Transcript of Dave Smith on The Tucker Carlson Show

I have views from a decade ago that are quite embarrassing. In hindsight, I was an atheist at one point. I was pro-life. Excuse me, I was pro-choice at one point. Oh, God, I was up for open borders at one point.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’ve had all of those views.

DAVE SMITH: I’ve had some really bad views over the years, and I’ve changed my mind.

TUCKER CARLSON: All because I think Douglas would admit if he was wrong.

DAVE SMITH: Well, of course not.

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, that’s obvious, but that’s kind of the aspect.

DAVE SMITH: Well, look, if you can get Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and Covid wrong, and then with certainty, say you’re right about the next one and then also tell… Also arguing that the other person should have some humility. I mean, come on, like, what is this? You couldn’t write if I just scripted this for you and wrote it on a script? You’d be like, take it down. And this is too ridiculous. No one would believe this.

Key Moments from the Debate

But regardless of that. So there were two moments that actually really stood out to me in the debate were, okay, so number one was in the Ukraine portion. Number two was in the Israel portion.

So in the Ukraine portion, at one point I said to him, we were talking about the, you know, what led up to the war. And so he said something like. He goes, you know, the real question is why all these countries wanted to join NATO. I mean, we didn’t incorporate them in NATO through force. And I was like, well, yes, obviously that’s the argument isn’t that we force. The governments willingly wanted to join NATO.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

DAVE SMITH: I was like, that’s pretty obvious why you’d want to be have your defense subsidized and want to have the most powerful government in the history of the world guaranteeing your defense. Sure. And also because they’re concerned about the former Soviet Union, which is still Russia. And okay. But I was like, but that wasn’t the argument. You know, the argument is, why would we do this?

And so I was like, let me just give you two bullet points. Right? Two quick arguments. And the two quick points that I made were, number one, the NYET means nyet memo, which of course, as you know. Well, you’ve talked about this a lot. You talked about this back on your Fox News show was that Bill Burns.

TUCKER CARLSON: Later director of the CIA. Yes.

DAVE SMITH: Yes. The CIA director through Joe Biden’s plan four years, who was the CIA director through this entire war, up until Trump took back over. But then the ambassador, in 2008, he was the ambassador to Russia. He wrote a private cable to Condoleezza Rice. This was not for the public. This was a private cable that later the heroic Julian Assange released. It’s the only reason we know it exists.

And he lays out in there that all this talk about Ukrainian entry to NATO is going to lead to a war. And he specifically says that this is the brightest of all red lines for the Russians. And if we keep moving forward, this. They fear this could result in civil war, and then they might have to intervene. In his words, quote, “a choice the Russians do not want to have to make.” So I was like, hey, there’s a pretty compelling piece of evidence.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

DAVE SMITH: And then number two, I said, Stoltenberg, I always say this name wrong, but the head of NATO, Stoltenberg, the head of NATO, he said that Vladimir Putin, in late 2001, put in writing, sent a draft treaty to NATO and said, if you just put into writing that you will not bring Ukraine into NATO, I will not invade the country. This is the head of NATO.

So I give him these two points. Okay, there’s. I could talk a lot more about this, but I was like, let’s focus on these two. Seems to me that all the powerful people involved are admitting that this war was about Ukrainian entry into NATO. And his response was the war was not about Ukrainian entry into NATO. It was about Vladimir Putin’s desires to reconstitute the Soviet Union. And I was like, yeah, but what’s the response? Like, what’s the response to my point? Like, I made a point. You made nothing. You just made an assertion.

So there was this one where it’s like, once you actually get down to it, once you remove all this, like you’re an expert. You’re not an expert. You’ve never been. What are you watering? What are the… You’ve got no actual argument here because.

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re not an expert yourself.

DAVE SMITH: Right. But even that, it’s like that. Again, just the way I work, that doesn’t do anything for me. Then you gotta have an actual argument, otherwise you’re not going to persuade me. And I think for most of the…

The Illusion of Knowledge

TUCKER CARLSON: Viewers, that’s the knowledge, too. And I just refer back to the boarding school thing. It’s like the whole point of that style in debating is to create the illusion of knowledge. Like you have an Aeschylus quote, sort of. You know what I mean? Or you can cite the titles of three D.H. Lawrence novels, but you haven’t read the novels. You haven’t read Aeschylus.

DAVE SMITH: You don’t, you don’t actually have. You don’t have an original thought that’s actually yours.

TUCKER CARLSON: You don’t even have the material. You haven’t even. You haven’t even read the books. It’s a sleight of hand. And that’s what they teach you in boarding school.

The Libya Argument

DAVE SMITH: Well, okay, so then the other one, which some people did pick up on this, but this to me was like actually the biggest moment of the debate, I thought. And it was sad in a way because Douglas Murray is someone who I have some degree of respect for as a smart person. It was kind of sad that he was reduced to this.

But so he made the argument. He said, first off, he was dishonest. Where he. And I didn’t call him. I know this, but I let it slide. But he goes, you know, I was very iffy about the war in Libya. It’s like, I’ve read your columns at the time. No, you fucking weren’t. Okay. Anyway. But he goes, I was very iffy about the war in Libya, but the war in Libya was fought because there was this tremendous fear that Gaddafi was about to go genocidal and it was a humanitarian intervention. And so then I said, okay, now.

TUCKER CARLSON: They have slave markets in Tripoli, right? Humanitarian.

Debating the Libya Intervention

DAVE SMITH: But even forget the point that maybe their argument is they thought he was going to go genocidal and they didn’t realize it would be so much worse without him. But I said, okay, Douglas, so riddle me this then. If it was a humanitarian intervention, how come I have four-star General Wesley Clark telling me ten years prior that we had already made the plans to go overthrow Gaddafi? Because he said this very clearly to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.

And then I mentioned that he later, actually very recently on Piers Morgan, he clarified. This is really interesting if people go watch. Scott Horton, who is amazing by the way—his book “Provoked” is the best book on Russia-US post-collapse of the Soviet Union relations. His book “Enough Already” is the best book that’s been written on the terror wars.

So Scott Horton is debating Wesley Clark on Piers Morgan. And this gets brought up, you know, the fact that you said in 2001, you had already seen in the Pentagon that we were going to overthrow seven countries in five years. And Wesley Clark says, “Well, actually the plans go back to 1991. And I saw them first from Paul Wolfowitz’s office and then basically the plans got killed. And then they were revived by Richard Pearl and a study paid for by the Israelis.” This was four-star General Wesley Clark’s comments on it.

So I brought that up and I go, “Well, look, you’re going to say that this is a humanitarian intervention, but that seems strange because the plans to overthrow Gaddafi were already written many years earlier. And then they had their opportunity and they did it. I think it was more than just a humanitarian intervention.”

And then his response is this thing about how Paul Wolfowitz’s name starts with an animal and ends Jewish. And it was kind of funny the way he said it, but then he just went, “Be careful what you’re watering there,” because you can’t, you know, a lot of people are going to hate Jews if you just start bringing up Paul Wolfowitz’s name. And I just could not believe—by the way, the end result of that is he had no response to what I was saying.

TUCKER CARLSON: Wolfowitz has an identifiably Jewish name. You’re abetting anti-Semitism by bringing it up. Even though he’s a government official who helped get us into this war that killed a million people.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. He’s also in other places talked about how Paul Wolfowitz is like a hero in the Kurds in Iraq. They consider him a hero because he was the architect of the war that overthrew Saddam Hussein. But like, I’m not allowed to mention him because—which is, first of all, it’s just beside the point. Like, forget what this will lead to. What’s the truth? That’s what matters.

The Kurdish Question

TUCKER CARLSON: So he’s of course very pro-Kurdish, I would imagine, right?

DAVE SMITH: Yes, yes, I’m sure.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, I actually have been there.

DAVE SMITH: Have you?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes, I have been there. And I can say firsthand, the most brutal people I’ve ever met in my life were Kurds. Like, actually, I saw it firsthand. So I’m not against the Kurds or whatever, but it’s just interesting. Everyone in Washington, no one’s ever met a Kurd, can’t define what a Kurd is. But everyone reflexively loves the Kurds and I’ve never had strong views about the Kurds, but again, I just want to say I’ve seen it in action in Iraq and I was shocked by the Kurdish behavior, personally.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, well, also, you know, it’s all the people who were knocking Donald Trump in his first term when he wanted to pull out of Syria, and they were like, “What about the Kurds? We can’t betray the Kurds.” And then those same people will tell you what a great President George H.W. Bush was. But we can’t betray the Kurds? The guy who really betrayed the Kurds, I mean, told them to rise up against Saddam Hussein and overthrow him, and then decided, “Now we’re going to back off that” and just allowed them to get slaughtered.

And look, I mean, it was just kind of blatant. It’s like, I’m presenting an argument and you’re responding with a pure woke tactic. A pure woke tactic to say—which I mentioned to him, I go, “But wouldn’t this apply to everything you stand for? I mean, everything you stand for about how we shouldn’t have so much Muslim immigration into the UK—okay, well, someone could take that, and that might lead to a rise in hatred of Muslim people. But that’s not a counter argument.” That’s not an argument. That’s like, well, okay, well, then maybe you could say you should also add in there, “I don’t mean all Jewish people are guilty of some conspiracy,” but first of all, I’m Jewish and he’s not. So, like, what the hell are you talking about?

The Aftermath of the Debate

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re Jewish. And that gets me to—I mean, I don’t think you’d convince Douglas that you’re Jewish. So I saw that and read the commentary after. And as someone who’s always liked Douglas and known him for a while, my first instinct was, why he just destroyed his career like he’s done. No smart person will ever take Douglas seriously again. And I don’t know if he felt that way, but it was clear by a day or two after he realized he destroyed his career.

And in response, rather than admitting that and admitting what he’d done wrong, he attacked you. Really kind of doubled down in the New York Post. I want to read this because I was offended by this. He goes, the whole column’s an attack on you. And I’m quoting, “Claiming some Jewish ancestry, Smith has spent the last 18 months since October 7th being very unfunny indeed, claiming some Jewish ancestry.” Now I’m not really sure. Well, I’m just gonna—I don’t know why that just—

DAVE SMITH: Oh, wow.

TUCKER CARLSON: So what do you “claim”? Some Jewish ancestry?

DAVE SMITH: I—my mom and dad are probably the big ones. I do claim some Jewish ancestry. But yeah, it was so—well, first of all, I joke, but I’m not even the first, because everyone made this joke already about the article. But he says I haven’t been funny. And Douglas has never been to one of my comedy shows, so he should come and check it out and then he could tell me what he thinks. I think I’m pretty damn funny in my shows, and the audience seems to think so.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, Jewish ancestors, you “claim”—first of all, he suggests that you’re like a fake Jew.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: “Claiming some Jewish ancestry.” It’s like you’re hiding behind a cloak of Judaism, which is—

DAVE SMITH: In a way, you know, one of the things I thought was so interesting about the piece was that—and I couldn’t imagine, man, I hope I’m never this person, because even now, right, like, there’s so many shots I could take at Douglas. But even when you ask me about the debate, like, my first instinct is to go like, “Well, look, here are the points I made that he didn’t have counters to” because I’m about the argument, you know, like, that’s what actually matters.

And it’s tough for all of us because there is—as you know well, you’ve talked a lot about this, right? But it’s like in this kind of show business news world where we’re talking about events and things that matter, but also there’s a camera on us and we’re talking on a microphone, and we’re public people. And so it’s kind of impossible to completely remove your ego and your own narcissistic tendencies from that. But, like, you gotta keep reminding yourself, like, yeah, but there’s a war going on. Like, that’s what actually matters. All of this is much less important than the actual policy. So you try to focus on that.

But I could not imagine writing an article about a debate that I had just been in where the reaction was so unfavorable toward me. And in the piece, what you might notice is he does not take on a single one of my arguments. He does not point out something that I got wrong. He does not say, “Dave argued this, but this is so clearly a reflection of his lack of knowledge on this subject because he didn’t account for X, Y and Z.” It’s just—once again, just like the actual debate, he would only debate me. He wouldn’t debate the topic.

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So why do you think he did it? I mean, he was basically, it felt to me like he was sent on a kamikaze mission. That’s the way it looked here. The guy just flies into your aircraft carrier, doesn’t sink it, but it destroys his plane, his career.

Understanding Murray’s Approach

DAVE SMITH: Like I don’t get it in a sense, I don’t know. I don’t think Douglas Murray destroyed his career. I think he destroyed his reputation amongst the people. But his career is actually going to be fine, much like Kamala Harris’s career is actually going to be fine.

And I don’t know, you know, I’m speculating a little bit with this because there really was not almost any interaction off the podcast. Like Douglas Murray showed up five minutes later, we were recording, he left immediately afterward and me and Rogan hung out. So like there’s nothing more that the viewer didn’t see that I saw—really hellos and goodbyes.

But I think number one, one of my guesses—I’m speculating here—is that he just wasn’t really prepared for me. And it was like, “Oh, some comedian will be on there.” And maybe he came in kind of confident that he’ll be able to handle me. I’ve had that happen a few times in my career. I think it’s happening less. I can’t imagine he didn’t look into me before the debate, but maybe that’s possible.

But the feeling that I got as it was going on was kind of—okay, do you remember, I’m sure you do, you remember very well when Kamala Harris was running for president? I know that seems like a long time ago, but that actually happened, which is really crazy.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s like a dream sequence.

DAVE SMITH: Now, it’s not just that Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney endorsed her, but she started bringing Liz Cheney out to campaign events and campaigning with Liz Cheney. Now, if you were just looking at this on paper, you’d go, “Okay, what demographic of voters is this for?” And you’d very quickly realize that that demographic doesn’t exist.

Are the leftists? They still remember her last name as Cheney. And especially with the year that had preceded that, like, they’re kind of anti-war again. And they’re not really into the idea of “We’ve got a Cheney on our side.” It’s not gonna win you—it’s not gonna get out your base. And then on the other side, I mean, she lost by like 50 points in her congressional run. It’s not like you’re bringing Republicans in.

And so I think the only thing you could conclude is that, oh, this isn’t actually for the voters. There’s somebody else who Kamala Harris is talking to here. Of course, there’s a power source that may be a little concerned about her, and she’s trying to let them know, “Don’t worry, I’m good for business. I’ve got Liz Cheney right here.”

That’s kind of my assumption. It seemed to me with the Douglas Murray thing, he wasn’t playing to the audience. He certainly wasn’t trying to persuade Joe. He perhaps was talking to a different audience, which will make sure that his career is just fine going forward. That’s the sense I got.

TUCKER CARLSON: If you want to make people paranoid and hateful, act like that.

The Controversy with Douglas Murray

DAVE SMITH: Well, again, look, there’s two things that I really want to make sure I express, number one, with the thing where he claims some Jewish ancestry thing, which, by the way, would be, I think if you were to ever do this, to say, like, a Jewish person who was on your side, you would be like, well, that’s a pretty anti-Semitic thing to do, right? To, like, challenge their Jewishness because they disagree with a policy.

