Woke vs. Woke
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Hello, hello, hello. 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 back on the East Coast after a few days of gallivanting at Skankfest. How are you, sir? I feel like this was the best Skankfest yet, and that live part of the problem that we did was the funnest thing I've ever done in comedy. And it was like being in a dream, being able to do something with Nick DiPaolo. Dude, it was...

It was so great. And yeah, TJ Miller was great. Sam was great. And Nick DiPaolo, of course, is just... It was great getting to hang with him a little bit at the festival, and it was great having him on the show. That episode, by the way, is... I believe it's still up for purchase on Mint Stream. So if you want to go grab the episode, you can there. I will be putting it up for subscribers only on partoftheproblem.com. It will never...

grace the public any other way so you you can uh sign up to support uh and and get the episode it really was a fantastic one it was very different than a typical part of the problem but we always kind of have a fun big live pay-per-view event at skank fest there uh but yes so there there is a way to get it but we're not putting it on youtube or anything like that

I'm not, I don't think that would be possible. I think YouTube would explode. Um, anyway, so I, as you know, Rob and, uh, Natalie, I've told you guys, but, um, I got, uh, sick out there, uh, at Skank Fest. Um, and then, um, but I, I muscled through and I, you know, performed on all of my shows and then just found out I got COVID when I came home. So, um,

What I called muscling through, you might call being a super spreader. But the point is that the show went on and we had a good time, but I'm in full recovery mode now. So I apologize. The last week between Austin and Vegas and getting sick, the schedule's just been all off. I am home now and we will get right back to it. Just a couple... Okay, so I recorded the...

um, 2024 state of the union with Ari Shafir. Um,

a week and a half ago or so. And so that episode, that's been up on the pay site for a few days now, but we'll be putting that one up for everyone. That should be up tomorrow. We got this episode today, and then I guess I'll do a debate recap episode tomorrow. Of course, Rob, tonight is the vice presidential debates episode.

We will crown America's official weirdo after tonight. Who is it? That's a great title for that. That's fun. Who is the official weirdo here? We don't know. Two weirdos will enter. One weirdo will leave. I don't know. I mean, I guess we could talk for a moment to preview this. I...

I don't know. I guess I'm kind of curious what your opinion is, Rob. Typically speaking, vice presidential debates do not matter. Nobody is really voting for the bottom of a ticket on the presidential ticket. So, you know, it's... I don't know...

Perhaps, I guess you could argue this is a different year than almost every other presidential election year. Maybe it matters more or less. I don't know. I don't really have a strong feeling on that. Do you? Do you think this matters or it's just a distraction? I think...

What matters here is how much of a liability one of these two people could be. So if J.D. Vance comes off like such a unlikable weirdo, I think that does drop Donald Trump down a peg that he's so bad at picking people and that he's particularly bad at political hiring and management that I think that that will highlight one of his failures. And if he shows up and is a total weirdo, that's a bad look.

However, if he's weird but smart and can maybe actually challenge Tim Walls on things like his political record or – I mean, I'm sorry, exactly what his service history was and the military claims that he's made or why he thinks it's important for tampons to be in bathrooms. Like, I mean, there's a potential with walls – men's bathrooms for boys. So there's some Walls dirt on the table that if J.D. Vance is good enough at like –

demolishing and highlighting. I mean, this...

that could also be pretty detrimental to Kamala Harris. So I think you're right that this is more in the weeds, the fun stuff. If you follow us at our level to watch a presidential, I mean, a vice presidential debate, but I do think that there's a couple interesting factors here that one of those two people could come off so poor that they, you know, do take their candidate down a peg. Yeah, it's right. So I, I tend to agree with that. I think that one of the things that's really,

really remarkable and unique about this, uh, this election season. Um, and I mean, there's several, but you know, like there's, there's assassination attempts. You don't usually have that. And, um, obviously Kamala Harris has been a candidate for a drastically shorter period than, than any candidate in modern American history. And, um, uh,

Also, she didn't win a primary. You know, there's just like things that are like this is not typically how it goes. But one of the thing to me that I still, you know, I've been talking about this for weeks now, but that still just jumps out to me as the biggest differentiating factor. Like the thing that's so different about this election than every other one is Kamala Harris as a candidate and the fact that it.

And we're getting close enough to the election that I think it's kind of safe to say this essentially worked like it's over. This has been done successfully is that Kamala Harris is unlike every other presidential candidate in my lifetime, at least. And I think beyond that is that she's not running a presidential campaign.

Like when I say that, I mean, she's running a campaign. She's not running on anything. She's not, she's not running on her campaign.

presidential campaign in 2020. She's completely abandoned every single position that she took in 2020. She's not running on her track record as vice president. She's just kind of like cackles and says, Joe Biden's not here. So like, she's not attached to that guy. She's not attached to her former self. She's not running on her record as a senator or a prosecutor or anything because they're all deeply unpopular. And so she's essentially just running as

Joy, you know, and in that same environment, let's say there's some low hanging fruit of things that the Trump campaign could nail her on. And they have seemingly been unsuccessful at all of them. I'm still really shocked. And not only that, not only are they unsuccessful, it seems like like the bullets are still in the chamber. Right.

