Don't Trust the Plan
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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 home for a brief window. How are you doing today, sir? I've never enjoyed being outside of Appleton this much in my whole life, Dave Smith.

0 : The shows were a lot of fun. We met some great people out there. The shows were a great time. Appleton, not a lot going on. 3 : I loved that comedy club. I think perhaps I'd like to try and film there someday. It was really a great comedy club, but my God, I do. I'm I think it might be done with Wisconsin. It might be, there's something about the energy of that state that just forces you to drink until you leave. It's like the opposite of spiritual energy.

If somebody was to tell me they were like, they're like, you know, I'm quitting drinking. I'm never going to drink again. I'd be like, oh, that's good for you, man. It's probably a healthy decision. You know, always better, better to do it. I mean, I love drinking, but it's probably better not to, you know, and they were like, yeah, that's it. I'm never going to drink again. And they were like, I live in Appleton, Wisconsin. I'd be like, okay, that's retarded. All right. First of all, it's impossible. It's impossible to be done. You cannot do it there. And second, why would you, why would you not drink there again? Yeah.

lovely people really enjoy it. I had a great time at the, uh, if you're, if you are out in that, uh, in that area, go to the skyline comedy club, right? Skyline. Yeah. That was the name of it. Was it right? Yep. Skyline comedy club. Great place. Uh, they got to meet a lot of cool people out there. So it was a lot of fun. I had trouble getting out there, but I made it. And I got porches this weekend, everybody. I'm out in, uh, Washington DC. I'm out in, uh,

uh, Virginia beach here. I got to look at, look at all these porches, Davey Smith. I got so, you can't even see all that as the view, but anyways, a lot of porches. And then next weekend is a Virginia beach, Washington, DC, and, uh, somewhere out in Jersey. And then the following weekend run of Texas shows Rockport, Texas, Austin, Texas, and, uh, San Antonio, Texas. There you go.

Hell yeah. Hell yeah, man. That's awesome. And then, of course, our next date together will be Salt Lake City at Wise Guys out there, which is a great club, too. So looking forward to being back there. And, of course, the event is sold out. However, they will be live streaming the debate, the great –

libertarian immigration debate the day after tomorrow at the soho forum um really really looking forward to this it's going to be this is going to be a cool one um maybe not as high profile as some of the other debates that i've done but i do think that it's a really important one and i think within the libertarian world this is kind of a big a big you know um

It's just a very important topic. Obviously, not only one of the most important topics in general is immigration, but it's been either number one or number two, probably the most consequential policy areas in terms of getting Donald Trump elected. And I think it's really something that it's important that libertarians get right on that issue. So I'm excited to make the case today.

for why libertarians ought to reject open borders and embrace immigration restrictions. Common sense. Just good old-fashioned common sense immigration restrictions. I'm going to give my pitch before the show for open borders, but more opportunities for common folk to exploit Mexican labor. Well, Rob might win the debate before I even get on stage. They give me six minutes up front to supposedly tell jokes, and I'm going to make my pitch for better distribution of exploiting Mexican labor.

Well, there you go. I look forward to hearing that as well. So that should be a fun one. And I'm sure I'll see a lot of you guys out there at that event. So looking forward to it. And we're doing an after party at Jean's place. So come on out and party with me and Rob. Party with us at an economist's loft where things get truly crazy. Okay. So for today's show, there's a lot going on.

I believe as we speak, maybe it wrapped up, but Donald Trump is in negotiations with Vladimir Putin, direct negotiations between the two of them. That's very interesting. I'm sure we'll talk a lot about what comes of all of this. Of course, it was also announced that Joe Biden has cancer yesterday, which is another interesting development. And, you know, look, aside from

Look, anytime anyone has cancer, it's sad. Of course, politicians aren't people, but it's still sad even when politicians get cancer. It is, in terms of the actual significance of it, I'm, you know, I...

have a tough time working up too much sympathy for anybody whose career was what Joe Biden's was. But it, in terms of the political relevance of it, I think one of the things that just kind of interesting is that it's, it's like one more, you know, do you remember Rob back in the day you ever watched like, like the Warner brothers cartoons, you know, like Bugs Bunny and all them. And there'd be one,

where like one of the cartoons would have like Tom and Jerry or one of them would have like a million things stacked up and they're barely holding onto it. And then like a feather comes in and just floats on the pile and that's what breaks the whole thing. It does seem almost like that with just of the people who were actually arguing not that long ago that this guy should still be president, that he would be 120 days or whatever it is into his second four years when he was so clearly in no way

Position to like medically be able to do that is just one more thing of like another crisis that the nation would have faced if these insane people had gotten their way. So that's kind of my only thought on it. But anything you want to add? From what I understand, it was a obscure medical event because he had a broken prostate inside of his brain.

And that's usually not the way the prostate works, where you also have dementia. That's just usually not the way it works. But in this instance, he's one of the few cases where the broken prostate was, you know, ruining his intellect. No, the doctor found it while he was fingering his ear. And he was like, something's not right in here. All right.

and by the way if you if you put it up to the nation to decide if joe biden had won and then had to step down i feel like the country would vote for his broken prostate over kamala still he's still at this point still a better candidate than she is somehow

All right. So I wanted I wanted to start off a little bit by talking about this, this Fox News interview with Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, which was very interesting interview with the number one and number two people at the Justice Department or excuse me, at the FBI. And OK, one of the things that was so interesting about this was.

Of course, to me, as people who listen to the show know, this has been the probably the major theme of the last couple months for me has been this idea that, you know, the Donald Trump has put into positions of significant power. Many people.

who were the loudest whistleblowers, if you will, about the crimes being committed by the U.S. federal government against the American people. And...

