency.

Kamala Harris and he was going to throw it to like a contested convention type thing. But he was right about that. He was right about the heart of the story. Halperin was like an he was an NBC journalist for a very long time. He got some type of like me too thing and was fired. I don't remember exactly what the story was, but it was like at the height of the me too movement. I just forgive me. I have no memory of like what level of severity that

Because you remember when the Me Too moment was really kicking off and people would get fired and sometimes it would be like...

You know, it would like range from like, you know, there'd be like there'd be one guy like two guys would get fired. Like one of them, you'd be like, oh, what happened? What did he do? And they were like, oh, he raped six women. And you were like, oh, all right. Well, that seems like grounds for firing. And then another guy would get fired and be like, oh, what did he do? And they're like, he said nice blouse to a chick once in 1984. And you were like, I don't know.

Not so sure that one deserves firing, but all right. And anyway, I just have no memory. I don't remember what Halpern was accused of doing, but he's like,

A kind of old school journalist. And he, he doesn't strike me as the type of guy who's just making shit up. Like if he, if he's like, listen, I have sources close to the president who are saying this, he probably does have sources who are saying that. And, and by the, with the Biden thing, he was clearly had some sources that knew what they were talking about. Um, anyway, so he just said, uh, the other day that he has been, um,

that there's a story that people were trying to get him to run that he wouldn't. He didn't specify why he wouldn't, and he didn't say what the story was, but he said it was a story on Donald Trump that will end his candidacy. And he said he thinks someone's going to run it in the next couple weeks. So again...

Take that for whatever you think it's worth. But I did think it was kind of like wildly irresponsible of him to say that and not say what the story is. Like either shut up or don't shut up. You know what I mean? But like you kind of – I don't think you should do that. I don't know if that's actually a violation of like journalistic integrity or something. But it just – it seems to me like it should be. Like you're like either –

You could say what the thing is that's going to tank him or just don't talk about it. But you can't like say, oh, there's this thing that's going to tank him. Sorry, I can't talk about it. But anyway, that's what he did. So I haven't seen the the big October surprises yet. There haven't been any juicy bombshells on either side.

Yeah, we all were just assuming it was going to be an assassination. And I would assume if there was dirt that juicy on Donald Trump, it would have came up in previous elections. What could he have done over the last four years? I mean, maybe behind the scenes they got footage of him sitting down with Saudi Arabia and making some promises or with Putin. I don't know. But it just seems like if there was something that juicy, they would have used it. I guess maybe they knew they were rigging the last elections. They didn't need it.

OK, by the way, Natalie is saying that Mark Halperin was accused of pressing his dick against women and grabbing their boobs at work. No, pressing against women and grabbing their boobs at work. You missed the fun part there. Oh, yeah. No, didn't I say that? I missed it. Well, six different women accused has. Yeah, that's not cool.

That's not that's not. Oh, sorry. Five women accused him of doing that. Before we say that he's guilty. I was like, that's not cool. Five. It's like, I don't know, dude. Come on. Do we know that he wasn't just being Italian?

Did he think about using the I don't think he's Italian. Unfortunately, that's sorry. It's not cool. Only the Italians are allowed to do that. It's a sweet Andrew Cuomo reference for those who don't get it. But anyway, yeah, you know, I tend to agree with you, too. Like, what are you telling me? You got some bombshell on Trump and you've held on to it all this time.

Really? I find it hard to believe. I'm certainly going to be like suspicious of anything like that, that if it comes out now, like less than two weeks before the election, just seems like not probably, probably not right. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is My Patriot Supply. Let me ask you a question. Do you think our country is going in the right direction or does it feel like everything's falling apart?

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The OK, the other thing I wanted to to bring up quickly is that there's so it's being widely reported that Donald Trump will be going on the Joe Rogan experience in the day after tomorrow. It is also being widely reported that Kamala Harris has pulled out and is not going to do it. Yes.

