Joe Rogan Experience #2370 - Dave Smith

Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. >> The Joe Rogan Experience. >> Train by day. Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. >> How weird is it to be Dave Smith? >> It's a little bit weird. It's weirder to be Joe Rogan. >> You think? >> Yeah, it's got to be. >> It's weird. It's weird to be any person in the public eye, but uh in this time, it's particularly weird if you're like one of the only people. I mean, the media is so bizarrely compromised. It's so weird when you watch these narratives spin both on the left and on the right. And you're like, is anybody [ __ ] rational? Is anybody looking at the and this so few that a comedian like yourself just rises to the top of the heap? >> Well, it's funny, dude, because so like uh since the last time uh I was on this has been kind of like the knock on me in a way now comedian. >> You're just a comedian. You're my emotional support comedian. >> Yes, that's right. >> Have you ever been emotional support comedian? It feels weird doing this without Doug to be honest. It seems kind of wrong, but but that's been like the essentially that's like the knock is like, "Yeah, but you're you're acting like you're an expert, but you're just some comedian." And it's like, "No, that's the point. That's always been the point." Like, yes, I'm just a comedian. I'm not an expert. And and still being not an expert, hand me your favorite Warhawk and I will tear them to shreds cuz it's actually not that hard. And like these people aren't really experts either. >> Well, al also the problem with that is these people that are talking about these things are talking about people not being experts while they're not experts. >> Yeah. >> There's, you know, what does Doug have a degree in English? >> Yeah. >> Right. Okay. Is Sam Harris is a neuroscientist. You know, there's all these different people who have, you know, expertise in one area that is pretty much outside geopolitical, you know, world politics and international relations and chaos and war and the military-industrial complex. Like these are very complex, sophisticated, nuanced discussions that you have to have when you're talking about these things because there's so many different factors at play. There's so much money. There's so much [ __ ] in terms of like what's the truth? What's the narrative? Who's pushing the narrative? Who's being paid to push the narrative? Which is really weird. There's so many of these [ __ ] online influencers that I don't even think are really human beings that have like prominent accounts. >> Yep. Yep. But then there's also it's it's a convenient kind of way to dismiss somebody instead of addressing the facts. Well, I thought it was this just I thought was really funny to me was that so like a few days after the last time after me and and Douglas Murray debated on the show, he went on Bill Maher's show. And so it's like after having this whole thing, the whole 45 minutes opening the show about how you comedians don't know what you're talking about. Says don't know what you're talking while he's smearing two people who he's never heard of and doesn't even know what they do or whatever. But not the best way to make a an appeal to expertise. But no one he doesn't have a problem with Bill Maher doing it because he agrees with him. So the issue isn't really being an expert versus being a comedian. You know, Constantin Cassin went on this whole thing about expertise and all of this and it's like he also started as a comedian. Why why all of a sudden does this standard only apply to me and only when I'm talking about Israel? It never it never applied to me when I was talking about COVID. It never applied to me when they agreed with me on stuff. They would just go, "Look, Dave, breaking it down." But now there's this one topic that one guy is not allowed to not be an expert on and it happens to be this one topic that the entire like population is turning on. I shouldn't say the entire but like >> huge numbers when someone attacks like what you do professionally versus what you're actually saying. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> why not just dispute what he's saying instead of like this appeal to authority like you're not you're not an expert. >> But also, you know, to ask that question is to answer that question. >> You can only ask me a few things in life that I can give you like definitive answers on and even then I I might have to refer to expert. Like if you want to ask me about judo, I've been doing jiu-jitsu for since 90 I think I started in 97 somewhere around then 96 maybe. I don't know [ __ ] about judo. I know how to do a few hip tosses, but when someone is doing something I I don't even know what it's called. If I go haragoshi, I might get it wrong because haragoshi might be legs on the outside versus leg on the inside. wrestling I got to defer to DC you know so even in martial arts I'm not totally an expert >> yeah and then there might be somebody who is like totally an expert like like say uh you know a wrestler who went to the Olympics and was like total expert or a coach or something like that total expert in wrestling and they could still get something about MMA completely off >> or jiu-jitsu happened in the last fight in the last UFC card Daniel Cormier didn't know about the dead orchard So he thought this person was fine cuz they had two arms in while they were caught in a triangle. I go, "No, this is a real submission. This is [ __ ] dangerous." Like there's this guy, Nathan Orchard, who figured out how to do a triangle with two arms in and it's replicable. A lot of guys do it now. And I think it was a lady at the last UFC had it. And I was like, "Oh shit." And Daniel didn't know it yet. There's a couple other things like the buggy choke. If you don't know about jiu-jitsu and you see a guy who's on his back and he's getting smothered, but all of a sudden he reaches under with his leg and I'm going, "Oh, oh, oh." And you don't know what's going on, like that's a [ __ ] choke. Like a really dangerous one. Ty ruatlo gets you in that. You're fucksville. >> You know, there's guys. So it's like there's areas of expertise even in areas that I'm an expert in that I have to call on other people. Like this is a stupid argument. Like what are the facts? Does that submission work? Is that genocide? Like what what is you know what's going on? Were you funding Hamas? Is is Hezbollah a proxy of Iran? Did Iran get the money to do this when Biden released the funds? Because the what what what who's who's allowed to be an expert on all these things? >> Yeah. And then of course there are then there are things like say um say like uh do you do you support lockdowns and like in order to have say an expert opinion on this policy it's like okay well you'd be like they'd say we're following the science you so in other words they have an epidemiologist or something like that who's arguing lockdowns will will cut down on the transmission of the virget they turned out to be wrong but leaving that aside you're like okay but are they also an economist are they also a a specialist a sociologist, a specialist in childhood development who would tell you what closing the schools, oh, who's the person who has expertise in every single one of those fields doesn't exist. There isn't an expert in all of those fields. You know what I mean? >> That was the problem with that time because that time everyone was so fearful and the news was pushing fear and it was clearly a narrative. I forget who it was, but some some health official was being interviewed recently and he said that during 2020 that Anthony uh Fouchy said to him, "The problem is Americans aren't scared enough, which is crazy to say. It's a wild thing to say that your goal is to make people more fearful. So, you're trying to put out a narrative that makes people more fearful, which by the