TUCKER CARLSON: But what does your Jewishness have to do with it anyway?

DAVE SMITH: Well, right. That’s the whole fucking point. And that, you know, it does. I think it’s basically like this. I think that particularly when it comes to Israel stuff, a lot of these guys don’t know what to do with me because typically, as every American who’s ever criticized Israel knows, you get labeled as being a Jew hater. Oh, you must be anti-Semitic. That’s why you would say something like that.

Like, remember that horrible anti-Semite Pat Buchanan, who said that the Israel lobby wanted a war in Iraq? He just hates Jewish people. Like, even though we all know that’s true, when you say it, they go, you’re an anti-Semite. That’s like the game that they play. That’s much tougher to do when you’re talking to someone who’s Jewish. And so in a sense, that ends up being kind of a shield against the accusation. And so they want to remove that shield.

But the bottom line is that no one should have that shield. And I am Jewish. My mother and father are both Jewish. I am, I think I was 86% Ashkenazi Jew on my DNA test. I think that’s enough. But the point is, it shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter at all. You should, anybody.

TUCKER CARLSON: We’re talking about the behavior of nations, by the way, nations with militaries and parliaments, congresses. Like, these are countries. And what does this have to do?

DAVE SMITH: I mean, well, first of all, and this isn’t even the most important point, but the American taxpayer is forced to pay for this stuff. But even if he wasn’t, even if you didn’t have to pay for it, if you are a human being, forget even an American, if you’re a human being, you have a right to have an opinion on any issue you want to have an opinion on.

TUCKER CARLSON: This is what the left did during COVID. It was like, wait a second, it seems like this came. You’re telling me it came from a pangolin in a wet market, a fish market, a mammal sold in a fish market. Somehow, you know, was the genesis of this virus. But there was this level 3 bio lab like a mile away. Maybe that was the source that are like, ah, you hate Asians. And they claimed racism, so you couldn’t pursue that line of inquiry.

I see people like Douglas Murray supposedly on the right, and there are a lot of others like Douglas Murray saying the same thing. Like, you can’t express an opinion about where your tax dollars go or about people dying, or else you’re a bigot. Yeah, how is that different?

DAVE SMITH: Right? No, it’s not. It’s the same thing. It’s the same kind of pathetic tactic where if you can’t argue against someone’s ideas, you just say, oh, you’re a bad person. And that’s why you have these ideas to begin with. It’s a very low grade, like social psychology attempt to shame someone out of having the views that they have. And yeah, it’s exactly. It’s what the woke did on everything. No matter what it was. I can’t remember who coined the term, but a racist is anybody winning an argument against a progressive.

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly.

DAVE SMITH: You know, that’s it. And so he’s doing the same thing, but then the other thing which is really separate and secondary from that. But the argument that Douglas Murray is making is that if I call out Paul Wolfowitz or even, you know, more broadly speaking, if I call out the neoconservatives and how they hijacked American foreign policy and how they very much had Israel’s interest in mind, which I get from reading the neoconservatives. I don’t get this from reading critics of them. It’s from their own words.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right.

DAVE SMITH: He’s saying me calling that out is fertile ground for Jew hatred to rise. And it’s like, no, what you’re doing is fertile ground. What you telling me I’m not allowed to call out the deputy Defense Secretary because his last name is Jewish? That’s actually what leads to a rise in people not liking Jews.

The Attack on Daryl Cooper

TUCKER CARLSON: Agree more. And I do think Douglas, though he’s not an expert or a genius, is smart enough to understand that. But he did it anyway.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I don’t know his motive, but in the moment that I think made me actually turn it off, I just stopped watching. But it was most revealing of all is when he goes after Daryl Cooper, the historian. Really one of the great historians in the United States, Daryl Cooper, and doesn’t know his name.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: But goes after him personally as like a Nazi or something. And then we just parenthetically. And I’ll shut up after this, but Daryl Cooper is one of the kindest, most reasonable, most fundamentally liberal people I know. Anti-Nazi people. I know a guy who you could give your routing number to would never steal money. A guy who, if he had absolute power, would kill nobody. Like a truly decent Christian man. Basically called him a monster and didn’t even know his name. And so that suggested to me that he was like briefed by somebody before. Make sure you get in this holocaust denial, which he is not Daryl Cooper. Like, what is that?

DAVE SMITH: Well, it’s also, you know, if you’re smearing people whose names you don’t know and who you admit you’ve never listened to any of their work, maybe don’t put that right in the middle of an appeal to expertise. Maybe have that in a different section than in the section where you’re going, “You really have to know what you’re talking about in order to have an opinion on these things.” And so that didn’t work out very well. Daryl is an amazing guy. He is brilliant. His work is phenomenal. I know him personally and he’s like genuinely a great person.

TUCKER CARLSON: He’s a humane man.

DAVE SMITH: Yes. And it’s a comment on our time and on our society that the guy who essentially, if you actually consume any of Daryl’s work, as I have consumed a lot of it, basically Daryl’s whole kind of template, the way he operates is there’s basically only like a couple rules. And like number one is he has to read everything that’s available on the subject. So he reads everything. The guy’s a machine. His depth of knowledge is like second to none. He just knows everything.

And then number two is whenever you talk about history, basically his rule is that you have to understand that everyone involved is a human being. Every one of them was a three year old at one point, like totally innocent, like good little boy, like my three year old that I have at home and that they grew up in real circumstances and real things happen to them. And if you’re going to do history, you have to constantly be doing your absolute best to put yourself in this person’s shoes and then put yourself in this person’s shoes and then put yourself on this side of the conflict and then put yourself on this side of the conflict. That’s basically it. It’s pure empathy.

And actually, as I’ve mentioned to you personally, and I’ve told Daryl this personally, he is probably the best shot people have at de-radicalizing people in the worst form of being radicalized. He’s the guy. Listen, for me personally, and I thought I was pretty well read on the history of Israel, Palestine, and he has this incredibly long series, like a 30 hour series called “Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem.”

And the thing is I knew most of what I knew, not all of it, but most of what I had read about with the Israeli Palestine conflict, like most people was like, starts in 1947, 1948, and then goes up to today. His series is about from the 1890s until 1947. So he’s talking about the creation of the state from Zionism being created to the state being created.

TUCKER CARLSON: Herzl to Ben Gurion.

DAVE SMITH: Right, right, exactly. That’s basically the whole story. And it actually made me much more sympathetic to the Zionists. You know, as somebody who grew up kind of in that propaganda, in the pro-Israel propaganda, then ultimately turned on it and became a critic of Israel. Listening to his series, you understand it just puts you in the position. And you do understand, like, oh, okay, these were real men who were reacting to the circumstances of their day.

You can kind of understand why a lot of them wanted to do this, by the way. It’s pretty amazing that they pulled it off. However you feel, completely however you feel about what the government of Israel is doing, it’s amazing that they did this. And yeah, look, and of course, this is why I say it’s a comment on our time. So there’s one guy here who’s going like, listen, you gotta really, completely educate yourself on a subject. And then you have to have empathy toward all sides. And then everyone goes, Nazi. That guy’s a Nazi. That’s what it is to be a Nazi in 2025.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s just so funny. I’m too old for a lot of this stuff. And so I thought, you know, among the many lessons, great lessons of the Second World War that I grew up marinating in, dehumanizing people is bad. Treating human beings like they’re not human is bad. And I still believe that. I think it’s the core of Christianity. But it’s also just the core of any civil society, any decent society. And that’s what Daryl is trying to do. And I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anybody try and take apart his factual analysis. It’s always, always immediately goes to motive. You’re a Nazi.

DAVE SMITH: Shut up.

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re a Holocaust.

DAVE SMITH: Denier. Or just claiming he said something that isn’t at all what he said. Right. He downplayed the atrocities. No, he didn’t. It’s also.

TUCKER CARLSON: But why. Why should Daryl Cooper. And by the way, a number of my friends, people I really like, have been involved in this. Like, their authority has been marshaled to destroy Daryl Cooper. And I grieve to see it because they’re paid to do it. So degrading to them and dishonest and sad. But why Daryl Cooper’s like, this one guy living in the Pacific Northwest. Why spend all this time and energy to destroy him?

DAVE SMITH: Well, I love you said this. A few years ago, I can’t remember what it was where you said this, but it was you and I. This really hit home with me. And this isn’t like. And you weren’t suggesting that this is like a proof. This isn’t like an irrefutable, logical argument. It’s kind of like a guide.

But, you know, you said the thing about, you could tell when something’s infected because you touch it and you recoil and you go, ooh, something’s going on there. Now, what exactly is it? Now, that doesn’t prove what’s going on. But, look, you can’t. The fact that Daryl’s moment on your podcast, sitting right here where I’m sitting, got such a reaction, really demonstrates something, like something. And you see that it’s like, oh, you touched on, like, a third rail or hurt.

TUCKER CARLSON: Dog barks.

DAVE SMITH: Yes, well, and in the same way, when you had first questioned the morality of dropping nuclear weapons on cities, and then there’s this big freak out over that, and now nobody here has said, hey, the Nazis were the good guys. The Nazis didn’t commit any atrocities.

TUCKER CARLSON: The Nazis were bad guys.

DAVE SMITH: No one’s even downplaying. No one even made the argument that.

TUCKER CARLSON: I remain anti-Nazi for the work. Yes. For the record.

DAVE SMITH: But I’m saying, like, no one even made the argument that, like, it was 5.9 million, not 6. You know, like, there’s nothing. This topic hasn’t even been broached. No, but what you are attacking is really the underpinning of the origin story of the American empire.

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly.

The Hitler Comparison in Modern Conflicts

DAVE SMITH: And that’s what you’re not allowed to question because. And you see it the way every defender of every war, including the current one going on in Gaza. I’m not sure war is exactly the right term – there’s only one army of a captive people, but every single person who defends it will always invoke World War II. Not even making an argument that this is why it was justified in World War II. Just like “we did it in World War II, we did it in World War II,” and we’re the good guys. So good guys are allowed to slaughter entire peoples.

And look, even if you accept the official World War II story as being completely correct, it’s still something that’s used to justify all of these other indefensible wars. Every war of my lifetime. And I doubt too many people really want to defend the ones between World War II and when I was born. I don’t think anyone’s going, like, “look at Vietnam. It did such a great job. It’s such a good thing that we did that.” And those who are attempting to defend it are pathetic.

But, you know, Iraq and Libya and Syria and Afghanistan, and even the ones when I was a little kid, you know, Serbia, every one of these guys, they always said was Adolf Hitler. Milosevic is Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein is Adolf Hitler. Gaddafi’s Adolf Hitler, Noriega’s Adolf Hitler. Every bad guy has always been. It’s like they use this model to justify. You’re only ever allowed to learn the lesson in history. That’s like Chamberlain was an appeaser. Appeasing bad.

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly.

DAVE SMITH: Confrontation, good. As if the lessons of history are that aggression is always correct. Trying to work out a deal is always wrong.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

DAVE SMITH: And that’s why I think it’s so important to attack that narrative.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. And from my perspective, it’s like, not even about principle as much as it is effect. If what we’re doing was working, then I guess I wouldn’t be interested in analyzing it so critically. But it’s not working. It hasn’t worked for the west, which I love. It’s where my ancestors are from. It’s where my children live. So it’s like, I don’t know. I think it’s fair to ask, like, how did we get here? It’s all falling apart.

DAVE SMITH: Why?

TUCKER CARLSON: And maybe the assumptions were bad. And what are those assumptions? Well, they’re rooted in that war, as you said. It’s just interesting that anyone would want to defend that. Like, I don’t really. I still don’t get the motive. Maybe I never will. Like, why would you want to defend any of that? Why would you want to defend Dresden or Gaza or any things that America did? But by the way, it’s not attacking. Not attack. It’s not even attacking Israel. I’m attacking the US Government, which I pay for, which my ancestors helped build.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. Why.

TUCKER CARLSON: Why would you ever want to defend bad things?

Challenging Worldviews

DAVE SMITH: Well, it is. You know, there is a tendency by people who, if you’re pulling away the underpinnings in someone’s entire worldview.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

DAVE SMITH: They usually get very defensive.

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re totally right. I’ve been there, by the way. I’ve been there. So I have felt defensive. When I first heard Alex Jones Question 9/11, I was outraged by it. I was totally outraged by it. And so in a reflexive, stupid way.

DAVE SMITH: Well, I remember just because I was very on board with the Ron Paul presidential campaigns. This was my, like, radicalizing moment. Was Ron Paul running for president? And I remember that you were hosting the event that he had. I can’t remember what it was called very well.

TUCKER CARLSON: It was the Rally for the Republic.

DAVE SMITH: The Rally for the Republic.

TUCKER CARLSON: I should have remembered it 2008, but. So I was the emcee of that.

DAVE SMITH: So at the time, it was a really big deal for us that we had you MC. And because it was like Ron Paul was getting blacked out in all the mainstream media, as we used to call it at the time. And but we had Tucker Carlson, we had like, one of the big players in that world hosting the event. And I remember when you.

TUCKER CARLSON: I walked out.

DAVE SMITH: Well, you. I saw like, an interview with you where someone was like, hey, why’d you walk out of that event? And you were like, I don’t know, man. The saying 9/11 wasn’t inside job stuff. It was just a bridge too far for me. And honestly, I totally understood that at the time. I was just pissed off at Jesse Ventura because I was like, come on, dude. We actually got like, a chance here to make a mark. And then you’re going to go, you know, start spouting out with these conspiracies.

TUCKER CARLSON: He believed it. I mean, I think Jesse Ventura’s a whole rabbit hole. I won’t even go down, but I think.

DAVE SMITH: I don’t know what happened to that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Ventura is a very flawed guy. Yeah, for sure. We’re all flawed people. I’m a little less judgmental than I used to be now that I know the depth of my own shittiness. But which I think is more important.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Meditate every day on your death and your own flaws, and you’ll be a happy person with better perspective. But I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t know why, you know, so my views are so different. But anyway, the point is, I understand what you’re saying.

DAVE SMITH: Well, it’s also that you, it’s not even necessarily that you would have to, like, all these years later be convinced that he was right. It’s just, I think after so many years of seeing how evil our government actually can be, that you go like, okay, I’m listening. All right, fine. I dismissed that out of hand, but now I’m more.

TUCKER CARLSON: How about the only question that matters is whether or not something is true.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And another way to put it, a phrase that I’ve coined and make copyright is facts don’t care about your feelings.

DAVE SMITH: That’s a good one.

TUCKER CARLSON: You like that?

DAVE SMITH: Someone should really run with that.

TUCKER CARLSON: I like that.

DAVE SMITH: That’s a good.

TUCKER CARLSON: You could get a long way. You could get like a special deal with Facebook on the basis of that. But I actually agree with that.

