EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,010 words- 0:00 – 1:34
Chaos politics & the Tesla backlash
- JRJoe Rogan
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- DSDave Smith
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- NANarrator
(instrumental music plays) Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music plays) Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan Experience. Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan. Edward Smith, good to see you again, sir.
- DSDave Smith
Good to see you too, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
Good to see you again in these times of trouble-
- DSDave Smith
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... and chaos.
- DSDave Smith
W- wild, wild times.
- JRJoe Rogan
Where leftists are lighting Teslas on fire and putting swastikas on them. (laughs)
- DSDave Smith
(laughs) And that's, and that's the calmest they've been in years.
- JRJoe Rogan
(coughs)
- DSDave Smith
This is actually, for them, probably the best.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's so weird how these people are so easy to wind up and get them to do what you want them to do. Just put a narrative out there, "You're a good person if you go do this," and they just go run out and fucking cause chaos.
- DSDave Smith
And it's the most... I mean, look, it's not like as much chaos as, say, like, uh, the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 or something, but the one about the Tes- It's like you're destroying electric cars.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which are mostly owned by liberals.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, like, but th- But I thought you've been telling me for so long that this is gonna save the world. Like, the importance on going green was that we're all gonna die unless we do it. And now you're taking the most successful, uh, electric car company and trying to destroy them?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
Because... For the crime of pointing out that maybe the $7 trillion that our federal government's spending has a wee bit of corruption in it? You know? (laughs) Like, maybe we could cut some of that. It's so... I don't know, it's so... On every level, it's just so surreal. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
It is surreal. It feels fake. It does. It, it genuinely feels like we're living in some sort of a stupid movie. (laughs)
- 1:34 – 3:34
The 'Shadow Campaign' and how protest machines get switched on
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Man, it makes you wonder. It makes you wonder how controlled the whole thing is, you know? And I don't know, I don't know, but there is a... Do you remember? I think I sent it to you at the time, um, but there was a... Like, four years ago, there was a Time Magazine piece about the 2020 election. It was, like, a real long article, um, about- It was something... Like, the title was something like, "How the Shadow Government," (laughs) like, "Stole..." I, I... It wasn't exactly that, but it was like, basically went through the real conspiracy of 2020. And they're writing it from the pro-conspiracy point of view, but they're r- r- Forget anything about, like, ballots or any of that stuff, which I don't... You know, even when you interviewed Trump, he didn't really have a good answer for that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
You know? He's like, "It's, it was stolen." And you're like, "Well, how do you know it was stolen?" He's like, "It was stolen." You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
"I have the information."
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. But the... But what we- we do know, like, the real conspiracy in broad daylight, that they just totally, like, tanked the economy, overhaul-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, that's it. The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.
- JRJoe Rogan
Saved.
- DSDave Smith
And they go deep into, like, admitting so much about, like, the censorship on social media, um, the- the support of the riots and the protests. And what's amazing about it is it really is incredible, their ability to turn on and turn off the protest machine. Like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's just money.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just money. There's a lot of people out there that have nothing to do. They're a bunch of... We were talking about it the other day. I was like, "If I was 21 years old and someone said, 'Hey, they're gonna pay you $400 to go to a Kamala Harris rally,' would you go?" I'm like, "Fuck yeah."
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"I'd go. I'd hold that sign up. I'd probably vote for her."
- DSDave Smith
When I was 21, you had me at $400.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DSDave Smith
The conversation was over.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's over.
- DSDave Smith
I was like, "$400?"
- JRJoe Rogan
I heard you get $1,000 to go protest for Tesla.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Can I sneak in both of those? Can we do one-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, $1,400 in a day, dude.