way [ __ ] with your immune system in a gigantic way. Not good at all to be scared. I don't know how many people got really, really, really sick from COVID because when they got it, they freaked the [ __ ] out and they couldn't sleep and they thought they were going to die and they were riddled with anxiety. And that makes you attack people around you and then you look for a solution. And when these trusted institutions, which up until five [ __ ] years ago, I was 100% on board with with everything with vaccines, with every medical intervention other than psychiatric medications, which I think are pretty much overprescribed. I all of a sudden everyone's like hoping these people have the answer. So anybody was like, but but there's this guy Jay Batitaria, you know, he's also an expert. [ __ ] you. [ __ ] you. It's like an anti-science, trust the science, COVID denier, vaccine denier. It's just became this fearful respon because everybody just responded to the [ __ ] media because everybody's too tuned in to all of this negative [ __ ] man, all day long. Well, you have to scare people, you know, if you want to if you want to implement like a tyrannical policy, you almost always have to scare people. I mean, that's >> that's the only way. >> Yeah. Now, everyone knows, right? like you just said like being uh terrified is not good for your health that on a human level we also all know that it's not good for good decision-m you know but it is excellent for I will turn my brain off and give the authority to you to go do I mean look it was uh um right after 9/11 if you you know people forget about this but like the level to which Dick Cheney and George W Bush used to fearmmonger Dick Cheney the vice president of the United States of America who is a bit more than just your average vice president. He said it's not a matter of if, but when there will be another 9/11 attack. They built they were trying to tell the American people right after 9/11 to be in a constant state of fear. >> Do you remember the CO warnings where they had colors or excuse me, the warning where they had colors >> this the threat level or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And then one day they'd be like, "It's up to yellow." And everyone and and I mean, we were really still traumatized from 9/11. But the thing about it is is that they knew what they wanted to do. They knew the the policy they wanted us to start embarking on. And it was the mix of >> they hate the big lie, which was they hate us for our freedom, which was like really the big lie after 9/11 was like cuz the American people very organically wanted to know what the beef was. like 911 happened. Everybody was like, "Yo, why do they hate us? What's this beef about?" And their answer was they hate you for your freedom. And by the way, this is going to happen again. So, be terrified. Second off, understand that they're so irrational that their beef with you is that like your grandma can go to the grocery store. So, what do you do with that other than say what the American people said, which is George W. Bush, you have a blank check to go attack whoever you want to and we'll support you. >> Yeah, I remember feeling that way. I remember feeling that way, right? I remember feeling it's up to these [ __ ] guys, these hard-nosed generals and military leaders that are these are the guys that are going to protect us now. We got to put all our faith in them. This [ __ ] is real and it's going on. But I had no idea. This is so 2001, I wasn't that much of a conspiracy theorist. I was into UFOs. I was into Bigfoot. I was into stupid [ __ ] You know, I was into fun stupid [ __ ] Right? >> You know, me and Eddie Bravo would get high and watch space documentaries and freak out about aliens, you know, the stupid [ __ ] But then the Patriot Act came along and I was like, "Okay, what the [ __ ] is this?" Like, "What is what is indefinite detention mean?" When they signed the NDAA, you're like, "What? Wait a minute. What are you talking about? What is the m what it rhymes with [ __ ] that the act that Obama passed in 2015 that allowed them to use censorship or excuse me propaganda on American citizens? >> Yeah. >> Smith like that. Yep. >> It's like okay >> what at what point in time do I start getting really [ __ ] suspicious? >> Yep. >> I mean I I had read one book a long time ago that really [ __ ] me up. This book called Best Evidence about the Kennedy assassination. And unfortunately I read it right before I went on stage. I was I was by myself. I was in Philadelphia and I was headlining and this was like when I was just starting to headline, right? And so, uh, had a show Thursday, killed, everything's great. Went back to my hotel room, nothing to do. Read this [ __ ] book for like 6 hours. Freaked the [ __ ] out. Showed up at the show like ashenfaced. Like, oh my god, they killed the president. Like, I had never even considered that before that book. Right. >> I never even thought that there's like secret government agencies that plot against the president. Like [ __ ] I thought that's the [ __ ] man and everybody works together and Lee Harvey Oswwell was a nut and he [ __ ] shot him and like oh my god and I bombed. I [ __ ] bombed and I apologized to the staff. I apologized to the manager. I go listen I I [ __ ] up and I read this book right before I got here and it really [ __ ] me up. It's done that before, man. I've had >> you need when you have your mind blown like that, you need time after that before you make it funny. >> Oh, >> like it takes it takes time to like then almost come back to it a few months later. >> Never engage in that kind of stuff like right before you go on stage. It's terrible. Anything real and ominous and do so I had a second show and it went great. >> But I was like, "Okay, I can't ever do that again." But that started me. But that was just peripheral. It was just the the JFK thing. I was only interested in that. I didn't get into Nixon. And I didn't get into Vietnam. I didn't get into any of that stuff. But September 11th, 2001, in the beginning, it was wonderful. After the attack, everyone was so friendly. It's terrible that this thing happened. It's terrible that these people died, but it made me think like we need every now and then, we need to get [ __ ] slapped. You know, it's like when you see people like getting in people's faces for like waving an American flag. [ __ ] you, fascist. f a [ __ ] slap every now and then like that guy might go [ __ ] what was I doing? I just ran up to that veteran and I got in his face because I want to impress my lesbian girlfriend. Like [ __ ] is wrong with me? I don't know how to fight. I'm now I got a concussion and this guy [ __ ] slapped me. It's on TikTok. [ __ ] You know, like you need that sometimes just as like a course reset. I felt like as a country, we had been doing shady [ __ ] all around the world forever. And there's real war happening everywhere, but we're super lucky cuz we're separated by oceans and not too much has really happened here. Oh my god, this is real. And everybody had an American flag on their [ __ ] car. And when I was in New York City afterwards, we were filming Fear Factor one day and everyone was so cool. And firemen were rock stars. Cops were rock stars. Everybody was thanking them. Everybody was thanking them for their service. It was cra We hung out with these firemen in front of this bar. Me and the the Fear Factor crew. These guys were [ __ ] It's like I was hanging out with Brad Pitt. It was nuts. Everybody was so thankful. Where'd that go? Yeah, I was there uh I was in New York City uh on 911 and um I remember so I was in in Brooklyn like only a few miles from the World Trade Center and like >> Did you physically see it? No, I saw So I remember seeing, you know, I think so I when I got out of school, I was in high school. I was a senior in high school and we we got out. One of the girls like