Trump Is Shook
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what's up what's up everybody welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem i'm dave smith he is robbie the fire bernstein how you feeling today rob i like this i like going live this is me too there's a different energy when you go live you know can't say all that horrible racist stuff we normally say and then edit out

Of course, we are live always at partoftheproblem.com. That is where you can get the episodes live, ad-free, uncensored. And of course, you can support the show. Plus, you get the members-only episodes on Thursdays. So please, if you can, make sure you go over and help support the show at partoftheproblem.com. There's a whole bunch of different levels you can sign up for and a whole bunch of different goodies that you get at

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And don't talk to me anymore. Or just go sign up if you could. That'd be cool. All right. And I should mention before we start getting into things that the day after tomorrow, Thursday, me and Rob will be out in Stamford, Connecticut at New York Comedy Club. I know it's a little confusing because the club is named New York Comedy Club and it's in Connecticut. But the people who owned the New York Comedy Club in New York opened a club in Stamford, Connecticut.

I couldn't tell you why it's not called Stamford Comedy Club, but they are great guys who own that club. And I've heard nothing but good things. So I'm excited to go there. There's a few tickets still left for that if you want to come. And then, of course, we'll be all over the road. Comic Dave Smith dot com for all of me and Rob's dates together. And then porch tour dot com is where you can go to find all of Rob's summer porch tour dates, which are now evidently.

Not just a summer thing anymore. So that's big news. Anything else you want to mention, Rob? Check out Run Your Mouth. Yes, of course. Rob's other fantastic podcast, Run Your Mouth. Also...

Thank you to everybody. My episode with Tucker just dropped a few hours ago, and I've been getting a very nice response from the Internet. So thank you, Internet. I appreciate you for being so good to me. That was a real, real fun one. It was for sure one of my favorite podcasts that I've ever done. I just love talking to Tucker Carlson. Super, super interesting guy and really great guy. Okay, so...

Where do we start? Why don't we talk a little bit? Did you watch or listen to any of the Twitter space, X space with Donald Trump and Elon Musk from last night, Rob? I listened to about the first 15, maybe 20 minutes, and then I skimmed through a transcript. There you go. It was, dare I say, low energy, low energy Trump conversation.

I thought it was good from what I skimmed the topics and everything was kind of on point. I think at the end of the day, Elon Musk actually is not a broadcaster. And so I think if you put Trump with like, you know what I mean? I can't do any of what Elon Musk does. I can't build a rocket. I can't tell you what Tesla is. I can't. I can't get kids to mine in Nigeria. I can't do these things. I don't know how to do it.

But I do know how to broadcast. So I think partly that is when you're seeing people and there's something interesting because Elon Musk is a genius and he's obviously a big cultural influencer owning Twitter. So I think it's valid and interesting for him to have those conversations. But at the end of the day, if you delete the broadcaster side out of it, it's not going to be as compelling or easy to consume as a Rogan you or I having a conversation with Trump.

Yeah, 100%. And, you know, there are some people who do other things who just happen to be very good at broadcasting. David Sachs comes to mind. Like, he's really, really good to listen to on podcasts. He's a natural at it. And he's like a business guy. You know what I mean? It's not like that's what he came up doing. But he's just very good at it. Elon Musk is brilliant, no question. But in interviews and...

Look, typically he's the one being interviewed and he's not particularly great in interviews. And I will tell you, I've certainly learned over the years, it's a whole different skill to interview someone else. That's even within broadcasting. There are people who are good at broadcasting who aren't particularly good at interviewing, like me. I try to work on it, but I'm not particularly good at that. And then there's people who are like phenomenal at,

being an interviewer like Rogan is just like incredible at it. And people, a lot of times it's a weird skill being an interviewer because if you're really good at it, people don't even notice.

Like that's almost like the skill is to make it so like almost like you're kind of not even there in a weird way. You know what I mean? And so people don't know. But I'm telling you, it is a skill. It is a real skill to be a good interviewer. I don't know. To me, at least not particularly great at that. Also, Twitter spaces always, at least in my experience, I always feel like voices sound weird on them.

And I did think there was a little bit of an issue with that. There were some good things that Donald Trump said in it. He got in there that he wanted to abolish the Department of Education. That was pretty cool. This was an old Republican talking point that Republicans used to say they were going to do. They used to always say they were going to balance the budget and abolish the Department of Home, excuse me, not Homeland Security. They didn't typically say that, of education. They never did it.

And I don't think Donald Trump's going to do it either, but it's a at least good to be said and put it out there. So anyway, there were some there were some cool parts. I will say the part that stood out to me the most was his talk about his assassination attempt. I wanted to play a clip of that and then discuss it a little bit. It starts out with Donald Trump kind of saying the things we've heard him say before, but

the you know the ear bleeds so much i don't know he keeps saying this but it's not like it didn't seem like he was gushing blood anyway um but and he was kind of talking about the crowd and how sad it was that that firefighter got killed but i was interested when the conversation turned to the secret service so let's let's play this uh let's open with this a little bit from the uh from the twitter spaces last night

breaking every record in the book tonight. That's great. Well, thank you. Well, let's start at seven minutes with Kamala sniper. They call them or sharpshooter, but sniper because he didn't know there was a problem. He's been he's an extraordinary shot, obviously, and he didn't know there was a problem. And he was able to pick it all out within five seconds.

And he used one bullet from very far away, I guess probably about 400 yards. The shooter was 130, but he was on the opposite side of the field and the podium. And he saw the smoke and the flame from the gun, immediately recognized it, and immediately took a shot. And it was one shot.

