Another Stupid War
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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, Davey Smith. How was battling everyone on Piers Morgan?

It was a, well, you know, it wasn't too much of a battle this time. Although I was on, I was on the panel with three ladies, which I specifically request to never do. But yet they still put me on there with a bunch. I was like talking politics with women. It's just ridiculous. No, but so I think it was mostly women.

It was mostly kind of like a three on one with Julia Rogowski. I think I'm saying her name right. Being the one Democrat there. So I was on with Bacha and Riley Gaines, who was the female, the swimmer. Yes. Who became famous for opposing trans women.

men competing with women or I'm sorry, trans women competing with what she's she opposed, uh,

Human beings with penises competing with human beings with vaginas. I'm sorry. It's hard to remember all the terminology. But anyway, it was an interesting panel. We talked about a few of the things that we will probably get into on today's show. But yeah, that should be out. That should be out. So anyway, that's the reason we're starting a few minutes late. Before we get into the show quickly, do want to remind you that we're coming up on, I think, what is it? Less than two weeks until we're out in Boston. Boston.

Bast in Massachusetts. Very excited to get back out there to laugh Boston. I just love doing comedy in the city of Boston. It's one of the best comedy towns out there. And then Nashville, Chicago, San Diego, Appleton, Wisconsin, Salt Lake City, Denver, Cleveland, Providence, Tacoma, Spokane, Detroit, Tampa. A whole lot of stuff coming up. Comicdavesmith.com.

for all of those ticket links. And of course, if you wanna support this show and get the episodes live and uncensored and ad free and get the bonus episode that we do weekly, I know I missed last week. We will make that up. I'm a few behind. We'll make them all up.

join us over at partoftheproblem.com. Also, you get to be a part of the live chat, which I'll check in with in a little bit. Okay. On that note, if I can let everyone know, I did a run your mouth with Professor David Collum. We threw some bombs. You should go check that one out. I don't do a lot of long-form interviews. And then I think April 5th and 6th, I'm in Steamboat, Colorado. And the weekend before or after that, doing the...

convention out in Idaho. I got a new website up. It'll be probably up there by now. RobBurnsonComedy.com has the dates. Come hang out. Hit me up to ski.

Oh, yeah. Skiing and doing libertarian conventions with Rob Bernstein. It's a that's not a fun time. I don't know what is. All right. So let's let's let's open with talking about kind of what's going on in Yemen and Donald Trump's recent threats to Iran. I guess I would start by saying this, OK?

There are if you look at the position that Donald Trump is in right now, and I'm not trying to overplay it, you know, look like Donald Trump has put up his best approval numbers that he's had in both of his terms in pretty consistently in polling in the last, you know, few weeks since he's been president for the second time. But, you know, we're still talking about

just above 50%. I think 53, 54% is about the highest that he's had. So still it's not a president with 75% approval ratings, which, you know, I actually have lived through a couple of, um, I don't know if in current, the current divided landscape in America, any president is going to get to be above 70% anytime soon, but Donald Trump is doing better than he was before. I'm not trying to overplay it, but he's, he's,

roughly popular with the American voting base. Really more of the unique opportunity in the moment that Donald Trump's in is how destroyed the Democrats are. The approval ratings of the Democrats are in the toilet. They've also, what I think is the most devastating aspect is that they've lost their propaganda apparatus and the corporate media is just dead in

And dead in a way, I mean, we may have said that years ago, but they're dead in a different type of way than they were back then. In this moment, you have a lot of possibilities. Donald Trump seems to, although he may himself only be slightly popular.

He has a few issues that are enormously popular that where he's really got a mandate, you know, things like lowering inflation, lowering illegal immigration, turning the economy around. I mean, these are issues that like he really has a lot of support behind his prescribed policies.

And now he's got like, you know, a thing that he never had in his first term, which is that he got this kind of class of big tech billionaires who are totally behind him. He really just never had anything like that before. If you could think about Donald Trump's first administration, Twitter was like his enemy. Now he's got the guy who owns Twitter in the White House. If you were to ask yourself, as many people do,

What what could possibly bring this down? What could possibly lead to the Democrats making a comeback? What could you know, what could lose Donald Trump all of these gains that he's made so far? The answer is so obviously another catastrophic war.

Like just getting into another war that we absolutely don't need to be at. And yet, despite this reality, Donald Trump and whoever the hell is in his administration who he's listening to,

Seem to be getting him to push in that direction. And then it is something, it just like makes you want to pull your hair out watching it. The, the idea that we would even start flat. I'm not saying he's done that yet. You know, Donald Trump is capable of doing these strikes here and there, just killing some people so we can all feel better or something like that with, with really no strategic point. Do you think about his bombing campaigns in Syria in a, in his first term? Um,

But to to attack Yemen and then to start using this provocative language toward Iran, making more threats toward them. It just seems like there is no positive that comes out of it. Again, other than maybe he gets to say, I'm the big tough guy who murdered some people. Yeah.

And the downside is just an endless pit of catastrophe that could ruin everything, every positive that he's already been able to implement. So I guess that's just like the first point I would make on this recent insane move to attack Yemen. Any thoughts you want to jump in with? Go ahead, Rob.

I think that that's all fair. And what I would take the biggest issue with is just when we're out in the world and we're murdering in a nurse. No, sorry. Did you? I don't know if that was me or you, but you cut out there for a second. Could you just just just say that line again? We're out in the world is where I lost you. Yeah, I just when we're out in the world and we're murdering innocent civilians, I don't really see the distinction between us and terrorists. Yeah. Well, I mean, the distinction seems to be like, well, do you have a military?