Maybe that's a bad analogy to use this election cycle. I mean, you know, peaceful, rhetorical bullets. But you get what I'm saying that like Donald Trump still does not seem to have ever made a real effort to pin the Biden scandal on Kamala Harris to say we all are kind of operating knowing we don't really have a president of the United States of America. And that hasn't come up.

he's not going to dog whistle about the assassination attempts and the fact that the people who are in charge of his security

are employees of Biden and Harris. You'd think that would, he's not going to go after that. There, you know, there's just, he, so I guess in this environment, you would wonder, okay, well, can they pin walls with something? Can they, you know, and, and so maybe there's a little bit more of a necessity to have a big moment tonight or an opportunity. The other thing that's, that's just in my mind, I was kind of thinking about this morning is the,

And I guess this is kind of a bigger picture criticism of the race. And perhaps if Ron DeSantis had been the nominee...

that we'd be in a different situation. But it really is amazing. And I guess this isn't the one in the front of people's mind. It's a little bit easier in the front of people's mind to say like, oh, I can't believe that the assassination attempt isn't that big of a story. It only happened a couple months ago and it seems like everyone's just kind of moving past it or Joe Biden being pulled out happened a couple months ago and everyone's moving past it. But to me, it really is

It's so wild and so incredibly disturbing that in the year 2024, we're having a presidential election and COVID is a non-issue. As I sit here, positive in front of you right now, this thing, this minor inconvenience that I have that, call me crazy, maybe wasn't worth shutting the world down over.

Is not even coming up. And part of that is because Donald Trump has such a terrible track record on it. And he's so awful and stupid and lazy that he can't even...

You know, like the only thing he has to say about COVID is what a great job they did and how many millions of lives they saved. And we locked it down and we locked it down better than everyone. Then we opened it up and we opened it up great. And then the vaccine saved hundreds of millions of lives. That seems to be all he has to say about it. And in this vice presidential debate, looking at it, you're almost like, oh, like, you know, this president,

Look, Kamala Harris was in the Senate and then she was a particularly inactive vice president. She doesn't really own anything. Joe Biden is not running. And so he gets to kind of just slunk away. J.D. Vance is a senator, you know, but now on stage is.

A governor, a lockdown governor who was one of the most aggressive. And not only that, but has a particularly horrible track record on the Black Lives Matter riots of the summer of 2020, which, let's say, destroyed his state.

Even worse than just the average one. You know, he was like the the ground zero governor of for this Black Lives Matter stuff. And I'm I'm wondering if that's even going to come up in the debate tonight. You know, like, I don't know what type of position is J.D. Vance really in?

when you're running as number two to Donald Trump to even try to criticize him. So I'll be interested to see if that comes up. It is, there's no doubt that it's, to have something as major as we shut the world down, you know, and then whatever, to go through the entire COVID regime up to the, you know, the hysteria about the vaccine, the vaccine turning out,

to have been sold on completely fraudulent grounds. You should know what I mean? Like this, is there anyone here by the way? No, the funny thing is no one's even pretending anymore. So we're just supposed to move on to oops. That never happened.

nobody's even if i if i told you uh some people got coveted at this festival that we were just at uh this last week is there is there anyone anyone who even goes like uh well that's probably because you weren't vaccinated like is anyone even pretending is anyone even pretending like there's not even the most hardcore you know like of of the like say like

the woke progressives who don't like Legion of skanks very much. That was one of the things, by the way, you know, for years, you know, there's that little group of like woke kids who tries to get Legion of skanks canceled and still hasn't figured out that we're uncancelable. So there was a, yeah,

For a while, they tried to get us canceled for, you know, being Nazis or whatever the accusation was. But during like 2020, 2021, they did go pretty hard at us for having super spreader events. You know, like very conveniently, the people they already wanted canceled, they now wanted canceled for totally scientific reasons. Um,

But do any of them admit they were wrong? No. Do any of them continue to talk about the vaccine? No, because they know that's too ridiculous. So what's the plan? Like, you know, with every goddamn COVID tyrant, just move on.

Let's just stop. Let's just pretend all those years never happened. Let's pretend we didn't get in these like, we didn't like morally condescend to you about what a bad person you were and how good a person I was. Oh, what's that? I'm wrong about everything I'm saying? Okay, just move on. Not even address it at all. And I'll tell you, it's every bit as much a disgrace for the Republicans as

as it is for the Democrats, that they are letting them do this. But they were so pathetic when

When when the crisis hit that they're they're going to accept that deal, essentially will accept the deal. Just say nothing. And if there's anything that Trump has to say, well, I mean, obviously he's been off for four years and is running for president again. So, like, he's done deep reading on this issue and he understands the crisis. And now not at the time, but now he really gets it. And he has deep concern about the tens of millions of Americans whose lives were ruined over this issue.

Oh, I'm sorry, Rob. I'm getting no, none of that's true. No, he's just going to brag about how great he was. That's all he's interested in, you know, shoehorning into this conversation. So anyway, I don't know. That's just been on my mind. But it's like, oh, you actually get one of these like lockdown governors on stage and they should be taken to task in front of tens of millions of people. And they probably won't be. Probably it won't even come up.

Yeah, what a missed opportunity to highlight. Don't let these dummies manage your life anymore. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And it's such a great then lens to be like, let's take a look at some of their other policies and how they want to take more control over this industry and tell you how to live.

Yep. Well, the thing that I would imagine will come up, and I guess this will be interesting to see how exactly J.D. Vance approaches this. I got to say, I'm talking about the wars, of course. I think my guess is he's going to be good on Ukraine. I don't know.

I think that I think both sides have the exact same thing to say about Israel. The Democrats might want to pretend like they're not going to as aggressively support them as Donald Trump might go, hey, if you're Jewish and you don't vote for me here, you actually hate Jews and you want to kill them or whatever. So Donald Trump's being more aggressive, thinking that it's a giant trophy to say, hey, I support and back Israel a thousand percent no matter what. The Democrats seem to

want to just go well we love both sides and they're both people we want them both to feel great and we're going to give more bombs to israel so that they can nuke those guys but not new but you get what i'm saying i i think on uh ukraine they probably donald trump might have a slightly better position of hey we got to end the war but i don't think jd vance is necessary i think they probably have basically the same position on those and that's not going to be the most interesting part of the debate

Well, I think that one of the things that I'm looking for that I'm concerned about, and we could talk about this a little bit, too, because I did just have Congressman Matt Gaetz speak.

on the show the other day. We did a very short episode together. And I wish we had had a little bit more time. I probably could have pushed him a little bit more, although I did, I think, ask the question several times. But I will say this episode

This stuff that Gates is talking about, about Iran being behind one of the teams that's trying to assassinate Donald Trump. I would not be surprised if this also comes out of Tim. Excuse me. If this also comes out of J.D. Vance's mouth. I just it makes no sense to me, particularly with a Gates character and the way I see his role thus far in the conservative party. Why no one will bring up, hey, is this the deep state?

