Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray

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

Douglas Murray 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) All right, we're up. Thanks for coming. Good to see you guys. What's happening? Are you going no headphones?

Dave Smith 0:18 Oh.

Joe Rogan 0:18 Keep the dew? (laughs)

Douglas Murray 0:20 I'll do that. I'm not quite sure where they add, but yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:22 There we go, all right. Uh, the goal of this is every time I see people that disagree with anything that's happening, any, uh, uh, gigantic world events, it's one of these retarded shows where they're screaming... There's the word again, we brought it-

Dave Smith 0:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:38 ... we were just talking about that.

Dave Smith 0:39 You did it early.

Joe Rogan 0:39 Uh, the word "retarded" is back and it's one of the great culture victories. (laughs)

Dave Smith 0:45 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 0:45 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:45 That I think has-

Dave Smith 0:46 It is.

Joe Rogan 0:46 ... spurred on probably by podcasts, but, um, these things are always like Piers Morgan-y, which is fine, you know, where everyone's screaming over each other and, you know, there's five different people talking over each other. There's never just rational conversations where you discuss things and, um, I respect both of you, I think both of you are brilliant. And I thought, I bet you agree on a lot of things and I bet you disagree on a lot of things, and it'd be fascinating to see your perspectives on these things, so that's why you're here together.

Douglas Murray 1:16 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:17 Hmm?

Dave Smith 1:17 Well... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:19 (laughs) Douglas, Douglas.

Douglas Murray 1:19 Can I ask you something?

Joe Rogan 1:20 Yes, sir.

Douglas Murray 1:21 Since the war in Israel began, and since the war in Ukraine began, you've had quite a lot of people who are very against both in different ways.

Joe Rogan 1:30 Yes.

Douglas Murray 1:31 Do you think you've had enough people on who are supportive of either war?

Joe Rogan 1:35 (inhales deeply) I don't know that word enough, if that's a good word. Um...

Douglas Murray 1:40 Let's say om- let's say m- enough people who are on the side of Israel instead of wild critics of Israel.

Joe Rogan 1:46 Well, I've had a few. I mean, I believe God's Sad is- is on the side of Israel, um...

Dave Smith 1:51 For sure.

Douglas Murray 1:51 Jordan is on the side of Israel, um...

Dave Smith 1:53 You had, uh, Mike Baker-

Douglas Murray 1:54 Yeah.

Dave Smith 1:54 ... Coleman Hughes.

Joe Rogan 1:55 Yeah. I've had-

Douglas Murray 1:56 Coleman did it for like 20 minutes, so it wasn't why he was here.

Joe Rogan 1:59 No. I mean, none of them, and n- none of them is why they're here.

Douglas Murray 2:03 Hmm...

Joe Rogan 2:03 You know? It's a good question.

Douglas Murray 2:05 Do you think you've tilted one way?

Joe Rogan 2:09 Um, me personally?

Douglas Murray 2:10 No, no, no, just with the guests that you've had.

Joe Rogan 2:12 The guests? Yeah, probably more tilted towards the idea that perhaps the way they've done it is barbaric.

Douglas Murray 2:20 Mm-hmm. But why do you think that is? Just out of interest. Or just out of-

Joe Rogan 2:23 Because-

Douglas Murray 2:23 I'm sort of interested in your selection of guests because you're like the world's number one podcast, so...

Joe Rogan 2:27 Yeah, it's not-

Douglas Murray 2:29 It's...

Joe Rogan 2:29 I don't... I don't think about it that way, I just think, "I'd like to talk to this person."

Douglas Murray 2:36 But, l- can I just-

Joe Rogan 2:38 Yeah, yeah, sure.

Douglas Murray 2:38 Sorry, it's your show but I mean...

Joe Rogan 2:39 Sure, sure.

Douglas Murray 2:40 I- i- if you're gonna interview historians of the conflict or historians in general-

Joe Rogan 2:44 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 2:45 ... why would you get somebody like Ian Carroll or...

Joe Rogan 2:48 Yeah, but Ian Carroll, I didn't bring him on for that purpose. I brought him on because I wanted to find out, like, how does one get involved in the whole conspiracy theory business? Because his whole thing is just conspiracies.

Douglas Murray 2:58 Sure.

Joe Rogan 2:59 You know?

Douglas Murray 2:59 But do you have any, uh... I mean, there's been a tilt in the conversation, in both conversations, in the last couple of years, and it's largely to do with people who have appointed themselves experts who are not experts.

Joe Rogan 3:15 You mean like Ian? I don't think he appoints himself an expert in anything.

Douglas Murray 3:18 Who's that other dude who thinks he's an expert on Churchill?

Dave Smith 3:22 Daryl?

Joe Rogan 3:22 Oh, Daryl Cooper-

Douglas Murray 3:24 Daryl.

Joe Rogan 3:24 ... does not think he's an expert.

Dave Smith 3:25 No, in fact, I think it's everybody else is always calling him an expert and he's like, "I'm just a history nerd."

Joe Rogan 3:30 Have you ever absorbed any of his material? Have you ever consumed any of his podcasts or anything like that?

Douglas Murray 3:34 I've tried.

Joe Rogan 3:35 Yeah?

Douglas Murray 3:36 It's pretty hard to listen to somebody who says, "I don't know what I'm talking about, but now I'm gonna talk." Or, "I don't know about this," or, "I'm not capable of debating this historian, but I'm gonna just tell you what I think."

Dave Smith 3:50 Yeah, but that's not exactly-

Douglas Murray 3:51 I think that's a little bit out of context.

Dave Smith 3:51 ... that's not exactly what Daryl was saying. I mean, Daryl's point of view, however you feel about this, Daryl, what Daryl's saying is he doesn't really like doing debates, he likes to do long format stuff where he can really explain his position.

Douglas Murray 4:03 But there's, if you throw a lot of shit out there, there's some point at which, "I'm just raising questions," is not a valid thing.

Joe Rogan 4:10 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 4:11 You're not raising questions, you're not asking questions. You're telling people something.

Joe Rogan 4:16 Do you think Daryl's doing that?

Douglas Murray 4:17 I think there's a whole bunch of guys doing that.

Joe Rogan 4:19 I think-

Douglas Murray 4:19 I think Dave is doing that very obviously. Dave's a comedian, but he's now mainly talking about Israel.

Joe Rogan 4:29 No.

Dave Smith 4:29 I don't know if I'm mainly talking about Israel, but I-

Douglas Murray 4:31 That's all I see you on the Internet doing.

Joe Rogan 4:32 I have opinions. Yeah, but that's... You just-

Dave Smith 4:33 Well, that might be what you've seen, but I don't think that's-

Joe Rogan 4:35 It's just you consuming clips.

Douglas Murray 4:36 But that, that is, but that is also your shtick now, isn't it?

Dave Smith 4:39 Well, what do you mean by that's my shtick?

Douglas Murray 4:41 Well, you're not a geopolitics guy in general, are you?

Dave Smith 4:45 I don't even know exactly what you're asking.

Douglas Murray 4:47 I'm saying, you've decided, being a comedian, you've decided now to become somebody who talks about Israel and the conflict.

Joe Rogan 4:53 This is gonna, I don't, I think you're incorrect. I don't think it's a decision. I just think you have-

Douglas Murray 4:58 Well-

Joe Rogan 4:58 ... long form conversations, multiple of them, it's a huge event that's in the news, so it comes up. I don't think it's a thing-

Douglas Murray 5:04 I know, but-

Joe Rogan 5:04 ... I think if you're on the outside, you'd say, "Oh look, they're trying to get attention by talking about this very polarizing issue publicly."

Douglas Murray 5:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:11 That's not-

Douglas Murray 5:11 But they do, you do get attention from that. If you'd be spending the last-

Joe Rogan 5:15 Sure.

Douglas Murray 5:15 ... year speaking about Myanmar, you would not be on my lips, or a lot of other people's. Okay.

Joe Rogan 5:19 Yeah, but he does talk about Yemen constantly, he talks about a lot of things that aren't in the news constantly.

Dave Smith 5:24 Well, I tend, I tend to talk about the conflicts that my government is directly involved in, which I think is reasonable to me, but I don't quite get, like, what's all the appeal to authority stuff?

Douglas Murray 5:34 Well, I do-

Dave Smith 5:34 I mean, what, you have to-

Douglas Murray 5:35 Well-

Dave Smith 5:35 ... be an expert or-

Douglas Murray 5:36 No, I think authority mat-

Dave Smith 5:37 ... what exactly makes you an expert?

Douglas Murray 5:37 I think authority matters and I think that if you just throw a lot of shit out there and then say, "Um, I'm not interested in the alternative views on this," and particularly when it's a counter-narrative that is wildly off, and when you get people... Well, with th- look, I- I just feel, uh, we should get it out straight away, I feel you've opened the door to quite a lot of people who've now got a big platform who have been throwing out counter-historical stuff of a very dangerous kind.

Joe Rogan 6:04 You mean Daryl? Are you talking about Daryl?

Douglas Murray 6:06 Daryl, who's the other one? The, the, the-

Joe Rogan 6:07 I don't think Daryl has a... The, the only thing he's saying is dangerous-

Douglas Murray 6:11 What's the other guy? Derek, uh, what's his name? Cooper, is it? Which one is it?

Dave Smith 6:16 No, that's Daryl Cooper.

Joe Rogan 6:17 No, that's Daryl Cooper.

Douglas Murray 6:17 Daryl Cooper. Who's the other one? Uh, there was one I just checked on the way here. Daryl Cooper, and then, oh, yeah. Daryl Cooper, Ian Carroll. Look, the- these guys are not historians. They're not knowledgeable about any-

Joe Rogan 6:30 Well, no one's calling Ian Carroll a historian.

Douglas Murray 6:31 No, but then why listen to their views on Churchill?

Dave Smith 6:34 Daryl is incredibly knowledgeable.

Douglas Murray 6:36 No, he's not.

Dave Smith 6:36 It's just not... Yeah. He is.

Douglas Murray 6:37 He's not. He's not.

Dave Smith 6:38 Why do you say that?

Douglas Murray 6:38 He's wildly... Several reasons. One is, when he was offered to debate the current greatest living biographer of Churchill, he said, "I can't because he knows much more than me, and I admire his work and I've learned from it, but I, I can't possibly debate him." That's Andrew Roberts.

Joe Rogan 6:58 Right, but you don't have to be able to debate people to have opinions on things.

Douglas Murray 7:02 No, no, no. You don't have to debate people. If you-

Joe Rogan 7:04 If it's not your thing.

Douglas Murray 7:04 But if you, for instance... Well, okay, but if you say, "I've decided that Churchill is the bad guy in World War II."

Joe Rogan 7:11 It's not what he said. It's not what he said. It's not what he said.

Douglas Murray 7:13 Neither Carroll nor Cooper have said that?

