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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. We are fresh off a full day of travel and back home where we belong. How are you, sir? I had fun in Wyoming, and it's amazing how quickly we're turning this around.

Where are we? Oklahoma this weekend? Yes, that's right. Tulsa and Oklahoma City this weekend. ComicDaveSmith.com for tickets. This is our first time going out there together, so looking forward to it. We're really doing the middle of fucking nowhere tour. We are.

Turns out those are our markets where no one else wants to go now. But I think Tulsa and Oklahoma City are going to be great. So I'm very much looking forward to that. Thanks for everyone who came out to Casper. A lot of fun out there in Wyoming. That was my first time there and I enjoyed it. Yeah, good times. Looking forward, looking forward to heading out this week. And I've got porch tour stuff, Byron, Michigan and Salt Lake City, and then followed by a whole other slew of dates. I just had to go to porch tour dot com and come hang out.

Hell yeah. So I was, by the way, I was just on, literally just on before I got off to record this show just a few minutes ago. I was back on Pierce Morgan. They took their summer break there for a little bit. So I haven't done the show in a couple months, but it was fun. It was fun to be back. I did a, I think what could only be described as a three-on-one show.

debate, which I was not exactly sure what I was walking into, but it was Andrew Roberts, who is a world-renowned historian, was one of the three, and I was there trying to defend Daryl Cooper. I think I did an all-right job, given the

the setup there. But anyway, it was interesting to see. They're all upset about Daryl Cooper's interview with Tucker Carlson. I should let you guys know that on Wednesday, Daryl Cooper will be my guest on the show. So I'm sure we will get into some of this stuff. It was... You know the thing...

This dude is like a real deal. He might be the most prominent British historian. And really, I think what saved me in it was that nobody else knows anything about Daryl Cooper. Literally no one. Other than the clip that they saw on Tucker Carlson. It seems like they don't. Whereas I've...

followed him for a while now and I'm somewhat familiar with a lot of his work and the caricature that they were creating of him just let's say doesn't really match up with who the guy is or what his work is so they that was kind of handed to me as a win I mean

I was listening on the flight. I listened to three out of four on the Epstein one. I've listened to Martyr Made. Also just finished Churchill and the Great War, whatever that book is. Pat Buchanan's book, Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War, right? Yeah, which seems and I still I got a lot of Daryl Cooper. I still got to delve into. I haven't watched the full Tucker Carlson yet. There's a lot there.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the guy puts out a lot of work. But look, I think he's he's incredible. And not only do I think he's great on these other topics, I think he's right about what he's saying about World War Two. But we'll we'll get into more of that when he's on the show. But I'd heard from the Tucker Carlson interview seemed to correspond pretty well with Pappy Cannon's book. It didn't seem to be anything too much crazier than what was there.

I think that at least what he talked about about World War II, because it's not as if he didn't speak on World War II for hours and hours. It was like for a few minutes. But yeah, from what he said, I think it did seem very much in line with Buchanan's central thesis, which again, I think is correct.

Okay, let's get into some stuff here because there is a lot going on. We are really, Rob, in our time of year or our time of every four years, perhaps. You know, I was just thinking about today because, of course, we're –

a little more than 24 hours out from the first presidential debate. We are in the heart of election season right now. And it is looking more and more. I don't know how much, Rob, you've been following like the latest polls and stuff, but it is pretty much dead even right now. And and by the way, we could get into this a little bit. I know I've spoken about this before, but my interpretation of things is that means Trump's winning.

And I think that I think I'm right about that. But we could talk about that for a second. But as of right now, now that kind of like the dust has settled a little bit, I

Kamala Harris certainly got she got a big boost from when she first entered the race and all of the fanfare and all of the kind of astroturfed enthusiasm. But interestingly, she did not get a convention boost. She like which typically happens, although, of course, nothing about this election cycle has been typical.

You know, if you when you have for the first time in my adult lifetime and for the first time in modern American history, you have the candidate being removed and a new candidate coming in just a few weeks before the convention. It doesn't really make sense to expect the historically typical thing to happen because nothing about this is typical. However, as of right now.

In almost all of the new national polls, like I was just looking at one of the CNN's newest poll, they have the nationally, it's a one point difference within the margin of error. And in every single swing state, they were within the margin of error. That is about as close of an election as you can get. And so in this environment where you have such a close election, tomorrow night,

There is a debate and it looks very much like this is the only one. And so you're going to have a situation where this is a

about as close to do or die, like about as close to like this one day might determine the election. Again, early voting is starting, I believe, in a few days. So it's like they're going to get this debate in and then people are going to start voting very shortly after that. It is September 9th as we're recording this. This is it. We're getting down to the very end. You know, we're a matter of weeks away from Election Day.

So that's pretty wild that we're like right at the height of this thing. And it's interesting now, you know, cause I've been doing this, this show for a while. Um, I was doing part of the problem during the 2012 election. Uh, but we just, we had no audience. I had just started the show and it was a brand new show. Um, but 2016, 2020, and now through 2024, I've been doing this.

through you know these these three presidential elections and they've always just been you know it's it's an interesting thing when you're hyper focused on politics all the time but then it comes to the the point in time where everybody gets hyper focused on it and it is it's always wild this one seems particularly more wild than even 2016 and 2020 but

We'll see. I think we still got some more surprises. Yeah, it seems like we're it's kind of a slow act to that worry. It doesn't feel like we're that close or that into the election cycle for where we are. But I guess with the Kamala hype train going into the DNC and now pivoting to actually having a debate, maybe this actually forces Kamala to have some more appearances and reconcile with how stupid she is.

