Joe Rogan Experience #2025 - Dave Smith

Joe Rogan 0:00 (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

Narrator 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Dave Smith 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music) What's up, brother?

Joe Rogan 0:15 Good to see you, my friend.

Dave Smith 0:16 Good to be back.

Joe Rogan 0:16 What's crackalackin'?

Dave Smith 0:17 Oh, I'm just having fun, dude. Great time at Mothership last night.

Joe Rogan 0:20 Last, last ... That was a good time.

Dave Smith 0:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:22 That place is always a good time.

Dave Smith 0:23 Yeah. I can't wait to go back tonight.

Joe Rogan 0:24 Magical portal.

Dave Smith 0:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:27 Fun, fun. Great fucking crowds too. The crowds were amazing.

Dave Smith 0:30 Yeah. Just incredible. Every time I've been there, and I've been there-

Joe Rogan 0:33 Yeah.

Dave Smith 0:33 ... a decent amount now, always great crowds.

Joe Rogan 0:35 Yeah. It's, it's a fun place. Build it and they will come.

Dave Smith 0:39 Yeah. Well, you sure did.

Joe Rogan 0:40 Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Smith 0:42 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:42 Yeah. So, uh, we were, uh, on our way over here and I texted you that Prigozhin thing.

Dave Smith 0:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 0:50 Wild. But not unexpected.

Dave Smith 0:53 Well, yeah. Y-

Joe Rogan 0:54 Is he definitely dead? Is he definitely-

Dave Smith 0:56 I, I don't think it's definitely. I think this is what people are reporting. I mean the-

Joe Rogan 1:00 Right.

Dave Smith 1:00 ... 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."

Joe Rogan 1:16 Yeah.

Dave Smith 1:16 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."

Joe Rogan 1:24 What do you think that was all about?

Dave Smith 1:26 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-

Joe Rogan 1:54 Yeah.

Dave Smith 1:54 ... we'll see.

Joe Rogan 1:54 We'll see. Yeah, if I was him, I wouldn't be going anywhere by plane.

Dave Smith 1:59 (laughs) Yeah, r- yeah, you would think, right?

Joe Rogan 2:02 Yeah. You should take a bus, bro.

Dave Smith 2:03 Yeah, yeah. You should take-

Joe Rogan 2:04 (laughs)

Dave Smith 2:05 I have ... You should take a tank anywhere you go.

Joe Rogan 2:07 Yeah. You should be inside a safe-

Dave Smith 2:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:10 ... riding on a bus.

Dave Smith 2:11 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.

Joe Rogan 2:25 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."

Dave Smith 3:11 Right.

Joe Rogan 3:11 That's what I'm hearing.

Dave Smith 3:12 In Russia's favor that-

Joe Rogan 3:13 In Russia's favor.

Dave Smith 3:13 ... Russia, Russia's killing a lot more than they're getting killed.

Joe Rogan 3:15 A lot more.

Dave Smith 3:15 It's hard to know exactly. It's always hard, like, in the fog of war to know exactly-

Joe Rogan 3:19 Right.

Dave Smith 3:19 ... how many people are dying. It's usually not till after the fact and they do the, like, excess, uh, mortality numbers and then you kind of figure out, like, how many people actually died here. But it does seem ... I, I think there's no question that Ukraine is doing better than would have been expected. Like, say in the year 2010, if you had said, "Okay, Russia's going to invade Ukraine," most people thought they would have folded in a couple weeks and it would have been over. Ukraine has at least put up a fight to this point, and I think that that is because of the fact that, number one, NATO was training the Ukrainian military for years, ever since 2014, ever since, uh, Yanukovych government was overthrown. And number two, that we've poured an unlimited amount of resources into the war effort. But then that kind of leads to the question of, like, wait, so but if Russia still wins at the end of this, which it looks like they're going to, short of, like, US intervention, direct intervention, then what did we accomplish here other than just getting way more people slaughtered and drawing the war out way longer to kind of sacrifice Ukraine in an effort to hurt Russia? And, and, and it's crazy that the same people who support this war support it claiming that they really care about the Ukrainians. But you're like, if you really cared about them, why would your move be to prolong the conflict and let more of them die? It seems so horrible.

Joe Rogan 4:47 It's very strange when the left is pro-war. Very, very strange. And it's almost like this, um, this shifting of the poles that s- sort of seems to have happened politically, where it doesn't matter what the actual facts of what you're supporting are, as long as what you're supporting is endorsed by the ideology.

Dave Smith 5:11 Right.

Joe Rogan 5:11 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.

Dave Smith 5:36 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.

Joe Rogan 6:00 Right.

Dave Smith 6:00 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.

Joe Rogan 7:16 Right.

Dave Smith 7:16 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-

Joe Rogan 7:55 Yeah.

Dave Smith 7:55 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 8:22 Yeah.

Dave Smith 8:22 '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."

Joe Rogan 8:29 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.

Dave Smith 8:46 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.

Joe Rogan 10:46 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.

Dave Smith 11:12 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.

Joe Rogan 11:19 Yeah.

Dave Smith 11:19 Like, just someone bitching about it who has no real power over it.

Joe Rogan 11:22 Right.

Dave Smith 11:22 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-

Joe Rogan 11:29 Is it-

Dave Smith 11:29 ... be able to say no."

Joe Rogan 11:31 Is it that you can't say no to everything and you have to kinda navigate that feel... Like, how does that work?

Dave Smith 11:37 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"-

Joe Rogan 11:59 Right.

Dave Smith 11:59 ... well now you can't really make a deal with Vladimir Putin 'cause then look proof-

Joe Rogan 12:03 Right.

Dave Smith 12:03 ... 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."

Joe Rogan 13:12 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?

Dave Smith 13:41 Yeah. Yeah, no, that's a really interesting question. And like, at what point do you realize ... You know, like at what point-

Joe Rogan 13:47 Yeah.

Dave Smith 13:47 ... did Trump figure out like, "Oh, okay."

Joe Rogan 13:50 Right.

Dave Smith 13:51 "These guys are kind of working against me."

Joe Rogan 13:53 Yeah.

Dave Smith 13:53 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.

Joe Rogan 14:08 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?

Dave Smith 14:19 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.

Joe Rogan 14:28 Accountability. Yeah.

Dave Smith 14:28 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-

Joe Rogan 15:15 Right.

Dave Smith 15:15 ... su- she knows you're d-

Joe Rogan 15:17 Right.

Dave Smith 15:17 Like, like they know this whole thing is illegitimate and like, "You stole it."

Joe Rogan 15:20 Right.

Dave Smith 15:20 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.

Joe Rogan 15:31 Yeah.

Dave Smith 15:32 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.

Joe Rogan 17:11 (sighs)

Dave Smith 17:11 Just from the other side.

Joe Rogan 17:12 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-"

Dave Smith 17:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 17:28 "... I have nothing to do with my son's business." Like, it's all lies. It's all easily proven. And there's nothing.

Dave Smith 17:37 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."

Joe Rogan 17:46 Right.

Dave Smith 17:46 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,"-

Joe Rogan 17:57 Yeah.

Dave Smith 17:57 "... 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-

Joe Rogan 18:16 Headline readers.

Dave Smith 18:17 ... to steal the election. They still believe it to this day.

Joe Rogan 18:19 Yeah.

Dave Smith 18:19 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-

Joe Rogan 18:29 Right.

Dave Smith 18:29 ... and gave us Donald Trump for four years. It's all just complete bullshit, but they believe it.

