EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,133 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- NANarrator
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays) How what is it to be Dave Smith? (laughs)
- DSDave Smith
(laughs) It's a little bit weird.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
It's weirder to be Joe Rogan.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) You think?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, it's gotta be.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's weird. It's weird to be any person in the public eye. But, uh, in this time, it's particularly weird. If you're, like, one of the only people, I mean, the media is so bizarrely compromised. It's so weird when you watch these narratives spin, both on the left and on the right. And, like, is anybody fucking rational? Is anybody looking at th- and there's so few that a comedian, like yourself, just rises to the top of the heap.
- DSDave Smith
(laughs) Well, it's funny, dude, because ... So, like, uh, since the last time, uh, I was on, th- this has been kind of, like, the knock on me in a way now.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that a comedian?
- DSDave Smith
That was, "You're just a comedian."
- JRJoe Rogan
You're my-
- DSDave Smith
This guy's not an expert."
- JRJoe Rogan
... emotional support comedian.
- DSDave Smith
That's right. (laughs) Yes, that's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Have you ever been-
- DSDave Smith
(laughs) It feels weird.
- JRJoe Rogan
... an emotional support comedian?
- DSDave Smith
It feels weird doing this without Doug, to be honest.
- JRJoe Rogan
Aw.
- DSDave Smith
It seems kinda wrong. But th- that's been, like, the ... Essentially, that's, like, the knock is, like, "Yeah, but you're, you're acting like you're an expert, but you're just some comedian." And it's like, no, that's the point. That's always been the point. Like, yes, I'm just a comedian. I'm not an expert. And, and still, being not an expert, hand me your favorite war hawk and I will tear them to shreds, 'cause it's actually not that hard. And, like, these people aren't really experts either.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, al- also the problem with that is these people that are talking about these things are talking about people not being experts while they're not experts.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's, you know ... What, does Doug have a degree in English?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, okay. His ... Sam Harris is a neuroscientist.
- DSDave Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, there's all these different people who have, you know, expertise in one area that is pretty much outside geopolitical, you know, world politics and international relations and chaos and war and the military-industrial complex. And, like, these are very, very complex, sophisticated, nuanced discussions that you have to have when you're talking about these things, 'cause there's so many different factors at play. There's so much money. There's so much bullshit in terms of, like, what's the truth, what's the narrative, who's pushing the narrative, who's being paid to push the narrative, which is really weird. There's so many of these fucking online influencers that I don't even think are really human beings that have, like, prominent accounts.
- DSDave Smith
Yep. Yep. But then there's also ... It's, it's a convenient kind of way to dismiss somebody-
- 15:00 – 30:00
Yeah, I was there.…
- JRJoe Rogan
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, I was there. Uh, I was in New York City, uh, on 9/11, and um, I remember... So I was in- in Brooklyn, like only a few miles from the World Trade Center, and like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you physically see it?
- DSDave Smith
No. I saw... So, I remember seeing, you know, I think... So I, when I got out of school, I was in high school, I was a senior in high school, and we- we got out. One of the girls like forged a note, uh, and said it was from our parents or something like that. I forget exactly how it went, but we got out. And it was like I was friends with the security guard. I used to buy weed from him.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
It was a different time. Uh, but yeah, it was a different time. Pre-9/11 we were just all hanging out, buying weed from security guards at schools.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
Um, but so he let us out. So I remember we c- I'm pretty sure when we came to Flatbush Ave we saw like, it was, there was smoke in the air. But both the towers had- had fallen by the time we got out.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- DSDave Smith
But there were people. So the subways had been out for a while, and where I was, I was like on Flatbush Avenue, if- if anyone knows Brooklyn, it's like Flatbush and 7th Avenue. So this is like, it's kind of a straight shoot down to the Manhattan Bridge and then the Brooklyn Bridge is- is down there too. But the Brooklyn Bridge you can walk over. And so at this point already, people who were down in the financial district had just decided to walk back to Brooklyn 'cause they realized they weren't gonna get a cab or get on the subway. And so you'd see just like one guy in a suit and tie covered in soot, head to toe, like walking up-
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus.