Well, it is possible. It's amazing how far she's been willing to get, how far she has gotten on the just I'm some lady, you know, like and we'll let the media do all the rest of the work for us. It is it's going to be.

Interesting. Look, I don't think and this is not I'm not saying it isn't possible. It is possible that Donald Trump does very poorly in this debate. I think it is less likely that Donald Trump has some moments that really hurt him. Donald Trump is first of all, he is incredibly he's an incredibly known commodity at this point.

People know who Donald Trump is. It's, you know, 2016 was eight years ago. It's been a while since he first, he was president for four of those years. He's been the most famous person in the world for much more than just that. And Donald Trump does have

this ability, like they call him Teflon Don, you know, he has this ability to even when he has gaffes or moments that aren't good, he can kind of make them all fall. Like they don't stick. You know, I always said one of my favorite, um,

debate moments ever. And I just mean like it was just one of the funniest things I've ever seen in a debate. I don't know if you remember there was this one debate in 2016. This is when this is when all the candidates were still in. And so there's like 12 candidates on the debate stage. And at one point, the the topic of the TCP

or the TPP, I should say, yeah, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP came up, and Donald Trump starts railing against it. And he's like, the problem with the TPP is that it doesn't address China's currency manipulation. If you don't address China's currency manipulation, then we don't have a deal. We don't have a good deal. And he goes on and on about China's currency manipulation, and that's why he's against the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And

And then Rand Paul, none of the moderators say anything, but Rand Paul from all the way on the other side of state, he just raises his hand and he goes, shouldn't somebody point out that China is not involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership?

That was just like, hey, I just I just wanted to point out that, like, this is an agreement that isn't with China. And so there would be no way for this agreement to deal with China's currency manipulation. And Donald Trump with and this is Donald Trump in a nutshell with zero shame.

With zero caution, he immediately snaps back at Rand Paul and he goes, he goes, Rand Paul, is that you? What are you at? Like 1% in the polls. That's why you're way over there. And I'm in the middle and the whole crowd's like, oh, and I remember watching that and being like, oh, did Trump just win that exchange? Like somehow he could get it so wrong. So objectively wrong.

Like just clearly not know what he's talking about and still kind of come out. Like, you know, he just doesn't do this thing where he like,

He lets the narrative be that he had a terrible moment, even when he does. He just still doesn't let that be your takeaway from it. It's a it's a weird kind of art of the deal skill that Donald Trump has that does. You know, again, I'm not like saying this is the way it should be, but just like going by optics, he still doesn't have this terrible moment, even when he has a terrible moment.

Harris, on the other hand, has a tendency to be a little bit more awkward and try to laugh her way out of a bad moment. So I just I still do say going into this, the likelihood of Harris having bad moments, I think, is a lot higher than Trump. But I could be wrong. I think it's unlikely that she can actually get through this unscathed.

Yeah. Well, OK, so there's a couple of other things that are relevant to know here. This is going to be in the style of the Joe Biden versus Donald Trump debate. So this is going to be no audience and muted microphones when the other person is is talking. This was, you know, I'm a little surprised.

about that because I did think that I understood going into that last debate I think they thought this would hurt Donald Trump you know we've talked about this quite a bit I think it actually really helped him um I I think I think in hindsight there's no question that it really helped Donald Trump that

He was muted when Joe Biden was talking, because had he not been, he certainly would have tried to cut him off a few times. I don't think Donald Trump has the self-control to not attempt to, you know what I mean, to interrupt a few points. And yet it really hurt Joe Biden that Joe Biden had all of Joe Biden's airtime.

You know what I mean? Like the best thing for Joe Biden in that debate would have been if somebody else could take up some of this time that's allotted to Joe Biden speaking. So, you know, I'm just looking at this on paper and I'm going, I think this might play in Trump's favor again, that she's got to get through her answers. We'll see. We'll see what happens. Again, all we really know going into this is that

Kamala Harris has done one interview where she brought her VP with her in front of the friendliest interviewer and only spoke for a few minutes and still stumbled very badly. And so this is going to be a little bit different. This is going to be a situation where she's going to be, I mean, who knows, maybe she gets the questions ahead of time, but even if she does, they're still going to have to ask

Like I'm saying, even in that interview, she didn't do good. And so it's still going to be that. And then she's going to have to deal with the fact that then Donald Trump gets to respond. And there'll be at least a lot of times where she has to respond to what he said. He might ask her questions. He might say something. And she's going to have to deal with that. This is a let's just say if you're on the.

Kamala Harris campaign, you're going to be a little bit nervous going into this one for sure. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Moink. I love this company. I've been promoting them for a long time. If you want to keep American family farms farming, go join the Moink movement today at moinkbox.com slash P O T P.

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It's going to be a spectacle. Yeah, no question about that. OK, so, you know, the other OK, so to the point I was making before, and I think I've kind of gotten into this in the past, but I do think it's important to understand that as of right now, Kamala Harris is not doing as well as Joe Biden was at this time in 2020.

And that Donald Trump did substantially better than he was polling in both 2016 and 2020. So when they say this, when the polls reflect that this race is essentially a dead, even, you know, coin flip, I think that that benefits Donald Trump. I think that if are there people who.

