155 views
•
1 month ago
0
0
Share
Save
Audio
17 appearances
Dave Smith is comic, political commentator, host of the "Part of the Problem" podcast, and a co-host of the "Legion of Skanks” podcast. www.comicdavesmith.com
Show all
23 views
•
1 month ago
Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.
So Dave, you were telling me right before the show that you are now retiring
because you got an impromptu phone call and bet hundreds of millions of dollars
on oil prices going down.
Congratulations.
It was a good bet, it just wasn't timed right.
I thought you got it in on time.
I thought you got it in like five minutes early.
I did not.
How is there not a massive investigation into that right away?
Didn't someone make like $1.8 billion in like five minutes?
Yeah, there's a lot of those, like trades like that that should be investigated
that kind of never are.
How about, what's his name, Lutnick?
Yeah, how about that one?
The tariffs one?
Working for the administration and also standing to gain huge if people can sue
over the tariffs, right?
Well, explain the whole thing.
Do you know how to, do you know the actual details of it?
No, I don't really know the details.
So essentially he was telling everybody that, you know, don't sweat it,
the tariffs are golden, we're getting them through, there's going to be no
problems.
Is that what it was?
But in meanwhile he was shorting the tariffs?
Yes.
Yeah, so he was personally shorting them while promoting them.
Let's find out what that actually is so we don't get sued.
I bet he's a quite litigious gentleman.
Yeah, he might be.
Let's see if we can find it.
Is it wild that people were on the files visited the island and then they still
work?
It was unbelievable.
Some people had to resign from some jobs.
Well, especially just him because he so, the way, there's something about a
really confident
liar.
They just said, because I mean that, that interview clip where he's like, let
me tell
you something, I met Jeffrey Epstein that one time, he had a massage table, he
said they
were sex massage tables.
I went right back to my wife and I said, honey, we are never hanging out with
Jeffrey Epstein
again.
And that is that, you know?
Is that really the quote?
Oh, dude.
I haven't seen that.
I don't know if it's verbatim, but that is the exact spirit of it.
Which probably would be pretty verbatim.
Oh, let's, let's listen to it.
Listen, listen to it.
Let's find it.
I'm very, very close to exactly what he said.
Okay.
Let me get this one again.
What was this one?
Let Nick, let Nick interview about Epstein.
And he just sounds, I mean, so like morally outraged about the idea.
There's so many people that they exist in that world where you just pretend
that you're a
different person.
You pretend you're one way.
Yeah.
You pretend you think things differently.
It's a, I've been up close with people like that.
I said, that was my takeaway from debating Chris Cuomo was like, I just could,
it's a weird
thing to see someone just lie like that.
Here it is.
Now, this is the one that says he's the greatest blackmailer ever.
Which quote am I trying to find?
Yeah.
Try to explain it to him.
It was a, let me see the keywords that would downplays relationship with him.
That, that might be it.
There was something on the other thing, but I don't know.
What does he do?
He's a, what's he's a commerce secretary.
He was a, he was always like a money finance guy.
He, I think he used to work for CNBC if I'm correct.
In this administration, this like, the wolves have taken over the hen house.
Yeah.
Yeah, they sure have.
This is, this is what draining the swamp looks like.
Under fire for Epstein ties, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick defends visiting
his private
island.
Yeah, but this is, this isn't the clip.
The clip was from.
Oh, it's at the top.
It says, it says Lutnick said in an interview last year, he was never in the
room with Epstein
other than a 2005 visit to his apartment.
Okay, so that's probably it.
He said, you know, he met him once and like, this guy sucks.
But he specifically says that he met him, that he saw he had a massage table in
his living
room and he goes, hey, Jeffrey, what do you, you really like massages?
And he claims that Jeffrey went, yeah, and the right kind of massages.
And that's when he decided he would never talk to him again.
Nobody likes the right kind of massages.
Those are terrible.
Imagine if those are legal, just hand job massages.
It would be like, no relationships.
How many people are in terrible relationships just because they need sex?
There's a lot of guys who'd be like, I'm just going to hang out with the boys,
just get
jerked off once on Wednesday.
And I'm good.
Howard Lutnick downplays relationship with Epstein during Senate testimony.
Testimony.
I don't know.
Is this it?
Now, this is from, this is from recently.
This is from this year.
I did find an article that kind of, I don't even know what this website is,
though.
I don't know if.
This old firm did not, in fact, profit from the Supreme Court tariff ruling.
It says that there was an article claiming it.
And then, that's why I was trying to dig through this.
Oh, we better edit that out then.
I mean, it was reported, though, that they did.
But I don't know what this says.
It says, firms run by his two sons, Elder Lutnick announced the sale of the
stake in the firm
and other investors in the Supreme Court on Friday, invalidated many of Trump's
tariffs.
The president said, okay, Castor did not consider the product which has existed
for years.
It was humming trade on Wall Street's Trump first-term tariff push, but decided
against
it after weighing the political sensitivities.
According to a senior banker familiar with this matter, a Cantor spokesman said
the salesman
erroneously believed the firm was likely to greenlight the business.
Okay, I'm missing this.
I'm not exactly sure what they're saying here.
This is just the legality of tariffs are discussing that.
I sent it in an email that said that they're representing 10 million.
That's right.
I was trying to figure out the accuracy of all this and whatnot.
So, what was the accusation?
The accusation was that he had shorted tariffs while claiming that tariffs are
going to work.
Yeah, the accusation was that he stood to make a lot of money from tariffs
being struck down.
Why don't you put that into perplexity, Jamie, and find out if that's accurate,
and let
it scoured the internet instead of us doing it?
God, I love AI.
Yeah, it is something.
I can't wait until it takes over government.
It's going to be awesome.
After a while, you're like, I don't know if it could be much worse than what
humans are
doing with government.
It's going to be better.
It's not going to be greedy.
Well, as long as it determines that human life is valuable, I feel like is
really the
big...
Which humans?
So, let's be honest.
You know, some homeless guy is taking a shit on your Jaguar.
Is that guy really valuable?
Yeah, but to AI, we all might be homeless guys taking a shit.
Do you see that there was these San Francisco tech guys, and they got trapped
in their Waymo
because a homeless guy started attacking the Waymo and yelling at them, why are
you paying
robots?
No.
Yeah, you're a traitor.
You're paying robots.
You're paying the robots.
The homeless guy was upset about this?
The homeless guy was attacking the Waymo.
The tech guys were in the Waymo.
We were terrified for our life.
We feared our safety.
Because they're being attacked by a crazy person who's saying you shouldn't be
giving
money to robots.
That's an uncomfortable position to be in.
I get all my information from the Tim Dillon show, by the way.
But they did play a clip.
It's not the worst source of information.
It's the best source.
Him and that dude.
What's his name?
James Lee.
He's our other number one source of information.
Conspiracy theorist.
Another one, a Waymo, a gal got in, and there's a fucking homeless guy in the
trunk.
Because apparently the last person, when they left their Waymo, they opened the
trunk to
get their luggage out, and they never closed it.
So the homeless guy hopped into their fucking Waymo.
And closed it?
Closed it.
It was in the trunk.
So she orders a Waymo.
She climbs in.
There's a homeless guy in the trunk.
And Waymo's like, that's unacceptable.
Oh, you think?
Oh, you think?
Okay.
The main claim is that Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Letnick's former firm now chaired
by his
son, stood to profit by buying tariff refund rights that only became valuable
if Trump's
tariffs were overturned.
But the firm insists it ultimately did not execute those trades.
What critics say happened.
Investigators and reporting, notably by Wired, described Cantor Fitzgerald
exploring a business
where it would buy the rights to future tariff refunds from importers for about
20 to 30
cents on the dollar.
Internal materials cited in those reports suggested Cantor had capacity to
trade several hundred
million dollars of these refund rights and had already facilitated at least one
trade of
around 10 million dollars in rights under the IEPA tariffs.
The idea was that, of course, later struck down the tariffs the government
would have to
refund duties and Cantor or its clients would collect the full refund while the
original
importers only kept a small upfront payment.
So why is it seen as a conflict?
Is it true?
So it just said that they executed on one, right?
Didn't it say that?
Scroll back up.
That was based off that email.
Yeah.
It says internal materials cited in those reports suggested Cantor had capacity
to trade and
had already facilitated at least one trade of around 10 million dollars in
rights.
It's only 10 million.
Let it go, Dave.
That is small potatoes for what we're talking about.
Yeah.
For these kind of guys.
Uh-huh.
What Cantor and Lutnik's side say.
Cantor Fitzgerald has publicly stated that while some salespeople explored, I
like that
in quotes, brokering tariff refund rates in 2025, the firm never executed any
transactions
or taken any position on tariff refund claims, calling contrary reports false.
Follow-up recording has echoed that Cantor considered products tied to the
Supreme Court
tariff ruling, but ultimately backed off, in part because of the political
optics.
Duh.
Fuck it.
That's a big duh.
Around Lutnik's government job.
Latest coverage is no public evidence that Cantor actually booked profits from
this strategy,
though the investigations in Congress are ongoing and focused on whether there
was any
attempted or potential profiteer.
Are you more interested in the ethics conflicts of interest or the nuts and
bolts of how the
secondary tariff refund market works financially?
No.
So it seems like we don't really have evidence.
Well, it'll be interesting.
I mean, if, which is probably going to happen, but the Democrats take the House
and the Senate
in the midterm elections this year, I mean, they're going to be, that'll just
be the next
two years of politics will be investigations and subpoenas.
Some Democrat lady just over, she just took over the seat in Trump's
neighborhood where Mar-a-Lago
is so Democrat lady just won.
Yep.
Yeah.
Well, they're going to, yeah.
I mean, look, they, in his first term, they impeached him twice for absolute
bullshit.
So they'll go after him for anything, but I have a feeling now there's probably
a lot more for
them to investigate and work on stuff like this and the meme coin stuff and,
you know,
whatever business deal.
You know, I don't, I don't have the details at the top of my mind, but I do
know that they
said at one point that Jared Kushner would not be involved in this
administration at all
because he does so much business over there and it's just like, so they were
like, oh, no, no,
no, he won't, but now he totally is.
It's him and Whitcoff are like the lead negotiators in this too.
So just a lot of meat on the bone for Democrats to make big political theater
out of for the
next two years.
Is there anywhere that's not corrupt?
I mean, when we look at the insider trading in Congress, when you look at all
these slimy
deals that get made with NGOs, you look at every, it's like everything's dirty.
There's not one part of government, you're like, right there, they nailed it.
Yeah, well, that is true.
Like maybe the post office.
That's, I mean.
Post office is pretty fucking good, dude.
Yeah, compare to all the rest of it, sure.
You can get a letter moved across the whole country for like, what is it, like
30 cents?
How much is a stamp these days?
That's true.
I mean, I don't know if you include the cost on the back end, like the taxes
that,
pay for the whole thing.
Maybe it's a little more expensive, but relatively speaking, yeah, you can get,
you know, something
done.
It's not a bad organization.
Sure.
In terms of government organizations, you never hear, except going postal.
That used to be a thing.
Remember those days?
Yes, yes, I do.
There was a while, like where so many post officers went so crazy and started
shooting
people that they started calling it going postal, but it never, it just went
away.
Yeah.
Young people, if you're listening to this and you don't know what we're talking
about, in
our day, we didn't have school shootings, okay?
We had to do it the old fashioned way.
You had to drive a postman crazy until he went around shooting people.
And it happened several times to the point that that became a thing.
Dude, there was a video game.
There was a video game called Postal, where you run around shooting people.
It was in the, I want to say the 90s?
Yeah, that would be about the time period.
The first one came out in 97?
Yeah, yeah, and it was like highly criticized.
They were like, weren't they like cartoon looking characters?
Can you see if you pull up a video of Postal?
It was like, they're like South Park looking characters, just blasting people.
So it felt like less, if I remember correctly, or maybe that's the box.
I never played it.
Maybe I played it, I don't know.
Oh, this is new stuff.
This is going Postal?
No.
Pissing everywhere.
This looks way better than 1990s.
This was in the 90s, for sure.
Is this the new Postal?
Here's what it looked like.
There might have been a newer version right there.
Oh, Jesus.
You just run around jacking people.
Yeah.
So it was like the first Grand Theft Auto, really.
Kind of.
I mean, Grand Theft Auto came out around then, too, actually.
It didn't look like this then, though.
But real weird, though, right?
That post office workers were just killing a bunch of people.
That's what it looked like.
Like that.
Okay.
This is what it looked like.
It didn't look like that other thing.
It was like, it wasn't a first-person thing.
It was like you're seeing it from above and you're just running around killing
everybody.
I played a Postal, though, that was a first-person like that.
Maybe they had more versions of it.
Also, I don't want to show it because I don't know what's going to be some bad
stuff on there.
Yeah, probably.
Is there nudity or anything?
Dude, video games really are like crack.
They're a problem.
I loved your – you had a rant about that years ago about how the problem is
that they're
so much fun and you're not accomplishing anything.
The last video game I got into was UFC 3, and I loved that game.
I just loved it.
And then, like, I think it was – I got married, my wife got pregnant, and I
was like, all right,
I got to get rid of this.
I just can't.
So, I was at the dojo of comedy.
It was a club in New Jersey.
Great club.
They have an L.A. one, too.
Oh, do they?
Okay.
Sam Tripoli.
Oh, yeah.
Shout out to Sam.
Yeah.
So, I was at the one in Jersey, and they have in the green room, they have UFC
3.
And I was like, oh, that's the game that I got really into.
So, I was there for a weekend, and I mean, I just – the whole time I was
there, just
in the green room playing this video game.
And I was like – it was like a feeling, almost like a drug addict who's
around their
drug of choice, where I was like, I need to be away from that.
Like, I will play this until I kill myself.
It's so much fun.
It's a problem.
Robbie Lawler fighting, you know, whoever, and just –
And they keep getting better.
Yeah, I know.
Well, I stopped at that, so I never even, like, learned how to play the new
ones.
But I'm like, I can't.
What number UFC game are they at now?
Five, I think.
Five.
The graphics keep getting better.
The movement keeps getting more natural.
Yeah.
And first-person shooters, man.
Oh, my God.
Who was the –
They're so good now.
Was it Joe Lozon, I want to say?
Was that – was the 155 guy?
Really good grappler.
Yeah.
Wasn't his thing, like, he was obsessed with video games, and then he went, I
got to just
do something else instead of this?
So, and he just did jujitsu.
And then he just got, like, amazing at jujitsu.
I swear I think that was his story.
Is that really what happened?
I mean, I could be misremembering this, but I swear I heard him talk about this
in an
interview once.
And that there was just, like, I just played video games all day, all night,
and then eventually
I was like, I got to do something productive with this.
Oh, my God.
And so I just started doing jujitsu instead.
I wonder what he's up to these days.
He was a fun guy.
He was a fun fighter to watch.
Fun dude, like, in person, too.
Him and his brother used to beat the fuck out of each other on the yard, like,
in the front
yard.
They would have, like, full-on MMA fights.
Yeah.
Like, full power.
They'd just beat the piss out of each other in the front yard.
I was like, boys, save it.
Like, save it.
I'd wail on each other.
That's crazy.
That's a young man's game.
They had, like, a bunch of guys hanging around.
It looked like it was a picnic or something like that.
They decided, let's spice this picnic up.
You and me fight, motherfucker.
And they would fight.
Like, fight, fight.
But all across this country, there are boys fighting in their yard, and that
was of the
highest level of yard fighting.
I mean, that was top 1%.
Oh, that was vicious.
Two, like, legit MMA professionals.
Yeah.
Two legit MMA professionals are mad at each other because they're in the house
with each
other all the time.
Shut the fuck.
You didn't fucking do that.
You were supposed to put that shit away.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was, uh, you ate my food.
Yeah.
They both ended up being real fun fighters to watch.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Joe was awesome.
He was a great fighter.
Yeah.
He had a lot of fights in the UFC, too.
Yep.
And I think it got to, you know,
um, how many years was he in?
Like, God, God, I want to say he was at least in the UFC for, like, around a
decade.
He was, yeah, he had a pretty long career.
Yeah.
Because he was fighting, I mean, he fought, I don't know.
I mean, he fought, like, the whole, uh, like, I think when he started was, like,
BJ Penn era of lightweight.
And then he fought into, like, Anthony Pettis was the champion.
Yeah, but pull up Lozon's Wikipedia and find out when he retired.
Well, his first fight was September 23rd, 2006.
And I think it says his last fight was 2019.
Mmm.
Wow.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
2019.
Whew.
Some of these guys just don't, they just don't want to stop.
It's just too fun.
It's a very hard, uh, job to keep going for a while.
Maybe the hardest.
Yeah.
You know, like, on your body?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Other than football.
There's a lot of those guys in the NFL, they only last a couple years.
Yeah, for sure.
This episode is brought to you by Intuit TurboTax.
April 15th is coming fast.
There's been so many tax law changes this year, which means you're going to
need an expert who has your back.
You're in luck.
TurboTax now has in-person locations nationwide.
Walk into their tech-enabled stores and meet face-to-face with a TurboTax full-service
expert who will get your best outcome.
Your expert works to get you every dollar you deserve while updating you as you
go about your day.
Head to TurboTax.com to find a store near you.
No, I mean, that's a real tough one.
But there's nothing—well, I guess, like, professional football, there's a
similar aspect to where, like, you're not just—I mean, look, you can go to
the hospital from basketball.
You know, you can get hurt and get a bad injury.
But the NFL or the UFC, you kind of, like, you know every time you go into it,
like, there's a very reasonable chance you're leaving here on a stretcher to go
to the hospital.
But particularly with MMA, it's the most unforgiving sport where, like, you're
one mistake.
One mistake away from, like—you know, like if LeBron James misses a wide-open
layup, he runs back on defense and tries to, you know, get a block or something
on the next play.
But in MMA, you could be dominating, fighting a perfect fight, make one mistake,
and it's like, okay, you're unconscious now.
Leon Edwards, Kamaru Usman, perfect example.
Kamaru's way ahead in the fight.
It's in the fifth round.
I think there's, like, 20 seconds to go or something crazy.
And Leon just plants one.
A perfect head kick.
Yeah.
And it was the—and John Anik makes the perfect call.
You know, like, something had been said about him maybe deciding, you know, to
quit.
And then John Anik says, but that is not the cloth from which he was cut.
Yeah.
Boom!
Head kick, knockout.
It's like, come on, man, is this real?
One of the most amazing MMA championship knockouts ever.
Oh, ever.
Ever.
And then just his post-fight speech, look at me now!
Look at me now!
And then comes back and wins the rubber match.
Yeah.
Which was, like, it's an interesting thing how much—you know, like, well,
first off, like, getting knocked out cold like that, and you know better than
me, but, like, that does a number to your body.
Like, that's not—
Psychologically.
Well, psychologically and also, I think, physically.
And then also just, like, the confidence that that gave Leon Edwards going into
the next fight.
Right.
Like, just changes everything now.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Kamaru had to be very careful because he knew at any—I mean, he dodged most
of the big ones until the big one landed.
Yep.
So, in his head, in that fight, he had a narrative, and that narrative
completely changed with one head kick.
Yeah.
So, going into the next fight, the narrative is now, if you fuck up, you will
be unconscious.
You can't get knocked unconscious again.
And he fought much more cautiously.
Yeah.
In the second fight.
I remember seeing that with—I felt like you could watch that when Dustin Poirier
fought Conor McGregor the second time.
Like, you know, McGregor had knocked him out years earlier.
Mm-hmm.
And you could kind of see, you know, like, you could see Dustin Poirier—I'm
not saying, like, he was nervous or anything.
He's, like, one of the greatest fighters ever.
But you could kind of just see, like, he gets in there, and he starts—and he
takes a couple shots from Conor, and he's still there, you know?
And then he lands a couple shots, and you could see, like, in that first round,
like, his confidence growing.
Like, you almost got to get that out of your head.
That it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that guy beat you back then, but you're a
different guy now.