DAVE SMITH: Right?

TUCKER CARLSON: And I agree. I don’t think you should hurt people’s feelings on purpose. But I think the core question, the only one that matters is something true. And I know that you share that and that’s why. And I hate to beat up on Port Douglas who’s like a sad, a sad character, but he had this line in here. Oh, this isn’t. Sorry, I never go to my notes, but I’m.

DAVE SMITH: No, I.

TUCKER CARLSON: This is from a guy called Sam Harris.

DAVE SMITH: I’m loosely familiar.

Sam Harris and Accusations of Misinformation

TUCKER CARLSON: [After ad read] So, Sam Harris.

DAVE SMITH: Wow.

TUCKER CARLSON: He doesn’t care for you at all, or it looks like me either, but whatever. I’ll ignore the stuff about me. I’m not exactly sure who Sam Harris is, but. Sad atheist guy. But he describes you as a pure misinformation artist who lies as freely as he breathes. And I just thought as I read this, you could say, you know, Dave Smith, I don’t know, whatever. But I feel like that’s the opposite of the truth. I feel like maybe you lie under duress, but in general, you are, like, very focused on what you think is true.

DAVE SMITH: Well, I mean, again, I just feel like it’s a. I benefit in a way from us having this conversation. Like after Covid and after kind of all of these insane things that. Okay, so, Sam Harris, what did I get wrong? Like, I don’t think that if you’re going to smear me as being a misinformation artist, which I, you know, I’ll take that to. I should make T-shirts about misinformation artists. I’ll take that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Pure misinformation.

DAVE SMITH: Pure misinformation.

TUCKER CARLSON: Everything you say is a lie. It’s like breathing to you.

DAVE SMITH: Dude, I got called that throughout all of COVID and I was right about everything I was saying. So keep calling me this. Okay, fine. Make an argument. What have I said that’s yours?

TUCKER CARLSON: And why does he. Why is he so mad at you?

DAVE SMITH: Oh, he. Well, Sam Harris.

TUCKER CARLSON: But he was a rationalist, right?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. Yeah. He’s the guy who defended the war in Iraq and torture and fell for the Russiagate bullshit, thought Trump was a Russian spy, fell for lockdowns and vaccine mandates and all this stuff. So I’ll put my misinformation track record up against Sam Harris’s. You know, whatever. I mean, I know he’s got a meditation app or something like that, but.

TUCKER CARLSON: The Tim Dylan thing the other day.

DAVE SMITH: Oh, so. Oh, dude, it’s so great.

TUCKER CARLSON: That was like. I texted him, I said it was a funny. Tim Dillon, the brilliant comedian is the best. Think about how Sam Harris is a meditation app. I didn’t even know that. So by day he’s a meditation guru, and by night he’s encouraging, like, carpet bombing of children.

DAVE SMITH: I mean, it’s just too ridiculous. And, you know, all of these guys, it’s sad in a way, because they’re. It’s. You just. You can’t contradict yourself on what your entire, like, purpose was for your entire career without some people noticing. And that’s kind of what’s going on with all these guys.

The Emotional Nature of Criticism

TUCKER CARLSON: Why the emotion? So I notice it even now in our conversation. You are. There’s a lightness to the way you describe things. You obviously have passionate views, but you don’t seem emotionally overwrought. Douglas seemed emotionally overwrought. This guy Harris seems emotionally overwrought. They seem very emotional. What is that?

DAVE SMITH: Well, I mean, I would say that kind of ironically, although not really actually ironic. And this kind of goes to, you know, the conversation that you and Brett Weinstein were having the other day. Who. I really love Brett. I think he’s great. Yeah, I’m on your side of that debate. But I think one of the fundamental flaws in atheism is that it doesn’t really exist.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

DAVE SMITH: They think that’s the flaw in believing in God. They think the flaw in believing in God is that God really doesn’t exist. God does exist. What doesn’t exist are atheists. There’s no such thing.

TUCKER CARLSON: True.

DAVE SMITH: And you could even get into an. Like, maybe if there was such thing as atheists, it would be a good thing to be one. But there aren’t. They don’t exist. They all have their religion. And it’s almost by definition that whatever your highest thing is becomes your religion. I don’t know if it’s quite by definition, and I suppose it is theoretically possible to be an atheist, but almost no one ever is. And so what you’re seeing is just that I’m attacking their religion. And according to them, that makes me guilty of blasphemy.

The Atheist’s Contradiction

TUCKER CARLSON: But it’s just so interesting that they’re so brittle about it. You’d think if you’re an atheist, you’d be like, does it really matter? I mean, there’s no right or wrong, obviously, because how can. Who’s the authority on that? Well, there is no authority. So it’s all just a matter of preference. And in the end, you just cease to exist. And so the stakes are zero. So what are you so mad about? Like, why do you care? You’d think everyone would be like, well, how.

DAVE SMITH: I’ll take it a step further. Sam Harris does not believe in free will. So what is he upset with me about? I have no choice.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, you’re just.

DAVE SMITH: I have to be a misinformation artist. This is what I. I’m wired to be a misinformation Artist. Right. So what are you upset with? And he’s not even making the choice to say that. Listen, anytime. And this was one of. I, again, I really, really like Brett, but I think one of the areas where he failed kind of in that conversation with you in that, you know, very friendly debate, is that he had to say several times throughout it, yes, yes, I live as if what you’re saying is correct, but I view things this way. So, yes, I’d much rather live. But if you’re. If your, like, thesis involves you having to engage in a performative contradiction, then something’s not right with your theory.

And so Sam Harris will sit here and say, none of us have free will, but I’m still going to act as if all of us have free will. You’ve got a major flaw in your theory that, like, this is just too much. This is. This is too far. You can’t do that. That’s not right. And so, yes, again, with all of them. The bottom line, I think with a lot of these people, like, and some have adapted better than others, I think Brett’s one of the ones who’s really adapted well from, like, the old academia world to this new podcast world that we’re in now. But I think the problem with a lot of them, like Sam Harris and I think Douglas Murray, too, is that what they’ve worked their entire career on has been completely rejected. And that’s a tough position to be in, but it’s not really.

Admitting When You’re Wrong

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, I spent my whole life in cable news. It obviously is in terminal decline. I had all kinds of views that I argued for passionately. They were totally wrong. I admitted it. I gained perspective and humility in. Humility in admitting it. You’re just a human being.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, but that, that. Listen, you. That may have happened kind of naturally for you. I’m just saying, when you run it on scale, very few people are able to do that.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s not hard. It’s. It’s. It’s. The only act of liberation that’s really possible in this life is freeing yourself from, like, the lies. And the number one lie is I’m God.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And, like, I’m omniscient or, you know, was perfectly wise person, whatever. It’s like, you know, you make mistakes. You’re a ridiculous primate.

DAVE SMITH: It’s a little bit fur.

TUCKER CARLSON: Like, just admit it.

DAVE SMITH: There’s just. Look, you got some things wrong. Yeah. But there’s a difference between that and your entire foundation being built on hypocrisy. And that hypocrisy Being shown, you know, look, I mean, you can’t make this stuff up, right? Ben Shapiro built a career opposing identity politics as a proud Zionist.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

DAVE SMITH: Now you listen, feel however you feel about Zionism. It’s identity politics. Like, like that is the definition of. You could not find a better example of a politics built on an identity. And yet you’re out here saying facts don’t care about your feelings. Identity politics is wrong. And then while you’re saying that, your number one priority. I know, is this, this manifestation of identity politics. You can only keep that charade going for so long.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, it’s totally true.

DAVE SMITH: Before someone sees through it.

The Hypocrisy of Accusations

TUCKER CARLSON: There’s something in people that the lowest part of people that instinctively accuses others of doing what they’re doing. And I’ve never really. Man, I don’t. That’s one thing I don’t want to be is a guy who does that. But I remember Bill Kristol, who I worked for for years and really liked and was grateful to, and he was a great boss in the 90s and came out against me and called me a Nazi and all this stuff. Like, without calling me, by the way. I called him and asked him to lunch. He refused. He wouldn’t go to lunch with me. End of our relationship.

But one of the criticisms against me, I’ll never forget it, when I realized this phenomenon was real was when he accused me of advocating, and I’m quoting, for an ethnostate. Now I have a lot of flaws. They’re all on display. I’ve never wanted an ethno state. And it’s like, wait, one of us is for an ethno state and it’s not me? But you just said that like, of all the possible criticisms.

DAVE SMITH: It’s just too unbelievable. I mean, it’s like Crystal accusing me.

TUCKER CARLSON: Of wanting an ethnostate.

DAVE SMITH: But you, like, you just, you almost like, don’t even. You can’t even respond. You just have to go like, it’s.

TUCKER CARLSON: Like, I didn’t say anything. I was like, okay, right?

DAVE SMITH: Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: You know, people can’t hear themselves. I mean, you notice when people get old, you know, they tell the same stories and you just, you know, when you love them, you’re indulgent. But I just hope that doesn’t happen to me. I hope I don’t lose all self awareness to the point where I’ve got like lunch on my chin and like accuse other people of doing exactly what I’m doing.

DAVE SMITH: Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly what I’m doing.

The Media Revolution

DAVE SMITH: While you’re going, you have lunch on your chin, you know? Yeah, that’s good. You don’t want to be there, want to be that guy. And I think that there’s like, look, obviously, like we’re, we’re living through something, you know, we’re probably living through several things that are very profound, but one of the most profound things has been this revolution in, in information and the technology and this, it’s led to this, like, kind of mass decentralization of media and where there’s now, like, there’s so many things and shows and different voices.

You know, I find people all the time who I’ve never heard of before, you know, and I’m sure you’ve had this experience too. You’ll find someone, you’ll be like, oh, that guy’s actually really smart. People should know about this. Really smart. How many followers? Seven million. Oh, he’s got seven million. Oh, he’s huge. Like, I just found some guy who is bigger than anyone on cable news and I didn’t even know he existed, you know, and so now it’s just because of this dynamic.

There aren’t, you know, as, you know, the corporate media apparatus, like big newspapers and big cable news shows and things was very controlled. Very controlled. The range of allowable opinion was very narrow. It’s what my good friend and brilliant historian Tom Woods always called the, was it the 3 by 6 card of allowable opinion? You know, you get this little area of allowable opinion and then that’s where the conversation takes place. That’s been shattered into a million pieces. And now there’s voices from all over the place. And some good and some great and some bad and really bad.

But it’s just much harder for people to, you know, that control existed so that you don’t get exposed. So that you don’t get exposed. So that you could go like, look, even the right winger John McCain agrees. Or even the far left activist Nancy Pelosi. I mean, it’s like, dude, have to hear Sean Hannity goes the far left. Nancy Pelosi. It’s like, how many leftists have you actually talked to in your life? How many leftists have you ever read? You think Nancy Pelosi’s a far leftist?

TUCKER CARLSON: Like, really, they got her vineyard in Napa.

DAVE SMITH: All these different, you know, these different tools of corporations are left and right. But so that’s over now. And now I think it’s just much, it’s much tougher to keep this charade going.

TUCKER CARLSON: And it seems to be collapsing so fast.

The Dual Loyalty Question

DAVE SMITH: Yes, yes. And it’s not again. You could, you could be honest about it and kind of maintain some of your respect. But the truth is that, like, look, even when they’ll say these things, like if you accuse Ben Shapiro of having dual loyalty, they go, oh, that’s an anti-Semitic trope. That means you hate the Jews. But then he’ll sit there in his own words and say, I forget his exact quote, but it was something like, my favorite thing about the United States of America is that it protects Israel. And so you’re already saying you have loyalty to both of these countries. In fact, I’m not so sure about the one of the loyalties, but I’m very sure about the other one.

And that is not. I’m sorry, that’s not a statement against Jewish people. I’m Jewish. I love Jewish people. You know, it’s like I get called a self-hating Jew on Twitter or whatever. It could not be further from the truth. I actually really love Jewish people. There’s many things about Jewish culture that have, you know, had a huge impact on me, made me the person I am, made me a better person for their impact on me. But this is a foreign government. Like, I’m sorry, we’re allowed to talk about that.

If you, you know, I saw Glenn Beck the other day, had Douglas Murray on, and he wasn’t like, Glenn Beck wasn’t like, mean to me personally, but. Which I appreciated, but he was just going, I mean, it was just so ridiculous. But it’s like you were sitting here, we’re going to, we’re having a conversation about a foreign government. You started crying on your show talking about this foreign government. That’s fucking weird. That’s weird. We should not be doing that. What the hell is going on here? Like, I don’t even think you should cry about our own government, you know, but if you’re going to cry about one, it should be ours.

TUCKER CARLSON: And no, but no one would even think to cry about our own government, right?

DAVE SMITH: I mean, like, come on, like, let’s have a real conversation about this. And if you don’t, especially. And by the way, this is not my primary goal. My primary goal is to tell the truth and to advocate for what’s good for our country. But if you’re concerned about, like, the young men getting a little bit too radical and, you know, being too obsessed with the Jews or too against the Jews, which I do think is a legit concern.

TUCKER CARLSON: It definitely is.

DAVE SMITH: You know, that’s not good for you. And it’s not good for you. It’s not good for the conflict, it’s not good for the country. I just don’t think any of racial collectivism always leads to bad places.

TUCKER CARLSON: I totally agree.

DAVE SMITH: You don’t want to, you don’t want to embrace that stuff. But if you’re concerned about that, well then the first thing you have to do is tell the truth. You can’t keep lying to people and you can’t keep sitting here and going like, oh no, the neoconservative. You can’t say neoconservative. Right. Isn’t that Mark Levin? Didn’t he just say if it’s neocervin.

TUCKER CARLSON: Who I also know? I mean I, I’ve been in right wing world my whole life. I know everybody I work with, Mark always gotten along with Mark, always been nice to me. But yeah, he just accused Trump, the Trump administration of anti-Semitism for calling someone a neocon. Well, what he did was he accused Steve Witkoff of anti-Semitism.

DAVE SMITH: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I just want to say I think Steve Witkoff is, if there’s anyone who is, you know, has the hand of God on him, it seems to me I sort of overstated, but I feel that way. It’s. Witkoff was like a thoroughly decent man and he was running around the world trying to bring peace.

DAVE SMITH: And also, by the way, who single handedly saved 20 Jewish hostages.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, exactly.

DAVE SMITH: I mean, I don’t know if they were all Jewish. I think most of them were. I think almost all of them were. But I think they got 20 hostages released in the phase one of the ceasefire that he worked out. Then Israel violated the ceasefire and so they didn’t get the other hostages back. Although thankfully the American was just released. But, but this guy Witkoff has actually done more to help those hostages.

