E555 Dave Smith

Dave Smith is a stand-up comedian, podcaster and political commentator. He hosts his own show “Part of the Problem w/ Dave Smith” and is one third of the comedy podcast “Legion of Skanks” with Big Jay Oakerson and Luis J Gomez. Dave Smith joins Theo to talk about predictions for Trump’s second term, how governments control information to promote their agenda, and what a libertarian approach to solving America’s problems looks like. Dave Smith: https://www.instagram.com/theproblemdavesmith/ ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Moonpay: Head over to Moonpay.com/Theo to sign up. Vanta: Go to http://vanta.com/theo to simplify compliance and get $1,000 off. BlueCube: Head over to BlueCubeBaths.com and get $1,000 off when you mention Theo’s name. Valor Recovery: To learn more about Valor Recovery please visit them at https://valorrecoverycoaching.com/ or email them at [email protected] ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [email protected] Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Trevyn https://www.instagram.com/trevyn.s/ Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Cam https://www.instagram.com/cam__george/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Theo Von?

  You ever realize that you spent your entire morning thinking about lunch? It's 9 a.m. and somehow I'm already in negotiations with myself about how I'm gonna spend $20 on a sandwich at noon. And then I eat it, or you eat it, or somebody eats it, and then an hour later, you're just standing in the kitchen worrying about what you'll do for dinner. And that's one reason why I've been into Huell. The Black Edition Powder is a complete meal you have instead of food, not a shake on top of food. Their powder starts at less than $3 per meal, has 40 grams of protein, and mixes with water or milk in about 30 seconds. I like Huell's shakes because they're clean and it's quick.

• 0:41Theo Von?

  I just want to make sure I have everything I need to keep going the way I want to keep going in a healthy manner. So with Huell, basically, lunch went from a daily logistical problem to a thing I can solve in about 30 seconds. Make healthy eating simple. New customers get an exclusive offer of 15% off online with my code WEEKEND at huell.com/weekend. That's H-U-E-L dot com slash weekend. Thank you to Huell for partnering and supporting our show. We have added a second show in Nashville, baby, on May 3rd. It's an early show, 4 p.m. at the Bridgestone Arena, and I can't even believe that.

• 1:25Theo Von?

  And thank you guys so much for all the love and support, and I'm honored to be performing here in Nashville. We also have tickets remaining for East Lansing, Michigan, Victoria, B.C. in the Canada, College Station, Texas, Giggim, Belton, Texas, Oxford, Mississippi, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Winnipeg in the Canada, and Calgary in the Canada. Get all your tickets at theovon.com slash T-O-U-R. Today's guest is a comedian, a podcaster, and a social commentator. You know him from his show, Part of the Problem, and you also know him from Legion of Skanks with Big

• 2:10Theo Von?

  Big Jay and Louis J Gomez. We get into a lot of topics in this one. One of them being the Israel and Palestine conflict, which we've been learning about on this show over the year. We recorded this on Monday, January 13th, which is why there was no talk of the ceasefire. Just wanted to make that note. I'm really grateful for his time and his insight. And today's guest is comedian Dave Smith.

• 2:51Theo Von?

  I mean, that's most of my goal each day is to stay, is to uh, just babysitting myself a lot of it.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Well, that's a good, that's a good way to do it. Maybe have some other people help babysit you?

• 3:03Theo Von?

  Oh, I'd like to get to that point, you know? I think I would like to get to that point, get a spouse or get a uh, get some, you know, a spouse or something.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:17Theo Von?

  Caretaker or even get into hospice, dude. I have some friends.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  You just want, but not dying, but just have hospice care.

• 3:23Theo Von?

  That's a new thing. A lot of guys, um, yeah. See, if you bring that up, if you bring young men going to live, um, my buddy Caleb Presley, you know who he is? He works with Barstool, long hair.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 3:35Theo Von?

  He does the Sun- Sunday Conversation.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:39Theo Von?

  He uh, lives in a senior retirement home.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  How old is he?

• 3:44Theo Von?

  He got loophole in, I think, 33, 34.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  That's, that's getting an early start.

• 3:49Theo Von?

  Loves it, tanning, listening to him argue, stuff like that. It's down in Florida. So it's a, um, yeah, he gets all of that. Three meals a day or like two and a half meals. I'm not sure what they're doing.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  I feel, is there a gym there? I feel like you'd feel really good about yourself in the gym. Like if you're just like, you know what I mean? Like just like, I'm fucking wrecking these fools here, dude. I'm the only one going hard.

• 4:13Theo Von?

  That's a good point, dude. Some guys just fucking.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Look at this chump.

• 4:18Theo Von?

  Some guy just zoned out. Some, I was like, I was Mr. Olympian, nineteen thirty-eight. Some dude just hopped up on ED pills, you know? That's gotta be the scary thing, I think, when you get to a certain age is risking the erection, going for the erection, cuz of the blood, just moving all the blood to one, you know?

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. You're probably gonna, you probably can't stand up.

• 4:44Theo Von?

  To that battlefront, yeah.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  But that's like, there's gotta be something, it's probably a real compliment to a chick. If you're like, I'm risking it all.

• 4:52Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  I'm risking it all, just to try to fuck you right now. It's got, that's the ultimate, like, nothing could be any better.

• 4:58Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  I, my grandfather lived in a, like a, like, I don't know what, nursing home type deal for like a couple of years before he died. He was really, the people who worked there, it was just such a funny dynamic. It was like all, it was like all black people from like the inner city, and then like old Jews. And they, the, all the black people who worked there just rolling their eyes at these old people the whole time. My grandfather, every time I went to see him, he accused them of stealing from him. None of these people were ever stealing from him, none of them. It was just pure racism, like, it was just, and it was like things that like, he'd be like, they took the art off the wall, and I'd be like, there was no art on this wall. This is all in your mind.

• 5:39Theo Von?

  He's like, there's not now.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  He made me, he made me move a dress, I was like twelve, and he made me move this big dresser to check if there was change behind it.

• 5:49Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  And then there was nothing, and I was like, there's no change behind it, and he was like, they stole it.

• 5:54Theo Von?

  Ah.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  And I was like, wait, there was supposed to be change behind it? Like, you were keeping your change?

• 5:58Theo Von?

  That's the old Jewish change behind the dresser trick, I think, isn't it? Yeah. Um, you're Jewish, you're, you're?

• 6:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I am.

• 6:06Theo Von?

  You are, and so, um, are you Israeli too? Is that the same thing?

• 6:11Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no. Israel's the nation. I have nothing to do with that.

• 6:15Theo Von?

  Okay, but are, but some? Are some Jew, but someone's Jewish, they're just ju- they're just means that they have family that's from Israel originally?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  No, not even necessarily. It's just like you, it's, you know, Judaism, it's a weird thing because it's like a religion, but then it's also kind of a race and then it's kind of a nationality with Israel. So basically, a bunch of Jews went and started their own country in Israel in the 40s. But these were Jews from Europe who went to, you know, now, according to the Bible or whatever, thousands of years ago, we were all from there. But the Jews from Europe went and started there, but lots of other Jews just didn't leave Europe or didn't leave America. And so they never had anything to do with Israel. Yeah.

• 6:55Theo Von?

  Oh, okay.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  But they still play on kind of like your, you know, come on, you gotta support us because we're for you. We're, this is the Jewish state. This is what protects Jewish people. So a lot of Jews do feel sympathy to Israel, even the ones who don't have like any, any connection, even ones who have never been there, like me.

• 7:13Theo Von?

  Got it. Got it. Okay. No, that's interesting. Yeah. Cause sometimes I wonder like, yeah, cause I start hearing about like Jewish, then I hear Zionist and Zionist means.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Zionist means, I think technically speaking Zionist means you believe that Jews should have a homeland in what is now called Israel. So that's more like the belief that Jews should have this country over there. Um, and then there, now then there's like kind of a separation between that. And someone could theoretically be a Zionist, but also be like, the way they're doing it over there is all wrong. Right? So you don't have to like support the government, but Zionist typically means that, but now it's just kind of become, it's become shorthand for someone who supports Israel.

• 7:59Theo Von?

  Okay. Okay. So somebody supports the country, Israel is Zionist. And what's sometimes I see black Zionists, is that just like, is that like Zionism just like with a backbeat or whatever? Like what is it? Cause you know what I'm talking about?

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Yes, that, well, those guys.

• 8:13Theo Von?

  And they're like, we're the reals. And I'm like, I don't know what is going on.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Those guys, uh, they were, I grew up in New York City and they would always be out like in midtown Manhattan. And there was no, let me tell you something. And Theo, I mean, I've come up around some incredibly talented comedians. I've seen some of the best in the world. There is no better comedy show. Then being like 15 and just sitting there and watching these guys, they'd scream at people. And then people would get furious back at them. I've watched like they, cause their thing is that they're the real Jews. And then they get like little old Jewish men will start yelling at them. No, you're not the real Jew. I'm the real Jew. And we would just be like stone teenagers, just watching, just.

• 8:51Theo Von?

  It's like, would the real Slim Savings please stand up, you know? Is that an okay Jewish joke to make or not?

• 8:58Speaker 01

  I mean, as far as I'm concerned, it was good.

• 9:00Theo Von?

  Just, yeah, sorry. I thought that was pretty, that was pretty good.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  No, but so they, I don't know what their whole claim is. I don't know, but they say they're the real Jews and the Jews are just pretending to be the Jews. But they're really the white devils or something.

• 9:14Theo Von?

  Yeah, cause that's a new thing I've been seeing. I would see it and then sometimes I wouldn't see it and now in different, when I'm in, uh, sometimes I'm performing in different cities. You'll see a, a group of black Zionists and they're trying to get you into something, you know, and I can't tell what it is and, but yeah. And then you see, you hear a lot of different terms. So, um, yeah, I was just curious about that. Um, Dave Smith, thanks for joining, man.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 9:34Theo Von?

  You are a comedian and a, I want to say like a politico. Is that fair to say kind of, or?

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 9:40Theo Von?

  You're like somebody with a point of view.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely that.

• 9:43Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  I love, I, I'm obsessed with politics and I talk a lot of shit about it. So, yeah, I guess whatever you want to call that, but yeah.

• 9:50Theo Von?

  And you're very funny, man.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Well, thank you.

• 9:52Theo Von?

  And, um, and you are a libertarian, is that right?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:57Theo Von?

  Okay. And this is awesome, man, cause so much of my audience and me really is just like, I don't know what a lot of the terminology is, right? Um, like even asking you about Zionists, like you hear it, but you're like, what is it? Right? What is, what does libertarian mean?

• 10:12Speaker 01

  To, to me, it's basically just, it's the belief in like, in, in self-ownership, in non-aggression and private property. Basically the idea of libertarianism is that like you own your body, you own your life, you ought to be free. So long as you're not impeding on the rights of other people, you ought to be able to do whatever you want to do.

• 10:34Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Um, and so a belief in free market capitalism, peace, non-intervention, and just basically the idea of what, the idea of what most people think of Americanism as that like, oh yeah, you have freedom of speech, you have the right to own a gun. You have the right to own some property, have the right to, to live your life the way you see best.

• 10:54Theo Von?

  And do, do libertarians believe in government?

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Well, there's a range of of different, you know, thoughts within libertarians. To the extent that libertarians believe in government, we believe like the role of government is to protect people's liberty. Governments shouldn't be doing anything more than that.

• 11:12Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Like if they're doing anything more than that, then they've become tyrannical.

• 11:15Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Which I think is true, I think is just objectively true. Like, no matter what is if governments doing anything that is more than just protecting property or protecting people, then it's always at the expense of someone. Even if they're giving somebody something, they're taking it from someone else because they don't actually have anything themselves.

• 11:35Theo Von?

  Right. So like, what would an example of that be kind of?

• 11:37Speaker 01

  I mean, anything like even if you just took it down to like if the government is cutting a check to one person. Well, how do they get that check? It's not like, you know what I mean? Like they didn't pool their money together.

• 11:47Theo Von?

  Right, people did.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  They took it from someone. They taxed one group of people to give it to another.

• 11:51Theo Von?

  Got it.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  So any service is falls within that.

• 11:54Theo Von?

  Got it. Understood.

• 11:57Theo Von?

  Cool, man. Yeah, I um. Okay, so that's good information. Thanks. What uh, let's talk about some things that are happening right now. One of the biggest ones right now is TikTok and the sale of it, right? Like, there's a big uproar right now. You see a lot of videos on TikTok about what to do if TikTok disappears, where to go, people like there's like safe rooms and shit. I'm like, I think people are probably they'll figure it out. But maybe some people won't. What do you think is behind the TikTok ban? Do you think it's actually going to get banned?

• 12:27Speaker 01

  I'm very unsure about the second question. I really don't know. It'll be interesting. I don't use TikTok. And so I don't really but have a connection to like the but the people who love TikTok, I've seen this too. They're losing their minds. Like they're like, I think they are some type of addicted to it.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  What's behind it is really interesting. And I think that that's like, it's kind of a, it's a, it's a microcosm of like, kind of what's going on in general. But TikTok, very quietly, to people who are not.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Like on it and not using it, but it became like the main like news source for young people.

• 13:05Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  And like in a crazy way that for people our age, if you even think back to like when we were little kids, it's so like, it's hard to even imagine that it's real. It's like, oh, they now these young people are connected to information in a way that totally like goes around older people at all. They have nothing to do with it. You know what I mean? Like Nancy Pelosi is sitting there just furious like, what is this? No, they don't care about like, they don't even know the people on TV news, you know? And so, okay, when I say this, I'm not just like pulling this out of my ass. Like there was like one, uh, it might've been the head of the ADL, but it was someone real high up in the, in the ADL who said this.

• 13:45Theo Von?

  What is ADL?

• 13:45Speaker 01

  The Anti-Defamation League. Um, and then there was a-

• 13:48Theo Von?

  Anti-Defamation League. So they are, it's like graffiti or whatever?

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Well, not exactly. They're not, the name doesn't exactly describe what they do, but they're one of these, uh, um, people. Yes. In fact, it was him. It was Greenblatt.

• 14:01Theo Von?

  CEO of Anti-Defamation League.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  They're a league that was started by Jewish people and it was kind of, at least at the beginning, I think was to be whatever, fighting antisemitism or exposing this stuff. They've, they've come to be an organization that will really try to go after and ruin anybody who's critical of Israel.

• 14:21Theo Von?

  Right. I said they had some issue with Elon. Now I remember maybe a year ago or eight months ago or something. There was something with him. Maybe that was ADL?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's possible. Um, but so they, one of the things that they were real upset about was that from October 7th, 23 up until now, TikTok has just been dominated by, you know, anti-Israel, kind of critical of this war. That's where a lot of the young people are seeing all the images of like the Palestinian babies dying and stuff.

• 14:52Theo Von?

  The kids like, but people like be begging for food and stuff like that. A lot of, um, like the ICC, when they tried to send like condemn Netanyahu, that was loose on there.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 15:03Theo Von?

  Or it was real information, but-

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes, that's right. And if you remember, um, it was really interesting. To me, but what I don't know, what is it like a year ago around now Osama bin Laden's letter to America went viral on Tik Tok. It was so fascinating for me like I'm I'm forty one and so I was eighteen when nine eleven happened, you know, and then it's interesting to watch this whole new generation of eighteen year olds like discover this for the first time. It's like, oh, yeah, there was a whole thing went down and they're actually reading Osama bin Laden's own letter about why he did it. Now, of course, they're young lefties. So a lot of times, I mean, you know, they were like Osama was right. And, you know, I'm not saying they

• 15:46Speaker 01

  took like the best message from it, but it was interesting to watch them kind of like engaging.

• 15:50Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's like wearing that Che Guevara shirt, you know?

• 15:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:53Theo Von?

  You're like, I don't know exactly what he was doing, but yeah, it seems cool. It seems like a vibe. But then also to hear from like a person who was labeled completely as horrible, right, as the enemy like Osama bin Laden was, and to see some of their thoughts, right, like to see how they believe that they came to be the enemy, right? Not taking a side in it, but just like, it's kind of fascinating that you weren't able to really get some of those um, in some places and some platforms, you might not be able to hear that view.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Well, imagine, I mean, like, imagine it was just like a like a personal thing like if I if there was like, if I told you I was like in an argument with someone like a mutual friend of ours, and I was like, you know, me and this guy just got in a huge fight and you were like, what happened? And I was like, well, he's a monster. He's evil. He hates everything good. He's made of pure venom. And I think you might be like, okay, but like, what's really going on here? Because like, it's not a matter of taking sides to just be like, he probably has a side too.

• 16:51Theo Von?

  Right. He has a point of view.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  He has a point. And and what the American people were told, I remember when I was eighteen, was they hate us for our freedom. And like, that was the that was all you were allowed to think of Al Qaeda, right after nine eleven was like, they did this because they hate freedom. They hate they hate your mom. They hate everything about our life. They hate everything that's good. They hate that we have, you know, whatever that we're Christian, whatever it is. And

• 17:16Theo Von?

  Or yeah, freedom of religion. They hate any of that. Right. There was all these. It was like, but the only way you could get that information was through like the main network.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, you had to listen to Dick Cheney have a conversation with some news lady on CNN or something like that. But what's interesting, I think, for a lot of these young people is when you read Osama bin Laden. You realize that, and I don't think the conclusion should be that he was right. Obviously, you're never right when you're killing civilians.

• 17:42Theo Von?

  Right.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Um, but note to Israel, uh, but he had legitimate grievances. And a bunch of those grievances are things that know that they never wanted the American people to know about, because then you might have a slightly different feeling about the war. I think the same thing is true with the war in Ukraine, too. It's like why they never want you to hear what Putin's issue actually is. Why did he invade this country? It's why they all flipped out when Tucker went and interviewed him.

• 18:05Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Cause you're like, oh shit, you get to hear his perspective now. And it's not that necessarily the correct position is to side with Putin. It's not, or to side with Osama, it's not. But it's, it's, it's not wrong to recognize that like, okay, they, he's got a point about this. He's got a point about that. Osama, aside from being an Islamist, which we all know he was.

• 18:26Theo Von?

  And what does Islamist mean?

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Well, meaning like a fundamentalist, you know, uh, uh, not just, um, a Muslim, but like a believer in like the most fundamentalist doctrine of Islam.

• 18:38Theo Von?

  Um, so he was that, but then he's got all these grievances listed in his, uh, declaration of war against America

• 18:45Speaker 01

  and his open letter to America.

• 18:46Theo Von?

  What were some of them? Can we bring them up, you think, or is it too deep to go into?

• 18:49Speaker 01

  No, no, I mean, it's, it's not even that, that complicated. I mean, the major ones were, uh, the number one was that we have military bases in their holy land in Saudi Arabia. They hate this. They find this to be like a total, and I'm no like expert on Islam, but from their perspective, this is blasphemy.

• 19:07Theo Von?

  Oh, I could imagine that. Say if I'm going to my church or my religious place, my place of worship.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:11Theo Von?

  And there's a guy sitting over there.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  And a foreign military.

• 19:14Theo Von?

  Right, foreign group loudly drinking out of a juice box or something and, you know, pouring, uh, scale, you know, a loud candy in his hand, cause he doesn't give a fuck.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:24Theo Von?

  He doesn't even probably recognize that my religion even exists. He may not, he may, he may not.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  But either way.

• 19:29Theo Von?

  But still, that's gonna make me fume.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  Oh dude, but also like, I mean, look, if we, even if just you looked at it from a not religious point of view. I mean, if there was like Chinese or Russian military bases in our country and we knew that like they're the real boss. You know what I mean? I mean, like, it's not, let's get real, America is not like on par with the Saudi government.

• 19:49Theo Von?

  Right.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  We're the world empire and they're our little satellite over there. That would make people infuriated. I mean, the people, people over here, liberals over here got infuriated about Trump being connected to Russia, and that wasn't even true. So like, imagine it was true.

• 20:05Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  And there were Russian bases like all over the place. People would lose their minds.

• 20:08Theo Von?

  Yeah, we wouldn't stand for it.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  That was a major, uh, that was the major one, but it's the military bases, it was us, us, our support for Israel and what they do to the Palestinians. And then.

• 20:19Theo Von?

  He mentioned that?

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. This was the major, major part.

• 20:23Theo Von?

  Wow, I didn't know that.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  The beef. Yes. So they, they were furious about that because they, you know, Israel is not too kind to their Palestinian neighbors. And so they, that was a big part of it.

• 20:33Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's heartbreaking over there.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. And, and, and, you know, the war, this has been the worst thing that Israel's ever done to the Palestinians over the last year plus, but it's not like this is where it started. It was going on since.

• 20:44Theo Von?

  Yeah, we had some, we had some guys come on and talk about, um, Israel and Palestine, just like the histories of both of them. You know, it was cool. We had Rabbi Wolpe come on and we had, um, Basim.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Yusef?

• 20:57Theo Von?

  Yusef come on. And just to give like, um, the two different, kind of different sides and take us through some of the different perspectives of history. But yes, so this was the message right here that, uh, that Osama had written, right?

• 21:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:10Theo Von?

  And so those were some of his big issues?

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Yes, looks like it here. I can't.

• 21:14Theo Von?

  Okay, criticism of American military bases in the Middle East, condemnation of US support for Israel, accusation of US exploitation of the region.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Number, number three, so there, what he, what he was specifically talking about.

• 21:25Theo Von?

  And let's just say it so we.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Well, so what it says here is, I'm not sure what we're reading, but accusations of US, um, exploitation of the region's natural resources. And what he's talking about there is us insisting that, um, they keep oil artificially low. Uh, the price of oil artificially low, which is true. I mean, that, you know, even just when, I remember a couple of years ago when inflation was at its worst. By the Biden administration just asked the Saudis to lower the price of oil because, you know, then, well. That'll make prices cheaper here, help face less political pressure of people being mad about gas being so expensive. But when you really think about what that the ask is there, the ask is, hey, make your people poorer.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  So that our people can be richer. And so this was a big beef they had too, but.

• 22:12Theo Von?

  By lowering the value of it, basically, by saying it's worth less.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  By selling it for less, we get cheaper energy, but your people get less money. Um, so that was one of their major beefs. And then the, um, at the time, you got to remember, because this was in the nineties. Or actually, I'm not sure, the letter to America might have been later, but his declaration of war against America was like in 96. But so the big thing at the time was the, um, Clinton's bombing campaign of Iraq and his blockade of Iraq. So there's like, it's debated how many people died from it. The UN estimated at one point that 500,000 children had died from starvation and malnutrition. So that was enough. So it's like, he had all these grievances and a lot of them involved. The US either directly or indirectly killing Muslim kids.

• 22:59Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  And, you know, I mean, look, I, I, obviously you're, he's wrong for doing terrorism, but I think most of us could admit that like, yeah, if anyone, you know, if, if any of us, like children that we care about were being slaughtered, we might be ready to do some violent stuff on behalf of that too. I mean.

• 23:16Theo Von?

  Depending on what perspective you look at, Robin Hood is a tale of a terrorist. It depend on what perspective you look at it through.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I mean, look, and, and that's, or, or, you know, you know what I'm saying? Does that make any sense to you a little bit? Yeah, well, I think the, um, I think according to the British Empire, our founding fathers were a bunch of terrorists probably, right?

• 23:32Theo Von?

  Oh, when you could look back to American history, I mean, what we did a lot to the Native Americans, sure, they had huge beef amongst each other. But they were also blatantly lied to and taken advantage of countless times. By other people that had come in, you know, by white settlers that had come in or, um, and by the Spanish as well. You know, a lot of times it all gets put onto, uh, honkies or whatever, but it was also darker honkies, the Spanish, you know?

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Just so you know, we don't even consider them white. Okay. So it was really your beefs with each other.

• 24:02Theo Von?

  But, um, but let's, so let's, let's tie this back into the TikTok.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 24:06Theo Von?