forged a note uh and said it was from our parents or something like that. I forget exactly how it wor, but we got out. It was like I was friends with the security guard. I used to buy weed from him. It was a different time. Uh but you know, it was a different time. Pre 911, we were just all hanging out buying weed from security guards at schools. Um but so he let us out. So I remember we I'm pretty sure when we came to Flatbush A we saw like it was there was smoke in the air but both the towers had had fallen by the time we got out but there were people so the subways had been out for a while and where I was I was like on Flatbush Avenue if if anyone knows Brooklyn it's like Flatbush and 7th Avenue. So this is like it's kind of a straight shoot down to the Manhattan Bridge and then the Brooklyn Bridge is is down there too. But the Brooklyn Bridge you can walk over. And so at this point already people who were down in the financial district had just decided to walk back to Brooklyn because they realized they weren't going to get a cab or get on the subway. And so you'd see just like one guy in a suit and tie covered in soot head to toe like walking up like oh he must have just been down there and and walked up. And but I remember now this was in Brooklyn but even there I was very busy but I people were stopping and asking each other. People who you would pass on the street but never talk to were stopping and asking everyone how's your family everyone okay? All right. Are you fine? Like there was this like community spirit that you just didn't you don't typically get in New York City because there just too many people. You can't talk to everybody. Um but that that part of it was kind of beautiful. And then of course governments do what they do and immediately manipulated that into launching wars that they wanted from before 911 that had absolutely nothing to do with with 911. Um which is you know >> also the Patriot Act was a bunch of [ __ ] they had tried to pass for a while for years and everyone's like what are you [ __ ] crazy? Well, this is the thing and I guess maybe it's partly like my age because I was 18 at the time and this is like my coming of age, you know, time, but I will never stop being furious about all of that [ __ ] And this is like still to this day, I'm sure you you see it when I'm on podcast with you and doing debates and stuff, but I'm so angry over the war in Iraq and and the subsequent wars and, you know, Libya and Syria and Somalia and Yemen and all of them. But specifically because like all these guys, the neoconservatives, the the n-word that I'm not supposed to bring up, even though by the way, Douglas Murray wrote a book called neoonservatism, why we need it. But when I say the word neoconservatis, um, be careful what you're watering here or something like that. >> Is that what they say? >> They uh >> I didn't know that this was an issue that you you can't discuss neoconservatism. >> Well, that's Douglas said when I was on with him, he said, "Ah, the n-word." uh when I brought it up and then said, "I'm I'm watering something because I mentioned Wolfowitz's uh Okay, so that's anti-semitism he's leaning into." Well, that's kind of ridiculous. You're talking about something incredibly important. >> Well, like neoonservatism. Why would that be a thing that you can't discuss? That sounds crazy. >> The rivalries, the marching bands, the upsets. Saturdays just got way more fun. College football is back. Think you know the game? 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On behalf of Bootill Casino and Resort in Kansas, 21 and over, age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire 7 days after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkg.co/audio. Well, I mean, I'd say the answer is that those guys got into power. They really hijacked American foreign policy after 911 because they happened to all be in power in the Bush administration. Then 911 happened on their watch. And but if you go back and read the [ __ ] they read, and I will never stop talking about this cuz it's just too goddamn crazy. But if you read all of these guys, the guys who were in the George W. Bush administration. I mean like the signators on the project for a new American century which was their think tank the pac as it's called were like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolawitz and and uh Fe and Richard Pearl and David Wormser and the whole group who took over the government were all and they wrote explicitly in the project for a new American century that they were like look okay the Soviet Union has collapsed. We are for the first time in human history like the lone superpower in the world. So what we should do right now is fight multiple wars because no one threatens us and so therefore we should fight multiple wars to right now we have an opportunity to remake the world overthrow the old Soviet sock puppet states install our own states there and guarantee as the name says the new American century of dominance the 21st century and they specifically said they want to overthrow Saddam Hussein and then they specifically said in and now this is something that the 9/11 trutherm really held on to. I'm not sure. I think they might be overplaying their hand a little bit here, but they say, there's one document in the Project for a New American Century, you can find it online, where they straight up say, they go, "Now look, this is what we want to do, but we're unlikely to get mass American support for it short of another Pearl Harbor type event." And so a lot of people like Alex Jones and a lot of the 9/11 truthers would point to this phrase and go see this is the proof that they knew they needed another Pearl Harbor. So they planned their own Pearl Harbor. Now that is not necessarily true. It doesn't necessarily prove that. But it certainly does change the way you think about their mind state when they sit there watching the towers get attacked. And they all at the very least they all went we got it. You know, Alex Jones predicted 911 in July. >> Yeah. >> But that's not quite as that's not quite as unique as I think some people think it is. >> Really? >> Well, like people So, like >> you ever hear how he said it? >> Yeah, I've heard I've heard the clip. It was pretty good. I mean, I'm not like taking anything away from that. He was right, but there were a bunch of people who predicted it. Ron Paul uh himself predicted it perfectly. >> Did they predict planes into the towers? >> Let's just say no. I don't know about that. That is pretty imp. But at the same time, you know, the >> but but planes had never flown into towers before. >> That's true. But the World Trade Center was attacked by al-Qaeda guys in 93. >> A Biggie song. >> Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Adrien Appaluchcci has the funniest joke about that. >> I believe so. Do you ever hear Adrian's joke about that? >> I don't want to butcher it on your show, but Adrien Appaluchi is a hilarious comedian, but she had a joke about how, you know, in that song where Biggie goes, "Time to get paid blow up like the World Trade, but they bleep world trade now." And then her bit is how they didn't bleep it. Like he was talking about the first one, but they bleep it because of the second, you know, the towers came down. But then her bit is just like you go like that wasn't enough of a tragedy to make it bleeped. It was like a funny like only a few people died. Like it was cool. >> But then when a lot of people died, they were she phenomenal joke, right? >> Well, it was a different time back then. They would have never bleeped anything. They didn't bleep the n-word. They didn't bleep anything. >> Yeah. You know, it was it was uh the wild west. Well, it's weird when you hear about So, I don't know if I fully buy into any of this, but as a caveat before I get rolling, but uh when people discuss the intelligence agencies and