This Past Weekend #632: w/ Dave Smith on Venezuela Regime Change (Transcript)

And then sometimes you don’t find out till later, kind of where you realize that you were just kind of messing it up.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. Yeah. No, I know what you mean. I had that with my wife and with both my kids in a weird way where it’s almost like I remember having moments. It’s like you start realizing how deep you are in.

And I remember having this one moment with my daughter. I think she was like four months old. So I’d been a dad for a while, and my wife was running to the supermarket, and I was just bouncing her around on my knee or whatever, and she just—I don’t know, she just yawned or looked at me in some way. And I remember just having this realization where I was like, “Oh, sh*t. I love this little baby.”

And then I just started having this panic attack. I was like, something bad’s going to happen to her one day. Something—no one gets through life without something bad happening to them. And I was like, “Oh, my God. I have to deal with that.” I was just like—nothing happened. And I had already been in love with her. It’s just it just hit me. Like, “Oh, crap, I’m in real trouble here.”

THEO VON: I’m in for this gal.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. And I still am.

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s great, dude.

DAVE SMITH: One more year and then she’s on her own. I’m still in.

Father-Daughter vs. Father-Son Love

THEO VON: Yeah. I guess that thought—is a father-daughter love different than a father-son love? Do you have each gender?

DAVE SMITH: I got one of each. And yeah, it’s different.

THEO VON: It is.

DAVE SMITH: Well, it’s a different—I definitely—my wife points it out a lot, and I notice it too, but I’m definitely harder on the boy than I am on her. There’s just kind of a natural thing where you just have more of a thing. You know your daughter—when my daughter’s three, if she falls, I’m like, “Oh, sweetheart, are you okay?” With my son, I’m like, “Come on, you’re tough. Get up.”

You just have a little bit more of that. And I definitely have more of a pressure to be a role model for my son that I don’t feel for my daughter.

THEO VON: That’s your wife’s job.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. And also, my wife’s awesome. She’s really sweet and smart, and she’s a great person. And so I always kind of felt like with my daughter, I was like, “Oh, well, she’s already got an awesome role model.” And my job is just to love her and to provide and protect her and stuff.

But with my son, I was like, “Oh, I got to teach him how to be a man.” And then you’re like, “All right, I better figure out how to be a man real quick so I could teach him.” I don’t know what that means. And it’s just—there’s a lot more stuff with having a son. It made me understand not having a father better in a way. You’re like, “Oh, I get it. There was supposed to be this here that there wasn’t.”

And so, yeah, it is totally different. Having a little girl—she has me wrapped around her little finger. She knows it. She always has. My son, it’s a whole different thing. Obviously, I love them both equally. It’s not more than the other, but it is a different type of thing.

THEO VON: I’ve just never thought about it. I never thought about it from a—yeah, I guess the mom would probably be more the role model for the daughter. I mean, obviously there’s a father-daughter relationship, but the mom would be more the role model.

DAVE SMITH: I think I’m the role model of what her expectation for a man is going to be. I think about that a lot. I think about that, like, the way I treat my wife in front of her and stuff like that. I always want to make sure that her expectation is that a guy would be really sweet to her and stuff like that.

But with your boy, you’re like, “Oh, I’m the one. He’s going to be trying to be like—” You’re like, “Oh, man, that’s a whole pressure. Don’t be like me.”

THEO VON: Yeah. You see him one time being like you, and you’re like, “Oh, this kid’s screwed.”

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, right.

THEO VON: He’s just vaping in the yard.

Quitting Vaping

DAVE SMITH: I’m off the vape. I don’t vape anymore, dude.

THEO VON: I’m off three—I might be off almost a month right now.

DAVE SMITH: I can’t even believe—smoking or vaping?

THEO VON: I was vaping.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. I get scared of that, man. I did it for so many years, too.

THEO VON: Oh, I’m so risk averse right now when it comes to vaping. I won’t even—any smoke stacks. I wouldn’t even fly into Newark right now. Just because—just the idea that there’s some smokestacks in the distance—anything could set me off.

DAVE SMITH: Set you off? Yeah. You want to get through that beginning time, for sure.

THEO VON: And I’m getting close, so I can kind of feel that. We’re like—it doesn’t even pop into my head. The toughest parts are if I’m having a conversation in my car and I’m driving, that’s kind of the time I would like it. And then that’s also the time where I’m most able to go get one because I’m in transit.

DAVE SMITH: Right, right. I can pull out somewhere and pick one up. So, yeah, I know what you mean. Well, as you get older, too, all those health things get scarier because it’s not so way off in the future anymore. You’re like, “Oh—” You’re like, “Oh, but you got to smoke for 30 years before that does—” You’re like, “I’m at 30 years.” And you’re like, “Oh, all right. Oh, shoot.”

It’s a different thing when you’re 15. You’re like, “Yeah, in 30 years there’s a problem. Whatever. Who cares?”

THEO VON: What idiot would smoke for 30 years? That’s what you tell yourself at 15.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, right. And then you go, “If I make it another 30 years, that’s fine. I’ve had plenty of life.” But actually, then you’re 45 and you’re like, “Oh, 50, whatever.”

THEO VON: I got to start a Roth IRA. That’s when it gets weird, dude. Everything’s getting weird, man. Dave Smith. Good to see you, bro.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, dude, you too, man. Thanks for having me.

Regime Change in 48 Hours

THEO VON: Yeah, we met up around this time last year.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. It’s funny that we set this up really quickly and they snuck in a regime change war in between. When you said, it’s 48 hours, we planned this. And they fit a whole regime change in that 48 hours.

The Venezuela Operation: What Really Happened?

THEO VON: Well, it’s good to know that they’re making them faster. Here we are, and it’s happened. Man, the crazy. They had that the photo came out of Maduro and his wife. I guess they picked him up.

Well, the US plans to run Venezuela and tap its oil reserves. Trump says after operation to oust Maduro, what were the actual hours after an audacious military operation that plucked leader Nicolas Maduro from power and removed him from the country? President Donald Trump said Saturday the United States would run Venezuela at least temporarily and tap its vast oil reserves to sell to other nations.

DAVE SMITH: At least they’re being honest about that part.

THEO VON: Yeah, it makes you wonder kind of what’s going on. What were the exact attacks that happened? Does it say like, did we go kill a bunch of people?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, we definitely killed some people. There were a bunch of attacks and then there was like an elite team that went and got. That was able to kidnap Maduro. And I know. So Mike Lee, the senator, posted on Twitter that he had spoke to Marco Rubio and that Marco Rubio had said something like the other attacks were like, in service of the mission to get Maduro. So like, I don’t know what the, you know, taking out their defenses or something like that.

But so, I mean, I don’t know even where to start here. Right, but. So there’s a lot. There’s been, obviously for months now there’s been like, they’ve been attacking, they’ve been bombing the boats that they’re claiming are drug boats, but they haven’t really demonstrated that they are. It’s kind of just taken their word for it.

THEO VON: Right. And we don’t know, you just see this video, you see this footage of like a black and white flag and then like a zooming in of a night goggles explosion.

The Drug Trafficking Pretext

DAVE SMITH: And there was that whole controversial double tap strike where they came back to kill the survivors, which there was a big controversy about, you know, because that’s illegal under international law. You’d have to demonstrate that they were like still in the fight.

And then there was, you know, I guess Pete Hegseth had said someone else made the decision, but then they claimed that they were still trying to get in the fight. It’s all kind of sketchy. It’s not exactly clear.

Marco Rubio, who’s the secretary of state and also the national security adviser, and he’s had that position for most of the last year. This has been his pet project for a while. He’s really wanted to get rid of the Maduro regime in Venezuela. The drugs thing has always just been an obvious bullshit pretext. I mean, like, there’s no.

THEO VON: That’s what it feels like to me.

DAVE SMITH: Well, if you just look at the numbers, Venezuela is responsible for like a tiny fraction of the drugs that come into America. And like almost none of the fentanyl. And if you really had a problem, you know, when people look at like the OD death, the fentanyl is really where the action is there. And that’s all from Mexico, from parts made in China.

Then even when like Donald Trump or Vivek Ramaswamy or some of these guys would have real tough language about the drug cartels on the campaign trail, it was always the Mexican drug cartel. They were always saying that because they could at least point to that and say, look, that leads to fentanyl, which leads to all these overdoses.

Now, those numbers have been going down and getting better, but I think some people, people I love, but some people have falsely, like, attributed that to the attacks on these boats off the coast of Venezuela, when really all that is is that there’s a secure border now and so less of the stuff is getting in than was under Joe Biden.

THEO VON: Oh, for sure.

DAVE SMITH: But so, so then cut to. What was it last week? It got.

THEO VON: Well, I want to bring this up real quick.

DAVE SMITH: Hold on. Go ahead, go ahead.

THEO VON: Venezuela is involved in trafficking cocaine, but current data show responsible for only a small share of the drugs that actually end up in the US market, especially compared with routes through Mexico and Central America. US government classifies Venezuela as a major drug transit country, mainly for Colombia. Cocaine moving towards the Caribbean, Central America.

DAVE SMITH: But even that would be more of a justification to deal with Colombia than it would be in Venezuela.

THEO VON: A DEA fact sheet cited in 2025 reporting says 90% of cocaine reaching the US is produced in Colombia and enters through Mexico without even mentioning Venezuela as a primary corridor. Yeah, and there’s some other reasons I want to go into too, why people think that what we’re doing down there. But. Yeah, I just wanted to get some of the stats.

DAVE SMITH: Sure, sure. No, that’s important. I’m glad you did.

THEO VON: Where were you?

Tucker Carlson’s Warning

DAVE SMITH: Well, so last week, if you remember, Tucker Carlson had said that he had a source saying that Donald Trump. Donald Trump was addressing the nation that night and he had said that Donald Trump’s going to announce an escalation in the war or a declaration of war, which technically the president can’t do, but I guess we’re way past that.

Yeah, that he was going to announce that he was going in there. And I had a couple. I had a couple people I know who were like, close to it who said the same thing, and then he didn’t, which was kind of strange. And he also, like, he interrupted your regularly scheduled programming. Like it was a presidential address. Yeah, a week ago. But then, like, didn’t really announce anything. I didn’t just announced how great the economy was or something like that.

And so then it came this week instead. But this was. Look, it’s an unbelievably successful operation as of right now. And so that’s. Well, maybe I got that wrong. I said last week. I guess it was a couple weeks ago.

THEO VON: On the evening of December 16, political commentator Tucker Carlson set off a firestorm when he claimed that President Donald Trump was poised to announce US Military invasion of Venezuela during his primetime address. But as the hour came and went, no such announcement materialized.

President Trump made no mention of Venezuela, nor of any military operation targeting the embattled South American nation. What if he did that because he didn’t want Carlson to actually have called it? No, it wouldn’t have been that.

DAVE SMITH: You know, I don’t know. I mean, it’s like. I don’t know. It’s possible that he was planning on doing it and then backed out of it. It’s possible Tucker got bad information. It’s possible that plans just changed or whatever, you know, but. But the thing did come a couple weeks later, so it does at least seem like there was something that might have been, you know, accurate about it.

But look, I mean, I guess, first and foremost, this really was an incredible success, just in terms of a military operation. Like, oh, I shocked.

THEO VON: They got it done, and then they checkmated. They took the king and queen.

DAVE SMITH: Dude, there’s a. Well, that’s right. I mean. And, okay, so this picture now.

THEO VON: And now it looks like he’s playing one of those games where those things drop and you have to catch him or whatever.

DAVE SMITH: Like, Ilia Topuria would be, like, real good at it. You’re like, whoa, that’s how he knocks people out like that. He’s got crazy speed if that’s all he was doing.

THEO VON: But this is so. Because I first saw this. This one, I was like, who is this? I thought it was, like, one of those, like, the masked singer or whatever they were doing, like, in the military or whatever.

DAVE SMITH: I was like, who is this?

THEO VON: I just couldn’t. I couldn’t figure out because I just saw the image. Well, and then I realized, oh, my God, that’s. That’s Maduro.

The Captured Leader and What Comes Next

DAVE SMITH: So evidently, the vice President was in Russia at the time, and the vice president demanded proof that Maduro’s alive. And then Trump tweeted this out. So not clear whether it’s, like, in response to that, like, here’s the proof that he’s alive. But it does seem like they have him and his wife.

And I just say, like, the success of the military operation, like, I know there’s, you know, there’s been all types, like, historically of attempts by the US and the CIA to kill, you know, Saddam Hussein or to kill Castro or all types of other leaders, and they have succeeded in something. Noriega, they got him. And, like, there’s been attempts to, like, kill or capture all types of leaders, but for it to happen like, this like, in one day, in one attack, go in and get him.

I mean, we even in. In 2003, I think we were in Iraq for a couple months before we got Saddam Hussein, you know, so they got him. Okay. But one of the things that’s so fascinating is like, it’s almost like, like the last 25 years don’t exist.

When you go on, like I go on social media today and you just see all the war hawks all got their mission accomplished signs up, like, they’re all celebrating. Like, look, we got them when really getting them. I mean, look, it’s impressive they did it in one day without like, a lot of boots on the ground. You know, we got a real badass military, if people haven’t noticed. Like, the most badass group of fighting men that have ever been assembled in human history.

But we know we can kill these guys. Like, we know we could kill Saddam Hussein. We know we could kill Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar Al Assad. We could get him out of power. It’s like the question is, what comes next? That’s always the question. And that’s the question that D.C. has always gotten wrong for 25 straight years.

So to see them celebrating when there’s not even. We have no idea what the hell is going to come next now. And it’s not even a situation like Iraq or Afghanistan where we were militarily occupying the country. So it’s a lot easier to direct who comes next when your troops are on there. We don’t even have that right now. Trump just said he’s going to run it. He said we’re going to run it and then we’ll decide who to hand it off to. Well, that’s f*ing vague. I mean, all right, like, what?

And since when? You know, I listened with a force of like over 100,000 troops, substantially more than that. Over 200,000 at one point. I listened to for 20 straight years. Every war hawk in this country lie through their f*ing teeth about how capable this Afghan government that we had just built up there was and how. No, I’m not saying Venezuela and Afghanistan are the exact same thing, but I’m just saying, like, that was with a 20 year military occupation and all this backing and hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons. It fell apart in two days, you know, so, like, they were the monkey.

THEO VON: Bars, remember all that shit?

DAVE SMITH: Oh, yeah. Like, and so then out there, we’re.

THEO VON: Doing like those tire drills.

DAVE SMITH: Like, yeah, our guys lost to that we were doing.

THEO VON: They were doing those, like, running through the tires like, get your knees up type of shit. Like.

DAVE SMITH: And they were. And they were like, we f*ing kind of nailed it there, didn’t we had.

THEO VON: PE teachers over there, like just. It was unbelievable.

The Hubris of Regime Change

DAVE SMITH: And so anyway, I guess it’s just like the hubris of just being like, you know, like, look, I don’t. I said people were kind of giving me. Some of the anti war people actually were kind of giving me shit today because I just, I posted something on Twitter where I was like, well, I hope this works well. But like, I do, I hope it works out well. Like, I’d, I would take it working out real well. And then. Okay, that doesn’t look as good for the non interventionist types like me. Like, see, this one works well.

Okay, it’s already done now. So like, I hope it works out. But to watch people celebrating as if it’s a given that it’s going to work out, it’s like, it’s. Dude. And by the way, we didn’t. At least as of now, Donald Trump kind of like diminished the opposition leader and is at least floating out the idea that the vice president can like kind of maintain a transitional control in Venezuela. Yeah, so we haven’t even overthrown the communists or anything like that yet. And the idea that.

THEO VON: Right, so what exactly is being done? That’s the biggest question because he was arrested on narco terrorism. This is Del. That’s Del.

DAVE SMITH: And gun charges. And evidently US gun control covers Venezuela.

THEO VON: Now there’s a couple of theories of why we’re even doing this. Right. One of the reasons is because there’s certain countries that are outside of like our kind of comfort grid.

DAVE SMITH: Right.

THEO VON: And there’s certain countries that are outside of our banking system.

DAVE SMITH: Yes, yeah, right.

THEO VON: And Venezuela is one of those. And so. And they also control a lot of oil.

The Venezuela Situation: Peeling Away the Excuses

DAVE SMITH: Well, so in a weird way, one of the things I like to do with these wars is you can kind of peel away the excuses. So when people say, “Oh, we’re fighting the war in Iraq to spread democracy or something like that,” and then you could go, “Okay, so we’re close allies with Saudi Arabia and the UAE and all these other countries, but we have an issue about democracy?” No, sorry, that’s bullsh*t. Because if it was…

Or then they’ll say, “We have to support Ukraine because of Vladimir Putin’s human rights abuses.” And you’re like, “Wait, human rights abuses? But you sent $25 billion to Netanyahu in the last two years?” Nah, I don’t think human rights abuses is really the issue.

And then even they’ll say, “Well, it’s because they’re socialists.” And it’s like, we’ve been arming the Kurds in Iraq and Syria for decades now, also socialist. So nah, I actually don’t think so.

It’s like you kind of can peel away some of these bullsh*t excuses and then go, “What’s it really about?” And I got my best guess on this is that two things I think play huge influence in this.

Number one, Donald Trump, who always seems to just see a deal, and that’s all. In his mind, he seems to think, “Here’s an opportunity.” His military’s telling him, “We can take this guy out and put our people in. And then I could get huge oil sales. And then I could turn around and say, look how good this economy is and we win the midterm election and whatever.” He always has, like, he sees…

THEO VON: I can sell Trump oil. I can sell, like, baby oil.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, right, Trump.

THEO VON: I can sell. Yeah, the new gold shoes. Like when the gold shoes came out.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. He looks at Gaza while the rest of us are all crying for the baby who’s being crushed to death by cement and screaming for his mother who can’t come help him because there’s no bulldozers in Gaza. We look at that and go, “Oh, my God, the human tragedy.” Donald Trump and Jared Kushner see beachfront property. That’s where their mind goes.

THEO VON: They’re like, “God, that baby’s ruining this bulldozer’s opportunity.”

DAVE SMITH: No one’s going to want to relax with a Mai Tai with this crying baby. We’ve got to get this baby out of here. See, so they’re not ethnically cleansing because they believe in Greater Israel. They want to ethnically cleanse so that rich people can enjoy a sunset on the beach.

THEO VON: There’s just always got to be a better place to have a Mai Tai.

Marco Rubio and the Cuba Connection

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, right. So anyway, but then the other thing, and I do think this is a real part of it, is that Marco Rubio is Cuban, and they’re also allied with Cuba. Now, a lot of this stuff with the allies, it’s kind of like, if you heard any of the BRICS agreement stuff, that’s really advanced over the last few years.

THEO VON: This stuff with China, China and Russia and all them.

DAVE SMITH: So what happens is that if you’re… The US is the world empire, the most powerful empire in the history of the world. So if you’re on the outs with us, you kind of have no choice other than to make friends with the other people who are on the outs with us, because those are your only options left.

That’s actually why Fidel Castro went communist to begin with, because he was enemies with the United States of America. And so what were you going to do?

THEO VON: Right?

DAVE SMITH: You’ve got to ally with the Soviet Union.

THEO VON: That’s going to have some boys, right?

DAVE SMITH: It’s like going to prison, right? You’ve got to join one gang or the other. And so a lot of them, they end up having friendly relations. But the belief is… And they’ve said this quiet part out loud a bunch of times, I don’t know if this is true or not, but they think that the regime in Cuba will fall as a result of this regime being overthrown.

And there’s a whole bunch of Cubans in America, Marco Rubio being one of them, who understandably really hate socialism in Cuba, but remember it as a successful country before then. Even though I think Rubio was actually… His family… Cuba was actually ruined, you mean? No, no, no. I think Marco Rubio, if I’m remembering this correctly, his family got kicked out by the Batista regime or they had some beef with them, but they want to overthrow the communists.

THEO VON: Yeah. It’s like “I want to get done what my parents wanted to get done” type of energy.

DAVE SMITH: Something like that. Yeah. And which is somewhat understandable. I just think you should be upfront with that and not try to use the US military to live out your personal fantasy. In a weird way, it’s a similar thing with Israel.

THEO VON: Well, it seemed like that’s a lot of what’s going on these days.

The Paper Tiger Question

THEO VON: One of the things you just said though was just about the Venezuela thing. There was another article, a guy was talking about a paper tiger and it was kind of a challenge to the BRICS countries, like to that outside group. And first I want to get what is a paper tiger.

DAVE SMITH: Hold on.

THEO VON: Ask perplexity, what is a paper tiger?

DAVE SMITH: Well, something that appears to be ferocious but is really just made of paper. The idea is that, “Oh, yeah, you present yourself as strong and powerful, but you’re really weak.”

THEO VON: It’s like a bluff.

DAVE SMITH: Yes, yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: “In foreign policy, a paper tiger is a state alliance or threat that looks militarily or politically powerful from the outside, but is actually weak, limited or unwilling to act when challenged.”

DAVE SMITH: I always love that, by the way. Which, if they’re a paper tiger, then why the hell we got to fight wars against them then? Essentially, because this is what they always said about Russia. They’d say in one breath, John McCain would say, “Russia is just a gas station with nukes.” So they would go, “All they are is, you know, they got some gas and they got some nukes, but they got no economy and they got this tiny GDP.”

