Joe Rogan Experience #2025 - Dave Smith

1. 0:00 – 0:42

   Post-intro hang: Austin comedy crowds and Mothership vibes

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. DSDave Smith0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music) What's up, brother?

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      Good to see you, my friend.

   5. DSDave Smith0:16

      Good to be back.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      What's crackalackin'?

   7. DSDave Smith0:17

      Oh, I'm just having fun, dude. Great time at Mothership last night.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      Last, last ... That was a good time.

   9. DSDave Smith0:21

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:22

       That place is always a good time.

   11. DSDave Smith0:23

       Yeah. I can't wait to go back tonight.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:24

       Magical portal.

   13. DSDave Smith0:26

       (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       Fun, fun. Great fucking crowds too. The crowds were amazing.

   15. DSDave Smith0:30

       Yeah. Just incredible. Every time I've been there, and I've been there-

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:33

       Yeah.

   17. DSDave Smith0:33

       ... a decent amount now, always great crowds.

   18. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       Yeah. It's, it's a fun place. Build it and they will come.

   19. DSDave Smith0:39

       Yeah. Well, you sure did.

   20. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       Yeah. Yeah.

   21. DSDave Smith0:42

       (laughs)

2. 0:42 – 5:11

   Prigozhin’s reported death and what it signals for the Ukraine war

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:42

      Yeah. So, uh, we were, uh, on our way over here and I texted you that Prigozhin thing.

   2. DSDave Smith0:49

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:50

      Wild. But not unexpected.

   4. DSDave Smith0:53

      Well, yeah. Y-

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:54

      Is he definitely dead? Is he definitely-

   6. DSDave Smith0:56

      I, I don't think it's definitely. I think this is what people are reporting. I mean the-

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00

      Right.

   8. DSDave Smith1:00

      ... the plane just went down. I, I wouldn't say definitely yet. Um, but I think a lot of us did expect, after he kind of flirted with a mutiny against Vladimir Putin and then they kind of came to an agreement and he leaves, you're like, "I don't think that guy has very long to live."

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:16

      Yeah.

   10. DSDave Smith1:16

       Vladimir Putin doesn't seem to me to be the type of guy you can try to overthrow and then go, "My bad. I think we're cool."

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:24

       What do you think that was all about?

   12. DSDave Smith1:26

       Um, I don't know. I really don't know. Um, they ... At, at first, they were spinning it like he was pissed off about the war, but that never really seemed to make sense to me. I think some type of power struggle and, um, he kind of went for it in a pretty major way, started, like, destroying equipment and moving his forces toward Moscow and then they reached some agreement and they backed off. Um, and now a plane went down, so-

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:54

       Yeah.

   14. DSDave Smith1:54

       ... we'll see.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:54

       We'll see. Yeah, if I was him, I wouldn't be going anywhere by plane.

   16. DSDave Smith1:59

       (laughs) Yeah, r- yeah, you would think, right?

   17. JRJoe Rogan2:02

       Yeah. You should take a bus, bro.

   18. DSDave Smith2:03

       Yeah, yeah. You should take-

   19. JRJoe Rogan2:04

       (laughs)

   20. DSDave Smith2:05

       I have ... You should take a tank anywhere you go.

   21. JRJoe Rogan2:07

       Yeah. You should be inside a safe-

   22. DSDave Smith2:10

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan2:10

       ... riding on a bus.

   24. DSDave Smith2:11

       Yeah. What was crazy is when it first, uh, went down, so many people in, like, the corporate press were like, "This is it for Putin. He's done. Russia's collapsing because they're doing so bad in the war." And all of those narratives seem to be completely disproven.

   25. JRJoe Rogan2:25

       Well, what's scary is, what happens if Ukraine runs out of troops? That's what's terrifying, is, like, how many more soldiers do they have left? How many more people can they force to fight that war? Like, what is the truth in terms of what are their losses? Because what you hear from people that are the true believers in the leftist movement is that Ukraine is winning and that Russia is doomed. We must support Ukraine. And then what you hear from realists, particularly people that have been on the ground, they're like, "It's a slaughter fest. It's horrific, and the ratio of Ukrainian dead to Russian dead is extremely imbalanced."

   26. DSDave Smith3:11

       Right.

   27. JRJoe Rogan3:11

       That's what I'm hearing.

   28. DSDave Smith3:12

       In Russia's favor that-

   29. JRJoe Rogan3:13

       In Russia's favor.

   30. DSDave Smith3:13

       ... Russia, Russia's killing a lot more than they're getting killed.
3. 5:11 – 8:29

   How the 2014 Maidan coup narrative disappeared from mainstream discourse

   1. JRJoe Rogan5:11

      And that ideology is this leftist ideology is that, you know, we have to have Ukraine flag in your Twitter bio. You have to support your ... And regardless of ... And you're not even looking at the, like, objective data to try to figure out, like, what happened here. How did this get started? I've never heard anyone other than you and a few other people online even discuss the 2014 coup.

