Mark Levin Loves Censorship

what's up everybody welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem i am dave smith of course he is roberto zafire bernstein i don't know i just did different i like that that made me feel good let's keep that every time it got french for a minute anyway me and rob are on our way uh to uh Tulsa this Friday night, and then we'll be in Oklahoma City Saturday and Sunday night. That's going to be a lot of fun. We got two shows in Tulsa on Friday, two shows in Oklahoma City on Saturday, one show together at Bricktown on Sunday, and then Rob has a late night secret show. There you go. Yeah, come out on the porch. I'm running my FBI presentation. And then next weekend, I got two gigs in Connecticut and one in Long Island City. just added Detroit, a whole bunch of stuff going on. You can find all the dates at robbernsteincomedy.com. Hell yeah. And then, of course, comicdapesmith.com for all the other dates that all the Bricktown shows together. And then we got, I think, quite a bit of dates coming up on the road. Real quick, let me just shout them out here. After Tulsa and Oklahoma City this weekend, our next stop is next week in Phoenix, Arizona, at the Desert Ridge Improv. Really looking forward to that. I've never been out there before, and I've heard great things. then we'll be up in Toronto Denver, Houston Huntsville, Alabama, Nashville Tennessee, Cincinnati, Ohio Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Appleton, Wisconsin Austin, Texas, the Comedy Mothership, get those tickets soon because those will sell out, Louisville, Kentucky Fort Worth, Texas, Dallas, Texas Salt Lake City, Utah San Diego, California, a lot of stops on the 2026 Is Huntsville where NASA's? I thought NASA was office in houston maybe that's where that's where we they have a problem or that's who you tell if you have a problem i know that much about uh no you know i know they've got they've got uh um i don't know i think they have offices in dc also maybe they do in huntsville i'm not sure um but anyway let's uh let's get into some stuff rob because we got a lot of stuff a lot of stuff going on. There's the war, which seems to be on the precipice of perhaps starting back up in a bad way. There are open and not as open calls for censorship in the wake of this shooting. You know, I think one of the things I think, I don't know, man, I just talk too much. So I can't remember. Did we say this on the show yesterday? But I got to say, one of the most bizarre aspects of that shooting over the weekend was that the immediate pivot to calls for the new ballroom to be built. And did you see how many like right wing influencers were posting that we need to build a ballroom? Some people are putting together like screenshots of them. It's like so many, a few people I like in there too. It's just like very bizarre. I don't know. It's just very, very bizarre. Like who, it's just weird to me that there's anybody who somebody is going to either for their news or, or for their opinion on the news, kind of seeing what this person thinks, what this person thinks. And you're going to someone who immediately after an event like that doesn't even like attempt to formulate an original thought and instead just goes, oh, these are the marching orders of the administration. Like it's very bizarre. I tweeted, by the way, Rob, I just tweeted, my only comment on this so far was I just tweeted, we shouldn't open a ball. We shouldn't build a new ballroom. It's just like, hey, I don't even really care. A bunch of autistic people are, and I say that tongue in cheek, are arguing with me and they're like, oh, it's not even taxpayer money. What's your problem with this? And you're like, I don't know. I don't actually care at all about the ballroom. I'm just like, I'm counter signaling whatever this is, that your role is to just fall in line with the administration. over something that's so stupid, Rob. Like, anyway, go ahead. Yeah, so I mean, I had commented on the last episode because I just laughed so hard when I saw Trump get up right after the shooting. This is why we need the ballroom. Yeah, yes, yes. Now, the ballroom had been temporarily shut down, and I was hoping that it would be a lasting testimony to Donald Trump, relabeled by the Democrats as the Donald Trump trash heap of America when he ends up with a half-finished ballroom. but there's a fun development in this story. Donald Trump did applaud himself on the fact that it was not being paid for by the taxpayers, but instead it's all the people that are bribing him and there'll be a nice sign there of all of his private partners, because with all the money our government spends, we can't afford to do projects at the white house. And so we need private developer money to do it. However, the ballroom is actually just a cover for a brand new bunker of which there's unknown government funds going into the brand new beautiful bunker that will be underneath um so the idea that this was just a taxpayer funded not taxpayer funded exercise is uh turning out to be not true and i believe this came out when he was sued over the ballroom and then they pivoted to well it's not really the ballroom we've got this military bunker going underneath um which is not being paid for by you know donald trump's silent tech partners right right yeah the taxpayer the things never come out in favor of the taxpayer in Washington, D.C., is a good rule of thumb. But it's also just like, I don't know, it's what even is the argument that we got to have a new ballroom because that'll be secure, and so we could do the press dinner event there? What's it called? The correspondent dinner? We could do that there? That's your solution? to like so the president just can never go outside anymore but he'll be safe in the what like isn't the white house in general is secure they got rooms like it just doesn't make any sense it's like it doesn't so i mean i'd imagine presidents will still want to do events outside their house sometimes so then you still got a pretty big problem it's just a very very bizarre like it would make more sense if you were just saying, hey, we shouldn't do this event anymore. But to somehow make it like it's a security issue, but like we're not going to deal with the fact that there's so many, you know, like people out there who want to kill the president. He'll just hide in here. I don't know. It's just very bizarre. Just have some competent security protocols. Yeah, that seems like a bit more. And I do. I got to say, you know, I listened to Joe Kent was on breaking points yesterday. And it's, I don't know. Look, I'm not jumping onto any conspiracies, you know, exactly yet. As I said yesterday on the show, I think there's a reason why so many people do jump on these things. I also, I don't know. I don't like to be the person who's just beating up on regular people who just distrust the government so much that they assume they're lying to them at every turn. And, you know, I understand why those people are there. And I think it's more our job to beat up on the powerful people who lie through their teeth about everything and are destroying the country. It just seems to me like that should be the priority. But there's, look, I've always said this about Butler. And it's, I guess, obviously, there's a lot of factors going on here. Now, Joe Kent was the director of counterterrorism, and he is straight up like he talked about in his resignation and in the subsequent interviews, he talked about Charlie Kirk's assassination, Butler and Donald Trump security being compromised, which is OK. That's kind of interesting that the director of counterterrorism, a person with the absolute top clearance, who was just in the government five minutes ago, thinks these things are really big issues and need to be investigating, investigated. I will say this, right? Obviously, all Donald Trump ever does is kiss the Secret Service's ass, even after they really fuck up. Now, part of that might be that, like, you know, the man was just shot or shot at. And, you know you're a little concerned about that and these are the people in charge of your security so you kind of want to say nice things to them however you know one of the things that donald trump always did always for his entire political career and before his political career he always either engaged in or gave a wink and a nod to conspiracy theories you know like he would he would talk about how weird it was that the buildings fell that way on 9-11. He would talk about how we've never seen Barack Obama's birth certificate. Maybe he's a secret Muslim who's not American and is therefore illegitimate. He was never, and certainly when there were real obvious conspiracies, you know, Russiagate, he would never stop mentioning either. 