Are supporting a candidate but wouldn't want to publicly say they're supporting that candidate. But when the curtain gets pulled, they'll vote for that candidate. Are there more people like that who are supporting Kamala Harris or more people like that supporting Donald Trump? I think obviously there's more people like that supporting Donald Trump. The truth is that there is not the same social penalty put on supporting anyone else than there is on supporting Donald Trump. So you get more kind of like closet support.

Trump supporters and then the question is are people who are kind of on the fence when they get there what is the factor that makes them go ah yeah I'm just I'm gonna go for this guy I'm not I don't want to go I don't want to go for him I want to go for her I don't want to go for her I want to go for him I think Donald Trump wins in that category too so I do just think that whatever

You know, when you're neck and neck with Donald Trump in the polls, that tends to overall favor him. And I think that that's by the way, that's also been reflected in the betting odds, which is always worth paying attention to the betting odds with with elections, just like anything else. When people's own money is on the line, it's just a better gauge usually. Yeah.

And so I do think as of right now, Donald Trump is by has the slightest of leads. Now, that being said, who the hell knows what else is going to happen and what type of, you know,

what type of things may happen behind the scenes so i i'm i'm not very comfortable making a prediction right now you know my my long running prediction for the last few years has been that essentially the deep state has signaled that donald trump is not allowed to be president again and if you had to bet money you're usually winning when you go with the deep state i don't know i'm not sure if that's right or not but that's where we are

I will say going into this debate, I'm rooting for Trump. I want to see Kamala Harris fumble so bad that they got to figure out how to replace her. That's the, I w I want the world to realize just how dumb she is and what the democratic party has done to you by both platforming Biden when he had dementia, Kamala Harris is the DEI hire and then pretending like she's a black lady now who's competent enough to do the job. I mean, I can't, I

I just can't imagine not rooting for that. I don't know how you could, you know, I will say that I think the major, you know, you mentioned platforming Biden when he had dementia. I think if I'm on the Trump campaign, if I'm the Trump campaign manager, the thing that I am like pulling my hair out about and grabbing Donald Trump by the ears and yelling into his face is that

Listen, you somehow at this point in the race have not effectively attacked her for the lowest hanging fruit that's right there for you to attack her for. You know, look, she can kind of like as we talked about on the last episode, I don't want to say the same things I've said too much, but.

She can kind of get away with walking away from her 2020 campaign. You know why? Because no one even remembers it. No one even remembers that she was running for president in 2020. She didn't make it to the first contest. She got zero delegates. She can walk away from that.

And then she can kind of walk away from Biden's record because even though we all know Joe Biden's not running the government, nobody thinks she is. Nobody thinks that she is the Dick Cheney in this administration who's secretly calling all of the shots. So she's able to walk away from that, too. And she's able to position herself as just some person.

lady who like the country doesn't really know that well, you know, like she's kind of able to do this and she's able to not do interviews and not get to get a little bit of heat from that, but not really that much. Okay. But there's one thing that she can't get away from that. She's totally implicated in that. You have to prosecute the case against her in this debate. And that is the,

The greatest scandal in American history is that we don't have a president.

We're involved in a proxy war with the biggest nuclear power in the history of the world, and there's no president of the United States. The president was deemed by everyone too senile to run for president. Well, if you're too senile to run for president, you're damn sure too senile to be the president. Yet at the time that you're having this debate, the commander in chief in name only is Joe Biden.

And she's totally implicated in that because she was on record saying up and not up until the debate, even after the debate.

Even after the last debate, Kamala Harris was saying he's sharp as a tack and in private meetings, he's totally got it together. And you could look right at her and be like, you lied through your teeth. You're the closest guy to this guy. You know that he doesn't have it all together. What are you telling me here? He's only senile when a camera's on him. He's the WB frog of presidents.

When nobody else is around, he's dancing and singing, but then as soon as the cameras come on, he poops his pants.

Come on. Like nobody believes that. And it's like, this is kind of Donald Trump's last opportunity to really hit her for that. And it's right there. There's no defense. He could, he could look at the moderators at Kamala Harris and then into the camera and go every single one of you knows that Joe Biden is going through severe cognitive decline right now. Every one of you knows that. And maybe not all of you guys at home,

But certainly you, vice president, and you, corporate media, were pretending that the emperor had closed for the last three and a half years. So what's up with that? And then that's, I mean, he's got a golden opportunity to do this, and this is the time to do it if he's going to.

Can he get it done that you know look Donald Trump as I mentioned before he's got the ability to be Teflon He's really really good at things like even things that you almost you know all other politicians almost wish they knew you were allowed to do what Donald Trump does you know what I mean like they'll get him where he's just like you know after 9/11 there were tens of thousands of Muslims and they were screaming in the streets and then people be like there is a there's no evidence that that happened and

There's no evidence at all. No one's claiming that happened. There's no video of this happening. You just made that up. And he goes, well, a lot of people say it happened. And then you're just kind of like, wait, are we moving on? All right. So he's got a real ability for things like that. However, the ability to stay focused and stay disciplined and prosecute a singular case against someone, that's not Donald Trump's strong suit.

So it'll be interesting to see if he can pull this off. I am certain that I am not the first one to think of this. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not just so smart that this popped into my brain and I figured out that this is a weakness of hers. I am certain that people around Donald Trump are telling him that this is the angle to attack her on. Can he do it? We'll see.

Donald Trump is very what one of Donald Trump's weaknesses. He's got several but one is that he is very easy to distract with a shiny object and

You know, I mean, if you if you if he's on prosecuting this case and then you just like ding a little bell over here, that's like you're not tremendous. He's like, wrong. I am tremendous. And then he'll get into a whole thing about that. If they if they get into like that, he really lost the election or something like that. Or he's very susceptible to just getting pulled onto that.

