EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,062 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- NANarrator
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience. (guitar strums)
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) All right. David Smith, how the fuck are you?
- DSDave Smith
Very good, sir. Thank you for-
- JRJoe Rogan
Cheers.
- DSDave Smith
... having me back.
- JRJoe Rogan
Cheers, sir. Mm. (glass clunks) Always good to see you. Fuck.
- DSDave Smith
You, too.
- JRJoe Rogan
Last night was fun.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, it was great.
- JRJoe Rogan
Good times. And, uh, tonight should be fun, too.
- DSDave Smith
Hell yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hell yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Doin' ... Doin' gigs out in Texas-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
... with Joe Rogan, right when things are all calm for you and relaxed, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Everything's great. Normal.
- DSDave Smith
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
Well, did you see yourself becoming the most important man in the universe? (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
That's not real. (laughs)
- DSDave Smith
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
It's ... It's just, uh, attention.
- DSDave Smith
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course not. Who the fuck could ... would ever see that?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. It was pretty unbelievable. You ... You've took the logical progression from being, you know, a stand-up comedian to an MMA analyst to bringing down the entire regime in the United States of America. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Pssh, I'm not bringing down any regimes. I'm not gonna-
- DSDave Smith
Well, I can ... I can wish.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, well, you ... That's you, though. You're that libertarian cynicist who-
- DSDave Smith
I don't think of it as ... I think it ... I was-
- 15:00 – 30:00
(laughs) …
- NANarrator
done. I'd like to have seen you do that, Joe Rogan.
- DSDave Smith
(laughs)
- NANarrator
Which sounds great, but not all- Not all opinions are created equal. (laughs)
- DSDave Smith
Well, I mean, that is-
- JRJoe Rogan
What, and yours are?
- DSDave Smith
But that i- I mean, he is right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Lookit, they have a fully vaccinated chart. What is that chart? What's that thing to the right? New deaths, seven-day average. Jesus Christ, what are you selling? What is that? But, but by the way, you wanna talk about processed information? How processed is that? New deaths-
- DSDave Smith
And-
- JRJoe Rogan
... seven-day average. Like, uh, okay, show me the comorbidities.
- DSDave Smith
Well, right, right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Show, show, li-
- DSDave Smith
R- None of the... Th- they're not gonna show you any of the data that is actually relevant. They're not gonna break it down in a meaningful way. But I, I, I just think that so- somewhere along the lines in this country, now that we have the opportunity to 'cause of the internet and podcasts and things like this, and, and because guys like Brian Stelter at CNN, these guys have been so, in the 21st century alone, so catastrophically wrong about so many important things, like so many, that nobody trusts them anymore. They, they smell that this is phony, and they don't want that. And I think what you... I, I don't think intentionally, but I think just because it's your nature, what you kinda figured out, is that people were really craving just an authentic conversation.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DSDave Smith
Where people can be flawed, and people can just talk about w- you know, the things that matter, and talk about them from a real perspective and just have a conversation. I'm not putting on a show for you here. I'm not going, "Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Joe Rogan podcast. Today in this blah..." But like, none of that. Let's, let's be human beings here. And that was really attractive to a lot of people. And I, I mean, look man, these guys... You know, listen, the amount of contempt I have for the corporate press, I cannot, like, overstate. I mean, these are, in my opinion, and I think an opinion that's... Like he said, not all opinions are, are equal. Like, I think this opinion is better than his. Uh.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
They are, objectively, the mouthpieces for war criminals. That's, that's what they do. And the idea that they would have the nerve, the nerve to accuse you of spreading disinformation. I mean, i- you know, there's like a... As they're, they've been, uh, um, you know, pushing this war propaganda between, uh, Russia and Ukraine. You know what's so weird that I haven't seen come up? Is that, you know, Vladimir Putin had bounties on the heads of US soldiers in Afghanistan. Oh, no. You know what?
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wait.
- DSDave Smith
They don't bring that up-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wait a minute.
- DSDave Smith
... because that was a lie. That was all bo-
- JRJoe Rogan
That didn't happen.
- DSDave Smith
Oh that's right. You guys just, you guys just pushed war propaganda between the two countries which own 90% of the world's nuclear arsenal. You pushed that on a, based off a lie. And you also said that the last president was installed by Vladimir Putin on some Russian conspiracy.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
But why don't we hear about that that much? Why is that... Oh yeah, because that was a big fat lie. Not to mention the fact... You know, Assad is still in power in Syria, but whatever happened to the fact that he was gassing his own people? Oh yeah, that was a big fat lie. And we know that now 'cause there's been like five whistleblowers from the, uh, the, the OPCW, um, uh, that, that have come out and explained that all of the evidence pointed toward that it wasn't Assad who gassed his own people. And I, I mean, Libya, they said Gaddafi was about to go genocidal against his own people. A, a, a, a study in the, um... They did an investigation in the British Parliament, determined that was a complete lie. I mean, like one after th- Not... Obviously, everyone knows weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was a big fat lie. And these are lies where...... hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result of the lies. So, not just spreading misinformation, misinformation with catastrophic consequences, where like, real human beings have had their lives ruined. And then you would be behind that whole apparatus and have the nerve to accuse somebody else of spreading misinformation when they spread misinformation about you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Specifically about you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Specifically about me.