2020 election, even if he doesn't have any evidence, he'll always just, and you understand, obviously it's very self-serving for him to just constantly be casting doubt over whether Joe Biden ever really beat him or not. Now, I think it was stolen. He does this about everything. Never Butler. Never once about Butler. And I just find that. Now, you could write that up as well. He got spooked in a different way than he ever did before. But you know what I'm saying? It just seems like Donald Trump. It's like even when he's talking about whatever, he just never goes like, He goes, they tried to throw me in jail. They tried to steal the election. And like, but you're not also going to say they tried to kill me or they you know what I'm saying? Like he just will not go in that direction. And that's something kind of interesting. And it's just again, it's it's crazy to watch such a blatant, objective security failure. And then his response is how great the Secret Service did. is that like right after butler he was talking about how great they did it's like that was not great that was not i'm sorry that was not a good job no one plays along with the fake shooting better than my secret service they played their parts perfectly great actors they should get academy awards all right guys let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show which is sheath underwear of course we love them they've been longtime sponsors of our podcast years i I believe almost four years they've been with the show. I still have the first pair of underwear that they ever sent me, and they're still as comfortable as they were when they first sent them to me. The only underwear I ever own is Sheath. It's the best. They're good quality. They last. They make shirts and stuff, too. They're all really nice, really good quality. Check them out at sheath.com and use the promo code PROBLEM for 20% off. They are a longtime sponsor of this show. That's what keeps this show alive. and they're genuinely a great product. So if you want to support this show and get the best pair of boxer briefs you will ever put on your body, go to sheath.com. Promo code PROBLEM for 20% off. All right, let's get back into the show. Well, anyway, let's, we'll get, in a second, let's talk a bit about some of the calls for censorship. Blatant, direct calls for censorship now that are coming out of this, which is quite fascinating and revealing. But I guess we should talk for a little bit up front here about the war. Because, you know, we're still in a war, guys. Even though this shooting may have given us a few days of other things to focus on. I don't know, like, from what you've been reading about this, Rob, but, you know, as I've mentioned several times on the show here, drop site, Jeremy Scahill, his coverage has just been phenomenal and really, really helpful to trying your best to understand what's going on here. But essentially, Rob, the negotiations have completely stalled and fallen apart. This is, now look, I'm not saying that the Iranian regime always tells the truth or nothing like that. In fact, they do not. They lie and they have throughout the years many times lied and threatened things and had a lot of bluster when they didn't really mean it. It does seem to me, I could say pretty confidently at this point, that if you've just been reading Jeremy Scahill and everything that the Iranian government is saying, which I was not sure about at the beginning. I mean, I've been reading him the whole time, but when Jeremy Scahill is reporting that the Iranian foreign minister says this, and it says, hey, we're standing firm, we're not negotiating on this, but then Donald Trump says we're talking to them and we've got a big deal that's coming out in a few days. I don't know. It is possible that that's what the guy is saying to Jeremy Scahill, but actually that's just posture and that, you know, like you don't know for sure, but from reading DropSight this whole time, it just seems pretty undeniable that the Iranians really are sticking to their guns here. They're telling the truth for the most part, at least to everything that's led up to now. Donald Trump is completely full of shit and is lying. And what the Iranians, as we've been talking about on the show here, the Iranians have made clear like, no, we're not accepting the status quo. We're not turning over our enriched uranium to you. We're maybe open to like broader nuclear talks a la the JCPOA type things that we've always been open to talking about, but that like, we are not, we don't accept this and we're not agreeing to a ceasefire as long as you're blockading the Strait of Hormuz. They've been clear on this. And then they were like, we're not going to the negotiations. Donald Trump was bluffing, acting like the negotiations were still going to happen. Clearly, at this point, that's been conceded. He's admitted that's not happening. But I will say this, man, and this is from from reading the drop site stuff. There seems to be a very OK. So from the American side, it seems like the the thing is like, OK, look, we could not get this deal. And the major problem here is we'll listen to Marco Rubio explain in a minute is exactly what me and you called pretty. pretty early i think the first week of this war we started talking about this um and we'll get into that in a second but so now donald trump the debate is okay if we resume the war what do we do you know do we really go bridge and power plant or do we do something a lot lighter than that that um you know but then say it was total destruction or whatever there there has been now i'm not saying this means that it's 100 true but what has the iranians like they have throughout this entire time, they have not stopped saying the same thing. And what they are saying very clearly now in several different warnings is that if we resume this war and it goes back to hard strikes, that they have made the calculation that they feel like there has to be a painful response and that their response, they've said this over and over again, will be bigger than anything they've done yet in the war. Now, maybe that's just bluster. It would make sense to make that bluff even if you weren't going to do it you know what i mean at this place right now but we've seen them call several of donald trump's bluffs and if donald trump does attack around again this will be an attempt to call one of theirs and the thing is rob is they really might not be bluffing this really this really might be the calculation the latest from trump is essentially uh he canceled negotiations that weren't actually planned are going to happen i ran then hit him up and said all right listen we respect the fact that you canceled the non-negotiations so we'd like to make you a better offer uh donald trump declined their better offer and won't tell us what the better offer is or what what the improvement was or what the offer would need to be uh none of those points were clarified but in his refusal of the better offer just two days later iran sent him a note basically being hey this is not sustainable for and we losing So now we ready to send you an even better