So the question is about how disciplined he can be. This is, I think, the essence of why muting the microphones ends up working in his favor, because it forces him to be a little more disciplined. And there's some topics that I don't think I've yet to hear Kamala Harris comment on the Ukraine war. I don't know what her presidential position is. I would assume that she's looking to continue the war, but I can't think of a single interview or rally where she's spoken about it.

Israel, she took the most neutral stance at the DNC of, we need to make sure that Israel's safe and the Palestinians have stuff too, but we still have to give bombs to... She literally said nothing. My assumption is on that topic, they

Donald Trump's going to go harder for support of Israel. She's going to try and say nothing on it. The border wall, though, is such a like I mean, there's that incident, whatever that story is with the Argentinians in Denver. I think he's he's just going to be able to hammer. We've got terrorists in this country now. We've got gang members. We've got criminals. We've got violent criminals that poured over the border. And that's your fault.

What's the plan here? You know, I just think that there's some big holes and questions. Inflation. I don't think she can get around that one. I guess the one thing she's got is maybe a more neutral stance on Israel and abortions. Yeah. I mean, no question in terms of like political winners. I think abortion is the best one they have.

The thing is that Donald Trump has become a real moderate on the issue of abortion. And it's actually, I think, pissed a lot of conservatives off that he's come out, you know, and like criticized the six week ban as being not enough time and things like this. Does that make it harder for him, for her to hit him on that? I don't know. He still does.

He owns Roe v. Wade being overturned. And to the extent that people don't like that, that might be a successful avenue for her. She's certainly going to hit him over January 6th and election denials and convicted felon and all of that stuff. I don't know. I mean, I...

I think that's so baked into the price already that people already know this is you know what I mean like going to to be the story um we'll see we'll see what ends up happening um but yeah I I agree with you that he's gotta look he's gotta hit her on immigration price inflation and then the you know he can at least with Ukraine hit her on you know the this administration and and you know

sending money over there while Americans are struggling so much. So he's got, he's got some, some targets to work with. But again, much like with the Biden debate, it doesn't really come down to issues as much as it comes down to like, can he get her rattled and force one of these moments where she looks very bad, you know? And then a lot of it is a lot of it is about how you play, right?

how you play it after the fact. You know what? In fact, pull up, Natalie, if you don't mind, just a YouTube Gary Johnson Aleppo moment. And I don't do this to torture Gary Johnson, but I just want to play this just to almost break down how the whole thing is optics and none of it, it's all about how

how you play it. Like this was the moment that really sunk Gary Johnson. But if you, if you look at it, there's a few important things you could notice about this. This is what actually matters like in presidential debates, much more than policy. Unfortunate is that that may be, do we have that video, Natalie? Yeah. Let's let's play this. Okay. Oh, look at a young Chris Cuomo there of New Mexico was on TV this morning and he was asked about Aleppo. Here's what happened. What would you do if you were elected?

Okay, so just to be clear here, here's what actually happened.

Gary Johnson was talking about something totally different. And then they just go, what do you think about Aleppo? And he goes, I'm sorry? Aleppo? What are we talking about? And then Barnacle goes, are you serious? And he goes, I'm sorry, what is Aleppo? And then he goes, it's in Syria. It's the epicenter. And then Gary Johnson just kind of got this energy of like, oh, oops. That's all that happened. It's not like he just...

Again, it's not like that it was that bad. What Trump would end up doing in that situation is immediately recovering with a like, look, nobody knows more about Aleppo than I know about Aleppo. I know more about you know what I mean? It's it's almost like what this really comes down to is can you create a moment where somebody is the optics are bad?

They seem to not know what they're talking about and they seem defeated. Now, I don't think Kamala Harris is going to like cave into herself like Gary Johnson did, but she might just try to cackle her way out of something. And then what Donald Trump's very good at doing is like when she starts cackling, it comes back to her. It comes back to him and he goes, she just thinks she can cackle her way through this.

You know, that's what he did. What was his best moment? His best moment in terms of effectiveness of the debate with Joe Biden was when it came back to him and he goes, I don't know what Joe Biden just said. And I don't think he does either. And it was like, oh, dude, that's a that's a dominant victory because you got right at what the real problem is, is that everyone goes, I don't think Joe Biden even knows what he just said. And yeah, he sure was just muttering all over the place.

Anyway, that's the type of moment that Donald Trump has to try to create in this debate. We'll see whether he can do it. If he doesn't, if they get, let's say this, if Kamala Harris survives without having a very bad moment and we go and that's it, we go into the election with it being a toss up. I'll just say that, you know, there's been a lot of people who were theorizing that essentially they just need to keep it close enough so that they can do what they're going to do.

If he doesn't land a big blow here, I think there's a strong argument that they've accomplished that. They've kept it close enough. We'll see. All right. You know what? Let's go here. Let's go to I'm trying to figure out which one of these videos. OK, let's go to the Tom Elliott tweet.

Great follow on Twitter, by the way. There's a video from MSNBC. Of course, the election is very close. And so here's how MSNBC is covering it.

And the same New York Times poll shows this race nationally is a toss up right now. One point separates Harris and Trump again within the margin of error. But look at who people see as the change candidate. Fifty three percent say Trump represents major change. Just 25 percent for Harris. It seems counterintuitive since Trump was already president. He hasn't stopped talking about 2020. What do you make of it?