Well, with Conor, it's all about weathering the initial storm.
Yeah.
The initial storm was crazy.
He's so explosive, so fast, so accurate.
And then another part about that second fight was Dustin setting up those calf
kicks.
Mm-hmm.
Specifically because both of those guys fight southpaw.
And when you both fight southpaw—if you're a southpaw like Dustin, a lot of
times the calf kick's not really available.
Like, you have to throw it with a switch, or it doesn't have the same sort of
potential.
Right.
It's a slightly different potential when you're exchanging it in combinations.
But with Conor, it was wide open because Conor has two things going on.
One is a southpaw.
Also, he had just gotten off the Floyd Mayweather fight.
He's very boxing heavy.
Not just, but a while back.
But he had really concentrated on his striking with his hands.
His hands were elite.
So because of that, your stance is a little wider and you're putting a little
bit more weight on your legs.
Yeah.
And he always had a wide stance anyway.
He had that karate stance.
The craziest thing about that is the calf kick really didn't become a big deal
even until Conor was a superstar.
Like, it was after that.
Yeah.
That's how recent it is.
Yeah, it's very strange that that was almost like a thing that didn't get
figured out until so recently.
And then just totally changed everything.
Like, at this point, I'm not saying you never see it, but you pretty rarely see
guys kick guys in the thigh anymore.
Oh, they still do.
Well, no, but I mean, like, compared to what it used to be, where it used to be,
like, that was what a leg kick was.
Yes.
For many years in MMA.
And now it's, I'd say, like, the majority of leg kicks are targeting the calf.
Yeah.
Like, you'll see almost like a thigh kick, almost just to switch it up a little
bit.
Yeah.
Because guys got really good at taking those.
Yeah, you got really good at being conditioned, and, you know, we also saw a
few leg breaks, right?
We saw the Anderson Silva one.
We saw the Chris Weidman one.
There's been a few leg breaks from guys just full power, leg kicking the thigh,
and then someone just lifts up their knee a little bit and takes it on the,
right where the shin bone meets the kneecap is where they like to catch it.
And, boy, I've seen way too many of those.
I've seen a bunch in person, but because of the internet, I've seen dozens and
dozens of small promotions where a guy throws that kick wrong really hard, and
the guy checks it, and his fucking foot just wraps around the leg.
Yeah.
And you see it dangling there.
You're like, oh, no.
I've seen a bunch.
You recognize the thing.
Like, that injury is so recognizable.
Like, I've seen it so many times now.
I see it.
I just go, oh, it's going to wrap around the calf.
It's going to flop.
He's going to fall down.
I've seen it several times on internet videos and in UFC fights.
I've only once seen a guy continue to talk shit about the other guy after from
the ground, which is the craziest shit ever, dude.
Everyone else I've seen is, like, crying in pain.
And Conor's talking about it.
Your wife's, like, whatever.
Your wife sent me DMs.
Jesus Christ.
Yeah, he asked me to come and sit down with him and do a podcast.
He's an animal.
I mean, the dude's one of a kind.
He's one of a kind.
He apparently made a post on his...
His Instagram saying he's back.
And if it's true, that would be awesome.
That would be awesome.
The idea is his suspension for whatever he took before is up.
So, yay.
What was it?
Something...
What was someone...
I think it was Douglas Murray when he wrote that article about me.
He said...
Mr. Confidence returns to save fighting again.
Call your grandma.
Nanny, we did it.
Watch and pay me.
Fuck you, pay me.
You fat Irish prick.
You don't have my money.
I put your brain to sleep.
Who's that?
What's that about?
Who's he talking about?
C is in the casinos after the Mac loves you's all.
I got love for you's.
It's an all.
It's an honor.
It's light work.
It's easy.
For life and eternity, it's McGregor.
How drunk was he when he wrote this?
I do this fight game.
Easy peasy.
The sound of my shots off the head go bing in green dot laser form.
Okay.
Well, I really hope he is actually back.
I hope it's true.
It'd be fun to see him fight a few more times.
It'd be a lot of fun.
It's his greatest personality the sport's ever known.
Yeah, that's right.
There's no one even close.
I mean, he's the most dynamic personality the sport's ever known.
And he was, for a time there, just such an unbelievable fighter.
I mean, he was like just, it was incredible what he was doing.
The Andy Alvarez fight.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I was there.
I was there.
Well, thanks to you.
With really good seats, thanks to you.
But that was one of the best.
That might be the best fight I've ever been to live because that whole card was
just stacked.
And that as the main event was just unbelievable.
He was in the Matrix.
He was in the Matrix.
He was just in the zone.
You know, Dana said it best.
He's like, that kid eats pressure.
He goes, he eats it.
Yeah.
Like he thrives on pressure.
Pressure that makes other people wilt.
Yes.
He like shines under that pressure.
And he had an amazing ability even very early in his career, which was like
kind of, it was really unique.
Like, because even like on his first fight ever, if you watch his first fight
in the UFC against like Brimage, I think the guy's name is.
And he was a relatively unknown at the time.
But dude, the place is going nuts.
He already had made so much kind of like street cred for himself.
And then the Irish thing, like the Irish were really, really into it.
But from the very first fight, he would always create these moments where it's
like, dude, this is going to be the biggest spectacle that you, my opponent,
has ever been in in their career.
Like, I'm going to get you mad with shit talking.
I'm going to get the fans so excited because he's completely comfortable there.
Right.
Like, I'm not sure if you're really comfortable here.
But I'm, and so it would, and even with, with Aldo, who had been the entire
division, he would literally, when they started the division, they started him
as champion.
He didn't even win it.
He came in because they absolved the WEC.
So he was the entire featherweight division, had just dominated everyone.
And he even created such a moment that like, like Aldo was like, uh, he was the
boogeyman.
Yeah, dude, he was incredible.
He was incredible.
He was one of the greatest of all time.
One of the greatest featherweights of all time.
But he got him to the point where he was like so furious that he was like, I'm
going to take this fucking guy's head off.
And then Conor's just like relaxed.
He's like, like he, he didn't care about any of the shit talking.
He was just like, yeah, we're having fun.
Let's play.
He lost his composure.
Yeah.
And he, he looked, he looked very overwhelmed by the moment.
And, oh, and by the way, everyone from Ireland came to Vegas for that fight.
It was the nuttiest thing I've ever seen in my fucking life.
The entire Mandalay Bay was overcome with Irish people.
I mean, overcome like you couldn't move.
There was nothing but Irish people everywhere.
And they were singing.
They were all singing together in the halls of this gigantic casino packed,
bumped, like they're waiting in line for something.
And they were just there partying for Conor.
I remember, I think it was when, I want to say it was when.
Like, look at all these people.
Yeah, it was nuts, dude.
Bro, this is nuts, man.
They were all Irish people.
Like, you got to realize nobody had a following like him.
Like, this is actually Irish people for the Floyd Mayweather fight.
They were still ride or die with him even for that fight.
I think it was when he fought Dennis Seaver, I want to say.
I think that was in Boston.
So I went to, I went with Louis J. Gomez, my good friend, hilarious comedian.
And he, me and him went to some Irish bar.
To what, like, we just happened to be in Midtown Manhattan.
And we were like, oh, the fights are coming on.
Oh, they're playing it at this bar.
You know, it was just like an Irish pub.
And, dude, I mean, it wasn't even that big of a bar.
They must have, I mean, it was shoulder to shoulder Irish people losing their
fucking minds.
Like, it was the, it was the most fun environment to watch a fight in.
Because they're just, I mean, they're just like, but all that singing and
chanting.
It seemed like everyone had an Irish flag with them.
Like, it was, it was this in a little bar.
It was this.
That's nuts, man.
Look at that.
That's Mandalay Bay.
Wow.
Look at this.
Oh, that's MGM.
Well, they were everywhere.
They were probably at every fucking casino there was.
This is crazy.
Imagine, imagine if you, you're from Northern Ireland.
And you're like, you still, still remember the troubles.
You're making your way to the hotel.
Just came to Vegas for a little gambling.
You don't follow MMA.
You have no fucking idea.
What's this all about?
Well, I have picked a wrong fucking week for me vacation.
By the way, I was going to say that Douglas Murray's big knock on me when he
wrote his op-ed in the New York Post was he goes, he goes, you know, Dave goes
on Joe Rogan and he talks about foreign policy like he's an expert.
But I bet he wouldn't go in there and talk MMA with him because then Joe would
recognize he's not an expert.
And I was like, we do that all the time.
We do that every show.
We do that all the time.
That's so stupid.
I was like, almost every time we hang out, we end up talking MMA.
And like, it probably is fair that, yeah, there'll be moments where you'll
correct me if I get something wrong.
So what?
But if I get it right, you don't go, you're not an expert.
That's so dumb.
Imagine we don't talk about MMA because you're not an expert.
That's so silly.
Well, I watch a lot of it.
I have some thoughts.
Why is he so silly?
I love Douglas.
I really do.
I've enjoyed talking to him.
I think he's a brilliant man.
But I was very disappointed with...
You've never been?
I'm very disappointed with that sort of strategy that you shouldn't be talking
about these things that are factual.
But even more disappointed with that notion, the notion that like you would
never talk about MMA with me.
Like, do you think we would...
First of all, I don't think I argue about MMA with anybody.
I don't think anybody.
If someone has a point about MMA, I don't...
I never argue.
I might say...
You've corrected me when I've gotten things wrong.
Yeah, or I might say I disagree.
Like, some people think that a certain thing is going to happen, and I'm like,
ooh, I don't see that.
I disagree.
That happens.
Sure.
Yeah, but...
Well, also, like, it's...
Whatever point you're making is either a good point or it's not a good point if
it's like an objective claim.
You know what I mean?
Right.
Like, if I say, like, you know, when Volkanovski fought Lopez, his jab was
crucial.
Okay?
That's either correct or it's incorrect.
Like, whether I'm an expert or not, I'm not an expert on fighting.
But, yeah, geez, you could watch the fight and that would be correct.
Yes, right.
You can see it.
It's like, I saw he hit a home run.
You're right.
You're not even an expert.
That's crazy.
Well, you know, it was a weird thing during that show was, because it's a weird,
I don't
know, there's, like, weird incentives built into, like, all of this.
Incentives.
Incentives are the right word, because there's a lot of people that are saying
things, and
you go, why are you saying that?
Yeah.
Well, also, from my perspective, I was a little disappointed with it, because I
kind of thought,
I was like, oh, this could be, like, a really cool thing.
And it had been literally, which I don't think I'm saying anything that is,
like, betraying
confidence here, but the only thing that was ever said to me, I remember you
called me, and
you were like, what do you think about doing this?
And I think I said yes before you could finish answering.
Yeah, yeah, you did.
Yes, absolutely.
Let's do that.
And then you told me that he had said, hey, he really doesn't want this to devolve
into,
like, a food fight.
He wants to make this, like, a good faith thing.
And I was like, oh, awesome.
And now I feel like he, like, Trump-Witkoff negotiated me.
Like, he started, because then he came in, and the whole thing was about me.
He didn't want to talk about the issues at all.
He just wanted, and so in a weird way, I was like, well, this sucks, because I
thought we
could have had a really cool thing.
But then there was this other part of me that was like, I mean, he's really
just handing
this to me.
You know what I mean?
Like, he kind of just, like, gave me the win in a thing that was a big show
with,
like, you know, a lot of people I knew were going to watch it.
I mean, obviously, every time I do your show, a lot of people are going to
watch it.
But that was a particularly big one.
Yeah.
And so I was kind of, almost like, for the first 45 minutes of it, I was kind
of sitting
there like, oh, I can't believe he just, he went this route.
Well, if you look at it objectively, there weren't a lot of options, right?
Yeah.
It's very difficult to argue the side that what they're doing, like, we were
talking
about Gaza in particular.
Yeah.
Like, the arguing that that's not horrific, if you're a human being and you
recognize that
there are human beings that are subjected to that government, just like you're
subjected
to ICE, you're subjected to Homeland Security, you're subjected to the cops.
If you're a civilian, you have to listen to these orders.
So if you're living in Gaza, and you're a child, or you're a woman, and you
live, you're not
Hamas, okay?
And the idea that you're responsible for October 7th, even if you're one of the
people that cheered
in the street, boy, don't you think you kind of have to cheer in the street if
everybody
else is cheering the street?
If you're fucking in terror for your life, and you have to, like, keep your
safety intact,
like, you got to kind of go along with whatever everybody else is doing.
I'm not saying that's good, but when you look at how that place is leveled, I
mean, the most
recent videos that I've seen were still, like, a few months old, so I don't
know if it stopped.
Did they stop bombing?
I don't know what's going on.
No.
They've slowed down a bit, but they haven't stopped.
Okay.
It...
There was nothing left, man.
That represents people's homes, that represents schools, that represents
hospitals.
There's no way you can argue that that's not horrific.
Yeah.
So he was stuck.
That's right.
That's right.
It's kind of indefensible, and so instead you pivot to arguing against this guy
rather than
against the issue.
Well, I think that, you know, it's in...
I can't remember if this was in the letter to America or this was in his
declaration of war
against America, but Osama bin Laden literally said that civilians are fair
targets because
you guys have elections, and you vote for these politicians, and they're the
ones who conduct
these wars that slaughter innocent Muslims.
Just saying, it's the logic of Osama bin Laden to say that civilians are
responsible for...
Right.
But Gaza, like, they don't even really have a government.
Hamas is not a government.
They don't have regular elections.
They had one election back in '05 or '06 or whatever it was, which Hamas did
not even
win majorities of.
They won on pluralities, you know what I mean?
And so, the idea that you're holding these people responsible for Hamas just
doesn't make
any sense.
And just on a very basic human level, you just kind of go, and I'm not like an
egalitarian,
I'm not saying all people are equal or all cultures are equal or anything like
that, but
on a very basic human level, like, those are real people too.
And when a mother is, like, pulling her six-year-old dead body out of the rubble,
that's the same
exact experience as if your wife was pulling your six-year-old out of there.
Like, that same thing is happening to her.
And once you even just admit that, it does just change the calculation.
It changes the calculation to be like, "Okay, look, the onus is on you to
demonstrate that
this is absolutely necessary.
Like, there is no other option than to do it this way."
And that makes defending most wars very difficult.
Not all of them, you know, but most wars are very difficult to defend.
If you just run it through that filter of, like, is there any other option
other than this?
Have you exhausted everything else?
And then, of course, in the case with Israel and Palestine, you go, "Oh, you
never even
tried to just give them their independence?
You've never tried to just let them out from this occupation and see if maybe
that will improve
things?"
And the answer is no.
It is kind of crazy that the world didn't, at one point in time, stand up and
say, "There's
a simple solution here.
Like, these people should have a state.
Like, why do you get to control them, but they're not Israeli?
Like, they're kind of a country, but not really, because they're attached to
you?
Yeah.
Why don't you guys go buy another country and give it to them and let them have
a country?
Or they don't like being attached on the same small patch of dirt to people
that have a
totally different ideology, I guess.
Well, that's right, and that, look, I mean, it's just-
But we are.
Yeah.
We have Canadians right there.
Yes, but Canadians do get citizenship in their own country, you know?
They get citizenship here, too.
Boy, that's the last thing ICE is looking for, is fucking Canadians.
Like-
Oh, yeah.
Your visa's expired?
Don't worry about it, buddy.
Get on the plane.
They'd probably have a much easier time.
Like, Canadians would go, "All right.
Guess I got a goo."
Well, yeah.
Also, they can just ditch the accent and pretend they're Americans.
And everybody will buy it.
Yeah, it's much easier.
As long as they don't say "about" wrong.
Yeah.
You know, they could just say, "Aha, sorry.
I don't have my license on me."
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, like, "Okay, buddy.
Where are you from?"
"Oh, I live in Iowa."
"Okay, sounds right."
That does check it out.
Get out of here.
All right.
Shit, that does check it out.
Do you see the shit that's going on in the airports?
Are they using ICE now at the airports?
Because, first of all, how many ICE agents are there?
Aren't they busy?
How do you have time to put them in all the airports?
How many fucking airports are there?
It's in the low tens of thousands.
There's not that many of them.
Right.
So, like, how many airports are there?
There's a lot of airports.
Crazy.
Okay, so you're putting ICE in the airports.
Where are you getting all these ICE guys?
Are you hiring new ICE guys to take the airport jobs?
Like, is this, like, it takes seven weeks to train them.
Yeah.
So, did they have, like, a surplus of, like, an ICE factory where they're churning
them out
and putting them out there?
I heard.
So, I didn't see any of them.
I flew out here the other day.
And I didn't see any of them.
But then I did see people saying that they were at the airport I flew out from
later that day.
Up to 150.
That's not a lot.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were deployed at airports across
the United States on Monday.
So, I -- of course, you know, you get on social media.
Somebody sends you something.
Somebody sent me something.
I'm not sure if it was true.
But it was like, look at the difference between the lines at the airport before
ICE was there and after ICE was there,
and tell me that only 10 million illegal aliens got in.
They're like, what is the real -- we were talking about this last night.
Like, what's the real number?
What is the real number of illegals in the United States?
We don't know.
We don't know.
You were saying something about Ann Coulter.
Yeah, well, she had -- and this was from a while ago.
So, this was -- well, she had -- she had in her book, Adios America, she had --
I believe it was from Bear Stearns.
I could be wrong.
Double-check me on that.
It was one of the big finance companies that they had put a thing where, like,
they put it between, like, 30 and 50 million total in the country.
Jeez.
And --
It's wild.
Yeah.
And this is before Joe Biden and them -- now, I don't know.
Really?
Maybe they got those numbers wrong.
This is before Biden.
So, what year was this book?
I want to say 2014, 2015, something like that.
Oh, my God.
That's 10 years ago.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A lot of them -- a lot of them have come in since then.
Well, at least 10 million, they believe, came in through the Biden
administration.
Yeah.
So, over four years --
Well, I remember the numbers being, like, during the Biden administration where
they'd be like -- it was something like, last month, there were 700,000 border
apprehensions.
And you're like, well, jeez, then how many were just flooding?
And you'd see those big caravans coming in and stuff.
Yeah.
I mean, look, it's a huge -- that still is a huge scandal.
And as much as I have really been -- really criticizing Trump and the Trump
administration since last summer, you know, he's done a good job in securing
the border.
That is the one thing that, like, you kind of got to give him.
And he got that secured, like, right away.
But it is --
Even if you think that it should be open and those people should be able to
travel freely, they should.
There's no one's illegal on stolen land, that kind of shit.
You know how much sex trafficking happened during that time of children?
Yeah.
You know how many children were trafficked that way?
You know how many children were dragged across the border and sold to
psychopaths?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, it's horrible.
I mean, I saw -- oh, there's Ann Coulter with at least 15 --
At least 50 million illegals in the country today.
See my book, Adios, America, for the analysis from Pulitzer Prize-winning
reporters and numbers crunchers from Bear Stearns.
I was right. It was Bear Stearns.
This is 2022, this post.
Wow.
That book is even older, though.
The book is like -- the book is from before -- I want to say 2015, but it's
around then.
That is crazy.
That's crazy.
Supposedly, this is the book that got Donald Trump on the immigration issue.
That's hilarious.
At least I've heard Ann Coulter say that before.
Maybe that's right.
Maybe that's not right.
But, I mean, look, it's like -- it's also a particularly -- it's a profound,
like, act of treachery for a government to do that to its own country.
Like, to allow that and really facilitate that to happen against the will of
the domestic population.
Like, if you were to -- I've tried to look this up before.
I was trying to figure this out because I did a big immigration debate last
year or maybe the year before.
And I was trying -- you can't even get numbers on what the polling on open
borders is because no one even asked the question in polling.
Because it's like -- they asked, like, do you think immigration policy should
be less restrictive or more restrictive?
Right.
Because the number of people who support open borders -- it's like maybe 1% of
the country supports that.
Right.
It's as unified an issue as anyone could have that.
No, you can't just have the border wide open.