I would say that both of those make sense to me. I was always shocked by

At the thought of Kamala Harris doing it. I just, I would just say like, even if you were short of like a situation where like, if you were down 30 points in the polls, I could see where it would make sense for her to like, you know, fucking go for it. Swing for the fences. See, see what happens. Anything short of that. I would always just see it as being so much more of a risk than, than a benefit. But it looks like Donald Trump's going to do that. And again,

The New Republic, by the way, a publication that called me a Nazi sympathizer, which I've, you know, never really considered myself to be. Everyone deserves some sympathy and empathy. I mean, if anything, that shows your humanity, Dave. Yeah, well, weirdly, you're not supposed to. It's something I should say. I was just, what? They're a marginalized group. Yeah.

I mean, some could argue they're the most marginalized group. Like, I don't know. But, you know, it's that they didn't choose it. That's their identity. Anyway, here was a let's let's just take a look at the graphic here. Here was the the piece that they wrote about my boy Joe Rogan. Just isn't it just so funny how they just, you know, humiliate themselves. Trump cancels all of his events in favor of one of the worst people ever.

Isn't it amazing? You could take that down. That's journalism. One of the worst people ever. You can't even... When did journalists start speaking like they were 14-year-old girls? You know what I mean? What the fuck is that? It's just unbelievable to see these people...

Yeah, right. Like you might as well have put it on that level. And I love it. It's always like, like Trump cancels all events just to talk to the worst person ever. And okay, so first of all, yeah, it's the biggest show in the world. So of course, Trump's going to move things around to go do it. Like you can, I don't know, you can speak to like,

Even let's say a huge rally, a huge Donald Trump rally. The biggest one would be what? 50,000 people would be like, oh shit, he sold out a stadium. You know, or you could go talk to 15 million people on Rogan's podcast. By the way, 15 million is the average Rogan's podcast. Donald Trump on Rogan's podcast is probably going to be, it'll probably approach a hundred million downloads. It's going to be like the biggest thing ever. And, and,

Joe Rogan is the, it's just funny, man, when some of this stuff happens, right? Because they'll sit there and say, Joe Rogan is one of the worst people ever. It's very weird, by the way. And I don't know if, um,

you know, maybe it's just because of my particularly peculiar line of work that this happens to me. But it's always so bizarre when you see, like, when you know someone really well, and then you just, like, see this written about them. Like, one of the worst people that, really? Joe Rogan has just been...

literally one of the coolest people I've ever met in my life. But he's one of the worst people ever. And you wonder, it's like, and why is it? Like, what even is the substance behind why the New Republic would view Joe Rogan as being the, like, one of the worst people ever? Because what's interesting is that essentially Joe Rogan became an enemy of the state during COVID. Like,

During COVID is really where they started to hate Joe Rogan. It took them years to even figure out that he was bigger than all of them. Like it really did. They didn't even realize he should be an enemy, but they never really had like a beef with Rogan. You will not see like,

you know, if you go back to like 2014, 2015, you're not going to see like hit pieces written about Joe Rogan like that. It wasn't, that just wasn't the thing. It was during COVID when the massive cancellation attempt against Joe Rogan started. And what's kind of funny as like,

From my perspective, as somebody who, you know, was on the show many times during those, you know, days and before and after as well. But like I was on a lot during COVID and all of the things that were like huge controversies that like, oh, my God, you can't believe Joe Rogan said this and the things that they got all so upset about. None of them will still argue those points to this day.

So I was on, um, I'm sure you remember this Rob, but so I was on, um, Rogan's podcast in, um,

Oh, this one, this must have been in 2021. And this was what it was one of the more controversial moments that he's ever had. It made it all the way to like Fauci and Joe Biden all denounced him for, for the conversation we had had. And so, I mean, I mean like obviously they cared about what he said, not so much what I said about it, but so yeah,

This was the controversy at the time, is that me and Joe were talking about the vaccine and

And we were talking about and Joe said he said, if like if you're like young and healthy, I wouldn't even like advise you to get the vaccine. If you're young and healthy, I just advise you to like keep being really healthy, be really healthy, like get a lot of exercise, get a lot of sun, get a lot of vitamin D, get just be really healthy. And then you really don't have much to worry about with COVID. Like you're going to be fine.