Look, it's just when you look down the list of Tulsi Gabbard and Bobby Kennedy and Dan Bongino and Kash Patel, as well as others, Pete Hegseth in there. These are people who have been talking about, I mean, with different degrees of specialty, but pretty much they've all been talking about all of them. The crimes that were committed in...

the Russiagate hoax with the COVID unbelievable corruption and cover-up during COVID as well as, you know, lying the country into wars and all of these things. And I think that

Look, like, as I've said many times on the show before, I think this is the appropriate framework to approach this conversation with. It's like, look, between just picking like some of the big ones, but between COVID, Russiagate, the Epstein child sex trafficking ring and, you know, the the wars that we've been lied into.

The amount of crimes that have been committed by the government are just like enormous and profound. And then you have all of these people who have made names for themselves off calling out these crimes now in positions of power. And yet still 120, 130 days in, we've seen no movement toward anyone being held responsible for them, you know,

Not even not even exposing them any further, let alone actually holding someone accountable for these crimes. And so what was particularly interesting to me about this interview is that I believe this is the first time really I've seen some of those people being questioned.

questions about this a little bit. And so right off the bat, that to me is very interesting. And so let's kind of we have a few clips here. I want to go through these and kind of respond to them. Go ahead, Rob. I would just add one storyline is also the extent by which the deep state worked against Donald Trump, which is Crossfire Hurricane. It's potentially if you want to get conspiratorial, maybe someone tried to assassinate him.

And lastly, the tech censorship that took place, which included censoring him off of Twitter and the Hunter Biden laptop story, which probably would have won him the previous election.

Yeah, I mean, that's an excellent point, too. Those really, you know, they commit so many goddamn crimes, it's hard to keep all of them at the top of your brain. But you're absolutely right that, and I think that's a good way to frame it, that it's, there's kind of two things, there's two elements here, right? There is the kind of like a lot of the stuff that was revealed during, from the Twitter files, which don't get me wrong, a lot of that stuff, you know,

came after Joe Biden was elected in terms of the details that were released. Not all of them. Some of them had to do with his transition team. And some of them, I believe, even had to do with his campaign team. But nonetheless, after exposing how involved the government was in big tech censorship, which, of course, goes back to 2016, it was a result of Donald Trump winning is really what sparked the whole thing. But

So we've not only found out that the government was intimately involved in censoring people off big tech platforms and specifically like naming names and demanding individual people, Alex Berenson being the one that's coming to mind right now. But not only that, but then we also have the Hunter Biden laptop cover up. And yes, when you put those two things together, man, it does...

Feel like pretty blatant election interference. So again, these are like, these are legit conspiracies that are essentially undeniable at this point. Now the Trump assassination ones, that's a little bit more complicated. I'm not claiming those are undeniable. There's certainly a lot of questions about them and like very serious investigations should be done. Regardless of that, it's just, there's, there's like too much,

when it comes to how blatant and criminal so many of these very real conspiracies were. So anyway, let's go to the first clip here. Here is Kash Patel, FBI Director and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino in a Fox News interview. You know what, Maria? Kash is not kidding. We've been personally briefed extensively on every single detail, nugget, tendril of this case.

One is actively in court right now. So out of respect for the case, it's probably more appropriate that I stay quiet on that. However, I'm not going to tell people what they want to hear. I'm going to tell you the truth. And whether you like it or not is up to you. If there was a big explosive there, there, right, given my history as a Secret Service agent and my personal friendship as a director does with the president,

Give me one logical, sensible reason we would not have. If you can think of one, there isn't. There isn't, in some of these cases, the there you're looking for is not there. And I know people, I get it. I understand. It's not there. If it was there, we would have told you. You know what, Maria? Okay, let's respond to this for a second. So look, I will preface this by saying

I am somebody who has said very favorable things about both of the two guys on the screen there. I've been complimentary of Kash Patel and Dan Bongino. I was happy that both of them got appointed to the positions that they got appointed to. But again, just like Dan Bongino said, my job isn't to tell you what you want to hear. My job is to tell you the truth. My job is to give an honest reaction to this. However you feel about the Trump assassination attempts,

This response by Dan Bongino is such bullshit. Like this is just garbage, dude. Like this is a non-response, non-answer, does absolutely nothing. To sit there and say that the onus is on us to explain why Dan Bongino wouldn't tell you if there's no there there, when essentially his argument is, trust me, why would I lie?

Now I got to come up with the reason for why you might lie, which by the way, if there's any, we all come up with immediate reasons. Like if you're just asking to speculate, can you even come up with a reason why I wouldn't tell you the truth? There's 50 in my head right now. Your family was threatened. You're part of it the whole time. You got corrupted when you got in there. They're not showing you the real information. Like there's just a million reasons why you wouldn't be telling us the truth. But this type of shit is not going to work.

You can't just say, like, look, present people with what the answers are to the relevant questions. That's the way to handle this here. Not to simply say there's no there. Maybe there's not. Maybe there are answers to how some kid is interacting

able to get a clean shot at the president's head from 130 yards away. Maybe there's an answer for why we have videotapes of people something like an hour before the shooting happened, talking about how this guy is up on the roof. Maybe there's an answer to how the roof was too sloped for the Secret Service to be able to get on it and yet not too sloped for this kid to get on it and get a shot off. Maybe there is an answer to all of that. Maybe there's an answer to how

any young person is so radicalized that they'd go try to assassinate the president but has no social media footprint because that sure sounds like it doesn't exist and some shady phone records yeah and what like oh okay fine maybe there's an answer to all of this but the answer is not going to be accepted that anyone who gets in government goes i've taken a look and i've determined it's nothing

Why would I lie? Look at me. It's me. It's old Danny Bonjean. Why would I lie to you? Like, I'm sorry. That's just objectively that you got to come with something a little bit better than that. And, you know, to the people who are saying that, like, this in some way really demonstrates that there's no there there. It's like, I'm sorry. No, it doesn't. It doesn't at all.