Right.
And so to do that to the American people against the -- like, you drastically
change the country in a way that is not really -- it's not easy to just undo.
I mean, as we've seen, right, Donald Trump backed off of mass deportations
almost immediately because big business doesn't want it.
And then because -- look, like, the level of violence that you'd need to just
physically deport 50 million people is going to be something that the American
people just aren't going to put up with.
I mean, you even see in Minnesota.
And rightfully so.
I completely understand it.
But you see, like, you know, I saw one thing.
I saw that Trump had asked the ICE agents who were going to the airports to not
wear their masks.
And I was like, is that even a -- that's even an option?
Why would they be masked in the airport?
Because they're ICE agents.
Yeah.
Because they can get doxxed.
Well, that's their concern.
And look, I understand that.
No, that's a real concern.
I understand that concern.
It's organized.
But at the same time, you know, there is a balancing act there.
And, you know, a lot of people, like a lot of right-wingers will say, hey, look,
if you're -- you know, if you came here illegally, then that's a crime.
You're here illegally.
That's the law.
And, hey, I get that argument.
But also, the supreme law of the land is the Constitution of the United States
of America.
And I've seen a ton of videos where there were masked ICE agents, not even
identifying themselves, going up to people, telling them that you have to
answer my questions, you don't have an option to walk away, which is, like, not
true at all.
Well, that was my take on it, is that you can't accept people that are masked,
that don't have any paperwork, that don't have a warrant on the streets in
militarized situations.
Because if they're using it for this, which you agree to, that opens up the
door for them to use it because you won't take your vaccine or because you did
this or did that or whatever the fuck it is.
If a different person gets in power, maybe they're going to use it for
something you don't support.
It's just not something you're supposed to accept.
That's right.
You don't want to accept that president.
Here's something that someone told me that is, this is a very credible source
that I can't reveal what the source is.
But they told me that there are people in this country, and not just a few, but
many, many, that are affiliated with terrorist organizations, directly
affiliated, but they've applied for asylum.
And because they've applied for asylum, you can't deport them until they go
through the entire process.
That is wild.
That is wild.
That is wild.
Yeah.
So there's people that are known, at least terrorist sympathizers, they're in
direct communication with terrorist networks, they've done things with
terrorist networks, and they've applied for asylum.
So you have to go through this long ass process through the legal system, and
it's up to a judge whether or not this person who may or may not be a part of a
fucking sleeper cell gets to stay in America.
Yeah.
Suicidal empathy.
That's what Gad Saad calls it.
You know, I think he's right.
I think he's got a fair point there with suicidal empathy in terms of the idea
of like that we, that we cannot say on some level that it's like, no, look, we
have a desire to preserve our society.
And we want to do what's bad, and we don't have to, out of some feeling of
guilt, turn our country into something worse than what it otherwise would be.
So I think he's got a point there.
I think, and look, I'm not a big fan of Gad.
He literally just, him and like Sam Harris and a few others, they literally
just trash me all the time and refuse to engage on a single thing I've said.
So like it'll just be-
Gad doesn't engage with you?
He calls me Wikipedia Dave on Twitter.
And it's a, well look-
I like the guy, but I have a different relationship with him than you do.
Well that's true.
And I'm a big critic of Israel and he's a Mossad agent.
So there is that.
That is part of-
You think he is?
He's admitted that he worked for Mossad.
In the past?
Yes.
Yeah.
I guess he would say he's not currently-
He retired.
Like I used to-
I used to work for Newport Creamery.
I don't represent them anymore.
I think it's a little bit different with the Mossad thing.
But I also think that the big component that I think all of those guys are
missing is that we also create more enemies with our foreign policy.
And that's not to say that like, you know, they always kind of caricature my
position on this.
Like I'm not saying Islam is all peaceful and there are no problems in the
Islamic world or anything like that.
In fact, I don't think any religion is truly always been peaceful.
Um, but you know, for guys like say like Sam Harris, um, who these kind of like
pretend intellectuals who have spent-
He spent his entire career talking about how violent and irrational the Muslims
are and how you can't even draw a cartoon of Muhammad or Muslims will want to
do violent stuff.
And like, Hey, fair enough.
That's bullshit.
And we should all say like, if you want to be over here in the West, our values
are free speech and you cannot kill people for cartoons.
But then like none of them ever also go, Hey, you know, murdering an Ayatollah
might be dangerous during Ramadan.
Yeah.
Like that is, you know, that is not just a political figure to Shiite Muslims.
That is a, so at the same time, it's like, okay, I'm fine with saying, okay,
you don't want to have suicidal empathy.
Um, my, uh, my, my buddy Keith Knight, who's brilliant, uh, works over at the
Libertarian Institute.
He had, I forget what he said, but he said something like, okay, I don't want
to have suicidal empathy.
Let's also not have homicidal empathy, you know?
And so like, maybe it also is like, as we were tying into that whole
conversation with, no, I'm okay.
Thanks.
Um, with the whole thing about the, the kids and women in Gaza, it's like, it's
also the fact that if you just view slaughtering Muslim children in the Middle
East and in Northern Africa as like just an acceptable political price, you
know, that's just collateral damage.
And unfortunately that happens when we pursue this policy, you're going to deal
with more and more of that.
And the combination of both Joe, like the combination of having open borders,
having all these people get in and continuing the war on terrorism and slaughtering
people in these numbers must be the most insane combination ever.
Yeah.
The idea that you'd be like, we're going to, uh, you know, we're going to just
make an entire generation of, of Muslims hate us because so many of them have
seen what we've done to their countries.
And also we'll welcome all of them in with no checks and we can't get rid of
them when they come here.
Yeah.
That is quite a combination.
Yeah.
It's, it's all nuts.
It's, uh, the Sam Harris thing.
Um, I should clarify this cause he's apparently talked about me again recently
on Bill Maher.
We didn't not talk because it was his idea.
It was me.
I, he wanted to do a podcast with me.
He wanted to do a coat, like a COVID, you know, wrap up, like to, you know, go
over everything that happened, all the mistakes that were made and his position,
my position.
Cause that's where we kind of like separate.
It was, he was very pro vaccine.
Um, I said, I won't do that until you talk to Brett Weinstein, that you need to
talk to Brett.
Like Brett, you, you disparaged him publicly.
I think you said things that weren't correct.
You call them a conspiracy theorist and you said you wouldn't platform him
because it's dangerous.
I don't believe that's true.
I believe the problem is that Sam was incorrect about both the effectiveness
and the safety of the COVID vaccines.
Brett was correct.
And the Brett didn't insult Sam.
Sam insulted Brett.
I mean, Brett said things about Sam since, but it was, it was Sam.
And I said, look, you got to talk to him first.
You can't just talk to me, you know, especially because he's an actual
evolutionary biologist.
Like he, he understands these things.
He knows what he's talking about.
He's had multiple conversations with high level vaccinologists and all these
different people that worked on the mRNA vaccines.
Like he was correct.
Like he was correct.
We all know that.
Now we know that all the things that he was talking about, whether it's masking
doesn't work, social distancing, the lockdowns, lockdowns, all the above, all
the above.
He didn't want to talk to Brett.
And I said, that doesn't make sense to me.
Like you talk to everybody.
You have debates with Muslims on stage.
Yeah.
That's right.
That doesn't make any sense.
Like, why wouldn't you talk to Brett?
I don't think he wanted to talk to Brett because I don't, I think he didn't
want to talk to Brett because Brett's right.
Yeah.
I think it's, and I think it's indefensible.
No, I completely agree.
I mean, you know, I had a-
By the way, I don't hate Sam.
You know, he could say all the crazy shit he wants.
He also said like, I don't think you should interview Gaddafi.
Guess what?
I would.
If Gaddafi was alive, 100% I would interview Gaddafi.
Gaddafi, do you ever hear Russell Crowe talk about Gaddafi?
I don't think so.
He did a clip that went viral that was on this show where he talked about why
they wanted to get rid of Gaddafi.
Right.
And like, well, they talked about how evil Gaddafi was and how he subjugated
his people.
Can you see if you can find that?
Russell Crowe on Gaddafi.
He wanted to create a United States of Africa.
Yeah.
He wanted to get him on the gold standard.
He wanted to get him off the US dollar.
Like he had some very dangerous ideas.
Now he also supported Palestinian resistance.
Yeah, that was it.
There's no sound thing in there?
Oh, there it is.
Here it is.
We are taught, for example, to regard Gaddafi in a certain way.
Okay.
But if you look into what happened in his country while he was the leader, you
look into the fact that every person is given a house at a certain age.
You look at the fact that everybody's education and healthcare is free.
You look at if somebody showed a particular talent for something that required
further education overseas.
All of the costs of that were paid for by the government.
Now these are all things put in place by the same country's leader that we're
told is evil and corrupt.
Yeah.
So it doesn't quite balance.
Well, there's also US government interference.
That is one that we definitely monkeyed with.
I mean, he ran afoul of the United States government.
We are taught, for example.
Yeah.
There was the famous clip with Hillary.
Oh.
I showed a friend of mine the other day that he hadn't seen it and he couldn't
believe it was real.
Yeah.
Well, she was on this show and she gets unconfirmed information first that they
got Gaddafi and then she gets confirmed that he's dead.
And she goes, we came, we saw, he died.
Ha ha ha ha.
She was so excited about it.
But laughing.
And then that led to Libya, at least for a while, becoming a failed state.
Oh, it still is.
Is it?
It still is this whole time, man.
It's been a disaster.
This episode is brought to you by Visible.
Folks, there's one thing nobody wants this season and that's getting catfished.
And it's not just dating profiles that are putting you at risk.
It's also big wireless carriers.
You know the type.
Looks great at first.
Promises a low price.
But once you're locked in, surprise fees and an expensive bill that isn't what
you were expecting.
Your knight in shining armor?
Visible Wireless.
It's one line wireless with unlimited data and hotspot for just $25 a month
taxes and fees included.
Now that's a green flag.
The best part, Visible is all digital.
So you can switch as fast as you can swipe.
Don't fall for the trap of getting catfished by wireless.
Visit Visible.com to learn more and start loving your wireless carrier.
Terms apply.
See Visible.com for planned features and network management details.
And you know the thing is that they called that Hillary's war.
She was the Secretary of State at the time under Barack Obama.
But she's really the one who championed that.
And I believe Obama wrote in his book that he was 50/50 and that Hillary really
pushed him to that.
And he said his big regret was that he didn't think about what came next after
Gaddafi.
So now we haven't learned that lesson yet?
Like after Iraq you'd never thought of that?
Listen, but thank God Trump's figured it out.
Oh yeah.
That's the, yeah.
Trump's figured it out.
We'll go in this drastic new direction of getting the seventh war that they
wanted.
Don't be a pussy Dave.
Jesus Christ.
Did you see that one, I don't know what military expert was on television.
He said something about we need to, I'm a fan of boots on the ground like Rome.
Like, hey fucker, Rome didn't have nuclear weapons and drones.
Rome didn't have drones that hunt you.
Yeah.
Like we talking about boots on the ground.
Should we fight with swords?
Should we get everybody to fight with swords?
Is that what you're saying?
The fuck are you saying?
Well also like what, what even is the plan with boots on the ground?
Like what are you talking about here?
You're gonna, you're gonna take an island.
It goes, okay, well then you're gonna be a target.
You're gonna be target practice as long as the Iranian regime is still standing.
And if you're talking about militarily occupying the country like we did with
Iraq or Afghanistan
or something like that, this is a huge country with 92 million people.
How many, how many soldiers do you think you need to occupy that country?
Yeah, you need a draft.
At least half a million and probably you can't do it with that.
So what are you talking about here?
And so you're saying, what are we gonna start a draft for the least popular war
going in
in American history?
Yeah.
Because I don't think that's happening.
Yeah.
This is maybe slightly more popular than Vietnam.
Going in, it's less.
I'm sure Vietnam by the end was very, very unpopular.
Well, Vietnam going in didn't make any sense, did it?
There was, I guess the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
Most people in America were like, why are we doing this?
What's going on?
You're drafting people to go to Vietnam?
We're fighting communism in Vietnam?
Yeah.
What?
Well, they called, they called it Vietnam syndrome that the American people had,
which is that we didn't want to fight a war again after that.
Was that, that's from their perspective, that's a syndrome.
And there's, it's really something.
They think, they think, by the way, Ben Shapiro used this same line called,
he said, Trump finally broke Iraq war syndrome because they think,
Oh my God.
See, from Ben Shapiro's perspective, the illness is after you lie the American
people into a war and slaughter a million people.
The illness isn't that, that you might look at that as the bad part, but the
bad part is that these,
these annoying Americans have this tendency to not want to do that again after
that.
But he claims Trump has broken Iraq war syndrome.
Of course, there's really no evidence with support of the American people that,
that has changed at all.
And, you know, the George HW Bush was said to have defeated Vietnam war
syndrome in Panama and in Iraq because they were relatively easy.
Right.
You know, bloodless on the American side or rel or very, very limited, uh, you
know, injuries and deaths.
Um, and, and they, you know, they weren't like quagmires that went on forever
or whatever.
But of course, after the Persian Gulf war in, in 92, we went on to be bombing
Iraq for ever since, essentially, you know, I mean, for 30 straight years after
that, we were still at war with that country.
I think for a million people being dead.
Yeah.
Um, what is public support?
Let's put that into our sponsor perplexity.
What is current public support for the Iran war in America?
And first of all, how will they know?
No one's asked me.
You know what I'm saying?
That's a fair point.
Like that's what I always say about, about, uh, polls.
When was the last time you answered a poll?
When was the last time anybody called you up and said, Dave, man, first of all,
when was the last time you ever picked up the phone if you didn't know who was
calling?
And then when you do answer, when was the last time you said yes to a poll?
I don't even remember ever getting called.
It has to be the dumbest of dumb people that answered those polls.
So then you got to realize out of those stupid fucking idiots, even how many of
them think the war is a good idea?
It's even unpopular amongst them.
I mean, what does it say here?
Most recent national polls show Americans overall oppose the current war with
Iran and think U.S. military action has gone too far.
Um, a Quinnipiac poll finds 54%, what is the Quinnipiac, Quinnipiac poll finds
54% of U.S. voters oppose U.S. military action against Iran and 39% support it.
I wonder how many of those 39% are Jews.
Well, not too much.
We don't have the numbers.
A poll reports about six, right, what is the number of Jewish people in America?
Two percent?
Something like that?
Uh, six in ten adults say U.S. military action against Iran has gone too far.
Only about a quarter say it's been about right.
Twenty-five percent.
Poof.
First of all, you know, whenever you're talking about these kind of things, it's
like, who, again, who are we talking about?
Who was asked?
Finds Republicans largely support the military action around 86% support.
Whoa!
Yeah, there's-
Really?
Because I talk to a lot of Republicans that thinks it's a terrible idea.
While large majorities of Democrats, around 92%, and independents, about 64%
oppose it.
92%, who are the 8% of Democrats that are like, let's fucking go.
You think maybe they're Jews?
Or they work for CNN?
Yeah.
You know, whatever.
CNN thinks it's a good idea?
No.
CNN is running cover for Donald Trump during this time.
Come on.
For real?
Oh, yeah.
No way.
Yeah, they put up a poll the other day.
They had a graphic that said 100% of MAGA supports the war in Iran.
It's like-
CNN said that?
After all these years-
I was supposed to say he liked it or something like that.
Oh, but hold on a second.
CNN likes me.
Is that running cover, or is that making them look bad?
Because most Americans don't support the war, and most Democrats, 92%, don't
support the war.
So if that's the case, wouldn't that just make it look like these MAGA people
are a fucking problem?
I guess.
Oh my god.
MAGA GOP view of Trump.
Can I hear how he says it?
Or would it be a problem?
Rating among the MAGA.
Oh, okay.
That seems bonkers.
That seems bonkers.
Approve 100%.
How many people did you ask?
Two.
Two guys with MAGA hats on at the party.
If you notice the way they say this, right?
So they don't just say GOP voters.
They say MAGA GOP voters.
And so what they're doing here is that they're filtering who they consider to
be MAGA.
And who they consider to be MAGA are the people who still say they support
Donald Trump.
But like 100% of the people who don't support this war stopped supporting
Donald Trump over it.
Right, but look at this little thing on the bottom they don't show you.
66%, 31% split among non-MAGA.
Right.
And is that non-MAGA Republicans?
Is that what you're saying?
No, I think that's non-MAGA Americans, I believe.
Like the whole MAGA thing, it's like how did, we're so fractioned as it is.
Yeah.
Like this whole idea of right versus left as it is, and now you've got a MAGA
section of the right?
It's all just ridiculous, dude.
But it's a way to describe it as anything other than what it is, which is the
most unpopular war in American history going into it.
And for good reason.
Look, dude, he didn't even bother to like sell us on a propaganda campaign
about it.
It was like the laziest, like just lie, just lie us into it.
Let's put on a fucking firm tinfoil hat right now.
Let's get a double layer Reynolds wrap, fucking crease the edges, fold it down.
Why would he want to do this?
Why would he want to look?
I am not denying that the regime of Iran is a giant problem.
I am certainly not denying that if I was Israel, I would not want them there.
They hate you.
They're trying to get a nuclear weapon.
They're right there.
I get the Israel position.
I totally understand how they're so just vehemently in defense of their
homeland.
Like they're surrounded by people that hate them.
They're the one Jewish country.
Everyone else is a Muslim.
They all want a caliphate.
They all want to kill them.
It's been going on forever.
They think it's in God's word that they have it.
It's a lot of craziness.
I get it.
Why now?
Like why now?
Like what does that make any sense?
Well, Trump himself has said, which literally this would be like considered an
anti-Semitic conspiracy theory if anyone else had said it, but Donald Trump has
openly talked about many times how the Adelson's give them all this money and
they come by every day and all they have is another demand on behalf of Israel.
Donald Trump also very early in his political career got in trouble with the
Israel lobby and then immediately pivoted to blaming to winning their favor
back over by saying he would tear up the JCPOA, the Iran deal that Obama got us
into.
And it looks to me, you know, there's speculation aside, who knows exactly what
control they have over the guy, but it looks to me that after Venezuela and
when there were these big street protests and riots against the regime and
around there that they convinced Trump.
And this is what Joe Kent, his director of counterterrorism has said to that
they essentially convinced him that this would be the time you could do it
swiftly, surgically remove the regime and the people would rise up and
overthrow it.
And this is what Donald Trump said when he launched this war.
He said, this is a regime change and I'm calling on the great people of Iran to
rise up.
And they did.
They rose up by at least the hundreds of thousands.
They were out in Tehran in defense of the regime chanting death to America,
because it turns out when you kill 165 little girls, that doesn't make a
country go.
We love you.
Thank you.
Right.
But before the bombing, there were people in the streets that were protesting
and people were killed because that a lot.
That's the other thing is that that regime is like they they clamp down and
they do it with public figures.
They killed a very prominent wrestler from Iran.
Yeah, really two of them.
They killed one a few years back.
The UFC tried to step in and somehow another stop it, but he was also one that
was accused of protesting.
Well, listen, I don't know about this most recent one.
I'm not saying this is true at all.
I don't trust any governments, but he was they claimed he killed a few cops.
That's what the Iranian regime said he was being hung for.
Now, I don't know.
The wrestler?
Yeah, the wrestler.
Oh, I didn't see that.
He was convicted of that, whatever that means in a in a mullah run court, you
know, so I'm not saying that's right at all.
But I will say this, right?
The Donald Trump when he when he launched this war and there's been a whole lot
of just false claims that have been made.
But he said specifically that they killed 32,000 protesters.
There has not been a shred of evidence presented to back up this claim.
Now, I'm not saying it's not true.
I'm not putting it past this government that they would do that.
And they've acknowledged that a lot of people have died.
I think they I think the last I had seen was that I know they were saying the
the government of Iran is before the Ayatollah was killed.
They were saying it was something like 3,000 people had died.
And then the CIA.