I don't understand why even posing that question, it like the Republicans seem so uninterested in exploring or putting out that narrative to the general public of, hey, the last time the CIA worked against him to say that he was a Russian asset, they tried to pull him down in court cases. And when all of that didn't work, are they trying to assassinate him? And who's actually running our government? And that's why if you actually want a democracy, you need us in office.

even if it's not true, it's a sexy storyline. Why are they so afraid of, uh, of playing that card? It's odd. And especially because you're kind of protected in a way, because like you said, like, if you're just asking that question, it's like, Hey, even if it turns out not to be true, you can totally reasonably say like, well, Hey, I'm sorry. The deep state was framing him for treason. They were weaponizing the justice system against him. So, so,

Forgive me if when he's shot at, then I also speculate as to whether they might be behind that or not. But I will say, like, I'll take it further than even that and say that while we've kind of alluded to several times on the show before that me and you are not like,

Trump supporters or Trump voters. We're not out here advocating other people go support Donald Trump if he makes it basically impossible for us to not be criticizing him every other show. But you've always sold more of Kamala Harris wins. Yes. Well, you've always kind of found yourself rooting a little bit for for Donald Trump and rooting for like kind of the corporate media and the Democrat and Republican establishment to be butthurt again because he wins.

but as over the last week, as you hear Trump and, and Gates and these guys talking about how Iran was actually behind it, I'll tell you, it really pushes me from that position. Even where it's like, Oh, I got no one to even root for here. I'm, I might be more scared of you guys winning now that I am at the other side. I mean, like this is look, I should have asked Gates and I did think to do this, but you know,

he's good at being a politician. But I should, I almost want to add, so he goes, he goes, essentially he's, he told me on the show and you guys can go, I think I'm characterizing this accurately. He goes, he was briefed by the department of Homeland security.

that Iran was behind this attack. Can I ask, was it behind that attack or just had that there are teams within the United States that are trying to carry out attacks? No, right. Not behind that attack. Just that there's a team trying to carry it out. They sure do say it in a way where it sounds like what he's saying is Iran was behind that attack, but that's not actually what they're claiming. They are claiming that of the teams...

The Iran one is the most well-financed one or something like that. Although, what other details can you give me on what a team actually means? Nothing. When I asked the congressman, I said, okay, well, like, what evidence is there? He essentially said, I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you type thing. Like, basically just went, oh, I'm not going to get into that or, you know, that's classified or something. And it's like, okay, well,

And I said to him at one point, I said, well, forgive me, but after Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, you know, after COVID, after Russiagate, after all of this stuff, I'm going to need a little bit more than a politician says that someone in intelligence told them so. So, like, do we get to see any evidence? But, you know, the question I probably should have asked him, which I was thinking of, but I didn't ask, was, okay, what?

Why are you not introducing a formal declaration of war against Iran? You know, you're sitting here telling me that you're not Lindsey Graham. You're not one of these guys who just wants to go to war with Iran. But you're also telling me they have a well-financed team to assassinate your presidential candidate?

I don't know. I'm old school. That sounds like an act of war to me. So, like, if you're going to make this argument, how is your argument not that we should invade right now? I...

It would seem to me with the extent that our border is open, if I was a foreign adversarial government, I'd be trying to get as many operatives into the United States of America as possible right now. And I like so to what extent is a presidential candidate assassination team just, you know, some sort of an almost foreign intelligence team?

I'm not looking at the intelligence that they have. Are they actually trying to currently assassinate the president or are they putting together operatives for if they wanted to do something like that, you know, taking advantage of an opportunity of maybe the easiest time to get or seemingly based off the news that I see get people into the country?

Yeah. Look, I don't know. I would not be surprised if this is all bullshit and there's just nothing even like that. And the FBI... I know there was one thing... It's not winning bullshit. The winning bullshit is...

look at the security failures and what the deep state's doing to try and undermine the security of our country. And like, you know, that that's the narrative. It's not, Oh, if we want to be safe here, we got to go to war with Iran. Yeah, but it's not, you know, the, the end game here might be just to move this MAGA movement in a more hawkish, uh,

you know, posture with Iran. And look, I'm just saying that my, my guess, my prediction, and we'll see if I'm right about this or not, but my guess is, is JD Vance is going to come out with the like rhetorically strongest possible like support for Israel and condemnation for Iran and a whole bunch of threatening around and stuff like that. I remember his first interview with,

at the Republican National Convention after he was picked for vice president was all about how tough Trump was on a round and how tough they're going to get on a round if Trump is reelected. So just saying that is my guess. I will say,

Zooming out more broadly speaking, it is... So as of right now, I don't know, Rob, how much of the news you've consumed today. I'm, after the last few days, a little more behind than I typically am. But right now, as we're recording this, I believe, Iranian rockets are headed toward Israel. There was also a shooting in...