All right. If you have a military, then it's not terrorism. Or like if you're an ally of America, then it's not terrorism. You know? Um, yeah, there's just to give like a, a little bit of, uh, like a quick background on, on the stuff, because it's a little interesting that, you know, as you know, well, Rob, cause you've been with me for, for years at this point. Um,

Yemen was an issue that really our camp was amongst the only groups that

caring about or talking about this for many years. It was from the end of the Obama administration through the entire Trump administration into the beginning of the Joe Biden administration. And in fact, when the Mises caucus took over the Libertarian Party, this was like the first big initiative that we launched was this like calling your congressman campaign to get an end to the war in Yemen. And

It wasn't really until after October 7th. By the way, I shouldn't say it's not just the anti-war libertarians. There were like some small groups of good anti-war leftists or like the Code Pink and the Quakers for Peace and people like that who talked a lot about the just humanitarian nightmare that was in Ukraine for many years. But anyway, it wasn't really until after October 7th when the Houthis started kind of fighting back

and sticking up for the Palestinians that the world started talking a lot about the Houthis in Yemen and how horrible they are. And, oh my God, they're attacking, you know, American cargo ships or whatever. But just so people know,

This really goes back to the beginning of the Obama administration. And in 2009, when Obama first became president, he launched like a CIA drone war in Yemen. And it was pretty much it was essentially, I think, one of the only theaters in the war on terrorism where the actual goal seemed to be a war on terrorism.

You know, like at this point in Afghanistan, we were fighting against the Taliban and working on a regime change war there. We had already driven Al Qaeda out. Like we weren't like fighting Al Qaeda really much anymore in Afghanistan. And while there may have been some Al Qaeda guys in the insurgency in Iraq, we were really there, you know, fighting to prop up the Shiite

democracy that we had installed. And, you know, in, in Libya, well, which I guess was came a year later or two years later, um, we were there to overthrow the Gaddafi regime had absolutely nothing to do with, uh, with the war on terrorism. And in fact, we were on the side of the bin Laden nights when we were doing that in Syria, we were on the side of the bin Laden nights when we were trying to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, but in Yemen, at least in 2009, uh,

And really, I think up until around 2015, that did seem that was the mission. We were drone bombing AQIP in in in Syria. Now, throughout that time, and it's pretty well documented, Al Qaeda, AQIP, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, they they grew.

In number. And, you know, for the same typical reasons that this always happens, it's General McChrystal's insurgent math, right? This was his famous 10 minus 2 equals 20. You know, you have some targeted strike, which is we like to think of them as like these targeted strikes. But, you know, when you're on the ground, these are strikes that end up killing. You know, I think there was at one point there had been a major study.

on Obama's drone war specifically, where the number they came out with was 96% of the people killed in the strikes were innocent people. And when you say innocent people, meaning they weren't the target of the person who was on the list.

sometimes also the person on the list was wrong because it's not like, oh, you've had a fair trial for all these people and you figured out who are the terrorists and who are not the terrorists. But even by their own list, just assuming everyone on the list is guilty if you want to, something like 95, 96% of the people killed weren't that. And so every time you have one of these strikes,

You know, you kill three little girls and then all of their brothers and uncles and fathers and all of these guys join up with Al Qaeda because now they are, you know, radicalized to want to fight against America. So it's a completely counterproductive and evil, fucked up, you know, situation.

drone bombing campaign for most of obama's presidency now just to keep in mind here yemen at that point already was the poorest country in the middle east they're just murdering innocent people in the poorest country in a poor area it's just you know whatever not to offend my uh my debate uh uh

competitor, Josh Hammer. But, you know, you do tend to get caught up in the morality of that a little bit. Like, Jesus, just murdering poor people in the poorest country in the Middle East sounds pretty fucked up. But where it really got bad was after that. And essentially, like,

So the Obama administration was propping up the dictator in Yemen at the time and using him for all types of like secret torture and shit like that. And eventually then he, even though he was a Shiite, he was at odds with the Houthis at one point. And then they...

Later on, they ended up like joining up and kind of being on the same side when the Saudis and the Americans tried to get his second in command to take over for him. And the Houthis ended up gaining more and more strength. And they they started taking over more and more territory in the area. And the Saudis did not like this at all. The Saudis are enemies with the Houthis. And the Saudis were really upset at America.

And they were upset at America at this point for this is we're getting into like late 2014, early 2015. They were upset at the Americans because, number one, they were furious about the war in Iraq. Still, you know, if you remember, the Saudis were really our allies in the region who opposed the war in Iraq the whole time. But, you know.

the neocons wanted it and Israel wanted it. And so they won out and they got this regime change. The Saudis were furious because of course the Saudis, um, who are our Sunni sock puppet state in the region, their big enemy is Iran, the Shiites. And so they didn't care much for the idea that we would take out Saddam Hussein and then hand this majority Shiite country, their influence over to Iran like this, this hurt them in the region. So they were very upset about it. And then, uh,

obama turned around and made the deal with around um and so they were so and again you can google these words and the several really good articles will come up if you just google obama placate the saudis because this is what obama officials said was the reason that barack obama backed the saudi invasion in 2015. now the uh

Just to be clear, if you Google that, the articles that are going to pop up, I'm not sending you to like read Dave DeCamp over at antiwar.com or to read Scott Horton or to read Ron Paul. I'm saying like there's articles from the Council on Foreign Relations, the New York Times, Reuters, the Associated Press, like all of this placate the Saudis. This was the official justification for why Barack Obama launched what turned into a war of genocide.

Because we had to placate the Saudis, like the worst violators of human rights in the region, which is really saying something. We had to placate them because like, sorry, we did that other war you didn't like. And then we made a nuclear inspections deal that you didn't like. So we'll help you launch a war against the poorest country in the Middle East for no reason.