deal So that the official narrative from Donald Trump was that refusing negotiations got us a better deal that we declined. And now Iran called us up to let us know that they're getting ready to fold and that they acknowledge American might. So really, this is basically wrapped up. Follow Donald Trump for his latest stock picks so you can be in the know of when to reverse course and he tells you it's going back to full out war. Dude, it's so funny that Donald Trump, he can't even lie effectively because whenever he he claims what they're saying, you're always like, that just sounds like something Donald Trump would say. He's like, they called me. They said, we're totally defeated. We're utterly humiliated. You're terrific and tremendous. And we are weak and small. That's what they like. Why would they even say that? And also, again, this is look, a lot of this is like, OK, Trump's claiming they said this. OK, then we've got Jeremy Scahill doing reporting, sitting down with people, interviewing them and going, well, they're saying that. So, OK, who knows? But it's just it makes absolutely no sense that they'd be saying what Donald Trump claims they're saying. It flies in the face of their actions. But if Jeremy Scahill's reporting is correct, then it's completely consistent. Like, it's just so obvious that he's lying. And this is really what's happening here. Because if they were, like, look, all we know, it was reported, the Iranians bailed on the negotiations first. They said they're not going. Then Donald Trump insisted they were still happening. Then he canceled the thing. If they were desperate for a deal, they'd be going to the negotiations. If they were so weak and they can't afford this anymore, they'd be going. But so, I mean, look, my my concern here is and I hope like, man, I you know, I don't know that I really, really like to hope that there there's still some level of restraint, both from the Pentagon, the Trump's war cabinet and from the Iranians that like I don't think Donald Trump's really going to take out like every bridge and power plant in Iran or something like that. Just don't think he would do that. I was a bit more concerned about that a few weeks ago. Maybe I should still be concerned about that, but I don't think he would do that. And I like to think that like the Iranians would respond by like taking out maybe one desalination plant just to let them know that they could take out all of it or something like that, you know. But it's quite possible that this goes back to some version of that, hopefully not so catastrophic, but very dangerous game. And it's also just unbelievably annoying the half information that keeps coming out. That's a puzzle piece to try and figure out. So the other latest was basically Iran offered to listen. We won't block the straits if you don't block the straits. And then we can talk about the nuclear. We can postpone conversations about the nuclear agreement, which sounds like a de-escalation and a step in the right direction. Right. But no. and no point in time is that clarified whether or not that meant that they were still charging a toll, which in other words means not really reopening the straits, or if that meant that they were willing to let more people pass if they were paying them and essentially just America, you stop locking the straits. That wasn't, it's, it's unbelievable to have like these half reported stories with the critical elements just unclarified. Yeah, no, that's, that's right. You know, the other thing here that is, I think, and, you know, I think that like there are our whole economic system is such a house of cards. It's all just fake and built off essentially just like accounting tricks and money printing and trading in derivatives where there's not even a real there's no actual industry. It's all just a made up artificial, like, you know, like everyone gambling, essentially, on what's going to happen in the future is a bigger industry than any actual industry. So it's all. But so there's so there's so many ways that you can manipulate the markets. And we've seen Donald Trump, you know, doing this for weeks now. but we are we're gonna find out within the next few months and it might take a few months how much damage the straight being closed this long actually did like what and it does take a while for that to like if you know like even if you could think for example okay so if you remember in 2020 i mean the insane money printing of that year it started immediately in march like as soon as the the national emergency was declared the federal reserve started pouring like uh just flooding the market with liquidity um they they in march alone i mean they were pouring in just like insane amounts of money overall on that year it was trillions and trillions of dollars like i forget exactly how i used to have all these details in my head but i think it was like six trillion between the like 2020 and then the beginning of 2021 but they're pumping trillions of dollars into the economy. We didn't start feeling the price inflation for that for like another year. Like it was like it took it was like in late 21 when it was really like, oh, shit, the price of everything is exploding. It took a while for that to make. And, you know, as if you guys remember, there were supply chain issues that were like two years after COVID, you know, like things had been caught up. There's still to this day, in fact, me, you and Chris were talking about this a little bit when we were out in Stanford, that there's still to this day, there's all types of like storefronts and restaurants who are still now it's hitting them all the months of rent that were, if you remember, they had a rule where you were allowed to like defer the rent to the end of your lease. So you didn't get free rent, but you got to put it off. Well, now that bills come and do. And I don't know for, you know, Chris used to own a restaurant. So he was like a little more in the know in this. But like you think about like the profit margin for a restaurant. And then you go like, hey, can you make your rent if you made zero revenue for three months? Like, no, probably not. And so anyway, so there's the point is just that even where we are right now, we have we really don't exactly know, like, how devastating is this going to be to the global economy four months from now? Like, this is if the problem got solved today. We might, you know, the Strait of Hormuz, they I don't know. I have no expertise in this field whatsoever. But they're saying 20% of the world's oil goes through this straight. There's been, there hasn't been no activity going through the straight, but it's been tremendously reduced for like eight and a half weeks now. What is that? You know, like how long can we go of that without there being like, you know, a real calamity? That's a big question mark. And I will say that Asian countries and countries and the Gulf states are getting really worried about this. That's for sure. The Europeans are getting very worried about this. So that's a whole nother dynamic. And we'll see what, you know, the pressure of that is. Now, I don't know if you've seen this, Rob. This is the what the Iranian government is saying. I'm getting this from the drop site reporting is that they they believe the three M's are on their side. this is what they're saying publicly and it does seem to be correct but i guess the three m's are um what is it it's munitions uh the midterms and uh oh shoot i'm blanking on what the third one was but they are basically saying that like yo you the global economy the uh we're you're gonna run out of munitions before we do and the fact that trump's got these midterm elections going on are like we're in the driver's seat here. That's what they seem to be saying. And then of course now it does seem that, and I kind of alluded to this before, but let's get into the Marco Rubio clip here. This is what me and you were talking from like the first or