Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray

Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day. Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. All right, we're up. Ladies and gentlemen, good to see you guys. What's happening? Are you going no headphones? Oh, keep the do. I'll do I'm not quite sure what they add, but yeah. There we go. All right. Uh the goal of this is every time I see people that disagree with anything that's happening, any gigantic world events, it's one of these [ __ ] shows where there are screaming. There's the word again. We brought it. We were just talking about that. The word [ __ ] is back and it's one of the great culture victories that I think is spurred on probably by podcast. But um these things are always like Pierce Morgan, which is fine, you know, where everyone's screaming over each other and you know, there's five different people talking over each other. There's never just rational conversations where you discuss things and um I respect both of you. I think both of you are brilliant and I thought I bet you agree on a lot of things and I bet you disagree on a lot of things and it'd be fascinating to see your perspectives on these things. So that's why you're here together. Okay. And tell us, can I ask you something? Yes, sir. Since the war in Israel began and since the war in Ukraine began, you've had quite a lot of people who are very against both in different ways. Yes. Do you think you've had enough people on who are supportive of either war? I don't know that word enough, if that's a good word. Um, let's say on let's say enough people who are on the side of Israel instead of wild critics of Israel. Well, I've had a few. I mean, I believe God Sad is is on the side of Israel. Um, for sure. Jordan is on the side of Israel. Um, you had uh Mike Baker, Coleman Hughes. Yeah. Coleman did it for like 20 minutes. It wasn't why he was here. No, I mean, none of them. And none of them is why they're here, you know? It's a good question. Do you think you've tilted one way? Um, me personally? No, no, no. Just with the guest. The guest? Yeah, probably more tilted towards the idea that perhaps the way they've done it is barbaric. Mhm. But why do you think that is? Just out of I just interested in your selection of guests because you're like the world's number one podcast. Yeah. It's not I don't I don't think about it that way. I just think I'd like to talk to this person. But can I just Sorry, it's your show. Sure. If you're going to interview historians of the conflict or historians in general, Mhm. why would you get somebody like Ian Carol or Yeah. But Ian Carol, I didn't bring him on for that purpose. I brought him on because I want to find out like how's one get involved in the whole conspiracy theory business cuz his whole thing is just conspiracies. Sure. you know, but do you have any uh I mean there's been a tilt in the conversation in both conversations in the last couple of years and it's largely to do with people who have appointed themselves experts who are not experts. You mean like Ian? I don't think he appoints himself an expert in anything. Who's that other dude who thinks he's an expert on Churchill? Daryl. Oh, Daryl Cooper does not think he's an expert. In fact, I think it's everybody else is always calling him an expert and he's like, I'm just a history. Have you ever absorbed any of his material? Have you ever consumed any of his podcasts or anything like that? I tried. Yeah. It's pretty hard to listen to somebody who says, "I don't know what I'm talking about, but now I'm going to talk or I don't know about this or I'm not capable of debating this historian, but I'm going to just tell you what I think." Yeah. But that's not exactly that's not exactly what Daryl was saying. I mean Daryl's point of view, however you feel about this, Daryl, what Daryl is saying is he doesn't really like doing debates. He likes to do long format stuff where he can really explain his position. If you throw a lot of [ __ ] out there, there's some point at which I'm just raising questions is not a valid thing. You're not raising questions. You're not asking questions. You're telling people something. Do you think Daryl's doing that? I think there's a whole bunch of guys doing that. I think Dave is doing that very obviously. Dave's a comedian, but he's now mainly talking about Israel. No, I don't know if I'm mainly talking about Israel. That's all I see. Yeah, but that's Well, that might be what you've seen. I don't think that's But that is also your stick now, isn't it? Well, what do you mean by that's my shtick? Well, you're not a geopolitics guy in general, are you? I don't even know exactly what you're asking. I'm saying you've decided being a comedian, you've decided now to become somebody who talks about Israel. I don't I think you're incorrect. I don't think it's a decision. I just think you have long form conversations, multiple of them. It's a huge event that's in the news, so it comes up. I don't think it's a thing. I think if you're on the outside, you'd say, "Oh, look, they're trying to get attention by talking about this very polarizing issue publicly." That's they do. You do get attention from that. If you'd spent the last year speaking about Myanmar, you would not be on my lips. Yeah, but he does talk about Yemen constantly. He talks about a lot of things that aren't in the news. Well, I tend I tend to talk about the conflicts that my government is directly involved in, which I think is reasonable to me, but I don't quite get like what's all the appeal to authority stuff. I mean, what you have to be an expert or I think authority matters. I think authority matters. And I think that if you just throw a lot of [ __ ] out there and then say I'm I'm not interested in the alternative views on this and particularly when it's a counternarrative that is wildly off and when you get people with this look I I just feel we should get it out straight away. I feel you've opened the door to quite a lot of people who've now got a big platform who have been throwing out counterhistorical stuff of a very dangerous kind. You mean Daryl? Are you talking about Daryl? Daryl. Who's the other one? I don't think Daryl has anything dangerous. What's the other guy? Derek. Uh, what's his name? Cooper, is it? Which one is it? Darylary. Who's the other one? Uh, there was one I just checked before on the way here. Daryl Cooper, and then Oh, yeah. Daryl Cooper, Ian Carol. Look, the these guys are not historians. They're not knowledgeable about anything. No one's calling Ian Carol. No, but then why listen to their views on Churchill? Daryl is incredibly knowledgeable. It's just not. He's not. He's wildly several reasons. One is when he was offered to debate the current greatest living biographer of Churchill, he said, "I can't because he knows much more than me and I admire his work and I've learned from it, but I I can't possibly debate him." That's Andrew Roberts. But you don't have to be able to debate people to have opinions. No, no, you don't have to debate people if it's not your thing. But if you, for instance, Well, okay. But if you say, "I've decided that Churchill is the bad guy in the It's not what he said." It's not what he said. Neither Carol nor Cooper have said that. Well, listen, I don't know what Carol said, but Daryl Cooper has not said that. What he said was he he jokes with his friend Jo, who's an Anglo-Saxon. He jokes with him. You know, I think that Churchill was the secret villain of World War II. And what what he's saying is by Churchill's actions, the war escalated. He's not he's not he's not saying anything. He's not just asking questions then, is he? No, but the claim isn't that he's just asking questions. Yeah, he has a point of view. You can explain this better. He literally says he said in the comment he goes, "Listen, I'm being hyperbolic." And then he once again uh uh disclaimed. He