And, um, and then I was like, yeah, I agree with that. And then I think what I said was that, um, I would never give it to one of my kids. I think that was like my controversial take is I was like, ah, this is still like an experimental medical treatment. We know that kids aren't at risk at all for any like negative outcomes from COVID. So I'm not going to give my kids some experimental thing that they probably don't even need that. We just don't really know what the, you know, what the

what the side effects or what the, you know, the rate of vaccine injury or so. This was early. We didn't know any of that stuff. And then Fauci responded and said, now what Joe Rogan doesn't understand is that you don't get vaccinated for yourself. You get vaccinated for other people because once you get the vaccine, you can't transmit COVID. Does anyone want to go back and relitigate that argument?

Does anybody, any medical professional in the world want to sit and have a debate about which claim is truer, that if you're really healthy, you don't have to worry about a negative outcome from COVID, or the claim that if you get the vaccine, you cannot transmit the virus to anyone else?

The answer is no. There is no one who would even make that argument. And yet this is a thing about how like the corporate press works. And yet even though they've abandoned the actual substance of the argument, he still retains his status as awful person.

You know what I'm saying? Like, none of them actually want to argue with any of the things that were any of the claims that they said were misinformation or were so outrageous or anything like that. But they'll still be like, yeah, but you remember he's a bad guy, right? One of the worst people ever. It's so odd, dude. It's all just such a fucking joke. Did I ever tell you? I don't know if I ever talked about this on the show, but, you know, people really wanted me to sue the the New Republic. And I considered it for a little bit.

And I ultimately was like, no, I'm not going to do that. Could have made that Gawker money, dude. Well, you know, there were like a bunch of... So they said... They literally just called me a...

uh what was it i think a nazi sympathizer was the term that they called me and it was like it was a link like it was like nazi sympathizer was like the the you know you could click on it and when you clicked on the link it went to the proud boys website where they had named lewis the proud boy of the month or something like that

Yeah, it wasn't even about him. What did he do to get such a high honor? I don't know. I think it might have been that thing where that guy... There was a thing at Legion of Skanks, remember, when there was a guy with a Proud Boys hat in the audience and then someone came and knocked the hat off his head and grabbed the microphone and then Lewis grabbed the mic out of his... Oh, and tried to fight him. Like a real-ass dude. Yeah, I remember that. But literally, it had nothing to do with the Proud Boys. It was about taking our microphone. You know what I mean? But regardless, but it's not like...

Lewis, like Lewis didn't like request that the proud boys call him that they just did it. You know what I mean? Like there was, so it was not only was it not evidence of the proud boys who are Nazis to recognize the efforts of Puerto Ricans.

Gets a little confusing. Yeah, well, that is – it does. It all gets very confusing. But anyway, so they made this claim about me, and then it wasn't even – the link didn't even go to me. It was just like some other thing about Lewis. And so anyway, I did – I got like a bunch of people were like, yo, dude, like this is actually like – this is a defamation suit, and you'll win this. And so at first I was like, I don't really believe in like –

And like, but those people didn't know what would come up in discovery, Dave. Well, you know, the thing is, right, like, I mean, it was kind of both. So so anyway, what ended up happening was like, at first I was like, well, I don't really believe in like libel laws, which is true. I don't really believe in that. I don't think like, you know, I'm like a radical, pure libertarian. Like, I believe that, you know.

like i don't think your reputation is something you own and i think people have the right to lie i don't know so i just don't really believe in the government crushing free speech because a that makes you look bad or something like that but then i had some uh of my libertarian friends like my smarter libertarian friends who were like no no no fuck that it's the new republic dude they're part of the state it doesn't matter dude like you should fucking take and um

And then anyway, a friend of a friend like is like was like a big hot shot lawyer. So I took a phone call with this lawyer. And after talking to him for like five minutes, I just was so turned off by the whole thing. I just don't I don't mean say there's some lawyers who are cool. I have a few.