Well, I think that change number should be higher because Trump would represent the greatest change in the history of the American Republic. He would take our democracy and turn it into an authoritarian strongman, likely dictatorship on day one, his own words, not mine. So those numbers don't surprise me. But look, I think with Kamala Harris tomorrow's debate, you got to understand this is the last major event before Election Day. Now, people think Election Day in November. Not true. Election

Day starts next week when ballots in Pennsylvania will begin being cast. So this is really an opportunity for her to yes, as Chris says, draw some policy contrast. I don't think it's really about that. I think it's about showing that voters can trust her, that she is a credible commander in chief, that she is ready to assume and become president and lead our country into a stable growth. We've had tremendous economic success.

over these last four years under Harris and Biden. And if she can continue to make that case and let Trump be Trump, he will not be able to resist with the insults, with the demeaning things, and he wants to make it a mud fight. If she can rise above that, be ready for that first zinger and switch pages quickly, I think she's going to be in strong shape.

right so I okay maybe I should start with what I kind of agree with him on I do think that that's right essentially the thing he said at the end there if she can get him to be like insulting and shitty and then she just kind of stays above the fray I think that's what you'd look for like if I if I try to switch gears now and say I'm Kamala Harris's campaign

manager, that is the advice I'd be giving her. That it's like, let him insult you and then your attitude should be like, guys, aren't we all kind of tired of this? Okay, so here's what I'm going to do. Right? Like, try to pivot back to that. But, look, I mean, first of all,

Obviously, Donald Trump is going to win the change candidate perspective because, yes, Kamala Harris was the machine's choice to be the replacement for Joe Biden. She's been...

An attorney general, she's been a senator and she's been vice president. And there's not one issue that's hers. There's not one issue that you'd go like, oh, she really broke from the establishment on this issue. She is a continuation of the status quo. And Donald Trump, for whatever you think about him, is somewhat of a wild card, at least within the American political establishment. Yeah.

But this argument that he's making about – there's two arguments in there that are, I guess, central –

to the corporate media's narrative about this race. Number one is that Donald Trump will be a dictator on day one, and so he will overthrow the United States of America as a constitutional republic and make it an authoritarian dictatorship on day one. That's the first argument. And the next argument is that we've had such great economic success over the last four years.

Both of these arguments are so dead on arrival. They're just so bad. I mean, look, the major problem with Donald Trump will turn America. If you remember, this was central to Hillary Clinton's closing argument in 2016 was that you cannot trust Donald Trump with the nuclear weapons. The stock market will crash. We will no longer be a democracy. All of these things.

It is so impossible to run on that after the guy's been president for four years, after we've already lived through four years of him being president. The idea that that's the end of the United States of America. You know, it's like when they freak out that he won't accept the results of the election if he loses. And you're like, oh, OK, so what?

He wasn't able to stay in power when he didn't accept the election results when he was president of the United States of America. So what's he going to do from just being a citizen who's a convicted felon awaiting sentencing? What's he going to do?

Not accept it? Okay. It's like this idea that Donald Trump represents some existential threat to the union just seems to me to be so weak. I mean, the truth is that Donald Trump in his first four years was not a threat to power at all, let alone power.

to the constitutional norms or something like that of the country. And I just don't see how you can successfully make this argument. And, you know, this may play to an MSNBC audience, but I don't think Kamala Harris is actually going to have the balls to make that argument at the debate.

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It's amazing that he doesn't have anything better to say than, hey, if Donald Trump's in, it's the end of our democracy. How many might as well tell me, hey, he's a Russian agent. What are you going to put the Russian agent back into office? Guys, we played this one out. It's boring. Also, the idea of it's fun that they didn't qualify what the poll is of they mean by what like I mean, that's clearly not what they meant by change.

I mean, the guy, he's making a joke where he goes, oh, yeah, because he's going to be a dictatorship. So what does he think that 50 percent of American voters are in favor of a guy turning the country to a dictatorship? Or like that's or that that's even what they mean when they say he's the change candidate or anything like that. I give it to you. He's pulling a hyperbolic joke to once again, just relay the talking point. Another time of, hey, it will be the end of our democracy if Donald Trump's elected. But they should qualify what they mean in that poll.

Yeah, no, I guess I guess you're right about that. But certainly, I think you're safe in assuming that that's not what people were saying when they were saying he's the change candidate. But look, in general.

If you're if you're the opposition party to the incumbent, you're going to be viewed as the change candidate more than anyone else. And obviously, someone like Donald Trump, who is not just, you know, the the change candidate or he's not just he's not just the Republican running while a Democrat is the incumbent. He's also Donald Trump. So, of course, he's going to win that. It is. Look.

One of the best things about Donald Trump, perhaps the best thing about him, is that no matter what, you're just not good. You can't fool people that much. You can't. People are aware of the fact that Donald Trump is is despised by the machine.

And so already that makes him the change candidate. Now, I'm not someone who's sitting here telling you Donald Trump's going to actually change that much. I don't think Donald Trump was really ever a threat to powerful interests. But, I mean, people can't ignore the fact that, like, look, you saw Rob this week. Dick Cheney came out and endorsed Kamala Harris. It's quite... Isn't it pretty funny, in a way, like the people who she's put together now? You now have...

So say like you have Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Dick Cheney, as well as Jesse Ventura and Vladimir Putin all coming out for Kamala Harris. Anyway, Mike, that's how popular she is. Look across the board. Unanimous support by everybody. Yeah, that's right. Everybody within that world. Yes, they all support Kamala Harris. I got to tell you, I love Kamala.