Perfect shot from very far away. And if he didn't do that, Elon, he would have... I mean, if he would have... A lot of people... A lot more people could have been badly hurt and killed. So I have to take my hat off to him because that's also surreal. You know, he's been with them for 23 years and he's never had anything like this. And all of a sudden he has to act. And it's a very tough thing to act and to be shooting somebody. But he saw the...

He saw the gun, saw the smoke, saw the flame from the gun very far away. Obviously, he has very good eyes. He's got very good vision, which I assume you have to have in that particular work. But he took aim very quickly. And they say it was approximately five seconds from long range, one bullet.

if that didn't happen because the shooter had a lot of bullets. He had a lot of cartridges up there with him. That's clearly... He was very competent in taking that shot just off the...

the assassin the attempted assassination um but but i mean there does seem to be i mean some pretty significant failings um elsewhere in the system like there's just no way that like how on earth does a shooter get on a roof 130 yards away um that seems

crazy. I think most people are wondering how on earth could such a thing happen. Well, you know, I view it as two ways. There should have been nobody in the roof. There were people because there were so many tens of thousands of people there. There were people that were seeing him. And there was one woman with a red shirt and Trump all over it. And she's screaming,

That guy's got a gun. You know, you saw it probably. Yeah. It's like I'm just I'm just I guess I mean, fine for my part. And I think probably many members of the public are wondering how the heck are, you know, basically people wandering by pointing out there's a guy on the roof with a gun. Yeah.

I've never seen it, but somehow it's not being addressed. That does seem crazy. Well, they're going to learn from this, the communication between the local police, who sort of had an idea, and then ultimately a man lifted himself up to the roof, could barely do it because he was pulling himself up, and he saw the man with the gun,

The man with the gun pointed the gun at him. He thought he was probably going to get shot, but he was like pulling himself up. And because of that, he couldn't get to his gun and he fell down, actually very badly hurt his leg, his ankle. I hear very badly, but he fell down. And he did, from what I understand, he did say there's a guy up there with a gun

And the shooting started very quickly after that. I think it forced the shooter to go maybe quicker. You know, it was supposed to be a very good shot. My sons, Don and Eric, they can't believe what happened. But they said from 130 yards, a bad shot would hit that target almost every time. They said it's like in golf, thinking a two-foot putt.

Yeah, it's not a hard shot. It's not a long shot. Okay, we can end it there. I got to say, I was kind of surprised that Donald Trump is kind of praising the Secret Service. His choice is to just praise the one guy who did take the shooter out.

After shooting Trump in the head, and Donald Trump, of course, was only saved by moving his head, and then several more shots rang out. And so he's praising that guy. It just seems strange to me that Donald Trump is not like...

seeming to have any criticism of the Secret Service or what exactly happened here. He doesn't seem to be, at least publicly, asking any of the questions that we would all have about this. Elon Musk, as you can tell in the interview, is leading him in the direction of like, but the obvious? How about the obvious? What do you think about the obvious? Which is that

They clearly allowed this to happen. I mean, when I say they allowed this to happen in one way or the other, they allowed this to happen. And Donald Trump does not seem particularly interested in getting to the bottom of that. I got to say, my initial takeaway from this is that I think Donald Trump is shook.

Like, I think he probably knows what happened here, and he, like, doesn't want to mess with it, which is kind of, if that is the case, a pretty important thing to note here. I don't know. What do you think, Rob? I'll play ball. What do I got to do? Hey, guys, get the message. Don't shoot at me again. I was never really trying to die, just trying to win.

I mean, I don't know. I just like a wall. If I could just do that. No, I agree with you 100%. There was an interview where him and J.D. Vance were, I think it was on Fox, and they were pressing him on this a little bit. And he took the same tone of praising the Secret Service and not asking the questions. And it does not seem like the fun Trump or the Trump that we'd like to see of, hey, the deep state tried to kill me. I'm going to figure out

why I no longer trust this. First, they went after my last campaign with the Russia hoax. Then they tried to go after me with these court cases when none of that worked. They actually tried to kill me. Now they're lying to you and pretending like Kamala Harris is filling stadiums. And that's why this is an important election. I need everyone to support me so we can drain the swamp. That's what he should be saying. But instead he seems to be trying to please deep state. I'll play nice this time. I learned my lesson.

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I mean, look, it's not even just what Donald Trump should be saying. Like, I agree with you 100%. You're, like, dead on. But it's not just what he should be saying because there's lots of things that I'm like, oh, Donald Trump should be saying this, but to say this, it might require that he had read a book about the subject and, like, he just doesn't know, you know what I mean, like, a lot of things. And so that's why he's not...

making this comment or whatever. But this is Donald Trump always, always. And he's an expert at it. But he always flirts with conspiracies. This is what he's always done. And he knows exactly how if there's one thing Donald Trump is a master of, he knows exactly how to say something without saying it.