Joe Rogan 7:15 Well, listen. I don't know what Carroll said, but Daryl Cooper has not said that. What he said was, he, he jokes with his friend Jocko, who's an Anglo-Saxon, he jokes with him, you know, "I think that Churchill was the secret villain of World War II." And what, what he's-

Douglas Murray 7:32 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:32 ... saying is, by Churchill's actions, the war escalated. He's not-

Douglas Murray 7:36 I don't think so.

Joe Rogan 7:37 He's not, he's not, he's not saying anything that-

Douglas Murray 7:38 He's not just asking questions then, is he? He's got a point of view.

Dave Smith 7:41 No, but that's, the claim isn't that he's just asking questions. Yeah, he has a point of view.

Joe Rogan 7:44 You could explain this better. He literally says he's joking.

Dave Smith 7:46 Yes, he said in the comment, he goes, "Listen, I'm being hyperbolic." And then, he once again, uh, uh, disclaimed, he goes, "And I'm not claiming Churchill committed the most atrocities or was the worst part, but in many ways, I do view, view him as the chief villain, as my hyperbolic, provocative statement." But, but, Douglas-

Douglas Murray 8:03 What, what's the point of that?

Dave Smith 8:03 Well, okay, but Pat Buchanan wrote an entire book on this. Is he not allowed? Is he not an expert? Is he not allowed to be interviewed?

Douglas Murray 8:09 He's certainly not an expert. He can be interviewed. I've watched Pat Buchanan debate. I watched Pat Buchanan debate against Churchill historians, and he was absolutely leveled because he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Dave Smith 8:18 When did he, when did Pat Buchanan debate and get leveled?

Douglas Murray 8:20 Oh, it was about 20 years ago.

Dave Smith 8:21 I, I'm just curious. I haven't seen this.

Douglas Murray 8:22 He debated against Andrew Roberts and several other historians at Intelligence Squared in London. I was there. He didn't know what he was talking about. He had a contrary view, and it was interesting and stimulating to hear. But if you only get the contrary view, which is, "Isn't it fun if we all pretend Churchill was the bad guy of the 20th century?" At some point, you're gonna lead people down a path where they think that's the view. And that's horse shit of the most profound kind.

Joe Rogan 8:50 I don't think that's what he's trying to do.

Douglas Murray 8:52 I think that's exactly what they're doing. And the problem is, is that because you, I mean, your own platform has come about because you're a very successful comedian and much more, and you do ask questions, and you are interested, but there are a lot of people who have come along, partly I think because they've come on this show, who have come along and they've decided, "I can play this double game. On the one hand, I'm gonna push really edgy and frankly sometimes horrific opinions. And then if you say, 'That's wrong,' they say, 'I'm a comedian.'"

Joe Rogan 9:26 But wait a minute. No, no, no.

Douglas Murray 9:27 "What do I, what am I, what, what, how can you tell me I'm just a comedian?"

Joe Rogan 9:30 No, no, no. Well-

Douglas Murray 9:30 "I'm just throwing stuff out there."

Joe Rogan 9:31 ... what, what horrific opinions that's wrong are you talking about specifically?

Douglas Murray 9:37 Once guys like this get into very obvious stuff, which is what-

Joe Rogan 9:40 Guys like Daryl?

Douglas Murray 9:41 The ones I'm describing.

Joe Rogan 9:43 You need to listen to Daryl to really understand what he's saying. If you take his, Daryl's words out of context, Daryl has some of the most nuanced, balanced and charitable views on all the figures in, in, in history.

Douglas Murray 9:58 Well, particularly Hitler, it seems.

Joe Rogan 10:00 No. No, you're wrong.

Dave Smith 10:02 This is not true.

Joe Rogan 10:02 You're wrong. He doesn't. He has a... What did he call him? How did he describe him?

Dave Smith 10:06 I think he compared him to a, a methed-out psychopath who was holding an entire nation of people hostage, I believe was the way you put it.

Douglas Murray 10:13 He also said on here that, that, uh, he wasn't anti-Semitic until the Holocaust. There were no speeches of, of Hitler's in the 1930s.

Dave Smith 10:22 No, th- again, this is-

Douglas Murray 10:23 No, no, no, no.

Joe Rogan 10:24 He says this on your show.

Douglas Murray 10:24 No, he said, no, he said he was not public about it.

Dave Smith 10:26 He said he was downplaying it to win over... He said there was a period-

Douglas Murray 10:30 Yeah.

Dave Smith 10:30 ... where he was downplaying it to win over popular support in Germany-

Douglas Murray 10:33 Uh, yeah.

Dave Smith 10:33 ... was his argument.

Douglas Murray 10:34 I, I... There is no historian of World War II who thinks that Hitler was downplaying anti-Semitism in the 1930s. That was what he was doing. He wrote a book about it in the 1920s. He got to power on it, and he grew his power on the back of it. The idea that you can argue that in the 1930s Adolf Hitler was downplaying the anti-Semitism, like, there's no historian who would agree with that. So why would you throw out the idea that in the 1930s Hitler was not being anti-Semitic in public? That was what he was doing in public. He announces to the German parliament what he wants to do. So when you're throwing out claims like he was keeping it down in the 1930s, first of all, what are you doing? And secondly, why?

Dave Smith 11:24 Okay. I mean, I think that it's kind of hard because I don't even know exactly what Daryl's point on that was. And so I'm not really in a position to argue what he was saying there. I don't think you're giving him the most charitable interpretation.

Douglas Murray 11:38 I don't need to give him the most charitable interpretation to be able to see what he's doing.

Dave Smith 11:42 Okay, I think you're strong manning him, I should say.

Douglas Murray 11:44 Look, anyone can look up what he's said on this show and others, what these two guys in particular have said on repeated podcasts with both of you. It's an attempt to downplay Hitler and always to do down Church-

Joe Rogan 11:58 I don't think he downplayed-

Douglas Murray 11:59 ... in whatever way they can.

Dave Smith 12:00 You're saying I've downplayed Hitler?

Douglas Murray 12:00 No, I said in conversations with you and others, this is the shtick of these guys. They've decided it's edgy and funny, and I think this is very-

Joe Rogan 12:08 I don't-

Douglas Murray 12:08 ... very interesting and also very dangerous 'cause we live in an i- an, an era now that the right has got some mojo back in America...We saw years of crazy left overreach, where they tried to make us all say the craziest things.

Dave Smith 12:24 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 12:25 And completely predictably, there are now figures on the right playing with really dark and ugly stuff on their side.

Dave Smith 12:34 I agree with that. I-

Douglas Murray 12:34 And they are mainstreaming this.

Dave Smith 12:36 ... I don't think Daryl's doing that.

Douglas Murray 12:36 And I think it's partly being mainstreamed by the two people I just described. And both of you have kept speaking to these people. And you don't get on the historians who know about this. And that, uh, that, that's just alarming to me.

Dave Smith 12:50 Well, can I just say, so, 'cause I, I kind of do agree with part of what you said there. Like, I do think it is true that almost as a reaction to, like, the woke insanity that we've seen on the left, and I think liter- and I think nobody's been a more effective critic of that than you. I do think there has kind of been a right-wing reaction that has embraced, uh, racialism and is, is dangerous and not a good path to go down.

Douglas Murray 13:13 Yeah, and now they're flirting-

Dave Smith 13:14 Now-

Douglas Murray 13:14 ... with Holocaust denial and Hitler-

Dave Smith 13:16 Yes, but they're nothing-

Douglas Murray 13:16 ... and absolving Hitler of blame and much more.

Dave Smith 13:17 ... but you're, I think you're wrong- ... I think you're wrong to include Daryl in that group. Now, the other thing is we, I, I, I'm sorry, 'cause maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. You're saying people that I've had conversations with-

Douglas Murray 13:26 These two guys are examples of this.

Dave Smith 13:26 ... have downplayed the Holocaust? Well, who are the two guys? Daryl Cooper-

Douglas Murray 13:30 I just told you, Cooper and, uh, and the other friend of yours.

Dave Smith 13:33 Ian Carroll. ... Ian Carroll. I've, I've never, uh, podcasted with Ian Carroll. I have podcasted with Daryl Cooper once, and there, he absolutely did not downplay any of the Nazi atrocities at all. And I would also, I would, I think that if we're zooming out here a little bit, maybe this is kind of part of the disconnect. Broadly speaking, in American culture, the idea that it has not been driven into people enough that the Nazis were bad and that Adolf Hitler was a ... He is literally the modern devil. He is mo- much more so than the actual devil.

Douglas Murray 14:05 Well, s-

Dave Smith 14:05 Adolf Hitler is what's viewed as the most-

Douglas Murray 14:08 Yeah.

Dave Smith 14:08 ... evil thing to the point that, I mean, gr- just my entire life growing up, if there was a guy who sold soup on Seinfeld who was, like, authoritarian, he's a soup Nazi.

Douglas Murray 14:17 Sure.

Dave Smith 14:17 Everyone was Hitler. Jo- the left called George Bush-

Douglas Murray 14:20 Yes.

Dave Smith 14:20 ... Hitler, and they called Obama Hitler, and they called Trump Hitler.

Douglas Murray 14:23 Yes.

Dave Smith 14:23 Every single enemy that we've gone to war with-

Douglas Murray 14:25 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 14:25 ... in, uh, whether it's-

Douglas Murray 14:26 Is always called Hitler.

Dave Smith 14:27 ... are always called Hitler. Saddam Hussein's the new Hitler. Muammar Gaddafi's the new Hitler. Putin's the new Hitler.

Douglas Murray 14:31 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 14:32 It is so ... So the idea that, like, we haven't driven into people enough-

Douglas Murray 14:37 I'm not-

Dave Smith 14:37 ... that Adolf Hitler was a really bad guy.

Douglas Murray 14:40 I'm not saying that at all. I'm not saying-

Dave Smith 14:41 Okay.

Douglas Murray 14:41 ... that at all. I'm saying just as the left likes to play with very dark, ugly stuff, and they've done it for decades. They have do- they have played down Chairman Mao's murder of the Chinese-

Dave Smith 14:53 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 14:53 ... throughout his era in power. They played down Stalin. They still march w- on occasions with posters of Lenin. They, they've spent decades trying to do down evils that were done on their side. And I would suggest that one of the things that is going on at the moment is despite, or maybe because of what you just described, there are movements now on the right in America, subcultures, including people who follow both of you, who are very interested

Douglas Murray 15:24 in playing with this absolute, uh, beyond the pale thing. Why somebody like Jake Shields wants to play around with Holocaust denial. Why?

Dave Smith 15:36 Uh, I, I can't answer for Jake Shields. I, I don't know. I have no idea. Why do you think? I have no idea. I think-

Douglas Murray 15:41 I, I'm telling what-

Dave Smith 15:41 ... a lot of people get captured by this, by audience capture.

Douglas Murray 15:45 Captured by their audience.

Dave Smith 15:46 Yeah. I think that's, that's a thing. You get a, a lot of positive reinforcement from a bunch of twisted people.

