Another Response to Ben Shapiro
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What's up, what's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How are you, good sir? I'm doing well. How are you, Mr. Smith? I'm a little bit annoyed at the moment. Having some issues with Delta. You know, this is, by the way, it's particularly for boomers like me. And I'm not a boomer, technically.

But I really am when it comes to a lot of this shit, especially for somebody who's like my whole job is in technology and, you know, online and podcasting and stuff. But I don't know anything. But it's like I figure out kind of what I need to know. Like I'm, you know, I'm better than...

actual boomers. But I'm just, I'm so used to flying United out of Newark and now I'm flying Delta out of LaGuardia just because Newark's on fire or something. I don't know. But man, just the little things where I'm like, I know how to do this.

i know how to do this on my thing why does it have to be different uh here's here's the thing about delta delta is a nice lady but you got to marry her you can't you can't she's no slut if you'll commit to delta and you'll get their credit card

They're really nice to you. I'm just not in a place where I'm ready to commit to Delta like that. Yeah. But if you're showing up and you're just trying to buy the, the, the main, whatever the discount flight, but that's bullshit. Yeah. They don't, then you might as well be on spirit airlines. Yeah.

But Delta knew what this was. They knew I'm having problems with United. And so I had to come over to Delta. They knew what this was. They said they were down. And now they're acting like I did something wrong. Look, it is an opportunity to win you over. You're a good flying account. You would think if they treat you nice, you might go, wow, this Delta is pretty good.

But no, they're a classy lady. Maybe that's why no one will commit to you, Delta. Maybe that's why you're going to end up with a bunch of cats in an apartment, Delta, because you never tried to get any. All right, whatever. I get your point. Good analogy. Not very happy with Delta. Delta's not putting out for me, so things aren't working out so good on my end. Anyway. The experience with Delta, it's night and day.

Because you'll show up, there will be no place that you can even check in at. Literally, there won't be a place. You can talk to a machine. If you try and check in, they'll just scoot you along. But once you have status with them, they have a different place that you walk into. There's no line. There's a separate security line. It's class warfare out there. And if you're on the upper classes, they're all right.

It's really, it's particularly frustrating because I've worked my way up. I've worked my way up from the bottom for so many years just to be knocked back down. Listen, my, my guarantee is this. I will be out in Appleton, Wisconsin tomorrow night. I will find my way there. Don't worry. I have flights. I'm just trying to get a better seat, but.

But I'm very much looking forward to that. Robbie, of course, will be there as well. We'll be out at the Skyline Comedy Club this week in Appleton, Wisconsin. And we got a bunch of really great people.

dates coming up, like some of my favorite clubs in the world. I know we're going to... This weekend is Appleton, Wisconsin. Next is Salt Lake City. Wise guys. We love that club. Great time out there. Then we'll be for the first time doing a full weekend at the Comedy Works in Denver, which is supposed to be one of the best clubs in the country...

I'm very excited to work there. We'll be back at what is one of the best clubs in the country, Cleveland Hilarities, Comedy Connection in Providence, Tacoma Comedy Club, Spokane Comedy Club, Detroit House of Comedy, and Tampa Side Splitters. Literally all of those clubs are like some of my favorite clubs to work. So very much looking forward to all of that. ComicDaveSmith.com is the website for all of the ticket links for the shows me and Rob are doing together. And then, of course, Rob...

It's a, it's summer porch time or porch tour season. Can't even call it summer anymore because you do the full spring, but that's right. Go to porch store.com. We got a run of a lot of porches coming up. I'm countrywide. So go check out what's there. Porch store.com.

There you go. All right. So for today's show, you know, some of it I think will touch a little bit on the themes from the last show. But there's a little bit more that I wanted to get into. I want to respond to a Ben Shapiro clip that's going super viral that I think I alluded to on the last show, but I think it's worth actually breaking down. So one of the things I tell me if you think this was a good tactic, Rob.

But I thought it was certainly fair. And so, you know, I mentioned on the last show that Mark Levin had called Steve Witkoff an anti-Semite for using the term neocons. And then, you know, Donald Trump, as we mentioned in his speech in Saudi Arabia yesterday, blasted neocons. And so I challenged Mark Levin. I was like, hey, so let's keep that same energy.

Trump's an anti-Semite now, right? And like for all the people out there, I was like, oh, all the people like pushing the woke right thing and all that. It goes, it's Trump now, right? So aren't you guys going to, and none of them are willing to do it, which is kind of funny in a way, right? Because I do just, I thought this was an example that was kind of telling, right?

in a way because there's look there's there's a major divide obviously it's all about foreign policy um or at least for the most part it's about foreign policy and there's different camps it's it's not as if there's there's two neat camps that you could divide everybody into there's several different groups involved here but i do think it's interesting that like

When we talk about having principles, I don't think there's an example where you could look at me or you, say, Rob, or at people in our camp, broadly speaking, the Scott Hortons of the world or, you know, Tom Woods or whoever, and

And if you were to say, hey, okay, you have these principles. Like if I were to say, whatever, you know, blank is a war crime. And then you were to go, well, Donald Trump just did blank. I'd go, yeah, he just committed a war crime. Like I just, if I have principles, then I'm going to apply them to their logical conclusion. Whereas,

You have this very clear, like just the day before this happened, you said that neoconservative is a pejorative for Jew. Well, Trump just said neoconservatives.

So what, like, do you actually care about fighting anti-Semitism? You know, like, cause the president of the United States now, or is it only when it's his envoy and you think you could like turn the rest of the administration against that guy, you'll go after him. But you, and essentially the point is that all of them,

All of them wouldn't dare. They wouldn't dare apply the exact same thing to Donald Trump, as we've done many, many times. And I just think there's something about that that's kind of revealing. It's like, OK, so then you don't actually have these principles or you're actually not very committed to these principles, because it seems like to me that seems to be a good litmus test for like who actually has principles and who's a fucking grifter.