Joe Rogan 18:34 It's crazy how prevalent it is because people are just headline readers.

Dave Smith 18:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:39 And the mainstream news is completely captured.

Dave Smith 18:43 Yeah. And, you know, to some degree, I don't... I, I'm sympathetic to people who get, you know, propagandized by this stuff because we do, in general, in life, we outsource the overwhelming majority of knowledge to other people. You know? Like, when my, like, hot water heater broke down and I just hire a guy to replace it, I don't know anything about hot water heaters but I just trust... I don't know. You know. I don't know.

Joe Rogan 19:09 Right.

Dave Smith 19:09 So I'll just... You do it and let me know.

Joe Rogan 19:10 Right.

Dave Smith 19:10 You know? We do this all the time with everything.

Joe Rogan 19:12 Right.

Dave Smith 19:13 And so most people have busy lives, they're working, they got kids to take care of, they got a family. If the guy in the suit on CNN says it, well, I'm kinda trusting him to be the expert here and he knows. And the problem is that, like, the guy who fixed my water heater I, I don't believe is a corrupt, lying piece of shit.

Joe Rogan 19:30 Right.

Dave Smith 19:30 But the people on CNN are (laughs) . And that's the major problem here. It's like you just... You can't trust them.

Joe Rogan 19:35 And the culture in that building, in that CNN building, is all in support of that narrative.

Dave Smith 19:41 Yep.

Joe Rogan 19:41 And you can't really buck that, especially if you're a career person, you wanna stay on the air, you wanna keep things going. Just look at what they did to Tucker Carlson, who was the number one guy on television. And whatever feathers he ruffled, whatever people he pissed off, I don't believe he's openly discussed it yet, 'cause he's probably got some sort of a lawsuit going on.

Dave Smith 20:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 20:05 They removed him because he was a problem. The, the way he was discussing things was a problem.

Dave Smith 20:11 Well, it's, it's very interesting, um, that if you... You know, we've, we've talked about this before when we played clips about CNN talking about you and stuff. And, like, but if you listen to, like, CNN, the way they talk about you or the way they talk about Tucker Carlson, not that you guys are in different worlds, but the way they talk about you two guys is, like, you're these very controversial figures who say all of these things that are not approved of and these, like, very cont- very polarizing figures. But then you're like, no, they're... He's the number one guy in cable news and you're the number one guy in podcasting. Like, you guys... How are you guys viewed as controversial but, like, CNN is talking to an audience of, like, 200,000 people and letting you know, "You know, people are very skeptical of these guys." I'm like, "No, they're not." They, they're... These are the, these are the most popular figures and it's because people can at least smell that you're not bullshitting them the way these guys are.

Joe Rogan 21:06 Right.

Dave Smith 21:06 And that was, that was always one of the things that I really appreciated about Tucker, was that he would break with the Republican Party and have a completely different view from them. He would break with everyone else on the network.

Joe Rogan 21:16 Right.

Dave Smith 21:16 Which was... It's like, that's so unheard of today.

Joe Rogan 21:19 Yeah.

Dave Smith 21:19 A- a... In MSNBC, if you looked down the whole lineup, at CNN, if you looked down the whole lineup, you cannot point to one host who has a drastically different opinion on an issue that matters than the hour before them and the hour before them.

Joe Rogan 21:31 Right.

Dave Smith 21:31 But if you look at, like, you know, the daytime at Fox News, where they were on the war in Ukraine versus where Tucker was, or where they were on lockdowns versus where Tucker was, is night and day difference.

Joe Rogan 21:41 Yeah.

Dave Smith 21:42 And so, of course, they removed the one interesting guy.

Joe Rogan 21:44 Well, he was kind of doing podcasting on TV.

Dave Smith 21:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:48 He had gotten to the point where his show was so huge that he could kind of get away with it, and he incrementally kept ramping it up until he was like, "The CIA killed Kennedy."

Dave Smith 21:59 Yeah (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 21:59 I was like, "Jesus, bro."

Dave Smith 22:00 Yeah. He started, he started really going for it.

Joe Rogan 22:02 He was going for it.

Dave Smith 22:03 But that was great.

Joe Rogan 22:04 And-

Dave Smith 22:04 People need to hear that.

Joe Rogan 22:05 Well, the beautiful thing is now he's just going for it on Twitter. And, you know, Elon's like, "Okay, go ahead." (laughs)

Dave Smith 22:12 And you can see it in him, that even... Even though he was going for it on Fox, you can see the freedom he has.

Joe Rogan 22:18 Oh, yeah.

Dave Smith 22:18 Like on Twitter, where he's like, "Okay, I'm not pulling any punches now."

Joe Rogan 22:22 Yeah.

Dave Smith 22:22 And I love that.

Joe Rogan 22:23 Yeah.

Dave Smith 22:23 That's beautiful.

Joe Rogan 22:24 Well, it's important. It really is.

Dave Smith 22:26 'Cause-

Joe Rogan 22:26 And people need to wake the fuck up.

Dave Smith 22:28 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?

Joe Rogan 22:53 You were telling me about it last night and you were saying we should watch it today.

Dave Smith 22:55 We should, we should play this.

Joe Rogan 22:56 Okay.

Dave Smith 22:56 '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-

Joe Rogan 23:06 Yeah.

Dave Smith 23:06 ... to blurt out, like, "Oh, yeah. We... Our policies overthrew Yanukovych."

Joe Rogan 23:09 Right.

Dave Smith 23:09 Right? Like, there are these moments where, kind of, like, these rare moments of honesty from the, kind of, leaders of the regime.

Joe Rogan 23:16 Yeah.

Dave Smith 23:17 And the... This one comes because Rachel Maddow asks him, like, an impromptu thing. And she says that. She leads that.

Joe Rogan 23:25 Yeah.

Dave Smith 23:25 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-

Narrator 23:41 Yep.

Dave Smith 23:41 ... this taunting to the intelligence community.

Narrator 23:42 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.

Dave Smith 23:54 What do you think the intelligence community would do if they were motivated to?

Narrator 23:57 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.

Dave Smith 24:05 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.

Joe Rogan 24:16 Right.

Dave Smith 24:17 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?"

Joe Rogan 24:27 Yeah.

Dave Smith 24:28 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.

Joe Rogan 25:13 Now, was-

Dave Smith 25:13 He's not even in the administration.

Joe Rogan 25:14 Was this based on intercepted emails?

Dave Smith 25:17 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-

Joe Rogan 25:41 (laughs)

Dave Smith 25:41 ... 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."

Joe Rogan 26:14 Hm.

Dave Smith 26:14 And you're like... I mean, even though there's a loose connection between you and the guy who works at the Mothershi- th- the idea that he would ever then be able to come in and take over the show and control it, it just made no sense. But we now know that the CIA told the FBI that Carter Page was a good guy, that he was a, he was a, a CIA, um, informant. Uh, then they, they... So they told the FBI. They were like, "No, no, no. He's not a spy. He's one of ours. So just lay off." And then the FBI, uh, lied about that on the FISA application and this was the only guy who went down for the frame job, was this one FBI, uh, lawyer for, for misrepresenting the, what the CIA said. So basically, he, the C- They said that he was, um, approached by Russians and, uh, that he was approached by a group of Russians to see if he would turn and work for them. And the CIA, uh, were like, "Yes, he was, and he came right back to us and told us about it." And then when they were putting in the application for the FISA warrant, the FBI said, "He was approached by these Russians and the CIA confirmed it." So they to- They said that the CIA confirmed that he was approached by these guys, but they left out the part that the CIA said, "And he came right back to us and told us about it." So that one guy was the only guy who got charged.