I think outside of Tel Aviv. I'd have to double check this. That appears at least it's being reported that it was an Arab woman

I don't know if it was an Israeli citizen or somebody from outside. But Israel, of course, as you guys know, if you've been paying attention over the last week or so, is now at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. This is, for the people, I'd say for the last year, probably the number one concern has been this spreading into a wider war. We're there now. Obviously,

the Houthis have have been involved from from pretty much the beginning uh you got Hezbollah in Lebanon involved now obviously there's Syria and now Iran has um has joined in uh sending some rockets over there so there's you know with there are these two major wars that the Biden administration is is married to and they are both going just catastrophically bad

And, you know, okay, I suppose in the conflict in Ukraine, you'd say, okay, well, the worst case scenario there is...

a nuclear exchange. Russia is the largest nuclear power in the history of the world. So we haven't gotten there. That's the best you could give Joe Biden's foreign policy. We haven't gotten to a nuclear war yet. So he's got that going for him. Short of that, Biden's squashed a peace deal at the very beginning of the war in 22. They've drawn this thing out. There's been hundreds of thousands of people killed

in the war. And Ukraine has less of its territory, has less prospects to end on a deal that's nearly as favorable as the one that the U.S. insisted was killed. Israel has, you know, so you have the countries, forget even if you have like, you know,

If you have interest in the other side, but just in terms of the countries that Biden has been trying to support, Ukraine has been devastated. Israel has had their their global opinion fall by more than their in their entire existence in the last year and is now in a situation where they are. It's not even just like they're taking on Hamas in Gaza.

a war they probably couldn't handle by themselves from what I've seen most experts report on this war. But now they're totally dependent on us in a war on multiple fronts, which is putting them, I'd say, at greater risk than I've ever seen Israel at.

So it is no matter, you know, how perfect J.D. Vance is on any of this or not, there's a lot to hit them on there in terms of foreign policy. And then, of course, you know, you've got immigration and inflation, which are still the biggest issues. And so, you know, we'll expect to see he should be if he's got any skills at this, he should be able to land some blows on some of that stuff.

And in the last one, we heard so little policy. This might actually do something to highlight some of the bad Kamala Harris policies. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is my Patriot Supply. I can't say enough good things about my Patriot Supply. I've told you guys many times I keep their four week emergency food kits in my house. I like knowing that if an emergency should strike, my family will not be in need for food.

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All right, let's get back into the show. Right, right. Yeah, that's a good point. Here, let's go to this video clip that I sent you, which I really do think this is, I thought this was pretty funny here. Given the state of Biden's foreign wars, it's pretty objectively going bad. So here is Morning Joe to tell us how we should feel about these wars.

to Belarus. Talk about your series and what you're trying to help Americans better understand. So one of the arguments of autocracy in America, and by the way, it's related to what we were what you were just talking about with with Trump, Putin and Zelensky, is that

America's relationships with the outside world and America's alliances also influence American democracy and American habits and American behavior. You can look back over time. The fact that we've had Democratic allies in the past has been influential on our own democracy. I mean, there are older examples of our...

British abolitionism had a big influence on American abolitionists. During the Cold War, we were shoring up European democracy, but when we put democracy at the center of our foreign policy, it also had an effect.

domestically. Were there to be a shift? Were the United States to be linked instead with the kleptocratic world? Were the war in Ukraine to end with some kind of American-Russian alliance designed to crush Ukraine or crush Europe, which is one of the things that Trump might mean when he talks about ending the war in one day? That would have an influence on us too, the kleptocratic

practices of Russia, which are already here, would expand the influence of anonymous companies and offshore bank accounts, all that stuff, which is typical of the autocratic world and is, you know, which we help co-create. That would have an influence here, too. Well, well. All right. Listen, when

I swear to God, some of these people, it's almost like... I remember there's a great video with Noam Chomsky when he's debating that Fu Quo, I can't remember his name, the post-modernist, but he just calls him out. He goes, you guys basically just invented your own language so you can sound smart and not say anything. Listen, all of that...

It is designed to make you go, oh, that sounds like a smart lady. I can't even follow what she's saying because she's saying nothing, literally nothing. This is what this is. By the way, this is what you have for Atlantic writers.

when when they're not sexting bobby kennedy this is what they're doing saying absolutely nothing uh this like you know this the way we interface with democracy has effects domestically on our policies here and kleptocracy versus democracy during the cold war when we were um working on democracy in europe yes that had an effect on our domestic politics lady what the hell are you talking about

Say it in a way that it could mean anything to anyone. It's just all, by the way, this is all utter nonsense. None of it's true. And then she goes, and then her final takeaway is that Donald Trump might be saying, when he says he wants to end the war in a day, he might be saying a U.S.-Russian partnership that crushes Europe. Might be.

Kleptocracy, not democracy. What? First of all, democracy. Anytime anyone ever talks about democracy promotion, just put them in into a category of like horrific war criminals. I know that might seem sloppy and lazy, but I'm just telling you it's the quickest way to get there because it means nothing.

spreading democracy, working with democracies. What does that mean? What does that mean? That's what America's in the business of? You know, that's American foreign policy. We really believe in democracy in Iraq and in Russia and in China. Not so much in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine. You know? Like, in those places... Hey, tell me, lady...

When we overthrew the democratically elected government in Ukraine in 2004, was that because we loved democracy? Was that part of our democracy promotion? How about when we did the same thing in Ukraine in 2014? When we overthrew the democratically elected president of Ukraine in 2014, was that because we loved democracy?

By the way, the Yanukovych election in 2010, I believe it was, the elections were verified by the EU. So there was no debate about whether or not Yanukovych was the democratically elected president of Ukraine. Hey, when he offered to move elections up,

and have a new round of elections in 2014. Did we say, "Great, we'll take that deal because we love democracy so much"? Oh no, oh no, we didn't. We didn't, did we? How do we feel about democracy when Egypt democratically elected the Muslim Brotherhood? Did we support that? Were we appalled when that government got overthrown less than a year later? Oh no.