Because if you're just going like, ah, well, calling Donald Trump an anti-Semite, that would lose me all of my popular support. And you're like, OK, then you don't really care about it. I don't know. I just there's something interesting on that. And I think it's it's funny that none of them want to touch it. None of them want to go anywhere near it. But anyway, it's pretty great that Donald Trump did that nonetheless. But anyway, prove me wrong. Mark Levin is my next. Maybe he should be my next debate.

Oh, that would be a juicy debate. I would love that. Yeah, I'd have to wear earplugs to that thing. I'm not sure I could take that guy yelling at me. Warhawks still out there, you know, they'll pitch them all.

Well, as we're about to go through this Ben Shapiro clip, you know, I will say I don't think it's ever going to happen, but I would still I would still love to debate Ben Shapiro. You know, if he's open challenge is still in effect. Anytime, any moderator, I would love to go do a debate with Ben Shapiro. I think that would be a fun one. I also don't know it. Like, I don't know who else is left.

at least on this topic like i don't know who else is left but i guess i i'm open to other uh names you know the other thing i do kind of more and more i would i would love to have uh not a debate but i would love to have a conversation i mean i would do a debate but i i think it would be better uh just to have a conversation with jordan peterson

He's the one I'd really like to sit down with. I actually think we could have a really productive conversation. He's the one at the Daily Wire who I actually think is at least was much bigger than the Daily Wire and more important than that. And I'm a real I'm a real admirer of a lot of his early work. So he's the one I'd love to have a conversation with. I'd still love to debate Ben Shapiro, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. I think we got as close as we're going to get to that. But anyway.

Regardless, I did think this was worth breaking down and exploring a little bit more because it's again, this is kind of it's on the same topic that we were talking about on the last show. But it really does just go much like my the point I was trying to make there with Donald Trump saying neoconservative. Is this still pejorative for Jews? It goes it goes toward exposing what people's real priorities are.

And I think that's something that's very important in this whole, you know, debate about this current conflict to recognize. So let's jump in. Here is Ben Shapiro from the other day on his show. And me and Rob will give our thoughts. Really what Hamas is attempting to do.

is basically settle all outstanding business with the United States so as to then create separation between the United States and Israel in Iran negotiations. That is what is happening with the Houthis as well. It is not a coincidence that as the Houthis are basically forswearing a tax on American shipping and the United States is saying that the United States is no longer going to worry about the Houthis essentially, that Hamas is now trying to do the same by releasing the sole living American hostage

in the Gaza Strip, trying to basically say that the United States now has no part in that conflict. Well, okay, fine. I mean, if the United States has no part in that conflict, then Israel should just go into what they need to do. That seems to me a proper solution with regard to the Gaza Strip. Now, the ugliest part, and there is an ugly part to this, is that there are widespread rumors and now news reports that Idan Alexander is going to be flown to Qatar to meet with the Emir of Qatar. This is vile.

That's vile. Okay, let's just pause it for a second. Okay, look, the first thing that you kind of got to notice here, and this is what I mean about kind of revealing true motivations. The first thing beyond any point that you could make is that, look, here are the facts on the ground, right?

Donald Trump, a couple weeks ago, announced that he's come to an understanding with the Houthis that they will not be attacking American ships anymore and we will not be bombing Yemen anymore. And then after that, of course, as we talked about last episode, Steve Witkoff was able to negotiate without giving anything in return the release of the last U.S. citizen who was being held by Hamas.

And already you can see Ben Shapiro's pissed off. This is a bad thing to him. I mean, I'm not like adding anything clearly. He's upset about this. I don't think it's that crazy. You could take any clip of our show and you could tell when I'm generally pleased or generally displeased by something going on in the news. This is Ben Shapiro being pissed off. Just think about that for a second. These are unequivocally positive outcomes for

This is what everybody should be happy about. Oh, okay, they're not going to attack Americans. Americans aren't going to attack them. Okay, these guys were holding an American citizen. Now they are no longer holding an American citizen. This is a positive. And yet Ben Shapiro is pissed off. Now, why is he pissed off? Well, he's already telling you in his own words that it's because...

This is a way for the Houthis and Hamas to win favor with America and to maybe not, you know, put some distance between America's necessity to be involved in this conflict. And that, you know, I mean, he's saying that's the reason they're doing it. I don't he hasn't presented any evidence. I don't know that it is. But that might allow negotiations with Iran to proceed positively. So if you're like Iran.

Look, I think it's fairly reasonable to say that if you're in a state with, like, let's say there's the threat of war is on the table. Like, you might go to war with this government and you're in negotiations with them to see if that war can be avoided. Who the hell is not rooting for the negotiations to be successful?

Who would prefer that this ends in war? That's like a crazy starting place. And yet that is Ben Shapiro's perspective. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Small Batch Cigar. Father's Day is coming up. Fathers are notoriously difficult to find gifts for. If you have a guy in your life who's a cigar enthusiast, we got you covered. You got to go check out Small Batch Cigar.

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All you got to do is make sure to go to smallbatchcigar.com and make sure to use the promo code PROBLEM when you check out. All right, let's get back into the show. I just find this to be kind of wild. Any thoughts on this, Rob? I think they're just trying to sell it however they can because, you know, Israel does a good job of provoking a fight if we're going to be there to back them. They're looking for us to be involved in the Iran war. And so the fact that we've...