But when you say died doesn't mean they killed.
Well, that's unclear.
That's that's not what they are claiming.
But then the CIA, at least there was a piece in the Washington, excuse me, in
the Wall Street Journal where they had said and this was like a week and a half
into it that they estimated like six and a half thousand or something like that.
But this is a huge question, right?
And it's not clear at all.
Like, were they lining people up and just executing them for the crime of
protesting?
They hung the wrestler.
But I'm saying the the people who have been killed here.
Iran protest death toll could top 30,000, according to local local health
officials.
And this is from Time magazine.
As many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on
January 8th and 9th alone.
Two senior officials of the country's Ministry of Health told Time, indicating
a dramatic surge in the death toll.
So many people were slaughtered by Iranian security services that Thursday and
Friday it overwhelmed the state's capacity to dispose of the dead.
Stocks of body bags were exhausted, the official said, and 18-wheel semi-trailers
replaced ambulances.
Now, listen, all I'm saying here, man, is that you gotta be, I've just seen
this movie play out a lot of times.
You gotta be really careful about these accusations that are made in the run-up
to a war.
They're basically saying we have a source who told us this.
What year was this?
I mean, excuse me, what date was this?
January 25th.
January 25th.
So the protest started in late December and then in January.
Time was unable to independently verify these figures.
That's right.
Listen, the claim being made here, right, is that, look, in this point, they
said in two days, in two days, 30,000 people were killed.
If that is true, that is up there with one of the biggest massacres in human
history.
The biggest massacres during World War II were, like, around that.
It says, as of Saturday, a U.S.-based human rights activist news agency had
confirmed 5,459 deaths and is investigating 17,000 more.
Yes.
So that's at least close.
So we're in the neighborhood.
We're in the 20s just if what they're investigating turns out to be accurate.
If that's the case.
But we're talking also here, Joe, about, like, NED-funded U.S.-based NGOs who
are really around hawks, you know?
Good point.
And I'm just saying, like, look, the claim here is that around, you know, I saw
a bunch of the Zionists online when this was first coming out back in January.
They were like, oh, my God, they've already killed half as many people as died
in Gaza in just a couple days.
And you're like, right, that's a pretty – that's a hell of a claim, right?
I mean, like, if you – just from following wars all these years, if you
started carpet bombing Tehran, Vietnam-style, carpet bombing Tehran, after two
days, that's the type of death toll you'd be looking at.
Well, the thing is we don't – they don't have internet access to the rest of
the world.
Well, they shut down the internet during that period.
Yeah.
But there were pictures that came out.
All I'm saying is that if you had numbers like that, you would expect there to
be some evidence that you could point to.
And there's, like, one picture where they've pointed to, like, a couple dozen
body bags and been like, see, look at this.
But, look, I'm not – maybe it's true, maybe it's not.
I'm very skeptical of these claims when they're made right before we launch a
war.
But I think the other point is that, at least according – and there has been
some evidence of this, right?
There were police stations that were burned.
There were mosques that were attacked.
These were not just peaceful protests.
I'm not saying they don't have a right to violently rise up and overthrow their
government, whatever.
But all the hawks in the West were saying these people are trying to overthrow
their government.
Not only that, in the past, our agencies, our intelligence agencies have
engaged in nefarious practices where we have conscripted certain people to go
and light things on fire and blow things up and create these events to
accelerate.
Front page of the Jerusalem Post, they were bragging that there was Mossad
within the protests.
So, now look, I don't know, but also the thing is this, right?
If you are trying to overthrow a government, a government will kill you for
doing that.
And that's true about every government, including our own.
Including our own.
If armed protesters went to try to overthrow Barack Obama's government, he
would kill those people if they were actually a threat to do that.
How about Ashley Babbitt was murdered January 6th?
And every single left-winger in the country went, "Well, that's okay. It was an
insurrection."
And by the way, every single right-winger in this country, when this pretty guy
got killed, were like, "Well, he was interfering."
Oh, I saw, but by the way, the pretty thing was the most textbook example of a
bad shooting.
There's just no defending it. They had disarmed the guy. He's down. There's six
of them. They panic. They put six bullets in him.
Do you know what happened, though? Do you know the whole story of the gun?
The gun being removed?
Yeah. Do you know the whole story about the gun?
No. Oh, what?
Okay. The gun is a SIG P320.
Uh-huh. Right.
A SIG P320 is notorious for accidental discharges.
Right.
There is a video of the cop removing the gun, walking off.
Yes, I saw that.
And the gun goes off.
And is that his gun for sure?
That's what it starts about.
Yeah.
Because I thought that hadn't been determined whether or not. I heard people
speculating about that.
I've watched the video multiple times and I've watched other people's analysis
of it. Obviously, I'm no expert, but I do know something about guns, and that
gun in particular has been demonstrated online that it will go off.
There's a cop inside of a precinct. He bends over, not touching his gun, gun in
the holster, and it goes off.
There's a video of a guy on a range, and the gun just goes off. And he goes, "Whose
fucking gun was that?" And the range master goes, "Is that a SIG?" And he goes,
"Yeah." He goes, "Get that fucking gun off of my range."
Wow.
Because it's a P320.
So SIG, I should be real clear, SIG makes a bunch of guns that are awesome,
like the P365 is like one of the best carry guns in the world.
There's a lot of guns they make that don't have this issue, but that particular
gun that Preddy had with one in the chamber is fucking knuckleheads walking
around with one in the chamber.
Absolutely.
And I'm just saying, the only point I'm making is that it's clearly, it was a
fuck up. I'm not saying like they wanted to execute the guy.
I'm just saying like they had the gun taken from him, they didn't communicate
that to each other, they freaked out.
But literally all it took was seeing one video 11 days earlier where he kicked
the back of a cop car, and for every right winger to go, "Yeah, whatever dude,
got what you deserve."
So all my point is about this, looking at this in the Iranian regime, it's just
not clear.
Like what are you actually accusing them of? Are you saying that somebody was
trying to overthrow the government and the government mowed them down?
Are you saying that they lined up protesters and shot them all in the back of
the head simply for voicing their opinion?
Like none of this is made clear, but when the war drums are beating, no one
even cares to like ask these questions.
It's just like, yep, they killed their own people.
And then if you notice with this war, much like with Venezuela and almost like
with all of them, they just keep giving you like, they throw like 15 justifications
at it.
You know, and you're like, wait, which one is the reason we're fighting this?
Because I saw that all of them like to play the humanitarian card and go, we're
doing this to, you know, for these oppressed people.
We want them to rise up.
They've been living under this brutal regime.
And you're like, okay, two things like number one, that is simply just not how
you US foreign policy works.
We don't fight wars on humanitarian grounds.
You know what I mean?
Like we're partners with some of the most brutal authoritarians in the world.
And we've, and in the case of like Israel, we've been funding their destruction
of Gaza for the last two and a half years.
Like it's, and, and so like, that's not really what's motivating this here.
And then number two, Donald Trump, even just the other day said, he'll be
partners with the new Ayatollah and run the Strait of Hormuz together.
He's backed off.
Did he say that?
Yeah.
He's backed off of regime change or the idea that-
Bro, hold on.
Are they even talking to him?
Is someone talking to him?
Like who, who is he talking to?
Do they know who they're talking to?
Cause it's not like they're meeting in person.
Donald Trump said-
Some guys on the phone, I am free to negotiate.
Dude, he's, he said, Donald Trump himself said the other day that, um, that he
goes negotiate.
We're negotiating.
Negotiations are going great.
And they go, who are you negotiating with?
And he goes, a person we believe to be in charge.
And then they said, so is this the new Supreme leader?
And he said, no, no, no one's heard from that guy.
We don't know where he is.
It's some hacker in his basement in Belarus.
It's not-
He's talking with an Iranian accent and he's got them convinced.
Well, it's just-
I have the authority to negotiate.
Let's be partners.
Let's be fair.
Wire 1 million Bitcoin to this address.
Well, everything I'm seeing publicly reported today is that Iran is like, no,
we're not in these negotiations.
We've made our terms clear.
And their terms, what they're asking for is something that Donald Trump is not
going to be able to give them.
What's that?
Uh, their, uh, their, their demands were, uh, that we, we stop, uh, attacking
immediately, like that part they might get.
That we pay them, uh, restitution for all the damage so far.
Um, that's essentially that we leave the region.
I mean, they had a few other things there that were just like-
And that's-
They want them to open up a Terry Black's in Tehran.
That's-
That's-
That's-
That's-
And a Buc-ee's.
This one was really important to us.
If we could just get one-
One Terry Black's barbecue.
We don't have a good barbecue here.
Um, it's, it, it doesn't seem like if, if he's not really negotiating with this
guy, if it's like, if that's not true, and he's just like putting this out
there in the public as like a negotiation ploy, what a clusterfuck.
Cause you're, you're dealing with people that don't mind dying.
They, they, they believe, I mean, these are very religious people.
They're fanatical.
They believe they're going to go to heaven.
They believe they're martyrs and they're, they're fighting for Allah.
This is, this is the just and holy war.
Well, they've also been-
And they've been attacked.
Well, that's right.
And they've been preparing for this for a long time.
Um, you know, and they like, there's, you know, people make a lot out of, um,
the chants that the Iranians, you know, they chant death to America.
Uh, and-
What do you got there, Jeremy?
Sorry.
It's, uh-
And who's in control of it?
Will Iran still be able to control the flow of oil?
Uh, be, uh, jointly controlled.
By who?
Maybe me.
Maybe me.
Maybe me.
Me and the Ayatollah, whoever the Ayatollah is, whoever the next Ayatollah.
Look.
And there'll also be a form of a, a very serious form of a regime change.
Now, in all fairness, everybody's been killed from the regime change.
There's automatically a regime change, but we're dealing with some people that
I find to be very reasonable, very solid.
Uh, the people within know who they are.
They're very respected.
And maybe one of them will be exactly what we're looking for.
Look at Venezuela, how well that's working out.
I mean, dude, this is such a fucking mess.
This is such a mess, dude.
I mean, this is just too ridiculous, dude.
And the, you know, the thing is that a lot of people, you know, I've spent a
long time at this point being against this war.
Cause this war has been telegraphed since, you know, the, the Bush
administration wanted to do this shit.
Yeah.
And, um, at least for like 15 years, I've been publicly, uh, opposing this war.
And one of the reasons why so many of us oppose this and it's a shitty way to
be vindicated, but is that look, Iran is just not like any of the other
opponents in the global war on terrorism.
It's a, it's a different beast entirely.
And you've seen this already only three weeks in, we never dealt with any of
this with any of the other countries.
You know what I mean?
We had what the Pentagon calls escalation dominance in all of those other wars,
which is all essentially like, it's just like meaning like if you do this, we
do this.
If you do that, like we're prepared for everything.
It's kind of like escalation dominance is a lot like, uh, you know, like in jujitsu
where you see really high level guys who basically put you in a position where
you can make one of two choices in either way.
You know, like, okay, you can, you can give me your back and I'll choke you or
you can push off me and I'll arm bar you and you, you know, like whatever
option you have, I'm going to get you.
We don't have that with the round and Pentagon has been open about this since
at least 2007.
Um, and the, the fact is that as we're already seeing, they can target ships in
the Strait of Hormuz, they can target our assets, our bases, our embassies in
the region, they can target our allies.
And this is a big problem.
And so like, it seems like Donald Trump got into this thinking it would be like
Venezuela.
It would be quick and bloodless and easy.
And he could claim victory.
Now that it's not gone that way.
It seems like he's kind of scrambling for what the, what the off ramp is here.
Yeah.
Now, at least I give Donald Trump as angry as I am with him.
Um, like at least it is true that he's looking for an off ramp.
It seems like, and he did this with the 12 day war, right?
Like he, he started the war.
He saw an off ramp and he, and he took a, he took it.
The problem here really is that this war changed the calculation from the
Iranian perspective.
And that much is clear so far, you know, the, after 9/11, all the countries in
the Middle East and North Africa, all the ones were essentially, they all waved
the white flag.
All of them, Saddam Hussein welcomed UN inspectors in, he was trying to do
anything he could to not meet the fate that he ultimately met.
Gaddafi denuclearized, got rid of chemical weapons.
Bashar al-Assad got rid of all his chemical weapons.
Like they were all just like, we don't want it with you, you know?
And Iran was very much the same way.
And they, they got into the JCPOA.
They allowed an inspections regime in to come look at their, their nuclear
facilities, all of that.
And even up to the 12 day war, when we, we dropped the bunker buster, there's
an Israel bombed a whole bunch of regime targets.
They still in their response called ahead, made sure there'd be no U S troops
there.
They, they hit the side of a little base there.
And then they kind of went like they gave Trump an off ramp because they didn't
want it.
You know, they didn't want it.
They don't want to die like Muammar Gaddafi.
They don't want to, you know, have their country destroyed.
So for self-preservation reasons, they showed restraint.
The calculation this time clearly already from the Iranians was that we can't
do that again.
We, we have to give you a bloody nose and a black eye.
We have to make this cost as much as possible for you.
Otherwise you guys will just be back here in another five months doing it again.
And they're, they're probably right about that.
They're probably right.
And so now we're in this situation where we're already in a, in a quagmire.
It's already like over a dozen Americans have died.
I think a couple hundred wounded at this point.
Israel isn't given real numbers on what's going on there, but there's some
pretty substantial damage and definitely some Israelis have died.
And I'm sure thousands of Iranians have, have died at this point.
It's cost.
I mean, Pete Heggs has just asked for $200 billion.
I don't know if it'll get up to cost them that much, but this thing is
certainly already in the tens of billions.
If you consider munition, military movements and, and then just the damage to
embassies and bases and stuff like that.
I mean, this thing is already a disaster.
And so now it's not like Venezuela where Donald Trump could just stop and
declare victory and even say like, look how great it's working out.
Is Venezuela really working out that great?
I don't know.
That's kind of, you know, we took one guy away.
The regime's still in place.
The people haven't been liberated, but whatever.
He can claim that this.
This now, the problem here is that, okay, number one, Donald Trump's not really
in a situation where if he just quit right now, how's he really going to say,
look how wonderful this is?
It's like, I don't know, dude, this cost a lot already.
And it doesn't seem like there's any clear, like, what did we get out of this?
Well, the only way it would work is if there was some sort of a deal with
whoever the fuck is going to be the new guy in charge.
And they did come to some sort of an agreement.
And they did give them some compensation for all the shit we blew up.
Yes.
Well that, right.
So they'll just print some more money for that.
Sure.
And inflation to go up.
But look, here's the thing is that it's not just Donald Trump.
There's two other participants in this war, two other entities in this war.
There's Iran and there's Israel.
OK, now is Iran going to accept that?
Maybe.
But look, just like the 12 day war, look at the position you're in now.
We're relying on the moas.
You know what I mean?
Like it's that that is not an ideal situation to be in.
And then the other factor is that there's Israel who also gets a say in this
for some reason, because we allow them to.
And Netanyahu just the other day was very clear about this.
This is a regime change.
And he even said it will require ground forces.
And he said he's not sure who those ground forces will be.
And so now this happened.
If you do you remember the moment during the 12 day war when it was the closest
Trump ever came to like flipping out on Israel.
And he said they don't know what the fuck they're doing.
It was.
But he said Israel and Iran don't know what the fuck they're doing because
Donald Trump.
So after he drops the bunker busters, he goes, that's it.
We're you know what I mean?
We're taking the off ramp.
And then he said, I want to work out a ceasefire now.
And then after he said that, Israel just started lighting up regime targets,
just bombing the crap out of them.
And they weren't bombing nuclear facilities.
They were just bombing like government buildings.
And they've been doing a bunch of that in this war as well.
Bombing local police departments, things like that, just creating chaos,
because what they want is what they've been getting in the rest of the war on
terrorism.
They're they they are quite happy with a Libya model or a Syria model.
They don't want anyone that's organized as a threat to Israel.
They don't.
It's all about around support for Hezbollah.
Yeah.
Is that they want southern Lebanon, which they just cats, their defense
minister, just announced that they're going to occupy.
Yeah, that's crazy.
Right.
They just that's going to be occupying another country.
Mm hmm.
That's what it's about, man.
And look, I mean, it's not again.
This isn't like a conspiracy theory.
The guys all tell you this in their own words.
Benjamin Netanyahu was asked point blank a few months back what he thought of
the greater Israel project.
And he said, it's very near and dear to my heart.
Like this is the point of denying the Palestinians a state for all these years.
You can't let the Palestinians have a state because then how are you going to
take that all over someday?
That's all supposed to be part of Israel and the U.S. Ambassador, the U.S.
Ambassador, not the Israeli Ambassador, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel is on
record saying that God promised Iraq to Benjamin Netanyahu and that God
promised Lebanon and Saudi Arabia and the West Bank and parts of Syria.
All of this is greater Israel.
By the way, Sam Harris, where are you out on that?
Where are the new atheists when you could finally use them for something?
Hey, that's pretty crazy.
Is that how we do politics?
We work on this this ridiculous religious superstition that somehow the when
God said Israel in Genesis, he was referring to the state that was created that
they named after that passage.
This would literally be on the level, Joe, is if I named my son Jesus Christ
and then I told you, you have to worship my son.
Look, it's right there in your Bible.
Exactly.
That you worship.
No, you named it after that, dude.
Yeah.
That doesn't count.
That's crazy.
And they took the spot where it was.
Yeah.
I mean, like they took over and they did in a horrific way, like the napka.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You listen to some of those soldiers, the translation of some of those soldiers
talking about what they did and even laughing about what they did.
Some of them even smiling.
In 1948.
Right.
Yeah, because it's not it wasn't in 1848.
Right.
You know what I mean?
Like these guys were alive.
Maybe not so many of them now, but like 20, 30 years ago, you could put a video
camera in front of one of these guys and ask him to tell their story.
Right.
78 years ago.
Wasn't that long ago?
Yeah, that's right.
And so, you know, look, I mean, the idea here that America, after just 25 years
of catastrophic failures, launching wars of choice, wars of aggression, lying
the American people into it, just slaughtering millions of people and like
bankrupting this country and really severely degrading the country with these
wars.
The idea that we would jump into another war of choice for Israel is just too,
like, this is too crazy, man.
And especially when it's the administration that really ran on and promised
that we want to get out of this, out of this game of fighting stupid wars in
the Middle East.
Yeah, that was what we were all supporting.
Yeah.
That was the one thing that he was saying that was so promising to so many
people that were independent, that were on the fence.
They're like, this guy wants no wars.
All right.
He wants closing the border, which I think is a great idea.
He wants no wars.
That enough.
Let's go.
Yeah.
Well, especially considering the fact that, well, like, even if there are some
things about Donald Trump that maybe you don't like, but the other guys are
saying, we want to keep fighting forever wars.
And this guy is saying we should stop doing that.
That's enough to go.
Well, then he's better than you on net.
And don't get me wrong.
I mean, I, I endorse Donald Trump in 24.
Um, you know, people give me shit for this.
Some people like that.
Some people give me shit for it.
Um, but I, I do, I kind of view it like this, like, and I really, I will say,
maybe I'm a little biased here cause I love you, but I don't think I'm being
biased.
I really think you played a, an enormous role in, in kind of like standing up
to the progressive democratic establishment and their narrative over the last,
you know, decade or so.
And it's really hard to kind of overstate how crazy they were, how much of a
threat to this country they were.
And so for anybody who wants to give shit to anyone who voted for Donald Trump,
it's like, Hey man, the alternative was the, the party who bragged about, um,
first off, insane woke shit, like poisoning the minds of children in a really
grotesque and abusive way.
They gave us open borders, flooding the country, uh, with people.
They gave us all types of COVID tyranny, uh, based on pseudoscience.
They gave us the most reckless foreign policy, uh, in American history, which
was this proxy war on Russia's border.
And they were running, they were pretending the president wasn't senile when he
clearly was.
Then they, in the fourth quarter threw up a cackling retard who was not democratically
picked in any process.
