Dave Smith | Updates on Charlie Kirk | Part Of The Problem 1304

This episode is sponsored by BodyBrain Coffee. bodybrain coffee.com. If you want some delicious coffee while you're also stepping up your game, stepping up as a man, being a leader, go to bodybrain coffee.com. And make sure to use the promo code Dave 20 for 20% off your entire order. [Music] What's up? What's up, everyone? Uh, thank you for tuning in to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith and we of course are joined by Robbie the Fire Bernstein. Um, we got a a bunch of stuff uh to talk about today. Obviously, all still related to the fallout of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which we're now a few days uh removed from. So, we'll we'll get into to a bunch of that stuff. Um it just seems to be the topic that is is consuming everything and personally the topic that's really been uh consuming much of my thoughts um for the last few days. Uh really truly just uh you know as I said on the the last show but just a surreal few days in politics and still is. So couple quick announcements. Um I am so I'm I'm not going into Legion of Skanks tonight and I did cancel this weekend in Vegas. Those are the only gigs that I'm going to be cancelling. I'll be the rest of the tour schedule. We'll all be going on as as normally planned. It's uh I just honestly I just needed like a week before going and doing comedy again. Like I you know, I'm kind of happy to do my podcast and talk about this stuff, but I just and I will say I've never had this experience before. You know, there's been lots of big things. I, as I've mentioned, I think on the show before, but I was at I was headlining at the comedy Mothership the day that Donald Trump got shot, and it is to this day maybe my favorite comedy shows I've ever done in my career. It was just like great. Um, and usually when there's a new big thing, I almost always can't wait to rush to stage to try to make it funny. Um, but this just is different and I uh Yep. I just wanted to I was like I'm just gonna spend some time with the family for a week. So, I do apologize to anyone. I know there are some people that bought tickets to come out in Vegas. We'll make sure to make up that date uh as soon as we can, but that won't be happening this weekend. And then next week, uh we'll be right back to the to the normal traveling schedule. So, just wanted to give you guys that update. Um and uh yeah. Well, Rob, we haven't really uh me and you really haven't talked. I mean, I I called you to tell you that that we're not going to Vegas this weekend, but me and you really haven't talked about any of this stuff, so that you could give your thoughts on anything you want to about it, I guess, to start. >> Uh, well, I I listened to the the episode that you did about it. I don't think I have uh any better words than anything that you said. It's obviously a trag tragic incident. Really does feel like a new low. Uh the day was jarring. It did have uh I'm not the only person to say this, but a 9/11 feel to it of just like is this the new normal? And uh obviously if we can't just talk to each other, that's that's all the guy was doing was going out and uh you know winning over the war of ideas and just making conversation. It's a new low for society if uh people can't tolerate that and are uh bringing violence to that environment. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's for sure. Um and uh Yeah. Yeah, man. It's it's it's really I don't understand how anyone can argue with that. I have also, you know, I got like I kind of talked about on the last episode like my my most basic of tests for pe people like just being a human being uh about this and which shockingly a lot of people seem to be failing. Um although many are passing. Uh, but I will say I have been I guess and and when I say this I will make like like a a carve out here like a a caveat. Thor people who were close friends with Charlie Kirk because I don't you know I it's it's very hard to blame anybody for their the way they're acting when they're truly grieving. You know what I mean? Like when you're in grief like people process that in a different way. And as I said, you know, I think I've been quite open about this, like I'm rattled by this. Um, and because I knew Charlie Kirk and I was just hanging out with him like whatever a couple months ago or whatever that was. Um, and you know, we we didn't do exactly the same thing. We do kind of a similar thing and it would anyway just like very close to home and it's very weird to this, but I wasn't like a close personal friend of Charlie Kirk. This isn't like you know what I'm saying? Like I it'd be a different thing if like you died, Rob, or something, you know, someone who's like very close to me. Um, and then but there like people who were close friends of Charlie Kirks obviously like they are grieving and going through like a whole deeper personal things. I'm not judging any anyone for how they act in that situation, but broadly speaking in the kind of like the and I mean this in the broadest possible sense of the term like in the media class and by that I I mean people in you know on cable news or podcasters or you know whatever like influencers. Oh, did we lose Rob? No. Well, there you go. Rob was furious uh that I uh I included him in the same group as the corporate media and that's what I get. Rob just quit the show right here. All right. He just texted he's having some uh some computer problems. So hopefully he'll he'll get back on soon. Um but I guess I you know I for for that entire as I was saying like the broad like influencers, podcasters, political commentators, all these things, right? Like almost everyone I would say has essentially the same thought in their head as Rob even just kind of touched on there where he's like, "Hey, is this a 9/11 type thing? Is this is this like we had Coline and then school shootings became a thing?" Because that's just in the ether now and that's a possible thing that could happen. And almost everybody has had that thought at some point. And so I just I guess in a way you would just expect that it would be like 100% unanimous amongst that entire class of people that we don't want to see that happen. And so we're here to like try to calm things down. We're here to try to like okay let's every let's try our best to deescalate the situation. And there is, I think, something particularly disgusting about the people in that in that class who are like egging this on or trying to ramp up tensions right now, even getting into like like, you know, whether it's like drumming up people being furious about the left-wingers who are reacting by celebrating this thing or it's the left-wingers who are going out of their way to like insult assault Charlie Kirk and and stuff like that. And it's just like I don't know like what are you guys doing? It's like we all know the danger here is that this thing could ramp up and it could lead to more violence and you cuz cuz like 100% of the people in that class that I'm talking about like podcasters, influencers, journalists, you know, 100% of those people aren't ready for that [ __ ] do not want to see do not want to be any part of that and yet they're still like ramping up tensions in this moment and I guess with the expectations that they won't be the ones who suffer the consequences for it but I do just find that to be um like appalling. I don't know. Just even like I've just seen so many people and on all different sides of this trying to politicize this issue, trying to use it for their advantage in some way or or generate kind of clicks based on um you know like flaming the uh fanning the flames of this thing which just seems to me to be like just so wrong and so profoundly reckless. Like, what the hell are you guys doing? All right, guys. 