You know, I guess the Iran war would be our war. It wouldn't be Israel's war. So if the big claim is Iran's got all these terrorists in the region and that's why they can't be negotiated with. And I guess we've dealt with that problem of having conversations with these terrorists and figured out how to not have their interests actually get in the way of the American interest.

That's very upsetting to Ben Shapiro that we've created a platform by which you can actually have a conversation with Iran because their sponsoring of terrorism in the region is no longer a deal breaker for the U.S. having a direct conversation with Iran. It sounds like he much prefers the framework of Israel's our number one ally and they need to be trusted. And so they should be just handling all of this within the region with America's backing.

he prefers that framework of israel deal with it and america will back whatever it is that israel would like but america first is no why is israel going to dictate the terms for america particularly if you're putting our backing on the line so it just sounds to me like he's uh he's complaining about the exact framework that we're saying is a good shift and he's going this is horrible and despicable that donald trump would step in and want to deal with these uh with these people directly

Yep. All right, let's keep playing. America can do so in Israel. There are plenty of places that Adan Alexander and his family can express their gratitude to President Trump as well they should. Going to Qatar to meet the Emir of Qatar. Qatar is a terror sponsor country. Qatar is the number one funder of Hamas. It is disgusting to have a hostage who was taken by a group funded by Qatar go to Qatar to thank the Emir of Qatar for his freedom.

That's that's it's an absurdity on its face. If it were to happen. Can we just pause for a second? Should not be. I'd love to know if Qatar is the number one sponsor of terrorism in Hamas. Why aren't we bombing? Why isn't Israel bombing them? Why aren't they exerting influence there? I mean, if you're telling me that that's the number one thing and they're the ones who are able to negotiate these deals, why aren't you going after the Hamas leadership that's got all the money?

Yeah.

It's unbelievable to me how anybody defending the Israeli government can get away with this shit. I mean, listen, again, this is widely reported. It is not something that like we're just making up or it's not something that like we're even saying, hey, our guys have like a good source on this. This is reported in the in the Jerusalem Post, in the Times of Israel, in Haaretz, in the New York Times, in the Washington Post, according to the defense minister.

of Israel, the quote he used was that Israel, quote, begged

Qatar to continue the funding to Hamas. In fact, just a couple of weeks before October 7th, Benjamin Netanyahu sent the head of Mossad to Qatar to ensure that the funding continues. And also, yes, Qatar is an ally of the United States of America. They may not technically be called an ally of Israel, but they certainly have a close working relationship with them. So the idea that we're supposed to now be so appalled that this guy whose life is

Donald Trump just saved that he's going to, to Qatar, to, to meet with Donald Trump. It's just like, as if this is the real moral outrage rather than like, there's lots of moral outrages you could find here, Rob. Right. But like, why isn't it? Look,

If all Witkoff had to do was say, listen, return the last U.S. hostage and this will really gain favor for you. I would think the moral outrage would be like, how has this not been done sooner? I mean, even within the Trump administration, forget me trying to put this on the last administration, say, why did it take 100 days? I mean, geez, weren't you guys like, you know, you negotiated a ceasefire in phase one, 20 of the hostages were released. Right.

how come the american wasn't prioritized on this list like why don't we make sure we could get him it seems pretty clear in in hindsight that you could have gotten them they were willing to give them up now i'm not even making that argument because as i said on the last show i think it's a you know listen it's terrible all hostages being held are terrible all deaths are terrible even deaths of soldiers um

But he was active duty and he was taken in an IDF uniform. That's just a little bit different. You're not like it's not the same thing as just you're an American citizen on vacation. Like you were in a war zone on one side of that war. However, that's where you could look if you wanted to find an outrage. But the outrage is what now that he's free, he's going to Qatar. Why isn't it an outrage when the Mossad goes to Qatar, when Israeli leaders go to Qatar? What are we talking about here?

Also, it's just, you know, in the in the general context of all of the babies who are dying, you'd think that would be a little bit more of a moral outrage. But I suppose it's not.

Also, if someone from, is it Qatar or Qatar? I don't even know. Qatar is closer to being correct. Unless you want to say it, like, unless you want to do what Ben Shapiro does or what, like, everyone does on cable news when a Latino name comes up and you have to say it in the Latino accent. If you're going to do that thing, Qatar, I think, is closer than Qatar. But either is fine. And what would be the Arabic accent for Qatar? Qatar.

I think when Ben Shapiro says it, he probably... Oh, there you go. You can just call it that. I would think if someone from Qatar was able to navigate this deal with Hamas and they just got you released, don't you almost have a moral duty to sit down and make a plea for the other ones? And I would just think if you're interested in getting everyone else out and someone seems to have that kind of pull on Hamas...

I mean, the bombing innocent civilians in Gaza doesn't seem to be the working strategy for getting people released.

I would personally like to have as much information on who the cutter team is that exerts influence over Gaza. And even if you want to go the other way of, well, we're going to seize their assets. We're going to go to war with cutter. We're going to cut like I, even that, but I would just want as much information over who's actually pulling the strings and has the influence over there. And if this guy just got released and he can meet with the guy who made it happen and maybe make a plea for other people, that seems like a missed opportunity to go, you know, fuck the guy that got me released. Yeah.

Yeah. But again, though, this is kind of my point. It's a very good point, but this is kind of like what I'm getting at with all of this. It's like, look, you can tell by someone's like, I,

I don't know exactly how to say this, but you could if somebody is sitting there and going like, this is just amazing. I'm overjoyed that this guy's life has been saved. What an amazing thing the Trump administration did. You know, I'd kind of prefer they weren't meeting in Qatar. I wish they were meeting in Tel Aviv. But, you know, whatever. It's pretty great. Is it like if that were the tone, there really be nothing to talk about. But when you're furious about the whole thing and you're just morally outraged.