And then in the next breath, all the hawks go, “If we don’t fund Ukraine, they’re going to take over Poland and reconstitute the Soviet Union.” You’re like, “Well, I thought they were…” Yeah. So which one is it? Are they taking over all of Europe or are they not? Because if they’re weak, then maybe we don’t really need to worry about them.

THEO VON: Yeah, there’s a lot of hypocrisy that goes on, you know, I mean, it’s constant. This guy… Just an interesting take, I thought just about this stuff. Then we can get it out of our system.

DAVE SMITH: “The Venezuelan issue is both crucial test of paper tiger quality on the part of all the great powers now, China, Russia and the United States. China knows very well that the fentanyl excuse to stop the alleged fentanyl trade into the United States is used by Trump to mobilize for war against Venezuela, where China is the largest international investor.

If China and Russia let the US make a regime change, just kill President Maduro and destroy the Venezuelan government and replace it with Mrs. Machado or something else, what’s the credibility of the two of the three powers in BRICS to assist anyone, even themselves? That’s the paper tiger aspect.

If it’s the case that neither China nor Russia can deter, nor BRICS, Brazil, India and the others, Iran can deter the United States from destroying, invading Venezuela and destroying its sovereign government. If they can’t, then BRICS is a paper tiger too.”

THEO VON: Just kind of interesting.

DAVE SMITH: It is interesting.

Most Americans Can’t Even Find Venezuela on a Map

THEO VON: All the little things that could be a part of it. Right? Because it does just seem kind of confusing. Most people could not pick out where Venezuela is on a map, right?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

THEO VON: Most of us had never even thought of Maduro or heard of him before. Probably within the past month. Right? Unless you… I mean, he’s had a very interesting story. He’s coming up as a bus driver and being a man of the people and everything, but then seemingly getting compromised and overwhelmed by wealth and power over time. And a lot of his influences and stuff were very socialist influencers and stuff like that. And so… But then…

DAVE SMITH: But also to your point, imagine, you know, when you’re saying so many people couldn’t have picked Venezuela out on a map or something like that. I mean, if you just think, right, so I was here a year ago with you, how drastically different things are. Just a year ago.

I mean, a year ago, Donald Trump had his highest approval ratings that he’s ever had. He was the greatest political comeback story in American history. Just something that was totally… It was amazing the way he not only came back from, say, where he was right after January 6, when the question was whether he was going to go to jail and going through all the trials and getting shot, and then to not only come back and win the popular vote and win every swing state, but he won the culture, he won the youth. It would have been… It would have seemed impossible just a few years earlier.

THEO VON: Black kids are calling him Daddy.

Trump’s Foreign Policy and the Venezuela Question

DAVE SMITH: Literally, black kids. John Jones is doing the Trump dance at Madison Square Garden. I think we were both there that night. And just a crazy, crazy thing, right? And now, you know, he’s totally divided his base. There’s an infight in the Republic, all this stuff.

But anyway, so a year ago, when people were so excited about Donald Trump coming in, you never met one Trump supporter in your life who went, “Now we’re going to get regime change in Venezuela. That’s why I’m excited that Donald Trump’s here.” I mean, people wanted no new wars. They wanted the border secure. They wanted the economy turned around, they wanted inflation dealt with. There was never any demand from Trump’s base.

And so this is one more example of Donald Trump just siding with the war hawks over his own people. And one of the things that really, I find it to be so intolerable, a humiliation of Donald Trump supporters, is that all these guys, the war hawks, Marco Rubio, Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, go down the list. All of them. Ted Cruz, every last one of them. They were the Never Trumpers.

I don’t know if maybe some people just weren’t paying attention to politics as long as I’ve been. They were the Never Trumpers. Anyone but Donald Trump. They ran a front page cover of National Review saying, “Never Trump. Anyone but Donald Trump.” All of them. Ben Shapiro said on issues of, because it’s a matter of principle, “I will never vote for Donald Trump.” He said he would hold his nose and allow Hillary Clinton to be elected president before he sent his, at the time, massive audience to support Donald Trump.

And now Donald Trump turns around and makes Little Marco his national security advisor.

THEO VON: Remember how he embarrassed him in the debate?

DAVE SMITH: Yep. He called him Little Marco. He used to tear him apart. And you know what he used to say? Man, oh, dude, I hope I’m getting this right. There was, I believe there’s a tweet. You could probably find it where Donald Trump said something like, “Sheldon Adelson will be able to control Little Marco, and that’s why you can’t let him be president.”

THEO VON: And that’s the guy, the lady’s husband.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. He died, but Miriam Adelson is still alive, and they’re his biggest donors. They’ve given him hundreds of quarter billions of dollars.

THEO VON: Yeah. Yeah.

DAVE SMITH: It’s, and that’s, I don’t even think that if you counted the money for his first run, his second run, and the midterms, they’re probably close to a billion dollars that they’ve given.

THEO VON: Look at this tweet right there. “Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet.” Wow. “I agree.”

DAVE SMITH: Okay. He agrees with that. Just to be clear, this is, and this is just a fact.

THEO VON: This is 2015.

The Adelson Influence

DAVE SMITH: Nobody has been molded into more of a puppet for the Adelsons than Donald Trump. And Donald Trump now, which I know you’ve probably seen a couple of things, it’s so crazy. And I’m not saying this is the case. I don’t think this is the case. But it almost seems like Donald Trump is mocking them when he’ll talk about how much they just care about Israel. He’ll openly, he goes out of his way about who.

THEO VON: That.

DAVE SMITH: Who just said. Miriam Adelson and Sheldon Adelson. That he’ll go, “They gave me a lot of money, and they called me all the time, and they always come by and they’re always asking for something, and it’s always for Israel. And I do it all. I give it all to it.” He’s just openly telling you that these, look, Miriam Adelson is a Palestinian, Theo.

She was born before the creation of the state of Israel in what is today Israel. Am I right about this? What year? Born in 1945. Yeah, you could say Israeli American. But there’s no such thing as Israel in 1945. Israel wasn’t created till 1948. She was born in Palestine.

THEO VON: She was born in Tel Aviv. Mandatory Palestine.

DAVE SMITH: Mandatory Palestine. Right, right. So anyway, so she’s from there now.

THEO VON: Is this a new term, Mandatory Palestine?

DAVE SMITH: It was a term at the time.

THEO VON: It was.

DAVE SMITH: It was a term at the time where they basically were like, “We’re not doing imperialism anymore. We’re just doing mandates.” Mandates where we come in and run the country and we’ll take some of the resources too.

THEO VON: But it’s just such an interesting term, Mandatory Palestine. Okay, so she was, that’s where she was born, though.

DAVE SMITH: She was. And let me just say about him.

THEO VON: So by land, she was Palestinian.

DAVE SMITH: Yes. So now he was born in America, but who’s Sheldon? Yeah, Sheldon was born in America. No, he’s not black. Actually, Jewish fellow. He is on record saying that his biggest regret in life is that he wore the American military uniform and not the IDF uniform. So these are Israel firsters. Openly. And Donald Trump says as much.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, well, he just, I mean, Donald Trump is, you know, they just had an announcement the other day or he was at an event where they, he said he was Israel’s best president. They said you’re Israel’s best president.

DAVE SMITH: Mark Levin said he’s the first Jewish president.

THEO VON: It’s wild.

DAVE SMITH: By the way, Mark Levin called me a Nazi. He did, yeah. Two days ago on Twitter. No, he called me a neo Nazi, to be fair. Oh, that’s cool. Which is nice. Well, new. Yeah. He wasn’t actually claiming that I was a member of Hitler’s, you know, National Socialist Workers Party.

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s impossible, first of all, for you to pull off. And second of all, neo Nazis, I don’t think, it’s not even determined what they’re going to do with their whole plan yet.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, no, we’re still working on it.

THEO VON: Yeah, you got to play that out.

DAVE SMITH: But it is funny. I’m literally all, I’m essentially, my politics are all just, I’m against wars and government. I just want government to have less power and fight less wars, which is strikingly similar to Adolf Hitler, as everybody knows. That was what he was known for too.

THEO VON: But that’s the biggest individual, biggest weapon, though. I mean, even Tucker was talking about this. It’s the biggest weapon of people like him. I guess to just call you Hitler or to call you an anti Semite, it’s just, I don’t know. And it’s a weapon that’s kind of out of bullets a lot of times, you know.

DAVE SMITH: Oh yeah, we talked about that before.

THEO VON: About how it’s just been used so much. What is this part right here? And these people do like Israel.

DAVE SMITH: Hold on.

THEO VON: And he loves Israel too.

DAVE SMITH: Six years ago I was up here.

THEO VON: And I said, this is our first Jewish president. Now he’s the first Jewish president to serve two not consecutive presidencies. We thank you for everything.

THEO VON: Like there’s another one?

DAVE SMITH: No. Well, he’s saying that he lost and then came back in, that he served two terms. But you could have just said serve two terms. What was the, and also he is, which is very weird to see done to Trump, but a lot of people are making it. He’s kind of big dogging him. He’s pulling him closer. It’s all very bizarre, but yeah, it’s a little true.

THEO VON: Condescending.

Trump’s Pro-Israel Record

DAVE SMITH: Donald Trump is the most pro Israel president in American history. There’s no question about that. But the thing is that what’s omitted there is that actually all the other presidents were pro Israel too. They would just have some demands on Israel. They would just go, “Hey, could you just stop doing this? Because this is a huge problem for us.” And then Israel wouldn’t stop doing that. And then they would get annoyed at them.

So there’s lots of examples like this. Both George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama made a big thing out of asking him to stop building settlements on the West Bank. “Could you just not do that? Because you’re expanding these settlements, causing all these problems. The whole international community is outraged by it.” And then they just wouldn’t stop.

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s one of the things that caused a lot of rifts over the years too, was just the taking over of Palestinians homes. People walking in and it was known. It’s not a debated thing.

DAVE SMITH: Oh, it’s on video.

THEO VON: Yeah, there’s tons of video of it. So it was just, but it was walking in and taking over native Palestinians homes, just taking it over and kicking him out. And I think after 30 years of that, it just became too much for people over there.

DAVE SMITH: Well, the one poll I saw was, it was before October 7th, they said, “Who do you sympathize with more, the Israelis or the Palestinians?” And it was plus 48% pro Israel. And then taken a couple months ago, it was plus one for the Palestinians. So it was a 50 point collapse. Right.

So anyway, we had speculated, because Israel’s in this situation where everybody’s turning on them because they just committed a genocide in 4K and forced us to fund it. And we’re all appalled by that. But at the same time, they have the most pro Israel president in right now. So they could look at the writing on the wall and go, “This is the best opportunity we have right now.”

And then a lot of us, and I said this on Rogan last time I was there, I go, “They might move to annex the West Bank, to formally just take the whole thing. Because now is their best opportunity to do it.”

Now Trump came out and said, kind of unprompted, it was in a Politico article. He said someone asked him about that and he goes, “No, I will not let Israel annex the West Bank.” And so they go, “Well, what are you going to do if they did annex the West Bank?” And he actually said they would lose support from America if they annexed the West Bank. And then, and we say annex the.

THEO VON: West Bank just means take it over.

DAVE SMITH: Completely, just take it over and claim it as part of Israel, which by the way, they’ve in effect already done, but they haven’t formally done it. Okay, so now this, so this is the Politico piece.

So then cut to a month later, JD Vance is in Israel and the Knesset holds a vote over annexing the West Bank and it passes. They intentionally, now this was kind of a symbolic vote or whatever, but they, Donald Trump, who’s been the most pro Israel president, goes, “I’ll fund your genocide, I’ll arm your genocide. I’ll bomb Iran for you. I’ll shoot down the Iranian missiles coming back at Israel. We’ll bomb the Houthis for you. We’ll go, you bomb the negotiators of a deal I’m trying to make. And I’ll still work with you. You’ll still get funding.”

One request, just don’t annex the West Bank. And they go, “Nope.” And we’re going to intentionally vote that way while your vice president is here just to let you know that you get that we run this sh*t and you don’t. And that for all the billions, for all the billions you give us, we’re still in charge. It’s just too crazy, man.

THEO VON: F*ing gangster.

DAVE SMITH: It is gangster. You got to admit that.

THEO VON: I mean, oh, dude, you have to also, there’s a, there’s a gangster part of you that’s like, fck, these motherfers are not playing, dude.

DAVE SMITH: Oh, yeah, yeah. No question about it, man. And that’s all it is. That’s all any government is at the highest level is gangster sh*t. Yeah. And that they are really, really good at it.

Assessing Trump’s First Year

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah. It’s pretty fascinating. Let’s talk about, so it’s been a year since Trump’s been in. You said some of his base is kind of split now. It does feel a little bit like there’s this, how do you feel like Trump’s done in his first year? What are things have you done that you like?

DAVE SMITH: I think he’s been terrible and I assumed he probably would be a disappointment and I supported him last year just because I thought, all things being considered, it was better for our country that he win than Kamala Harris win. And also the Democrats just so deserve to lose. You just can’t reward that well.

THEO VON: Kamalia, I just saw the Kamala, he.

DAVE SMITH: Had a senile president and they all pretended we didn’t. It’s just too crazy.

THEO VON: That was too crazy.

DAVE SMITH: They also, like, I mean, look, I mean, their policy on Covid, their policy on Ukraine. And then don’t forget, they were a full year into backing the genocide when it happened. So they were, you know, they deserve to lose. Donald Trump has done a really good job in securing the border.

THEO VON: Right.

DAVE SMITH: You know, we had a really open border under Joe Biden. We have a secure border now. Aside from that, it’s just been disastrous. I mean, I just couldn’t. And not even just disastrous, like the policy was wrong, but just the way they handled it.

I mean, the handling of the Epstein scandal has got to—that goes down in history as like the worst handling of a scandal I’ve ever seen. Literally from all these guys running on, “We’re going to release this stuff.” Pam Bondi having that thing where she gave the influencers the binders. There was nothing in them that was new.

And then they pivoted on a dime to “There’s no such thing. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. You’re crazy to think there was a thing to be released.” And then to turn around—and then they turn around and Mike Johnson said it will end the political order if we vote for Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill to release the files.

And then they turn around and get pressured into voting for it. And now they’re just redacting everything. And like it’s just, I mean, just—he lost so much credibility on that. Obviously the—I think bombing Iran was terrible.

THEO VON: Well, let’s go one thing at a time.

DAVE SMITH: Sure, sure, sure.

The Epstein Photo Drop

THEO VON: The Epstein. So look. So yeah, bring up some of those pictures that they just released too. What was with the photo drop right before Christmas? It’s also bizarre. Like what is that a picture about if you’re a married guy, you know, like, what are you doing there? Yeah, I mean like married, 60-year-old guy. Yeah.

DAVE SMITH: Listen, I’m never going to be in a position with some chick like that. I’m a married guy. It’s a weird thing. Yeah. I mean, now again, it doesn’t give us that much more information and we don’t see her face, but sure does look a lot younger than him. Yeah.

THEO VON: Go through some of these. I mean this is kind of, I mean it’s all just kind of wild.

DAVE SMITH: Kevin Spacey and Bill Clinton there.

THEO VON: And was this at Epstein Island? Allegedly. Allegedly. And there’s some photos. This is the best thing. Look at these photos. Everything redacted in them. Here’s—these could be photos from anybody’s phone. Everything redacted. And then one mark of the beast or something from zodiac killer on the one that he’d drawn.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

THEO VON: Just bizarre.

DAVE SMITH: I mean it just like, it’s so strange.

THEO VON: Why would they just show us some of this stuff right before the holidays? Are they just trying to—everything? Now you start to, you have to think it just like is it trying to distract my attention from something else? You know, and the news reports, they don’t even tell you about the real shit that’s going on anyway.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

THEO VON: So most of the stuff that’s happening—here’s the crazy part. We don’t even know anymore. Like most of the most serious shit that’s going on.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. We don’t even have a clue. Well, I think part of the thing—look, the Epstein, the whole story is so like, it’s so dirty. Like it just stinks. I mean you just look at it and you’re like, dude, look, we know what we know, but knowing what we know, how could you possibly piece this together that it’s not some huge scandal?

I mean, like, already when you just go, okay, so there’s a guy who was convicted of pedophilia or convicted of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. You know, then a decade after he’s convicted, or at least eight years after, he’s still, like, in the most influential circles with all these—and then for national security reasons, you’re telling me this has to be hugely redacted? Like, what the hell? This just makes no sense.

And his connections to Ehud Barak and Mossad now all being known, it’s just too crazy. And Donald Trump, I mean, I think covering up the Epstein thing the way he has has, like, profoundly hurt him in a way that isn’t even measurable on polls. And, like, his poll numbers are lower than they were. And I’m sure that’s a big part of it.

But there is something where, like, look, the fundamental animating spirit of Donald Trump’s political existence, his central promise was “Drain the swamp.”

THEO VON: Yeah.

DAVE SMITH: You know, like, the reason why people love Donald Trump is because everybody on some level knew that DC is just corrupt as shit and that they’re screwing all the rest of us over and they face no consequences for it. And there’s something about covering up the Epstein thing that it’s like, oh, when it really came down to it, you didn’t want to drain the swamp, you wanted to protect them. And maybe because you’re pretty close to it.

THEO VON: You’re a gator. Yeah. Oh, it’s just so twisted. And one thing that Tucker Carlson said that was interesting to me.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

THEO VON: I mean, some of this stuff is just, I mean, weird. Writings from the Lolita books on these women’s bodies.

DAVE SMITH: Very strange.

THEO VON: I mean, that’s really wild.

DAVE SMITH: Just bizarre. Noam Chomsky, legendary anti-war leftist. Steve Jobs. I’m sorry, not Steve Jobs.

THEO VON: Bill Gates.

DAVE SMITH: I apologize for that, Steve.

THEO VON: A couple bow and arrows. But, yeah, just bizarre that these would come out right before Christmas. It kind of like keeps your attention focusing on that. And also, it’s like a drip. It’s like a morphine drip.

DAVE SMITH: And delivered in a way that is more confusing than illuminating. You know what I mean? Delivered in a way where nobody’s attempting to actually get information to you that you can even try. I mean, like, obviously, like, good journalists will be tearing through these documents. I think they said there’s like 1.7 million more to come. Journalists will be tearing through these for years. But, like, I think you just watching.

THEO VON: Lost after a while.

Cash Patel and Dan Bongino’s Broken Promises

DAVE SMITH: Well, also, I can’t—look, man, I know people get—people get tribal about politics and I know, like, there was a whole—when I came out like a little over a year ago and I said I was going to support Donald Trump in the election, I know the Trump people were like, “Yeah, Dave Smith’s on board.” And then—and I always knew, I was like, listen, guys, you’re going to be mad at me when he does something I don’t like, and I’m back to criticizing him.

But like, if we’re just being fair about this, I just, I can’t not say this shit, dude. Cash Patel and Dan Bongino made millions of dollars, dude. Like, they made so much goddamn—I mean, I don’t know. Cash did a lot of big shows. Dan Bongino had a huge show. He made millions of dollars all day long talking about this Epstein scandal, how they were going to get to the bottom of it.

He even said—Dan Bongino, the—I guess he’s leaving now, but the deputy FBI director even said on Tim Pool’s show that he had it on good authority that Jeffrey Epstein was connected to Middle Eastern intelligence. Now which Middle Eastern intelligence do you think he was talking about? Which Middle—Epstein was surely working on the Saudi payroll or something like that. Like, yeah, okay.

So like they said this. They promised they were going to get to—and not just did jack shit. Lied through their f*ing teeth. Told us there were no co-conspirators, there was no sex trafficking, that he killed himself. Like, hey, Cash Patel, Dan Bongino, you looked me in the eye. Not to me, but to the American people.

THEO VON: Yeah, for sure.

DAVE SMITH: And said he killed himself. “I’ve seen the proof.” Why can’t we see that proof?

THEO VON: Yeah. I don’t even know if Cash can look somebody in the eye.

DAVE SMITH: First of all, Cash, you looked all of us in the eye simultaneously.

THEO VON: When you—it is funny when you start to look at Cash Patel, you’re like, like, there’s no way this was the guy. How did we ever think this was the guy? And Tim Dillon, Tim Dillon has totally kind of like, Tim Dillon has brought this guy’s life down, but to a manageable level, to a realistic level.

Like, yeah, those guys. It makes you realize that there’s—there’s a—there’s something above the FBI and the CIA that gives them what they—then you’re allowed to work from here.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: Here’s the—it’s like you sit at the kids’ table at Thanksgiving.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

THEO VON: And you play with these. You know, we’ll give—you can do the drug charges and a little bit of this and that, and—but otherwise we’re going to handle the big shit.

DAVE SMITH: That’s right. That’s right. Or it’s either that they were—they never really got in control and there was a level of control above them or that they were lying and that they—or that they sold out or that they were compromised, but there’s some answer to it.

But there is something where, like, you just—the credibility damage on all of them, like, just the amount of, like, street cred that Cash Patel had a year ago compared to now and Trump, too, I think all of them.

