In this episode of "Part of the Problem," Dave Smith and Robbie discuss the massive debate between Candace Owens and Andrew Wilson over the Charlie Kirk shooting case. Dave opens by stating he likes and respects both participants and largely agrees with Andrew's position, but he concludes that Candace won the debate decisively. He argues that Andrew's strategy backfired: he read his opening statement from his phone, appeared nervous, and failed to demonstrate mastery of the case. A critical low point came when Candace challenged him to name the charges against Tyler Robinson—Andrew could only say "I think he's been charged with murder," while Candace confidently listed all seven. Dave and Robbie both criticize Andrew's reliance on gotcha tactics and debate tricks, which they see as dishonest and ineffective. Robbie goes further, calling Andrew's approach "sportsmanship" rather than a genuine search for truth. The hosts also defend Candace's right to question the official narrative, noting the government's history of lies and the strange aspects of the case, such as Joe Kent's resignation comments and the rapid cleanup of the scene. Dave clarifies he doesn't endorse all of Candace's theories—he estimates a 75% chance Tyler Robinson was the shooter—but he believes the case warrants scrutiny. Ultimately, they conclude that Andrew's attempt to ruin Candace backfired, boosting her credibility and leaving him with a significant loss.
What's up, what's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem. I am Dave Smith, and of course he is Robbie the fire burn stand. How are you, sir? Oh, I had a magical porch the other day, and we had a fun time out in Appleton, Wisconsin. We sure did. The club, not the town. I still stand by last year's remarks. People, great people, great comedy audiences, not much to do in Appleton, Wisconsin. And I got more shows this weekend. I've got a small porch in Philly. That's going to sell out to grab tickets. I think I only got room for about 20 people. Then I got Doyle's town PA. Then on Saturday, if you can make the trip, I'm at the original porch in Myersville, Maryland, private bar. I'm staying there that night. It's a party night. Come on out. And then I'm doing a comedy club in white planes on Sunday, which you can find on my website, robbronsoncomy.com, porch story dates at porchtor.com. And then you and I actually know you're out at the mothership. I got the comedy mothership. That is my next, my next stop, guys. It's August 28th through 30th. The shows are, here or less, I check it. I think they're like half sold out. So if you want to get tickets, now is the time. You can do that over at the comedy mothership.com or comic Dave Smith. com will take you over to that ticket link too. And then after that, we got Louville. Louville in September. And then back to the hyenas and in Fort Worth and Dallas, which I'm really looking forward to. Those are always fun, fun shows, man. Always have a good time out there. And so I do it. Do in Austin and Dallas in the next couple months is fun for me. I always, I always love my Texas comedy gigs. I don't know why they always want me out there in the summer. But Texas says, it is awfully hot. Anyway, okay. So let's do this as winter gigs. Yeah. No, it's never, I don't have to think my entire summer schedule every single year, Rob. Every single year, they're always like, okay, so in August, we're going to send you to Fort Lauderdale and Austin and Tampa. And you're like, why do you hate me? And gets all like city back for February. That ruled. Oh, I know you got some good skiing out there at one time. All right. Well, listen, let's, let's discuss a bit. I feel like it's a, it's almost a thing that we have to talk about. So many people have asked my opinion on this thing. And it's kind of rare, I guess, that there's, you know, there's, there's a lot of debates and there's a lot of podcasts. It's rare that there's one that's so big that people want you to comment on it, even when you weren't directly involved in it. Of course, I'm referring to Candace Owens and Andrew Wilson debating on Candace's show. They got Patrick Brett David to be the moderator of the thing. And it has been one of the, it's got to be one of the biggest debates in, you know, in history. I mean, it's like, the thing is, I don't know, I do, I got to say, I find it very fascinating on a lot of different levels, which is part of why I wanted to talk to you about it. But the debate itself, I just saw, it's got like, it's got millions of, I mean, this thing has almost 5 million views just on Candace's channel. And it was streamed on, Patrick Brett David's channel. So it was streamed on another huge channel too. And then I don't know the numbers on, you know, I'm sure on Twitter on Spotify and all that. I mean, this is, you know, like, I, I, I don't know, but like, how many people actually saw like the Lincoln Douglas debates? You know what I mean? I get, it was like the audience there. Or, you know, like, I don't, these, it's, it's crazy that we live in a world where these things happen. Of course, obviously, it's, it's about a very sensitive subject that people are very understandably emotional about. Anyway, it was a big, a, a big