And then your real issue here is clearly that like, look, it's just so obvious here. What's the real issue? Well, now, Rob, negotiations with Iran might proceed. Negotiations with Hamas might proceed. And then there's really no need for America to back up Israel's war anymore. That's really the problem here. And so you're really kind of pissed off because it's like all of this was just an excuse for

For you to keep leveling Gaza and to ultimately take it and annex the whole thing and ethnically cleanse the Gazans out of there. That seems to be what you're upset about. And that's pretty damn sickening. Here, let's keep playing. Facilitated by the United States. Qatar is the sponsor state of Hamas.

In fact, if the Trump administration seriously wanted all hostages out of Gaza, they could do so tomorrow simply by telling the Emir of Qatar that the airbase in Qatar is going away and that it'll move to the UAE, which the United States could do. That should have been the approach of the Biden administration on October 8th. They should have said all the hostages come out or the airbase goes away. That's how closely tied together Qatar and Hamas are. Laidan Alexander is now 21. Hamas captured him when he was 19 on October 7th, 2023, of course.

All of this has some wider ramifications with regard to negotiations in the Middle East. Again, Steve Witkoff continues to say ridiculous things publicly. So Steve Witkoff, again, I do not think he's a good negotiator. I do not think that Steve Witkoff has demonstrated his bona fides along any lines. So far, all of the hostage deals have essentially been kind of mediocre in the sense that maximum pressure has not been exerted on the bad guys. Yesterday, Witkoff said- Pause it for a second.

doesn't this just say everything about who's who and what side everyone's on? Sitting here, right? I'm supposed to be, well, I think as I've been called by a lot of these Zio bots on Twitter that I'm taking some type of Qatari money or something like that. Like we're also, and we're just sitting here, we're like, yeah, no, screw Qatar, screw Israel, screw Hamas, like whatever. But hey, it's pretty wonderful that,

Witkoff's gotten 21 of these hostages out. For all the debates I've done on this subject and how much people try to like morally lecture you about what about the hostages? I'm the one celebrating when they get released. And Ben Shapiro is furious about it. He's attacking Witkoff, who's saying all types of crazy things, Rob. What are the crazy things? Oh, Ben Shapiro didn't let you know. By the way, that's always a pretty good tell.

And someone goes, oh, this guy's saying all types of crazy shit, but I'm not going to tell you what any of the crazy shit he's saying, because you know what the crazy shit is? He goes, man, there's all these war hawks in our government who just want the war to keep going. Man, Israel just seems committed to continuing this war. That's the crazy shit that Witkoff has said. That's what Ben Shapiro is talking about, that he's called out the neocons and the Israeli government for seeming to just want war.

That's the crazy shit. And he's not, he doesn't really know what his bona fides are, right? Like, what makes this guy such a good negotiator? He goes, oh, well, I guess the 21 hostages whose lives he saved. That seems like pretty good outcome to me. This thing was going on for how long before Donald Trump took office? A full year, a year and three months, a year and four months before Donald Trump came in. None of this progress was made before Witkoff got on the scene.

And there's 21 hostages whose lives have been saved since then. Plus, you know, don't get me wrong, Israel broke the ceasefire and then started slaughtering people in Gaza again. But there was at least a little bit of a period there where they had a ceasefire going.

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It's also interesting to hear that if the U.S. were to exert influence over Qatar, the hostages could have been released by the next day. And yet I don't think I've ever heard that request from Netanyahu. I've heard a lot of requests for more bombs, but I wasn't even aware that, you know, I guess the war hawks were aware of a secondary strategy of exerting influence over Qatar. It's something that I was saying, I think, at the outset of this, of go after the actual leadership.

But apparently there is a way to financially, according to Ben Shapiro, financially exert pressure over Hamas leadership in Qatar. And as to why Israel and America or Israel hasn't applied pressure on America to go that route, I mean, I guess speaks to the needless killing of civilians in Gaza.

Or why hasn't Israel gone that route? I mean, you had a close enough relationship with them that you could persuade them to continue pouring in briefcases full of cash to Hamas. I hear yelling, constant yelling about Qatar, the same as Iran, of Iran's the state sponsor of terrorism in the region. I don't seem to hear a lot of chat about condemning Qatar. Yeah, it's all fair questions. All right, let's keep playing.

not willing to end the war. Israel is prolonging it despite the fact that we don't see where else we can go and that an agreement must be reached. There's currently an opportunity window. We hope Israel and all the mediators will take advantage of. We're putting pressure on all the mediators and doing everything we can to bring the hostages home. It's not Israel's unwillingness to end the war that is leading to hostages being taken. That's like blaming the police for the kidnappers not releasing the hostages. No, actually, that's up to the kidnappers. Hold on, let's pause it right there.

Okay, so now Ben Shapiro embraces my analogy of the police coming to try to get some hostages out. Again, the problem Ben Shapiro is going to have is he goes, look, this is as ridiculous as blaming the police for

for hostages not being released. And it's like, well, yes, if instead of negotiating, the police came in and just started blowing up buildings because hostages were taken and killing a whole bunch of innocent people. I do think, in fact, we would blame the police.

That makes perfect sense. And no, it is not the case that because there's a crime and then because the police get called that now it would be crazy to blame the police for any of their behavior. Like the police don't just get a get out of jail free card because they were called like their actions are going to be evaluated as well. And again, again,

The negotiations have been very tangibly successful. They haven't been successful in terms of ending the war, but they have been successful in terms of getting, of retrieving hostages. So this whole thing is just so utterly ridiculous. Yeah, the police are also actors and they also have responsibility. And if police got called

to a scene because there was like a domestic violence report or something. And then they killed a bunch of innocent people when they got there. Yes, we would blame the police. And it doesn't follow that all of this is on whoever the criminal was who initially resulted in the police call. Even within this analogy, what Ben Shapiro is saying makes no sense. All right, let's keep playing. Ended the war October 6th. It never had to happen in the first place.