Any thoughts, Rob? And then you also had the Ukrainian guy, the guy who was over in the Ukraine and then posted up outside of Donald Trump's, the golf course to try and shoot him. We haven't heard any more details about that guy since. And what I thought was oddest about the first assassination attempt was Donald Trump's

Total unwillingness to even explore that our government or a government other than Iran was interested in assassinating him and the possibility that perhaps pressure was of a deal was made behind closed doors of, all right, we missed you. You can stick around, but we need this. I'm just saying it seemed real odd the way that Donald Trump in interviews refused to say anything other than the Secret Service is great people.

One of the things that was particularly strange about it is that Donald Trump, the day that Donald Trump took that bullet to the ear, if you got you got to remember, this was a couple of days before Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Joe Biden dropped out of the race as a result of that bullet.

Every bit as much as he dropped out as a result of the debate. It was just like, oh, my God, Donald Trump looked so strong and so badass. And coming off of how weak and frail Joe Biden looked like the contrast was just too much. And everybody, everybody who follows politics that day.

was like, Donald Trump's going to win this election. There's just that's it's almost like it looked like he was going to win before that. But after that, it was like, there's just no way he's not going to lose the election. Then they sub in Kamala Harris. Then they have the most astroturf campaign ever where they're trying to sell you that she is joy and hope and all this stuff. And then at least the polls, the public polls were saying that she was up for weeks and

This was like Donald Trump almost allowed this story to rescind into the background rather than feigning the flames and keeping it alive when it was so clearly in his political interest to keep everybody talking about that. And the way he easily could have kept them talking about that was just

speculating, you know, going, hey, which he does with everything else, with everything else. Russiagate was a witch hunt by the deep state. All the trials were, Donald Trump would be the first to tell you, weaponizing of the justice system by a president who was his political opponent. Donald Trump never in his entire life, he was on the birtherism stuff about Obama. He was on the, um,

Muslims were cheering in the streets during 9-11. There was never a conspiracy that Donald Trump wouldn't fan the flames of if it was good for his political, you know, desires. And by the way, I'm not well with a couple of those. I mean, I never thought the birtherism thing made too much sense. And I didn't think the Muslims cheering, but like with the with the Russiagate stuff and the weaponization of the political judicial system, that made total sense. But not with this one.

When it's so shady and everybody's wondering, everybody's like, hey, what really happened there? And the fact that he doesn't touch it. He doesn't even say, like, we're going to get to the bottom of this and know what happened. I don't know. Seems a little bit strange.

That's all I'm saying. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is ProtonMail. ProtonMail is an email service developed by Proton to replace your Gmail account for all of your important stuff so that you can have a more secure emailing experience.

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All right, let's get back into the show. All I'm saying is that if Dan Bongino is going, like if you want to take the position, which is fairly reasonable, if you want to say like, look, we've been talking about a lot of crimes that have been committed by the government over the last 10, 15 years. There are many. Not every conspiracy theory is correct and not everything. You know what I mean? And we're going to get to the bottom of this.

You the way to do that would be to number one, do something about the criminals that you've already said, you know, exist, actually have some type of like, you

transparency and accountability for those people involved, and then release actual information on this stuff. But what Dan Bongino just did, like this, I'm going to get here and tell you nothing to see there. And you know that because it's obviously me. And the proof is that I'm the one telling you that. And really, it's on you to explain why I wouldn't tell you that if I wasn't like, this is like,

Non-arguments mixed with circular logic. You might as well not even say anything. This is not even beginning to address anything. That's my feeling on that first clip there. All right, let's move over to the other clip that I sent where they're discussing Jeffrey Epstein as well as some other topics.

which we were supposed to have all the details on that months ago and then a bunch of folders were uh handed off to uh influencers with pam bondy saying if you had seen what i had seen and then not presenting us what she had seen but hey most transparent administration cleaning up the deep state yeah like it's i'm sorry it's just too ridiculous all right here we go actually happened on january 6th so there is as

It seems that I find myself in a similar situation as Russiagate. Because on January 6th, in the prior Trump administration, I was the chief of staff to the Department of Defense. And I spent four years in a minor fortune litigating the truth because people politicized what actually happened on January 6th. And we now know unequivocally that President Trump lawfully authorized the deployment of National Guard. And me, as the head of the Office of Secretary of Defense, with the Secretary of Defense, took that action.

When it finally came in, because it had to have the governor and mayor of D.C.'s approval on it, that's the way the law works. And once it finally came in on January 6th, remember, we offered to them days beforehand and they rejected it. We've put out the letters and your show has done great coverage showing how it was rejected.

We mobilized the fastest coal start in Washington, D.C. since World War II and the largest occupation of D.C. by the National Guard since the American Revolution. That's what happened on January 6th. But what you and your viewers want to know now that we've beat back that disinformation campaign with actual truth is what was the FBI doing?

Well, we got answers coming. We just found a trove of information and it's on its way to Capitol Hill right now. And they've asked and they're getting them and you're getting answers on January 6th. You're getting answers on what sourcing was utilized, what money was utilized, how many assets were utilized, who made those decisions. You're getting it. We can only control the FBI, but you're getting it from the FBI. Were there FBI agents undercover egging people on? Like I said, that answer is coming.