TUCKER CARLSON: Here’s what, I mean, here’s what he said. I actually wrote this down because I was really bothered by it. This is Levin on Twitter. Mark Levin, who works at Fox, just like basically seems to have turned his programming over to advocating for a war with Iran. Neocon is a pejorative for Jew. Unbelievable. And this is in response to Witkoff saying, quote, the neocon element believes that war is the only way to solve things. So you have Mark Levin calling Steve Witkoff an anti-Semite.

DAVE SMITH: Right, right. And again, we’ve reached peak crate.

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, I think Witkoff is Jewish.

The Neoconservative Debate

DAVE SMITH: Right. Again, again, but it’s. I don’t even know. But again, it shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t really matter.

TUCKER CARLSON: It doesn’t matter.

DAVE SMITH: He’s American and he’s on the side of peace. And so I’m for that guy. But you know the crazy thing. So I also, I at one point in the debate with Douglas Murray where I said something about the neoconservatives and he went, “ah, the N word,” you know, making a play on the N word or whatever. And it’s interesting. I mean Douglas Murray wrote the book called “Neoconservatism: Why We Need It.” It was his book. And so what happened was for people who don’t know a lot about this, it’s. There was a. This was their term. Neoconservative was not a pejorative term until the neoconservatives got control of our foreign policy and ruined everything. And then it became a term that we’ll call every warhawk. We’ll be like, “oh, another neocon.” Now a lot of times we will use the term when strictly speaking this person may not have been a self-identified neoconservative, it’s just become a pejorative. A pejorative for someone trying to get us in a stupid war. But the neoconservatives themselves, the original group, this was their name.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, I know.

DAVE SMITH: For themselves there. And you, right, you were there, you worked alongside them. I worked for that.

TUCKER CARLSON: I worked for Bill Kristol for five and a half years. I was a neocon.

DAVE SMITH: Yes, it wasn’t. And they had no Episcopalian neocon. But look, they had no problem using the term until everybody started to hate them. And then they went, “you can’t call us this.” But it’s like, no, you guys, like this was your own term that you used for yourself. You can read their own documents in the Project for a New American Century. You read the Clean Break memo. They laid out what they wanted their foreign policy to be. I mean literally right? Wasn’t it? Oh God, I can’t remember whose quote it was. I know that a bunch of them loved sharing it. But what is it that every 10 years we gotta throw a small puny little country up against the wall and show ’em who’s boss? This was their foreign policy. We need multiple theaters of war in the Middle East in order to ensure the new century as an American century.

TUCKER CARLSON: So immoral and disgusting.

DAVE SMITH: Yes, and also that. And look as anybody can read. I think we talked about this last time I was on. But anybody can read for themselves. The Clean Break memo. It was written by Richard Perle and David Wurmser to Benjamin Netanyahu. That was like, look, here is our plan. And the break was from the peace process. The break was from Oslo, and they go, look, here’s the plan. You know how Yitzhak Rabin and all these liberal Jews are saying we have to make peace with the Palestinians so that we can then make peace with the broader Arab world? Well, no, we got a new plan. We’re going to break with all of that. We’re not doing this land swap thing. We’re not giving the Palestinians a state. What we’ll do is we’ll have America overthrow all of these other governments. That way you never have to make peace with the Palestinians and you can just enjoy domination over the region.

And from my reading of it, it does seem to me that a lot of them believed it. You know, I think a lot of them, hubris. And, yeah, we overthrow Saddam Hussein, this democracy will sweep the region. Then we’ll overthrow Gaddafi, then we’ll overthrow the mullahs in Iran, and then the region will be way better. Except every time they actually did it, it resulted in nothing but disaster, which really could have been very easily predicted and was predicted by wiser people than the neocons. But all these years later, you either have to, like, apologize for your role in this catastrophe or defend your role in this catastrophe and talk about how you still really believe it was the right thing to do. But you can’t sit here and say you’re not an expert and you’re a Jew hater if you say the word neoconservative. That’s not an appropriate response.

The Anti-Semitism Accusations

TUCKER CARLSON: But if. If Mark Levin is calling the Trump administration anti-Semitic, Steve Witkoff, we’re at the end of something and the beginning of something new. I mean, that’s right. I almost called Mark when I saw it because I really, I know him, but I really love Steve Witkoff and I think his decency. I don’t agree with him and everything at all, but his decency is just palpable. I mean, it just comes through his concern for people. His reasonableness is just so obvious. And the effects of what he’s done have been so great. Great for America, great for the world. So I almost. I was so offended. And then I thought, I’m not going to solve anything by calling Mark Levin and scolding him. Probably scream at me, but. But I did think, like, he’s not stupid. If you’re saying. If you’re calling Steve Witkoff an anti-Semite on Twitter, like, you know, you’re losing. Right? Is that what that is?

DAVE SMITH: And it’s such a, you know, in the. What’s weird is that at the same time, because I know all of these. These people will. They’ll be lecturing me about how I don’t understand, like, the gravity of antisemitism. And it’s like, no, actually, I kind of do. And I would never just throw the accusation around like that. I’m very hesitant to ever call any person a bigot or a Jew hater or racist or any of these things because it’s like you’re intentionally trying to dehumanize them on the accusation that they’re dehumanizing others.

TUCKER CARLSON: Scaring the crap out of people. I’m getting texts from people I really love personally who are very, very, you know, who aren’t paying a lot of attention. They just hear that there’s anti-Semitism and I’m part of it and hurts their feelings and they’re confused and upset. And it’s like, it’s. It has such a divisive effect. Yeah, like, for real.

DAVE SMITH: And it’s.

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The “Woke Right” Narrative

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, I mean, I’m concerned about all of it. None of it’s particularly good. But there’s also something which is. It’s interesting to me as somebody who is. I am not a conservative. I mean, I’m a bit of a right winger, but I’m not a conservative. I’m kind of a radical libertarian. And I kind of, you know.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, if Thom Tillis is what a conservative is, I’m not.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, right. I mean. I mean, there are some. As a libertarian, like, there certainly are some things that I think ought be conserved. You know, like, I think, like, the Bill of Rights and our traditions and I think Christianity. I think there’s a lot of things that, like, should be conserved. But it’s so bizarre to me that now that I’m at this level where it’s like, I’m talking or talking to, but being lectured to by, like, the leaders of Conservatism, Inc. And I have to explain to them that I don’t believe in moral relativism, as if this is a new thing for them to wrap their head around.

TUCKER CARLSON: Have you gotten calls from Conninc trying to bring you into line?

DAVE SMITH: For the first time in my career. I’ve gotten a few of the calls, but, I mean, I’m too far gone for them. If you were going to get me to sell out, you would have had to get me a while ago. You just shouldn’t have let me. Well, it is. I remember. So when I. This is like, I want to say, like, 2000, 2014, 2015. It was somewhere in there where I said, the first time I ever got on television, the first person who ever put me on TV was Kennedy, who I just adore and will for the rest of my days.

TUCKER CARLSON: Sweet, sweet girl. I agree.

DAVE SMITH: Just like one of the sweetest, kindest, really funny, really smart. Weirdly smart.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

DAVE SMITH: But, like, when I say weirdly smart, I mean weirdly smart, like, knows about stuff that no one should know about and then has, like, a lot of information about it. A wonderful person. So she was a. She put me on Fox Business. And then Greg Gutfeld and Tom Shalhou, who was hosting Red Eye at the time, they started using me on their Fox News shows. And so it was like the first time in my career I’d, like, started getting on TV. And I remember a few people at Fox had told me that they were like, hey, there’s, like, some people in management are, like, interested in you. Like, they’re taking, you know, some interest in you. And then it was kind of explained to me. Not, like, ever directly, but it was like, you know, you’re a little out there for Fox News. And I remember at the time I was broke. I mean, dead broke.

TUCKER CARLSON: Only on.

DAVE SMITH: Just to be.

TUCKER CARLSON: I put a finer point in that. What do they mean? Not in your personal life? Your personal life?

DAVE SMITH: Oh, no, no, no.

TUCKER CARLSON: More buttoned down than most people who were.

DAVE SMITH: Well, at the time, it wasn’t this is before I was married and had kids and stuff. But that’s, believe me, that’s not what they care about.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, it’s.

DAVE SMITH: I found out pretty quickly by just doing shows at Fox News and then going to the bar afterward with some of the people there. You’re like, oh, conservatism Inc. Is not exactly what you thought. They’re actually pretty liberal when it comes down to the bar. Hang after the show, I would say. But it was, you know, I was a Ron Paul guy and I was younger, so I was a more, you know, Ron Paul was a country doctor wearing a suit and tie. I was like a kid from Brooklyn who was like, you’re all a bunch of killers. You know, like, this is all bullshit.

TUCKER CARLSON: It was the foreign policy stuff.

DAVE SMITH: It was all the foreign policy stuff, as it always is. That’s always what it’s really all about. And I don’t say that cuz I want it to be the case. It’s just the fact that that’s always really what it’s all about.

TUCKER CARLSON: Took me 40 years to figure this out. But yes, that’s about right.

DAVE SMITH: You’re correct, by the way. All of these even debates today, the people on Twitter talking about the woke, right? It just happens to be that everyone who’s labeled woke, right, are the ones who are opposing American wars. And everybody who’s throwing out the accusation all happen to support them.

TUCKER CARLSON: What’s woke, right?

DAVE SMITH: It’s a nonsense term that they’re trying to say. It’s totally ridiculous. But, but let me just. On the Fox News thing, so I remember then, and this is time I was broke. I mean like broke like where they’re like, hey, let’s go grab a beer after the show. I’m like, all right, are you buying? Because if not, like, let’s go grab a six pack at the store and go back to my apartment and sip. Because like I just had no money.

And I would have at the time when they said they were like, look, they’re thinking about you for one of these contributorships, you know, it was, whatever it is, it may give you like a hundred grand a year or something like that if you get one. It would have been like life changing for me. Life changing. And I remember consciously at the time thinking, you know, at a time when I’m making 25 grand a year thinking, man, maybe I just don’t talk about the foreign policy stuff. Maybe I just do that. And then even in the moment I thought about it just being like, now Ron Paul’s my Hero. My hero are the people who tell the truth. Yes. So, like, I’m just not going to. But. So if I didn’t. If I didn’t sell out, then the idea that I’m going to sell out now when I’m doing really well, it’s like, no, that’s ridiculous. Like, no. You know what I’m saying? Like, that’s insane.

TUCKER CARLSON: It was just funny that I think that. That Murray thought he was administering the kill shot.

DAVE SMITH: I think that’s what it was supposed to be.

The Aftermath of the Douglas Murray Debate

TUCKER CARLSON: But the opposite happened. It’s like. And not to brag. I knew this as I was watching it. I was like, Dave is about to become way more famous. But not just famous, more authoritative, more respected, more closely listened to than ever before. Has that been your experience?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s essentially just done nothing except make me bigger, you know.

TUCKER CARLSON: Were you. Did you pay Douglas to do that?

DAVE SMITH: I did not. I don’t have that type of money.

TUCKER CARLSON: I throw the fight on purpose.

DAVE SMITH: I wish I had that. I’m doing okay. I don’t have money like that. I don’t have buy off Douglas Murray money. I think he’s getting.

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t think it would take too much.

DAVE SMITH: Well, he’s. It’s not just. You know, one of the things that was interesting is that it’s not just. So there was the debate. There was the reaction to the debate, but then what was really interesting is that then there was the reaction to. Just because it became such a big thing, it ended up coming up on Rogan’s podcast with other guests, like, later on, and they’re all just kind of making fun of Douglas and how ridiculous he was because he was ridiculous.

And then it’s almost like you see the realization set in with those people that, oh, shit. That Joe was what. What essentially happened here, right? And this is, I think, for almost everyone to see is that I’ve been debating all these guys on Israel, Palestine, and I’ve been beating all these guys in these debates. And I’m not saying I’m beating. I’m saying, like, the reaction, the Oxford style voting is that I win dominantly. And then Douglas Murray was almost brought in as the king Boss.

TUCKER CARLSON: Dad’s here, right?

DAVE SMITH: Like, this is the. I mean, Ben Shapiro’s not going to do it. He’s not going to come debate me. And so who is it? Who’s the best guy to come to. Well, here’s Douglas Murray, the guy who’s just known for his prose and his rhetoric and how good he is at debating. I mean, this is what he’s known for. And then he came in and couldn’t lay a land. A blow he couldn’t take on one argument. He had to just be resorted to. Like, it was like you were debating an anti racist college professor on what? Who’s just going to tell you the whole time that I’m not even allowed to have even penny.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, totally.

DAVE SMITH: It was just that. And so then, what do you think the response to that was? Here you have Joe Rogan, who has got some of these guys on his show who clearly are making a case where he goes, all right, yeah, this is a pretty good argument that this guy’s making.

And he brought, you know, as much as Douglas was complaining in his op eds after the fact that it’s so unfair that I couldn’t just go on alone, I had to go on with this guy who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s like, yeah, but this was your opportunity, man. You could have blown me out of the water and then had Rogan being like, ah, shit, maybe I should have more experts on. Like, maybe I’ve got this comedian guy who I think’s making really good points. But then this guy just came in and like, totally took him on and. But he was unwilling or unable to do that. And so that was the next freak out is they realized that, like, oh, Joe just got pushed more in my direction, as his whole audience did.

The Real Agenda Behind Murray’s Appearance

TUCKER CARLSON: I wonder, though, if there’s not something a little more sinister underneath it. I mean, you keep referring to this as a debate, but it wasn’t. It was not a debate. It was Douglas trying to scold Joe into never having you or anyone like you on his show again. It was basically, he was playing the heavy a little bit. It was kind of threatening, I thought, like, you know, you don’t really know because you were a sitcom actor slash comedian bowhunter, that actually you’re playing with some pretty serious shit. Joe Rogan. And we’ve been watching and maybe you should stop having these people on. Yeah, that was definitely the vibe I got from it.

DAVE SMITH: Oh, no question it was. They even used the word when he was talking to Barry Weiss, you know, that embodiment of expertise that is Barry Weiss. They. They were talking and he used the word platforming that Joe shouldn’t be platforming all of these people. It’s like, okay, so you’re. You look, I’m saying, this is just Animal Farm.

TUCKER CARLSON: We’re at the end of Animal Farm where the pigs and the people are indistinguishable. Like if you’re a conservative using the word platform as a verb. Yeah, like how long before you call me a white supremacist? Actually?

DAVE SMITH: Which essentially, I guess white supremacist isn’t the term, but anti Semite is the term that they’re going with. It’s the exact same playbook.

TUCKER CARLSON: And then they have the balls to whip around and call you woke, right?

DAVE SMITH: Yes, that’s right. I’m woke.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right. It’s Bill Crystal calling me, you know, calling for an ethnostate.

DAVE SMITH: Yes, it’s all the same thing, right? You’re sitting here, we have, in this country right now, we have speech laws being passed, you know, in the name of students feeling not safe on college campuses. And you get the accusation of bigotry used to shut down real dissent and real conversations. And then they’re going to turn around and say the other side is woke.