Meanwhile, all of this is part and parcel of broader negotiations happening over the Iranian nuclear program. According to The Wall Street Journal, the United States said it was encouraged by talks with Iran on Sunday after a meeting. But the two sides remain divided on key questions, including whether Tehran will be allowed to enrich its own uranium. Well, I mean, that is the key question. That is not one key question. That is the key question. The United States should have no interest in a deal with Iran where Iran continues to develop nuclear missiles.

That is ridiculous. Anything that allows them the capacity to continue to develop nuclear materials, which can then be tied to their ballistic missile program, is insane. The United States should not be party to that. That is the JCPOA. That is the thing that Donald Trump labeled the worst deal in history. The United States should not be conceding points to the Iranian government. Again, Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Arahi met for three hours in the Omani capital of Muscat in their fourth round of negotiations since April 12th.

After the meeting, the U.S. cast the latest talks mediated by Omani officials as positive and said the diplomacy would continue in the near future. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said talks were difficult but useful in better understanding the U.S. position. Now, again, Iran has another goal in these talks. If they can't get a bad deal from the Trump administration, and again, I have faith that President Trump is not going to cut JCPOA Part 2. It would be a rejection of his own legacy. If Iran has another goal, it is delay. And a delay for Iran is as good as a deal.

In October, the JCPOA period ends. At that point, they can simply rush to a bomb. Now, they could just rush to a bomb right now as well. They can simply violate whatever is left of the JCPOA, and they could rush to a bomb. Herein lies the problem. Right now, there is a window of opportunity for anyone who wishes to end the Iranian nuclear program. That window of opportunity exists because Israel eviscerated a few months back Iran's entire air defense program. So the skies over Iran are totally clear right now.

Not only that, but Iran still has not developed retaliatory capacity that would deter action by, say, Israel. If Iran is capable of standing the Israelis down by negotiating with the United States for prolonged periods of time, that is their win. Simply the negotiations being dragged out over a lengthy period of time is something the Iranians are going for pretty clearly. The two sides are still very far apart on the question of whether Iran gets to retain its nuclear enrichment program.

Witkoff has sent mixed messages himself because he has no expertise in any of these issues. He set out what he called clear US red lines that Iran can't have an enrichment program under a deal, nor should it have any centrifuges, which enrich uranium. And then Iran came back and said they would never accept any such terms.

President Massoud Peshikian, who again is a stand-in for the mullahs, said Iran has never sought and will never seek nuclear weapons, but it will not back down from its peaceful nuclear rights. After Sunday's talk, Arachi said Iran was open to adjusting the amount of enrichment it does and the purity of the material being produced for a limited period as a confidence-building measure. But he said there is no room for discussion about Iran's continued domestic enrichment. So what exactly is Iran giving away that makes Steve Witkoff and company optimistic in any way?

Again, this is this is just so Iran can delay. And if President Trump doesn't want to bomb Iran, which, again, he has set out a sort of binary. There is a there's a third option here, by the way, which is that the United States maintains maximum pressure on Iran. And then Israel goes and attacks the Iranian nuclear facilities. I think that is actually the most likely outcome here. If I'm just gaming out the possibilities for the next several months. Let's pause all of that said, is it not crazy how much these guys love war?

That is just like negotiating. All sides of the negotiation are saying, hey, they're going pretty good. And this is a real problem. Because how do we get to war at the end of this? And again, all of this stuff about... There's so many just...

assumptions built into this line of argument like you're just supposed to accept that Iran developing a nuclear weapon would be the worst thing in the world that that can't possibly be allowed to happen um why is that like you know look I'm not saying I don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon personally I'd like to see less of them nuclear weapons are dangerous you know but like

India and Pakistan both have nuclear weapons. They're in the middle of a conflict right now. The only country that I'm aware of that has nuclear weapons that lies and pretends they doesn't is Israel. They're the only ones who somehow are able to get away with just claiming they don't so that they don't have to meet any of the legal requirements. No other country that I'm aware of is able to do that. But.

I think, you know, it's funny because obviously, as many people may know, right, like officially Benjamin Netanyahu testified in 2002 that the U.S. should overthrow the mullahs in Iran. Israel has been for a regime change there this entire time. They're always attempting to create this sense of urgency, like this war has to happen right now.

And they've gone through a bunch of different bullshit lies over the years of how, you know, famously, I'm sure most people remember, we've talked about it a lot when Benjamin Netanyahu went to the UN with his Daffy Duck bomb and said, they're all the way here. They're five years away. They've been five years away since I was a kid from getting a nuclear weapon. Benjamin Netanyahu himself has said Israel is five years away from a nuke in the 90s, in 2002, 2003.

He said it again in 2011. He said it again just five years away, five years away. But then when Obama signed the the the Iran deal, which they were just referring to, he said Benjamin Netanyahu said now that put them on the fast track toward a nuclear bomb. So I guess from five years down to I don't know what, four, three years, they're on a fast track now.

All this time later, everybody acknowledges they still don't have a nuclear weapon. But we're supposed to pretend that their civilian nuclear program is this huge threat because, as Ben Shapiro says, which I think he's actually correct about this, they could go for a nuclear weapon at any time. They could do it now. They could do it later. I think the real issue here is that everyone would know if they actually were going for a nuclear weapon. But regardless of that.