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So, if you're looking for a boost, Mars will have you feeling like you are on another planet. Check them out at twwc.health/pro and use the promo code problem to get 10% off plus free shipping. Again, that's tw.alth/pro. Promo code problem to get 10% off and free shipping. Level up your performance today. All right, let's get back into the show. Uh, thoughts on Tim Dylan's interview with Greyzone, editor and chief about Israeli involvement. Well, you know, I was going to I probably I was going to talk about this a little bit today. Max Blumenthal, of course, is who you're you're talking about. We'll I promise you we will answer that question in a sec. Let's just get Rob back in. How's it going, buddy? >> Sorry about that. my uh computer decided to do an update. >> Oh. >> And shut down right when we started. My apologies. >> That's a That was a bad time for your computer to decide to do that. Um >> Yeah. >> Okay. No, no problem. I just went off on uh I basically just my my point ended with me just saying that it's it's crazy that everyone in the media podcast class isn't all trying to like tone down the like tempers and instead are like fanning the flames and how I just think that's crazy and and wrong. No. Uh >> yeah, I mean it's uh there >> just on that note, there seems to be this big war online of trying to pin this to a side and it's like let's just wait a couple days. We don't have to hop right on, hey, it's the entire transgender community's fault or it's the entirely the left fault. No, this guy was a groper. It's like you're turning this into a weird team sports of which group you can blame. And it's probably not about that. Yeah, it's um you know I I said on the last episode I b I got into this briefly and then I kind of if there was at one one point I was like uh I was like I don't even want to get into the politics of this but I was just saying and I was pushing back specifically on Ian Carol and saying like we do he's way out over his skis here. Like we just do not have any evidence at all of like Israeli involvement in this. And then what I said there was I was like I don't want to get into the politics of it. Maybe I'll get into the politics of it more now that I've had a few days to to deal with all this stuff, but um just to be clear, the the people who have been pushing both of those examples that you mentioned, which is like there is a group of people trying to pin this on the Gropers and then there was a group of people trying to pin this on Israel. And I mean, just objectively speaking, both of those sides has absolutely zero evidence. And this isn't like, you know, like it's not even one of these things where like if you were trying to build a case that Ebstein was MSAD or something like that. Like you could argue like just saying we know Ebstein is MSAD. It Oh, what just happened to you there? >> I you know, the amount of fancy equipment I have plugged in here in my attempt to be professional. >> I know. They just watch everything break and shut down on me. >> For people behind the scenes, Rob really does try. Um, no, but like I mean, if you were making the case that Ebstein was MSAD or you were making the case that the CIA killed Kennedy or that MSAD killed Kennedy or that, you know, like all these conspiracies there, whether any of them are true or not, there's at least like building blocks there. You know what I mean? There's at least like here is our theory of how this all worked together. no one has anything and they're jumping to conclusions like and stating them with certainty and it's just this is wild to me, man. Like I just think I also think there's um there's like there's something pro profoundly morally wrong about doing that, you know, about you know like in the same sense and and I don't know if I agree with this completely. I think like almost like Jordan Peterson would argue that it's always immoral to lie like every lie is an immoral act. And I think he would take that down to like even like white lies or something like that. Now I don't exa I don't exactly agree with that. Like I don't think if if your girlfriend asks you if this dress makes her look fat and you kind of think it does and you say no. I don't think there's like an immoral act there. I don't I tell I tell my three and a halfyear-old all types of lies all the time. He thinks the TV goes to sleep sometimes. But, you know, I mean, I don't know. I'm okay with him living under that delusion for another six months or so. Uh, but anyway, but there is something, you know, there there is something truly wrong about lying and there's something like big lies and there's something really wrong about like when people are looking to you for the truth, just lying to them. And then like in the same way that like you know we're all kind of grateful to like say like some great thinker who you read who like made you understand the world better and you were like oh thank you you showed me the truth. Well as much as that's a good thing it's the same equal and opposite evil thing to when someone's looking to you for like okay I don't trust the corporate media anymore. I figured out that they are lying to me. Now I'm listening to this guy on the internet who's breaking down like the Epstein case or something like that and now he's going to come out and just tell me, you know, like you're just going to say to people just cuz what I mean what anybody who was trying to pin this on the Gropers and the same with anyone p pinning this on Israel, it's both just like that's just what you want the conclusion to be. It's really that simple. like this is what lines up with your pre-existing views and it would it would give you a nice feeling of confirmation bias for you to be able to blame this group of people for this but you simply have no case no case whatsoever and they you know I don't know it's just uh I I do find it kind of wild now to my point about getting into the politics of all of it and then I promise we will get to what the one listener question part was that might be edited out of the podcast but when Rob had some uh uh some tech problems. I took a couple questions or I took one question from and a couple comments from the the live chat which you can be a part of if you sign up at part ofthepro.com. Um and uh you you know I will I will get to that. Uh he was asking about the Max Blumenthal piece and his interview with with Tim Dylan. Um but into the politics that I was saying. Yeah. So what happens is now and I just find this so disgusting because also Rob this was what did I do that podcast? It was within 48 hours of Charlie Kirk being killed, right? So, this is still like at the very very beginning of the thing. And immediately, of course, like all of Zionist Hasbra Twitter jumps on the fact that I gave push back to Ian Carol and then, you know, is spinning it in their own goddamn way to go e, you know, it's even Dave Smith, you know, when your Jewhating conspiracy even loses Dave Smith. I mean, that's proof that you're way too off there. And then the mix of like uh you know, people going, "Well, this is this is what you created, Dave. Oh, you were with them this whole way and now you're you know, and so like they're politicizing it in the dumbest [ __ ] way possible." Or it's like, you know, one one of the guys who just I he's like a reply guy who tweets at me every single day of his life, but he was like he goes, "I gotta give Dave a lot of credit for this because this did take courage." And I've come at him pretty hard, but he really like you're like Kurt, what look like Rob, what what percentage of people who actually listen to the show? Because this is the weird thing at in my world, right? Where there's like um what do they call that? Concentric circles. Is that the term