   2. DSDave Smith5:36

      Yeah. No, it's, um ... It's interesting because these, these ... The narratives kind of change. And one of the things that's interesting about the, the Maidan Revolution, um, is that ... And, uh, like I've played the last couple times we've been here, we played clips of, like, what people were saying at the time. And th- at the time, there were several people who were basically admitting what's going on. They're like, "Yeah, we're stealing Ukraine away from Russia." "Ha ha ha," Gideon Rose laughing with Stephen Colbert.

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:00

      Right.

   4. DSDave Smith6:00

      There's a Senator, Chris Murphy, he was one of the guys who was very involved in it, and he ... Like, he went to Ukraine several times during the, the ... when the revolution was first starting. And, um ... But he was kind of the young guy. Like, it was him and John McCain and Victoria Nuland and then Chris Murphy was kind of this younger senator. And he just said the quiet part out loud on a C-SPAN interview back then where he just went, he goes, "Oh yeah, it was American policy that, uh, overthrew Yanukovych." He goes, "It was, that was our policy that led to him. Without us, he wouldn't have been overthrown." And so, like ... But now ... So, like, they would admit it then.But now, when you talk about it, they're like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, that's not helpful to the narrative." So don't mention that we were involved in overthrowing a government that was more pro-Russian and putting in a government that was more pro-West, 'cause that, that complicates this thing. It's... It reminds me of like, there were these, uh... There were these pieces in the '90s where there was, like, mainstream media outlets covering, uh, the dynamic of, uh, Al-Qaeda and terrorism in, in the Middle East. And they would just, like, bluntly just say, like, "Oh, they, they hate us because of our military presence in the middle East. That's his grievance with us." Just like, you know, that's the news. That's why bin Laden hates us. N- no one had... No one was going, "They hate us 'cause we're free," 'cause that just hadn't been said yet.

   5. JRJoe Rogan7:16

      Right.

   6. DSDave Smith7:16

      You know? Um, and that wasn't till after 9/11... But then after 9/11, it was, "They hate us for our freedom." And now, if you were to make the point that they hate us for, uh, our foreign policy, it's like, "Whoa, where did you get that from? That's insane." It's like, but you all admitted that just only a few years ago. You were openly talking about it. And so it's kinda like that. That narrative doesn't help serve the war party. So now that has to be kind of, like, in the dustbin of history. That, that never happened. The conflict started in 2022 when Vladimir Putin invaded. He was totally unprovoked. There was no other reason. It's just that he's a madman. He's bad guy. We're good guy. That's the conflict. That's like how... That's the tunnel vision-

   7. JRJoe Rogan7:55

      Yeah.

   8. DSDave Smith7:55

      ... you're always supposed to think of war through, and that's rarely if ever the case. It, it's always more complicated than that. And then as soon as you start saying... Which, believe me from the last two, uh, podcasts here, I've heard a lot of people, "Oh, you're spewing Russian propaganda." Or, "You're pro-Putin." 'Cause as soon as you start going, "Well, look, this guy had some legitimate grievances. We did a lot to provoke him," and that all of a sudden means you're, like, on their side.

   9. JRJoe Rogan8:22

      Yeah.

   10. DSDave Smith8:22

       'Cause you're no longer, "We're good guys, he's bad guys." I'm like, "No, actually, there's a lot of bad guys involved in this conflict."

4. 8:29 – 10:46

   Burisma, Hunter Biden, and corruption incentives in U.S.–Ukraine policy

   1. JRJoe Rogan8:29

      Yeah. You were detailing last night, it was really interesting, with, uh, Assan, you and I were, uh, sitting in the green room, and you were detailing the, the coup and then the connection between the Bidens, like how this all happened with Hunter.

   2. DSDave Smith8:46

      Right. Well, so the, the company Burisma, who hired, uh, Hunter Biden... So Joe Biden at the time when he was the vice president under Barack Obama, he was the point man on Ukraine. That was like one of his big tasks that he was given by Obama. And, uh, like, V- Victoria Nuland, uh, was talking about how Joe Biden would get on the phone to give an atta boy to the, the protesters who ultimately overthrew Yanukovych. He was very intimately involved. And this company, Burisma... 'Cause Ukraine's a very corrupt country. They've always been, still are. Th- this company was like very in bed with the Yanukovych government, and then Yanukovych's government's overthrown and there's a new government that comes in. And so they were kinda freaking out like, "Oh, sh- we don't have the government that we're in bed with anymore." And so this was their move to kind of... Instead of bribing the new Ukrainian government, they just went right to the source and bribed... You know, decided, "Oh, here, we'll put the vice president's son on our board, pay him, give him a huge check. And then that kind of, like, protects us against the threat, perhaps, of this new government cracking down on us." 'Cause they're not gonna wanna piss off who the real puppet master is, which is DC. Like, as always. 'Cause like we're, we are the world empire, you know? And that's the thing what's so crazy about the, the war in Ukraine is hearing all of these people in like the corporate press and the political class talk about how Vladimir Putin's an imperialist and he's a war criminal. And you're like, "How... Are... You're just the biggest hypocrite in the history of the universe to be someone who supports the American regime and say, 'Vladimir Putin, how dare you invade a sovereign country? How dare you violate international law? You're killing innocent people,' you know?" I mean, to anyone outside of like the American bubble, that's ju- it's just so absurd on its face that you're... You know, we just got done backing the Saudis in a war of genocide in Yemen for eight years. Now we're gonna turn around and all... They're all humanitarians now for the poor people of Ukraine. It's just that... It, like it doesn't pass the basic smell test.