- DSDave Smith
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Nice.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, I was... I mean, I was thrilled when I was 25 to make, like, 75 bucks at the comic strip or something like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 3:34 – 9:40
Ukraine: Maidan, USAID/NGOs, and the empire debate
- DSDave Smith
So, yeah, the- the... But also, it's a... You know, it's like... And this, that's kind of like the whole CIA deep state game, is it's always moving around the margins, you know? Like, if you... If there's, um... 'Cause, like, when I... You know, uh, on the show, I've talked about a bunch, like the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DSDave Smith
And when I, when I'd say, like, "This was a US-backed coup against a democratically elected president," the response I'd get from people who disagreed with it would always be like, "Oh, you're denying the agency of the Ukrainian people? 'Cause, like, look at these pictures. There's all these Ukrainian people in the streets." And you're like, "Well, yeah. But the US poured $100 million into that street protest. Like, you think that made a difference a little bit, you know?" And so, like, it's not that there weren't real people there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- DSDave Smith
But man, you wanna keep a protest going through the Ukrainian winter, and then all of a sudden you get $100 million, and now you got heat lamps and celebrities and concerts and th- And then you keep the whole thing going until the democratically-elected president has to flee for his fucking life. And then what are you supposed to look at that? "Oh, that was just an organic revolution." Like, no the fucking wasn't. You know? This is DC overthrowing Putin's neighbor. And, you know, they don't like that detail 'cause then it fucks up the whole unprovoked narrative.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, people don't like that detail. They don't like the detail that there's many layers of subterfuge interexchanging with each other. There's just so much money and so much influence, and they're so good at it. They've been doing it for so long that they can get Time Magazine to write an article saying how it's good.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, it's great.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's good that we saved the 2020 election. (laughs)
- DSDave Smith
And that's... And by the way, I love, um, uh... I know your, your podcast with, uh, Mike Benz was phenomenal. That dude's great. I love him.
- JRJoe Rogan
He's phenomenal. I've done a few of them now.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, he's, he's great. But I'll tell you, I already, I knew all that, uh... He's right (laughs) about all that USAID stuff, and I'll tell you, uh, that was the whole thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
It's, uh, Scott Horton's book, Provoked, which is, like, the best book that's been written on the, the history of the buildup to the war in Ukraine. And it was... It's all in there, dude, if you want, and it's all footnoted. But it's like, yeah, they're the ones pumping all this money in. And then they make it out, like when you, when you try to cut it, they're like, "Oh, no, we were just helping some kids get on a school bus over here, and overthrowing the democratically-elected government in Ukraine."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
"You know, like we did, we did all of that." (laughs) But...
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that's the beautiful thing about USAID, you know? It's like they had the money to do all this stuff. There's the money to do essentially whatever they want all over the world. And the way Mike Benz describes it as the...... stuff that's too dirty for the CIA.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, yeah. Well, and, and so they can have plausible deniability too.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
'Cause like, what are you talking about?
- JRJoe Rogan
Non-government organization.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, there you go. That's total, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Not us.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, exactly. It's like in the name.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
It's like, they might as well call it. They're like, "We're not the CIA."
- JRJoe Rogan
The good guys.
- DSDave Smith
"We're just George Soros's NGO, not the CIA at all. Totally removed." Um, but also the, the thing is that, you know, when you look at like the actual money, 'cause sometimes they'll, they'll kinda point out that ... They're like, "Oh, this is a very small percentage of the budget." And it's like, yeah-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a tiny amount of money.
- DSDave Smith
This is ... Well, right. It's a small percentage of our budget.
- JRJoe Rogan
Just a few billion dollars. Yeah.
- 9:40 – 11:25
Post‑9/11 wars, Osama’s escape, and 'seven wars in five years'
- DSDave Smith
Uh, China has Japan and South Korea and they've, they've got their own, you know ... The, the truth is that there's, nobody has the power that the US government has to do this shit. It's only, like we're the ones who can do this. And it would just be a better world if we just didn't. Like you just can't convince me that like, if, if we just hadn't had fought the terror wars, like which was totally a possibility, we could have, we had, um, the, the whole war on terrorism could have been over by Christmas of 2001 with sp- the special ops taking out the Al-Qaeda cells. They could have trapped Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora when they had him there and they let him escape into, uh, uh, into Pakistan because, you know, if you, if you weren't-
- JRJoe Rogan
Why, why do you think they did that?
- DSDave Smith
'Cause they already had their eye on Baghdad and you know, if Osama bin Laden is caught, you don't get your bonus war.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- DSDave Smith
You know what I mean? He's got ... The whole, the whole, um, war propaganda for invading Afghanistan, it wasn't everyone remembers WMDs, but it wasn't just that claim. It was the claim which Dick Cheney and George W. Bush and all the Neocons pushed real hard, was that he was in on 9/11. Now this totally fell apart 'cause it was never true and they knew it wasn't true. But the claim was he's got these weapons and he could hand them off to the terrorists and then, you know, what was the Condoleezza Rice, uh, line, was like, "We don't want the warning to be in the form of a mushroom cloud." Or something like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Like the, the fear was they're gonna nuke Kansas or whatever as soon as, as soon as Saddam Hussein gives the weapons he doesn't have to the terrorists he's not friends with. Um, but if they caught Osama bin Laden, I think that would have, uh, that would have destroyed the, the whole seven wars in five years strategy.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's the Wesley Clark strategy. Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Ooh. You wanna hear something else on the Wesley Clark thing?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 11:25 – 15:15
Media evolution: Piers Morgan, Tucker’s pivot, and health controversies
- DSDave Smith
This is new. Um, so, uh, Piers Morgan, say what you will about him, he hosted a debate-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
... between ... Which I love doing the show, without trashing it. But, uh, it's, it's a circus. But, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
It is a circus.