You know what I mean? Like where they'll just be like, and people said they saw Muslims cheering after nine 11 and people will be like, there's no tape of anyone doing that. He goes, well, a lot of people say they saw it. You know, I'm like kind of like, well, I didn't say that. I said, people said that kind of deal, but whether it was, I mean,

I don't know. Do you even remember up before he was running for president? He went on the huge birther thing with Obama where he was claiming he wasn't really born in America. And a lot of people say, a lot of people say he wasn't born in America, you know, and then like, and then went on this whole thing where he offered money if they could produce this real birth certificate. And, you know, he's, he had talked before running for president, a lot of stuff about, uh,

9 11 and the buildings coming down like 9 11 and the buildings coming down like that and how it looked kind of that and how it looked kind of strange and a lot of people think it strange and a lot of people think it was a controlled demolition um was a controlled demolition um he talked about how they lied us he talked about how they lied us into war in iraq not just that he into war in iraq not just that he didn't have weapons of mass destruction didn't have weapons of mass destruction but that they were lying about it but that they were lying about it um certainly

the spying on my campaign, the Russia hoax. He certainly was very quick to say that they're weaponizing the Justice Department against me. Like all these things are like, you know, they are definitionally conspiracies. And yet with this one, like the most obvious one, you would just kind of expect Donald Trump to at a minimum...

to borrow their term, kind of dog whistle it. You know what I mean? Which, by the way, I never... People always claimed he was dog whistling racism. I never really thought that was true. I did think he was dog whistling conspiracy stuff a lot. Even when he would flat out say Obama created ISIS. Trump was never afraid of like, you know, like...

winking and nodding at a conspiracy. And right here, you would think this is the most obvious one. By the way, I'm not saying conspiracy in a pejorative... A lot of these were conspiracies. The Russia hoax was a conspiracy. And the weaponizing the Justice Department was a conspiracy. And this one...

Sure looks like it could have been. And so it's just it does seem wild that Donald Trump is going to sit here. So your story is they framed me for treason with Russia. They they impeached me over nonsense. They weaponized the Justice Department against me. And then the Secret Service did a really great job. It was like just on the face. It was like, did they? Yeah.

Did they do a really great job? Now, look, you got to try to, I guess, understand that his security is still in their hands. But, you know, as Tucker Carlson said to me the other day when we were talking about this, and it was like the way he put it was really so spot on, where he goes, I was like, look, the Secret Service allowed this to happen. And he goes, what?

employees of Joe Biden allowed this to happen. And you're like, yeah, that's right. That's right. The people who work for the Biden administration allowed this to happen. And Donald Trump is not going to milk that a little bit.

That's that is knowing Donald Trump and just looking at what just happened here. You got to admit that's kind of bizarre. And it does make you wonder, is Donald Trump scared? You know, there if you really want to drain the swamp and this isn't like I'm not talking about like you're running for president.

As a third party or something like that, like, you know, when when I was flirting with it or when other people have run on the Green Party or the Libertarian Party, everybody who runs on the Libertarian Party ticket for president or the Green Party ticket for president or something like that, they all know they can't actually win.

You're not really in the game of attempting to gain and wield power. You're in the game of attempting to spread a message. Now, it becomes a little bit of a tricky thing because you can't ever say that, you know? And I do kind of like, I empathize with those candidates when someone will ask them, point blank, can you win? And they're like, well, you never know. Crazy things can happen. Because it's very hard to say no, right?

But please donate money to me. You know what I mean? Like it kind of is the evil of politics. It starts to make you a liar immediately. I tried my best even when I was flirting with it to never do that. But

If you're actually saying, I want to get in, I'm running to win, I want to get the power of the presidency, and I want to drain the swamp. In other words, I want to roll back the biggest honeypot in the history of humanity. If you actually wanted to have a shot of doing that, you would have to be ready to die, right?

You would have to be willing to die for your cause, which I do not... I don't say lightly. I'll be very clear with you guys. I am not ready to die. I believe in the things I believe in, but I'm not willing to die for them if I have a say in that. I have two little kids, and maybe if they were older...

and they were set up, then maybe I would be. But I'm not willing to as long as I have little kids. And I think that Donald Trump, this probably never even crossed his mind, would be my guess. I've never met the guy. I don't know him at all. So I'm not like claiming that I know him in the same way all of us know him. But I don't think even when he said that it ever really crossed his mind that like,

If you were ever really to be in a position to do that, they will try to kill you. And I don't think that ever probably occurred to Donald Trump, you know? And, and even as they were like, even after everything they did to him, my guess would be that never really occurred to him. And I don't think Donald Trump is the type who is willing to die for what he believes in. I just don't, that's not my read on him. And, and,

It seems just to me like the most likely explanation here is that he's afraid. And that in and of itself lets you know something here. Like if it is true that he's just afraid that they'll do this again and he's willing to play ball, then...

You know, we're kind of right back to or you should be right back to where me and Rob have basically been this whole time, which is that the listen, there's the value in Donald Trump is in in the message that he spreads in the overreaction that he provokes out of the out of the establishment and in terms of how he shapes the

kind of the beliefs of his supporters. But if you're this afraid, then you're not gonna get in and drain any swamps. That's just not gonna happen. I don't know, what do you think, Rob? - I mean, I agree with everything you said. It's a little bit like that Bill Hicks joke that you get into office and you see the JFK assassination from the other angle. Also speaking to your initial point, that was Donald Trump's superpower

was dictating the entire news cycle with these outrageous claims that were kind of just questions. And then everyone would go, wait, Donald Trump is claiming this. And it would get repeated and repeated and repeated. And he would dictate the news cycle by making these crazy claims. And they were interesting, so everyone would talk about it. It seems to me like Donald Trump is shook. I've always been...

of the mentality that I think most of these deals get cut behind closed doors. And so the idea that he's cut deals or is willing to play ball is very much so in the scope of, uh, at least the way the movie plays out in my head. I guess the only thing I'll give him credit for is that perhaps, uh, perhaps this just happened. And as he gets closer to the election and maybe he's not out campaigning as much, maybe he'll change his tone. Um,

And maybe there's a little bit of safety in actually winning. And so he doesn't have to care about his safety for as long. But everything I'm seeing thus far is it seems like he's pretty shooken up and has lost a lot of his mojo.

