Biden's Farewell Address
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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. We are on our way to Bozeman in just a few days. Am I saying it right yet? Bozeman? I think that's it. Bozeman, Montana. But it's more fun to say Bozeman and piss everyone off.

it really is it's so much more typically though i do get it right by the time the show comes so by the time i'm there i'll be saying it right and then i'll deny having ever said it the wrong way anyway tickets are moving fast the show is going to sell out um but there are still some available right now as i'm saying this so go to comicdavesmith.com help us sell this thing out uh at the crawford theater out there very much looking forward to it and then the following week um

We're going to be in Louisville and Fort Wayne, Indiana. So come on out to all those shows. Comic Dave Smith dot com for all the ticket links. How are you this morning or this afternoon, Rob? What's new? Oh, you muted. Yeah, there's all sorts of chaos going on upstairs. I press the mute button. There's too much happening. You know, I'm getting a little too excited for Trump round two in the end of Biden. There you go. Well, that's here.

Well, that is the theme for today's show. Joe Biden just gave his farewell address to the nation. His final bubble. Yeah, man, it really is. It's unbelievable. As I'm sure people are kind of familiar, presidents give farewell addresses to the nation. This is a long standing tradition. It is particularly weird to see Joe Biden do it.

just because this is such a bizarre presidency that truly feels surreal. It does not feel like the man is the president of the United States of America because he really kind of isn't and really hasn't been for, if he ever was, it's at least been a long time since he was. Typically, you know, we could go through this. I don't even know if I, typically what we do is like the legacy of Joe Biden episode, right?

Which is essentially what this is. But I think we're just going to play through his farewell address and kind of discuss some of the some of the I was going to say points he makes, but I don't know if you could actually describe them as points. I don't feel like there's that much.

that we really have to harp on. We could spend a few minutes of it here. If you're going to talk about the Biden legacy, it's actually much simpler than previous presidents, partly because he was only in for four years and partly because his legacy is pretty straightforward.

It's not even Donald Trump, who at the end of his term had only done four years. If you were to ask yourself, what is the legacy of Donald Trump? There's there was so much to talk about. He was the guy who reinvented the way that you could do politics. The first president who was didn't have any political or military influence.

He was the first president who the corporate media and the deep state were openly hostile to in our lifetimes. There was just so much there. With Joe Biden, it's pretty straightforward. The number one thing in Joe Biden's legacy story

Whether this should be the case or not, it's just the way things work. It's the way the world works. His number one legacy is being a senile old man who was clearly not competent enough to be president of the United States. But that's just it. Like, it doesn't matter. You know, it's like if me and you, like if I was running late somewhere and I told you I would be there on time and you told me it was really important that I'd be there on time and I'm late.

And I show up late. And then when I show up late, you go, God fucking damn it, Dave. I've always fucking hated you. You're a piece of shit. I hope bad things happen to your family. You're just a terrible human being. After that, the conversation is just no longer about whether I was late or not.

Or whether I gave my word, I'd be there on time. It's like, OK, now we need to have a new conversation. What the hell was that? You know what I mean? Like, it's just that once once you're pooping your pants on national television, policy just isn't the first thing that people are thinking of anymore. The Joe Biden's true legacy is that he was so goddamn senile and corrupt.

He demonstrated through that that the entire corporate media and Hollywood and the political class would just play this game of the emperor's new clothes and pretend that we didn't have a senile man in the White House. Aside from that, his legacy is forcing the goddamn COVID vaccine on as many people as he could while selling it based off lies.

It was funding insane proxy wars in Ukraine and in Israel. And it was his disastrous de facto open border policy.

You know, you could go ahead and give any thoughts you have, Rob. But to me, it's really that straightforward. We're a few minutes into the show, and I think that's Joe Biden's legacy. There's not that much. We've talked about this for years at this point. I don't know what else there is, but take a stab at it. What else is Joe Biden's legacy? I would add two things to that list, although that's very well said. I would just add the tech censorship and weaponizing the Justice Department. Yes, very good point. Particularly, yes, very good point.

I think that those are also authoritarian maneuvers that most presidents have not wielded, or at least not to his degree. And on that note, he really is...

I know that they're all liars, but there's something about the way that he lies and how bold face and aggressive he is and that sometimes his lies don't even make sense. Like in his farewell speech, he goes, hey, guys, I've done incredible things. This has been the most successful presidency, but you're all going to die because of global warming.

Right. Yeah, we're about to play it. Yes, but that's right. The seeds that I planted for the future are going to reap massive benefits. And that's the only reason you don't realize quite how great I am. And also, I could have won, but I stepped down to be nice because I know that I couldn't win.

Um, but he's just, and then when he starts talking about the tech censorship and it's the most 1984 Orwellian pitch ever that the tech companies are out of control and that they're being authoritative and there's too much misinformation and that's why government needs to control them. Um,

Hold your thoughts on the speech because we'll get into that. But you're absolutely right. I mean, literally, that's my exact take on that. I would say let's we're going to play Joe Biden's farewell address here. We might skip around a little bit. We'll start it from the beginning. But I will say this. I didn't watch the entire thing. I got to the point that you're talking about, though.

Interestingly enough, he ends up invoking Dwight D. Eisenhower in the speech. I swear my first thought as I was watching the first few minutes of it was just...