Why is it such a given that this must be a priority for the United States of America? I mean, the idea that what they used to say, OK, and they used to say this about North Korea and they used to say it about Iran, too. This was like the the propaganda right after 9-11 was that, listen, a lot of countries have nuclear weapons.

We've lived in a nuclear world now since World War II. Of course, the only country who's ever used nukes against people was the United States of America at the end of World War II. But what happened after that is the Russians developed them, and then we lived in this world of mutually assured destruction. And so no one's using nukes now because we know if you use them, the other side's going to use them. We're all going to end up dead. So we can't do that. However...

There are these regimes like North Korea and Iran, and they are so suicidal that they don't care about mutually assured destruction. If they get nukes, they'll just start nuking people because they're like religious fanatics and they don't care about whether they get killed, too. So we can't allow them to have nukes. After that, North Korea developed nukes and has still never used them.

Iran, I guess somewhere implicit in this argument is that they are still so goddamn crazy that they would use nukes if they had them. The problem is that if Iran was interested in committing suicide in order to kill some people, they certainly could do that right now. And yet they're not.

And yet at every at every turn, the way that Iran has behaved has totally undermined this claim that they, unlike everybody else, they're so uniquely evil and crazy that they don't care about their own survival. Like if that were the case, why did they give the U.S. a heads up before they flew those missiles at Israel last year?

Like, they've got, why are they negotiating right now? None of this makes any sense. If the view is that Iran are so, like, they're just so insane and they're such religious zealots, they don't care about their own survival. They just want to do damage. Why are they even negotiating about this? Why aren't they, as Ben Shapiro points out, racing to get a nuclear weapon right now and then using it aggressively? Right.

What is constraining them from doing all of that if the underlying assumption is true? And there doesn't seem to be any real argument there. And like, again, look, and I think this is part of the thing that gets so infuriating about these like Israel, Israel firsters.

is that it's like, look, number one, it's very clear that Ben Shapiro is motivated by what's best for Israel or what he thinks is best for Israel and not by what's best for the United States of America. Ben Shapiro, by the way, Rob, I should read, there's an old Ben Shapiro tweet that's been recirculating from 2011. This is Ben Shapiro tweeted, I would gladly waive the born in USA requirement for president for BB. Yeah.

Okay. It's on record saying Netanyahu should be the president of the United States of America. Like this is who this guy is. It's who he's always been. Um, you know, some people here may object to that, that idea. Um, but you're sitting here and you're going, look, okay, well, you know what might have to happen if America is not willing to join in this war, then maybe Israel is just going to have to go at it themselves. They're going to have, okay.

As you guys all well know, when Israel, they, you know, what happened was Israel, like, I think it was a drone bomb attack, but they killed an Iranian in Syria at an Iranian consul. And then as a response to that, Iran sent some missiles at Israel, gave the U.S. forewarning of this, and then a team of nations,

the United States of America, the UK, Jordan, Saudi Arabia. Well, I think Egypt wasn't, but I can't remember if Egypt was involved. Definitely Jordan and Saudi Arabia. They all came together to protect Israel and shoot down as many of these rockets as they could. All I'm saying is like, if you want to have it this, like, we're going to attack this country and we don't even need you. It's like, okay, fine. But then don't be asking for our defense.

As you surely will be when the missiles come firing back at you, because sorry, not that any of this is perfect, but this is the way the world works. You fire missiles at a country. They may fire some missiles back at you. And so if you're not in a position to defend yourself, don't go out. You can't then you can't turn around and start talking tough. Like, well, if you won't do it, then I'm just going to do it. It's just it's infuriating.

Anyway, it seems like a very convenient storyline of now is the only opportunity for us to strike their nuclear facilities. If we strike the nuclear facilities at this point in time, there will be nothing that they can do back to us. And if we don't do it right now, then they will have a nuclear bomb in the future. And if that intelligence is true, then go do it.

And you know why? I'm going to guess that that's not true. I'm going to guess every piece of that information is not true, that you get a free ride to attack it, that they can't attack back, and that you can actually permanently ruin their ability to get the bomb. None of that sounds true. If all of that is actually true of, hey, this is our one window of opportunity and it's easy for us to do, then just go do it. I'm just going to guess that none of that is true. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. And by the way, if all that is true...

Why aren't you guys selling that storyline? I mean, if all of the intelligence that he just put forward is the current situation of, hey, we've got a free shot right now and they will never be able to have a nuclear bomb. And this is our one moment and it will be totally free. They will not. There will be no retribution if we do so. Why isn't that every day on the news?

I mean, if one piece of this is true, why? And Netanyahu wants like, why was there chatter of war? It sounds to me like we don't need a war. You need a single strategic strike and that would be the end of it. So why isn't he in America just lobbying for Israel to do a single strategic strike? That sounds very sellable. Yeah, no, it's a fair point. Yeah, because that's not actually what they want. All right, here, let's keep playing.

All of this ties into broader Middle Eastern negotiations that are happening over everything from the Abraham Accords to the release of hostages to the future of the Gaza Strip to what's happening in Iran. Now, all of this crosses paths, obviously, with President Trump's visit to the Middle East this week. The biggest story in terms of the media coming out this week is a story reported by ABC News, among others, that the Trump administration is now preparing to accept a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar.

It is a $400 million gift available for use by President Trump as new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time, according to the deal, the plane doesn't stay with the United States government. It then moves to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation. According to ABC News, the gift had been expected to be announced when President Trump was on his visit to Qatar. A senior White House official said it's not going to happen in Qatar anymore, presumably thanks to social media blowback.