And so, sorry, like it, it does make sense that a lot of people went, okay, we're
going to go back with, with this other guy.
Yeah.
Also there was an interesting dynamic happening in 24 where, okay, this wasn't,
you know, Donald Trump, they had actually tried to throw him in jail, maybe
even tried to murder him.
We never really got any answers on that one.
Um, he now had Bobby Kennedy with them.
He now had Tulsi Gabbard with him.
He now had, oh, you know what I mean?
Even JD Vance, like a lot of these people who were supposedly much more than
anybody.
He was supposedly much more non-interventionist.
There was reason to hope that maybe it wouldn't end up here.
But anyway, I guess my thing is that you played such a huge role in this.
And I, to a lesser extent, played a role in standing up against a lot of that
progressive insanity over the last 10 years.
And I just feel like after 24, you know, this coalition came together where
Donald Trump, for the first time ever, wins the popular vote, wins every single
swing state.
And really more remarkably, won the youth and the culture.
Like Donald Trump went from being like the cultural pariah to being the guy
like John Jones is doing the dance at the front.
And it was just, it was, and that whole coalition has been destroyed over this
war.
And now he's going to hand the country right back over to these Democrats who
we've been fighting so hard.
All for what?
All for a war that Netanyahu wanted against a country that, dude, by the way,
the justification for the 12 day war was bullshit.
They weren't trying to make nuclear weapons.
They were trying to negotiate out of that.
Yes.
Well, that's right.
But then all the, and, and I want to, you know, he said some nice things about
me when he was on here the other day with you.
So I will say some nice things about Constantin Cassin, who I, despite our
disagreements, I really liked that guy a lot, but he is, I could be wrong.
I could be missing someone.
He's the only guy I've seen who supported the 12 day war, but is really
skeptical about this.
And I've seen so many people, it's unbelievable, dude.
Like they, they just, so like the 12 day war comes for the first 48 hours of it.
They're like, dude, Israel's doing this on its own.
All they want is for you to stay out of it.
Then like the third day they're like, all right, they do need some help
shooting down the missiles that are coming back toward them.
But whatever, this is just defensive.
You know what I mean?
Like you don't have to get involved.
Then it's like the next day, like, all right, we don't, we don't have bunker busters.
So we do need you to drop the bunker busters.
But then their whole like defense of the 12 day war was like, look, no
Americans died.
It didn't cost us a lot.
It didn't turn into this disaster.
And now we're at the, okay, well fine.
All of that happened, but it's still a good thing.
Constantine was the one guy I saw who was like, no, I supported that one, but I
am not getting on board with this one.
And I give him a lot of credit for that.
I give him a lot of credit for that.
I give him a lot of credit for that.
I like that guy a lot.
I like him a lot.
I like Francis a lot too.
I do too.
Their show Trigonometry is one of the best shows.
Agree with them or not agree with them.
They're always reasonable.
They're never ideologically driven.
They have opinions that you may or may not agree with, but they're real clear
about their opinions and why they believe what they believe.
Yeah, that's right.
And they're great guys.
Yeah.
Genuinely great dudes.
Great guys.
I really liked, you know, I get in a lot of like the shit show like arguments.
I find myself in them.
I probably should be better than them and just not engage, but I'm not and I'm
petty.
What do you mean by shit show?
Like where it just becomes like an insult thing or, you know, I debated Alex
Barron.
It's kind of embarrassing in hindsight, but like, I don't know.
It gets me really angry when the guy's calling me a Holocaust denier or
something like that.
I think that's crazy.
He was kind of silly the way he was saying it was silly and he was just trying
to play gotcha with you.
Yes.
And then you called him a faggot.
Yeah.
That's not my finest moment.
You can tell he was really shaken by that.
Well, it's just.
He expected that.
I kind of have a thing where like, look, I'm really into this shit and I nerd
out on it and I'm obsessed with all of this for whatever reason.
It's just like my calling in life.
Um, but I'm also standup comic at heart, you know?
Right.
And so like, as soon as someone goes like, oh, I want to be vicious.
You're like, oh, you want to be vicious?
Yeah.
Because like, I'm pretty good at being vicious.
So like, I could do that.
And you're probably not used to hearing this type of vicious shit that like
comics say to each other.
Right.
Um, but one of the things that I really appreciated about Francis and Constantine
was when I went to do their show, it was just like, it was genuinely a good
faith conversation.
And they weren't trying, they weren't trying to like win the point or, or get a
clip that they could go, we destroyed Dave.
And then once they do that, I'm like, okay, well then I'm not trying to do that
either, man.
Like, let's talk about this shit.
That's, that's always what I'd rather do.
Yeah.
Um, but the thing that's, I guess the thing that's really interesting about
this moment is that because the kind of corporate media propaganda apparatus
has been completely destroyed and because the internet and social media and
podcasts are where people go now for, for, you know, conversations and debates
and news and all this stuff.
They're kind of like, they're like, they're running without a propaganda
apparatus.
You know, like Israel just, Israel in the last two and a half years is down
like 50 points in the polls, like in terms of American approval.
Like they've just been this, it's a drastic change.
Like I've never seen on any issue over the last few years.
Well it's the first time in our lifetimes where it's been an issue that we are
dealing with the consequences of the relationship.
That's right.
There's never been a time in the past where people were completely aware of, oh,
there's no other reason why we'd be going into Iran.
Like most people, most people don't think.
That's 100%.
It wasn't for Israel asking us to, Netanyahu's consistent visits to the White
House, multiple.
Oh, you can't even, you can't even pretend otherwise.
I mean, people can.
But people do.
Yes, well they try to.
But people.
Coleman Hughes just got in a debate with Glenn Greenwald about it.
I saw that they did it.
I have not had a chance to watch it.
Yeah.
They did it to me and it was, you know, I'm, I'm being a good boy when it comes
to social media.
It's been so good for my brain.
Yeah.
It's kind of remarkable.
So, uh.
Just staying off, you mean.
Yeah.
My new phone, I'm not going to put anything on it.
I'm going to have my old phone and leave it at home.
That's a good idea.
And I'm not going to be able to look at it.
So when I have to post things, I got to post it on my other phone that's not
going to be with me.
I'm not doing that anymore.
Because I just think eventually, ultimately it rots your brain.
But you do get some cool debates and some insight into what's going on.
And I don't know what Coleman's argument was, but Glenn and Coleman were
arguing about Israel's influence on this.
Well, I'll be very interested to watch that.
Um, I do respect Coleman despite disagreeing with him very adamantly on this
stuff.
Very smart guy.
Very smart guy.
No question about it.
And a very nice guy, too.
And look, I, one of the things I really respect about him is when I did his
show, he literally starts it by going, he goes, you know, almost all these
debates I see you in, like, you're kind of debating issues and then people just
debate your character.
And he goes, I'm not doing that at all.
I want to talk about the issues the whole time.
No, he doesn't do that at all.
And I do, I just genuinely appreciate that.
No, I agree with him or disagree with him.
He's a super reasonable guy and a very nice guy.
I like him a lot.
I like him a lot.
Whether I agree with him or disagree with him, he's a wonderful person.
I, this, agreed.
This, this is what I will say about, um, his position on this, which I, I think
is, is kind of interesting.
So, number one, um, when I was on Pierce Morgan with him, well, right after
Venezuela happened and he was, his position, I don't want to mischaracterize it,
but I think this is pretty accurate.
Was he was like, look, a lot of people are comparing Venezuela to Iraq or Libya
or Syria, but like, that is a different region, a different culture, a
different religion.
And so really what we should be comparing this to is other interventions in, in
Latin America and South America.
And I, you know, I didn't completely agree with that.
I was like, actually, I think there are some lessons you could learn from other
wars that we've been in that might apply here.
But I was like, okay, fair enough.
Hey, let's look at other interventions in Central and South America, because we've
got a long list of really disastrous ones.
Like if you want to look at Guatemala or Nicaragua or, you know, Cuba, Mexico,
a whole bunch.
But then when this war in Iran starts, I don't see him going the equal opposite
of that, going, hey, now that we're at war with Iran, we have to judge this by
Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Syria.
Because, you know what I'm saying, like, that would be the flip side to the
other position.
Right.
And so I don't see that.
The other thing is that when he's arguing with me about, because I was arguing
that, you know, that is the Israel lobby and the Israeli government were a huge
part of why we fought the war in Iraq.
Right.
And his big point that he stuck to, a lot of the hawks stick to this, is that
Ariel Sharon was actually, who was the sitting prime minister at the time, he
was actually against the war in Iraq.
Now, that's not exactly true.
He wanted George W. Bush to invade Iran first, not Iraq.
And then when he got assurances that Iran would be next, he got on board.
You could go look at Sharon's speech.
He gave a speech, I think it was in August of 2002, to the Knesset.
And it's all about how Iraq is the biggest threat.
They have weapons of mass destruction.
But the Mossad was cranking out all types of BS intelligence about the nuclear
weapons that he could detonate in 15 minutes or whatever.
It's all nonsense.
But if you're going to say that that is evidence that Israel was not pushing us
into this because the sitting prime minister at the time didn't like this war.
Okay.
But again, then how does the current sitting prime minister of Israel feel
about this war in Iran?
Because he's fighting it with us.
And he said after it started that this is the culmination of his entire life's
work.
He has been trying to lie our government into this war for my entire lifetime.
Coming here.
He testified how many times?
Do you remember the one where he testified with the cartoon of a bomb?
At the UN.
Yeah, yeah.
Cartoon.
A bomb cartoon with percentages of the enriched uranium.
And like a Daffy Duck bomb.
Yes.
Not like the bomb that will blow your beak around.
A bowling ball.
A bowling ball with a fuse.
Yes.
And he was already up real high.
He was already up real high.
No, dude.
He was on record saying that Iran was three to five years away from getting a
nuclear weapon in the 90s.
In the 90s, yeah.
I mean, he's just been lying through his teeth.
And there is something, look man, there's something really profoundly dishonorable
about trying to lie another country into war.
Like not even trying to sell the war to your own people and have your own
military do it.
But because you can't.
There it is.
Yeah, there we are.
We were up to 90%.
First stage.
No, it was first stage we were at.
He was saying they've hit the first stage.
Oh, oh, oh, excuse me.
Okay.
Yeah, you're right.
I guess this is, we can't.
We can't go any further.
Mom.
It's just so ridiculous.
And he knows, he knows he's lying.
He's like your friend that like you've been friends with since high school.
And every time you go out, he gets you in a fight.
Yeah.
You're like, dude, don't do this.
Like those guys over there are a fucking problem.
Let's go over there and fuck them up.
And like, you know, all your buddies are like, dude, this guy again.
Did I use that exact analogy when I debated Josh Hammer at Princeton University?
Or maybe it was with the Charlie Kirk.
It was one of the times I debated him.
But I use that exact analogy.
He was like, is Israel an ally?
And I was like, no, it's like, they're not a good friend.
Bro.
If your friend's getting you in a bar fight every night, stop hanging out with
that guy.
Bro, Tim Dillon did an ad for NeuroGum and NeuroMints on his podcast where he's
like, I have a friend.
And let's just call her Erica.
And he does this Erica Kirk ad.
He doesn't say it's Erica Kirk for NeuroGum.
Have you heard of Jamie?
I think so.
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
It's so funny.
Oh my God.
It's so crazy.
He's so out of his...
I fucking love him so much.
I am so happy Tim Dillon's in the world.
He is the...
He's the best.
If you're not listening to his podcast and you want a rational but hilarious
take on all the fucking madness that's going on with not just this war, but the
Epstein Files.
His episode of the Epstein Files, I hardly ever tweet about other people's
podcasts, but I hardly ever tweet.
But I posted it.
I'm like, this is one of the best podcasts about anything ever.
His ability, Tim's ability to like rant.
It like...
Unprecedented.
Like a hilarious rant that is laced with excellent points, but it's just
hilarious the whole time.
And just him going off is second to none.
And he's sober.
He just puts on his magic glasses.
It's him and Fuentes are the top two.
Oh, but he buries Fuentes.
Fuentes is really good.
Fuentes has...
Tim can do something different than anybody else can do.
Yeah.
Well, his ability to blend sarcasm and just celebration of chaos.
Yes.
It's second to none.
He's the best ranter that's ever walked the face of the planet.
I remember when I first met Tim in New York back before he moved out to LA
after that.
But when I first met him in New York and he was, I think, like he was a green
standup.
I think he hadn't been doing it for that long.
But I remember just like being on podcasts with him and just being like, yo,
this dude is going to be a fucking superstar.
Yeah.
Like it was just like his, his ranting like ability, like he would go off on
things where you would just find yourself like, like you almost have a moment
where you forget you're on the show with him.
Yeah.
You're like, I'm just sitting here watching that.
And then I'm like, oh shit, I'm here too.
I better say something.
But like, he's just unbelievable.
Listen to this ad.
Listen to this ad.
I don't even know if I should tell this, but it does show how effective Neuromint
can be.
A friend of mine, let's call her Erica.
She, she's had a wild life, this woman.
She was in Romania.
She had an orphanage.
She was on a reality show.
She married this famous guy.
She was an intelligence asset.
And I said to her, how do you do this?
And she says, Tim, it's Neuro's energy and focus mints.
And I said, but how do you do it after the guy, the husband and father of the
kids gets murdered and you're out there doing all kinds of stuff?
You're doing fundraisers and you're dancing around with glitter pants.
How does this happen?
She goes, I could lie to you, but I'm telling you it's Neuro's energy and focus
mints.
I said, really?
She goes, sure.
I said, how are you running this organization seven hours after this guy got
popped?
She goes, a lot of people speculate, but it's Neuro's energy and focus mints.
I go, really?
She said, yeah, Neuro energy and focus is powered by natural green tea,
caffeine, L-phenanine for calm, focus and vitamin B12 and B6.
I mean, whatever they're paying him, they should pay him more.
Yeah, it's not enough.
No one can pay him enough.
He's the goat.
Well, that'll also just make you remember that product forever.
Yeah.
No, he's the greatest of all time.
I'm trying to figure out how to turn our racetrack sign on all the way.
Is it broken?
Yeah.
Goddamn, we need a new one?
I'll get ahold of Bobby.
He's the goat, dude.
I had someone in the White House come up to me and go, is Tim Dillon really gay?
I go, yeah, he's really gay.
You think he would fake that?
Yeah.
He goes, how long have you known him?
I go, I've known him forever.
He's really gay.
Yeah.
Well, he's a real good undercover, but every now and then you see it come out.
Every now and then you see like, I remember, and this is back when he was young
and he was broke at the time, but Tim was always kind of a snob, even when he
was broke.
And I forget what it was, but I was like, oh, we could get food from this
restaurant.
And he goes, from there?
I go, yeah, they got good food.
And he goes, you think that's good food?
Because he's like a real foodie or whatever.
And then I was just like, oh, I saw it for a second there.
Well, he used to have money because he had money when he was selling-
He had money in finance.
Then he decided to be-
Subprime mortgages.
Yeah.
He was a part of the housing crisis.
That's right.
And he was doing cocaine back then.
He did topple the US economy for a while.
He was part of it.
But then he got into comedy.
He more than made up for it.
He's more than made up for that.
This is where he belongs.
Yeah.
He belongs in front of that screen with the glasses on, just going on these
insane rants.
Oh, yeah.
He's so funny, man.
And look-
His Epstein Files take was fucking genius, man.
That was great.
Dude, his thing about Sam Harris having a meditation app and also supporting
genocide is the most hilarious thing ever.
Like what human being does both of those?
Such a great take on that.
Oh, he's so funny, man.
Yeah, we're lucky, dude.
We're-
We're-
We're part of a really cool group of people right now.
You know, it's a very unusual time that the mainstream has lost all of its
power of influence on people.
It still puts out information.
It still puts out shows.
But-
They're-
Trying to look like you.
But their funk-
That was the-
That Jake Tapper thing was so crazy.
I was like, what are you doing?
Are you doing a podcast now?
Like, what are you doing?
Dude, it's-
It's such a perfect, like, little microcosm, though, of like-
It's almost painful.
Like, I'm like, guys, just-
Can you hire me?
I mean, like, I've-
But that won't even work either.
I would explain this to you.
No.
It wouldn't work either.
Because they're so trained.
They're so-
It's like-
If you get a dog, and that dog has been-
Maybe a-
Yeah, a cat might be a better example.
If you've never had a litter box in the house, and the cat's been pissing all
over the carpet-
Mm-hmm.
You are always gonna have that cat piss on the carpet.
That's what that cat does.
You're not gonna fix him.
If your entire life you've been spitting out nonsense-
Yep.
From a teleprompter, and now all of a sudden you have to be yourself-
You've been functioning in a world of executives and producers where everybody
goes over every little thing you say and do-
Yep.
You 100% read things you know aren't true.
Or at least partially aren't true.
They added mics for, like, everything.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Their whole setup is they're all trying to look like podcasters.
What?
They're trying to look like podcasters.
No, wait a minute.
They put mics out like podcasters.
Yes.
That's crazy.
Imagine if they think that's all it takes.
But, Joe, talk about completely missing the point.
Right?
It's just fundamentally missing it.
Is that they go, they actually go, okay, so all of these people have left, you
know, watching cable news in droves.
And now they, a lot of people listen to podcasts.
They'll listen to you or Theo Vaughn or whoever it might be.
And a huge reason, right, why people, a huge reason why you've been number one
for so long now is because, however anyone feels about you,
you're authentic.
And it's very hard to deny that.
You know, one of the biggest questions I get when people, like, meet me, if I
do, like, meet and greet after shows or something, it's, it's, what's Joe Rogan
like?
Is a question I get all the time because we're buddies and I've been on the
show a lot, a lot of times.
And, you know, people are, love you.
And they'll go, what's Joe Rogan like?
And I always tell them the same thing.
I go, you already know.
You're, you know, like, you already know who he is.
He's that guy.
And then offstage, he's that guy.
You know what I mean?
Like, that's who he is.
And people like that.
People like that.
Whatever you think about Theo Vaughn, he's telling, he's authentic.
He's being himself.
That's who he is.
That's who he is.
Yeah.
Well, that's how it works.
And because you guys in the corporate media are all professional liars and have
lied to the American people about the last 17 crises, you know, they don't
trust you anymore.
And so then their reaction to that is, you go, well, what if we pretended to be
podcasters?
You're like, no, you dummy.
That's the whole thing.
This is just proving further how inauthentic you are.
Do they have fucking meetings on this?
We act like podcasters?
100%.
100% they do.
Dude, they all, this was to me, despite the fact that I, you know, and people
give me shit about voting for Donald Trump and they could say I should have
known better and whatever.
I was a huge critic of him in his first term and I'm a huge critic of him in
his second term.
But the best thing about Donald Trump winning in 24, and I did predict this
right, I'm not always the best with predictions.
I'm pretty good on issues, I think, but I'm not great at predictions.
They're tough.
But the best thing about Donald Trump winning was that the corporate media
finally admitted it.
They were, they had been pretending for so long.
I remember, we used to joke about, I remember coming on like a few years ago,
and we would joke about how Brian Stelter would always, whenever he talked
about you,
he would always kind of go like, the fringe Joe Rogan.
Like as if he's the mainstream and you're the fringe.
As if the numbers aren't readily available to all of us, that we could be like,
your show has like 200,000 listening and his has 20 million.
So how is he the fringe and you're the mainstream?
I think they thought that though.
But they would pretend, maybe they believed it, but that 24, the election, that's
when they all admitted it.
And then the talking point moved to, we need to find our own Joe Rogan.
The Democrats need to find a Joe Rogan or whatever.
Remember that was like this.
So they kind of admitted that, oh, the podcasts have become the new mainstream
and we are the fringe.
Right.
But the dumb part of that statement was you already had me fucking idiots.
You just lost your mind.
I'm not right.
And I'm not left.
Yeah.
I think both of them suck.
And I think the adherence to the ideologies that the left supports or the right
supports is out of their fucking, you gotta be out of your fucking mind.