5. 10:46 – 14:08

   Military-industrial complex pressure and why presidents struggle to say ‘no’

   1. JRJoe Rogan10:46

      No. And it's also ignoring the money. The, the money is the scariest thing. The... And then this is something that Trump was like really the first sitting president to discuss. And we talked about that Steve Hilton interview where he said, "There is a military industrial complex and these guys wanna go to war." And th- to have a sitting president say that out loud, like, "You know, hey, what am I gonna do?" He's just like kinda putting it out there.

   2. DSDave Smith11:12

      But what was, what was... Yeah, it was amazing. But what was crazy about it too was he was almost saying it like the way I'd say it on your podcast.

   3. JRJoe Rogan11:19

      Yeah.

   4. DSDave Smith11:19

      Like, just someone bitching about it who has no real power over it.

   5. JRJoe Rogan11:22

      Right.

   6. DSDave Smith11:22

      You know, he is like, "Yeah, I don't wanna go to war, but all these guys love war. So, war." And you're like, "But you're the commander in chief, dude. Like, you're supposed to-

   7. JRJoe Rogan11:29

      Is it-

   8. DSDave Smith11:29

      ... be able to say no."

   9. JRJoe Rogan11:31

      Is it that you can't say no to everything and you have to kinda navigate that feel... Like, how does that work?

   10. DSDave Smith11:37

       I think... So my, my read on it is that I think they, uh, they kind of boxed Donald Trump in, um, with what he would politically be able to do. And I think that's a lot of what the Russia collusion nonsense was all about. Um, 'cause like you... He was running on let's make a deal with Vladimir Putin, let's be friends with Russia. But once the media is saying, "Oh, you're a Russian spy"-

   11. JRJoe Rogan11:59

       Right.

   12. DSDave Smith11:59

       ... well now you can't really make a deal with Vladimir Putin 'cause then look proof-

   13. JRJoe Rogan12:03

       Right.

   14. DSDave Smith12:03

       ... he was a Russian spy. So they kinda boxed him in. I think they manipulated him and, um, they, they lied to him about a lot of the stuff. I mean, there was... Uh, there, there were articles written about how they had misled him about the number of troops still remaining in Syria, uh, when he tried to... He wanted to end that war several different times. Um, I, I think that they...... they, it seemed like they really, uh, convinced him that Assad had been gassing his own people and that convinced Trump to, to bomb Syria a couple times. Um, I, I don't know exactly what the conversations were like. I do know that if he really wanted to be the guy who was ending all of the wars and he wanted to be the guy who wasn't giving into the military-industrial complex, it, it makes no sense for him to have people like Lindsey Graham in his ear. It made no sense for him to make Mon- Mike Pompeo his secretary of state. It made no sense to have these guys like, um, Mattis and all, all of the ... Like, he put, it, he put the war party into all of these positions and then he's like, "Wait a minute, man, they're undermining me at every turn." And you're like, "Well, yeah. That's, you should've p- put better people in."

   15. JRJoe Rogan13:12

       H- before you get into office, and, and this is like ... I've, we were talking about this last night that like if, if you could sit down with Trump, what would be one of the first things you would ask him? What I would ask is like, first of all, what did you think it was gonna be like and what was it like? When you get into office, how much research do you need to do on each individual to find out where their ties are and like, how do you know who to put in what position?

   16. DSDave Smith13:41

       Yeah. Yeah, no, that's a really interesting question. And like, at what point do you realize ... You know, like at what point-

   17. JRJoe Rogan13:47

       Yeah.

   18. DSDave Smith13:47

       ... did Trump figure out like, "Oh, okay."

   19. JRJoe Rogan13:50

       Right.

   20. DSDave Smith13:51

       "These guys are kind of working against me."

   21. JRJoe Rogan13:53

       Yeah.

   22. DSDave Smith13:53

       Like, "My own deep state is kind of ... My, the, my own intelligence agencies who are supposed to work for me are actually working to undermine me," which they clearly are and many have admitted at this point that they were. Um, that w- I'd be really interested to hear what he has to say about that.

6. 14:08 – 22:28

   Hunter Biden laptop, intel letters, and the mechanics of modern media capture

   1. JRJoe Rogan14:08

      Well, there's v- there's no better evidence than the, was it 51 intelligence officials that signed off on the fact that the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation?

   2. DSDave Smith14:19

      Yes, I believe including four, uh, former heads of the CIA. And there's really, it's really something 'cause there's no like demand for account- accountability for those people.

   3. JRJoe Rogan14:28

      Accountability. Yeah.