President Trump put out a statement on Truth Social about the blowback saying, so the fact that the Defense Department is getting a gift free of charge with 747 aircraft to replace the 40-year-old Air Force One temporarily in a very public and transparent transaction so bothers the crooked Democrats. They insist we pay top dollar for the plane. Anybody can do that. The Dems are world-class losers. MAGA. So again, the arrangement itself is, shall we say, I believe the technical term, legal term is skeezy.

Sources told ABC News that lawyers for the White House Counsel's Office and the Department of Justice drafted an analysis for the Defense Department, concluding it's legal for the DOD to accept the aircraft as a gift and then later turn it over to the Trump Library. And that somehow does not violate laws against bribery or the Constitution's prohibition on emoluments. The Constitution literally says the U.S. government cannot accept official gifts from any king, prince or foreign state.

Apparently, Attorney General Pam Bondi and the top White House lawyer, David Warrington, concluded it would be legally permissible for the donation of the aircraft to be conditioned on transferring its ownership to Trump's presidential library before the end of his term. And apparently, Pam Bondi, who it should be mentioned at this point was once a National Affairs Registered

agent acting on behalf of the government of Qatar, provided a legal memorandum addressed to the White House Counsel's Office last week after Warrington asked her for advice on the legality of the Pentagon accepting such a donation. We'll get to more on that.

All right. So, you know, after all this ridiculous kind of cheerleading for war, of course, Ben Shapiro is very outraged about this. The offered gift that the Qataris have offered to buy Donald Trump a plane. Look, we get into this a little bit here. I will say it is it's pretty rich.

It's pretty rich for any of these Israel firsters to have suddenly decided that outside influence on the U.S. government is a very big problem.

And of course, only in one direction. And, you know, AIPAC can say that the A stands for America as much as they want. But like AIPAC gives tens of millions of dollars to to political candidates. They I think were the biggest contributor in the last election. They are enormously powerful and influential. There's also.

Obviously, there are entire organizations like the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center that are kind of set up to ruin the life of anybody who's a critic of Israel. Yeah.

So, look, I'm kind of with Ben Shapiro in a sense. I don't like stuff like this. I don't think the Trump administration should do this. I think it's like, you know, it's particularly the aspect of it being transferred to Trump's library does seem to me to be not OK. However.

More broadly speaking, it's like the idea as the founders themselves wrote, George Washington spoke about this in his farewell address. It's like be friends with the world.

talk with people, negotiate, trade with people. Just don't have war guarantees. Don't get in the middle of these entangling alliances. That to me is a much better step than... So like the idea of a foreign government wanting to like give us a gift, while I don't like it if it could at all be considered a bribe, which I do think this could be, and I don't think Donald Trump should accept it. That being said, it's like...

you can see where Ben Shapiro is so angered by like,

friendly relations to the broader Muslim world by negotiating with the broader Muslim world. That really angers him. The idea of another catastrophic war seems to excite him or, or seems to be like what this all should end, what the end result of all of this should be. And that to me is fucking nuts. That's really what's nuts. But I don't know, Rob, if you have any thoughts on this, uh, Qatari plane. Uh, yeah,

Yeah.

So I don't prefer it. And there certainly are the optics of, hey, is there some sort of a favor dealing going on here with it going to the library?

I'm getting a little bit bored of myself criticizing everything Trump does. And so amongst all the things that aggravate me, this one is just not like I don't prefer it. I don't think it's better. I don't think it's necessary. I don't think it's good. I don't I don't instantly go, hey, this is the worst example of a government official being bribed and that this is the most horrible thing going on in the country. So.

I don't prefer it. I don't think it needs that much chatter about, Hey, that this is horrible. And we'll be, I'll be curious to see if he goes through with it. And it just sounds like a security risk. I don't really understand. I had that thought too. Yeah.

Yeah, well, it certainly does. You're like, you're sure you've really checked this thing pretty good, right? Like they didn't hide anything or rig this thing in any way. Yeah, you know, I tend to agree with you about that. Yeah, I don't prefer this. It does. It seems like bad optics to me. I also don't like...

If the argument is that this is some type of bribe or something like that, it's like, or some type of quid pro quo. It's like, but what, what exactly do you think they're actually going to get out of Donald Trump that they wouldn't otherwise get because they bought him a nice plane? Like, is the idea that like, okay, even after Donald, I don't exactly understand. Like, so they're giving it, they're not giving it to Donald Trump. They're giving it to his presidential library. But is the idea that Donald Trump could keep flying on this plane a

like after he's out i mean i just i think that you know donald trump is flying on a really nice private plane anytime he flies for the rest of his life you know what i mean like i don't you know i mean i don't i i'm kind of speaking out of my ass here like i don't know enough about this to know but i can pretty comfortably say that not only will you not bump into donald trump at the airport

That's not gonna happen for the rest of your life. He won't be flying commercial like the rest of us. I also don't think Donald Trump will ever be on a kind of crappy private plane.

Like, I think he'll always be on, like, the nicest private plane. I think Trump sees it as a trophy of this is how great and strong I am that other countries want to give us free stuff. And so this is a trophy of I'm going to have the president of the United States of America and his library are going to have this incredible plane because people like me so much. And so he actually...

i think he sees it as positive optics of look i just saved the taxpayers 400 million dollars on a plane that we would have needed because people just want to give it to us and i think you're right i think that there's like there's kind of levels of corruption that exist in government and so for example if you manage to get your ends on the government for everyone to have to take some vaccine and stay in their house and their lives are going to be ruined that's really bad

or if you manage to get an in on the government to fund a war that a whole bunch of people, that's really bad. But if you got a kid who goes over somewhere and they want to purchase a hotel for overpriced with a name on it, and they, because, you know, there's enough other big businesses going on with the oil that it's like a goodwill jet.