goes, "And I'm not claiming Church Hill committed the most atrocities or was the worst part, but in many ways I do view view him as the chief villain is my hyperbolic provocative statement." But but the point of that well okay but Pat Buchanan wrote an entire book on this. Is he not allowed is he not an expert? Is he not allowed to be He's certainly not an expert. He can be interviewed. I've watched Pat Buchanan debate I watched Pat Buchanan debate against Churchill historians and he was absolutely leveled because he doesn't know what he's talking about. When did he when did Pat Buchanan debate and get leveled? About 20 years ago. I'm just he debated against Andrew Roberts and several other historians at the intelligence squ in London. I was there. He didn't know what he was talking about. He had a contrary view and it was interesting and stimulating to hear. But if you only get the contrary view, which is, isn't it fun if we all pretend Churchill was the bad guy of the 20th century? At some point, you're going to lead people down a path where they think that's the view. And that's horseshit of the most profound kind. I don't think that's what he's trying to do. I think that's exactly what they're doing. And the problem is is that because you I mean your own platform has come about because you're a very successful comedian and much more and you do ask questions and you are interested but there are a lot of people who have come along partly I think because they've come on this show who have come along and they've decided I can play this double game. On the one hand, I'm going to push really edgy and frankly sometimes horrific opinions, and then if you say that's wrong, they say I'm a comedian. But wait a minute, what do I what am I what how can you tell me I'm just a comedian? I'm just throwing stuff out. What horrific opinions that's wrong are you talking about specifically? Once guys like this get into very obvious stuff, which is guys like Daryl, the ones I'm describing, you need to listen to Daryl to really understand what he's saying. If you take his Daryl's words out of context, Daryl has some of the most nuanced, balanced, and charitable views on all the figures in in in history. Well, particularly Hitler, it seems. No, no, you're wrong. You're wrong. He doesn't. He has a What did he call him? How did he describe him? I think he compared him to a a methout psychopath who was holding an entire nation of people hostage, I believe, was the word. He also said on here that that uh he wasn't anti-Semitic until the Holocaust. There were no speeches of of Hitler's in the '9s. No, no, no. No, he said he was not public about it. He said he was downplaying it to win over He said there was a period where he was downplaying it to win over popular support in Germany. It was his argument. There is no historian of World War II who thinks that Hitler was downplaying anti-semitism in the 1930s. That was what he was doing. He wrote a book about it in the 1920s. He got to power on it and he grew his power on the back of it. The idea that you can argue that in the 1930s Adolf Hitler was downplaying the anti-semitism. Like there's no historian who would agree with that. So why would you throw out the idea that in the 1930s Hitler was not being anti-Semitic in public? That was what he was doing in public. He announces to the German Parliament what he wants to do. So when you're throwing out claims like he was keeping it down in the 1930s. First of all, what are you doing? And secondly, why? Okay. I mean, I think that it's kind of hard because I don't even know exactly what Daryl's point on that was. And so, I'm not really in a position to argue what he was saying there. I don't think you're giving him the most charitable interpretation. I don't need to give him the most charitable interpretation to be able to see. I think you're stronging him. I should say, look, anyone can look up what he said on this show and others, what these two guys in particular have said on repeated podcasts with both of you. It's an attempt to downplay Hitler and always to do down church. I don't think you ever play. No, I said in conversations with you and others, this is thetick of these guys. They've decided it's edgy and funny. And I think this is very very interesting and also very dangerous because we live in an in an era now that the right has got some mojo back in America. We saw years of crazy left overreach where they tried to make us all say the craziest things and completely predictably there are now figures on the right playing with really dark and ugly stuff on their side. I agree with they are mainstreaming this. I think it's partly being mainstreamed by the two people I just described and both of you have kept speaking to these people and you don't get on the historians who know about this and that that that's just alarming to me. Well, can I just say so because I I kind of do agree with part of what you said there. Like I do think it is true that almost as a reaction to like the woke insanity that we've seen on the left and I think literally I think nobody's been a more effective critic of that than you. I do think there has kind of been a right-wing reaction that has embraced uh racialism and is is dangerous and not a good path to and now they're flirting with Holocaust denial and Hitler and absolving Hitler. I think you're wrong to include Daryl in that group. Now, the other thing is I I'm sorry cuz maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. You're saying people that I've had conversations with have downplayed the Holocaust. Well, who are the two guys? Daryl Cooper Cooper and uh and the other Ian Carolan I've never uh podcasted with Ian Carol. I have podcasted with Daryl Cooper once and there he absolutely did not downplay any of the Nazi atrocities at all. And I would also I would I think that if we're zooming out here a little bit, maybe this is kind of part of the disconnect broadly speaking in American culture, the idea that it has not been driven into people enough that the Nazis were bad and that Adolf Hitler was a He is literally the modern devil. He is much more so than the actual devil. Adolf Hitler is what's viewed as the most evil thing to the point that I mean just my entire life growing up if there was a guy who sold soup on Seinfeld who was like authoritarian. He's a soup Nazi. Everyone was Hitler. The left called George Bush Hitler and they called Obama Hitler and they called Trump Hitler. Every single enemy that we've gone to war with in uh always called Hitler. Saddam Hussein's the new Hitler. Mahm Gaddafi is the new Hitler. Putin's the new Hitler. It is. So, so the idea that like we haven't driven into people enough that Adolf Hitler was a really bad I'm not saying that at all. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying just as the left likes to play with very dark, ugly stuff and they've done it for decades. They have done they have played down Chairman Mao's murder of the Chinese throughout his era in power. They played down Stalin. They still march on occasions with posters of Lenin. They they've spent decades trying to do down evils that were done on their side. And I would suggest that one of the things that is going on at the moment is despite or maybe because of what you just described, there are movements now on the right in America, subcultures including people who follow both of you who are very interested in playing with this absolute uh beyond the pale thing. Why somebody like Jake Shields wants to play around with Holocaust denial? Why? I I can't answer for Jake Shields. I I don't know. I would have no idea. I have no idea. I think a lot of people get captured by this by audience capture captured by their audience. Yeah. I think that's that's a thing. You get a lot of positive reinforcement from a bunch of twisted people. Well, it's also I mean it's there's something about um you know, Michael Malice had that great line. He goes, uh when you take the red pill, you're supposed to take one and not swallow the whole bottle. And I think there's like this dynamic what happens is and and of course people know the red pill is the analogy from the Matrix. the idea that you wake up to realizing that so much of the stuff you believed was [ __ ] propaganda and is all lies. And th this is a real danger when the establishment and the institutions are all caught with their pants down having sold a bunch of very consequential policies based on lies. And then once people realize that, they go, "Well, what else have they been lying to me about?" And then they almost want to look into every single thing and go, "Yeah, I think the whole thing was lies." Now, I agree with you. There's danger in that. And I think that there are some things that then people jump to conclusions that are totally wrong. But I guess I tend to look at that and go, "Well, then maybe the people with power, not random podcasters, but like the people with real power should do a better job of not lying through their [ __ ] teeth about everything." Well, maybe you have power. Maybe you have power. Both of you. We live in an era where podcasters have a lot of power. If you go on a podcast with Jake Shields and Jake Shields goes onto another podcast and says he doesn't think six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, what do you think's happening there? That's an exercise of power. Okay. Okay. A a um and I agree with you about the breakdown of trust. Absolutely. We have lived through an era where in real time we saw something called a conspiracy, the lab leak, which turns out to be true as you and others said it might be from the beginning. I find that to be very racist. And Joe, both of you. It used to be racist when we were saying that the it was likely that the CO variant had come out from the place making co especially since the exact seemed like it seemed like it was possible to us. But the point ask yourself this, who has access to your medical history? In theory, it's just you and your doctor. 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And the best part, podcast listeners can get four extra months of ExpressVPN for free at expressvpn.com/rogan or by tapping the banner. And if you're watching on YouTube, you can get your four free months by scanning the QR code on screen or by clicking the link in the description. I was I was referencing the New York Times calling the lab racist, which is just the funniest thing ever that they go, "It's racist to think that there was a sophisticated lab where they were developing like gain of function research." And they go, "No, what happened is these freaks were eating battheads." And you're like, "Wait, that's not racist. The other one was racist. pengalins. [Laughter] But that one fell apart in front of our eyes. Well, it took four years. And I've said repeatedly, it's kind of inevitable to me that if you see something that is called a racist conspiracy theory fall apart and become also what we used to call true in a few years, it's likely to blow a lot of people's minds. But the question then is, do you help those minds that have been blown blow themselves out some more by doing a whole load of other conspiracy stuff? Do you decide to go, hey, what else have we been lied to? Maybe Churchill wasn't a great guy. Maybe Hitler wasn't such a bad guy. Maybe the Holocaust, etc. No one is saying maybe Hitler wasn't such a bad guy. You are saying that in the 1930s Hitler kept the anti-semitism down. No, no, no, no. That's not what he's saying. What? What he was saying is that he didn't do it as publicly. He was doing it in meetings because he the support for that kind of thinking wasn't as ubiquitous as it was. Is I've seen this. I've seen this before. I know exactly what these guys are drinking. They're drinking a couple of very very discredited historians like David Irving and they are just regurgitating it. And it was always been the same thing. It is always an attempt to minimize Hitler's anti-semitism actions. Eventually down the road you get to minimizing his actual involvement in the Holocaust. And then you can go to say that about Daryl. What you're what you're guilty of here is kind of similar to I think something that the woke left has done which is this concept creep where you're talking about some people online who are doing this thing and then you're lumping in other people with them. Listen, I I'll just say this right now. Daryl Cooper is currently, I believe, almost finished or he's working on a big World War II uh series. And when this comes out, it gonna be on. We can see we Yeah, he does long form podcasts. When when this comes out, I am quite confident to say beforehand that if you're going into it expecting him to be downplaying the atrocities of the Nazis or downplaying the evil things that Adolf Hitler did, you're going to be disappointed. My point is, why are we even talking about this guy? Cuz you brought him up. He's Yes. because he comes on podcasts like this. My point is this is not a serious historian. He's not a historian. No, he's been he never claims to be. He's been doing these long form podcasts on these subjects for over a decade. And if you go back to 2015 and listen to Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem, it's an incredible piece. And it's how many hours long? 30 something. M and he he it literally starts from the persecution of the Jews where they're being driven out of Europe. It's like this horrific account of what happens to these people. It's what he's trying to do is paint a picture of how the world goes mad and how the world goes sideways. And he's doing it from the perspective initially of these Jewish people that are living in Europe that all of a sudden their neighbors are turning on them and they're they're being attacked. like it the it's incredibly charitable. But what he's trying to do is show what happens to human beings when they're confronted with unbelievable atrocities and how things go so incredibly sideways. Lots of people have written and spoken about that. So why is he not allowed to? I I don't understand. He is allowed to. He is allowed to. I'm saying that there is a there's a weird way in which figures like him whose ideas are not being countered when they are raised are given platform after platform to spread their their views. They are welcome to those platforms. I'm not saying they shouldn't be platformed. I'm saying these are very very fringe figures who are pushing ideas that are either debunked now, have been debunked before, or they will not stand up against somebody who disagrees with them. Okay. I I would just say maybe this is the disconnect here when you say there's like not push back. Daryl's one line on Tucker Carlson. This one line where he himself said he was being hyperbolic and kind of says this to prod his buddy got more push back than any one line I've ever heard on a podcast. There were numerous articles written by historians, numerous shows that covered it. People went through there were Twitter threads about it. So I don't exactly get your point like there was lots of push back. If you're saying he should go and debate somebody who's giving him push back on that, okay, maybe. I also think it's reasonable for him to say, "I don't really do debates." Yeah. I think it's weird to mainstream very fringe views constantly and not give another side. I think that's weird. Well, I mean, okay, I think there's a little bit of a contradiction here. You're saying now that there these are fringe views, but then you're also saying that these are enormously powerful. No, no, there's no contradiction. Let me clear it up. If you think there is, I think there are very fringe views that have become mainstreamed on the right. But then aren't they not fringe by definition? Sure, you can play an epistemological game with No, I'm just No, I'm just saying