And it's on its way to Congress. You're about to. I saw it. I saw the portfolio of information. We dug far and wide to find it. And I'm pretty sure now we have a conclusive, definitive answer. But you and the public are going to have it. You're going to see it in writing over to Capitol Hill. But I just want to be sure we're clear, having been an agent and a police officer,

There is a difference between an agent. I know you know this. I don't mean to sound ridiculous. An agent, meaning a trained GS 1811 federal agent and a source or an asset. There's a difference. So when you see the material, which I promise you is coming again, I'm not asking you to trust us. I know it's coming because I saw it yesterday. When you see it, I

I just want you to understand that. It's not an apology for anything. Thank you. But there's a difference between agents and assets. And I just hope when people... You know, the thing is, when you're just not asking someone, when you're not just asking someone to trust you, you don't have to say, I'm not just asking you to trust me because you can point to something and show them, look, I'm not just asking you to trust me. Look, look at this.

but you don't have anything to look at. And so like, listen, I'm objectively speaking, yes, you're just asking us to trust you. That's exactly what's going on. And if you notice, they didn't say this, well, they did, they go, this information is on the way to you. By you, they mean Capitol Hill.

And so, look, I'm not, I know there's people out there that trust the plan. People will always be telling me, just be patient, just be patient and trust the plan. Like, okay, there's nothing I'm doing that like conflicts with my patience. I will still be happy for any of this information if it comes out. But it does, Rob, I mean, this whole thing here, I'm sorry, this is, again, it's a non-response.

there's nothing here oh we've seen it and there's some stuff and when you find out about it you're gonna be like man that was some stuff and then at the end what is this like i i'm sorry and this this really is one of the problems you know i remember um

This was, I forget exactly how this went down, but I remember years ago during the, during the Russiagate days, Rob, which were like, that was like really when you first came on the show, that was like the Russiagate day, like our first few years of doing this podcast together. That was the big thing. I mean, we focused on that more than anything else. You know, all these, you know, obviously I've always been known, you know, for the anti-war stuff.

Um, but since then, like we became kind of known for like COVID and Ukraine and Biden and, you know, like all this, all this other stuff, obviously the Israel Gaza thing has become a big one for me. Um, but there was a time when that was kind of our calling card. Like the thing that the issue that we were associated with the most was calling bullshit on the, on the Russiagate nonsense. And I remember, um,

There were a bunch of people, Buck Sexton is a former CIA employee. He was also really great on the Russiagate stuff. And a lot of times people would say like, they'd be like, dude, Dave, you and Buck are like the ones who are the best at breaking this down. And I remember one time, I don't remember if we played the clip on the show or how it was, but so he does this whole thing.

Buck Saxon, who I really like, by the way, I haven't talked to him in a while, but I always really like that guy. But he does this whole thing. And this is because he's a former CIA office agent. This is kind of how he views it is that he would go through all this shit. And like, he's just dead right about everything, just breaking apart how crazy the whole Russia Trump collusion bullshit story was.

And then at the end of it, he goes, and the worst part of all of this is that trust in the FBI and CIA has been completely lost and may never be recovered.

And I thought it was kind of interesting because it was like, we, you know, you're with someone like 99% of it, you completely agree with them. And then their conclusion from it is 180 degrees the opposite of your conclusion. You know, like I would take all of the things he said, but then I'd say the only silver lining in this is that trust in the FBI and the CIA has been destroyed. And, you know, like,

Someone could seem really, really good if they're good on everything up to that point. But there is a real problem if that's their takeaway. And you can already see this is what Dan Bongino is preempting. He hasn't shown us anything. And yet he's going, hey, just remember, priority number one is don't confuse assets with agents.

So what? We protect the reputation of the agents? How about like if the FBI had assets there, not agents, but had assets there who were stoking January 6th

How about my reaction can just be like, screw the FBI. Like, why? Why is my big concern here to make sure that I don't blame the agents? I don't blame the agents. They're only guilty of having assets to foment a fucking fake coup so that they could then run with that as the major story for the next couple of years. And by the way, if you remember back, use it.

as the centerpiece for launching a domestic war on terrorism and shutting down right-wing dissidents in the country. That's what it was used for. So, like, I'm sorry. If they did that, why do you have to send this information to Congress? Release it to the people.

Have Trump declassify it. Release it right to us. Like, I'm sorry, the problem with the trust the plan, people, is that I've just been through this so many times and the plan never ends up coming to fruition. So how about right now when you actually have the power to do the right thing? Don't sit here and tell me to trust you, which even if you say you're not saying that is exactly what you're saying objectively.

what am i missing here rob i don't think you're missing anything but uh just go a little bit further with what you were saying first is on the uh remember that uh informants aren't agents

which that could also be why you purposely don't have them on the books as agents so the fact that you have informants on the ground and they're the ones maybe you have evidence that they were actually provoking what was happening and you got the plausible deniability that they weren't agents that means close to nothing for to me you're basically just saying we orchestrated this in a way so that if things like this happen we can go well that wasn't their directives from us

All right, fine. You got a system where you always have plausible deniability and you're reinforcing it. Listen, you know, I hope that they make good on all these storylines. And I think if there's enough public pressure, perhaps they will. But there's just another aspect that they're not even delving into here, because basically they're saying, listen, I understand everyone's concerned about January 6th. We got this new evidence. We just handed it over.