Joe Rogan 27:34 Did he get... So-

Dave Smith 27:35 'Cause it was so... Uh, no jail time, but he did get charged.

Joe Rogan 27:37 Carter Page got charged?

Dave Smith 27:38 No, no, no.

Joe Rogan 27:38 No.

Dave Smith 27:38 The FBI agent who, or the FBI lawyer who lied on the application.

Joe Rogan 27:42 Oh, interesting.

Dave Smith 27:43 Carter Page, they, uh, three FISA court warrants on him. The, uh, they spied on him all up and down. Never been charged with anything 'cause he wasn't a spy.

Joe Rogan 27:49 Right.

Dave Smith 27:50 And there's... Look, th- Donald Trump, even now, with all these charges, right? He's never been charged with, um, treason. He's never been charged with in- inciting, uh, an insurrection because they know they can't get him on those charges. So what they're getting him on is all these, like, novel legal theories. "Well, it's not very clear that he violated the statute, but if we interpret it this way, we could make the argument for the first time ever that this was actually a violation of law." It's all, like, they're grasping at straws. And it's very clearly, like, they- they've weaponized the legal system against this guy. It's not a coincidence that all of these indictments are coming down right now. Like, why, why was the January 6th thing, uh, w- why would any of this be coming down right now?

Joe Rogan 28:34 Right.

Dave Smith 28:34 All those other people in January 6th, they got charged and arrested immediately.

Joe Rogan 28:38 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...

Dave Smith 28:50 Yeah, I don't remember.

Joe Rogan 28:50 ... Collins.

Dave Smith 28:50 But I know who you're talking about.

Joe Rogan 28:52 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.

Dave Smith 29:45 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 29:45 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-

Dave Smith 30:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:02 ... 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-

Dave Smith 30:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:13 ... and kept... I mean, that's a real fucking issue. They lied about whether or not Saudi Arabia was involved.

Dave Smith 30:21 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.

Joe Rogan 30:55 Right.

Dave Smith 30:55 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.

Joe Rogan 31:10 Including members of Bin Laden's family.

Dave Smith 31:11 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:13 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.

Narrator 31:43 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.

Joe Rogan 31:55 Ah.

Narrator 31:55 So-

Joe Rogan 31:55 He was asking for that audio, and they didn't give-

Narrator 31:57 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.

Joe Rogan 32:03 So he was saying that they put words in his mouth?

Narrator 32:07 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.

Joe Rogan 32:19 Hm.

Narrator 32:19 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.

Dave Smith 32:23 But, but what are they claiming that he said?

Joe Rogan 32:25 What did he say?

Narrator 32:25 I don't, I'm trying to find-

Joe Rogan 32:26 Yeah.

Narrator 32:26 ... the transcript, and I haven't gotten that far. Y- uh, it's behind a paywall again, so I don't-

Joe Rogan 32:30 Well, let's, let's listen to his interview on CNN.

Narrator 32:34 Uh...

Joe Rogan 32:35 Because the things that, it's interesting, like... We'll, we'll f- we'll figure this out. Here.

Narrator 32:43 All right, this is...

Joe Rogan 32:46 Why is it not giving you any volume?

Narrator 32:48 Well, it's not the interview yet.

Joe Rogan 32:50 It's not? What's that?

Narrator 32:51 This is just her talking.

Joe Rogan 32:52 Oh, oh, I see. There we go.

Narrator 32:54 And I actually, and this is just lifting the curtain on how media works again. I asked that reporter to send the recording, 'cause it was on the record. He refused to do it. But we had a free-flowing conversation.

33:04 After our interview, The Atlantic released the audio, more than four minutes of it, actually. And here is the part with that quote that was in question.

33:15 What is the truth about January 6th you're referring to?

33:16 I don't know, but we can handle it. Whatever it is, we can handle it.

33:19 But, why is there-

33:19 Government agents, how many government agents were in the field? Right?

33:23 You mean, like entrapment?

33:24 Yeah. It, absolutely. Why can the government not be transparent about something that we're using terrorist s- or the kinda tactics used by terrorists? If we find that there are hundreds of our own in the ranks on the day that they were, that they worked, I mean, look-

33:42 Well, there's a difference between entrapment and a difference between a law enforcement agent identifying it.

33:46 I, I, I think it is, I think it is legitimate to say how many police, how many federal agents were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers. Like, I think we want it. Maybe the answer is zero, probably is zero, for all I know, right? I have no reason to think it was anything other than zero. But if we're doing a comprehensive assessment of what happened on 9/11, we have a 9/11 commission, absolutely that should be an answer the public knows the answer to.

Dave Smith 34:07 No.

Joe Rogan 34:08 Okay, does-

Dave Smith 34:08 Vivek did nothing wrong.

Joe Rogan 34:10 There's nothing wro- there's-

Dave Smith 34:10 There's literally nothing wrong with what he said there.

Joe Rogan 34:12 But... but that's, like, y- y- we're doing this in comparison to January 6th, so we do wanna know how many federal agents were involved in January 6th, and imagine if there was actually federal agents that were involved on the planes in 9/11. He didn't say there were.

Dave Smith 34:26 No, he specifically said zero.

Joe Rogan 34:28 Yeah.

Dave Smith 34:28 I'm sure it was zero.

Joe Rogan 34:29 I'm sure it was zero.

Dave Smith 34:29 But we'd wanna know.

Joe Rogan 34:30 Right.

Dave Smith 34:30 But we'd wanna know. And he's saying, "If you're claiming this was an act of terrorism, just like that was an act of terrorism, then okay, let's have a commission, let's have a report, let's know how many federal agents there were." And so far, I mean, what, by the way, it's, it's crazy they try to spin this.

Joe Rogan 34:43 Does she c- does she keep going? Can, can I hear what her take on that is?

Narrator 34:47 Uh, yeah, there's still another minute on this video.

Joe Rogan 34:48 Pl- please play the rest of it.

Narrator 34:50 Okay. Uh...

Joe Rogan 34:51 Wanna hear what she has to say about this.

Narrator 34:53 How about...

34:55 ... herself. He was, in fact, quoted accurately. In an email to CNN after that audio was published, his spokesperson said, "The audio clearly demonstrates that Vivek was taken badly out of context, and even this small snippet proves that. We continue to encourage The Atlantic to release more of the recording rather than their carefully selected snippet so that the full context and reality is exposed." I should note, that spokesperson did not explain how he was supposedly taken out of context. The reality is that Vivek Ramaswamy is running to be President of the United States. He will be on that debate stage tomorrow night, and he says this is a central message to his campaign.

35:37 This campaign is founded on the truth. The truth. We will not back down from the truth. We stand for the truth. I am a patriot who speaks the truth.

35:51 Well, the truth is, he did say it. The quote was accurate, and it is on tape. And yes, this is how the media works. You get quoted the things you say accurately.

Joe Rogan 36:02 Yeah, but that is still out of context.

Dave Smith 36:04 I-

Joe Rogan 36:04 It's clearly out of context. Otherwise, they would have released the entire recording.

Dave Smith 36:08 I know, and it's this weird thing where they brag about how, like, but you know what? The Atlantic did release four minutes of audio. Like, well, why not just release the whole thing? Like, like-

Joe Rogan 36:15 Right, but this was the b- after he had said they didn't release it, 'cause they hadn't.