For no discernible reason, that helps Americans. And just to be clear, I mean, what the Saudis did in Yemen was...

every bit as brutal, if not more than what Israel's doing in Gaza right now. I mean, maybe there's a smarter person than me who's really done like some academic papers on this to sit down, but I mean, it was every bit. I think it was even worse because like, I think the total number of people who died was even worse. And I think just the fact that it was Saudi Arabia conducting the war just, just,

There just wasn't the type of pressure on them that there is on a first world country to be like, yeah, you can't get away with that. You know, like even Israel, you know, has to slow down on shooting the aid workers after a few weeks of bad press. But the Saudis, again, with the help of the of the U.S. Army, I mean, for years we were like refueling their fighter jets mid path.

because they can't do it themselves. And they had help from our Navy to put a full blockade around the country. And people died by the hundreds of thousands in the most brutal way. And the Saudis were also caught several times like barming farms, barming sewage plants, barming irrigation sites, like just a war on the civilian population. And

So in this whole thing, I mean, like I know you read a bit about this during the time, Rob, because we talk about this all the time. There were like outbreaks of cholera where they're just hundreds of thousands of people got them. Of course, cholera particularly ends up killing babies and old people and can be cured with like liquids. Like, I'm not sure. I don't even think you need antibiotics. I think like you you need like.

Like Gatorade or whatever. But so there's just babies like vomiting themselves to death. It just it was the worst humanitarian crisis in the world for many years. I think at least from like 2015 through 2021, it was the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. And through all of this, the Houthis remained in power.

And I think they even just took over more control of the country. And they simply outlasted the Saudis and won. And then they'd be able to hit back a little bit like they had, like some drones that could strike some oil sites in Saudi Arabia. And eventually, like the Saudis just tired of it. And they were like, we can't beat them. And they threw in the towel. And it was early in the Biden administration that the Saudis just kind of quit doing it.

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Almost everybody talking about the story today, like kind of leaves out all that. It's just like, you're supposed to in the same sense that like October 7th is supposed to be viewed in a vacuum. Like here was the nice little Jewish boys just in there. The job, we were just trying to have a rave outside your concentration camp, you know, and then out of nowhere this happened, but like, no, there's actually a history and there's these things happen in context. And, and,

Okay. So all of that happened, but I also say it not just to understand that there's the history of all of this, but I say it just to, to make the point that like the Houthis went through all of that and are still in control and are still trying to fight back. Now,

Many people, myself included, might say, Jesus, why the hell are you guys doing this? Like, haven't your people been through enough that you're going to bring more of this on them? But that's not really the point. The point is that an entire blockade and a brutal bombing campaign for eight years wasn't enough to take these guys out of power or to slow them down.

And what we think dropping a couple tomahawks is going to do it. No, it's going to do nothing except kill people. We're just like, unless we were actually committed, don't get me wrong. If the U S military, if we wanted to invade Yemen, the way we invaded Iraq, okay, we could probably overthrow the Houthis.

But if we're not talking about doing that, we're just talking about murdering some people so we can feel good about ourselves. So that's kind of like the now after October 7th.

They did start like attacking ships, you know, and they were like, hey, we're on behalf of these poor Palestinians. We're going to not let Israeli ships go through here and also some American ships. And, you know, you can feel about that however you feel about that. But I would just point out that during the ceasefire, there were no Houthi attacks. And it wasn't until the ceasefire broke down that they started doing it again.

And so to me, it does kind of lead to some of these questions. You know, I know a lot of the like pro-Israel conservative types, while they love to lecture you about moral relativism on every other front, when it comes to this, you're never allowed to say like, OK, I mean, look, it's probably not great that the Houthis are attacking ships. But at the same time, why does no one have a right to stand up for the Palestinians at all?

You know, I mean, Israel gets attacked on October 7th and they get to do this. And yet the Palestinians have to endure all of this. And no one has a right to like close down some shipping lanes or something. Again, I wouldn't say no one has a right to do it, but it's just like, you

Look, I guess it's just very clear. It's like, oh, so this is another cost associated with supporting Israel's slaughter of Palestinians. So that we now also have to write, which is like the whole story of U.S. foreign policy. Always. We now have to once again, we have to take on Israel's problems and make them our own.

Now, we're in this beef, which is so clearly has nothing to do with us and has to do with what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people, which is objectively horrific.

But now because we're the ones funding that and arming that and giving it diplomatic cover, we now find ourselves in yet another conflict, the last thing that this country needs. And one of the things that Donald Trump ran and won on twice was the idea that we don't need more conflicts like this. And then, of course, we're right back in another one. So I guess...

That would be I mean, I know it's just a bit of a rant, but I think it's kind of like it's worth it to get that out there. But I just can't I can't overstate how horrible a decision this is by Donald Trump and how how much it's like, you know, it's like people would say for a while they'd be like, oh, stop bitching about all his bad appointments. You know what I mean? Like focus on the good ones or something. It's like now this is what happens when you surround yourself with a bunch of war hawks who are giving you bad information.

So I don't know. Any thoughts on any of that, Rob? Feel free to jump in. I hadn't quite considered, I guess, the Houthi-Palestine tie-in and that this was in response to what was going on over there. I guess I was more just looking at it from the why are we now in the business of killing innocent civilians? And I just find it surprising that if there's these –

multi-billion dollar trade routes and it's important to multiple countries that there's not a way of securing the trade route i mean if you're telling me that we're both aligned with china and nearly every country in the world about keeping this trade route open there's really no way of just sending a bunch of ships in there or a bunch of submarines in there and maintaining the trade route without having to bomb areas of yemen that include killing civilians

It just, and speaking to your point of what is this actually accomplished? So are we starting a war with Yemen? Are we just, it seems like the strong man shit of, hey, we're going to bomb innocent civilians in your territories and maybe take out a couple leaders here and there until you actually acquiesce and give up. It doesn't seem to work. Or I don't know, where's the example of that working so far?