- DSDave Smith
And they sent their doctor in here, and all he could say when you confronted him on that was like, "Yeah, no, I guess they shouldn't have said that." And then turns around and goes back on CNN and goes, "Yeah, no. We never lied about that." Like, people see this.
- JRJoe Rogan
He didn't totally say that. He, he, that's actually kind of a confusing thing. You could look at that out of context, and I think Sanjay Gupta is a good man. What happened was, he was talking to Don Lemon-
- DSDave Smith
(laughs)
- 30:00 – 45:00
(laughs) …
- DSDave Smith
I think she's wrong about a lot. But, um, but so they hired me, uh, a- at her... Uh, she had a show called Unfiltered, and I was one of the contributors on it. And I think they had no idea what they were getting with me.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
I think they were like, they were like, "Oh, Dave's like a standup comic and he makes jokes about politics, so perfect. He'll come in here and be funny." And they... Dude, I mean, they, they had... When it first started, they had a segment at the end of the show where every contributor got to bring their own topic, you know, like their own... Like, "Here's the topic I want to talk about, and this is what's going on in the news." And I... They literally called me at one point 'cause like four days in a row, I had talked about the war in Yemen.... that was like, all I wanted to talk about every single time. I was like, "This is the worst thing in the world. It's the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying. Babies are like, vomiting themselves to death, and it's all 'cause America is supporting the Saudi-led war over there. We could end this in a day with a phone call." And then it'd be like, tomorrow, "What do you wanna talk about?" It'd be like, "Well, the war in Yemen's still going on and babies are dying and we could end this with a phone call." And they're like... The fourth day, they were like, "You have to talk about something else. You have to pick a different story." And then the fifth day, I went in and I was like, "The war in Syria is all America's fault."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
"And babies are dying, and we could end this in a day." And then like, uh, they stopped doing that segment where the contributors got to pick their story at the end.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wow.
- DSDave Smith
I don't know if it was because of me, but I think it was because of me. But I had some fun moments on there, um, where I'd get to like, argue with, with all of 'em. And then like, as it went on and on, I think it just, uh, I think it just wasn't helping her and she didn't wa-... They just, they started using me less and less and, uh, they, they did renew my contract. I had a six-months contract and they, they renewed me for another six months. But then by the end, they just stopped letting me talk about war. Like, if war came up, I just wouldn't be on the panel anymore.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- DSDave Smith
They'd bring in one person and kick the panel off and little things like that. So I kinda got the hint. And then by like, the last two months, uh, I was just like, "Listen, I, I could just walk away. We don't have to do this anymore."
- JRJoe Rogan
What was y- what, you had an interaction with Brian Stelter.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Uh, so I was on a, uh, a panel with, with Brian Stelter once.
- JRJoe Rogan
What year was this around?
- DSDave Smith
2017. Um, and the topic was, uh, what Brian Stelter's favorite topic is, was, uh, you know, misinformation-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
... on the internet. 'Cause he's the guy, his job is to basically be the guy who covers the press.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DSDave Smith
So he's the beat reporter on the, you know, the media. How does it... And every week, he comes in with, uh, you know, his assessment on the corporate press and he goes, "A plus, doing great work. Except Fox News. Everyone else is doing great, but the real problem is there's this misinformation out there." And I, uh, there was a, a video at the time and it was, uh, I believe it was like, the number one watched video on YouTube of the week. And it was a stupid video. It was, it was about how, um, the Parkland shooting, that, that shooting in, uh, Florida at the, at the high school there, um, was, uh, an inside job. Mm, it didn't really happen. It was all crisis actors and all this stuff. It was stupid, just dumb conspiracy that's not true at all. The shooting happened. People died. Um, but he was going off and off about how dangerous this was and why people bel- w- you know, how do people believe this stuff? And I was basically saying to him like the thing I'm trying to, to say now. Like, it's like, well, have a little bit of self-reflection. Ask yourself, "Why is it that people don't believe you guys?" And, and I was arguing with him. I was like, "Look, there's so many real conspiracies that you guys won't cover that are really interesting. But you won't cover it at all here, so then you leave, you seed that ground to, to somebody else." And, and I was, this was off-air, but I was talking to him about like, why I used to listen to Alex Jones back in the day, like what I found so interesting about him. And I was like, "Well, back in the day, I, I found Alex Jones and he's talking about all these things like, you know, Operation Northwood and stuff like that." And I was like, "There's no way that's true. That couldn't be real." And then you go research it and you're like, "Oh, it is real."
- JRJoe Rogan
Explain that to people who don't know what you're talking about.