- DSDave Smith
... like, "Oh, he must have just been down there and- and walked up." And, but I remember, now this was in Brooklyn, but even there it was very busy. But, uh, people were stopping and asking each other. People who you would pass on the street but never talk to, were stopping and asking everyone, "How's your family? Everyone okay?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
"All right? Are you fine?" Like there was this like community spirit that you just didn't, you don't typically get in New York City, 'cause there's just too many people, you can't talk to everybody.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Um, but that- that part of it was kind of beautiful. And then of course governments do what they do and immediately manipulated that into launching wars that they wanted from before 9/11-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... that had absolutely nothing to do with- with 9/11.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Um, which is, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Also the Patriot Act was a bunch of shit they had tried to pass-
- DSDave Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... a- a- a- for a while, for years. And everyone's like, "What are you fucking crazy?" No.
- DSDave Smith
Well this is the thing, and I guess maybe it's partly like my age, because I was 18 at the time and this is like my coming of age, you know, time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
But I will never stop being furious about all of that shit. And this is like still to this day I'm sure you- you see it when I'm on podcasts with you and uh, doing debates and stuff. But I'm so angry over the war in Iraq and- and the subsequent wars in, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... Libya and Syria and Somalia and Yemen and all of 'em. But specifically because, like all these guys, the neoconservatives, the- the N-word that I'm not supposed to bring up, even though by the way, Douglas Murray wrote a book called Neoconservatism: Why We Need It. But when I say the word neoconservative, um, be careful what you're watering here or something like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that what they say?
- DSDave Smith
They, uh-
- 30:00 – 45:00
Yeah. …
- JRJoe Rogan
whole thing was set up by the government.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's what's really crazy is intelligence agencies set up Watergate, they, they operated it. Bob Woodward was an intelligence agent before he was ever a reporter. That was his first gig. Tucker Carlson told me that-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... it blew my fucking mind. He's like, "What rookie reporter for their first gig, their first story, gets you're gonna take down the most popular president in US history?"
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. That's-
- JRJoe Rogan
He had won by the biggest margin.
- DSDave Smith
In 49 states.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
He's ju- a dominant reele- the American people had spoken, they supported this guy and then, right, Bob Woodward, some 20-something-year-old reporter, he gets the biggest story in American history-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
He happened to just come out of Naval intelligence-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did I-
- DSDave Smith
... in a weird coincidence. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Did I tell you what Bill Murray told me?
- DSDave Smith
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
So Bill Murray was on the podcast and he was talking about B- Bob Woodward's m- movie.
- DSDave Smith
Yes, I-
- JRJoe Rogan
The book he wrote, w- what, it, was it, uh, what was it called?
- DSDave Smith
Well, he's written a lot at this point.
- JRJoe Rogan
But, but the one about Belushi. What was it called? It was all-
- DSDave Smith
I don't... I've never read that.
- JRJoe Rogan
It was, uh, Wired.
- DSDave Smith
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wired. Okay. It was just about Belushi being fucking crazy drug addict. He goes, "That's not my friend." He goes, "That's not how he was." He goes like, "That was kind of an act. He was a little bit of a lightweight. Like, if he had like two, three drinks, he was drunk." Like, he goes, "I think he did that speed ball, I think that's the first time he ever did it and died. It's not that he'd never done drugs before, but he wasn't this guy. So this was all fiction." So he read the first five pages of this, "Oh my God, they framed Nixon."
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Isn't that crazy?
- DSDave Smith
That's interesting. I know-
- JRJoe Rogan
He goes like, "This guy wrote about my friend in such a distorted, untruthful way. Now I have to think about what he discovered with Nixon."