You know, I remember talking about this when I had Tucker Carlson on the show. But if you go, I'd highly recommend, by the way, to everybody, go watch Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address to the nation. It's very interesting. Number one, he is, I believe, I believe he coins the term the military-industrial complex in that speech. This was not a term that was used in popular discourse. That part of the speech is very interesting, but

One of the things that really stands out to you is just Dwight Eisenhower. And I'm not a big Eisenhower fan, but he was a serious person. And he spoke to the American people in as if they weren't idiots.

Like he spoke on at a high level to people with the expectation that they would understand this. And that, that theme almost like kind of blinded everything out of the rest of it for me. Cause it's impossible to not just like focus on the elephant in the room, which is just that, like what a demonstration of the degree to which we've been degraded as a nation where we're,

This bumbling fool. And Joe Biden was always a dummy before he lost his mind. I mean, before he was so old that he's clearly suffering through some significant cognitive decline. He was never an impressive guy. You could go. I mean, look, if you go back and find clips of Joe Biden in the 80s and the 90s.

He could speak. He wasn't an old man who was incapable of putting sentences together. He was never particularly impressive. But now to just watch this version of Joe Biden, it's just unbelievably sad. It's a sad comment on who we are as a people. And again, this isn't a comment on whether he's a good guy or a bad guy. I would argue he's a bad guy and he's done a lot of evil in his life. But

you know, I mean, like Joe Biden, as in terms of his legacy, as his career, like we're just talking about presidency. But if you're including him as a vice president, as a senator, I mean, he's on record supporting the most disastrous policies, all in on the war on drugs, all in on the Iraq war, all in on all of these policies that we all kind of there's pretty broad consensus that like those policies were failures and failures that resulted in carnage, you know. But

Just watching this, it's like, wow. Look, I think Vladimir Putin has done a lot of evil things. And this most recent war in Ukraine, of course, is at the top of that list. But if you listen to Tucker Carlson interview him or you listen to a Vladimir Putin speech,

He's talking about, you know, like 600 years of history, giving his takes on all of the different events. He knows about the different events. He's talking about the, you know, Clinton backing the bin Ladenites in Chechnya. He's talking about the Maidan Revolution. He's talking about the historic relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Now, you could disagree with everything he says about them. I certainly don't, although I disagree with a lot of it. But he's like...

a reasonably intelligent man who's like a compelling figure. This is true with leaders around the world. And this was true with U.S. presidents for a long time. And so that was like the most startling thing to me of all of it. By the way, I would say from the portion that I watched, he managed to not flub up too bad. Like,

You know, I don't think, you know, I think the better Bidens we've seen over the years. Yes, that's right. So at least we could give him some credit for that. Grading on a Joe Biden curve, he got a didn't poop your pants was his score on this one. All right, let's start. Let's start playing it and we can go through some of this. I'm speaking to you tonight from the Oval Office. Before I began, let me speak to important news from earlier today. After eight months of nonstop negotiation,

My administration, by my administration, a ceasefire and a hostage deal has been reached by Israel and Hamas, the elements of which I laid out in great detail in May this year. This plan was developed and negotiated by my team and will be largely implemented by the incoming administration. That's why I told my team to keep the incoming administration fully informed. All right, let's pause it here already. Working together as a team.

It's so obviously he's got to try to take credit for this, you know, but it sure is interesting that you had this deal in May and it's only now being agreed to. And it only coincidentally happened right after Trump's envoy went there and put pressure on the Israeli government. So.

Again, for Joe Biden to try to say, oh, well, we worked out these deals. There's nothing to the deal. The deal was accepted by Hamas back then in May. They were willing to do it. The impediment was Israel. And so the question wasn't like fine tuning the deal. The question was, can you get any pressure on Israel? Now, again, this is still all...

Wide open. We have no idea whether this is ultimately going to be a good thing or what's going to come from this. But Biden trying to take credit for it is just it's sad. I watch that and I think he still got it.

Yeah, right. Taking credit for other people's work? That's politicking at its best. Yeah, well, there you go. But it is just like, obviously, on the face of it, it's like, well, OK, but so then why is the deal being agreed to now? Your people who were working tirelessly on it did what recently? That happened to come a couple days after the reports that Trump's envoy went there and insisted that they make the agreement.

You know, if you want to try to spin this, I mean, obviously he's got no other option but to try to spin this in some way that it's his guys who got it done. And technically Trump isn't in the White House and it is his people who are in charge now of implementing this, at least for a few days. But it's very obvious what happened. The timing on this is just the timing alone makes it very obvious.

what this was. And look, to be clear, to the extent that Donald Trump was able to put any pressure on Netanyahu, Joe Biden was in a position to put this pressure on him since not May, but since October of 2023. So he failed to do that. All right, let's keep playing. - President Merrick, this will be my final address to you from the American people from the Oval Office, from this desk as president. And I've been thinking a lot about who we are

and maybe more importantly, who we should be. Long ago in New York Harbor, an iron worker installed beam after beam, day after day. He was joined by steel workers, stonemasons, engineers. They built not just a single structure, but a beacon of freedom. The very idea of America was so big, we felt the entire world needed to see. The Statue of Liberty, a gift from France after our Civil War.