I'm looking for? Right. Where the circles get bigger and bigger and bigger. Uh but so there's like there's like the people who listen to this show, right? And then there like a couple hundred thousand people who listen to this show or whatever. And then there's like a there's like a much bigger circle of people who like have seen me on other shows and maybe kind of like me or maybe hate my guts but don't actually listen to the show. You know what I mean? So then there's like the people who like just saw me like on Rogan a couple times and don't know anything else. But so I was just saying like for us, isn't it amusing that the people in that circle outside who hate my guts really thought that the like there are the point I'm making here, Rob, is that 0% of the audience of this show would even be kind of surprised that I didn't just immediately jump on a kooky theory with no evidence to back it up. Like when have I ever done that? And Roseanne Bar, who I love and will always love forever, goddamn legend, not the biggest fan of me at the moment. Um, but she tweeted something about it, about the clip, like maybe there is some hope for Dave or something like that. And you're like, like Rosanne, name one time that I've just jumped on a kooky conspiracy to blame the Jews with zero evidence involved. Name one time. one time that I've I've put out a theory that I can't argue. Maybe I'm getting it wrong. I'm not, but for the sake of argument, maybe I'm getting it wrong, but I at least have a case to be made. But like anyway, there's just never there's no example. No one who listens to this is surprised by me taking this position. There's nothing courageous about it. I'm not losing anyone over like not jumping on this immediately. But anyway, so those guys are all trying to to weaponize it as if somehow the fact that I go, "Hey guys, do we have any evidence of Israeli involvement?" And no one can answer me with any goddamn evidence. The fact that that proves what that you've been right for supporting the [ __ ] destruction of the captive people in Gaza for the last two years, like, no, it really doesn't. So what? But like anyway, I just did think that was shitty and a a a a just gross attempt to just nakedly politicize what should just be a tragic event and also in a really dumb way. Like you're not even making a good point. All right, guys. Let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Moinkbox. I love Moink. Moink is a great company doing a great service for Americans. They're not just delivering delicious meat to your doorstep, but they're also keeping family farms going. The moink business is simple, okay? Moink meat comes from animals raised outdoors where a pig is free to be a pig. Their farmers are given an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. And they deliver meat straight to your doorstep at prices you can actually afford. Born, raised, harvested right here in the United States of America. And I can personally tell you, their meat is delicious. I'm always looking for like the family farm where you can buy your own meat there because I just don't trust the stuff in supermarkets. So, I was into I was really into Moink as a concept. I've had several different pieces of meat from them. They're absolutely excellent. I highly recommend them. Plus, you can support American Family Farms. When you join the Moink Movement and join over at moinkbox.compotp right now and you get free bacon for a year. So that's one year of the best bacon you'll ever taste, but for a limited time only and only when you sign up at moinkbox.compotp. That's m o i n kb ox.comp. All right, let's get back into the show. >> Um I think it's just too early to hop on to these things. Like I'm I'm open to the idea that Charlie Kirk was breaking away from supporting Israel and that Israel could assassinate a person for that reason, but there's no evidence for it yet. I certainly hope that that's not true cuz uh it would make it a scarier environment for you and I. Um and also >> uh that would I I think just be the like I think that would be the end of that country if it actually came out that that's what happened here. Um but it's just it's too early to jump on to jump on these storylines and it feels a little irresponsible to just jump to those things particularly with uh absolute claims. >> Well, now this is now this is the other problem that we have here and again I do feel a little bit and I don't know you know because you don't know when you do these shows. You don't know exactly who's listening and and what every listener's views are but I do feel like for the most part I'm kind of talking about people who don't listen to this show. I just would like I I'd like to think and I think I'm right that the majority of people who listen to the show don't fall into this. Although we we all certainly are conspiratorial, you know, like in in the broadest sense of the word. I mean, I think being like I've uh there was one video I did that someone clipped and you know, it kind of went viral, but where I was just I I think my line was something like I was like there's no question anymore like are you a conspiracy theorist or are you not? The question is are you a conspiracy theorist or are you like brain dead? Like that's you know what I'm saying? like anybody who's telling the truth about politics in 2025 is a conspiracy theorist of one stripe or the other. There's but there is a difference between people who build cases based off evidence connected by a narrative, you know what I mean? Then just wildly jumping to conclusions when there's no evidence to back that up at all. And of that group of people, they really I will say I think that uh like they they almost create this um how to say it like they just create this like circular logic that is impossible to penetrate. And so even right now I guarantee you like again not with the people I feel like who really listen to the show but it's more like the people who will react to clips of this online which is a different circle outside of you know the circle who listens to the episodes. Um even they you will see the response to this being like oh Dave got the call. Oh look Dave's controlled opposition. Oh, look. Why is it I had Dude, I had a a few different people like on social media who were just like, I don't know, dude. It's pretty weird that Dave's been spending the last few years telling us about all the evil [ __ ] Israel did, but now he's trying to protect them. And you're like, dude, what? Like, how dumb is this conversation right now? I'm sorry. This is just rid. You've just created like a tautology of is that the way I might be using that wrong, but you've created this circular argument where heads you win, tails I lose or whatever. Like you just it's silly. It's the same thing. By the way, the [ __ ] Nazis do it too about Jews in general where like they'll be like, you know, you see a Jew like uh um Mark Levin arguing, you know, for [ __ ] Israel to kill more Palestinians or something and they go, "See, that's just like what the Jews do." And then you see a Jew like Max Blumenthal arguing that it's so goddamn horrible that the Israelis are killing the Palestinians like this and they go, "See how they play both sides of every issue?" Like, so so the first point is evidence. The second point, the opposite is also evidence. Like isn't that isn't that a convenient way to view the world, but look, like none of that [ __ ] is my concern. I don't care. Like my job is to tell the truth and and get [ __ ] right and talk about what's really happening and what's right and what's wrong. Like that's my job. My job is not to, you know, I heard um I was talking with uh uh so I won't say who it was, but I was talking with someone who's you know in this world of you know a person that people listening would know