- DSDave Smith
So Operation Northwood was this plan. It was, uh, uh, during the, the Kennedy administration, so in the early '60s. Uh, JFK was president, I don't know, '62 maybe? Um, and basically they had this plan which was signed off by the Joint Chiefs to, uh, fa- have a false flag attack to shoot down, uh, an American plane and blame it on the Cubans as a pretext for war, to, to go to war with Cuba. And John F. Kennedy heroically, uh, said, "No." (laughs) Like, "What are you guys insane?"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
Like, "No, I'm not doing this."
- JRJoe Rogan
You imagine coming into office when you're president and you don't really know how they run things.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you get in there and the Joint Chiefs of Staff pushes that onto your desk.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
They wanna arm Cuban friendlies and, and-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... attack Guantanamo Bay, and you're like, "What?"
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wait a minute, wait a minute. There's no real, you're like a fake war? You're making a fake war?
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Oh, yeah? …
- JRJoe Rogan
And-
- DSDave Smith
Oh, yeah?
- JRJoe Rogan
Have you been? Been next door?
- DSDave Smith
No, I don't think so.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh. Oh, boy.
- DSDave Smith
Oh, you're expanding this into-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's fucking wild, dude. Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Oh, here we go.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wait 'til you've seen it. Yeah, yeah. We got a lot of wild shit. We got a yoga room. We got a-
- DSDave Smith
Oh, jeez.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. We got a float tank.
- DSDave Smith
So you're turning this into more what the LA thing was?
- JRJoe Rogan
Bigger. Way bigger. Twice as big.
- DSDave Smith
Oh, that ... okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
There you go.
- JRJoe Rogan
We got a lot of wild shit here. (laughs)
- DSDave Smith
You got ... (laughs) it's always ... throughout the years, it always gets, like, crazier and craz- ... I remember the first time-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DSDave Smith
... I ever did the show, um, at ... it was before the crazy huge one, uh, in LA.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DSDave Smith
It was, like, the, the original-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... studio out there. And it was like the ... it was real, like ... you know, it didn't ... it wa- ... you didn't know exactly. It wasn't clear where the studio was.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
And I was looking it up and trying to find it from the address. And I walk in, and fir- ... I, I knock on the door, and no one's out in that first room. And then I just push, and the door is open. You know, and I'm like, I'm nervous. I'm coming to do Joe Rogan Experience for the first time ever. And I just walk in, and I was unsure if I was in the right place or just walking into ... I'm like, "Hello?" And then I look over and just see the big Wolverine, uh, ha-
- JRJoe Rogan
Werewolf.
- DSDave Smith
... the werewolf, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... thing.
- 1:00:00 – 1:09:20
Right. …
- DSDave Smith
about, I don't know, for the sake of argument, mRNA vaccines. Who knows what it might be?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
But if everyone's pumping the same narrative, there's a certain personality type who's gonna be willing to stand up and say, "I think you guys got this wrong. I think there actually might be something much more to this." And that's not always necessarily just like the smartest person there. It's oftentimes someone who, who has some intelligence but also has the personality to be a little bit confrontational, to be willing to say something outside the box.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's Alex Berenson.
- DSDave Smith
And that's ... Yes. Yes, exactly. And that's also the same type of personality often that will say ... Like if they get it wrong-... will say a kinda fucked up thing-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... and get it wrong.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
But we need those people.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
We need those people. And, and like you said, you want them to be corrected when they get stuff wrong, but you don't want them to be silenced because when they get stuff right, it's often the most important thing ever-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... that they got right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. And if you, uh, uh, uh, if you have a business model like The View where it's just people giving their opinions, and you punish people for the opinions that you find to be wrong, like, that... You're fucking up your own business. Like, you, you... That's not the way to handle things. I'm 100% in support of Whoopi Goldberg keeping her job and not being suspended and l- letting her express herself. And e- she's obviously thought through it. Like, who the fuck i- is 100 per- Like, there's very few things that you can talk to me about where I... my opinion is rigid, impossible to move. There's a few things.
- DSDave Smith
Sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, really m- moral things.
- DSDave Smith
Right, right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, murder and rape and torture and just-
- DSDave Smith
I'm not gonna convince you-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... any of those are okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Yeah. There's-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Okay. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. There's, like, things that, like... you know, genocide and infanticide. Yeah. Of course. Of course. But then when you... It comes to, like, conversations where people are giving their opinions about things, I feel like you've, you've got to allow people... I'm g- I'm not the fucking producer of The View, but you gotta allow those women to express themselves, even when they talk shit about me. Like, express yourself. It's okay. Like, I, I'm, I'm in support of that. I'm in support of you criticizing me. I don't think you should be silenced. I don't think you should be suspended for saying that... something incorrect about, like, the Holocaust. I think someone should come along and correct you, and then you c- should correct yourself, and then we're good.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
And then let's keep moving.
- DSDave Smith
And I, and I... Like, I, I... Okay. So if you have, uh... You had, uh, Dr. Gupta on your show-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... and you had, uh, Dr. Malone-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
Episode duration: 2:54:08
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