  Okay, so. You're saying that it's because, and this, I believe that, yeah, one of the main reasons TikTok has been banned is, or is, there's a threat of the ban or the force of the sale is because they don't want it to be in the hands of a place where they can't have the other side of the story come out, whether it be about Palestine or about anything.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  No, the cover story, the reason they claimed at first that they were trying to ban it was because of China, but it really wasn't until the war broke out in Gaza that this pressure kind of started mounting. But the China thing, I mean, I don't know. You know, I remember like Tucker did a whole thing on this back when he still had the show on Fox News and he was showing the thing where like, I don't know, have you ever seen like the way the algorithm on TikTok works in China compared to the way it works in America?

• 24:54Theo Von?

  There's more educational and fun.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  The number one trending video for 17 year olds in China is like a kid playing the violin or something. And then ours is just some chick twerking, you know, like on a sports car or something like that. And then they were like, kind of saying like, oh, see, it's China's poisoning our kids' minds. But I always thought, I mean, I don't know what the answer is, but like, isn't it possible that our kids are just?

• 25:16Theo Von?

  Poisoning our minds.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, like their algorithm is just showing them this garbage and their algorithm is showing them this. Cause like, if I go, if I just made a conscious effort to go on Twitter every day and only look up like violin lessons, I'm sure that's what the algorithm would start sending me after a while. So I did, I've always like been suspicious that is like, I think our culture is just messed up and that's.

• 25:36Theo Von?

  A war or worse enemy at the, a lot of the same time because it's like, we want certain things, but we're not willing to let go of any comforts or any, or really battle some of our addictive natures, you know?

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:49Theo Von?

  I think some of that's too, is just a side effect of capitalism and a side effect of comfort over time and a side effect of like, kind of deterioration of our society, you know, like even if you look at like, I was reading this the other day about pornography, like a lot of the. The videos in progress, someone will be like dad's daughter. Dad, when you really think about the fact that that's how they're, you know what I'm saying? It's like there's somebody has a dark goal to tear down like the little things like family, things that matter, you know what I'm saying? Like, so, um.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  You know, I, I was wondering, I remember asking a friend about this, like, this was a while ago, but it was 10 years ago or something like that. But it was like, when I started noticing that, I was like, what's up with all the porn categories of like family swap and this and that? And a buddy of mine said this to me and I thought, oh man, that kind of makes sense. But he was like, oh, you know what it is, is he goes nowadays, like families are so broken up and mishmashed and everyone's from divorces and everything, that so many people grew up with like a stepmom and step siblings. So you'd just be a kid and then all of a sudden you got like these new girls who aren't your mother and sister, you know what I mean? Like living in your house.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  And so they're like, that's what led to that, which I don't know if that theory is correct or not.

• 27:08Theo Von?

  It sounds like that dude.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Kind of, I was like, yeah, either he's a really sick person or you're on to something.

• 27:13Theo Von?

  That guy sounds like he was building it, like he was literally using you to build a case for, for a future indictment he was gonna face. But no, it's kind of.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  He came out with it really quickly too. Like it was.

• 27:24Theo Von?

  He's like, we just signed, signed this petition right here today.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  I'm so glad you asked. I've been dying to talk to someone about this.

• 27:30Theo Von?

  Um, but let me, I'm trying to tell this, what were we talking about? My, my, just.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  TikTok and then.

• 27:35Theo Von?

  But TikTok, yeah, like, um, yeah, we're also part of the, our own, it's like, we just keep creating this stuff, but, um, or just ridiculousness, we, and we get addicted to the ridiculousness, but also some of that's part of the freedom of just being in a place where you can make whatever you want. Um, and you have that like freedom of creation kind of to an extent, or freedom of your own creativity, some places you can't even really be creative in because it's not, um, it's not, not allowed, but the expressions of certain creativities aren't. Um, yeah, I don't buy the Chinese, I don't, I don't know if I buy the Chinese thing or not, because to me it's like, aren't all these apps like?

• 28:14Theo Von?

  All of them seem like they're foreign to me.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:17Theo Von?

  Like they're.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  And what difference does it make? I mean, I, I just, you know, I know people were giving me shit because I said something about this on, uh, on Pierce Morgan's show the other day, but you know, they were trying to make it out like it was, it was, the topic was about how, um, Mark Zuckerberg just announced that he's going to let people talk on Facebook again or whatever. Um, and you know, they, someone was arguing with me that like, well, the government, the US government has to like have these conversations with Facebook because all of these foreign governments are trying to propagandize us. And I'm just like, I don't know. After the last few years, how, how are you going to tell me that the, that DC should get in charge? Because other people are trying to lie to us?

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Like all of the most blatant, most consequential lies have come from my own government. So like, I just don't get worked up over this like Iran is trying to propaganda.

• 29:10Theo Von?

  I agree.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Okay. So like, tell me, when was the last time Iran had like an effective propaganda campaign? That actually, you know, like, like led to something in America. Okay. Well, my own government had this country, like literally had people like cutting family members out of their lives because they didn't take a vaccine.

• 29:26Theo Von?

  Yeah. And the Russiagate hoax.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. The Russiagate, you literally sat here, all you guys.

• 29:30Theo Von?

  For four years.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  And literally told us that what if true would have been the biggest story in the history of the United States of America.

• 29:36Theo Von?

  Nothing true at all.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  But, but, but imagine if it were true, like you were making the claim that the sitting president of the United States of America is involved in a conspiracy with a hostile foreign power. It was all bullshit and all you guys still have your jobs.

• 29:49Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  All the people who sold that are still the ones complaining on the news today that no one trusts them without even thinking about that.

• 29:55Theo Von?

  Yeah. And you could ask in a regular, I'm a pretty regular guy, I think, you know, like, and I don't mean that in like a braggy way. I just feel like I try to, you know, I try to be smarter sometimes. It's hard for me. I didn't, I realized I just have to try my best at where I'm at. And I, I thought immediately Russia, I was like, they're running out of steam. They have an old dude. A lot of people go over there for perverted stuff, you know? It's like, I could certainly see a lot of our leaders passing through there. And you know what I'm saying? We'll do a few favors for Russia because they don't want some videos getting released. But I don't think that this old, you know, this, they don't seem like they're on the cusp of.

• 30:35Theo Von?

  Of like chain, like, holding us at bay for something, you know, I just immediately that didn't pass the smell test to me.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Well, also just that it's Donald Trump. I mean, like, say whatever you want about Donald Trump. He was a known commodity. He's like the most American thing. He's the most famous rich guy of all time. Like, you're telling me he was a Russian spy? It just made, it made no sense. And then they had nothing. They had no evidence to support it at all.

• 31:01Theo Von?

  Never, except they just beat you into it over and over again with the beliefs. Oh, I just got a notification from Moonpay that Bitcoin is trading at near $100,000. Well, now, that's crazy. It's, it's just off its all time high of $108,000 in December. If you're interested in Bitcoin or crypto, then you need to download the Moonpay app. That's it. Moonpay is like your friendly neighborhood convenience store if all it sold was crypto and it was open 24 hours a day. When you buy crypto with the Moonpay app, you can use any of your favorite payment methods

• 31:42Theo Von?

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• 32:22Theo Von?

  That's moonpay.com/thoe or just search Moonpay in the app store. And I'm not giving you investment advice. I don't have that. But I am telling you that if you want to go with crypto, Moonpay is the way. You're a startup founder. That's what you are. You've, you've founded a startup and, and now you've got to find product market fit. That's right. That's probably your number one priority. Now, maybe you have a new software, you have a new, um, type of drone that, uh, takes family photos from outer space. Or maybe you developed a new shoe and it purifies water and sorts coins while you walk.

• 33:05Theo Von?

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• 33:50Theo Von?

  That's V A N T A dot com slash Theo for $1,000 off.

• 33:58Theo Von?

  And the thing, um, and that's where I think, that's really where I think the media started to go really lose its grip on, um, on people and, and on control. And so that's why I really worry a lot like with this Tik Tok ban, I'm like, well, cause if news is getting out there, right? Um, about all types of things, it could be like, uh, there was also a lot of, um, Barbara O'Neil, did you see those clips of her? She's a medicine woman, an Australian medicine woman, but there was a lot of like natural remedy stuff that started to be just be put out there. Like, I don't know if it was valid or not, but it was like, you would see a ton of it. Like, like, so basically opposition to all these medicines, you, all these like prescriptions

• 34:39Theo Von?

  you need, like, so I could see certainly how nobody, like the powers that be, if they exist, don't want a lot of this type of information out there. Oh, yeah. And especially with Palestine, you know, I don't think, um, You know, I don't under, you know, I don't understand what's going on over there. I mean, that Netanyahu guy.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  I mean, what he's doing to these people is like, it's the most inexcusable, just horrific thing in the world. And the fact that, you know, like I said this on Rogan's podcast, and I, I got shit for it, but I stand by this. But it's just like, you know, it's just like throughout all of history, there's just all this horrible shit. It's just slavery and wars and genocides and ethnic cleansing campaigns and all this. And every single point in history, there was someone there who would justify it and be like, no, we have to, we have to. And for, we have reasons why it's okay to do this. And they bend over backward and twist themselves into pretzels to explain why. They're the real victims and they really have to do this to these people because if they don't, then they'd do it to them. But it's all indefensible. You're like, you're just defending evil shit.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  And I feel the same way about Israel, man. Like, it's just to defend what they're doing to a group of people who are captive, who they've been occupying since 1967. You know, you've been occupying, they have, they don't have a military. They don't have a government. They don't have an air force. They don't have it. They have no means of defending themselves. And you're just destroying the place.

• 36:06Theo Von?

  But you're not letting the news out. That's the thing, right? You're not letting people get a fair take of what could potentially be going on there, right? You're not letting it, you're doing everything you can to stop that.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Well, they always do. They, you know, the only thing that's different is that now it's actually a challenge for them to do that. So throughout, but every war relies on lies and every war relies on totally dehumanizing the enemy. Because if you can't do that, you're in a lot of trouble. You know, if you leave just a little inch of humanity for those people, then immediately you're going to go, oh my God, what are we doing? Because if that was your like brother's kid or your nephew, your son, you're, you'd lose your mind about someone doing that to them.

• 36:47Theo Von?

  Oh, well, I think it's like, I'm not an anti-Israel guy. I am a, but that guy seems, it just seemed, he gives me this vibe that it's evil, right? And it's not something I'm making in my head. It's something that starts in. Side of me. It's not like I'm, cause I know it because I knew it when I um went to Cuba when I was in college and I would see people that would come up to the windows and they weren't allowed to share what they their uh, they had to whisper if they wanted to tell you something, right? Or when we went to the libraries there and they only had books that started at Fidel. Their history books started at fucking Fidel. So if you're a kid and you wanted to, you couldn't, you didn't exist, your grandparents didn't even

• 37:31Theo Von?

  whoever, your essence didn't exist, you know, so. And they had, I read a quote somewhere that, that the uh, Netanyahu guy, that his father said that, oh, he didn't like Arabs, right? And he didn't like the essence of Arabs. And that to me was just like a thing like, that's the same type of shit. It seemed like that Hitler would have said, like, I don't like whatever the, the, the granule, the grain. I don't like the, the atom of this person. I don't know, man, maybe and, and I don't know.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  No, it's listen, I mean, it's a, there's, you know, my

• 38:07Theo Von?

  It just makes me say, and the biggest thing, it just breaks my heart, like, and so I know when that kind of shit's happening where my feel, it's like, that's where it comes from. It's like, you know, it just like, I don't know. I've always had a barometer for like, the underdog, I think, you know, and maybe that's all, maybe some of it's that too, you know? I don't know everything. I don't know a ton of history, you know, but, but yeah, some of that shit, it just fucking hurts me. Think about how many children have been killed? How many kids have been killed over there? Estimation?

• 38:36Speaker 01

  I mean, the estimates I think are, have been so far, they're like, undercounted. I think a lot more people than we initially thought are dying. Um, but it was, I think I saw it in the estimation, the estimate was that two thirds of the dead were women and children. So I don't know what, you know, exactly the breakup between the women and children is, and I don't know if there are good numbers on that. But Gaza is 50% children. Like, that's one of the major things that makes it such a humanitarian

• 39:03Theo Von?

  Yeah, cause it sounds like such a fun place to kids Gaza. If you tell a kid like, where are we gonna go?

• 39:09Theo Von?

  You know what I'm saying? If you're like, we're gonna go to Yemen or Gaza, they're gonna go there.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  One of the parks at Disney World.

• 39:14Theo Von?

  Yeah, and I don't mean that.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  Epcot, Gaza.

• 39:17Theo Von?

  I care. Conservative figures show that more than 6,000 women, 11,000 children were killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over the last 12 months.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  I mean, it's way, this is way, way undercounted.

• 39:28Theo Von?

  It seems like it to me, yeah.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  For today, like, as of right now, I think the estimates are much higher.

• 39:32Theo Von?

  Dude, here's the toughest part. My, a lot of my Jewish friends are heartbroken by this, man.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:36Theo Von?

  And they'll come to me and, you know, and we'll be talking about it, you know, because, um, and they're just like, it's just sick that this is the guy who's representing us, you know, and that this is the choice. I don't understand why, but I guess if you live in Israel, then you feel like, well, these people are gonna kill us. And so you don't have, you have to, you have no choice but to support your governor.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't know if you have no choice, but there, but there's definitely, like, there's this human impulse and it's, this is always what's going on with all these wars on both sides, right?

• 40:09Theo Von?

  Are we gonna get in trouble for talking about this, do you think?

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably. I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, maybe. I can't really get in any more trouble.

• 40:16Theo Von?

  Have you been in about a lot of trouble?

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Well, I've been talking about it so much for the last, uh, year, and I don't know what trouble even means anymore. I mean, I'm fine. So like, some people seem mad at me on the internet, but I don't care. And so it's, I,

• 40:31Speaker 01

  it seems okay. Um, but, you know, of course, like, you, I could totally imagine that if you were, like, let's say, it, one of your family members was killed by Hamas militants on October 7th. I could understand where you'd have the attitude. You'd be like, man, let's go fucking fuck this whole place up.

• 40:47Theo Von?

  Yeah, Attorney General William Wallace.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  You know, sure. But that's, but that also is the same thing that's going on with the Palestinians, right? And if so, a whole bunch of them, in fact, a lot more of them have seen their family members killed and stuff. And so they're ready to go, you know, like, slaughter as many people as they can. In the same sense that like, right after 9/11, Americans were like, hey,

• 41:07Theo Von?

  Let's go.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  Let's go blow some shit up. I mean, I don't know. You tell us who did this and let's go blow them up. And then like, even if it's not exactly the people who did it, you know, okay. I mean, when we fought the war in Afghanistan, even, forget Iraq, that just had nothing to do with it, but in Afghanistan, it's like, It wasn't Afghans who attacked us. It was, it was some Arabs who were-

• 41:25Theo Von?

  Saudi Arabians.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  Right. It was Saudis and Egyptians, right, who were hanging out in Afghanistan. And then we, the, with the special ops missions, we drove them all out and destroyed all their bases. And then it was like, okay, we got this Taliban here. Now, they're not exactly guilty of it, but well, something's gotta be blown up and so we're gonna go fight those guys. So, but then the thing is that if you, the thing with Osama bin Laden's letter is that you're like, oh, but that's kind of their motivation too. Like, they're also a bunch of people going, hey, we just saw a bunch of our people get killed. We're gonna come fuck some of you guys up.

• 42:00Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  And so that's kind of the attitude everybody has.

• 42:02Theo Von?

  Yeah, well, that's the crazy thing. It's like you use, and the toughest part is the people are the ones who have to go and shed the blood. The people are the ones who have to have the blood shed.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:13Theo Von?

  Based on what their leaders, who they elect, and they would never elect them and tell them to do that, then choose to do that's what, I'm just like, how does this? But then that's how things, that's just being alive, I guess, in, in, in human. Sometimes, as sad as that is, or that's just how humanity's gone for a long time and society has gone and war has gone. But yeah, you have to think, how many Iraq, Iraqi people who had nothing to do with nine 11, if, if they had nothing to do with it, were affected by our military presence over there and are just waiting in the wings to affect harm on new America?

• 42:49Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, there's, this is why we had to deal with that insurgency over there that took us so many years to ultimately lose to. Um, you know, there's people, people don't like when you invade their country and destroy, and destroy their homes and kill their relatives and stuff like that. And yeah, imagine, if you think about that, first off, nobody in Iraq had anything to do with, with nine 11. I mean, there were some Al Qaeda members who came into Iraq to fight as part of the insurgency after we invaded. But like, when we invaded, there was no one in Iraq who had anything to do with nine 11. And-

• 43:22Theo Von?

  They must have been like, what the fuck?

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Well, imagine particularly if you're like Saddam Hussein was their problem, not ours. Like Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, but he wasn't our brutal dictator. He was that they were the ones who had to live under Saddam Hussein. So now they're living under this brutal dictator and then they got the most powerful military in the history of the world, invading and just wrecking the country, all because, well, we could get into that, but largely because Netanyahu wanted us to do it.

• 43:50Theo Von?

  Did he really?

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Netanyahu is a huge, huge part of the war in Iraq.

• 43:54Theo Von?

  Why do weeks keep supporting him?

• 43:57Speaker 01

  There's an interesting dynamic. I mean, there's a lot of things going on. So part of it is that there's, um, the, well, there were the neoconservatives who were really big in the George W. Bush years and they were, um, all of them fanatically pro-Israel. There is, there's APEC and there's the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center. And there are these organizations in the country that will, they, it is their business to ruin your life. If you're against Israel, particularly if you're in politics and you're against Israel. I mean, they just poured insane amounts of money. Uh, they lost, but they tried to get Thomas Massey, uh, primaried out of his Congress seat.

• 44:41Theo Von?

  He's the guy that doesn't want to have an APEC guy, right?

• 44:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's the only one who doesn't, according to him, the only one who doesn't have an APEC guy. So they do not like him.

• 44:49Theo Von?

  But do, is this?

• 44:50Speaker 01

  The other, there, there's lots of other factors involved in this. There's also like things like, um, there's blackmail, uh, operations. There's like, like Epstein, stuff like that. And then there's also, um, evangelical Christians in this country fanatically support Israel as well. So there's like a whole bunch of forces that Israel has a, let's say a, a very outsized influence on US policy.

• 45:14Theo Von?

  Is there something that I guess that, yeah, I guess I don't understand why we would support it while they're doing that murdering?

• 45:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, and then even if you.

• 45:22Theo Von?

  Unless there's something I don't under, like that's also the thing. It's like, or do we, are they just our best friend from a long time? And that's just what it is. And so it's like, uh, like I, I just, I worry that I just also don't understand, like the history of much as why, um.

• 45:42Theo Von?

  Why there is so much support there?

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Well, it's been-

• 45:46Theo Von?

  But you have to have a support in the Middle East. You have to have like a friend in there.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Well, that's been, that was the thinking for a long time.

• 45:53Theo Von?

  Right.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  You know, and that's, it's, um, and, and that if we had, you know, there was a big concern, a lot of people in the American security apparatus, back in the day that the Soviet Union was gonna take control of the Middle East. And if they really controlled that oil supply, then they would be too strong and we'd have a real problem on our hands. Uh, this is why, um, Jimmy Carter, who just died, uh, he in, in 1980 declared the, uh, what's known as the Carter Doctrine, where he was like, listen, we are treating the Persian Gulf like it's America. If, essentially saying to the USSR, they had already invaded Afghanistan. And it was like, if you invade Iran, we are going to fight on, we're gonna fight with the US military because we won't let you have all of this.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  So that's always been a concern, and I do think that Israel being kind of like our buddy there, felt like, okay, this will be a good way that we can control the region. But then, you know, this is, uh, yeah, he, this was at his State of the Union in early 1980.

• 46:51Theo Von?

  Yeah, the Carter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by President of the United States Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union address on January 23rd, 1980, which stated the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf. So there's a ton of business interests over there, and there's a ton of, uh, like peacekeeping or what we believe is peacekeeping over there.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  By the way, this is just to, it's interesting here, right? So this is, he's saying this in January of 1980. It was in 1979 was when the Ayatollahs had the revolution in Iran. So this is, the government that's in Iran today, our mortal enemy, they had just come into power. So what Jimmy Carter's talking about doing here is defending Iran against the Soviet Union. Like this country now that is the one that they all want war with. Back then, he was like, but, but if, you know what I mean? If Gorbachev or whoever was Gorbachev in there yet by 80? Yeah, I think so. Um, they'd be like, if he goes and moves on Iran, then we're gonna come to the defense militarily of Iran, which is- It's kind of weird to think about now.

• 47:54Theo Von?

  So this was saying that if Soviet, if the Soviets intervene, then we're going to come and defend Iran.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they had just, well, they had just law, uh, they had just lured them into the war in Afghanistan, which was also their plan. And this guy, uh, Zabigni, Zabignu Brzezinski, who you see down there, he's the National Security Advisor. He had been the one who really pushed this, this policy of luring the Soviets into Afghanistan. To give them their own Vietnam was the idea. And I, a lot of people credit that as one of the major factors that brought the Soviet Union down. And so that, so we had lured them into a war in Afghanistan, but then they got real concerned that like while they're here, they might also just go take around. So we better send them a message like if you do that, you're going to have problems. So that was the idea was to keep them out of there.

• 48:42Theo Von?

  Just shows you how much we've had, like, once you become this thing, that's this entity that's trying to control everything, how many, it's hard to keep, you know, they say like, it's hard to keep track of the lies or whatever. That's not really it, but it's hard to,

• 48:58Theo Von?

  it just seems like hard to manage. It's hard to be an air traffic controller for the world, you know, especially when the, the planes have different religions and ideas and histories and beliefs and, um, you know, uh, hopes, you know, it's, that's.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Oh, it's, it's insane. I mean, the job, yeah, I mean, imagine, it's just impossible.

• 49:21Theo Von?

  It's impossible. So that's what I'm saying. It seems impossible. And especially at a time when our own country is struggling so much. And I don't know, may, I, I hope, yeah, I don't mean to be like, mean to Israel. I just don't understand. I, you know, I love my Jewish friends. I don't understand that shit though. I don't understand, um,

• 49:37Theo Von?

  why, uh, why they're doing that over there. And then I think it falls in the power of this, the, the, the, the wealthier person to figure it out, you know?

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Well, that's right. That's exactly right. And it's that if you're coming from, if you're in a situation where you're, look, when, when it comes to Israel and Palestine, it's not, there's no parity between the two of them. It's not like, oh, these are two nation states around. The same strength like Palestine does isn't a nation state. They don't have a government.

• 50:05Theo Von?

  There's a halfway house of people of Arabs.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. And so there's when Israel has all the power, all the leverage, all the chips. And if you're in a situation where everybody's saying, hey, you guys have been like at war for so long and we want peace. Well, who's supposed to make the first concession when one side has all the chips?

• 50:26Theo Von?

  That's the thing.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  Obviously, you need that side.

• 50:27Theo Von?

  Don't push me. Don't push another bullying video at me.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:30Theo Von?

  Unless it that's going to be the first one that you fucking.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:34Theo Von?

  Sight.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 50:35Theo Von?

  That's the thing. And that's the shit I don't understand sometimes. Um. Yeah, I don't know. I don't understand how we would have media that would be like so anti bullying. And then this fucking bullying is going on. And it's like, well, what kind of who's believing you, you know? Or what are we doing? I don't know. And also, I don't fucking know, dude. And I'm like nine days off of nicotine. So.

• 50:56Speaker 01

  Oh, are you really?

• 50:57Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  You gave up nicotine?

• 50:58Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  Good for you, dude. I mean, I guess. Were you like smoking or vaping or just doing the pouches?

• 51:03Theo Von?

  Oh, I would do, um, I was smoked. I was, um, I was vaping.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:09Theo Von?