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Mm. And we have…
- DSDave Smith
And the answer is 'cause you're paying for the war in Iraq. And nobody thinks about it like that, but that's really what's going on. They can't ... So for all the young people who are coming out of college now and they're like, "I'm 150 grand in debt. I have a gender studies major degree," or whatever, you know, maybe something better than that, but they got an English degree or something and they're working at DoorDash and the average house is going for 600 grand and they're like, "What am I possibly gonna do?" It's like the reason why these kids are all demanding socialism, at least on the left, is 'cause like what else are you gonna do? Like how do you even ... But the reason why that is the case is because your government decided to spend trillions of dollars on blowing up brown countries and in some cases then rebuilding them to blow them up again. This is, this is the actual cost of the thing. And I feel like it's, um, th- almost nobody outside of like the Ron Paul Libertarians, the Austrian economics guys, almost nobody else ever makes this connection. That it's like this is the, the deal. You can't be a world empire without having a central bank that can print money for you, 'cause otherwise it just doesn't work. Resources are finite and you'll run out of 'em. And so you can't do that without having this monetary system, but the cost of this monetary system is that prices always go up and up and up and up and that rigs the entire economy against the working class and the middle class in favor of the rich. It's just the way it is. When, when the value of assets is going up and up and up and up, that's great if you own stuff. That's great if you own stuff and you're selling it. If, if you got a billion dollars in the bank, inflation is your best friend. But if you're on a fixed income or you're a working class person, it just destroys you. And then, and everybody who's working class knows this just from living through the last five years. But you know, your grocery prices go up 30%, that is, you know, that's, that's ... You know, people have this idea that there's like economic issues over here and then there's like social issues over here or there's foreign policy over here, but it's, (laughs) it's all one thing. You know, the prices of groceries go up by 30% and families get destroyed. Men swallow pistols, kids grow up without fathers. Like that's the cost of this shit. And, um, that's what we're living through now and what we'll continue to live through as long as we have a government that it spends way beyond our means. Like, uh, Dr. Ron Paul used to say, "When you spend beyond your means, you're destined to live beneath your means."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm. And we have an economy that's built around doing the exact same thing it's always done. Right?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And if you think about the amount of money, just, just w- like just in shuttering USAID, how ... Like think about the amount of money, whether you agree with USAID or not, the amount of money that was being pumped through that system, like to all sorts of weird places.
- DSDave Smith
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right? There's the, when the Department of Energy gave out 39 or n- $93 billion in loans in the months between Biden losing or Kamala losing rather-
- DSDave Smith
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and Trump taking office. Like where's that ... There's so many of these instances of m- uh, insane amounts of money just being allocated while we're $39 trillion in debt. It's like it, it's so unmanageable and yet it just keeps marching on and people are upset if you try to pull a Band-Aid off. Like the idea of shuttering some of these government organizations, all you hear about is people are gonna die, people are gonna starve, this is gonna happen, that's gonna happen. Like are you fucking sure?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Are you sure that this isn't a giant money sucking scam that's been going on that does some good?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Well there's a hu-
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause that's most of it, right?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Well like, uh, number w- yeah, if you, if you go, hey, I think ... Which by the way, no one in Congress, I mean short of like Thomas Massie maybe, maybe Rand Paul, but like no one else in Congress is even like suggesting an idea so, so radical. But if I were to throw out the radical idea that we should go back to pre-pandemic level spending, so go all the way back to the crazy year of 2019 when it was anarchy or whatever-That was just, they'll all tell you the world's gonna end if we do that.
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
And even when they're making up these absolutely ridiculous, you know, claims about how many people are gonna die if you cut government spending, which is all just totally absurd. Um, but then they never seem to go like, "Well, how many people are gonna die if I keep letting DC have all these war-making powers?"
- NANarrator
Right. Right.
- DSDave Smith
How many, how many people are gonna die if the president is able to fund a proxy war whenever he wants to? And I mean, look at this shit, dude. I took, I took so much, uh, you know, whatever. I'm not... But I, I took a lot of heat for the stuff I said on, on the show here a few years ago about the war in Ukraine. And look at it now, dude. Look at even... And I don't think they're about to end the thing. I think they're, which we could talk about, but I think they're putting poison pills in these negotiations already. That's what it looks like to me. But literally, the deal that I was talking to you about, whatever it was, three years ago, when I was saying on the show that they had a deal worked out, a peace deal worked out in the first few months of the war in '22, and Boris Johnson went and killed the peace deal on behalf of the West to make sure this war kept going.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
But the deal that was, that was in pencil, not pen, that, that Boris Johnson killed, was essentially, um, recognition of, uh, the annexation of Crimea. Uh, it was, at the time, it wasn't a annexation of the Donbas region. It was like independence for the Donbas region. And then the agreement that the rest of Ukraine would not join NATO. That was the deal that they had worked out. And look at where we are now. Now the deal that they're even talking about, even as Donald Trump goes, "There's gonna be some land swaps and all this." Okay, well, what's he talk... The deal right now that is the best case scenario that, that we're hoping we could get is that Vladimir Putin obviously keeps Crimea, keeps the entire Donbas region, gets a corridor from the south into Crimea, and the rest of Ukraine doesn't join NATO. So we have the same deal, just a little bit more in the Russians' favor, three years later with hundreds of thousands of people having died in that process.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
Just to get back to not as good a deal as they had in '22.
