October 7th, One Year Later
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That's Saturday. We're filming in Denver. All right. Very good. Very good. I'm excited. Now, one of the casualties in this long march, which we knew a great march like this, there would be casualties. One of them is that Rob will not be with me.

uh, this weekend in Detroit, Rob's running his hour to get ready for his special. So Detroit this weekend, I will be there. Rob will not, it will be a somber affair. We will all be very sad. That's a cool theater room. I did. Yes. We, we had a lot of fun there, uh, last, uh, year. So I'm, I'm looking forward to going out to that. Obviously Rob will be back next year and we'll, we'll do it again. But this weekend, uh, Detroit, uh,

Comicdavesmith.com for tickets. And then at the end of the month, after we're off this March, we're

We'll be back in Kansas City, me and Robbie the Fire Bernstein, having some fun there. Poughkeepsie and Philly as well. Poughkeepsie and Philly coming up. Yeah, we got a bunch of stuff coming up before this wild year ends. And I'm working on being less Jewish, so I don't think I'll cancel more gigs because of hurricane scares. There you go. I'm working on it. He's doing everything he can. Yeah. He's ingratiating himself to the Nazi community. Everything he can do. Speaking of...

Being Jewish. So today, as we record, it is October 7th.

Um, I've just been, you know, there's like a few things that have been on my mind lately, even before the anniversary of October 7th. Um, just because, you know, it's, we're getting toward the end of the year. Obviously we're, we're coming up on, what are we 30 days until the election or something? Maybe it doesn't feel like we're in the final quarter. It, it just seems a little too calm. Uh, yeah.

There's going to be an October surprise. I'm convinced of it. I don't know what it will be yet. Trump's been Biden the whole time? It turns out it was all just a character. I don't know what it's going to be yet. It's hard to imagine what type of October surprise could move the needle. Just to, you know, if you think back in 2016...

There was a major October surprise, which was Comey reopening the Hillary Clinton investigation. And then there was also the infamous Donald Trump grab him by the pussy tape. Those both came out in October. I think...

I would guess both had a decent impact on the election. I mean, I don't know how many people didn't support Donald Trump over the grab him by the pussy comment, but it's certainly, it's not great. It's not, you know, it's not helpful. The Hillary Clinton thing certainly had a big impact on the race. In 2020, the two big October surprises were the Hunter Biden laptop and then the Governor Whitmore entrapment bullshit. Yeah.

We'll see. We'll see what it ends up being this year. But I... As... So I've...

I've got, I'm kind of trying to set up. So there's a couple of big shows I'm going to do, um, before the year is over. Um, just, I just, uh, confirmed one of them, uh, in November. And then I was kind of like, oh, okay, well, let's see. I should probably do this other one. So just like of the bigger shows that I do, nothing that you probably wouldn't see coming, but I was thinking about like, just kind of like, wow, this has been a wild year. Um, it's, it's been a wild year, uh,

In national politics, in geopolitics, it's been a wild year for my career. It's just like a lot of shit going on. And it's like as we kind of come toward this moment where we're a month, less than a month, right? It's the 7th today and the election's on the 5th. We're less than a month away from the presidential election. There's just been thinking a lot about that. And of course,

on the anniversary of October 7th, it's what everybody is kind of talking about, is that one year ago today, not only was there like a tragic terrorist attack, but the entire landscape of this presidential year was changed. And I do think...

You know, you're you're somebody I think who who called this pretty early on. In fact, I think it was a year ago today that you kind of called this or certainly this week a year ago that you were like, yeah, this is this is going to go really bad for Israel. They're going to really lose the PR battle on this and a year into it.

Obviously, there's real people whose lives are affected by all this, so I'm not trying to downplay it. That's not the main story. But it is wild, wild how much the perception of Israel has been, I think, permanently changed. I mean, there's just never—you're never going to—

The, the, the generations before us and the way Israel was viewed from the American perspective, from the creation of Israel until one year and one day ago today, I think will never be the same. It's just like Israel is not viewed anymore as, Oh, this is like the safe haven for these poor Jews who were mistreated through so much of their history. It's,

Undeniable, like even from the pro-Israel, pro-Israeli point of view, their story is like, we have to decide that we will dominate and slaughter all of these people because we're put in a position where we have to. But even if you buy into all that bullshit...

You're still not the put upon minority now. You're the decision maker. You're the powerful one. You're the one determining the fate of other people and making decisions that will result in innocent people's children being slaughtered. There's no getting away from that to go back to this like, but we're this oppressed minority. That's kind of how I feel. I don't know what happened.

what you think? I wonder if the Gosling's will even remember the anniversary. They're a little poor. They're not great with gifts. So, you know, curious to see how that plays out. Yeah. Right. Well, it is, um,

It is really been something. It's crazy that not only has this the war been going on for a full year, but obviously it's spread already into a much wider war. We'll see how much wider it gets. But it's not not looking great as of right now. I am.

You know, it's... I was looking back. I actually retweeted my initial tweet from October 7th, which I'll read that here. Why not? Because I was just kind of like looking back around like at Twitter around that time. And it's crazy how much... It's just crazy kind of the... How...