THEO VON: But some of it is also, I think is it’s the communication, right? It’s like, why not come and say, “Hey, I got in here, I’m not even allowed to see the things that I really want to see. And I’m also not allowed to say the things that I really want to say.” Yeah, right.

If you said that or if you said, like, honestly, there’s so many—this Epstein stuff has to go through so many hands before we can even put anything out to the public so that everybody can safely get their stuff for that. That—that—it’s unbelievable. And the best we’re ever going to get is this.

DAVE SMITH: Well, the other thing. The other thing that—

THEO VON: Because didn’t he say that they’d seen everything and there was nothing there?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: Can you pull that up?

DAVE SMITH: I think he said also now they’re saying there’s 1.7 million documents. Like, did you go through all of those yourself? Like, are you confident? Yes. He did say that you and Dan—

THEO VON: Had a sleepover or whatever and just stayed up all night going through those.

DAVE SMITH: And you also just know, right? Like, it’s like, you know, if he had come on Rogan a year earlier, you know, he would have been saying a whole different thing about that. And so it’s like, you got to at least explain to me, like, what changed from there to now. Because otherwise you leave us just speculating, like, I don’t know, dude. Either you’re compromised or you got put in your place, or you’re just a liar and a fraud.

THEO VON: Yeah, let me see what clips. Oh, here’s a clip we have. This is a Tim Dillon. There’s a Cash Patel Rogan clip that Tim Dillon covers. Is this—this is good.

DAVE SMITH: Tell.

THEO VON: Talking about why they can’t put the—

DAVE SMITH: Epstein stuff out because it will re-victimize the women. “We’re not going to re-victimize women.”

THEO VON: What? “We’re not going to put that shit.”

DAVE SMITH: “It’s not happening because then he wins.” “Not doing it.” Who wins?

THEO VON: He’s dead.

DAVE SMITH: It’s too ridiculous, man.

THEO VON: I mean, like—

DAVE SMITH: Look, the victim.

THEO VON: If there was a video of some—

DAVE SMITH: Guy or gal committing felonies, but there is, and I’m in charge, don’t you—

THEO VON: Think you’d see it?

DAVE SMITH: Yes, but that’s—that’s why everyone’s confused. Pam Bondi said there were videos.

THEO VON: She’s the Attorney General.

DAVE SMITH: She goes, “There’s hundreds of hours of it.” That’s a quote from Pam.

THEO VON: Get the Pam Bondi quote up by the videos. “There are tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children or child.”

DAVE SMITH: And there are hundreds of victims. So that’s Pam Bondi.

THEO VON: Now let’s go to Cash Patel, who—

DAVE SMITH: Goes, “So if there were things.”

THEO VON: Let’s go. Cash Patel, everyone. “If there was a video, don’t you think you’d see it?”

DAVE SMITH: If you have access to it?

THEO VON: If I have it. Period. If I have it.

DAVE SMITH: If I have it.

THEO VON: You got it.

DAVE SMITH: So, okay.

THEO VON: Where else would it be?

DAVE SMITH: It’s just why, dude, this is why Tim is a better comedian than me, because he could just be so funny with this shit. And I’m just, it just makes me so angry. Like, even just watching that, I’m just, like, furious. So I don’t even think of the funny thing to say. I’m just like, because, dude, what does that essentially come down to? Trust me, if I had it, don’t you think I would? And then, and what is Cash really trading in his trust for?

Is we liked you because you said you were going to get to the bottom of this shit. That’s the whole thing we liked you for. So you can’t turn around and then go, and now I’m here, but wouldn’t you know me? I mean, I, and look, dude, there’s a broader thing that’s involved here. Right? The point is that the drain, the swamp. Cash Patel, Dan Bongino, their whole brand. The whole thing was that, look, there are these criminals in D.C. and look at all the things that they’ve done.

And they would all talk. It wasn’t just Epstein. They would all talk about Russiagate, the 2020 election. I mean, look what these guys are claiming. And I don’t know about the 2020 election, but they’re 100% right on Russiagate. And Epstein, when they were talking about it before they sold out. Is that they go, look, the intelligence agencies framed a presidential candidate, and then the sitting president, they framed him of treason in order to unseat a democratically elected president of The United States of America.

That is the biggest scandal in the history of the United States of America. Like, this is the, these are huge crimes. Sedition, treason. Very serious crimes.

THEO VON: And nobody’s paying them.

DAVE SMITH: They lock down the whole country based on pseudoscience. They f*ing, they covered up a senile president. They covered up a pedophile ring. And now you guys are in charge of the Justice Department. How many indictments?

THEO VON: Yeah.

DAVE SMITH: Zero. Zero. And then you’re going to sit there and Cash Patel is going to tweet out a picture of like some dude throwing a sandwich at a cop and go, we got him, because this is Cash Patel’s America, boys. People don’t get away with crimes here. Like, that’s, oh, wow. Great job. Wow. Cash Patel, we’re all so impressed that you brought down Chauncey Billups.

Yeah, like, okay, that’s great. You know, like that’s great. But like, that’s not exactly what we were voting for.

THEO VON: Cop get a free Reuben. I don’t care how he gets it.

DAVE SMITH: And that sandwich was still pretty good. Yeah.

THEO VON: How he gets it.

DAVE SMITH: Dude.

THEO VON: A cop would love a free Reuben, dude.

The Tulsi Gabbard Revelations

DAVE SMITH: Dude, and I got to say another one who is somebody personally who I really like in the administration is Tulsi Gabbard. Which we don’t hear that much from her these days, but she came out and had a press conference several months ago where she announced and this is a pretty big deal. Like a lot goes on these days, Theo, but this is a pretty big deal.

The Director of National Intelligence came out and said that she had found proof that Barack Obama committed her words treason and that she had sent the proof over to the Justice Department. And I will say, reading through some of those documents that got released, it’s a pretty big smoking gun, really. Like, yeah, they basically had US Director.

THEO VON: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has released a previously classified report which he says points to a treasonous conspiracy to undermine the results of the 2016 presidential election. It seems as though the Trump administration is willing to declassify anything and everything except the Epstein files, Democratic Senator Mark Warner said. But that doesn’t have anything to do with this, right?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. It’s just a distraction. Yeah.

THEO VON: The report Gabber declassified was prepared by Republicans on the House Intelligence committee, is dated 18 September 2020. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at a distraction, a spokesperson for Obama said. Huh.

DAVE SMITH: Well, one of the things that was revealed in the documents was that there was a.

THEO VON: Sorry one thing. It was declassified on Wednesday, day after President Trump accused former President Barack Obama of leading an effort to falsely time to Russia and undermine his 2016 election campaign. Is that what the documents were about?

DAVE SMITH: Well, what the documents showed was that there was essentially a national security analysis. It was, what do they call it, the threat assessment analysis after the 2016 election where the intelligence agencies had reached a consensus that there was no meaningful interference in the election. Of course, for Russia.

So now, yes, now, if you remember. Now, if you remember, the central claim of Russiagate was there were two aspects to it. One was that the Russians interfered in the election on behalf of Donald Trump, and number two, that Donald Trump was involved in the conspiracy to do so. That, like, Donald Trump and the Russians were working together to overthrow the election.

Now, if true, that’s the biggest story in American history. Right. That the sitting president is a foreign spy. But what Tulsi, now, it had been, the part about Donald Trump being involved in the conspiracy had been completely debunked. It was all based off the Steele dossier. It was all lies. It was all Hillary Clinton op research, you know, campaign bullshit that the CIA and the FBI jumped on.

But what Tulsi Gabbard revealed was that they didn’t even believe the first part of the, they didn’t even believe that Russia interfered at the time. And so anyway. But the broader point to that is, so the Director of National Intelligence came out, said there’s proof that Obama committed treason and that she sent it to the Justice Department, and that’s the last we heard of that.

THEO VON: Right.

DAVE SMITH: And like, well, what the hell? At some point you got to come through on one of these things.

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah, that’s it. There’s never any explanation for a lot of stuff. There’s never any real communication.

Russiagate and Facebook’s Role

THEO VON: The Russiagate thing was just like, obviously, that was ridiculous. Remember, it was just that they were getting a lot of ads.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. On Facebook, and it was like 30 grand worth of ads. It was like nothing.

THEO VON: And Facebook was, I think they were, I would say they were convicted. But they admitted to helping to influence the 2020. Yeah, they admitted to helping influence Biden’s campaign in 2020.

DAVE SMITH: Well, not only that, but Zuckerberg on Rogan’s show, Rogan asked him about the Hunter Biden story, and he was like, yeah, well, we didn’t, we didn’t censor it the way Twitter did, but we turned down the signal so no one could see it. And then he offers this. Joe didn’t, like, ask him. He just goes, well, you know, the FBI came and visited like, a week before, and they said, be on the lookout for a big Russian dump.

It’s going to be Russian interference. Russian interference in the election again, which never happened the first time, but it was going to happen again. And so then he said that essentially he thought that was it. So when it came, he was like, oh, the FBI told. So it’s not just Facebook interfering, it’s the government, it’s the FBI interfering. To put their thumb on a scale in an election, by the way, against the current commander in chief.

THEO VON: Yeah.

DAVE SMITH: Like the current sitting US President. It’s even worse than, like, if they were interfering, which would still be really bad to keep, like, the president’s competition out, but they’re insubordinate. They’re, they’re interfering to unseat the guy who is the head of the executive branch.

THEO VON: And it’s things like that that led to also Trump getting reelected the second time, because it was like, oh, well, the system, they, whatever this dark system is that already feels dark and feels controlling, hates him so much that they must hate him because he’s the guy that’s going to help. He’s the guy that’s going to make things different.

DAVE SMITH: No, that’s right. And also because it was just like the, I think when they went after, when they weaponized the Justice Department to go after him, that played into that, too. Like, they just raided Mar-a-Lago, they’re trying him for some bookkeeping issue in New York. I mean, none of this makes any sense at all. It’s obviously just that, like, these shadowy forces don’t want this guy in. And so that was a huge part of Trump’s populist energy.

THEO VON: Yeah. Yeah. It became like, well, yeah, if the Justice Department isn’t fair to him. Right. That’s the one thing it feels like that we would have. You would hope would be fair in this country. Right. Is like a sense of justice. There’s some sense of justice here. And when that starts to fail, you have to start to, there’s a party that just cheers for that guy. It’s like, oh, he can’t even get any justice, you know?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. Oh, that’s right.

Looking Ahead to 2026

THEO VON: It’s just, how, how do you think, how do you think things look as we go into 2026 here? Because it’s, it’s just baffling, man. Like, I was hoping to see more things where it’s like, okay, we’re building things, we’re, we’re bringing businesses back, and we’re going to, you’re going to start to see certain jobs and opportunities come back to different areas. And if they are, why wouldn’t you talk about that more and share that more and inspire people more with that, you know?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

THEO VON: I think that’s some of the communication that would be nice to hear more of.

DAVE SMITH: Kind of have to.

THEO VON: You kind of need a couple years to kind of see maybe what they’re going to do with some of these tariffs. If we’re making money from these tariffs, what does that go into, you know, maybe it could be set aside and said, well, the money that we’re keeping from these tariffs, it’s going to go here, here and here to support these things or to rebuild these efforts.

DAVE SMITH: You know, the thing is that we’re like the problem in America isn’t that the federal government doesn’t have revenue. I have a huge tax base. I mean, we bring in more revenue now than we’ve ever brought in before just through taxes. Forget the tariffs. The problem is that no matter how much revenue DC brings in, they spend three times as much. You know, I mean we’re 38 plus trillion in debt. And you know, the real.

THEO VON: It f*ing feels like a number a kid would think.

The Cost of Endless Money Printing

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, well, and the crazy thing is, right, is that our government is so big that the 38 trillion isn’t even nearly enough. I mean it’s like the 38 trillion is just what they racked up on the credit card. They were spending our tax revenue that whole time. So they spent tens of trillions of dollars of our tax revenue. And even that’s not enough. They can’t tax enough and they can’t borrow enough. And so then they just print the money.

And this is really the central problem that everyone’s living through today is that if you could go look this up on like charts, but between essentially from the financial collapse in 2008 to today. So like from, and George W. Bush had printed a ton of money too. But if you just look at like Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump again, we printed something like a third of the money that’s ever existed. Like the answer has just been always just keep printing money, keep flooding. This is. And now people are looking around and they’re going, wait a minute. Why is the price of everything out of control?

THEO VON: It’s crazy.

DAVE SMITH: Like the Democrats who won not just Mamdani in New York, but also the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey that they just won in this last elections in November. All of them ran on what they call now the unaffordability crisis. But like, what is unaffordability? That just means you’ve debased your currency, right?

So this is kind of the now. So the answer is we got to stop debasing our currency. Like the solution would be a gold standard or something where you don’t just print money out of thin air. But the problem with that is that you can’t really be a world empire and do that. And so in a weird way you really do have to. I mean you can’t be a giant welfare state either. But you kind of have to make a choice between, like, Donald Trump siding with the war hawks at every turn or Donald Trump siding with the American people and not debasing their currency anymore.

But he doesn’t want to do that. In fact, he wants quite the opposite. He wants the Fed chairman to lower interest rates. He wants more money to be lent, more money to be printed, because that. He assesses that that’ll be good in the short term and help him win the midterm elections. But of course, that’s like, what got us to this place to begin with.

So once you’re not. Once you’re not willing to compromise on actually cutting spending and you want to keep the empire strong, now you got to come up with other schemes. Well, maybe we put a tariff on Chinese goods, then maybe that’ll make them more expensive so people will want to produce. But those type of schemes never work out, man. You just can’t tax your way into prosperity.

THEO VON: Yeah, we’ll put a tax on ball caps or whatever, on butterscotches or whatever.

DAVE SMITH: Because real people got to pay those taxes, too.

Too Comfortable to Revolt

THEO VON: And it just comes back to the people. It’s like, I don’t know, we’re at such a spot where it’s like. It’s like, how much more can we take? We’re also gotten too comfortable, you know, it’s like, we’re too comfortable. Like, how it’s. It’s. It’s hard to, like, be like, yeah, I’m going to go and talk about this, or I’m going to go protest about this, or I’m going to not pay my taxes, or, you know, it’s hard to. When you’re like, ah, but, you know, we got Netflix. We got this enough food in the cupboard.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. When you’re. When you’re comfortable. Yeah, that’s right. People aren’t going to. No. No comfortable country ever leads a revolution, you know, But. But at the same time, one of the things that I find really.

THEO VON: Statement, man. No comfortable country ever leads a revolution.

DAVE SMITH: Well, there’s a.

THEO VON: But I will say we’re getting uncomfortable. It’s just like.

The Death of Corporate Media

DAVE SMITH: But there’s a big trend. I think we talked about this a little bit last year, but this was a big trend. One of the things that I’m really optimistic about that I just think is really interesting is that. So, like, one of the crazy things. And you were a big part of this, but one of the crazy things that happened in the 24 elections was that the whole, like, the whole Corporate media, what used to be called the mainstream media, which seems like a ridiculous title for them now because, like, they’re not the mainstream at all. But they kind of had to admit it was over. Like, if you. There was.

THEO VON: There was a CBS clip.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, yeah. We’re like. Which is crazy that it’s the first one. Like, it’s. It’s. You’re the first one who mustered up the thought courage. Here, here, play. Yeah.

THEO VON: And this is actually really interesting. White guy to do it. This is. CBS says that starting today they will be reporting the news more from the average American perspective, rather than solely the opinions of the liberal elite.

DAVE SMITH: It’s just such a funny thing to announce that CBS is going to do news. Hey, guys, we’re going to try something new here. All right. This is a crazy thought. I had a crazy thought. We were workshopping this for a little while. What if we reported the news and not through an angle that always protects, you know, Goldman Sachs? Maybe we’ll do it through an angle that’s, like, for you. Is that crazy?

THEO VON: Yeah. Let’s hear it. A lot has changed since the first person sat in this chair. But for me, the biggest difference is people do not trust us like they used to. And it’s not just us.

DAVE SMITH: It’s all of legacy media.

THEO VON: And I get it.

DAVE SMITH: I get it because I’ve been hearing.

THEO VON: About it from just about everybody for more than 20 years as I’ve traveled America on this assignment or that. My mom’s neighbors in West Virginia, my.

DAVE SMITH: Own neighbors in New York City. Thousands and thousands of conversations in between.

THEO VON: Sometimes people want to talk to me about our coverage of NAFTA or the Iraq war. Other times it’s all about Hillary Clinton’s emails or Russiagate or more recently, COVID.

DAVE SMITH: Lockdowns, Hunter Biden’s laptop or the president’s fitness. I. Just kidding. It’s like, you mean when you ruined the country? Does that come up? Does it come up that you destroyed the greatest country in the history of the world? Yeah.

THEO VON: You had people fighting about s* that you knew wasn’t real and never even an apology in any of that. Yeah, dude. My neighbors and I didn’t talk for like a year and a half because of the Russia. I was like, that’s complete. I could just immediately. I knew when I saw, like, none of this makes any sense. Russia. Russia’s a bunch of rusted out vehicles.

DAVE SMITH: All these.

THEO VON: All these kids carrying stone dolls made out of stone, which I respect, because.

DAVE SMITH: There’s a lot of.

THEO VON: Of like, you know, you really learn to do something if you, if the doll is heavy. You know, there’s something about that that I really respect. But this I just knew. It just seems so ridiculous. Maybe 50 years ago, maybe, but not today.

The Lockdown Catastrophe

DAVE SMITH: Well, right. And, and then just like, as he just casually mentions, like, or lockdowns, it’s like, oh yeah, like when they, when they turned our country into a totalitarian state. Remember, they did that for a year plus. And you guys did what? You guys, you’re sitting here, you’re the journalist, you have this role as the media. And you always talk about how important this role is, right?

And then they lock down the country. And you decided in that moment, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll demonize anybody who’s skeptical of this. We’ll call you names. We’ll shame Americans for demanding some degree of basic liberty during a crisis. And, and then by the way, you know what happens as a result of that when you do it? Which by the way, there’s been a ton of studies on this. Now, they didn’t even. The lockdowns didn’t even slow the spread of the goddamn virus.

It wasn’t even like there was a benefit that you got this cost in exchange for it did nothing. The lockdown areas, the things spread just as badly as they did through non lockdown areas. Mass compliance had nothing to do with anything. But you know what was real is how many families got broken up over.

THEO VON: Lockdowns, how many AA rooms were closed and people couldn’t go to get recovery and ended up relapsing?

DAVE SMITH: Or how many people fell off the wagon during lockdowns? How many people who were like on the edge, ended up losing their apartment, ended up living outside on the street? No, all those guys, they got to live with that tragedy. And you, but your response is to go, finally, after all these years. I’ll acknowledge some people were upset about this. We’ll do it a little bit differently going forward.

Like, shouldn’t you resign in disgrace? I mean, listen, I’m trying to be reasonable here. I really think you should fall on a Japanese sword in public in front of a lot of people. But I will accept resigning in disgrace and picking up garbage on the side of the road for the rest of your life.

THEO VON: And they’ve shunned that dude. They got caught jerking off in the Zoom meeting, remember?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, yeah, that’s right. That’s right. He. He faced more consequences too. Then face more consequences than any of these guys that do.

THEO VON: They, at least they made him. Come on, dude, you know, he was jerking off during a zoom meeting. Which first of all, who doesn’t want to jerk off during a frickin zoom meeting? And who hasn’t? If you’re. If most of your body’s off screen.

Who Gets to Be an Expert?

DAVE SMITH: Why do you not. Yeah, it’s an impossible challenge. Is it crazy, Theo, that I get now because I do this, you know, whatever the weird career that I have is. But like, I’ll get all these people now, like high profile people who will be like talking s* about me. It’ll be like Dave Smith, who does he know? What does he know what he’s talking about? He’s some comedian, he’s not an expert.

THEO VON: He get.

DAVE SMITH: And look, fair enough. What the f* do I really know, right? I am just a comedian who’s read a lot about this stuff and I get on shows and I talk about like, it’s like this, it’s not like that. So like, fair enough, call me out. I’m just a guy. And if people want to listen, they can. If they don’t, they don’t have to.

But I’ll be arguing. Like I’ll be arguing on Twitter with Dinesh D’Souza or recently David Wormser, the. Remember last time I was on here, damn near killer. I told you about the clean break memo that it was the neocons wrote to Netanyahu to get away from the peace plan and to overthrow Saddam Hussein for Israel. So the guy who wrote it is now talking s* to me on Twitter. The neocon, he was at the Pentagon, he was at the State Department.

And they’ll say things to me like, they’ll be like, Dave, this guy’s a comedian, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Dude, you were the architect of the war in Iraq. Go away forever. Like you don’t get to tell. You don’t get to come out here and go, who does this guy think he is? Who do I think I am? You got a million people killed and didn’t get punished for it. Just kindly go away. Is that an unreasonable request? I know, like, but anyway, the CBS guy, I guess what’s interesting is at least he’s acknowledging it.

THEO VON: I guess at least.

DAVE SMITH: There’s bizarre, by the way, also in the background of this is that CBS News was just purchased by the Israel lobby.

THEO VON: Yes.

DAVE SMITH: And so this is their. I’m sure we can really trust you now.