Whether it's these crackpot Christian nationalists that think that this whole
war is a way to get Jesus to return on a white horse.
Yeah.
Do you see those guys that were talking?
Yeah.
During the readiness fucking meeting.
That, I think that's nuts too.
I think the woke shit and all the chaos of the fucking last four years of
having a completely open border and the justifications of all these things.
That's nuts too.
I'm not on either buddy's side, anyone's side.
But I think that-
The Democrats aren't ever going to get someone like me because I'm not with
either or.
That's right.
I'm not with either or.
I'm with whoever fucking makes sense and no one makes sense.
Until AI comes along.
And I think they're going to do a really good job.
And AI might stop all of us.
President perplexity is going to run this country fairly and balanced.
Man, I'm willing to try it at this point, dude.
I'm fucking, I'm dead serious, man.
As long as it doesn't like do something to harm people, as long as like that's
its goal, its goal is just to manage society.
It's a big if that you got there.
But yes, if we can get that-
Relax.
Enjoying the hive, Dave.
Open the pod door, Hal.
But what you just said, I think is really-
Open the pod door, Hal.
Well, this is something that I'm encouraged by, is that I think what you just
said there, I really do believe that you speak for super majorities of the
American people.
And that's why, even though Donald Trump has shattered his coalition by lying
us into this stupid war on behalf of a foreign country,
that coalition is still ripe for someone else to pick it up and run with it.
And that's kind of what I'm hoping.
I hope Thomas Massey runs for president.
I think, by the way, they're doing a big money bomb for Thomas Massey on March
30th.
And I think him winning reelection in Congress is like the most important
political election in the country right now.
Because he's done nothing wrong except actually stand up for America first and
for all the stuff that Donald Trump and Tulsi Gabbard and all these people ran
on.
And he's gotten the Israel lobby and the Adelsons, but I repeat myself, have
been pouring millions of dollars into his race to try to unseat him for the
crime of not going along with the Epstein cover-up and not going along with
another stupid war and having some fiscal sanity.
So I hope, I hope he wins, I hope he runs for president.
Imagine those being three negatives.
Imagine those being three negatives that people are saying he's not MAGA.
Yeah.
Well then, okay.
What is MAGA then?
Well, if that's like, I don't know, like my position is always like, if you're
saying, if not supporting covering up the Epstein files or not supporting a
stupid war of choice, a war of aggression on behalf of Israel means I'm not MAGA,
then okay, I'm not MAGA.
I don't, I'm not attached to the, the, the, you know, the phrase, make America
great again.
I don't care.
Then fine.
But if that phrase sucks, here's the thing.
Like, first of all, America is great.
Yeah.
Make America greater, I'm down.
But make America great again and then it becomes a movement of a bunch of
fucking dorks.
Cause a lot of them are dorks.
A lot of them, these really weird fucking uninteresting, unintelligent people
that have got something and they cling to.
And there's a lot of people that are just real genuine Patriots and they're all
lumped into this one group and you got to accept the dorks too.
Fuck that.
Yeah.
Like the concept of making America great is a great idea.
But as soon as you have a fucking team and you allow anybody to join up, you've,
you don't even have tryouts for your team.
Yeah.
So you've got a bunch of fucking dipshits that are running around spouting out
opinions and you have to go along with them because they're MAGA.
And then you've got bots online that are probably from fucking Indonesia or
Russia or wherever and they're pretending they're MAGA and they're saying crazy
shit.
So that's a part of MAGA too.
You've fucked up by becoming a part of a group.
Yeah.
Whether it's a Republican group, a Democrat group, a MAGA group, a fucking woke
group, whatever it is, you fucked up by being in a group.
Yeah.
George Carlin said people are great as individuals.
But when they get in a group, man, they're the worst things in the world.
And that's why, that's why it should be about the, like the issues.
It should be about your principles and what you believe in.
And that's, and you should be like, look, like I've said, uh, many nice things
about Tulsi Gabbard over the years.
And I was extremely critical of her over since last summer into now.
Cause I think she's lying us into a war, which is the war that she was always
opposed to.
The one.
The one.
She sold no war with Iran t-shirts.
Um, she, like this was literally lying us into this war.
So let, well.
Cause that's a big statement.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
Uh, so, and it's, it's true.
So last summer, so Tulsi Gabbard had given her the, as the director of national
intelligence does every year, they give their annual threat assessment.
Then she testified, uh, before Congress about it.
And she, it was very clear in her annual threat assessment that Iran was not
attempting to build nuclear weapons, that they had not yet made the political
decision to attempt to build nuclear weapons, let alone like are actually going
for it.
And, um, and she testified, uh, before Congress saying the same thing.
And then after negotiate, while they were negotiating, Israel sneak attacks
them.
Then she had some post where she goes, Iran could be weeks or months away from
nuclear weapons, which was like, was total bullshit.
It made absolutely no sense at all.
Let me see what the post has.
Sure.
This is from, if you could find it, this is from last, it must have been last
June.
Right.
But is that a fact?
So if they're enriching uranium up to 60% and they just have to enrich it
further for the ability to use nuclear weapons, that is a couple of weeks away.
No, but not, not before it would be, to build a bomb and to make it deliverable.
I think all the experts say at least a couple of years.
But the point aside from that is that at the time, and this is over now, but at
the time, Iran was still members of the JCPOA.
They were still in it.
So it's like-
What is that?
This is the Iran deal that Obama got us into.
Obama is horrible on foreign policy.
He's the butcherer of Libya and Syria and Yemen and he surged in Afghanistan.
But in Iran, he made a deal with them and the deal, but it wasn't just with the
US and Iran.
It also involved Russia and France and England and there were other countries
involved in it too.
And the JCPOA said that Iran couldn't enrich above, I think it was three to
five percent or something like that.
And they were staying in it.
And it created a new inspections regime, which around, so they were having full
inspections.
They weren't enrich.
But the deal also said that if America gets out of the deal, they can enrich up
to higher.
So when America got out of the deal, they started enriching.
And when did America get out of the deal?
Donald Trump tore it up in his first term, I want to say 2017 or 2018.
And then they immediately started enriching?
No, they went up a little bit and then I think there were a couple Israeli
attacks and then they went up to enriching at 60%.
But so the reason we knew they were enriching up to 60% is because they were
still members of the JCPOA with an inspections regime who was going in there
and saying they're enriching up to 60%.
Right, but how much do you actually know about enriching uranium and what it
takes to turn into a bomb?
This is the right tweet.
Let's read what she says.
New intelligence.
Confirm what POTUS has stated numerous times.
Iran's nuclear facilities have been destroyed.
Oh no, I think this is after.
This isn't the right one.
This isn't the right one.
Her tweet was before.
This is from June.
Yeah, this would have been just shortly before.
Very recently.
Her tweet was before we hit Fordow.
Yeah, this is June 25th.
There's a recent one though.
Oh, edited.
June 25th.
Yeah, but it seems like it was still edited the day it was posted.
Probably.
Can you go to her page?
Because she doesn't tweet a lot.
She's not a psycho.
She's not one of those.
If she tweets, it's generally something important or someone from our team.
So is this the...
Hold on.
Above that.
Overwhelmingly elected by the...
Click on that show more.
I think that's it.
Well, this is what she testified to Congress this time.
I was referring to a different one from...
But I also think this is a lie.
I mean, for her to say that the president determines what is an imminent threat
or is not...
No, either there is an imminent threat or there is not one.
This is like saying the president determines the weather or something like that.
Right, right, right.
But you're taking her words out of context.
She's saying something that's factually correct.
As our commander in chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not
an imminent threat.
That is true.
And whether or not to take action he deems necessary to protect the safety and
security of our troops, the American people, and our country.
That's just an actual fact.
Okay, yes, fair enough.
But when she testified before Congress, they asked her like...
They asked her point-blank a bunch of times about this.
And then she goes, "That's not my job to determine what's an imminent threat.
That's the job of the president."
And if he says it is, then it is.
Okay, so look at this here.
Initially, she's contradicting Trump, saying that Iran did not rebuild after
the 2025 strikes.
Contradicting Trump.
So this is also from Time Magazine.
So she's saying that.
Now, what you're saying that she said earlier was a lie is not a lie, dude.
Because that is actually his...
Well, I wasn't referring to that.
I understand.
But you did say that was a lie, what she said was a lie.
Okay, fair enough.
That was not a lie.
But it was...
But it is...
It's actually correct.
And if you're in a position like she's in, where you've got that guy breathing
down your neck, and you're forced to make a statement,
you've got to tread very carefully on this tightrope that you're walking.
Okay, fine.
But let's just say, hypothetically, that you know for a fact that Iran did not
pose an imminent threat.
Right.
And then that's your answer when you're asked if they did.
Fine.
It's not a lie.
But it is very misleading, to say the least.
How much...
Okay, hold on.
Intel Chief Gabbard declines to say if Iran posed an imminent threat to the US.
She declined to say on her own, personally.
But she did...
This is the congressional testimony.
Yes, yes, yes.
I think this is what I was referring to here.
And she does at one point say that it's not her job to make that determination,
which I do think is her entire job.
Um...
It's interesting.
Look, maybe I'm being a little harsh by saying lying in that example.
And fair enough to your point there.
Like, that technically is a true statement.
I do think it's very misleading.
And I do think that she really was the one who advocated against this specific
war for the reasons that we're seeing unfold right now.
Yeah.
And I do think...
I get your point.
It's a very tough tightrope to walk.
The options are essentially, I think, to do what Joe Kent did and resign or to
stay on and support the thing.
I mean, I think it's kind of hard to thread that needle.
Right.
Or impossible.
Do you think that there is any value in being one of the few reasonable voices
that has his ear?
Yeah.
If ultimately it is his responsibility to determine what's an imminent threat
and what is not, I would imagine that she gets access to most of the same
classified information that he does as the director of national intelligence.
Yeah.
I don't know, though.
I don't know how it works.
But what can she do other than try to be a voice of reason if ultimately this
guy is going to do what he wants to do.
Right.
He's going to do also what Israel wants to do, clearly.
Oh, yeah.
And he's talked about it, you know?
And also in his first term, I'll never forget this fucking conversation that he
had with Steve Hilton.
Because I think it was one of the first times since Eisenhower I've seen a
president say...
Steve Hilton, by the way, I've been friends with him for 12 or 13 years.
Met him and his family in Maui on the beach when my daughter's really young and
his kids are really young and they became friends.
We've hung out together, vacationed together.
Oh, really?
He's a sweetheart of a guy.
I love that guy.
And when he was interviewing Trump, Trump said that there is a military
industrial complex and these guys want to go to war.
Yep.
And we were like, what?
This is crazy.
You're just saying that?
Like, you're just saying that.
It's one of the many reasons why a lot of people liked him.
Oh, yeah.
Because he would do things like that where he would completely break protocol
and just say, let me know.
Let me let you know, rather.
Let me inform you.
There's a bunch of people that want to go to war.
And they're pushing me all the time to go to war.
That's what they want.
It was so crazy, dude.
Because also, even Eisenhower, when he coined the term, it was in his farewell
address to the nation.
He was literally like, this is my last stop and then I'm leaving.
Trump was just in the middle of his presidency and he goes, all of them want
war.
They all want me to be in war all the time.
If it was up to them, we'd always be at war.
And I do, you know, now, look, that was great.
I thought actually the one to me that was even crazier was if you remember when
Bill O'Reilly was interviewing him and he's talking about Vladimir Putin.
And he goes, he's like, oh, well, you won't, you know, at the time Donald Trump,
which he had run on, he was trying.
He was saying, we should have detente with Russia.
He goes like, why do we, you know, we have nuclear weapons.
It's like Putin's killed people.
Yeah, he goes, he goes, Putin's a killer.
You want to have a detente with a killer?
And he goes, we got a lot of killers, too.
And then he goes, whoa, whoa, whoa.
What do you mean we got a lot of killers, too?
And he goes, what was Iraq?
What was that?
We got a lot of killers on our side, too.
And then Bill O'Reilly's like, well, I mean, Iraq was a mistake.
But he goes, yeah, we got a lot of killers, too.
And I love that, by the way.
I mean, that was a.
That's breaking protocol.
Yes.
Yes.
Well, I think this is kind of, I think, one of the main reasons why the
establishment revolted against Trump the way they did.
There's something very scary to the powers that be about a guy who, like, by
his very nature, like, I don't even think he's capable of not letting things
slip.
Right.
You know what I mean?
That's who he is.
And that, you know, was a big thing that people really didn't like about him.
Very interesting to me is that so many of the never Trumpers have come to
define his presidency.
Like, if you if you remember back in 2016, the the Warhawk kind of Israel first
or Republican crowd, the neocons and all them, they hated Donald Trump, hated
him with a passion.
Ben Shapiro was a never Trumper.
He said because of his deeply held principles, he could never support Donald
Trump.
Mark Levin was a never Trumper.
All of National Review, all of them.
And now they are the biggest Trump supporters ever as kind of he's blowing up
the coalition that got him elected.
So it's kind of interesting that they all, you know, you know.
But again, tell those guys to all stay off Twitter.
There's not one thing that they ever say that makes them look better.
They get in these silly fucking.
They just feel like they're gonna make some stupid fucking statement and then
refute a couple of people and don't understand the crowd reaction.
When you've got thousands of people tweeting against you now, thousands just
attacking you, destroying you, posting memes, posting videos.
You said this and you said that, you piece of shit.
It's amazing.
It's crazy.
I got to say, I do love that dynamic of it.
I love it too.
There's something that's why I stay off of it.
Yeah.
Well, that's you look, there's problems with it.
But there is something about that dynamic now that was just never true in the
past where it's like, look, I'm not saying it's perfect.
And obviously there's bots and there's things like that.
So it's not like, but the people kind of get a voice in a way that they never
had before.
Right.
And there is something kind of cool about that.
A hundred percent.
I love it.
But it's not all the people either.
It's a lot of fake people.
There's a lot of like state sponsored actors.
No, that's true.
That's true.
There's manipulation, but there was always manipulation in the old order also.
Do you see this YouTube bot farm that they just busted?
No.
No.
They busted this, this fucking warehouse had cell phones all rigged up for
YouTube views where
people would just, they would just hire a company and say, Hey, you know, part
of the problem is not getting enough views.
I'd really like to blow the fuck up and get to number one.
And you hire them and they could get views.
Interesting.
Yeah.
That's also, I mean, I guess if you got advertisements, that's legit fraud.
One hundred percent.
That's like actual fraud.
One hundred percent.
And kind of a weird loophole where I don't think it's illegal.
Yeah.
That's gotta be, that's interesting.
So there's a the bot thing too.
It's gotta be some type of fraud though.
If you're like, if you're intentionally doing that, like maybe if you didn't
know.
Right.
You could, but.
But listen, Twitter pays people.
X pays people to post.
So you pay based on engagement, right?
That's how you get paid.
Right.
So you farm out engagement.
Yeah.
So like what percentage of what we're interacting with is just horseshit?
Well, I got, so, what does it say here?
I know this story just happened.
A guy got arrested and had to plead guilty because he made, I think, I think
what happens, he made a fake band.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He had an AR generated song.
Oh wow.
It played billions of times in an effort to mimic the genuine streaming
activity of real consumers.
Smith pled guilty today, conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Wire fraud.
Check this out though.
I heard a similar story in Japan where.
First of all, let me stop you right there.
All right.
Michael Smith generated thousands of fake songs using artificial intelligence.
Hey, hey, hey.
Stop talking shit about AI music because it's not fake.
Those are real songs.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Don't say fake songs.
They're real songs and some of them are fucking bangers.
Unfortunately, some of them are really good.
You're going to like what I was going to say then.
There's a guy who was doing this in Japan and it got viral.
And so he hired people to be the band.
And now the band is a real band.
Whoa.
Kind of popular.
So AI is creating jobs in this case.
Yeah.
Well, you know.
Shifty Brent rules though.
You can never create him in real life.
He's the guy who does the 50 cent ones.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I've seen quite a few of those.
First of all, that guy was real.
He'd have lungs like a fucking ultra marathon runner because the flow.
Like how can you even have air to say what you're saying?
I know.
Like someone was saying that to me.
She was like, I think you couldn't do this.
And my argument was Eminem.
I was like, yeah, you could.
You would just have to be wicked at it.
Like Eminem.
Like Eminem in his prime.
That motherfucker could spit in a way where you're like, I can't believe he's
still talking.
Yeah, it was a, I remember there were a couple of his things where I was like,
I don't, can he actually do this?
And then I saw him do it live.
And not like I was there, but saw it on YouTube.
He can still do it.
Like where you're like, oh, he can actually rap like this.
I saw him recently.
Yeah.
I saw him recently.
It was fucking great.
He's still great.
He's thin.
He looks good.
Yeah.
He was killing it, man.
He was killing it.
But those, the speed in which that he can rap made me go, maybe AI is not bullshitting.
But you know, 50 cent himself was like much more casual in his delivery.
You know, and it was a much slower.
This shifty Brent AI version is like, damn, that was a real person.
That'd be pretty great.
He would be the greatest artist on earth.
You know, I got, there was a guy, I can't remember his name, but just like the
other day,
some guy, he works for Fox news and he came out and had a whole post about me.
And he goes, uh, um, he goes, Dave Smith's account is clearly botted by foreign.
Like, and I don't like, when he said that, I was almost kind of like, there's a
weird thing.
Like I know I've never paid for anything, but like, I don't know.
You know what I mean?
Like what someone else might've done or something like that.
But I asked him, but I, so I replied to him and I go, wait, what evidence do
you have of this?
And then he, his post was that he said, because I had 900,000 followers on
Twitter,
but I'm playing laugh Boston this weekend.
And he goes, that's a 300 seat venue.
So I played that obviously times too.
Well, I was like, first of all, he doesn't understand.
I was like, you just don't get comedy clubs, dude.
Like this is not.
And first of all, I'm doing five shows there.
By the way, come on out this weekend.
Great club.
Great club.
Great club.
One of my, one of my favorite weekends of last year.
It's a fucking great room.
But I was like, look, man, I sold out all the shows last year, hoping to do the
same this year.
But I go, that is any, like, I just know the industry of standup comedy pretty
well.
And I was like, anybody who you're saying would be selling more than this.
So what selling out big theaters or selling out a stadium or something like
that.
All the people who do that have more followers than me.
So like, he's not even right about the ratio of it or whatever.
He doesn't understand the numbers.
But then I kind of like, I, I grilled him on it a bit more.
Cause listen, I'm kind of like you, like when you were talking about suing CNN
back in the day for slandering you,
like I'm never actually going to do it, but I don't mind saying it.
You know what I mean?
So like, so I tagged Fox news and I go, Hey Fox news.
Shouldn't you have some evidence if you're going to make a claim?
Like I'm clearly botted by foreign influence or whatever.
Fox news actually said it.
The guy works for Fox news.
Was he on Fox news?
No, he said just Twitter, Twitter, but he's like a Fox news contributor or
something like that.
Right.
But I'm a UFC contributor.
It wouldn't be like the UFC.
Yeah, I guess I'm saying, I guess that's true.
So I don't know.
Maybe it would just be him in either way.
I'm not suing anyone.
Gotcha.
But I did want him to just, I go, just, just admit you don't have any evidence
for this.
Like just retract that.
Well, here's the thing.
I would agree that your account is botted because you're very controversial
public figure.
So I'm sure all of them are.
Right.
I'm sure my account is botted too.
Right.
I'm sure Jamie's account is botted.
It definitely is.
100%, right?
I'll show you the evidence.
I think Jamie might be a bot himself.
We're all botted, man.
The, if you look at, you know, we've brought up this up a million times, but
there was an
FBI, former FBI analyst who analyzed Twitter before the purchase.
And it was his take that as much as 80% might be artificial.
Now this was just back then before Elon purchased it.
I think they've done, they've taken some steps to try to ensure.
One of the things is you have to, you could go to the person's page.
You can see what country they're posting from.
Yes.