War just always like breaks people's brains and nothing makes people dumber than when a war breaks out or when a terrorist attack happens or something like that. People just make arguments that are just like the worst fucking arguments. So like even today I saw someone, he was some reporter for some, I can't remember where, but he said to me,

Uh, cause I was like, Hey, this was my first comment on October 7th last year. I stand by it and I reposted it. And he goes, he goes, you know, the whole last year, I haven't heard you once, um, talk about Hamas without mentioning Israel. And, um,

It took me like a second to be like, wait, what's, what's the point? Well, yeah, of course. Why would I ever talk about Hamas without mentioning Israel? It's like peanut butter and jelly. These things go together. What are you, am I just going to talk about peanut butter? Well, it's like, but it's like saying like, you like, how do you never talked about Nat Turner without bringing up slavery? It's

It's like, well, how the fuck do you talk about the resistance movement without bringing up what they're resisting? Like, yeah, anyway, it's just this is the way. But it's literally just a guy who's on the Israeli side who's like, I want to just hear you condemn Hamas and then say nothing else after that. It's like, well, why would I do that? What would what would who would benefit from that?

What like information would anyone get? What point would you make that's worthwhile without talking about the greater context? Anyway, it's really funny because this is, um, this was the tweet that I sent and it

This is what I mean about war like breaking people's brains. This was because I was looking through some of the responses to it. And I don't mean from today when I shared it. I mean from a year ago when I shared it. And it's amazing how angry it made people of all different sides. Like everybody got angry about this. I had a bunch of people who were pro-Israeli talking about how disgusting it is that I would say this on October 7th. And then I got a bunch of the pro-Palestinian people talking about how fucked up it is that I would put it in this way and

This was my comment. And by the way, I still stand by this. OK, so this is what I tweeted on October 7th, 2023. I said the Hamas attack on Israel was horrific, criminal and stupid. It guarantees further suffering for their own people. The problem in America is that most people have a simplistic view of the situation that is completely removed from reality. They assume normal relations. And then out of nowhere, these savages just attack.

The reality is that the treatment of the people in Gaza is also horrific, criminal, and stupid, and also guarantees further incidents like this. We should root for peace and recognize that all innocent life is precious, and we should all recognize that D.C. should stay the hell out of it. So that was my thoughts, which I still think are pretty on point. It is amazing that I literally sang, we shouldn't be involved in this fight,

Innocent people being killed is always wrong. And it's objectively horrible when people do that to innocent people. It elicits not only disagreement, but like an impassioned anger in people. If you just really think about that, if you try to remove yourself from the latest, that's pretty crazy. That's pretty crazy that a statement like that could get people pissed off.

And of course, from the pro-Israel perspective, they're like, well, dude, how could you even say that on October 7th? Today, you're only supposed to talk about our people suffering. And from the pro-Palestinian perspective, they're like, you're equating both sides. But one people are the dominated and the other people are the dominators. So they shouldn't be equated. And you're like, yeah, but I didn't say they were the same. And certainly I'm not saying that

the Palestinians and the Israeli government have equal blame in this whole thing.

That being said, it's still pretty horrible when an innocent person in Israel gets killed. You know what I mean? Like if someone from Iraq came over here and just murdered all of us right now, that'd be real sad for all of our families. And you could zoom out and go, well, what about what America did to Iraq? And be like, yeah, okay, that was also fucked up. But that doesn't mean that this doesn't change. It's just, man, libertarians really are the only people who get this. But it's all, yeah, like...

All of that is still true. It's still horrible when innocent people die.

So I think, by the way, I think that Max Blumenthal is coming on the show next week. We haven't locked it up yet, but me and him, we were messaging about doing it. He's got a new documentary that is coming out today. I have not gotten a chance to watch it yet. I'm going to try to watch it before skanks later on today. That's an insulting way to talk about Max Blumenthal's phenomenal work. Hey, dude, thanks for being such a great reporter. I'll try to get it in before skanks. Yeah.

But anyway, it will be – I'm interested to see it because it's hard to not – it's hard to talk about October 7th a year later without kind of mentioning that there was –

There was, there were a lot of lies around it. Um, and this is something that I've really never, you know, I've done, I don't know how many Israel Palestine debates I've done in the last, uh, year. Um, a lot. And, um,

I've never touched that in any of them because it's almost like it almost feels like a trap. You know what I mean? Like it's kind of like which part which it partly is like it's like, oh, you exaggerate the horror of it. And then if anyone points out that you're exaggerating it, well, they are downplaying October 7th now. And so and I don't even care. I mean, it's like it doesn't the the fundamental most important part of the argument doesn't rely on.

You know, like what these exaggerations being truthful or not. But it is a year later. I mean, it is just pretty undeniable that there were all of these claims made, such as what was 40 beheaded babies. At one point, there was a claim that a pregnant woman had the fetus cut out of her stomach.

You mean a Minnesota abortion? Yeah. There was a claim that Walsh was over there. He was giving out abortions. And all of this was lies. There's been no evidence to support any of it. And the other aspect, which I'm interested to see what Max gets into because he's done some good reporting on this, is that the number of Israelis killed by the IDF on October 7th was not zero.