their name and uh one of the smartest people in this in this game and he uh he said to me which I actually did find very funny like he was just completely agreeing with me about like how how ridiculous it is that everyone's jump and this is a a very well-known very harsh critic of Israel and he was agreeing with me about like yeah we really got no case here. Like what are people even talking about? And also then just like on the face of it, it doesn't seem very plausible that this would be right. Um but then he goes at one point he goes uh he goes, "Well, you know, one of the inadvertent uh aspects of all of this is that we may have just gotten an insurance policy against uh an Israeli false flag because like Israel, Israel's never gonna launch a false flag now because they know that the American people are just going to assume they did it. So that is and and I was just like that kind of caught me off guard and I go that might be the best argument for people, you know, believing in this conspiracy based on nothing. But, you know, again, it's just like that's not my job. My job is just to tell the truth. I'm I don't I'm not Mavelian in that way. And somebody else can figure out how to like manipulate the masses into getting a positive outcome or something like that. That's not what I do. I just tell the I just tell you the truth and that's why you guys like to listen, you know, like that's that's it. Um, and so, you know, the the truth is that there's absolutely no evidence or reason to think that Israel did this. Um, that's that's just the facts right now. You could maybe try to come up with, well, maybe, but that's just that that's just it's not even speculating. You are wondering aloud. that's what you're doing, which is fine, but like at least acknowledge that's what you're doing. But I will say also it does seem to me like essentially Gen Z has just decided this was Israel and that's that. And I don't know that me or anyone else just pointing out that you have no evidence is really going to stop him from from continuing down that path. There's, you know, if you're being sloppy and just widely connecting dots but not like tightly connecting dots, if that makes sense, you could blame Israel for just about anything these days and feel on some superficial level like you were justified to do it. But the truth is that, you know, there's there's and we could get into some more of this, but I think there's nothing um there there's nothing that points in that direction right now. Uh there's nothing that points in the groer direction. Like the again, I'm not saying trust the FBI. I'm not saying Israel wouldn't do this. Keep investigating it. Keep looking into it. Maybe, as Rob said, maybe we will come out with some theory. Maybe Israel did do it. And 6 months from now, I'm going to be sitting here talking to you going like, "Holy [ __ ] let's put this all together here. This really does look like that's what happened." As of right now, it's not like we have not enough. It's not like we have not enough evidence to bring charges if you were a police department. You go you have no reason to even be looking at them as the person of interest. You have no like it's just none of it really makes sense. And so specifically the question was um asked about uh Max Blumenthal his the the piece that he wrote in the Grey Zone and his interview with Tim Dylan. And I I say this wholeheartedly by prefacing that I am a fan of Max Blumenthal. I have really enjoyed and learned from much of his work and the Greyzone has done phenomenal reporting over the last couple years. Um, particularly the their coverage of the of Gaza has been excellent and uh so important and so necessary. Uh, but yeah, I thought this article was crazy. I thought it was crazy that they ran it. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe when I first read it that Blumenthal even like put his name on this thing and published the piece. It was like Judith Miller at the New York Times or something like that. Like, okay, they never came out and said Israel did it, but the whole piece was just like, huh? Huh? Get you thinking about that. Get they and with nothing. Dude, there was I mean, I don't Here, let me let me pull this. Did you read this, by the way, Rob? >> I saw that he was on uh Tim Dylan's show, but I was uh doing shows yesterday. I didn't get a chance to watch it. Uh but loosely what I've just seen on Twitter is that there's uh some oddities to the person that they finally arrested which includes that it doesn't look like he had a gun when he was climbing down the fact that he >> Yes. Let's look let's let's get into all of that in a second. But just to be clear here, right? So this is um in in the midst of all of this, the people theorizing that Israel did it. The title of the piece is Charlie Kirk refused Netanyahu funding offer was quote frightened by pro-Israel forces before death friend reveals. Now a title like that is again this is the type of stuff that we would have called out the New York Times for. Judith Miller never tech never technically said Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. She just like totally left it for you to be the one who, you know, like put that those dots together and went like, "Oh, look at the clearly the implication here is that and then would not publish the things that totally contradicted uh you know like like uh there was the dude um was his name Albreight, right? was Aldridge. Aldrich who was like the like worldleading nuclear inspector guy and he totally debunked like one of the propaganda pieces that the New York Times was running with and even there was a piece in the Washington Post where they ran that he had debunked it and he called Judith Miller and goes you can put me on the record as like the foremost expert here that this is just not true like I can prove that this is wrong and she just didn't run it and then when John Stewart asked her about it she went no I included that in the piece and she goes no you didn't. And then in the piece, it's like she said like other experts disagreed and and he's like, "Yeah, but why didn't you quote this worldrenowned expert who called you and said, "Put me on the record." And Judith Miller's response was, "Um, I think it got cut for space. Isn't that Isn't that convenient? That seems like a pretty important part of the article to cut for space, you know?" But so it's like that. Look, dude, they have a And again, I don't want to beat up on Max Blumenthal anymore. I I really do admire the guy in many ways. But there's that whole section of the article. Okay, the bottom section of the article is titled the Israel did it theory. Okay, that's what it's called, the Israel did it theory. And then where is it? Um on the second paragraph, the first sentence reads, "There is currently no evidence of an Israeli government role in Kirk's assassination. However, that has not stopped thousands of social media people. But like that one sentence means there shouldn't be a section called the Israel did it theory. Like you can't you can't have a whole section called like the Israel did it just stoking it and then casually admit in there that you have zero ev. Look, I mean, look what you have here is that one guy said that Charlie one guy off the record said or you know, one anonymous guy said Charlie Kirk sure was scared of the Israelis. It's like, okay, that's that's interesting. It's quite possibly true. Um, and it also quite possibly could be completely true. And that in no way implies that Israel did this. It's just I know people like connecting these dots, but like sometimes they don't connect. It's not the case that because you were in a tense relationship where you may have even feel uh felt threatened, that doesn't prove that that's the person who did anything to you. And you know, I