what's behind you do understand the concept, don't you? That fringe ideas become mainstreamed. Okay. Sure. So that's it. Okay. I still I'm not exactly sure. So you're saying that what Joe shouldn't have Daryl Cooper on? I'm saying that that there will have that if you mainstream very very fringe views which are easily able to be debunked if you if you if you mainstream them at some point that view that was so fringe will be what eager very uh um disconnected unhappy people are going to start playing with too. And if if these people are such experts in how you see a society go weird, they can look at what is happening to a portion of the right everywhere on this stuff. There is a portion of the right across the West that is playing this very dark game and they're doing it deliberately and you can't not be aware of that. I agree with that. I don't think Daryl Cooper is doing that. But I do agree with your your characterization. I think it's a pretty important distinction there. You're just taking this one statement and then this where he's trying to joke around with his buddy. This this Churchill statement and this is this is the basis of this. He and these other guys are all doing the anti-churchial stuff now. But he's not doing an anti-churchial stuff. He and the other in the orbit was the author of this whole operation unthinkable, right? Where they wanted to use the Nazis to invade Russia. Wasn't that Churchill? Is that not true? We're going to have to get into the weeds on Churchill. There is always going to be a corner, which you can get me on, on a bit of Churchill, but you have you'd have to say which a comprehensive view of Yeah. Churchill was never working with the Germans to invade Russia. No, no, no. This is a plan that was drawn up. Do you do you know about operation think? Pull it up, Jamie. Um, Operation Unthinkable was at the end of the war, I believe Churchill was concerned about the rise of of Russia in in the rise of the Soviet Union. And the the idea was, and we'll find out what the historical facts are about this, Operation Unthinkable, a name given to two related possible future war plans developed by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee against the Soviet Union during 1945. The plans were never implemented. The creation of the plans was ordered by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on May 1945 and developed by the British armed forces joint planning staff in May 1945, the end of World War II in Europe. One plan assumed a surprise attack on the Soviet forces stationed in Germany to oppose the will of the United States impose rather the will of the United States and the British Empire upon Russia. The will was qualified as a square deal for Poland, but added that that does not necessarily limit the military commitment. The assessment signed by the chief of army staff on 9 June 1945 concluded it would be beyond our power to win a quick but limited success and we would be committed to a protracted war against heavy odds. The code was Yeah, this is okay. First of all, I never do Wikipedia. Okay, we don't do Wikipedia. That's okay. That's okay. This is just what Jamie pulled up. Okay. But first of all, yes, at the end of the war, an a plan requested that wasn't seen through that suggests that after the defeat of Nazism, communism of the Soviet form is also going to be a threat to Europe was simply an evidence that I mean, it's obvious. True. It's what Churchel worried about throughout the the 40s. He worried about it in Yaltta. He worried about it everywhere. I'm sorry, but I have to return to this point that this man manages to do one of the most heroic things in human history in standing alone against evil in its most concentrate form. And he does about as much as any human being can do to save the civilized world. If you just park that and you go on to a plan in 1945 to try to counter Soviet domination of Europe, you see what I'm saying? This is this is not doing something in the round. Yeah. It's also look I mean the look I I'm not even like the ex I'm not at all the expert on World War II. Um, and I'm not like going to debate with you about World War II, but I would say that like that is there's a lot of room for nuance and disagreement with what you just said. You know, in the 20th century, we had two world wars. They're the worst thing, objectively speaking, the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of the world. And the Second World War is the biggest blood bath in human history. And it ended with handing the man who you just mentioned, Joseph Stalin, half of Europe. So listen, if you want to argue, I'm I'm Jewish in my of German descent, so like I'm not against the argument that it was the Nazis had to be defeated and that was the most important thing, but there still is just the basic facts that it was a it almost couldn't have gone worse. It was like just a nightmare for civilization. And if people want to look back at that and go, man, was there any other way this could have been handled? Was there any other way? Were there blunders that were made here? Now, personally, what I feel much more uh comfortable arguing would be that I try to blame everything I can on Woodro Wilson as much as I can because also he created the income tax on the Federal Reserve and did so much to damage my country. But I think American entry into World War I was really a disaster and imposing the Treaty of Versailles on Germany was a disaster. I also think that's kind of um fairly mainstream history. Like that's not a particularly controversial view that like imposing the Treaty of Versailles on Germany ended up in disaster. Well, no, except as Martin Amos said, the only way to not get to the Treaty of Versailles would be for Germany to win World War I. But yeah. Yeah, but we're not talking about the Nazis winning the war. We're talking about, you know, listen, I think that but but secondly, sorry, I just have to address that fundamental. You say uh the the outcome of World War II and everything that happened and it was the worst thing that's ever happened and worst thing imaginable, worst possible outcome. You said just you said worst possible outcome. Let me give you a much worst possible outcome. Hitler wins, right? Okay. Sure. Okay. So, it's not the worst possible outcome. Listen, but okay. Hitler Yes. Okay. I'm not saying you can't dream up a worse outcome. I'm saying what you had dreaming up. That's just what my country and others went through. What did end up happening was the what 60 million people died including the Holocaust and then Joseph Stalin takes half of Europe. So, okay, fine. I'm I should I'll correct that. There is a worse outcome, right? But that's not a great one. No, nobody said it was. This is like there's a very weird argument that you now hear about this the this attempt to revision this and I know why it's happening. I don't think I don't think there's anything revisionist. I think there is. this this attempt to sort of say, look, you know, at the end of World War II, what have we got? Stalin has half of Europe. What was the point? And so on. That's that's going on. That's going on. And uh there are people who are feeding it. Uh that argument is very similar. This this this particular school of as it were history is doing something that I've seen happen with American history as well, particularly with Lincoln. Lincoln's an interesting comparison to make with Churchill on this. Uh there are people who will criticize Churchill for mistakes made. Not hard to do. Quite hard not to make mistakes while fighting at a war of total annihilation against your country. Um people will say, "Oh, he didn't sort this out in 1945. You know, it's rather like Lincoln. He didn't solve every problem in the world for all time, but he solved a hell of a big problem for his time. And that requires some kind of generosity of spirit and understanding in hindsight as opposed to I will