- DSDave Smith
Yes. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
I think he's very smart.
- DSDave Smith
Oh, he's a genius, dude. I mean he's-
- JRJoe Rogan
That, that circus is, uh, fucking a lot of people lining up. (laughs)
- DSDave Smith
Dude, he is, he figured out, and I, you gotta give him so much credit 'cause he's probably the only one from like the old guard of corporate media-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DSDave Smith
... who figured it out. He went, "Okay, I see where we are."... I see what's going on, and I know what people want to see happen.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, Tucker figured it out too, but in a different way.
- DSDave Smith
No, Tucker, Tucker is actually... Yes, Tucker is the one who really figured it out.
- JRJoe Rogan
Tucker is basically doing this kind of a show.
- DSDave Smith
Yes. Yeah. No, I think-
- JRJoe Rogan
He's basically doing long-form podcasts-
- DSDave Smith
Well, look-
- JRJoe Rogan
... but with people who sucked Obama's dick.
- DSDave Smith
(laughs) Sometimes.
- JRJoe Rogan
And other, and other various experts.
- DSDave Smith
And other guests.
- JRJoe Rogan
And other really, really-
- DSDave Smith
It's not only that.
- JRJoe Rogan
... yeah, really amazing people.
- DSDave Smith
Maybe 10% of the coverage is about who sucked Obama's dick.
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you see that physician who was on the other day, that was talking about all the cancer rises?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
They're seeing cancer-
- DSDave Smith
I didn't watch the whole thing, but I saw a few clips from it. It's very, very interesting.
- JRJoe Rogan
Fucking crazy. They're seeing pancreatic cancer in kids, little kids, which is just unheard of. He was saying that in all of his career, he had never seen pancreatic cancer in a child before.
- 15:15 – 24:55
Macron distractions, political prosecutions, and lawfare parallels
- JRJoe Rogan
She's got a six-hour presentation on how Bridget Macron is a man.
- DSDave Smith
(laughs) I know.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's fucking six hours plus long. It's-
- DSDave Smith
I like... I don't know, I don't know if she's even kinda right about that.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think she's right.
- DSDave Smith
But she's got a lot of shit to say on it.
- JRJoe Rogan
B- bro, she would be getting sued right now instead of trying... They're trying to bribe her. Instead of trying to give her money to shut the fuck up-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... they would sue her.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, no, you're probably right about that.
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't know if they are suing her. Are they, have they tried to file anything? They probably have. They probably filed some bullshit lawsuits too.
- DSDave Smith
I'm sure, I'm sure she's dealing with several.
- JRJoe Rogan
But I'm pretty sure she's right. I don't know. I might be wrong.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think she's right. The whole thing stinks. And what stinks way worse than that giant distraction is that the number one opponent for Macron just got sentenced to four years in jail and barred from political life for five years.
- DSDave Smith
And the front-runner, not just the number one opponent-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, the front-runner.
- DSDave Smith
... the one who's winning.
- JRJoe Rogan
Winning.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Yeah, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's fucking crazy. It's what they try to do to Trump, plus.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, they were able to take it further.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
And then we'll see if there's the backlash the same way there was when they tried to do that to Trump. And it's just so... It's like the, um, the... There's some propaganda that's, like, almost too... It can't be successful propaganda. Like, saying Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and is in bed with terrorists, that's good propaganda right there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
You know, right after 9/11, you could totally convince the average American that, "Okay, well, we can't let that stand. You know, in a post-9/11 world, we can't allow some Arab dictator to have nuclear weapons, and he's friends with the terrorists, and he's in on 9/11." Okay, we got... But to say the propaganda is democracy is on the ballot while you're trying to arrest your, your opponent because he's winning in the polls. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Like, that's just too, like, it's too ridiculous. It's too on its face.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not only that. You have to say what you're arresting him for.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- 24:55 – 40:18
SignalGate: the leak, incompetence vs sabotage, and the Yemen reality
- DSDave Smith
And, look, man, and then just ... And, and you could see now where there's, like, so much, um ... There, there's such a rise in people being so fed up with, with this stuff. But the idea that we're now ... I mean, look, just even, uh, with those, this whole SignalGate shit that just happened-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
And it's like, the real scandal there isn't even ... I mean, I, I do think that Mike Walt should be fired over this. It's, I mean, it's a crazy screw-up and it's totally embarrassing and-
- JRJoe Rogan
How do you ... D- how do you do that? I mean, I don't understand how you do that. It doesn't make any sense to me. So, it's-
- DSDave Smith
Did you see his interview?