Dave Smith 36:20 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 36:21 So he's asking for the copy of it. They would not give it to him, and then they release this small snippet that is, again, taken out of context.

Dave Smith 36:30 And it's not as if anywhere in there he says, "I, I believe there were federal agents in, uh, on January 6th."

Joe Rogan 36:37 No, he says it's probably zero.

Dave Smith 36:39 Well, on 9/11 he said it's probably zero.

Joe Rogan 36:40 Yeah. Oh, right, right, right.

Dave Smith 36:40 But he said he's asking the question about January 6th. But he never even said, "I believe January 6th was an inside job." He said, like, "It seems like entrapment."

Joe Rogan 36:47 Yeah.

Dave Smith 36:47 Like, that, that's kinda what it seems like, and we have a right to ask these questions. Yeah, Vivek, Vivek's a very, uh, a very sharp guy. I had him on my podcast. Um, he's very, he's a very impressive guy, very smart. Um-And he's, uh, look, he's just 100% right here. That I... Look, the, um... Who is it? Uh, Wray, the, the FBI director was asked, and one of the other top level F, uh, Justice Department people were both asked when testifying before Congress whether there were any federal agents or, um, assets involved in January 6th, and they both said, "No comment." They, they both said, "We cannot talk about ongoing investigations." So, the only time this was actually asked to high-level people, they didn't shoot us a, "No." They didn't say, "No, absolutely not."

Joe Rogan 37:32 Let me take a st- let me steel man this.

Dave Smith 37:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 37:35 Would it be... If you were running the FBI and there was something like this march on the Capitol and a bunch of people were saying that the election was rigged and people were storming the Capitol, or they, they were gonna b- be on the lawn outside of the Capitol, wouldn't you want to have federal agents out there? Wouldn't that be a smart thing to do?

Dave Smith 38:03 Y- Sure.

Joe Rogan 38:03 Because, I mean, what if they are organizing something that's highly illegal? What if there are some fucking real loons that are bringing explosives and dirty bombs? Who fucking knows, right? Just imagine the possibilities. What, I mean, doesn't it seem like that is what they're supposed to do?

Dave Smith 38:24 Sure. But you wouldn't have them, uh, out there screaming, "We're gonna storm the Capitol!" (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:29 Right.

Dave Smith 38:29 "Storm the Capitol!" So, that's where the difference is. If there were just-

Joe Rogan 38:32 But the q- the question is did that happen?

Dave Smith 38:34 Right.

Joe Rogan 38:34 Right.

Dave Smith 38:35 Y- you know, so if there were just, like, FBI agents embedded in, uh, some type of protest to, n- you know, watch out for criminal activity-

Joe Rogan 38:44 Right.

Dave Smith 38:44 ... and then if there was some, like, arrest the person or whatever, that would be reasonable. But if they're in there to try to provoke, um, criminal activity, that's a whole different story. And if the case was that they were sending the FBI in there because they were worried about, uh, violence and they wanted to... Then you'd also wonder why was it that the Capitol Police didn't get the reinforcements that they had requested? And, like, why is it that there were these other two, um, like, explosives that we've still never gotten the answer to? There's just a lot of stuff about January 6th that doesn't completely add up. And I think Vivek is 1,000% right to, like, say we should be, we should be demanding the answers to this.

Joe Rogan 39:22 Yeah.

Dave Smith 39:23 We should... So that's all. Like, that's... I think that's a re- completely reasonable take.

Joe Rogan 39:27 Yeah.

Dave Smith 39:27 And, you know, CNN, uh, they do this thing where as soon as you start, like, inquiring about these things, they try to smear you as, like, this is, you know, you're some type of conspiracy nut or something like that.

Joe Rogan 39:41 Right.

Dave Smith 39:41 Where... And, and the funny thing about it is that, like, w- look, we all know their elites conspire and, you know, intelligence agencies conspire, and they've carried out tons of operations throughout the years. We know that. So why is it so unreasonable to question whether, like, what exactly are they doing right now?

Joe Rogan 39:59 Right.

Dave Smith 39:59 It's not nothing. You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 40:01 It's not just that. There's also been cases of clear entrapment that we're all aware of that they got away with. And one of the big ones is that 19-year-old kid who was talked into detonating a bomb that wasn't even a bomb, but I believe it was by the FBI.

Dave Smith 40:17 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:17 And I believe it was in Dallas. Is that where it was from? Do you remember that story?

Dave Smith 40:20 I, I remember the story. Yeah. I don't remember the details of it.

Joe Rogan 40:22 The story's nuts.

Dave Smith 40:22 But yeah, there's been, uh-

Joe Rogan 40:23 They took some young, sort of delusional guy, and they, they literally kind of conned him into blowing up this bomb, and it wasn't a bomb.

Dave Smith 40:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:35 They gave him a cellphone. "Do this, and it's gonna do that, and it's gonna blow up." And he does that, and then they arrest him.

Dave Smith 40:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:40 But you, you told him to do it. You got him to do it. You talked him into doing it. Like, how-

Dave Smith 40:44 There, there's been dozens of these since 9/11-

Joe Rogan 40:46 Yeah.

Dave Smith 40:46 ... these kind of entrapment things, and then the FBI brags about how they thwarted a terrorist attack. But, like, there was never a terrorist attack.

Joe Rogan 40:52 The governor of Michigan, that one.

Dave Smith 40:54 Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:54 That one's bananas.

Dave Smith 40:56 And, and it is, it's ac- it's really sad because, like the thing with Whitmer, um, what e- they end up doing is kind of, like, luring in these really sad people.

Joe Rogan 41:06 Yeah.

Dave Smith 41:06 You know, like, the guy's like a homeless guy who's a drunk who's living, you know, in an attic somewhere or something like that, and then they kinda get this guy to go along with it. And he, like, resists the first three times. And he's like, "No, I don't wanna do anything like that. No, this is crazy." And then they keep pushing him and pushing him.

Joe Rogan 41:22 Yeah.

Dave Smith 41:22 And they finally get this guy. So they created the, the event to begin with.

Joe Rogan 41:27 Yeah.

Dave Smith 41:27 There was no threat that this was going to happen until you guys, like, lured this really sad, in most cases not very bright guys, into doing this thing.

Joe Rogan 41:37 Well-

Dave Smith 41:37 And then arrest them.

Joe Rogan 41:38 ... the craziest thing is the numbers. Wasn't it, like, there was 14 people and 12 of them-

Dave Smith 41:45 Yes.

Joe Rogan 41:45 ... were in...

Dave Smith 41:46 Yeah, the whole thing was basically-

Joe Rogan 41:48 Twelve of them?

Dave Smith 41:48 ... feds. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:49 Feds?

Dave Smith 41:49 And what was the purpose of it? Uh, the purpose of it was to kind of paint this picture of the anti-lockdowners-

Joe Rogan 41:56 Right.

Dave Smith 41:56 ... as being these violent threat, and so that, th- this would then hurt Donald Trump in his election campaign. So it's not just like that they were just doing this. It's like they were doing this with a political, like, motivation. And this is what's so, like... This is the thing that's so creepy and what so many people are waking up to as part of the reason... Look, man, this is the reason why that, uh, Richmond, North Richmond song blew up so big.

Joe Rogan 42:19 Yeah.

Dave Smith 42:19 'Cause so many people today, and it's kind of what's exciting about the, the current moment, it's also a little bit scary, but that so many people are just kind of waking up to how corrupt this whole thing is.