what about just all the conversation about the amount of resources that went into prosecuting january 6. there's a lot of crimes in this country that happen every single year and a lot of them never go punished we saw a lot of riots that happened in liberal areas with liberal people nobody got in trouble and for some reason on the january 6 one a lot of fbi resources went into let's put all of them into jail and so i would think part of the storyline would be

who was making those decisions how many resources got put into it how many other things weren't taken care of how many kids got child traffic because the fbi was using all their time dealing with who was uh trespassing on january 6. and then if you've also got a little bit of even a loose storyline of our informants were there and doing it

I don't know how much of an investigation are you guys doing into whether or not there was a coordinated effort to create this false domestic terrorism title so that you could further prosecute the American people without due process. I mean, unless you're going to have that conversation, you are not serious about this. Well, that's exactly right, Rob. You're exactly right. Because look, if you think about it, even the part where,

The kind of whether intentional or unintentional, the limited hangout that Cash Patel is giving you, which is that like, oh, I know for a fact that we wanted all this extra security to be there and that they turned it down. Well, the only reason why that's an interesting nugget is like, well, why did they do that?

You're saying before the fact, they wanted there to not be enough security here? Oh, it kind of seems like they wanted an incident to happen. Okay. Well, what other prongs were involved in this then? And if you're telling me that they intentionally didn't want the security, then had provocateurs there, and then the entire media went into –

overdrive about January 6th. And literally you had political leaders out there repeating the script that it was worse than the 9-11, that it was another Pearl Harbor, right? Wasn't that Kamala Harris's line or something like that? It's like, okay, what you're

saying is pointing to this huge conspiracy. Also, how about like the whole thing where there were those, um, those mysterious, yeah, the mysterious package bombs that happened to be planted that same day that then just what we're just supposed to forget that ever happened.

they don't even have the dignity to lie to me and go, we're having a massive investigation here. No one's answered for the pipe bombs yet. We'd like to know the relationship between media and Ray Epps. And as to why that individual was given a sweetheart plea deal. And that while the media was, uh, egregiously saying that everyone else needs to be in jail, why is the right wing of America giving a hard time to this person? We'd like to know why we've looked at a lot of the footage. We want to know why some doors were open when they were opened. Uh,

We've got a lot of things that we need to uncover here, and that's why we're looking into it. At least that is a good lie because you're pretending like you care. But when you're not even making a conversation about actually looking to at least debunk the conspiracy that the government was purposely involved in January 6th to try and make Trump look bad and potentially have a domestic terrorism title to go after people like us, I don't know. It just doesn't sound like you guys are that serious about this topic.

Yeah, and like somebody, please go make a compilation of all the stuff these guys were saying about this over the last few years. Because it's like, it seems to me like you can't look if what Cash Patel is saying is just something like, oh, this was just incompetence.

Like, Nancy Pelosi and these guys, they didn't want the Metro Police there. And, you know, like, they didn't even think it would be a thing. And then look at them. But it seems pretty clear that Kash Patel is fanning the flames of a little bit more than just that.

Right. So but you can't do that anymore if you're the FBI director or you got to admit that, like, there's a power structure that goes way beyond the FBI director here. You know what I mean? Like, I don't have the power that you think I would. But if you're still Mr. Truth Teller and you guys can still say, no, listen, you could trust me because this is me here. Well, then, like, what are you saying?

You're saying they didn't want the backup there. Why not? That seems like the point of you bringing it up is that this indicates a much wider conspiracy. But if that's the case, then I'm sorry. But were you just going to say, oh, we're sending some documents to Congress? OK, like, yes, Rob, if you were right, if you're going to lie to me.

Or if you think you're telling the truth, whatever. Tell me something. Give me a date by which when I can expect to know this stuff. When is it going to be released to the public? When will we have the answers to this? When will we need to remember the difference between agent and asset? Is there a, you know, or if like you said, if they were going to say, hey, we're launching this real deal investigation, something...

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All right, let's get back into the show. It's like the Epstein-Pambondi thing. Well, yeah. They just need more time for the FBI to sit through it. And it's not that they're trying to clean up the record or redact it all. And no one's ever been more serious about giving us this information and the transparency. And wasn't Pambondi saying the same thing about Epstein? We need more time now. Like after she got pushed back because those influencers had nothing. Oh, give it time. Give it time. It's coming. It's like, oh, all right.

we have been giving you time. I mean, I don't know. Like, I'm not unreasonable with this shit. I'm still, Trump's negotiating with Putin today. I hope he fucking negotiates an end to this war. I'm not sitting here and going, hey, you said day one it would be done and now it's day 130 and it's still not done. Like, all right, I understand it's not going to be done on day one. When are we looking at this, guys? This isn't something like negotiating an end to a war where you need the other person to get on board with the negotiations. It's like,

release it. By the way, I was wrong when we led that up. That wasn't the Epstein one. Can you, I think it was one of the ones that Rob sent Natalie. I think it was the, one of those was the Epstein one. Cause that, that one's worth playing also. Let's you can trust them once again, they're experts and they've seen that they can't show us, but they've seen, but just trust. Yeah. Let's it's, it's the last one that Rob sent Natalie. Let's let's play that one.

They're they're trying to get some of that Donald Trump divinity credit of just listen, typically speaking, don't trust government. And when they say something, it's until we're clarifying questions and look for the evidence, except with Donald Trump, in which case you're just, you know, what do they say? You just got Trump derangement syndrome. If you'd like to see the evidence on things.

If you just ask the typical questions you would ask a government and go, hey, can I ask a clarifying question? Do you have a reason behind that? Do you have some evidence to that? If you ask that about Donald Trump, it's that you just don't pay tribute to his divinity. Yeah, they said. Hold on one second. Natalie said that. It should be a quick find. It was it was floating around. If you just do cash Patel, Epstein killed himself. You should be able to. Yeah, quickly. Sure. I'll find it.