- JRJoe Rogan
But it, it is a Signal chat between high-level government officials with classified information that's being discussed about war plans.
- DSDave Smith
They would claim it's not classified, but it was information about an imminent attack that's about to take place.
- JRJoe Rogan
How's that not class-
- DSDave Smith
It seems like it would have to be.
- JRJoe Rogan
How's that not classified?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. How is that not top secret?
- JRJoe Rogan
If that's not classified, somebody else should get fired.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But the, at the end of the day, you have, uh, I believe there was 18 people in that chat. Is that correct?
- DSDave Smith
Uh, it's something probably around there, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Um, and no one goes over those things before you start addressing this information? If Jamie and I were talking shit-
- DSDave Smith
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... about someone and we decided to do it on Signal, like, I would make sure that I didn't accidentally include my mom. (laughs)
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Or, or (laughs) or a fucking reporter I know, or-
- DSDave Smith
Or worse, like, it, it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Or, or Trump himself, whoopsies.
- DSDave Smith
Or, or like, your enemy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Like, the person who hates you the most.
- JRJoe Rogan
How could you even have that guy in your contact list? Like, what's going on?
- DSDave Smith
Well ... And also, I, like, like you said-
- JRJoe Rogan
How do you accidentally include someone?
- DSDave Smith
And the chat is ... I mean, this is, you can't overstate it. Short of the President of the United States, it's the most senior positions.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- 40:18 – 51:44
Yemen deep dive: Obama-era drones, Saudi war, blockade, and blowback math
- JRJoe Rogan
What is, what is the justification for these bombings? What is the public justification?
- DSDave Smith
Uh, that the Houthis, uh, have attacked a few US, uh, cargo ships and, um, that there's, um, you know, that they're i- international trade, th- they don't have a right to disrupt international trade in this way. Um, which is like o- okay. It's, it's true. I mean, the, the thing that I've seen the most is like that people will go, "Well, we can't just turn a blind eye to this aggression by the Houthis." But I also do think, and, and I don't even blame people for this because it's nobody, you know, in the corporate media or e- ever talked about any of this stuff, or very rarely talked about it, never really told the story, but it's like, yeah, if you're just coming into the story now, I could see where you might think the Houthis are the aggressors. But if you're rewinding the tape from this-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
... there is just no debate about it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
I mean, there's no question that we, we literally started, um, you know, in, it was in 2009 when Obama started up with the drone bombing, the then secret, uh, drone bombing, uh, campaign. And Yemen was one of the major theaters. You know, this was, um, where, if you remember, 'cause they were, it was like the biggest scandal of the Obama administration. Also not talked about much in the media, but was talked about on a lot of podcasts, was that Anwar Awlaki and his like 14 or 15-year-old son, these two American citizens, were both killed by drone bombs in Yemen. And this was, caused a bit of an outrage among some people 'cause you're like, "Hey, you know, you really can't murder American citizens who have never been charged of a crime. You can't just say, "Oh, I just ... You know, forget that whole Bill of Rights thing. They're on my list." And by the way, the kid was not Al-Qaeda affiliated or anything, and they claimed that that wasn't intentional, but it sure seemed like it was. Um, but so Obama had a drone ... You know, he was fighting at the time Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had like a presence in Yemen. So he's drone bombing these, these Al-Qaeda sites. They're, I think the estimates were something like 95 to 96% of the people who died were not the targets.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
So just killing a whole bunch of innocent people. And then as always happens, uh, in these situations, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula just grew stronger and stronger and stronger, uh, because this is, you know, it's insurgent math like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... General McChrystal said. You know, you kill a bunch of innocent people and then, you know, you kill one little girl and she had three brothers and a father and two uncles, and they all join up Al-Qaeda now 'cause like fuck you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
They're gonna get you back for that shit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Everyone's radicalized.