friends of mine who are lawyers, but you know, in general, just that lawyer thing, like the guy was just very like, listen, we're not only we're going to do this, but we're doing this big. We're going to get $50 million from the new Republican, blah, blah, blah. And then he started telling me like what I should do. And he was like, what I need you to do is take down any controversial videos that you have of yourself online. And I was like, oh yeah, that's going to be impossible. Like that's just not

I was like, there's no, I go, first of all, I'm not taking down all my content. Like, what do you mean? You know? And like, it was so tame that it was like, he, he brought up jokes from Libertas and was like, you should take this down. I was like, I'm taking down my fucking hour special. What's it? No. And, and then it was just kind of like,

I don't know. It just his whole thing turned me off. I was kind of like, I don't really want $50 million from the New Republic. Like, I don't want to be handed a big chunk of money that I don't feel like I really earned. And I don't really the lawyer just kind of gave me weird vibes. And I was like, Yeah, I'm not gonna fuck it. This is all dumb.

Like, I don't really care. This did it also, it didn't actually damage me. Like, I just felt like it's not there. It's not like, oh, this cost me money. I don't think it did. But so anyway, whatever. But just the I don't even know why I'm telling the story. But the point is just that the fucking it's like, whatever level of contempt you have for like the corporate media, you never have enough.

You never have enough. You should always hate them a little bit more than you currently hate them. It's just like it's a perfect rule of thumb for life. And like the fact that they'll even sit here and like imagine how, you know, to sit here and you're just you're insulting the guy who hosts the biggest show, the biggest. You remember when when Donald Trump tweeted that he hated Taylor Swift a few weeks ago?

And like everybody was like, well, dude, this is the most retarded thing ever to do because she's like the most popular, you know, artist right now. So like, why would you tweet you hate her? She's voting the wrong way. Like, who cares? You're supposed to be above all of this. And also like it's Taylor Swift. She's like, it's music for people.

the daughters of people who are voting for you. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, you don't really want to do that, but then they'll turn around and they're like, Oh, Joe Rogan's the worst person in the world to go. Eh, probably not that smart of a strategy guys. Probably not that wise.

Also, you have no argument. There's no reason to make that accusation. It's just so fucking retarded. It's weird to step in like the authority and go, worst person ever. What do you think? People are going to stop listening because the New Republic put out an article? Oh, no, I can't listen to that. That's who the New Republic said was the worst person ever. Who gets won over by this? As your candidate sits around with Liz Cheney.

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If you want to learn more, click on the link in the episode description or head over to monetary-metals.com. That's monetary-metals.com. All right, let's get back into the show. We're supposed to pretend Rogan's the worst person. It is just something. But, you know, as we all kind of know, you know, the reason why

why Joe Rogan is actually hated by these people. And we kind of know the crime that he's actually guilty of. And here, there was actually, let's go to the CNN video because I just thought this was so great. This was CNN a couple days ago reporting on social media companies' challenges in curbing lies. Do you want to understand why they really hate Joe Rogan?

This segment will give you some insight. In the wake of the January 6th Capitol insurrection, major social media platforms responded by suspending accounts that spread misinformation. But since then, the social media industry has undergone a dramatic transformation, and now stopping the spread of such lies is actually...

harder. CNN tech reporter Brian Fung is joining me now from Washington. Brian, experts who study election misinformation are saying their jobs have gotten harder since 2020. Why? Yes, Sarah. Really, this is about a big shift from the 2016 to 2020 period when a lot of social media companies invested heavily in content moderation and election misinformation efforts to now rolling back

a lot of those investments and saying we now don't need as much in the way of policies about that. You know, you had companies engaging in mass layoffs, beginning with X, formerly Twitter, but then those also- All right, so can you just pause it? Pause it right there.

Because, listen, man, like, obviously, Rob, we could have some fun breaking down all of this. And it is interesting as he gives the history of it, which is not he's not completely wrong about that. It's like, oh, and, you know, in 2016, they, you know, like all of these social media companies started putting a lot of resources into content moderation. Now, of course, they leave out why that is.