Or like, is there ever a point where we don't have to just kill innocent people to make this? Like, is there ever a point where like we've killed enough innocent people that it's like, I think they got the message. I think they realize that we're willing to do this. It's always just this like, no, we got to show toughness. We got to let them know. But again, you know, to my to my major point here, look, the idea again, Yemen, which was

had started as the poorest country in the Middle East at the beginning of this, before going through the worst humanitarian crisis in the world for many years. They went through all of that and then still stuck up for the Palestinians when Israel started its assault on Gaza.

And you think like a couple Tomahawk missiles are going to change that calculation? I mean, I don't think there's any serious person even in D.C. who believes that like, all right, they got the message like they needed to be smacked around and now they won't mess with our ships anymore. And I think I just read just earlier today that they vowed to continue or something like that. It's like, yeah, of course. Of course they did. Like this isn't going to stop them. So what on earth is the point?

Why would we be doing this? And again, it's like with all of these scenarios, every single war, they can never...

Whether whether we're talking about Iraq, Afghanistan, whether we're talking about Libya or Syria, whether we're talking about Yemen, whether we're talking about Somalia, if you're talking about Ukraine, if you're talking about Israel's war in Gaza, nobody can ever clearly articulate that.

why we're taking this action, what the end game is and what our strategy is to go pursue that end game and like where it's like a reasonable end game. Whenever they give you an answer to that, Rob, it's something like we're going to drive Putin out of Crimea.

OK, yeah, but that can't ever happen or democracy is going to sweep the region or like it's always these goals that are just like on their face. You're like, yeah, but that's completely unachievable. There is no chance there is a zero percent chance that you will achieve that goal. But it's never just kind of like, OK, so we drop this. OK, so we killed whatever. I think it was 53 people we killed in this last strike. OK, and we had to do that because why?

What's the next step after this? Well, I guess the next step is that Trump threatens around and says that they're going to they'll be devastating consequences and that they are responsible for what the Houthis do, which is like just doesn't even make any sense at all. I mean, you would only I mean, don't get me wrong.

I understand why it makes sense to the insane neoconservatives and the insane Likudniks and the insane, you know, like evangelical Christians who think that like protecting, you know, the Jews in Israel is what's going to bring Jesus Christ back or the insane like Jewish supremacists who think that everything should be run around what, you know, the state of Israel. Okay, I get

there because they just want to topple the government and around that's why they all support it because they just want to move closer to the regime change that they've always really wanted which is the one in tehran okay so that's why they support it but short of that if you weren't trying to get us into another catastrophic war in the middle east like if you didn't hate the united states of america and want to see this country's destruction then why would it make any sense to start saying

that Iran is responsible for anything the Houthis do. Nobody really believes that the Iranians have complete puppet-like control over the Houthis and they can decide what they're going to do or what they're not going to do. I mean, like imagine if you were to take that line with the United States of America ever.

you were to say, okay, well, you guys, you know, we, our government props up the Saudis and the

the Jordanians and the Egyptians and the Israelis and the Ukrainians and all the governments that we fund and contribute to, if we were to say we're now responsible, you know, when the Saudis murdered that Khashoggi, murdered that journalist guy and cut him up or whatever, you say, I hold

Joe Biden responsible for that? That's not like why the only reason why you would even start thinking like that is if you were trying to bring America into a wider war, which has always been the huge risk since October 7th. And since the decision to start, you know, backing Israel's assault on Gaza, this has always been the biggest risk. And now it's like Donald Trump is just it's he's walking into this trap and seems to be willingly doing it. So, yeah.

You know, there's been there certainly has been some positives of the Trump administration so far. But man, is he flirting with throwing all of that away, all of that away right now? And then even just aside from, you know, the aside from the kind of potential disasters that could come out of this. Yeah. You know, just this in itself.

Just killing a bunch of innocent people. I mean, I know this is the United States of America and we've gotten so used to that. Like, that's just part of what our government does. But isn't it something that the government can just like take an action that's going to kill, including several children reportedly were killed in these strikes. And like we're it's just I don't know. It's so crazy to me that.

that murdering children wouldn't be something that collectively as a society we go like well man i mean if you ever have to do that then there's a serious process that we go through and that process involves laying out the case of why you absolutely have no other choice but to do this but no donald trump just decides then isn't it interesting you know daryl cooper had a great um

a great post about this the other day, but isn't it interesting, right? That there's no judge. There's no Congressman. There's no cable news show host that will ever even dream of like making this the issue.

You know, like, whoa, the president is just like committing an act of war. He doesn't have to consult anybody but like his donors or something like that. He doesn't even have to talk to anybody in Congress. He doesn't, you know, when you hear all this stuff about like Elon Musk is auditing USAID. This is outside, you know, this is anti-democratic. He doesn't have the authority to do that. But yet when it comes to making war,

Just crickets, you know, even like the Democrats who are always talking about Trump is Hitler and he's this and that and he's an authoritarian end of democracy. No one really cares when it's just murdering kids. And there's something so profoundly sick and backward about all of that. And I don't no matter how much it happens, that will never be normal to me. I'll never get used to that and just go like, yeah, well, I mean, you know, come on.