And what I don't you know, I've looked into like some of the the reporting on this. I'll be interested to see what Blumenthal puts in his documentary. But there it does seem pretty clear, as was kind of did seem to be the case on October 7th last year. I mean, I remember I remember talking to you about this like yesterday.

off air, like literally just looking at pictures where there were those pictures of like the lined up cars that had all been exploded. And I'm like, no, like I, you know, like I, I read a good amount about history and stuff. And I know like a decent amount more than the average American about like a lot of the history of these conflicts. But I have like no expertise in like,

military hardware and military logistics and things. But even for a layman like me, you kind of, you're like, they came here with machine guns and hand grenades. And then you see a line of cars all exploded. And you're like, how exactly do you do that with,

hand grenades? Like that just doesn't, I mean, maybe it's possible. I don't know. Like did that grenade hit the, you know, the gas tank and that or something, but it sure looks like a hellfire missile could do that in a second. And then we've kind of found out that, yeah, in fact, it does look like some Hannibal directive type shit did end up happening. And, um, you know, look, this is, uh, the, the thing is that right now,

And the way that Hannibal Directive historically worked was supposedly it was supposed to apply to IDF soldiers. And the idea was that essentially Hamas and other, you know, Palestinian terrorist groups, they don't have any political leverage to

And so the only way they get any is if they take hostages. And then all of a sudden they've got a bargaining chip and they can demand some of their people released or demand whatever they can get out of the Israelis. And so the Israeli response to that, and I'm not saying this like even with moral judgment. I mean, like, I don't know. These are decisions you're lucky to never have to make.

Um, but their response to that has been, you don't let them take hostages. And if that means you killing all the people like, then that's the job. Now that's one thing when you're talking about soldiers, you can kind of get to a point where you're like, well, this is the job and okay. You know, it's a, it's a messy business keeping a people occupied and this is how they've decided to handle it. But when you're talking about civilians, um,

That does take a whole different level of like that, that, that is a much more like basic fundamental betrayal of what your responsibility is supposed to be. Right. Which is like, okay, you can't like that. It may suck for your government that they get some leverage from having a hostage. But the answer to that isn't you kill them. And a year later,

I don't think at least from all the stuff I've read, I don't think there's like a number you could put on it, but certainly between October 7th and between the last year of the war in Gaza, uh,

There's been a lot of hostages that were killed by the Israelis. That's a conversation that I don't see happening that much. But if you're really going to like, especially when the hostages are being used as the justification, you know, for this war continuing, you're like, that doesn't, you know, like there's a problem with that in the same, in the same way that we always call out DC for when they say something like we have to defend Zelensky because of democracy, right?

And then you go, OK, yeah, but like if you work with Saudi Arabia, you can't really pretend that that's your major driving motivator. Right. Like there's something else going on here. And so, again, it just seems like it doesn't really seem to me that Bibi Netanyahu's main objective here is the retrieval of the hostages. Or obviously you would go about this in a completely different way.

I really wonder if the ramping up tensions in the Middle East and them, you know, kind of kicking some shit with Iran and Hezbollah right now is a...

pre-election pass that they think with an election coming up and without a strong american government they can get away with it and then it will ramp down uh or israel seems to have this obsession with having the war with iran and trying to get america to forced into it seemingly with the idea that iran will end up with the nuke and then it's a less fightable war and so let's have the war on a

what I guess they see as a more favorable timetable. I'm kind of talking out of my ass of trying to figure out what their motivations are. But I'm wondering if maybe this is going to ramp down post-election because they'll actually have to contend with a full government actually in place. And that I don't think the U.S. government likes this across the board. No, look, I mean, Netanyahu has just been...

Bitch slapping Joe Biden around for the last year. I mean, it's like it's unbelievable. Like there's the level of like public international humiliation that there's Biden here. He has just imagine this right for a year. Here's the Biden administration funding, arming and providing the logistical intelligence for Israel's war.

And the entire time Biden has said over and over again and through Blinkit, through his cabinet, has said he wants a ceasefire. Netanyahu's like, nope.

Don't care. He said he doesn't want Israel to invade Lebanon. Too bad. We're going to invade Lebanon. You know, he said he doesn't want conflict with the Houthis and with Iran. Too bad. We're going to assassinate Iranians whenever we can. I mean, like, imagine it's really wild. It's like if you're you would think if you're the one funding a thing, you'd have some degree of influence. And it does almost feel like some dynamic of like,

You know, it's like the 35-year-old who still lives with his mom, right?

And his mom's like, no smoking pot in the house. And he's like, screw you, mom. I'm like, no. And you're just like, Jesus, man, you can't get anything like she's supporting you and you still can't just show her the most basic level of respect. The other thing that I, you know, from my perspective with Israel, and I do think like that's an interesting question you ask. I don't know if I had exactly thought about it like that. But look, there's no question that during a presidential election, what are you going to do?

And then come out and take a hard line stance against Israel. Okay. Now you got to deal with problems and deal with a lot of problems. I mean, like if you could, if you could just imagine for a second, if either Trump or Harris or even someone like RFK or, you know, had come out really hard, really critical of Israel and been like, Hey, I don't, that's, we don't, I'm not going to do this.

I'm running on a platform of like, we're not supporting Israel's war. We're rejecting the relationship between Israel. We're cutting off foreign aids or anything like that. I mean, you would have a freak out like you've never seen before. I mean, the AIPAC would be pouring tens of millions of dollars into the opponent's race. The ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center, these groups would be smearing you as the

Adolf Hitler incarnate, you know? And so that there's probably some of that, right? There's probably some of that where it's like, that's a fight you really don't want to pick during an election. Um, but there is something when I look at kind of, um,

Not just Benjamin Netanyahu, but his war cabinet, the Israeli government. It does seem like there's this pattern that I've noticed a lot over the last few years. We talk about it quite a bit on this show, where there are people who almost haven't adjusted to the new world, who were used to the old world and are in a weird way still playing by the old world rules.

All the while, clearly on some level, kind of panicking about the fact that they know those rules don't really exist anymore. It'd be like we would watch for so long on this show when Brian Stelter would be calling Joe Rogan fringe.