THEO VON: Yeah, let’s play a little bit more of that clip of the guy that.

DAVE SMITH: Was talking fitness for office.

THEO VON: The point is, on too many stories, the press has missed the story because we’ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in.

DAVE SMITH: The analysis of academics or elites and not enough on you. And I know this because at certain.

THEO VON: Points, I have been you. I have felt this way, too. I felt like what I was seeing and hearing on the news didn’t reflect what I was seeing and hearing rings in my. You’re living in a dystopian time, bro. Yeah.

DAVE SMITH: It’s like. And. And then is it too much for me to ask that you resign in disgrace?

THEO VON: Right.

DAVE SMITH: You know, like, in disgust, I should say. Like, I’m saying, like, if you. If you’re going. I’ve felt that same way, too, at times. Well, then, what the f*, man? Like, no one’s putting a gun to your head. So. So leave and blow the whistle and become all of our hero.

THEO VON: Yeah.

The Culpability of Corporate Media

DAVE SMITH: And go have the biggest podcast ever. You know? Like, it’s not even a difficult thing to have done. It’s not even like there is more culpability for you than there was for the average Nazi soldier. At least the average Nazi soldier was like, “I’ll get shot in the head if I don’t do this.” You know?

Like, you had nothing except giving up a $10 million salary or something like that. Like, you know, and by the way, you could still go make lots of money because the people would rally around you if you did something like that. And it’s like, when there’s that tape of—

THEO VON: If you’re not going to tell the truth, what are you, like? You know what I’m saying?

DAVE SMITH: I mean, yeah, that’s your job.

THEO VON: Right. It’s like, but it’s like, if you’re not going to try your best to figure it out, I don’t know, it just—I couldn’t imagine sitting there regurgitating lies. Like, just how much it would make you crawl on the inside.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, yeah. No, it’s an amazing ability. I mean, I’ve been close up with it, and it was one of the things when I debated Chris Cuomo. It was like, one of the things that really was startling to see because how comfortable he was just lying. Like, lying through his teeth. A demonstrable lot.

Like, I would say, there was one point in it, and the Patrick Bet David production staff—always be grateful to them because, man, they got my back that day. And they had the clip. They pulled it up real quick. But he went—he goes, “Look, I don’t think the guys at CNN should have mocked Joe Rogan for taking Ivermectin.” And I went, “You did. You mocked Joe Rogan for taking Ivermectin.” And he goes, “No, I didn’t.” I go, “Yes, you did. I’ve seen it, I’ve watched you do it.”

And then he goes, “No, I didn’t.” And then they pull up a clip of him going, “Joe Rogan, Ivermectin. I mean, horse dewormer.” And the entire room—because it was a live show—the entire room goes, “Oh.” And then he goes, “Oh, no, no, no. I was saying the veterinary version, not the regular version.” You go, “What version do you think Joe Rogan was taking? You think Joe Rogan went to the pet store?” Like, yeah, he’s got a few bucks. I don’t know if you’ve heard, you know, but there’s a f*ing Petco.

THEO VON: Yeah, he drove and parked at a Petco and walked in there past the—

DAVE SMITH: Gerbil cages, like, believe it or not—

THEO VON: To roll. Can afford doctors grooming the dogs.

DAVE SMITH: Right in the front when you walk in.

THEO VON: “Hi, I’m world famous Joe Rogan. I was here to pick up some Ivermectin. I have a prescription for my dog I’d like to fill.”

DAVE SMITH: “Oh, you got worms, Joe, huh?”

But these people who work in corporate media, man, they get real comfortable just saying a knowing lie that they will just repeat because that’s the business. But the thing that’s interesting to me, and this is the last year, right, is that they admitted it. Because this was true five years ago too. Five years ago, four years ago, three years ago, Rogan had a much bigger audience than CNN had, but they would still pretend like he was the fringe and they were the mainstream media.

But after Trump got reelected, they admitted it. They all said, “We need our own Joe Rogan.” Like, they admitted that the podcasting is where it was. And part of that is because Trump very wisely—and I guess I’ve heard that it was his son who convinced him to do it—but he went on your show and Joe’s show and Andrew’s show and, you know, some of the other ones.

THEO VON: Nelk boys.

The Rise of Podcast Media

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, I don’t know them, but like, yeah, they’re huge. I’ve learned. And so he rode this kind of podcast wave where the new media was. He went to them—smart, very smart. And then there were—and I thought it was really—like even when on your show with him, one of the things that was cool, like we’ve never really seen that. Just like in the middle of a presidential season where a president comes in and just doesn’t really talk politics, talks about his brother’s struggle with alcoholism and you’re like, “Oh, wow, we kind of get to see a candidate in a new way now.”

One of the things I think that’s interesting about this now, what’s happened over this last year is that a lot of those guys—and I remember arguing about this with people at the time—but they were kind of like, “Oh, now the problem is that all these podcast bros are just Trump stans now and they’re all going to just, you know, support him no matter what.” And I was like, “Now? I don’t think so, dude.”

THEO VON: Like, I don’t think that’s never been the thing.

DAVE SMITH: And so what’s interesting is that this whole media environment, like if J.D. Vance wants to be president, like, I’m not saying he has to come do your show, but he kind of has to come do your show. He kind of has to go do Rogan’s show. He kind of has to do—or at least he’s turning down a big opportunity not to. And so—

THEO VON: And it will be known by people, I think if you don’t go do Joe’s show, if you don’t do—

DAVE SMITH: You.

THEO VON: Know, I’m trying to think of like Schultz’s show that at least for some of them. Or go sit with Tim Dillon. Yeah, that would be amazing.

DAVE SMITH: Well, because you know, this will do huge, huge numbers. Right.

THEO VON: And you know though, that it will be that Joe’s going to do his best job to be, you know, he’s going to do what he does best, which is he’s the best to do it.

DAVE SMITH: But I just think that they’re controlled. Right? That’s the thing.

THEO VON: Yes.

DAVE SMITH: And they’re going to have to answer some questions next time. And that’s one of the interesting things right now. Right. Because like there was over this last year, really—I mean, it’s the last two years, but really over this last year—there was this huge split in the right wing over Israel, obviously.

The Israel Divide on the Right

THEO VON: Was that the biggest cause you think?

DAVE SMITH: I think that—look, obviously Charlie Kirk being killed was a—but look, Charlie Kirk was already dealing with it before he died. Like it was a dynamic at Turning Point. It was a huge scandal when he had Tucker and me and Megyn Kelly at Turning Point. And then he went on Megyn Kelly’s show and talked about how all the Zionists were flipping out on him and how crazy it was that he had been such an ally and they were turning on him just for hosting a debate and hosting a few voices that were critical of Israel. Not really that many, actually.

But this has been a huge split. But it’s not a split like it’s 50-50. It’s a split like the entire youth is against this unconditional support for Israel. A huge portion of, you know, like Candace and Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes have been surging over this last year. They’re bigger than ever. Meanwhile, Ben Shapiro is losing a thousand YouTube subscribers a day. Mark Levin is just getting ratioed every time he opens his mouth on social media.

And so what’s happening now is there’s this dynamic where—I thought he was Jim Cramer.

THEO VON: I didn’t even know who he—I kept—

DAVE SMITH: I confused him.

THEO VON: I got confused. Go on. But now there’s this situation.

DAVE SMITH: Well, so, but I’m saying now you have this dynamic where J.D. Vance wants to be the Republican nominee. Well, like 80% of the base is for America First, not for Israel First. You know, and now, and particularly with all those shows we were talking about, like your show, Rogan’s show, Tim’s show, Andrew’s show, all these guys, everybody, my show, all of us are like, we don’t want to fight wars on behalf of Israel.

So it’s like, where do you go? Now there’s a real media environment. Not saying it’s perfect and I’m just naming the comedians. There’s a lot of other great news shows out there too, for sure. Like Breaking Points with Sager and Jetty and Crystal Ball is a great show. Like there’s a bunch of really good shows online that aren’t in this corporate controlled media environment where they’re actually going to have to face some of this stuff going forward. So I’m very optimistic about that kind of long term that we’ve cracked the state’s monopoly on propaganda.

THEO VON: Yeah, it is going to be interesting because they’re going to have to answer. I don’t know if you’re going to be able to say you’re a pro-Israel candidate.

J.D. Vance’s Tightrope

DAVE SMITH: It’s going to be tough. Now here’s the thing is that—and they’re going to be in a Charlie Kirk type situation here. And I’m not talking about Charlie Kirk’s assassination, but I’m saying the position that Charlie Kirk was in right before he died and the reason why he was sending those text messages to Josh Hammer and them, that “I have no other choice than to abandon support for Israel.” And why he was complaining about all that stuff on the Megyn Kelly show is that he was caught between a rock and a hard place.

Which is exactly what J.D. Vance is going to be caught between now because you’ve got—well, look, in order to lead an organization like Turning Point USA, you need your young activists and then you need your donors, right? You need billionaires to give you money, but you need young activists to show up. And so Charlie Kirk was in this position where he’s like, “Dude, the young activists are completely against this shit, but the donors won’t even let you host a debate about it, let alone take that position.” And so what do you do there?

And now J.D. Vance is going to be in a similar position too. If you come out and you say “I’m pro-Israel,” well man, I mean, at this point that turns a whole lot of us off. But if you say “I’m anti-Israel,” that’s a tough—in Washington D.C. you can’t survive there for long. So he’s got to try to walk this tightrope that’s becoming more impossible by the day.

THEO VON: He’s going to need a strong mascara.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, you better put your best mascara—

THEO VON: On for that one type shit. And I like J.D., man.

DAVE SMITH: He knows I like J.D. too.

THEO VON: I like J.D.

DAVE SMITH: Listen, I like J.D. I even would like to maybe be able to support him. But I’m in a position right now, I don’t see how I’m going to be able to. At least from my perspective, because you’re coming off of—you’re going to be attached to the administration that did everything Netanyahu wanted and covered up the Epstein scandal and didn’t solve any of the major problems in the country short of maybe the border.

And also J.D. Vance—what are you going to say? What are you going to run on this time? “We’ll really drain the swamp”? Like, what are you going to—and also, just because Trump is Trump, he can’t really criticize Donald Trump because he’s still his vice president as he’s running a presidential campaign. It’s a tough spot. Yep, bro, he’s good.

THEO VON: That’s the tightest rope in the world. Now there is something about that tightrope that J.D. loves. Like he wants to challenge himself. He’s a guy who’s challenged himself a lot in his life and he wants to challenge himself. So he’s going to try to navigate that. That’s going to be super tricky to figure out because those are—I mean, that’s just a—it’s such a fine point.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, well, I think, you know, you see it already.

THEO VON: That’s such a fine point, man.

DAVE SMITH: Well, it’s happened a lot just with—

THEO VON: And it’s kind of become Magaverse. America First, too, is kind of where the—where that—where the Republican kind of the right divide is like, yeah, I was—I mean, I like Trump the first time because he was an underdog. I was like, “Oh, this dude is just some guy.” Like, I know he’s Donald Trump, and I know he’s been known for crooked antics and dodging contractors and shit over the year. But then also, it was like, if this guy wins—I remember when he won the first time, and we’re driving down the street and thinking, “Oh, shit, anybody could be president.”

DAVE SMITH: Well, especially—

THEO VON: And it was the feeling you had when you were a kid a little bit like, “Dude, I can be president.” But just the idea that anybody could—

The Billionaire Everyman

DAVE SMITH: Be president because there’s something about Donald Trump that even though he’s a billionaire, he’s such a regular guy billionaire. He’s a billionaire the way the average guy in a trailer park would be a billionaire if you gave him a billion dollars.

THEO VON: Well, he’s not pretending not to be a billionaire.

DAVE SMITH: Right. But it’s also just like, it’s like, how about we make it the biggest gold sign ever? It’s like someone who never had money who just wants to show off that he’s got some.

THEO VON: Now I see why him and Kid Rock are so close. Because, yeah, Kid Rock is like that. He’s like, let’s make it like this dude.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, it’s right. Which I love that guy, by the way, but he’s awesome. I met him last time I was down here. I met him at, I did his show, which was so much fun. He does a comedy show in the Nashville Comedy Festival is how I did that last night. So much fun. He’s awesome guy.

But so Donald Trump, and then also you had, he speaks like a regular guy. He doesn’t speak like a highfalutin academic or something like that. He speaks like a regular guy. Regular people can understand him.

And then he announces he’s running for president, and his, again, his pitch is drain the swamp. And I’m going to fight for you. I’m going to fight for you to win. And then because he says that every media apparatus, every Hollywood actor, academia, and the entire political class all hate his guts and are against him.

And so he’s naturally just cast as the underdog, the guy who’s there for you, who’s going to take them. And then he sits in South Carolina. It was so ballsy. And Donald Trump always had an amazing ability to say the obvious truth and then give you permission to also agree with him.

The South Carolina Moment

So he goes in South Carolina, of all places, at the Republican primary, and he looks at Jeb Bush and he goes, “Your brother lied us into war.”

THEO VON: And.

DAVE SMITH: And this was an amazing moment in American history. So he says this to Jeb Bush, and Jeb Bush goes, “That’s very offensive that you would say something like that.” Then he doubles down on it. He goes, “They lied. There were no weapons of mass destruction, and he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction.”

The biggest accusation you could make, your brother led, I mean, you’re looking at South Carolina. It’s one of the most militarized states in the union. At the Republican national, he’s saying, your brother’s dead, because him and his brother and what they did, you know.

And then that night on all the cable news, it was unanimous by everyone who knew, all the experts, all the ones who say, “I’m just a comedian, I don’t know what I’m talking about.” They’re the experts. Every single expert went on TV that day to say, “Donald Trump is done. He’s finished. Because let me tell you, one thing you can’t do in South Carolina is insult the military and George W. Bush,” and blah, blah, blah.

And then the next day at the primary, Donald Trump dominated, just destroyed Jeb Bush, who walked away with 1% or something like that, just destroyed him. And then that guy ends up side, by the way, did you see this the other day? This is how bad the Trump administration has done one year in. You know who just praised Donald Trump on Twitter? Jeb Bush. Jeb Bush.

THEO VON: You’re lying.

DAVE SMITH: I swear to God, it’ll be right up there at the top. Everything is that first one.

THEO VON: One?

DAVE SMITH: Yep, right there. Pinned tweet. “The Islamic Republic does not represent the great Iranian people. President Trump continues to demonstrate historic leadership on Iran.”

So why Jeb Bush is now praising Donald Trump and why? Is it because Jeb Bush woke up and became a lot better on stuff? No, it’s because Donald Trump is finishing off what was the seventh country on General Wesley Clark’s list of seven countries that were to be toppled.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s true.

The Seven Countries List

DAVE SMITH: If you remember that we talked about it last time. People try to give me sh*t for bringing this up.

THEO VON: Was that with the neoconservatives?

DAVE SMITH: Well, yes, it was him talking about the neoconservatives plan that they had, that they had just instituted under the George W. Bush administration. And this list of seven countries, with Sudan being the one exception. Now, Sudan did collapse and fall into a state of civil war, and the country broke off. And I think there’s still a horrible civil war going on there. Good athletes, very good.

But of the other countries, okay, there’s six left on that list. Israel, the US or both have attacked all of them since that point. Bombed all of them. And the last regime change was supposed to be Iran, which, okay, Donald Trump stopped short of regime change there, but he did launch a war against, still flirting with it over the summer and still flirting with it. That thing is not over at all.

We’re at halftime again, like the mission accomplished back. The people with Venezuela right now, they always love to celebrate immediately. “Oh, Dave, you warned this might be a catastrophe, but look, it was just 12 days.” You’re like, yeah, but look, it’s not over.

I’m old enough to remember very vividly in 1991, after George H.W. Bush led the Persian Gulf War, and all the war hawks were celebrating what an easy success the war in Iraq was. But then, then we went on to bomb that country for 30 more years and lost trillions of dollars and a million Iraqis died, and 5,000 of our bravest young soldiers died, and then 30,000 committed suicide in the aftermath of the whole thing.

So you sit there celebrating these wars right after, you know, in the immediate aftermath of them. Netanyahu and Trump were just talking the other day about when they’re going to bomb Iran next. That thing ain’t over at all. But anyway, the point being, Jeb Bush loves Donald Trump now because he’s siding with the war hawks. He’s siding with the neocons against his own voters.

THEO VON: That’s, I mean, I don’t know. Whatever you think about him, you have to respect his ability.

DAVE SMITH: Oh, for sure. Unless.

The Butler Assassination Attempt

THEO VON: Now, what about this part? Do you think that, do you think that assassination attempt was real after this much time has passed?

DAVE SMITH: The Butler, Pennsylvania one?

THEO VON: I mean, did you see that reverse camera shot that came up the other day?

DAVE SMITH: No, I don’t think so.

THEO VON: They showed the reverse camera shot of the Butler, Pennsylvania shooting. This was new footage that hadn’t been shown.

DAVE SMITH: Oh, really? No, I missed that.

THEO VON: Yeah. This is just new do been shot.

DAVE SMITH: Oh, no, no. Either that or they’re covering. We don’t know. Either that or they’re covering him. We love you. We love you, brother girl. We love you. We love you. We love.

THEO VON: Now they’ve us. He ushers in photographers from the left side of the stage. This is kind of bizarre. Are you President Trump?

DAVE SMITH: We love you.

THEO VON: That is crazy. The flag was lowered in a position. Is this real?

DAVE SMITH: Or is the flag being lowered or is the camera moving?

THEO VON: That’s a good question. That if they paused to lower the flag, though, that is, bro, we are lit. Everything just feels now like we’re living in a kind of a diorama or something. Like we’re walking in a total Truman Show.

DAVE SMITH: It feels like it does. It does feel like one of those time travel movies where you go into the future and everything’s wrong and you’re like, oh, someone’s got to go back and fix this. What did we do? Something was supposed to happen different. Go back, show this a little.

THEO VON: Go back to that flag lowering. I want to see that part. I mean, that’s, flag is lowered into position.

DAVE SMITH: It doesn’t look like the camera’s moving. That’s crazy.

THEO VON: That’s crazy. And it’s crazy to think this is how long they were. They had this dude up on stage, like, get him off of the stage.

DAVE SMITH: It was crazy.

THEO VON: And then it’s odd behavior. Shows how they staged the famous photo. And then he starts moving the camera. People come around, wouldn’t there be people pushing the camera people away? Whoever could get close to him right now?

DAVE SMITH: Well, look, I mean, the reason why.

THEO VON: His press agent went to grab photographers after shots were fired, then they lower the flag into flight frame. It’s just wild.

DAVE SMITH: It is. It is weird. Also, Trump had the presence of mind to be like, let me make this a photo op one way or the other. I mean, clearly, he said the first thing he says is, “Where are my shoes?” He’s so cognizant of being the alpha and, he’s just the ultimate genius marketer, says PR person.

So he knows, even in this moment, I got to be strong, strong, get my shoes on. I’m not walking out of here barefoot. You know, I’m going to throw my fist up. I’m going to, he’s so, that’s amazing how hardwired into you that has to be. You know what I mean? To have it in a moment like that. I’ve always thought there were just so many questions about how this could have possibly happened.

THEO VON: Yes.

DAVE SMITH: And that are things that are really not answered. And it went by fast. And there’s, and there seems to be no even desire to get to the bottom of this. We got to figure out what happened. Obviously way.

THEO VON: Because, because the people who are supposed to be figuring out what happened there, it’s if.

DAVE SMITH: Well, they’re making apologies at CBS about how they’re going to do better going forward.

THEO VON: If they’re the ones. If they are somehow the same ones who created this.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

THEO VON: Then of course they wouldn’t keep looking into it. It would be so ridiculous.

DAVE SMITH: That’s, that’s at the.

THEO VON: That’s where you realize it. It’s like, oh, of course they wouldn’t. They’d have, no, because you couldn’t maintain a real strong enough desire to continue looking at something if you knew there was absolutely nothing there.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. Right.

THEO VON: Especially if you had created the falsity. It’s like, bring that back up, though. That flag lowering is unbelievable, bro. They lowered the flag into the shot.

DAVE SMITH: That is crazy.

THEO VON: How they staged a famous photo. That’s crazy. They lowered the flag. And then one of the other things it says is that how the Secret Service has always been prepared to act after an assassination attempt. That’s not even, and that’s not even mentioning how his ear apparently regrew. This new camera angle makes it look really suspicious.

I do think it is interesting how they just allowed photographers to get right there. Wouldn’t you think? What if somebody’s coming to stab him? What if one of these people.

DAVE SMITH: Right, right. Oh, no. You would think you’re in a moment of complete chaos and confusion. You have no idea where the threat is. They have no way of knowing if it’s a lone gunman. They have no way of knowing whether there’s a team of people here. Right. I mean, this is.

THEO VON: And what happened to that shot?

DAVE SMITH: Well, they ultimately killed him. Yeah. They took him out or they just put some kid on a roof, if they remember. They said that they couldn’t get on the roof because it was too slanted. But then they killed the guy and his body didn’t roll off. Even a dead corpse stayed on the roof. All of it made no sense. And then they said he had no Internet history. It was very, very bizarre.

THEO VON: This is fun to talk about and look at, huh?