I like that.
Yeah.
Because there's a lot of people that are like pro America and you're like, Hey
man,
you're in Pakistan.
Yeah.
Like what's going on here?
This is kind of kooky.
So there's a lot of that going on.
I've, I've had, I've had before where people go like, Oh Dave, you always say
Israel's trying
to lie us into war, but this is America.
We decide what war we're going to fight.
And then you click it.
Israel.
It's just a dude in Israel talking, saying that.
But at least we're getting steps to know those.
Listen, if it wasn't for Elon Musk, we would be fucked.
I've said this before.
I'll say it again.
History will go back and look at his purchasing Twitter and it, it has changed
the course of
communication in this country for the better.
No question.
I know a lot of you thought, Oh my God, the racism is up and all this stuff is
up.
That's people.
That's the internet.
That is an accurate representation representation of people.
It's not good, but it's also accurate.
And the only way that's going to change is if the other voices are more
compelling.
And at least now they have an opportunity to do that.
Yeah.
Well, and you, and you have to kind of engage in this, whether, and I'm not
saying you have
to be on Twitter or something like that.
But I'm just saying like, if you want to, you know, I would love very much to
get to
a place where like, you'd be like, Hey, let's all agree that we're not on board
with the bigotry
stuff.
And I mean this, like whether it's against white men or whether it's against
black men or whether
it's against Jews or whether it's against Muslims or whatever.
And I see a whole lot of all of that.
And I'd love to move past that.
I also would, um, like, like I, I wish there was a way that like Mark Levin and
Tucker Carlson
could have like a cool conversation.
You know what I mean?
And not like, not like be like, but well, look, it's not Santa Claus and Jesus
would
come meet me for dinner.
Well, both would be nice.
The latter is more likely.
I think too, at this point, you know, I had a weird thing.
I don't know if you saw this, but, uh, Ben Shapiro, uh, had, he made this video
about
like, about Pierce Morgan and like going at him over having me on, on the show
and he went
this whole thing.
And so he, he says to me, or he said, you know, he insults me a few times or
whatever.
And then he goes out now.
I can hear Dave Smith right now.
And his response to this is debate me, bro, which fair enough.
That kind of is always, but I only have one tool in my toolkit.
Like, right.
Come, let's podcast about this.
I don't know.
Like, this is what I do.
I talk, but he's not willing to do that.
He goes, no, because you're like, so, uh, he said, because I won't, I don't
debate such intellectually
dishonest people or something like that, which I thought was a weird criticism
of me.
Like you could say I'm wrong, but I do believe the shit I say.
Yeah.
I don't think you're in the, I don't think in any demonstration of any, I don't
think there's
a single moment that I could point to that I think that you've been
intellectually dishonest.
I think that is like factually incorrect.
Yeah.
Well, thank you.
That is gaslighting.
You are very honest.
You're a very honest person.
Well, thank you.
I try to be.
No, you are.
It's one of the things I love about you.
You, you're honest about your fuck ups.
You're honest about your, what you're incorrect about and what bothered you.
Not plenty.
About things that you've said.
You're, you're very honest.
So that's a silly thing to say.
That's total gaslighting.
Well, it's also, well, I look at it like this and I don't, you know, honestly,
like,
obviously Ben Shapiro wanted to debate, I would, I would do it.
But he debated everybody before all this shit went down.
Well, that's the thing.
You go, dude, you can't say I'm beyond the pale when you're known for debating
19 year olds
who are confused about their gender.
You know what I'm saying?
Everybody.
No, I don't know if you remember this.
And this to me, I actually think is, is very interesting, but I don't know if
you remember
this, but on this show, Ben was on years ago and there's, you know, years
before October
7th or anything like that.
But he was saying, he was talking about Israel and his defense for Israel.
And you went, you go, that's interesting.
Would you ever debate someone, you know, who's a critic of Israel?
And just generically, not about a specific person.
And he goes, absolutely.
I'd be happy to do that.
And, you know, the thing about guys like that is that, particularly with Ben
Shapiro, for
the last two and a half years, his number one issue, Israel, has been the
number one topic
of conversation.
And in that time, Israel's support has been bleeding.
I mean, just like to a level you couldn't have imagined.
You couldn't have imagined two and a half years ago to go, this will be a pro-Palestinian
country.
That was unthinkable.
And it's become that.
And forget me.
There's way better people than me.
Ben Shapiro debated no one.
He never once had a conversation with a competent critic of Israel.
And that, listen, people saw that.
People noticed that.
And so I kind of, in a weird way, feel like, it's like, hey, dude, I don't care
if you do
the debate with me or not.
I wish, I don't think we ever can.
I wish there would be a world where we could have a good faith conversation,
like a guy with
me and Ben Shapiro.
But he refused to do it with anyone.
Anyway, so while you're smearing everybody who's a critic of Israel, you're not
willing
to like, you, listen, there are some people who don't debate, but he branded
himself
as the debate guy.
Right.
If you don't like Dave, sit down with Scott Horton.
Sure.
Absolutely.
Scott Horton's way smarter than me and knows way more shit than me anyway.
So talk to him about it, dude.
He's a better guy.
I mean, if you're saying that this is the reason why you won't do it, that
sounds crazy.
Because wouldn't you want to debate someone who's intellectually dishonest?
Because it would be so easy to refute them with facts.
Exactly.
So come...
It would be perfect.
It's like dating, it's like sparring a guy who knows fake kung fu.
You know, who thinks he's got a death touch and you're Dustin Poirier.
You're like, oh yeah, bro, lace the gloves up.
Let's go.
And that was kind of my thing with the Douglas Murray thing too, where it was
like at a certain
point you're like, dude, you can't just say you're an expert and I'm not an
expert.
Demonstrate that then.
If that's the case, then it should be easy for you to just chop me up in front
of the world
right now.
I think there's also some things that you had to correct him on.
Yeah.
The history of Israel.
Yeah, like he just got it wrong.
And you could see like the tremor in his eyes like, oh shit.
Like they don't want to give up that ground because they're playing a very
different game.
And the game is not let's be intellectually honest about what we think is going
on and what
we think is good and bad about what's going on versus I'm trying to win.
Yeah.
And one of the ways I try to win is by I can appeal to authority.
You're not an expert.
You know, you're not a this.
You're not a professor.
You don't.
You've never been there.
Yeah, that kind of shit that that that is all like hack ass fake kung fu moves.
You know, you're gonna try on Francis Ngannou.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Okay, so good luck with that.
Not that I'm comparing you to Francis Ngannou.
That's very disrespectful to Francis.
Certainly not when it comes to fighting.
You'd much rather fight me.
This Ronda Rousey card, they got Francis fighting Phillip Lins.
Phillip Lins, who's a light heavyweight in the UFC and the UFC cut him.
And he's fighting the scariest heavyweight who's ever walked the face of the
earth.
I mean, props to him.
Next to primetime Alistair Overeem.
Primetime Alistair Overeem when he was Ubering, I think is even scarier.
I think because he was way skillful.
Like he was terrifying when he was on the sauce.
Yes, but even...
Francis is natural, so he's scarier.
Francis almost has a thing where it just seems like you have to fight a perfect
fight against him.
Yep.
Which Stipe Miocic did.
The first fight.
Their first fight with him.
He took a lot of shots.
That's the thing about Stipe.
Like, Stipe could take a shot.
And you would see he would like jab him and he'd be rocked, but he'd still get
the takedown.
And he exhausted him.
He beat him with skill, strategy, experience, everything.
But in the second one, DC said it best.
He goes, "A patient Francis is a fucking terrifying thing."
Dude, my favorite commentary ever in a fight was when DC said it was just so
hilarious to me.
It was so real.
Like he just meant it.
But it was when Francis Ngannou fought Gan and he grappled a little bit in that
fight,
which we had never seen him do before.
But there was one point where he was on the ground and he like took his back or
something like that.
Like he passed his guard or he took his back or something like that.
And DC just goes, "Oh my God, he's doing jujitsu now."
It was like he was speaking of a robot who just learned how to feel feelings.
He goes, "Oh my God, it's learning.
It's advancing."
Like this is so terrifying.
A guy that's that much of a destroyer that learns how to take backs and strangle
people too
and control you from the back and blast you unconscious like he did with that
dude in the PFL in his last fight.
Took his back and just blasted him into the netherworld.
Yeah, that's that's scary.
He's the scariest guy that's ever fought in the UFC.
Props to that dude for taking the fight.
Scariest, natural, clean guy.
I should say that.
Okay.
Yeah, fair enough.
Fair enough.
Yeah, because we only got a couple Alistair Overeem fights where he was Overeem.
The big one being Brock Lesnar.
That was the big one.
And of course the other fight on that card that they added, which is huge, is
the Nate Diaz.
Well, here's my point.
If Nate Diaz is fighting, I'm paying whatever you're charging.
I'm going to be wherever it is.
And it's Mike Perry.
Great fight.
He's a bad motherfucker.
Yep.
That's a great fight.
But my point is, they also have Roe Bellis Despain, who's on the card.
Who's a six foot seven Cuban Taekwondo expert.
Who's a heavyweight.
He's a knockout artist.
Where is he fighting?
Where is he fighting?
Where is he fighting?
He's fighting Junior Dos Santos.
And Junior Dos Santos is, you know, he was an all-time great, but he had a long
career.
And he's had some bad knockouts.
And some wars too, dude.
Bad wars.
The wars with Cain Velasquez took years off his life.
The war with Stipe.
It was almost criminal that they didn't stop both of those fights.
Well, they were definitely horrible and terrible to watch.
But the point is, Roe Bellis is huge.
He's a real heavyweight.
He's a big giant knockout artist.
Like, that would have been an interesting fight versus Francis.
Big, super tall guy that's hard to hit.
Yeah.
And if it just is a striking fight, the problem with Roe Bellis, he got exposed
in his last
UFC fight on the ground.
He got beat up.
His ground game's not that good.
Could have gotten better.
But on the feet, that's a little bit more interesting to me than Phillip.
Although Phillip's a skillful fighter.
You know, he's used to fighting at light heavyweight.
The UFC cuts him.
And now, all of a sudden, he's fighting against Francis.
Yeah, that's a little bit of a mismatch.
But hey, I mean, you know, we've seen crazy shit happen in MMA before.
I said Phillip.
Felipe.
I think it's pronounced Felipe.
Felipe Lins.
But he's a good fighter.
I mean, it's not a bad fight in that sense.
But it's like, you're going up against a guy with a chip on his shoulder that
they're paying
20 million dollars.
He's the lineal...
I don't know what they're paying him.
I'm just guessing.
But he's the lineal heavyweight champion of the world.
The real one.
Yep.
Like, if you really plot it out, no one beat him for the title.
That's a crazy fight.
It's like, that's how shallow the heavyweight division is outside of the UFC.
There's so few fights for you to get Francis for.
There's so few fights in the UFC.
I mean, the UFC's heavyweight division is a real mess.
It's very hard to find gigantic men who are excellent fighters, I guess.
There's a lot in Russia, okay?
Yeah, yeah.
There's guys that are fighting in other countries that are really good, that
are coming up.
It's just like, it's hard to get them over here.
There's Josh Hokit.
He's a bad motherfucker.
That's that wrestler dude who's crazy, who has these crazy speeches after the
fight.
Puts on an American flag bandana.
And he said, "Brittany Griner has a dick."
Like, "Brittany Griner's a man."
I forget what he said.
I love it.
But he's just nuts.
But he's also like really smart about marketing.
Who's the other guy?
You talked about him several times.
He's the Olympic wrestler guy.
Oh, Gabe.
Gabe, yeah.
Yeah, Gabe.
Stevenson?
Yeah, he's not in yet, though.
I had him on the podcast.
He's not in the UFC yet.
When he's in the UFC, he's going to be a fucking problem.
Olympic gold medalist, elite wrestler, moves like a cat, 250 pounds, young,
super dedicated,
and just recently learned striking and is fucking people up with his hands.
Yeah, and is picking it up quite quickly.
And is a Jon Jones protege.
So he's been being mentored by the GOAT and absorbing his mindset.
And that guy's helping him.
He's investing his time into training.
If you're a young guy, you know what a fucking boost of confidence, the
greatest of all time,
says you're going to be the man?
Yeah.
You're going to be the fucking man.
You just stick with this plan, and they're bringing him up the right way.
He fought in dirty boxing.
He fought some small MMA organizations.
He's just like building up experience.
Yeah, and there's not, there's never been a lot of, but there's not really
right now
in the heavyweight landscape.
There isn't really like a Frank Mir or a, what's his name?
Minotaur.
Noguera.
Noguera.
Where there used to be these like guys who were like kind of known for fighting
off their
back.
You know what I mean?
Like most heavyweights don't really like fighting off their back.
These, even the guys who are really good at jujitsu.
I also think just in general, fighting off your back is a lot harder than it
used to be.
Fabricio Verdum was the greatest.
Yes, yes.
That's a great.
He was incredible.
He was the best at it.
But there aren't really that many guys like that.
A lot of these guys, you take them down.
They're in trouble.
They're in trouble.
Yeah.
And when you got a guy like Gable, guess what bitch?
You're going to get taken down.
And there's not a fucking thing you can do about it.
That is a next level wrestler.
I just saw one of his recent fights where he's finishing a double leg before he
realized he
knocked the guy out it seemed like.
He KOs him with a left hook and he's so fast that as the guy's collapsing on
the way down,
he shoots a double, connects, takes him to the ground while he's unconscious.
Yeah.
So before the guy has a chance to drop, that's how fast he is.
He's already on him taking him down and pounds him out while he's already
unconscious.
Yeah, that was scary.
Ooh, that guy's a problem.
He's a problem.
And that's an American heavyweight motherfucker.
We need one of those.
We need some American champions.
We're down.
Get him in the White House.
Yeah.
I mean, are there any American champions right now?
Who are the American champions?
Mackenzie Dern is the strawweight champion.
So she's technically an American.
Although her dad is a very famous Brazilian legend.
Okay.
Yeah.
Megaton Diaz is her dad.
And she was a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu champion.
But she is American.
So she's a champion.
Other than that, who?
Sean Strickland's fighting for the title.
Kayla Harrison.
Kayla Harrison.
That's right.
So it's only women that are the Americans.
Yeah.
Look at that.
Boy, you're going to see a lot of those dudes with those beards.
As they keep coming over here.
You're going to see...
Oh, Joshua Van is an American.
That's right.
Yeah, it is.
You got to see a lot of those dudes.
Yeah, it is.
That's a caveat though, the Joshua Van.
No disrespect for Joshua, because I think he's an awesome fighter.
But he won that fight.
We got to have a rematch on that one.
Yeah.
That was a freak injury.
I mean, he fell and dislocated his arm.
It's a complete freak injury.
And Pantoja still hasn't fully recovered from that.
So it was pretty bad.
Whatever the fuck.
They said his shoulder dislocated and his elbow.
Yeah.
I remember hearing that afterward.
It looked like it was just his elbow.
Uh-huh.
But they said...
The doctor had said it was his shoulder.
And so what it...
The thing about the elbow is...
The elbow is a less complicated joint, right?
And so when the elbow gets dislocated, if someone just pulls on it, it can pop
back into place.
So like saying that there's...
As long as they know what they're doing, right?
Because you don't want to do it like Yuri Prohaska's team did and rip his
shoulder apart and he needed surgery.
He probably needed surgery anyway if it was dislocating like that.
It was probably loose.
But the point is that like his elbow might have popped back into place by the
time they brought him backstage.
And that's when they realized his shoulder was fucked.
Because his shoulder probably hurt more even than his elbow.
Right, right, right.
That was unfortunate because that was a real interesting fight.
They dislocate a lot.
You know, and sometimes people dislocate their shoulders and don't even realize
they do.
It happens.
Oh, really?
Apparently, according to my...
This orthopedic surgeon that I went to back in the day before I realized that
stem cells could fix it.
This guy was convincing me that I had to have surgery.
And one of the things he said, "Do you know that your shoulder's been dislocated?"
And I said, "It has?"
He goes, "You didn't know?"
I go, "No."
He goes, "How long...
How many times you hurt your shoulder?"
I go, "How much time you got?"
I can just sit down and talk about how many times I've been comorrid.
How many times I've been fucking arm blocked.
How many times I've been caught in a triangle.
How many times, you know, posting on the ground I've jostled my shoulder.
The good news is there have been no fracture or ligament injury.
That's great.
Oh, that's Bahumpa said that.
So from that, we have great expectations for his return.
But the exact time frame is still unknown.
Still needs a lot of physiotherapy.
Start moving his arm.
Wow, then he can go back to light training and then hard training.
Bro, we gotta get that guy down to fucking the CPI in, you know, the Cellular
Performance Institute that the UFC uses.
Get that dude down to Tijuana.
Fill him up.
I'm worried about the new model for the UFC.
The Paramount model?
I'm worried about the Warren Aran and the new UFC model.
This is what keeps me up at night.
Oh, I get it.
So what are you worried about with the new UFC model?
Look, I'm no genius, but it seems to me like I'm a hardcore fan of the UFC,
right?
So I was, you know, I order every pay-per-view.
Right.
Everyone, you know?
And so every, any Saturday, if I'm on the road in my green room, we're watching
the UFC.
If I'm not on the road, I'm either at home watching it or I'm trying to go to
the event if it's in town.
Right.
So then it's like, okay, ESPN is over.
We're not doing that anymore.
So then they go, we're switching to Paramount.
Now I already had Paramount because like my kids like some shows on Paramount.
Yep.
So now.
Landman.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
I watched Landman.
Great show.
So, you know, so like I have Paramount Plus.
I'm like, oh, okay, well that's easy enough.
And then I'm like, so wait a minute.
Hold on.
So you tell me I just get everyone for free now.
I just don't have to order pay-per-views anymore.
And there's just something about that.
Now I'm not saying whether this is Paramount's mistake or the UFC's mistake or
whatever,
but just like the basics of business to me go.
So you just had a loyal customer who's very happy to pay for every pay-per-view.
And I'm just not now.
Like this just on somewhat.
Now I understand it's because Paramount gave them a whole bunch of money.
But on some level I go, number one, I go, but how is this good for business if
the customer
no longer has to pay for a thing that I was happily paying for?
Okay.
Let me correct you.
Okay.
Sure.
First of all, Paramount, the idea of doing this and investing $7 billion into
the UFC over
the next few years, the positive that they're going to get from that with loyal
new customers
is massive.
So it's introducing it to a whole new audience.
If you're a loyal pay-per-view buyer, if you spend, what is it?
70 bucks for pay-per-view?
I think something like that.
So 70 bucks for this big time pay-per-view card.
Now you get it for free.
You just have to pay for Paramount Plus every month for the year.
You're saving so much money.
Huge amount of money.
So the amount of new people that are going to go, oh, this is awesome.
I don't have to pay for pay-per-view anymore.
I pay for Paramount Plus and I get all these awesome shows too.
Because Paramount Plus has a ton of great fucking shows.
No question.
It's a great deal for the consumer.
So you get roped in through that and then you go looking around on Paramount
Plus and
you stay a loyal subscriber.
They have all these years with this new influx of viewers from the UFC deal to
build up more
of a library, more shows.
It's huge for business.
Okay.
Fair enough.
So take their app from where it is now and take their streaming model from
where it is
now and quadruple it over the next X amount of years.
Okay.
So for them, they're bringing in the whole UFC audience.
And how many people would look at a pay-per-view card and look, I would buy
every one of them.
Even when I was working for the UFC, I would go on ESPN Plus and I would buy
them even though
I was there.
I was like, I want to be able to watch it in the gym when I get home.
I'm going to buy it.
And so you've got all these people that were looking at those cards that were
like, this
one, I don't know.
I don't know if that's worth 70 bucks.
If you're on a budget and you're looking at this one, you're like, who's
fighting?
Nah, I'm going to pass on this one.
I'll watch it in a couple of weeks on ESPN Plus.
Cause you could just wait a few weeks.