You know, and you're just like, wait, dude, what? What world are you living in? There's 200,000 people are listening to your show right now. Your ratings were so bad, you got canceled. Meanwhile, Rogan is like breaking every record known to man. And you're just like, in what world do you think he's fringe? It'd be like if I was looking at a guy with a house three times as big as my house and calling him poor. Yeah.

You're like, what? But like, who are you to call him poor? Like this is everything is relative. And like he's anyway, the it does seem to me like, look, Israel, for anyone who knows anything about the history of it, Israel is poor.

You can't overstate how propped up they are by America. Israel is in the situation they're in because they have the U.S. stamp on them. We've used our veto power to veto U.N. resolutions on behalf of Israel countless times because...

The whole world is against what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. This, by the way, this has been true for many decades. This isn't anything new. The whole world is against what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. The entire world. I mean, like with a few notable exceptions, but like not too many, you know, it's the U S the,

The people of the U.S. can bully into it. People of Israel can bully into it. But everybody else in the world is unanimous on a two-state solution, 67 borders, end of occupations, end of settlements. This is not—I mean, if you put this up to a vote of nations, it'd be dominant, overwhelming on the Palestinian side. And—but—

None of that, when it comes down to it, really matters, because if you have America behind you, then you're golden in this world. You know, that's just the way it is. And that I mean, like the the popular support and opinion of Israel, like I mentioned before, has changed so drastically. But then in this moment.

to see Israel not only, you know, give the middle finger to the Biden administration and not have a ceasefire and continue with the war and continue doing things like, you know, shooting people, bringing aid into Gaza and stuff like that. But then on top of that, to go, oh, and fuck you, and we're going to spread the war. And there was, I don't know if you saw this, Rob, it was like when Netanyahu went to the U.N.,

And he said he gave this whole speech. I mean, dude, it'll make your blood boil. But he gave this whole speech just about how badass Israel is and how Israel can touch anywhere in the Middle East. And the power of the Israeli government will get you wherever you are. But like, what does he really mean by that? It's like...

The power of the U.S. military can do all that. Like they couldn't even fight this war in Gaza without the U.S. backing them, let alone adding in Lebanon and Iran. You know what I mean? And so you're sitting there bragging about how much power you have. Meanwhile, you're like, what? Does anyone not see this? No, you're the puny little kid with a giant bully behind you.

That's not you. You're sitting there going, I'll kick any of your asses. No, you won't. You'll throw a punch and then turn back and look at the U.S. and be like, guys, are you good? Come on. It's like a Holocaust again. It's like you could either you could either be one or the other. You know, you could either be the one who's like playing the perpetual victim or you could be the one who, you know, is like the tough guy. You can't be both of those.

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Again, this is a limited time offer, so go check it out today. ProtonVPN.com slash Dave Smith. All right, let's get back into the show. Anyway, just a thought. Okay, I do want to talk a little bit. Let's take some comments. Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. We can go to some comments. Not a bad idea. Let's not take comments. Oh, having some problems with the chat. Let's edit out this moment and insert an average. All right.

All right. We will, if, if we get this chat up and running, we will, we will come, we will come to the chat before the show's over. So I did, I did want to mention the, the stuff with Iran where, so I don't know how closely you guys have, have followed this, but of course we had Matt Gates on the show last week or the week before last week. And he, you know, made the claim that,

that, uh, he was the one who broke the news that there are five teams working on assassinating, uh, Donald Trump. He claimed one of them was, uh, um, Iranian, that the Iranian team was the most well, uh, funded of, uh, of all these, these teams and that, uh,

what was the other piece of this that, uh, you know, he had been briefed on this basically by the department of Homeland security is what he told me I did. I asked him on the show, uh, what evidence, uh,

There was for this and he essentially told me he could tell me, but he'd have to kill me type deal. You know, this is I think that's what he said or said something. I mean, he said something along the lines of like, I can't get into that, which I think was congressman talk for like it's classified and I can't share this information. And I did follow up by saying something kind of like, well, all right. But, you know, after all the lies.

A congressman is telling me the intelligence community told him that I'm going to need a little bit more than that before I believe this. Anyway, so I got into a little bit of a Twitter spat with a self-described reporter. I don't know how else to say that, but it did. Here was the guy. I was not familiar with him, but Ryan...

Saavedra? I'm sure I'm mispronouncing that name. What news organization is he affiliated with? The Daily Wire. Okay. So they always, they call it right down the middle. No ax there. But yeah, he's a senior reporter over at the Daily Wire. And so we got in this. They were good on COVID and the Middle East. Oh, yeah. No, they were great. Get your vaccine, dopes.

So anyway, so we had this back and forth, which I actually thought was was fairly interesting and really to me just like exposed a lot of what the problem is with people who, you know.

call themselves reporters. So I had tweeted in this environment where Donald Trump, of course, and we'll get into that in a second, because in a lot of ways, I think that's the biggest takeaway from all of this, that

Donald Trump is out there just talking about how Iran's trying to kill him and threatening Iran and how we'll destroy the whole place and all this stuff. And so I tweeted that Iran poses zero threat to this country. I mean, it was a longer tweet than that. But I said Iran poses zero threat to this country. The people advocating war with Iran pose a major threat to this country. They are your enemy. Iran is not. By the way, again, just because war makes people stupid doesn't

I think for just a second, if you can actually like try to remove yourself and transcend this last year and this latest war and all of this and really examine the statement, think about how just objectively correct it is to say the idea that a puny third world country without a modern military or a modern economy.