  I was vaping. It's sad to say it as an adult to like slipping off just slurping on some.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  I know. I'm I vape all the time. I'm totally embarrassed by it. I wish I was a man and I just smoked. But I I don't know. But, uh.

• 51:20Theo Von?

  Yeah, but if you go on your porch now and light a pipe, somebody will shoot you with a fucking musket.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. And no one will feel bad for you. Everyone will side with that guy. It'll be like, oh.

• 51:27Theo Von?

  They're like, free the slaves in the little fucking boat right up and fucking pop one in you. Um. But so do you believe that the TikTok ban? What do you really believe? Or do you think we're still figuring it out? Do you think that our elected officials will let it stay around? Trump seems like he's wishy washy on it.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  He does. Yes. He seems like he's not exactly clear what and it's weird because the talk was initially, the talk was like that it was a China thing. And Trump always tried to be the most hawkish on China. But even he does seem like it's not, doesn't really seem like he's got strong convictions about getting rid of it. My guess is that TikTok survives. I don't know if I'm right or wrong about that.

• 52:06Theo Von?

  Frank McCourt and someone else is going to be buying TikTok, they said.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  So I think the thing is that if they sell, then they escape the legislation because basically it was saying it's because it's owned. Their parent company is owned by the CCP or whatever. So it, you know, I have a feeling, I think that, um. There's been, there was a real move to really censor the internet over the last few years. It seems to me like it's failed and that they're just, they've accepted they're not going to be able to do it.

• 52:33Theo Von?

  As the deadline for a potential TikTok ban in the US approaches billionaire and former Los Angeles Dodgers owner, oh hell yeah, Frank McCourt's Project Liberty confirmed making a formal offer to ByteDance, the platform's Chinese parent company, to buy the social media giant's American assets. And he was gonna do it with, in conjunction with one of the guys from, um, Sharks. Good evening Sharks, whatever that show is. Shark Dance or whatever. Shark Boy, no, there's a woman.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Shark Tank?

• 53:02Theo Von?

  Shark Tank.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 53:03Theo Von?

  Shark Tank. Who was it? Danny or something from Shark Tank?

• 53:07Speaker 01

  Oh, one of them billionaires was gonna throw in?

• 53:10Theo Von?

  Um, Kevin O'Leary. So him and Kevin O'Leary, I believed, uh, I believe, don't quote me on that, was supposed to be, uh...

• 53:19Speaker 01

  The videos are short on TikTok, right? Isn't that the idea?

• 53:22Theo Von?

  There, some of them now can be longer. Some of them can be, I think 90 seconds is the length on Instagram. TikTok can be a couple minutes now.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  It's a weird thing how the internet has kind of like very organically grown into almost, it's almost like long form or seven seconds.

• 53:41Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Like there's, there's no like middle ground anymore. It's always like, okay, we want to hear a four hour conversation or give me six seconds of whatever you got and then we'll do a hundred thousand of those.

• 53:53Theo Von?

  It is kind of true, huh? TikTok videos can range from three seconds to 60 minutes long.

• 53:57Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 53:58Theo Von?

  Depending on how you film or upload the video. Uh, but this also could have been from ChatGPT. I don't know where, from AI, this fact. And so who knows if they're harboring that from years ago and today. Videos or images in TikTok stories can go up to 15 seconds long, but they disappear after 24 hours if you put in the story.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  So the way I look at it is kind of like, it's like if you had like, say like a buddy of yours or something was in like just an awful relationship, you know, like just like the chick he's with is like the worst, oh, it's like you hate her and she's shitty to him and she, she's so mean to him. She cheats on him. She's just the worst. And then like if he breaks- up with her and he's like, I'm just dating, I'm dating a bunch and you're like, great. Thank God. You're like back out there. Go find someone else. That chick was a nightmare, you know? And they'd be like, well, I'm meeting some nice girls, but I'm meeting some real awful girls too. It's like, ah, okay. Well, whatever. Just get out there and that's kind of how I feel about like, I'm just happy that the young generation isn't consuming the corporate media. And like, I'm sure on Tik Tok, they get some bad stuff and then they get some good stuff,

• 54:56Speaker 01

  but at least you're out there like shopping around and you're not just listening to like CNN tell you that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and we need to go fight this war with them. Or ju- just listening to MSNBC tell you that Trump's a Russian spy or whatever. It's like, all right, yeah, get out there, mingle a little bit, see what kind of crazy person's on Tik Tok. I don't know. Yeah. One of them might be like, oh, it's, you know, one of them's like, it's the Jews. And then someone else is like, you know, whatever.

• 55:21Theo Von?

  The gays or whatever.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Okay, maybe some of them are wrong, but at least you got a shot of meeting someone who might have something interesting to say to you.

• 55:29Theo Von?

  Yeah, that's interesting, man. That's certainly, yeah. Yeah, I think, yeah, at least you're kind of out there meeting people. You're, there's definitely there's everything. There's like people shooting each other. There's Mexican stuff. There's dancing. There's, um, you know, uh, bacana, yeah. There's people getting their nails done. Sometimes you pop into a live, you don't even know what's going on. You're just seeing some kids live and he's eating a burger. There's some kid eating, look at this fucking burger. There's some kid like in a broth who lives, I think, under a brothel or something in Scotland. And somebody gave him a big burger and he just made this video. He's like, look at this burger. And it's like eight parties, eight parties stocked up, boys.

• 56:11Theo Von?

  And it fucking went crazy, right? And that kid could be the next governor of Glasgow, right? But it's like, that's the thing. I think, cause people also can maybe over time, maybe, um, they get to know you. I don't know what it is, but yeah, I think it's fascinating, man. And Tik Tok, it does pull more of my information. And that's the only thing. I just want it to be fair. That's my thing. I just want it to be fair. Don't say that this, this truth can't come out if this truth can't come out. Like just make it fair. You know what I'm saying? If, if, if America isn't a country that's American and it's a country that's owned by other countries. Tell me that. If that's the case, but just let me live fair, let me live through the truth.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  No, look, 100, 100% I completely agree. And then also it's just like, I think. Like I was saying before, I don't trust any of you motherfuckers to be the arbiter of what is true and what isn't true. So forget anyone having this control over getting to decide what's misinformation or what's disinformation because it's the old, it's like the old Lord Atkin quote about like, um, you know, he's the original. No, it was before that. He didn't figure that out. Uh, but he's the guy who said, uh, man, am I messing Atkin, I believe. Um, he's the one who said the, the quote about, um, power corrupt, power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. But it's like, as soon as you have the power to determine what the truth is, then

• 57:36Speaker 01

  you're corrupted already just by like having that power.

• 57:39Theo Von?

  And I never liked fucking rich people anyway, bro. Facts, dude. I fucking hated them. I didn't hate them, but I didn't fucking like them. Yeah. You know? I don't, yeah, I just, I don't know. And maybe, yeah, and I have money now and that's true, but I'll never fucking really have money, motherfucker. You know what I'm saying? Not like deep inside of me. You know what I'm saying?

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:00Theo Von?

  Like that part of me will never have any fucking money, bro.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  Now you need three more generations of Vons before you're like a real rich prick who just thinks they're better, like an old money.

• 58:09Theo Von?

  Oh, deep inside, dog. I'm a real fucking wigga, son. You feel me? Um, what else? Oh, but Kevin O'Leary, I think I wanted to get that right. It was 250 million they offered to investor and Shark Tank star Kevin O'Leary is willing to pay up to 20 billion for TikTok, calling it a legacy opportunity. I think that that is a steal.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  Well, Elon bought Twitter for 44 billion, I think, right?

• 58:34Theo Von?

  But he's getting his use out of it. I mean, he doesn't sleep.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  He doesn't seem to be enjoying himself on there.

• 58:39Theo Von?

  Is he addicted to Twitter, do you think?

• 58:40Speaker 01

  He tweets a lot.

• 58:42Theo Von?

  How many tweets does he have right now? Let's see how many tweets he has. How many tweets? And he tweets more than we think, I think, Dave.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  It's, uh, it's constant. I've clicked on his thing before and been like, Jesus.

• 58:55Theo Von?

  How do we see how many?

• 58:57Speaker 01

  It used to show you right up at the top.

• 58:59Theo Von?

  66.5,000 posts, right up there, right under his name at the top.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  Wait, so, hold on, 66.5,000 posts. I wanna like-

• 59:11Theo Von?

  I thought that's what it said. Can you find out, how do you, there you go, right there, 66.5-

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Do you see how many I have? I'm curious, how many tweets have I ever sent? Like, I wanna compare this to-

• 59:20Theo Von?

  Are you big on there, Davey?

• 59:21Speaker 01

  I mean, I use it pretty often, yeah.

• 59:25Theo Von?

  22,000.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  Alright, I'm, I'm falling behind. Wow, I've spent, I've spent too much time on Twitter. 2012, it says there.

• 59:34Theo Von?

  How long have you been on?

• 59:35Speaker 01

  Uh, well, it says January 2012, so I guess that's-

• 59:39Theo Von?

  And how long has Elon been on? Well, I guess he was on before, but when did he start really getting in?

• 59:43Speaker 01

  I think it was, I think a lot of his have come recently, you know, like, yeah, he's real, and it'll be like, late at night, too, and there'll be like, just like, a bunch of them.

• 59:51Theo Von?

  All hours. Some of it's on like a Barbados accent, too?

• 59:54Speaker 01

  He does, he seems like he's enjoying, he's enjoying kind of-

• 59:59Theo Von?

  Bureaucracy. Doge coin, Doge, Doge. Vivek, Vivek, buzz! Yeah, his shit gets very, uh, kind of, um, archipelagian sometimes, or something, uh, Barbadian, yeah. You ever realize that you spent your entire morning thinking about lunch? It's 9 a.m. and somehow I'm already in negotiations with myself about how I'm gonna spend $20 on a sandwich at noon. And then I eat it, or you eat it, or somebody eats it, and then an hour later, you're just standing in the kitchen worrying about what you'll do for dinner.

• 1:00:38Theo Von?

  And that's one reason why I've been into Huul. The Black Edition Powder is a complete meal you have instead of food, not a shake on top of food. Their powder starts at less than $3 per meal, has 40 grams of protein, and mixes with water or milk in about 30 seconds. I like Huul's shakes because they're clean and it's quick. Sometimes it may, I just, I would just wanna make sure I have everything I need to keep going the way I want to keep going in a healthy manner. So with Huul, basically, lunch went from a daily logistical problem to a thing I can solve in about 30 seconds. Make healthy eating simple. New customers get an exclusive offer of 15% off online with

• 1:01:19Theo Von?

  my code WEEKEND at Huel.com/Weekend. That's H-U-E-L.com/Weekend. Thank you to Huel for partnering and supporting our show. You all know I like to keep things cool, even in the winter, and nothing is cooler than a Blue Cube Cold Plunge. I'm fortunate enough to have one at home, and let me tell you, it's like baptizing your soul, baby. Get in that little crispy bucket, baby. It gets rid of them demons we all have and makes you feel great for seven or eight hours afterwards. It's good. My buddy, Thomas Schiffer, the genius behind Blue Cube, and I go way back, and he just

• 1:02:01Theo Von?

  launched a pre-sale for their new stand-up cold plunges. Wow. These things are the Cadillacs of cold plunge therapy. American-made, full immersion, weatherproof frames, and built like a Sherman tank. I'll say this, they are built well. And because you're listening to me, you can get a sweet discount when you mention my name. That's right. Just tell them Theo sent you, and they'll knock a good bit off the price. So if you're ready to boost your metabolism, eliminate inflation, and blast away your anxiety, give them a call. Head over to their website, BlueCubeBaths.com, and dive into the details. Opt in on their

• 1:02:42Theo Von?

  website, or give them a call. I am grateful for the one that I have, and I feel honestly thankful to be able to have one. I know they're not in everybody's price range, and that's understandable, but at the same time, I want to support my friend and his amazing company. Yeah, what censorship, what do you think censorship looks like, like, right now? Do you think it's changing?

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  Um, it seems to me it's definitely changing. I mean, really drastically. And it's, uh, it's not gone. Like, there are still people who are getting censored, and there are still, there was a thing like a couple weeks ago where I guess a group of people who, let's say, the people who, um...

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  Liberals would call antisemitic and I think, you know, like people who talk a lot about the Jews, whatever the, I'm not like trying to add my own value judgment into this, but whatever you think you would call it. A lot of them lost their blue checkmarks and like stuff like that.

• 1:03:41Theo Von?

  What, they were accusing people of doing antisemitic?

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So there is, there have been, like, there are, but I mean, to compare it to like, I mean, during like 2020, 2021, 2022, I mean, you couldn't, if you said anything about like the vaccine or whatever, I mean, you know, I know you felt it with, you know, you had the thing when Dana White was on, you were talking about sponsors giving you a hard time and stuff. There was a total, not just on social media, but in general, there was a total like feeling that like you weren't even allowed to say anything that went against the regime. Like, the regime is this.

• 1:04:15Theo Von?

  That's a great point.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  And if you are against what they're doing right now is, and I mean, I, you know, there's always pressure, like, there's always like, you'll get called names or something if you do that, but for a while there, it was straight up like you would lose your, your accounts. And for a lot of people, like for, for me, um, that was a scary prospect for a long time. Cause it was kind of like, we had, at least in the comedy world that I'm in, and in the political shit talking world that I'm in, it's, I'd kind of long ago accepted like, okay, I'm not going to get like a corporate job. Like no big corporation is gonna hire me at this point because, which is fine. But then you're like, oh, there's this internet thing. So you can have your show on the internet. You can have your own fans. You could have, but then when.

• 1:05:00Theo Von?

  You got your own voice.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, but then you're like, oh, they might come and take that away. It's not just that you can't get Saturday Night Live or something on Comedy Central or something like that. But it's like, oh, they could come and like, you know, if you, you could have your podcast, but if you can't have, if you can't be on iTunes or YouTube or Facebook or Twitter or whatever, you're kind of screwed in this world. And so I am very happy that at least now, at least kind of feels like the, the dominant culture seems to more be like, no, we should be able to say what we want to say right now. I think that's a very positive change.

• 1:05:33Theo Von?

  But are you, are you think they're gonna take me down for talking about Yen Yahoo?

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  No, I think you're gonna be okay on this one, but I don't know. I mean, you know, I would hate to say that. And then like, uh, next week, you just show up at my house and you're just like, hey, man, can I crash for a while? Cause you, you ruined me. So that's, I'm like, all right.

• 1:05:50Theo Von?

  But you can be anti Netanyahu and not, uh, and that's, you can, I can have that belief if I want, right? If I don't like his practices.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  Of course. And it's, oh, it's so ridiculous, the idea of like, in the, in the same way, if you were like, well, I don't like Joe Biden very much. And you'd be like, so does that mean you hate Americans? You'd be like, what? No, I just don't like this guy. And you could hate the whole government and not hate the people. And then, and it's only with Israel, and they intentionally do this, where they conflate this thing. Where it's like, oh, if I have the, if I, like, if I was like, if I came and told you, like, you know, the government of France just did this thing. I think it's terrible what they did. And there's lots of terrible things that the government of France has done, so I could pick some, but like, whatever.

• 1:06:31Theo Von?

  That doesn't mean I'm not gonna cheer for Cyril Gahn when he fights, you know?

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  And you were like, you're an anti-Frankite, you hate all the French people. You'd be like, that doesn't even make sense as a response to, I have a problem with the government, you know? Um, but they tried it, they, they use that, you know, with Israel, where it's like, oh, if you criticize them, you hate Jewish people. That's stupid.

• 1:06:50Theo Von?

  It started becoming the boy that cried wolf because they would say that for everything.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:53Theo Von?

  And then it would be like, well, what do you, you're not even, you're, you're doing this.

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:57Theo Von?

  You're saying this. I, this isn't true, right?

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's not even clear sometimes, like, what do you even mean by that? Like, what are you even, and also I do think just like, the whole woke-ism stuff has been so rejected, especially recently. That you're like, people are kinda sick of just like, like accusations of bigotry aren't actually a response to someone, you know?

• 1:07:19Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  If you're like, if, if, if I say, I think what Israel's doing is wrong. And your response is, well, you're a bigot. It's like, no, your response should be, oh, I don't think what they're doing is wrong, and here's why. And then we could actually talk about it. But just to call someone like, oh, you're a Jew hater, you're racist, you're homophobic, you're, it's, it's just played out and tired.

• 1:07:38Theo Von?

  Yeah. Let's talk about Zuckerberg a little bit because he just had that kind of about face sort of on and Facebook. They just had that kind of about face on Rogan where he was talking about, um, where's that clip? That clip? Yeah, right here where he kind of, uh, says the Biden administration would call Meta to scream and curse it into censor true information on their platforms. This is what Zuckerberg said.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:02Theo Von?

  Right? What did he say? Play it real quick, a little bit of it.

• 1:08:04Speaker 02

  Basically, these people from the Biden administration would call up our team and like scream at them and curse. And it's like these documents are, it's all kind of out there.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  Did you record any of those phone calls?

• 1:08:17Speaker 02

  I don't know. I don't think, I don't think we were, but, but I think.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  I want to listen.

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  I mean, there are emails, the, the emails are published. It's all, it's all kind of out there. And, um, and they're like, and basically it just got to this point where we were like, no, we're not gonna, we're not gonna take down things that are true.

• 1:08:33Theo Von?

  Okay, that's good.

• 1:08:34Speaker 02

  That's ridiculous. They wanted us to take down this meme of Leon Art.

• 1:08:39Theo Von?

  Yeah. What do you think about this? To me, I just don't know if I buy, I don't, because Facebook didn't do the best job of, you know, they had issues over the years with the Hunter Biden thing, right? With Russia stuff where they wouldn't let people say this is bullshit. Like they really chose to decide what was misinformation. So it just seems weird that suddenly people are calling and screaming. I love like the simple facts and you're like, is this, like, it seemed like now you're trying to seem like, like that wasn't happening the whole time and you weren't listening to it before type of vibe.

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a very like convenient retelling of history.

• 1:09:20Theo Von?

  Yes.

• 1:09:20Speaker 01

  For Zuckerberg to go, um, so the government was saying, we have to censor these things that are true. And we were like, no, we're not going to do that. Okay, what really happened is the government said you're gonna censor these things that are true and he said, yes, sir.

• 1:09:38Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  And did it for eight fucking years, okay? And then, at the end of these eight years, when Trump wins a dominant victory, and now the guy who you kicked off of Facebook is now president again, and now the whole culture's turned against you and he's threatening to like, you know, like, look into you.

• 1:09:55Theo Von?

  He's coming.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  And there's a lot of like, pretty quasi-illegal stuff that was done. So now you said, okay, we're not gonna do this again, while Joe Biden is literally on his hands and knees, pooping his pants.

• 1:10:09Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  On the way out with terrible numbers and Donald Trump's coming in popular again. So, okay, yes. So for him to spin that as, the government said we should do this thing and we said, no, that's ridiculous. Okay, that's not exactly what happened.

• 1:10:23Theo Von?

  It seemed like he's just out back here trying to slurp back on humanity.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  Now, if you-

• 1:10:27Theo Von?

  That's a slurp job.

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, I agree. Um, now, there's, and this is why Joe, you know, remains like, the biggest show is, cuz he just gets these moments, but if you, the last time he was on Rogan's podcast, was one of the most interesting admissions, and it was before he had done this 180 and turned around, but when Joe asked him about the Hunter Biden thing, and he goes, so, so like the story with the Hunter Biden laptop, how did you guys handle that? And Zuckerberg said, the FBI came to us and told us where there's about to be a big Russian dump. So they must have known that this laptop was about to come out.

• 1:11:06Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  And they went to Facebook, told them preemptively, it's Russian disinformation, and that's why they censored the whole thing. And that is like, that admission is like blatant election interference by the FBI against the sitting president, which makes it that, even that much worse? Cuz like, in some, on some level, like, if the FBI or the CIA or someone like that was like interfering in an election, you'd already be like, okay, that's crazy illegal, unethical, uh, you know, unconstitutional, like, we don't have a democracy if we have three-letter agencies interfering in elections.

• 1:11:39Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  However- You'd assume at least they were doing it on the side of the president who they work for, not against the president who they work for. Now we're in a level of like treason. Like you're working against the commander in chief who you're supposed to say sir yes sir to and follow his rules. You know, I mean, okay, you, if you're at the FBI, you're in the, under the Justice Department, but still like the president is the-

• 1:12:05Theo Von?

  So this was in, this was in Trump was in office?

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, but this is the one I'm referring to. Yes, this one. This is when, or I don't know when the podcast was, but he's talking about the Hunter Biden story, which was October of 2020. So right before the election when Trump is still in office.

• 1:12:19Theo Von?

  Okay, let's play a little bit of that.

• 1:12:23Speaker 03

  How do you guys handle things when they're a big news item that's controversial? Like there was a lot of attention on Twitter during the election because of the Hunter Biden laptop story, the New York Post.

• 1:12:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, we had that too.

• 1:12:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. So you guys censored that as well?

• 1:12:40Speaker 02

  So we took a different path than Twitter. Um, I mean, basically the background here is the FBI, I think basically came to us, some, some folks on our team. It was like, hey, um, just so you know, like you should be on high alert. There was, we, we thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election. We have it on notice that basically there's about to be some kind of dump of, of, um, uh, that's similar to that. So just be vigilant. So our protocol is different from Twitter's. What Twitter did is they said, you can't share this at all. Um, we didn't do that. What we do is we have, um, if something's reported to us as potentially misinformation, important

• 1:13:23Speaker 02

  misinformation, we, we also have this third party fact checking program because we don't want to be deciding what's true and false. And for the, I think it was five or seven days when it was basically being, um, being determined whether it was false.

• 1:13:40Speaker 02

  The distribution on Facebook was decreased, but people were still allowed to share it. So you could still share it. You could still consume it.

• 1:13:47Speaker 03

  When you say the distribution is decreased.

• 1:13:50Theo Von?

  Okay, that's good.

• 1:13:50Speaker 03

  It got shared.

• 1:13:51Speaker 02

  How does that work?

• 1:13:51Theo Von?

  It basically. So saying that they had some effect on it, though.

• 1:13:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, he goes on to say that it was a meaningful impact that turning down the signal had on it. But what's interesting is that he blatantly says that it was the FBI who came to them and like told them that this very true story, which was a real scandal, that was an October surprise that, you know, very clearly could have moved the needle in the election. They suppressed that for one reason only, and that's because they wanted Biden to win and not Trump to win. And Zuckerberg played a big role in that, not as big, I guess, as Twitter at the old.

• 1:14:28Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, Dorsey admitted it.

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And I, look, I do think to some degree, these guys are under duress from the government. I mean, they're threatened and all types of pressure is put on them to go along with the censorship stuff.

• 1:14:42Theo Von?

  And to be, you're basically become communication in the universe. Like you are, like if everybody had to talk in like a hallway, you're the hallway, you know, you're.

• 1:14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, and, and if you think about like even just the, you know, if you think about the, how much government cares about controlling the narrative, you know, one of the things that's really interesting from the, the more recent clip that you, the one we played first here, you know, he says that they were really upset about a meme.

• 1:15:11Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, it was Leonardo DiCaprio.

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  DiCaprio meme, like they were really upset about that.

• 1:15:16Theo Von?

  Oh, dude.

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  Which literally said, isn't that fascinating in a way that they are so threatened by like you making a joke about their bullshit? But if you like zoom out, right, and think about it, it's like governments always insist on controlling, monopolizing information, you know, controlling the narrative is the most important thing to them. That's more important than controlling the money or the banks or the, the laws or anything. It's like controlling the narrative, controlling how people think, what the, the kind of like the range, the Overton window of allowable opinion or what, you know, and that's, and you see it all the time. They spaz out when people are just outside of the realm of allowable opinion. And even if you think about like the way, think about the way our government's set up.