I'm sure we'll stop working with Saudi Arabia, right? Because they're not a democracy. Last I checked. Oh, no, is that? No, they've been our biggest trading partner since the 70s. Okay. I'm going to leave Israel alone for a second, that democratic country. They're a democratic country if you ignore the fact that half of the people the government rules over can't vote. If you can get past that part, they're a total democracy. So anyway, what is this? Look,

The U.S. supports democracy to the extent that we believe a democratic process will result in a government who will do business with us. That's the extent of American democracy spreading, okay, or democracy promotion. But anyway, I just find it to be...

hilarious that the the boogeyman here is just this total made up like it's it's just more russiagate insanity that what donald you see when donald trump says i want to end the war you joe six-pack at home having a beer on your couch that might sound like kind of attractive to you you might go oh ending ending a war sounds better than continuing a war right it

Like maybe stop killing people. That sounds good. But you see what that really is, is that's just a Russian plan. That's Donald Trump's going to come out as soon as he gets in there and be like, I am a pro Vladimir Putin now. And by the way, we're giving him Europe. We're giving him all of Europe. It's all theirs. Not just Ukraine. He wants the whole thing.

I don't know, Rob, what more can you say about this? A brilliant takedown of why I completely spaced out and had no idea what that lady was saying. So I'm so happy that you came through and just said she said nothing. I'm like, oh, good. I didn't miss anything.

I do want to talk about Trump's meeting with Zelensky because I thought that was a very weak moment because he was standing up there and it kind of seemed like he was going to placate Zelensky a little bit or that he wasn't going boss mode into Zelensky of, no, you're not getting any more money because that's the negotiating trick that Trump's going to need to bring to the table to end the war is we're not supporting this anymore. So we're sitting down at the table and you're going to figure out what they're keeping so that we can call it a war.

And standing up there with Zelensky, Trump's looking like a weak old man. He's just not having good moments. And like I said, I'm not going out there to vote for Trump, but I'd really like to see Kamala lose. And this election is driving me nuts because she's running a fine campaign and that she's not coming out like the buffoon that she is.

She hasn't talked about buses. She hasn't talked about stars and big and small. We haven't had any of that. She's gotten through her fluff piece in interviews without having to be, you know, take responsibility for the Biden administration, the border inflation. And then when I see Trump,

He's just not having good moments, which includes the Zelensky one, which might be one of his better policies and pitches of, hey, I can end this within a week. But when he's standing up there next to Zelensky, just going, he's been through a lot and it's terrible what you've been through. It already starts winking. Wait, are you are you flipping on this one, Trump?

Yeah, I mean, and he has flip flopped a bit on Ukraine. Like he's he he goes back and forth between like, I'll end the war in a day. And then he gets on like Europe will pay their fair share.

And you're like, but your fair share of what? I thought this was going to be over. And so like, what are you, what is your pitch here? That you'll negotiate a peace to this or that you'll negotiate a better deal in which we continue funding the war? It should be the fair share of the apology check to the Ukrainian people for the mess that we forced them into.

That should be the ongoing next war support should just be checks to help the Ukrainian people for the amount of lives that they lost for us to, you know, try and poke at Russia in a failed venture that brought them closer to China did not make us look any stronger. And, you know, there will be no victory from it. Yeah.

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Entera Skin Care, where science meets beauty. Discover more at enteraskincare.com slash problem and make sure to use the promo code problem for 10% off your entire order. That's enteraskincare.com slash problem, promo code problem for 10% off. All right, let's get back into the show. Yeah, well, you know, I've kind of, like, I basically have been saying this for...

I mean, the whole campaign, um,

But really, since Kamala Harris got in and since their debate, I know some Trump supporters were a little bit upset with me after the debate with Kamala Harris and my kind of feeling on that. I got to say, I do think the time since then has kind of borne out that I was right. I mean, Donald Trump certainly didn't help himself at all with that performance. It didn't change anything positively for him in the campaign. But

But just to be clear, man, and this is, you know, one of Donald Trump's maybe not even one of maybe the most powerful thing that Donald Trump has ever said is that they he said they hate me because they hate you.

And they hate me because I represent you, you know. And I do think there I think he's correct when he says that you you can see if if you look at CNN or MSNBC's coverage of politics at all, you can see it's not just that they hate Donald Trump. They hate Trump supporters. They really, really hate that whole section of America. And me and you don't.

I don't hate Trump supporters. I love Trump supporters. I kind of like, I love America and Trump supporters are very American. And I think that for the most part, Trump supporters are very American.

Trump supporters are like so much better than they were 15 years ago. I mean, so many of those people are the ones who were all in on the terror wars, all in on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, those disasters. And they turned around on that. And not all of them, but a large percentage of them.

So just to be clear to Trump supporters, I understand why you're defensive of your guy, especially when you see him being attacked in the most vicious ways by all of the worst people in our society. But just hear what I'm saying to you is something different. What I'm saying is that it's such an embarrassment for you guys that this is the best guy making the case on your behalf.

And it's just I think every you know, look, if Donald Trump does end up losing this election, we're going to be at an interesting crossroads in this country for where this populist energy goes after Donald Trump. And if you want to blame the system, though, there'll be there'll be more than enough there for you to find. You know, you can you can blame them for everything.

demonizing him, framing him for treason, weaponizing the justice system against him, impeaching him multiple times. And I'm sure you'll come up with some new ones between now and November 5th. And I don't even mean come up with as if they're not real. Maybe they will be real. But fuck all that. You know, like at a certain point, you're a man. You got to take responsibility for this. It's like if I'm fist fighting a five-year-old

And I lose. And then you sit there and go, well, the ref was cheating and the judging the judges cheated and all this. It's like, yeah, that may all be true. But like this probably shouldn't have gone to a decision. You know what I mean? Like I probably should have been able to stop this fight. And Donald Trump just to not be able to like land almost anything. And, you know, I see this after that last debate, you know, where there's it's kind of like sometimes.