find something that he did that I wouldn't have done because if I'd have been running the uh the British Empire in 19 1939 I'd have known exactly how to do it and I'd have known how to hold the whole thing together and I'd have kept Stalin back and he'd have been great at Yaltta and like this is but I don't think anybody's saying that. Yeah, I I I agree with you. I think there is a tendency of like woke left kids to do this, but I I don't think that's what what certainly not what I'm saying and I don't think what Daryl's saying. I do also think that one of the bigger um kind of the bigger picture dynamics to all of this is that we have um at least since 9/11 been in a state of perpetual war and all of these wars have been disasters. There have been so many lies involved in selling all of them. I mean, oh, the whole Iraq war, the whole war in Afghanistan, just lying the whole way through. I mean, I remember literally having conversations with Green Berets in the middle of the war in Afghanistan, and they're like, "George W. Bush is telling you that the army we're building up there is really successful. This thing's going to fall in a week without us." And then all through the Obama administration, it's just like lie after lie after lie with disastrous wars. And so, this does create a fertile ground for people to say, "I wonder if they were lying about all these wars." Sure. Again, I'm not really trying to argue with you about World War II. I'd rather argue about these wars. I think the interesting question is whether you're busy watering it. Well, should you not talk about mistakes that were made overall? Absolutely. Okay. You should. Absolutely. I have all four going back and looking at mistakes. So, what are you what is your argument then? It's a very weird thing to go back zone in on a man say this one thing is a mistake and should characterize him and you ignore everything else. You're taking him out of context when he's when you're talking about Daryl who's done what was it 30 plus hours. So what? 30 plus hours of broadcasting. You do that in a week. UFC 314 is headed to South Beach and it won't be all glitz and glamour, but the stars will be out. Don't miss any of the action at DraftKings Sportsbook, the official sports betting partner of the UFC. It promises to be another banger of events, especially in the featherweight main event between two evenly matched fighters, Alexander Vulcganowski and Diego Lopez. It should be wild. First time, just pick something simple, like a fighter to win and make your pick. It's that simple. And if you're new to DraftKings, listen up. New customers can bet five bucks to get $150 in bonus bets instantly. Step into the octagon with DraftKings Sportsbook. 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No, but you don't you don't consume but you don't consume his work. What I'm saying because I don't need to consume endless versions of a revisionist history. I understand revisionist history. If you listen to his work, it's not revisionist history. He's basing it on historical Yeah, I know. But okay, so this is my point about Jelly. It's a shape-shifting thing. Comedian or historian? He's not a comedian, historian or podcast. He would be historian or actual historian. You say he doesn't claim to be a historian, but he's pumping out tens of hours of neither does Dan Carlin. He doesn't claim to be historian either. You see my point about the move. It's like some weird jiu-jitsu move where you say, "Hang on, you know all about this as well. You say, "I'm not a historian, but I'm going to spend my time talking about history. I'm not a journalist, but I'm going to spend my time talking about this thing. I'm not an expert on this, but I'm going to spend my time talking about this thing. It's a weird move. Yeah. No, you don't think? No. I'm a free American. I can talk about what I like to notice. You can But the point is, what are you pushing? What are you watering? What am I pushing? Yes. Uh, liberty, free markets, peace, prosperity, not getting in another stupid catastrophic war, which we're on the precipice of right now. That's what I'm pushing. What are we on the precipice of? Well, I think you, Weren't you just talking about it the other day? Everyone I hear on the inside says we're the about to attack Iran. I think you just said something about that the other day. Am I wrong about that? I thought I saw in one of your interviews that you did. Possibly. No. Um, that doesn't mean we are on the verge of a war. I mean, you keep referring to we being in wars. There's a very big difference between a country having a military that's engaged and a country being at war. This country has not been at war for 25 years. You have not been fighting for the American homeland for 25 years. Yes, we haven't. That's true. We haven't had a war on our shores. We've been picking on third world countries halfway around the world. Well, you haven't been randomly picking on them. I mean, Afghanistan, you went I didn't say it was random. Yeah. Right. Okay. It wasn't like you suddenly decided to bomb again or something. you we went to Afghanistan to find Bin Laden and take revenge for 911 and stop an attack like that happening again on the American homeland. That is very different from a country being at war. Yeah, but that's a total mischaracterization of the war in Afghanistan. It's one thing to say that might be an accurate characterization of the special operations mission in late 2001. But then we fought then we fought a 20-year regime change war against the Taliban. Plus, you got dragged into the quick sand of war. Oh, okay. Fine. But I thought it wasn't a war. Like what? I don't get your argument. You said it was a war. It's your It's your use of we as if you're personally like suffering this war. Yeah. When I say we taxi, so we pay for it. Okay, fine. Would you go if I went back and corrected you on every time you've used the term we to refer to your government or something like that? Like if I were to say, "Oh, we just imposed tariffs on China." Would you point out that I didn't and it was the Trump administration? I'm saying you take it obviously very personally and that that's you're right to do so. Of course. I'm just trying to make sure we're accurate here. What do you I'm taking personally. That the American wars. Sure. Yeah. I think they've they've killed hundreds of thousands of people and cost my country 8 trillion dollars and and degraded my country very much. And there's a very good argument to make on that. I'm still slightly beused about this move from I'm an expert on this and I have views to I'm a comedian. I've never claimed to be an expert on anything. This is the problem, Joe. I mean, if if if if somebody says you have to claim to be an expert on something to have an opinion on something. You don't have to be. You don't have to be. But this is like I'm not a historian, but I'm pumping out history. I'm not an expert, but I'm talking all the time about this. But you're not even talking about specifically on what he just said. No, I'm saying this is my point about this. He You say I'm not an expert. So, what's the solution? To not talk about it? No, it's to have more experts around. Well, the expert class hasn't done a great job. This is follow the science. Yeah, but you know what? Fine. So, during I just said to you, I agree with you. Right. I know. So, during all of co I I will put my track record against any of the expert class on CO. I'm glad to do that. So, should I have just shut up? Should I have shut up by opposing lockdowns and opposing vaccine mandates? You really That's the entire argument that you're making. Let the experts handle this. You're not an expert. wildly you're wildly mis uh not listening to what I'm saying. I think you have to take I think we should agree perhaps on the following that one major thing can break down in front of your eyes or many major things and it does not mean that