second week of this war was like this dynamic with the Strait of Hormuz. Sorry, markets, midterms and munitions. So I meant the global economy, munitions and midterms. Thank you, Natalie. I appreciate that. I forgot one of my M's. I was thinking about this. It's just a fleeting thought in my head that it's really interesting if like you're Putin Z or the Iranian leadership and that really, what do you care about staying in power? I mean, that's kind of your your core business is me being in power. And so if you're Iran, you can kind of stomach a worse economy or more hiccups because you don't really care about the people that live there. It's about, hey, we got to keep this regime going. and it's almost interesting if you're the iranians to get on a call with pudin and pudin's like guys you just got to make it two years two years and this guy's out of office like you guys are you guys are trying to stick around for 50 100 years or whatever it is but you know you just got to weather the storm for two years can you weather a two-year storm if there's a complete close of the strait you know what i mean they're playing by different timetables because new leadership comes in and you know you might get some democrat that just decides hey we're buying the oil from my rand. We're changing the whole thing here. You're absolutely right. And look here, let's go to the clip by Marco Rubio here, because obviously this is, you know, perhaps the most, aside from Trump, the most influential person on U.S. foreign policy right now, the National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. And this is, it's hard to even like remember that there was a time, you know, way back three weeks ago where Donald Trump was trying to say that like, oh, we don't care about the strait. The rest of the world needs the strait. We don't need the strait. It'll naturally open. That's going to be no problem. Here, let's listen to Marco Rubio, his latest comments on the Strait of Hormuz. What they mean by opening the straits is, yes, the straits are opened as long as you coordinate with Iran, get our permission, or we'll blow you up and you pay us. That's not opening the straits. Those are international waterways. They cannot normalize, nor can we tolerate them trying to normalize a system in which the Iranians decide who gets to use an international waterway and how much you have to pay them to use it. Look, look, I'm just saying that's why you got to watch our show, because it is kind of crazy that literally we were weeks ahead of their admission on this, because me and you both were just looking at the facts on the ground. You go, wait a minute. Hold on. But if Donald Trump is literally saying he leaves and this is what Marco Rubio is recognizing what we were talking about weeks ago, but then you've transformed them into a global power. Now, all of a sudden, instead of being this country that was relegated and isolated and crippled under U.S. sanctions with their economy falling apart. You know, by the way, Rob, they tried the whole goddamn fucking Mossad op and the global media that seems to just be in their pocket that, you know, those protests starting in December that everyone made a big deal about about the protests in Iran, they were largely driven by economic anxieties. It's like price inflation and the economy being terrible because they were in this, you know, awful situation. And you're going to, you're going to, in a war, transform them from a country that had their own people out in the street upset with the, because like they tried to make it out like every single person in the street was going, we want the Shah back in power. We hate Islamist, theocratic governments. When more, it was like the price of eggs is high, you know what I mean? So like, or at least part of it was that. And so, you know, the idea of transforming them with a war into, oh, now you're an economic power that controls the strait. That's a real fucking problem that they can. But this is where you really get like, you know, trapped in the escalation trap in the fog of war or whatever, where, OK, so you can't do that anymore. But what can you do? You know, it's it's hilarious to hear Marco Rubio essentially saying that this is illegal. These are international waterways. This is not Iranian territory. It's illegal for you to say which ships can come and which can't, and they can only come if they get your permission. And that's why we're blockading the whole thing. like okay well it's certainly not american territory so it's just as illegal when we do it as it is when they do but the difference is we don't live there and as i mentioned last week on the show the pentagon told congress that it would take six months for them to open the strait militarily and that that would only happen after the war so in other words we don't have the ability to force them to open it. All we can do is force it closed. But closing something doesn't solve the problem when your desire was to open it. This is really complicated math here. You got to be like 150 IQ stuff to really understand this. So essentially, all we can do is keep playing this game of chicken where even less is getting through the Strait of Hormuz because of our naval blockade and hold the world economy hostage. What is, like, again, as I said, the only alternative to this is that the Iranians have to just buckle. They have to capitulate, and there's no indication that that's going to happen. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Stopbox. Love Stopbox. It's a great product. Let's be real. Owning a handgun for self-defense comes with serious responsibility. You need it secure but also accessible when it matters most. Too often, that means choosing between locking it away or leaving it out, vulnerable to kids, guests, or intruders. That's the problem Stopbox USA set out to solve, and they nailed it with the Stopbox Pro. It's a 100% mechanical, keyless, battery-free lockbox that gives you instant controlled access to your firearm. 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So just go to stopboxusa.com. Use the promo code problem for 10% off. That's stopboxusa.com. Promo code problem for 10% off. All right, let's get back into the show. It's like a formal announcement of a whoopsies here. Hey guys, we can't just, we can't just move on because we made Iran a world power. Interesting thing to note, and I might not have the, all the specifics perfect on this, but it's not exactly an international waterway based off like a maritime law. It's kind of like duly owned by Oman and Iran because of how close it is to their shoreline. Now there was an international treaty that allows for some things like a critical passageway. Then I guess the typical law of how close you are to someone's shoreline doesn't apply and they have to let you pass, but here's the kicker. Iran's an international pariah. They never signed that think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Oh, this is what happens when you don't let a country be in the global community of countries. It's like, okay, but then, you know, you run, you can run into problems like this. I want to make it clear. I'm not saying Iran should run the straights or they should have ownership over the straights, but I'm just saying it's not so clear cut and dry to go, Hey, they have absolutely no claim to this thing or right to it. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's that's a fair point. So anyway, I mean, we're still essentially, I guess, in the same situation, but something's going to have to happen here very soon. And now I don't know. I mean, we should all pray that what ends up happening is some type of deescalation here. but man, I really do think, and again, I've been saying this through the whole thing. I mean, look, I said that I thought Donald Trump had destroyed his coalition last June And I said no question I mean the first day of this war I was like well that it The coalition has destroyed his presidency But so you know I hear Joe Kent the other day and he's got like the perfect message for someone who like maybe Donald Trump would hear, you know, and his message is, sir, you, you can still do this. You can, you know, he's like, Donald Trump is a strong leader. I know a strong leader when I see one, and it's going to take a really strong leader to have the strength to end this thing and explain to the American people that we just had to walk away from it. But, you know, all this. And he said that Donald Trump is uniquely able to survive this and save his presidency. And I'm watching it and I'm like, you know, that's a really good message for Trump to hear. But as I said to Tucker Carlson, I'm just no good at being a political operative. I'm not good at calculating like what is the right thing to say here in order to get this result. Like I just tell the truth. That's just what I'm comfortable doing. And I think some, some people have to play that role. And it's just like, that's not true. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, I understand that that's a better thing for the president to hear, but I'm kind of confident he's not watching this podcast right now. I mean, I did say this on Tucker Carlson. I was a little nervous when I said it because I was like, there's a chance he could be watching this. But the truth is, no, he can't save his presidency. He can't leave now and save his presidency. I mean, listen, don't get me wrong. I think he should. I think he can only make it worse by staying. But if Donald Trump were to just accept that and leave now, he is the laughingstock for all of history. His presidency is destroyed. If he did all of this for nothing and the best result we can come up with is, well, he stopped at some point. Oh, man, is that a disaster? I just I still don't see. It's not like he recovers. He doesn't go back to having all those people who supported him in 24 supporting him again. There's just no way. So unfortunately, we're in this awful situation here where like Joe Kent is saying the best possible thing that could be said, but he is wrong. It's not true. Donald Trump has destroyed his presidency already. And there's almost like, I don't know, I'm struggling to come up with one of my bad analogies, but there's something of like, I don't know, remember that movie Speed where you couldn't slow the bus down once it had started or something like that? It's like, if you stop it, you die. It's like, you almost got to keep going just to maybe, at least if he keeps going, he thinks maybe we can pull a win out somewhere. Maybe if we hit him hard enough, we can bring him to the negotiating table or something like that. But of course, it's like behind all of those doors is just a real risk of catastrophe. So I don't know. If I had to guess, both sides want to play the economic warfare game for a little while. And if Donald Trump flirts with the strike, then you're going back up the escalation ladder. And I think then Donald Trump realizes it's time to walk away or he makes the irrational and horrific decision to just bomb the shit out of the country and give Israel the regime change it was looking for. And then who knows what that even looks like, you know, if that makes anyone safer 10 years down the line, if, uh, Iran's regime is somewhat taken out just cause we bombed the shit out of the country. Um, and if that leads to another ISIS or just a more hardline regime that, you know, is not a threat for the next five or 10 years, but we got to deal with in 20. Well, it's like, it's what you say though, right? Because you go, okay. So even if it's just, you know, it's a country of 92 million people, you know, even if you take, even if you take the, the, the expats and the, the, the Israel lobby hawks at their word and say, Hey, only 10 to 20% of the people support the regime. You're like, okay, well, that's nine to 8 million, 18 million people. You know, there's a few hundred thousand in the IRGC, a few million in the, in the military there. Yeah. That's got all the makings for a nice Shiite ISIS, you know, like you take, you take mullahs, you take theocrats, destroy their state. What are they now? Now they're a stateless militia, otherwise known as a terrorist organization. You know, that's what's so funny about the whole, you know, the whole debate about who the real terrorists are that I've found myself in the front of. It's like, that's the only, the only difference is, is statehood. If, if any, you know what I'm saying? Like if anyone did that without being a government, you would just go, oh, that's a terrorist organization. So yeah, we will see. We'll see where all that goes. All right. Let's check in with our buddy, Mark Levin, friend of the show, friend of the show, personal mentor of mine, and just always goes out of his way to give me props, which I appreciate. So Mark Levin, what can we say about this guy, Rob? He is out here. We're going to play these clips, a few clips, including where he personally mentions me, obviously to sing my praises. But he is out here, which I will say this, this is often true of Mark Levin. There is almost an element about him that you appreciate because at least he says it out loud. You know what I mean, Rob? You know, like when there's been dozens of times where we've played some clip or talked to something and you've made the point that you're like, hey, in essence, what they're calling for here is censorship. And they're using these weasel words to act like they're not calling for censorship. But that's clearly what they're calling for here. Dozens of times you've made that point before on the show. At least you got to give it to Levin. He just comes out and calls for censorship. Now, he doesn't quite tell the entire truth, which is that like I'm incapable of winning this argument if people can hear from them, too. but he is at least open enough to go that's what he stands for um let's let's play the the the clip uh first of him calling for censorship and then we'll get into his comments on yours truly first time things like this have happened but it really is problematic because so much of it is protected and you heard people say don't you believe in the first amendment they don't even know what the first amendment believe uh do you want to de-platform people you know the libs do that i don't have any problem with deep platforming nazis or jihadis i don't have any problem with deep platforming them what does that mean deep platforming them a government pause it already means right here isn't it already saying i mean he he starts by going oh isn't that what the libs do and then it's like no i'm fine with the platforming nazis and now he's going to get into his uh his no it's not the government it's a private company doing it you're like dude this is Rob, we lived through this. Identical to the argument that the woke progressives made. Identical. Literally nothing different. They go, it's a private company. They can do whatever they want, even though it was clearly, we now have proof, but it was clearly being manipulated by the government. But they said, it's a private company and you're all just a bunch of Nazis. Anyway, it's literally exactly what they did. Not even a different version. It's so funny when they he has the nerve to call us the woke reich or whatever you're not even you're not even doing a version of the woke censorship you're doing the exact same thing zero difference whatsoever yeah the the big problem is one uh if you start floating out just jihadi terrorist domestic terrorist um i i don't know whatever term you want to throw out it's up to them how they want to define it. So if they want to declare us as Nazi propaganda, then all of a sudden you've got a right to censor it. And it's not that the government's going to censor it. It's that these are private companies and private companies don't want Nazis or violent extremists on their network as defined