   4. DSDave Smith14:28

      Like, "Hey, c- explain yourself," you know? Like, "How did you sign off on this blatant election interference?" You know? Um, and that's, it's one of these things like th- this is why when the Trump supporters who say that they stole the election believe that the, the election machines were rigged or that there was ballot stuffing. It's like even if they're not right about that, which I don't know. I mean, I've never s- I've never seen compelling evidence that that is the case, but you're, it's kinda like, uh, I use the example of like if, if you were like, uh, if you're cheating on your wife and then she's like, uh, you know, like you're cheating on her and then she's like, "I know Friday when you were out, I know you were cheating on me," and you weren't that Friday, cheating on her. Like, even though she's wrong, she's really right. Like, she might be wrong about that specific day, but she knows-

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:15

      Right.

   6. DSDave Smith15:15

      ... su- she knows you're d-

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:17

      Right.

   8. DSDave Smith15:17

      Like, like they know this whole thing is illegitimate and like, "You stole it."

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:20

      Right.

   10. DSDave Smith15:20

       And, and they really did. Um, they, they really did. I mean, they suppressed the October bombshell that would have very likely tipped the election in, in Trump's favor.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:31

       Yeah.

   12. DSDave Smith15:32

       And tried to make it seem again that Russia was, you know, stealing our elections, which another, you know, is another major factor in the whole Russia-Ukraine conflict. That first of all, what a, what an insane provocation of Russia it was for the last six years to have not just people in the corporate press, but like the head, the former head of the CIA, you know, like on TV all, every day saying, "Russia attacked our democracy. They ov- they, they interfered in our election and were ..." And then also claiming that they were in a partnership with Donald Trump to steal it from, uh, Hillary Clinton. And I heard, uh, uh, senators and congressmen and every media pundit, people from the FBI, the CIA constantly saying on TV that this was an act of war by Russia. That Russia d- dr- they would say it's worse than Pearl Harbor what they did. And so if you're ... From the Russian perspective, you're sitting there and you see the most war-hungry country in the world, the country that in the last 20 years has fought seven wars, s- s- you know, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed nations, and they're out there saying, "You just committed an act of war against us." I mean, like, that's a, that's quite an aggressive posture, particularly when they all knew it was bullshit. They all knew from the very beginning. And so you had all of that and then they tried to do it again in 2020, claimed this was a Russian operation to, to, you know, interfere in the election. And meanwhile, all of it was actually a US intelligence agencies' operation to interfere in the election.

   13. JRJoe Rogan17:11

       (sighs)

   14. DSDave Smith17:11

       Just from the other side.

   15. JRJoe Rogan17:12

       It's so crazy. It's so crazy that this is a, not a mainstream narrative and that the news ignores this. They also ignore during the debates when Joe Biden was saying that, "You know, my son didn't make any money over there and I didn't-"

   16. DSDave Smith17:28

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JRJoe Rogan17:28

       "... I have nothing to do with my son's business." Like, it's all lies. It's all easily proven. And there's nothing.

   18. DSDave Smith17:37

       Yeah. And of course if Trump, you know, like, the, the moderator doesn't push back during that debate and say, um, "Excuse me, uh, Mr. Biden, that's just not true."

   19. JRJoe Rogan17:46

       Right.

   20. DSDave Smith17:46

       Like, we know that there's no pushback on that. They just let him get away with it. And he gets to stand up there and say, "Hey, look, all of these intelligence, uh, officials, they tell m- they're, they're backing up my story,"-

   21. JRJoe Rogan17:57

       Yeah.

   22. DSDave Smith17:57

       "... that y- that this laptop is Russian disinformation." And I'll t- I don't know exactly what it is now, but I remember there were, um, they had like opinion polls on this after the Mueller investigation, and it's still an enormously high percentage of Democratic voters believe that Trump and Russia were in, uh, uh, Trump and Putin were involved in a conspiracy-

   23. JRJoe Rogan18:16

       Headline readers.

   24. DSDave Smith18:17

       ... to steal the election. They still believe it to this day.

   25. JRJoe Rogan18:19

       Yeah.

   26. DSDave Smith18:19

       Because they heard Trump-Russia collusion every day nonstop, and that is a huge part of why they support this war, uh, i- in Ukraine. Because they think we're fighting the country who overthrew our democracy-

   27. JRJoe Rogan18:29

       Right.

   28. DSDave Smith18:29

       ... and gave us Donald Trump for four years. It's all just complete bullshit, but they believe it.

   29. JRJoe Rogan18:34

       It's crazy how prevalent it is because people are just headline readers.

   30. DSDave Smith18:39

       Yeah.
7. 22:28 – 28:38

   Schumer’s ‘six ways from Sunday’ warning and the Russia-gate/FISA controversy

   1. DSDave Smith22:28

      Well, look, even, like, with this, this Trump thing, man. It's like... It's... Like I was saying, how so many people still believe the Russia collusion story, which was all made up, man. And you can go, like... You can go follow this whole thing. It was all made up and they knew it. They knew what they were doing. There's that clip. By the way, be- before any of this stuff, this was before Donald Trump ever took office, do you ever see, uh, the Chuck Schumer Six Ways to Sunday?

   2. JRJoe Rogan22:53

      You were telling me about it last night and you were saying we should watch it today.

   3. DSDave Smith22:55

      We should, we should play this.

   4. JRJoe Rogan22:56

      Okay.