every single one of the sewer gates should be lifted. Okay. Yeah, I I I get that point. Who's who's saying it should be? I'm saying this is a chatter on what is part of our side at the moment is that a lot of the sewer gates are being lifted. Sometimes by people who know that they're doing it, sometimes by people who don't, sometimes by people who say, "I don't know. I'm just throwing it out there." But at the very least, there's some damn hygiene that should be required, isn't there? Yeah. I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, but sure. Just that. Let's have a bit of hygiene on our own side, not lift every sewer gate. And when you say our own side, you mean the right-wing broadly speaking. Broadly speaking, and I'm sort of funny about libertarians. I'm never quite sure. I always think I always say I think libertarians are essentially the bisexuals of politics. They should just choose, Joe. They should choose. It's kind of They just want everything buffet. That's very funny. Well, I think we want some things. I don't know. Okay, that's a that's a weird way to put it, but I I get your point. Um All right. Well, I I mean, I don't know. Look, I I mean, essentially, I just don't Maybe there's something I'm missing here, but if your argument is that like you're you're saying I claim to be an expert, but then I have like a parachute to get out of it by being like, hey, I'm just a comedian who's just saying this, but I don't think I've ever like really claimed to be an expert. I I know. Well, well, but I'm interested in these topics. Yeah, I know. But isn't it weird to go around for instance, I mean, let's get to the the last year and a half. It's It's a bit weird to be simultaneously saying I'm not an expert on a conflict and talking about it everywhere. I don't think so. Not really. I mean, I don't know. I don't think like I I don't see how you have these things. Which things? All these things that we're talking about. Some of them. Yeah. Are you an expert? I am on some. Yes. On some. But you talk about some that you're not an expert on. You'll notice what I should do. What should you do if those subjects get breached? Well, I think that you educate yourself as much as you can. Shouldn't you say I'm not an expert and then give your opinion if you're in the middle of a conversation? I think it's, as I say, I think that it's a weird move to say I'm not an expert on this, but I'm going to talk about it non-stop. I think that is true. Listen, I will certainly concede that I am weird. So, I'm not disagreeing with you. It's weird that I'm as obsessed with all this stuff as I am. I mean, like, okay, I'm a weird guy. I do I tell jokes at nightclubs and then get obsessed with politics and monetary policy and like, okay, fine. But I just like fundamentally disagree with this idea that which I really do think is um quite anti-democratic in spirit and quite um um you know elitist that there's an expert class. They can have opinions on all of these things. It's weird for any regular person who's just read about it. Not my view. Not my view. Seems like it's what you're saying. I I conceded already. I said a long time ago that I believe much of the expert class let itself and us all down very badly. And I think that happened in foreign policy in areas, not every area, but it happened in some areas. I think it happened with COVID in many areas. But that does not mean that it's just a free-for-all. Now, there are some things we can still verify to be true and can still agree on as baseline levels of agreement in a free society. and that and yes, everyone is free to air their views, but it does not mean that everyone who sounds off on an issue, whether it's World War II, the war in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, has an equally valid point of view. No, I certainly wouldn't argue I mean I that to me is just batting down a straw, man. I mean, I certainly wouldn't argue that everyone has an equally valid point of view, and I certainly wouldn't argue that there shouldn't be some standards of like who you would want to find interesting and talk to and who you wouldn't, but also it's like so let's have the conversation that like I I don't know like if there's um if if there is uh if there are experts out there who can smack all of this stuff down or just destroy every point that I I make over the years or whatever, like, okay, so then do it and then let's see. Yeah. I remember. Well, that's a bit weird cuz also then then it's like the debate me bro thing. But but you just you just criticize Daryl for not debating. It's fine. It's fine. Yeah, I know. Let me just make the main point. I think what I'm trying to get at, Joe, is that it's a bit like the Twitter algorithm thing, which is yes, everyone is and should be free to say what they like on Twitter, apart from whatever the I mean the very fringe things of like immediate incitement to violence and all that kind of thing. But uh we all know that one of the oddities of Twitter, including since Elon took over, is that what you hope is a restored marketplace of ideas, ends up pushing you really crazy [ __ ] Yes. And that is what I'm suggesting is happening on a podcast level and maybe on a wider level beyond that. I get stuff on Twitter that I just do not want. I do not want a guy with one and a half thousand followers who's got some zany new view on something who isn't an expert but is an expert to be pushed at me. And effectively what is happening with the Twitter algorithm is happening everywhere else as well. And we're all for the open marketplace of ideas. I want that. I thrive in it. But it is it is different once you get into the thing of is something manipulating the algorithm behind is the algorithm being pushed on me? Why am I being given this? Why am I not being given that? Why am I being constantly pushed this view? And I think that the answer to a great degree is the same thing in your world as it is in the Twitter world, which is if you go straight online and you say, you know, JFK file drops, uh, watch live stream of Kennedy historians reading the papers live. You're not going to get any views. No one's going to watch it. That's what kind of what's needed is for the people who know the documents to go through the documents. But you and I know that if as there was some guy who did immediately, you do something like uh live stream Mossad involvement in JFK. You're going to milk it. You're going to cream it online. The money comes in. I'm saying that there's a similar algorithm in all of our lives that we're not as aware of as we should be, which is that we because we all know this at some level that there are certain things that uh get your a bit of your base going or get people going interesting and crazy and then they start debating it and all that sort of thing. And that algorithm of online seems to me to be spilling into the real world. I I don't disagree that there's certainly more sensationalist stuff will get you more clicks. I I also don't think that's a it's not really unique to social media or podcasting. I mean, this is right for the tabloids. Yeah. Right. This has always been true, right? So, yeah. Okay. So, it's kind of one of the problems arguing against that, you know. Um it's certainly never my intention when I talk to someone to try to get more views. It sounds crazy, but I'm only talking to people that I'm interested in talking to. And in Daryl's case, it's because I've been a listener of his podcast for years. That's it. This is like genuinely how I pursue things. That's why you're here. I'm genuinely interested in your views as well. Even though you completely disagree with him, that's I mean, this is the marketplace of ideas in real time. I agree. Although, as I say, I think you've massively underrepresented the pro- Ukraine argument and the pro-Israel argument in the last two years. Um, I don't know. I mean, well, that's my observation. Okay, you're totally allowed to have that observation. What is the what's the pro- Ukraine argument that you think is not being represented enough? Well, my broad view is that again something to do with the algorithm that uh anything that is uh conspiratorial about Zalinski or the Ukrainians in the conflict does very well. Anything that says actually the Ukrainian army is fighting to try to retain as much of their country as they can doesn't do as well. I think that everything that is pushing the idea that for instance the Americans caused it or something like that does well. I think everything that says actually in February 2022 Vladimir Putin's tanks invaded Ukraine and they shouldn't have done doesn't do as well. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that what Vladimir Putin did wasn't horrific. That's not my point. The point is that after that you there's a whole set of things. Let's look at for instance the issue of corruption. Okay, Ukraine is a pretty corrupt country by EU standards, by the uh by World Bank standards. Um and it's been a problem as it is in that neck of the woods. And it's understandable that if the US is one of the countries putting money and arms into Ukraine, then it's going to be a subject of legitimate interest to the American people and others, the European taxpayers. Nevertheless, you end up in this, and I know this because the same it's the same thing in the old media. You end up on like the new bit of the story, and there's always a risk that you will lose sight of the beginning of the story. for instance, I mean, Putin's corruption is legendary, gargantuan, and not as interesting. It seems to me the algorithm doesn't push that. And I think that's to a greater extent the case with the Israel Hamas war as well. Well, isn't there a little bit of a concern? Like I would say a couple things here. Number one, I'm not denying I don't know how the algorithm works or what it's pushing and there and it's an interesting thing that we probably should all know more about, but I think there's a danger when you're to just c uh classify everything as well, the algorithm pushes this and doesn't push this. It's like it could also be that some ideas are just resonating more and some ideas are more popular than other ideas. And there's probably probably both of those things are at work in that dynamic. But I also think that something like the reason why say talking about Ukrainian corruption is more interesting in in a lot of ways than talking about Russian corruption is obviously because like well one of these countries is an enemy and the other one is one that we're sending tens of billions of dollars to. So yes, well debating on between Zalinsky and the weapons companies. I don't know. He says he only got 70 billion dollars of it but we've spent closer to 170. So whatever. But the the point is that obviously if there is a country that we are propping up, funding, arming, and they're corrupt, I I would say my starting point would always be to be more concerned with that corruption than an enemy country, which it's almost kind of a given is a corrupt country. Like I I don't know. I'm sure there are fringes of the right uh uh who might say like Vladimir Putin's some great guy or something like that, but that is I really do not think that is the argument that most people who are critical of this of Biden's policy are are making. Sure. I I I mean I think that one of the I think one of the interesting things that happens in this is the old cliche of losing the wood for the trees. Uh it just happens an awful lot and it's the n it's the nature of the the old news cycle, let alone the current one, the social media era. Um actually I remember that uh so I would don't go back to World War II. Let me just very quickly I remember this debate with Pat Buchanan when he was debating much more learned historians on the subject of the origins of World War II and the whole thing got lost in all of this sort of mad puzzle of views about iron ore production in the Bavarian forest and and this sort of thing. And I remember everyone was all over the place and the moderator turned to the historian Andrew Robertson and said, "Andrew Roberts, why did World War II begin?" and he said World War II began because Hitler invaded Poland. And those moments come along quite often at the moment, which is yes, there's an awful lot of very interesting things to look into. There's a lot of very interesting things going on which we should all be able to talk about and do talk about, but sometimes you have to remember the origin causes of things as well and you have to stick to keeping that in mind. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think that a lot of people are pretty bad at the moment of keeping that in mind. Like you can there you can concede Ukrainian corruption, you can concede uh all sorts of things and still not lose sight of the thing of if Russia rolls tanks into neighboring countries, yeah, it can't be allowed. Oh, well, listen. Okay. So, on that, I think we have an area of agreement. And I do think like even um while I much prefer uh the the path that Donald Trump is pursuing to the path that Joe Biden pursued when it comes to the the war in Ukraine and of course this is you know Donald Trump's thing is once you piss him off he's going to call you every bad nickname that there is but when he and sometimes when you don't piss him off well sure but when he's like come to mind what I I believe he said uh that Zalinsky started the war or something like that which is like okay all right that's a little bit ridiculous he said started the war and Zalinski was the dictator. Yes. Okay. So Trump said that. Yes. He's a but it was after Zilinski started the war. Yeah. But it was this is how Donald Trump is. Love him or hate him for better or for worse. Donald Trump it's like if if you he feels that you disrespected him or come came at him, he's going to be 10 times more vicious. By the way, this happened two weeks before the uh uh disastrous Oval Office meeting. Yeah. And I wrote the next day the cover in the New York Post which was a big picture of Vladimir Putin with the headline this is a dictator just again as I say not to lose track in all of the mele not to lose track of the basic facts. Well, look, I I will say this as somebody who is I'm I'm very anti-war, broadly speaking, and I do I do agree with you that it should like we should be able to have conversations about all the things that led up to the war and all the different, you know, like blunders that that were made and also still recognize that Vladimir Putin invaded a country and is responsible for, you know, at least hundreds of thousands of of people dying. And you know, my uh um uh Scott Horton, who I always try to promote on here, he just wrote this book called Provoked. I think it's the best book that's been written on the uh history leading up to uh um the the war between is basically takes you from the collapse of the Soviet Union up to the war in Ukraine. And even in that book, the book is called Provoked. And the argument is that that Western policy was very provocative toward Vladimir Putin and there were a lot of uh uh off-ramps that could have been explored and should have been explored. But he has an entire chapter in the book where he is saying like look these are Putin had a lot of other options. He didn't have to do this. It's not as if any of that justifies his invasion. And so I do agree with you that whenever we're talking about a war particularly a war of aggression. Um that should always be in the front of people's minds. I mean you can criticize uh you know I I would say I think I'm consistent on this across the board. You can criticize uh lots of things about the insurgency in Iraq. Um certainly, but you should remember that George W. Bush invaded the country when he shouldn't have and based off lies. So I I'll I say that when my government does it. I'll say