- DSDave Smith
Yes. So, so they were doing this drone bomb campaign over there. It's completely failing, and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is just getting stronger and stronger. At the same time, Obama kinda bribed off the dictator of Yemen at the time, uh, this guy, uh, Saleh.And he was like, "Listen, if you let us do our fucking drone bombing campaigns in here, we'll give you a whole bunch of weapons and, and money." And so he took the deal and then he used those weapons to go attack this group, the Houthis. And then he also started losing to them, like even with the US weapons, the Houthis were fucking him up. And then little by little, the Houthis like kinda took over the whole country. And then in, uh ... Now, the Houthis are also enemies with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Like these are radical Sunnis, Al-Qaeda, versus radical Shiites, the, the Houthis. So they're fucking enemies and they're fighting a civil war while all this is going on. And then Saudi Arabia decided to invade in, in early 2015 and it ... In 2015, and you can, you could look this up if you, uh, Google Obama, uh, to placate the Saudis. Eh, these are literally what the Obama officials told, uh, th- told the New York Times. I believe it was The New York Times. Um, they told them that literally this is why... So Obama stabbed the Houthis in the back, took Saudi Arabia's side, took Al-Qaeda's side, started fighting on the, started using the, f- fighting in a civil war against the Houthis, which is, you know, in effect, taking Al-Qaeda's side in that war. And so the Saudis invade the country. Now Obama said essentially that because the Saudis are like an important trading partner, um, and they were pissed off at us at the time. Uh, they were very upset about the war in Iraq. The Saudis were the ones in the region who were against it the whole time 'cause they knew. They were like, "You're just gonna give Baghdad to Iran," basically, and this, and that's their big enemy, is Iran. And then they were also really pissed off 'cause Obama did the one decent thing he did in his administration, was he worked out that deal with Iran, the same goddamn thing that Trump tore up and is now demanding they get back into some type of nuclear deal. Um, but so in order to placate the Saudis, Obama goes, "Okay, we'll back your, your war here." And like I said, full blockade around the country, um, refueling their military jets.
- JRJoe Rogan
Quiet support for Saudis entangles US in Yemen. This is, uh ...
- DSDave Smith
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
Here it is. Obama, in an awkward twist, becomes Saudi Arabia's defender. Wow.
- DSDave Smith
And it is, uh ... It is hard to overstate how brutal the Saudis were in this war. I mean, like, you know, it's ... You can think of Gaza, something not, uh, too unsimilar to that. But you're talking like a full blockade around the cou- this was the poorest country in the Middle East before any of this. Full blockade around the country. The Saudis were bombing. They were bombing their agriculture. They were bombing their, like, wheat silos. They were bombing their irrigation ditches. There ... Just like a total war on the civilian population all the way from 2015 into 2021 when it essentially ended in like an Afghanistan style, "I guess we give up." Like, it was just eventually the Saudis ... I think the Houthis ... You know, one of the things that's really interesting that happened this whole time, like you were talking about, the drone wars. So back in 2009, th- first of all, it was secret. The drone program wasn't ... Everyone knew it. There had been good reporting on it, but the way they got the good reporting was like people found the drones in Yemen, you know, and they'd take like little, you know, grainy cellphone pictures and be like, "Look, this is a US drone." So there's clearly ... But actually, the, um, uh, Obama's press secretary, it's not ... Goddammit, not Jay Carney, his first press secretary. Um, hmm, I'm blanking on his name. But he admitted this on NBC News. It was like a really amazing e- But he ad- like, uh, was talking about th- how the drone program ... This is years later, like 2012. He's at NBC News now, and he was talking about how when he used to get questions about the drone program, he wasn't allowed to, he wasn't allowed to even acknowledge that it was real. Th- so he would just sit there ... Yeah, yeah, yeah, Robert Gibbs. I apologize. I should've remembered that.
- JRJoe Rogan
"I was told not to even acknowledge the drone program."
- DSDave Smith
There's video of this.
- JRJoe Rogan
"When I went through the process of becoming press secretary, one of the first things they told me was, 'You're not even to acknowledge the drone program. You're not even to discuss that it exists,' said former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Up with Chris Hayes Sunday."
- DSDave Smith
So now think about ... Okay. By the way, there is video of this. It wasn't, you know ... I don't know if it's in this article or not, but it, it ... I mean, that was essentially the point. But the thing in the video that's so funny is they, they all are laughing about it. Like, they're talking about like what kind of what a funny thing it is, like, "Imagine being in the position where you can't admit that a real thing's real and journalists are asking you questions." And he said, 'cause i- uh, it is kinda funny in a weird way, but that's like you'd think a newsman would, that wouldn't be the number one thing. Oh, here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hold on. Let me, uh ... press on.
- NANarrator
I certainly think there are aspects of that program, uh, (clears throat) that are and will remain, uh, highly sensitive and very secret, but, but let me give you a, an example here, Chris. When I went through the process of becoming press secretary, one of the things, one of the first things they told me was, "You're not even to acknowledge the drone program."
- DSDave Smith
Hmm.