by us. But then it's the COVID problem once again, where they're not really private companies. If the government is threatening them and going, Hey, can you pull the records on this? Hey, we want to see this full transcript. Hey, can you explain to us why this, uh, why this wasn't violent extremism. Can you explain to me why this wasn't, uh, giving people false, uh, false health information? I mean, this was the COVID thing was some voices were just too dangerous to be heard because we've got this national, uh, pandemic. And if we listen to them, people are going to die. And then the government going, Hey, we're not telling you what to do, but, uh, you mind explaining to us why you aren't pulling this down. And so you got the twofold factor. One, you can't pretend that these are just private companies. They are going to be, um, either pushed by the government or the backdoors through advertisers who are in line with the government of going, hey, we can't be affiliated with this kind of content. So it's not just a neutral decision of a private company, which by the way, all these companies are in the market for views. And when all of this information is actually more popular, do you think that the private companies want the most popular programming not to be on essentially their networks anymore? Of course not. There will be censorship from the government and coercion from the government to make sure that that happens. And then it's just the who gets to define these terms. I mean, if if what I'm saying is me being a Nazi and the words of Mark Levin, if that becomes the government standpoint, then great. You just don't have free speech. Yep. There also is something there's something even like I completely agree with everything you said. of course, this is an attack on free speech. But even if, like you were saying, like, let's just say in a scenario, the government didn't get involved at all, and you were just calling for private companies to stop hosting, I guess, literally, at this point, who he'd be advocating for all of the most popular people in the field of talking about the news. Literally, he'd want Tucker and Candace and Fuentes and Megyn Kelly and me. And I mean, like, a huge chunk of the top 15, top 20 biggest people in this thing. He'd want them out. So let's just, like, even if there was no government intervention at all involved in this, theoretically, like, what a bitch of a man you are. Like, just, what a, like, I don't know, it would just never even occur. I'm telling. Yeah, like, it would just never even occur to me that, like, oh, well, what I want is Mark Levin to be shut down. Dude, I'd have Mark Levin on, And I mean this, how I feel about platforming. I'd have Mark Levin on this show every day for the next three months if he wanted to come on this show. We could just make this the me versus Mark Levin show. I'll offer him half my show. I would just love to platform these guys more. I'd love Randy Fine, all of you guys. The idea that you're trying to silence other people and you still see yourself and other people who are surging in popularity, that that's your big response is you want to silence them, not eviscerate their argument. I've never once wanted to silence a single one of the Warhawks. I want them to all speak more. Just let me just give me the fair shot of also getting to eviscerate every single one of their arguments. That's all I ask. And, you know, again, you know, me and you, it is personal. It's hard sometimes to remove the kind of personal nature of all of this because we do this. This is our lives. But like me and you built this show from nothing, dude, from nothing. I mean, I don't know how many people were listening to each episode when you came on board this show, but like maybe 10,000 at most were listening when you first came on board, probably less than that. We've built this into a show now that gets hundreds of thousands of views and is in the top charts and stuff like that. And it's like we Mark Levin had multi-billion dollar companies behind him, pushing him, putting up billboards of him on radio stations, on television networks, on the biggest network in cable news, like all of this stuff. He has such a huge advantage in this race. And we we're all like the fact that you got a call for other people's voices to be removed is just so pathetic. It's just genuinely like I don't understand as a man how you wouldn't be embarrassed to say this publicly. Let's keep playing. X or Twitter or Facebook or Amazon with Twitch and so on says, you know what? You're a lowlife. We're not paying, you know, get off our platform. What's wrong with that? It's called private enterprise. I got no problem with that. I mean, what if they have this horrific pornography on it? Is that okay? No, it's not okay. What if they have a bunch of drug addicts, you know, shooting up all the time? Is that okay? No, that's not okay. Because our kids have access to it. People who are impressionable have access to it. What if they have people screaming at the top of the lungs saying, assassinate this guy and assassinate that guy? Well, they shouldn't do that. Why? What's the standard? You need to have a standard. What should the law be? I just love this. First of all, I just love Mark Levin. He goes, Our kids are watching this. Mark, your kids are 58. How old are you? Our kids, our kids. Of course, though, it's much easier, right, if you do make the examples like what are the examples? What if they were just doing open drug use or what if it was pornography or what if it was direct criminal calls for violence? Yeah. Or it doesn't sound as good to say. Or what if they didn't think we should fight this war? What if they wanted transparency on the Epstein files? What if they believed that Israel shouldn't get to have a lobby in the United States of America? Those ones just don't hit quite the same, right? So in other words, you're using these kind of extreme examples and you're using things that are like, I don't know. Yes, like how much children, like under 18 children have access to social media or the Internet generally. There's a legitimate debate that you could have around that. Something about like obscene drug usage. I wasn't exactly sure what he meant by that. Like people are just posting, hey, dude, shooting up heroin. I don't know. I don't get it. But but yeah, but none of that is what we're talking about. What we're talking about like he's he by the way, he calls me out. They will play later. He calls me out by name. So about Tucker Carlson. So about me talking about Nick Fuentes, guys like this. What we do is sit in front of a camera and make arguments. agree with them or not, but that's what you're actually talking about here. So don't, this is such weasel like trick behavior. Like there's no, your issue isn't with any of those things. Your issue is with people making arguments opposed to mine that are landing better with the audience. That's what you're, you wish to shut down. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Ultra, Ultra Pouches. Everybody is raving about them. Ultra Pouches are completely nicotine-free, caffeine-free. They're packed with nootropics that are designed for mental clarity and enhanced focus. So you get the same kick as a nicotine pouch without the side effects like the buzz, the addiction, the crash, the jitters. Most pouches elevate cortisol, raise blood pressure, and keep your body in a constant stress state. Ultra Pouches let you keep your pouches, but with a cleaner kick. So you still get the pouch experience that you like, but without the nicotine. 