There were little brown kids in a third world country. I mean, who cares? You know, like, yeah, I don't know. Sorry. I still think that's profoundly horrible. Just an awful thing to do, especially when you're doing it like with no, no clear cut reason as to why this absolutely had to be done. And to your point that you made before, I mean, just like, I'm sorry. There's just there. There are.

There are other ways to protect shipping lanes other than just constantly being in a state of slaughtering innocent people. I just don't believe otherwise.

By the way, just the money we spend on the bombs, you know, we could we could probably just pay off people to be able to ship for for less money. So it's all just terrible. And, you know, again, it's not it's nothing that any of us should really be shocked by. I mean, this is Donald Trump. You know, Donald Trump, he backed the bomb.

the Saudi war against the people of Yemen for every single day of his first term. So I don't think he's going to be moved over like some innocent people in Yemen got killed. I mean, he seems to be quite comfortable doing it. And yeah, anyway, we will see. We will see where all of this goes.

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All right, let's switch gears a little bit because the other big story that I do just find fascinating, and this is what we were arguing about on Piers Morgan today, is this auto pen claim that Donald Trump is making. I...

I'll let you go first on this, Rob, because I've ranted a lot on the first topic. But I find this fascinating in a lot of ways. What are your thoughts on this claim by Donald Trump? First, at least maybe like lay out what it is and then give your thoughts on this claim.

about the Joe Biden pardons? All right. Well, the claim is we all know that Joe Biden had dementia. We've all been yelling who was actually running the White House, especially in the last two years that he was there. And on the way out, Joe Biden gave a number of preemptive pardons, which is rare. It includes Liz Cheney and others that were on the January 6th panel. And then, of course, to his own family member, Hunter Biden.

Among some others, but I think those were all of the, oh yeah, and then Fauci also got a preemptive pardon. It was later discovered presidents make wide use of an auto pen and don't frequently actually sign documents. Now the oddity in Joe Biden using the auto pen is that it seems that his, when he dropped out of the race, that that letter was actually signed by him, whereas everything else was seemingly signed by the auto pen.

now the question being put forward is was joe biden even aware that the auto pen was in use uh did someone else just put make these documents and sign them or if he was in a state of dementia was he actually aware of the usage of them and if a automatic auto pen is being used by the white house and it's not actually being used by a president or a president that's aware should that stand so that's the background of the story

Now, my guess is this is a fun little shit storm from Donald Trump. And I absolutely think that amongst the things that should be happening is the last administration should be investigated, specifically Fauci and whether or not there was a criminal behavior that took part, took place in fraud and selling the COVID vaccines and acquiring that virus from China. I'll put it in those terms. Yeah.

And then as to whether or not Liz Cheney or others, that one's a little bit more of a potentially a political witch hunt and the losing game of administrations going after previous administrations. But fine, maybe they play dirty first. And so it makes sense to expose the deep state working against Donald Trump's best interest. I'm also.

I'm all for going after the previous administration specifically for illegal behavior and specifically on the Fauci category. Or if you can prove financial crimes by the Biden family that are close to treasonous, I'm all for it. I think proving that Joe Biden's awareness about

The usage of the auto pen sounds like a difficult legal uphill battle because what are you going to do? Bring him into court now? I don't know. Well, how do I know when he did or didn't know? How do I know when he lost his agency? Is there someone who's going to actually testify against the administration that he specifically didn't know about the usage of the auto pen? So to me specifically, the auto pen thing is a fun little shit storm of a storyline that

And right now, Donald Trump probably needs bigger wins than actually just going after the old administration. I think the public is not that interested in prosecuting Biden as much as they're interested in knowing that tariffs aren't going to ruin our economy or that we're not going to be in World War III with Europe. I think people are a little bit more interested in actually Donald Trump enacting his agenda versus cleansing the old administration for what we voted out because it was terrible.

But this is a fun shitstorm. I'm all for investigating specifically Fauci's top of my list. You can get your prosecute Fauci t-shirts. It's top of my list of what I think we need to do to cleanse the country. I can't imagine that this holds up in court of that he's actually able to undo it because we can't prove that Biden knew that it was happening.

Yeah. OK, so, yeah, I can't really disagree with anything you said there. I think that's that's exactly right. It does seem particularly given the fact that I think a lot of presidents use the auto pen, including Donald Trump. At least that's what I've heard. I'm not actually sure if that's right or not. There is something it's still so much fun.

And part of it is just because like this is the price that the Democrat establishment has to pay. This is the albatross around their neck that will be around their neck for quite a while. This is essentially this is your punishment for what?

propping up a senile president is that only with him, with anyone else, like you could never get away with this if you were saying this about Obama or saying this about Trump. But with Joe Biden...

It's just like when you start saying, oh, he used the auto pen, you have a real issue there because you're like, there is no way that he knew what he was signing. And it brings up a lot of things like the way he dropped out of the race and how sketchy that was and what really happened there. So it's smart politics in that sense to just kind of... It makes you focus on that huge scandal again. And then, of course, it does...

Look, I completely agree with you what you just said. I think most people are probably more concerned with kitchen table issues, although I would personally think that like prosecuting Fauci is very high on the list of things we should do because the crimes that were committed were just so egregious and the people at the top should pay for that.

All of that said, I think you'd have to admit, even if you disagreed with, even if you think Fauci did a great job or you think Biden was great or you hate Donald Trump, you think he's the devil. You got to admit just like.

on the politics of the thing, it also just any chance you get to bring up the fact that he gave Fauci a blanket preemptive pardon is so it's such a loser politically. Like that just stinks of corruption. And then when you think about like what the message on that actually is, it's one thing to say,

That you don't think Fauci committed any crimes and you suspect that the next administration is going to vindictively weaponize the justice system and go after him. But when you give a blanket pardon preemptively, essentially what you're saying is that even if he committed any crimes, I still don't think he should be charged for that.