their role in hiphop, especially gangster rap, like I remember the very first time I listened to NWA and uh I think I told Ice Cube when he was here, I was on a [ __ ] stairmaster in River, Massachusetts. And I was listening to [ __ ] the Police. I was like, "Fuck the Police coming straight from the underground." I was like, "What is this? This is It was a cassette Walkman or maybe it was a CD, but it was probably a cassette Walkman." And I was like doing getting my cardio. >> They were better for working out. They didn't skip >> the They got good with the CD after a while. It didn't skip, but you had to set it on You had to set it on the treadmill >> and you had to hit that like shock mode thing and then that would eat your battery so quickly though. Like you get three songs in and be like, "All right, you have to go to the gym with like spare batteries." >> To me, it was so insane that I could carry music with me to the gym. Like that's incredible because you'd go to the gym and it'd be like the worst Poison song playing. No disrespect to Poison or something. Like, God, I can't get into this. >> I'm trying to get pumped here, man. This is [ __ ] [ __ ] music. Like, someone's in charge of the, you know, this the station that they pick on the radio just to be able to carry it. But I that moment of hearing that music, I was like, this is the this is celebrating crime and murder. Like this is nuts and murdering prostitutes and like this is crazy that this is like a major record label put this out and I was only 21 and I was, you know, I was just sitting there going, I can't even believe this is real. And then I got really into it. Like I really into Ice Cube, really into iced tea. I'd listen to that when I was delivering newspapers. It was like gangster rap was like a completely different thing. So then cut to when people start digging into it like intelligence agencies have had there's a weird book on intelligence agencies and their role in rock and roll music in the 1960s. The movie about the book about Laurel Canyon. What is it? Strange things. >> Something like >> it's very interesting. I don't know if I buy it. Eddie Bravo's all in on it. I don't know if I buy it, but there's a lot of like weird connections to the intelligence community and music, particularly hip-hop and particularly gangster rap. And if you want to get really dark, you would say if you want to fill your private prisons up, what better way than have very popular music encouraging prisons, excuse me, encouraging crime, encouraging out outright celebrating crime and violence. That way you fill your prisons up and you also keep people scared so you can give them more laws and more rules and crack down and make them easier to plate, easier to get them to fall in line and do what you need them to do. >> Yeah. And and support massive uh police buildups and massive, you know, like militarization of the police and all this stuff. And I don't know, you know, I've I've heard a little bit about that. I really don't know. I know Ice Cube has talked about it before, like talked about how like there is undeniably this influence. It does. There are things about it that seem crazy, but I do know that, and I don't even think this is a controversial thing to say. I think this is just like fact at this point, that it was the Reagan administration who did traffic in cocaine to the United States of America while they were ramping up the war on drugs. So, like they're bringing in to in their effort to help the Contras or whatever, they're going like, "Okay, well, these guys are are drug dealers, so if we move these drugs in, we can get these money shipments to them." And then you're sitting in they're they're creating the conditions for the crack epidemic to explode and then they catch one guy with a few rocks on him and they're throwing him in jail for decades. It's like just that alone, just that one piece of information, you'd almost if if you're like in a sane world, you'd go like, "Oh, so the people had a revolution and overthrew that government and publicly hung all the politicians involved and then we started over from new and you're like, "No, they lionize that guy." Still for decades afterwards, the Republicans at the RNC, you bring up Reagan and they go, "Our hero Ronald Reagan like the fact that that isn't enough to go, well, this guy should be remembered like as a monster." Do you think they tell Reagan that they're selling crack in the hood? >> I don't think they do. I do not think I don't do not think the intelligence agencies let that information that far up the chain to a guy who's only in there for four years. Four years to get reelected. >> Fair enough. Not a chance. >> But George HW Bush definitely knew that guy knew for sure. >> He [ __ ] He [ __ ] signed the docket. >> That guy was all over that guy. >> He was all He was the head of the CIA. >> He was their guy. He was the head of the CIA. Moved in. Right. So, you know, but but again, also you get to a certain point when you're president. I think this applies to Donald Trump in a lot of ways, too, where it's like it's your responsibility. Like, if you didn't know, then that's your responsibility for not knowing. >> I don't think you have an access. I do not I do not think in cases like that you have access. I think if they're doing something like selling crack in the hood and using the money to fund the contrast, there's no [ __ ] way you could ever kosherize that. So, I don't think you ever let the president know. I think this is all blackfunded. I don't think I think there's layers and layers and layers of bureaucracy before you can get to any real data and information. And if you want to talk about people that are doing operations in Nicaragua, you've got things going on in Iran, you've got to pay attention to Russia, this is happening here, that's happening there. There's not a [ __ ] chance he knows they're selling crack to pay for an army. I just don't I just don't think they might tell him. >> Look, you might be right about that >> because why would they assume that he'd go along with it? This is not a normal thing to do. I I came into this office thinking I'm an actor. I'm Ronald Reagan. I came into this office thinking I'm going to be a good American and we're going to get back to basics and hard work and trickle down economics and you're telling me you're selling crack? Hey, [ __ ] you. You're going to jail. >> You know what I'm saying? >> Yeah. Well, >> because he can't. That's how Nixon got caught. So Nixon didn't organize Watergate. He tried to cover it up. Yep. >> That's how he got caught. And they would do the same thing with Reagan. >> Yeah. Well, >> you want to come clean about all the crack selling? Do you really? >> Right. Well, they they could present it to them after it's a fade to complete and then be like, "So, what do you want to do now?" Which is what happened with Nixon, right? So, it's like, "Look, this is going to look really really bad. Good luck explaining this." So, he helps him cover it up and then you go, "Now we got you. Now, you might as well have been in on planning it cuz you helped us cover it up." >> And the whole thing was set up by the government. That's what's really crazy is intelligence agencies set up Watergate. They they operated it. Bob Woodward was an intelligence agent before he was ever a reporter. That was his first gig. Tucker Carlson told me that. It blew my [ __ ] mind. He's like, "What rookie reporter for their first gig, their first story gets, you're going to take down the most popular president in US history?" >> Yeah. >> He won by the biggest margin >> in 49 states. Yeah. >> He's a dominant reele. The American people had spoken. They supported this guy. And then, right, Bob Woodward, some 20some year old reporter. He gets the biggest story in American history. He happened to just come out of naval intelligence in a weird coincidence. >> Did I tell