Joe Rogan 42:30 Yeah.

Dave Smith 42:31 And you're like, "Oh, it's all fake." It's all... That was, uh, do you remember the one we were talk- we just mentioned about Tucker Carlson said he had a source that had read all of the Kennedy files?

Joe Rogan 42:40 Yeah.

Dave Smith 42:40 This is when he said the CIA killed Kennedy. And he goes... And then we asked him point-blank, uh, "W- was the CIA involved in the assassination of Jack Kennedy?" And his, and the guy's response was, he goes, "Yes. It's all fake. The country isn't what we thought it was." And I remember just thinking that was, like, a powerful... Like, just to say, "It's all fake." I think more and more people are waking up to that. Like these, these people on CNN all day, you know, they act so like, um-... they have this air of, like, moral, uh, superiority and concern about, well it was, "Listen, this could lead to dangerous conspiracy theories."

Joe Rogan 43:17 Yeah.

Dave Smith 43:17 "This is dangerous for our democracy. This is blah, blah... What about these downtrodden people?" Or whatever, and then meanwhile you're like, "But you guys have no interest in finding Epstein's client list? Really?" Like how are you not talking about that every day, man?

Joe Rogan 43:32 Right.

Dave Smith 43:32 Like every day. Like you're telling me we found out that there was a ring of, uh, like a child rape ring with the most powerful people all involved in it, and you're not just demanding every day that we get to the bottom of this? And in fact, we know that that one ABC reporter wa- had the story suppressed when she first broke the Epstein story, right?

Joe Rogan 43:54 Yeah.

Dave Smith 43:54 She was on the hot mic talking about it.

Joe Rogan 43:56 Yeah.

Dave Smith 43:56 And like, so you're like, well, where do you get off? Like acting like you're the, the... Yeah, this is how the media works. You get quoted and then we quote you.

Joe Rogan 44:05 Yeah.

Dave Smith 44:05 And then we show you. That's how the media works. Like this air of superiority-

Joe Rogan 44:09 Yeah.

Dave Smith 44:09 ...where you're... Like you've been caught red-handed on so many different things. You li- you lied us into every freaking war in the last 20 years. You- you suppressed the Epstein story. You bullshitted about the Hunter Biden story. You're all now even admitting it. Even they're admitting it now. "Oh yeah, the... Well, it turns out there is a whole real corrupt thing to be investigated here about the Bidens." And it's like, but then they still turn around and have this like, "Well, we're the news and that's what happens." And then they're very concerned with, you know, you spreading misinformation or something.

Joe Rogan 44:39 The ivermectin thing.

Dave Smith 44:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:41 The new wh- now the, the CDC or the FDA rather, can't stop doctors from approving ivermectin for COVID.

Dave Smith 44:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:51 There's this giant wave of COVID right now that's happening supposedly.

Dave Smith 44:57 Well, according to Alex Jones, uh, he has information that, that... You see that?

Joe Rogan 45:02 Yeah.

Dave Smith 45:02 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-

Joe Rogan 45:26 Not only that-

Dave Smith 45:27 ... and talking about this new strain.

Joe Rogan 45:27 ... there's a mask mandate that got passed at one college.

Dave Smith 45:31 Right.

Joe Rogan 45:31 And then Lionsgate passed a... They, they instituted a mask mandate for all their employees.

Dave Smith 45:37 Yeah. Yeah, man.

Joe Rogan 45:39 Which is wild.

Dave Smith 45:40 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.

Joe Rogan 46:15 "It looks like it does."

Dave Smith 46:16 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."

Joe Rogan 46:26 Right.

Dave Smith 46:26 "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."

Joe Rogan 46:35 "Shh..." Well, the-

Dave Smith 46:36 "What are the effects of taking eight mRNA vaccines in, in two years? I don't know. Looks good. Take it."

Joe Rogan 46:43 (sighs)

Dave Smith 46:43 That's where they're at.

Joe Rogan 46:44 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.

Dave Smith 46:54 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."

Joe Rogan 47:54 Well, they all probably got COVID too.

Dave Smith 47:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 47:57 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.

Dave Smith 48:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:15 Which is so crazy.

Dave Smith 48:17 Yeah, which is really, uh, scary. And there's, there, there was a lot of, um, there, there was a lot of scientific arguments that were made even before that, that were like there's a real concern that this is the case.

Joe Rogan 48:29 Yeah.

Dave Smith 48:30 That in fact the, the vaccine is essentially tricking your natural like, um, your natural response.

Joe Rogan 48:36 Including Hotez said that.

Dave Smith 48:39 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:39 And it's one of the things he said while Trump was president.

Dave Smith 48:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:42 You know, which is so fascinating that they can change their ideas about vaccines depending upon who's the president. Before Trump was president... When Trump was president, they were all saying, "Are you gonna take it?" "I'm not gonna take it." Biden was saying it, "Who knows? Who knows what's in there?" Trump-

Dave Smith 48:59 Kamala Harris was saying it.

Joe Rogan 49:01 All of them were saying.

Dave Smith 49:01 Fauci was saying it could take years and he literally said specifically this, that, you know, actually sometimes the vaccine can have a reverse effect so it would take years of us studying this before we knew whether this helped or it could actually make it worse. They were all saying it.

Joe Rogan 49:14 Oh.

Dave Smith 49:14 And then as soon as the vaccine... You know, as soon as, uh, Trump, uh, lost the election, as soon as that, the vaccine rollout started, again, it's just like the thing in Ukraine, you know, it's just like the thing with Al-Qaeda. Oh, that's, that's gone.

Joe Rogan 49:27 Yeah.

Dave Smith 49:27 All that stuff we were admitting five minutes ago? You're a crazy person if you say that now.

Joe Rogan 49:31 Right.

Dave Smith 49:31 Because now there's the new agenda.

Joe Rogan 49:32 Yeah.

Dave Smith 49:32 And this is how the propaganda goes from that. I, I will say, man, I think that, um, uh, if they're, if they're gonna do this, like if they're gonna bring back like mask mandates, if, if businesses are doing this, I, I think like the thing that happened with Budweiser or with Bud Light when they put that Dylan, uh-

Joe Rogan 49:54 Mulvaney.

Dave Smith 49:54 ... fella-

Joe Rogan 49:55 Yeah.

Dave Smith 49:55 ... on the (laughs) on the, uh, the can, and they ... Like, we need that times 10. Like I, I completely support people's right to stop drinking Bud Light if they don't like what's on the can, you know? You don't have to have a cultural thing forced on you that you don't agree with. But like there's gotta be some type of response where like if you're bringing back mask mandates, we're boycotting your business. Like we're just not, we're not fucking with people who are gonna try to force this all down our throat again, 'cause it's insane. And it's like at a certain point it's gotta stop. Like, dude, first off the cloth masks don't even work and all the studies indicate that. It doesn't even slow the spread or anything. Um, and this is just insane. Like if you're very sick and you're concerned about, uh, COVID, then all right, fine. You can like kind of isolate yourself. But let the r- let the rest of people like live a life. We can't go back to all this insanity again.

Joe Rogan 50:47 It's crazy because it's once people have accepted it and once it's a thing that happened, it can happen again.

Dave Smith 50:53 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 50:53 And it seems like they kinda want it to happen again. At least some people want it to happen again regardless of what the information is about the effectiveness of masks, regardless of like the very low fatality rate for this new strain. Like regardless of that, they still-

Dave Smith 51:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:09 They wanna go back to where we were and they wanna be able to say that they did the right thing, that they protected people.