Which is because, oh, yeah, the heads of all of these companies were hauled before Congress and threatened to death about what the government would do to them if they didn't start censoring people. And they because they needed essentially a scapegoat. Like it was like none of them could accept the basic reality of.

That was, hey, you guys all got this completely wrong and Donald Trump got elected president. And there's several reasons why Donald Trump got elected president. Number one, Hillary Clinton was a uniquely terrible candidate. Maybe I shouldn't say uniquely anymore now that Kamala Harris is in it, but she was a terrible candidate. People didn't like her. People were not happy with the Obama recovery. People did not like her policies. And

people were furious with the political and media establishment and trump was the biggest boldest middle finger that they could wave at that and also when it came to his policies they roughly agreed with him they roughly agreed that like we we should have stricter immigration controls we shouldn't fight all these stupid wars and we should probably come up with a trade policy that doesn't leave our country gutted of its industrial base

They tended to agree with him on generally speaking on those policies. They hated your fucking guts. And that just gave him all the more power. And despite kind of like the kind of politically correct woke sensibilities, actually, Donald Trump, kind of this old school like man who just speaks like, you know,

I don't know, in the most anti-woke way possible, actually was kind of appealing to them. Not only was this not a huge turnoff, they actually kind of liked it. People liked things when, like the moment when, as I'm sure you remember, Rob, when Megyn Kelly was grilling Donald Trump and she's like, you know, you've...

You've called women fat pigs and gross and slobs and all this. And he goes, only Rosie O'Donnell. And the whole crowd laughs. People kind of like that. They kind of actually like that more than the guy who goes, I'm very sorry for saying these things. And I hear I'll give a press conference with my wife next to me. Like, that's just kind of weak bitch shit. And people kind of like someone who's just being a man, by the way, men and women.

Both kind of like men, which is a novel concept. But they couldn't admit any of that. So they had to come up with some other culprit. And so their culprit was misinformation, Russian bots.

Social media. This is what stole the election. And you could kind of see from their perspective where it was somewhat plausible, where they were like, well, look, we had our entire narrative here. But then the problem is there's this totally different narrative on Twitter.

And that's where all the young people are getting their information from. So fuck, how are we going to control this if we don't control the narrative? And so the answer was crack down on people's ability to communicate on Twitter, on Facebook, on YouTube. And it was largely pretty successful. And then, of course, Elon Musk came in and bought Twitter and the pendulum kind of swung back the other way. And now they're having a tougher time with that. But.

Anyway, look, I'm curious even to get any of your thoughts on this, but don't you find it kind of interesting, Rob, that he brings up that Elon Musk fired 80% of the staff?

When he first took over. And the point he's trying to make here is that, and that's what, you know, I guess it's inferred that a lot of those people were doing content moderation and now he fired them. So he doesn't have as many people doing content moderation, but I just, you know, similarly to like when I brought up world war two before, like, don't you already, even if you don't know anything about it, aren't you already like, I'm pretty sure I know what happened before world war two.

Pretty sure it was World War I. But like in the same sense, you're like, when you bring this up, even if you don't know anything about it, if you just go, oh, he fired 80% of the people who worked at Twitter. And you're like, oh, okay. So like a couple years later, Twitter was just in ruins, right? And then you're like, oh, no, no, no, it's stronger than ever. You're like, hmm.

Well, you know, like maybe I'm just stupid, but then wouldn't that seem to indicate a lot of those people were unnecessarily employed? Like if you can fire business, like if you could fire 80 percent of your workforce and your company is doing better than ever a couple of years later, that kind of sounds to me like you were bloated with like unnecessary people.

seems actually conclusively to be the case. I don't know. Any thoughts, Rob? Go ahead. I think that you said it best. If you can get rid of 80% of your workforce and they were doing some tasks called content moderation that the platform didn't need and didn't make it any better. So it sounds like you made a good business decision.