you what Bill Murray told me? >> No. >> So, Bill Murray was on the podcast and he was talking about Bob Woodward's movie, the book he wrote. What was it? Uh, >> what was it called? >> Well, he's written a lot at this point, >> but the one about Belushi. What was it called? It was all It was wired. Okay. It was just about Belushi being [ __ ] crazy drug addict. He goes, "That's not my friend." He goes, "That's not how he was." was he was like that was kind of an act. He was a little bit of a lightweight like if he had like two three drinks he was drunk. Like he goes I think he did that speedball. I think that's the first time he ever did it and died. It's not that he never done drugs before but he wasn't this guy. So this was all fiction. So he read the first five pages, oh my god, they framed Nixon. >> Yeah. >> Isn't that crazy? I know. >> He's like, "This guy wrote about my friend in such a distorted, untruthful way. >> Now I have to think about what he discovered with Nixon. Now I know who what kind of person this is." >> Yeah. I my uh uh good friend who I mentioned quite a bit, but Scott Horton, who is uh the I think the best foreign policy voice in the United States of America, and he's written he wrote the best book on the terror wars called Enough Already and the best book on the war in Ukraine called Provoked. But so while so Bob Woodward's latest book came out and I remember he told me about this but so he just happened to be writing his book on Ukraine when he saw this new Bob Woodward book came out and they had a quote in it. I believe it was a Sergey Lavough quote who's like Putin's you know right-hand man and Scott said he's reading it and he goes this quote's all wrong. He goes the the actual quote like I was he was just researching this for his book and he goes the quote means the exact opposite of what he's claiming it means here. Like see how he left out this part? He wasn't referring to this, he was referring to that. And then he just I remember he just told me he goes like so for the record like you can just never trust anything Bob Woodward says because he'll take this quote and just get it mangle it to the point where it he's presenting it as if it means 180 degrees opposite of what the quote actually meant. And so yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that. And then that guy is like the historian of record. >> Would you ever imagine that? When all the years when I was growing up, that guy was like a hero. >> He was like a journalistic hero. Well, and he's how we know. He's how you know that in that moment Dick Cheney turned to George W. Bush and said, "Mr. President, I think we need to." And then you're like, "Oh, but he just makes [ __ ] up." >> Oh god. Like when I was a kid, you know, they made a movie about him. All the President's Men is a movie. What? Who plays Bob Woodward? What movie star plays Bob Woodward? Which one of them >> was it Robert Redford or was it the other guy? Who's who else was in that movie with him? Who played Bernstein? Oh, >> uh, Dustin Hoffman. >> Dustin Hoffman, right? That's right. >> Robert Redford's Woodward. >> Yeah. So, imagine that. You're uh, you're Bob Woodward. You [ __ ] everybody. Then you get to watch Robert Redford, the most handsome man alive, play in a movie. Like, outstanding. Look how good-looking I am. >> Look at me kicking ass for America. >> But also, just think about how much they could get. I remember I don't know what I I was in school and I remember hearing like my history teacher talking to another teacher and this was when Bill Clinton was uh getting in trouble for Monica Lewinsky. So I was like in in middle school or whatever and I remember hearing them talk and one of them said to the other one goes so what do you think about the impeachment or something? And I remember my history teacher, I thought it was a pretty smart guy, and he goes, "Well, you know, they're treating him like he's Nixon, but he's not Nixon." And essentially what that meant, like what he was saying was like, "Well, Nixon is the most corrupt president who ever lived. Bill Clinton just got caught cheating on his wife." Like, that's not as big a deal as being the most corrupt. But they just made that like the thing that everybody knows. Like, well, we did have this one corrupt president. But the system works. That's the lesson. The system works and it got him out of there >> before the internet. works. I think it's like very hard to make that same system work the same way now. >> No, I completely agree. I mean to say that the narrative that everybody accepted was like, "Oh, but the system works like it figured out that he was corrupt. They had him step down. They got him out of there." When really the answer is much more like the intelligence agencies uh took over the United States of America in a hostile coup against John F. Kennedy and then Nixon comes in like a few years later and is like essentially taken over as well, but they get the American people to believe that like what that was was a corrupt president being ousted. This episode is brought to you by Zip Recruiter. There is such a thing as having too many options to choose from. Like when you're scrolling on the TV trying to find something to watch or have you been to one of those ice cream shops where they have hundreds of different toppings to choose from? It's overwhelming. The same thing can happen when you're hiring and you get inundated with applications. 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And it was just after Kennedy. Look, when Muhammad Ali retired, Larry Holmes couldn't get any love. couldn't get any love. And one of the reasons why Larry Holmes is one of the best heavyweight champions of all time, couldn't get any love is because he beat the [ __ ] out of Muhammad Ali and everybody was sad and everybody hated him because of that. And you just you're you're never like if you're Nixon and you're following JFK who got shot in the [ __ ] head. >> We lost. We got assassinate the someone assassinated the greatest president of all time. this good-looking guy who was going to really change things and didn't believe in secrecy and was talking to the American people like we have hope and dreams. He wants to put us on the moon and he got shot in the head. Now we got this ugly [ __ ] >> Well, there was LBJ in between there at least. But yes, no. Well, I think also in hindsight, he just his he it's not he wasn't that good-looking. He also came off as kind of also very authoritarian. Yeah. you know, which is unfortunately when you have a society where you do have ubiquitous crime, you do need some kind of an authoritarian leadership. Not saying you need tyranny. Not saying you need a dictator, but you need [ __ ] laws and you need rule of law. And sometimes those people come off very harsh and very uncaring and unloving and you know the total opposite for like the reason why people voted for Jimmy Carter I think cuz Jimmy Carter represented like like a genuinely sweet good guy >> right >> but like look how that presidency was a disaster cuz they were all working against him for sure and on top of that it's like hard to like you kind of gotta be a bit of a hard ass if you want to run the world but the way Nixon did We're still suffering through that today. That [ __ ] he's partially responsible for that sweeping schedule one act of 1970. When they did that and they made everything illegal, everything schedule one, including things that are 100% medicinal, like marijuana, all that [ __ ] up society. And they did it specifically to target the anti-war movement and to target the civil rights movement specifically. So, it's not like Nixon was the best. >> Oh, no. >> What he did was [ __ ] horrible. >> Nixon had a lot of policy failures and and I would put the number one and I completely agree with you. I mean, launching the war on drugs was a disaster, but taking us off the gold standard was