- NANarrator
"You're not even to discuss that it exists."
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- NANarrator
And so I would get a question like that and literally I, I couldn't tell you what major asked because once I figured out it was about the drone program- (laughs)
(laughs)
... I realized I'm not supposed to talk about it.
- 51:44 – 58:13
Gaza after Oct 7: prospects for peace and the two‑state dead-end
- JRJoe Rogan
How does this ever settle? How does this ever relax? Like, when you look at what happened in Gaza, and you think about the tensions that existed before October 7th, and then this happens, and then Go-... Th- then the At-... The Israeli attack happens. Like, how does anything come to a peaceful resolution at this point?
- DSDave Smith
Well, it looks really bad at the moment right now, you know? And like, what I always like to say, which I, you know, is like 50% just me telling myself something to feel better about the situation, but then 50% like, it is kind of, you know... Like, you, look, you could go around the world right now and like, England is right next to, um... I- is right next to Ireland, and everybody's just cool there right now. And that would have seemed like impossible, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
And like, France and Germany, and Fr-... You know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
Like, there are all these countries where like there was a time where it just seemed imposs-... And, you know, that was Egypt and Israel. So Egypt and Israel went to war four times in the first, uh, 20 something years of the existence of the state of Israel. They just kept going to war and war and war against each other. And then in the late '70s, they made a deal, and it was like a land for peace swap.
- JRJoe Rogan
But isn't it part of the problem that Palestine is not a state? Like...
- DSDave Smith
Oh that's, yeah, that's like the whole problem.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the whole thing is-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... like you, you can never come to peace if you never even l- acknowledge they exist.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. That, well, they've had... So Israel, Israel, uh, took control of what, what are known as the occupied territories, they took control of Gaza and the West Bank in 1967. And it's one thing, uh, like, I'm not like saying it's ever justified, but like, it's one thing to like occupy an area for a few months after a war as you're going through the process of turning it over to the, you know, like to themselves, or it maybe even a few years. But like, we're going into like 60 years of complete Israeli control over these people. And, and under Israeli control, they have n- zero rights. Zero rights whatsoever. I mean, like, they don't have the freedom of movement, they don't have freedom to trade with the outside world, they don't have voting rights, they don't have the right of due process. Uh, they get, they get... If literally i- to this day, like in the West Bank, where there's like all these big Israeli settlements, 'cause the Israelis are just constantly slowly stealing more of the Palestinians' land, they... If like an Israeli settler in the West Bank, in the same jurisdiction, gets in a dispute with a Palestinian there, the Israeli citiz-... He's a citizen of Israel, he has rights. He goes to a trial. The fucking, the Palestinian goes in front of a military trial, if he's lucky enough to get that. They have something like a 99% conviction rate. You're just totally fucked. Like, and this, and, and then... Look, a lot of people will point to like, look, like there's, there's been terrorism on the Arab side toward the Israelis b- going back many years. But like, I think you're essentially right. You can't expect a group of people who ha-... To just be subjugated for eternity and not... Th- nobody's gonna try to violently fight back. And of course, when they non-violently try to fight back, that gets squashed too. That gets met with violence.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then the wildest thing, Trump comes along and says, "We're gonna take it."
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"We're gonna take it. We're gonna turn it into the Mediterranean of the Middle East."
- DSDave Smith
It's such a...
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
Man, it's such a... I really just... And I'll say, listen, I know... Like the last time I was on was on election night and I, I, look, I supported Donald Trump in this last election. I think Donald Trump was like a necessary...... force. Uh, Donald Trump is a once-in-a-century type of figure. Um, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
If that.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. I mean, there was just... Nobody was positioned to do the things that Donald Trump did, and there were, like, enormous positives that came out of him winning this election. I mean, Donald Trump landed a devastating blow on the Republican establishment in 2016 when he won the primary. And he landed a devastating blow against the Democratic establishment by winning the presidency this year. And he, like, destroyed the corporate media, like, in a way that nobody else could have done. And all of those things are, like, incredible achievements, you know? But there is this, like, kinda tragedy with Donald Trump too, where it's like, he's the one guy who was able to do all of this. And I will say, there were just... There were hopes that it was like, "Hey, he may be, this time around, oh man, he's got Bobby Kennedy there. He's got Tulsi Gabbard there. He's got, like, all... Okay-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
"... this is like a whole different thing."
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm gonna stop that war in one day.
- DSDave Smith
Yes. Right. He's g- he's here to end the wars. Also, like, he had been burned by the system now-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... in a whole... It's not just that they called him a Russian traitor or whatever. It's like, they tried to throw him in jail. They tried to murder him. Uh, okay. This is maybe-
- JRJoe Rogan
Somebody did.