I can't imagine 80% of Twitter staff was content moderation. No, I'm sure it wasn't. I'm sure. No, that's just like kind of his loose implication that some of them were. I'm sure some of them were. But yeah. All right. Let's keep playing. Hitting their trust and safety teams. And you had companies like Meta and YouTube.

allowing things like lies to be platformed once again on their platforms, claiming falsely that the 2020 election had been stolen. So a lot of fact-checkers have been telling me, look, this makes it a lot harder for us to do our jobs. And in fact, one of them, Baybars Orsax from Logically Facts, a fact-checking organization, told me the impact of layoffs, budget cuts in journalism programs, and the crackdown on trust and safety teams at X

and other major platforms have set troubling precedents as we approach the upcoming elections. Now, that's not the only thing that's happened. We've had GOP officials at all levels of government engaging in a broad campaign to discredit content moderation or to pass laws

seeking to make content moderation by tech platforms harder. They've also engaged in lawsuits, filing lawsuits against the Biden administration, for example, that had sought to undermine partnerships between the U.S. government's election security teams and the tech

companies where the two sides would talk about election security threats to the U.S. election security infrastructure. And that had also been coming under attack by Republican officials in Louisiana and in Missouri. So all of this altogether has really contributed. You just, I mean, the framing is just so wild because

Because if you think about, like, actually listen to what the guy is saying here, he invokes election security. Again, imagine you're just a layman, like, really, you know, like, I don't know anything about this. But I'd go like, wait, what is...

Twitter supposed to do about election security? Because election security kind of makes it sound like you're you mean you're preventing people from fraudulently voting? Are you protecting like the voting machines or the mail in ballots? But that's not what they're talking about. You may have noticed that social media is not in the business of doing any of those things. What are they talking about, Rob? What is election security? It means you saying stuff they don't want you to say.

You saying things that they deem to be lies. They're just saying that like, well, the election isn't secure if we can't crack down on free speech.

The election isn't secure if you can make an argument against, you know, whatever Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris or Joe Biden or whoever it happens to be. That's that's the issue here is that they're saying they're really kind of giving the game away when they say the election isn't secure. What they're saying is that their grip on power is not secure as long as the plebs are able to communicate freely with each other. That's the message here.

Everything they don't want can be framed as being dangerous. Yep, that's right. All right, let's play the rest of it. To a culture of intimidation that has made it raise the political costs of implementing some of these policies and programs by tech companies. And as one academic from George Washington University told me, quote, the platforms only ever took this as seriously as

as they felt they needed to. And with some of these changes since 2020, the pressure has now lifted on these companies to maintain the same level of vigilance that they had before. And if anything tells you that, the head of one of those companies has been reposting lies about the election. How are researchers adapting to this new, difficult environment?

Well, researchers say that they are trying to adapt to this new and more difficult environment. For example, even though researchers have lost access to much of Meta's platforms because Meta shut down a critical monitoring tool called CrowdTangle, and they no longer have access to Twitter or X because they've raised the cost of accessing that

that data. They say they're still looking at ads, still looking at TikTok, still looking at Telegram and other apps to see what they can find out ahead of the election. Sarah. All right. Brian Fung, thank you so much for that reporting for us. John. Yeah, thank you, Brian Fung. I just love like

That after all this time still, they still have the nerve to just be like, oh, well, they're spreading lies. First off, anytime you hear anyone talking about that, just like they're an enemy of free speech, period. Because like lies are protected speech.

However you feel about lying, it's your right to lie. Like you're allowed to lie. And then on top of that, isn't it interesting that like, you know, you have this CNN lady here who she'll be like, oh, Elon Musk is spreading lies on Twitter. Yet there's never it's never kind of like, oh, OK, well, compare that to how many lies are spread on CNN. Yeah.

And then let's not just do the number of lies, but like how consequential were the lies? How bad were they? Like, you know, like, like lying about if there's someone on on Twitter saying like the earth is flat, you could claim that's a lie.