Because what if there were crimes that he committed that you didn't know about? You know, and that comes out. And so there's just something so dirty about that. And look, in the case of Fauci, in the best case scenario, it's a gray area. You know, like, I mean, he clearly he testified before Congress that the NIH did not fund any gain of function research.

And yet subsidiaries of the NIH were funding the lab where gain of function research was done. Now that I'm just I'm sorry, but that is best case scenario. A gray area. Best case scenario. Like I take that and I think that's clearly lying to Congress. People when you're on an enemy's list of Congress, people have been prosecuted for way less. People have been prosecuted for lying to Congress when they got a month wrong.

about a business deal. You know, you said June, but it was January. And I've seen cases like that where it's like, yeah, but it was another J month. I got confused and I said the wrong thing. They're like, sorry, lied to Congress. So don't tell me that like claiming you never funded gain of function research when you did fund the lab that was doing gain of function research and then trying to redefine gain of function research away. Don't tell me that that's a legit defense.

I know that's Fauci's defense. You redefine everything. Vaccine, gain of function. It all means something different than what we thought. But it's just another reminder of this. And it is one of the things that I find interesting is that

If, and I agree with you, I think legally speaking, and I'm no, you know, I don't have any legal expertise, but I do agree that it seems right what you're saying to me, that that's an uphill battle. I mean, imagine trying to prove in court that Joe Biden, again, like you said, you said it perfectly. Even if he was senile now and can't remember any of it, that doesn't prove that at the time he didn't know. And how the hell are you actually going to prove that? Seems very difficult to me. But what it is doing is like letting the public know that,

That like kind of floating out the idea, hey, maybe they don't really have pardons. You know, like maybe Fauci and Liz Cheney, maybe all these people don't really have that. And if so, what's the appetite to actually go after them? You know what I mean? Like, I just like the idea of inserting that issue into the public. I think there's something positive about that. And it's just another opportunity for Donald Trump to remind everyone that.

of the scandal that was the emperor's new close Biden presidency, which is wise. I have a joke about this in my act, but it is almost like there is a weird way

in which the Democrats and Joe Biden benefit from the fact that Donald Trump just sucks all the oxygen out of the room. And so the story of the day is always whatever Donald Trump did now or whatever someone, you know, Elon Musk did a Nazi salute or whatever, like the story of the day is, is always done. And then that does in a way distract from what

is gotta be up there with the biggest scandal in the history of the United States of America, that we had a non-functioning president for years, and that it was totally covered up by the media. And, you know, I think any time Donald Trump's kind of reminding Americans of that, it's...

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While it's good politics, I'd like to actually see some execution on, uh, I guess, uh, because, uh, I, I've been joking that Donald Trump, it's a lot of just clickbait, clickbait presidency. We'll float a storyline like this and you'll get really excited. Like, wow, are they actually going to prosecute Fauci? And then that'll be the end of the conversation about it. Uh,

specifically talking to biden's dementia i was saying while it was happening i think you guys can probably find clips in year one and year two of his presidency of uh whoever's around him that is masking for this should be held criminally responsible and i'd love to see you know those people brought in front of congress and giving testimony about what his actual behavior was because if you've been around with people with dementia

it can become very obvious. Like they have moments where like, oh, the guy's still there. And then when you put him down in a chair and he's like, are we still going to that dinner? And you're like, I just brought you back from that. Oh, okay. And I'm willing to bet that people were around him and saw moments like that.

And, you know, I don't know if you were a surgeon, let's say, and you were an alcoholic and I was your wife and I wanted you to continue to have that job. And so in the morning I'm helping you get dressed up and I'm giving you some alcohol so that you don't have your wobbly hands and then you kill someone in surgery.

the person that's an accomplice at that point, because you're asking it. And so maybe there's no crime of being president with dementia, but I think there should be. And I think if you're incapable of doing the job and you're making decisions that are harmful for the entire country, there should be accountability for that.

and whoever's masking it particularly if the guy has dementia then he doesn't really have agency i mean that's not a guy who's really using his higher consciousness to mold or make decisions so whoever's actually masking it for him is the person with agency and those people should be held accountable and then whoever was actually running you know what i mean all of this should be investigated or at least paraded in front of the public

Yeah, well, that's right. And I don't know even that they can be prosecuted. I agree with you. That should be a crime, you know, but at least they could be made to pay a serious, you know, social cost for it. And no, you're absolutely right. I mean, this was the thing that was so laughably absurd about the sharp as a tack line, which is what everybody went with up until that debate, like literally just a few days before that debate when it became them, when they stopped pretending.

But that you would go and anybody who's ever been around an older family member who's gone senile, a very sad thing to watch. It's truly tragic. I know you've been around it, Rob. I've been around it with family members. But to see Joe Biden...

And to see him lose his train of thought and get confused and not know where to exit every time he exited a stage and to not know what state he was in and to not know, you know, like when you watch all this and then to have everybody go, no, behind closed doors, he's sharp as a tack. It's like, yeah, that's not how dementia works.