spectacle. And I did think it was kind of interesting. I, perhaps, Rob, I have a little bit different of a perspective on this thing because I, well, I, I'm uniquely interested in politics and debating. I love it. I know all three people involved and I've done some pretty high profile debates myself. So I, you know, I kind of see these things and maybe a little bit different of a way. But yeah, let's, let's get into a bunch of it. I guess I should just come out and say up top and then we can, we can get into all the details. But I, disclaimer, I like and respect everybody involved here. I don't have, I, I don't have a, a horse in the race in that sense. And in fact, I probably overall, probably agree with Andrew on a lot of the points that he made. But I just see no way around the fact that this was a, this was a big win for Candace. And it was a loss for Andrew. Now, I think some people are making way too much of that. I saw people out there saying like his career's over. I don't think that's true. Andrew's very smart guy. He's a very talented debater. He's had a big, a very big year. He was on Rogan a couple of times. He's done huge shows. I think Andrew's going to have a great career and go on to do more stuff. And, and I like and respect Andrew. I think he's got a lot of good points to make. Look, we can get into a lot of the details, which I guess we'll, we'll do that now. But I'll, I'll just start by saying this and then you can give your general thoughts. I really felt this way. Actually, I guess maybe like a couple days before the debate when I was thinking about it because I kind of couldn't believe it actually came to fruition. But I was like, you know, and I think this kind of played out the tactic that Andrew used to get this debate where he made a big spectacle and he raised a ton of money or he spent money. I don't know. But he gave her like 300 grand. I think to do this debate. And he called her out on Rogan and he got this that tactic works so well while you're selling it. When you're on Rogan and you have a little clip where you go, dude, I'm going to give you $300,000 to debate me. But it like that works very well because it's like, wow, dude, you're raising so much money because you're that confident that you're going to just like eviscerate this person. Like you're going to go there and you're going to damage. That's why you're willing to give them this money. Even though you think they're doing something really bad, you're going to reward them with a huge sum of money because the payoff is going to be so worth it that you're going to, and as you approach the actual debate once it's accepted, that now becomes a burden. It's a big onus on you that you kind of got to destroy this person. And when you see Patrick, but Dave, look, the consensus seems to be that she won. There was a poll with like 150,000 people Candace took like the super majority of, she took like 70% of it. And I had a poll that I put up after didn't have that many, but like 60,000 people and the same thing. She took the super majority. And it's just like, on some level, you kind of can't get past that. When you pay this much money to make a debate happen, you have to win. The consensus has to be that you won. And that's not the consensus. So just on that alone, you kind of take an L, but whatever. I curious what your thoughts are, Rob. We can, we can start general and then kind of get into specifics. All right. Well, I'm going to take a slightly different approach here. I'm going to say that I don't know any of the individuals involved. And I just don't like Andrew Wilson. And you know, I'm working with overwhelming evidence, which is just my personal feelings of seeing this guy in occasion and just going, I don't like him. And if I will clarify what I'm working off of when I say, I don't like him, which I'll repeat again to make it clear. That didn't really blow up relationships of yours. You have no ownership of this. I'm a different person. I like it. I like Andrew. But no, I think from what I've seen of Andrew, it's less of a pursuit of finding truth as much as it is the sportsmanship of debating, which doesn't, it does not personally appeal to me. I'm not actually interested in debating. And I find it more engaging. Like it debates can be engaging the way that he's going about it and his pursuit of it does not really, I don't find interesting or rewarding. Why I particularly think he lost this debate is kind of what I was mocking him for upfront is that he's very demanding of that everything's got to be perfectly thought out and well reasoned. And he basically just folded when he came in and said, my personal feelings are that it's overwhelming evidence. And he never actually stated a case for it. And so the reason why he's the big loser to me is I mean, you got to hear this again because I already said it to you. If you give me a debate with Fauci during COVID, right, could give Fauci, let's say $10 million. So he actually would have sat down with me. He would have walked out ruined because I would have had the questions to ask him. I don't need to litigate it here because I've done it a hundred times, but there are common sense questions I could have asked him he would not have had an answer to and you would have gone, how does a comedian take down supposedly the world's biggest scientist? He would have been ruined. Andrew was the challenger. He came in there to go, I'm going to ruin you. He never actually stated a case for why he thought there was overwhelming evidence, demanded an intellectual honesty from her that he was not applying to himself. And more than anything, I think if nobody knew anything about this trial whatsoever and decided to watch that debate, they walked away thinking there's something scurry here. Now, that's not to say that there aren't some gaps in Candace's conclusions, but I think you'd be more open to Candace's outlook of the incident than, hey, this kid is definitely the shooter. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Goldback, a great company, an amazing product.
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So stop relying on a broken system and head over to goldback.com/dave to learn more. Let's get back into the show. >> Let me say, okay, let me say a few things about all of this. Number one, because I understand you don't like Andrew and also I think even Andrew would probably acknowledge he's not the most likable person and he doesn't make any attempt to be more likable. Like he doesn't mind bothering people and that's fine, and look, I will say this, Andrew's a very talented debater. He is a very good debater. He also uses a lot of tactics. And personally, I feel like he doesn't need them for the most part, but they didn't work in this debate and for reasons. But I'll say this, I also did feel and I could be wrong about this, but I felt like he was a little bit tight, like he was a little bit nervous in the debate and that didn't help. So it's a really big moment, that's a big, big moment. It's a little bit different, it's like there is more pressure and there was, and he put a lot of pressure on himself in this debate. To your point, number one, and I understand people could say maybe I'm like, this is just optics or something, but the point of these pursuits is to move the audience. I mean, that's the goal here and so that does matter, it's not just your argument, it's also, hey, and I got to say, I was really, I was surprised by a few things. Number one, I was really surprised, I just expected, I expected Andrew to come in with a mastery of the case. Like I've got this thing and I did not get that from him. There were several points in it where it was just like, oh, that did not, and I, you know, I thought reading his opening was a huge mistake. Like dude, this is the biggest show of your life. This is the biggest debate in the country. We're all watching. This is like you've, you created this moment that now got millions and millions of people to watch it. You got memorize your opening, man. Remember the arguments and if you're going, it becomes so not human when you're very closely sitting to Candice and, and patch, David, and you're reading off your phone, you're opening argument while you're making like these declarative statements about her and how she is ruining the conservative mood, but you're not like looking at her. You're reading it off of your foot. So I thought that was very bad and I got to say it was almost like just, I thought there was a way he could have gone at her that would have been much more successful. But the way of like by the time you got through this him reading his opening and then the first round of like back and forth, he's already in his opening, defined overwhelming evidence as evidence that convinces me, which is like, that's really bad, like you're already. Yes, it's like, and then Candice needled him with that throughout the debate. She goes, oh, I guess it came to me in a dream, you know, mocking how that's really no more of a standard than it came to me in a dream, which is like a fair point. And so, and then, so first he says that then had asked him the question and he goes 75% which this is look certainly that sounds a whole lot less confidence than some of the statements Andrew had been making before that. And 75% is like, I wish I Candice didn't jump on it right away because then she says zero and that created a crazy contrast. But 75% is like, oh, that's a quiddle. You know, I understand the trial hasn't started yet, but 75% is we got to a quid, right? I mean, I don't know exactly what percentage you put beyond a reasonable doubt, but that's way over 75, you don't convict people for 75% so I thought that was kind of why I thought 75% is a number that justifies Candice's entire pursuit. And so then it was the point, again, this is all very early on in the debate. Then she started asking if you remember Rob at one point about, so essentially she brings up a tweet of his where he goes, there's overwhelming evidence come here, man. And it lists off these things. It goes, dude, there's four different pictures of them on the video camera. There's his gun with the DNA evidence. There's this. There's that, right? Like he has this tweet. Look, dude, the evidence is overwhelming. And then as she grills him about this, he kind of doesn't really have a thing to be like like like she essentially goes, she goes, well, look at all these photos. I've seen