Douglas Murray 15:52 Yeah.

Dave Smith 15:52 Well, it's also, I mean, it's, there's something about, um, you know, Michael Malice had that great line. He goes, uh, "When you take the red pill, you're supposed to take one and not swallow the whole bottle."

Douglas Murray 16:01 Yes. (laughs)

Dave Smith 16:01 And I think there's, like, this dynamic. What happens is, and then-

Douglas Murray 16:04 (coughs)

Dave Smith 16:04 ... of course, people know the red pill is the analogy from The Matrix. The idea that you wake up to realizing that so much of the stuff you believed was bullshit propaganda-

Douglas Murray 16:13 Absolutely.

Dave Smith 16:13 ... and is all lies. And thi- this is a real danger when the establishment and the institutions are all caught with their pants down, having sold a bunch of very consequential policies based on lies. And then once people realize that, they go, "Well, what else have they been lying to me about?" And then they almost wanna look into every single thing-

Douglas Murray 16:32 Yeah.

Dave Smith 16:33 ... and go, "Yeah, I think the whole thing was lies." Now, I agree with you. There's danger in that. And I think that there are some things that then people jump to conclusions that are totally wrong. But I guess I tend to look at that and go, well then maybe the people with power, not random podcasters, but, like, the people with real power should do a better job of not lying through their fucking teeth about everything.

Douglas Murray 16:54 Well, maybe you have power.

Dave Smith 16:55 Okay.

Douglas Murray 16:57 Maybe you have power, both of you. We live in an era where podcasters have a lot of power. If you go on a podcast with Jake Shields and Jake Shields goes onto another podcast and says he doesn't think six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, what do you think is happening there?

Dave Smith 17:12 (clears throat)

Douglas Murray 17:12 That's an exercise of power.

Dave Smith 17:14 Okay.

Douglas Murray 17:14 Okay? A, a, um ... And I agree with you about the breakdown of trust. Absolutely. We have lived through an era where, in real time, we saw something called a conspiracy, the lab leak, which turns out to be true, as you and others said it might be from the beginning.

Dave Smith 17:32 I find that to be very racist.

Douglas Murray 17:34 (laughs) And against Joe or against-

Dave Smith 17:37 How d- how dare you say this? Both of you. Both of you.

Douglas Murray 17:39 It used to be racist.

Dave Smith 17:40 That is just, that was-

Douglas Murray 17:40 It used to be racist when we were saying-

Dave Smith 17:41 That was crazy.

Douglas Murray 17:42 ... that the, it was likely that the COVID-

Dave Smith 17:44 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 17:44 ... variant had come out from the place-

Dave Smith 17:45 Yes.

Douglas Murray 17:45 ... making COVID variants.

Dave Smith 17:47 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 17:47 Dude, it's-

Dave Smith 17:48 Especially since it's-

Douglas Murray 17:49 But isn't it a dream?

Dave Smith 17:49 ... based in the exact town-

Douglas Murray 17:50 It just seemed like it. Seemed like it was possible to us.

Dave Smith 17:52 By the way for-

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Joe Rogan 19:28 I was j- I was referencing the New York Times calling the lab leak-

Narrator 19:31 Lab leak racist, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:32 ... uh, racist-

Dave Smith 19:32 Which is just the funniest thing ever-

Joe Rogan 19:33 Yeah.

Dave Smith 19:33 ... that they go, "It's racist to think that there was a sophisticated lab where they were developing, like, gain-of-function research." And they go, "No, what happened is these freaks were eating bat heads."

Narrator 19:43 That's right, yeah, yeah.

Dave Smith 19:43 And they're like, "Wait, that's not racist?"

Narrator 19:45 That's pretty racist. (laughs)

Dave Smith 19:45 "The other one was racist?"

Joe Rogan 19:46 They're eating pangolins. Yeah. (laughs)

Narrator 19:50 I'm suspicious. (laughs)

Dave Smith 19:50 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:50 Well, it's-

Narrator 19:50 But that one fell apa- that one fell apart-

Joe Rogan 19:52 Mm.

Narrator 19:52 ... in front of our eyes.

Joe Rogan 19:53 Well, it took four years.

Narrator 19:53 And, of course, it took, but it took four years.

Joe Rogan 19:56 Yeah.

Narrator 19:56 And I, I've said repeatedly, it's kind of inevitable to me, that if you see something that is called a racist conspiracy theory fall apart and become also what we used to call true in a few years, it's likely to blow a lot of people's minds. But the question then is, do you help those minds that have been blown blow themselves out some more by doing a whole load of other conspiracy stuff? Do you decide to go, "Hey, what else have we been lied to? Maybe Churchill wasn't a great guy. Maybe Hitler wasn't such a bad guy. Maybe the Holocaust..." And et cetera, et cetera.

Joe Rogan 20:29 Nobody is here saying that.

Narrator 20:31 And that is exactly what they're-

Joe Rogan 20:31 No one is saying, "Maybe Hitler wasn't such a bad guy."

Narrator 20:34 You are saying that if you're saying that.

Joe Rogan 20:35 What, w- no one's saying that. They were doing-

Narrator 20:36 If you're saying that in the 1930s j- uh, Hitler kept the antisemitism down.

Joe Rogan 20:39 No, because in-

Narrator 20:40 No, no, no, no, no, that's not what he's saying. What he, what he was saying is that he didn't do it as publicly. He was doing it in meetings- I know-

Joe Rogan 20:47 ... because he, the support for that kind of thinking wasn't as ubiquitous as it was-

Narrator 20:52 But the thing is, Joe, is I've seen this, I've seen this before, I know exactly what these guys are drinking. They're drinking a couple of very, very discredited historians, like David Irving, and they are just regurgitating it. And it was always been the same thing. It is always an attempt to minimize Hitler's antisemitism actions. Eventually down the road you get to minimizing his actual involvement in the Holocaust. And then you can get onto the next stage. Yeah, but you can't say that about Darryl. It's not true.

Joe Rogan 21:21 Okay.

Narrator 21:22 That's exactly what they're doing.

Dave Smith 21:22 I think what you're, what you're guilty of here is kind of similar to, I think, something that the woke left has done-

Narrator 21:27 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 21:27 ... which is this concept creep, where you're talking about some people online who are doing this thing and then you're lumping in other people with them. Listen, I'll, I'll just say this right now. Darryl Cooper is currently, I believe, almost finished or he's working on a big World War II, uh, series.

Narrator 21:42 Can't wait.

Dave Smith 21:42 And when this comes out-

Narrator 21:43 What's it gonna be on?

Dave Smith 21:44 ... we can see, we can s-

Narrator 21:45 Is it podcast?

Dave Smith 21:46 Yeah, he does long-form podcasts.

Narrator 21:48 Uh.

Dave Smith 21:48 When, when this comes out, I am quite confident to say beforehand that if you're going into it expecting him to be downplaying the atrocities of the Nazis or downplaying the evil things that Adolf Hitler did-

Narrator 22:00 Well, why are we-

Dave Smith 22:00 ... you're gonna be disappointed.

Narrator 22:01 Look, my point is, why are we even talking about this guy?

Dave Smith 22:03 'Cause you brought him up.

Narrator 22:04 He's a... Yes, because he comes on podcasts like this. My point is, this is not a serious historian.

Joe Rogan 22:10 No, no, no, no, no, he's been-

Narrator 22:10 He's not a historian.

Joe Rogan 22:11 ... he's been, he never, never claims to be. He's been doing these long-form podcasts on these subjects for over a decade. And if you go back to 2015 and listen to Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem, it's an incredible piece. And it's-

Narrator 22:26 Excellent.

Joe Rogan 22:26 ... how many hours long?

Dave Smith 22:28 30 something? I don't know.

Joe Rogan 22:29 And he, he, it literally starts from the persecution of the Jews, where they're being driven out of Euro- I- it's like this horrific account of what happens to these people. It's, what he's trying to do is paint a picture of how the world goes mad and how the world goes sideways.

Narrator 22:47 Mm.

Joe Rogan 22:47 And he's doing it from the perspective i- initially of these Jewish people that are living in Europe, that all of a sudden their neighbors are turning on them-

Narrator 22:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:56 ... and they're, they're being attacked. Like hi- the th- it's incredibly charitable.

Narrator 23:01 But-

Joe Rogan 23:01 But what he's trying to do is show what happens to human beings when they're confronted with unbelievable atrocities and how things go so incredibly sideways.

Narrator 23:14 Yeah, but lots, lots of people have written and spoken about that.

Dave Smith 23:16 So why is he not allowed to?

Joe Rogan 23:18 'Cause-

Dave Smith 23:18 I, I, I don't understand.

Narrator 23:18 He is allowed to.

Dave Smith 23:19 Okay.

Narrator 23:19 So he is allowed to. I'm saying that there is a, there is a weird way in which figures like him, whose ideas are not being countered when they are raised, are given platform after platform to spread their, their views. They are welcome to those platforms. I'm not saying they shouldn't be platformed. I'm saying these are very, very fringe figures who are pushing ideas that are either debunked now, have been debunked before, or they will not stand up against somebody who disagrees with them.

Dave Smith 23:46 Oh, okay. I, I would just say, maybe this is the disconnect here, when you say there's, like, not pushback, Darryl's one line on Tucker Carlson, this one line where he himself said he was being hyperbolic and kind of says this to prod at his buddy, got more pushback than any one line I've ever heard on a podcast. There were numerous articles written by historians, numerous shows that covered it, people went through, there were Twitter threads about it. So, I don't exactly get your point. Like, there was lots of pushback.

Narrator 24:13 I'm saying-

Dave Smith 24:13 If you're saying he should go and debate somebody...

Narrator 24:16 Yeah.

Dave Smith 24:16 ... who's giving him pushback on that, okay, maybe.

Narrator 24:19 I'm saying it's-

Dave Smith 24:19 I, I also think it's reasonable for him to say, "I don't really do debates."

Narrator 24:21 I'm saying it's weird... Yeah, I think it's weird to mainstream very fringe views constantly and not give another side. I think that's weird.

Dave Smith 24:30 Well, I mean, I, okay, I think there's a little bit of a contradiction here. You're saying now that there, these are fringe views, but then you're also saying that these are enormously powerful-

Narrator 24:37 No, I, you, no, no, no.

Dave Smith 24:38 ... views. So, like, what-

Narrator 24:38 There's no contradiction. Let me clear it up if you think there is. I think there are very fringe views that have become mainstreamed on the right.

Dave Smith 24:45 But then aren't they not fringe, by definition?

Narrator 24:47 Sure, you can play an epistemological game with it if you want.

Dave Smith 24:49 No, I'm just, no, I'm just saying let's be accurate.

Narrator 24:51 But you do understand the concept, don't you?

Dave Smith 24:53 That fringe ideas become mainstream?

Narrator 24:54 Yeah.