Like the very idea of America, it was built not by one person but by many people from every background and from around the world. Like America, the Statue of Liberty is not standing still. Her foot literally steps forward atop a broken chain of human bondage. She's on the march, and she literally moves. She has built the sway back and forth to withstand the fury of stormy weather, to stand the test of time because storms are always coming.

She sways a few inches, but she never falls into the current below. An engineering marvel. The Statue of Liberty is also an enduring symbol of the soul of our nation. A soul shaped by forces that bring us together and by forces that pull us apart. And yet through good times and tough times, we've understood it all. A nation of pioneers and explorers, of dreamers and doers, of ancestors native to this land, of ancestors who came by force

The nation of immigrants came to build a better life. A nation holding the torch of the most powerful idea ever in the history of the world. That all of us, all of us are created equal. That all of us deserve to be treated with dignity, justice and fairness. That democracy must defend and be defined and be imposed, moved in every way possible. Our rights, our freedoms, our dreams. But we know the ideal America

Our institution, our people, our values that uphold it are constantly being tested. Ongoing debates about power and the exercise of power. But whether we lead by the example of our power or the power of our example, whether we show the courage to stand up to the abuse of power or we yield to it. After 50 years at the center of all of this. You can just pause it right there. I swear to God, so much of this stuff is designed to make dumb people think you're saying something smart.

You know, like if you just don't know, I guess he's saying stuff, but all of that could be reduced to nothingness. I mean, just empty, feel goody, nothing, you know, but all right.

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I should start giving speeches this way. A building was built brick by brick up into the air and people look at it. Yeah. It wasn't just about what it was. It was about what it wasn't, what it symbolized, what it meant. Sure, we can thrive through good times. Can we thrive through suffering? Like, you know, like none of it means anything, but okay. Anyway, let's keep playing. Kamala Harris is writer to this piece. No, no.

that believing in the idea of America means respecting the institution that governs a free society, the presidency, the Congress, the courts, a free and independent press. Institutions that are rooted, they just might not reflect the timeless words, but they echo the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident, rooted in the timeless words of the Constitution. We the people.

Our system of separation of powers, checks and balances may not be perfect, but it's maintained our democracy for nearly 250 years, longer than any other nation in history that's ever tried such a bold experiment. In the past four years, our democracy has held strong. And every day I've kept my commitment to be president for all Americans through one of the toughest periods in our nation's history. I've had a great partner in Vice President Kamala Harris. It's been the honor of my life

To see resilience of a sense of worth. I mean, if we're going to go with the claims of the last year, the American people just elected a dictator who has been prosecuted by five different legal departments in five different states, a known felon, if anything, by Joe Biden's standards. He's overseen the end of our democracy. Yeah, I mean, a Russian spy, the

has never really been retracted. I mean, yes, Rob, like what are you not understanding here? Adolf Hitler is ascending to power. Democracy is over. We're all going to die from climate change, but everything's fine.

What is the issue you're having with comprehension here, Rob? The way I see it, he should be giving a speech about, sorry, I couldn't save the soul of the nation. In fact, there are so many racists out there, and Charlottesville was such a wonderful movement that Donald Trump was able to return despite all my efforts to have the Justice Department take him down. I'm sorry that I couldn't stand in the way of the evil that will now stand before you in this office.

Well, it's like at least like, you know, look, there's there's propaganda on all sides and all politicians. You know, this is what they do. They'll rattle off a list of accomplishments or both. But, you know, if you think about like the MAGA thing, the Make America Great Again is, you know, a.

a four word slogan that at least you can derive some meaning from like, Hey, we used to be great. We've gotten away from that. We got, we're going to make it great again, but like this propaganda, it's just so incoherent. Like what, how do you say everything you've said over the last year? And then we're supposed to take that this moment in American history is anything other than an unmitigated disaster. This is what you said.

You as president of the United States said it over and over and over again. It was your entire campaign until you had to drop out a few months ago, drop out, kind of pushed out. But that was your entire campaign was what a disaster it would be if this guy got reelected. Well, it's January 16th. He's coming to power in four days. So what? Anyway, let's keep going. Workers getting us through a once in a century pandemic.

The heroism of service members and first responders keeping us safe. The determination of advocates standing up for our rights and our freedoms instead of losing their jobs to an economic crisis that we inherited. Millions of Americans now have the dignity of work. Millions of entrepreneurs and companies creating new businesses and industries, hiring American workers, using American products. Together, we've launched a new era of American possibilities.

One of the greatest modernizations of infrastructure in our entire history. From new roads, bridges, clean water, affordable high-speed internet for every American. All right, can we pause again? We invented the semiconductor. Smaller than the tip of my little...

I don't remember some massive good infrastructure overhaul. I remember a bridge falling down. I still see stories about water problems and chemicals that are in the water. So I don't know what of those things that he just mentioned is actually true. Yeah, I don't think he knows either. But he certainly is reading the words on his teleprompter. You know, the truth is that, again, it's like,

The Biden years have not been good years for America, and that's pretty obvious, right? And if they were anything like this great triumph that he's discussing, well, then obviously Donald Trump wouldn't have been elected again. I mean, that's just that's the way politics works.