I'm sorry. Dementia does not just like come about when you're in front of the cameras every single time and then go away and show no signs. And my God, the things that people must have witnessed behind the scenes. I mean, you know, it's yes, this was an open secret. And, you know, really, one of the people who was very much implicated in that was Kamala Harris.

who was out there saying that she was having weekly meetings with Joe Biden and that she was involved in all the most important decisions and that she was the last one to leave and that she spent all this time with him. And it's just I'm sorry. It's just it's beyond it's beyond anything that anyone could plausibly believe for her to claim that she never saw any signs.

of this guy's mental decline. It's just nobody believes that. And she doesn't believe it. None of her supporters believed it. Her chief of staff doesn't believe it. Nobody buys that. And so there should be some type of price to pay for that because my God,

What a crazy thing to do, you know, to just not have a president and then be lying to everyone. Anyway, you know, we've talked about it a lot, but it's I think it's always good when this topic comes back up. All right. Let's because we got a little bit of time left. Let's play a little bit. By the way, I did find this really fascinating. But so there were there were a few clips that were great. I've not watched the whole thing because I don't hate myself that much. But Don Lemon is.

was on Bill Maher's podcast and had a few just like incredible moments of just seeing into the – a window into the dumb soul that is Don Lemon. These things are so – one of the things that's really fascinating is that people – now that the corporate media has collapsed and then you've kind of seen this –

You know, you've seen some people who were able to either reinvent themselves or were just good enough at what they did so they could keep doing it. Like Tucker Carlson could just keep going and doing what he was doing. You know, Pierce Morgan, I think kind of reinvented himself in a way to have a very relevant show. Now he was, he was smart enough to figure out what,

this new media landscape was, what people wanted, what type of show he could put on that they'd be good. And then you've got the Chris Cuomo's and Don Lemon's of the world who like tried their hand at coming over into this world. And it's almost like they're still playing the old game of

And it's just really funny to watch it just collapse and not work. So anyway, on that note, let's go. Let's first let's go to the one that I sent first. And then if we got time, we'll play some of the other ones as well, because there were a few good ones there. But let's check in on old Don Lemon.

Your show's on YouTube now. It's a different mechanism. It's the same thing, though. It's a smaller screen. Do more people watch you on YouTube than watch you on CNN? I think now, I think they, well... You don't know the answer to that question? No, no, I do know the answer to that question. I think, you know, in my early days on CNN, I would say more people watched me on CNN. And then also when I was there, it was a different time. I think more people watched me on CNN...

I don't know. I think more people watch me now. But I think the highest point of CNN was during COVID. And we had COVID and George Floyd at the same time and Donald Trump. And that was the height. That was the highest ratings, the most profitable of CNN. And so it was amazing to be there. People watched every night. Right. And they sort of relied on us because you were stuck. Your show's on YouTube. It's a different mechanism. It's the same thing, though. So, by the way, I do not think he's right about that.

I think CNN had higher ratings periods before that, but regardless of that, Rob, isn't that something? Isn't that such an admission? What are your thoughts? Well,

Well, it's infuriating to listen to. Firstly, he's such a dumbass. And it's funny the way that Bill Maher is a little bit cunty because off the bat, he's like, wait, you don't know the answer to that? How do you not know? You were there. Which he definitely does. He definitely knows the answer to that. They told you the ratings and you can look at your YouTube counter and you can probably speak to a better expert of how accurate the CNN ratings are and how much of it is gyms and airport and how many people are actually watching it versus the accuracy of the YouTube counter.

And then also when he talks about that during the COVID era, it was exciting because so many people were tuning in. But then also the profitability,

I don't know that that's all ratings as much as that could be the pharmaceutical companies were pretty interested in the continuing selling of that story. And you kind of see the circle of interest all getting along there of CNN sells the story. They make more money, more people tune in, more people are scared, more people tune in. They make more money. The advertisers want to spend more there. And I'm not saying that Don Lemon's smart enough to participate in that circle, but

as much as be the face that they'll slap on the screen and say, read these words and only these words, because if you say anything else, it's pretty clear that you're Anchorman. But, you know, I think there's something gross about the casualness and all of a sudden him being pragmatic and going, well, it was fun to be there at that time because everyone was tuning in.

For manufactured nonsense. Yeah, well, that's the thing, right? You know, when I was on Piers Morgan today, I started arguing with that Julie Roginski chick a little bit.

At one point she said, she said something. I mean, she just doesn't know me. We did some shows together back in the day at Fox news, but I don't think she really knows anything about me, but I said something about Fauci and how he should go to prison. And she was like, Oh, you want to, you want to relitigate 2020 now, but what you don't want to talk about is January 6th. What you don't want to talk about is Ukraine. What you don't want to talk. And I was just like, yeah, Julie, that's a,

you're barking up the wrong tree with that one. Like, I don't know. People could accuse me of a lot, but not wanting to talk about Ukraine isn't one of them, you know? And then I said to her at one point, I go, well, you know what? I think Julie probably doesn't want to talk about is where were you in the summer of 2020? What were you saying back then? Let's, let's argue whether you were right or wrong about that. And I'll argue with what I was saying back then. What were you saying when the vaccine was first rolled out? What were you saying? You know, it's like, well, it's so funny that Don Lemon would say, well,

Oh, we had the highest ratings at this time. It was such a fun time to be around. And you like the counter is you almost want to go like, okay, what were you pushing back then? And how much of it can you stand by now? Because like, I'll tell you, man, you go, you go look at and look, I'm not saying like I've done this recently. I'm pretty confident. And I think people have been listening to this show for a while. Be pretty confident. Like you could pluck an episode out from, you know,

August of 2020, me and Rob could sit down and watch it and we'd be pretty happy with where we were and be like, yeah, we were pretty much right about the biggest issues. You know, like I'll stand by that. I'll still go argue that lockdowns are wrong and stupid and that they did way more damage than anything positive that came out of them. I'll still argue that like the nationwide riots were like horrific and, you know, shouldn't have been defended. I'll still like all of this stuff.