Yeah, I mean, look, I really agree with you. And I think that, like, I stand by everything I've said about the Harris-Walls ticket. I think it's totally fake. I don't think any of their support is authentic or any of it's real. But it is just getting harder and harder to ignore the fact that Donald Trump just does not have that 2016 magic.

It just doesn't have that anymore. He's not he's not positioning himself as that guy who you were describing, like the guy who really is just so starkly outside of the establishment and the guy who is like, I'm the middle finger to the establishment. It's not just that Donald Trump would dictate everything.

the news cycle. It's that with Donald Trump, and I really do think this was all instinctual, but what he had an unbelievable ability to say something

A kind of common sense thing in an incredibly provocative manner that would like drive the corporate media crazy. And then they would repeat it over and over again. But actually, as it landed on voters ears, they were kind of like, yeah.

You know what I mean? Like, it'd be like, well, I don't know. You know, Mexico's not sending their best. They're sending rapists and drug dealers and stuff. And then like, they'd be like, can you believe that he said this about them? And a lot of people would be like, there are a lot of drug dealers coming up from that. You know what I mean? Like, it would just kind of, and this was just like a perfect,

opportunity to do that where you know they would all be like can you believe he's spreading these conspiracy theories and then people would be like it does look pretty damn odd that the guy you've been trying to take out by any means necessary

You then allowed a guy with a sniper to get on a roof 130 yards away from him while people in the crowd are – it's almost like Donald Trump himself starts talking about how people in the crowd were yelling he's got a gun and a cop had confronted him and all of this. And, like, he's still allowed to fire off these bullets? It's just – it's like –

Look, I don't know, you know, but it just seems so it's at least on the face of it. Like, you know, when you if you watch like Law and Order or something like that, you know, when they're deciding whether or not they have enough evidence to go to trial.

Like, it at least seems like you're at least there. You're at least like, oh, we're going to trial. Like, there's, yeah, you guys allowed this to happen? We're going to trial to see what exactly happened. Oh, the regime has a clear history of trying to take this guy out, and then you allowed a guy to try to take him out? And it just, like, it can't be overstated enough how much it's just because he turned his head. You know, like, you were that close to it, and you're not...

You know, like, look, again, perhaps Donald Trump is, you know, for 40 chess or whatever, perhaps he's secretly really working on getting to the bottom of this and he doesn't feel like he can say it out loud. But then again, ask yourself, does that sound like Donald Trump at all?

Keeping something to himself and not just blurting it out. He's, he's incapable of that on everything else. So I just, it seems to me like the, the answer here is that, that there, this guy might be in effect compromised. I guess we'll find, uh, I guess we'll find out or we won't find out, but we'll at least, uh, see how it plays out from here. It's, uh, it's,

I don't know. It just seemed that to me of the entire, uh, the entire Twitter spaces. That was the moment to me that stuck out the most. We know that Donald Trump will play ball because of the McConnell, I believe it was Edward Snowden incident. Uh,

where basically McConnell, when he was leaving, said, hey, you can't. I'm trying to remember this, but he basically said you can't pardon Snowden. And if you do, I forgot what the consequence was going to be. It was something. It was the impeachment. It was that they were going to vote to impeach him or whatever. It's the impeachment that happened over January 6th, not the Ukraine. And I bet the threat was a little bit more like you're going to have hell to pay if you do that.

And Trump even referenced it later because recently he came up and he had said that there were a

A lot of people on both sides and the different issues. And, you know, he was kind of telling you that people told me, hey, this is important to us that we don't we don't release you. So I'm just saying Trump's kind. Listen, he's a businessman and he's definitely in this to win and for his own interests. And his interests might be aligned with your interests at times. But at the end of the day, he'll cut the deals that he needs to cut and he won't piss off the deep state when he knows that it's not a winnable fight.

And I think in the McConnell thing was probably more of a threat of whether or not the Republicans were getting on board with getting him in trouble for January 6 and all that other nonsense. The point just being the idea that after this incident, he didn't finally call whoever that person needed to call was and go, all right, how do I shift my tone so that you guys don't try and kill me again?

All right. What team is it? Israel? Do I have to support that and stop talking about the deep state? What is it that what's the deal that I got to cut so that you guys don't shoot at me anymore? And at least that I'm not saying that that's definitely the reality, but it does feel like the flavor. Well, I would also just I agree. And I would also just add to this that, look, I'm not claiming that the president sees everything, but.

There's no question that Donald Trump had access to a lot of classified stuff.

You know, and he had what supposedly he has the highest level of clearance as the president of the United States. I don't know how real that is or isn't. But I will say that Judge Andrew Napolitano, who I have a great deal of trust in, he's not the type of guy who would just say something like this. And he was a friend of President Trump's. And he's publicly talked about this. So I'm not like giving anything away that he said to me in confidence or something like that. But he...

So Donald Trump had promised to release the JFK files, and then he didn't do it. And Judge Napolitano said he called him. They were on the phone while he was president, or Trump called Napolitano while he was president. And while he had him on the phone, he asked him, and he said, you know, Trump,

Mr. President, you know, you said you were going to release these declassified these JFK files like that would be a really great thing to do. And and what Judge Napolitano said, it was something I forget the exact thing he said, but he basically said something to the judge. Like, if you had seen what I've seen, you wouldn't release him either. And the judge was like, well, what have you seen? And he said he said, I'll have to tell you sometime when there's not 17 other people.

on the call. Ray Epps is a time-traveling Bigfoot. Well, all I'm saying is that my suspicion is that Donald Trump is well aware that they've done this before. And once that bullet whizzed by his head, he probably put together that that is what they were trying to do to him. And I think we're seeing how he's responding to that now.