this footage. You can't tell single one of them's Tyler Robinson. And then instead of just conceding that that's not really good, he tries to do the game of like, well, no, it's evidence because it's in context and it's supported by other evidence. And then she's like, but what's the other? But you're like, no, but what's you just lost? You lost that, man. If you don't have a response to the fact that I can't tell, like again, I'm somebody who has not, I'm not a criminologist. I don't know detective work in forensics and any of this. So speak to me like I'm really stupid. But what was the response to that? Oh, well, then that evidence is gone. So the first thing you mentioned is gone now because you don't have a defense. Then she makes her argument, there were lots of arguments there where I thought maybe there was an opening for it because there must be more evidence than just hearsay, right? And there maybe there is an answer to why fingerprints would be degraded, even if that doesn't represent the chronological order of a vet. You know what I'm saying here Rob? I don't know anything about that, but Andrew didn't offer. I was almost waiting even for him to go like, well, this doesn't prove anything. Maybe he wiped the gun or like, I don't know. I don't know the answer. I didn't seem to know. So essentially what I thought had happened is that by the time that opening period was over, he had essentially like, I think in his mind, he was almost like, I'm going to fight her even on that first one. And then I'm going to destroy her in the second half, but he actually lost the first half. And I don't think he ever recovered from that deficit because by the end of it, it just became a thing that it was like, okay, so like you're saying it's overwhelming that he did it. She's saying it's overwhelming that he didn't neither one of you can really back up the claim that it's overwhelming. And it just became a thing of like, you're both going in this direction. But there was never really the moment like where Andrew really connected the dots. Like I thought he was going to set up for some type of at least attempted home run swing at the end. But he never really went, he never really gave us a why of why this whole thing needed to happen. Like, you've been doing this, Candace, what is your working theory on the case? Hold her to that. Demonstrate that she doesn't really have a theory. And then go, okay, you've been doing this for a year and you still don't have a theory. And here's why that's so horrible that you did that. You know what I'm saying? But it never really connected like that. And then there were just kind of moments throughout it, was she just seemed to know the case better than him. So I don't know, did I leave there convinced of any of Candace's theories? No. But did I, did I leave there feeling that Andrew Wilson had really demonstrated anything? No. And so you just kind of had two people going back and forth, one of whom seemed to know the case a little bit more. And I got to say that the debate was, well, I could get into it more. But as I said, it was riddled with little tactics that Andrew used that just backfired on him in this one. It just didn't work. I didn't, okay, I think he never proved that she was kind of being negligent or misleading in terms of trying to question what is going on here. And so in the first half, he essentially just folded. He never once gave a pitch for, here's why I actually think Tyler Robinson did it. He just appealed to his own authority and said, I find it over, but he never, he never explained. Here's why I think it's overwhelming or at least I, I, I maybe said between the confession and the this and, but then every time he was asked on any particular piece of evidence, he didn't want to defend it. And then he just said it's the totality of the evidence while also turning it to Candace and not letting her go, it's everything together and pinning her to, it's a gap between this one single instance. So once again, kind of applying an intellectual standard to her that he wasn't going to keep to, but he just kind of folded on the first half. He never gave a pitch for, here's why I think it's overwhelming that he did it. And I felt that it was essentially a dishonest tactic of that he wanted to go in there and try and just say, here's why Candace is not credible. And then even in the second half, he didn't quite prosecute the claim of whether or not there's overwhelming evidence of him being a patty, instead he kind of mostly pursued a storyline of, here's some crazy things that you've said in regards to Erica Kirk or other claims.