Dave Smith 24:55 Okay.

Narrator 24:55 Right.

Dave Smith 24:55 Sure.

Narrator 24:56 So, that's it.

Dave Smith 24:58 Oh, oh, okay. I, I, I'm still, I'm not exactly sure. So, you're saying that, what, Joe shouldn't have Darrell Cooper on?

Narrator 25:03 No, I'm saying that-

Dave Smith 25:04 Or that he should debate?

Narrator 25:05 ... that has, that, that there will have, that if you mainstream very, very fringe views, which are easily able to be debunked, if you've, if you, if you mainstream them, at some point, that view that was so fringe will be what eager, very, uh, um, disconnected, unhappy people are gonna start playing with too. And if, if these people are such experts in how you see a society go weird, they can look at what is happening to a portion of the right everywhere on this stuff. There is a portion of the right across the west that is playing this very dark game, and they're doing it deliberately. And you can't not be aware of that. I am aware of that.

Dave Smith 25:49 Though I agree with that, I don't think Darrell Cooper is doing that.

Narrator 25:51 Okay, I mean this is-

Dave Smith 25:51 But I do agree with your, your characterization.

Narrator 25:53 No, but do you, you're-

Dave Smith 25:53 I think that's a pretty important distinction there.

Narrator 25:55 You're just taking this one statement, and then this, where he's trying to joke around with his buddy, this, this Churchill statement. And this is- No, because he- This is the basis of this. He and the o- these other guys are all doing the anti-Churchill stuff now. But he's not doing an anti-Churchill stuff. Look, he and the other people-

Dave Smith 26:11 But Churchill was-

Narrator 26:12 ... in the orbit I'm describing.

Dave Smith 26:13 Churchill was the author of this whole Operation Unthinkable, right? Where they wanted to use the Nazis to invade Russia? Wasn't that Churchill?

Narrator 26:22 (sighs) Is that not true? We're gonna have to get into the weeds on Churchill. There is always going to be a corner which you can get me on, on a bit of Churchill. But- But that's the point.

Dave Smith 26:35 You'd have to, you'd have to say what you're-

Narrator 26:36 But that's the point, which is-

Dave Smith 26:36 ... which bit you're talking about.

Narrator 26:37 ... to have a comprehensive view-

Dave Smith 26:38 Yeah.

Narrator 26:39 ... of all the- Churchill was never working with the Germans to invade Russia. No, no, no.

Dave Smith 26:43 That's what it says.

Narrator 26:43 This was a plan that was drawn up. Do you, do you know about Operation-

Dave Smith 26:48 Go, fire away.

Narrator 26:48 ... Unthinkable?

Dave Smith 26:48 Fire away.

Narrator 26:49 You've never ... Pull it up, Jimmy. Um, O- Operation Unthinkable was wha- at the end of the war, I believe Churchill was- Oh, at the end of it? ... concerned about the rise of, of Russia. The, and, and the rise of the Soviet Union. And the, the idea was, and we'll find out what the historical facts are about this. Operation Unthinkable, the name given to two related possible future war plans developed by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee against the Soviet Union during 1945. The plans were never implemented. The creation of the plans was ordered by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on May, 1945, and developed by the British Armed Forces Joint Planning Staff in May, 1945, at the end of World War II in Europe. One plan assumed a surprise attack on the Soviet forces stationed in Germany to oppose the will of the United Sta- impose, rather, the will of the United States and the British Empire upon Russia.

Dave Smith 27:39 Right.

Narrator 27:39 The will was qualified as a square deal for Poland, but added that that does not necessarily limit the military commitment. The assessment, signed by the Chief of Army Staff on 9 June, 1945-

Dave Smith 27:52 Right.

Narrator 27:52 ... concluded it would be beyond our power to win a quick but limited success, and we would be committed to a protracted war against heavy odds. The code was-

Dave Smith 28:00 Right.

Narrator 28:00 Yeah. So- This is, uh, okay, first of all, I, I never do Wikipedia. Okay, but you don't have to do Wikipedia to this. Uh, but that's okay. No, no, no, that's okay, that's okay.

Dave Smith 28:08 This is just what Jimmy pulled up.

Narrator 28:09 But s- but, okay. But first of all, yes, at the end of the war, an, a plan requested that wasn't seen through-

Dave Smith 28:18 Let's see.

Narrator 28:18 ... that suggests that after the defeat of Nazism, communism of the Soviet form is also gonna be a threat to Europe, was simply, uh, evidence, I mean, it was obvious.

Dave Smith 28:27 True.

Narrator 28:27 It's what, uh, Churchill had worried th- about throughout the, the '40s. He was worried about it in Yalta, he worried about it everywhere. I'm s- sorry, but I have to return to this point that this man manages to do one of the most heroic things in human history, in standing alone against evil in its most concentrate form. And he does about as much as any human being can do to save the civilized world. If you just park that and you go onto a plan in 1945 to try to counter Soviet domination of Europe, do you see what I'm say- this is-

Dave Smith 29:08 Yeah, but no one's doing that.

Narrator 29:09 This is, this is not doing something in the round.

Dave Smith 29:12 Yeah, it's also, look, I mean, the, uh, look, I, I'm not even, like, the ex- I'm not at all the expert on World War II. Um, and I'm not, like, gonna debate with you about World War II. But I would say that, like, that is, there's a lot of room for nuance i- i- and disagreement with what you just said. You know, in the 20th century, we had two world wars. They're the worst thing, objectively speaking, the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of the world. And the Second World War is the biggest bloodbath in human history, and it ended with handing the man who you just mentioned, Joseph Stalin, half of Europe. So, listen, if you wanna argue, which I'm, I'm Jewish and my f- of German descent, so like, I'm not against (laughs) the argument that it was, the Nazis had to be defeated and that was the most important thing. But there still is just the basic facts, that it was a ... it almost couldn't have gone worse. It was like, just a nightmare for civilization. And if people wanna look back at that and go, "Man, was there any other way this could've been handled? Was there any other way, were there blunders that were made here?" Now, personally, what I feel much more, uh, comfortable arguing would be that, I try to blame everything I can on Woodrow Wilson as much as I can, because also he created the income tax and the Federal Reserve, and did so much to damage my country. But I think American entry into World War I was really a, a disaster. And imposing the Treaty of Versailles on Germany was a disaster. I also think that's kind of, um-... fairly mainstream history. Like, that's not a particularly controversial view, that like, imposing the Treaty of Versailles on Germany ended up in disaster.

Douglas Murray 30:43 Well, no, except that as Martin Amis said, the only way to not get to the Treaty of Versailles would be for Germany to win World War I, but yeah.

Dave Smith 30:50 Yeah, but we're not talking about the Nazis winning the war.

Douglas Murray 30:52 Sure.

Dave Smith 30:52 We're talking about, you know, the J- the-

Douglas Murray 30:54 The Germans.

Dave Smith 30:54 Listen, I think that-

Douglas Murray 30:55 But, but, and second- secondly, uh, sorry, I just have to, uh, address that fundamental. You say, uh, the, the outcome of World War II and everything happening was the worst thing that's ever happened, and the worst thing imaginable, worst possible outcome, you said. You said worst possible outcome. Let me give you a much worse possible outcome: Hitler wins.

Dave Smith 31:15 Right, okay. Sure.

Douglas Murray 31:16 So, so it's not the worst possible outcome.

Joe Rogan 31:17 That's true.

Dave Smith 31:17 I mean, listen, but, okay, Hitler, yes, okay. I'm, I'm not saying you can't dream up a worse outcome. I'm saying what you have-

Douglas Murray 31:23 That's not dreaming up. That's just what my country at birth and others went through.

Dave Smith 31:25 Right, okay, but what did end up happening was the, what, 60 million people died, including the Holocaust, and then Joseph Stalin takes half of Europe. So, okay, fine. I'm, I should, I'll correct that. There is a worse outcome.

Douglas Murray 31:37 Right.

Dave Smith 31:37 But that's not a great one.

Douglas Murray 31:40 No, nobody said it was.

Dave Smith 31:41 Right.

Douglas Murray 31:41 This is like, there's a very weird argument that you now h- hear about this, th- that the, this, this attempt to revision this, and I know why it's happening, is for the sake of it.

Dave Smith 31:47 I don't think, I don't think there's anything I'm saying that's revisionist.

Douglas Murray 31:49 No, no, I think there is, I think there is. But this, this attempt to sort of say, "Look, you know, at the end of World War II, what have we got? Stalin has half of Europe. What was the point?" And so on. That's, that's going on. That's going on. And, uh, there are people who are feeding it. Uh, that argument is very similar, this, this, this, particular school of, as it were, history, is doing something that I've seen happen with American history as well, particularly with Lincoln. Lincoln's an interesting comparison to make with Churchill on this. Uh, there are people who will criticize Churchill for mistakes made, not hard to do. Quite hard not to make mistakes while fighting in a war of total annihilation against your country. Um, people will say, "Oh, he didn't sort this out in 1945." You know, it's rather like Lincoln. He didn't solve every problem in the world for all time, but he solved a hell of a big problem for his time. And that requires some kind of generosity of spirit and understanding in hindsight, as opposed to, "I will find something that he did that I wouldn't have done, because if I'd have been running the, uh, the British Empire in 19- 1939, I'd have known exactly how to do it, and I'd have known how to hold the whole thing together, and I'd have kept Stalin back, and he'd have been great at Yalta." And like, this is-

Joe Rogan 33:07 But I don't think anybody's saying that.

Dave Smith 33:08 Yeah, I, I, I agree with you. I think there is a tendency-

Joe Rogan 33:10 But I think-

Dave Smith 33:10 ... of like, woke left kids to do this. But I, I don't think that's what, what, certainly not what I'm saying, and, and I don't think what Daryl's saying. I do also think that one of the bigger, um, kind of the bigger picture dynamics to all of this, is that we have, um, at least since 9/11, been in a state of perpetual war. And s- all of these wars have been disasters. They have been so many lies involved in selling all of them. I mean, oh, uh, the whole Iraq war, the whole war in Afghanistan, just lying the whole way through. I mean, I remember literally having conversations with Green Berets in the middle of the war in Afghanistan, and they're like, "George W. Bush is telling you that the army we're building up there is really successful? This thing's gonna fall in a week without us." And then all through the Obama administration, it's just like lie, after lie, after lie with disastrous wars. And so this does create a fertile ground for people to say, "I wonder if they were lying about all these wars?"

Douglas Murray 34:08 Sure, but it's, it-

Dave Smith 34:08 Again, I'm not really trying to argue with you about World War II.

Douglas Murray 34:10 It is fertile ground. It's fer-

Dave Smith 34:10 I'd rather argue about these wars today.

Douglas Murray 34:12 It's fertile ground. I think the interesting question is whether you're busy watering it.

Joe Rogan 34:15 Okay.

Dave Smith 34:15 But should you not talk about mistakes that were made-

Douglas Murray 34:18 You should.