So, I don't know. All very interesting to me. Obviously, I'm speculating a bit. But anyway, that's where we are. All right. Let's move. And for the sake of avoiding any defamation suits, I don't actually know anything about Elon Musk's relationship with Nigeria. I pulled that one out of my ass. Yeah. This is all jokes. All jokes, kids. We don't mean any of this stuff. Okay. So, let's play the...

CNN lady whose name I don't know on the Colbert report, or geez, not the Colbert report, on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. This was a classic moment.

Trump has kind of been thrown on his heels by this, and he's not really sure how to go after Vice President Harris. He knew his attack lines on President Biden. He really has struggled with how to go after someone who's 20 years younger than him, who is a different gender, a different race. It's kind of been this moment where he has not been able to coalesce around a single attack line.

I know you guys are objective over there that you just report the news as it is. Oh, I know. CNN makes it. That's supposed to be a laugh line. But I guess it is. Trump has kind of been thrown. This is just an amazing moment. Just an amazing moment here. I mean, here you have this CNN lady who is evidently on her way to a nightclub. I'm not exactly sure why she's dressed like a.

a slutty 20 year old girl is like kind of bizarre i don't know i find it very bizarre it's very bizarre they do it at fox news all the time too like i said you're supposed to be a news woman what the hell is this anyway

He literally just says, you guys are objective over there. And the whole crowd almost involuntarily just cracks up laughing at it. Well, what a beautiful moment. And then she's kind of like, well, why is that a punchline? And he's like, it wasn't supposed to be a punchline. It goes, oh, maybe your crowd isn't quite as stupid as we've all thought they were all these years. That was pretty beautiful. I don't know. What do you think? I mean, it's just a little moment, but it's going super viral for a reason. What did you think about that, Rob?

I guess they stopped keeping the unvaxxed out of studios, so it's not as easy for them to sling this straight propaganda.

Ah, shit, that's such a great take. Yeah, I guess that is. I guess they let some people who haven't, you know, had their third virus on their sixth shot into the studio audience. I thought a pretty incredible moment that it was, because it was almost just so funny, it's so absurd to describe the CNN coverage of Donald Trump as objective, right?

Like, you know, goddamn, by the way, there is something about, I remember. So I, uh, I remember around like 2016 ish time when, if you can remember how much like woke ism was almost like at its peak and there wasn't as much of like a counter movement to it or that like kind of started to grow around there, but it's, uh,

I remember just seeing out of comedians. I'm sure you remember this too, Rob, because you were right with me at the time, like in the comedy scene, where it's like all the comedians who would just be saying the like, whatever the politically correct woke thing was to say. And there's something about comedians doing it that just is so disgusting. Like, I don't know, maybe it's because this is what we do, but it was always kind of like,

I mean, being a comic, the thing about it was always that it's like, oh, I don't have to do any of that bullshit. I don't have to just say the thing that people say this is the appropriate thing to say. It's like, no, we get to say the inappropriate thing to say. That's part of the fun. And so there's something. But just being Stephen Colbert and you're going to turn over and like to just sit here and say something as ridiculous as CNN is objective.

I mean, like, I don't even I'm not saying you got to support Donald Trump. That's not the argument I've ever made. I've never been a Trump supporter. I'm not saying you got to be a left winger or you got to be a right winger or anything like that. But to just I mean, doesn't it just hurt your soul to just like laugh?

lie through your teeth just to get a pat on the head from the establishment, especially when you've already got more money than you'll ever spend? Like, why? Turn over and go, I mean, if there's anything, we all know CNN's coverage of Donald Trump is totally not biased at all, right? Like, I mean, I don't care who you are. I don't care what, where on the political spectrum you fall, right?

No one, everyone knows CNN is an objective when it comes to Donald Trump. Even if you think they're objective in any way, which, spoiler alert, they're not. When it comes to Donald Trump, you think they're an objective news source? This is why your audience is laughing. That's a hilarious thing to imply, let alone explicitly say.

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Yeah, well, it's also fun because I guess this lady must have a good publicist. We've watched three segments, I think, on this show of politicians or other people being on her show and her just getting wrecked. She's not particularly the smoothest or the slickest, but she is who I guess is kind of like their new Don Lemon character or who they're trying to make out to be their big star and promote. And so I'm sure CNN got her place. So yeah.

I think just even her just being there is what allows to set up for like these moments where you're trying to play along. But CNN is not a great news source. She's not some superstar or a great journalist. And so the more that you're forced to try and sit there and play into that reality, the more opportunities you have for an entire audience, people to just laugh and be like, this is absurd.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, it really is. It's just the idea of it is so absurd that even Colbert's, you know, like where is he in L.A., I assume.