I remember later in the year, but I remember the week of the Hunter Biden laptop coming out. I remember me and you sitting down and being like, this is obviously his laptop. And the claim that this is Russian disinformation is just clearly a lie to distract people. And it's like, oh, yeah, yeah. You're like, oh, yeah, the ratings were good when the country was locked down.

Can you still defend lockdowns? Because you were defending them at the time. Can you still defend that? Okay, the ratings were good when you were defending Black Lives Matter and calling them fiery but mostly peaceful protests. You still want to defend that? The ratings were good when you were claiming Trump was a Russian spy. Do you still want... It's like, oh yeah, so you got ratings off a bunch of fucking lies.

And people woke up to them eventually. Anyway, and then there's just the dishonesty of, I don't even know what are the YouTube numbers. Like as if anyone in this game has no concept of whether their ratings are higher or lower than they were a few years ago. It's all just kind of ridiculous. Here, let's go to the one that I texted to the group, Natalie. Let's play the one that, because it's so funny how like, it's just amazing how,

And this is a huge part of the reason why the podcast world took off and the corporate media world died. But just there are so many shows like this now. And just like the level of conversation is, I don't know...

It's at least 30 IQ points higher than whatever the hell is happening on CNN. And to look at Don Lemon here again, what's interesting about Don Lemon is kind of like Chris Cuomo is that he wasn't this isn't just like a guy who happened to be at CNN. These were the biggest shows. These were their marquee names. It was Cuomo and Don Lemon, their shows, and then their back and forth in between the shows. This was the highest rated thing that CNN had.

during these days that he's claiming were, you know, the great ratings days for CNN. So it's just interesting to see like their level of analysis. And here is Don Lemon giving you what essentially it's like the Joy Reid level of political analysis. It's all they have to offer. So here here's Don Lemon. It's the same thing that I when I see.

not all black Republicans, but I see a black MAGA person who is carrying Donald Trump's water and they know that he's lying. It is the shortest line to the front because if you're a black and you're whatever, any, you're just in line with a bunch of other Democrats that are doing the same thing that, that you're doing. But if you become a black MAGA person, it's like, Whoa, let's book this person. Let's put them on television. So you don't think you can be a sincere black MAGA person? No, I, no, I just said, I, I don't think that,

I just said I think there can be sincere Republicans. But you can't be a sincere black Republican. I don't think that you can be a rational MAGA, be black and be a rational MAGA person. I think you can be black and be a Republican. I think they would find that very insulting. Well, I mean, the truth is often insulting. It's the same.

Yes, it is true that the truth is often insulting. Also, just idiotic statements can be insulting sometimes. Isn't it like, it's just so pathetic. And this is the game that really, in the era of the Don Lemons, in the era of Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon and Joy Reid, kind of in the time that these people became like the anchors, this was the type of just...

just, I don't know how to put it, profoundly stupid poison that they would just pump into America. And it really just can't be stated how destructive this was to always just whittle everything down to a race issue, constant insinuations of bigotry against anybody who disagreed with them. And it's just the

The Joe Biden, you ain't black comment essentially is what Don Lemon has there. Then he tries to attach it to a point, but he's Don Lemon. So he's just really stupid and he doesn't really understand the point even he's making. I'm like, yes, there is some truth to the fact that you cut the line if you were like,

The if there's less of you, you know, like if you fall into some category where there's like, oh, that's more unique to see. It is true that you're more likely to get booked. This is also true.

has nothing to do with race. I mean, like for example, like, like Dave Rubin has a huge YouTube show. And one of the reasons why Dave Rubin has a huge YouTube show is because he was the young Turks guy. Then became a conservative. He left the left and,

And so now that becomes like a story. Also, Liz Cheney. What do you think Liz Cheney would have been? How many media appearances do you think she would have had if she hadn't been going after Donald Trump in the way she was? There's lots of different angles. But for him to sit there and say, you cannot be a since like no black person could support Donald Trump. There is no issue. You could possibly you couldn't just be, let's say,

a black dude who was against illegal immigration or who was against fighting forever wars or who was against the inflation of the Biden administration. Why somehow as a white guy, you can legitimately have those opinions, but a black guy couldn't. I just, again, it's like, it's a profoundly racist statement to make, which has always been the case. It's like these guys, they're like, there's something out of like,

Like a movie that would just like caricature racism in the past and they would just make some character that's just like a foaming at the mouth bigot. It's like, oh, that's you. That's you. You're just like a vicious racist. It's the only lens that you see the world through.

Is that like, oh, black people are supposed to be over here on this plantation only thinking one way. And if you dare cross over there to the other side, then you're some type of fucking sellout. And who the fuck is Don Lemon to speak for black people, for the least black black man in America? Like, really?

A multimillionaire gay dude who's banging a white dude living in a white neighborhood like what you get to decide. You're the arbiter to say, like, well, you can support Mitt Romney. I'll allow a black guy to support Mitt Romney, but you can't support Donald Trump.

Like, why? Why do you get to choose that? Like, fuck off, Don Lemon. I don't know. I'll give you the final word, Rob, and then we got to wrap up. What am I going to say that's better than fuck off, Don Lemon? I think you nailed it on that one.

All right. Well, listen, thank you guys very much for listening. What's your what's your new site again, Rob? Rob Bernstein, comedy dot com. I'll get the links to those two dates in the episode description and check out the run your mouth podcast. Just did a really great interview with David Column. I think you guys would like it. All right. Yeah, I'm definitely going to go check that out. He's a very interesting guy. All right, guys. Comic Dave Smith dot com for our ticket links. Boston coming up. Come on out. We'll see. We'll see you out there in Boston. Thank you guys for listening. Catch you tomorrow. Peace.