Dave Smith 34:18 ... overall?

Douglas Murray 34:19 Absolutely.

Dave Smith 34:19 Okay, you should?

Douglas Murray 34:20 Absolutely.

Dave Smith 34:21 Right.

Douglas Murray 34:21 I am all for going back and looking at mistakes.

Dave Smith 34:23 So-

Joe Rogan 34:23 So what are you, what is your argument then?

Douglas Murray 34:25 It's a very weird thing to go back, zone in on a man, say, "This one thing is a mistake and should characterize him," and you ignore everything else.

Joe Rogan 34:34 You're taking him out of context when he's-

Douglas Murray 34:36 It's like wildly weird thing to do.

Joe Rogan 34:36 When you're talking about Daryl, who's done, what was it, 30-plus hours?

Douglas Murray 34:40 So what if 30-plus hours of podcasting-

Joe Rogan 34:42 But you, you take-

Douglas Murray 34:43 ... you could do that in a week.

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Douglas Murray 36:07 I mean, come on.

Dave Smith 36:08 Yeah, but it's a very, it's a very different thing.

Joe Rogan 36:09 It's, it's a very different thing.

Dave Smith 36:09 It's very different thing.

Joe Rogan 36:10 He's not doing a podcast like talking to people.

Douglas Murray 36:12 Okay, nor is he doing scholarly work, nor is he working in the archives clearly. Come on. I mean, this is, he is not the historian of our era.

Joe Rogan 36:20 But he's not claiming to be.

Dave Smith 36:21 It-

Douglas Murray 36:21 This is the thing, Joe. This is like punching jelly. You can always adapt-

Joe Rogan 36:25 No, but you don't, you don't consu-

Douglas Murray 36:26 ... but it can adapt around.

Joe Rogan 36:27 ... but you don't consume his work.

Douglas Murray 36:27 What I'm saying, because I don't need to consume endless versions of a revisionist history. I understand, I know where this comes from.

Joe Rogan 36:35 Listen, but it's not revisionist history. If you listen to his work, it's not revisionist history. He's basing it on historical work.

Douglas Murray 36:41 But I'm, yeah, I know. But it, okay, so th- this is my point about jelly. It's a shape-shifting thing. Comedian or historian?

Dave Smith 36:50 He's not a comedian.

Douglas Murray 36:51 His- historian or podcast? Oh, would be historian or actual historian. You say he doesn't claim to be a historian, but he's pumping out tens of hours of history.

Dave Smith 36:59 Well, neither does Dan Carlin. He doesn't claim to be a historian either.

Douglas Murray 37:03 You see my point about the move. It's like some weird jujitsu move-

Dave Smith 37:08 No, I don't-

Douglas Murray 37:08 ... where you say... Hang on, you know all about this as well.

Dave Smith 37:11 Sure, sure.

Douglas Murray 37:11 You say, "I'm not a historian, but I'm gonna spend my time talking about history. I'm not a journalist, but I'm gonna spend my time talking about this thing. I'm not an expert on this, but I'm gonna spend my time talking about this thing." It's a weird move. Yeah?

Dave Smith 37:26 No.

Douglas Murray 37:26 You don't think?

Dave Smith 37:27 No, I'm a free American. I can talk about what I like to.

Douglas Murray 37:29 You can talk about what you want.

Dave Smith 37:30 So I don't... So what is the point here?

Douglas Murray 37:31 I've noticed you can, but (laughs) we all can.

Dave Smith 37:33 So what's the point?

Douglas Murray 37:34 The point is, what are you pushing? What are you watering? Why?

Dave Smith 37:38 What am I pushing?

Douglas Murray 37:39 Yes.

Dave Smith 37:39 Uh, liberty, free markets, peace, prosperity.

Douglas Murray 37:42 Mm.

Dave Smith 37:43 Not getting in another stupid catastrophic war, which we're on the precipice of right now. That's what I'm pushing.

Douglas Murray 37:48 What are we on the precipice of?

Dave Smith 37:49 Well, I think you... Weren't you just talking about it the other day? Everyone I hear on the inside says we're the, about to attack Iran. I think you just said something about that the other day. Am I wrong about that? I thought I saw in one of your interviews that you did.

Douglas Murray 38:00 Possibly.

Dave Smith 38:00 No. Okay.

Douglas Murray 38:02 Um, that doesn't mean we are on the verge of a war. I mean, you keep referring to we being in wars. There's a very big difference between a country having a military that's engaged and a country being at war. This country has not been at war for 25 years. You have not been fighting for the American homeland for 25 years.

Dave Smith 38:20 Yes, we haven't... That's true.

Douglas Murray 38:21 Right, right.

Dave Smith 38:21 We haven't had a war on our shores. We've been picking on third world countries halfway around the world.

Douglas Murray 38:24 Well, you haven't been randomly picking on them. I mean, Afghanistan, you went-

Dave Smith 38:28 I didn't say it was random.

Douglas Murray 38:29 Yeah. Right, okay. It wasn't like you suddenly decided to bomb, again, Myanmar or something. You, we went for Afghanistan to find Bin Laden and take revenge for 9/11 and stop an attack like that happening again on the American homeland. That is very different from a country being at war.

Dave Smith 38:46 Yeah, but that's-

Douglas Murray 38:47 But I don't think having-

Dave Smith 38:47 ... a total mischaracterization of the war in Afghanistan. It's one thing to say-

Douglas Murray 38:50 Oh, no, no, no.

Dave Smith 38:50 That might be an accurate characterization of the special operations mission in late 2001, but then we fought-

Douglas Murray 38:56 I'm saying, yes-

Dave Smith 38:56 Then we fought a 20-year regime change war-

Douglas Murray 38:58 Yes.

Dave Smith 38:58 ... against the Taliban.

Douglas Murray 38:59 Because you got dragged into the quicksand of war.

Dave Smith 39:02 Oh, okay, fine.

Douglas Murray 39:03 Yes.

Dave Smith 39:03 But-

Douglas Murray 39:03 Fine.

Dave Smith 39:04 I thought it wasn't a war, like what... I don't get your argument.

Douglas Murray 39:06 No, I said it was a war. It's your, it's your use of we as if you're personally like suffering this war.

Dave Smith 39:11 Yeah, yes.

Douglas Murray 39:12 Yeah, you're a taxpayer.

Dave Smith 39:12 When I say we, imply, okay.

Douglas Murray 39:13 We're taxpayers, so we pay for it. Okay, fine.

Dave Smith 39:15 Douglas, would you go... If I went back and corrected you on every time you've used the term we to refer to your government or something like that, like if I were to say, "Oh, we, we just imposed tariffs on China."

Douglas Murray 39:24 It's fine, just you, you, it's just you, you take it-

Dave Smith 39:24 Would you point out that I didn't and it was the Trump administration?

Douglas Murray 39:26 You take it... I'm saying you take it obviously very personally and that, that's your right to do so, of course. I'm just trying to make sure we're accurate here.

Dave Smith 39:32 What, what do you think I, I'm taking personally? I, I-

Douglas Murray 39:34 Just that, the American wars.

Dave Smith 39:37 Sure, yeah.

Douglas Murray 39:37 Yeah.

Dave Smith 39:37 I think they've, they've killed hundreds of thousands of people and cost my country $8 trillion and-

Douglas Murray 39:43 Sure.

Dave Smith 39:43 ... and degraded my country very much.

Douglas Murray 39:45 And there's a very good argument to make on that. I'm still slightly bemused about this move from, "I'm an expert on this and I have views." To, "I'm a comedian."

Dave Smith 39:57 I've never claimed to be an expert on anything.

Douglas Murray 40:00 This is the problem, Joe. I mean, if, if, if somebody says-

Dave Smith 40:04 Wait a minute. You have to claim to be an expert on something to have an opinion on something?

Douglas Murray 40:07 No, you don't have to be. You don't have to be.

Dave Smith 40:09 So what's the issue?

Douglas Murray 40:09 This is like, I'm not a historian, but I'm pumping out history.

Dave Smith 40:12 But wait a minute.

Douglas Murray 40:13 I'm not an expert, but I'm talking all the time about this thing.

Dave Smith 40:15 But you're not even talking about specifically on what he just said.

Douglas Murray 40:18 No, I'm saying this is... My point about this... He, you say, "I'm not an expert."

Dave Smith 40:23 So what's the solution? To not talk about it?

Douglas Murray 40:26 No, it's to have more experts around.

Dave Smith 40:29 Well, the expert class hasn't done a great job, man.

Douglas Murray 40:31 I know.

Dave Smith 40:32 This is follow the science.

Douglas Murray 40:33 Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dave Smith 40:33 Yeah, but you know what? Okay, so fine.

Douglas Murray 40:35 I agree with that.

Dave Smith 40:35 So during-

Douglas Murray 40:35 I just said to you, I agree with that.

Dave Smith 40:36 Okay. Right, right. I know, so Douglas.

Douglas Murray 40:37 But one of the problems is-

Dave Smith 40:38 During all of COVID-

Douglas Murray 40:39 Fire away.

Dave Smith 40:39 I, I will put my track record against any of the expert class on COVID. I'm glad to do that. So should I have just shut up? Should I have shut up by opposing lockdowns and opposing vaccine mandates-

40:50 No. No.

40:50 ... and talking about the lab leak theory?

40:51 That was the argument at the time. You realize that, right?

40:52 That's the, that's the entire argument that you're making.

Douglas Murray 40:54 Absolutely.

Dave Smith 40:54 No, I'm not.

40:54 Let the experts handle this.

Douglas Murray 40:55 I'm not. No, no, no.

Dave Smith 40:56 You're not an expert.

Douglas Murray 40:57 You're, you're wildly-

Dave Smith 40:57 I was just, you're right, I was just a comedian.

Douglas Murray 40:58 You're wildly mis- uh, not listening to what I'm saying. I think you have to take... I think we should agree perhaps on the following, that one major thing can break down in front of your eyes or many major things. And it does not mean that every single one of the sewer gates should be lifted. Okay?

Dave Smith 41:18 Yeah, I, I, I, I get that point.

Douglas Murray 41:19 Right.

Dave Smith 41:19 But who's, who's saying it should be?

Douglas Murray 41:22 I'm saying this is a chatter on what is part of our side at the moment, is that a lot of the sewer gates are being lifted, sometimes by people who know that they're doing it, sometimes by people who don't, sometimes by people who say, "I don't know. I'm just throwing it out there." But at the very least, there's some damn hygiene that should be required, isn't there?

Dave Smith 41:45 Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what you're asking.

Douglas Murray 41:47 Right.

Dave Smith 41:47 But sure.

Douglas Murray 41:48 Just that. Let's have a bit of hygiene on our own side, not lift every sewer gate.

Dave Smith 41:53 And when you say our own side, you mean the right wing broadly speaking.

Douglas Murray 41:56 Broadly speaking.

Dave Smith 41:57 Sure, sure.