- DSDave Smith
Oh, no. Yeah. No, no, no. I'm sorry.
- JRJoe Rogan
Somebody did.
- DSDave Smith
That was totally, totally happens-
- 58:13 – 1:09:34
Antisemitism, campus protests, and the taboo of criticizing Israel policy
- DSDave Smith
Look, the idea that we are going to go and f- and ethnically cleanse, like, finish the job of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians out of Gaza on behalf of Israel? It's like, what... First of all, what do you think... What do you think the reaction to that's gonna be? What do you think... What do you think that's gonna do to our country here? You know, it's like, I feel, um... It's like I, I see a lot of people who, uh, get very upset about what they, they call the rise of antisemitism. Um, which certainly, you know, according to my Twitter feed is, is real.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's real.
- DSDave Smith
And is... There's a lot of people-
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think it's r-... Well, is it a rise, or is it the ability to express it now been unlocked? Or is it-
- DSDave Smith
I don't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
... both?
- DSDave Smith
I don't know. Maybe both. You know, I, I have a tough time kinda figuring out exactly what it is. It's also, um... There's, there's a troll aspect to it. You know, there's, there's... When you make one thing the thing that you're not allowed to say and the thing that's gonna get a rise out of everybody, there's... Thi- this has been true and it's been building for, for many years. Um, kind of the alt-right back in the day was kinda the first, you know, version of this. But where you could be some guy just at, on your computer. You could be a 15-year-old on, on your phone or whatever, and you could get, you know, the New York Times senior editor to be like, "Aargh. (grumbling) Look at this outrage." You know, and just, the ability to provoke that reaction out-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
... of somebody is... That's fun.
- JRJoe Rogan
Shit-festing.
- DSDave Smith
Yes. That's f-... And for... You're, you're handing this person who has no power, like, some real kind of power.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
I also think that, um, young... For young men today, particularly, like, young, straight, white men, I think it's kinda hard, like, for me and you, to even understand the world they grew up in. It's very different than the world we grew u-... Like, they grew up in this woke era. And okay, now it's kinda like that's receded and wokeism has been defeated. But they grew up in a time where racialism was accepted by every powerful institution. Just against them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
You know? Like, it was totally fine to demonize straight, white men at your high school, at your college, in your movies, in your TV shows, uh, your politicians, celebrities, everybody. It was just... And that does, like... It unlocks a certain thing that we kinda all had a gentleman's agreement to not unlock. Like, we're just not really gonna do that, you know? We don't wanna be, like, racialists. And so that's... I think that's a component to it too. But there's also no question that it's... You know, it's exploded since Israel's launched this war on Gaza.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
And-
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's exploded on the left, which you never heard anti-Jewish sentiment in public spaces before. You really never saw that on campuses. You know, if Israel did something, you may see a protest, but it was gen-... Generally, it was organic. These don't seem organic. They seem very funded, and they're very disruptive. And you know, some universities experienced vandalism and fires and crazy shit and people being threatened and doxxed. You know, it's, um, it's different.... it's, it's, it's a different level of it than I think we've ever seen before. And it's kind of, it's, it's created a giant divide on the left, right? Because on the left you have a lot of people that are, uh, their whole life they've been in support of Israel. Right? And now all the sudden there's these free Palestine people that are also on the left. So you have this divide on the left.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know?