Trump supporters, like, look, dude, I saw so many of those they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats, like, videos that were goddamn hilarious. And you're like, I'm glad we're all having fun here. Do you not understand how awful a moment that was for Donald Trump? Like, how awful it was. I mean, dude, it's...

Boggles the mind that you could have a scenario with the low hanging fruit that he has, where they've literally all come your way on your central issue and are now competing to occupy the space that you occupy on this issue after demonizing you in the most vicious way for having that position. And you can't put together like.

45 seconds of just a compelling, this is why I said build the wall and you all attacked me for it and look at you now and you were the borders are and it's worse than ever and only I can. And instead you come out with they're eating the dogs and you just sound like a crazy person, dude. And that's just on the immigration issue on Biden being senile on the wars on COVID on all of this stuff.

he's just been unable to land any like damaging knockout blows. How is that possible, dude? Like, I'm sorry, that's a loss. And, and by the way, I'm not saying that they're not also going to cheat him. Maybe they will, but like,

You got to do better than that. I don't know. By the way, in talking about how we the affinity for a typical Trump supporter, which to me is a guy who owns his own construction business and has a Trump flag off of his pickup truck. I feel like the core personality is people that want to see a death to the Walt coach, Walt coach culture and being preached to. They would like a closed border and they'd like for the economy to be better.

And I also think that there's a flavor for what the hell are we doing with these foreign wars. But that might just be because it might be my rosy eyed glasses of what. No, I think there's definitely at least some of that. Yeah. But I think the core of it is I don't like this woke nonsense. And I'd like for the economy to be better. And like, God bless, because they're right. And yeah. And look, though, and just the kind of.

deeper, maybe a little bit vaguer, but the feeling that like DC is permeated with a bunch of goddamn criminals. Like that this whole thing is so incredibly corrupt and

Like they're right. They're totally right about that. Like, I mean, look, I'm not saying that like the average Trump supporter can articulate it in the most accurate way, but that, okay, that's not your job. You're not supposed to have to do that. It's your right to have a government that is at least somewhat functional and somewhat on your side. And it is not your responsibility to have to articulate that in the exact same

Correct way. Like if you basically just smell that Washington, D.C. is fucking corrupt and screws over the American people on behalf of the powerful, you're right. You know, and like you deserve somebody who will drain the swamp and all that shit. So like there's something there like I'm I'm on your side.

But man, is this guy just such an embarrassment. And look, there were way better people who never could have gotten as close to power as Trump because he's rich and famous and brash and has all the qualities that he needs. But man, I mean, there's just no like there's no basic understanding of what's going on or basic game plan or there's just there's no ability for him to like put his own ego aside even for a moment.

To like just make the compelling point on behalf of the American people. It's just it's just not there. Anyway, we'll see. We'll see what happens tonight. Maybe maybe it's it's best for Donald Trump that he he won't be on the stage tonight and see if somebody else can do it. OK, I do want to in the time we have left here, I wanted to go over to this Taneshi Coates.

I might be saying this guy's name wrong. So Mr. Coates is an author. He's some very, you know, like...

highly esteemed kind of woke progressive type and so he's got a new book out uh the book is called the message i have not read the book uh evidently he does um he deals with the uh the israeli palestinian uh conflict uh in this book or at least in part of this book i've

I've read more than enough books about the history of Israel-Palestine. I don't think I need to get it from this woke progressive guy. But he's been out promoting his book. He was on the CBS morning show, and they had an interesting kind of exchange. It's been going super viral. So I thought maybe we would just kind of break this down from our non-progressive woke point of view as these two wokesters kind of battle it out. I thought this might be fun. So let's play a little bit of this clip.

This is the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Ta-Nehisi Coates. His new book, The Message, is a trio of interconnected essays that examine how the stories we tell or avoid telling can shape and even distort our reality. In the book, Coates reflects on his emotional first trip to Africa to visit Dakar, Senegal.

Then he takes readers to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on the attempted banning of one of his books on race. And finally, Coates travels to the Middle East to witness the Israeli-Palestinian conflict firsthand. Tanasi Coates, good morning. How are you doing? Thanks for having me. Good morning, guys. Yeah, thank you for joining us. You say that this book is written specifically for writers, stating that the task for young writers is...

should be nothing less than changing the world. Why do you feel like writers should bear that responsibility? Saving the world. Saving the world. Just to be really specific, writing is how we interpret so much of everything that is around us. The Message is a political book.

It argues that much of our politics actually happens before we walk into a voting booth, that our choices around us, that who we believe is human, who we don't believe is human, what policies we believe should be in the world, which policies we don't, are actually shaped largely by writing and the stories we tell. And so I believe that writers, and particularly young writers, have so much to do in the politics and in this time when, you know, obviously we have so much conflict and there's so many quote-unquote issues. Okay, hold on. Can I dive into the Israel-Palestine section of the book?

uh i apologize guys we probably could have just skipped to this point he said absolutely nothing in any of that by the way writing is not how we change the wake up bro it's podcasting now that's what we do okay we just you get a microphone and you talk into it nobody writes anymore this is old anyway uh sorry that was all nothing here's uh but i do like how you can already see this uh

the nervous jewish energy of this cbs hostess already like as soon as they started talking about it um just i say that with love it's it's deep inside me so i recognize it when i see it in others all right let's let's play here the book's the largest section of the book and i have to say when i when i read the book

I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards and the acclaim, took the cover off the book, the publishing house goes away. The content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist. And so then I found myself wondering, why does Ta-Nehisi Coates, who I've known for a long time, read his work for a long time, very talented, smart guy, leave out so much? Why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it?