Douglas Murray 41:57 And I'm sort of funny about libertarians, I'm never quite sure. I always think...

Dave Smith 42:00 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 42:00 I always say I think libertarians are essentially the bisexuals of politics.

Dave Smith 42:03 (laughs)

42:04 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 42:04 They should just choose, Joe. They should choose. It's kind of... They just want everything at the buffet.

Dave Smith 42:10 That's very funny.

42:11 Well, I think we want some things. I don't know. Okay. That's a, that's a weird way to put it, but I, I, I get your point.

42:15 Yeah. I see your point.

42:16 Um, all right. Well, I, I mean, I don't know. Look, I, I mean, essentially, I just don't... Maybe there's something I'm missing here, but if your argument is that, like, you're, you're saying I claim to be an expert, but then I have like a parachute to get out of it by being like, "Hey, I'm just a comedian. I was just saying this."

Douglas Murray 42:30 Yeah.

Dave Smith 42:30 But I don't think I've ever, like, really claimed to be an expert. I, I have opinions on things.

Douglas Murray 42:34 Why are you going around... I know, but, well, well, but if you're not-

Dave Smith 42:35 Because I'm interested in these topics.

Douglas Murray 42:37 Yeah, I know, but isn't it weird to go around, for instance, I mean, let's get to the, the last year and a half. It's, it's a bit weird to be simultaneously saying, "I'm not an expert on a conflict," and talking about it everywhere.

Dave Smith 42:50 I don't think so. Not really.

Douglas Murray 42:52 Huh.

Dave Smith 42:52 I mean, I don't know. I don't think like-

Douglas Murray 42:53 I don't know.

Dave Smith 42:53 You... I, I don't see how you can't have an opinion on things-

42:55 Do you talk about these things?

Douglas Murray 42:57 Which things?

Joe Rogan 42:58 All these things that we're talking about.

Douglas Murray 42:59 Some of them, yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:59 Are you an expert?

Douglas Murray 43:00 I am on some, yes.

Joe Rogan 43:02 On some but not.

Dave Smith 43:02 But he's talking about something that you're not an expert on.

Douglas Murray 43:04 On some I'm not. You'll notice that I didn't-

Joe Rogan 43:05 Right. So what should you do? What should you do if those subjects get breached?

Douglas Murray 43:07 Well, I think that you educate yourself as much as you can.

Joe Rogan 43:09 Shouldn't you say, "I'm not an expert," and then give your opinion if you're-

Douglas Murray 43:12 It depends. I-

Joe Rogan 43:12 ... in the middle of a conversation?

Douglas Murray 43:13 ... I think it's, as I say, I think that it's a weird move to say, "I'm not an expert on this, but I'm gonna talk about it nonstop." I think that is strange.

Dave Smith 43:21 Listen, I will certainly concede that I am weird, so I'm not d- disagreeing with you. It's weird that I'm as obsessed with all this stuff as I am. I mean, like, okay, I'm a weird guy. I do, I tell jokes at night clubs and then get obsessed with politics and monetary policy. And like, okay, fine. But I just, like, fundamentally disagree with this idea that, which I really do think is, um, quite anti-democratic in spirit and quite, um, um, you know, elitist, that there's an expert class. They can have opinions on all of these things.

Douglas Murray 43:51 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 43:51 It's weird for any regular person-

Douglas Murray 43:53 No, no, no.

Dave Smith 43:53 ... who's just read about it to-

Douglas Murray 43:54 Not my view. Not my view.

Dave Smith 43:55 Seems like what's what you're saying.

Douglas Murray 43:56 No. I, I conceded already. I said a long time ago that I believe much of the expert class let itself and us all down very badly, and I think that happened in foreign policy in areas. Not every area, but it happened in some areas. I think it happened with COVID in many areas, but that does not mean that it's just a free-for-all. No. There are some things we can still verify to be true and can still agree on as baseline levels of agreement in a free society. And the, and yes, everyone is free to air their views, but it does not mean that everyone who sounds off on an issue, whether it's World War II, the war in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, has an equally valid point of view. No.

Dave Smith 44:41 I certainly wouldn't argue. I mean, I, that to me is just batting down a straw man. I mean, I certainly wouldn't argue that everyone has an equally valid point of view, and I certainly wouldn't argue that there shouldn't be some standards of, like, who you would wanna find interesting-

Douglas Murray 44:54 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 44:54 ... and talk to and who you wouldn't. But also it's like, so let's have the conversation that, like-

Douglas Murray 44:59 Yeah.

Dave Smith 45:00 ... I don't, I don't know, like, if there's, um, if, if there is, uh, if, if there are experts out there who can smack all of this stuff down or just destroy every point that I, I make over the years or whatever-

Douglas Murray 45:11 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 45:11 ... like, okay. So then do it and then let's see. I don't know.

Douglas Murray 45:13 Yeah, I know, but, well, that's a bit weird because also then, then it's like the debate me bro thing. But I think what you're-

Dave Smith 45:19 But you just, you just criticized Darryl for not debating.

Douglas Murray 45:21 No, it's fine. It's fine. Yeah. I know. Let me just make the main point. I think what I'm trying to get at, Joe, is that it's a bit like the Twitter algorithm thing, which is, yes, everyone is and should be free to say what they like on Twitter, apart from whatever the, I mean, the very fringe things of, like, immediate incitement of violence and all that kind of thing. But, uh, we all know that one of the oddities of Twitter, including since Elon took over, is that what you hope is a restored marketplace of ideas ends up pushing you really crazy shit.

Dave Smith 45:54 Yes.

Douglas Murray 45:55 And that is what I'm suggesting is happening on a podcast level and maybe on a wider level beyond that. I get stuff on Twitter I just do not want. I do not want a guy with one and a half thousand followers who's got some zany new view on something, who isn't an expert but is an expert to be pushed at me. And effectively what is happening with the Twitter algorithm is happening everywhere else as well. And we're all for the open marketplace of ideas. I want that. I thrive in it. But it is, it is different once you get into the thing of, is something manipulating the algorithm behind? Is the algorithm being pushed on me? Why am I being given this? Why am I not being given that? Why am I being constantly pushed this view? And I think that the answer to a great degree is the same thing in your world as it is in the Twitter world, which is if you go straight online and you say, you know, "JFK file drops. Uh, watch live stream of Kennedy historians reading the papers live," you're not gonna get any views. No one's gonna watch it. That's what, kind of what's needed is for the people who know the documents to go through the documents. But you and I know that if, as there was some guy who did immediately, you do something like, uh, "Live stream Mossad involvement in JFK," you're gonna milk it. You're gonna cream it online. The money comes in. I'm saying that there's-

Joe Rogan 47:23 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 47:23 ... a similar algorithm in all of our lives that we're not as aware of as we should be, which is that we, because we all know this at some level, that there are certain things that, uh, get your, a bit of your base going or get people going interesting and crazy and then they start debating it and all that sort of thing. And that algorithm of online seems to me to be spilling into the real world.

Dave Smith 47:49 I, I don't disagree that there's certainly more sensationalist stuff will get you more clicks. I, I also don't think that's a par- it's not really unique to social media or podcasting. I mean, this has been true-

Douglas Murray 47:59 No, believe me, I write for the tabloids. I know that. (laughs) I mean, I, I-

Dave Smith 48:01 This has always been true, right? So yeah, okay, so it's kind of one of the problems of humanity.

Joe Rogan 48:06 Yeah, I don't think anybody's arguing against that. You know, um, it's certainly never my intention when I talk to someone to try to get more views. It sounds crazy, but I'm only talking to people that I'm interested in talking to.

Douglas Murray 48:17 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 48:17 And in Daryl's case, it's because I've been a listener of his podcast for years.

Douglas Murray 48:22 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 48:26 That's it. This is, like, genuinely how I perceive things.

Douglas Murray 48:31 I beg you.

Joe Rogan 48:31 That's why you're here. I'm genuinely interested in your views as well, even though you completely disagree with him.

Douglas Murray 48:39 Good kind.

Joe Rogan 48:40 That's, the, I mean, this is-

Douglas Murray 48:41 Sure.

Joe Rogan 48:41 ... the marketplace of ideas-

Douglas Murray 48:42 Sure.

Joe Rogan 48:42 ... in real time.

Douglas Murray 48:44 I agree, although as I say, I think you've massively underrepresented the pro-Ukraine argument and the pro-Israel argument in the last two years.

Joe Rogan 48:55 Um, I don't know. I mean, well-

Douglas Murray 49:00 That's my observation.

Joe Rogan 49:01 Okay. You're totally allowed to have that observation. What is, uh, the, what's the pro-Ukraine argument that you think is not being represented enough?

Douglas Murray 49:12 Well, my b- broad view is that, again, something to do with the algorithm, that, uh, anything that is, uh, conspiratorial about Zelenskyy or the Ukrainians in the conflict does very well. Anything that says, actually, the Ukrainian army is fighting to try to retain as much of their country as they can, doesn't do as well. I think that everything that is pushing the idea that, for instance, the Americans caused it or something like that, does well. I think everything that says, actually, in February 2022, Vladimir Putin's tanks invaded Ukraine and they shouldn't have done, doesn't do as well.

Joe Rogan 49:58 I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that what Vladimir Putin did wasn't horrific.

Douglas Murray 50:05 That's not my point. The point is that after that, you, there's a whole set of things. Let, l- let's look at, for instance, the issue of corruption.

Joe Rogan 50:13 Okay.

Douglas Murray 50:13 Ukraine is a pretty corrupt country by EU standards, by the, uh, by World Bank standards. Um, and it's been a problem as it is in that neck of the woods. And it's understandable that if the US is one of the countries putting money and arms into Ukraine, then it's going to be a subject of legitimate interest to U-, American people and others, the European taxpayers. Nevertheless, you end up in this... And I know this because the same, it's the same thing in the old media, you end up on, like, the new bit of the story and there's always a risk that you will lose sight of the beginning of the story. For instance, I mean, Putin's corruption is legendary, gargantuan, and not as interesting it seems to me. The algorithm doesn't push that. And I think that's, uh, to a greater extent the case with the Israel-Hamas war as well.

Dave Smith 51:14 Well, i- isn't there a little bit of a concern? Like, I would say a, a couple things here. Number one, I'm not deny-... I don't know how the algorithm works or what it's pushing, and there... And it's an interesting thing that we probably should all know more about.

Douglas Murray 51:26 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 51:27 But I think there's a danger when you're, to just ca- uh, classify everything as, "Well, the algorithm pushes this and doesn't push this." It's like, it could also be that some ideas are just resonating more and some ideas are more popular than other ideas.

Douglas Murray 51:37 Hmm. Hmm.

Dave Smith 51:37 And there's probably, probably both of those things are at work in that dynamic.

Douglas Murray 51:40 Sure.