No, I think he's in New York. Is he in New York? He's in where Letterman's. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, I guess you're right. Letterman was always in New York. That's right. So even but even in front of a New York like progressive audience, even they just couldn't even help it. It's just it's hilarious. It's just too ridiculous of a thing to say. If I had to guess, you get it's probably a fair amount of tourists. It's probably your people coming through Broadway. And if you could snag your free tickets while you're on.

vacation. You're probably right. Yeah, and I'm sure there's some New Yorkers, but I bet it's 70% people on vacation who are able to snag the free tickets, which is a win. You know, middle of the afternoon, you get to go see Colbert over a Broadway show for free. Yeah, no, I guess that's true. Although it does seem like his audience seems to like the mindless nonsense he's been spewing at them for years now. So even wherever they're getting him from, they're somewhat on board. If they're laughing while he does his

Get the vaccine dance or whatever dumb shit he's doing these days. That's such a shame. He used to be so goddamn good. I swear, I'm like young people. I probably I know you won't believe me, but he was really, really good once upon a time. He was late night host change when they take that annual outing to Epstein's Island. They sure do. They sure do. They come back all different. I don't know what that is.

um all right let's uh let's move over to this this was another clip you actually sent this to me i had not seen this i thought this was uh kind of interesting um so what uh i'm sorry what network was oh this is cnn okay yes all right so um there's uh um uh one of harris's uh campaign spokes uh women uh

Adrian Elrod. She was on CNN and she was asked some questions about Kamala Harris. And it was pretty interesting, her response. So let's go to that clip. What's on the vice president's schedule today?

Well, she's traveling and talking to voters and getting her message out there to the American people, something that she's been doing from the very start of this campaign is something that she certainly did when she was President Biden's running mate as vice president. But look, you just mentioned the space she's going to be giving. And I was I was asking about today. And I don't think she's got any campaign events on the schedule today, does she?

Well, she and Governor Walz have been traveling across the country. They hit nearly every battleground state last week on the campaign trail. They raised thirty six million dollars within the first 24 hours of Governor Walz joining the ticket. And what she's going to be doing Friday is taking her economic message directly to the voters in North Carolina. I certainly don't want to get in front of exactly what she's going to say, but she's going to talk a little bit about how she's going to make sure that she's putting consumers first.

um, as part of her economic plan. She's going to take on a corporate price gouger. She's going to take on junk fees. Uh, and that's something that, you know, John, she did when she was attorney general of California, something she continued to do as the United States Senator of California. So she's going to be taking that message out to voters. And, uh, I look forward to seeing what she, more of what she's going to say on Friday. I think we all do. And I'll ask you more about that in just a second. The reason I was asking about today is because it seems like she has time if she wanted to do an interview, uh,

with a member of the media or do a news conference, correct? There does appear to be that time if she wanted. Well, look, she has said on the campaign trail that she would be doing an interview at some point. She said that, I think, last week during a rope line or when she was talking to reporters. But look, what is important here, John, is that she is taking her message directly to the American people.

She hit a number of battleground states. I think we had 15,000 people in Detroit last week, 12 to 13,000 in Nevada. She's been taking her message to the voters and drawing large crowds. So she's actually having those direct conversations. But not today. Not today. She could do an interview today, I would think, you know, because she's not out there today.

Well, look, she's taking her message directly to voters. And just because she doesn't have anything, an interview schedule on her public schedule doesn't mean that she's not taking her message directly to voters. There you have it. She's taking her message directly to voters. Translation, she's reading off a teleprompter.

that now it is pretty wild see look even as um as as corrupt uh as the corporate media is and as much as they are essentially campaign surrogates for kamala harris at this point they will get offended by this because they like to be part of the show and the the pathetic response of she has said on the campaign trail that she will do an interview at some point

Like that, that's it. Look, there's a dynamic with Kamala Harris, and I will be the first one to admit that I do not understand it completely. I felt like I had a much better understanding of Joe Biden, as many of us do. It's pretty obvious the guy's brain doesn't work.

you know, and it, over the last few years, it kind of comes and goes. It seems like it's going a lot more than it's coming these days, but Joe Biden might forget what you're talking about. He might start a sentence and have a lot of trouble completing it. This could happen at any moment. Uh, he struggled in interviews as much as he struggled reading the teleprompter with Kamala Harris. That's not exactly the issue. Um,

And she is capable of reading off of a teleprompter. She can do that, you know? So she can go up on stage. She can walk without looking like her legs are made out of stilts. And she probably won't fall. And she probably won't just stutter to death or lose her train of thought or stare off into the sun as if she has no idea where she is. Those are unique problems to Joe Biden. But she is very, very bad off the cuff.

And if you look at any of these moments that Kamala Harris has had over the last four years where she seems like a retarded person, where she, you know, just the moments where she's just, like I've said to you before, like she sounds like she ate a 3,000 milligram edible and it just kicked in.

And she's just...

Huh? We've seen that happen. Well, yeah, I'm saying like where she's just talking about how space is all around us and it's everywhere. And the wonderment of space is that it's so wonderful. And you know, like all that stuff that doesn't happen when she's reading a teleprompter, but it has happened a lot when she's going off the cuff. And it seems like they're trying to avoid that. I don't know exactly like how bad it is. Uh,

Or like whether she's capable of getting through interviews without doing that. But I do know that almost all of those moments have come when she's not reading a teleprompter. And when she's not, you know, just delivering prepared remarks. It's more like when she gets asked a question like,

why haven't you been to the border and she just starts cackling and says why haven't i been to europe and you're like whoa that was awful you know because like the border is part of our country that's that that incident's even worse because he literally asked why haven't you been to the border she goes i have been to the border and he goes no you haven't and then she goes well you might as well ask me why i haven't been to europe and starts laughing

Yeah, it's like, whoa, this is really, really bad. And so it's funny. It's amazing that they can spin this as like she's talking directly to voters, even though that's it's not true.