one of the worst policy decisions in the history of the United States of America. And that is we're where so many of the problems we face now is because of that. And people could say like I've heard Pat Buchanan defend uh Nixon on this before. Puch Canon was in the Nixon administration. He was a speech writer for him. Um and he was like, "Well, look, what were we going to do at that point?" And so he was basically saying because what happened was essentially so you had like the um the Bretton Woods agreement which started uh started after World War II or actually I'm sorry it started at the very end of World War II. It was in 1944 where they had the Britain Woods agreement where they could kind of see where World War II was going and it was basically like okay well the all of Europe is destroyed and a lot of Asia is destroyed or not yet. yet. I guess this is 44, but it was getting there. And the and America had, you know, at least on the homeland, hadn't really been touched. And we had like a wild amount of the world's gold. And so the deal was essentially that like we will peg the dollar to gold at $35 an ounce. Everyone else can peg their currency to the dollar and then the dollars are uh refundable. You know, you can get an ounce for $35. And so that, you know, was whatever there were problems with the Brentton Woods agreement, but that was what stood from after World War II into so from 1944 to 1973 or 1971 when he took us off the gold standard. And so essentially what happened was through the 60s we started cheating and it became very obvious to the world that we were like, you know, in the 1960s you're like you have the Great Society. So we created Medicare and and Medicaid and um they we went to the moon and we were fighting the war in Vietnam and we're just printing money for all of this which is you know what we still do to this day. But so essentially the Europeans started looking at us and they were like I don't think you got enough gold to cover all these dollars that you're printing around. >> Wasn't that a thing where they were going to like do an audit of Fort Knox that we never heard about? >> Well, what I know is that I'm pretty sure it was the French might have been the British too. was definitely the French and the French uh basically called our bluff and they just went uh okay we'll take gold you know we got all these dollars we'll take gold we get an ounce for every 35 uh dollars that we have and we have quite a lot and that's when Nixon went no like no he just basically defaulted in front of the entire world and he said he's temporarily suspending the convertability of dollars into gold and they framed it as like you know the The French are attacking the stability of the dollar. Really, all they were doing was calling us on our agreement. We were we owed it to him. >> We're like, we got so much gold, bro. >> So Pat Buchanan says, defending his boy, Richard Nixon, he goes, well, what were we going to do at that point? Let him clean us out of all of our gold and just not be the dominant power. But I think the retort to that is yeah, like that's what you should have done because the decision to go off of the gold standard essentially just said, "Well, now there's no more even pretend limits on government." You know, this is why Ron Paul, who happy birthday to the greatest living American hero, just just turned 90. >> Um, and uh I was just at his uh birthday party a few weeks ago and >> damn you look at you partying with Ron Paul >> party, dude. That dude throws it down. No, I'm just kidding. It was it was very nice though to see him. Tulsi Gabbard was there which was cool. Um but so so essentially right that was the last restraint on government is that at least even then even under Bretton Woods when we're cheating at least there's some feeling of like well don't cheat too bad >> cuz they could maybe try to you know like Right. Exactly. But after that it was off to the races. And this is why this is what why Ron Paul ran for Congress was when Richard Nixon took us off the gold standard. And then he was like this is going to lead to big government. this is going to be the era of big government. So, he was going to run to try to stop that. And um he was completely right. You know, this is what has really destroyed everything is that there's just no and it's a big part of the reason why I'm so angry about all these wars too because it's all related. Um, you know, the Federal Reserve was created in 1913 or the Federal Reserve Act was signed into law by Woodro Wilson in 1913. And then in 1914, I think is when it actually got up and running. And in 1914 is when the income tax was passed, also signed into law by Woodra Wilson. And three years later is World War I, you know, like three years or American entry into World War I. So it's like this is the the banking system and the tax system are very like interrelated with the warfare state. Like you need this stuff in order to fight wars. And you know even just over the whatever it's over the last 25 years we've spent close to 10 trillion dollars on wars. You know they don't they they didn't tax the American people for that and they know they couldn't tax us enough to pay. we would put an end to it. If they tried to raise everybody's taxes enough to come up with $10 trillion cuz we want to go fight regime change wars all over the Middle East, the American people would have been like, "No, we're not doing that." But they didn't do that. They kept taxes where they were. I think they even cut some rates during those years, the top rates. Um, and then they borrowed the rest. And that's they still couldn't borrow enough so they just print the money. And then essentially what happens is that the price of everything just goes up and up and up and the the you just put more money into the system and then people start looking around and going like geez why is the price of housing and healthcare and energy and child care totally unaffordable and the answer is cuz you're paying for the war in Iraq >> and nobody thinks about it like that but that's really what's going on. They can't. So for all the young people who are coming out of college now and they're like I'm 150 grand in debt. I have a gender studies major degree or whatever, you know, maybe something better than that, but they got an English degree or something and they're working at Door Dash and the average house is going for 600 grand and they're like, "What am I possibly going to do?" It's like the reason why these kids are all demanding socialism, at least on the left, is cuz like what else are you going to do? Like how do you even But the reason why that is the case is because your government decided to spend trillions of dollars on blowing up brown countries and in some cases then rebuilding them to blow them up again. And this is this is the actual cost of the thing. And I feel like it's um the almost nobody outside of like the Ron Paul libertarians, the Austrian economics guys, almost nobody else ever makes this connection that it's like this is the the deal. You can't be a world empire without having a central bank that can print money for you because otherwise it just doesn't work. Resources are finite and you'll run out of them. And so you can't do that without having this monetary system. But the cost of this monetary system is that prices always go up and up and up and up and that rigs the entire economy against the working class and the middle class in favor of the rich. It's just the way it is. When when the value of assets is going up and up and up and up, that's great if you own stuff. That's great if you own stuff and you're selling it. If if you got a billion dollars in the bank, inflation is your best friend. But if you're on a fixed income or you're a workingclass person, it just destroys you. Then and everybody who's working class knows this just from living through the last five years. But you know