guess one of the things that's that's weird about this is that I am personally kind of a central figure in uh this theory. like I'm, you know, like the the thing is that Charlie, and this is def, this part's definitely true, and we could kind of get into all of this. Um, but the part that's true is that, yeah, Charlie Kirk took a lot of heat for having me and Tucker and Megan Kelly saying the [ __ ] she was saying, but he took particularly a lot of heat for hosting me at his last big event. um and that he had talked about this on podcast that a lot of people on the pro-sina side were very upset about that and he stuck to his guns and defended that you know so like that part is true that dynamic was going on. Now you've got some people some insiders saying he was legitimately really scared of them and and even some people saying he feared for his life. Um, and like, okay, that's an interesting that is enough of a nugget to go, I sure would love to look into that more, but that's about all you got. Again, that's not uh exonerating anybody, but but to your point or as you were saying before, from what we have right now, the o the the the which is not much, but the evidence that we have points toward this was a radicalized young lefty kid who who went out and did this. that that's what that's what most of us now if we can get some type of MSAD connection to that family if we can get some type of like oh here's a a new piece of information there I'm all ears but to just jump in and and the funny thing here Rob is that like and to I I guess in this sense I get where that person was going like oh it's courageous of me it's not because I don't lose anything from doing this but obviously on a purely like just reading the temperature right now on a purely business move. It would be like I would be incentivized to just jump into this thing as one of the central figures in it and go, "Yeah, dude. Charlie was telling me too that he was turning on Israel." But this is just not true. It's just not like I I don't know. And and what I was comparing to um Alridge, I think Alridge. Anyway, what I was comparing to uh Judith Miller leaving out that part in the New York Times that like they speculated in the article about like, oh, oh, Charlie Kirk had said this and he had said that, which is like it's true to some degree, but you're leaving out all the other [ __ ] he said in that period of time, too. And I thought there was so many people were like really spinning that Ben Shapiro interview. Like I don't know if you saw that making its rounds on on Twitter, Rob, but like there Yeah, dude. When you put dramatic music in and you just play Charlie Kirk's questions, a few of the questions make it sound like, oh, he But if you actually go watch the interview and you actually can try your best to take your con your mind out of how we're viewing the situation now and put yourself into how we were viewing it last week or what, two weeks ago when they did the interview and there you could see the whole thing, Rob, right? It was the whole dynamic that was there, which just to me this just explains almost all of this was that Charlie Kirk, unlike all these other guys, right? So Charlie Kirk runs Turning Point USA. Turning Point USA is the biggest like college campus conservative activist Republican group. So his job is to funnel young people into voting for Republicans, right? Like that's what Charlie Kirk's in the business of doing. So Charlie Kirk now, he's not Ben Shapiro and he's not Dave Rubin and he's not Jordan Peterson. He's not any of those other guy. He's got a different thing that he's got to do. He has to deal with the young right-wingers every day. That's his job. He's got to deal with that 20-year-old right-wing, you know, member of the Republican club at their college activist and keep them on board. Now, activists, for anyone who's been involved in politics at all, especially talking college campus activists, this is like you're not going to get paid if you're getting paid at all. You're you're you're getting nothing if you're getting paid. You're getting, you know, peanuts and you're going to work your ass off for this cause. That's what you need to run something like Turning Point USA. What you need is the young activist class. These are your most loyal people because they are truly motivated. Like these are, you know, Charlie Kirk's got some 20-year-old out there who like is like to the core of his body like Jesus Christ is his Lord and Savior and Jesus Christ blessed the United States of America and its constitution and this republic is in trouble and we need to get these signatures in order to achieve this large. Like you need people who believe that hard that they'll go collect signatures in the rain or canvas at events or you know do all the all the things that you have to do to be this type of organization. And he's his young base he is bleeding right now. like the his he he is a a guy who supports Israel and his the young people are just they are abandoning Israel at in at rapid a rapid rate like a crazy pace. The the support for Israel has evaporated. We talked all about this after I went to that event and did it. And so right there that's the dynamic. Charlie Kirk was caught between a rock and a hard place and that was his donors and his base. and he had to keep both. In order to do Turning Points USA, you have to have both. You got to have billionaires backing you and you got to have young activists who are that passionate about doing the work. Otherwise, the whole thing can't happen. And so to the Ben Shapiro interview, what it clearly is, if you see that, it's not uh Charlie turning on Israel. It's Charlie going, "Hey, Ben, I'm talking to the kids and the kids all say ethnic cleansing. What do you say? And then Ben Shapiro gives you five minutes of Hasbro [ __ ] And then he goes, now you know when I talk to the kids, they say this, five minutes of Hasbro [ __ ] H there's not one tough follow-up question. There's not the clear goal of the thing is to steer you back toward supporting Israel. So like just don't don't lie to me and don't lie to other people, you know, like that's not like is it maybe raise a little bit of an eyebrow that he's act he actually said the words ethnic cleansing and he actually brought up like how can Benjamin Netanyahu uh um you know say that you're not MAGA if you don't support Israel? Isn't that [ __ ] up? It's like, okay, yes, it's maybe it raises an eyebrow, but look, if we're being critical here, that's clearly just explained away by the fact that it's like you got to address. He's basically going to Ben Shapiro, you have to give me something to address what they are saying here. He needs an argument back, which he does not have. You know, like again, I just think it's incumbent on all of us if we want to know the truth, if we want to be clear-headed thinkers, especially for someone like us when there's a story that confirms your bias. You got to scrutinize it that much more. You can't and especially when you're jumping to a wild theory. And even as somebody I think Netanyahu is the devil and Israel is like the the most evil regime. It's just goddamn inexcusable what they've done to the Palestinian people for 60 years, but really for the last two is particularly inexcusable. But do I really think that the MSAD shot Charlie Kirk in the next in the neck publicly executing it? I got a tough time believing that man. Like this isn't like his funding dried up and the ADL wrote a hit piece about him or something, you know? Like this is really they would do that. I gotta say that's pretty far-fetched, man. And you're going to have to have a real piece of they're there to get me thinking that's what happened. All right, guys. Let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is My Patriot Supply. I love this company and you're going to want to pay attention right now because September is National Preparedness Month. 