You don't get four years of Democratic presidency and things were so spectacularly great that Donald Trump ends up winning again. That's not how it would go. And the years were obviously he came in at the very beginning of 2021. 2020 was a disaster for America. Anybody who thinks 2020 was anything other than a disaster needs to have their head examined. The country was locked down.

um there were you know just it was a nightmare all around and joe biden's years saw you know overseeing the the worst price inflation in our lifetimes it was a very tough years for the american people and you could spin it however you want to but this is why you guys got creamed in the election let's keep playing well finger

And now it's bringing those chip factories and those jobs back to America where they belong, creating thousands of jobs. Finally, giving Medicare the power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for millions of seniors. And finally, doing something to protect our children and our families by passing the most significant gun safety law in 30 years and bringing violent crime to a 50-year low, meeting our sacred obligation to over 1 million veterans so far

who are exposed to toxic materials and to their families, providing medical care and education benefits and more for their families. You know, it will take time to feel the full impact of all we've done together, but the seeds are planted, and they'll grow and they'll bloom for decades to come.

At home, we've created nearly 17 million new jobs more than any other single. Or more accurately, the windmills that I put money into will stand there and decay in the ocean. Yeah. It's a fun claim. You know, you can make those claims if you do austerity measures and things are tight. You start rolling back government entitlement programs. You jack up the interest rates. You could turn to people and go, listen, I know it's been a rough couple of years, but we just laid the foundation for an American economic boom.

But when you spent like you did, you had wars that I don't know what benefits are going to come from them. What what are the seeds of all the immigrants that came over the border? Is that are those seeds? All these people. Yeah, it's all just seeds. Yeah, everything. Well, it's a it's a good point that you make, because even by like Keynesian economic doctrine, right, like the years of high spending, you're supposed to be doing for a short term boom.

And then when you pull back, it's supposed to be for long-term thing. You know what I mean? And so you're right that what he's talking about presiding over these years where spending was like basically, you know, wasn't even reversed back to pre COVID levels. They just had his entire administration at that, at these spending levels, we should be feeling this right now. This shouldn't be just seeds being planted, but of course, when you have no tangible results to point to, uh,

That's a very convenient argument to be like, well, what you're looking at, this is all going to be very, very positive in years to come. Yes, it's all going to – we'll all recognize that we were wrong about what a disaster this administration was. All right. Let's keep playing. It goes on to lie more. I interrupted you in the middle of a jobs claim. Oh, yes, yes. You know what? I mean we should address that too. It is funny to say like, oh, we've created 17 million jobs. It's like, yeah, like –

Coming off locking down the country, when the lockdowns ended, people did go back to work. But for Joe Biden to claim credit for that, especially when the Democrats were the champions of the lockdowns and actually their biggest criticism of Donald Trump was that he didn't lock down enough or hard enough or fast enough or for long enough.

Um, that is a pretty wild thing to claim, but yeah, there, well, look at that. If I, if I shut down the economy and I don't have to, I don't have to be criticized for any of the jobs I destroyed, but then I reopened the economy and I just get to take credit for all the jobs that I created. And yeah, that's, that's a fun game, isn't it? You're right, buddy.

I'm looking up the stats. I also think that a lot of the jobs that were actually created under Biden was foreign-born workers, which does not necessarily mean not U.S. citizens. But I'm just trying to look up the stat real quick. So anyways, I'm OK. I'm not having a stroke on you. All right. Let's keep going. Administration is a single term. More people have health care than ever before. And overseas, we strengthen NATO. Ukraine is still free.

and we pulled ahead of our competition with china we're gonna have to pause it right there holy moly ukraine is still free what a claim i mean i don't even know what i could say about this ukraine is free don't you wish you were as free as ukraine rob the beacon of freedom they are first of all to ever describe a country that is fighting a war

In its own...

on its own land, like fighting an invading army, I don't think you can call it a free country. When 50-plus-year-old mentally ill people are being grabbed and forced to the front lines, that's a little bit different than my conception of liberty. I don't know about you, Rob, but it seems pretty tough to brag about keeping a country free as the country's being leveled. Yeah, they're about as free as Gaza, right?

Just a beacon of freedom over there in Ukraine. I mean, that is a wild, wild, blatant lie to claim that Ukraine is free. We have kept Ukraine free. Ukraine has lost most of the eastern portion of Ukraine.

They don't even still have Ukraine, let alone still have a free society. Elections have been suspended. Opposition news networks have been shut down. All of the able-bodied men have been conscripted. What? Freedom? These things, of course, are all if the word freedom means anything, then what's going on in Ukraine is the antithesis of it.

They're free to fight on our behalf, which means we have to do so. Yeah, right. They're free to die, essentially. All right, let's keep playing. I'm so proud of how much we've accomplished together for the American people. And I wish the incoming administration success because I want America to succeed. That's why I've held my duty to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition of power, to ensure we lead by the power of our example. I have no doubt that America's in a position to continue to succeed.

That's why my farewell address tonight, I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. This is a dangerous concert and that's a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra wealthy people. The dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked. Today.

An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence. This is one of the seeds he's talking about, by the way. The seeds for success that he was able to lay down include this growing oligarchy that happened under his watch and might overtake America. That's the seeds of success, everybody.

Yeah, it really is like an unbelievable like that. That's your your concern that an oligarchy is rising while you brag about the success of your administration. And we're all, by the way, supposed to sit here and pretend that the United States of America isn't and hasn't been an oligarchy for at least 100 years. What are you talking about? Please, Joe Biden, go ahead. Define oligarchy for me. Go ahead.