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  We're like, okay, the government, there's like a, a, a group of, you know, services that the government has a monopoly on and they had a monopoly on the schools, uh, the post office, you know,

• 1:16:15Theo Von?

  That's a dump.

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  Even, it's like wherever the information is coming from, the media, the universities, you know, these are always the things that governments get involved in. And then all of a sudden there's a revolution. And now the, um, you know, the, the public square is Facebook and Twitter and these social media. So now these people are in control for the first time of this. So of course, and, and what really happened was after Donald Trump won in 2016. They really started cracking down on them.

• 1:16:44Theo Von?

  Yeah, cause like holy shit.

• 1:16:45Speaker 01

  The guy who wasn't supposed to win won and he did it by utilizing social media and going around the, the corporate media and going around the political machine just to talk right to voters. That really shook them up. And so, yeah, they hauled Zuckerberg and, and Dorsey and all of them before Congress. They threatened the shit out of them. I'm sure he's right that they were on the phone cursing and screaming at him and putting all types of pressure. So fine. If Zuckerberg, I would be much more sympathetic if Zuckerberg had come out on Rogan's podcast this time and been like, listen, I've just, I've, under the weight of this pressure, I gave in.

• 1:17:19Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:17:19Speaker 01

  And I became like a, a, a tool for the regime to censor people, but I don't want to do that anymore. And so now I'm committing to this. I'd be like, yes.

• 1:17:27Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:27Speaker 01

  He's a hero, but the way he kind of like yada yadas over like, anyway, the government wanted us to do this stuff. I was like, no, man, I'm not going to do that. I'm cool. Right, Rogan? They're like, eh, not exactly.

• 1:17:39Theo Von?

  It almost seems, sometimes the way he, he almost seems like a doll.

• 1:19:54Speaker 01

  You focus on your apologies, but I would love to invite like any of these parents if they want to sit down in a private room after that, we can have a long conversation about this. And then like give a real moment or like, you know, you can't, if someone like loses their kid or their kid's raped or tortured or something, it can't just be like a, I'm sorry that happened and we are working hard to make sure it doesn't happen in the future. You want to sit down and be like, hey, that's a great point. Tell me your story. And like, don't even hear from me. Let me hear from you. You tell me your story and then I'll try to like empathize with what you've gone through, but.

• 1:20:24Theo Von?

  Yeah, that's a great point. They shouldn't, they shouldn't have put him on the spot to do it right there because that wasn't really helpful.

• 1:20:31Speaker 01

  Cause they're not looking for a sincere apology. They're looking for a political stunt to be like, I got Zuckerberg to admit.

• 1:20:36Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  That he had, you know, his wrong.

• 1:20:38Theo Von?

  And the families always get wheeled out for that kind of stuff.

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  And I also don't like that the air is always like, it's always a question of what you should be censoring. And like, listen, I'm sure we would probably agree, right? Like if there are people trying to traffic kids or something like that, like yes, okay, you'd want to kick those accounts off or report them to the police or whatever. But it's always Congress like talking about how dangerous the freedom that people have is on your site. Oh, it's so dangerous that people can communicate and people, you got to clamp down on this.

• 1:21:06Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:21:06Speaker 01

  And it's like, personally, I'm much, what is it? The, the old, I think it's a Thomas Jefferson quote, or maybe I'm getting that wrong. Actually, it's not Jefferson. But whatever the quote was like, I, uh, it might've been Hamilton, but it was like, I'd rather deal with the inconveniences of too much liberty than those associated with too little of it. You know, it's like, I'd rather, it's always like, they're always warning you about the problems of too much freedom. Oh, everyone can communicate. That means people are going to come get your kids. I'm like, I'm sure that is, there is that concern and like, you know, I got little kids. I'm, I'm concerned about that stuff, but I also kind of feel like, okay, I'll handle making sure my kids don't, you know what I mean? Get, you know, taken advantage of on the internet. And how about the government get the hell out of the way so we can tell the truth?

• 1:21:50Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:51Speaker 01

  It was Thomas Jefferson. See, I should be sure of myself.

• 1:21:53Theo Von?

  I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much, attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it. Yeah, I agree. Why not err on that side of it?

• 1:22:04Theo Von?

  Yeah, Facebook has had issues. I mean, remember when they had,

• 1:22:09Theo Von?

  there was a thing where they had, there was like these canyons or something. See if you can look that up.

• 1:22:15Theo Von?

  They were looking up information, they were using people in Africa to look up, they were the fact checkers or whatever, and I think there was a lawsuit. Facebook content moderators in Kenya called the work torture, their lawsuit may ripple worldwide. I'm not even sure what happened with this, what, when was this? Oh, it's 2023, okay. On the verge of tears, Nathan Nkunkzimana, Nkunkzimana.

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  I admire you for trying.

• 1:22:40Theo Von?

  Oh, thank you, yeah. On the verge of tears, Nathan Nkunkzimana recalled watching a video of a child being molested and another of a woman being killed. Eight hours a day, his job is a content moderator for a Facebook contract that required him to look at horrors so the world wouldn't have to. Now, Nkunkzimana is among nearly 200 former employees in Kenya who are suing Facebook. It's so wild, um, where worker, let me see, the group was employed at the social media giant's outsourced hub for content moderation in Kenya's capital of Nairobi, where workers screen posts, videos, messages, and other content from users across Africa, removing any illegal or harmful material that breaches its community standards and terms of service.

• 1:23:22Theo Von?

  Can you even imagine having to moderate this stuff in Africa?

• 1:23:26Speaker 01

  Someone's job is actually to watch a child being molested and then be like, nope, that video can't go up on Facebook?

• 1:23:34Theo Von?

  This is bad. The moderators from several, and that was, I shouldn't, that wasn't a fun time to joke, I'm sorry, that wasn't funny. Um, and I love Kenya, I've been to Mombasa, I love Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, I love it, I've been there.

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  Oh no, do not touch that girl. You're okay so far, you're okay so far, nope, you are banned.

• 1:23:57Theo Von?

  The moderators from several African countries are seeking 1.6 billion compensation fund.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a lot of money.

• 1:24:04Theo Von?

  After alleging poor working conditions, including insufficient mental health support and low pay. Wow. I wonder what happened to that lawsuit? If you find out that something happened, let me know. But they've had issues over there. And I'll say this, um, well, that's not really it. But, uh, I can't imagine, I can't imagine having to be actual person doing that work. But that's what it comes down to. You're basically having to moderate the entire world of communication. You've taken on that responsibility, you know?

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  Well, and I know that, um, you know, it was, I think when, when the, um, I think it was the Egyptian revolution, which, you know, didn't last that long. But they, what they, when they, a real, I, I believe, and forgive me, because I haven't like, I'm not the expert on this at all. I haven't read that much about it. But like, when they overthrew Mubarak, I think that was like a real genuine revolution. Where like the, it caught, the people really did agree, like, we want this dictator gone. But I remember that they were, it, this was, um, I, what year was Mubarak overthrown? I want to say it was like 2010. 2010?

• 1:25:11Theo Von?

  That was in Kenya?

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  No, this is in Egypt. Um, but I do remember that that was one of the things that people were making a big deal of, was that there were these giant protests that ultimately ended up bringing down the government. And it was all organized on social media. You know, everybody's like, oh, we'll meet up here. The protest starts here. And then it was like, almost like the first time that they were like, whoa, there's real power in these things. And, you know, if you could, uh, 2011. So like,

• 1:25:38Theo Von?

  Oh, the power of social media.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's just like, yo, I mean, you're going to get, if you could overthrow governments with these things, you're going to get, you know, you're going to get a lot of attention from governments who are going to be very concerned about what's going on on these sites.

• 1:25:50Theo Von?

  Yeah. Well, it's just interesting. At what point do you think that there could be a revolution in America? Because if, if, if, if, if people don't trust the FBI now, they don't trust the CIA now, you're not sure that your FBI isn't out to get your own. It's like, who, what is even like?

• 1:26:08Speaker 01

  It's well, right. And then, and then on top of that, like you had, say, someone like Donald Trump. Look, the first time Donald Trump ran, right? All of the political class, all of the media, all of Hollywood, they all said, this guy is unacceptable. You cannot support this guy. He still won, but he also won on like a razor thin margin, lost the popular vote and just happened to win the right swing states against Hillary. So there was like a little bit of a caveat. But then after January 6th, with how much they pumped into like, this is the worst thing ever. And look at this horrible guy. You could never support him. Then they go after him with the, uh, with the legal cases.

• 1:26:50Speaker 01

  Then he almost gets his brains blown out on national television. And then after all of that, all the years of he's a Nazi, democracy's over, he's Hitler. The American people go, well, we like him even more now. Like, that's just so crazy. It's so crazy that there's just trust in every American institution has evaporated. They have nothing. I mean, it's unbelievable that the most famous Hollywood celebrities can't move the needle at all. The entire-

• 1:27:17Theo Von?

  In fact, they, it's an anti movement. If they get, the second one of them is involved, I'm fucking out.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  Well, that's right. It almost like, well, that is, and I mean, look, even me, I will admit, I'm guilty of it too, that I, I right away, you know, you see another celebrity, they'll be endorsing Kamala Harris tonight. And I'm like, what did you do at the Diddy party? What do they got on you? You know, what do you, like, it's just, there's so much mistrust of the whole thing. And it's, you know, the, the thing about it is, is a lot of us, like I said this in our conversation already today at one point. I don't even remember if it was about Russiagate or COVID or what, but I said, all those people still have their jobs or whatever. You know, if you, if you look at the New York Times, or you look at CNN, or all these places, they still got people there who sold us the war in Iraq. And they still have their jobs, you know, like they didn't get fired. These people make great money. They're still at the, and nothing, but it's like, it's something almost like spiritual.

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  There's always a price, even if you think there was no consequence. Oh, there is a consequence. And so like, you just think for so many years, they lied us into wars. Into financial recessions, they they lied about everything about covid, they lied about Russiagate, they lied about all this shit, they lied about Joe Biden not being senile, they lied about Kamala Harris not being retarded, they lied about everything they could think of.

• 1:28:34Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  And there is a price for that. And the price is that no one believes you anymore.

• 1:28:38Theo Von?

  Yeah, not even the people that believed you believe you. That's what's crazy.

• 1:28:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:42Theo Von?

  Is watching people that were like devout believers come on over and be like, I just don't believe these people, you know?

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  And there's so many people like that. So like, could there be a revolution? I mean, you know, there's, the American government is still so powerful. It's not like they're getting overthrown anytime soon.

• 1:29:01Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:29:01Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:29:02Theo Von?

  And we're not saying that, government.

• 1:29:03Speaker 01

  No, if the if the government is listening, I've I've highly recommend everybody follow the law.

• 1:29:08Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:08Speaker 01

  Um, but there is, there there's been a revolution in communication already. There's been a revolution in the media. I mean, they all, this happened a while ago, but after this election, they all kind of admit it. They all kind of admit that like, look like Donald Trump did like, your show and and Schultz and.

• 1:29:30Theo Von?

  Oh, that blew my mind.

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  And this was a huge factor for him, you know? And this was, and I I will say, I think particularly yours was, I mean, obviously, Rogan's was was humongous.

• 1:29:40Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:29:40Speaker 01

  But particularly the interview with you saw like a much different side of Donald Trump than I'd ever seen before. And that's crazy. It's crazy that there's been this revolution.

• 1:29:50Theo Von?

  Oh, it's crazy. You know, there's there hasn't been, there's not a lot of people where I'm from who even get to ask questions a lot of times.

• 1:29:55Speaker 01

  No, I think, I don't think.

• 1:29:56Theo Von?

  There's not a lot of, there's not a lot of people where I'm from who ever even get to raise their hand in front of a president and ask a question about something that means something to them. You know, a lot of times, um, yeah, you just get pigeonholed into being some type of way. And so then. As a person, as part of even just a group, you start to feel like, well, I don't even fucking exist. You know what I'm saying? And I think that's part of how I always felt my whole life. I don't even, nobody, nobody gives a fuck about a poor off-white kid. You know what I'm saying? That's the last fucking group. And so, yeah, I think, uh, I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying, man. I'm just that-

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  I think it's a really great point. I mean, I thi- if you think about it, like, at least my whole life, right?

• 1:30:35Theo Von?

  Well, finally, we made our own voices because you don't even see that I am a voice. You don't even think I have a fucking voice. And so finally, I'll, you don't think, and you also, you don't think I work hard enough to fucking put my voice out there either.

• 1:30:48Speaker 01

  They called it flyover country.

• 1:30:50Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  Well, that's what they call it. Flyover country. And what is flyover country? Everything except New York and LA.

• 1:30:56Theo Von?

  I know.

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  Right? The whole rest of this annoying country that you gotta fly over on your way from New York to LA. There, if you think about like, when we grew up, me and you grew up in the era of the TV.

• 1:31:07Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:07Speaker 01

  There wasn't, we didn't watch shit on YouTube and stu- you know, this didn't exist. We watched what was on TV. And TV was made in New York and LA.

• 1:31:15Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:15Speaker 01

  That, that's where it was made. And every show, whether it was Seinfeld, or Friends, or whatever, it was all, it, these shows were about living in a city on the coast, and they were about people who live there. And then, just think about how bizarre that is. You have this giant country that occupies the middle part of North America, called the United States of America. It's this huge country, and you only have representation from these two coastal cities. And this has now been totally blown open, where it's like, yeah, I think for the first time, people in the middle of the country, in the south of the country, can actually have a voice. And why shouldn't they? When there's tens of millions of people who like, fall into those categories.

• 1:31:59Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  Um, look, it's crazy to me, being in stand-up comedy, uh, it's been a total revolution since the, when I started. Like, the, the path for how you become successful is so different. Podcasts weren't a thing when I first started. And so, having a revolution in government, that still seems like we're not there. But there has been a huge cultural revolution in, over the last 15 years.

• 1:32:22Theo Von?

  In communication? Or in, what is it called?

• 1:32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think in, in media, in entertainment, and in comedy, and yeah.

• 1:32:30Theo Von?

  So Trump has his new cabinet picks, right? Has he picked all of them yet, or not?

• 1:32:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think he's picked all. I mean, there might be some more like- Smaller positions that he still gets to pick, like judges and stuff like that. But I, he's picked, I think he's picked his cabinet.

• 1:32:44Theo Von?

  What do you feel like, who are some of your favorites? Who are some you're kind of on the fence about? Um, Doug Collins got fucking picked?

• 1:32:52Speaker 01

  The coach? The basketball coach?

• 1:32:54Theo Von?

  Remember he was with the Wizards, dude?

• 1:32:57Speaker 01

  Wait, are you talking about Jordan's coach Doug Collins? Or is this someone else? No, that's a different Doug Collins.

• 1:33:01Theo Von?

  Oh damn, who's that guy?

• 1:33:03Speaker 01

  Doug Collins was, got the Bulls right there. And then Phil Jackson came in and took all the glory.

• 1:33:08Theo Von?

  I remember that dude.

• 1:33:11Theo Von?

  Um, that's a great point. That's never really talked about, is it? But what about, uh, some of his cabinet picks? Who do you like? Where, where are you at with some of that?

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  Um, I love, uh, okay. Well, the best ones to me by far were Bobby Kennedy for health department was just amazing. I think that's really gonna shake things up.

• 1:33:30Theo Von?

  Is he one of the first doctors that's never been in, in charge of the health department?

• 1:33:34Speaker 01

  That's a good question. I don't know. No, I think, no, I think the guy who's in, uh, the head of it now was a lawyer too. So I'm not sure. But he is the first like real outsider and real critic of the American like health state. And so that's really interesting. He also put, uh, which I'm sure has a lot to do with Bobby being at, uh, HHS. But he put Jay Bhattacharya as the new, uh, head of the-

• 1:34:02Theo Von?

  Draft Kings?

• 1:34:03Speaker 01

  The Jay Bhattacharya?

• 1:34:04Theo Von?

  Yeah, he sounds like a bookie.

• 1:34:05Speaker 01

  Oh dude, yeah, well, he's got a, uh, I think he's Indian. I don't know.

• 1:34:09Theo Von?

  Oh, Bhattacharya's Indian? Wow.

• 1:34:11Speaker 01

  I might be wrong about that. If I'm wrong, I apologize. But he was one of the signators on the, um, the Great Barrington Declaration. He was amazing during COVID. He was like one, he's like a, a brilliant, you know? He's got a degree, I think in economics and in science.

• 1:34:25Theo Von?

  Jay Bhattacharya, bring him up. He sounds like he's from Madja, uh, Madras, New Jersey, dude. Bring him up, Jay Bhattacharya. Let's get a little gander at him. I just wanna get a peek at him. I haven't seen his face before.

• 1:34:38Theo Von?

  Batachari. Oh yeah, I like this guy, huh?

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  He was phenomenal during covid.

• 1:34:44Theo Von?

  Really?

• 1:34:44Speaker 01

  Like, like a goddamn hero, just calling out all the bullshit and like

• 1:34:48Theo Von?

  I would love to interview him.

• 1:34:49Speaker 01

  Dude, that would be great. A super, super smart scientist who's like really understood why lockdowns were terrible and why the vaccine mandates were insane and all of that stuff.

• 1:35:00Theo Von?

  That's, you know.

• 1:35:01Speaker 01

  So he got Fauci's old job.

• 1:35:03Theo Von?

  Really?

• 1:35:04Speaker 01

  Which is gonna be real interesting. Yeah, head of the NIH.

• 1:35:07Theo Von?

  Heck, yeah, that's cool.

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  Now, all these guys gotta be confirmed by the Senate still, so that's not done. But the other great pick was Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence.

• 1:35:17Theo Von?

  I McCary, do you know who that is? My, uh, Marty?

• 1:35:23Speaker 01

  I'm not sure.

• 1:35:23Theo Von?

  Marty McCary, can you look him up?

• 1:35:27Theo Von?

  Marty McCary for FDA Commissioner.

• 1:35:29Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I don't know. I don't know enough about this guy.

• 1:35:31Theo Von?

  He has a great book called The Price We Pay. Bring up one of his books. I wanna, I wanna talk with this guy. Um, it's about the insurance, the whole scam, the scam, what broke American healthcare. There's another great book he has, too. Dude, one of his books, he has this thing like where they were going to black churches, okay? Um, he's a surgeon. Let me see. Martin and Del McCary is a British American surgeon, professor, author, and medical commentator.

• 1:35:59Theo Von?

  Where they were going to, they were convincing, giving people scans at their churches, showing them that they needed like, uh, their blood vessels dilated or shunts put in their legs. And it was just, and the, and doctors were making a ton of money through Medicaid. It was just this big scam. And a lot of the doctors were funding the groups that would go and they would do it at black churches and black, uh, religious get togethers. And they'd have tables set up and they were just using these people, basically sending them through as just like a fucking, uh, as a, um, varicose vein mill, you know?

• 1:36:31Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:36:31Theo Von?

  Unreal.

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  And just making tons of money, I'm sure.

• 1:36:34Theo Von?

  Yeah, but he, he talks about that. He talks about a lot of neat stuff. Oh, that's another one. Blind spots. When medicine, that's one I've been reading. When medicine goes wrong. That's one that I've been reading. But he seems like an interesting guy, but he got put in. That's one I'm excited about. Um, Gabbard, you said? Who else is in there?

• 1:36:53Speaker 01

  Cash Patel, who took over the FBI.

• 1:36:58Theo Von?

  Oh, really?

• 1:36:59Speaker 01

  FBI director, who is, he was a huge critic of like Russia Gate and a lot of the crazy stuff that, a lot of the election interference that the FBI has been doing. Again, you know, we're gonna see how, there were reports out, I'm not sure if this is true or not, but that Tulsi Gabbard was saying she's changed her mind on government surveillance and now she's okay with the intelligence agencies spying on us. You know, DC has a way of poisoning people.

• 1:37:23Theo Von?

  But how does that happen?

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  But also, I'm not throwing her under the bus or nothing like that. I think maybe she's saying what she needs to say to get confirmed and then she'll do some really great stuff.

• 1:37:31Theo Von?

  Could that be something that happens?

• 1:37:33Speaker 01

  Quite possibly, it's, you know, it's hard to say, but it is like, there's all types of pressure and, and then there's probably pressures that I don't know about at all that when you're actually on the inside, there's probably all types of threats and things like that that you gotta deal with. So, I think these, these picks were all very, very good. He had a bunch of really bad picks that I did not like.

• 1:37:53Theo Von?

  Let me see, let's finish this one, though. Gabbard 43 was born in the US territory of American Samoa, raised in Hawaii and spent a year of her childhood in the Philippines. Um, yeah, she's definitely, I love the way that she talks, you know? I love how just, uh, her own, she's always seems to have her very own voice. Um, but when you get in, like who compromise, what do they use to compromise, you think? That's what I always wonder.

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  I mean, I think, I don't know.

• 1:38:20Theo Von?

  You just, you didn't get to say, do, you're gonna have to do what we want or we're gonna kill you, you think that's what it is?

• 1:38:24Speaker 01

  It's possible, I mean, I wouldn't put it past some of these people, there are a lot of killers in our government, you know? Um, I also think that sometimes it's just the way the machine works and it's like, well, you're never gonna be able to do anything unless you do this, unless you do that. You know, I, it was real interesting the way, um, there, the way that Obama got rolled when he first came in and he had a lot of these plans, like we were gonna end these wars and we're gonna do all these things and we're gonna, and he just immediately ran up against the machine and it was like, you have no idea how to actually control this thing. And I gotta say, I think that happened a lot to Trump too. When he first came in and Trump had a lot of plans and I think that I think Donald Trump looked at it like,

• 1:39:08Speaker 01

  hey, I've been the CEO of this big company. I've been the boss before. I'll go be the boss again. But it's like, that's not how this one works. This is a whole different thing. It's not like when you're really the boss and you dictate orders and everyone follows them. And he, you know, Donald Trump, he ran in 2016 on what was such a great idea at the time. Was in, he used to say this on the campaign all the time in 2016 because back then the war in Syria was still going, well, he's like raging. And he would go, why are we even in Syria? I don't care about overthrowing Bashar al-Assad. He goes, Russia said they're only in Syria to kill ISIS. I was like, okay, well, we want to kill ISIS too. We're against the terrorists. He goes, so why don't we stop trying to overthrow regimes in the Middle East?

• 1:39:51Speaker 01

  Work with Russia to take out all the terrorists and then we could just leave the Middle East and then we could all be friends. We could be friends with Russia. And he openly ran on that. I was like, yeah, that's a great idea. Except then you get in there and the media is saying you're a Russian spy every single day, all day long. So now how are you going to make a deal with Russia?

• 1:40:09Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:40:09Speaker 01

  When everyone's saying you're a Russian spy.

• 1:40:11Theo Von?

  Oh, they tricked you then because.

• 1:40:12Speaker 01

  If you make a deal with Russia, that'll just be proof that you're a Russian spy. And so then Donald Trump went, no, I'll be hawkish toward Russia. And so he went out of his way to prove what a Russian spy he wasn't, which is like, oh, so they got you. So you couldn't do what you wanted to do and instead you gotta do this.

• 1:40:29Theo Von?

  But this time they may not have the value of the media.

• 1:40:31Speaker 01

  Well, that's they don't, they for sure don't. I mean, I think, I think and, and.

• 1:40:35Theo Von?

  Unless they come and kill all the podcasters and stuff. Do you think that they could do that? Have you ever worried about your own safety?

• 1:40:40Speaker 01

  No, I don't know. I've always, I've always felt like I flow, I fly at a nice, you know, I'm far enough from the sun that I'm, I'm okay.

• 1:40:48Theo Von?

  Same. I don't know what I'm even doing.