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Go check it out at myatriotsupply.com/pro for the full details. That's myatriotsupply.com/pro. All right, let's get back into the show. Any thoughts, Rob? >> Well, I I agree with all with all of that. Um, there's uh another thing top of mind. I'm curious your thoughts on this cuz I've been thinking about this uh a lot. I guess uh when the incident first happened, I was on a phone call with a friend and I said it's for sure going to be some young radicalized 20-year-old and he goes, "You're wrong. There was some old guy who was originally taken in." Now, I'm of the belief that uh you know, words are not violence and uh if somebody's inspired to violence because of your words, that's a crazy individual. And you've had that on both the uh left and right of people making statements and then the other side going, look, you're inspiring people to violence. And I'm not of the belief that the words that you say uh uh necessarily, particularly in comedy, but I I don't think you can attribute violence to people's words or uh fault when other people act um violently. I do see a big problem at the moment which is um like you know I've watched these videos of these people kind of celebrating uh Charlie Kirk's death >> and what's interesting when you do that is that you out yourself as being okay with violence being used towards other people. Um, and I'm seeing like just a bad circle that almost just needs to be disrupted here of people on the left who have decided that just right-wing individuals are violent towards them. The same way that like if someone was out there preaching full-scale socialism, I could understand why someone might come to the conclusion of, oh, this guy's going to repossess my house if he gets elected. He's being violent towards me. And so it seems like because of rhetoric that's been used of transcancellation or whatever else, some people feel like violence towards people on the right is actually appropriate. And now in coming out and basically indicating the fact that they're okay with violence, they're also inviting violence on themselves because you're saying, "Hey, I'm okay with violence being used against people that have different opinions or different words than what I do." And now I don't think that anyone who's used language and articles that inspires crazy people who may or may not be trans or tied to the trans community to go and be violent are responsible for their violence. But I do just kind of see a like a dark trend here, which is like I'm kind of putting words to what I found so alarming about Charlie being killed, which is we're now jumping into like a new territory of kind of uh horror for society, which is instead of just engaging convers in conversation, people who don't like your words being like, "Well, you're not allowed to speak those words." But like without attributing violence to words, I just see like kind of a dark cycle here of uh people being more inclined or thinking it's appropriate to use violence because they just think that other pe like it's just the it's like the planet of the apes fear of other. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, look, I mean, there's, you know, it's one of those things where like the the negative kind of gets more attention than the positive because it's a bigger story. So, like there they're also I don't want it to be lost that like there's also like tons of videos of people and I've seen videos of like leftists and and liberals alike being like, "Hey dude, like if you're like celebrating this, you're not on my side, you know, like and this like that's just like having basic humanity." Um, but there's no question. I mean, it's Yeah, there's there's a really there's there's a disturbing rot that has been revealed. You know, I was listening um the other day to uh um Provoked, which is the new podcast, which the my favorite new podcast out there with uh Scott Horton and Daryl Cooper, who obviously are both, you know, the those are those are our guys. Um, but their their last episode was really interesting. And you know, Daryl brought up it one time and I can't remember the um I can't remember the source on it, but if you go look at the if you go watch the episode, he he gave it, but I can't like remember it to quote it, but it was something where it was like I think one of the biggest like mental health surveys. Um like I think I remember him saying like it was like 600,000 people or something. was like this gigantic like medical survey where they found um like it was just talking about the rates of mental illness among young people and I think it was something like it was it was around 25% of like uh people under 30 reported uh that they had like had strong suicidal thoughts within the last few weeks and had considered suicide within the last six months or like something like I don't remember the exact numbers but it was like something like that a quarter of young people were like quasi suicidal and this number is way up from from previous surveys. Uh and you know there is a thing where like you kind of I think that like a a statistic like that should have been a like you know stop the record everything comes to a screeching halt. we go, this now becomes the number one issue that our society is focused on. Like this is the number one news story. And just like nothing like that happens. It's just kind of like, yeah, hey, I guess we all got to take it as a given that our uh our society sure does drive a lot of people crazy these days. And I just think like, you know, it's a we sit here and cover this stuff all the time, but you can't like um you can't understate how much like we've driven a lot of people crazy over the last few years by making some really crazy situations uh around them. And and I think the real the true ugly part of that was was revealed with a lot of that stuff. You know, there's an interesting conversation. I'm kind of interesting uh to get your take on this because this is an issue that I've been you know struggling a little bit with and and thinking about but you know there's been an effort uh I guess several of these people who made videos like and we're talking regular people here but clearly regular kind of you know disturbed people and there's there's been several of them who have gotten fired now for you know because people find out who they are find out where they work send it to their employer and they get them fired and you Then there's some people going, "Hey, this is like cancel culture or whatever." You know, I I also remember um well, I saw the there was like a kind of prominent uh lefty um journalist who I like uh who got called out for like being hypocritical on this cuz she was basically saying like, "Oh, you're you're getting people fired now. Like we don't have free speech about Charlie Kirk anymore." And then they they found a video where she had been saying after that I don't know if you ever saw uh Medi Hassan went on that Jubilee roundt thing and there were like a couple of guys there who were like just openly identifying as fascists and you know I don't remember like the de I don't know how like into like Hitler was great they got but I I just saw that and that and that guy got fired from his job as she had celebrated that guy getting fired but now she was critical of these people. people like pointing that out. And I think that like the truth is when cancel culture is out of control, it's very easy for the people who are against that to claim they're free speech absolutists. when it actually comes down to it, most people, you know, actually do have probably like their own line and they have their own thing that like, oh, if you were