And let's use an objective measurement of it. What? The government isn't really run by the people you mean? You mean to tell me that powerful vested interests are the ones who are really in charge? I mean, like, what a joke. Does anybody, does anybody, anybody...

With a functioning brain, so we're excluding Joe Biden now, does anybody actually believe that George W. Bush and Barack Obama bailed out the big banks because that's what's in our interest?

Or even that they believed that that was in our interest? You think that's why the banks got bailed out? Because they, you know what I mean? They really just thought like, oh, this is really what's good for the American people? Or is it perhaps the case that the big banks have just a little bit more influence over the federal government than the American people do? Like, what are we talking about? But he's very concerned, you see, about the concentration of power. Yes, that's, that has always been

That's always been Washington, D.C.'s number one concern, Rob. They just hate concentrated power there in D.C. That's what Joe Biden's always against. Too much power being concentrated in one area. That's what the president has a real issue with. All right. Let's keep playing. Rights, freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead. We see the consequences all across America, and we've seen it before. More than a century ago,

But the American people stood up to the robber barons back then and busted the trusts. They didn't punish the wealthy, just made the wealthy pay by the rules everybody else had. Workers want rights to earn their fair share. They were dealt into the deal and helped put us on a path to building the largest middle class, the most prosperous century any nation in the world has ever seen. We've got to do that again.

The last four years, that's exactly what we've done. Let's just pause it for a second there. Just because, like, you know, you can almost, like, not even blame Joe Biden for this. This is just, like, Washington, D.C.'s, like, you know, bad history. But the idea that, like, that's the story of America is such fucking bullshit. The idea that the story is that, like, there were these robber barons, just these evil robber barons, you know, these rich people who were just...

How were they rich? I don't know. From being evil, you know, from being a little monopoly man or something like that. And what happened was the workers rose up and they busted the trusts. They busted them up. They broke up their companies. And then because the rich had to like share these extravagant companies, we built the biggest middle class. First of all.

None of that is how it happened. It's just not accurate history. And number two, this thing, like, it comes down to a math question almost more than anything else, right? Like, there just simply isn't... Listen, today, there isn't enough wealth at Convicts

concentrated at the top that you could distribute it and make everybody materially better. And there's so much more wealth today than there was back in the robber baron age. Like this is just totally ridiculous. Like the idea that you could have just gone and taken like...

John D. Rockefeller's like all his wealth and just distributed it around the United States of America. And that would have made any meaningful difference. It's just nonsense. You know, it's like they ever you ever think about like put it in perspective like this. What is even with his latest like valuations? Do you know, like ballpark, what Elon Musk is worth? The richest man in the world. It's like the reported 90 billion, 110, somewhere between. I think he's something like I think he's way above that now. I think that now, again, to be clear,

When you talk about net worth, can you just look that up real quick, Natalie? What's Elon Musk's net worth? But to be clear, when we talk about net worth, it's not a real thing. Like net worth doesn't actually exist. What net worth, it says $416 billion. Okay, a lot of money. That was way wrong.

Now, to be clear, I mean, he was worth that not too long ago, but I think his stuff has been the value has been going up. But as you know, Rob, net worth isn't a real thing. Right. So it's not if if people say Elon Musk has a four hundred sixteen billion dollar net worth, what they're talking about is net.

They're talking about the value of all of his assets, including his stocks. Right. But so like the stocks that he owns in Tesla, in Twitter and whatever other companies or I guess the percentage of the equity that he owns in these companies. Let's say he wanted that money and he starts going, I'm going to start selling off.

Well, if Elon Musk was like massively selling off shares in all of his company, Rob, what's going to happen to the stock price? It's going to plummet.

It's going to plummet because they're like, oh, my God, Elon Musk is trying to get out. That must mean something, right? So he can't actually get access to all of this money. So just that being clear. And then the reports of net worth are often not exactly accurate. But for the sake of argument, let's make it an even $500 billion just to say that, you know, to make it an even number and to say, let's say this is undervalued. Elon Musk is worth $500 billion. OK, if we were to take every cent of it,

We were to take every cent of Elon Musk's money and let the government collect all of it. What does that cover? The government spends $6 trillion a year. I think it's actually substantially higher than that now, but I could go check. But somewhere in the ballpark, right? North of $6 trillion a year. So that is a 12th of one year of what our federal government spends.

If we cut $500 billion from the budget, there would not be drastic changes in this country. I mean, it'd be a very positive step, but I'm just saying like, it's not even, you're not even covering a quarter of,

of one year of what our federal government spends with all this money. So anyway, this is not, by the way, you can look, you can look all of this up. Tom DiLorenzo has actually done really, really great work on this stuff. But if you go look at, say, the robber barons, like Standard Oil was John D. Rockefeller's company, right? Well, John D. Rockefeller built Standard Oil and it

Literally, it people it created the kerosene lamps. Regular people now could could get could see after the sun went down and could read a book. I mean, like things that were not possible to do before that now regular people could do. It also saved the whales forever.