DAVE SMITH: It’s wild.

THEO VON: That flag lowering is bonkers.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, that’s a little strange.

THEO VON: But the wound to his ear, I mean, bro, how, what are the odds?

DAVE SMITH: And also just the way he turned at the moment. I mean, it’s the craziest thing ever to just be that a shot was coming at him, and you just, you rolled with it like you’re a boxer rolling with a punch.

THEO VON: Where are my shoes? I thought he said, “Where are my Jews,” too? That’s what I thought he said.

DAVE SMITH: You get to it.

THEO VON: That would have been crazy if he said that.

DAVE SMITH: And then if someone went, well, obviously they’re here.

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah. He’s just, like, just making sure I got my boys with me, you know?

DAVE SMITH: Dude. You know, it’s weird. And this is totally.

THEO VON: Where are my shoes? Did he have them on? Did he get knocked off or something? I guess.

DAVE SMITH: I guess he hit the ground at first, so I guess he lost them in the shuffle of that. I don’t know.

THEO VON: First of all, imagine going to something, I guess, and wearing shoes that are comfortable and casual enough that you could slip right out of them. You could have some balls. I’ll say this. Whenever Trump does pass away, eventually in time, if he does, they got to auction off his balls, dude. Or give him. They got to auction off his balls.

DAVE SMITH: That would. He should start thinking about provisions for that. He’s already over the average life expectancy or right up there. I don’t know. Close to it.

THEO VON: They said they were going to put. They were going to create a $250 bill with his face on. You see that?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. Probably. Because all the money he’s printing, it’ll only be worth 20. But they’ll make you a nice Trump bill.

THEO VON: Yeah. The Trump $250 bill refers to the HR 1761, the Donald Trump $250 Bill act, introduced in February 2025 by Representative Joe Wilson. Did it pass? The bill proposed an exemption to laws preventing living people on currency, though it’s. Oh, living people can’t be on currency.

The bill proposes an exemption to laws preventing living people being on currency, though it’s a symbolic proposal. The bill was introduced in the House of Representatives February 2025. Its future in Congress is uncertain as proposals often face significant legislative hurdles. The US currency denominations haven’t gone above $100 for general circulation.

DAVE SMITH: You know, I don’t know if you feel this way, but I just find myself over the last year just really getting tired of a lot of this stuff. And, like, it’d kind of be, like, one thing. If Trump was doing all the right things, and then you wanted to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, you’d be like, yeah, okay, sure. You know, like, that’s fun. And I like triggering libs as much as the next guy. So, like, that’s fun. Or let us have it.

THEO VON: Let us have a game each year, a competition. And whoever. Whatever country wins a competition. It’s like in America, South America, whoever wins gets to name it, gets to have it for that year.

DAVE SMITH: Well, that was a great idea. But it’s like now after, like, when you’re just kind of like being Israel’s b and then you’re burying the Epstein stuff, but I repeat myself. It’s like. And then he goes like, we’re renaming it to the Gulf of America. You’re like, shut up, dude. Like, give me something serious.

THEO VON: Yeah.

DAVE SMITH: It starts to feel like you’re just insulting me. It’s like you start, like, bragging about how you’re redoing the White House or how much nicer it looks than when Joe Biden was there. Like, you know, I don’t care, man. Like, the average guy, like, people who are making 70 grand a year can’t afford to live.

THEO VON: Yeah.

The Economic Reality for Average Americans

DAVE SMITH: You know, that’s a real thing that we’re. We live in a society now. It’s in my. In my grandfather’s day, you could just work. My grandfather worked at a factory. That’s all he ever did. By the end of his life, I think he had been made floor manager of the factory. But that was his whole life. He just worked in factories. All his buddies worked in factories. None of their wives worked. They all owned homes. They all had two cars. They played poker on the weekends. They sent their kids to college. They participated in, like, the country in the ownership class. They owned their house.

You know, today a 25 year old. Even if they got a job where they’re making 70 grand a year or something like that, they’re living with a roommate.

THEO VON: Yeah.

DAVE SMITH: You know what I mean? Like, they. And the chick is working, and they don’t know how the hell they’re ever going to buy a house. Average house is going for 700 grand. No idea how they’re. And they’re ovulating.

THEO VON: Stressed eggs. And then they’re.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

THEO VON: DS down syndrome children half the time.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. Yeah.

THEO VON: And those kids are back in the factories. You know what I’m saying?

DAVE SMITH: Well, we don’t. And we don’t even know because there’s so much goddamn poison around. Around. And you know, all the stuff that. That Bobby Kennedy always talks about. It’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know any of which one of them was the culprit or not. It’s like, is it the fact that we do 50 vaccines now instead of 12, or that there’s plastic in our water or that there’s all these chemicals? Like, I don’t know, that all our food’s over processed and all this s*. I don’t know. But it’s bad. We lead the world in, in like disease.

THEO VON: Come to America where we don’t care if we take care of our health or our, like, our procreation.

The Epstein Files and Trump’s Response

DAVE SMITH: Well, think about even like, right, the Epstein thing, which, look, nobody knows exactly, and I guess probably will never know exactly, like the entire details of what type of intelligence operation this was. And even when people say like, oh, he worked for Mossad or something like that, you’re like, well, somebody doing what Jeffrey Epstein was doing wouldn’t have been like an employee of the Mossad, you know what I mean? They would have had an actor outside.

We know already that he was organizing meetings for the Mossad and Russian, like oligarchs. We know that Ehud Barak was coming over and like staying at his house and stuff. And that the, you know, that Alan Dershowitz was his confidant and his lawyer. So, like, he’s all tied up with Israel and the Israel lobby.

But so if it is what it looks like, which is like, are you telling me that like a foreign government, government that, by the way, is our welfare state, that art we pay portions of our taxes to every year, you’re saying they ran an op to American children, American girls, to compromise people, or at least there were American girls raped in the process of this network of events. And that you’re covering that up like, and then you’re going to sit here and tell me about how you redid the White House or something. And I’m supposed. Or even just like the moment like when he called the reporter a fat pig, like he called some female reporter a fat pig. And then you just kind of like, dude, you’re scumbag, piggy, whatever. But he’s like, you’re a scumbag, dude. And it was over an Epstein question.

THEO VON: Was it. Tense exchange that President Trump had with the press aboard Air Force One is now going viral.

DAVE SMITH: It stems from the words that he.

THEO VON: Chose to try to get a female reporter to stop asking questions about. Here’s the clip.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, that shows like a. There’s a nastiness to Donald Trump. And when it’s harnessed the right way, we all loved it because the people he was taking on were so evil. And so when Hillary Clinton goes, good thing someone with your temperament’s never president. He goes, because you’d be in jail. We’re like, yeah, dude, get her. Know you. You know, but then you turn it around and like, look, this wasn’t someone in the liberal media asking you about Russiagate for the 19,000th time. And you’re like, shut up.

She was asking a totally legitimate question. Like, sir, you campaigned on releasing these files. Your FBI director and deputy FBI director and Attorney general all told the American people they were going to. She asked a totally reasonable question about the files. And then he just goes to this very vicious, like, insult. And I don’t know. Look, I know there’s a lot of people out there still support Donald Trump. That’s fine. But, like, I’m out. I just don’t. I can’t. Oh, yeah, I can’t defend that.

THEO VON: Yeah. I mean, no, it would be crazy if the lady had a name tag on that said Piggy. Right.

DAVE SMITH: That would. If there was another angle, then showed that and you go, oh, man, this is like one of those videos where I blame the cop. But then I saw that the guy had a knife. Oh, it’s like.

THEO VON: It’s almost like a family guy. And then.

DAVE SMITH: And then after people go, oh, you see, Trump goes her name. I was just. I don’t know.

THEO VON: Or if it was Halloween or something, you know, and she was.

DAVE SMITH: She’s dressed up as Miss Piggy.

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s the only way that I think that would have made sense.

DAVE SMITH: I’ll apologize if that. If that information comes out.

THEO VON: That just. I think that irked me because, like, it was like, you start to assume, okay, maybe the girl’s thick or like a. You know, or has some thighs or something like that. Maybe just a body style that he likes. And so that. That’s why he was, like, trying to find.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, yeah. Like you think, like, he was trying to say the thing that’ll have her crying tonight when she gets home or whatever hurt her feelings.

THEO VON: And everybody hates that.

DAVE SMITH: And also. But it’s just over. It’s clearly in that example. It’s over his defensiveness, his insecurity that this isn’t going well for him and that he’s covering something up and he.

THEO VON: Looks bad, but it just seemed. Yeah.

Trump’s Connection to Epstein

DAVE SMITH: You remember when Elon said. When him and Elon had their. Seemed to break split. And that was the thing Elon went to. That was his go to when he got real furious, he goes, oh, yeah, well, let me tell you something. It was like your girlfriend saying, you have a little d* when you break up or something. Like that his go to was Trump’s in the Epstein files, and that’s why they haven’t come out. And that was before he made his whole move to, like, publicly try to cover them up.

And I do, I got to say, does make you wonder. Does make you wonder what exactly did Donald Trump do? He definitely knew that the guy. He definitely partied with the guy. And he’s on record. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this, a videotape of him talking about how Jeffrey Epstein likes the ladies young. Like, he. He knew something about that. Do your best to find out.

There’s the. They have the quote. “I’ve known Jeffrey Epstein for 15 years. Terrific guy. He has a lot of fun to be with. He likes the beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side” from 2002. I’m almost positive I have seen. Seen it on video, but that’s the statement. But still, like, really weird things to say about a guy who six years later gets convicted for soliciting an underage prostitute.

THEO VON: Like, yeah, it makes you wonder what type of control these higher entities have. Right? Yeah. Because do they do something like that with Trump where they say, okay, we’re going to. We have a bullet that’s so accurate. Because who knows, maybe they used a drone right here, you know what I’m saying, and had it 20 feet off or hidden behind the. You don’t know. They could have, you know, they could have done something like that and just said, okay, if you don’t do this, if you don’t, whenever this phone rings, you don’t pick it up and do whatever is said, you’re going to die. Right.

You have to just wonder what kind of things are they using? Because that could be the ultimate thing, you know, I’m saying we’re going to harm someone for your family.

The Dark Side of Power

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, well, it’s something people have always wondered about because we know, right? We know for a fact that these are people who will lie the country into war. So these are people who are comfortable with killing a whole lot of innocent people for an agenda.

And in fact, I think Henry Kissinger even kind of said like his whole worldview was that once you rise to the upper echelons of power, there’s no such thing as morality anymore. This is like a “grand chessboard” kind of, you know.

And so, like, once you look at things like that, just think about, if you were willing to make the decision to send Israel more weapons after you’ve seen what they’re doing with those weapons. Or even you’ll go over there and like Nikki Haley autograph a bunch of bombs that’s about to go be dropped.

Even if you somehow supported what Israel was doing, which I don’t know how you could, but even if you did, you’d go, “Look, it’s so horrible that they have to do this, but they’ve got to get Hamas out or more people will end up dying,” or whatever your rationalization or justification was. You still recognize that a lot of these bombs are dropping on kids. I’m not going to autograph it. There’s something so tasteless and evil, but so you’re already that type of person.

What else would they do to control people? Well, it seems like killing’s not off limits, so it does make you wonder what. And we know some things, like from history, like we know the way the FBI was blackmailing Jack Kennedy.

THEO VON: Cause his wife’s nickname was Jack Kennedy.

DAVE SMITH: Jackie Kennedy. Yes, yes, yes. But they called him Jack. That was his nickname. But no, what’s his name? The head of the FBI. Oh, the JFK movie—Hoover. John Edgar Hoover presented Bobby Kennedy, who was the Attorney General, with a whole long document of all the women that JFK was cheating on his wife with and then gave him a, “Don’t worry, we have all of this. We’ll make sure it doesn’t get out, you know. Hey, who are you thinking nominating for FBI Director? Because I’m thinking you do me again.”

And he just had. And so there’s all types of different levels of that shit.

THEO VON: And you know what’s messed up, dude, is like, it’s dark and it’s twisted, but some of it also sounds kind of like there’s an excitement and there’s an addiction about the nefariousness.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, I think so.

THEO VON: Tantalizing about it, you know, and I bet there’s something.

DAVE SMITH: I bet that’s true with just power.

THEO VON: Right.

DAVE SMITH: You know, like just the power has got to be a drug.

THEO VON: Everything must just be.

The Intoxication of Power

DAVE SMITH: When I first started stand up, this would be like late 2006 and this was somewhere in 2008. So I’d been doing comedy for like two years and it was my first road gig that I ever did. Jay Okerson brought me and it was in Detroit at Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle.

And they at the time, none of us sold tickets or anything like that, but they papered the room. So it was a full room. And I had only been in front of like 70 to 100 people in my biggest shows. And this was a 350 seat room papered. I was super nervous.

But they were an unbelievable crowd. They were just white hot. I was a brand new comic, probably doing kind of horseshit jokes, but they worked and I was getting laughs. But I had never done a room of like 350. And they were hot. They were just white hot. They just loved everything. It was easy.

And I remember the feeling of just killing with a room of 350 people, which I had never experienced before. And it was almost like just being intoxicating. It’s just so great and almost like there’s nothing I could do in life right now that could ever recreate that feel.

Because there’s something about being a new comic too that even doing a big room now, it’s still fun, it’s still great, but it’s not quite like that first time when you’re so nervous and then it’s so awesome.

But imagine the feeling of power when you could move nations, you know, like you could make a decision. And I’ll tell you, there’s this tape of Hillary Clinton right after they overthrew Muammar Gaddafi, which was her big—they called it “Hillary’s War.” She was—and even Barack Obama in his memoir said she was really the one who pushed him over the edge. He was like 50/50 about it. Hillary Clinton really got him to do it. And they wanted this to be the thing.

THEO VON: She ran on against Iran.

DAVE SMITH: No, this is against Libya. That’s when they overthrew Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. And she comes and this is when you might remember there’s her famous thing where she goes, “We came, we saw, he’s dead.” And then just starts cackling, laughing.

And you can see in her the sociopathic excitement that she just overthrew a government of a nation. And now Libya has been a failed state ever since and probably hundreds of thousands of people have died and there’s open air slave markets still to this day.

And even by the time she was running for president in 2016, she couldn’t run on this anymore because it was five years later and the whole thing was a disaster already. But look at the happiness in her face. Look at the excitement.

So, I mean, that is the land of unconfirmed richness. “Yes, we came, we saw, he died.” She’s talking about a human, however you feel about Muammar Gaddafi, he was a rough dictator. She talked about a human being who was dragged through a street by an angry mob and sodomized to death.

I’m just saying most normal human beings would have at least a thing in them where you’re like, you probably aren’t cackling about that a couple days after it happened.

THEO VON: Yeah, just. I guess there’s this other world where it’s like, it’s just dark up there. But, yeah, people are toppling nations. People are thinking about world power and world control.

Ideologues and War Profiteers

DAVE SMITH: Moving trillions of dollars around. So there’s an element of that. And then there’s obviously an element of there are ideologues. There are people who believe things.

Like the guy, David Wormser, who wrote the Clean Break Strategy, who I was arguing with, he believes things. He’s got a worldview, right? So he’s a Jewish neoconservative who believes that the relationship between Israel and the US is in our interest and all of these things, and believes that Israel is the cradle of Western civilization and that if we topple these regimes, it will improve the region.

But the reason why a guy like David Wormser can go to Washington D.C. and actually get things done isn’t really because everyone there is an ideologue. It’s because weapons companies will fund the think tanks that produce that type of bullshit.

THEO VON: Right.

DAVE SMITH: Even though it’s the dumbest shit ever. His whole plan was that they would install a Hashemite in Iraq and that the Shiites of Iraq would have to listen to the Hashemites.

THEO VON: It’s all ridiculous.

DAVE SMITH: They’re like a Muslim lineage that supposedly is royalty or something like that. Like the King of Jordan is a Hashemite. They’re originally from Saudi Arabia. I forget the whole story. But they’re not native to Jordan. They’re Arabs.

But anyway, the whole plan is ridiculous. But the reason why Bill Crystal, like all the neocons, their think tanks were always funded by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. It wasn’t because those guys believed in any of it. It’s business. It’s just like, “Yeah, there’s going to be another war. We’ll get to sell a whole bunch of weapons to the government and rip them off,” and make hundreds of billions of dollars.

So it’s not so—I don’t know, there’s just all these things going on at once. And I don’t know exactly how they control everybody, but it sure is interesting watching all those guys. You just watch Cash Patel on a podcast and then Cash Patel when he’s in power, and man, are they different people.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s wild. I mean, it’s the wildest thing to me is how kind of accessible everything kind of seems. It’s like the fact that comedians are trying to be comedians. Well, we’re comedians, you know, comedians like ourselves or people that have started a podcast at some point, that the fact that we’re all that. I don’t know, sometimes it just blows my mind.

DAVE SMITH: Well, it’s crazy. It’s a crazy.

THEO VON: We’re involved in it somehow. Not involved in an egotistical way, like we have something, but it’s like, yeah, it’s just like, what the f* are we doing, dude? And it’s.

DAVE SMITH: And it’s.

THEO VON: It’s only because the news just completely f*ing shit itself.

The Media’s Collapse

DAVE SMITH: Well, there was a weird thing that happened at the exact same time. There were these two phenomenons where number one was that the media had been exposed in a really big way. And there were a lot of issues they were exposed on.

But I do think the two most devastating ones to them were Covid and Biden’s senility. Because the two things are that, number one, I mean, there was WMDs in Iraq, really degraded the institutions and things like that. The Obama recovery. There were a lot of things. Russiagate was a big thing.

But if you look at, say I remember arguing with people about this, a couple people who I like and respect, but I was arguing with them about—so when I was supporting Trump in 2024, they were like, “Dude, what are you doing? You had all these criticisms of Trump his first term, he did all these bad things, and now you’re supporting him.”

And I was like, “Look man, this is going to destroy the corporate media. And that’s the most important thing in America right now.”

Now what they said, their counter to me, and at the time we were guessing because we didn’t know where this was going to go. But their counter was they go, “Yeah, but Dave, last time Donald Trump came in, the media ratings actually went through the roof. Like MSNBC and CNN got higher ratings in 2016 when Trump came in.”

And I was like, “Yeah, but that’s because of Russiagate they got everyone to watch because they said they had this bombshell story and then that turned into nothing. But the big difference now is after Covid and after Biden being senile, no one trusts those guys anymore, so they’re not going to come back.”

And I turned out to be right about that prediction. The numbers didn’t go back up this time.

And so anyway, there is something there where Covid affected everybody. It wasn’t like the war in Iraq. Yeah, you kind of know they lied us into war and a whole bunch of people over there died. And maybe if you know someone who went over and served, and if you’re lower on the socioeconomic scale, you’re more likely to know someone.

But a lot of people don’t know anyone who went over to Iraq. And it didn’t really happen here, it happened over there. And yeah, we deal with the occasional terrorist attack or something like that, but it did.

But Covid changed everything. It affected everybody’s life directly and it all got proven to be bullshit. And then Joe Biden, it was just, you don’t need to pick up a book or even read an article to look at Joe Biden. And the average guy could just go, “Yeah, this guy clearly has lost it and you’re lying.”

And so that happened at the same time. The media blew every major crisis of the 21st century, lied through their teeth and were exposed. And the technology got to a point where essentially you could have—you would have needed a multimillion dollar budget to have a studio and a show just a decade ago or two decades ago.

Whereas now, now we live in an environment where some random guy can just post something and then he’ll have the CEO of the Daily Wire going, “This kid’s a bigot.” Did you see that?

THEO VON: The.

The Media’s Lost Credibility

DAVE SMITH: Not the CEO. It was some title. Some higher up at the Daily Wire tweeted. Some kid, just some kid who made like a video. He had asked a question at a Turning Point event and then made some video and then he goes, “Look at the Nazi youth scum.”

So like some regular, like, the point is, when we were younger, it would have been impossible for you to even get the attention of that guy.

THEO VON: Oh, if you’d ever got. Who was the guy on the Today show? The black guy, kind of chubby, lost a lot of weight.

DAVE SMITH: Oh yeah, Al Roker.

THEO VON: Yeah. You would have never been able to get Al.

DAVE SMITH: You can’t talk to Al Roker. That’s Al Roker, dude. Yeah, it’s like, that’s Al. Like, it was like maybe you would see a famous person on the street one day and that’d be like, exciting.

But the idea that now some kid, some 25 year old, like right wing kid could get like a journalist at the New York Times furious, you know, and like, and even this story, which I got to say I am a little bit skeptical of the kid, Shirley, I think is his name. Right?

Because I saw one, because I did see the other day that CBS, I believe it was, did send the camera crew down to one of those places that he claims were. And there were kids there and stuff and they should. So it was all. It was not exactly what he was representing it to be. I do think there’s probably widespread fraud there.

But I’m just saying, making the point that this guy, at least to me, was an unknown entity. As of last week, he got like, last I had seen it was over 100 million views on the video. And so it’s not CNN who’s breaking that story, it’s not NBC or CBS.