Dave Smith 51:15 Yeah. It's so, it's so weird how into it a lot of people got-

Joe Rogan 51:19 Yeah.

Dave Smith 51:19 ... with the COVID thing. Like they got into being on lockdown.

Joe Rogan 51:22 They also got i- into enforcing other people's, you know, b- b- people's th- like when you have a bu- like the one of the things in LA they were doing, they were turning people in for having parties. Remember that?

Dave Smith 51:37 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:38 They were like snitches get stitches, but in LA they get rewards.

Dave Smith 51:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:42 You get rewards. They, uh, they were, people were forcing other people to comply. It's really weird. It's weird how that happens, so you like, you know, you, you get people that act like prison guards, you know? That like they're, they're a little special because they can catch you doing the thing that you shouldn't be doing that everybody should be fighting back against.

Dave Smith 52:05 Yeah. Well, it's like, you know, you know there were like the, the Milgram experiments where they get people to zap them until they think they're dead?

Joe Rogan 52:12 Yes. Yeah.

Dave Smith 52:12 'Cause the person in a white coat tells you to keep zapping them and they're screaming in pain. And most of the people would just keep doing it even after it looked like they were dead. And that kind of gave this like image of like oh, so this is like kinda how authoritarianism works. Like there's this authority figure and then people just comply and they just follow it and they just follow orders. And like that's, there's an element of that obviously. I mean, they, they demonstrated that in the experiment. But then it's like, it's almost more like the Stanford prison experiments. That's really more the complete picture, that like everyone gets into their little role and they actually really enjoy it.

Joe Rogan 52:45 Yeah.

Dave Smith 52:45 And that's how authoritarian regimes actually like, uh, come to be-

Joe Rogan 52:50 Yeah.

Dave Smith 52:51 ... and continue themselves, is that it's not just that like oh, you know, like, um, you know, Hitler said we're supposed to hate the Jews and I'm not gonna say no to him so I guess we gotta hate the Jews. It's more like those people get really into hating the Jews.

Joe Rogan 53:03 Yeah.

Dave Smith 53:03 Yes, those fucking Je- they're the ones who did th- You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 53:06 Yeah.

Dave Smith 53:06 Like it's kinda like that's the real sick thing, when your neighbor ... And just little things, man. I remember, um, in like April of 2020 going to visit my mother and being in her apartment building and her, like one of the neighbors that's kinda like busybody, uh, older lady, like came right up to us and she goes, "Visiting and without masks? Really?" And you're like, "Lady, like go back down the hall. Like I'm bringing my kids to see their grandmother and I'm not not doing that because you're weird. Like go away." (laughs) Like I mean, I didn't say it exactly like that. Uh, I said, I think I just said something like, I go, "Yeah, you don't wanna get too close to us." (laughs) You know? Like-

Joe Rogan 53:46 (laughs)

Dave Smith 53:46 ... social distance, right? Like okay. Stay away. But it's a- it's crazy like people would get into that and like somehow you could be demonized for the crime of bringing little kids to see their grandmother.

Joe Rogan 53:57 Yeah.

Dave Smith 53:58 You know what I mean? Like there, there's something really creepy about that.

Joe Rogan 54:01 Visiting and without masks. I mean-

Dave Smith 54:03 What? I'm gonna wear a mask to my mom's?

Joe Rogan 54:05 Also you're gonna have a conversation in the hallway and cite statistics about the effectiveness-

Dave Smith 54:09 Right.

Joe Rogan 54:09 ... of masks.

Dave Smith 54:10 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 54:11 You know?

Dave Smith 54:11 And like what are we gonna do here?

Joe Rogan 54:12 Yeah.

Dave Smith 54:12 Like I'm not persuading you so it's just like yeah, let's distance. Th- stay over there.

Joe Rogan 54:15 That's ... It's just such a weird thing that people bought into. Has there ever, and have v- is there any compelling data that masks have an effect?

Dave Smith 54:22 They had, they had a couple studies that s- that seemed to indicate it, but then when they kinda broke it down it's like oh no, they really manipulated these studies and they left out all of these other areas that like kinda showed that it didn't work. I don't have a, I, I don't remember like right offhand, but there were major studies that indicated that the, the mask compliance rate and the spread of COVID had like no correlation to each other. It like, it really didn't matter. Um, the, the outdoor cloth mask thing is just insane. Uh, there's-

Joe Rogan 54:50 Yeah.

Dave Smith 54:50 ... like you don't transmit COVID outside-

Joe Rogan 54:53 Yeah.

Dave Smith 54:53 ... unless you're like r- right on top of each other. Um, and, and also, um, and I know it was, um, who was it? Oh damn, I'm blanking on the, uh ... Oh, I'll remember in a second. But there was a major study that came out that also showed that there was no correlation in the lockdown, in areas that locked down versus areas that didn't lock down.

Joe Rogan 55:11 Right.

Dave Smith 55:12 It just did nothing.

Joe Rogan 55:13 Right.

Dave Smith 55:13 It had a- o- almost no effect whatsoever on the virus 'cause it's like it's an upper respiratory virus. It spreads, you know? You kinda can't really-

Joe Rogan 55:21 Yeah.

Dave Smith 55:21 ... stop that from happening, and the best thing to fight against it has always been, and this has now been proven empirically but would have been easy for anyone to figure out before, is natural immunity.That's the best, that's the best protection you have is if you can get COVID and get over it.

Joe Rogan 55:36 And they (laughs) were trying to say that natural immunity was a myth.

Dave Smith 55:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:40 Which is so wild.

Dave Smith 55:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:42 So wild.

Dave Smith 55:44 And it's all... And it's clearly stronger, uh, than any immunity you get from the vaccine. The only debate is over how much stronger it is.

Joe Rogan 55:50 Yeah.

Dave Smith 55:50 And I've seen some... There was, like, one Israeli study that showed that it was 75 times more, uh, stronger than the vaccine. And then there was one that showed it was, like, 35 times more. But whatever the number is, it's clearly much better for you. And you just get to a point where, like, what was... It was like a 1% death rate, I think, on the in- on the original, uh, uh, the original, uh, strand of COVID. And that 1% is obviously largely driven by old sick people. That, that's where-

Joe Rogan 56:17 Yeah.

Dave Smith 56:17 ... most of the death is coming from.

Joe Rogan 56:18 And what they did with nursing homes. Well, who would've-

Dave Smith 56:21 Yeah. And then they forced (laughs) , they forced COVID positive-

Joe Rogan 56:23 Which is fucking-

Dave Smith 56:23 ... people in there. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:24 ... crazy. They forced those people to stay in nursing homes. And when they had COVID in nursing homes, it spread like wildfire. And all these people that were on death's door already wound up dying.

Dave Smith 56:36 Yeah, dude. And it's like... It's crazy 'cause it's only a few years later, but this is how this stuff happens, you know? Even like we were just talking about how like, oh, that old thing that we used to admit, you're not allowed to admit that anymore.

Joe Rogan 56:45 Yeah.

Dave Smith 56:46 Um, but it's almost like you give a pass for all of these things. Like, do you remember that like... Oh yeah, they just made... Like, they made, uh, Cuomo the hero governor.

Joe Rogan 56:58 Yeah.

Dave Smith 56:58 And every day he's on TV and what did... He won a fucking Emmy-

Joe Rogan 57:01 Yeah.