It's not better. I don't prefer it, but there's just like soft corruption and really bad corruption. And so Donald Trump getting a plane that he sees as a trophy from a foreign country, it's not better, but I don't know how much time you got to spend upset with it. It's like he will write a different calculation that it's a trophy.

And well, there's no question you're right about that. I mean, it's clear from his tweet about it, you know, that he likes the like, yeah, I'm very smart. I got $400 million for nothing. The Democrats would have spent $400 million for it. But I'm smart, you know, like, yes, obviously this is what motivates Trump.

But yes, but just to, on top of what you're saying, you're like, if there is some type of corruption or quid pro quo, that is a part of a broader context where we're negotiating our way out of wars, like, I'm sorry, that just does not rise to the top of my outrage list. And there's just so many things to be outraged by.

I mean, everything, every inch of our federal central government is built on corruption. The whole goddamn thing. The whole thing is a system rigging the economy against the regular people for the powerful people. I mean, everything. That's like the biggest, you know, the biggest portion, excluding Medicaid.

which is just not great for a lot of other reasons. But if you look at the biggest budget items in the US government, if you take Medicaid out, it's overwhelmingly, like the majority of the budget is defense, Medicare, and social security. Defense is all just a scheme to transfer money from the American people to weapons companies. Social security and Medicare is all just a giant transfer of wealth

from a poorer group to a wealthier group, the boomers, not me, the real boomers.

It's like the whole, there's so much corruption, but, but so here, this is really what you're exercised about is that before we got into the next disastrous catastrophic war, we went, Oh, maybe we could negotiate our way out of it. That's number one, what Ben Shapiro's matter. And then one of the negotiating parties wants to buy Donald Trump a really nice gift. That's what you got. That's what really exercises you. And again, it's,

You know, you could look at this because Ben Shapiro, like I went back to that tweet from 2011, Ben Shapiro has a long track record of of this stuff. Then, you know, Ben Shapiro, who supported all of the wars, never gets this exercise about talking about how incompetent some of the people who said these wars would be very easy are.

how incompetent they are. In fact, he'll still probably have all of them on his show and have friendly relations with them. He doesn't get exercised about that. It's Witkoff.

You see, not the architects of Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Syria and Somalia and Yemen, the war in Ukraine, the current destruction of Gaza. None of that gets him exercised. But Witkoff attempting to negotiate because he happened to say at a certain point that like, oh, man, there really are a bunch of war hawks in our government who just want this war to continue. And Israel themselves just want the war to continue. We're trying to negotiate an end to it. That's what exercises Ben Shapiro.

And what's what's beautiful about this is that you can't hide this. Like people read through it and they see like it. Dude, I've never seen you get this angry about anything else. I'm just saying, like, you can I've said this for many years, but you can learn a lot about where someone someone stands politically by what gets like by what gets them the angriest.

It's like it's an important way to assess people because essentially we all have to have a hierarchy of outrages.

And when you don't get that right, you end up getting everything wrong. Look, this was a huge problem, huge, huge, huge problem with like the woke left with like the insane progressives of the last few years where they would just have no ability to have like a hierarchy of outrages. So this is why like Black Lives Matter in the

middle of Black Lives Matter would just start getting obsessed with like Aunt Jemima being removed from the supermarket. And you're like, wait, what? Like even like forget. Listen, I obviously reject a lot of the progressive worldview, but like even by your own stated worldview, like you're saying there are like killer cops who are unaccountable to the citizenry. How are you even talking about Aunt Jemima right now? Like this is just too ridiculous. It's like where and but you see with

Guys like Ben Shapiro look like all I'm saying is find me the video. Please send it to me. I will play it on the show and I will apologize. Find me the video where Ben Shapiro is this angry about lockdowns.

Find me the video where he's this angry about an aggressive military action that ended up being a disaster, just killed a bunch of innocent people and nothing productive came out of it. Find me that example. Find me an example where he's this outraged over vaccine mandates or he's that whatever it is, he's this outraged about anything.

That actually matters. That really destroyed people's lives. No, no, no. What he's outraged about is negotiating. And what he's worried about is that the negotiations might lead to a place where America realizes, oh, we don't we don't need to be involved in a war here. There's simply no reason for us to need that.

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866-886-2026. That's 866-886-2026, or visit them online at americanfinancing.net slash Dave. All right, let's get back into the show. Now, if you want to argue, which I'm sure is partially the case too, is that, look, Ben Shapiro is just so angry about October 7th

that he wants payback for the people who did that. And that's the number one priority here, you know? And so if he sees you being friendly with Qatar, who's friendly with Hamas, or if he sees you being friendly with Iran, who's friendly with Hamas, then that's going to infuriate him. Like, okay, that's fine. I've never liked telling anyone they can't have their identity. I understand that. But I think you should be honest about that.

And if you're doing that, then you're not speaking for American conservatives. You're speaking for Israelis. And that's OK. You can do that. You know, like if you really want Benjamin Netanyahu to be your president, you could go to Israel and have that tomorrow. I'm sure Ben Shapiro owns property there, and I'm sure he'd be welcomed with open arms. But I do think you should be honest about that, because it doesn't seem to me that revenge for

for people killed in a foreign country in a very long ongoing conflict

should be the number one motivators for Americans. I think the number one motivator for Americans should be what's in the best interest of the United States of America. That seems fairly reasonable to me. Okay, we're going to wrap up there. Thank you guys very much, as always, for listening. We will get the members-only episode to you, but I'm not sure what time me and Rob are getting into Appleton, so we'll figure that out, but we'll record an episode for you guys out there. Catch you next time. Peace.