Without nuclear weapons, the idea that they pose a threat to the United States of America is it's just like, first of all, you know, because I was talking about this the other on the members only episode a little bit. But it's just it's amazing how people can sit here and like have a debate over whether America should allow China to take Taiwan.

Right? Like, which all of these people would do. So I'm not even saying they'd be on one side or the other, but they'll have the debate over whether we should allow... Now, obviously, China's not taking Taiwan, at least not right now. But regardless, you'll have that debate. But then you also believe Iran is a threat to America. Like, which one is it? Are we the all-powerful empire who could deny China Taiwan if we felt like it? Or are we the ones who face a legitimate threat from a third world country? Which one is? Anyway.

So I said that and Ryan, senior reporter from the Daily Wire, he tweeted back at me. He said Iran is literally trying to kill Trump on U.S. soil. And this guy claims Iran is not a threat to the U.S. Clown show, he wrote. So I responded back quite simply. What evidence do you have to support this claim? Speak slowly so us clowns can follow. Thought that was a reasonable answer.

For a reporter. Okay, so he sent me, as you can see here, Rob, a whole bunch of links. So it's like, okay, now this jerk's making me do homework. So, okay, he sends me these links. The first one is foreign national arrested in the U.S. after trip to Iran where he met with the IRGC. Okay, so that's the first one, right? Because this is the only thing they actually have.

Um, the next one is, um, about, uh, like vague threats to the Trump campaign that he was briefed by intelligence. So there's no evidence there. It's just the intelligence was great on the laptop stories. So, you know, you tell me intelligence, uh, people in the intelligence community, I know that they're onto something.

Yes. Now then, then he, uh, it sends me a bunch of, uh, essentially the only evidence in any of this, cause he sent me stories that are just totally unrelated. Also just about how bad around is or something. The only thing he sent me here is the only evidence is okay. There's the first one, which was this, uh, this court case. Um,

The FBI has got to justify its existence. It's got to hire the occasional bomber to go after a synagogue, the occasional person to go hijack a governor. Yes. It seems like they're very good at making sure that their departments have a justified existence. Well, they sure are. Now, listen to this, okay? Because one of the links he sends me

In this, after this long list of links that are nothing, there's the merchant court case, which we could get into in a second, but then there's nothing else. Is it how Ray Epps is actually working for Iran? Well, I mean, honestly, just as far fetched. He goes, Iranian officials have openly stated it.

So if you remember, I asked what evidence there was to him saying that Iran is currently trying to assassinate Donald Trump on U.S. soil. And he writes back to me. This is a reporter, a senior reporter at the Daily Wire. He writes back, Iran admits it. OK. And then he sent me this article. And it's a look at threats against Trump by Iranian officials. And the article starts up. I'll just read from the article.

Iran's acting foreign minister categorically rejected the idea that his country could have had a plan to assassinate Donald Trump, contradicting several statements by high-ranking officials who have threatened the former president in the past few years. And then, so it basically, then it goes on to have a bunch of quotes by Iranians right after Trump killed Soleimani, vowing revenge.

Just like Donald Trump will pay for this. And that's supposed to be evident. Look, they admit it. They admit that they're trying to kill Donald Trump on U.S. soil right now. Until you click the link and the first line is them going, no, we categorically deny that any of that's happening. And they go, well, that's at odds with all of that. Like as if, look, man, if I were to say to you that.

The U.S. is trying to overthrow the Iranian regime right now. Like there's an effort on right now to overthrow Iran. And then I went, look, the U.S. admits it.

And then the article was the first sentence was Blinkit going, no, we absolutely reject. There's no effort to overthrow the Iranian regime right now. And then they go, well, that contradicts lots of things that U.S. politicians have said. Here's John McCain saying bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. Here's Hillary Clinton saying Iran will be obliterated. Here's all these people. Right. I mean, you could find a million different quotes of people say and from the U.S. just as many as you could from Iranian officials saying,

But you would right away go, yeah, that doesn't prove it. That's not evidence of anything. You claimed there was a plan in action right now. I want evidence from that. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is CrowdHealth. Health insurance is broken. Premiums are increasing. Deductibles are getting larger. And claim denials are becoming more common. But there is an alternative to the health insurance system, and that is CrowdHealth.

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Now, by the way, to the original story, and I did share because there was a good piece that was written on this, but the original story, I love how they also go foreign national arrested in the U.S. It's like, ooh, interesting. Oh, why didn't you say Iranian arrested in the U.S.? Oh, because he's from Pakistan, right? That's where the guy's from. He's from Pakistan. They claim he went to Iran, except the problem is that the whole thing

It's the most obvious FBI entrapment job ever. And this is how these things work, okay? So, by the way, the piece that I shared was from a guy who I probably am not the biggest fan of. It's from Lee Smith. But just so people are aware, Lee Smith is a Zionist Iranian hawk.

Like he doesn't share our politics at all. He was just honest enough to go like he was like, no, like I'm totally sure that Iran is trying to kill Donald Trump. But this case is clearly an FBI entrapment. This is why this whole thing is just kind of cartoonish to me. Why don't we just always operate under the assumption at all times that North Korea, ISIS and Iran want to kill the president?