You know what I mean? Like, like giving a speech. She's talking to the people they hired to show up in mass. Where's that budget? That's who she's talking to. She's talking to AI generated images. That's for sure. But like, I'm just saying, I don't even know. I don't know if that's real or not. But, but there is something about like, why is like, why exactly is it that getting on stage in front of an audience and rewinding

And reading remarks off a teleprompter is talking directly to voters, yet sitting down for an interview, what, isn't talking directly to voters? Like, who do you imagine is listening to that interview? Children below the age of 18 and foreigners? I mean, presumably there would be some voters who would be listening to what you're saying. So why exactly...

Is that not talking to voters? Anyway, it's a this is an interesting moment because it does kind of reveal the apprehension on the Harris campaign about putting her in a situation where she may not be able to deliver prepared remarks. And she may actually have to think something that she doesn't seem to be very good at.

We're going to do the thing we did with Biden, where the only time people can ask him stuff is over the sounds of a helicopter. So that way you don't know what he's saying.

Yeah. And by the way, this has been a big issue that they keep reporting on that she hasn't taken any interviews. And I think you're right. It's that CNN's like, hey, at the end of the day, we need some ratings here. And the whole thing that gives us credibility is the fact that we like that's the game that we're playing is that we give you favorable reporting and you guys actually give us access. Yeah. We're making a trade here. Like we're on. I mean, it almost like it's almost like the position of CNN is like, hey, listen, like

It's like you hired me for a job and I haven't gotten a paycheck yet. You know, it's like, hey, we have this deal of like we trade favorable coverage for access and you're telling me we don't get our access. That's not the deal. And so clear like it.

This is fascinating because it is kind of in a weird way, like a chink in the armor of the way that this corrupt establishment works is that it's like, no, no, this is the trade. You have to make this trade. And that actually might put her in a situation where she does have to do it. If you're on the Trump campaign or a Trump voter or a Bobby Kennedy voter or anything like that,

Man, you want Kamala Harris in as many interviews as possible because that is, again, where she has really historically struggled. Late night shows, literally every appearance that you put her on is an opportunity for a Biden-esque blunder of, oh, this person has dementia. She is unlikable and not intelligent. And the more times we roll her in front of a camera, the higher the odds are of a campaign ending incident.

It is really unbelievable with the amount of power that the establishment has and how big a country this is and how many. Look, I'm not saying we all have our flaws and none of us are like, you know, perfect.

But the idea that these candidates consistently have such glaring holes in their game, that it's something like this where it's like, I don't know that. Look, the thing is, it's not she's not senile. She's not Joe Biden. But what Kamala Harris is, is she is. Yes, she's.

it she's dumb she's totally unimpressive she has no depth or knowledge to her at all i mean at all there's like no subject that she can speak on and and demonstrate a depth of knowledge at all um she's not she's also intensely bizarre and unlikable like the the it's like in order to compensate for all of these qualities she'll just cackle

Like it's very weird, very off-putting person. And so, yeah, they're worried about like even something like you said, like a late night show, which is not at all a hostile interview. She will just be so unappealing in it. She's just everything about it. I mean, do you remember –

What was it when she was on CNN and she comes out for that town hall and the first thing she says is like, her pronouns are she, her. It's like, does this like... And I'm wearing a blue suit. It covers my arms.

It's like this pathetic thing where she's like it does. She has the feel of like a robot who's supposed to be doing an impression of a person. And that, you know, anyway, I guess the point really is that it's it's going to be next to impossible for them to not let that Kamala Harris come out throughout the campaign.

There's still a few months to go here. I don't see how they're going to avoid that. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show. This is for responsible adults over the age of 21 living in states where Delta 8 is legal. If you want to get high, you got to go over to YoDelta.com where you can stock up on high quality lab tested Delta 8. I know a lot of my friends, Lewis and Jay, they swear by this stuff.

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I also, I just kind of love the grilling for over a day off with the amount of days off these people traditionally take. Like if it was my campaign manager after a weekend of shows, if you asked, I'd be like, yeah, he was doing shows all weekend. He's taking a day to watch porn and eat cake. Just getting his strength back. He'll be back out there tomorrow.

Yeah, I guess they can't say that, Rob. For some reason, they didn't feel comfortable going with that. Hey, before we wrap up the show, you had put this on our list of things to talk about, and I did think it was worth bringing up, but isn't it? We've got to take some live comments. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then I'll pull up the comments. But let's just mention this because you had brought this up, and I had seen this, and it really is, I think, worth mentioning.

But isn't it interesting that Kamala Harris has adopted the policy that Donald Trump adopted from Ron Paul of no tax on tips?

That's the new that that's, I guess, something that both candidates can agree on. Well, what I'm hoping this leads to is a tick for tack. We're usually everyone's trying to offer more free goods or at a minimum low interest rates to create credit asset bubbles that might blow up on another person. But playing the game of who they won't tax, that sounds like a game I'd like to see these politicians play.

start scratching off other sectors. Usually you just got to go to the unions or whoever else to try and buy some votes, give some free college, give some free this, give some free that. Give us back our tax money. Let's play this game amongst the politicians. Yeah, well, I got to say, I like this game a lot more. If we're going to give out stuff, how about the stuff that belongs to you? Just let you keep it. It is...

Look, part of the reason why I love this, number one, it's, I mean, when the Democrats are talking about it, it's particularly entertaining. But the thing about

Not taxing tips, which obviously I completely support. Obviously, you completely support it too, Rob. But it's also because we have at least a basic understanding of economics, which is pretty rare. And so whatever, any decrease in taxes is good, and I'm behind it. But it does just...

It almost in a weird way just like it is as long as you have two brain cells to rub together, you don't even have to have that many more. But if you got to one may not be enough because there's nothing to rub against. But if you have two brain cells that you can rub together, it does just kind of open Pandora's box.