• 1:40:50Speaker 01

  Well, right. So I'm not, and also I just, I do think like there's too many of us and there's too, I think like the toothpaste is out of the tube on this. And I don't think, I think even they've finally realized that like, even if, you know, it was funny when they were coming after Rogan a couple of years ago, when there was that major push and the artists were, you know, Neil Young was saying, I'll take my music off Spotify or whatever. I remember talking about it then and you're like, so what do you, what do you guys even think happens? Like, let's say, let's say hypothetically, you could take Joe Rogan out, right? What do you think? His audience goes back to CNN? You think everyone who was listening to that is gonna go, okay, I guess we plug back into the matrix now. They're just gonna find somebody else. They're gonna find someone else, probably

• 1:41:34Speaker 01

  more radical. You know what I mean? Probably not, not less. And so I think they even kinda know they can't really, you know, stuff. But I do think, I think the two things that make it, that, that make the dynamic very different this time for Trump. Well, like, like you said, it's that the corporate media has been destroyed. But the two things that really destroyed them since the first Trump presidency to this one is Russiagate and COVID. They just, they were such big stories and they got them so wrong. And everyone kinda knows it now. Like, nobody, you know, nobody believes in Russiagate anymore. Nobody is sitting, no one on television is going, a Russian spy is about to retake the White House. But none of them are saying that. None of them are saying, hey, we were wrong about all of that. But if they weren't wrong, why

• 1:42:19Speaker 01

  wouldn't they still be freaked out about it?

• 1:42:21Theo Von?

  Well, I'm just amazed that none of them ever come on and said, hey, you know what? I want to apologize for wasting your fucking time. That's what I want to do. I want to apologize that we didn't care enough to even really look into things, truly, and that we wasted your time. That would be like a real thing to do, right? Like, I just, yeah, it's like, that's why sometimes you're like, are the people running the same, do they have any human feelings? Because that's why I don't see a lot. It's like, you would think if you really cared about your customer base at all, right? You would go and say, hey, I'm sorry, I got this wrong. We, this was wrong. Or we didn't, we didn't know it was

• 1:43:02Theo Von?

  wrong, but we didn't even try to do our best practices. We got caught up, something, right?

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  No, they're, listen, man, I mean, they hate, they fucking hate this country and they hate the people of the country. And I don't like, just say that to be like, to make a sensational claim. But it's like, if you, if- If my kids are were hungry and I was feeding other kids, like what conclusion could you draw from that other than like you don't love your children? You hate your own children because that's like your number one responsibility. What do you mean you're feeding other kids while your kids are going hungry? It's just too evil to even wrap your head around. And that's, that's literally what our government does.

• 1:43:44Theo Von?

  Yeah, especially right now.

• 1:43:45Speaker 01

  What they do is they feed other countries that don't need it. By the way, you know, not just the ones who maybe do, but ones who don't. Well, our people are here like starving. I mean, I'm not trying to like overstate it like there's mass starvation. But I mean, I should say surviving a hurricane or fires or whatever.

• 1:44:02Theo Von?

  Oh, I agree. I think I was thinking today, it was like, hey, well, Ukraine, Zelensky, can you give us back some of our money? So we can pay our teachers better, so we can feed um, uh, people who are starving in our own country. So we can get homeless people off the streets. We can help cure some of our mental health. So we can help repair some of this fire damage for people that were uninsured. Um, or help the displaced people that are over here. You know, just countless things. I mean, I could go on and on, but it's like, yeah, it just feels like we're just being money laundered a lot of times.

• 1:44:34Speaker 01

  Well, even just and, and, and to like, like.

• 1:44:37Theo Von?

  And I know those people have problems, but it's like, you know, the perfect example for me was that Karen Bass lady from with the LA fires. Right? I've never heard of her before and she seems like a nice woman. I bet she's um, a great woman, but she was in Ghana unless she was on vacation. She was in Ghana, Africa while this was happening. And if she was on vacation, then do she should be able to do whatever she wants and she should be able to do everything she wants anyway. Um, just in Los Angeles mayor freezes up. This is exactly how people should be treated. Do you owe citizens for being absent while their homes are burning? You regret cutting the fire department budget.

• 1:45:12Theo Von?

  Do you think you should have been visiting Ghana while this was unfolding back home? But can you look up, was she in Ghana on vacation? That's what I need help on. Um, but she's in Ghana, but it's like, why are you even in Ghana? Like you're the mayor of a town.

• 1:45:24Speaker 01

  And they knew that like big windstorms were coming and they knew that like this is a danger, you know, with wildfires and stuff. So it's just, you would expect you'd be around there, but it is, you know.

• 1:45:35Theo Von?

  It's hard to point fingers at this point though. Like, it's like, obviously things were bad. They had their reservoir that was dead empty. That was like, took countless millions of dollars and held millions of gallons of water. Um, just a lot of, but just, you know, I don't know. It's heartbreaking. What's happening out there is heartbreaking, but that's the weird part. It's like, why is she even, you, you have, we have, how much do the people have to suffer or be struggling in our own country for our own country to be like here? And what, who, how are we electing these people that aren't saying, here, America, we're going to help you first?

• 1:46:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's unbelievable. It's, it's totally outrageous, man.

• 1:46:16Theo Von?

  How is that happening? I just don't understand how it's happening.

• 1:46:18Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I do think perhaps it's kind of like what you said earlier. Like part of this is that we, we have just like acquired such a level of wealth and power as a country that it's almost like, you know, the politicians who now control the tax base of the American people, they feel like gods where they're like, we can do all of this stuff. I mean, I remember when, um, and, and I think this was sincere. I think Joe Biden actually heard and understood this question and had a moment of, uh, of being lucid. Um, but it was when the war in, in Gaza first broke out and some reporter asked him and was like, uh, they were like, well, you know, you're all in on this war in Ukraine. You've already given them hundreds of billions of dollars and now you're saying you're going to support Israel.

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

  Like, are you sure America can take on another war that we have to foot the bill for now? And he goes, of course, this is the United States of America. Of course we can do it.

• 1:47:11Theo Von?

  Who said that, Ricky?

• 1:47:12Speaker 01

  Joe Biden.

• 1:47:12Theo Von?

  Joe Biden, sorry.

• 1:47:14Speaker 01

  And, uh, and I'm sure in some way Joe Biden like believes that, you know, like Joe Biden is a, is a child of the unipolar moment after the Soviet Union collapsed and, and America is.

• 1:47:26Theo Von?

  We can do whatever.

• 1:47:27Speaker 01

  Do anything. This is America. We could do whatever we want to. It's like you just haven't updated this script because like it's 30 years later now. And no, we can't just do whatever you want to. And you know, we just found out through this. You know, it's like, okay, yeah, we could do whatever we want to, but we can't tax people enough to raise the money. And we can't borrow enough to get it. So we have to print the money. And then we deal with this price inflation. We've been dealing with for the last few years. It's just like destroys working class people. And it's like, yeah, I guess if you don't care about that, we can do it. But if you do care about that, then actually, no, we can't. We don't have limitless funds. And but and I'll just say with this, right? Look, you think about the United States of America, the federal government. It's the biggest, most powerful government in the history of the world by far, by any metric.

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  And yet, as we're doing everything, as we're backing the war in Israel, as we're backing Israel's war, we're backing Ukraine in this war. We're overthrowing regimes all around the world. We're talking about what the they have a summit where they talk about what the temperature is going to be in 100 years. The government's trying to manage everything. And yet, the most basic functions of government have all gone to shit. We can't win our wars. We can't balance our budgets. We can't protect our borders.

• 1:48:34Theo Von?

  Post office sucks, dude. I was in the post office like three weeks ago, right? There's no, there's a home. I want to say, I don't want to say homeless, but pretty homeless guy in there, right? Yelling faggot over and over again, right? Just yelling it into the fucking distance or whatever. And dude, I'm second in line, right? So I'm like, ugh, you know, but nobody even came to help him. We're in there for seven minutes. I just walked out. I'm like.

• 1:48:58Speaker 01

  Well, that's the thing, but this is.

• 1:48:59Theo Von?

  That's the US postal system in a nutshell.

• 1:49:01Speaker 01

  And and California is a little microcosm of this, right? It's the biggest state government, has the biggest budget of any state.

• 1:49:06Theo Von?

  And they're trying to turn our whole country into that.

• 1:49:08Speaker 01

  Everything. They're trying to say, oh, we're going to have electric cars and we're going to have a new power grid and we're going to have all of this. Meanwhile, the most basic service, like make sure your fire department has enough water in the area where that is known for wildfires spreading. Like the the most basic thing you fail miserably at. And then you're going to talk about all these pie in the sky visions of how you're going to run the world and do all this shit. And it's like, no, you're not good. You're not good at this. You're not doing anything right. And and there is something interesting about that where it's like, when you try to take on way too much, you end up failing at the most basic responsibility that you have.

• 1:49:45Theo Von?

  Yeah. Oh, always.

• 1:49:48Theo Von?

  Yeah, man, it's wild. And also, um, when you push, when you position yourself as this, "We will handle it all," you don't let other societies and cultures, um, kind of create their own narrative and wherewithal for themselves, you know?

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:04Theo Von?

  In a weird way, you know?

• 1:50:05Speaker 01

  Um, oh, I think that's absolutely right. Yeah. Oh, I think that's true. That's true, like internally in America and throughout the world. But even like you see like, you see like in America, like the rise of the welfare state, like when it was really in the 60s and 70s when, when welfare became huge and then churches get diminished. You know, it's like, oh, because that used to be

• 1:50:30Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:50:30Speaker 01

  what people would do if they needed help is they'd go to the local church and kind of ask them to help. So it's like, oh, as you try to take care of everything, you end up killing and boxing out this other more organic thing where the people themselves would actually figure out like who in the community needs help.

• 1:50:45Theo Von?

  Is that true?

• 1:50:45Speaker 01

  You know what I mean?

• 1:50:47Theo Von?

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• 1:51:30Theo Von?

  Steve is a long-term sexual recovery member and has personally overcame the emotional and spiritual despair of abusing pornography and has dedicated his life to empowering men to do the same. Steve is an amazing person and he is a close friend of mine. I mean that. Valor Recovery helps men to develop the tools necessary to have a healthier sex life. Their coaches are in long-term recovery and will be your partner, mentor, and spiritual guide to transcend these problematic behaviors. To learn more about Valor Recovery, please visit them at www dot Valor Recovery Coaching

• 1:52:11Theo Von?

  dot com or email them at admin at Valor Recovery Coaching dot com. Thank you.

• 1:52:22Speaker 01

  I saw a lot of people got fucked up out there in LA. I saw Whitney's video, I felt awful.

• 1:52:26Theo Von?

  Yeah, Whitney's had a lot of videos.

• 1:52:28Speaker 01

  Yes, she has. Well, I mean, the one where she was crying and stuff.

• 1:52:30Theo Von?

  Oh, I didn't see that one. Oh, maybe I did. I'm sorry if I did. I've watched a couple of hers. I wake up at about 5:15 and watch TikTok for like 40 minutes every night.

• 1:52:42Speaker 01

  Get it while you can.

• 1:52:44Theo Von?

  I know, I'm not doing that good.

• 1:52:47Theo Von?

  Um, here's one thing. Yeah, play that Mel Gibson right there. I just love the way he communicates.

• 1:52:55Speaker 04

  I have three friends. I'll tell you a good story.

• 1:52:59Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:53:01Speaker 04

  I have three friends. All three of them had stage four cancer. All three of them don't have cancer right now at all.

• 1:53:09Theo Von?

  Preach.

• 1:53:10Speaker 04

  And they had some serious stuff going on.

• 1:53:12Speaker 03

  And what did they take?

• 1:53:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, Jesus. They took some. What you've heard they've taken.

• 1:53:21Speaker 03

  Ivermectin.

• 1:53:22Speaker 04

  Fendezol.

• 1:53:23Speaker 03

  Fendezol, yeah. Yeah, I'm hearing that a lot.

• 1:53:26Speaker 04

  They drank hydrochloride, something or other.

• 1:53:29Speaker 03

  There's studies on that now where people have proven that they've.

• 1:53:32Speaker 04

  Drinking methylene blue and.

• 1:53:33Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 1:53:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, methylene blue, which was a fabric dye.

• 1:53:36Theo Von?

  Okay, stop. Now we're getting into Breaking Bad territory. That's the wild part of that, you know?

• 1:53:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, look, man, I mean, my, my default on this is to go, I probably think that's not true. Like, I don't know, but I also do, I, I don't know a lot. About like medicine and the health stuff.

• 1:53:54Theo Von?

  No.

• 1:53:55Speaker 01

  But I will say my, my eyes were definitely opened over COVID to like how corrupt the whole thing is. And so it is almost like now when people say stuff like that, I'm a lot more be like, all right, I'm listening.

• 1:54:06Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:06Speaker 01

  Like maybe.

• 1:54:07Theo Von?

  Yeah, over 12 ounces. Give me 12 ounces of methylene blue. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:54:10Speaker 01

  I'll try it. I don't know. I mean, like if I had.

• 1:54:12Theo Von?

  Give me a chaser.

• 1:54:13Speaker 01

  If I had stage four cancer and like they were like, there's nothing we can do. I'd, I'd be like, hey, Joe, can you get me Mel Gibson's number? I want to talk to him and his buddies about what they did. I don't know. Why not?

• 1:54:25Theo Von?

  Oh yeah. I would be drinking fucking pool water or whatever happened, you know, whatever it needed. Um, did, um, what was one thing else that happened the other day? Yeah, we're supposed to start shooting a movie. Me and David Spade wrote a movie and we're supposed to start shooting it last week in LA, but, um, the fires. So now it's just up in the air. It's been like kind of bizarre, you know? But the weirdest thing about LA that I'm hearing is like, I'll get a text from a friend or talk to a friend who's crying, you know, their home is burnt down. Then I'll get a call from a friend who's like, hey man, do you want me to go over by your place and move your, um, car to my apartment or whatever? Because in case the fire switch went and I'm like, I think I'm okay right now. And, and I was like, what are you up to? He's like, I'm going to a couple of auditions today, you know?

• 1:55:09Theo Von?

  And so it's just such a cra- it's like.

• 1:55:11Speaker 01

  There's still normal shit happening in the middle of all of this. Yeah.

• 1:55:15Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's interesting.

• 1:55:16Theo Von?

  And that guy lives right. I mean, he's going along the 405, like right where the border of like where the next evacuation, it's just, it's amazing. I remember when I lived there during some of the last fires, you'd be driving the 405 and there would just be fire on both sides. And it almost feels like, um, it's a, like that, uh, what's that place in Florida with the adventure park or whatever? Six Flags. It almost has us, it, cause you can't believe that it's real.

• 1:55:44Speaker 01

  I know what you mean.

• 1:55:45Theo Von?

  And you're in Hollywood where shit is, a lot of things are made and manufactured and created. So you're like, well, of course this isn't real.

• 1:55:52Speaker 01

  Well, it's one of the things about cities that are real strange, like these modern cities where there's millions of people. And I saw this a lot during COVID, particularly in New York and LA where it's like. Like it's almost like there's nothing that people won't just adjust to. Cause they're kind of trapped there. You can't really get out. You can't re- you know, and so. It's almost like, all right, well, they're doing this now. All right. I guess we gotta live that, you know, in New York. It's just like, oh, there's homeless people all over the subways. That guy's jerking off. I guess I gotta just like walk around to him and get to my work. Cause I got it. What else am I gonna do?

• 1:56:24Theo Von?

  Better bring my cumbrella with me. Yeah, this is the kind of stuff it was. This is very intense. This must've been, uh, 2017 from Andrew Mutt's.

• 1:56:32Speaker 01

  Wow, that's a wild picture.

• 1:56:34Theo Von?

  But bro, this same highway, same spot, Skirball Drive. Keep playing that for a minute? I mean, that's insane.

• 1:56:46Theo Von?

  Like, how should you be able to drive this close? It's just.

• 1:56:53Speaker 01

  I mean, there's something very bizarre about the like juxtaposition of just going about your daily life while this craziness is happening right there.

• 1:57:00Theo Von?

  People live there. There's people.

• 1:57:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, like someone right now in that car, like someone's wife calls their cell and they're just like, would you mind stopping at the store on your way home? Like we're out of milk or whatever. They go, okay, fine. I'll stop by there and then just look out their window and they're like, oh, God's angry. All right.

• 1:57:15Theo Von?

  Yeah, gosh. Hey, uh, Siri, play, uh, Spotify, play, uh, Firework by Katy Perry. You know what I'm saying? There's somebody picking up a song and then realizing, oh, maybe not right now. Or some guy smoking is like, oh, it's already fucked anyway.

• 1:57:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, what? Is this really gonna be the problem?

• 1:57:30Theo Von?

  It's just people be, it's just people are still gonna be people. Um, what else was something else that I wanted to talk to you about? Oh, uh, some of the Trump's picks that you're not excited about.

• 1:57:41Speaker 01

  Marco Rubio at the State Department I hate.

• 1:57:44Theo Von?

  And what does the State Department do?

• 1:57:46Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, there, it's a pretty big responsibility. I mean, there is the State Department basically interacts with the rest of the world on behalf of the United States of America. And in recent years, I mean, the State Department is, is involved in a lot of war making, even as much as the Defense Department is. And I mean, the, um, two, two examples I could think of, like right off the top of my head were the war in Libya overthrowing Gaddafi. It was enormously, uh, led by the State Department under Hillary Clinton. And in 2014, the backing, the Maidan revolution that overthrew Yanukovych in Ukraine was.

• 1:58:31Speaker 01

  Mostly done by the State Department. And so Marco Rubio is like a real neocon warhawk and has been for many years.

• 1:58:40Theo Von?

  What does neocon mean?

• 1:58:41Speaker 01

  Well, neocon at this point has kind of like, I'm using it in kind of the informal sense. It's basically just come to mean like the, the warhawks who push for war after war.

• 1:58:54Theo Von?

  Oh, they want war.

• 1:58:55Speaker 01

  Always more regime change wars, always the next target, always the next thing. The neocons, like the self ident, Marco Rubio is not a self-described neoconservative. The people who actually called themselves neoconservatives was actually like a small group of, of people. This is, the Wikipedia probably has some good information on it here. But these were guys who really, they really took power under George W. Bush. A lot of them were in Reagan's government and in George H. W. Bush's government. But they really took over, uh, when George W. Bush was in power. But yes, Dick Cheney, Richard Pearl, Douglas Feit, uh, all these guys, Paul Wolfowitz.

• 1:59:31Theo Von?

  Yeah. Do they make, do we think that they make money off of war?

• 1:59:34Speaker 01

  Well, I'm, it's a fact that a lot of them work at thick, think tanks that are funded by weapons companies. It's a fact that Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton. I mean, like these things are true, so they are connected to interests that make lots of money off the wars. But so there, a lot of them basically were, they were not all, but a lot of them were Jewish. Um, and a lot of, they were leftists who, that came over and kind of became conservatives in the second half of the 20th century. And they were, so they, in the nineties, there were these, uh, there was one major think tank that was called the Project for a New American Century. Um, and they basically wrote out all their plans of like what they wanted to do.

• 2:00:19Speaker 01

  Back in the nineties and, and the major thing was that they wanted, the Project for a New American Century, the idea of it was that, right, so this, it was a neoconservative think tank in DC. And a lot of these same people, I mean, uh, Robert Kagan and William Kristol were, were the, the guys who founded it. But if you look through the name of signatures, you'll see. Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, you know, Richard Pearl, a lot of these guys. Now, they basically, they, this was, if you could imagine, in the 90s. This is right after the Soviet Union collapses. This is where, what Charles Krauthenheimer, who's another neoconservative, who's dead now. He called the unipolar moment. And what that meant was that, it's like, hey, for the first time in the world, for the first

• 2:01:04Speaker 01

  time in the history of the world, there is one global superpower that is more powerful than any other country that's ever existed. Now that the Soviet Union's gone, it's ours. So what do you want to do? Now, there was this big divide amongst conservatives. A lot of conservatives, what are called the paleo conservatives, it was like Pat Buchanan and guys like that, they were like, well, now that the Cold War's over, we can come home. We were fighting this war because it was the Cold War, because it was the Soviet Union, but now that the Soviet Union's gone, we can disband NATO.

• 2:01:33Theo Von?

  Come on home, listen to some Don McLean, huh?

• 2:01:35Speaker 01

  That's right. Bring, bring, close all the bases, bring everyone home, we could go back to being a normal country, was the idea. We don't have to rule the world. We were never supposed to rule the world. In, in Pat Buchanan's idea, they were only doing this because the Soviet Union existed. But then, there were these neoconservatives, and they went, no, no, no, no, no. Now that we control the world, we have to come up with a project for the new American century. We want another century. The 20th century was dominated by America, and we want to make sure the 21st century is dominated by America. And this is, but I'm not exaggerating, you can go read these papers, you can go Google "project for a new American century" and you can find all this stuff. And they said, their plan was, they were like, look...

• 2:02:16Theo Von?

  A statement of principles they released on June 3rd, 1997.

• 2:02:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's, if you go to the calls for regime change in Iraq, they might have a good link there, that would be like, the document, I'm just blanking on the, the name of some of the documents that they put out. But they basically said, no one can mess with us, and so what we need to do right now is, we need to have multiple wars in the Middle East. We need to have regime changes and get rid of all of the old allies of the Soviet Union, put in our people who we like.

• 2:02:47Theo Von?

  Specifically advocating regime changes through a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. The letter suggested that any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Hussein. Even if no evidence linked Iraq to the September 11th attacks.

• 2:03:03Speaker 01

  Well, listen, you gotta understand, a lot of this stuff was written, this, this is in the 90s. This is before the September 11th attacks that they were talking about getting rid of Saddam Hussein. They actually say there's one paper, and this is what the, uh, the 9/11 truthers, they would love to hang on to this.

• 2:03:18Theo Von?

  So they said they did 9/11 because they wanted this to happen.

• 2:03:21Speaker 01

  Well, there's one thing, it was in the 90s, I can't remember what year it was, but I, you could find this, but they say, basically, they go through this whole thing of how we really want to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and then we want to fight multiple wars in the Middle East and have multiple regime changes. And they actually said in the paper, they go, "But it would be very challenging to get enough popular support to do something like this, short of another Pearl Harbor-style attack." So they literally say, "We really kinda need an attack on America in order to work up enough support to go fight these wars." Now, that isn't, that isn't proof that they did 9/11, but it does certainly indicate that-

• 2:04:01Theo Von?

  That they know the recipe.

• 2:04:02Speaker 01

  Well, at the very least, when 9/11 happened, they went, "Yes, now we got our touch." So this is one of the, the worst, you know, like,

• 2:04:11Speaker 01

  the worst thing that, that ended up happening was that, when 9/11 happens, George W. Bush is president and all these motherfuckers are in power. So they got their opportunity, and right away after 9/11, and we know this because the four-star general Wesley Clark himself said that he, he was out of power at the time, but he went to the Pentagon and he said that he saw plans, late 2001, already drawn up for the invasion of Iraq. So like, as soon as 9/11 happened, they were like, "Okay, we're going to use this to go overthrow Saddam Hussein." Now, alright, if I could pull it back a few, so a few years before 9/11, in 1996.

• 2:04:50Theo Von?

  And in a report just before the 2000 election that would bring Bush to power, the group predicted that the shift would come about slowly unless there were some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor.

• 2:05:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's, I mean, this was their words.

• 2:05:04Theo Von?

  And that's all the PNAC or whatever?

• 2:05:05Speaker 01

  Yes, this is, this is PNAK, the Project for a New American Century. Now, is that a lot of these same people involved here, but there was a letter, okay, there was a letter written.

• 2:05:14Theo Von?

  Dark artists, huh?

• 2:05:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, check this one out. In 1996, so just four years before this report, there's a, a letter that was written by Richard Pearl and, um, it was not Douglas Spivey, it was Richard Pearl and, uh, Wormser and David Wormser was the other guy who wrote it. And so, two of these neoconservatives. And they wrote this letter, the letter is called A Clean Break, A New Strategy For Securing The Realm. And it's written to, uh, Benjamin Netanyahu, who in 1996 was the first year that he became Prime Minister. Okay? And in this, basically what this was all about is that they were, the neoconservatives were saying, hey, here's the new strategy. Okay?