Dick Cheney endorsing Kamala Harris. I think that says it all right there. And it's just it's just perfect. And again, this is the best thing about Donald Trump. And it is a thing that I understand some people it makes people nervous because whenever you, you know, expose

a system for what it is, there is a risk of the uncertainty that comes with that. And the thing that people fear the most is a lack of order and understandably so. And people prefer order to almost everything else, including liberty, including prosperity. Disorder, chaos is the thing that people fear the most.

The, the big fear is, is the mob, you know, that is the, the threat to order. And, you know, in the same way that like, look, if you, if you're in an abusive relationship, in some sense, in the short term, leaving is the, is the riskiest thing you can do, right? Like when you try to leave is typically when an abusive partner will be at their most abusive. Um,

So leaving an abusive relationship is the scariest thing only second to staying in an abusive relationship, right? Like the only thing that's scarier than leaving an abusive relationship is the prospect of not leaving and just being stuck in an abusive relationship forever. And so it's only, but that being said, immediately the risk rises very high, right?

Right. In the same sense, quitting your job that you hate to go chase your dream is immediately risky. It's a it's immediately a risky thing because you're like, well, how am I going to pay my bills next month, the month after that? That's a scary thing. But then if you sit there and assess like, OK, but what's the risk of not leaving the job you hate? Well, the risk of that is that you might be miserable for the rest of your life.

And so it's only when you really think like it in the long run about that risk that you realize this is actually preferable. But it's still something that's scary to people. But the best thing about Donald Trump is that you see it. It exposed him.

you know, kind of the whole system for what it is. And that the idea that Dick Cheney and Al Gore or Dick Cheney and Bill Clinton don't actually have that much that separates them. They're not actually much different, even though you were taught your entire life that these were the two opposite ends of the political spectrum, that these were this was far left and far right.

So why is it that they, you know what I mean? Like what? And oh, it turns out, no, that's not the case at all. There's Noam Chomsky. I'm going to butcher it as I am remembering this off the top of my head, but he had some great quote for how you like control and manufacture consent amongst a group of people. And he said, you have a very narrow window of allowable opinion, but then you have ferocious debate within that very small window.

So you have, you know, you have like Barack Obama and George W. Bush arguing about whether, you know, like whether we should surge 10,000 troops or 30,000 troops into the war in Afghanistan, you know, or whatever. It was a little bit higher than that. It was 30 or 70,000 or whatever the numbers were. They argue over whether top marginal tax rate should be 35% or 39%. But then they argue ferociously within that window.

But there's never an argument about like, should we even be in this war? Should we even have an income tax? Like these broader, more radical questions, those are never even addressed. And if anyone was arguing for them, well, that's a kook who's way outside of this narrow area of allowable opinion. As Tom Woods calls it, the three by five index card of allowable opinion. That's right here. And then you're way outside if you're one of those other things.

And so, yeah, you could see where all of these people, Dick Cheney, Nikki Haley, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, they are all unanimous on all of the issues that matter. Every single one of them. You know, if it's when it comes down to any war, where were they? Oh, is it the war in Iraq? They all supported it.

Who voted for the war in Iraq? Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, right? All those guys. They were all for the war in Iraq. And also, both of them shamed other people who were against the war in Iraq. Now, obviously, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, they were the ones in the White House at the time, but...

it's not as if any of these democrats whether john kerry all of them they all supported the war also where are they on the war in ukraine where are they on the war in gaza oh they all have the same opinion on it where are they on monetary policy oh they all have the same opinion on it where are they on the debt oh they're all equally responsible for it like any of the issues that really matter there is

No room in between them. They are identical on these issues. And what's really crazy is that Donald Trump

because he's so out there, he gets them all to show their hand. Like it was so, and when I say he's so out there, I'm being sarcastic. I'm saying like, he's not even really a threat to power on any of those issues, but he is seen as kind of a wild man who just says what he's thinking and is kind of difficult to control even for himself. And so he triggers them enough that they are willing voluntarily to

To give up the illusion, to give up the illusion that Dick Cheney is a far right Republican, whereas Kamala Harris is a far left, you know, vice president, Democratic vice president. Oh, yeah. Look at that. They're actually on the same team.

And this is what, you know, if you go back, what's kind of interesting from my perspective is that it for me, you know, I talked about how I've been doing this podcast since the 2012 election. This was a thing that for years, me and people like me.

We're shouting as loud as we could for anyone to hear that there is no difference between the establishment Democrats and the establishment Republicans, that we don't actually have a two party system or a duopoly or whatever. We have a uniparty. There's one party the same way China has one party. We have one party in this country. And it's very, very rare that there'll be an exception to that where there's

somebody who either runs third party or somebody who's in one of the two parties, but does actually represent something very different from what the party's establishment does. And you can count them on like two hands, the amount of people, you know, the Ron Pauls or the Dennis Kucinichs or, you know, people like that. But,

When it comes down to all these other ones, all the presidents of our lifetime, they were all right in the center of the Uniparty. They weren't even like to the left or the right end of it. And that's what just seeing like even on social media, the reaction to Dick Cheney.

supporting Kamala Harris. Of course, Dick Cheney also supported Joe Biden. So this isn't like anything crazy new. But the reaction that I just see from so many people now, and this really is a change in this country. And I will, this is why I use the analogy of leaving an abusive partner. It's, I understand where this freaks people out, but there's this undeniable change where like the response in general to Dick Cheney supporting Kamala Harris is, yeah, fucking obviously. Yeah.