Here, I'll send it over to you now, Natalie. Here you go. I just texted it over to you. Because this one to me was one of the real interesting ones that I just thought we kind of had to play this and respond to it. Because, look, I'm not trying to jump to conclusions about Bongino or Kash Patel. Like I said, I like both these guys. I've said nice things about them. I supported both of them. Bongino's airline's trying to jump to the back of his head. It does look like it's been frightened by something. But...

You're like, look, guys, like, I'm just telling you what I'm looking at here. And it looks like, okay, they're these guys who have been calling out this stuff are on the inside now. And now rather than actually giving us any information, they're just downplaying all of this stuff. So what it seems like to me here, let's play this one. Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide.

People don't believe it. Well, I mean, listen, they have a right to their opinion. But as someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor who's been in that prison system, who's been in the Metropolitan Detention Center, who's been in segregated housing, you know a suicide when you see one. And that's what that was. Can you just even pause here?

You might as well play it through because it looks retarded. It's a bad place. I've seen the whole file. He killed himself. I know it's hard work. You said Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. You can see inside. Well, we can't because the tapes were turned off.

So you actually can't. So what exactly is this new specific evidence? Because we did have this guy who seems to be an intelligence asset who after they want after they lost that freedom of information thing about the prosecution, suddenly the FBI turns around and goes, yeah, we got to get this guy. Then they get him in jail. They take the safe out of his apartment. It magically disappears. And then this guy's in jail and magically all the cameras turn off when he decides to kill himself in his own cell.

And all that you have to say, well, trust me, because I looked at what did you look at? What do you see? There are no tapes.

You look at the report about the prison guards who were napping and, you know, playing with their crumbs in the pot in the whatever they were doing, reading some old nudie magazines. Look, it all just comes down to trust me. They're saying nothing. They're sitting there saying it's I mean, there's well, I know the other clip they were like, oh, I'm not saying just trust me. But they're like, look, people are entitled to their opinion. I know the case. I've seen the case. He killed himself. What the fuck is that?

Well, listen, I mean, again, what we know about Jeffrey Epstein, right? And with all these intelligence operations, very rarely are we ever going to find out all of the details or know the entire story. But we know more than enough to know that this thing stinks to high heavens. I mean, the guy is, if you just go through his life, it's like the guy is with like no credentials. He's a, he's a,

teacher at Dalton, like the most like privileged private school in Manhattan, where he gets a few complaints from young girls who are there. Then he winds up at Bayer Stearns. And within like a year and a half, he's like on partner level. He's worth,

a ton of money involved in the biggest deals. And it's, nobody knows how he made his money or who he was involved with the he's connected to a lot of people who have connections to intelligence themselves. We know that when he is first contacted,

caught, the prosecutor says we gave him a sweetheart deal because he was connected to intelligence. We know that he is connected to all of the people at the top levels of politics and culture and business. And we know that

that his file is largely redacted for national security reasons. Why the hell would a pedophile ring need to have redacted information for national security purposes? And yes, we also know that the way he died is incredibly suspicious with being like in this maximum security prison where he should be the most untouchable person. And then you have multiple camera failures and he commits suicide after being assaulted in jail.

And then, you know, multiple people claiming that he he believed he was getting out and was not at all suicidal. Now, to be very clear, and I think this is true at the heart of the Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself meme. I don't actually think necessarily that anyone is strictly saying there is no way the guy killed himself. I'm open to the idea that Jeffrey Epstein did kill himself.

I don't think he did it on his own volition. Like, I don't think there's nothing more to the story there, but I'm sorry. Like, dude, like if at my house, right. We got, I got a ton of cameras around the property on my house. If all of my cameras went off and then you found me having committed suicide there, you'd be like, yo, something here happened. That's like too weird that that would happen right in concert with this happening. But again, like,

Patel and Bongino here are doing nothing. They're not telling us we're going to get more. They're not even saying what they said about the January 6th stuff. They're not even going, oh, information is on its way to Congress. They're just like, no, didn't happen. I know what I'm talking about. I looked at it. I saw it. This is worse than not saying anything about it. It's worse than just not commenting on it again. To get together, be asked this question, and have nothing other than like, no, he did.

No, no, no. He did. I mean, come on. Like, what are we supposed to what are we supposed to think about this? And I see a lot of people on Twitter, you know, being like, now give them time. These are the good guys. They're in there. It's like, OK, fine. But to anyone who's making that argument, just give me a specific amount of time. How much time do I have to give them?

And at what period in time when we don't get the answers to any of this shit, and I'm not saying we don't get the answers we want. If you're telling me these are not conspiracies, then fine. Then give us the evidence that they're not. But if that doesn't happen and we're left knowing exactly what we were left 130 days ago about Epstein and January 6th and all of this stuff, when do you admit that the plan isn't working?

That's a question for my follow the plan people out there. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is CrowdHealth, a longtime sponsor. I love this company. Let's just start by asking, is anyone out there really thrilled with their healthcare insurance provider?

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um but I don't know any anything else on this Rob it's just to me it's disappointing isn't even the right word but it's just like it's it's a lot meet the new boss type energy yeah by the way this is what you get I would just say at a minimum the storyline that the government was working against Donald Trump and the American people is a sexy storyline why are you abandoning it

it's partly how you won the election people were really into that storyline of hey the government's working against this guy that i voted for

What's going on here? Can we get this thing cleaned up? And that's kind of part of their pitch. The American people was that they were going to do so when they get in. And then it's just now that everything's fine here. It was all good. We're moving forward. I don't know. They seem to be channeling to me that they that uprooting the deep state and looking into what they did to Donald Trump is actually not on their list of priorities. And it's interesting for them to abandon that because there's political capital and taking that one on.