Dave Smith 57:01 ... or whatever for it. For your amazing-

Joe Rogan 57:03 People are saying they were-

Dave Smith 57:04 ... TV appearances.

Joe Rogan 57:04 ... Cuomosexual.

Dave Smith 57:05 Yes. And they just try... "Oh, he's so presidential." Donald Trump is-

Joe Rogan 57:09 Yeah.

Dave Smith 57:09 ... leading, he's leading. Then two seconds later, he's out. But they let his brother interview him every day on CNN.

Joe Rogan 57:14 Yeah.

Dave Smith 57:15 Like, that they wouldn't even pretend there's a, a journalistic integrity issue-

Joe Rogan 57:20 Right.

Dave Smith 57:20 ... with having the brother of the governor sit down and just congratulate him every day? While we're in the middle of the biggest crisis, that's what you do to, like, hold power accountable? You let him sit down with his brother every day? I, I can't believe... E- even as corrupt as I know, like, all the corporate press, like, institutions are, I can't believe there wasn't someone there who goes, "This is too much of the appearance of..."

Joe Rogan 57:44 Yeah.

Dave Smith 57:45 Like, "We're not even pretending. Let's have someone else interview him every day. Le- let Don Lemon do the, the Andrew Cuomo stuff," you know?

Joe Rogan 57:51 (laughs) Right. I think they thought it was cute that they would-

Dave Smith 57:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:54 ... talk shit to each other.

Dave Smith 57:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:56 Like, that was the fun thing, that it was like palling around with my brother.

Dave Smith 58:00 Yeah, I'm sure it was great for ratings or whatever.

Joe Rogan 58:02 They thought he was gonna be the president, man. And then w- for whatever reason, they turned on him.

Dave Smith 58:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:09 And it's wild watching the, the Democrat establishment turn on that guy. 'Cause i- at the beginning of the pandemic, he was... What do you think it was? Do you think it was the nursing home statistics?

Dave Smith 58:23 No.

Joe Rogan 58:23 Like, what, what, what is it that, like, where he became a liability? Because there was... H- there was a lot of people that were saying, like, that guy could be the big guy to challenge Trump.

Dave Smith 58:35 It... I don't think it was the nursing home thing. I don't think it was any of his track record on COVID. 'Cause I mean, look, uh, Newsom has a terrible track record on COVID, but they're, they're not, like, turning on him over that. I, I think it's, like, pissed off some powerful people behind the scenes, some shit like-

Joe Rogan 58:49 Hm.

Dave Smith 58:49 ... that happened. 'Cause it was a concerted effort. Like, he was being propped up like the next guy, and then they were like, "We're pulling the floor out from underneath-

Joe Rogan 58:56 Yeah.

Dave Smith 58:56 ... this guy." Just like that. The- that was... It was crazy during COVID how many of those things happened where, like, you know, they'd go... Like, with very little time in between, they'd go from being like, "Okay, like, you can't leave your house." You were... Like, they were, like, demonizing, uh, kids who were on the beach and being like, "Look how reckless these kids are being. They're out on the beach with their friends." Uh, you know, MSNBC is like, "This guy's not wearing a mask." Po- you know, like, demonizing anyone who went outside. And then it was like, "Well, if you're protesting for Black Lives Matter, that's totally cool. You guys can all do it. Huge groups, go for it."

Joe Rogan 59:29 Hm.

Dave Smith 59:29 "No problem." And it was like, "Dude, but yesterday you told me to give up my life and, like, put everything on i-... But now if it's for this cause, it's okay?" Or, like, the way they were... We were at, at 5:00 PM, everyone was applauding for the nurses. But now if that nurse won't get vaccinated, fire her.

Joe Rogan 59:44 Yeah.

Dave Smith 59:44 You know, like, screw... You're like, "Whoa."

Joe Rogan 59:46 Right. Especially-

Dave Smith 59:46 The hero just became, like-

Joe Rogan 59:48 ... nurses that had, already had COVID and gotten over it.

Dave Smith 59:52 Well, I mean, al-

Joe Rogan 59:52 Like, it's so unscientific.

Dave Smith 59:53 Well, all of those nurses had been working throughout the pandemic. So they had surely either gotten COVID or figured out how to protect themselves from getting COVID. You know what I mean? There was just no-

Joe Rogan 1:00:06 Yeah.

Dave Smith 1:00:06 There was no argument that, like-

Joe Rogan 1:00:08 Yeah.

Dave Smith 1:00:08 ... they must get the vaccine.

Joe Rogan 1:00:10 Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Smith 1:00:11 It was a nutty time, man.

Joe Rogan 1:00:13 Very.

Dave Smith 1:00:14 And it still is. It still is. I mean, this stuff, this stuff with Trump, you know, he's, uh, tomorrow supposed to, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:00:20 Turn himself in.

Dave Smith 1:00:21 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-

Joe Rogan 1:00:42 Really?

Dave Smith 1:00:42 ... which is, I, I think something that they're going for. I think they like the optics of that a lot. Um...

Joe Rogan 1:00:48 Trump has already agreed to a $200,000 bond with certain conditions, including limits on social media posts.

Dave Smith 1:00:54 Now that's a really interesting one.

Joe Rogan 1:00:56 Wow. Limits on social media posts about the case, but if he violates it, judges may have limited enforcement options.

Dave Smith 1:01:04 That's interesting.

Joe Rogan 1:01:06 Interesting.

Dave Smith 1:01:06 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.

Joe Rogan 1:01:28 Wow.

Dave Smith 1:01:28 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-

Joe Rogan 1:01:47 Wow.

Dave Smith 1:01:47 ... 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-"

Joe Rogan 1:01:59 Yeah.

Dave Smith 1:02:00 ... 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-

Joe Rogan 1:02:16 Right.

Dave Smith 1:02:16 ... 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?

Joe Rogan 1:02:49 Right.

Dave Smith 1:02:49 That seems like e- you're rigging the system.

Narrator 1:02:51 It sounds like the conditions are more about it says intimidating witnesses and stuff like that.

Dave Smith 1:02:56 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.

Narrator 1:03:12 Uh, limited to post on social media, reposts on social media is really what it says.

Joe Rogan 1:03:17 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.

Dave Smith 1:03:37 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-

Joe Rogan 1:03:48 Right.

Dave Smith 1:03:48 ... 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-

Joe Rogan 1:04:12 Wow.

Dave Smith 1:04:12 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 1:04:25 Wow.

Dave Smith 1:04:25 So it's like if you, if I say, "You murdered somebody," and you go, "That's absolute bullshit. I didn't murder anybody." And you're like, "You're right, you didn't, but you just obstructed justice."

Joe Rogan 1:04:33 Wow.

Dave Smith 1:04:33 Like how insane is that? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:04:35 It's so crazy.

Dave Smith 1:04:35 Just go, "You're right." We did make that up about the murder thing, but when you said you didn't murder anybody..." You know, they said firing Comey was one of them, because he fired the FBI, the director of the FBI who was investigating him at the time. But then Comey said that he told Trump he wasn't investigating him. So now maybe Trump figured that out, but he had told the president he wasn't investigating him, even though he was, and, uh, Trump fired him.

Joe Rogan 1:04:59 Why did Trump specifically fire him?