   5. DSDave Smith22:56

      'Cause... And let me just... Let me just preface it briefly to kinda set up what's so amazing about it. There are these occasional moments where even, like, I said, the thing where Chris Murphy just happens-

   6. JRJoe Rogan23:06

      Yeah.

   7. DSDave Smith23:06

      ... to blurt out, like, "Oh, yeah. We... Our policies overthrew Yanukovych."

   8. JRJoe Rogan23:09

      Right.

   9. DSDave Smith23:09

      Right? Like, there are these moments where, kind of, like, these rare moments of honesty from the, kind of, leaders of the regime.

   10. JRJoe Rogan23:16

       Yeah.

   11. DSDave Smith23:17

       And the... This one comes because Rachel Maddow asks him, like, an impromptu thing. And she says that. She leads that.

   12. JRJoe Rogan23:25

       Yeah.

   13. DSDave Smith23:25

       So but this is... Just... And just so you know, this is Donald Trump has been elected but he hasn't... Uh, he hasn't been, um... He, he's a president-elect here. So it's after the election but he's not president yet. So this was about him tweeting, uh, something. Here. But he's, he's taking these shots, this antagonism-

   14. NANarrator23:41

       Yep.

   15. DSDave Smith23:41

       ... this taunting to the intelligence community.

   16. NANarrator23:42

       Let me tell you. You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you. So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this.

   17. DSDave Smith23:54

       What do you think the intelligence community would do if they were motivated to?

   18. NANarrator23:57

       I don't know, but I... From what I am told, they are very upset with how he has treated them and talked about them.

   19. DSDave Smith24:05

       So wh-... And what happened right before that is that Rachel Maddow goes, um... She goes, "All right, I'm sorry to put you on the spot here, but Donald Trump just tweeted this thing about the intelligence community. Any thoughts on that?" So it's not like he was prepared for this.

   20. JRJoe Rogan24:16

       Right.

   21. DSDave Smith24:17

       His... The most powerful senator in America, his initial gut reaction was like, "Well, dude, you're taking on the intelligence... I mean, you're... You wanna go up against the CIA? You think you're gonna win that fight?"

   22. JRJoe Rogan24:27

       Yeah.

   23. DSDave Smith24:28

       Like, "They're gonna get you." And this was already after... They had already been... Uh, they were spying on his campaign. They had already kind of begun framing him for this whole, this whole Russia thing, which was always nonsense. And that started with, um...... uh, you know, the Steele dossier and all that stuff. And then they were spying on Carter Page, who was, like, a pretty low level advisor in Donald Trump's campaign. And the allegation was that the Russians had offered him a huge stake in, like, one of their biggest energy companies if he could, uh, get Donald Trump to remove all of the sanctions, uh, uh, that we had at the time on Russia, which on, on the face of it, made no sense 'cause he's, like, a low level advisor on the campaign.

   24. JRJoe Rogan25:13

       Now, was-

   25. DSDave Smith25:13

       He's not even in the administration.

   26. JRJoe Rogan25:14

       Was this based on intercepted emails?

   27. DSDave Smith25:17

       No. This was based off the Steele dossier, which was, uh, op- opposition research that Hillary Clinton had funded, uh, where she hired this British spy to go, like, dig up dirt on Donald Trump. And they put together this whole dossier alleging that he was, um, you know, he had been in bed with Russia for years. He was compromised. It was the, that the prostitutes were peeing on him and all this, like-

   28. JRJoe Rogan25:41

       (laughs)

   29. DSDave Smith25:41

       ... crazy shit. And they all knew it was unverified. They all knew it was, like, the, the... And, and it... Uh, all of it, uh, almost all of it, was, ended up being disproven. Uh, but... So when they went to Carter P- But just to understand, like, the idea of trying to bribe a low level advisor on a campaign to then somehow take over the administration once he got... I mean, it's, it'd be, like, on the level of if someone was like, um, "We are gonna bribe the door guy at the Mothership to make sure that the Joe Rogan experience only talks about these subjects."

   30. JRJoe Rogan26:14

       Hm.
8. 28:38 – 44:39

   Vivek, January 6 questions, and why ‘conspiracy’ framing is a media weapon

   1. JRJoe Rogan28:38

      We were talking about that Vivek interview, which is very interesting, where this, uh, woman on CNN, that same woman that, uh, did the town hall thing with Trump. What's her name? Kaitlan...

   2. DSDave Smith28:50

      Yeah, I don't remember.

   3. JRJoe Rogan28:50

      ... Collins.

   4. DSDave Smith28:50

      But I know who you're talking about.

   5. JRJoe Rogan28:52

      Um, she was trying to get him to, uh, discuss certain things in a way that w- would look preposterous. And it wa- she was talking about 9/11 and, like, "You said that the government lied to us about 9/11." Like, what, like, "Do you, would you think the government was involved in 9/11?" He's like, "No, what I said was that the government lied to us about 9/11 because the Saudis were involved and they knew they were involved." And she kind of glossed over that and was saying something to the, in, in the lines of, "Don't you think that you saying that the government lied to us about 9/11 supports baseless conspiracy theories?" You know, like, supports the idea that the government orchestrated... Like, that's the... When you wanna put on the full tinfoil hat with the fucking chin strap.