Yeah. Yeah. They're working against their own interests to protect criminals in the government. Seems kind of fishy. Okay. I did. I wanted to talk about this. We're going to make sure we do this on today's show because it was, I did find this to be a very interesting moment. So my friend, my friends, I should say over at flagrant.com,

had Bernie Sanders on the podcast, which was, you know, this has been interesting. Obviously, as we've been talking about for quite a while, I'm very fascinated by the, you know, the rise of the podcast world as the kind of dominant media. And

I've been very interested in the realization, the recognition of that since the election. And, of course, there's been stuff that we've talked about before on the show. Gavin Newsom starting his own podcast. Just recently, Pete Buttigieg went on Flagrant with Akash and Andrew Schultz.

And that I did think was kind of an interesting development. It's just it's kind of fascinating to me that they realize they have to play this game now. And I think that's one of the the more monumental developments in politics over the last over the last couple hundred days. And I think it's going to have a profound effect on politics and who can be a successful politician now.

Not necessarily that that means that only the best will rise, but there is a certain type of person you have to be, like someone who can go on a podcast and grapple with Andrew Schultz and deal with the type of questions he's going to throw at you. And now they just had Bernie Sanders on. And, you know, there's... It's kind of like a broader theme, but I remember getting in... I got in a few arguments, like behind-the-scenes arguments with people who were like pretty, you know...

pretty, pretty well known figures in in corporate media. And, you know, they'd be saying like, oh, but this is this is horrible because, you know, sure, the media has has had some issues, but at least they have journalistic standards. And, you know, look at Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn. They didn't ask Donald Trump enough tough questions or stuff. And, you

While it is true that neither the Joe Rogan or Theo Vaughn interview of Donald Trump were like hard hitting confrontational grilling sessions, I've I've been saying for a while it's still an enormous improvement over the corporate media.

having the monopoly on this stuff because they also don't ask good questions. And at least now, at least with Theo Vaughn or something like that, you get to see Donald Trump. You get to learn a little something else about Donald Trump. With Joe Rogan, you actually, I thought when Joe Rogan asked him about the 2020 election, I thought it was the most powerful time he's ever been asked about that. And part of that is because he was just having an open, friendly conversation. And then when it came to it, he really just had nothing. He had nothing to back it up.

And that was more exposed in a way than it would have been if some aggressive CNN anchor was asking him about it. And then he just dunks on CNN for being so terrible. And then, you know what I mean? Like it was, it was more powerful. I thought coming from, from Joe, anyway, this, I did think this moment was,

was really good evidence that I'm right. It's a weird way to preface it. But it is like you saw Andrew, who I give a lot of credit to, do a better job just in this moment, just in this clip. He did something that for all of the journalists who have been

talking to Bernie Sanders over the last eight years. I've never seen anyone get as interesting an admission out of him. So again, without further ado, let's play the clip and then me and you can discuss it, Rob. The problem I think a lot of voters had is like, they didn't even know if it was her. We didn't even know if Biden was president. We didn't even know if these were her talking points. And we felt that over the last four elections,

Democrats, we felt, that we didn't have a say on who could be president. We talk a lot about the Republicans being autocrats and oligarchs and taking over democracy. But from the Democrat perspective, and I'm a lifelong Democrat, I felt like the Democratic Party completely removed the democratic process from its constituents. And I think they need to have some accountability of that. No argument here.

I donated for you. I mean, I wanted you to like 2016. I was like, this is going to happen. This guy's going to do it. And it felt like they it felt like they stole it from me. And I'll be honest, it broke my heart when you when you supported him. Look, but you have in the world that I live in, you got a choice. And I mean, a lot of people, including my wife, agree with you. But, you know, you're down to a choice is going to be Hillary Clinton or is it going to be?

Donald Trump, not a great choice. But it ended up being him anyway, so why don't we burn it down? Well, because it's easy to say burning it down means that children are not going to have...

you know, food to eat, that the schools will deteriorate, people will not have health care. I got it. And I, you know, I'm an elected official. I got to represent the people. That's fair. And I can't turn my back on. But then could we not also say if ostensibly there hasn't been a fair primary for the Democrats since 2008, are they not also a threat to democracy? We often hear. Fair enough. That is, that is, yeah, I'm not going to argue with that point.

Holy moly. Is that not a fascinating little moment right there? I mean, you also see – this is one of the things about why I'm big on the collapse of the corporate media and the rise of podcasts because, look, you could sit here and say – and, you know, you –

Like fairly could sit here and say, look, Akash and Andrew Schultz are not journalists. They're not you know what I'm saying? Like these aren't people who went to school for this. But at the same time, they're both they're both particularly bright people and they're both honest.

And so sometimes that's all it takes to just ask the obvious, honest question. And you could see actually here how like something really profound is revealed. And that's that Bernie Sanders has no response to this.

Other than the most pathetic, like, well, kids aren't going to eat. Like, wait, what? Like, what are you even saying? The first of, yes, you're right. We were forced into this false binary between Hillary and Donald Trump, but Trump won. Like, so kids still did eat, I think. But, you know, like, really,

He has to just admit is goes, oh, yeah, the Democrats are also a threat to democracy. Oh, yes. They represent the oligarchy as much as you screaming about this oligarchy. And then look to say that you got the election stolen from you and then turned around and shut up and supported that whole system. And then to go like, well, the problem is that if I didn't, Donald Trump might have won. Donald Trump won twice.