You know what I mean? Like you just start to look at it and you go like, yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. That would be enormously helpful for people who work on tips and pay taxes on those tips. Right. I mean, that, that would be like, that'd be huge. I mean, if you're whatever your, you know, the job is where you're, you're making tips, if you're paying taxes on those tips, I mean, I have to imagine that there's still a lot of people don't pay taxes on tips. Right. And

Certainly, I think when you get cash tips, I highly doubt that most people are reporting those tips or reporting them in full. But I suppose a lot of people are getting tips on credit cards these days. And OK, so that that would be a big deal. But then you also go like, OK, well, right away, I mean.

Lots of let's say restaurants, right? That's a pretty tip heavy environment You you tend to have What's the word I'm looking for? What's the name of the person who just brings you to your table again waiter? No, no, not the person The hostess. Yes the hostess. That's right. So typically you have a hostess who makes an hourly wage and then you have servers who rely on tips and

Now, traditionally speaking, the server is like a step up from a hostess. Like they're making more money, right? Like typically the hostess is just making like a little hourly wage. But if it's a busy place, the servers can clean up on tips. Is there like right away? You're like, well, why does, how come she has to pay taxes? But yeah,

They don't have to pay taxes. It doesn't seem maybe that was sexist of me. It could be a dude, but it does seem like it's more often a woman who or a girl who is the hostess. But like, right. So it just it's like right away. Also, like, look, being like a bartender or being a server. These are just the jobs I'm thinking of that are very tip heavy jobs. They tend to be not bad gigs, right?

Like, you know, I mean, it might be really bad if you work at a place that's empty, but it tends to be one of the reasons why people like actors and comedians and stuff, a lot of them have jobs as bartenders or as waiters or waitresses is because it's like, oh, it's one of those day jobs where like you could actually make more money than you can doing a lot of other shitty jobs. You know, if you work at a place that's busy, you could you could make decent money on tip.

So it's like if they shouldn't get taxed, like if they shouldn't be taxed, why just because they work on tips should they not be taxed? Why is it like what's the coherent argument for why hourly wages should be taxed yet tips shouldn't? Essentially, it seems to me that the argument is that people who work on tips aren't typically making a ton of money. So why should they pay taxes? It's like, OK, great. Let's apply that all around, right? Right.

And then you could recognize that it's like, I don't know, even someone who's someone making 75 grand a year who's got a family. Why the hell should they be paying taxes? It's just I just like the conversation. I like the again, as we mentioned, when Donald Trump first came out with this policy, I just love the idea of like this is like it's like finding the easiest, most popular thing to run on, which just involves the government not doing anything.

It just opens the conversation up to how much people are screwed over by the government in general. It's like, oh, how could they, how can this organization help you? How can this organization that robs 40 to 50% of your income from you every year, how could they help you? And you're like, oh, that's just dawned on me. Stop. Stop doing that. That might help. I don't know. Any final thoughts, Rob? No, let's take a couple comments. All right, all right. What do we got here? Yeah.

CTG writes 43 states still pay income tax. So I don't see how half the nation doesn't pay income tax. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that.

Barry writes, what do you think is the most effective strategy for libertarians to influence policy in a political landscape dominated by two major parties? That is a good question. I don't know that I would say there's one most effective strategy necessarily. I mean, I running the gayest guy we have.

all right that's what you got to do run your gayest guy and that's what we're trying this time and we'll see how it goes well look obviously like um like the libertarian party as you know

largely embarked on a strategy of kind of trying to pressure Trump into taking more libertarian positions. And they've pretty remarkably, you know, and the credit is to Angela McArdle on that, it is pretty remarkable that they've gotten some promises out of him. Now, look, promises from any politician are

only worth so much, but you kind of got to start somewhere. And, you know, if, you know, there's a lot of possibilities of what that could lead to. So I'm, I'm not opposed to that. I think that obviously like my, my strategy has been to,

to you know get myself in front of the biggest audiences that i can and try to tell the truth in the most compelling way that i can and that hopefully move the needle that way that you know there is like the pressure from that

voters can put on politicians and not even just voters, but just because they're people of that country. And politicians always know on some gut level that they're greatly outnumbered by the people they rule over. So that's kind of what I'm in the game of. But I certainly think that like the Free State Project in New Hampshire, they have this strategy of like geographic concentration. I think there's been certainly some

a lot of, um, there's been beneficial outcomes already for that. New Hampshire is one of, if not the freest state in the union, that seems to be pretty good. I, I also think, you know, um, pulling your kids out of government school is a, is a great place to start, but that's just me. All right, let's take one more. And then I do have to, uh, uh, wrap up. Um,

Dave, thoughts on the DDOS attack before the spaces yesterday? Yeah, I don't. Listen, man, I just don't know. Literally, the extent of my knowledge on that is that Elon Musk said it happened. I don't even know if that's really what happened or what, but that's what Elon Musk said was the reason why the Twitter space got shut down. But then they restarted it, and it seemed to go off without a problem. So...

If it was some type of attack, it didn't seem tremendously effective, I guess would be what I would say. But I don't I really don't know anything beyond that. There you go. That's a good way to wrap up. I don't know. What do you think?

All right, listen. Thanks, everybody, for watching. And thanks particularly to everybody who's already signed up at partoftheproblem.com. If that's not you, come join the cool kids over at partoftheproblem.com. And, of course, come see me and Robin Stamford at New York Comedy Club on Thursday night. Looking forward to that one. All right. Thanks for listening, guys. Peace. Peace.