your grocery prices go up 30%. That is you know that's that's you know people have this idea that there's like economic issues over here and then there's like social issues over here. There's foreign policy over here but it's it's all one thing. You know the prices of groceries go up by 30% and families get destroyed. Men swallow pistols. Kids grow up without fathers. Like that's the cost of this [ __ ] And um that's what we're living through now and what we'll continue to live through as long as we have a government that spends way beyond our means. Like uh Dr. Ron Paul used to say, when you spend beyond your means, you're destined to live beneath your means. >> And we have an economy that's built around doing the exact same thing it's always done, >> right? And if you think about the amount of money just just like just in shuttering US aid, >> how like think about the amount of money whether you agree with us a not the amount of money that was being pumped through that system like to all sorts of weird places, right? There's the when the Department of Energy gave out 39 or $93 billion in loans in the months between Biden losing or Kamla losing rather and Trump taking office. >> Like where's that? >> There's so many of these instances of insane amounts of money just being allocated while we're $39 trillion in debt. It's like it it's so unmanageable and yet it just keeps marching on and people are upset if you try to pull a band-aid off. Like the idea of shuttering some of these government organizations, all you hear about is people are going to die, people are going to starve, this is going to happen, that's going to happen. Are you [ __ ] sure? >> Are you sure that this isn't a giant money sucking scam that's been going on that does some good? >> Yeah. Well, there's >> that's most of it, right? >> Yeah. Well, like number one, Yeah. If you if you go, hey, I think which by the way, no one in Congress, I mean, short of like Thomas Massie, maybe maybe Rand Paul, but like no one else in Congress is even like suggesting an idea so so radical, but if I were to throw out the radical idea that we should go back to preandemic level spending. So go all the way back to the crazy year of 2019 when it was anarchy or whatever. That was just they'll all tell you the world's going to end if we do that. And even when they're making up these absolutely ridiculous, you know, claims about how many people are going to die if you cut government spending, which is all just totally absurd. Um, but then they never seem to go like, well, how many people are going to die if I keep letting DC have all these war making powers? >> How many how many people are going to die if the president is able to fund a proxy war whenever he wants to? And I mean, look at this [ __ ] dude. I took I took so much uh, you know, whatever. I'm not. But I I took a lot of heat for the stuff I said on on the show here a few years ago about the war in Ukraine. And look at it now, dude. Look at even and I don't think they're about to end the thing. I think they're which we could talk about, but I think they're putting poison pills in these negotiations already. It's what it looks like to me. But literally the deal that I was talking to you about whatever it was 3 years ago when I was saying on the show that they had a deal worked out, a peace deal worked out in the first few months of the war in 22 and Boris Johnson went and killed the peace deal on behalf of the West to make sure this war kept going. But the deal that was that was in pencil, not pen that that Boris Johnson killed was essentially um recognition of uh the annexation of Crimea. Uh it was at the time it wasn't uh annexation of the Donbass region. It was like independence for the Donbass region and then the agreement that the rest of Ukraine would not join NATO. That was the deal that they had worked out. And look at where we are now. Now the deal that they're even talking about even as Donald Trump goes there's going to be some land swaps and all this. Okay. Well, what's he talking the deal right now that is the best case scenario that we're hoping we could get is that Vladimir Putin obviously keeps Crimea, keeps the entire Donbass region, gets a corridor from the south into Crimea and the rest of Ukraine doesn't join NATO. So we have the same deal just a little bit more in the Russians favor three years later with hundreds of thousands of people having died in that process just to get back to not as good a deal as they had >> in 22. And so you know >> and if they don't sign that >> it'll keep going which I think it's probably going to. Um >> but they're enlisting people as old as 60 now. >> Yeah. And they have been for like a full year at least and throwing people up there. And the thing that's really changed, the reason why the like the Europeans and Zalinski and and they're at least pretending to come to the negotiation table right now, um, which they don't say, but this is this is the truth, is that support for the war amongst Ukrainians has collapsed. I mean, not like gone down by a few points, it's collapsed. There was just a a piece in this the other day. It was uh Gallup I believe they said they had a uh their latest poll super majorities of the Ukrainian people 70% around want an immediate end to the uh war with negotiations on land swap like with like let's settle it however we got to settle it. They don't. I remember for the first two years of the thing, everybody who I argued with about the war in Ukraine, their talking point would always be the Ukrainian people want to fight. And who are you, Dave, to tell them that they don't have a right to defend themselves? And then I would respond by saying like, yes, it's true the Ukrainian people want to fight, but like might that have something to do with the blank check that they've received from the world and the backup of the entire world? You know, it's it's just it's a different proposition to go like, "Do you want to fight?" If Jon Jones is at your back and goes, "I got your back, dude. Let's go [ __ ] these guys up." You're like, "Hell yeah, I want to fight." But then Jon Jones leaves, I might be like, "Ah, let's talk about this." You know, like, but so that but that would but now the Ukrainian people don't want to fight. And by the way, I never believed any of that cuz I don't, you know, I have my own libertarian views on things and I'm like, if you're telling me the people want to fight, like, well, why do you got to conscript an army then? you know, like if they want to fight so bad, why you got to put a gun to their head and force them to the front line? Like you could Yeah, you could just make it a voluntary force and then we'll find out real quick who wants to fight. But the the point is now that even the Ukrainians don't want to fight over this stuff anymore. So there's just no justification for it. Um so now they move to to phase B, which is essentially to pretend like they're negotiating, but putting all types of poison pills in the deal so that you know the other side won't take it. This is what they did with Iran, too. Uh, this is why we we got into that 12-day war, as they're calling it now. Um, but, you know, it's like you put things into I saw I was just reading the other day, uh, it was on Axios, there's uh, um, reports that they, uh, Zalinski and and the Europeans are like open to land swaps as long as there's as in their words in the Axios piece, article five like security guarantees. So in other words, the rest of Ukraine's in NATO, which is the thing that caused the whole conflict to begin with. So like Yeah. And you know, >> that's what that means. Article five. >> Article 5 is a the article in in NATO in the NATO agreement that says that like it says that like if one of the countries is attacked, like all the countries have to join together to help them. It doesn't exactly say you got to go to war over it, but it's like you have