90% of Ultra Pouch users saw significant improvements in their overall focus level, calm, steady, flow state focused, smooth energy, mood balance, all with zero nicotine and natural nootropics. New customers can use the promo code PROBLEM and get 15% off at take ultra.com that's take ultra.com promo code problem for 15% off one more time take ultra.com promo code problem for 15% off all right let's get back on the show uh I'd like to think that my impression of uh Mark Levin single-handedly defeated him that he's no longer doing Mark Levin he's turned it off he's I swear to god it's true ever since you started mocking it he He stopped doing it. Yeah. He stopped doing Mark Levin. Now he just a calm old guy Yeah But he does the thing where he like you can still tell he wants to scream You know what I mean Like you can tell that he forcing himself to be calm All right here let keep playing It's the Constitution, sir. I just think we've taken this too far because we're not even talking about political speech, which is the most protected of all speech. We do limit speech. We limit speech pornography. We limit speech cigarettes on the air. We limit speech booze, limit speech drugs, and I could go on and on and on. There's different types of speech. There's commercial speech, right? There's religious speech. There's political speech. They're babbling buffoons. We see that all over the internet. Most of that is protected too, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the kind of speech that really gets in the head of people who want to do grave damage to other people. Incitement. And I'm not talking about it in an ambiguous way. When you get a guy that talks about killing a senator, oh, I really didn't mean it. Or when you get a guy that says, yeah, I don't know if there's really rape, can you prove it, and so forth on October 7th. Well, he's allowed to say that. But in the pattern of what this person is saying, what is it that they're trying to do? Have a real discussion? No. I don't know he'll say that, but he's not. Okay, pause it. The overthrow of the country. I mean, what? Even in his example, he said the guy will say, was there really rape on October 7th? I mean, can you prove that? What is supposed to be appalling about that comment? And this thing where he goes, it's not political speech. It's not, you know, it's, on what world is what me and you do not political speech? Like, how could you even possibly try to make that argument? And then he's saying it's not this. Then he goes, it's incitement. Well, here's the thing. Mark Levin will be thrilled, relieved to hear this, Rob. Incitement to violence is already illegal. that is not protected speech that is a a crime and you can go to jail for a long time for that you can't incite people to violence but then again that's not really what what now mark levin goes no see they don't even really mean it when they say something that sounds very reasonable like oh was there sexual violence on october 7th what evidence do you have for that you think that's what they really mean no they want to get in your head and make you do things like what type of standard is this? This is just pure, this is just the language of a tyrant. How dare he ever call himself a constitutionalist? This is just, oh, you've decided that that speech is really bad, and it just so happens to be that that speech is against the war that you're supporting, which is very unpopular. Okay, you just happen to want to shut down the people critical of this very unpopular war that you've been pushing for for your entire career. That's convenient. And it's a it's a very dangerous line that the speech compels other people to violence, which firstly, I think there's rulings that even pretty extreme stances, it's still considered protected free speech. But the idea that speaking out against Donald Trump can then be even calling Donald Trump Hitler is now an incitement to violence because someone else might hear that and go take action. I mean, once you've crossed that threshold, you can really redefine anything as violent rhetoric and you essentially just have a platform for full censorship to fit whoever's narrative of the current regime is. And just wait till Democrats are back around and Mark Levin would be the first one yelling about how they're creating violence by not allowing him to speak up for war. Yeah, really. Well, it's kind of funny. It's like Norm MacDonald's old great joke about Marlon Brando, where he said that Jews control Hollywood. And then he met with a group of rabbis and apologized to them. And they said, all right, you can work again, which is a great joke. But it's almost like the same type of thing. He's like, hey, these guys called Donald Trump a Nazi. You know how you should respond? Strip their speech rights. All right. That doesn't really seem to take away the accusation or disprove it. Let's just play the last couple seconds of this and then we'll go to his other clip. Let me ask you this. Do you think the founders would have put up with this? First time. I'm sorry. I didn't realize that's all that was left on the clip, but what a hilarious, what would the founders have done? Hmm. Where, Rob, where did the founders land on free speech? If only they had written an amendment to make it clear where they stood. If only there was some type of, of, of record that they had left. Why did these brilliant minds, they did not foresee that they should probably leave us some type of document with an indication on where they fell on the free speech issue. Oh, yeah, they were pretty clear. They were pretty clear. Unbelievable. All right, here. So let's let's go to the other police. Now he clarifies the violent rhetoric that he would look to see get censored from the Internet. That's right. And Mark Levin himself posted this on Twitter. So let's pull up that tweet. By the way, Pull up the tweet first before we even play the video because, you know, I didn't I literally didn't notice until literally as we were preparing for the show, like right before we started, Natalie said, oh, is that the video that he tweeted? And I was like, oh, I didn't even notice that he tweeted it. But so yet he so he posted I'm calling out Tucker Carlson, Dave Smith, Nick Fuentes and the other podcast reprobates. um here's the thing mark like yeah you're calling us out but you're terrified to see any of us like i know that tucker texted you and asked for a debate you even acknowledged this and you said no and tucker said hey maybe it'd be really good for the country if me and you could actually like have a conversation here let's like which tucker very i know tucker he very genuinely believes that Like it is dangerous that like things are getting this elevated and we should be trying to like calm this down. So like maybe no, Mark doesn't want to do that. I've I've challenged him several times. No, he won't ever do that. I'm sure if one says would be down to face Mark Levin too. So you want to post like I'm calling you out like no, you're really not. You're just calling for our censorship because you know you can't win the argument. That's as that's as simple as it is. Here, let's we could just play the clip. who does more to call out the woke reich r-e-i-c-h than than i nobody others are now and that's a very good thing the president has done a tremendous job he's basically excommunicated them but the things that a tucker carlson says or abannon says this guy fuentes is a low life the things that he says and the way he says it and so forth and then you have theo vaughn comedians like this guy, Dave Smith, even the things that Rogan's saying, these other people say, not as much, but still, all contributes to the environment. You can be aggressive. You can use foul language. I'd rather not. You can explain the facts. If somebody believes in an ideology that would overthrow our country, overthrow our constitutional system, overthrow our economic system, well, of course we're going to discuss that. I've written books about that. Or the Islamists and the jihadis, their mentality, their doctrine, where it comes from, what they intend to do and so forth and so on. Of course, it's important to talk about that. But when you're talking about Donald Trump, he's not talking about overthrowing our government, overthrowing our economic system. He's no