THEO VON: Nobody believes him anymore. They’ve lost their credit, they’ve lost their credibility. I mean, they’re sitting here, sitting here semi apologizing. Apologizing for not even really apologizing, just saying, kind of mildly admit something. Like, shouldn’t there be a class action lawsuit against them?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

THEO VON: Is there any code of liability? Like, could there be a class action lawsuit against them? Against.

DAVE SMITH: For something. Yeah, well, that’s right. It’s not even like you go to jail or there’s a lawsuit, but how about just like mass firings.

THEO VON: Yeah.

DAVE SMITH: Resignation, something. No, instead. And then for anyone paying attention, you’re like, dude, we know what just happened. The Israel lobby just purchased you. Barry Weiss is now in charge. Because you guys are bleeding support. You’re not even in the business of news. You’re in the business of an agenda, obviously. Right.

Like, it’s almost like so I don’t even like, sometimes with people like Barry Weiss and Ben Shapiro and all these guys, people who are certainly not fans of mine, but it’s like, I would at least just appreciate. Just admit you’re the Israel lobby, then at least we could have an honest conversation. At least admit your priority here is Israel. And then we could talk about, like, and pro.

THEO VON: Just skewing things. Pro Israel.

DAVE SMITH: Yes.

THEO VON: Like, they just had those announcements of, of like, that they need. Who was the guy just said, we have to adjust social media to, to or we’re going to lose the First Amendment. Did you see that guy?

Threats to Free Speech

DAVE SMITH: Oh, yeah, right. Yes. Yes, I did. I did see the video and bookmark it. I forget what the guy’s title was. But all also just. These people are like, so concerned about. They’ll be like, you know, there’s this rise of antisemitism. And like, fair enough. I personally. And maybe I’m biased because I’m Jewish, so maybe I’m not the one to speak on this.

But like, personally, I’ve always been very critical of Israel and the Israel lobby, but I’m not like, critical of Jews. I have regular people or regular people. And you shouldn’t judge individuals based on groups. I’m against collectivism, unlike Soran Mamdani. Like, I’m an individualist.

But if you’re real concerned that there’s a rise in hatred toward Jews, isn’t it kind of reasonable to go, like, maybe you shouldn’t have prominent Jews out there saying, “We’re going to repeal the First Amendment”? Like, maybe that’s not helpful.

THEO VON: Yeah, I don’t know if this does help. I mean, I just don’t understand why this guy just. In Israel, cybersecurity billionaire Shlomo Kramer says it’s time to limit the First Amendment. “We need to control all the social platforms and take control of what they are saying.” Saying, let’s see. See this? I know it’s difficult to hear, but.

DAVE SMITH: “It’s time to limit the First Amendment in order to protect it and quickly, before it’s too late.”

THEO VON: What do you mean?

DAVE SMITH: “I mean that we need to control the platforms, all the social platforms we need to stack, rank the authenticity of every person that expresses themselves online and take control over what they are saying based on that ranking. The government. The government should.” Yeah, that’s what you want to hear.

THEO VON: Out of a f* you, dude.

DAVE SMITH: Thick Israeli accent, but f* anybody who.

THEO VON: Says that kind of thing.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, that’s right. No, you’re my enemy now.

THEO VON: Yeah, you’re the enemy, dude. You’re going to control what we say in order to. But this is the crazy part, to protect the First Amendment.

DAVE SMITH: It’s George W. Bush’s line about the freedom market is he said when they asked him about the banker bailouts, they go, “I thought you were supposed to be a free market guy. Now all of a sudden, you like socialism when it’s big banks that fail.”

And he said, “I had to abandon the free market to save the free market.” That sure is a nice way of saying nothing. Actually, you just abandoned it. You didn’t save it at all. You just bailed out a bunch of rich bankers. And actually government taking control of what people are allowed and not allowed to say isn’t preserving the First Amendment.

THEO VON: That’s just.

DAVE SMITH: This is straight up Orwellian newspeak.

THEO VON: Like, we’re just. Everything is. There’s, it’s. There’s this, it’s. There’s another level of control. It’s, I think, like, it’s never been more obvious that there’s another level of control. But. But also that people are nervous because I don’t know if you’d have a guy saying this sort of thing. I mean, a lot of.

DAVE SMITH: No, they’re freaking out a lot of social platforms.

THEO VON: I know. TikTok just got bought by EL Ellison from Oracle. And there’s a lot of concern that they’re going to try and, you know, limit or, or dictate what can be said on there, you know?

The Israel Lobby’s Influence

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, well, that’s what. Look, I mean, that’s what all of this is about. And this is kind of what I meant by, like, at least just be honest with it. Look, like the reason this guy’s saying this and the reason they just bought TikTok and the reason Barry Weiss was just installed at CBS News is all for one obvious reason. It’s the letter that Charlie Kirk wrote to Benjamin Netanyahu and Benjamin Netanyahu right after Charlie Kirk got murdered. Read a couple lines from that letter. But he didn’t read the whole letter.

THEO VON: Didn’t write him a letter. I didn’t even know that.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, so the letter basically says, “We’re getting killed out here. The Israel side is getting annihilated.”

THEO VON: “Dear Mr. Prime Minister, one of my greatest joys as a Christian is advocating for Israel and forming alliances with Jews in the fight to protect Judeo Christian civilization.”

DAVE SMITH: So Netanyahu reads this. That part, you know, it doesn’t mention any of the rest of this.

THEO VON: “Most recently, I’m proud to have taken over Ambassador Huckabee’s show on TBN, where we continually support Israel and the Jewish people. My team and I have spent months analyzing these trends and debating ideas that could help you and your country push back against the disturbing developments. Anti Israel sentiment can undermine American support for Israel. The purpose of this letter is to lay out your concerns and outline if.”

DAVE SMITH: You get down to it later. I mean, he just, he basically, what he’s just saying here is like, listen, he has a whole proposal for what Israel has to do for their new PR strategy, but he’s very brutally honest. And he’s like, “You guys are getting killed with the young people here.”

And so anyway, that’s just the point is that all of this, that’s why you’re talking about limiting the First Amendment, because everyone’s talking about how evil the Israeli regime is. Everyone’s talking about how much undue influence they have over our lives. That’s a lot. Why not just be honest about that?

THEO VON: This is what, like, I wish they would just tell us why we pay Israel every year. Right? Like, and I know some of it is that they just buy weapons. And it’s. It seems like it’s like this. It’s like a lot of defense and technology stuff. And, and that’s a lot of. It’s not like we just send the money there, but I mean, we do send the money there, but then it’s used to buy weapons. You know, it’s like part of a.

DAVE SMITH: Percentage of it is spent on our military company. So.

THEO VON: Right.

DAVE SMITH: So, yes, a percentage of it is redistributed, distributed from the working class in America to Israel. But don’t worry, a percentage of that is also redistributed from the working class to big weapons companies. So if that makes you feel better, so that they can use those weapons to drop bombs on behalf of Israel on, like, Houthis in Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle east. Right? And then they can sell new weapons to our government, and then we can.

THEO VON: Also weaponize those countries to fight back against us.

DAVE SMITH: Right, right, right. Oh, and also, you know, and look, I mean, it’s the same. It’s the crazy thing with, like, these, these guys celebrating the success of Venezuela. You’re like, look, dude, we just had an Afghan who murdered a few American citizens, right? Because he was one of the people who was a collaborator with us in Afghanistan.

And so we felt we had to protect him by bringing them in, as we brought in a whole bunch of them here. And also, who is a collaborator with us in a war means what he was a 20 year old who grew up in a war. So yeah, there’s a whole bunch of like PTSD and crazy s* going on there too. How many of those are we going to have out of innovation? The answer is we don’t know. We don’t know. It’s a total guess.

THEO VON: Palestine.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, right. Oh, yeah, no, and I’m real. I am real concerned about that stuff too, man, because this long term effect, well, this is, this is what motivated a whole lot of the terrorism problem that we’ve had to deal with from the very beginning. And so you think you’re going to just fund and arm this genocide for two straight years? There’s a whole bunch of people who really do hate our guts over that.

The Everyday American Pays the Price

THEO VON: But regular humans like us, regular American people are the ones that suffer because we’re the ones out on the street that are walking somewhere if there’s a mass shooting. Like these rich people, these fancy or you know, like these elites, they never deal with anything like that, you know, like, no, that’s. They’re all have security and are protected. It’s like it’s the everyday person on the street who’s got to worry about some psychos, you know, going off.

DAVE SMITH: Well, that’s. Well, that’s the whole thing, dude, too about the nature of our decadent elites. That’s so infuriating. And there’s so many examples like this, right, where like even during, during COVID if you could think about like how much they’re lecturing everybody else for not wearing a mask. But then you see Gavin Newsom or you see Nancy Pelosi, she ain’t wearing a mask. They’re at the fancy restaurant yucking it up, right?

But it’s people who, they live in gated communities, but they call you a racist if you believe in a strong border. They got armed security, but they believe in gun control for you. You know, they destroy public schools, but they send their kids to fancy private schools. So they don’t got. It’s like they don’t got to suffer any of the ramifications of the hell on on earth that they bring for all these other people.

And obviously like the, the biggest victims here are the Palestinian people. But yeah, it’s also the American taxpayer who gets ripped off. And we also open. Look, Muhammad Atta, who was the lead hijacker, right, who flew into the North Tower, he was radicalized when Israel slaughtered a bunch of people in Lebanon. He signed up with Osama bin Laden that week, I believe.

It’s like this is one of the. It was one of the biggest grievances that Osama bin Laden had was your support for Israel and what they do to the Palestinian people. His other.

THEO VON: In his letter to America.

The Roots of Conflict and American Foreign Policy

DAVE SMITH: You mean in his letter to America. I believe it was in there. And he had two declarations of war against America, which I think were even more interesting than the letter to America. But he lists his grievances very clear. He didn’t like that we had our bases in Saudi Arabia and why did we have our bases in Saudi Arabia? For the dual containment policy against Iraq and Iran.

Well, who needed Iraq and Iran contained? You know, like, it’s always. And so it’s like we do this at our own peril.

THEO VON: Yeah. It’s almost like the elites, they just, they open up like the game of life, and we’re all the pieces and we’re all the, like. And they’re just playing this thing like it’s not even real to them. Oh, it’s your turn. Yeah. Go to the community chest. Get some money out of there. You want some houses? Sure. Sell them. You want some oil? Get a railroad. Whatever you need. Oh, your dad owes you.

DAVE SMITH: Whatever.

THEO VON: Oh, it’s so crazy.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, but like you said, it is more. It’s so much more exposed now than ever before. And that’s what makes it. That’s what makes the time so interesting. Yeah.

Exhaustion, Truth, and What’s Coming in 2026

THEO VON: I will say this. It’s interesting. This year is going to be interesting. Do you think that things get even crazier this year or do you think. Because I do think there becomes a level of kind of like exhaustion. Right. And there becomes a level of like, we’re not going to get any truth. We’re not going to get.

And then. And then truth. People who are trying to seek truth. Right. Or trying to share truth that they’re. They’re not even going to be able to allow. Be allowed to put their information out there.

DAVE SMITH: I think that’s probably the biggest fear of this year. It’s hard to make.

THEO VON: I’m not saying me, I’m just saying for.

DAVE SMITH: No, I understand what you’re saying. I think it’s hard to make predictions because such so many crazy things happen and so many things are going to happen. So, like now. Right. Okay. Well, what happens with Venezuela, That’s a huge question mark. And that’s going to have a huge impact on where the rest of this year goes.

But where things are right now, my best guess is at the end of this year, in November, I think the Democrats are going to destroy the Republicans in the midterm elections, really. And I think they’re going to run and win on affordability, which has been this, you know, which I hate the term because it’s like they literally just like, it’s price inflation. We already had a term for this. It’s debasement of currency.

Now you come along and you make some other term and then you go, oh, and the answer is socialism. So the answer is we need more government. Even though the whole problem is that we have so much government we can’t afford it. We have to print the money. So like, I think they’ve got it completely backward, but at the end of the day, that’s actually what people care about.

Man, people are getting killed out here. What they actually care about is that it’s like, you know, I talked to my father in law who’s a truck driver and has been a trucker for 50 years or something like that. And he’s, you talk to him, you know, he’s like, listen, I see how much taxes they’re taking out of my paycheck every week. And the price of everything just goes up and up and up. That’s what he wants to talk about. You know what I mean?

Like, that’s what the entire working class of America’s thinking, thinking about as if Trump could sit here and brag that he degraded Iran’s non existent nuclear weapons program. No one cares. No one cares. Like to the extent that people care, we’re against it and even the people who are for it, it’s not.

So I just think as of right now, he hasn’t delivered nearly enough. He overpromised like crazy. And the Ukraine war on day one, you know, all these things which I think he’s tried to at least do that, but he’s failed so far. And so unless he can rack up some wins, like some real clear W’s for the American people, not I liberated the Venezuelans, which no one believes was actually the goal anyway.

THEO VON: The last thing we want as a people here is to have the. Now there’s like this stress of like, okay, well what do we have to do to take care of them now? What’s that going to cost?

DAVE SMITH: Right, right.

THEO VON: We’re over there, you know, like, what were they really doing? What are you guys really trying to do?

New York’s New Mayor and the Problem with Collectivism

DAVE SMITH: Just like, it’s just whatever. It’s a shame to me because also, like, look, like if you take Zohran Mamdani, who just got sworn in as the mayor of New York, right? Like, they, it was such a funny thing, man, because they first off, they ran Cuomo against him of all the people, like he was the establishment figure, the murderer governor who like killed all these old people and locked down the city and just had all this baggage.

And then he’s all. Also a huge Israel supporter, a friend of Netanyahu’s and all that. And so they thought the way to attack Mamdani was to go like, he won’t even commit to visiting Israel. And you were like, dude, everyone hates Israel right now.

But in his speech the other day, he has this line that of course a bunch of the conservatives are flipping out about. But he said, we’re going to something like, we’re going to shake off rugged individualism in favor of collectivism. And I just find it so interesting that the guy, the one guy who’s running for mayor, it’s not a position that matters for foreign policy, but he would at least, you know, I don’t like socialism and I don’t like wokeism, and he was one of each, but he at least stuck up for the poor Palestinians a little bit. And I kind of liked that.

But it’s so funny to hear that guy embrace collectivism when like, hey, you want to see collectivism? Look at Gaza. That’s collectivism. That’s collective punishment. That influence, fact. What is the defense? Oh, here, you want to play the clip?

THEO VON: Yeah, play the clip. We will draw this city closer together. We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.

DAVE SMITH: If our campaign demonstrated that the people.

THEO VON: Of New York yearn for solidarity, then.

DAVE SMITH: Let this government foster it.

THEO VON: Because no matter what you eat.

DAVE SMITH: Well, let me, let me say. So the. Look, when I say what’s going on in Gaza is close, and I’ve done like a bunch of debates on Israel, Palestine over the last couple years, like, you know, dozens of them. And the number one defense, I’m sure you’ve heard this back too, right? Like, the number one thing that an Israel defender would say to you is, don’t start a war. You know, they’ll go, this is war. Yeah, innocent people are dying. It’s terrible, but it’s war. And Hamas started the war. And this is what happens when you start the war. And therefore it’s on Hamas, right?

And so like, now look, there’s a lot of things wrong with that defense. Like, part of it is that, like, okay, yeah, but what about a brutal 60 year occupation? What about being kept as permanent refugees for 80 years. What about you killing a whole bunch of people? Like, who really started it.

But the most fundamental thing that’s wrong with saying that’s why you don’t start a war is that the people we’re talking about didn’t start a war. That two year old girl didn’t start a war. What are you talking about, man? This mother who just lost her child, she didn’t start a war. She just. You got kids. Half the people in Gaza are kids. They didn’t start anything. They just got f*ed. They just got born into hell, you know, like, they didn’t start anything.

And so collectivism is like saying, oh, you’re collectively responsible. No, you guys, as a. You guys started this war. You go, that’s just what bigotry is, man. That’s just blaming everybody for the sins of one group. That’s saying, a black guy mugged me the other day, therefore blacks mugged me the other day. Like, no, they didn’t. There’s some other black dude, had nothing to do with that, who is just getting blamed for that, you know.

And so it’s interesting to see the guy said, like, oh, we’ll, we’ll shake up. Actually, individualism is the reason why what Israel’s doing is wrong. It’s collectivism is what would justify it.

THEO VON: What do you think will be different with him and office areas? Mayor and do you also think some people think he, he’s actually for the opposition? Really?

DAVE SMITH: I don’t know. Do you ever see. He had one of my favorite woke tweets of all time. What was the. Did you ever see the. It’s the defunding the police Queer Liberation tweet? If you just look that up. Mamdani. Defunding the police. Queer liberation. I believe the tweet still hasn’t been deleted. It’s the. It’s a great like a woke ad lib. “Queer liberation means defund the police.” Zohran Mamdani.

Like he was real into that woke sh back then. I love it really does feel like you just picked out woke words and put them all together. But that’s. I don’t think. I think this guy’s just kind of like an intellectual lightweight and kind of goofy. I don’t think he actually gets that much done in New York City is my guess.

THEO VON: I can’t imagine.

DAVE SMITH: But maybe I don’t think any of it’s good. If he gets any of his plans through, it ain’t going to be good.

The Underdog Appeal and America’s Socialist Programs

THEO VON: Well, you know what I like, I think, and this is just my perception. Right.

DAVE SMITH: Right.

THEO VON: I could be totally wrong. What I liked about him was I just felt like he was the underdog.

DAVE SMITH: Well, that is true. No, he. He was. He was.

THEO VON: And the entire establishment was against him, always. That’s the thing that always gets me. It’s like, really?

DAVE SMITH: Are you the underdog? Well, I get. I get that impulse, and I do. I share that, too. I felt the same way. I was kind of rooting for him to some degree, too, because of that same dynamic. I guess it’s just like. The problem is that, like, essentially, the Republicans endorse a whole bunch of socialism. You know, like, there’s a. We have giant entitlement programs. You know, Social Security and Medicare.

They’re actually. Both of those programs are socialist programs, but they’re socialist programs that redistribute money from a poorer group to a wealthier group, which is pretty indefensible when you think about it. Like, young people are poor, poorer than the old people that they have to work to pay their Social Security and Medicare payments for.

THEO VON: Pretty wild. But they’re assuming that it’s them.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, supposedly. But what’s actually happening is you’re transferring wealth from a poor to a richer group with the promise of, like, you’ll get some back one day. Medicaid is actually a welfare program that redistributes from working people to poorer people, but they’re giant socialist programs. The military itself is a giant socialist program. It’s a big government program.

So the Republicans endorse a ton of socialism, you know, and then the Democrats, whenever the Republicans, you know, lead to disaster, they go, well, what we need is even more. What we need is even more government, even more socialism. And there’s just. What America really needs is Ron Paul, who’s, you know, just turned 90, and I think he’s got one more presidential run in him, but I’m not sure. He might be. He might be.

THEO VON: I don’t know. His emails are getting.

DAVE SMITH: But look, the point is the real.

THEO VON: Look, I love Ron Paul, but his emails are getting a little bit. They need his spell check, and you can tell.

DAVE SMITH: All right, listen, that’s. That’s fair. The guy’s not perfect, but he’s the closest to it.

THEO VON: Look, he could be perfect. I’m just saying he’s got his spell check, his sh over there.

DAVE SMITH: Fair enough.

THEO VON: But also, we just went through the Biden thing. I don’t think he can push an old person. No, I’m just.

DAVE SMITH: I was. I’m joking about him being. He’s not running for president. Again, but Ron Paul was right about everything. He was right about just about everything.

THEO VON: And he’s.

The Constitution and American Principles

DAVE SMITH: And the real answer to all of this stuff is actually Americanism, like, true Americanism. And the best part of Americanism, which was always—and that’s why that Israeli guy talking about limiting the First Amendment so infuriating—the best. The best. What America needs is the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, what we were always supposed to be, what we abandoned long ago. That’s actually what we need.

And, you know, I saw—so a good friend of mine who I love and really, really respect, who I think is brilliant, Darrell Cooper, and he was saying on Twitter today that, like, he goes, dude, it’s not even—it’s pointless to make the argument that this war in Venezuela was unconstitutional. You know, he goes, it’s a pointless argument to make because we’ve shredded the Constitution years ago, and we’ve already accepted that presidents have these war powers.

And so, like, I mean, I don’t want to mischaracterize what he was saying, but I think it was essentially something like that. Like, the argument just rings hollow. But I just kind of respectfully disagree where I’m like, no, man. Like, we either have the Constitution or we don’t, and it’s a whole lot better to have it. And could anyone read the Constitution? And actually, this is where he said, “Stop whining about the action. Venezuelan being unjustified or unconstitutional or whatever.”

THEO VON: You look weak and might as well be complaining that it doesn’t follow Hammurabi’s code. Trump knows that American leaders are judged by whether they win or lose, nothing else.

DAVE SMITH: Now, look, he’s right about that to an extent. Right? Like, if Venezuela turns around tomorrow and is a bastion of freedom or something like that, then that’s a huge win for Donald Trump. And he’s going to be able to brag and people will go, oh, Dave, you care about morality and the Constitution. But this worked. So, like, he’s right about that.