it when the Russian government does it also. That being said, there's a very strong argument that there were many policies that the US, you know, NATO and Europe as well, but mostly the US pursued that were just almost like if you wanted to come to this inevitable conflict, this would have been the policy to pursue to give you the best chance to end up there. One of the, you know, um I was with a British military friend recently and somebody asked uh what does the fog of war mean? And uh he gave a brilliant example of what it means on the battlefield which a lot of people don't understand. There's a version of the fog of war in history as well. Uh the great Czech writer Milan Candera had this beautiful phrase in a book of his from the '9s called testaments betrayed where he said the odd thing about mankind is he said we walk through life in a fog and we stumble along a path and we create the path as we stumble along it. So that's not the interesting thing. The interesting thing is that when we look back, we see the man and we see the path, but we don't see the fog. Everything looks inevitable when you're standing in the present. Everything looks like it was going to happen this way. And you have these endless, often fascinating, often futile explorations of what might have been, but it doesn't take into account the fog. It's a very good point. And the fog of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union was pretty considerable. The efforts in the 1990s to bring them into a more obvious part of the international order failed. And my own view has always been that in part we missed an opportunity uh to pay a kind of civilizational respect to the Russians which they deserved. Um but not but also throughout the period that people now say there are all of these offramps and now so many people claim that NATO went around the region desperately trying to provoke the Russians into into some kind of war or inevitably leading them that way because of NATO expansionism. They never take into account what was in my memory and experience very clear which was NATO didn't go to go around recruiting People came to NATO. Countries came to NATO wanting to join precisely because they feared the aggression that Ukrainians have suffered since February 2022. And indeed before I was in Georgia just after the uh 2008 war began, the country not the state. Um always has to be confirmed otherwise people like when who invaded Georgia. They're bastards. Uh but I was in the country of Georgia and um uh Putin had tried to invade them and had seized south and abcasia and uh they were desperate to join NATO. In fact, they're desperate to join the European Union. I rather frivolously said to a Georgian friend, uh if you want, we can swap, you can take our British membership of the EU. But um in the NATO thing, they were desperate for it. and they were desperate for it precisely for the reason that so many of the Ukrainians were desperate for it which was only way to stop Putin expansionism. So, you know, in the whole fog of the posts Soviet era, that is one of the many things that gets left out of the conversation. And by the way, Putin's actions in February 2022 and since uh all he's done is provoke two new countries to join NATO and his borders with NATO have grown. Finland and Sweden wanted to join and the only reason Finland and Sweden wanted to join was because they too are scared. It's it's it's a heck of a thing to get the Swedish to join a military alliance. It doesn't come easy to them. It doesn't come natural. Uh and these uh these countries joined because like Georgia, like Ukraine, they desperately feared Putinist expansionism. And they weren't wrong. Okay. But I I get your point. Um, first off, the the war in in Georgia in 2008 actually came what was it 2 or 3 months after the Bucharest summit where NATO announced that Georgia and Ukraine would be entering uh NATO. So just making that point that that the NATO aspirations came first. But listen, I don't think you're wrong. I don't think anybody is ever implying that like we've expanded NATO through force and that the countries who were joining or at least the governments of the countries who were joining didn't want it. Although in the case of Ukraine, there was a great piece in the Washington Post about this in 2006 where joining NATO was actually very unpopular and there was a lot done and largely because they just didn't want to take on the headache of the conflict that this might provoke. But you know the question I think isn't necessarily like do these countries wish to join NATO. Of course I think most countries in the world would like to join NATO. I think mo most countries in the world would like the most powerful government in the history of the world to guarantee their defense and subsidize their defense. The question is is that in America's interest and in terms of your point of seeing through the fog I mean look there was as you know well in the '9s in the late '90s during the first round of NATO expansion there was a lively debate amongst this and I don't mean a debate amongst outsiders or non-expert experts or or whatever. I mean, within the real deal experts, the wisest gray beers in the national security apparatus, there was a real debate with at least three secretaries of defense who warned against this. Uh, Robert Gates, Robert McNamar, William Perry, the secretary of defense at the time, almost resigned, said his biggest regret in life is that he didn't resign over it. George Kennan was able to see right through that fog. He literally said the cold warrior, founder of the containment strategy, saw right through that fog and goes, "This will inevitably lead to a conflict with Russia." and his exact words were and then when there's a Russian response everybody will say look this is why we needed to expand uh NATO but the the point here is okay even within that deep debate which there were lively debates about even the people who were on the pro-expansionist side of things uh like Henry Kissinger even he said Ukraine would have to be a special arrangement Ukraine will not come into NATO because obviously that's leading to a war with with Russia and so I don't think It's unreasonable and I think this is a fair thing that we should do in all conflicts is like to have as as uh Mirshimer puts it to have strategic empathy to say like hey listen let's let's reasonably place ourselves in the other person's shoes and say how would we react if somebody was expanding their military alliance that is explicitly anti- US and is bringing it up to our borders and now is openly for years and years and years saying that we are going to bring your largest neighbor where you have very important strategic interests from your point of view into our military alliance and you are saying over and over again this is our brightest red line do not do this and then they keep flirting with doing this over and over then they back a street push that overthrows the government there don't you think maybe that would be a provocation first of all two things the if you want that strategic empathy that I'm I'm not an admirer of. Um but if you want to do that um you can do it the other way round as well. Surely. Yeah. I mean do the same thing with the Ukrainians. Do the Latvians and others. Yeah. But I would never Douglas. But my response to you was never I can't understand why the Latians or or the Lithuanians would want to be in NATO. I understand. Yes. Right. And I can understand why Russia thought that Ukrainian membership in NATO was a red line. I can understand that. But that wasn't why Putin invaded in 2022. He uh and I think that and I think there's an oddity if I can say so. Maybe this particular comes across on the libertarian bisexual side, but the I think there's an oddity of the uh Let the record show him a happily married heterosexual man. Um they all say that. Um I think there's an oddity that sometimes par