Why leave out that Israel deals with terror groups that want to eliminate it? Why not detail anything of the first and the second intifada, the cafe bombings, the bus bombings, the little kids blown to bits? And is it because you just don't believe that Israel in any condition has a right to exist? Well, I would say the perspective that you just outlined, there is no shortage of that perspective in American media. That's the first thing I would say.

I am most concerned always with those who don't have a voice, with those who don't have the ability to talk. I have asked repeatedly in my interviews whether there is a single network mainstream organization in America with a Palestinian American bureau chief or correspondent who actually has a voice to articulate their part of the world. I've been a reporter for 20 years. The reporters of those who believe more sympathetically about Israel and its right to exist

don't have a problem getting their voice out. But what I saw in Palestine, what I saw on the West Bank,

what I saw in Haifa in Israel, what I saw in the South Hebron Hills, those were the stories that I have not heard. And those were the stories that I was most occupied with. I wrote a 260-page book. It is not a treatise on the entirety of the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis. But if you were to read this book, you would be left wondering, why does any of Israel exist? What a horrific place, committing horrific acts on a daily basis. So I think the question is central. All right, just pause it right here.

if Israel has a right. Look, the problem with Coates, right, is that he is a woke progressive too. So they're all, they're just here trying to outwoke each other for a moment. And so the, um, so his response was terrible. Like none of that makes any sense. And even this thing of going like, it's, it's like, they're just also obsessed with identity. So his response is like, well, what news outlet has a Palestinian bureau chief? Like, uh,

I don't know why that should be relevant at all. It's like, I don't know. There's like, I don't know how many Palestinians there are total. I think there's 2 million in Israel. There's like 5 million in Gaza and the West bank. And then there's some more in Jordan and Lebanon. There's more, but regardless, the total Palestinian population is not like that huge. It wouldn't be surprising that in America, there wouldn't be a bureau chief who happens to be Palestinian. And like, that doesn't really matter anyway, but yeah,

If you think about the question that was asked, there's something amazing about how absurd it is. Because his initial objection is he goes, oh, you're talking about the horrible treatment of the Palestinians from the Israelis, but you didn't mention that there's all these bad Arab countries around them. You didn't talk about the first and second Intifada. You didn't talk about terrorism. He's basically just complaining that you're not framing this in a way that makes Israel look good.

Like, what the hell, man? You're supposed to like, like it would be on, if I wrote a book on the U S slave trade and your criticism of my book was that I didn't deal with the African slave trade and the Muslim slave trade and the European slave trade. So you make it look like America's the, it's like, I don't know this. That's what I was writing about. I'm like, yeah, does that look really bad? Yeah, it does. But you know why that looks really bad? Because it was horrible. It was bad.

What do you mean? I'm not making the claim nothing else bad ever happened nowhere. And by the way, as someone who's done a lot of these debates over the last year, it's amazing how much this argument comes up. Like if I start talking about the Nakba and you start talking about the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were kicked out of Israel, they immediately go, oh, what about the Jews who were kicked out of Iraq? How come you're not talking about that? As if that's some type of counter argument.

As if like, oh, yeah, you're right. Now it's okay, I guess. Like, what? Or it's like, okay, that was bad too. Can we talk about this now? And so the whole thing is that he says at the end there, he goes, but if I didn't know none of that stuff and I read this, I might start thinking Israel's a really bad place where horrible things happen.

Just another example, same point, but if I wrote a book, The Bombing of Dresden, and it was just about the victims and the families and everything that was lost when Churchill was bombing Dresden, and then you're like, yeah, but you didn't write anything about how bad Hitler was. That's not the book I was writing. I'm highlighting the story of the individuals who Churchill was pretty horrific to, and

highlighting the question of hey should we not be bombing civilian areas and telling this other story oh that's irresponsible because then people might not support you know i guess the war machine on everything right and and look and like even and and that is what coats is i think is a reasonable response to him is that if you were to say well how come you didn't write a book on how awful hitler is you could go you know that book's been written like that's been covered

It's actually been like several people have written books about that. You know, like there's just it's it'd be one thing if you had an objection to the information, like you were like, hey, you wrote this, but this isn't true. But he's not saying that. He's saying that you wrote this thing. No argument about whether it's true, but it might leave someone who reads it to go, oh, this sounds like a bad country.

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in silver and gold this company is truly revolutionizing the space and finally creating a true alternative to saving in dollars monetary-metals.com all right let's get back into the show all right let's keep playing right to exist and if your answer is no then I guess the question becomes why do the Palestinians have a right to why do 20 different Muslim countries my answer is that no country in this world establishes its ability to exist through rights

countries establish their ability to exist through force, as America did. And so I think this question of right to Israel does exist. It's a fact. The question of its right is not a question that I would be faced with with any other country. But you write a book that delegitimizes the pillars of Israel. It seems like an effort to topple the whole building of it. So I come back to the question, and it's what I struggled with throughout this book,

What is it that so particularly offends you about the existence of a Jewish state that is a Jewish safe place and not any of the other states out there? There's nothing that offends me about a Jewish state. I am offended by the idea of states built on ethnocracy no matter where they are. Muslim included. I would not want a state where any group of people laid down their citizenship rights based on ethnicity.

The country of Israel is a state in which half the population exists on one tier of citizenship and everybody else that's ruled by Israelis exists on another tier, including Palestinian Israeli citizens. The only people that exist on that first tier are Israeli Jews. Why do we support that? Why is that OK? I'm the child of Jim Crow.

I'm the child of people that were born into a country where that was exactly the case of American apartheid. I walk over there and I walk through the occupied territories and I walk down the street in Hebron and a guy says to me, I can't walk down the street unless I profess my religion. I'm with another. No, no, no, no, no. I want to. This is very, very important. It is extremely important. I'm working with the person that is guiding me is a Palestinian.

whose father, whose grandfather and grandmother was born in this town. And I have more freedom to walk than he does. He can't ride on certain roads. He can't get water in the same way that Israeli citizens who live less than a mile away from him can.