What does that change about anything than the people that we're constantly saying are the enemy? What if they could kill our president? Yeah. So what we need a strong border. You need a secret service. Firstly, this whole thing is not mutually exclusive against the idea that the deep state tried to off him or that they're looking the other way and making it easier for people to be taken out in

In other words, this isn't news. It changes nothing. Why wouldn't I always operate under the assumption of, oh, I need a good secret service because we have enemy countries such as Iran that if we don't have good secret service, we'll kill a president. Yeah, but like... What does this change? Well, also, like, and how real is this threat? Give me some type of, like, look, there might be a schizophrenic homeless person in Times Square who wants to kill the president, but whatever, he doesn't have the means to do it. If you told me that North Korea hacked all...

all of our nuclear arsenal, and we have to invade North Korea right now because if not, they're going to be able to obliterate the entire country. It's a Jack Bauer thing. We've got an hour. And we've got to go invade North Korea. Then the question becomes, well, what's the evidence of that? And then, ah, shit, it sounds like we've got to go invade North Korea. But if you tell me, hey, North Korea and...

Iran have plans to assassinate the president. Don't they always? Why wouldn't they? Yeah. Well, how about just to change your analogy a little bit? Let's say that...

So let's say Ukraine attempted to hack in to our, you know, nuclear reactors or whatever, and they tried to do it, but were unsuccessful. Right. Almost got away with it. And then we went, the big story is that North Korea wants to do it. Right. That's the big story. No, don't look over here. Don't look at this guy who was just...

actually a member of the Ukrainian war effort. Now forget that guy. Forget this other guy who literally snipped the president's ear. Forget that guy. Oh, he's got no social media footprint at all. Yeah, just has a cell phone that goes to DC a lot, but don't worry about that. No, no, no. The real story here is that the country that the regime has been trying to fight a war with for 25 years, right?

They just happen to be the ones who are guilty of it. So, by the way, anyway, if you want to look through this piece, I've tweeted it. It's essentially, as you guys know, look, the way the FBI works is they essentially follow the to catch a predator method, which is you entrap someone into doing some shitty thing that they may have never done on their own.

And then you get to brag about thwarting this would, you know, like if you ever watch the show to catch a predator, what they essentially do is they have an adult. I learned 14 year olds don't like iced tea and cookies. That's what I learned. If someone online tells you, Hey, I'm just 14 looking for some iced tea. Well, that's inconclusive to be sure. We don't know. What we know is that cops pretending to be children don't tend to like those things. But no, what they'll do is they go, they get these incredibly weird, incredibly sad, uh,

At times, seemingly mentally slow people, they have an adult reach out to them, tell them they're 15, tell them they're home alone, tell them they want to have sex and invite them over. And then when they come over, they jump out and they arrest them. Now, look, nobody, myself included, has too much sympathy for that person who gets arrested. And it is a major move for

to go over to a house where you believe there's a child alone and certainly that person once they do that should face legal process. - I thought I finally met another iced tea enthusiast. - Well, the issue that I think you have with it, if you actually like think about it fairly is that you go, look, it's not so clear that this person ever was going to do that if you hadn't goaded them into it. And if that's the case,

It's a little bit. Anyway, what the FBI does is actually far worse because so what they'll do, and this is, they've done this at least dozens and dozens of times since 9-11, is that they'll find, they try to find people

kind of saddest most broken alone people so they'll find some Muslim guy who's 20 who's hanging out in all types of like you know whatever I don't even know what they are message boards we used to call them back in the day I don't know in online on social media and they're talking shit you know and

And they'll approach these people and it'll be some Muslim who's talking about the evil America and what they do to Muslim countries. And they'll be like, yeah, you know how many people the U.S. slaughtered in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and all these places? You know what they did? They go, we should get back at them. And the guy will be like, I don't know about all of them.

about all that and be like no no dude we're doing this thing we're gonna blow up this this government building or whatever and um yeah you should come do it he's like i don't know if i want to do that and you go like ah dude all you got to do is you know whatever whatever the job is all you got to do is come in the van and be lookout blah blah we all got it all figured out here i'll introduce you to the guy who makes the bombs i'll introduce you to a guy who knows the building i'll introduce you to a guy who does this by the way all these people are feds none of this is real

And then the guy goes, all right, all right, I guess I'll do that. And they go, okay, here, you got to bring the bomb to this place. And the guy gives him the bomb and then he goes to bring it there and they go, freeze, you're under arrest. And then the FBI brags about how they thwarted a would-be terrorist.

But none of that's true. That building was never going to get blown up. They created the whole thing and then just lured one guy into it. And this is what happened with the Governor Whitmer thing. And this is what happens. So anyway, essentially, that's what happened here, too. You're like, oh, wait a minute. So there was a foreign national, a Pakistani guy who went to Iran and then was able to get on a plane and come to America. Well, hmm.

Why would that be? Why would that guy not get stopped? Oh, yeah, because the FBI told them to let him in. So the feds went out of their way to let this guy into the country so that they could do this. So all I'm saying is whatever the case is that it's the deep state that's trying to get Donald Trump out.

This only makes that case stronger that they were not only were they trying to get Donald Trump But that they allowed this guy who they could pin it on Iran I was gonna say this Iranian, but of course, he's not Iranian So they could pin it on Iran and then this is the story that the regime will give you anyway What's maybe more important than any of that to understand here? Is that and this is really the sad part I know I know Trump supporters don't like hearing this shit before right before the election

But this is how fucking much Donald Trump still doesn't get it, is that he falls right into it, falls right into it. And then he goes, I know what I'll do. I'll talk really tough about Iran and I'll tell everyone who I'm going to bomb the shit out of Iran. Great. That'll that's really. So that's the guy we got after all these years for all these people telling me like, no, he really understands that he he shouldn't have appointed Trump.