Obviously, he's going to support her. And it's just I can't explain as somebody who can, you know, I can remember 25 years ago very well. And 25 years ago, the idea that Al Gore and Dick Cheney would be on the same side would have been like unfathomable for most of the American people. What do you mean? These are mortal enemies. How could they be on the same side?

And it's not as if they're on the same side against somebody who like, it's not as if Donald Trump is actually running on what MSNBC claims he's running on. Like, it's not as if he's like, oh, we're going to institute the third right here in America and we're going to overthrow elections and we're going to just start, you know what I mean? Being a monarchy or something like that. And like that,

He took such a far stance that that got the Democrats and Republicans to even agree that we must fight this guy. That's not what happened. Donald Trump's kind of like, we should build a wall and stop fighting all these wars. And they're like, what? Well, in that case, in that case, we must drop the pretense that we are enemies. There's someone here who might undermine our war making ability.

the or and our ability to maintain a de facto open border that's what that's what lured them out of their shadows to admit that they're actually all on the same team what what jesse ventura used to admit back in the day when his grift was saying 9-11 was an inside job rather than saying we have to elect the first black female president i don't know how you go from one to the other but um

But like what he used to say, which was spot on, is that like the most simple analysis is that politics is professional wrestling and that, yes, when the cameras are on, they act like they hate each other. So do professional wrestlers. And then when the cameras are off, they're all on the same team because it's all a show.

They're getting over on you. The whole thing is to trick you into believing that they really hate each other. But they don't, because they both represent the same interests. And you could even, you could just look at this. You could look at like how much Goldman Sachs contributed to Barack Obama's campaign and how much they contributed to Mitt Romney's campaign. Well, why would Goldman Sachs be funding both of them? Because they're both good for Goldman Sachs. There's your answer. And so it's just, there is something that

I think is hard to appreciate if you just look at the news of the day. But if you zoom out and look over the last couple decades, you'd go, the fact that something like this can happen where Dick Cheney is supporting Kamala Harris and the reaction is largely, yeah, of course he is because they're all the same. That is such a crazy change from where this country was not that long ago.

Not that long ago, even 10 years ago, I think that would have been much wilder for people to see. You know, there were things every now and then that happened like that, like Colin Powell supporting Obama, but not like this, not on this level.

I'm surprised that the left is even trying to run with this as being a glowing endorsement. It's unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. I would think instantly they might get a call and just be like, hey, man, can you keep your endorsement? Or if I was on the left, I'd be like, yeah, Dick Cheney can keep his endorsement. We don't want any affiliation with the Bush politics, the Bush era. And to an extent, this speaks to the failure of the current Donald Trump campaign that, you know, he's not able to platform instantly. I told you they're the deep state.

And I'm here to work against them. That's why they kept me for me the last time and said I was a Russian asset for two years and wouldn't let me build the wall. So if you guys want to actually see the swamp cleaned up and get rid of the deep state and these people that want endless wars and to erode the value of your dollar and sneak criminals over our border, I'm your best chance. It's...

You know, one other thing that, again, I know I've mentioned this before, but it's just as we get closer to this debate and as we you know, we're going to see after this, like what if there's any major shakeup or how this election is going to go like they were just saying on MSNBC, the voting is starting this week. Yeah.

I just, I can't help but run the counterfactual in my head. And I'm not quite sure, though I have my theories, but I'm not quite sure why it is that Trump is approaching it this way other than that. But so just if you think about this, right?

Donald Trump was always, you know, it was they spied on my campaign. Russiagate was a was a hoax. It was a witch hunt. There are all these kind of like conspiracies that he would entertain. How much different would this race look if Donald Trump had just come out and said, and they tried to assassinate me and had made that a thing?

And you could sit there and say, well, we don't really know that they tried to assassinate him. It's like two things. Number one, does that stop Donald Trump ever? Does that stop Donald Trump that we don't know for 100% certain that his claim is in fact correct? It hasn't stopped him in the past. He's still claiming the vaccine saved millions of lives, right? So he's, Donald Trump's not against claiming something, even if it's not true, if it makes him look good or helps him. And also, by the way,

I mean, from what we know did happen, I mean, employees of Joe Biden allowed Donald Trump to get shot in the head. Is that not enough for Donald Trump to run with that and say, not only are they trying to throw me in jail, they're trying to kill me? And if Donald Trump was making that claim, what it would have the effect of doing would be that it would keep the assassination in the news cycle. And he knows this. This is not something that like,

I need to get in Trump's ear to give him this advice. He knows this. Donald Trump, if there's one thing he knows, he knows how to keep himself in the news cycle and he knows how to play the corporate media. Because if Donald Trump were to come out and start dog whistling that, you know what I mean? Like this was actually a setup. This was an inside job in the deep state tried to kill me. There would be no conceivable way that the corporate media would have the discipline to not jump on that story.

And go, look, he's spreading all of these dangerous conspiracy theories. And then the conversation would be over and over again about the fact that Donald Trump almost got his brains blown out. And that would be enormously valuable for Donald Trump. And so it's just look clearly at this point, he's not going to do that. I think it's it seems to me that he is rattled.

somewhat understandably and that he's a little too shook to push that one. I also will understand being sympathetic. I mean, the Secret Service are still responsible for his safety. And so I could understand where he doesn't really want to necessarily make any enemies out of them any more than he already has. But I just can't help but thinking about like how much different this race might look and the coverage of it might look if he was willing to do what he always does with every other theory and

On this one. And then, and the reason I say it right now is because the way you said that then the Chaney endorsement, it just plays right into that too, right? Yeah, of course. Obviously Dick Cheney doesn't support me. Now listen, you guys wouldn't support me if Dick Cheney supported me. So come on, what are we doing here? It just, it kind of writes itself for whatever reason, he's unwilling to play those cards. But man, it would be, it would be a different dynamic if he was, if he was willing to play it.