I mean, look, you I suppose there is an argument there, like on some Machiavellian level that you could say, like, you know, let's just say that you have two candidates and one candidate is preferable to the other as bad as one is. The other one's still a little bit worse. And the one who's a little bit better screwed you over. And you're like, I'm going to bite my tongue on that and support them just because I think it's a little bit worse to not get that person in.

Like, all right, you can say that. It's going to be pretty tough given some of the other things Bernie Sanders has said. But even if you're making that argument, once it didn't work and the worst candidate, in your view, got in twice, then you'd have to admit it's a mistake because you're making a purely utilitarian or not utilitarian. You're making a purely consequentialist argument and the consequence didn't even work out.

So at that point, you'd have to go, yeah, I probably, you're right. I probably should have voted. You know, I probably should have told the truth and not supported Hillary Clinton. And, you know, Schultz gives him a little bit of wiggle room in a sense when he says burn it all down, because then Bernie Sanders can say, nah, listen, burning it all down. There's real people in that building. You can't burn the whole building down, which is like a reasonable response. But it's not, the question isn't necessarily to burn it all down. It's more like,

So tell the truth. Tell the truth. You've been sitting out here for years talking about how Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, and you've never thought to add in the fact that so is your party until someone pushes you on it, and your response is, I can't argue with you. I can't argue with you on that. At the end of the day, I'm a corporate guy. I get my marching orders, and I get paid pretty good. So what are you going to do?

Yeah, I mean, I just don't, you know, look, I'm me. But so Hillary, that's the person on the team. I got a supporter. So I get a picture. I get a check. I'm on a book tour now by my book. It just seems to me like, look, I'm not against I and I've said this for for many years. I never really voted for president too much, but I have said for many years, I don't think there's anything wrong with voting for the lesser of two evils. And of course, in this election, I did that. I'm not against the lesser of two evils argument.

Less evil is preferable to more evil. And so there are appropriate times where supporting lesser evil makes sense. But when the basis for doing it is that one guy represents a threat to democracy, and then when it's pointed out that both sides represent a threat to democracy, you have no argument that...

That does seem to call your judgment into question here. I'm just here for a paycheck, too. Might as well. But anybody said they're literally calm out. They're going, hey, your whole yelling is about, you know, about threats to democracy. You got cheated out of your process against Hillary Clinton. Then we had Bozo in chief with prostate cancer and he just steps aside for for Kamala Harris to run. Where's the democracy here?

And the answer is there is none, but I'm not in the business of talking about that to the American people. That's not how I get my bills paid. So, nope, that's not a cause I've been taking up, but I respect your criticism. It's fair.

And it is, you know, it is, I think, powerful that Schultz can can say, like, as a lifelong Democrat, which I believe he was, you know, I mean, I'm sure he's not lying about that. But like he's Schultz was always, I thought, like a pretty liberal guy. And like many liberal guys, he eventually just saw through the bullshit and was like, oh, everything that the Democrats say is fucking lies. Yeah.

It's a big and it's a huge, huge story, especially it's a big part of why Donald Trump won the election. And it's a big part of why he's had more popular support in his second term than in his first. There's.

Especially for someone like Bernie Sanders, who tried to play the role of truth teller. And this is what he was seen as by a lot of his supporters. It's just like it's incredibly weak, you know, particularly also when.

You know, he always Bernie Sanders always had much like I was saying with Kash Patel there talking about how they wanted to make sure there was enough police presence there and the other guys didn't. It's like, yeah, but you're kind of like when you say that you're winking at something, you're suggesting a bigger conspiracy. Like the suggestion there is not like, oh, they were so incompetent that they didn't realize they'd need more.

Like if you just came out and said that, that'd be one thing. But what you're winking towards speculating is that they knew there'd be a problem and didn't want the police presence there because they needed the event to go off. Right. I don't think I'm like adding too much into that. Well, likewise, Bernie Sanders would always say he would stand up on stage when it was a one on one debate, a one on one debate between him and Hillary Clinton. And he would say, I'm the only one on stage who hasn't taken money from the big banks.

Like he didn't even have the balls to like call her out. He would just say, I'm the only one when there's only one other person on stage was the most ridiculous thing ever. And he would always say like, you know, these billionaires, they cut checks to politicians. You think they do that for free or you think they do that because they expect something in return? And you're like, OK, so then then turn over to her and call her corrupt.

Because what do you, you know what I'm saying? Like, you can't say that and then not have the follow through to be like, you know, like, it's so weird sitting on stage with one other person and going, I'm the only one who hasn't taken money from the big banks. And everyone who has is corrupt.

No, I have respect for Senator Clinton. Like, follow the logic. And so if you're saying, as you're kind of seem to be, that she is anti-democratic, that she is owned by the oligarchs, then you're going to have a tough time turning around and saying, yeah, but I could never say that.

I could never tell the truth about that publicly. Just a tough position, a tough position to be in. All right. We're going to wrap up on that. Guys, make sure to go to PorchTour.com. Come see Robbie on the road. Go to ComicDaveSmith.com to come see both of us on the road. Thank you guys so much for listening, and we'll catch you with a brand new episode. Oh, oh, tomorrow, instead of the normal 1 p.m. time, we will be streaming at 11 p.m. 11 p.m. tomorrow, we will go live. It's part of the problem.

I'm 11 a.m. tomorrow. 11 a.m., Rob. Thank you for that catch. My mistake. 11 a.m., one hour before noon, Eastern time. We will stream to partoftheproblem.com. Thanks, guys, for listening. Catch you next time. Peace.