   6. DSDave Smith29:45

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan29:45

      You say, "The government organized and designed 9/11. There was bombs in the building. They knew it was all happening. They detonated Tower 7." Like, all... You gotta go full hat. And so she's trying to bring him into full conspiracy-

   8. DSDave Smith30:02

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:02

      ... tinfoil hat. And he is going, "No. That's not what I said." And he said something that's factual and she just sort of, like, pretended it didn't get said-

   10. DSDave Smith30:13

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:13

       ... and kept... I mean, that's a real fucking issue. They lied about whether or not Saudi Arabia was involved.

   12. DSDave Smith30:21

       It's one of the biggest scandals in the history of the United States of America. It was, like, the biggest terrorist attack on our soil and the government lied about what had happened and who was involved with it. And, and by the way, continued propping up that regime to this day, continued, like, funding and doing business with the same government that had high level people involved in the attack. And they knew it and suppressed that from the American people 'cause it would have been... You know, e- e- if you put yourself back in that time-... it would have been such an outrage if the, if Americans had known.

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:55

       Right.

   14. DSDave Smith30:55

       And in fact, one of the first things, uh, George W. Bush did, immediately after 9/11, even when all the flights were grounded, was get, uh, high level Saudis out of the country, was to fly them out of the country. And this is all factual. Like this, this happened. It's not disputed.

   15. JRJoe Rogan31:10

       Including members of Bin Laden's family.

   16. DSDave Smith31:11

       Yeah, yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:13

       J- the whole thing is so wild, and it doesn't get discussed. They keep going back to the company narrative. What, what's the ideological left narrative? The, the left narrative is anybody who questions 9/11 is a nutter, and you're a nutter, and you're trying to run for President. And he does a very good job of, she repeats the question, he repeats the answer. She repeats the question, he repeats the answer. And she's trying to catch him in this, and it's like... See if you can find that.

   18. NANarrator31:43

       I did. So I, (clears throat) I'm looking it up, and what I'm seeing online is that there's, the story has turned a little bit, that The Atlantic has posted audio from the interview.

   19. JRJoe Rogan31:55

       Ah.

   20. NANarrator31:55

       So-

   21. JRJoe Rogan31:55

       He was asking for that audio, and they didn't give-

   22. NANarrator31:57

       Yeah, so they released it, and it says The Atlantic did not put any words in his mouth. I'm trying to find the audio so we could play it, but it's behind a paywall.

   23. JRJoe Rogan32:03

       So he was saying that they put words in his mouth?

   24. NANarrator32:07

       Yeah, so, but then what I'm also seeing then in The Daily Beast article is that, uh, despite them releasing the audio, it says Ramaswamy's campaign somehow declared victory.

   25. JRJoe Rogan32:19

       Hm.

   26. NANarrator32:19

       So they're saying he's, I guess they're saying he said it, but his team is also saying it's still been taken out of context.

   27. DSDave Smith32:23

       But, but what are they claiming that he said?

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:25

       What did he say?

   29. NANarrator32:25

       I don't, I'm trying to find-

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:26

       Yeah.
9. 44:39 – 1:00:14

   COVID return fears: masks, boosters, natural immunity, and institutional distrust

   1. JRJoe Rogan44:39

      The ivermectin thing.

   2. DSDave Smith44:40

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan44:41

      The new wh- now the, the CDC or the FDA rather, can't stop doctors from approving ivermectin for COVID.

   4. DSDave Smith44:51

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan44:51

      There's this giant wave of COVID right now that's happening supposedly.

   6. DSDave Smith44:57

      Well, according to Alex Jones, uh, he has information that, that... You see that?

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:02

      Yeah.

   8. DSDave Smith45:02

      Uh, he said, he said he talked to like high-level, uh, NSA guys. I'm sorry, uh, TSA guys, um, who told him that like masks in airports are coming back and that there's gonna be a big ramp up in COVID. And I was really hoping this would fall into the Alex Jones wasn't right category. I still am. But it was really weird that after he said that, for the next few days, everybody in the corporate press is talking about COVID again-

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:26

      Not only that-

   10. DSDave Smith45:27

       ... and talking about this new strain.

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:27

       ... there's a mask mandate that got passed at one college.

   12. DSDave Smith45:31

       Right.

   13. JRJoe Rogan45:31

       And then Lionsgate passed a... They, they instituted a mask mandate for all their employees.

   14. DSDave Smith45:37

       Yeah. Yeah, man.

   15. JRJoe Rogan45:39

       Which is wild.

   16. DSDave Smith45:40

       I really... I have a hard time imagining that they would really try to ramp the COVID thing back up. Also, all of the, uh, all of the science seems to indicate that this new strain is less deadly than even Omicron was. And so, like, what are we even talking about here? But they're trying to push another round of boosters. They're already... I saw there was a Pfizer, uh, uh, spokesman on, uh, CNN the other day going, "This is why you really need to get this, uh, this, this latest booster." And they say, "Does this booster protect against the newest variant?" And he, and he said, "Um, it, it looks like it does." Just going, "Hmm, it looks like it does." Okay.