I don't know how long the timeframe is, but you can wait a few weeks and you
can watch it.
This, you don't have to do that anymore.
It's 10 bucks a month.
What is Paramount Plus a month?
How much does it cost?
I think they upped it to maybe 12 or 13, but I'm not sure.
Let's find out.
So we're accurate.
But you're saving so much money.
But also on ESPN, they charged you something like that too.
Like you had to pay an ESPN fee and then you had to pay for each individual pay-per-view.
So no, listen, I'm saving a lot of money off this.
Okay.
$13.99 a month or $139 a year for the ad-free premium plan, which includes Showtime.
New and former subscribers can currently get any monthly plan for $2.99 a month
for the first two months.
It's not bad.
So for a new subscriber, you could try it out for two months for $2.99 a month
and watch every UFC for $2.99 a month for two months.
It's fucking worth it.
No, no question.
And then you're going to get this huge influx of people that, you know, if you're
on a budget, you're not going to subscribe to Paramount Plus.
You already got Netflix.
Netflix costs X amount of money.
Maybe you got HBO Max.
That's X amount of money.
I can't afford Paramount too.
I don't want to pay another $10 a month or $14 a month.
Now you just, it's easy.
Yeah.
No pay-per-views.
Yeah.
They made a lot of wives of hardcore fans happy.
I'm sure for that to be like, I don't have to buy these pay-per-views anymore.
Paramount shows.
Yeah.
They get the Paramount shows and they don't have to do that.
All right.
Fair enough.
I guess it's just in some ways, I guess, and I don't really have much of a mind
for business, but in some ways, there's just a thing where it's like, we've
always done it this way.
Now we're doing it a whole new way.
Yeah.
But it's been on streaming for the last few years.
Yeah.
That's true.
So it's always been on an app anyway.
And then Paramount, you could get it on Apple TV.
You can get it on Android TV.
You can get it on all these different things.
Like there's no reason to not have it.
Yeah.
It's easy.
It's just great for, as a business move for Paramount, it was a smart fucking
move.
Because you get this built-in hardcore fan base.
Now, have some of the cards been lackluster?
Yes.
But guess what?
That has always been the case.
Yeah.
And that's just a matter of time.
Eventually they'll be.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And there's been cards that, even though they look good on paper, in reality
they weren't so fun.
Yeah.
But I also, I'm with you, because I remember you used to say this back in the
day all the time.
But I am like a purist fan in MMA in the sense that like, all of that is like,
I don't care.
Like, you feel like, oh, it's boring.
You're like, it's the most exciting sport in the world on its worst day.
Even in a fight that's a bad fight.
Because if you remember the Frank Mir Cro Cop, it was a good example of this,
where it was just a boring fight the entire fight.
And then there's a spectacular knockout at the end of it.
And even if that doesn't end up happening, you're always watching like, that
could happen at any moment.
It always can happen.
I also am with you.
I believe in like, I don't believe in stand-ups.
I don't think anyone should ever be stood up.
I don't think you should be separated for stalemate or whatever.
It's like, if someone puts you in that position, then you've got to get out of
it.
Yeah, you've got to figure out how to get up.
If they're not doing enough on the top, that's silly.
Sean O'Malley explains why piracy led to the UFC's massive Paramount deal.
Oh, interesting.
There's a lot of people that'll pay for it every week, but there's a lot of
people that won't.
That makes sense.
They're streaming it illegally.
That makes sense.
I knew there was a lot of that because there were sites that you could go to
and people would openly talk about it.
You can go to it and just watch the pay-per-view.
It's a good move, dude.
It's a good move for the business.
It's just like, they just need a few banger cards to make people forget about
the stale ones.
But that always, that will happen.
It's inevitable.
You're going to have stale cards.
I'm concerned about the White House fight.
I'm concerned about it not just from a security standpoint.
I'm concerned about it because it's outside.
It's June and it's in Washington, DC.
If it's hot out, and it could very well be, like what's the average temperature?
I looked this up the other day.
Average 67% humidity in last year, or 2024 is 100 degrees on June 14th.
Okay.
Okay.
That's tough.
Okay.
Yeah, that's an issue.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
That's a fucking big problem, dude.
That's a big problem.
You are going to radically affect their performance if you make people fight in
100 degree temperature
with 67% humidity outside.
Yeah.
You're also going to radically affect my ability to do commentary.
Okay?
My fucking head doesn't have any hair.
The top of my head is going to be beet red.
I'm going to have to put some toxic sunscreen on it.
You're going to see me with that white zinc powder that the surfers use on
their nose.
It'll be all over the...
I'll make, like, fake hair with, like, white zinc.
Dude.
My head's going to get cooked.
That is an issue.
Last year was 80% chance of thunderstorms with highs in the mid 80s.
Okay.
Are they building a tent?
Is this outside outside?
Yeah.
Or is it outside in a tent?
Are they going to have, like, fans blowing cold air on us?
You know how much DC's going to complain?
That fucking dude, he's going to be right next to me.
His shirt's going to be soaked.
Yeah, that's a bit of an issue.
You won't be able to tell with mine, because I always wear black anyway.
But everybody with a white shirt or a blue shirt, if Anik has a light blue
shirt on,
his pits are going to be fucking filled up with sweat.
It's going to be ridiculous.
That also, like, really legitimately changes the actual fight itself.
Oh, 100%.
Isn't that, like, the rendering of it, I think?
Okay.
So, I don't see any AC there, bro.
How are you going to get AC on those people?
What is that going to be like?
That sounds fucking insane.
To do that in June, just because that's a fun time to do it?
I mean, if I was Justin Gaethje, or I was Ilya Toporia, if I was Justin Gaethje,
I mean, first of all, he has to take the fight.
It's a historic fight.
It's at the White House.
Yeah, how are you not going to do that?
He's a true red-blooded American.
He wants to win the title at the White House.
Come on.
You have to do it.
But he's 37 years old.
He's had a long career, and he's fighting maybe the most lethal guy he's ever
faced.
Yeah.
The one guy out of all the guys he faced that can shut the fucking lights out
with one shot every time.
His last three fights is the craziest resume in the history of the sport.
Ever.
Knocks out Alexander Volkanovski, knocks out Max Holloway, knocks out Charles
Oliveira.
Two at featherweight, one at lightweight, all of them leveled.
I wouldn't even say, well, I guess it's debatable, but certainly you could make
an argument the two best featherweights of all time.
Yes.
And one of the greatest lightweights of all time.
And by the way, I know MMA math is never perfect, but you look at what Oliveira
just did to Max Holloway.
Yeah.
Who I love.
One of my favorite fighters of all time.
Love Max.
But you look at what Charles Oliveira just did to Max Holloway.
Bro.
And then you think about the way Ilya Teporia handled him.
Flatlined him in the first round.
And what was, to me, almost as impressive as the knockout was handling him on
the ground.
Yeah.
Past his guard.
He tried to take him down.
Think about the way he got one of those body locks and tried to take him down.
Think about how helpless Max Holloway was for that.
How helpless a whole bunch of guys we've seen are when he gets his hands around
you.
And Ilya Teporia, he tried to do that.
He ends up on top and passes his guard.
Yeah.
Right away.
Also, he ate a really clean elbow early in that fight and just was like nothing.
Shook it off like it was nothing.
He's a special talent.
But then again, when you are dealing with special talents and great, great
fighters like Justin,
who this is probably his last opportunity to fight for the title.
I want that under the perfect conditions.
Yeah.
I want that to be in an arena where it's 72 degrees and air conditioned.
I don't want it to be outside.
I don't want there to be any additional stress or distractions because you're
warming up at the White House.
Like what do you have?
Tents with mats on them and these guys are going to be slipping around in puddles
of sweat.
Shadow boxing in the situation room before you come out.
Who's going to slip on sweat and blow their ACL out?
You know?
I mean, have you ever done striking on mats when a bunch of dudes have been
training like in a class?
It's so fucking slippery, man.
If it's that hot, unless they have these mats where they're getting set up in
air conditioned building somewhere.
Unless they have a facility.
Yeah, maybe they can do that.
I hope they think that through.
I hope they think that through.
I hope they prepare it.
I like the idea that it's like this big celebration of the UFC that the
president loves the UFC so much he wants to do it at the White House.
But in practice, I don't like it at all because you've got two world titles.
You've got the interim heavyweight world title and then you've got this world
title with Justin and Ilya at 55.
I don't like it.
I want those to be at the T-Mobile.
I want those to be at the Madison Square Garden Arena.
You know, I want those to be somewhere dope.
The TD Garden in Boston.
Put it in a fucking real arena where it's air conditioned, damn it.
These are amazing fights.
I don't want anybody fighting when it's 100 degrees outside.
That's crazy.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but also I would think it's you're going to get
sweaty so quick in weather like that.
And that is a big deal for like grappling and stuff like that.
I mean, that's a huge advantage if you're trying to not get grappled by someone.
That's another factor.
These are people that just were radically dehydrated 24 hours ago.
And then you're asking them to compete in a sauna.
You're basically asking them to fight in a sauna.
That is still so crazy to me that there's not a way that we can just get two
guys who weigh 180 pounds to fight at 180 pounds.
I've had this conversation with them at the end of time.
And instead we have to have two guys who weigh 180 pounds cut down to 150
pounds and then rehydrate up to 180 pounds to fight at 180 pounds.
And fight.
And weaken themselves.
Like radically weaken themselves.
I see those guys the day they weigh in.
The worst ever that I ever saw was Travis Luder.
Oh, yeah.
Against Anderson Silva?
I remember.
Yes.
He missed weight.
But I was backstage for all of it.
Right?
So this was back when the weigh-ins were the time of the actual weigh-ins.
It wasn't the ceremonial weigh-in.
Like now they give them more time.
You can weigh in in the morning.
And then by the ceremonial weigh-in, it's usually 5:00 p.m.
Usually these guys have significantly rehydrated.
They do it slowly, but they have a process to it.
But Travis missed weight.
And so I was backstage while they gave him X amount of time to make the weight.
And dude, he couldn't walk.
He was shuffling.
Shuffling.
Like he couldn't pick his legs up.
His lips were cracked.
Yeah.
His face was dry.
He looked like he was gonna die.
He looked like a guy who had been shipwrecked.
You know?
And like lost at sea.
And just drinking his own piss for a week.
And they finally rescued him.
That's what it looked like.
Right.
He was dying, I guess, right?
I mean, that is what you're looking at.
He was dying.
And then 24 hours later, he has to fight the greatest middleweight of all time.
He has to fight Anderson motherfucking Silva in his prime.
And did, for that being the story, did remarkably well.
Bro, he lit it.
He got viciously elbowed.
It was elbowed in the triangle.
It was elbowed from a triangle.
Yeah, yeah.
But that would not have happened if Travis wasn't compromised.
Travis was a real problem back then.
Yeah.
And he was one of the best jiu-jitsu guys to ever compete in MMA.
And he was stylistically kind of like the best shot against Anderson Silva at
that time.
Exactly.
Because Anderson Silva just looked untouchable.
And he got him down.
He got him into good positions a few times.
Even though he was fucked from the weight cut.
But the thing was, he never made the weight.
So even if he beat him, he wouldn't have got the title.
The whole thing was fucked.
Yeah.
But it's like, I've advocated for, there's a solution.
One of them is multiple weight classes that are additional to what we have.
Have one at least every 10 pounds.
And it probably should be more.
And a lot of people push back against that.
But listen, 10 pounds for an elite athlete is a big fucking deal.
20 pounds is crazy.
So when you go like 85 to 205, that's crazy.
Yeah.
That's too much weight.
It's too much of a gap.
You could have multiple champions in between those weight classes.
And it's just better for the sport overall.
You've got more champions.
You've got more champion versus champion matchups you can make.
Well, there's, it also, first of all, it's very unhealthy and dangerous.
And that's the biggest issue.
But then it also makes it a thing where it's like now there's, there's two
factors.
It's not just who's the best fighter.
It's also who's the best at dehydrating themselves, losing a ton of weight and
rehydrating themselves.
And also I think like I've heard, I've heard GSP say before that like some
people are just naturally better at that.
Yeah.
Some people just fluctuate and weight more.
Some people can lose a lot of weight and then gain it all back the other day.
And he used to always say, I just can't do that.
Like I'm not a guy who can do that, but I think all of us, we just want to see
who the best fighter is.
Exactly.
We don't care about who's the best at dehydrating.
Anything that hampers your ability should be removed from the equation,
especially if it's something like this.
But there's a solution.
First of all, there's a real silliness to the MMA weight classes.
And why I say silliness, our names that we use have been owned by boxing for
more than a hundred years.
And the names that we use are for different weight classes than boxing uses.
Yeah.
That's dumb.
Yeah.
That is dumb as shit.
Like if you want to have a 170 pound champion, fantastic.
But don't call it a welterweight because welterweight is 147.
Right.
It's been 147 for over a hundred fucking years.
The fact that you have a 147 champion and you call that or 145 champion, you
call that a featherweight.
Featherweight is 126.
Yeah.
That's what it's been in boxing forever.
Lightweight has always been 135.
That's what Julio Cesar Chavez was the champ of.
135.
135.
Lightweight is 155 in the UFC.
Like, come up with your own names.
Yeah.
Why do we still have these stupid names?
I never thought about that.
It's a good point.
They attached these names to it when they first started developing weight
classes.
Because it used to just be one weight class.
Another one on this.
Why?
And I think you've mentioned this before.
Why am I not getting the leg reach?
They do that sometimes.
Do they?
Yeah, they do that.
But on the regular tail of the tape, it'll still just be reach.
Yeah.
But in this, because that actually, for MMA, that's such a huge deal.
Sure.
Like, it's such a huge...
Because you're kicking.
Yeah.
If you're in kicking range of me, you know what I mean?
But you can't touch me, your jab doesn't matter as much as in boxing, you know?
Right.
And some guys, they have really long legs for their torso.
Like, my friend Larry, my friend Larry Jones from my Taekwondo days, he had
this short torso.
What is this?
Aldo's leg reaches longer than Stipe's.
Whoa, that's crazy.
Is that right?
That's crazy.
Stipe just has a way longer torso?
That's nuts.
That's crazy.
They're the same size.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
Well, Aldo was such a good kicker.
It's probably part of the reason why.
Yeah.
My friend Larry had this short torso.
Like, really short torso.
But he was like 6'3".
And he was all legs.
And he was this insane kicker.
He was like a freak.
Yeah.
Like, he was made in a lab.
And when guys would fight him, like, you'd see guys in tournaments fight him,
they'd be
like, "What the fuck am I gonna do with this?"
Because his reach was so nuts.
And he was so fast with his kicks.
And you couldn't get anywhere close to him if you were in his weight class and
you were
normally built.
Right.
He was built...
His torso was shorter than mine.
But his crazy long legs and long arms.
Yeah, that's...
Like, some people are just built certain ways.
And for striking, it's a giant problem.
There's another thing that makes Ilya Teporia so fucking unbelievably
impressive.
He's not tall at all.
Yeah.
You know?
And he's just flatlining people.
Oh, I mean Charles Oliveira looked so much bigger than him in that fight.
Oh!
And so much bigger than Max, too.
Yeah.
Oliveira's big.
It's like...
Look, the sport's fine.
It's not...
It's not in trouble.
The sport's not in trouble.
The heavyweight division's in trouble.
The heavyweight division's kind of fucked.
It's in a weird situation.
The Alex Pereira thing is very interesting.
Alex Pereira versus Cyril Ghosn is very, very, very interesting.
'Cause Cyril Ghosn is a problem.
That guy's a problem.
He's super athletic.
He's really fast.
He's super skillful with his striking.
His Muay Thai is absolutely elite.
And he does a lot of things different than what a lot of people do.
And has anyone...
'Cause even Francis, like I was saying before, grappled with him a lot in that
fight.
Obviously, Jon Jones took him down and choked him.
But has anyone really stood toe-to-toe and beat him up?
No.
No.
No one's beat him up toe-to-toe.
Taito Iwasa went toe-to-toe with him and tried to, but he got lit up.
Yeah.
To Cyril Ghosn is a problem.
And even in the little bit with Tom Aspinall, it looked like...
He was winning.
He's tough.
He's tough to fight like that, man.
Not just tough.
He was like getting off on Aspinall.
And it didn't look good for Aspinall.
I mean, it's very unfortunate that he got his eyes poked.
I mean, that we really never got to see what happens if you drag Cyril in deep
water.
The way Tom would have adjusted for the second round or third round...
Which we've never really seen out of Tom either.
Right.
It was very interesting that we got robbed of that, you know.
Yeah.
We got robbed of that.
And poor Tom.
He's had two fucking eye surgeries.
And then he felt like the UFC disrespected him.
The whole thing's a mess.
It's a mess.
Well, I don't know about the UFC, but a lot of fans did disrespect him.
I saw that.
Which is crazy.
Like, this is really stupid.
We talked about this last night.
It should be one point, period, if you poke someone in the eyes.
If you poke someone in the eyes, one point.
Well, especially if the fingers go in the eyes.
If it's like a glancing thing like that, maybe get a warning.
And a nut shot.
And a nut shot.
Straight nut shot.
One point.
The glancing thing.
Maybe a warning.
I think that could be up to the judge's discretion upon view of the replay.
Yeah.
Well, the thing is that, and we were talking about this last night.
If you land a nut shot and it's accidental, as it almost always is.
You know what I mean?
You're trying to throw an inside leg kick.
Unless you dare close.
Well, okay.
Maybe not.
I said almost.
Almost always.
But so, I just see this all the time in MMA.
It's the first one.
It was an accident.
This guy gets kicked in the nuts.
He needs a few minutes.
Usually they don't take the full five or whatever they're offered.
And then you just go back.
It's like, look, even if it was an accident, that's such an advantage to the
guy who kicked him in the groin.
Yeah, you hurt him.
You hurt this guy.
And now he's got to get back to it.
And there's no, so like, it does seem like there almost has to be some
accounting for that.
And there's, I think there's still, it's still a very young sport.
I think there is still too much referee discretion.
I think you're right.
Like, there's too much, like, there should be like an official rule for what we
do in this situation.
Especially those kind of fouls.
It's like, it doesn't exist in basketball, right?
Yeah.
If somebody fouls somebody in basketball and everybody sees it, that's a foul.
Yes.
And the crowd will go nuts, right?
Usually.
But it'd be like a real one, like throwing someone to the ground.
I could show you examples.
There are some fucking wild things that don't get called for whatever reason.
Don't you think that's a little bit of the corrupt referees?
Yeah.
I'm not saying all of them, but that is one thing that's been 100% proven.
Is that referees do get paid off in order to influence gambling lines.
Yeah.
There was that one referee who confirmed that it was the Sacramento Kings
versus the Lakers,
which was like a series that was like notoriously, like everyone was like, yo,
it was crazy.
They didn't call any of these fouls on the Lakers.
And they called all these fouls.
And then a ref came out and was like, oh yeah, that's weird.
And it does kind of make sense because it was the Shaq and Kobe Lakers.
You got to get them in the finals, dude.
Yeah.
It was big money.
God, it was so gross.
I was like, no one told us what to do, but you kind of know what they want.
So you sort of do it.
And then you keep putting on good games and you keep getting the good stuff.
Hang them.
Public hanging.
Fuck you.
We can deal with Congress's insider trading, but basketball must be a fair...
Bad judges hanging.
Hang them.
Hang them all in front of the kingdom.
All right, dude.
Anything else before we wrap this up?
No.
Thank you for letting a non-expert talk MMA with you so much.
I love talking to non-experts.
Dude, thank you so much for everything as always, dude.
My pleasure, brother.
Thank you.
You're the fucking man.
I love you, dude.
You're the fucking man, too.
I love you, too.
We'll have fun tonight, right?
Are you coming?
You leaving?
I gotta go race to the airport.
Ah, damn.
Last night was fun.
There was a lot of fun.
A lot of fun.
Good times.
All right.
Bye, everybody.
Thank you.