• 2:05:57Speaker 01

  And the new strategy is in the early 90s, you had had these Oslo Accords, which were the, um, what was known as the peace process.

• 2:06:04Theo Von?

  The peace, and that was like the Oslo Accord, it was to try to get, um, that was supposed to help with, uh, Palestine, right?

• 2:06:11Speaker 01

  Yes. So, Bill Clinton is famously, was a big deal when, when I was a kid, was Bill Clinton had, uh, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, the leader of the PLO and the, the, uh, Prime Minister of Israel, here together to work out, we're finally, we're gonna do a two-state solution and we're gonna make this deal. They, they brought them together, shook hands. I mean, after years and years, you know, decades of bloody fighting, this was like, it seemed like an amazing step forward and Israel committed to what they call a peace process. So, eventually, essentially, they committed that they're like, you know this land that we know is not ours, that we've been occupying since 1967, we do have to give this back to you. Like, we have to give this to you and we have to have a two-state solution of some sense.

• 2:06:52Speaker 01

  We will do that, but there has to be a process that we go through, so, you know, better than nothing at least, right? So, this is what, what started. Now, then Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel, was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli, by, uh, yeah, by a Netanyahu supporter, uh, assassinated him for betraying his own country and talking, but Israel was still on the hook for promising to eventually give the Palestinians their own state. And the, the Clean Break memo, and it's a little bit coded, but it's basically like, listen. We gotta get away from that. We gotta get away from this peace process. And the, the idea of like giving the Palestinians their land, this threatens Israel's stability. Now, for years, okay?

• 2:07:36Theo Von?

  I could see them thinking that though, for sure.

• 2:07:38Speaker 01

  Sure. Um, now for, for many years, the thinking which culminated in the Oslo Accords, right? The reason why there was this peace process is that the thinking, the Yitzhak Rabin thinking, was that, listen, you have the Arab world who hates Israel's guts over their treatment of the Palestinian people. And so you have to make peace with the Palestinians so that you can be friendly with the surrounding Arab world, so that they don't all hate you and you can coexist and you can, you can be prosperous, right? Now, the clean break is essentially a break from that line of thinking. And they go, no, no, no, no. You don't need to make peace with the Palestinians so that you can then make peace with the broader Arab world.

• 2:08:21Speaker 01

  What you need to do is overthrow the regimes in the broader Arab world that are pissed off at you. And that way you won't have to ever make peace with the Palestinians. You'll never have to give them land if we could just overthrow Saddam Hussein and then overthrow the mullahs in Iran and then overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria. And so they lay out this strategy, and this is the, the, the clean break, the clean break, excuse me. And these are our, our top neoconservatives who end up in the George W. Bush administration, explicitly saying that the reason they want to overthrow Saddam Hussein is because he's a problem for Israel. And when, uh, years, a few years later, when, um, four-star general, uh, Wesley Clark, who by the way, recently in a debate with my friend Scott Horton,

• 2:09:06Speaker 01

  admitted that these plans went all the way back to 96 and not just 2001, which he had said before. But this was the famous, I don't know if you've ever seen it before, but the, uh, seven countries in five years? So this is Wesley Clark. You pull up this video if you want to. It's, it's pretty interesting and, and has a lot.

• 2:09:22Theo Von?

  Are we really down a rabbit hole right now?

• 2:09:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:24Theo Von?

  We are?

• 2:09:25Speaker 01

  Well, this is when you told, this is when Rogan told you, if you want to talk about Syria, I'll take you down a rabbit hole. So here's the rabbit hole.

• 2:09:32Speaker 05

  About ten days after nine eleven, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs. So he's talking about the guys from PNAF. Some of the people, the point staff, who had used to work for me. And one of the generals called me in, he said, "Sir, you gotta come in, you gotta come in and talk to me a second." I said, "Well, you're too busy." He said, "No, no." He says, "We've made the decision, we're going to war with Iraq." This was on or about the twentieth of September. I said, "We're going to war with Iraq? Why?" He said, "I don't know." He said, "I guess they don't know what else to do." So, I said, "Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to Al Qaeda?" He said, "No, no."

• 2:10:16Speaker 05

  He says, "There's nothing new that way, they've just made the decision to go to war with Iraq." He said, "I guess it's like, we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down governments." And, he said, "I guess if, the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail." So, I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time, we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, "Are we still going to war with Iraq?" And he said, "Oh, it's worse than that." He said, he reached over on his desk, he picked up a piece of paper, he said, "I just, he said, "I just got this down from upstairs," meaning the Secretary of Defense's office today, and he said, "This is a memo that describes how we're gonna take out seven

• 2:10:57Speaker 05

  countries in five years, starting with Iraq and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off Iran." I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo, I didn't show it to you."

• 2:11:22Speaker 06

  I'm sorry, what did you say his name was?

• 2:11:27Speaker 05

  I'm not gonna give you his name.

• 2:11:29Speaker 01

  So that's essentially the part to show. But so there's, so this was-

• 2:11:32Theo Von?

  And is he joking around, you think, or he's being serious?

• 2:11:34Speaker 01

  Oh, he's being serious. He was just asked about it recently and he was like, oh yeah, no, this is, this happened. And he actually said in this more recent, he had a one-on-one debate against Scott Horton. And he, when Scott brought this up, he goes, you know, it actually went back further than that. I had seen those plans back in 96. Uh, it was the neoconservatives, right? And so the neoconservatives, the ones who were in charge of the W. Bush administration, uh, or were at very high posts in that administration. This was their plan and as they had mentioned in the clean break explicitly for Israel. Like it was to change the dynamic so that Israel, we would take out all of their enemies and put them in a situation where they never had to come through on the peace process.

• 2:12:16Speaker 01

  And so that's why, or at least a huge part of the reason why we fought a war in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria, in, um, why we've, uh, backed Israel through all of these proxy wars. It's all about that. And it's, this is what, even more so than their treatment of the Palestinians. This is the thing that I'm, that I'm furious at Israel about. It's like, what is with this like pressure of like lying my country's people into war after war after war? That does nothing but create disasters for us.

• 2:12:51Theo Von?

  Well, we're always looked at then, certainly I think as the, you start to get looked at as the bad guy. If that's true, you know, you start to get looked at at the bad guy. If you invite me to come help you, you know, or if I have the bullets, you know, and you have me come along and, and, and fire the gun, even if you give me the orders or whatever, I'm still a murderer, you know?

• 2:13:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:13:10Theo Von?

  I'm still complicit. Um, a clean break, a new strategy for securing the realm is a policy document prepared in 1996 by a study group led by Richard Pearl for Benjamin Netanyahu, then Prime Minister of Israel. Um, key points, abandoning the Oslo Accords. Um, and the concept of a land for peace, reestablishing the principle of preemption rather than retaliation.

• 2:13:31Speaker 01

  So just to be clear, because again, they're saying these in kind of like, and this is how they talk about it, right? So it's all coded a little bit, but abandoning Oslo means the peace process. The concept of land for peace, meaning like this concept that the Palestinians deserve their land. Get rid of that weird concept. And then number two, think about how creepy that is. Reestablishing the principle of preemptive rather than retaliation. So in other words, we don't wait for you to attack us. We just start attacking you right away because we know you're going to. So essentially giving up on the idea of a just war. Like giving up on the idea of like, oh, we were attacked and therefore we go to war. And instead we'll just keep attacking you because we've decided you're going to attack us in the future.

• 2:14:16Theo Von?

  But now part of you say if this is all true, right? You homeless have to give Israel credit as well because they're fucking gangsters. That's another thing. It's like

• 2:14:24Speaker 01

  No question.

• 2:14:25Theo Von?

  Sometimes people are like, you know, you hear people say stuff about, um, you know, uh, um, why we're fun Israel and this and that and why, you know, but then you're also like, well, if like, they prob- like they did it. They, if we're still playing by all these old rules of like, um, you know, like Game of Thrones style shit and fucking, uh, it's a dog eat dog world and occupying land and all that kind of stuff. If you're still playing risk, right?

• 2:14:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:14:57Theo Von?

  But you're convincing everybody that we're not playing that way anymore. But you're still playing that way. It's fucking really gangster.

• 2:15:04Speaker 01

  If might makes right and the only thing that matters are the laws of conquest and who's winning is, is winning. Then, okay, sure. You gotta give it to them that like, hey, you've done it. But, okay, if that's your feeling, then fine. But then you don't get to cry these tears about, oh, October 7th was so horrible and they did this to us. Cause hey, you're just playing the game of might makes right and whoever can kill the other side can kill the other side. And then also, okay, even if you're playing by those rules, I'll respect gangster. Like I respect gangsters. Sure.

• 2:15:35Theo Von?

  Yeah, I just want to know what the rules are.

• 2:15:37Speaker 01

  But right, but then at the same time, the, uh, You also got to understand that we live in a new world now and like we were all the stuff we were talking about before, like people can talk about this stuff now and people can communicate and I'm sorry, but if that's the case, then what I'm rooting for is what's best for my country and none of these wars made my country better, you know, in fact, they made it much, much worse, you know, all we got to show for the war in Iraq is, is, you know, thousands of our bravest young boys dead, tens of thousands of them killing themselves in the wake of it, tens of thousands more injured and horribly just a shell of themselves.

• 2:16:15Theo Von?

  And unsure of what they're, I think, and I don't know if people would want to admit this or talk about it and it may be anti-American for me to say it, but I think the definition right now of, of being American is frayed in some ways, but what they were fighting, I mean, the truth of life, probably closing your eyes at night and be like, well, what was I fighting for, you know?

• 2:16:36Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:16:37Theo Von?

  And maybe that's messed up, is that messed up of me to say that? No, I'm just speculating, I don't know.

• 2:16:40Speaker 01

  No, I don't think so. I've heard a lot of combat vets say the same thing. Yeah. So I don't think that's messed up at all.

• 2:16:45Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:46Speaker 01

  I think that's right at the core of why they had, you know, there were wars, um, you know, like World War II was, was much more bloody and vicious than any of the fighting in the terror wars and we didn't have suicide rates the way we do now. And I do think a huge part of that is because like those guys felt like, hey, we were liberating Europe, like there was, they didn't come back and feel like, oh, what the fuck did I even do that for, you know? And a lot of these guys, they come back and they're like, oh, I was straight up lied to, like I was lied, oh, I was just a pawn in your, than some rich guy's game and that included me like doing all types of shit to people that is very hard for any civilized person to do.

• 2:17:26Theo Von?

  Your conscience can't, it's a, it's a teeter totter.

• 2:17:29Speaker 01

  Well, you immediately, you know, you put yourself in a crazy situation. So like, look, if I'm going to, if I'm going to break into your house with a gun, like once I've already made that decision that I'm going to break into your house with a gun, whatever justified me to getting to that point, there's now, there's a whole different dynamic where now like, okay, I could say, hey, I'm just trying to break into your house with a gun, I'm going to be the good guy here, but if I break into your house with a gun and you run up at me with a gun, I got to shoot at you now. And then once that's over. And I'm back home, you go like, I mean, from this guy's perspective, I broke into his house. Who was really the aggressor here? I mean, sure, I shot him because he raised his gun at me, but

• 2:18:10Speaker 01

  really, I was the one who went. And so this is what it's like for an invading arm. And, and also, it's not.

• 2:18:16Theo Von?

  And what were we even doing there? And when you find out that a lot of the people were Saudi Arabian or something, and we didn't even deal with it, it's like, what was going on? Oh, I can't even imagine.

• 2:18:25Speaker 01

  And it's also like, there, there's something to be said for the, um, you know, even if you like, if you fought a guy, let's say like, uh, you know, back in your, in your drinking days or something like that, you got into a bar fight or something like that, and you fight a guy who's around your size, you know, and you go, and you end up like winning the fight even. It's like, there's still something different about that than if you just went and beat up a dude who was like a third of your size. You know, like at least when, when we fought in World War II, the Nazis were very powerful. It was at early in the war. It wasn't clear exactly who was gonna win. Uh, but Iraq, you know, for the US military to go fight or it's like, come on, dude, this is a, this is a joke. We took down their government in a matter of weeks.

• 2:19:05Theo Von?

  Well, remember they had those videos of them training on like, um, jungle gyms and stuff? Remember those videos?

• 2:19:09Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Well, I think that was like Al Qaeda or something like that. But yeah, it's, it's still like, yeah, that was their, the monkey bars or whatever. It's all just so ridiculous. There's no way you're gonna go fuck those people up and not be left with a little bit of a feeling like,

• 2:19:22Theo Von?

  fuck, we beat up the weak kid.

• 2:19:22Speaker 01

  What did I just do? Yeah.

• 2:19:24Theo Von?

  We beat up a weak entity.

• 2:19:25Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah.

• 2:19:26Theo Von?

  Damn.

• 2:19:28Theo Von?

  Um, who were some Trump picks, some other cabinet picks that you're not sure about, you feel like?

• 2:19:33Speaker 01

  I know, I, um, I'm blanking on his name. I know his national security advisor I really didn't, uh, like, and I heard some statements from him that I didn't like. You know, Pete Hegseth was an interesting one. I don't really know enough about him.

• 2:19:45Theo Von?

  He's from Montana? Is that that guy?

• 2:19:46Speaker 01

  Is he from Montana? I'm not sure. I know he was a Fox News guy for a long time. I've met him a couple of times.

• 2:19:51Theo Von?

  Former Georgia congressman is up first. Let me see. What's it about Pete Hegseth? Trump's, uh, Hegseth 44 has developed a close rapport with Trump.

• 2:20:02Theo Von?

  A military veteran and popular conservative media personality with a large following of his own.

• 2:20:07Speaker 01

  Yo, he hosted like the Fox Morning Show for years.

• 2:20:11Theo Von?

  Oh, I think I remember who he is now. Hmm. America's white sons and daughters are walking away and who can blame them? Well, I think he's talking about the military.

• 2:20:19Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 2:20:19Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, he was. So I met him back in, I want to say like 2016 or something like that. And he was like, I think he had pretty standard like Republican, you know, politics. I think he, he's, from what I've heard, he's kind of changed a bit over the years and has been, become much more skeptical about a lot of the wars. I do remember, this is one moment I always thought was really interesting, that I saw him on one show on Fox News. And this was such a not Fox News type thing for him to talk about. But he brought up and went into pretty graphic detail.

• 2:20:54Speaker 01

  The epidemic of warlords raping little boys in Afghanistan. And this was, this was a major thing that a lot of the guys who served in Afghanistan talk about. But so when we were, we were against the Taliban, we were trying to overthrow the Taliban. And a lot has been made in, in America and rightfully so about how the Taliban are really brutal on women's rights. They, you know, they don't let girls go to school. They don't let women have any type of freedom. However, on the other side were these tribal warlords who we were propping up. And it is true that they would let the little girls go to school, but they would also rape the little boys.

• 2:21:33Speaker 01

  There's like an epidemic of it and they, they bring, and so the dynamic was that our soldiers over there weren't allowed to say anything about that. Cause they'd be like, well, listen, this is, this is their customs and their way of life. And so they would talk about how they could hear the screams from the little boys, like in their rooms and stuff. And he talked about it on Fox News, which just kind of gave me the impression that I was like, oh, maybe this guy is willing to kind of like tell the truth. In a thing where it's a little uncomfortable in an audience that isn't typically used to hearing that. So we'll see. I don't know though. He used to really support the wars. I'm not sure where he is now.

• 2:22:11Theo Von?

  Interesting.

• 2:22:13Theo Von?

  Wow, there's a lot going on, huh?

• 2:22:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:22:16Theo Von?

  Do you think that Trump's, uh, that things are gonna be different this time? Do you really think that, say there is this deep state, right? Do you think we can really get away from it? Or it's, is it just a lost cause? And, and sometimes it's like, I almost just wish they, my thing is, I just wish they would, I just wanna know. I don't like, I don't like not knowing. Just tell me, I'll do whatever, I'll do the game. You know what I'm saying? But tell me what the game is. Tell me what the rules are.

• 2:22:42Speaker 01

  I understand that impulse. I, I think that, I think the best part of Trump winning is that there, it's been the cultural effect of all of it. I think has been amazing. Like, I, I really think everything like from November to now has just been great. It's been great. There's been this big reset that we needed in America. It's like the corporate media is crumbling, woke-ism is receding. Like the insane kind of political correctness of the last few years seems to be like largely defeated. I think all of that is great. I don't think the deep state is going anywhere in, in the next few years. But that, I, I don't, like in turn, I'm very optimistic long-term.

• 2:23:23Speaker 01

  I think that, um, you know, it's, it's easy to say like, uh, we're never gonna beat this thing. And it's all, it's always gonna be this way. They have so much power, we have so little. But the truth is like, you know, communism fell. Slavery was abolished. America declared independence from the British monarchy. You know, the, these things all would have seemed impossible. And you could have easily said, oh, this is just gonna be here forever. It's just the way of the world. But it, it wasn't. Those things are gone now. And I think there's no reason why America can't have like a great kind of, um, a great reformation, a great return to the, the best things about America.

• 2:24:03Speaker 01

  A huge increase in liberty and decrease in awful state corruption. Like, I don't see any reason why that can't happen, especially when they don't have the propaganda machine anymore.

• 2:24:13Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah, and I think, you know, it I've always I've always thought like the sand like it all gets remembered, right? Like, I think sometimes it's like, are we just is is America still suffering from like what it did to the Native Americans here? You know, and I know that's kind of wild, but they had like the um, there was a line that they put, I think it was around the Mississippi called the something frontier? General frontier or something where they're like, we'll promise it was like just a deal that they'd made with the Native Americans. We promise we will never cross here. This is your land. It will always be your land. And then within 30 years, it was like, you know, and it's like, I just feel like the ground remembers. It's like, sometimes it's like you're just, you can't completely escape sin, I don't think, you know, or wrong.

• 2:24:58Theo Von?

  I don't think you can completely escape, but you can feel like you can. And you might in your generation, in your life, but what you're gonna leave is something that's not it's in the end, it all has to be even. And so I just feel like, you know, like the ground just keeps the score.

• 2:25:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was something, was it to you? I can't remember, but there was something Jordan Peterson said about that, that is like how you can't get away with lying. How you can't like twist the fabric of reality and it not snap back at you. And there is something to that. I don't know if it's exactly perfect, but like there is something to like where no matter what. You know, it's like it's true, like in a relationship, like, you know, if you think like, oh, maybe you're like, oh, I could get away with treating my wife shitty. And maybe you even can because she'll take it for a while, but like ultimately there's going to be a price to pay for that. You kind of can't get away.

• 2:25:49Theo Von?

  It's gonna be a Dateline episode.

• 2:25:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:25:51Theo Von?

  And people are gonna side with her, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's all gonna cut, you can't.

• 2:25:56Speaker 01

  Well, it's the same way you could stay up, you could stay up for three days in a row and not sleep. But then like on that fourth day, you're gonna just fall out and be in deep because like you owe REM sleep.

• 2:26:06Theo Von?

  Right.

• 2:26:07Speaker 01

  You owe it like you, sorry, we got a, the universe has a receipt for you of REM sleep that you owe for the last.

• 2:26:13Theo Von?

  The invoice.

• 2:26:13Speaker 01

  And there's, there's something about how like, you know, it's like, okay, I could like, I could go on my treadmill right now and like go run for 20 minutes. And that will suck. I hate those 20 minutes. When I go run on my treadmill or I could eat a big piece of cheesecake and just love the next 20 minutes and feel so good. But there's gonna be a price to pay for that. You know what I mean? Like, I'm gonna feel better about myself. I'm gonna be in better health if I do the running. There's just this weird thing with the universe where it's like you kind of can't cheat the system. And if you try to cheat the system, there's always a price associated with it. And now you owe that price. It may come later in life. It may whatever, you know, like if I, if I want to like,

• 2:26:52Speaker 01

  whatever it is, if I want to be really shitty to my wife now, it's like, maybe I think that gets me some advantage in the short term. But then when my son's older and he remembers that and he hates me, it's like, oh, okay. There's the price for me not being good to his mom. So you always like, in life in general, you're always better off if you err on the side of like, doing the right thing so that you don't owe these prices later in life. I see it all the time. You see it with like, old men who were like shitty drunk dads and were, and now they're alone and they're old alcoholics. And you're like, oh, man, the ultimate loser here is you. Like, you got like a grandkid you never met, you know? And you got, it's like this, you can't cheat this game. So you're better off just doing the right thing and not accruing all these, these debts.

• 2:27:37Theo Von?

  Yeah. I, um, what do you think about Elon and Vivek? Do you think that that is a, is that really something that's gonna have an effect on, on things? Who do they have to answer to? Because they're not an actual government entity. Is that correct?

• 2:27:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's, it's, it's, it's ridiculous, but it's also really interesting. And that, yeah, Donald Trump just gave them a made up department that they're in charge of. So they're not technically a government department.

• 2:28:04Theo Von?

  Department of Government Efficiency.

• 2:28:05Speaker 01

  Department, but it's not a real government.

• 2:28:07Theo Von?

  Department of Government Efficiency, so it's not real. But this, I've been seeing this for a while. I feel like we've entered this kind of like privatized communism, I call it. Where, and, and you could call the, and, and this wouldn't maybe be considered communism, but it's privatized democracy, right? It's like, we have, like, we don't have the post office anymore. We have Amazon. We have email. You know, it's like, it's all been privatized, right? We don't really realize it. There's still, everybody's like, the government sucks. It's like, yeah, but the government's a company now. Some other company that's doing the shit that the government used to do.

• 2:28:36Speaker 01

  Well, right. It's so instead of the game, cause, cause what it is, is that in most people's minds, they have kind of roughly at least the idea of like capitalism versus socialism. And I understand, I'm speaking like, like with a broad brush here, but like, they're like, okay. So like on one hand, you have like, the government is, isn't involved and it's all like competition and private companies. And then on the other hand, you have like, the government's much more involved and the government takes over these services. But really what we have isn't either of those. What we have is gigantic multinational corporations that long ago bought off the government. So you have this huge government that's involved, but it's just working for these private interests.

• 2:29:14Theo Von?

  Right. It's just wrapping paper.

• 2:29:15Speaker 01

  Exactly. So like, I think that's, I think that's exactly the, the correct way to look at it.

• 2:29:21Theo Von?

  But the belief is that we still have this thing of freedom and you still do kind of have democracy in some ways, right? You could still run for an office. You could still vote for someone.

• 2:29:32Theo Von?

  But it's, it certainly feels, things feel more manufactured.

• 2:29:39Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah. Like even like, that's why I think very the uber wealthy, they don't care that much about the policing shit because they have their own security. They have, they're not fucking worried about that.

• 2:29:47Speaker 01

  Well, that's the crazy thing. And it has really, it's been one of the things that I think turned Americans against Hollywood. But there's something about like, kind of the like elite progressive, you know, like the, the people who lecture everybody else about guns and support gun control, but they have armed security. The people who are offended that Donald Trump talks about building a wall, but they live in a gated community. The people who, you know, go.

• 2:30:17Theo Von?

  Talk about climate change, but then take private planes everywhere.

• 2:30:20Speaker 01

  Dude, you could go endless, endless examples of this. They talk about you, if you're upset about what they're teaching in your local public school, they say you're a bad person. Meanwhile, their kids go to private school. They don't have to deal with what's going on in the, you know what I mean? It's like at every, they're totally insulated from the effects of the policies that they support. And so, you know, anyway, to go back to the Doge thing, what I think, so I, I had a dinner with Vivek, like a couple of months ago.

• 2:30:46Theo Von?

  People say he's a neat man. I never met him.

• 2:30:48Speaker 01

  He's, I, I like him a lot. He's, uh, I've gotten to know him pretty good over the last year.