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:15

       "It looks like it does."

   18. DSDave Smith46:16

       That, that's, that's what you've got for us now? Not even this like... It's, it's, it's so funny how far it's fallen. It's not just like, "If you take this vaccine, you won't get it and you can't transmit it."

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:26

       Right.

   20. DSDave Smith46:26

       "Listen, it's 95% effective. It's totally safe and effective. It'll definitely..." But, and that now it's just like, uh, "Looks good. Shoot another one, man."

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:35

       "Shh..." Well, the-

   22. DSDave Smith46:36

       "What are the effects of taking eight mRNA vaccines in, in two years? I don't know. Looks good. Take it."

   23. JRJoe Rogan46:43

       (sighs)

   24. DSDave Smith46:43

       That's where they're at.

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:44

       But there's enough people out there that are just headline readers that are gonna l- listen to that, that haven't had these discussions, that don't know this information, that are just gonna take it.

   26. DSDave Smith46:54

       Well, yes. But, uh, there are some things that are encouraging. You know, to me it's very, it's very encouraging how much noise RFK has been making and that he's been like even within the Democratic, uh, primary, he was polling at like 20% in, in several polls amongst Democratic voters. Like okay, that's something. And if you look at the rate of, um, the vaccination rate, it was the initial double jab and the Johnson & Johnson, like when they initially rolled it out, they got up to I think somewhere in the neighborhood of like 75% of the adult population got it, and this was with a lot of coercion, you know, not just like people just got it. It's like a lot of people had their jobs threatened if they didn't get it, um, and had pressure from family and stuff like that. Um, and then if you look at the boost, the rate, the first booster, it was like half of that. And then the next round of boosters, it was like way lower than that. So, most of the American people maybe did get the original double jab, but they have not been buying into this like booster regime of like, "I have to keep getting more and more."

   27. JRJoe Rogan47:54

       Well, they all probably got COVID too.

   28. DSDave Smith47:56

       Mm-hmm.

   29. JRJoe Rogan47:57

       And they probably got it pretty bad. You know, there's probably quite a few people at least that got it. I mean, that's the Cleveland Clinic, uh, statistics which are really interesting. That's the study they did on the healthcare workers that showed that the more jabs you got, the more likely you were to get COVID.

   30. DSDave Smith48:15

       Yeah.
10. 1:00:14 – 1:12:11

    Trump’s Georgia surrender, gag-order conditions, and ‘election interference’ optics

    1. DSDave Smith1:00:14

       And it still is. It still is. I mean, this stuff, this stuff with Trump, you know, he's, uh, tomorrow supposed to, uh-

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:20

       Turn himself in.

    3. DSDave Smith1:00:21

       He's turning himself in in Georgia. And I'm not sure exactly. I was reading about it, uh, yesterday. And it's not exactly clear, I guess, 'cause the deal hasn't been made, but it was something like a, like a $200,000 bond is what they were saying. And then, um, I... It looks like he's gonna have to actually go into the jail. So they're gonna... I think they're gonna book him. I think that means mugshots, um, which is-

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:42

       Really?

    5. DSDave Smith1:00:42

       ... which is, I, I think something that they're going for. I think they like the optics of that a lot. Um...

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:48

       Trump has already agreed to a $200,000 bond with certain conditions, including limits on social media posts.

    7. DSDave Smith1:00:54

       Now that's a really interesting one.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:56

       Wow. Limits on social media posts about the case, but if he violates it, judges may have limited enforcement options.

    9. DSDave Smith1:01:04

       That's interesting.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:01:06

        Interesting.

    11. DSDave Smith1:01:06

        So this is, this is one thing that's much different than any of the other indictments. This is the first time that a judge has said... And, you know, they can do this crazy stuff that seems wildly unconstitutional and just a very basic violation of liberty. It's insane to me. But they can have, like, these gag orders, you know, like Roger Stone when, when he was first charged, was not allowed to speak about it. Like, you can't defend yourself publicly.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:01:28

        Wow.

    13. DSDave Smith1:01:28

        You can't speak about the case, and they're allowed to do this. They go, "We'll throw you in jail if you speak about it." Um, it's kind of like this weird system where once they agree, they kind of have the right to keep you in jail until your trial.... legally. Um, and so if they l- l- release you, they can say, "Well, these are the conditions." And it can-

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:47

        Wow.

    15. DSDave Smith1:01:47

        ... kind of be anything, you know? Um, but the idea that you could say, "Well, okay, you can't defend yourself publicly," you know, "You can't post on Truth Social or Twitter or whatever about this-"

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:59

        Yeah.

    17. DSDave Smith1:02:00

        ... is such a weird thing. U- part- if you believe in liberty at all, it's a weird thing, 'cause l- liberty is kind of predicated on the presumption of innocence. Like if you're not, if you don't have the presumption of innocence, then there's no such thing as freedom. I mean, you could say we have freedom, but if I accuse you of something, you're guilty-

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:02:16

        Right.