And why is that? Why is that okay? Why is that? Why is there no agency in this book for the Palestinians? They exist in your narrative merely as victims of the Israelis, as though they were not offered peace at any juncture, as though they don't have a stake in this as well. What is their role in the lack of a Palestinian? I have a very, very, very, very moral opinion

compass about this. And again, perhaps it's because of my ancestry. Either apartheid is right or it's wrong. It's really, really simple. Either what I saw was right or it's wrong. I am, for instance, against the death penalty. What the person did to get the death penalty, it really doesn't matter to me. I don't care if they were selling a nickel bag of marijuana or if they were a serial killer. I am against the death penalty. Oh my God, just pause it. Oh my God, the woke are just the worst at arguing.

Oh my God. Is that just, but wait, the guy, okay. I do care what the guy did who got the death penalty. Like, listen, I'm against the death penalty also, but yeah, I do have a slightly different feeling about whether you're executing someone for petty shoplifting or murder in the first degree. Like that's,

Leave that aside. That's really, really stupid. And I just hate... God, there's something so awful about progressive woke culture where it just encourages people to say things like, I have a very, very, very strong moral compass about this. Like, what? You can't just say in the middle of an argument that you're more moral than the other guy. And why? Because of my history. Because I'm black. All right, this is all stupid. But...

Did you catch the part there where he goes, hey, you realize that like, I mean, essentially what he's arguing and he's correct here is that he goes, Palestinians have like no rights whatsoever. They're like literally in the land where they're from. They have no rights, even down to the most basic thing is like the freedom to travel down a road. They can't do that. OK, I can go there and do that.

Any Jew in the world can go and become a citizen of Israel, except maybe the ones who criticize them too much. And yet these Palestinians have no rights. And then he goes, but why is that? Why do you deny agency to these people? And by the way, they've been offered a state before. Just think about that mentality for a second. So wait, what are you saying? Agency to who? See, here's the thing, right?

All types of things like agency, guilt, innocence, these are all terms that make a lot of sense when you're dealing with an individual. When you try to collectivize them, all of these concepts get turned on their head and mean nothing anymore. So if you're going to say they have agency, yes, they have agency. All people have agency, right?

But is your suggestion there that the average Palestinian is responsible for the situation that they're in? That they have done something to bring this on themselves? That the average Palestinian, you know, what? Are we only talking about adults or are kids included in this too? What did they, did they launch the 1967 war and lose it? No, they didn't.

Were they responsible? Are they even responsible for, let's even say the bullshit, which is not true at all, but let's just say it was true that the Israelis offered the Palestinian leadership everything they wanted. When are you claiming they did that? When? In the year 2000? 25 years ago?

So what, those people are responsible for their leaders 25 years ago turning down a deal? And so what? They should just be subjugated forever? For eternity? You're just ruled by some other, or at least 25 years, what, another 25? Is that what you think agency is? Like, do you see how ridiculous all of this is? And look, Coates is right. Just say, like, why on earth would we support that?

You see how crazy they get to just return the framing back to like, well, why don't you think Israel has a right to exist? Why don't you write about this other stuff? I hate that question. That question is like if you said, hey, I think you should have a right to own guns. And it goes, oh, so you think kids should be killed in schools? No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying Israel doesn't – well, I guess maybe he's saying Israel in its current form shouldn't exist. But –

I, you know, whatever countries are xenophobic, like Japan should be allowed to remain Japanese and Jews should be able to establish an area and go, hey, we only want Jews to live here. The issue is that they're ruling over a second group of people that they don't seem to want to then have their own. They're not allowing them to have their own spot. And you can't rule over other groups of people.

Yeah, I mean, it's like it's on the level of if I were to go and I just beat up an old man out in a supermarket parking lot. I just beat the crap out of an old man. And someone yells at me and they go, hey, stop beating up. Like you're violently assaulting this defenseless old man. Stop it. And I go, oh, so it's you have a problem with Jews?

And they go, you're Jewish? And I go, yeah, I'm Jewish. And they go, no, I didn't. No, it wasn't about the Jewish. It was about you beating up this senior citizen. That was my issue. And I go, okay, so you don't think I have a right to exist? That's what you're telling me. I don't have a right to exist. It's as stupid as that. It's so incredibly shameless in its stupidity that you can't believe they have the balls to ask the question.

You think like that's a great that only says you think you think the senior citizen has no agency. Yeah, exactly. Like what? None of this has to do anything. There are sorry. The question here is, is what the Israelis are doing to this group of people justified or not?

And it's clearly not. And I'm sorry, but like to say something about the Palestinians having agency, like, yeah, of course the Palestinians have agency, but so do the Israelis. And they're also responsible. They used their agency to occupy a group of people for what is, how long are we going on here? Going on 60 years, 50 something. No, almost 60. Okay. So like, sorry that your agency counts too.

Anyway, whatever. I thought we would just check in on how ridiculous this woke on woke violence is. But we got to wrap up. Last thought, Rob. I've got a big weekend of porches, my friends. Providence, Rhode Island on Thursday. Jacksonville on Friday. And then I need the good people in Miami. Start picking up some tickets. I'm there with Chris Vega this Sunday. So come hang out. And then, of course, filming in Denver coming up and a couple other porches coming your way. Go to porch tour dot com. It's the last run of a couple of dates of porches. Hell.

Hell yeah. And we got Detroit and Kansas City and some other ones coming up. ComicDaveSmith.com for all of those ticket links. Okay, we got to wrap this one. Thank you guys so much. And we'll be back with a brand new one tomorrow. Peace.