• 2:30:53Theo Von?

  Is he Bangladeshi or Indian guy?

• 2:30:55Speaker 01

  He's, he's Indian, but he's American. He was born here.

• 2:30:57Theo Von?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:30:57Speaker 01

  Um, but he's, uh, first of, he's brilliant. Uh, he's very, very successful. Um, and I will say, you know, I won't like divulge too much stuff that we said in private, but he is really big on this Doge thing. And he's like, listen, man, me and Elon got some tricks up our sleeves and we're gonna get some, we're gonna be very effective with this. Essentially what they're gonna do is make policy recommendations and their recommendations already are gonna be massive cuts in government spending, which is, I think, the absolute correct answer.

• 2:31:28Theo Von?

  Me too.

• 2:31:28Speaker 01

  And so I'm at least excited to see that like, that's being interjected into the public and him and Elon are both, I mean, these are brilliant guys. So maybe they could really come up with something here.

• 2:31:37Theo Von?

  I agree. Well, it's just amazing how where our country keeps going more and more in debt. In the end, we're gonna have a loan to some other country and that country is just gonna be like, now you belong to us, right?

• 2:31:49Speaker 01

  Or the whole thing has to like crash and then we're, we're setting ourselves up for.

• 2:31:53Theo Von?

  For failure.

• 2:31:54Speaker 01

  And, and even just now, right?

• 2:31:56Theo Von?

  Yeah, and I don't wanna sound too gloom and doom too, so.

• 2:31:58Speaker 01

  Well, but even just now, it's like, forget it. Like, the debt is a major problem and we're going off like the fiscal cliff and we're not gonna be able to keep this up. But even just right now, the reason we're racking up so much debt is because the government spends so much money every year. And this is, that is the corruption. It's not like a symptom of the corruption. It's like, you got an organization in Washington DC that by force extracts six trillion dollars of wealth away from the American people every year and then give it out to their connected friends. It's like the most, like.

• 2:32:28Theo Von?

  It's fucking, it's, uh, it's laundering.

• 2:32:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's the most criminal shit in the world you could imagine. The only reason why we don't think of it as criminal is because it's so big and successful, but if anyone did it on a small level, you'd be like, oh, I know what that is. That's a gang. That's a crime. Like, that's, and, and, and even, and, and like I said before, the other big thing is that in order to have such a big government, what you need is, cause you can never tax people enough to pay for all this shit. And they can't even borrow enough money to pay for all of it. So they have to just constantly be printing money. And that sends us into living in an inflationary world where everything's constantly getting more expensive and the value of your dollar is constantly going down. And again, this is. If you're rich, it's fine. If you own stuff, you can kind of protect yourself from it because

• 2:33:14Speaker 01

  the value of your, your assets goes up too. But for middle class and working class and people on a fixed income, this just destroys them, absolutely destroys them. I mean, the price inflation over the last few years has just like, I don't even know, you know, the Federal Reserve keeps numbers on this stuff, but I don't know if they've done it over the recent wave of price inflation, but how many marriages get destroyed by this, you know, like people commit suicide over stuff like this?

• 2:33:40Theo Von?

  They don't care. And they don't think about that. It's the same way they didn't think whenever they, um, they don't care. They don't, it's the same way they didn't care that every AA room and meeting was going to shut down when they, uh, when they started COVID, you know, or whenever COVID started. It's the same way that they didn't care about the, um, pill epidemic that's taken hundreds of thou- 600,000 lives and not only, not to mention the, the ripple effect of those deaths that have broken the hearts of mothers and, and children and wives and husbands. They don't care. I, I just, that's what it feels like anymore. It feels like they don't fucking care. So what can I do now?

• 2:34:21Speaker 01

  Well, it's also, look.

• 2:34:22Theo Von?

  But then also, I also have to remember that throughout history, people have lived in this exact same space, feeling like their government did not care about them.

• 2:34:31Speaker 01

  And, and worse. I mean, in much worse.

• 2:34:32Theo Von?

  And much worse. You're right. So that's why I think other countries like this, hey, welcome.

• 2:34:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:37Theo Von?

  You know, welcome to what it's really like, you know, to exist.

• 2:34:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay. Fine. But like at the same time, that doesn't mean.

• 2:34:43Theo Von?

  We should have better.

• 2:34:44Speaker 01

  Yes, that's right. Look, I mean, so there's, there's lessons to take from all of that stuff, right? Like there are people, in the 20th century, we had two world wars, you know, like

• 2:34:53Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:53Speaker 01

  tens of millions of people just got caught up in this for no fault of their own at all. And I'm not even talking about just like the standard textbook history, like there were people who just happened to be Germans. You know what I mean? They weren't, they didn't necessarily even support the Nazis or anything like that. There were ethnic Germans. Uh, Daryl Cooper just put out the prologue for his new World War II series and the first one is so good. Um, but all talking about like, then this is like a first. Forgotten chapter of history, but after World War Two, ethnic Germans, not even living in Germany, weren't even living under the Third Reich, just in Eastern Europe, just got totally like slaughtered by the millions, raped and beaten and ethnically cleansed. Like there were so, and that this is obvious, obvious.

• 2:35:35Speaker 01

  I only lead with that because it's like the one that people don't know as much about, but like, obviously there were Jews who just happened to live in Germany or in Eastern Europe. There were Russians and Poles and just all types of people who just got destroyed. So no, okay, people have had it much worse, but at the same time, I do think it's your point being, you know, especially when you see like the corporate media and you see the way they freak out over, uh, January 6th, the way they freak out over, you know, whatever it would be. And the latest thing Donald Trump says, and then you sit there and you go, yeah, you know, a hundred thousand people die of overdoses in this country every year. And by the way, the calling them overdoses is not entirely accurate.

• 2:36:20Theo Von?

  Poisoning is a good term.

• 2:36:21Speaker 01

  Poisoning is more, I mean, when you're talking about the fentanyl thing, I mean, at least for me, when my whole life, when I thought of what the word overdose meant, what overdose meant to me was essentially like you, uh, you become such a drug addict that you build up such a tolerance that you gotta take so much drugs in order to get high, that eventually you have to take so much that it kills you before you even get to like feel good. But that's not the same thing as someone thinking they're taking a Percocet and it actually has fentanyl in it and then they just kill themselves. That's not exactly an overdose.

• 2:36:56Theo Von?

  No, it's a poisoning.

• 2:36:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, you got poisoned.

• 2:36:58Theo Von?

  And that company didn't even face any ramifications. They're still allowed to come into America.

• 2:37:01Speaker 01

  I know, and this isn't even something that comes up.

• 2:37:04Theo Von?

  People care, but they can't do anything.

• 2:37:06Speaker 01

  Right. Well, what I just say is like, it's just like, say like, okay, I understand that like some people broke some windows of the Capitol building on January 6th, and I understand that AOC was real scared for 20 minutes or whatever. Okay. But like that, the amount of coverage and outrage that that gets compared to a hundred thousand of your fellow Americans being poisoned to death every year. And it's not like it's a one to one, it's a one. Hundred to zero like this just doesn't even come up. It's not even like a

• 2:37:32Theo Von?

  Until Hollywood is like, oh, we'll make a series about it. So we'll make now we'll make money off of it.

• 2:37:38Speaker 01

  You will this. I'll say this dude, and this is like, I'm mildly embarrassed to admit this, but as somebody who's like obsessed with this shit and talks about politics all the time. It wasn't until Bobby Kennedy ran for president and he goes, uh, he goes, you know, America leads the world in chronic illness. And I remember being like, is that right? Do we lead the like, I didn't even know that we led the world in chronic illness. And there's like, just it took Bobby Kennedy. Why is no one else who's run for president ever brought this up? How is this not a thing that we all talk about all the time?

• 2:38:08Theo Von?

  Well, Bernie Sanders talks about a good bit of it a lot.

• 2:38:10Speaker 01

  Well, he talks about Bernie Sanders talks about the health insurance stuff. He talks about the Medicare for all stuff, but I never really heard anyone talking about what Bobby's talking about in terms of like, why are we so sick? Like, forget whether you think we need universal healthcare or private healthcare or whatever, like whatever health insurance you're talking about. I'm saying like, why do, why are we so sick as a people to begin with? And that's more about like what we're eating, what the, you know, like what, uh, what we're consuming.

• 2:38:37Theo Von?

  But okay, then say if there's these forces and they see like, okay, we can poison them this much and we can make the money here and this. But why? What do they get out of all of it? Or do you think there's just such a level of wealth and control that after generation and generation? You just start to see it as a game almost like that's, that's the part I can't understand because I couldn't understand. Like at a certain point, you start to do well and then you want to help other people, like whether it's like build a facility for drug people or whatever it is, right? Like get clean water, like do something pot like, I can't understand getting to the part where you start to see people just as nothing more than some.

• 2:39:17Theo Von?

  Then basically ghosts to launder your money through.

• 2:39:21Speaker 01

  Well, I do think that when you get, well, obviously like so.

• 2:39:24Theo Von?

  It's control. A lot of it must be control.

• 2:39:26Speaker 01

  A lot of it's control. So much of it is business. You know what I mean? Like so much of it is just like, ah, there are these companies that make tons of money off this shit. But I do think that there's like a mentality that gets developed when you. Get to a certain level of power where like, you know, the same thing like with, um, you know, like if there's companies, like if there's a little mom and pop store, they kind of know everyone in the area and they kind of care a little bit more, they're more connected to the community. When you're talking about like a giant corporation, you're just kind of like a cog in a machine to them. Like they're, but when you get to like the top, top level of power, and I think they've been pretty explicit about this. I mean, Henry Kissinger pretty much like admitted this in his own words, that people are pawns on a chessboard. And that's

• 2:40:07Speaker 01

  the way they look at it. It's not, they don't believe that they are like, they're almost above what me and you would consider morality. You know what I mean? It's like they're, they're at this super high level where it's like, listen, we're, we're moving these pawns over here so that the Soviet Union collapses. And oh yeah, it sure does suck if you happen to be a Vietnamese person, but we're at war with the Soviet Union. And so you're just pawns on a chessboard and that, and that's what they're doing with Ukraine right now. What they're doing with Ukraine right now is just using them as cannon fodder to hurt Russia. And they pose as the ones who care about Ukrainians so much, but really they just led them down, as John Mearsheimer said, the primrose path. They went, go ahead, fight this big bully who could totally fuck you up.

• 2:40:52Speaker 01

  Go ahead, fight them. We got your back.

• 2:40:55Theo Von?

  To Ukraine?

• 2:40:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, to Ukraine. And by we got your back, not like the military is going to come in and actually like back you up, but we'll just give you weapons so you can keep going out there and dying, but it'll hurt the Russians also. And that's the goal. And you're like, it's, it's a real sickness if you start looking at human beings that way.

• 2:41:12Theo Von?

  Yeah. What did Kissinger say? Bring that back up? He said, military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.

• 2:41:19Speaker 01

  Is that real? Ooh, jeez. I knew he had some quotes about that, but that one even surprised me. I was like, oh, jeez.

• 2:41:26Theo Von?

  Where was he from? Kissinger?

• 2:41:28Speaker 01

  Oh, where was he originally from? Eastern Europe? It's a good question.

• 2:41:33Theo Von?

  Henry Kissinger. Bring him up. Get to there.

• 2:41:35Speaker 01

  He was of course, the Secretary of State under Richard Nixon.

• 2:41:39Theo Von?

  Scroll up.

• 2:41:42Speaker 01

  Born in Germany, okay.

• 2:41:43Theo Von?

  Born in Germany, a Jewish refugee fleeing Nazi persecution. Maybe that's what made him believe that, huh? That probably was what led to his belief, huh?

• 2:41:52Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, I'm sure it, I'm sure that had a profound influence on who he was, yeah.

• 2:41:57Theo Von?

  Man, it's heartbreaking. Tended Harvard University, very smart guy.

• 2:42:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, he was a genius, super, super genius. But look, I mean, I think a lot of that, even, you know, when you talk about the Nazi connection for his views, but a lot of that, a lot of that is true with the Israel stuff too, that it's like, you know, a lot of this, it's like, people who like went through a lot of the shit that they went through, got it in their minds that like, you do whatever you have to do to make sure you're the one in power.

• 2:42:23Theo Von?

  To survive. Oh, I get it. Look, that's what I'm saying, the sand remember, you know, or the, it all remember, there's, you can't, it, it's all remembered. The big brain of time, it holds it all, you know, the, whatever it is, the soul of time, it holds it all.

• 2:42:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42:40Theo Von?

  And it's, um, it's interesting, it's fascinating, it's painful, it's, it's life. You know, it's death, it's all of it. It's like, I think it's just like, I don't know, some of it makes you fucking sad, you know? And some of it like, yeah, maybe it's easy for me to just sit here and, um, say things from, uh, my home that has heat in it, you know, I don't know, I don't.

• 2:43:02Speaker 01

  But that's life, right? Is that there's like, life is that there's like constantly tragedy all around us, but then there's beauty all around us also.

• 2:43:09Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:10Speaker 01

  And then if you can kind of like reconcile yourself with the tragedy and accept that, you can really enjoy the beauty in, in life.

• 2:43:17Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:18Speaker 01

  That's, you know, that's the best we could try to do. Um, but yes, you're right, we speak from a, a position, as the lefties would say, from a position of privilege, and we're able to, but at the same point, like my thing is kind of like, if you are in that position and we're fortunate enough to like be in a heated studio and in a comfortable environment or whatever, then like, okay, so then.

• 2:43:41Speaker 01

  We should try our best to kind of rise up above like what I was saying before, we're like, hey, if you're an Israeli Jew and one of your family members were killed on October 7th, of course, you're going to be like, go get those guys. And if you're a Palestinian who saw one of your kids get killed by an IDF, you know, mission, of course, you're going to be like, let's go get those guys. But from our position of not being in either of those positions, we should at least be able to go like, okay, let's try to calm things down. Let's try to like, push for peace. Let's try to go like, we understand how both of you could feel that way, but understand where the other one feels the same way you do. So like, at least sometimes there's an advantage to be like on a perch, in a little bit of a better situation where you can kind of see things and go, okay, let me at least call balls and strikes on this and not just kind of flame more conflict,

• 2:44:26Speaker 01

  which is what people on the ground are doing.

• 2:44:28Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah, I think I've always just like, I don't know, I think I just, if I feel like something's the underdog, then I'll air, I'd rather air on that side.

• 2:44:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44:37Theo Von?

  For me, it's like, somebody's like, oh, you got mad, somebody get mad, you fucked up, you chose the underdog, like, all right.

• 2:44:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:44:43Theo Von?

  My bad, you know, I just, that's like, I just think that's how I feel. How do we know, like, Dave, tell me this, is there any country where if you live in the country, you have to, um, you have to like, like, commit to that country?

• 2:45:04Speaker 01

  Well, in what sense, like, what do you mean?

• 2:45:05Theo Von?

  Because America just starts to seem like this place where everybody can just commit for their other country if they want to.

• 2:45:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I think that's one of the things that is been a big catalyst for Donald Trump rising, the whole America first thing, like this idea that, hey, like, we should be for our country. I think that there was particularly after World War II, which is really when you had the rise of like the, the current world order. I mean, obviously the Soviet Unions were part of it and then they fell, but the, the kind of American dominance started really after World War II. I mean, we won and we dropped the nukes. And the situation was that all of the industrialized world had been destroyed, except for us. And the war touched everyone, basically every power except us. And we lost some men there, but we still came out like with the homeland.

• 2:45:53Theo Von?

  We had a big head start.

• 2:45:54Speaker 01

  Yes. Well, that's right. We got in late and we developed the nukes and so just it all and we used nukes. And so it was like, oh, they have this new weapon that nobody else has. And so after that, the.

• 2:46:05Theo Von?

  Which was sick, by the way, too.

• 2:46:06Speaker 01

  Horrific. Oh, just like, I mean, totally inexcusable and disgusting and.

• 2:46:11Theo Von?

  Which almost makes you wonder, do we have our, just our judgment day coming, you know?

• 2:46:15Speaker 01

  Well, I.

• 2:46:15Theo Von?

  Not us. We didn't do it.

• 2:46:17Speaker 01

  Well, you would hope, you would hope that the universe can pick out who was involved at least to some degree and who wasn't. But in some ways, you know, there's this great old John Quincy Adams quote, which I'll probably butcher, but maybe you'll pull up so I get. But it's like, uh, it was something like, if we go around the world looking for monsters to destroy, we will become the dicatrice of the world, but we will lose our own soul. And that was, which is pretty profound that he said this back in the early 1800s, I believe.

• 2:46:43Theo Von?

  What does the dicatrice mean?

• 2:46:45Speaker 01

  Uh, like dictator, like a female version of, of dictator. So like, we'll rule, we'll rule the world, but you'll lose your own soul or something like that. I might be butchering this quote, but that's essentially the, the gist of it. The point was that you're like, oh, you go dominate the world, but you lose your own soul. Like you, you know, you're, you kind of, you take over everything else, but you lose the essence of who you are.

• 2:47:06Theo Von?

  Well, it's the same thing as like being like, I think like, um, somebody like Jim Carrey or some type of a celebrity. You put so much of you out there.

• 2:47:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:47:14Theo Von?

  That you are all over, but you don't know who you are anymore.

• 2:47:17Speaker 01

  Right. And there's, there's a weird like, you know, call, like, there's a weird equation to that. But after World War Two, America kind of took on the mantle of being like, okay, well, we're gonna rebuild Europe. And, and there were arguments for why we should, but we're gonna, we're gonna be the defense of Europe. We formed NATO so that we could protect Western Europe because they weren't in a position to do it for themselves. And it just, it's almost like we became then the country that was always in the business of welfare for other countries.

• 2:47:47Theo Von?

  Right.

• 2:47:47Speaker 01

  And I think what happened with Donald Trump, where a lot of people were, is that after, particularly after the years of the terror wars that were such disasters, is that people started kind of reassess that and be like, well, look, we're not in a situation. Right now where Europe is destroyed and you know what I mean like we're the like the only ones unscathed by this war. Europe is rich, they're fine. A lot of these other countries are like in they're stable. And we're thirty six trillion dollars in debt. Our our dollar is getting weaker. Our culture is like totally pitted against each other. Things feel like they're kind of falling apart here. And so it's just it's a different proposition to go like, hey, you know,

• 2:48:30Speaker 01

  my family is taken care of and doing really good and I'm gonna help out this other family who's like friends of ours. That's a totally different proposition than like when my family's falling apart and are broke and hungry, helping out somebody else. Like that's like, that's just a different thing. And so I do think like there should it's it's healthy and normal and natural that there should be a movement in America that's concerned with America.

• 2:48:53Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah. Well, you have people too who's who lost their grandfathers, who lost their siblings, um, who lost their great grandfathers too. Helping liberate other groups and helping um, around the world, helping be those uh, military presence around the world, you know, and who served and they thought that that meant something, you know?

• 2:49:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:49:11Theo Von?

  That there was some value that it meant something, that the American flag hasn't hadn't just been pitted by um, hadn't just been divided as if it was a conservative emblem. That's crazy to think that somebody got fucking half of America to think that the American flag stands for like rednecks or something.

• 2:49:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:49:30Theo Von?

  Think about that shit. People don't want to think about that. People don't want to think that, oh, that's true. There's a little part of me that caught that took that bait. You know what I'm saying? And wondering who's who has put the bait in front of you. And then see the hook, man. There's a fucking hook.

• 2:49:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, like if loving America is right wing and

• 2:49:48Theo Von?

  The bait's on a hook, daddy.

• 2:49:49Speaker 01

  Free speech is right wing and working out is right wing. So shouldn't we all be right wing then? Like, what are we even talking about now?

• 2:49:56Theo Von?

  And then I think that that's all changed. It's like you have Democrats that are Republicans. Now you have people that don't know. You have a ton of people that want to be libertarians that don't know what it is. And so that's one of the reasons why I think we wanted to learn from you what it is. Um, what is a libertarian? Libertarian idea of healthcare look like, what does that look like?

• 2:50:13Speaker 01

  Well, I look, I mean, the libertarian idea with all of this stuff is to like actually get the government out of the way and let there be a real market. Yeah. I mean, so much of the problem in healthcare in general is that it's just, it's not a real market like any other market. The prices, you, good luck even finding out what the prices are. It's the only business you could walk into where no one in the room knows what the price is.

• 2:50:36Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 2:50:37Speaker 01

  And it's not, and, and because like, you know, I remember, um, there's, there was one time that my, it was like years ago, like it was, I think before we got married. But me, my wife was like, she had a month where she had a lapse in her insurance. And so she had like one month without insurance before she got on mine or something. And then, and she had blood work done the month that she didn't have insurance. So we get some bill, you know,

• 2:51:00Theo Von?

  Meaning blood work or whatever.

• 2:51:01Speaker 01

  Oh, like, okay. Yeah, like taking her blood. And so we get a bill for like 1,400 bucks. And my wife calls them and she's like, oh yeah, I, I think what happened was she, she went to the doctor when she still had the insurance. But then they sent it to the lab after her insurance expired before the new one kicked in. So she's stuck with this bill or whatever. And they, and she goes, uh, she goes, oh, so this like fell like in my lap. So like, I don't have insurance. And they go, oh, you're uninsured. And she was like, yeah. And they go, oh, well, knock 70% off.

• 2:51:29Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 2:51:30Speaker 01

  Just like that. Now, part of you, I remember in the moment being kind of like, or this is many years ago and I was, uh, I'm doing better now than I was then. But at the time I was like, oh, sweet. We just knocked 70% off. But then as soon as I'm like, sweet, I'm like, wait a minute. That's all, the prices are inflated by 70% for everybody else who has, uh, um, who, who has insurance. It's like this cost, and it's all because of these crazy over regulation, over government involvement. It's just literally things work better when you have a free market and there's real competition. So that's the libertarian, uh, answer to almost everything is like deregulate it. Let there be real competition, let it be privatized. But if these private companies fail, let them go out of business. Don't come in and bail them out.

• 2:52:13Speaker 01

  Let them actually have to compete for who can provide a better service to their customers. That's when we get good things.

• 2:52:21Theo Von?

  Yeah, there's another part in that book where Marty Makary, that doctor who's just who got is gonna be appointed by Trump, he um, he talked about how, yeah, there was a guy whose father had like a stroke and they kept him in the hospital and they could do a procedure and they're like, it's like a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And the guy's like, what the fuck? We can't do that. And they just um, they kept kind of like holding him off and eventually they're like, yeah, it's fifteen thousand dollars.

• 2:52:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:52:50Theo Von?

  Just like, just like

• 2:52:52Speaker 01

  It's just insane.

• 2:52:53Theo Von?

  Every couple of days, they would just call him back like, we'll do it now, we'll do it now. And he was visiting America from another country and he decided just to go back to his own country and have it done there. But he was just shocked at how just the price went down because they were gonna possibly lose the patient, right? Which is the way that businesses should be, the potential you could lose the customer. Um, what about the Federal Reserve? What is it? And is it fucking us?

• 2:53:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, totally. Oh, it's the worst thing.

• 2:53:19Theo Von?

  I've heard about this, Ben Askren.

• 2:53:20Speaker 01

  The worst thing about our government is uh,

• 2:53:23Theo Von?

  Because I noticed this, if I make money and I pay taxes on it, right? And then if I use that money to pay somebody for something, they have to pay taxes on it. If I die, I get taxed like thirty, forty percent on the money that I'd already paid taxes on.

• 2:53:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. And then you like, I mean, it's insane. And then when you, if you think about how much money is actually taxed, I mean, like, it's not just like that you pay taxes on, but then if you go and buy something from someone else, then they gotta pay taxes on the money that you already paid taxes. I it's just, it's nutty. Um, but the Federal Reserve is the central bank. That's uh, so the, it's, it's all kind of confusing because they call it like the Federal Reserve. And so you kind of get this impression that it like, well, it's part of the federal government where they keep reserves of some money or something like that. But that's not what it is at all. It's technically not even a part of the government. It is, it's the worst of the government and, and the worst of not the government, right? So it was created by an act of Congress in nineteen thirteen.