John Bolton and Mike Pompeo and made Mike Pence's VP and Ray, the head of the FBI. And, you know, go down the list of all the other Nikki Haley. How many other awful people did he appoint? No, he really gets it now, though. It's like the only problem with that is that no, he fucking doesn't. He still doesn't. Not one bit more than he got it back then. He doesn't get it at all. He still thinks Iran is trying to kill him.

Just unbelievable. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Prolon. Forget everything you know about fasting. Prolon by El Nutra is the only patented fasting mimicking diet that combines the benefits of prolonged fasting with a science-backed nutrition plan so you can hit your health and weight loss goals without actually having to give up all food.

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Any thoughts, Rob? The whole storyline sounds dumb to me. Yeah. And a distraction from the better conversation and what would be the sexier sell of, hey, the deep state's trying to keep me from you. It's just unbelievable that he doesn't even want to make that pitch. It's like he's not, like, I don't even know at this point. For a while, I've thought it's just that he's shook. Maybe that is the case. And I've gotten that information from some people close to him. But, yeah.

I don't know, man. It's like at this point, it's almost like, oh, he just he either just doesn't want to win or he just doesn't get it at all. OK, quickly, before we we get out of here, speaking of people who don't want to win and don't get it at all. So Kamala Harris was on the call her daddy show.

podcast. Listen, if there's a show out there teaching young girls how to slut their way to the top. Really? Yeah. I think these girls should call her daddy. She is the founder of that method. Now, literally, you and Natalie were just explaining to me what this podcast is. And evidently, it's very huge. So I'm out of the loop. Not them. To be fair, I also gave you an old man boomer of, I think it's one of those slut

pods with those girls. Rob was like, you see, we let these games vote and now they voted themselves the right to podcast. I think she used to be on that barstool sports thing they got. No, I do. Okay. So I understand they're huge. It's the biggest female podcast out there. I think she was doing Rogan numbers or close to it on Spotify at one point and got some big contracts.

Very good. Very good. This is all I've ever seen of the podcast is these clips with Kamala Harris on there. It is... It was rough from what I saw. But there were a few parts that were kind of interesting. I wanted to play this one clip in the time we have left here. We'll just do the short one. But this was, you know, of course...

The only major issue, which is not like the top issues, is pretty clearly in polls, immigration and the economy are the biggest issues for most voters. But abortion will be on the list, the top list, and it's the only ones that the Democrats really win

in the polls. And also this is like the biggest, like woman's podcast in the world. So it makes sense that this, this topic came up. Um, here's a small clip that I found kind of interesting from our perspective, uh, with Kamala Harris, uh, just the other day. Yes.

And I want to pose this question more to you and the Daddy Gang, but one of the biggest conversations in this year's election revolves around a woman's body. Yep. I want to take a moment and can we try to think of any law that gives the government the power to make a decision... I know what you're going to ask. ...about a man's body? No. No. No.

Is there any law? No.

No. I would say every vaccine, particularly COVID. First of all, it's so funny to me that Kamala Harris starts cackling and going, I know what you're going to say. It's like, yeah, we all know what she's going to say. You know what she's going to say? Yes, because it's the most basic, dumb comment that fucking every pro-abortion advocate makes. I find it hilarious from our perspective here because we're like...

We're kind of radical libertarians on this show. And our entire worldview, our entire philosophy is built off of the premise of self-ownership. So it is just kind of funny when they come. It's like, can you think of one law that tells a man what he can and can't do with his body? Yes. All of them. Every law.

It's literally quite literally by definition, what a law is. And like, yes, the obvious ones that jump out at you would be like vaccine mandates. Hey, Kamala Harris, that was a pretty big one for a while. Of course the draft. I mean, like the,

The military draft, I was like, okay, yes, we haven't fought a war with a conscripted army since Vietnam. We still do make people sign up for it. And that's always there being reserved. But yes, not that long ago, my stepfather fought in the war. We just drafted an army and forced them to go to war. By the way, drug laws...

Which is a much more like egregious violation than abortion laws because there is no life involved in it at all. It's just straight up a claim of owning your body. You're not allowed to put this substance in your body. We've been fighting a war on drugs for 50 years in this country. And of the people who, by the way, in every single state in this country, we have prisons closed.

that are filled with people who got convicted off of drug laws. And it's about 95% of them are men. Those are the people who go to jail for this by and large. Um, and there's no question over whether there's, there's no baby involved. There's no other argue. You know what I'm saying? It's just straight up. We control what you can do with your body. I also work half the year for the government. I would argue that that's kind of like a control of my body, but I,

Look, any law, even good laws, are all about controlling your body. The law that says you can't kill people is telling you what you can do with your body. A law that says you can't rape people or assault people is telling you what you can and can't do with your body. That's not the question. The question involved is not whether or not it regulates your body. The question, which again, by the way, I

It was interesting. And I listened to the longer clip of them talking about it also. It's interesting. It's one of these things. And this is always the case with the abortion conversation. I know we've talked about this a lot in the past. And I'm not even trying to get into the abortion argument. People who listen to the show know I was pro-choice for many, many years until I had kids. It changed my mind. I'll just say it gives you a different perspective when you're actually...

create a baby and watch your wife get pregnant and go through, I'd go to sonograms every month and go and kind of like, you know, learn more about what a fetus actually is. But there are strong arguments for being pro-choice and I get it. And usually they rely on kind of the extreme cases, but

That's there's still something to be said for that. Now, there's a trick that a lot of kind of the pro-choice people typically do, which is that everybody likes to bring the extremes to paint their picture in the abortion debate. So if you're if you're pro-choice, you want to go, you know, well, what about an 11 year old who's raped by her uncle? Now, look, I will say.