Um, it's certainly not true. All right. So like there, you got these people who think they're like the earth is flat and they'll, they'll argue that on Twitter. Um, and my personal opinion is that that's, uh, not correct and pretty stupid, but what's the consequence of it?

Maybe in some abstract way, you could argue that like undermining people's belief in science isn't good and believing things that are false isn't good for society. Like maybe maybe there's there's some negative consequences to like lying about the shape of the earth. But like the lie that was broadcast on CNN was that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

I don't need to get vague about what the implications of that lie were. I don't need to draw some imaginary lines like maybe that led to some negative outcomes. It's like, oh, no, the negative outcomes are very obvious. A million people died. Those are the negative outcomes of that lie. A million people got fucking slaughtered, not to mention the trillions and the region being destabilized and all that stuff.

Again, lies like the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation is a lie. The COVID vaccine is safe and effective was a lie. Lockdown saved lives was a lie. Donald Trump is a Russian agent was a lie. There's been so many lies that come across the CNN airwaves. Just the nerve of these people to ever be like, oh, these other organizations need to like

they need to crack down on people lying. Like you first CNN, CNN,

You fucking start it. You guys have told the most bold lies that have had the most like catastrophic consequences. So how about go fuck yourself and leave us our free internet? It's like all we have, this is goddamn free internet. I'm like, how fucking, how pathetic is it, Rob? I know we've talked about this before, but how pathetic is it that these guys with CNN, listen, I used to work for, for Turner. Okay.

I've been in the CNN building many, many times. I had a goddamn freaking pass for the CNN building. I literally just scammed myself in there three times a week. It is...

Dude, it's just the resources they have. There's just billions of dollars, billions of dollars that Turner has to fucking, you know, all types of like the building that I used to go record S.E. Cupps show in. It's like a freaking skyscraper in what's it called there? Columbus Circle. It's like they're unbelievable. And they can't compete.

With me and you looking into a fucking camera. They need censorship on the internet because they can't compete with all the people online who are just fucking calling out their bullshit.

And so they're calling for – and their frustration. We need to pass laws to make it harder for people to talk to each other. Like, fuck you guys. You fucking – like – and this is – by the way, is one of my favorite things about Donald Trump. And again, I do not like much about him. But when he said the media is the enemy of the people, it's like –

Finally, finally, a high profile person is saying that because like, how are you supposed to look at those two guys we just saw and not just be like, you are the enemies of humanity. You're the enemies of liberty. You're the enemies of America. Like you're literally sitting here. And yeah, sure, you're using coded language, but we all know what you're fucking saying. We need mass censorship.

You should not be allowed to talk. I don't know how am I not supposed to take that personally when it's what I do for a living, when it's literally my calling in life is to like talk about all of these things. And they're sitting here essentially saying that me and you, Rob, ought to be silenced, that we should be silenced so that you, listener, can't hear what we have to say. It's like –

They might as well just start the broadcast by being like, hi, we're against you. Now, we're a couple of, you know, physically weak people. So, like, I can't come over to your house and make you shut up. So what I'm going to try to do is get the cops to do it.

What are they saying other than that? When they want to write laws to make it harder to spread? I guarantee you they would consider us to be, you know, purveyors of misinformation. Right. Would they not? So, OK, so you're saying you want to get the government to shut us down. OK, but then we're at war. What what else can you say?

It's like sitting here and being like, my my goal is to impoverish your children. It's like, OK, well, in that case, you are my enemy. I don't know what else. What other conclusion? I'll give you the last word, Rob, and then we'll wrap up. No, that was an epic rant. I got nothing to add on that bad boy. Kansas City, huh, buddy?

Kansas City this weekend. And then next weekend, I'm at the Shell in New Hampshire. Tickets at robintheflyer.com. And then the special is going to be out maybe next week, Thursday, or the following Sunday, YouTube, Twitter. Oh, great. Everywhere up. Go consume it. All right. Great. That's a good quick turnaround. All right. Well, thank you guys very much for listening. I appreciate it. Catch you guys soon. Peace.

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