- DSDave Smith
Right. And, and, and there was... That divide goes back a lo- like, there, there were leftist divides over the Israel-Palestine question going back really to, like, 1967-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DSDave Smith
... um, where most of the, um, the kind of like, uh, the, the Black Power movement people, like the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam, those guys, they all sided with the Palestinians 'cause they all saw it as, like, an extension of, like, yeah that's the whole, you know, we're against, um, this kind of, like, racist, colonizing-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
... you know, like, force. Um, and then of course there were a lot of influential Jewish people on the left who were like, "No, not in... In this case we're okay with it." Uh, "But you sh- you guys sure are right about all that civil rights stuff, but, like, eh, I don't know. Let's not look at it... Let's not look over there." Um, a- but so a lot of that has kinda reemerged. Now I do also... You know, I don't know, um, like I've talked to a, I talked to one kid who was, like, a grad student in, at Columbia which was really, like, the center of so many of these protests, and he's Jewish. And I was like, uh, I was like, "So what's it like there?" And he was like, "Ah, they're annoying and they're loud and, like, some of their, their, their chants are, like, real kinda weird. Like I don't really know what they mean by it." And I was like, uh, "Well do you ever feel, like, threatened or..." And he's like, "No. No, it's not. Like, it's fine. They'll just chant as you walk by." And then I do know also that they, um, they had at least one time, they had like a Seder service which... 'Cause they got, like, Jewish people in those protest movements too. Um, and so they o- over last Passover, it was a year ago, they had like a Seder service with the Jews, uh, like, in there too. So I also don't, I don't know, like, what percentage of them are, like, just against the war and seeing pictures of dead babies and stuff like that, what percentage of them are actually, you know, like, harbor resentment toward Jewish people. Like it's, it's kinda hard to, to measure. But I would just say that, like, in... Almost in a very similar way to, like, what I was talking about with the, the drone war against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It just made them stronger.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
You know, it's like, hey, if you wanna see less Al-Qaeda, maybe stop having the American military kill innocent civilians in their land, because that seems to be fueling them, and at the same time for the people who are so concerned about the rise of anti-Semitism, you're like, okay, well it has exploded since Israel's been doing this to Gaza, right? So, like, maybe the US shouldn't be funding and arming the whole goddamn conflict 'cause that does seem to, like, at least give those people a giant talking point to latch onto. Maybe we shouldn't have a system where, like, our political class is not allowed to criticize a foreign government. The, and, and, and a foreign government that's gotten us into, like, seven wars, or at least played a large role in getting us into those wars explicitly. I'm not, like, alleging some secret conspiracy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. That's...
- DSDave Smith
I'm saying like Benjamin Netanyahu is John McCain.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- 1:09:34 – 1:12:27
Europe’s migration, civil unrest as a control strategy, and speech policing
- JRJoe Rogan
It seem... I mean, this is where it gets really strange. You know, I, I had a conversation with someone about this that didn't understand it, and we were, we were going over civil unrest and the, how... What... The use of civil unrest. One of the things that civil unrest does do really well is it makes people want to have measures to stop civil unrest that ultimately erode liberties.
- DSDave Smith
Yep. Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a really good strategy. So if you want to, uh, take away people's guns, take away right to protest, take... One of the best things to do is to release as many criminals as you can and flood your ci- your city with violence and crime. Um, the more violence and crime you have, the more people will be freaked out. The more people who are freaked out-
- DSDave Smith
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the more likely they are to give in to new measures of control.
- DSDave Smith
That's exactly right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Exactly. And that-
- JRJoe Rogan
And you could do that worldwide. You could do that world-
- DSDave Smith
Well, you could watch it.
- JRJoe Rogan
But also, let's talk about Europe, okay? In particular, let's talk about Germany. Le- let's just talk about the UK. What have they been doing besides letting in i- immense numbers of migrants? One thing they've been doing is arresting people for Facebook posts. They're arresting people for stepping outta line.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So they're moving closer and closer to totalitarianism. And if you look at the numbers of people, you know, um, that have been arrested for just Face... One, one of 'em was... Someone just got arrested, pulled out of his house, two o'clock in the morning, for a Facebook post saying that he didn't like the Palestinian flag. I mean, this is wild stuff. It's wild stuff.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And thousands of arrests, not just... Have you ever seen Konstantin Kisin talking to someone about this and he was explaining-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. He was explaining like Russia imprisoned 400 people for m- posts on social media. That's crazy, right? How many do you think the UK did? And he's like, "Oh, I have no idea." And it was like, "4,000." And he's like, "What?"
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Thousands of people are getting arrested in the UK and you, you're only seeing some of them. You're seeing the people that are filming it at the time who have the wherewithal to grab a cellphone. There's a lot of people that-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, and they-
- JRJoe Rogan
... just been by themselves that just got scooped up.
- DSDave Smith
What was it? Is, uh... I think it was 60 Minutes did a piece where they had like three lawyers, um, that were sitting there and they were kinda like asking 'em like, "So would this post be okay? Would this be okay?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
"Could I say something?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
And they're like, "Well, posting it is actually much worse than just saying it." And s- I mean, like it is really creepy. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's really creepy.
- DSDave Smith
And... But you're so right. You're so spot on about this kind of like, this, this like one-two punch of like destabilization and then government coming in with a solution.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
It's a... Harry Brown, uh, who was a... He's, he's, uh, deceased now, but he's a brilliant, uh, uh, guy. Um, he was like, uh... He ran for president on the Libertarian Party in '96 and 2000. But he used to, uh, he used to say, "The, uh, the government, uh, breaks your leg and then offers you a crutch."
Episode duration: 2:51:52
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Transcript of episode EmNE6yNxruc