- NANarrator
Oh.
- DSDave Smith
And so, you know...
- NANarrator
And if they don't sign that.
- DSDave Smith
It'll keep going, which I think it's probably going to. Um-
- NANarrator
They, they're enlisting people as old as 60 now.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. And they have been for a, like, a full year at least.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
They're throwing people up there. And the thing that's really changed, the reason why the, like, the Europeans and Zelenskyy and, and... They're at least pretending to come to the negotiation table right now, um, which they don't say, but this is, this is the truth, is that support for the war amongst Ukrainians has collapsed. I mean, not like gone down by a few points. It's collapsed. There was just a, a piece in this the other day, it was, uh, Gallup, I believe. They sa- they had a, a, their latest poll, super majorities of the Ukrainian people, 70% around, want an immediate end to the, uh, war with negotiations on land swap, like with...
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- 1:00:00 – 1:12:14
Right. …
- DSDave Smith
out that we should tear up the Sevastopol lease in Crimea 'cause, you know, this is, uh, Russia's only year-long warm water naval port. They've always had it. This was their agreement. They had like a 50-year lease or something like that. But after the West backed a coup that overthrew the government and put in a pro-Western government, they started talking big like, "Well, maybe we'll tear up that lease." And we we- and so Vladimir Putin went, "No. I'll just take it." And that was like... So anyway, so he goes back to that, doesn't go back a few months earlier and then misses the entire point. That no... So 'cause like the point is that it's not just like me being like, "Oh, I wish Donald Trump was into the same books I'm into," or something like that. The point is that when you don't get that piece of the chapter, then you miss what's happening right now. So when you're talking about like, these... Essentially what Donald Trump was saying, the way he was trying to sell it to Zelenskyy was like, "Look, do this rare earth minerals deal with us. And this is kind of like a security guarantee. It's not exactly a security guarantee, but if we're in business with you and then Putin's trying to fuck up our business, hey, he's picking a fight with us too." But the whole point is that that's exactly what caused this whole catastrophe. Vladimir Putin and the entire Russian elite have been crystal clear about this, that they go, "Look, we can tolerate..."... a neutral Ukraine. We could tolerate NATO up to Ukraine, Ukraine is neutral, and then there's Russia. We cannot tolerate Ukraine being a, a part of America's military alliance. That's a step too far. But every time we try to let them be neutral, neutral seems like it's never good enough and that never actually works. So if you're gonna come in here and say neutral is not good enough, they're gonna be part of the West, then we're gonna say, "Actually, we'll take them as part of Russia instead." Now he also believes, as he al- says all the time, which I just think is goofy and, and un-American, but he also believes that like, yeah, they're not really a real country and they're kinda historically ours anyway. And, you know, he's got his own views on that. But that's not what the war was about. And everybody, you know, and, and when I was here with, when I, which I was very excited to do 'cause I'm, you know, a weird romantic and have a, a, you know, a dash of autism or something like that. But what I was real excited 'cause me and Douglas Murray were gonna debate this issue.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
And I remember when he first goes, he goes, "The war had nothing to do with Ukrainian entry into NATO." And I was like, "Okay, well let me just hit you with two points real quick. Number one, the head of the CIA (laughs) you know, during all the years of Joe Biden when he was the, uh, the ambassador to Russia, he wrote the nyet means yet memo. He literally said that this was all what it was all about, and that Russia didn't wanna do this, but they would if we kept pushing Ukrainian entry into NATO and we did keep pushing it." And then I, I said the other one was Stoltenberg, who is not anymore, but was the head of, uh, NATO while this was happening and he said that Vladimir Putin sent them, in writing, a draft treaty. That all you have to do is put in writing that you will never bring Ukraine into NATO and I won't invade. And then he bragged that "We said no," and then he invaded. Um, but so I said this to Douglas Murray and I was kinda curious, like I was like, "What's, what's his response to this gonna be?" Like what is he gonna say back to... Maybe he's got something I've never heard before that I'm gonna have to be like, "Oh shit, I gotta consider that." And his response was, "A libertarian quoting the CIA, I see." And you're like, wait, so that's your pivot is to I'm a hypocrite somehow? Which isn't even hypocrisy. Like yes, I think the CIA should be abolished. I also think it's relevant when the head of the CIA admits what the war was all about. I don't see that much-
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think the CIA totally should be abolished? Don't you think we should kinda pay attention to what the fuck is going on in the world? Giving a r- a real-life perspective, not a utopian perspective-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... but a real-life perspective. There's terrorist groups all over the world plotting shit. It's probably a good idea.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. So what the CIA was originally like conceived of, like essentially being a newspaper for the president, like being like, "Hey, we get all the real intelligence and we give it to you here."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DSDave Smith
Yes. I 100% think there's room for intelligence gathering. But what the CIA became is a paramilitary organization that starts wars and overthrows democratically elected governments all around the world. That-
- JRJoe Rogan
And occasionally sells coke in the hood.