People don't like to talk about this, but they used to kill whales to get whale blubber, to burn lanterns. If you could imagine trying to get whale blubber in 1870 was rather expensive.

um, and that now people could for very reasonably price have, have an, you know, an oil lamp and like this really improved the standard of living for regular people. But once, when they broke up standard oil, it had already fallen from being like 90 something percent of the market share to of oil refining to being down to in the seventies, it was already coming down. There was already other competition. The truth of about America is that

from the end of the Civil War, from 1865 until 1913, we had no central bank, no income tax, no federal regulation, barely any federal spending. Essentially, the biggest experiment in human history in free market laissez-faire capitalism. And that's what created the biggest middle class. That's what led to the century of American dominance, okay? Not busting trusts. And I would challenge everybody

anyone anyone if they think they can make an argument that the wealth that was created in the united states of america was a result i'll take the argument that it was a result of our free market policies and you take the argument that it was a result of busting trusts you explain to me how that created all the wealth in this country i mean there's there's

No, simply no argument to be made on the other side here. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is public rec. If you are tired of uncomfortable dress pants, you got to get the game changer pants from public rec. They're the office pants that look like Monday, but feel like Sunday. Imagine clocking in while feeling as cozy as if you were laying in bed, but you're still looking like you belong at the office.

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that created all of this wealth. That's really what it was, government breaking up big companies. That's why everyone got rich. Anyway, let's keep playing. People should be able to make as much as they can, but pay, play by the same rules, pay their fair share of taxes.

So much is at stake. All right, let's pause it for a second here because this is the old Democratic progressive nonsense talking point. You know what's interesting? For all the time that they'll say this, Rob, that people have to pay their fair share, you know what question they'll never answer? What's the fair share? What is it?

What is the fair share? Like I make pretty good money. What's my fair share? I pay a lot of money in taxes. I paid more money in taxes this year than I made in my first decade of standup comedy. It's a fact.

I paid more money this year than I made in a decade. And the only reason I make money now is because I put that decade in. I paid more this year than I made it. Is that fair? What's fair? 40% of my income, 50%, 60%, 70%. You want to always invoke your fair share, but you never want to say what it is. Isn't that pretty ridiculous? And oh, by the way, it's always more.

It's always whatever it is. If we raise taxes on the rich, their fair share is more than what we just raised it to. The truth is that the federal government as an apparatus is in the business of transferring wealth from the working class and middle class to the ultra rich. And we could go through a million different policies in the way they do that. By the way, price inflation is one of the most effective.

One of the most effective ways to transfer wealth from working and poor people to super rich people. Because what do you think happens to them? Super rich people, they own stuff. And when everything's getting more and more expensive, that includes the stuff they own. What they own is getting more expensive. The value of their stocks and their homes and their, you know, all assets are going up.

If assets and commodities are going up, the super rich are making their money. But you know who loses? People on a fixed income, people who are retired, people who live paycheck to paycheck. Those are the guys who get destroyed. And it's their wealth that's being taken and then given to the super rich. You want to talk about transfers of wealth? Take a look at lockdowns where every small and mid-sized business gets fucked over and the big businesses are the only ones left.

That's what's really going on here. And this bullshit about the rich paying their fair share, it's just, oh, it's infuriating. It's so sophomoric and retarded. Anyway, all right, let's keep playing. - Central threat of climate change has never been clear. Just look across the country, from California to North Carolina. That's why I signed the most significant climate and clean energy law ever, ever in the history of the world. And the rest of the world is trying to model it now. It's working.

Creating jobs and industries of the future. Let's pause it. I mean, to be the president of the United States of America and make a claim that a hurricane and a forest fire are a direct result of climate change, it's a pretty large claim.

Are you substantiating that? What evidence do you have? With nothing to substantiate it. Just asserted. Just asserted. Like, that's just the facts. Like, we just know that. The whole climate change thing is all predicated on such bullshit. But also, again, to the point you made earlier, Rob, it's like these things are so diametrically opposed. It's like climate change represents this existential threat to a point that, like, LA is on fire right now because of it.

That's how bad things are. Yet I did great. Go invade China right now. I mean, if California is on fire because of climate change and, you know, the carbon emissions are going to lead to more forest fires and people dying in their homes burning. I feel like we've been invaded by China. I mean, now's the time for war. Why? Why? Why are we going to risk? We might as well risk nuclear war because we're dying anyways. And we've already been invaded and our communities already on fire.

Well, it kind of it reminds me of and, you know, not to take shots at him because he was a nice enough guy to us. But, you know, he's not going to be attorney general now, so I can say it. But it reminds me of Matt Gaetz coming on the show and telling me that he has evidence that Iran just tried to assassinate Donald Trump. It's like, OK, so are you supporting invading Iran right now? Because if that's true, isn't that an act of war?

Like, why would we not be at war? Yeah, like, why aren't, why don't these progressives have to support bombing Chinese factories? Why the hell should we just allow them to destroy all life on the planet? Oh, wait, I'm sorry. It's because you don't really believe any of that. The same way you wish Adolf Hitler a speedy recovery after he gets shot in the ear, right? Because you never really believed he was Adolf Hitler. The bottom line, and we've broken this down on the show before, is that climate, if you look at a chart,

of climate-related deaths, which is, by the way, that's really what we care about. Be clear here. We're on Team Human. We're not on Team Earth.