Free Speech and Double Standards

TUCKER CARLSON: So that’s when I stopped laughing. That, I mean, that is shocking to me in the fact that the Congress had scheduled. It was thanks to Marjorie Taylor Greene. It was pulled off the schedule. But God bless her.

DAVE SMITH: But what a weird world we’re in where she’s the savior. Marjorie Taylor Greene is who? That’s where we’re at.

TUCKER CARLSON: You know why? Because Marjorie is totally sincere.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: She’s actually not a liar. She’s sincere. That’s why they hate her. But there was a blah vote scheduled on a bill that would have made it a felony for Americans to participate in a boycott of Israel. And as someone who has zero interest in participating in any kind of boycott, much less against Israel, I’m just not interested. I’m happy, whatever. Buy the hummus and use the software, I don’t care. But I probably would have engaged in one just to make the point that I’m a free man in a free country. And we can’t. Like how could you even consider voting on something like that?

DAVE SMITH: And isn’t the most outrageous part of it, or at least to me, I mean, I guess it’s all outrageous, but the most. The crazy thing is that we’ve, and we’ve seen this in the last decade where like Hollywood types and like big musicians would boycott red states. Like if they tried to pass like a six week heartbeat bill for abortion.

TUCKER CARLSON: Or the Baptist bill.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, boycott. So you could boycott states in our own country, but you can’t boycott a foreign country. It’s like the, but the double standard there. Again, this is why I said the thing about like relativism. Because in the same way that, you know, that people will talk about constantly and the same people who will harp on, you know, antisemitism on Twitter. And, like, I’m not denying something’s going on there, clearly, big time. Like, there’s. There’s a real thing happening here, big time.

And it’s not, as I’ve said. And again, this isn’t necessarily the most important aspect to it, but personally, one of the things that annoys me about that is, like, it’s not helping my argument. It’s an albatross around my neck. And it’s the reason why every goddamn debate that I’m in, the first thing they’re going to bring up is, well, look at all these people on Twitter who are saying all this stuff. So I wish those people would knock it off. But you also, okay, we don’t need two standards here. One standard will do just fine. Let’s have one standard and apply this across the board. Because the amount of anti Muslim bigotry, anti Palestinian bigotry, dehumanizing of the entire.

TUCKER CARLSON: Palestinian engaged in for 20 years.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, that’s right. And then they’re going to turn around and be like, oh, my God, there’s all this bigotry. There’s all this dehumanizing bigotry out there. It’s like, yeah, none of that is good. None of that is good. It’s not good for you. It’s not good for the conversation. It’s just bad. You don’t want to dehumanize an entire group of people ever. Beings like human beings, you know, and that should be fairly obvious.

But also, I will say that, you know, Donald Trump, who I voted for and supported in this last election, I think has done some really good things in his first hundred days or so and some not so good things. But, you know, I mean, he. He would turn in the debate and call Joe Biden a Palestinian. He said this about Chuck Schumer, too. He’s basically a Palestinian. You’re like, whoa. And for all the people who have been screaming bigotry for the last decade, no one ever thought to be like, hey, you know, that’s not like an insult.

I know it’s not an insult to call someone a Palestinian. I’ve met lots of Palestinians who are really great people. There’s nothing wrong with them. And again, like, if anyone. If a presidential candidate ever, like, stood up in the debate and went, ah, this guy’s a real Jew, we’d all be like, whoa, what the hell is that? You don’t get to say that in a political debate.

TUCKER CARLSON: I know.

DAVE SMITH: And so there’s this. There’s a ton of this. You have, you know, Nikki Haley going over and signing bombs.

TUCKER CARLSON: Hard to overstate how much I hate that, by the way.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, well. Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: And, I mean, there are a lot of unreasonable Palestinians. Of course, there are also some wonderful Christian. A lot of Christian Palestinians, a lot of wonderful Muslim Palestinians. So I hate that.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, it’s terrible. Yeah, it’s terrible. It’s terrible on any side. You don’t dehumanize people like that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

DAVE SMITH: And so what’s his name? I’m blinking. What’s the congressman in Florida? Randy Fine. Is Fine his last name? I don’t know. But did you see the stuff he’s posted?

TUCKER CARLSON: Like a nutshell.

DAVE SMITH: Oh, my God. It’s just, you know. So again, okay, you want to talk about.

TUCKER CARLSON: He’s the one who’s like, we want to kill all their children or something.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, well, someone basically, like, I think someone tweeted, like, a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, and he said, like, good, we need more, or something like that. It was something really close to that. I don’t want to get this wrong.

TUCKER CARLSON: You could vote for someone like that.

DAVE SMITH: Trump endorsed us after that.

TUCKER CARLSON: After he said it was good that a baby was dead.

DAVE SMITH: I mean, you know, again, I would.

TUCKER CARLSON: Love to have him on.

DAVE SMITH: Pull up the actual tweet on that, because I don’t want to, like, misremember it, but it was something really egregious, and he’s. You know, there’s just. Look, there’s a lot of this stuff. It’s how you get Nikki Haley signing bombs that are about to go get dropped on women and children. You’re like, I’m sorry, that’s fucking sickening. Like, what the hell is that? Like, what, are we, a part of some death cult or something? I mean, this is, like, real.

And so, of course, then, you know, Douglas Murray’s book is, like, democracies and death cults or whatever, which is kind of funny in a way, to be pro democracies, while you’re also making the argument for expertise, because you would think, like, if you’re for democracy, the whole point of this, the whole point of experts is to explain it to regular people who will ultimately have the authority of deciding which experts are in charge and which experts are not in charge. You know, there’s a little contradiction. There’s. But again, this is my issue, and this is where I think, Tucker, in some way, we’re really, like, kindred Spirits.

TUCKER CARLSON: What a higher IQ you have than Douglas Murray. It just cracks me up.

DAVE SMITH: Well, he’s got a very high verbal IQ. He’s more talented in a lot of ways than me. I’m telling the truth.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, no, but I mean, that’s such a deep contradiction that I doubt he’s aware of.

DAVE SMITH: Probably not. But I will say this. And this is where I think, in some ways, this is why me and you always get along. I think we’re kindred spirits in this way, in some sense, for sure. But I really do. I mean this. I mean this so sincerely in my soul. In my heart of hearts. I’m a crotchety old right winger.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

Western Values and Libertarianism

DAVE SMITH: Like, that’s who I want to be. Okay? That’s who I try my best. I want to be. I’m not just like a Western chauvinist or whatever. Like, I think Western society is better than everything else. I’m a libertarian, and I think it’s one of the goofiest things about libertarians in general that they kind of try to run away from that and be egalitarian to some degree. That’s ridiculous. What do you tell you? You believe in individual liberty. Well, then you don’t get to say every civilization is equal because only one of them respects individual liberty. And that’s the better one. Okay? That’s the I.

TUCKER CARLSON: By your own definition, that’s right.

DAVE SMITH: So screw all this. Other. Egalitarianism is a revolt against nature, as the great Murray Rothbard wrote. But I’m against all of that. I don’t believe in relativism. I don’t believe in all cultures are equal. I would like to sit here and look down on the Muslim world. That’s what I would like to do. Because my society is so much better. And if anything, I’d be lecturing you. You guys gotta do liberty better. You guys don’t really even understand how a free society works. I’d like to be there. That’s actually what I once was.

That’s what confirms my bias, is like, stuff like that. The problem is I just know too much about our government and what our government’s done to these people, and not just what we’ve done to them, but that we’ve been propping up the Islamists for 40 years, literally. And so what are we talking about here? You can’t then turn around and go look at them. They’re a bunch of Islamists. No, I know what you did. You propped up the Islamists so you didn’t have to deal with the commies.

Like, regardless of any of that, I just, again, I insist on one standard for everything. If you’re going to say Hamas is a death cult, what the hell is the US Government? What is the Israeli government? You get to sit here as my government has, in the last 25 years, destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Ukraine, and now Gaza. That’s what my government’s done. I don’t get to call someone else a death cult. I’d like to. I’d like to just look down at them as a death cult, but. Sorry, we’re the biggest purveyors of violence in the world, not Vladimir Putin. And, like, again, it’s just if you look at these things, you just have to have one standard and apply them across the board. This is what I’ve been arguing the whole time. And if you’re going to say it’s like, okay, October 7th was horrible. It was absolutely horrible. Why was it horrible? Oh, yeah. Because intentionally killing innocent civilians is, like, one of the most evil things you could ever do. Okay, then.

TUCKER CARLSON: Because people are what matter.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: In the end. Right. And all your. Your theories are valid to the extent that they serve people. And when they. When they hurt people, then they’re invalid. You know, I think.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, I think so.

The New Media Landscape

TUCKER CARLSON: So you said that there’s this brand new media landscape, information landscape, possibility of true free thinking and free speech. I think it’s all true because the old control system has shattered, as you said. So we’re living in this just incredible moment. How long can it last?

DAVE SMITH: Oh, that’s a good question. It’s very hard, you know, it’s very hard to make predictions because it’s such a new model, and it’s like, we really don’t know much about this. You know, one of the things that I find that I’m. Which, you know, you never want to get ahead of yourself, especially these days. And there’s so many things that could happen that it’s kind of, like, impossible to even know what 2028 looks like.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

DAVE SMITH: But. So I’m assuming right now JD Vance is probably going to be the guy.

TUCKER CARLSON: Hope so.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, I hope so, too. And so you look at this dynamic where you go, okay, so part of. So you look at Kamala Harris’s campaign and say Joe Biden the same way. And Joe Biden, specifically because he was senile. Joe Biden. Younger Joe Biden, while he was never a very bright guy, maybe would have been a little bit different politically.

But Kamala Harris, so she kind of famously, infamously now turned down the Joe Rogan experience. She could have been on the show, but she didn’t. Now a lot of people were saying, oh, what a stupid move turning that down. I kind of disagree. I go, that probably was the right move. If you had no soul and you’re working for the Kamala Harris campaign and your only objective in this world was to get her elected and that invite came in, you’re probably going, no, no, no, no, no, no. You will be exposed. You can’t go do this.

The fact is that Kamala Harris, by the nature of who she is as a person and by the nature of what she was running on, is not built for a three hour, unedited, unscripted conversation. You can’t do that. You know, like, say whatever you will about Donald Trump. The man’s got a lot of flaws, but he is built for that. He could do eight hours, I think, easily. You know, like, he’s.

TUCKER CARLSON: Without going to the bathroom, Right?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. Which is what I heard. And Joe said he didn’t go before or after.

TUCKER CARLSON: True.

DAVE SMITH: I’ve never done the Joe Rogan experience and not gone to the bathroom before.

TUCKER CARLSON: Or after the mid break leak. Always.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, of course. Insane. The guy’s not human. It’s unbelievable. But okay, so going just into 2028, think about what a change this is. This is the new standard to be a presidential candidate. You have to be able to go and do a three hour podcast and actually probably several of them, right? I mean, Trump did a whole bunch of them before he got elected and she didn’t and lost. That’s it. And so that in itself just changes everything. Now we have to actually see who you are as a person, you know, because it doesn’t even matter. It doesn’t even matter what you’re talking about for three hours. It doesn’t even matter if you’re getting grilled.

TUCKER CARLSON: So true.

DAVE SMITH: It’s just, I get to see who.

TUCKER CARLSON: You are and it comes out.

DAVE SMITH: So, okay.

TUCKER CARLSON: No one can play a role for three hours.

DAVE SMITH: Right. So that’s the new normal. You know, that’s. That in itself is a huge transformation.

The Future of Free Speech

TUCKER CARLSON: I think that has to be stopped. I think that has to be stopped. And, you know, I don’t want to be, like, too paranoid, but one of the. I think some of the. The anger and the hate online is, you know, it’s organic and it’s rooted in frustration and facts in some cases. And, you know, I’m not. It’s not all bad, but some of it is so clearly inorganic. It just obviously Is that you sort of wonder like, is this all a pretext for shutting it down? I just can’t escape that.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, I get your point. And certainly, you know, like, I never know what is, you know, a pretext or what is not. But it’s certainly like, oh, this is going to be used that way. So like, that’s another thing. It’s very short sighted, you know, for, for anyone. You know, it’s kind of like nobody ever, which I get it. It’s, it’s a little bit difficult to do because it’s like second or third order thinking.

But no one ever kind of thinks about like what the reaction is going to be to what they’re doing. It’s just whether they can get away with it in the moment. But it’s not the fact that it’s like, hey, there is going to be a correction for this and almost certainly an overcorrection because that’s always the case. You know, it doesn’t seem like any of those leftists ever thought about when they were pushing like all the trans and the kids stuff, they’d be like, what do you think the result of this is going to be? You go, oh, here’s the result. Donald Trump winning every swing state.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s the result in a handmaid’s tale. Like ultimately we’re going to have Sharia law.

DAVE SMITH: Well, it’s. But it does, you know, it’s.

TUCKER CARLSON: And then people are always like, really? How did the Muslims take over Europe? Because Europe went tranny, that’s why.

DAVE SMITH: Right, right, right.

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re going to see white girls begging for Sharia law, by the way.

DAVE SMITH: And of course, of course there’s like, there’s many factors involved, but there’s no question that there are these, these cycles. And I do think there’s, there’s an onus on say people who do, you know, want, who, who were against the censorship regime and were against or are against the U.S. Israeli, you know, special relationship.

It’s like, okay, but if you’ve got the freedom to actually speak about this now, understand a couple things, understand that like you’re getting something that generations before you, they never had, generations before you, your career would have been ruined. You never would have been allowed to say these things. And there does that carries with it a responsibility, you know, it carries with it a responsibility to do this in a way that like, number one, you’re getting it right. You’re not being sloppy, you’re not leading people down a bad path. Right. You’re not demonizing people who don’t deserve to be demonized, who are not a part of this, and ultimately that you won’t be handing the excuse to the other side, who obviously, as you said, needs to rein this in.

They need. These guys cannot compete in a free market, and so they have to rig the market in their favor. They had forever, they had the market rigged in their favor for the first time. Now they kind of don’t. They still do a little bit, but they don’t in terms of the conversation. They still certainly do in terms of the power of government, but they don’t in terms of the conversation. It’s like, okay, what do you want to do with that?

Treating People as Individuals

TUCKER CARLSON: Now the problem is that so much has been hidden, either intentionally or just through kind of the veil of misdirection, that people are learning a lot of stuff at once and it’s frying some circuits. And I think, like, the thing that I try to meditate on every single day is that I am commanded to and intend to treat each individual as an individual, Period. Period.

And when you do that, it keeps you from going totally insane. And it also opens you up to the beauty of life, to the joy of life, which is being surprised by people and their complexity, good and bad, and the capacity of someone like Steve Wyckoff to do stuff. If you’d asked me, can Wyckoff do that? I don’t know. I mean, I knew Wyckoff before, but, like, right, look what Wyckoff is doing. It’s incredible. I don’t know, it’s just treat people as individuals. You’re commanded to do that. And I do think it’s harder to do that online.