to help in the effort if they're attacked. So essentially that's what they're trying to ask now which is but if you think about it right it's designed >> to incentivize Putin to keep the war going because if you're telling Vladimir Putin let's just say which it's not exactly clear that he would even take the deal that I just laid out before but it was I know that it's been reported that he was it was being signaled that he might be open to that deal. I get the Donbass region, you know, he's got still um like the Donbass region is Daesk and and Luhansk. And in Luhansk, I think as of right now, I think the Russians control like 75% of it. They got all of Donesk, they got most of Luhansk, but there's still Ukrainians controlling part of it. And then he's controlling part of these territories in the south. So this is what Trump means when he says the land swaps, meaning essentially you get out of the Donbass region, give me that and I'll give you back. >> You know, the the land swaps are Putin taking what he wants and leaving you the rest. But um if you're going to tell Vladimir Putin who fought this entire war over Ukrainian entry into NATO being his red line basically in the middle of the or not in the middle of as the war is potentially wrapping up you're going to tell him hey whatever territory you don't take here will be a part of NATO. Well what does that incentivize him to do? Take more of it then then why that why would you stop and give the rest of it up? And it does seem to me like that's that is clearly at least from the Europeans that is clearly the motivation of all of this is to is to present something. It's it's you know they do have their chess war moves and so you present something that you know the other side can't agree to and then when they don't agree to it you go look we tried to negotiate and he just wouldn't take us up on this and so what can you do? >> Oh god. You know, another problem with these conflicts and war in general is that people always want to pretend that there's one side that's good and one side that's bad, you know, and obviously Putin's the bad guy, right? Because they started the war, started killing people in Ukraine, but there's so many factors that are going on. And then there's also the long history of corruption that Ukraine has always had. Mhm. >> And then there's also the weird deals that they were making with the Biden family to control all the different was it it was natural gas and there's in incredible supplies of rare earth minerals. It's like really valuable valuable territory. you know, there's this incentive to create some sort of uh there was they were gonna try to like I think part of the plan was like get off of Russian power and make Ukrainian power like central and then whatever they were making over there, the amount of power, I forget what the number was they said, but it's like trillions of dollars in natural gas, minerals, all these different things. We're supposed to pretend that that's not also a part of the motivation. Like, didn't even Trump say something about a deal that they were doing with Ukraine that in involved >> Yeah. He got sucked into this talk about the rare earth minerals stuff and you know, it's Donald Trump. It's like his weakness cuz he, you know, there's a lot of great things about Yeah. There's a lot of great things about coming from a business background, but then there's like the weakness of it is that he's always attracted by like, "Hey, Gaza could be beachfront property," you know, and he's like, "Oo." and you could just see him like come alive with these ideas. Yeah. It's it's always this stuff. But then the problem is that, >> you know, >> and look, I've been very harsh on Donald Trump over the last few months, but I think he deserves it. And I think this administration is failing on so many levels so profoundly, especially given the opportunity that they had. But, you know, I heard him the other day he called into a a Fox News show and it was he was like telling the story of the war in Ukraine and it's like it just seems like he's tell like it seems like you learned this on a TV show. Like can we get some books in your diet? Like you know what I mean? Like it's like this is we really need someone here who's read a book about this cuz he kind of had an idea of what he was talking about but then he got it completely wrong. So he goes he's trying to tell the story and he's talking about the corruption of the Bidens in Ukraine and you're like okay yes that is true but like there's a whole story here that I don't think you're really understanding because he goes he goes look this goes back to 2014 and so I'm watching this and I got like so excited for a minute. Like I was I was like yes it does go back to 2014. Thank you Donald Trump. And then he goes it goes back to 2014 when Putin took Crimea and Obama let him have it. He just let him have it. never would have happened on my watch, but Obama gave Putin Ukraine. And you're like, "No, dude. That's not just go back two months earlier in that same year." The problem wasn't that Obama gave Putin Ukraine. The problem was that Obama took Ukraine away from Vladimir Putin, as I've played on your show, and you played with Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has sat right here where I'm sitting and watched Gideon Rose explain to Steven Coar exactly what we're doing here. Russia as as Gideon Rose, the editor of Foreign Affairs magazine said, "Russia is Batman. Ukraine is Robin. We are stealing Robin away from Batman." That's what the Maidon revolution was. That's why the USAD and the Ned poured hundred million dollars into the street protest, right? And so they overthrew the government and then a bunch of the uh former um Ukrainian prime ministers started floating out that we should tear up the Sylvestole lease in Crimea cuz you know this is uh Russia's only year-long warm water naval port. They've always had it. This was their agreement. They had like a 50-year lease or something like that. But after the West backed a coup that overthrew the government and put in a pro-western government, they started talking big like, "Well, maybe we'll tear up that lease and we won't." And so Vladimir Putin went, "No, I'll just take it." And that was like, so anyway, so he goes back to that, doesn't go back a few months earlier, and then misses the entire point that no. So cuz like the point is that it's not just like me being like, "Oh, I wish Donald Trump was into the same books I'm into or something like that." The point is that when you don't get that piece of the chapter, then you miss what's happening right now. So when you're talking about like these essentially what Donald Trump was saying, the way he was trying to sell it to Zalinsky was like, look, do this rare earth minerals deal with us and this is kind of like a security guarantee. It's not exactly a security guarantee, but if we're in business with you and then Putin's trying to [ __ ] up our business, hey, he's picking a fight with us, too. But the whole point is that that's exactly what caused this whole catastrophe. Vladimir Putin and the entire Russian elite have been crystal clear about this, that they go, look, we can tolerate a neutral Ukraine. We could tolerate NATO up to Ukraine. Ukraine is neutral. And then there's Russia. We cannot tolerate Ukraine being a part of America's military alliance. That's a step too far. But every time we try to let him be neutral, neutral seems like it's never good enough and that never actually works. So if you're going to come in here and say neutral is not good enough, they're going to be part of the West. Then we're going to say actually we'll take them as part of Russia instead. Now he also believes, as he says all the time, which I just think is goofy and and unamerican, but he also believes that like ah they're not really a real country and they're kind of historically ours anyway. And yo