But the point is that it’s like, dude, if you just, like, the Constitution claims to be the law of the land. The Constitution is what created this government. So if you’re going to accept that they don’t have to live under that own Constitution, which they put a hand on the Bible and a hand in the air—who doesn’t? Where our politicians, Donald Trump, the political class who swears to God in front of all of us that they will uphold and defend this document.

Like, I’m not arguing any of us are bound by the Constitution. But they are. They swore an oath to it. You know what I mean?

THEO VON: They went into politics. That’s their—yes.

DAVE SMITH: Their obligation in front of their nation and in front of God was to defend and protect the Constitution. You can’t tell me, dude, that it’s constitutional for a country that clearly poses no threat to us. Even if the drug accusation were true, it’s not like an immediate—it’s not—there’s nuclear missiles lined up on Cuba and the president has to take action.

THEO VON: It’s—

DAVE SMITH: You had all the time in the world to come to Congress to have a debate about this and for our elected representative government to, you know, like, vote how they feel about the war, make their arguments to their kids. But if you’re telling me that our—the legal justification that they’re going with is that he’s not the president. That’s what Marco Rubio said. “No, we didn’t get the president of Venezuela. We just got some Trump drug dealer. He’s just a gangster. He’s not the president.”

That was—Marco Rubio tweeted today that that’s the—like, dude, come on. This is so illegal. This is so unconstitutional. And if you’re just going to sit back and allow a government to be that like—okay, well, that government who can violate the constitution against Venezuela is powerful enough to violate every American citizen’s rights as well.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s weird. It’s like you have to—if you stand up for it, you have to stand up for it. You know?

DAVE SMITH: That’s right.

Marco Rubio’s Statement on Venezuela

THEO VON: And also one thing that was interesting was whenever Ken Burns was here, we talked about the declaration. Oh, this is Secretary Marco Rubio right here. It says, “Maduro is not the President of Venezuela and his regime is not the legitimate government. Maduro is the head of the Cartel de los Solas, a narco terror organization which has taken possession of a country and he is under indictment for pushing drugs into the United States.”

Who’s he? He’s being indicted by us. But what proof do we have that he is the head of the cartel de los Solas?

DAVE SMITH: Zero. Zero has been offered. Zero’s been offered. It’s not even clear the thing exists.

THEO VON: Yeah, I was looking forward earlier.

DAVE SMITH: Seems to be like some low level mid network thing. It’s all bullsh*t and look like what they—which might be true. I’m actually not sure, but this might be true. But they’ll be like he lost the election or the election was illegitimate or something like that. It’s like, yeah, like I referred to them on Twitter as a sovereign Nation. And some, a bunch of people were saying, oh, they’re not a sovereign nation.

But it’s like, listen, man, first of all, we do business with dozens of countries that just don’t have elections like that are just aren’t democracies at all. And also, you’re saying the last election was bullsh*t. Isn’t that what Trump said about us? Like, is that so? By your logic, could anyone just come in and depose the Biden?

Like, even right winger Trump supporter who believes the 2020 election was stolen. Do you really believe that China or Russia could have come into America two years ago and just kidnapped Joe Biden? Like you would have no problem with that. I think you’d right away be like, no, no, no, no, motherf*er. We will decide whether our illegitimate government stands or falls or what. And so all of these things, this is all just complete nonsense.

THEO VON: I wonder how the people there—

DAVE SMITH: Well, there were some people celebrating for sure.

THEO VON: I saw that. But then also some of those celebrations were happening in different countries and stuff like that. You don’t know exactly what was going on. One of them was also from a soccer game after a soccer game in the streets. So you don’t know some of exactly what’s happening.

DAVE SMITH: And that also doesn’t mean it’s going to lead to something that they’ll be celebrating.

THEO VON: I mean, look, this could be a nightmare for them.

The Iraq Parallel

DAVE SMITH: Saddam Hussein was a Sunni Ba’athist party, right? The Sunnis are like 20% of the Iraqi population, and I think 60% are Shiites. Definitely. Like, there’s a super majority of Shiites in the country. And so when Saddam first got toppled, a lot of people were celebrating. A lot of them weren’t Shiites who had been brutally oppressed by Saddam Hussein. So they’re celebrating, but they didn’t know that they were about to enter into the most brutal civil war where just hundreds of thousands of people were going to get killed.

Again, I’m not saying because it happened that way in Iraq, that means it’s going to happen that way in Iraq, in Venezuela. But the idea that the people are celebrating day one, like, okay, yeah, look, Maduro was not a good guy and he was a socialist dictator. So like, okay, fine, there’s people happy he’s gone, but that don’t mean that what replaces him can’t be worse.

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah, it’s just—and then if we’re involved in it, you know, how much are we there to help? That’s the question. That used to feel different. It used to feel like we’re there to help. And then now it’s like, are we there to—to help or are we just there to serve somebody’s interests? You know, and not even like a regular person’s interest, right?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, that’s right.

The Declaration of Independence as a Living Document

THEO VON: One thing that Ken Burns said, and he did, like, the Ken Burns documentary, he just—he’s a documentarian, you know, he is. He had—he has a new documentary about the American Revolution, but he said that the Declaration of Independence, it talks about the pursuit of happiness. Right? And we talked about it being like an active document. It’s not like a reception seat, Right. It’s like a—it’s kind of a—it’s an evolving document, right? Like, we’re not guaranteed to have an America, right?

DAVE SMITH: Yes. Well, Benjamin Franklin’s line was, right, like some woman said, what have you given us? And he said, “A republic if you can keep it.” Which is like a great—like—and then Thomas Jefferson had some line where it was like, “The tree of liberty has to be watered periodically with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”

So, like, even they were going, and, like, this thing is going to have to be kept. Like, there’s going to be a process of having to continue this thing. Like, it’s not just like, oh, it’s written down on a piece of paper. So it’s a magic potion. And now this guarantees a free society.

But I will—and I will say also, like, because there’s like this debate about like a propositional nation versus, like a blood and soil nation or something like that. And I’m not saying, like, America isn’t just a nation of ideas. It’s a nation of people, like, who actually existed and a common culture and a tradition and like, all of them, those things and Christianity and like, there’s a lot of forces there.

But the fact that our first founding document is the Declaration of Independence and the fact that we became the wealthiest, most prosperous, freest country in the world is not a coincidence, dude. And like, it’s—it’s so beautiful that the story that there’s no country in history that is started, the starting place is that we started say, man should be free.

And also, I love this about the—it’s like in like the first sentence or the first couple sentences, they say it’s self evident. They say it’s self evident that God wants us to be free, which is not actually self evident, but I just love that as a starting point that it’s just like, you know what? Here’s our starting point. We’re not debating that there’s a God and God wants us to be free.

And then it says—and these are my words, not the thing, but then it says, says, governments are just a thing that man institutes to protect our liberty. And if government’s not protecting our liberty, then we have the right and maybe even the obligation to violently overthrow that government and institute a new one that will protect our free—like that concept of, like, the individual and freedom and the natural right, it never happened before. It had never been, like, based on a government or a country based around that idea.

THEO VON: Well, I think that idea had never really occurred. I mean, it had been like—I think you were coming out of a time where there was a lot of colonialism. It was like, us as a group and what are we doing for, you know, our flag and our, you know, or what are we doing, like, as a group? You know? And then America, it was like, no, we can be free. You can be free.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: I think it lit the pilot light of, like, creativity and individualism in people.

The Civil Rights Movement and Constitutional Promises

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, no, that’s right. And was something always to strive for, like, even when we weren’t living up to it. And in fact, even—right. Like, I mean—and look, the civil rights movement is complicated and stuff, but at the heart of it, that was Martin Luther King’s—that was what he said in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech where he said, I forget the exact line, but it was something like he said, “We went to deposit our check and we were told there were insufficient funds” or something like that. He had a line like insufficient funds.

But essentially what he was saying, which he did spell out in other spelling speeches, was that he’s like, you said, all men are created equal. You said, all men have inalienable rights. So what are we talking? Like, he was able to play on that, to go, right. The metaphor is a bad check marked as insufficient funds. But basically—but the bad check is that he’s saying, like, look, we have these constitutionally protected rights here, highlighting how the nation—

THEO VON: Defaulted on the promissory note of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, leaving black people to cash a check for liberty that came back unpaid.

DAVE SMITH: So he was able to say, hey, look, if the Declaration of Independence means what it says, then you can’t have Jim Crow. What are you talking—and so, like, even, like, it was always something that we—and then, of course, America did relatively, to every other country that had ever existed, have the most free market economy ever. They’re the most free market, laissez faire, capitalist country that was ever, ever created, and that led to the most prosperity ever.

We didn’t—we didn’t become a rich country, like, in the way that the French or the English did. It wasn’t like, oh, you’re—you’re an empire that goes around and colonizes other countries and extracts their resources back to yours. We just built things. We just had factories and men who worked and—you know what I mean?

Like, so, anyway, I just—I think that there’s—there’s, like—there’s been a huge—like, we’ve gotten away from that as a country for far too long.

The Cost of Government Growth

THEO VON: But do you think as people, we have, or do you just. No, no, I think just as the upper realm and as the leaders and as the politicians, I think we’ve.

DAVE SMITH: Look, as people, I would say we’ve allowed our politicians and our government to get away from all of those things. And for the government to amass, we’ve been too comfortable. Well, and they’ve just been amassing more and more power.

And it’s like a buildup effect where they always take a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. And then you get to the point where the government spends, like, over $7 trillion a year. It’s unthinkable.

THEO VON: And forcing most people into lifestyles that makes it tough for them to even have time to see who they’re voting for and to know what’s going on.

DAVE SMITH: That’s right.

THEO VON: And it’s so hard to even know what’s going on. It’s so hard to find good information and real information. It’s just, you know, and now it’s like, where do you even get to that from? It’s really, really tough because you can’t.

DAVE SMITH: Like, you got to just believe anything Candace says, man. That’s the new world we live in. I don’t know, dude.

THEO VON: She’s pretty. I mean, she’s brave, dude.

DAVE SMITH: Oh, she’s brave. That’s an understatement.

THEO VON: That’s what we’re saying at the beginning, that. Yeah, yeah, dude. Her kids play games or, like, instead of playing cops and robbers, they played “Who Killed Charlie?”

DAVE SMITH: Kurt.

The Rise of Vigilante Journalism

THEO VON: So crazy. What do you think about journalism before you go? We got to get you out of here in a little bit. They just had this stuff in Minnesota recently where this young guy, Nick Shirley, I’m sure you’re familiar with him now. And like you were saying earlier, like, in a week, everybody knows his name now.

He’s been YouTubing, and he’s been doing kind of vigilante journalism for a while, but he was going to investigate some of these Somali daycare systems centers. What were your thoughts on some of that? And then what do you think about vigilante journalism? Like, I think this is just going to be like gasoline on just like anybody becoming a journalist now.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, I love that. I mean, I think it’s great. And again, that’s not to vouch for this kid or something.

THEO VON: Andrew Callahan’s been doing it for a long time. Guys like.

DAVE SMITH: No, I think those guys are really important. And one of the things that I found so fascinating about this was just that look, there’s been reporting on the fraud in Minnesota before this. And there’s even been like, they claim some indictments and stuff like that, but dude, just the fact that this guy is driving the media narrative now.

And then you see CNN and CBS and them. They got to now respond to him like he’s. It used to be. And I remember when I started paying attention to this stuff, which has been like 20 years or something like that, that now the way it worked 20 years ago was that the New York Times Sunday paper came out every Sunday, and then that dictated what all the corporate media outlets were going to talk about for the next seven days.

Like, this was in the Times, and so it filtered out. Now it’s this guy with a YouTube channel or with a Twitter account, and they can go and kind of like they can expose that. Like, there’s this scam. And then by exposing the scandal, it also exposes the media and the Justice Department. And it’s like, why is this kid the one who’s bringing us this information? Right. But I do think going forward, that’s going to kind of be the new normal.

THEO VON: Well, we already had the information, right. I think a lot of the information was already there. But it is interesting of how it served to you and how what you’ll like, why now is it so much? Did it seem more real? Because he was right there with the people. You’re hearing the.

DAVE SMITH: I think so.

THEO VON: And all the windows are blacked out at all these places. And then some of it, like the learning center that seemed too on the nose to me. Like, that almost seemed fake.

DAVE SMITH: That’s. It just seemed crazy that no one would catch this. I mean, like, that. Yeah, it did seem almost a little bit too much.

THEO VON: You’re telling me a parent is dropping their kid off there, or even somebody that works there that is pretending. And they’re. If they’re getting money and they’re going to have that, it just. That seemed, like, staged.

DAVE SMITH: It seemed almost too on the nose. I know what you mean. I know what you mean. But what is interesting is that, you know, Tim Walz, he ran on this as vice president. He said it at the vice presidential debates, that he was bragging about how they upped the money that was going to daycare and that him and Kamala Harris were going to take this program and federalize it and bring it to the national level.

It really is something. You know, I don’t know. I think there’s so many interesting conversations about all of that, but I think that it kind of ties back into the stuff I was saying about inflating the currency, destroying the purchasing power of the dollar.

Now everybody. It’s so weird to me when you think about when I was saying my grandfather could have his wife not work and own a house, and we are so much richer than he was. The technological advances between then and now, we should be living at such a higher standard of life, and yet almost no young people can do that today.

Like, literally the only people I know who can do that today are, like, rich, successful comedians. Like, if, you know, like, rich people could have their wife not work. That’s the only people who really do that. These or pretty much.

The Economics of Daycare and Family Structure

THEO VON: I know. It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart that both parents have to work all the time. If they don’t. If they don’t really want to.

DAVE SMITH: Well, so now while these Democrats are talking about how the more socialism, right. The government should provide your childcare, your.

THEO VON: Daycare for you to.

DAVE SMITH: Now it’s like, does anyone ask, like, do we want to live in a society where our kids are raised in daycare? Like, I don’t know. I got little kids, and I know people, and I know when I say this, people get upset sometimes. I don’t mean to be judgmental of you personally, because I know if you put your kid in daycare, then this seems like I’m attacking you or something like that. But I just can’t imagine people drop their babies. Babies off at daycare, dude.

THEO VON: I managed a daycare, dude, when I was like, 15 and a half, bro.

DAVE SMITH: Dude, I love you. I was never dropped my babies off with you at 15 and a half. Are you crazy?

THEO VON: When I was 15, I might have been. I might have been 16, but, dude, I remember one time I’d stayed out really late. My buddy and I were been actually stealing boat radios to put a radio into my car. And we’re like, oh, dude, nobody’s monitoring these boat radios at the marina. Let’s go there, get some radios out of there. But there’s some different. There’s like, some of the wiring is different or whatever. Anyway, nightmare.

So we just got to work, and I was like, well, dude, I’m just going to lay in my car for a little while because we’d been drinking a decent amount. And so I was like, I’m just going to lay in my car for a little while, and then I’ll wake up whenever the sun pops up, and then I’ll manage the daycare or whatever.

And then. So, dude, bro, I guess the sun, like, it wasn’t that hot or whatever.

DAVE SMITH: I parked, like, where.

THEO VON: Like, the tree. Like, I was in the shade of a tree too much. And one of the owners or whatever came over and knocked on windows at 8, and I was supposed to be there at 6:30. It was like 8am and, dude, it was like my car just smelled like vodka and had all these f*ing radios all over. My hands were cut up from getting the radios out. And anyway, nightmare. But, yeah, bottom line, dude, I ran. Dude, we.

DAVE SMITH: You probably shouldn’t send your kids to that daycare.

THEO VON: Yeah, but I’m just saying, anybody can do a daycare, right? And we. Dude, we watched Terminator, I remember, with kids. And them kids were little.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

THEO VON: They shouldn’t have been watching it.

DAVE SMITH: Well, yeah, that. I appreciate your honesty there, but it is a thing where it shouldn’t have been.

THEO VON: I still feel bad sometimes. I still wake up and I’m like, they shouldn’t have been watching it. Well, because there’s one scene where you see, like, three tits in it or whatever. Or Total Recall.

DAVE SMITH: Total Recall. That’s. I remember that. That’s the three.

THEO VON: Total Recall. And there’s a scene where the three tits are on there and there’s all these kids looking at it. I’m like, dude, y’all shouldn’t be watching this.

DAVE SMITH: That wasn’t. And we were.

THEO VON: We were watching it. That was the problem. I sometimes I forgot that I wasn’t. I felt like I was in the class or whatever.

Government Power and the Family Unit

DAVE SMITH: Well, I will say a lot of the reason, I think, why, you know, these people who are the big government progressives and stuff like that, and the whole kind of neoliberal culture in America, which is always kind of for years, been demonizing, you know, straight white men and demonizing patriarchal families and all of this.

There’s a reason why big central governments don’t like the family structure and religion and community and all of those things, because they’re all a hedge against their power and the system. Right. Like this inflating the currency that leads to all the things we were talking about. Right. But that is actually very good for the political class.

It’s very like inflation in general is very good. If you hold debt, if you’re a big debtor, inflation is your friend because you pay off the debt. Like, if you want. If you want to buy something, but the money is worth a lot less. Well, now, your hamburger used to cost five bucks. Now it costs 15 bucks. That sucks for you if you’re the person who wants to buy it. But if you owe $1,000 and now.

THEO VON: You’re selling hamburger at $15 a pot.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, yeah, you owe less than you did before. So if you have debt, inflation is your friend. And also debt. Well, in the old. It’s not a bad thing to have in an inflationary environment, but in the old system, like in the old order. Right.

My grandfather would work at the factory all day long. My grandmother would work, you know, taking care of the kids and managing the house and cooking and cleaning and all that stuff all day long. But only one of those incomes was taxable, Right? My grandfather’s was taxable. But you can’t tax my house, wife, grandmother.

But if she goes into the workforce now there’s two taxable incomes. Then you hire a daycare worker, that’s a third taxable income. And so there’s just way more revenue going to the federal government when the government’s raising your kids rather than your mother. Yeah, but it’s not really so good for the babies.

THEO VON: No.

DAVE SMITH: Like, it’s better for the babies if their mom and dad are the ones raising them or their grandmother or their aunt or someone who’s just inherently always going to love them more than some worker at a daycare.

THEO VON: Well, that’s why when a kid’s mom comes to pick them up from a daycare, as opposed to your babysitter come and pick you up or something, there’s just a different feeling about it even watching it. There’s a different feeling about it. Yeah. You know, and then you. It’s also. It’s like if you get someone else to work, then you need another car. Now they need another car to get to work. Right. So then you have gas lobbyists and auto lobbyists that are going to push for those things, you need those things.

DAVE SMITH: That’s right.

THEO VON: I don’t know. But then also it’s like, dude, I feel so bad sometimes because I get stuck in these circles of just being like a Debbie Downer sometimes, you know, And I don’t think that that’s, that’s not good.

The Promise and Peril of Progress

DAVE SMITH: No, no. And I think, no, you’re right, it’s not good. And you don’t want. And I also don’t think we should be a downer. Like, I’m still somewhat pessimistic on the short run here. Like, I don’t think things are, all these problems are going to be solved tomorrow. But like we do, we are at the precipice of a new age that’s going to be something wild that none of us can really understand.

You know, I was, who was it was saying might have been Jimmy Carr. I can’t remember. Somebody was talking about when AI gets pointed at physics and then we can like actually have AI like inventing new things about physics because like all the things that have really changed our world are related to the study of physics. Like that, you know, and the fact that that like.

Dude, my grandfather fought in World War II. This is a thing that happened in the previous century. There were two world wars. You know, things looked pretty bad there for a while, but people getting slaughtered by the tens of millions in World War I, fighting in, you know, 17 year olds, fighting in trench warfare and stuff like that.

And now we live in an age where like an infection that would have killed you, you know, a hundred years ago is like, you go grab some amoxicillin, you’re fine. You know, people literally, you get strep throat. That’s like no big deal, man. Strep throat without amoxicillin is a really, really big deal.

And so we have. My son was saved with an open heart surgery that just 30 years ago you just didn’t have. And I would have lost a kid. Like, so we do live in this amazing time and we all have more of a voice and more of a platform and more opportunity to like, to work together and find truth.

Like, I think there’s a lot of really beautiful sh*t going on, but part of that beautiful thing is that we can expose how ugly this corruption is. And man, even as somebody who’s really lived in the world of like being furious at these guys for how corrupt it is, the more you get, the more information you get. It’s so much uglier than you.

So it’s like it’s like a metaphor for life in general. Right. It’s in life you got to deal with there’s, like, tremendous beauty and there’s tremendous tragedy. And we all have that within us, and you all. And you got to somehow, like, stomach the tragic part of it so that you can get to experience a little bit of the beauty, you know?

THEO VON: Yeah. And even we’re able to sit here and at least, like, feed ourselves, we’re able to talk about things. Like, there’s places where people have no freedom at all. Right now, you know?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

THEO VON: This is. This video by Jimmy Carr here. Jimmy Carr drops a wild take on AI and physics.

DAVE SMITH: Oh, yeah, it was Jimmy Carr. I was right.

THEO VON: He’s excellent.

DAVE SMITH: Oh, yeah. And this was on. I think it was on. Is this on trigonometry?

THEO VON: Yeah, he’s excellent. Let’s play it.