to do that, I actually am for you being, you know, like I I just don't think like if we're just being really honest with ourselves here, right? We obviously and I'm even leaving aside like say the take the government angle out of it because obviously the government had a big part of you know censoring people and cancel culture and all that stuff but you know we objected not just to the fact that they were kicking people off uh social media. We objected that they were kicking people off for telling the truth about a really important thing. If they had just said like, "Hey, if you if the rule was like, hey, if you advocate for pedophilia or something like that, then you get kicked off of every single social media platform." Like, I'd actually be kind of okay with that. Like, yeah, okay, fine. That's a reasonable enough thing. Anyway, I guess I just say all of this to go on on one hand, I I like to always be against the cancel culture stuff. I certainly am not going to try to get anyone fired even for making a video in really poor taste. Um, on the other hand, like if you you know, I we we had this recently where someone we knew did that thing where they sang the Kanye song and then they got fired from their job and I kind of like just was like, "Yeah, dude. Well, I don't know. Like if you got a if you got a corporate job, maybe you can't go shout the N-word on social media." I don't know. I mean, I don't I don't think that's the most crazy unreasonable standard. And you know, this I don't think about this much, but like there is a moral standard that I would have that I wouldn't work that I would fire someone over. It'd be pretty out there, but like like for like I don't care what Natalie's politics are. I know they deviate from my own. I know we don't have the same views on everything and I would never even think about that as like an issue in terms of working together with someone, but like I don't know if yeah, if I found out that like Natalie was advocating for pedophilia, which to my knowledge she only does privately. Um, but if I found that out, yeah, that would probably be a dealbreaker. Like I don't think we can work together anymore. And so anyway, I just I guess I see and I'm curious your take on this, but I see there being an argument that like there there should be some type of penalty like socially for that type of antisocial behavior. Like a goddamn a goddamn peaceful Christian is is uh publicly murdered in front of his wife and young children and you're gloating about that. I mean, I don't know. Oh, I'm having trouble feeling bad for you getting fired for doing that publicly. It's just you're just you just got fired for publicly being an awful person. I I don't know. What do What are your thoughts, Rob? >> All right. I I this has been swirling around in my head quite a bit. So, uh to all the fans out there, don't hold me to this opinion because I really got to I got to dwell on this. And I got >> I kind of feel the same way about my thoughts, too. Like struggling with this. >> I really got to give it a lot more thought. Uh the idea of social credit scores and the idea of cancel culture scares me and it's particularly because mostly it's been weaponized against my political viewpoints and I could have seen even though you know I was just mostly shadowbanned or stripped for content over COVID. I don't work a corporate job and I there's a good chance if I had a corporate job and I was out here talking about how, you know, the vaccines are dangerous that I could have been fired from my job because you're spewing, you know, you're anti-science or whatever else. Um, so I'm against like the concept of cancel culture because it is typically influenced by government or historically it's been used for um nefarious means. With that said, I understand also that there are some things that are so socially unacceptable that if you want to broadcast that viewpoint online, I can understand why an employer would no longer want to have you hired. Um, and I also understand that it almost seems important to educate people that some opinions are so socially unacceptable that maybe we scare people out of having those opinions. It's almost like a fair market mechanism of like educating people for you're proviolence against someone who is using words to bring people towards Christian and conservatism. Like that's you know what I mean? Like something's missing in your worldview that not only were you okay with this, but you didn't keep that opinion private. I mean, that's at the level if you if someone from your office decided that they wanted to be a Nazi and they're online making YouTube videos, hail Hitler, Holocaust never happened, we need to kill more Jews. If someone sent that to an employer and the guy got fired, like, and I even feel that way, but like listen, I I'm I'm very into make whatever the hell joke you want to make. Whatever joke you want to make, go ahead and you make that joke. But if you're an open mic comedian and you decide to make a school shooting joke right after a school shooting thing happened, for one, it better be a really funny joke because otherwise, you know, why are you exploring that territory unless you have a really funny joke? But even if you have an extremely funny joke, you probably shouldn't have a corporate job. Like if someone sends that to your employer and your employer's like, "Yeah, well that doesn't fit our office landscape, you know, I don't know. Whoever sent that video to your boss is probably a dick. But like I don't think your >> I don't think your office is wrong for not having you. >> Yeah. I would also like I would hate to see you know I guess I do you know I got to think some of this stuff through myself but like there's something about like if you were making the joke at a comedy club like there's something where it's like you did this in an environment where people went into it knowing that this is an environment to do jokes and push boundaries and stuff. There is a little bit something different about like making a video, putting it online with the intention being that someone who really cared about Charlie Kirk will see this. You know what I mean? Like the intention being that like I'm going to really just the in the most despicable way attempt to trigger somebody who like just lost someone that they loved. It's just, you know, you're making yourself very hard to defend at that point. I'll say that much. Um, uh, we're we're trying, but you're making it tough. Um, all right. Anyway, so I want to talk a little bit more. I'm trying to think of what other >> so just but on that one I got to give it more thought because I hate I hate um >> I hate cancel culture and I hate the idea of kind of the marketplace and social credit scores and someone being able to influence hey this guy is socially unacceptable and then therefore rights or otherwise being like stripped from you which might even include just being able to access or go to a business. Um, the particular usage in this case, while I'm not engaging or encouraging it, I fully understand kind of a market mechanism for if you're online and you're celebrating that a dude was killed over um that you don't agree with him and at the end of the his root message, even though I don't agree with him on Israel or whatever else, like he was, you know, I don't know, we we live in a bad culture. Kids aren't getting married. The guy was a Christian conservative. We probably need more of that message. And if you're so like happy about what happened and you think that you live amongst other people that are also going to like celebrate you for coming out and thinking this is great. I I like I don't know in this particular usage I just think like it's pro you probably shouldn't be able to work your corporate job. It's probably a cleansing mechanism to educate people to the fact like that is a socially unacceptable perspective to have. Um, but I got to give it some thought cuz like uh I I don't I just don't want to advocate for cancel culture. >> Yeah. No, listen, I understand I understand where you're coming from. I'm like, as I said when I brought up the subject, I'm I'm conflicted on the issue uh myself. All right, guys. Let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Crowd Health, a company I've been telling you guys about for many years. I love what they're doing. 