DAVE SMITH: Yes, I agree. And I also, you know, it was weird because. So I, you know, it was an interesting experience for me this last month or so because I’ve never really, you know, I’m. I think this has helped me in my career is that I didn’t, like, I didn’t blow up out of nowhere. Like, I know other people who have in comedy. I know people who, like, you know, just like, exploded. You know, they were at open mics with me, and then they got an audition for Saturday Night Live and then they got it, and now they’re world famous. You know, you go literally from being a complete unknown, not even an established comedian, a newer comedian who can’t even work the clubs, to being, like, world famous. I’ve seen people have that.

TUCKER CARLSON: How’d that work for Britney Spears?

DAVE SMITH: Pretty bad. Well, it’s not especially bad when you’re young.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s the worst time for it.

DAVE SMITH: To happen.

TUCKER CARLSON: It happened to me, actually.

DAVE SMITH: Right. Yeah. Well, that’s right. You. You had that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Luckily, I was humiliated along the way, so.

DAVE SMITH: Well, but.

TUCKER CARLSON: Be more normal. But.

DAVE SMITH: But that’s the antidote for it in a weird way, right? Because it’s all ego stuff. So the antidote for blowing up your ego is destroying your ego, which is very painful. But it’s good. Like a hangover. The hangover is actually getting you healthy. Yes, it sucks, but the hangover is the cure. So getting drunk was the problem.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s why it’s hard to become addicted to cocaine. People seem to pull it off anyway. I never understood that. How could you become addicted to this? You feel horrible.

DAVE SMITH: It is. Well, that’s right. Sorry.

TUCKER CARLSON: Sorry.

The Reaction to the Rogan Debate

DAVE SMITH: No, but that’s exactly right. But so, okay, so for me, it was always, like, a logical progression, like, one step more, one step more. My profile kind of rose. But this, you know, this thing was the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my career. It was, like, the biggest reaction to any show or any debate that I’ve ever done. Cause it was on Rogan’s podcast, and he doesn’t usually do debates. And it was the most contentious issue of our day. So it became this big thing, and now I’m at a place where, you know, I’m 42. I have a great wife. I got two little kids that I play with every day. I have a nice house. My life is, like, set up. I’m an adult. This isn’t so. But when the kind of hate attack, this coordinated attack, and everyone who’s attacking me just happens to have, like, you know, their name written in Hebrew letters and a Jewish star, you know, in their bio. And they’re all saying the most vicious stuff. I’ve been sitting here, and I’m like, wow, dude. If I were 25.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, yeah.

DAVE SMITH: And I wasn’t Jewish, I could very easily see my response to this just being like, man, yeah, screw these people. You know? And, like, now, I’m not saying that would be correct, but it’s just, like, you feel that because that’s the impulse when you’re like, attack. But, like, what you just said, I think is the key point, which is that, like, if believing in individualism is like a grounding force, it kind of inoculates you against collectivist nonsense. And when I say that, see, one of the problems here now is that the left, which is what they do, is they attack terms and concepts. And so whenever you think about something, you start thinking about the lefty version of it. And it’s like, no, no, no, not that at all. So the left kind of made individualism. They kind of mixed it together with like this like self actualization type thing. Like, oh, all that really matters is like whatever you’re feeling and whatever you’re feeling is correct. And it’s correct because you’re feeling it. And you’re feeling it because it’s correct. And that’s like, that’s like the devil. That’s like you do not want to go down that path. You do not want to ever say that. Like, well, if you feel something inside of you, then that must be true. That’s essentially what the trans thing was all based on.

TUCKER CARLSON: Of course.

True Individualism vs. Self-Actualization

DAVE SMITH: Right. Was this view. Well, if you feel it, then it must be true. Like that’s not where you want. That’s, that’s the path to hell. You don’t want to go down that path. You know, that’s. No, that’s, it’s not true that because you feel something, therefore should be actualized. And that’s terrible. However, more old school individualism, like in the classical liberal enlightenment tradition is understanding that the individual is a, is a unit of analysis, that the individual individuals are how we exist. We act as individuals, we suffer as individuals, we collectivize as individuals, we are.

TUCKER CARLSON: Born and die as individuals.

DAVE SMITH: Exactly. And so, and that collectivism, what collectivism used to mean was the idea that the individual ought to be subservient to the larger group. Not that groups don’t exist, not that we shouldn’t come together. Of course we come, we create families, we create churches, communities, all of these things are wonderful. But when you do understand, like true individualism, like on that, like that individuals ought to have rights. Yeah, right. Things like that, it does, it shields you from a lot of this nonsense.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, the question is, does the human being have a soul?

DAVE SMITH: Yes, exactly.

TUCKER CARLSON: Something that is distinct from all others. There are billions of human beings in this world. You are fundamentally different, not just in your fingerprints and iris skin, but in your soul. This thing that we can’t quite define but that we know is real.

DAVE SMITH: Yes. And that’s why you have a right. That’s why you have right.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s the only reason.

DAVE SMITH: Exactly.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s the only reason for.

Rights Belong to Individuals, Not Collectives

DAVE SMITH: Right. I remember I was watching, as I mentioned earlier, I was watching you and Bret Weinstein just yesterday was watching this and there was one point where Brett said, and I think he was completely right about this and you guys kind of agreed. But he said, he goes, you know the claim that Israel has a right to exist has always seemed a little bit strange to me. And he was like, I mean, they do exist, but do they have a right to exist? Exactly. Does any country have a. Well, I think the point is almost this. Countries don’t have rights. Individuals have rights. You’re using an individualist term and then attempting to apply it to a collective government. That’s not how it works. Every single individual who has Israeli citizenship has a right to exist. Every single individual who does not have Israeli citizenship has a right to exist. Every Palestinian. This is why people make these arguments. There never was a country called Palestine. Totally irrelevant. Has nothing to do with anything. Doesn’t matter if there was a government or a country. It doesn’t matter where the lines on a map are drawn. Now, again, this. I’m not making a lefty argument here. I’m not saying, therefore you can’t have immigration restrictions. Of course you can, because a group of people can own a plot of land and they get to decide who can come and who can’t come.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s right.

DAVE SMITH: But the point is that if you’re trying to apply rights to collectives, you’re going to realize that it doesn’t make sense. And the same way they do this constantly, where they apply things like they’ll say, does Israel have a right to defend itself? You go, no. Individuals have a right to defend themselves. And by the way, when I defend myself, I don’t have the right to aggress upon other innocent people who happen to be in the general vicinity of the person who I want to defend myself against.

TUCKER CARLSON: That are distinct but equal to my.

DAVE SMITH: Exactly. And that’s really all it takes to kind of cure you of a lot of this collectivist nonsense.

Social Media and Dehumanization

TUCKER CARLSON: And there is something about the form, though I do think form matters. In the same way, reading a book on Kindle is a different experience from reading one in print. It just is. Wish it wasn’t. There’s something about the form of social media that disaggregates people from their souls. Or at least that’s my experience of it. Like, you can just get so pissed off that you forget that every person. What was it, guys? You were telling me this at breakfast this morning. You’re telling me at the preamble to Daryl Cooper’s World War II series.

DAVE SMITH: Can you just say that?

TUCKER CARLSON: Will you say that?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. So he hasn’t put the series out yet. I think he’s working on it. I hope it’s out soon, but. So Daryl, as he talked about on your show, is putting Together this big World War II series. And when Daryl Cooper does this, we’re.

TUCKER CARLSON: Having him back this summer.

DAVE SMITH: I can’t wait. I can’t wait. Just also just. I’m excited for the reaction, but I actually think a lot of, you know, a lot of people are probably going to be disappointed because he’s not going to give him, you know, like, it’s weird.

TUCKER CARLSON: He’s not going full Nazi.

DAVE SMITH: Well, that’s the thing. Of course not. Of course. And it’s weirdly the only people, by the way. It’s so funny because it’s this symbiotic relationship that you see all the time. It’s like the only people who want him. It’s like the Nazis and the Zionists are the ones who are like, please be a Nazi. Please be a. Please. So that we have this. You know, everybody else is like, great.

TUCKER CARLSON: They’re getting paid from the same source. I suspect some of them are, in fact. I don’t suspect. I know.

The Danger of Dehumanization

DAVE SMITH: I’m sure a lot of them are. Yeah. And that’s, you know, that’s part of this new landscape that. But so he does this. He put out the prologue for the series and he had this wonderful part in it. I hope I could kind of do it justice. But it was so beautiful the way he said it. But he was talking about, like when you start to think about, you know, the people in Germany in World War II and how there were little 3 year old girls and 8 year old boys and there were women and there were all the, you know, and if you start to kind of humanize them, there’s. Or if you start to dehumanize them, as many were making the attempt to do. He said you, you might find yourself having two competing voices in your head. Like on one level you go, well, of course there were innocent women and innocent children and of course these are people just like anybody else. And then you might have some other voice that goes, well, they were Germans and it was World War II, so what are you doing trying to humanize anyone? And he goes, okay, that second voice is not you. That’s not you. That is a spirit outside of you acting on you. And just so you know, it’s the same spirit that was acting on the Nazis when they were talking about Jews. And that’s. And dude, it’s so funny for people trying to demonize this guy. Like, this is who he actually is when he’s talking to his audience and he’s got a message to give them. This is the message he’s giving Them and I. Man, he’s just so right about that. And it’s the same thing as, like, when you see, like, some hardcore Israel supporter and then some hardcore, like, radical pro Palestinian, and like, they’re going like, all the Jews, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they’re going all the Arabs, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you’re like, you’re the same person. Both of you are the same person. And I’m not trying to completely equate it, because obviously the Palestinians have lost in this conflict. They are the ones who have been, you know, truly, you know, they’ve been fucked over in a way that the Israelis haven’t. But anytime that you’re, like, dehumanizing an entire group of people, setting the stage to then justify some type of brutal aggression that could not be justified without dehumanizing them first, you are participating in the same exercise. That is the reason throughout all of human history that we’ve had genocides and wars and ethnic cleansing campaigns and just horrible atrocities. Don’t do that. Whatever you do, if you ever find yourself doing that, don’t do it.

TUCKER CARLSON: We’re not allowed to do that. I mean, you play with fire when you do that. And I’ve stayed silent a lot as I’ve seen it happen, and I feel shame. Thinking back on it, when Osama bin Laden’s wife was shot, I remember thinking, okay, she got shot and married to Osama bin Laden. That’s a pretty risky proposition, being married to Osama bin Laden and living in Pakistan.

DAVE SMITH: Got it.

TUCKER CARLSON: So I guess, you know, there are risks, and she knew what they were. On the other hand, I’m not cheering an unarmed woman getting shot to death under any circumstances. And I don’t want anyone in my country doing that either, because I love my country and I love the people who live here, and they’re my countrymen, and. And I think it’s bad to just stay silent. Okay, but don’t. Anybody who encourages you to take pleasure at the death of another person is, you know, acting on behalf of forces that we should be rejecting.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. You know, I said this.

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t care who it is.

DAVE SMITH: I was on Lex Friedman’s podcast pretty recently.

TUCKER CARLSON: That guy’s a good interviewer.

DAVE SMITH: He’s great. He’s a great interviewer.

TUCKER CARLSON: Everyone makes fun of Lex Friedman. I made fun of Lex Friedman, probably. Or heard other people do it. I didn’t say. And then I was interviewed by Lex Friedman. I was like, this guy’s weirdly good at this. Yeah, it’s really Good.

DAVE SMITH: It’s easy for people to look at it and think they could do it too. It’s a skill to interview somebody. And he is, look what he gets.

TUCKER CARLSON: He gets. Did he get good? I haven’t seen it. Did he get good stuff?

The Just War Debate

DAVE SMITH: Oh, it was great. And he was, you know, he was asking me like, he started really getting into the detail of like what I believe a just war is and what an immoral war is and why is that? And the example I used, which I think, like, I know you, cause I’ve heard you talk about this stuff too, I think you’ll agree with me.

But I was like, okay, let’s take World War II and let’s say that like not only is the official narrative right, let’s tweak some things here. It’s so much more right than, you know, the Nazis are. If it’s possible they’re even worse than the real Nazis were. And if it’s possible they actually were going to take over the world. And actually we would all be speaking German. Like let’s say not only were they going to take over England, they were going to cross the Atlantic and come take over North America also. And the entire world would have fallen into Nazi totalitarianism had they won the war.

And let’s say in order to stop the Nazis, we had a way where we could do it where no innocent civilians were killed, except one. You know, we could literally just, we could take out the Nazis, save the entire world from totalitarianism. By the way, in this model there’s no Joseph Stalin. Joseph Stalin’s a great guy. And the Soviets are a free country. There’s no moral questions about who we’re working with, just all of it.

All we had to do was we could take out the Nazis by dropping this one super bomb, but one 6 year old girl would be killed. Okay, this is so I’ve made it the most clear cut war in human history. In that scenario I guess you’d go, look, we have to do this. We have no choice other the whole world will fall to totalitarianism or the whole world can be saved and one 6 year old girl is going to get killed.

Okay, I can understand being like we’re making an impossible decision. We have to do this every year on the anniversary of that war. We should all like weep to ourselves. We should all feel horrible that we had to do that. That’s a six year old girl got killed. Like I have a six year old girl. This is the most horrible thing in the world that you would ever like kill a six year old girl. I mean my God, I would set the whole world on fire to stop someone from doing anything to my little girl.

And like, so if that were in this very clear cut scenario, not the complexity of real history, in this scenario that I’m laying out, we should still all be nothing but pity and sorrow that it ever came to that. And we should rack our brains every day thinking was there any alternative to that? Was there any way that we could have done that without this little girl getting killed?

And like, people could say that’s kind of like pie in the sky or hippy ish or whatever. But at the very least, dude, when you’re talking about like in inflicting this level of human suffering on people like the, the onus is always on the people who are advocating for it to absolutely prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that there’s no other option, that we’ve exhausted everything else we could do. It has to be this.

And if you come to the conclusion it has to be this, you should still be really sad and somber about it. This spiking the football stuff, having a Bob Hope special after a war, the stuff that America got involved in after the second World War. It became like kind of like this business of war, this we’re spiking the football. It’s just like, it’s disgusting. And then you tell me about how some other society is a death cult. Like let’s examine our own.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, it is disgusting. And I think you don’t have to know the right answer going forward to know what the wrong answer is.

DAVE SMITH: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: And it’s just again, you want to treat, you want to approach life and statecraft and bureaucracy and everything in your life with humility. I don’t always know the outcome. Not God, I have limited power. I think I know that murdering a six year old girl will bring world peace. But what if it doesn’t?

DAVE SMITH: Right, Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Or whatever. I think dropping an atomic bomb on.