It's like, I don't know, like the issue is that the earth would ultimately be uninhabitable for us. Right. Not just that, like, oh my God, the soil is hurt. The argument isn't that species go extinct because that's what species do. They go extinct. 99.9999% of all species that have ever existed have gone extinct. That's what happens. Okay. So the argument would have to be something about people. So the question is,

How many people are killed from climate related events? Go look at a chart of it. It is a chart of free fall, just down, down, down, down, down. That's what the chart is because things are getting better, not worse. All the climate change, it's all such nonsense hysteria. And if you get rid of the electricity, good luck combating the environment and having more humans survive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, fossil fuels are life-saving devices. They are literally, quite literally, they save people's lives. And if you're talking about, you know, whatever, just be honest with what your proposed solution is. Banning fossil fuels? Going carbon neutral or something like that? Okay, it's going to kill tens of millions of people.

- Huh? - Burning your own turds. - Yeah, right, there you go. That'll make the environment much healthier. All right, let's keep playing. - Now we've proven we don't have to choose between protecting the environment and growing the economy. We're doing both. The powerful forces-- - Are we? Or is Los Angeles on fire because of climate change? Sorry, keep playing. - Influence, to eliminate the steps we've taken to tackle the climate crisis, to serve their own interest for power and profit.

We must not be bullied into sacrificing the future. The future of our children and our grandchildren must keep pushing forward and push faster. There's no time to waste. It's also clear that American leadership in technology is an unparalleled, an unparalleled source of innovation that can transform lives. We see the same dangers of a concentration of technology, power, and wealth. You know, as farewell address President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military-industrial complex,

He warned us then about, and I quote, "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power." End of quote. Six days, six decades later, I'm equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well. Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling. Aiders are disappearing.

Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies, told for power and for profit. All right, let's pause it right there. Because really, I mean, if you just...

read between the lines here, and it's not, you know, just strip away the euphemisms. I'm not like adding anything that he's not saying. This is pretty remarkable and really should be part of Joe Biden's legacy, that he invokes Dwight Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex to say six decades later, he has his own concerns. And those concerns are free speech. That's his concern, is that the American people are able to communicate.

That's the real threat. By the way, you know, he brings up Dwight D. Eisenhower invoking the military industrial complex seems to kind of imply that he was correct to be concerned about that six decades later. How's that doing? How's that military industrial complex that Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about? You got anything to say on that? Oh, no. No, you don't. Because you're their best friend. But no, you're concerned now. And by the way, just to be clear, I mean, it should be said that

It's kind of remarkable. I mean, he doesn't mention him by name, but who has he been talking about this whole time? Clearly referring to Elon Musk, right? He's talking about oligarchy, wealth being concentrated, tech control being concentrated. But here's the thing.

Um, tech control is not any more concentrated or any less concentrated, whether Jack Dorsey owns Twitter or Elon Musk owns Twitter. Mark Zuckerberg still owns meta. It's still the same. Oh, no, no, no. Your problem is just that they're not silencing people anymore. And I don't know. I mean, we've made the point too many times to stop, but it's such a bullshit, uh,

like cop out that they get to say the problem is misinformation because you don't actually have a problem with misinformation. Look, the first year and a half of Joe Biden's administration was his president.

signature issue, which he himself would have admitted, was getting the vaccine in as many people's arms as he could. And in order to get people to take the vaccine, aside from, look, a lot of the ways that he wanted to force people, he had that OSHA mandate, was totally unconstitutional and got struck down by the Supreme Court for being so blatantly unconstitutional. That's not what OSHA is. That's not what they're there to do. But

How did he try to get people to take the vaccine by by blatantly saying that if you took the vaccine, you couldn't get COVID and you couldn't transmit COVID? And he's he doesn't seem too concerned about that misinformation. OK, so it's only essentially what he's saying is information the regime doesn't like.

Doesn't matter whether it's true or not true. And we all know that. That was even Zuckerberg himself, who is very guilty of enforcing these rules. But he himself has admitted that the Biden administration wanted them to censor the truth.

It's not about whether the information is accurate or not. His his final message to the American people were Dwight D. Eisenhower's final message. Just think about this. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the five star general who led us to victory in World War Two after his eight years of being president. He goes, hey, guys, we got a major problem here, which is that we have now created the business of war.

And there's now this huge industry that will stands to have enormous gains if we fight wars. And we got to look out for that because, man, incentives matter. And if these people stand to make hundreds of billions of dollars off mass murder campaigns, then they might start pushing us toward mass murder campaigns. Now, these are my words, not Dwight Eisenhower's. And granted, he's

He said it slightly more eloquently than me, but that was the message that he was giving. Okay. However you feel about Eisenhower, again, not a big fan, but that's powerful stuff and something worth a president telling the American people in his farewell address to them. Joe Biden is sitting here and saying, you know, we don't have a monopoly on information anymore. And now these people have free speech and they could say stuff that's against our interests.

That's his final message. In many ways, kind of a perfect parting message for the Joe Biden legacy.

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Any thoughts on any of this, Rob? As I said at the top, I thought this was the most egregious lie of the bunch. And that it's straight up just 1982 doublespeak of the powerful or gaining control. 1984. I never actually read it, but, you know, people know what I'm referencing. But

But anyways, back to my otherwise brilliant point based on works I've never read. He's clearly lying here, and he's saying that the powerful are using misinformation, and he's describing what government was doing, which was removing true information so that on behalf of the powerful, they could get you to take vaccines, they could get you to support wars, they could get you not to criticize Israel. So he's really describing the...

eroding of the power of the elites to lie to you and to give you misinformation. But as I said, it's the most egregious lie I think he told through this whole speech. Yes, I completely agree. All right, let's keep playing a little bit more and then we're going to wrap up soon. To protect our children, our families, and our very democracy from the abuse of power. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time.