- DSDave Smith
And occasionally when they're bored.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
There's, and when there's, and maybe like on like a Tuesday, like a three-day weekend and then on Tuesday, maybe move some crack into Los Angeles. No, that, I mean just should, i- I mean it's, it's a, a disgrace to a professed free society. I mean its, its... Look, like when, which we've also played on the show before, but when, uh, when Chuck Schumer was on with Rachel Maddow, which is one of the most amazing moments in the history of like corporate media because what, what's amazing about it if you watch like the full thing is that Rachel Maddow's asking him questions and he's giving his Chuck Schumer, you know, political answers to all of them. However you feel about him, it's like they have their spiel. But then she breaks from script and she, she preemptively apologizes to him. She goes, "Hey, I'm sorry to just throw this on you right now." This is, uh, it's, it w- it was in I believe January. It was either December of '16 or January '17. So Donald Trump has beat Hillary Clinton but he's not president yet. He's president-elect. Um, and so she goes, "Sorry to, to, you know, throw you off, put you on the spot, but Donald Trump just tweeted this." So she's reading a tweet that he just tweeted live on air to the, the Senate majority leader, um, or minority leader at the time. So she, she reads him the tweet that's him, you know, trashing the CIA or something like that and then Chuck Schumer just gives like his organic response. There was no script prepared for this. He wasn't planned on being asked this question. She just goes, "Look, here's Donald Trump talking about the CIA." And Chuck Schumer goes, he goes, "Pfff, I mean, Donald Trump, you wanna go at the intelligence agencies?" And his exact phrase was, "They have seven ways till Sunday to get back at you."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
So good l-... So in other... And by the way, Rachel Maddow in this moment does not say, "Pause the tape. What did you just say?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
Like the most powerful Democrat in the Senate just admitted we don't live in a democracy. Just admitted that this whole thing's an illusion. That the President of the United States is not the president of the United States. All our talk about democracy being on the ballot, democracy has been gone for a long time if it ever existed. You just straight up said that the duly elected commander in chief and chief executive of the United States of America ain't really the one who's in charge 'cause you better not insult the CIA, who work for you ostensibly or supposedly I should say. You know? And so like that's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Or they'll get you.
- DSDave Smith
Or they'll get you or they'll ruin you and by the way, they did.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Didn't they? And this is the stuff which is very interesting that Tulsi is, uh, releasing now, um, which I, I don't know whether... You know, I'm kind of past the point of like it's hard to take, it's hard to take a lot of things about Donald Trump seriously to me at this point. You know, um, flaking on all, all types of... The, you know, the Epstein stuff and, um, just a lot of, you know, kinda core things where like... So Donald Trump, at least according to him, they stole the election. You know I was thinking about this the other day 'cause he was talking about, in the same thing that I'm talking about when he called into Fox News, he was talking about the Ukraine war. He said at one point, he goes uh-He goes, "The war never woulda happened if I was president," which Putin threw him a bone and backed him up on that the other day-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
... and said the war wouldn't have happened if Trump was president.
- JRJoe Rogan
That doesn't...
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, just saying what-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Just saying what... You know, he, he's smart enough to know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course, it's a nice thing to say. The guy likes being complimented.
- DSDave Smith
And he, and Putin's smart enough to know that, like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
Episode duration: 2:53:06
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