DAVE SMITH: The off chance it doesn’t work out.

TUCKER CARLSON: I think, you know, dropping the atom bomb will stop an invasion of Japan. Okay. I think dimming the sun will stop global warming. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m wrong because I’m a person. And, and it’s when people stop remembering the limits to their own wisdom and power that things like that, you get genocides and stuff.

Consistency in Principles

DAVE SMITH: Well also again, like I said before, cause this is always just my, it’s the way my neurotic brain works or whatever, but I just like can’t like I Have this consistency, obsession or whatever. But, you know, I was listening to your show with Matt Walsh the other day, and I kind of, I did appreciate some of the things he said about me. And the debate with Douglas, for a Daily Wire employee, I think that’s about as nice. I felt that that’s about as good a re. As I’m. I’m gonna get that.

He was like, at one point saying that. He was like, well, you know, so then the real important, the good point that he said that Douglas Murray made was when he asked me, well, then how do you get rid of Hamas? Like, what’s your plan? So, number one, it’s not a point, it’s a question. But then Matt Walsh was saying, like, well, look, I can understand you saying you’re against what Israel is doing, but then what should they do to get rid of Hamas?

And it’s just interesting to me to see any conservative going, wait a minute, so you’re against these babies being killed? And it’s like, yes, yes. Let’s call this, I don’t know, let me think of a term for it. The pro life position. Let’s call it that. Remember, remember the foundational principle that you’ve been talking about for your entire career.

But wait, hold on. So first of all, before which, by the way, there are lots of other things, ways to deal with foss, obviously. But no, actually I don’t have to solve that problem before I can object to killing innocent children, right? Like, no, it is not incumbent on the pro life person to work out a plan for like the, the adoption or the college tuition or the college. No, actually, no, I’m allowed for my starting point to be you can’t merge babies.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right?

DAVE SMITH: I mean, come on. Yeah, like, what do we. And you know, the other thing which I did want to say is that I do think. And look, by the way, I, as I’m saying, we’re both here kind of coming out against the excesses on both sides. I’m against racial collectivism. I’m against collective guilt, against collective judgment.

TUCKER CARLSON: Punishment.

DAVE SMITH: Yes, collective punishment for sure. But so, like, I’m not saying you have to, like, you should, you shouldn’t hate Jews and you don’t even have to hate Israelis. I think you shouldn’t hate Israel. No, there’s lots of great people there.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, there are awesome people.

DAVE SMITH: There’s lots of really, really great people there. And, and their government’s just done a lot of messed up stuff. But, like, so is ours and so have lots of governments around the world. Probably all of them. Probably a direct correlation to how much power they have and how much evil stuff they can do.

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly, exactly.

Non-Interventionism and Responsibility

DAVE SMITH: You know, I do think it’s a little bit of a cop out for some people who I like very much. You know, like, I like Matt Walsh. I’ve never met him, but I like. I think his documentaries are great. I think he’s been an important voice in the national conversation. Like a very important voice. I like Tim Pool very much. I’ve done his shows lots of times. I’ve met him lots of times. I think he’s a great guy.

But there are these guys who will basically say, like, I’m a non interventionist, I only care about America. I don’t care about these other. So I don’t care. I don’t have an opinion on it. And it just seems to me like that’s a cop out. It’s kind of like in 2006, you don’t have an opinion on Iraq. I don’t care about Iraq. I only care about America. It’s like, well, we’re in Iraq right now.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, I agree with that. That’s right. And that’s why I felt from the beginning kind of like shanghaied into this. I mean, I don’t care on the level that I just want to focus on my own country, but if we’re deeply involved in it, then I have an obligation to care if it’s my job to pay attention to what our country’s doing, which it is. So.

DAVE SMITH: Well, listen, I have no argument to anybody who goes, I’m just not gonna pay attention to politics. My best friend in the world is Louis J. Gomez, who came on your show and he’s the best. And literally, and this is. He is being completely sincere. When you asked him on your show, you go, like, so what are your politics? And he goes, politics is gay. And that’s literally his only answer. And I have, in all of my years, I’m literally, I’m his best friends. I don’t have a counter to that. I go, that is a pretty good point.

TUCKER CARLSON: I married a woman like that. Yes.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, me too. You know, and like, so it’s like, I have no argument against that. If you. But if you’re in this world where we’re talking about these things, then you don’t get to just say, well, look, taking this opinion, which is the obvious, logical conclusion of my stated principles, but if I take them to their conclusion, that will cause me grief. Therefore, I’m gonna say, I don’t really care about that because, look, here’s the thing.

If you do care about being America first and you care about America not getting into another stupid catastrophic war in the Middle east, well, who’s pushing us in that direction? And this is not a conspiracy theory. This is like totally out in the open. Right? I mean, the longest serving prime minister in Israeli history is Benjamin Netanyahu. Okay, right. Benjamin Netanyahu came to the U.S. congress in 2002 and testified as a regional expert that we should go overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq because democracy will sweep the region.

He then also said in front of a congressional testimony that we should overthrow Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and that we should overthrow the mullahs in Iran. Okay. He’s been advocating, he’s been John McCain, he’s been Dick Cheney this whole time advocating that we fight this next one, this next one, this next war.

They’re right now, what was it, three, four weeks ago, they drew up war plans, including us, to go to war with Iran. It’s only because Donald Trump, who seems to be willing to help them ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip, but said, that’s a bridge too far for me. I’m not going to war here. And so thank God, now we’re in negotiations with the Iranians.

But if you know this, then, like, for you to be a non interventionist America first, it has to at least come with and hey, we should cut Israel off and we should not listen to Benjamin Netanyahu. Like, I’m sorry, that’s just totally reasonable.

TUCKER CARLSON: Or Keir Starmer or any of us.

DAVE SMITH: That’s right. So, okay, just take the position, which is the obvious one, we should stop funding what Israel’s doing. We should stop propping them up. It’s been quite a while. The country was created in 1948. It is 2025. You can either go with this alone or you can’t. Come on.

TUCKER CARLSON: And those are fair terms, by the way. I mean, those are the terms that the rest of us live our lives on.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: You know, I mean, you make budget decisions in your home on the basis of what you can afford. Yeah. And there’s some things you don’t do, you know? No, all of us mere mortals have those constrictions on our behavior. Like, they’re the things I want to do and they’re the things that I think I’m capable of doing.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. And if I was sitting here and giving like these bravado, you know, infused speeches about all of the things that I can do, but really it relied on me borrowing the money from you in order to do it. You’d be like, hey, maybe stop giving this speech 100%. Maybe Benjamin Netanyahu should stop going to the UN and going. There’s nowhere that Israel can’t touch. Actually, there’s lots of places Israel can’t touch. There’s nowhere the US can’t touch.

TUCKER CARLSON: I know. I just think it’s getting too out in the open. And I do. I mean, I guess I fret too much in general. But I do worry now that it’s like super obvious what’s going on, that things will just devolve into somewhere very ugly.

DAVE SMITH: Well, that’s why if you have any sense about you and you don’t want to see things devolve into something ugly, that’s why you want to make sure we don’t get into another war right now.

TUCKER CARLSON: I totally agree.

The Surprising Support for Nazis in Ukraine

DAVE SMITH: It’s unbelievable. It’s remarkable. I’ll tell you this, right? And I’m somebody who has really been focused on this stuff for a long time. I host a show four days a week, and I’m always reading about this stuff. I’ve done all the background reading. I know a lot about the neoconservatives and what motivates them, what their worldview was.

I will tell you the first thing that really surprised me, and I was genuinely surprised. And I hate the neoconservatives. It’s not that I don’t understand how evil what they believe is. I was really surprised that the Ukraine thing, the Nazis in Ukraine didn’t mess with them at all.

TUCKER CARLSON: I was shocked.

DAVE SMITH: I was really surprised. I know why they support all the wars they have supported. I thought that for the neoconservatives, real deal, not even neo-Nazis, Nazis, like the grandsons of the Nazis who perpetrated the Holocaust in Ukraine, proudly wearing swastikas, tattoos and waving flags. I mean, they threw their support behind that Azov battalion. This was very strange. This was a line to me. I was like, oh, wow, they’ll really go that far.

The Dangers of War with Iran

But I’ll tell you, I am blown away by the fact that anybody who is out there shrieking about the rise in antisemitism is not wise enough to go: We cannot fight a war with Iran right now, because if we get into a war right now, that’s clearly on Israel’s behalf after 25 years of terror wars, which were pretty clearly at least partially on it.

I’m not going to go quite as far as Jeffrey Sachs. Although he’s an expert and I’m not. So I guess he’s right and I’m not. But I wouldn’t quite say that we outsourced our foreign policy to Israel. There’s a lot of truth to that statement. Was it Mearsheimer or Sachs who said, “I view Benjamin Netanyahu as the worst US president of the 21st century?” It’s pretty hilarious. And there’s a lot of truth to that, but it’s not 100% true.

But look, it’s obvious, as I just said, Israel has been using its considerable influence to convince us to go to war in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria, in all of these places. I think Yemen was more for the Saudis. Afghanistan was our own thing. But those wars, particularly Israel was really on board with.

And if we were to get into a war with Iran right now, which will be a much bigger disaster than any of the previous terror wars, there’s really no argument about that. Iran is just not a pushover like these other countries, at all. They can take out a lot of our guys and then what do we do after that?

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, they can also destroy Israel with conventional weapons.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, there’s a lot that they can do. But if we actually go to this war on behalf of Israel, I mean, what do you think that does to the level of antisemitism? Now, by the way, I’m not saying that’s the number one reason not to do it. It’s not, that’s like the number six reason not to do it.

But for these people who are so concerned, they’re so concerned about the existential threat to Israel. Well, here’s the thing, right? Hamas, while they did pull off October 7, which was by far the biggest attack Hamas has ever pulled off, Hamas was never an existential threat to Israel. But this actually is. What they are doing right now in some sick self-fulfilling prophecy, this actually is creating an existential threat.

TUCKER CARLSON: I completely agree. If I lived there, and I think enough of Jerusalem that I would like to live in Jerusalem, I think it’s the most incredible city in the world. I truly love it. But I would leave because I think they’re… And I said this to an Israeli friend of mine recently, like, I’m a little bit concerned, not that it’s my job to be concerned for your country. Lots of other people have that taken care of. But just as a bystander, it’s like, whoa, this is not good.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I didn’t, you know, he had no sense of what I was talking about. But yeah, no, I think the one area where I agree with Mark Levin is that Israel is really in danger. And I think it’s people like Mark Levin who are putting Israel in danger. My view.

Debating Douglas Murray

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, I think maybe I’m wrong. No, I think that’s right. I think just like I was saying at Douglas Murray, it’s actually like, no, you’re creating fertile ground for antisemitism by telling me I’m not allowed to criticize a guy with the Jewish last name. In the same sense, saying that…

TUCKER CARLSON: You claim some Jewish ancestors.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. I mean, come on.

TUCKER CARLSON: But that’s so low. It’s so low to debate like that.

DAVE SMITH: It’s really.

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re the famous debater.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. And like in an op-ed, after you lose a debate, or not even lose, after you refuse to debate and kind of beclown yourself and then you’re writing an op-ed and you don’t take on one argument I made, but you do attack whether I’m really Jewish. As he’ll criticize the “just asking questions” people. Well, what the hell is that?

TUCKER CARLSON: What the hell is that, by the way? That’s who they’re talking about, right?

DAVE SMITH: I know, I know.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s all.

DAVE SMITH: It’s all.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s so funny. The first time I heard that, I was like, wait, are you actually mad that I asked a question? Isn’t anyone who’s trying to shut down questions? Isn’t that person, by definition on the wrong side?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, well, you know, it’s funny.

TUCKER CARLSON: Like, what world are we living in? I live too long. I should have died 10 years ago.

Framing the Conversation

DAVE SMITH: Well, you know what’s so funny about it, too, is that there’s all these different techniques for control, and one of them is just framing, like how you frame a conversation. Really? Like with the Israel thing. It’s obvious, right? Like, look, I mean, however you feel about the conflict, the fact is that Israel has occupied Palestine since 1967. You know, okay, I know that. No, we disengaged in 2005. No, you didn’t. But like, whatever. I’m not even, I’ve had this debate enough times.

I’m just saying this is the fact is that Israel’s occupied Palestine since 1967. That’s the fact. And then the conversation, they go, does Israel have a right to defend itself? And you’re like, well, that’s a hell of a way to start. You know, like, you’re the ones doing the occupying, and you want to start every debate with whether you have a right to defend yourself. Okay.

But with all these things, there’s kind of, you know, like, this is what was interesting to me about the conversation with you and Brett Weinstein about God versus atheism and all this stuff. Like, so people, it’s very easy to have the framing of going like, “Oh, you’re telling me you believe there’s an invisible man up in the sky who created all things? That’s pretty goofy, right?” It’s like, yeah, if you just frame it like that. Sure. It’s pretty goofy.

I’m sorry, what’s your belief? You believe everything used to fit on the top of a pin and then it exploded into everything. Everything came from nothing and then exploded into… This is just as ridiculous as anything anyone’s ever believed. So, like, as soon as you look at both sides and apply the same standard to both.

And there’s been one thing that’s a very interesting dynamic to me. I’ve seen this a lot when people will try to attack you where what they’ll do is they’ll pull, like, kind of the five things you’ve said that seem like almost the goofiest of all the things. “Well, he said this thing about, like, a demon attacking him. Okay. He said this thing about…”

TUCKER CARLSON: I didn’t want to.

Bobby Kennedy and Focusing on What Matters

DAVE SMITH: No, but look. But look, even… Yes, in itself. But like, okay, that sounds like an outlandish claim. But then it’s almost like they’re trying to ignore the totality. I see this a lot with Bobby Kennedy. This has been one of the most interesting things about Bobby, is that the people who attack him, they pick on the five goofiest things they can find that they think he said, you know, he blamed the Wi-Fi for this, or he said something about COVID targeting certain genetics and not other genetics.

And it’s like, look, even if I grant you there are these five claims, which I don’t know if Bobby said some things that I’m like, I don’t know if he’s right about that or not. It seems kind… But they’re trying to remove the central thing that he said. Of course, and this is Trump in a nutshell too, right. The central thing that Bobby Kennedy said is that we spend more money than any other country on healthcare and we’re the sickest.

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly.

DAVE SMITH: Now until you can take on that, you’re never going to win by just trying to knock out these other good. Cause at least he’s talking about the major thing. And by the way, not only did he say that, none of you have ever mentioned that. Never. I’ve watched every presidential campaign. It’s never once come up.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well. And in fact everything they do mention is a way to avoid mentioning it.

DAVE SMITH: Exactly. But we had a whole debate in this country about health insurance and this never came up. We had the Obamacare debate and like. And no one even ever mentioned.

TUCKER CARLSON: I didn’t know it until Bobby came on my show.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, me neither.