That is that is a fair what about, you know, like, all right, that do you really want to say that the law is going to force this 11 year old who's already been raped through no choice of her own is in this situation to carry a baby for eight more months or seven and a half more months or whatever it is? Yeah.

That's something you don't really want to say. Yeah, I want to force her to do that. That's kind of tough. There are situations where the baby has serious health conditions and they know this baby's not going to live to three years old. You really want to force this woman to have this baby, to raise this baby for the first two years of its life and then lose it? It's pretty goddamn tough. And then the people on the pro-life side, they'd like to go like, well, can you have an eight-and-a-half-month baby?

you know, abortion just because you feel like it or something like that. And the response from the pro-choice people will always be, well, that almost never happens. That's incredibly rare that you have situations like that. And it's like, okay, it's also incredibly rare that 11 year olds are raped and forced to carry the baby to term. You know, it's like everybody likes to use the rare, you know, examples rather than just talk about like what we're really having a conversation about. But again, those extreme examples are important and, you know, okay.

The argument that you're controlling a woman's body is the weakest of all of the arguments. It's the weakest of all of them. Because if that's really the argument you're going with, then there should be no reason why a woman can't have an abortion at eight and a half months because she feels like it. You know, if that's the argument, like, then, hey, you're controlling a woman's body. But of

But of course, you know, Jonathan Haidt has done a lot of good work on this. But there's not an abortion on this next dynamic that I was going to mention. That there is...

Liberals and conservatives have a big asymmetry when it comes to understanding the other one's perspective. And they've demonstrated this with studies. Like, you could ask a conservative, "What does a liberal believe about this?" And they could pretty accurately tell you what a liberal believes. But when you ask a liberal what a conservative believes, it's just like a funhouse mirror. Like, they never get it right. They can never steel man the opposition. Now, part of this is because conservative America

hasn't dominated media the way liberal America has. So, I mean, things are different with the internet now, but if you've grown up, if you're our age or anywhere close to it, every piece, like every,

LA and New York runs all of entertainment. So like every movie, every TV show, everything was always run by liberals. And so, so anyway, like on friends or Seinfeld or in the movie, you're not seeing like religious characters who are waiting till marriage, right?

to have sex, right? Which character on Friends was like that? None of them because that's just not the world. It's like, what are they doing? They're hanging out in the West Village and all being liberal. Anyway, it is amazing when this topic comes up. It seems like

There's just an inability to ever even grapple with what the other side of the argument is. Like you're not even trying to take it on. Now,

If you want to try to take it on. But the argument is that from the pro-life position is like, no, we're not trying to control women's bodies at all. Short of this one thing, short of this one thing, which is saying you don't have a right to kill the baby that's growing inside of you. Now, you could disagree with that or you can agree with that. But just saying, oh, you want to control women's body. It's like you're not even touching the actual argument.

I think it's a, they paint a false picture, which is if dudes were the ones that were getting pregnant, it would be a no brainer that obviously we would have abortions because guys wouldn't tolerate it. And I think dudes are lazy and we would all just end up having the babies because we keep being like, I'll go to the doctor tomorrow. It's just a pill. And then it's six months later. You're like, yeah, I guess I'm having this kid. There are, there are lots of,

uh challenges to being a woman that don't exist for being a man there there are lots of things in life that are made much more difficult if you're a woman than a man and there are lots of things in life that are made more difficult if you're a man rather than a woman um the one of the things that's really interesting is that again people on the left broadly speaking

tend to have no conception of the second point there. Like it's just almost a given that women are second class citizens, they are the oppressed. I mean, this is how the left wing brain works, right? Like oppressor versus oppressed.

Women are the oppressed. Men are the oppressors. If you even tried to flip that for a second. How often are they just sitting at home on the internet when some 15-year-old says they want iced tea? It almost never happens to a lady. You're just sitting at home, minding your own business. You meet another cookie and tea enthusiast. Well, look, I mean, I just, there is male disposability has been a force in society from the beginning of time. And.

And there's the thing is that men don't identify as the victims. Men don't bitch and moan about it. And so it's like, look, the fact that when the Titanic hits the iceberg, they're like, hey, men, you're all going to die. Women and children on the lifeboat.

You don't have like a men's advocacy group who's going, this is unfair that we're being treated this way just because of our gender. And so that's never even thought like when the war breaks out, the men are going to go die. Is there backbreaking grueling? By the way, still today in society, there is an enormous amount of grueling, risky, backbreaking work that must be done in order for these lights to turn on and for the heat or the air conditioning to work and the power grid and all this stuff.

No one cares. No one thinks about it. No one. So this idea that like, oh, if men were in this situation, the rules would change in a second. From my perspective, it's like more likely they would just suffer in silence because that's what men tend to do. And that's not something like I'm to.

brag about for me. It's a problem that men have it like in general. So I men like commit suicide much more often than women. It's like men suffer silently in a way that women rarely do not never. There's exceptions to all of this, but in general, that's part of the dynamic here. It's a, it's not nearly as simple as these girl podcasts would like to make it.

make it seem all right i do have to wrap up there i apologize for the late start and some of the technical issues we'll make sure that chat is up and working again for the next episode all right catch you guys next time peace