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And remember, for that deal, $80 a month for the first three months, you got to use the promo code POTP. Crowd Health is not insurance. Opt out. Take your power back. This is how we win. I do, however, want to uh before we we end, I do kind of want to maybe here's a con a conspiracy theory that I do uh believe, not exactly a conspiracy theory, but a a major concern of mine with all of this. And of course, certainly in some weird way, it does seem like the powers that be are almost doing everything they can to fan the flames of some Israel conspiracy. I don't know if you saw Donald Trump tweeting that image with Charlie Kirk and the Israeli flag was just very bizarre. Um, of course, Marco Rubio goes over to kiss the wall and do a big photo just to just to remind everybody in this moment that our at the highest levels of our government, they are still forced to perform this humiliation ritual of sorts. Um, and uh, Benjamin Netanyahu of course is jumping on uh, on this. And it does seem that, okay, while I still do not see any coherent theory or evidence uh, that Israel was involved in this at all, I'll gladly acknowledge if any is presented. Um, the best I've seen that they got so far, by the way, which is a, you know, a fair enough thing to say, hey, this is like I'm I'll raise an eyebrow at this, too. But that guy, the old guy who was there, like I guess evidently has like I gotta go like double check that this is right, but I guess he like he was involved in like um like reporting a a bomb threat at a marathon in Utah like shortly after the Boston bombing. And I guess he also called authorities and said he was a witness to the World Trade Center getting hit with an airplane or something like that. And I'll I'll grant that it did kind of look like oh once they let him go like maybe there was some type of decoy guy to let the real shooter get away or something like that. I just also like I've been to a lot of political events and they almost always have like some old kind of crazy people there like and and it's not that wild to me that like a crazy guy who was involved in these crazy things before was crazy and was there and when crazy guy saw a dude merckked right in front of him he started acting crazy. Like I just I don't know but like that's also not it's not conclusive but it is enough to raise an eyebrow. Anyway, what there's no question that, you know, and I used to get this all the time when I would argue with truthers who would always point to the fact that the neocons exploited the [ __ ] out of 9/11 as proof that they did 9/11. But I would always just be like, "Yeah, but that doesn't follow." Like, one doesn't prove the other. Like, yes, I'm with you. They clearly exploited the [ __ ] out of it. That doesn't mean they did it. That's not evidence pointing to the fact that they did it. Um, and people will they get, like I said, they get sloppy with this [ __ ] They're like, "Who benefits?" I hear everyone on Twitter saying that. Like, first of all, it's not clear at all that Israel benefits from this. They're going to try their best because of course whether they did it or didn't do it, they're going to try their best to benefit from it. But just on the face of it and also I don't know blowing, you know, blowing away publicly the the number one moderate right-winger who still talks to young people doesn't seem like on its face that's clearly going to end up in Israel's favor, by the way. Um, in fact, I would be willing to bet it doesn't. But I do think they are absolutely and you could already see Donald Trump's doing this is that they're stoking the flames toward it's this problem with the left. The left the radical left Rob is what they're all going to kind of zero in on now. And like if anything from our government has demonstrated over the last couple years, but really since Donald Trump's been in there. But like, do I even have to tell you? Like, it's going to target the pro Palestine movement. That's who they're going to try to use this energy to to try as much as they can to clamp down on the group that's been giving them a lot of trouble for it. And uh you know, there's it's you already saw this with our immigration policy totally being hijacked to just be about deporting critics of Israel who don't have citizenship. even if they're here legally, deport them for that. Um, and I just that that's really a concern of mine, too, that you like now you get the crackdown uh and and this crackdown of course is going to be used in the way that government power seems to always be uh used or or quite often at least. And so that I do think is a real concern, you know. And then I've already seen like I'll try to find for the next episode more of the clips, but I've already seen like several Republicans who you could see it's like coded language, but you know exactly what they're talking about. I have Benjamin Netanyahu himself. I talk about you know and like I was saying last night on a a stream, but like it's not Benjamin Netanyahu is not a cook, right? He's just a [ __ ] liar. But you see him getting on there and saying it was a Muslim like right away. It's like right away just started talking about radical Islam and how this is a problem of radical Islam that both Israel and America have to deal with. How much was he just rooting for? Yeah. First of all, if it was Israel, they'd have had a Muslim do it. Let me tell you that much. If it was Israel, they would have found one Muslim uh to be the guy who does it because that's what Netanyahu was rooting for. Um but anyway, I do get concerned about that. And then one final thought and then you could have the last word Rob, but then just one final thought is I also think of the official story which I with all these things you're kind of if there's one guarantee in them the guarantee is that the official story will be [ __ ] Um but the official story like even now is like Cash Patel is out there just like he's like celebrating the FBI and bragging about what a great job they did but then like according to the official story like no police work was involved at all. It's like the guy's dad just like decided to turn him in. That is the That's the story of There's absolutely nothing of like we did this, this, and this, then that led to this. You're like, "Oh, you guys got lucky. You lost the freaking guy." Like you got lucky, and then now you're like, you know, anyway, Cash Mattel is is saying right now that he's got a whole bunch of proof. Um, and uh, you know, that they found a towel, they've got DNA and all this stuff. Uh, I gotta say like at this point in time, I don't think anyone's going to believe what the FBI says. I don't think anyone's going to believe what Israel says. But for people who listen to this show, I think we should just especially especially in moments like this. You want to keep a good head on your shoulders and actually look for like what we know, what the real evidence is, and uh and move from there. But anyway, final word to you, Rob. Well, amidst the FBI storyline, which yes, uh does include that the dad just called them, so there was no great police work, and now the police work is in putting together the evidence. There's still just oddities in the story that the original pict