TUCKER CARLSON: Was banned.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah.

Seeking Truth Above All

TUCKER CARLSON: No, but I have to say the thing that I have learned really above all other things is the only way to assess a claim is on the basis of whether or not it’s true.

DAVE SMITH: Right, right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Not on whether or not I want to hear it. On whether or not I’ve thought of it before. Whether or not I’m shocked by the fact that you asked the question. The only thing that matters is is it true? Now can I know? Most of the time, no, I can’t know. But I want my orientation, the way I approach each question to be the same every single time. Which is, is that true? And the second I stopped caring about whether it’s true, then I’m acting on behalf of evil.

DAVE SMITH: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: That simple.

DAVE SMITH: Right, right. Yeah. No, I completely.

TUCKER CARLSON: So when Bobby Kennedy’s like, oh, COVID’s, you know, targeted on the basis of genes, I was like, really? Is that true?

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, Well, I kind of felt the same way. And I think particularly what I think is very similar to talking about the 9/11 truth or stuff with Jesse Ventura. He’s like, what ends up happening is that after you’re kind of red-pilled about so much…

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

DAVE SMITH: The claims don’t seem quite as outlandish.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, there’s that.

DAVE SMITH: That’s not saying that they’re right. And I’ve, with the 9/11 conspiracy stuff, I’ve never been like completely sold. I think there are a lot of people who jump to conclusions.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

DAVE SMITH: That are. And like actually the evidence isn’t nearly as strong as you think it is. You’re kind of doing whatever everyone does where you start with the conclusion and then you work your way backward from there. And then there’s a lot of that. But at the same time, it’s like the people who go, well, our government would never. You’re like, now that doesn’t work anymore, dude. Sorry. Yeah, they totally would. They actually totally would. I’m not even saying they did in this case, but they totally would.

TUCKER CARLSON: Or it’s so painful to reexamine the worldview, I’ve built on what might be a fake assumption that I’m not going to do it, I’m going to yell at you instead for challenging that worldview. Like, that doesn’t work either because it’s already happened. You can only lose your virginity once.

DAVE SMITH: Right, Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: And once you realize that the Warren Commission really was a cover up, I mean, it just was. And the base of evidence, I’ve concluded that then it’s like, okay, if the US government will hide details about the murder of a democratically elected US President, then there’s really nothing that they wouldn’t do. Right.

The Nixon Revelation

DAVE SMITH: And then if you. And then the Nixon one is a big one-two punch, you know, because you realize that like, oh, the guy who became the villain, you know, like the guy who was supposed to be remembered as the most corrupt president, was actually the most popular president ever, who was totally set up. You know, and you’re like, okay, well then we’re just not living in the country that.

TUCKER CARLSON: So I came to that independently, having known a lot of those people. I know Bob Woodward personally and I lived in that world for my whole life. And Nixon had the highest popular vote percentage of any president in American history. I didn’t. In ’72, I just didn’t even know that. And when I found that Bob Woodward was a Naval intelligence officer detailed to the Nixon White House and then the next year gets the biggest story in journalism history handed to him.

DAVE SMITH: And how old was he?

TUCKER CARLSON: 30, 28? Something like that.

DAVE SMITH: That happens a lot. That’s totally normal. Right?

TUCKER CARLSON: And Deep Throat was the deputy director of the FBI and the guy they installed as president was on the Warren Commission. Yeah, yeah. I never liked Gerald Ford. Because of the withdrawal from Saigon on April 30, 1975. I just thought that was like everything about that was so ugly. But anyway, whatever. Yeah, I agree. So it’s not enough to say I’m not allowed to think something.

DAVE SMITH: Right. Or that. Or once you. But once you recognize those things, it’s just impossible. It’s impossible to reconstruct the image of America that you once had. You’re like, oh, that’s not at all.

TUCKER CARLSON: What, and that doesn’t make you an anti-American bigot?

DAVE SMITH: No.

TUCKER CARLSON: Any more than saying, like, criticizing a government does not make you a bad person.

DAVE SMITH: No, this is, It’s. This is Frederick Bastiat stuff like this was already figured out a long time ago. Society and the government are not interchangeable things. They are different. You know, criticizing Joe Biden is not criticizing America. I’m not criticizing the hills and the lakes. I’m criticizing this one senile criminal.

Finding God

TUCKER CARLSON: Or my neighbors or my relatives, people I love. There’s so many of them. So last question, you made reference to the Brett Weinstein conversation we had last week about creationism versus Darwinism, et cetera, et cetera. The existence of God—do you find in your life? It’s a quiz I give a lot of people. More people, you know, personally talking about God than you did say 10 years ago.

DAVE SMITH: Yes. And I am that person. I mean, I was an atheist 10 years ago.

TUCKER CARLSON: What happened?

DAVE SMITH: I had my daughter. Yeah, that’s, you know, I found God the day my wife delivered our first child. Which is a fairly common experience. I know other people who have had the same thing were atheists until that moment.

So, it was basically. I met my wife and we got engaged and then we got married. My wife’s like the most amazing woman. She’s just great. And I know this is always a thing to say. It’s like, “my wife’s better than your wife” type thing, but everybody who knows my wife—I don’t mean you, I’ve never met your wife, but she is better. Just kidding.

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t hear people compliment their spouses enough, actually. I don’t think everyone always says that. I wish people did that more often.

DAVE SMITH: Well, I do. You know, it’s not me. She’s really just the best. Everyone who knows her would agree. I mean, she’s like the most amazing woman. She’s just gorgeous and she’s really super smart, and she’s really sweet and kind. She puts everyone above herself. I really hit the lottery with her and I was never, you know, I was like, habitually single. I was never a relationship guy, and I never really wanted to get married. I kind of always had this view of, like, women are trying to change you or trying to control you. Every girl that I ever dated always wanted a relationship, and then always wanted me to not do this or not do that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

DAVE SMITH: My wife was just—she just had my back. She just always wanted to make my life better, and she did. And I just fell in love with her. And I was like, I’m going to spend the rest of my life with this woman.

So when she got pregnant, I was just very excited. It was like, you know, just got married, got a baby on the way. I was just like, this is going to be the best. I’m really excited to do this. And I was right. It was the best thing I’ve ever done.

She was over her due date. So then they scheduled to come in to induce pregnancy. Because they don’t let you go too long these days, which I guess is maybe they’re right about that. I don’t know. But anyway, so we go to the hospital.

TUCKER CARLSON: They get the pitocin out.

DAVE SMITH: Yes, that’s right. So we’re at Lenox Hill Hospital on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. And by the way, I should add, just leading into the story, I had been like a militant atheist when I was younger. I had started to open up my mind a little bit to being, like, I was seeing some of the holes in the atheist arguments, but I still was not a believer in God.

So we were at Lenox Hill Hospital, and the anesthesiologist came in to give my wife an epidural. And at Lenox Hill, or at least this guy, they asked me to leave the room. They said they ask the fathers to leave the room when they do it, you know, because they’re putting a spinal thing in, and they have to be very, very precise.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

DAVE SMITH: So, and they don’t want—I guess they don’t want you there to react because then she might react.

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly right.

DAVE SMITH: And so they don’t want to. So I go out and she can’t see. Right, she can’t see, but she could see you seeing. And so they want people with a straight poker face who have seen this a lot of times and are not watching it happen to their wife and baby.

It’s a reasonable ask, but so I go out and I’m in the hallway in the maternity ward at Lenox Hill Hospital, and it just hit me. It was like for the first time, I guess, I had not really thought about this. I was just so excited to get my family started. But for the first time, it hit me that something could go wrong and that I could leave here alone. You know, like, something could go wrong that I could lose the baby, I could lose my wife, and it’s totally out of my control.

And, as this started hitting me, I started really getting emotional. And I’m out there, and I’m crying in the hallway of this maternity ward. And immediately I just started talking to God. And I just started not just talking to God, but negotiating with God. And I was just like, “Dear Lord, if you make sure that they’re okay, I’m going to do, like, I’m going to be the best husband and the best father, and I will do this.”

TUCKER CARLSON: Have you ever prayed before?

DAVE SMITH: No, never once in my life. And all the things that, you know, you’re supposed to be doing that you’re not doing that well, you know, I was like, okay, I’ll clean this up. I’ll call my mom more often. I’ll do this thing.

So anyway, I just started praying to God. And not just praying, but negotiating. So anyway, everything was fine with that. But my wife, this was the first of many times she had—there were a bunch of complications in the pregnancy. Everyone came out okay, thank God. But I ended up talking to God a lot that day. And then just as the days went on.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s so interesting. It’s organic.

DAVE SMITH: Well, that’s right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Time of not believing. And then, yeah, just start.

DAVE SMITH: And so this is almost like, what intellectually converted me later was. I was like, hey, what the hell was that? I mean, I can’t look back and just ignore that.

I’m almost a little uncomfortable talking about these things because I like talking about things where I have a real tight argument that I can prove is irrefutable. It was something where I was like, look, so in the moment when it was really all on the line and out of my control, I wasn’t thinking maybe God exists. I knew for a 100% certainty unlike nothing I’ve ever known in my life, that not only did I know that God existed, but I knew what he wanted from me. Like, I knew what my negotiating power in this was, that I could promise I’ll be a good person.

Not only did I know God existed, I knew that God wanted me to be a good person. And look, this is something that people who have found God know and people who don’t believe in God maybe will not accept. But there is something to, when you open yourself up like that to God, you find out that he’s real and it’s not like he speaks to you or he hallucinates. I don’t see a fiery bush and the words of God started talking. But he fills you. When you open yourself like that to it, you get filled by it, and there’s no more debate in your mind over whether that’s a real phenomenon or not.

It’s any more than if I were to leave here and someone would be like, “Do you believe in Tucker Carlson?” And I’d be like, no, I know for certain, I know for a certainty that Tucker Carlson is there.

TUCKER CARLSON: I was just with him.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, I was just with him. It’s like that. And it changed my life. And ever since, I regularly pray to God. It’s something I’m conscious of every single day. Every day and always. I don’t even pray exactly. I don’t ask for things ever. I ask for one thing ever, from God, which is that my wife and my kids are healthy and safe. It’s the only thing I ever pray for. I don’t ask for anything. The only other thing that I do is I express gratitude. Like, I just say thank you for everything I have.

But I cannot overstate how much I think that’s made me a better person. Really. It’s very, very good for you to constantly remind yourself how lucky you are that you have all the things that you have. It’s very easy to get away from that. And that’s where you ruin your inner happiness. Your inner joy is if you start taking the things you have for granted. Because once you, when you think you could lose everything you already have and then you don’t, that’s when you really appreciate it. You really appreciate what, how lucky we all are.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, not to be too blunt or too personal, but you’re on the cusp of like change in your life on the basis of what’s happened in the last month in your life. I just seen this story so many times. So to be vulgar, your income in this year will be higher than last year. I’m just telling you that because you’re way more famous and you’re also on the right side of history, I think.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah, I hope so.

TUCKER CARLSON: And certainly on the right side of a popular opinion. So, like that, do you think? I mean, the danger in life is getting what you want and finding yourself unhappier. Are you worried about that?

Family as a Grounding Force

DAVE SMITH: No, I’m really not. And I do just think that it’s because again, if this was happening to me at 25 or at 30, I would be very concerned about that danger. Literally, like what I just told you is kind of already happened in my life. I know who I am as a person. I kind of know what money actually means. Like, there’s lots of nice things. I’m not downplaying money. It’s very important, particularly in my position. It’s very important for me to be able to protect my wife and kids that we have some money, you know what I mean, so that I can do that. But no, I’m not, I’m really not worried about that at this point. I think I’ve kind of like my wife herself is a very grounding force for me. She’s the person whose approval I seek.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

DAVE SMITH: She’s the person whose opinion I really care about, you know, and so like, and she keeps me very grounded also. Just as you know, having these little kids just keeps you grounded because they just don’t care at all, at all.

TUCKER CARLSON: Like literally at all.

DAVE SMITH: My 6-year-old the other day we were out to dinner and so we’re out to dinner, we’re sitting down, my wife, my 6-year-old girl and my 3-year-old boy and the owner of the restaurant was like a fan of mine. So he comes over the table, he goes, oh, thank you guys so much for coming. I just wanted to shake your hand. I really appreciate everything you’re doing. And I was like, oh, thank you so much. I appreciate the. So he leaves. And then my daughter, my 6-year-old, who’s kind of 17, but she’s 6, she turns over at me and she goes, why’d he come over and say hi to you, dad? Because you’re famous. And then just turned right back to her menu. I mean, it was, she could not have just undercut me more than that. I was like, oh, yeah, I guess I’m not really that cool. All right. But. But that, that stuff helps.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s the best.

DAVE SMITH: I’m really lucky that I didn’t have this moment 15 years ago, that I had it now. So I think I’ll be good. But then, you know, you cut back to me in a year, I come back here, I got like, the shades on or something. It’s totally ruined me.

TUCKER CARLSON: Pellegrino, not Perrier. David, it’s wonderful to see you.

DAVE SMITH: Same.

TUCKER CARLSON: No matter how many times you’ve been here. I hope you’ll return.

On Independence and Protection from Cancellation

DAVE SMITH: I hope to be on again. And can I just say, by the way, just the last thing I’ll say, and then we could end. But I will say that, you know, a big part of, like, the reason why I’m able to do what I do and be kind of protected, because I’m not, like, I’m not vulnerable, at least I don’t think. I hope I don’t live to eat these words, but I don’t think I’m going to be ruined or canceled or anything like that. And a big part of it is that Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson have my back. And you kind of can’t really cancel someone in today’s world as long as those guys have your back. Well, and so, no, but I’m saying you’re providing a lot of coverage for people to be able to tell the truth and know that, like, oh, you’re not going to be able to, like, shut this person out of the conversation for the crime of telling the truth.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, the money thing is important to that extent. Money does not make you happy, but being dependent on other people’s money can make you enslaved. And not having debt, not having investors. We don’t have debt or investors. That makes a huge difference in my life. And I.

DAVE SMITH: And.

TUCKER CARLSON: But you also have, like, actual skills that you can just go do shows for the rest of your life. You know what I mean?

DAVE SMITH: And I’m quite happy to do that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right. That’s what I’m saying. So actually, you were talking about Matt Walsh, who I really do like. And I. And I thought for, you know, to the extent that, you know, he said what he said, kind of impressive, considering he works at the Daily Wire. He still works the Daily Wire, however. And I know, I’m not mocking him at all. I worked at Fox News for, you know, 15 years. And you do have, like, in the back of your mind, like, of course. Can I say that? Or, you know, you self censor even when you’re not aware that you do, but if you’re. If you’re truly independent, then you can be independent.

DAVE SMITH: Yeah. Which is the best. The best. It’s really just so great.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, I think you’re funny, even if Douglas jokes. Dave, thank you.

DAVE SMITH: Thank you, Tucker.

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