dictator. Now, if you like this little clip that you just saw. Hold on, wait, wait, play the rest. Play the rest. Hold on. I have to see him do a little YouTube video. I'm sorry. Just watching 80 year olds do this is very entertaining to me. please head over to YouTube and subscribe or rumble and follow and tell everybody, you know, Oh, the nerve he's promoting rumble. Oh my God, dude. You know what? I can't even hold this against him. Cause he's just too old to even understand any of this. You know why rumble exists? You fucking fraud Mark Levin. Do you know why rumble is a platform? Because in the midst of all of this, they took a stand that they won't kick people off while people were being censored off every other platform. That's literally the entire pitch of rumble is going against the entire last segment that he just delivered. But Rob, I mean, dude, what can you, I don't, he didn't get to a point in there. So I don't exactly know what to like debunk about this, but his whole thing where it's like, he's, he's going essentially at one point he's going, look, you can make your criticisms but like yo you can't take it this far or something well like uh pull up the tweet again because he spells it out in the tweet and he says i want to make a clear distinction between and uh okay yeah sure let's read this okay a clear line between strong political commentary and what i see is reckless rhetoric well why do you get to make that distinction and are you looking to dude you open the clip by calling us the woke reich you up you know what the reich is You open the clip calling us Nazis. And dude, like also, what the fuck are you talking about, man? Like, look, don't get me wrong. I would not call Nick Fuentes a Nazi. I don't think that's accurate. But like, OK, Nick has certainly not guarded against being called that. Right. So like he is on record intentionally making kind of provocative statements like Hitler was really cool. Now, if you push him on that, he'll be the first one to acknowledge. It's like, no, I'm not saying Hitler was moral. Obviously, he committed horrific atrocities. But like, you know, like he's a great man of history. And he's kind of got an argument. Like he goes, look, like what I'm doing is trying to like demystify all this stuff. Like, why is it that like, you know what I'm saying? Like if someone said Genghis Khan is cool, no one goes like, no, we all get exactly what you're saying. Whatever. But certainly he's gone out there and said some, you know, very provocative things. And he's he is a an identitarian and a nationalist and a hard right winger. So like, but like, dude, you're you're starting by calling Tucker Carlson and me Nazis. It's just it's just ridiculous, dude. How are you going to in the same breath? I'm literally a I'm I'm pro peace and pro laissez faire free markets and not a racialist, not an identitarian. is still no matter how hard all of you guys try to push us into that camp some of us have still resisted and been like now i don't think that's the correct direction either um and in fact the people who are really hardcore in that camp as i've found out in some of my twitter exchanges over the last two days aren't very big fans of me which is fine um but brother you're calling us nazis and then a moment later saying that there's reckless political rhetoric rob the the hypocrisy The self-contradiction here is just off the charts. Here, let's keep reading from that tweet a little bit more just to say I have not actually read this whole thing. OK, hold on. So in this clip, I explain why the way ideas are presented matters just as much as the ideas themselves. You can be aggressive. You can be passionate. But when commentary fuels distortion, extremism or confusion, it has real consequences. I break down why. Yeah. OK, Mark. But like, that's what you're doing. So now let's have the argument like this is all like, as you said, Rob, you get to just call everybody else Nazis and then decide that their rhetoric is dangerous and then say that their rhetoric is leaving leading to confusion. okay but we say the same thing about you right we disagree so now let's debate it let's go through whose rhetoric is really causing more distortions um i don't know any any comment on this that's exactly the point he doesn't want to debate it it's the same as covid i would have gladly debated fauci but what they're looking for is censorship because uh opposing ideas are too dangerous for people to hear. And if you look at a four year timeline of information that was censored at any given moment, it's probably mainstream opinion at that point. Yep. Yep. No, that's for sure. It's also like, again, dude, like Mark, you're calling other people Nazis, but you're the one who's who's against free speech, not us. You're the one who's out here promoting censorship. So like just on that one, I don't know if you guys like I don't know how many history buffs we got here in the audience. But, you know, Adolf Hitler, not a big First Amendment guy. And so, you know, you already are kind of putting yourself more on that side. You're calling us woke Nazis while you cheer on wars of aggression. You're calling us woke while you promote the same tech censorship that the woke did. just I can't I just can't figure out why you're losing in the marketplace of ideas. I just can't figure out why you're not unwilling to go have this conversation with any of us because like this is by the way it's not really a comment on any of us but this shit is just so easy to tear apart if you got someone pushing back against you and you know that and that's why you're afraid to do it. That is I'm sorry man you just you can't fool people out of this. People can see that. They can see who's willing, who, you know, I mean, I'm not saying this would necessarily apply universally, but as a really good rule of thumb is that the person trying to shut down speech is the bad guy. You know, the person the person who is unwilling to debate supports unpopular wars and will not debate anyone who's against them. The person who wants to shut down speech, wants to shut down criticism of the administration. They are the bad guys. And, you know, I'll just leave this final. We didn't get to the the Caroline Levitt comments. Maybe we'll we'll cover that on a future episode. But I will just say to Rob, look, I made this comment on the last podcast. Look, as I said, Tucker Carlson really believes that we really should try to cool the temperature and lower rhetoric in lots of ways. Mark Levin, in some weird way, is making a similar kind of argument. I get it. if you are supporting Donald Trump or you're a part of the Trump administration, you do not have a leg to stand on. You just don't. Like, it's undeniable. The president of the United States of America publicly celebrates when people die. He calls everyone all types of names, every name under the sun. you have no leg to stand on saying we need to tone down the rhetoric now sorry and then by the way, listen, what can I say? I'm calling our government war criminals and calling this whole institution corrupt and yeah, that's pretty charged rhetoric I'm saying that the US government is the biggest terrorist organization in the world, that is very charged rhetoric I also think it's true And I also think it's important that people tell the truth. So I'm not going to say, Mark Levin, you have to tone it down. Don't tone it down. I think you should grow a pair of balls and come debate one of us, have a conversation. But you don't need to do that either. But for you to sit here and call us all a bunch of Nazis and then ask us to tone it down, kindly go fuck yourself. That won't be happening. I think Mark Levin's got to tone it back up. This shit's boring. Go back to being Mark Levin. Make Mark Levin Mark Levin again. there you go all right thank you guys very much for listening we'll be back tomorrow i'll be back tomorrow with a brand new episode catch you next time peace