Dave Smith 1:05:01 You know, I, I... So, okay, so Comey was the, uh, the FBI director. The first time, uh, the first time they meet, uh, and Comey was, uh, the FBI director under Obama, you know, so he was still there. It's not like Trump appointed him. He was th- the already the FBI director. So the first time they meet, uh, Comey presents him with the Steele dossier. And he goes, you know, "Just wanted to let you know we have all of this, uh, information..." and all the stuff, the PEE, th- the, the, the, you know, and all the being involved with Russia and all of this. And Trump's response to this, um, at least according to, uh, Bob Woodward, um, was, uh, was he goes, "Take everything you need. You have access to all my campaign files, everything. If there's any connection to Russia here, I wanna know about it as much as you do. So investigate me." Which he did not have to do, which right away should have really suggested that, that there was nothing to this. But I don't know exactly what the details of that meeting were, but to me, what it read like was, you know, uh, like what J. Ed- J. Edgar Hoover, uh, this was the-

Joe Rogan 1:06:07 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 1:06:07 ... longtime, you know, head of the FBI. What he used to do was like, uh... So JFK, uh, you know, wins the presidency. Uh, Bobby Kennedy, RFK Jr's father is the, is the attorney general. He, uh, he comes into a meeting with, uh, with J. Edgar Hoover and J. Edgar Hoover goes, "Hey, listen, just wanna keep you up to date on some, uh, intelligence. I have these pictures of all of the chicks who your brother's sleeping with. So here you go. Here's just the intelligence, just so you know. Um, I have all of the information about all the affairs he's having. And don't worry, I have backups, you know? So, anyway, so I don't know who you guys are thinking to, uh, tap for FBI director, but I'm thinking I do another term."

Joe Rogan 1:06:46 (laughs)

Dave Smith 1:06:46 You know what I mean? It's like that kind of deal. It's like, it's like a soft blackmail. And it seems like there was something like that with Comey presenting all of that, like, "Here, look what I have." And I think he kind of tried-

Joe Rogan 1:06:58 Was this before the Steele dossier had been released publicly?

Dave Smith 1:07:00 Yes. And so I think he was kind of like, "Look here, here's what I have." Here's... You know, and like kind of-

Joe Rogan 1:07:05 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 1:07:05 ... tried to like alpha Donald Trump.

Joe Rogan 1:07:07 Yeah.

Dave Smith 1:07:07 And I think trying to do that to Donald Trump, like his... Trump's knee-jerk reaction, he's like, "You know what my catchphrase is, right?" It's like, "You're fired." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:07:16 Yeah.

Dave Smith 1:07:16 And like, I don't think he told that to him, to his face there, but I think that was ultimately kind of like what got him to fire him. And then that, firing Comey, is what set off the whole thing. And, um, you know, but li- like I said earlier, they had been already investigating him knowing this was bullshit from the very beginning of... since the campaign. And, uh, Andrew, uh, McCabe, who was the deputa- uh, the deputy FBI director, uh, at the time. So James, uh, uh...So after they fired, um, the FBI director, he said this on a 60 Minutes interview. He said that basically they all sat around, all the top people at the Justice Department, and they considered invoking the 25th Amendment, which is, you know, getting enough of the Cabinet to declare that the president is unfit to serve and removing him, and that that's what they wanted to do. And he said that they basically realized they couldn't get enough of the Cabinet, like they couldn't get enough people to agree to that, and so they, they settled on Mueller.

1:08:16 Wow.

1:08:16 They settled on setting up a special, uh, investigator. And so that was... That's how they got to the whole investigation.

1:08:23 But how much money-

1:08:24 And then-

1:08:24 ... did they spend on this?

1:08:26 Tens of millions. I don't, I don't remember exactly how much, but it was, it, it was a bit. It was a nice-

1:08:30 Is't that wild?

1:08:31 ... nice chunk. But the, the... And the crazy thing about it too is that, so Mueller investigates for over two years, through the midterm elections, and this is the time when all you heard on the news every single day was, "Trump-Russia collusion! Trump-Russia collusion! Let's bring on this next guest who says that Donald Trump may have been a Russian spy since 1986!" And all of these different things. You know, BuzzFeed publishes, uh, the, the Steele dossier. They're all citing it and they're all talking about it. And then, uh, I don't know if you remember this. At the very end, so like the last month, uh, BuzzFeed had these two reporters who ran a story that said that they had been shown proof that, uh, Donald Trump instructed, uh, Cohen, his attorney, to lie in... before Congress. And this is a clear crime, and this is gonna lead with indictments of Donald Trump. He's gonna be walking away in handcuffs. The sitting president of the United States of America is about to be indicted. And Mueller's team put out a statement, and they said, "That is... This is not true. That isn't... We have not found that in our investigation." So they were willing, at that point, toward the very end... Um, yes. This was, uh, the, the Mueller report found that Trump did not direct Michael Cohen to lie. But more importantly than that is that they, they came, they came out before the report was out and said, "Hey, listen. Everyone's speculating about this." Kinda like, "Control expectations, 'cause that's not gonna happen. We didn't find any evidence of that." Yet, they allowed, for two-plus years, every pundit in the world to speculate about whether the sitting president of the United States had committed high treason. And he never came out and said, "Hey, guys. That's not where our, where our investigation is pointed at all." Like, "Cool it with that."

1:10:17 Yeah.

1:10:17 He let everybody say that through the midterm elections and just through the first two-plus years of Trump's administration. Just let that hang over him, even though clearly he never had any evidence pointing in that direction at all, which is insane. It's like, it, it was like the biggest story in the history of the United States of America, if it was true, that the-

1:10:38 Right.

1:10:38 ... sitting president is actually a Russian agent.

1:10:40 Right.

1:10:40 Like, there's nothing bigger than that ever. But the actual story is almost as big, which is that the intelligence agencies framed the sitting president for treason, and they all got away with it.

1:10:54 (Exhales) And this is the world we're living in right now. This is, uh-

1:11:01 Yeah.

1:11:01 ... the real red pill moment.

1:11:03 It's the rich men north of Richmond.

1:11:05 (laughs) Yeah.

1:11:05 They all want total control.

1:11:07 Yeah.

1:11:08 And that's what I... But, but that's kinda... I think, on some instinctual level, like that's why this shit, that song resonates so much with people. And I remember you said once, and I always thought this was, like, the best way to put it, and I believe you were talking about Occupy Wall Street. Now, this was years ago when, when that was going on, and you compared them to, uh, white blood cells.

1:11:25 Yeah.

1:11:26 And you go, "Now, white blood cells maybe don't exactly understand what virus this is exactly. They don't know the science of it." Like, they, it's... But they know, like, corruption, rush. It's just like this kinda thing on an instinctual level. Like-

1:11:38 Yeah.

1:11:39 And I think there was something to that, like with Occupy Wall Street. Like, yeah, sure, if you went down there and you talked to the average kid there and asked him, like, about economics or something, he might give you some ridiculous answer.

1:11:49 Right.

1:11:49 But they knew those big banks being bailed out was corrupt as shit, you know?

1:11:53 Yeah.

1:11:53 And I think there's something about that. Like, people just know. They're like, "This whole system is bullshit."

1:11:58 Yeah.

1:11:58 And they're right.

1:11:59 Yeah, it's bullshit.

1:12:00 Yeah.

1:12:01 And it's gonna remain bullshit. That's what's crazy.

1:12:05 Until the libertarians take over.

1:12:06 Ugh.

1:12:07 Join the Libertarian Party, the Mises Caucus. They're gonna, we're gonna get us there.

Dave Smith 1:12:11 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?

1:12:21 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.

1:12:29 Right.

1:12:29 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?"

1:12:54 Right.

1:12:54 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