DAVE SMITH: The other thing is physics.

THEO VON: So this is Peter Thiel’s point, but.

DAVE SMITH: Minus the screens from any room were.

THEO VON: Living in the 1970s.

DAVE SMITH: Right. So nothing’s happened in physics since ’72. String theory has not got us anywhere. But if you take the compute power of AI and point it at.

THEO VON: Physics, now, everything else in science is stamp collecting.

DAVE SMITH: Right. Physics is the real thing that gave us everything.

THEO VON: Every bit of technology that we have comes from the physics department. And.

DAVE SMITH: What happens when you point AI at that? That feels to me like something that.

THEO VON: People aren’t really thinking about and is incredibly.

DAVE SMITH: Could be incredible. We could have a.

THEO VON: A world of plenty where there’s no.

DAVE SMITH: You know, if we.

THEO VON: If we increase productivity by 50 times and there’s a human flourishing, fantastic.

DAVE SMITH: But they’ve.

THEO VON: But they. But we’ve done that and they haven’t. And I’m not disagreeing with Jimmy. This is obviously. This is just a hopeful thought that he has. And it’s a beautiful thought.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, look, like. Who knows? Or maybe the AI will become our overlords and we’ll live in some terrible. But, like, you know what? There’s still that hope. And so then, you know, you got to keep moving forward. And there were more hopeless times than this.

THEO VON: Oh, for sure.

DAVE SMITH: And I do think that it’s like, look, it’s quite possible that we are going to come into an age where it’s essentially impossible for politicians to propagandize their own citizenry. And it does seem like we’re moving much closer to that. And. And that.

THEO VON: What do you mean by that? Tell me a little bit more about it. Look, I mean, what does propaganda as their own citizenry mean?

The End of State Propaganda

DAVE SMITH: Well, look, just so to be clear, so living through. So in 2001, I was like 18, right. I was born in ’83, I was 18 in 2001. So you had 9/11. The whole country’s totally traumatized. For all of 2002, we invaded Iraq in 2003.

For all of 2002, they just laid out this war propaganda which was, you know, the Israelis played their role in the Israel lobby, of course, and Benjamin Netanyahu came and testified before Congress that, you know, all this stuff. And Peres was a former prime minister of Israel, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post, and Ehud Barak, Jeffrey Epstein’s good friend, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, all saying Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, and if you overthrow them, blah.

And they convinced Americans, I mean, they really convinced Americans that Saddam Hussein had or was building nuclear weapons and he was friends with Osama bin Laden and if we didn’t go overthrow him, he was going to hand these nukes that he didn’t have off to these terrorists who he wasn’t friends with and that they were going to nuke Kansas or something like that.

THEO VON: Sometimes we fall for the same trick.

DAVE SMITH: But the thing is all people, everybody who people look to, to get their news, like the entire Republican base, they were getting their news from Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, who would just, and Mark Levin and these guys would just repeat the government propaganda over and over and over again. They were nothing other than, in effect, state propagandists just repeating it.

And then liberals looked to the New York Times and Judith Miller was repeating the state propaganda and her source was Chalabi, the same source that the neocons had, who by the way turned out to be like an Iranian spy, essentially.

But regardless, they, they were able to. Today, if Donald Trump was trying to sell us on something like that, he doesn’t have Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity who will just repeat his propaganda. He’s got Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. Those are the biggest right wing commentators in America. They’re going to destroy that propaganda.

You know, like, it’s like the media, it’s not state media anymore, it’s actually independent media. And so their ability to like launch another propaganda campaign like this is just. It’s not what it used to be.

THEO VON: Yeah.

DAVE SMITH: And so I think that leads, you know, this leads to the potential of a much better world.

THEO VON: Yeah. I mean, even today when we’re looking at the Venezuela thing, we can pull up clips of other, other people’s thoughts and theories on it so we can get a better, bigger look at it.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, that’s right. And they actually have to kind of, like, face our ideas now. Like, it’s interesting. Like, even. Even. Even if you watch the. I mean, I get it a lot. They flip out about me. But, like, if you watch the way they flip out about. Or the way they flip out about Nick Fuentes or Tucker Carlson or someone like that, it’s like. But they have to flip out about him. You know, in years prior, they would have just marginalized and ignored these guys.

THEO VON: And they tried for a long time.

DAVE SMITH: But they sure did. Well, they got Tucker fired from Fox News, right? It doesn’t matter. He’s bigger. He’s bigger now. So what. Now what are you going to do? And then Nick Fuentes, what are you going to do? He’s banned off everything, you know, I mean, he’s on, I guess, Twitter and Rumble, but so what are you going to do?

THEO VON: And he’s huge.

DAVE SMITH: He’s bigger than ever.

THEO VON: He may be bigger than ever. You had him on your show?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

THEO VON: How was that? What is he. Is he big or is he small?

DAVE SMITH: He’s not big. He’s not a big guy. He’s a small. I mean, he’s not, like, tiny, but he’s not.

THEO VON: Somebody said he rides a bike. Is that true or not?

DAVE SMITH: I did not see him on a bicycle. I can neither confirm nor deny. I believe he took an Uber studio.

THEO VON: Someone said he rode a bike to it. I wasn’t.

DAVE SMITH: I’ll be honest. He told me he took an Uber to the studio. I did not see with my own eyes how he got there. He could have bike. Not an Uber black. It was certainly an Uber white. No, you know, honestly, my. My impressions that. I like Nick and my.

THEO VON: Oh, he seems like a fascinating cat. I mean, he’s obviously fascinating. He’s fast. He’s. People are fascinated by him.

On Nick Fuentes and Cultural Gatekeeping

DAVE SMITH: Well, he’s brilliant and he’s hilarious, which is already something that just like. I just like that I like funny people.

THEO VON: He’s f*ing brave, dude.

DAVE SMITH: He’s definitely brave. And, you know, we have. We have some pretty large areas of disagreement, I think. But I’ve always kind of believed, like. I’ve always kind of believed, like, okay, so then it’s just. Maybe this is kind of, like, a little naive or something, but my attitude was always like, all right, so we got some areas of disagreement. So, like, hey, let’s talk about them. And let’s kind of like, let’s have more conversations and more debates and more. You know what I mean?

And just, you know, I think he gets a few things wrong, but then again, he gets some really major things right. And I think that this is part of the reason why they’re all so scared of him. You know, if you want to say that, like, Nick goes down a road of, like, racialism and even. It’s not exactly that he, like, like. It’s not that he, like, is praising Hitler and Stalin. He’s saying some complimentary things about them or something like that.

But if you want to say that, like, going down this road of, like, racialism and kind of revisionism about some brutal dictators in history, if you want to say, hey, that’s racist, wrong, and that’s off limits or something as, like, a cultural rule or a cultural norm, well, how the hell is the guy who’s defending a genocide going to tell me that that’s the case?

You know what I mean? It’s like, oh, you guys. You guys are going to tell me, like, oh, Nick Fuentes is morally reprehensible. Says the people signing the bombs that are going to drop on babies.

THEO VON: I agree.

DAVE SMITH: Sorry. So you’ve lost that. It’s just like, to me, it’s like, that’s over. You lose the ability to gatekeep this conversation. And now people like us will decide who the hell we want to talk to. And I decide. Nick Fuentes is a very relevant, interesting person who I’d like to talk to.

THEO VON: Yeah, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with talking to most people. That’s what I think most. Every now and then there’d be somebody. Like, I don’t think I would talk to them. But also, it’s wild that people assume you know everything about somebody when you’re going to have them on a podcast or you’re going to talk to them.

It’s like, dude, sometimes I haven’t looked like I’ll know the person. I’ll be intrigued by one or two things I heard from them, but I’ll have no idea. Idea sometimes if they were, you know, if there’s been other stuff that people widely disagree with or whatever.

DAVE SMITH: Well, yeah, yeah. Like the responsibility or the responsibility then, which I think is ridiculous, is that it’s like you’re endorsing everything they’ve ever said if you agree with them on one thing or something like that. But I do think, you know, when Nick was on Piers Morgan, who, by the way, for the record, I really like Piers Morgan, too. I’m not like. And so I like Nick. I like Piers.

THEO VON: I like Piers is funny.

DAVE SMITH: I love Piers. I think his show is actually really great.

THEO VON: He’s great and he has on a lot of great guests.

DAVE SMITH: It’s a circus at times, but I think it’s like a really important circus.

The Circus of Important Conversations

THEO VON: But the thing that, that’s a great statement. Some of these things are circuses, but it’s a really important circus. When you talk about podcasting or some of these types of interviews, it’s—

DAVE SMITH: Well, he had like, he said a ton of things. He had Wesley Clark debate Scott Horton. He had Norman Finkelstein. Norman Finkelstein debated Benny Morris. Like these huge, very interesting debates. Debates with really brilliant people, you know, like. But anyway, so when Nick was on, it was almost like there was the conversation that was going on. They’re both speaking past each other completely. It’s almost like Pierce does not understand the phenomenon that this kid is.

But to me, the more meta kind of analysis of it, like what was going on there is that what I think what Nick represents in a lot of ways is okay, there’s been now in the country for at least 30 years, maybe a little more than that really exploded in the last 15 years. There’s been this attempt by every single institutional force to police what Americans are allowed to say by shaming people as racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, all these.

And look, you know, because the funny thing about someone like Nick is people will make the point. They’ll be like, well, look, you could criticize Israel without criticizing the Jews. And you’re like, yeah, hey, I do that every day. And you know what? I get called for it by Mark Levin, a Nazi. So it doesn’t matter.

So what? Nick, in a way, to me at least represents is a big f you to that whole game. I reject that whole paradigm. If you’re not going to police me by calling me sexist, racist, or anti-Semitic, because I say I am all those things. So now what? Now what? You know, so now. So if you come at Nick the way Pierce did, where you go, you play. Let me play a clip of you. That’s horrible what you said right there. I think you’re a bigot. And he’ll go, yeah, f you, I am.

Whereas when I talk to Nick and I go, all right, dude, listen, I think shutting conversation down with accusation of bigotry is f*ed up. But what do you actually believe? Leave here. He actually opens up and gives you a much more nuanced take. And now is he a few clicks to the right of me? Definitely.

THEO VON: He’s sensationalist, though. Too. He’ll—

DAVE SMITH: Sure. And there’s a lot of sarcasm and all of that.

THEO VON: If I could see him being a conductor or I could see him being the guy at the circus who’s dealing with all the animals, he would be perfect at that. And I say that respectfully because, yeah, he’s just, he’s good at doing it all himself.

DAVE SMITH: Right.

THEO VON: But you have to have those moments that are, that are bonkers out there or that seem bonkers to people.

Recognizing Talent Beyond Agreement

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, absolutely. I also just think in the, you know, it’s like from being doing stand up comedy. So, you know. I know you know too. It’s like you get, you develop a bit of an eye for talent. And that doesn’t even mean it’s not a question of whether you agree or disagree or whether they’re your favorite comic or not your favorite comic.

But you could love really edgy, really filthy comedy and you’d still go, Nate Bargatze is a beast of a talent. You know what I mean? You just recognize talent. He’s very good at what he does. I mean, and Nick, Nick’s ability, just as a broadcaster, his talent is legendary. I mean, he’s second to none. Maybe there are some tied with him, but Tim Dillon’s ability to just rant into a camera. Nick Fuentes is that level of ability.

And so there is a part of it too where you watch all of these guys, you know, freak out, but you’re like, look, man, the kid’s really good at what he does. He represents a lot of people. He was de-platformed for having views that actually a lot of people have. And also there’s just, look, there’s nuance to a lot of this sh.

THEO VON: And where was he de-platformed from? From YouTube?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, YouTube. He was kicked off Twitter. He was kicked off everything at once. One point. I’m not sure what he’s back on now. I haven’t—

THEO VON: I don’t know a lot of the stuff that he’s, you know, I don’t know a lot of the things that he said. I mean, I know I’ve heard him say the N word. I’ve heard him say definitely said that. Some other stuff, but some of the same word clips go hard, dude. I’ll be honest with you. And some of them I’ve seen black people loving them do mashups and loving them.

The Projection of Offense

DAVE SMITH: Well, there’s always been something where there’s always been a real weird dynamic about how being offended, being offended by words or jokes or words is such a white chick thing. But they project that onto black people. But actually black people, because I’ve known a few of them are the least offended people ever. You know, it’s just. So there’s a weird dynamic there too.

Also though, and I’ll say maybe this will be a real controversial thing to say at the end, but I do think that there’s, we’ve lived under a world where order for a long time, where being a bigot is the worst thing in the world. It’s the worst thing you can be is racist, you know, and part of that is because, you know, we live in the world order that defeated the Nazis.

And so the biggest villain of all time is viewed as the racist and the greatest liberator of all time are viewed as the anti-racist and the biggest villain in the religion of modern America, like the devil is Adolf Hitler and Jesus is Martin Luther King. That’s kind of the way popular culture is constructed.

I think that there is actually a lot more nuance to bigotry and that everybody has a bit of bigotry in them. But I think that America, it is true to some degree that Americans have been replaced by immigration policy from their government. America went from being a 90% majority white Christian country to now being, it’s in the 50s percentage and may even be a majority minority country in the next couple decades. And then white people might ultimately be a minority in this country going forward.

THEO VON: And the mainstream media demonized white—

Immigration and Identity

DAVE SMITH: This was done against the will of the domestic population. There was never a referendum on open borders and massive racial change in America because it would have failed. No, the country wouldn’t have supported it. And there is going to be a group of people, not just white people, but there are going to be a group of people who wish that America remain majority white.

And that doesn’t mean you have to hate black people or that doesn’t mean you have to hate Muslims or hate Latin American or Latino people or whatever. It’s there’s nuance between. There’s a view where you go, hey, I want America to remain majority white because that’s kind of what America’s always been. And I want it to continue being what America’s always been. That doesn’t mean I want to reinstitute slavery or have a genocide or something like that.

THEO VON: And I’m, and if you’re a white person. You’re like, well, what the f*. I don’t exist.

DAVE SMITH: Why am I supposed to root for my own destruction?

THEO VON: I don’t have a place to exist at that, dude.

DAVE SMITH: Well, it would be crazy.

THEO VON: I’m so sick of there’s just so. It’s so sick of white people are always the bad people. I’m sick of your movies of white people, always bad people. And that’s one of the things that’s craziest about the genocide stuff. It’s well, now you have a group of people, you have Israel, Israel and their government that has set the bar for who the new bad people are.

DAVE SMITH: Dude, they act like it’s anything, but it’s anything. Dude, I was listening. Mark Levin gave a speech about the rise of anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Semitism and he discusses, doesn’t mention the genocide, as if that’s not a part of it. It’s everything. It’s you mentioned everything.

THEO VON: Except the part of it.

DAVE SMITH: There’s this one tiny detail you’re missing, which is that you committed a genocide.

THEO VON: And we were talking my whole life that if somebody is doing something like that Hitler and the Nazis did that, it’s wrong. Right. All these movies, all the books, some of that, many of that are paid to see and paid to read and wanted to absorb.

Holocaust Education Backfiring

DAVE SMITH: You see a speechwriter, she’s this Jewish chick, Obama speechwriter. But she goes, the Holocaust training really backfired because now people are conditioned to see, when a big powerful state is just killing helpless captive people, people that they view that as the same as the Nazis do. So she’s actually going, oh, the real problem with all this Holocaust education is that now people are pissed off when we try to do it. Jesus Christ, lady, you said that out loud into a microphone.

THEO VON: Yeah, here it is right here.

DAVE SMITH: Yep. And so while in the 1990s, you know, a young person probably wasn’t going to find Al Jazeera or someone like Nick Fuentes today, those media outlets find them, they find them on their phones. It’s also this increasingly post-literate media, less and less text, more and more videos. So you have TikTok just smashing our young people’s brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza.

And this is why so many of us can’t have a sane conversation with younger Jews, because anything that we try to say to them, they are hearing it through this wall of carnage. So I want to give data and information and facts and arguments, and they are just seeing in their minds carnage. And I sound obscene. And, you know, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s right. We see the dead babies and that, believe it or not, these dead babies are having an effect on people, Theo. People are feeling feelings.

Who would ever have thought when we witness children being tortured to death by the tens of thousands, we think about that. And your bullsh propaganda doesn’t work as well.

THEO VON: Yeah, I don’t want to—

DAVE SMITH: This next part is actually the craziest part.

THEO VON: I don’t want to pause it, Ms. Hurwitz. And hear about the statistics.

DAVE SMITH: The statistics at the moment, which, by the way, it’s not even like she has a statistical origin.

THEO VON: I know, but they try to build a—

DAVE SMITH: Grab something more. It’s more I see. I’ve seen thousands of images of dead kids, and then you’re calling me a bigot.

THEO VON: And it wasn’t a choice I made with my brain. It was a choice I made with my heart, you idiot.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, right.

THEO VON: It’s not like I. You can’t rationalize me into thinking that genocide is okay. You cannot do it. I don’t care how many graphs or people you interview or some. You cannot do it. It’s not in here. It’s in here. That’s how I know it’s wrong.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. Come on, let’s go.

THEO VON: Let’s play a little more.

The Breakdown of Holocaust Education

DAVE SMITH: The very smart, I think, bet that we made on Holocaust education to serve as anti-Semitism education in this new media environment, I think that is beginning to break down a little bit because, you know, Holocaust education is absolutely essential. But I think it may be confusing some of our young people about anti-Semitism because they learn about big, strong Nazis hurting weak, emaciated Jews.

And they think, oh, anti-Semitism is like anti-black racism. Right? Powerful white people against powerless black people. So when on TikTok all day long, they see powerful Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians, it’s not surprising that they think, oh, I know the lesson of the Holocaust is you fight Israel, you fight the big, powerful people hurting the weak people.

THEO VON: Yeah.

DAVE SMITH: Oh, yeah. And a captive people, a people who can’t leave, don’t have the option to go anywhere.

THEO VON: Imagine, can’t even leave.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, that’s a big part of it. But it is—

THEO VON: It’s like Saw. It’s like a huge game of f*ing Saw.

DAVE SMITH: But it is amazing, just to me, that she said that out loud and didn’t think to herself, oh, huh.

THEO VON: That’s the scary part.

DAVE SMITH: Man. Oh, if I just looked at this from the other perspective. Perspective, yeah. What I’m saying is that, oh, we’re actually against holocausting powerless people.

THEO VON: Sociopathic almost to be, oh, yeah, you know, I don’t know. I don’t know.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, it sure does. Sociopathic is a good way to put it.

THEO VON: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s yeah.

Wrapping Up

DAVE SMITH: She’s talking about the topic of all of this sh*t. Whether it’s Charlie Kirk’s letter to Netanyahu or that conversation or the guy at CBS News, or any of it. The topic of all of them is, we are losing. How do we get back to winning?

So at least they’re acknowledging that, like, sh*t, this just isn’t working anymore, man. And I do think there’s something beautiful to it, man. I think there’s something beautiful where even just you—you just making the point that you just made where you’re like, look, this isn’t something in my head. This isn’t in my heart. I just saw a child being tortured to death. I’m not okay with this.

And when I say tortured to death, I just mean a building crumbling on them as their bones crush and they cry out and no one comes to save them is pretty bad. And then, you know, Ben Shapiro could come up with all those fancy arguments in the world, but the audience is looking at that and going, I’m not with you on that.

THEO VON: But just how are you still creating—and I don’t understand how somebody could still be creating an argument. I think that’s where the weird disparity comes in. I can’t even—you know, I mean, yes, I make a lot of poor choices in my life, and I’ve done a lot of things that are not great, but yeah, I don’t understand how you could just think that that’s okay.

DAVE SMITH: You got zero supported genocides on your track record, though, so that’s good.

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s true. That’s a good point. Thanks so much, Dave, for stopping by, dude.

DAVE SMITH: Dude, absolutely. Anytime, man.

THEO VON: I appreciate it, man, so much. Great to start the year off with you. Yeah. I’m hopeful that 2026 will bring in good things. I will say this. A lot of my life I’ve thought, man, my time on Earth has been a little—it’s been exciting and fun, but it’s been a little boring as a society, like, as a time period in America. It’s been just kind of a comfortable time. And, man, it’s just in a couple years, that’s changed a lot.

DAVE SMITH: It’s gotten real interesting. But yeah, I’m excited. I like being alive during these times. I’m excited to see where everything goes. And I kind of like—I love the relationship we get to have with our audience. We kind of all go through this together, and we’re kind of all like, yo, did you see that? That was crazy.

THEO VON: Oh, it’s crazy.

DAVE SMITH: Enjoy it.

THEO VON: Yeah, I mean, whenever Charlie Kirk got shot, I was texting people and other podcasts and stuff, like, stay alive, dude, you know? Or if I have a tough question, I can call you and ask you about it. You know, like, bothering this father out there in Jersey.

DAVE SMITH: You’re never bothering me, dude. I love talking to you.

THEO VON: Yeah, man, thanks so much. I’m curious to see what Candace has for dinner for us.

DAVE SMITH: Ooh, I can’t wait.

THEO VON: Yeah. Thanks so much, Dave.

DAVE SMITH: You’re the man, dude.

THEO VON: All right. Peace, buddy.

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