Dave Smith 51:40 But I also think that something like the reason why, say, talking about Ukrainian corruption is more interesting i- i- in a lot of ways than talking about Russian corruption is obviously because like, well, one of these countries is an enemy and the other one is one that we're sending tens of billions of dollars to.

Douglas Murray 51:57 Hmm. Hundreds.

Dave Smith 51:57 And so... Uh, yes, well, debating on between Zelenskyy and the weapons companies, I don't know, he says he only got 70 billion dollars of it, but we've spent closer to 170, so whatever. But the, the point is that obviously if there is a country that we are propping up, funding, arming-

Douglas Murray 52:15 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 52:15 ... and they're corrupt, I, I would say my starting point would always be to be more concerned with that corruption than an enemy country, which it's almost kind of a given is a corrupt country.

Douglas Murray 52:26 I know.

Narrator 52:26 I, I agree. I-

Dave Smith 52:26 Like, I, I don't know. I'm sure there are fringes of the right, uh, uh, who might say, like, Vladimir Putin's some great guy or something like that. But that is... I really do not think that is the argument that most people who are critical of this, of Biden's policy-

Douglas Murray 52:38 No.

Dave Smith 52:38 ... are, are making.

Douglas Murray 52:39 Sure. I, I, I mean, I think that one of the in- I think one of the interesting things that happens in this is the old cliche of losing the wood for the trees.

Dave Smith 52:46 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 52:47 Uh, it just happens an awful lot. And it's the na- it's the nature of the, the old news cycle, let alone the current one, the social media era. Um, actually, I remember that, uh... So I j- I don't have to go back to World War II, but let me just very quickly. I remember this debate with Pat Buchanan when he was debating much more learned historians on the subject of the origins of World War II. And the whole thing got lost in all of this sort of mad puzzle of views about iron ore production in the (laughs) Bavarian Forest and, and this sort of thing. And I remember everyone was all over the place, and the moderator turned to the historian Andrew Roberts and said, "Andrew Roberts, why did World War II begin?" And he said, "World War II began because Hitler invaded Poland." And those moments come along quite often at the moment, which is, yes, there's an awful lot of very interesting things to look into. There's a lot of very interesting things going on, which we should all be able to talk about and do talk about. But sometimes you have to remember the origin causes of things as well, and you have to stick to keeping that in mind.

Dave Smith 53:51 Yeah. Well, I certainly- I agree with-

Douglas Murray 53:52 And I think that a lot of people are pretty bad at the moment of keeping that in mind. Like, you can very... You can concede Ukrainian corruption, you can concede, uh, all sorts of things and still not lose sight of the thing of if Russia rolls tanks into neighboring countries-

Dave Smith 54:11 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 54:11 ... it can't be allowed.

Dave Smith 54:12 Oh, well, listen. Okay, so on that I think we have an area of agreement. And I do think, like, even, um, while I much prefer, uh, the, the path that Donald Trump is pursuing to the path that Joe Biden pursued when it comes to the, the war in Ukraine... And of course this is, you know, Donald Trump's thing is once you piss him off, he's gonna call you every bad nickname that there is. In fact, but when he, when he said-

Douglas Murray 54:34 And sometimes when you don't piss him off.

Dave Smith 54:35 Well, sure. But when he said, like-

Douglas Murray 54:36 The Danes come to mind. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:38 (laughs)

Dave Smith 54:38 What did... I believe he said, uh, that Zelenskyy started the war.

Douglas Murray 54:41 Yes, he did.

Dave Smith 54:42 Or something like that, which is like, okay, all right, that's a little bit ridiculous.

Joe Rogan 54:44 Did he really say that?

Dave Smith 54:44 Yeah. (laughs)

Douglas Murray 54:44 He said Zelenskyy started the war and that Zelenskyy was the dictator.

Dave Smith 54:47 Yes. Okay. All right.

Joe Rogan 54:48 What?

Dave Smith 54:48 So-

Joe Rogan 54:49 Trump said that?

Dave Smith 54:50 Yes. He s-... But it was after-

Joe Rogan 54:51 How did, how... He said Zelenskyy-

Dave Smith 54:52 ... Zelenskyy pissed him off.

Joe Rogan 54:53 ... started the war?

Dave Smith 54:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:54 Really?

Dave Smith 54:54 But it was... This is how Donald Trump is. Love him or hate him, for better or for worse, Donald Trump, it's like, if, if you... He feels that you disrespected him or come, came at him, he's gonna be 10 times more vicious to you.

Douglas Murray 55:05 This was... By the way, this happened two weeks before the, uh, uh, disastrous Oval Office meeting.

Dave Smith 55:10 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 55:10 And I wrote the next day the cover in the New York Post, which was a big picture of Vladimir Putin with the headline, "This is a dictator."

Narrator 55:18 Hmm.

Douglas Murray 55:18 Just again, as I say, not to lose track, in all of the melee, not to lose track of the basic facts.

Dave Smith 55:26 Well, look. I, I will say this. As somebody who is... I'm, I'm very anti-war, broadly speaking, and I do, I do agree with you that it should like... We should be able to have conversations about all the things that led up to the war and all the different, you know, like blunders that, that were made-

Douglas Murray 55:44 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 55:44 ... and also still recognize that Vladimir Putin invaded a country and is responsible for, you know, at least hundreds of thousands of, of people dying. And, you know, my... Uh, um, uh, Scott Horton, who I always try to promote on here, he just wrote this book called Provoked. I think it's like the best book that's been written on the, uh, history leading up to, uh, um, the, the war between... It basically takes you from the collapse of the Soviet Union up to the war in Ukraine. And even in that book, the book is called Provoked, and the argument is that, that Western policy was very provocative toward Vladimir Putin, and there were a lot of, uh, uh, off-ramps that could have been explored and should have been explored.

Douglas Murray 56:19 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 56:19 But he has an entire chapter in the book where he is saying like, "Look, these are... Putin had a lot of other options. He didn't have to do this. It's not as if any of that justifies his invasion." And so I do agree with you that whenever we're talking about a war, particularly a war of aggression, um, that should always be in the front of people's minds. I mean, you can criticize, uh... You know, I, I would say, I think I'm consistent on this across the board, you can criticize, uh, lots of things about the insurgency in Iraq, um, certainly-

Douglas Murray 56:50 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 56:50 ... but you should remember that George W. Bush invaded the country when he shouldn't have and based off lies. So I, I'll, I say that when my government does it, I'll say it when the Russian government does it also. That being said, there's a very strong argument that there were many policies that the US, uh, you know, NATO and Europe as well, but mostly the US, pursued that were just almost... Like, if you wanted to come to this inevitable conflict, this would've been the policy to pursue to give you the best chance to end up there.

Douglas Murray 57:20 Yeah. Well, one of the... You know, um... I was with a British military friend re- recently and somebody asked, uh, "What does the fog of war mean?" And, uh, he gave a brilliant example of what it means on the battlefield, which a lot of people don't understand. There's a version of the fog of war in history as well. Uh, the great Czech writer, Milan Kundera, had this beautiful phrase in a book of his from the '90s called Testaments Betrayed where he said, "The odd thing about mankind is..." he said, "we walk through life in a fog and we stumble along a path and we create the path as we stumble along it." So that's not the interesting thing. The interesting thing is that when we look back, we see the man and we see the path, but we don't see the fog.

Dave Smith 58:06 Hmm.

Douglas Murray 58:08 Everything looks inevitable when you're standing in the present. Everything looks like it was going to happen this way and you have these endless, f- often fascinating, often futile explorations of what might have been, but it doesn't take into account the fog.

Dave Smith 58:26 That's a very good point.

Douglas Murray 58:27 And the fog of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union was pretty considerable.

Dave Smith 58:34 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 58:34 The efforts in the 1990s to bring them into a more obvious part of the international order failed. And my own view has always been that, in part, we missed an opportunity, uh, to pay a kind of civilizational respect to the Russians, which they deserved. Um, but n- But also throughout the period that people now say there are all of these off-ramps and now so many people claim that NATO went around the region desperately trying to provoke the Russians into, into some kind of war or inevitably leading them that way because of NATO expansionism, they never take into account what w- was in my memory and experience very clear, which was NATO didn't go, go around recruiting. People came to NATO. Countries came to NATO wanting to join precisely because they feared the aggression that Ukrainians have suffered since February 2022, and indeed before. I was in Georgia just after the, uh, 2008 war began. The country, not the state. Um, always has to be confirmed, otherwise people are like, "What?"

Dave Smith 59:41 Right.

Douglas Murray 59:41 "Who invaded Georgia?" (laughs)

Dave Smith 59:42 (laughs) "We attacked Georgia?"

Douglas Murray 59:43 "I think." (laughs) "They're bastards." Uh, but I was in the country of Georgia and, um, uh, Putin had tried to invade them and had seized South Osetia and Abkhazia and, uh, they were desperate to join NATO. In fact, they're desperate to join the European Union. I rather frivolously said to a Georgian friend, uh, "If you want, we can swap. You can take our British membership of the EU." But, um, in the NATO thing, they were desperate for it, and they were desperate for it precisely for the reason that s- many of the Ukrainians were desperate for it, which was only way to stop Putin expansionism. So, you know, in the whole fog of the post-Soviet era, that is one of the many things that gets left out of the conversation. And by the way, Putin's actions in February 2022 and since, uh, all he's done is provoke two new countries to join NATO and his borders with NATO have grown-

Dave Smith 1:00:40 Hmm. That's true.

Douglas Murray 1:00:41 ... because Finland and Sweden wanted to join. And the only reason Finland and Sweden wanted to join was because they too are scared. It's, it's, it's a heck of a thing to get the Swedish to join a military alliance. It doesn't come easy to them.

Dave Smith 1:00:53 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 1:00:53 It doesn't come natural. Uh, and these, uh, these countries joined because like-... Georgia, like Ukraine, they desperately feared Putinist expansionism. And they weren't wrong.

Dave Smith 1:01:05 Okay. But I- I- I get your point. Um, th- first off, the, the war in, in Georgia in 2008 actually came, what was it? Two or three months after the Bucharest Summit where NATO announced that Georgia and Ukraine would be entering, uh, NATO. So just making that point, that, that, the NATO aspirations came first.

Douglas Murray 1:01:22 It did.

Dave Smith 1:01:22 But listen, I don't think you're wrong. I don't think anybody is ever implying that like, we've expanded NATO through force, and that the countries who were joining, or at least the governments of the countries who were joining didn't want it. Although, in the case of Ukraine, there's a great piece in the Washington Post about this in 2006, where joining NATO was actually very unpopular. And there was a lot done, a- and largely because they just didn't wanna take on the headache of the conflict that this might provoke. But, you know, the question I think isn't necessarily like, do these countries wish to join NATO? Of course, I think most countries in the world would like to join NATO. I think m- most countries in the world would like the most powerful government in the history of the world to guarantee their defense and subsidize their defense. The question is, is that in America's interest? And i- in terms of your point of seeing through the fog, I mean, look, there was a- a- as you know well, in the 90s, in the late 90s during the first round of NATO expansion, there was a lively debate amongst this. And I don't mean a debate amongst outsiders or non-expert experts or, or whatever. I mean, within the real deal experts, the wisest gray beards in the national security apparatus, there was a real debate with at least three secretaries of defense who warned against this. Uh, R- Robert Gates, Robert McNamara.