• 2:54:22Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 2:54:22Speaker 01

  It's the, the uh, treasurer, the head of the Federal Reserve is appointed by the president. So it's in that sense, very much a part of the government.

• 2:54:30Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 2:54:31Speaker 01

  However, it gets to maintain its status as a private, independent company. They print the money and then lend it to us. So they charge us for using dollars.

• 2:54:42Speaker 01

  At all, they make money off the fact that we use our own currency, that they're just given the right to print out of thin air. So they're a bank. In effect, print out of thin air. I mean, most of it's done on computers these days. But so what they do is, they, it was created by a bunch of powerful bankers. There's a great book on this called The Creature From Jekyll Island, um, that really goes through the whole history of it. Let's order that book, The Creature From Jekyll Island. Oh, it's a good one. Uh, by, uh, um, G. Edward Griffin. Uh, the. Yeah, we'll have to order it right now, but let's go back to that. Yes, it's a great book. I highly recommend everyone reads. Also, Ron Paul and the Fed is another great book on the Federal Reserve also. But so they are, so essentially they

• 2:55:24Speaker 01

  print the money and then lend it out. Now, they lend it out to what are called their member banks, meaning all the big banks. So JP Morgan Chase, Schwab, Bank of America, all these guys. Wells Fargo. Yes. So they lend it out to them, and then those banks lend money to the rest of us at a much higher interest rate than they got it for. So all of the banks now are in the business essentially of getting free money. They just get the money at low interest and lend it out to us at higher interest. So they all get rich off of this. It allows the government to spend as much money as they want to because they can print as much money as they want to while it destroys the currency of the rest of us. And the worst thing about the Federal Reserve from, from my perspective is that it lets the government

• 2:56:06Speaker 01

  get away with just really evil things that they would never be able to get away with if they couldn't print all the money to. So, you know, you could do lockdowns and then just hand out checks because you can print the money. But if you couldn't hand out the checks, you probably wouldn't be able to get away with lockdowns. You could fight a war in Afghanistan for 20 years. Now, if you had to tax people for that war, if you had to say, okay, listen, we want to fight a war in Afghanistan, so every quarter, we're going to come to you for another, you know, 10% of your income, there'd be massive pressure from people to end the war. But since they just print the money, they're able to keep it going for, for 20 years. Wow. And it also does a lot to like distort markets and just mess everything up because they pump money into markets where there's no real demand for there to be growth there. It's a, it's a huge.

• 2:56:51Speaker 01

  Scheme, it's privately owned. We don't even have real information on it. There's never been a full audit of the Federal Reserve. There was Ron Paul was the only one in Congress who was really pushing for an audit. Um, I think Thomas Massey also was, um, but never got it done.

• 2:57:07Theo Von?

  The federal government sets the salaries of the board's seven members, seven of the board's seven governors and it receives all the system's annual profits after dividends on member banks capital investments are paid. The Federal Reserve earned a net income of a hundred point two billion in 2015 and transferred 97.7 billion to the US Treasury. So they make some money in there. They made five billion dollars.

• 2:57:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, but there's, but the thing is that their books have never been opened and audited. So we don't really know exactly what's going on.

• 2:57:36Theo Von?

  Are we banked? Are we based on gold or not?

• 2:57:38Speaker 01

  No, we haven't been on gold for many years. We have, it was in 1973 or 71, was it? Nixon suspended the gold standard and we've never been back on it since then. 71, sorry. I should have had that one.

• 2:57:50Theo Von?

  Why did they suspend the gold standard?

• 2:57:52Speaker 01

  Well, so basically.

• 2:57:54Theo Von?

  And let me say, the gold standard was a monetary system that linked a country's currency to a set amount of gold. So, so our currency was actually backed by an actual.

• 2:58:02Speaker 01

  Yes, the, the idea was that you could, for every dollar you printed, you had to put away a certain amount of gold. So, okay, so what I was talking about before, after World War II. Europe is destroyed. America is still left stable. Uh, this is when America, uh, they created what was known as the Bretton Woods Agreement. So essentially America was like the dominant power in the world. We had the huge portion of the world's gold at this point. And so the deal that we came up with was essentially that other, uh, other countries would peg their currency to the dollar. And we would peg the dollar to gold. So you were kinda on a dollar stand, you were kinda on a gold standard if you went on a dollar standard.

• 2:58:43Theo Von?

  Got it.

• 2:58:43Speaker 01

  And we set the price at $35 an ounce. So for every $35 we printed, we had to put away an ounce of gold. Okay. So this was.

• 2:58:51Theo Von?

  In a Fort Knox?

• 2:58:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's where it was supposed to be. Also, has not been audited, but I think that's where it was.

• 2:58:57Theo Von?

  That bitch is empty, I'm sure, dude.

• 2:58:59Speaker 01

  Who that, it's, I think, long gone. But so, okay, so then you have, um, so this starts in the, uh, what year, late 40s? I'm say Bretton Woods started, I want to say 47.

• 2:59:09Theo Von?

  Yeah, the gold standard was largely abandoned during the Great Depression before being reinstated in a limited form.

• 2:59:13Speaker 01

  It had, so we had gotten off of it and then gotten back on to it. But so what happened is when we're, we're on the Bretton Woods standard, we go on to it in the late 40s. So through the 50s and into the 60s.

• 2:59:25Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 2:59:25Speaker 01

  Uh, oh, was it early, it was before the war ended, is that right? Okay.

• 2:59:29Theo Von?

  And that standard was that for every ounce of gold, we had so much money.

• 2:59:33Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:59:33Theo Von?

  Thirty-five dollars.

• 2:59:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:59:34Theo Von?

  And then other countries had penned their, um, were using the dollar.

• 2:59:38Speaker 01

  Currency to the dollar. And so they're holding dollars.

• 2:59:40Theo Von?

  Right.

• 2:59:41Speaker 01

  But the dollars are redeemable in gold. Like, that's the idea, that you could trade them in for gold anytime you want to.

• 2:59:46Theo Von?

  So it was all real, there was a checks and balances system.

• 2:59:48Speaker 01

  Right. Except that they, we started cheating. And we started cheating really blatantly. And so in the 1960s, uh, if you could think about it, right? America is doing a lot. In the 1960s.

• 3:00:01Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:00:01Speaker 01

  We have the Great Society, we created, uh, Medicare and Medicaid, we put a man on the moon, we fought the war in Vietnam. America is just spending a ton of money. And so what happened is that our, a lot of people were holding dollars.

• 3:00:16Theo Von?

  Right.

• 3:00:17Speaker 01

  And they're holding dollars that they're promised are good, are convertible to gold. And I believe it was mostly led by France, but I think England was involved in this too. But they essentially called America's bluff. And they went, um, you know, you guys are spending a whole lot of money, thinking we'll take our gold. Like, we got all these dollars, we'd like to convert them into gold. So they called America's bluff and Richard Nixon was like, nah.

• 3:00:43Speaker 01

  And so the way, the way he spun it, it was just a giant default.

• 3:00:47Theo Von?

  Slick Rick.

• 3:00:48Speaker 01

  It was just a huge default to the world. Like, we're just not, no. But the way he spun it, which is actually pretty laughable, if you, it was, he was like, you know, the French are trying to destabilize the dollar and we will not let this attack stand. So I have to temporarily, those were his words, temporarily suspend the convertibility from dollars into gold. So he basically told them, go fuck yourself. You know, we don't have gold, but we do have a much bigger military than you. So you will take this, you know? And then, you know, throughout the years, I mean, America just came to continue to dominate the world. So there was no real option for France to do nothing. But it, ever since then, we have not been on a gold standard or any standard whatsoever.

• 3:01:32Speaker 01

  They can print as much money as they want to with no limit.

• 3:01:35Theo Von?

  It says the Nixon shock was the effect of a series of economic measures, including wage and price freezes, surcharges on imports and the unilateral cancellation of the direct international convertibility of the United States dollar gold. Although Nixon's actions did not formally abolish the existing Bretton Woods system of international financial exchange, the suspension of one of its key components effectively rendered the Bretton Woods system inoperative. Wow. And what happened to all the gold in Fort Knox then?

• 3:02:00Speaker 01

  Your guess is as good as mine.

• 3:02:01Theo Von?

  Can we look that up? What happened to all the gold after the Bretton Woods system?

• 3:02:07Theo Von?

  I don't know.

• 3:02:08Speaker 01

  I mean, I think they would say they still have it, but again, it's like, much like the Federal Reserve. I believe, I don't think Fort Knox has been audited in all of this time.

• 3:02:15Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 3:02:16Speaker 01

  So I don't think we really know, you know?

• 3:02:18Theo Von?

  We gotta get in that bitch. I'm gonna ask Trump if I get to see him. Vance would give us an honest answer, I think.

• 3:02:24Speaker 01

  Are you going to the inauguration?

• 3:02:25Theo Von?

  I think I'm gonna go because, well, first of all, I got excited to go. I got invited to go and then I never, will get to go again. Are you going?

• 3:02:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Just because I got invited and it's just kinda like, how could you not go? I mean, it's just, it's like, it's American history and it's also, this was such a big election too. It feels like such a seismic shift and I got invited and I'm just like, come on. I mean, I don't know. I, I can't not, I'm too much of a history nerd to not be like.

• 3:02:52Theo Von?

  Yeah, you have to go.

• 3:02:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:02:54Theo Von?

  And I love that you always seem to have like this open ended, like you're not really, you're not attached, you don't, it feels like you don't really attach yourself to,

• 3:03:04Theo Von?

  you don't get overly attached.

• 3:03:06Speaker 01

  Well, I try to be, I try to be attached to principles, you know, and not be attached to politicians. So, you know, it's like, I, I supported Trump in this last election just because I thought Kamala Harris was, I thought she was such an insult to all of us, you know, like, it was like, come on, you can't actually do this. And, and to not have a primary and then just hand select her and then all the, all the lying about Biden, all the going around with the chilies.

• 3:03:29Theo Von?

  Yeah, the lying about Biden was crazy.

• 3:03:31Speaker 01

  I just couldn't stand that. So I supported Trump. But as soon as Trump starts doing something I think is wrong, I'll be the first one to be like, yeah, dude, this is, he's fucking up.

• 3:03:38Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:03:38Speaker 01

  I just, I think that's the way everyone should be. I think people are way, way, way, I hate, I'm also glad for that, that election season's over. I hate when people get so like dug in.

• 3:03:47Theo Von?

  Me too.

• 3:03:48Speaker 01

  You're not even really being a person. You're not even really having a conversation anymore. You're kind of getting into this like, once you pick a side and you're like, I've decided my side is the good side, they're the evil side. Now you're in a like ends justify the means conversation.

• 3:04:02Theo Von?

  Now you're trying to make the world fit that.

• 3:04:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's also just a thing where it's like, you would see this all the time.

• 3:04:07Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 3:04:07Speaker 01

  Especially during the election. I mean, I remember being on a couple of these shows that I do where I, I think I said to Piers Morgan at one point, like I was just like, I was like, maybe everyone will be willing to have a conversation in a couple of weeks, once this election's over. But right now, everyone's just in their dumb like, because you're, you get to a point where you're like, I gotta just win. My side has to win. And it doesn't matter about like telling the truth. It doesn't matter about actually grappling with what the other person said. So I try my best to, to stay away from that. I think it's not good for you.

• 3:04:36Theo Von?

  Yeah, I think, you know, I think that's really how I am. I'm not like, I'm not the, I was never the biggest Republican or the biggest Democrat. I feel like I was always, I mean, I guess I voted Democrat, had voted Democrat most of my life, you know, but um, I want there to be more parties than there are, you know, I want, I just want things to be real. Or I just want to know what's really going on. I just don't like being like taken advantage of. That's the thing I don't like. And so, yeah, I think that's my biggest curiosity, you know, usually is, um, is trying to think, trying to get things to be fair. Um, and yeah, just to have a voice if I'm right or wrong, you know, I tried. You know, I tried to speak up for what I felt like was, seemed like, tried to be the best, you know, or whatever I thought was

• 3:05:19Theo Von?

  the best. But then sometimes you're also so deceived, you don't know. And that's one thing that's kind of fascinating about life. And that's one thing that I think does get me up these days. It's like, What a tricky fucking little game of thrones we're in, right? And everybody should feel that way and you get up and you see where are they tricking you? Who's tricking me? Who's fucking me? Who am I fucking? You know what I'm saying?

• 3:05:40Speaker 01

  And it's crazy and it's it's one of these weird things, right? Because it's like someone will, you know, it's like someone online who you don't even know. You could see a video and someone's saying something really compelling and you're like, oh, it's interesting. And then you're like, oh yeah, but people are liars. Yeah. So like this guy might be lying to me. Or the guy he's talking to about might be lying to me. And you know, there are things like this all it's like, you know, there's, you know, part of the thing when the people in on CNN or whatever, they'll be like, there's misinformation on the internet. Like they are right. There isn't misinformation on the internet. I thought, did you see the thing with the Hollywood, uh, sign on fire?

• 3:06:13Theo Von?

  Was burning?

• 3:06:14Speaker 01

  Going super viral. Like everyone thought, oh, the Hollywood side now is just a doctor, you know, AI image or whatever.

• 3:06:19Theo Von?

  Yeah, I heard it burned up.

• 3:06:20Speaker 01

  There are people who will lie to you, but then at the same time, the person on CNN who's like, oh, all these guys are lying to you. You're like, yeah, but you're lying to me too, man. So that's the weird thing navigating this world. There's just like all this information and so much of it's bullshit.

• 3:06:34Theo Von?

  That's a dirty fucking Halloween and your life is at stake. And that's what does put some, that's what fucking puts something on the line, you know?

• 3:06:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:06:43Theo Von?

  And that is something that's kind of inspiring, man. Yeah. And, and yeah, and if you don't speak up and you don't try to say, then like, yeah, it just like, that's what you gotta do, man. Use your fucking voice. You know what I'm saying? Use your voice. Um, is there anything that you would like to talk about, Dave? You have a tour coming up or anything like that?

• 3:07:02Speaker 01

  Oh, I'll be on, I'm, I'm on the road like all year. It's at ComicDaveSmith.com. Yeah, I got, I've got a bunch of ticket links and dates that are up there already. And there should be more on the website in the next week or so, but yeah.

• 3:07:14Theo Von?

  You're going to Bozeman?

• 3:07:15Speaker 01

  I'm, oh yeah, for my, the first time ever, I've never been to Montana before.

• 3:07:18Theo Von?

  So beautiful dude.

• 3:07:18Speaker 01

  Really excited to go out there in a few days. Uh, and then Louisville, Fort Wayne, Key West.

• 3:07:26Theo Von?

  Ooh, wow.

• 3:07:27Speaker 01

  That should be fun.

• 3:07:28Theo Von?

  Uh, maybe Nick Swartz will be down there at the bar. He spent a year in Key West during COVID at the fucking.

• 3:07:33Speaker 01

  Is that true?

• 3:07:34Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude, he went, this is alleged and I love Nick. And he's, he came here and told the story. I think he spent a million dollars at a hotel there.

• 3:07:43Speaker 01

  Just staying in a hotel every night, basically. Yeah. I guess if you do that for a year, you could rack up a lot of money.

• 3:07:48Theo Von?

  Down in the Florida. I went to Key West for, it's supposed to be 10 days. Yeah, and I was there a year and a half. I heard that you ran up a bill at a ho- at the hotel there that was like astronomical. It was insane. I stayed at a resort on the beach for a year and a half. And it cost, I heard a million dollars. I don't think it was a million, but it was pro- it was a lot of money. If you tipped, did you tip? I always tip. What do you think it was? When you say a lot of money, how much was it? I mean, it was definitely probably half a mil for sure. I feel like, I feel like it was more than that. It might have been. I, I kind of don't wanna know. Yep, see? And that's our Federal Reserve right there.

• 3:08:23Speaker 01

  Well, that is. It's true.

• 3:08:24Theo Von?

  And that's how our Federal Reserve operates.

• 3:08:26Speaker 01

  For fifty grand on my grandpa's dollar, but there, there you go. Yeah, you can't stay at a resort for a year and a half, man. That's gonna be a really big bill.

• 3:08:33Theo Von?

  But then also, man, it's so like, like, that's nice. He's like, you know what? Fuck it. The world might be ending. I might have like lung AIDS or whatever the kid, you know, whatever they were calling COVID. And I'm gonna go sit, I'm gonna have a margarita and listen to some Jimmy Buffett.

• 3:08:50Speaker 01

  There's, I definitely know people who did worse during the pandemic than that. So that's not bad.

• 3:08:55Theo Von?

  Yeah. Um, yeah, Montana's great. There's a great place to eat there. Can you look up The Farm in Bozeman, Montana? I think that's what it's called.

• 3:09:04Speaker 01

  Oh, by the, uh, while I'm, uh, plugging things, I should mention this one to, uh, make my friends happy. But we are, dude, man, you gotta come. But we're doing, uh, Skank Fest in, uh, New Orleans.

• 3:09:16Theo Von?

  No way. When? During the Super Bowl?

• 3:09:19Speaker 01

  Uh, where? Huh?

• 3:09:21Theo Von?

  When is it?

• 3:09:22Speaker 01

  I believe it's in November.

• 3:09:24Theo Von?

  Ooh.

• 3:09:25Speaker 01

  But it is, if you haven't been to Skank Fest, it's the best comedy festival in the world. And, uh, we've done it in Vegas for the last few years, but we're moving it to New Orleans this year. Very excited for that. I've never done comedy in New Orleans before.

• 3:09:37Theo Von?

  Yeah, New Orleans is a one of a kind type place to do comedy. Oh, there's the crew right there. Etelle, Dylan, Bobby Kelly. Who all is in there? Is that Bird in the back? Mark?

• 3:09:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that is. Bird, Mark.

• 3:09:50Theo Von?

  Louis J. Look at him.

• 3:09:52Speaker 01

  Louis J. with eyeliner on.

• 3:09:53Theo Von?

  I know. God, that's hot. There's Christine, right? No, no, what is it? Um, her Christine.

• 3:10:00Speaker 01

  Christine and Rebecca, yeah.

• 3:10:01Theo Von?

  Yeah, Christine and Rebecca.

• 3:10:03Speaker 01

  They're the, they're the, they like run the whole festival. They do a phenomenal job.

• 3:10:08Theo Von?

  Yeah, Christine is.

• 3:10:08Speaker 01

  Shout out to Christine and Rebecca. Rebecca runs the, owns the Creek in the Cave in Austin.

• 3:10:13Theo Von?

  Oh, really?

• 3:10:14Speaker 01

  Great comedy, uh.

• 3:10:14Theo Von?

  Oh, I seen her before. I was just there two days ago, yesterday.

• 3:10:18Speaker 01

  That's a fun room.

• 3:10:19Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah. It is great, man. Austin's, man, Austin dude, it's really. I'm like, man, you can do so much stand up there.

• 3:10:28Speaker 01

  It's a, it's a.

• 3:10:29Theo Von?

  The new Hollywood it feels. It's like the new comedy. It really feels, this is the time I really felt it.

• 3:10:34Speaker 01

  Every time I go there, dude, it's just like, I felt, and even before Rogan opened the mothership, obviously like more so now, but even before then, it was just kinda like, oh, there's like an energy here. It's like fun to do spots and hang out and there's like, it's, I feel like in New York, like even, which is where I'm from, where I started, even when I go back there, like, I don't, I like, feel like I don't know anyone anymore. But like in Austin, be like, oh, all my friends are hanging out. You know what I mean? Like it's, it reminds me of what it used to be like in New York when it always, every night would be, all my friends are hanging out. Now you get there, I'm like, I don't know who half of these people are.

• 3:11:06Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 3:11:07Speaker 01

  It's just, I guess that's part of just getting old.

• 3:11:09Theo Von?

  Part of that's getting older too. Yeah, it is. Um, did I, I knew, since you said you're Jewish, did I offend you with anything I said?

• 3:11:16Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:11:17Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 3:11:17Speaker 01

  No, of course not.

• 3:11:18Theo Von?

  Okay, man. Thanks.

• 3:11:19Speaker 01

  No, I was waiting for you to go further.

• 3:11:21Theo Von?

  Further about what?

• 3:11:22Speaker 01

  You disappointed me.

• 3:11:23Theo Von?

  I did?

• 3:11:24Speaker 01

  I'm just kidding.

• 3:11:25Theo Von?

  Oh.

• 3:11:25Speaker 01

  I was like, if you didn't really tear into the Jews. No, no, no, you didn't offend me at all.

• 3:11:29Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 3:11:30Speaker 01

  I think you made, I think you made perfect sense.

• 3:11:32Theo Von?

  Yeah, sometimes some, some stuff is hard to talk about. I think I'm trying to do a better job this year of like being brave about trying to talk about some things, even if it feels kinda scary.

• 3:11:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:11:41Theo Von?

  Sometimes I have a tough time like, um.

• 3:11:45Theo Von?

  Uh, like saying, hey, slow this down so I can make sure I know what I'm thinking too. Like it's been a, learning it, being in conversations has been, it's on, it's, it's harder than you think, I think sometimes.

• 3:11:58Speaker 01

  It's a skill set. It's a real skill set. And there's a difference also between just like, there's like, just like doing your own thing, like just ranting is a whole different skill set than like. Talking to somebody, you know what I mean? And I do think that like, I think there's nothing wrong with like, being like, hey, all right, hold on, let me think about that for a little bit. In fact, I think not nearly enough people do that.

• 3:12:18Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 3:12:19Speaker 01

  In conversations. Be like, huh, you just said something. Let me like, actually think about that for a second.

• 3:12:23Theo Von?

  Yeah, I need.

• 3:12:24Speaker 01

  Rather than just give you like, my first, the first thought that comes to my mind. Let me actually give you like, what my genuine thought is.

• 3:12:31Theo Von?

  Yeah, I'm gonna try to focus on that a little bit more, or unfocus on it a little bit. So just leave a little bit more room for things. Um, what was one other thing I was gonna say? Um, yeah, man, I just, I love the way you're able to think and share. And it feels very, you always feel to me like you are, are being genuine to what you believe. And that's something that I just, I think it's important, you know? Cause I think that people can know that that's true. Whether you're right or wrong about stuff, you feel like, well, this is how I feel, you know? And this is what I think. And, um, yeah, I just appreciate it. I feel like we're in a special time where people are trying to figure stuff out.

• 3:13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I, I appreciate that. And I do, that's always what I admire in other people. So that's kinda like what I always try to do. Like, I, I'm sure I'm wrong about a lot of stuff, but I'm not lying about anything. And I'm not, uh, like, I believe everything I'm saying.

• 3:13:24Theo Von?

  Yeah, yeah, I'm trying, yeah, I'm trying, yeah. And a lot of it's learning and it's just interesting, man. We're lucky to be able to be alive and think out loud and, um, and grateful to anybody that listened. And, uh, you got Skank Fest in New Orleans later this year. You have ComicDaveSmith.com.

• 3:13:39Speaker 01

  ComicDaveSmith.com, and then that's my, on Twitter, that's my handle too, ComicDaveSmith.

• 3:13:43Theo Von?

  Yup, and, uh, Dave, thank you so much, man. And, uh, best of luck this year with, uh, with comedy and everything, man. And I might see it the inauguration, bro.

• 3:13:51Speaker 01

  Hell yeah, dude.

• 3:13:52Theo Von?

  Um, all right, man, have a good one, brother.

• 3:13:54Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 3:14:21Speaker 06

  Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes. Para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro. Para los que están lejos, los que no vende lejos, y los que no vende cerca. Para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos, para los que piensan y los que hacen. Para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola, para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.