Be interesting to see if it comes up at all during the debate. My guess is it won't.

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I can't believe that they're even trying to sell it. Oh, my God. Look at how dangerous Donald Trump is that even Dick Cheney will support Kamala Harris. You mean Dick Cheney, the person who's responsible for the Bush years? Like, what is the sell there? Well, the thing the thing also is, is, again, like I said before, it's like we live through four years of Donald Trump. And by the way, you can argue that they were a transformative four years for the worst and they for the worst. And they totally made this country something.

It wasn't before then. However, what was it that did it? It was COVID. It was the virus that Fauci made.

And then lied through his teeth about. And then every single Democrat in the country was advocating that Trump do more. Their only criticism of him was that he didn't do enough locking down or enough money printing or enough vaccine. You know, I guess the vaccine stuff came at the end. It was developed on his watch, but whatever. But the Democratic position was that there should be more mandates. So they really just don't have anything there. And then, OK, fine, because I think we didn't respond to his other point, which I guess we should we should do in closing is that

I mean, I think we've already just destroyed this as much as it possibly can. But again, it does really show you something that the guy on MSNBC, he will say what he will say, like, oh, my God, the economy is so great. And we've done so great on the economy over this last four years. But you might notice Kamala Harris ain't saying that on the campaign trail.

Right. Like if the economy really was so good, I'm pretty sure Kamala Harris would be running on that. She'd be running on how great this economy is and trying to take credit for it. She is not doing that. She's not running on Joe Biden's legacy because it's really, really bad. And every single person I mean,

Every person who's not a billionaire, you know, maybe a multimillionaire, every normal person knows that what why isn't the economy good? Why? Why are you not in a better position than you were four years ago? Certainly five years ago, 2020 was a bit of a crazy year.

But it's because it's the price inflation. And again, my argument would be that Donald Trump is largely responsible for that, for all the money they printed in 2020. But it didn't happen on his watch. It happened on Biden's watch. And that's just an impossible thing to get away from. Everybody who has a car payment or goes grocery shopping or pays rent or has a new mortgage, all of them know.

that things have gotten much more expensive. You just can't get away from that. Look, if you make 40 grand a year, 50 grand a year, 60 grand, 70 grand a year, if you make something like that, there just is no denying that making 40 grand a year in 2019 was so much better than making 40 grand in 2024.

And that's true for 100 grand, 200 grand. It's all true. You just could get a lot more for that. I mean, today, you know, I mean, the raw numbers or whatever, like groceries are up 30% or something like that, with certain items being up substantially more than that. If you're getting a new mortgage, it's doubled. You know, when you factor in the higher interest rates and the increase in real estate prices,

It's doubled. That is devastating, devastating. There are lots of people who could afford to buy a house if their monthly mortgage payments are X, who cannot afford to buy a house if their monthly mortgage payments are double X. You know, that's just that's the difference between having a shot at like, you know, buying a home for your family or not.

And so there's a reason why MSNBC guy might be saying that. But Kamala Harris ain't going to run on that because as soon I mean, it would listen, it would bury her tomorrow if she came out on that debate stage and said, this economy is fantastic and that's what I'm running on.

It would bury her. And they all know that. If you remember, Rob, we covered on the show for a while that their whole talking point was that, well, how come the American people just don't agree with us that the economy is so awesome? Remember when that was their thing was like, oh, well, that's what the campaign is going to be for. Remember, they used to say, well, Joe Biden's done a great job on the economy. And now he just has to get out there and tell the American people that he's done a great job because he hasn't sold it to them yet.

Well, what happened when he got out there? He didn't sell them on that. He sold them on him having dementia. But what's Kamala Harris? She ain't she ain't a genius, but she's smart enough to know I'm not going to attempt to sell that to people because there's just no way. And look, I think that does destroy the argument on itself. If the economy was so great, you can't tell me that Kamala Harris wouldn't be running on that. Of course she would.

So what's the answer? What we all know to be the answer. It's not that great. Inflation destroys people, and it particularly destroys the middle class and the working poor. That's who gets hit the hardest by inflation. And it's just devastating. Again, it's the same. Listen, if your bills double, that's the same thing as your salary being halved.

It works out to be the same thing for you. If everything is twice as expensive, then you got to make 80 grand to have the same standard of living that you did having 40, making 40 grand. And that's not happening. Like that's not happening at the same time. People's wages aren't going up at the rate of other prices. That's it. It's not rocket science. That's kind of it. All right. We are going to, you know, I'll tell you, we got to figure out our schedule because I think we're

Maybe the move here is to do just this is our debate preview and then do the post-debate show. So I'll talk with the gang and we'll figure it out. But we'll be back covering what happens tomorrow. Very excited.

And just plug it again this weekend. We got Oklahoma city Thursday, Friday in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday. And then next weekend I've got, uh, Salt Lake city in Byron, Michigan. And then of course, check out the run your mouth podcast. Hell yeah. Comic Dave Smith.com for all of our dates together and porch tour.com for all of Rob's solo dates. Also, uh,

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