Douglas Murray 1:02:34 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 1:02:34 William Perry, the Secretary of Defense at the time, almost resigned. Said his biggest regret in life is that he didn't resign over it. George Kennan was able to see right through that fog. He literally said, the Cold Warrior, founder of the containment strategy, saw right through that fog and goes, "This will inevitably lead to a conflict with Russia." And his exact words were, "And then when there's a Russian response, everybody will say, 'Look, this is why we needed to expand, uh, NATO.'" But the, the point here is, okay, even within that deep debate, which there were lively debates about, even the people who were on the pro-expansionist side of things, uh, like Henry Kissinger, even he said Ukraine would have to be a special arrangement. Ukraine will not come into NATO because obviously-

Douglas Murray 1:03:15 Yes.

Dave Smith 1:03:16 ... that's leading to a war with, with Russia. And so I don't think it's unreasonable, and I think this is a fair thing that we should do in all conflicts, is like, to have as a, as, as, uh, Mearsheimer puts it, to have strategic empathy. To say like, "Hey, listen. Let's, let's reasonably place ourselves in the other person's shoes and say how would we react if somebody was expanding their military alliance-"

Douglas Murray 1:03:40 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 1:03:40 "... that is explicitly anti-us and is bringing it up to our borders and now is openly for years and years and years saying that we are going to bring your largest neighbor, where you have very important strategic interests from your point of view, into our military alliance, and you are saying over and over again, 'This is our brightest red line. Do not do this.'" And then they keep flirting with doing this over and over, then they back a street putsch that overthrows the government there.

Douglas Murray 1:04:08 Well-

Dave Smith 1:04:08 Don't you think maybe that would be a provocation?

Douglas Murray 1:04:11 Uh, f- first of all, two things. The s- if you want that strategic empathy that Mearsheimer, I'm not an admirer of, um, but if you wanna do that, um, you can do it the other way around as well surely.

Dave Smith 1:04:26 Yeah.

Douglas Murray 1:04:26 I mean, do the same thing with Ukrainians.

Dave Smith 1:04:29 Absolutely, yes.

Douglas Murray 1:04:30 Do the same thing with the Latvians and others.

Dave Smith 1:04:31 Yeah, but I would never-

Douglas Murray 1:04:32 It's, it's-

Dave Smith 1:04:32 Douglas, my response to you was never, I can't understand why the Latvians or, or the Lithuanians-

Douglas Murray 1:04:37 No, no, no.

Dave Smith 1:04:37 ... would want to be in NATO. I can under-

Douglas Murray 1:04:38 I understand, yes.

Dave Smith 1:04:39 Right, right. And I can understand why Russia thought that Ukrainian membership in NATO was a red line. I can understand that. But that wasn't why Putin invaded in 2022. He, uh, and I think, and I think there's an oddity if I can say so, maybe this particularly comes across on the libertarian bisexual side. But the, I think there's an oddity of the, uh, uh, uh ... (laughs) Let the record show him a happily married heterosexual man. (laughs)

Douglas Murray 1:05:02 Um, they all say that. (laughs)

Dave Smith 1:05:05 (laughs)

Douglas Murray 1:05:05 Um, I think there's an oddity that sometimes particularly happens on the libertarian side, which is a m- which is a presumption that things only really happen in the world because we make them so. And, you know, Russia invades Ukraine because of American policy in Eastern Europe post-1989, 1990. Uh, something happens in the Middle East because of American policy. And I think it's a very blinkered and parochial view of things, because my experience in countries around the world is that there's a heck of a lot going on that America is frankly not really involved in.

Dave Smith 1:05:44 Well, that's, that's certainly a straw man of my position. I am not saying that America is dr-

Douglas Murray 1:05:47 No, no, no. I know. What I'm saying... No, no, no. But what I'm saying is, it is very... In fact, it's partly, since you very kindly raised the issue, Joe-

Dave Smith 1:05:54 Your book.

Douglas Murray 1:05:54 Behind your book. It's one of the things that-

Dave Smith 1:05:56 Democracies and Death Cults.

Douglas Murray 1:05:58 It's, it's one of the things I find very interesting about th- this with democracies, which is, it is one of the things in the nature of a liberal democracy that because we have the right to air our opinion, because we have the right to criticize our government and much more, we end up doing all of that and there is a misapprehension people can come to, I don't know if you do, but they can come to, which is effectively, we are the only force that causes action in the world. And there's a reason for that, which is that we have, thank God, a say in how liberal democracies are run and how we're governed. And we can chew over all of the disagreements that we have. But when a liberal democracy comes against the kind of rock like a death cult, a totalitarian regime, a dictatorship like Russia or the Iranian revolutionary government, there's always this temptation to say... To, to, to focus our attention on our own side because we can't do a darn thing about the other one.It's a version of, you know, the great, uh, late se- Senator, uh, Daniel Patrick Moynihan said when he was ambassador to the UN. He had this great rule. Uh, it's sort of known among those who know about it as Moynihan's Rule, which is he said, "If you sit at the UN or the H- UN Human Rights Council, any of these bodies, you would come away with the belief that the most abused people with the fewest rights in the world live in America and other Western liberal societies." And he ca- Because we're the ones that talk about it.

Dave Smith 1:07:34 Mm-hmm.

Douglas Murray 1:07:34 You know, if there's one incident of racism in America, well, the whole world knows about it. Everyone reads it, so there'll be protests everywhere. If there's one in- incident of racism in North Korea, it's not gonna make any news. And then you have on top of that the fact that the, the, the, the way in which despotisms and death cults and dictatorships work, the information just doesn't come out. And Moynihan's Rule r- r- ended up being that the, uh, it's an interesting point. He sa- he said, uh, that his rule by the end of his time at the UN was that the number of human rights violations that occur in a country happen in exactly inverse proportion to the numbers of claims of human right violations. Because only, only the countries which care about it and which such things can be aired in are ever gonna get it out. But the, the, the point of Moynihan's Law and the warning of it is, be careful not to come away with the mistaken idea that the freest and most liberal societies are the worst. And I think there's a version of Moynihan's Law that applies whether it's from Middle East to Ukraine and Russia, which is we come away with this... People may come away with the impression that the bad things in the world effectively all come from here. And there is quite a lot to be said for some of that, but there's not everything to be said. And much of the world runs on a dynamic and a dynamo, which you can't do a damn thing about other than to try to understand it.

Dave Smith 1:09:07 Yeah. Okay. So I, I mean, again, I certainly... There, there, there is truth to a lot of that, and I think that-

Douglas Murray 1:09:13 Yeah.

Dave Smith 1:09:13 ... is a fascinating kind of, uh, dynamic where there is something about kind of like... You know, I noticed this even, um, just with my own kids. Like, it's like... And people, when you have kids and you raise them really we- You know, like you're really sweet to them and you don't hit them and you give them a good life, small things end up becoming huge i- like things in their mind. Like, "Someone pushed me at the playground," and it's like, whoa, this is... Whereas like the way I grew up, that would have just been kind of like a v- a nonevent. But anyway, I think it would be certainly incorrect to assume that, um, everything that happens bad in the world is somehow a consequence of US meddling. I also think that there's people on the other side here, maybe the people who are more, uh, Neocon leaning, more war hawk- uh, hawkie leaning, um, they have a tendency to only focus on the bad things that everybody else does and act like our, uh, policies have no impact on this.

Douglas Murray 1:10:04 Yeah, which would be ridiculous.

Dave Smith 1:10:05 So... Right. So very specifically, you know, with the, uh, Russian invasion of Ukraine, and I'll just get two, like, bullet points on this, and there's... We could talk about a lot of this. But look, number one, in, in 2008, as, as you well know, right? The... Joe Biden's CIA director, who was the CIA director for the entire war up until Donald Trump just came back in, he wrote the net means net memo to Condoleezza Rice, a private cable to the then Secretary of State when he was ambassador to Russia to let her know that this flirting with bringing Ukraine into NATO-

Douglas Murray 1:10:36 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 1:10:36 ... is gonna end up in a war, and by the way, the Russians don't wanna do it. His words exactly. "If you keep pushing with this, the Russians are going to ha- They are gonna have to make a decision that they don't wanna make, which is whether they intervene or not." And number two, uh, Stra- Stratenberg, uh... I might be butchering that again, but the, the head of NATO-

Douglas Murray 1:10:55 Stoltenberg.

Dave Smith 1:10:56 ... he, he himself said that Vladimir Putin sent him a draft treaty in late 2021 and said, "Look, if you just put into writing that you will not bring Ukraine into NATO, I won't invade." Now, if you wanna argue that, um-

Douglas Murray 1:11:12 (laughs) Huh. This, this pre- You've... I- I admire your appeal to authority to the head of the CIA. I just know the libertarians-

Dave Smith 1:11:18 It's not an appeal to authority.

Douglas Murray 1:11:19 Well, um-

Dave Smith 1:11:20 How is that an appeal to authority?

Douglas Murray 1:11:21 ... you, you, you regard the, the, the view of the CIA director on that occasion as being useful for your argument. But secondly-

Dave Smith 1:11:27 But I- Yeah, but- Okay, okay.

Douglas Murray 1:11:28 Hang on. Secondly, hang on. Secondly, there's an oddity to believing what Vladimir Putin says.

Dave Smith 1:11:35 No, wait. Hold on. But you, you didn't let me finish my point.

Douglas Murray 1:11:37 Or you can... Okay.

Dave Smith 1:11:37 So, so don't believe what he says. I, I'm not gonna pretend to read his heart and mind or something like that. But at the very least, you handed him the giant excuse in order to do it. I mean, maybe he doesn't really believe it, but this is his argument to his own people and to the world-

Douglas Murray 1:11:51 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 1:11:51 ... that it's like, look... And, and we put him in a position... I- i- you know, if you hate Vladimir Putin, he's such a terrible guy-

Douglas Murray 1:11:57 I-

Dave Smith 1:11:57 Well, we put him in this position where he gets to now very plausibly say to the international community, "In the same way that if the Soviet Union had survived and Ame- and, and the United States hadn't, and these were"-

Douglas Murray 1:12:08 He doesn't very plausibly. He doesn't very plausibly have the opportunity to do that. He invaded Ukraine because he wanted to annex the whole country because he was trying to pretend that the whole place had been run by Nazis.

Dave Smith 1:12:17 Well, I mean, okay. The whole place wasn't run by Nazis.

Douglas Murray 1:12:19 That's what he told-

Dave Smith 1:12:19 There certainly were, certainly were some Nazis