    19. DSDave Smith1:02:16

        ... then you don't have any freedom. So d- m- w- supposedly, inno- we're innocent till proven guilty. So Trump's innocent of these charges, and yet they can still tell you you're not allowed to post this, you're not allowed to say this. But what's particularly interesting in this case is that this just smells a lot like election interference. Because from the political standpoint, if this is the biggest national story of a presidential race and Joe Biden can say whatever he wants about it, or the Democrats can say whatever they want about it, but Trump isn't allowed to defend himself, like he's not allowed to comment on it at all?

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:02:49

        Right.

    21. DSDave Smith1:02:49

        That seems like e- you're rigging the system.

    22. NANarrator1:02:51

        It sounds like the conditions are more about it says intimidating witnesses and stuff like that.

    23. DSDave Smith1:02:56

        Yes, that's what they say. They s- that what the judge... And, and I don't think we know all the details of this, but what the judge says was that you can't, you can't post anything that's, that would be intimidating, um, about this case, but where exactly do they draw those lines? I- is, uh, is a question.

    24. NANarrator1:03:12

        Uh, limited to post on social media, reposts on social media is really what it says.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:03:17

        A post made by another individual on social media. Go back to the top of that. The, listen to, w- look how it's phrased here. As part of the conditions, Trump will be prohibited from doing anything a judge could interpret as an effort to intimidate co-defendants or witnesses, or otherwise obstruct the administration of justice.

    26. DSDave Smith1:03:37

        You know, what it reminds me of is when, uh, when, uh, Mueller finally released that report, um, where he basically said they had no evidence of any conspiracy, uh, with Russia-

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:03:48

        Right.

    28. DSDave Smith1:03:48

        ... but then as like a, uh, to throw a bone to the establishment to not make them look as bad as it made them look, he said, "Well, well, here's 10 instances where he could have maybe obstructed justice." Like he didn't like say he did, but he was like, "Here's the instances." And one of them was, and I shit you not, you can go read the report, one of the 10 instances was that he kept referring to the, it as a witch hunt. So like, the fact-

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:04:12

        Wow.

    30. DSDave Smith1:04:12

        ... that he kept saying, "This is bullshit." (laughs) Like, "I'm not, I'm not in- involved in a conspiracy with Russia, and that, and everybody knows that." That was him th- uh, potentially obstructing the investigation.
11. 1:12:11 – 1:22:42

    What would real reform look like? Abolishing agencies vs. the ‘how’ problem

    1. DSDave Smith1:12:11

       But how... But even if they got into power, what are they gonna do about this m- vast intelligence community and the influence of special interests?

    2. Well, look, there's... It's almost like two separate things, okay? So it's like, what needs to be done, you know, versus how you get it done.

    3. Right.

    4. And that's... The, the how you get it done part is much more challenging. But it's like a... I, I'd say, like, um, you know, like if you were bit by a, like a, a venomous, uh, snake, and like, whatever the, the like, antidote or something is like at the top of a really steep hill. And you're like, "Okay, well, the answer is, we have to get that and inject it in you." But then the real problem becomes like, "Okay, but how, how the hell do we get up this hill?"

    5. Right.

    6. So like, the answer is that all these agencies need to be abolished. The answer is that, like, you, you need a drastic reduction in the size and scope of government. You need to, like, abolish all of these three-letter organizations and just start over. Start over with the Bill of Rights and, uh, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. That would be the... Like, that would be about as close to perfect a- as you could get. However, the... How... What you're dealing with is the most powerful entrenched interests in the history of the world. The, the American federal government is the biggest gravy train in the history of the world, the biggest organization in the history of the world, by every metric. How do you roll that back? That is a much... That's a much more difficult question. And I, I think that... My guess on this is that, like, the only plausible way to do this-... is that you need, like, a mass, uh, populist movement. You need... And y- and it can't be like we got 45% of the country who's fed up with this government. It's gotta be like we got 85% of the country, and we're all together on all of this. And then you need elites. Like you need the elites who will actually, like, put their power and influence and wealth behind this kind of, you know, type of movement to try to... Look, I mean, what- what really has to happen is that... And I think to some degree this is what happened with Elon Musk taking over Twitter. You know? Is that, that type of thing, where you have a real elite, like a natural elite too, somebody who wasn't just, like, picked, didn't just win an election, but, like, built something insane, you know? Um, I think, at least it seems to me, I don't know Elon Musk at all, but it seems to me like he had a real belief that he's like, um, he's like, "We're gonna destroy this country. Like if we don't have kind of some type of free speech platform, we're gonna, w- we're going to... This is gonna be our demise." And I think you need enough powerful people to realize that, like, you wanna keep this thing together, man, 'cause you're doing great. Like this isn't good for you if this whole country falls apart. And we're dangerously, like we're getting dangerously close to that point. And look man, when it comes down to it, it's like the- the reason why America is the most successful country that's ever existed is because it- it was the freest country, and that's the beautiful thing. Like freedom is not only the most like moral, uh, system, but it also, like, leads to the most prosperity. It leads to the most harmony. Like ci- it's what civilized behavior is, right? Like the essence of civilized behavior is essentially the non-aggression principle, the idea that, like, you respect people and their property, and you don't... You know what I mean? Like you're not-

Episode duration: 3:25:44