Nothing offers more profound possibilities and risks for our economy and our security, our society, for humanity. Artificial intelligence even has the potential to help us answer my call to end cancer as we know it. But unless safeguards are in place, AI could spawn new threats to our rights, our way of life, to our privacy, how we work and how we protect our nation. We must make sure AI is safe and trustworthy.

and good for all humankind. In the age of AI, it's more important than ever that the people must govern. And as a land of liberty, America, not China, must lead the world in the development of AI. You know, in the years ahead, it'll help to be, it's gonna be up to the president, the presidency, the Congress, the courts, the free press, and the American people to confront these powerful forces. We must reform the tax code.

Not by giving the biggest tax cuts to billionaires, but by making them begin to pay their fair share. We need to get dark money. That's that hidden funding behind too many campaigns contributions. We need to get it out of our politics. We need to enact an 18-year time limit, term limit, time and term, for the strongest ethics and the strongest ethics reforms for our Supreme Court. We need to ban members of Congress from trading stock while they're in the Congress.

We need to amend the Constitution to make clear that no president, no president is immune from crimes that he or she commits while in office. The president's power is not limited. It's not absolute. It shouldn't be.

Amidst all the horseshit, I agree with these last two things. People in Congress should not be allowed to, actually anyone in government probably shouldn't be allowed to trade stocks. And I also think, yes, you should be allowed to be prosecuted for crimes that you've committed while president. And let's start with George Bush and or any wars. Actually, I think across the board, wars are supposed to go through Congress. So any missions that have been done abroad, I guess all these guys are criminals.

Let's go after all of them. Yeah, let's start with Joe Biden. Like, OK. I mean, look, it's not even that I disagree with what he said there, but there is something mighty convenient about as you're leaving office in four days talking about how the president shouldn't have that much power. You never said that through your four years. You're saying that on behalf of the next guy.

He shouldn't have that much power. Yes, well, after you lose, and you know what I mean? You get just absolutely blown out by Donald Trump. White House's internal polling showed Donald Trump was going to take 400 electoral votes against Biden. Yeah, at that point, you go, hey, that guy who just cleaned my clock, he shouldn't have that much power. Where was this when you were trying to pass your OSHA mandate? You're trying to say that every single midsize and above business

has to either vaccinate or fire their entire workforce. Whoever said the president has that power?

Since when does the president have the power to decide that businesses have to force a medical intervention on their employees? Well, OK, the Supreme Court said it's wildly unconstitutional that you would even claim to have that power. But you tried to. So who exactly is Joe Biden to talk about the power of the presidency? He had absolutely no respect for it his entire time. And, you know.

Again, you could also include Joe Biden's eight years as vice president into this under Barack Obama, in which he launched wars in Libya, in Syria, in Yemen, in I guess Somalia was going since W. So, OK, fine. He just continued that one. Where exactly does the Constitution give the president these war making authorities?

You know, you want to talk about, yeah, the president isn't above the law. Okay. Well, certainly I could make a case to prosecute Joe Biden. But man, is there a slam dunk case to prosecute Barack Obama? Barack Obama murdered American citizens without charges. Not only did they not, not only did they not get their day in trial, not only was there not a conviction, they were never charged with anything. And he murdered American citizens. So,

Yeah, I'm with you, Joe Biden. The president shouldn't have that type of power. Maybe I'll take you a little bit more seriously when you address any of that. But I digress because obviously the Joe Biden of today does not know that any of that happened. And at one point, maybe he did. But I know. Can you imagine, Rob, if I got a conversation with Joe Biden and I said, what are your thoughts on Anwar al-Awlaki?

Just the blank look that would come over his face, you know? All right, let's play one more little bit and then we'll wrap this up because I think people get the point. There's another danger to the concentration of power and wealth. It erodes a sense of unity and common purpose. It causes distrust and division. Participating in our democracy becomes exhausting and even disillusioning. People don't feel like they have a fair shot. We have to stay engaged in the process.

I know it's frustrating. A fair shot is what makes America, America. Everyone's entitled to a fair shot, not a guarantee, but just a fair shot. Even playing field, going as far as your hard work and talent can take you. We can never lose that essential truth. Remain who we are. I've always believed, and I've told other world leaders, America can be defined by one word, possibilities. Only in America do we believe anything is possible.

like a kid with a stutter from a modest beginning in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in Claymont, Delaware.

sitting behind this desk in the United States. Yeah, you know what? We could wrap up on this because I think it's all just empty nothingness from here on out. Possibilities, Rob. Anything's possible. Your eight-year-old boy can become your daughter. Anything's possible, I guess. Anyway, this just means nothing. Yeah, look, I mean, this speech is in many ways a good encapsulation of the legacy of Joe Biden.

incoherent nonsense stuttering clearly has no idea what he's talking about and then just blatantly lying while he advocates for more tyrannical policies here I'll sum up the legacy of Joe Biden like this he kept us as free as Ukraine

There you go. Good job, President Biden. All right. We're going to wrap up on that. Come see us in Boosman, Montana, guys. We'll be there in a couple of days. Comic Dave Smith dot com for tickets. Catch you next time. Peace.