but that wasn't actually in line with the debate topic of whether or not there's overwhelming evidence of a patsy. So I don't know. We kind of just went in with a dishonest play of, here's how I'm going to be able to play some gotcha clips and hold your feet to the fire. But I think she just demonstrated that there's enough -- there's enough scurry in this case that it's reasonable to have a podcast and ask these questions and have theories about what might have taken place here. Well, I mean, look, I'll tell you this. It's -- I guess perhaps my feeling on all of this is that I understand, like, if people want to criticize Candace's methodology, or they want to say, "Quite frankly, that she's gone down some goofy trails that just turned out to be wrong," or whatever. Like, I mean, I'm not -- I think, okay, you know, make your argument then. Well, you know, and maybe that's right. But there is this kind of, like, almost implicit thing that -- look, Andrew, obviously, he's there to ruin her. That's the goal, you know? He's not mincing words about that. You're there to ruin her. You're putting up this money so that you can destroy her. You're all claiming that, like, she's doing something so wrong. And I just kind of sit here and I go, "Wait, like, do you guys all hate Alex Jones?" Like, all -- you know, like, what's really going on here? Like, you know, and don't give me wrong. I know, like, Fuentes and Candace, they have a personal thing. Like, and whatever. And I -- certainly, you know, like I've said publicly before, I think it was wrong the way Candace and Tucker went at him. And I know that after they did their podcast together, they, you know, he felt wrong by the way. She handled it or whatever. But, like, do you hate Alex Jones' guts? Or are you, like, are you cool with him, too? Because, like, Alex Jones literally was on record telling me that the -- he made a whole documentary about how the ruling elite were going to exterminate the human species and reduce us down to 300,000 people. And that was their whole plan. And that was a pretty catastrophic thing to be wrong about. Like, it's quite a claim, you know? And there's a whole bunch more, like, that he just -- I mean, half of his loose-change claims don't -- So, like, oh, are you actually -- like, is that the rule that you're not allowed to be a conspiracy theorist and you're not allowed to ever get some wrong or whatever? I don't know. It just seems like -- but you got to connect, though. You got to explain why this is -- why this is worth it. And I never got anything even approaching that. And then there were just -- there were, like, a lot of moments where she -- you know, he would just -- when you have, I think, just, like, like, Pierce Morgan is a different environment than Joe Rogan. And the -- the whatever podcast is a different environment than sitting down for three hours with Patrick Bitt, David, and Candace Owens. And when she would do things where, like, Candace was very good at -- like, when he would try to badge her with questions, which is a thing he does in debates a lot. And I don't -- and he doesn't -- while someone's saying something, like, can't be in the middle of going, like, well, no, I'm not arguing that there's overwhelming evidence that he's a patsy. My claim is that -- and she's like, so what's the evidence? What's the evidence? What's the -- and you're like, dude, she -- she's in the middle of trying to clarify her claim. And she would just stop and go, no, I'm not going to fall into this debate tactic. I will -- you know what I mean? And then, of course, the ultimate one, which, I'm -- you know, look, I'm sorry, man. And I understand I -- making this episode, I just think it's something that is important enough to talk about, enough people have asked me about this. And I'm not -- I'm in the business of telling people, my opinion, on these things. And so I'm not going to not do that. But I don't wish to, like, you know, pick any fights here over this. I know there's -- it's kind of unavoidable. But, you know, I see that people out there are kind of going, like, oh, well, all these polls are bullshit, because Candace just has a bigger audience. And you're like, yeah, but this is a cope, man. It doesn't matter. But it doesn't -- look, look. I've been trying to debate Ben Shapiro for years, right? I couldn't go debate Ben Shapiro. And then, if 70% of the audience thinks he won, go, well, I mean, he had a better -- you know, he has a bigger audience than me, so whatever. It's still -- no, I lose that. Like, that's it. You got to win over the audience. That's the whole job of this thing. And, look, I understand where people are going to -- it makes people -- and maybe after we get through the debate, we could just talk about Charlie Kirk a little bit, and kind of the whole situation. I know -- I understand why people get very upset about -- why they're very emotional about the issue. And I understand that people are like, no, she didn't have an argument. She didn't have a tight argument for this theory or that theory. I get it. And I understand that the seven -- listing the seven charges isn't, like, actually an argument about a point of any of these theories. But I'm sorry, man. Like, that was a huge -- that was a bad, bad moment for Andrew in that debate. And I do actually think, even though this might hurt, to see a -- that Candace said, which was very -- she played that well when she goes, oh, here, no, this will help you in future debates to know that this tactic doesn't work. I do think that he made a -- it was like a -- I don't know what to say. It was a gigantic, catastrophic, forced error in own goal at the end of this debate that you had put up such a huge price tag for, and then kind of, like, I think, failed to win. And then, so, at the end of it, then, to just have this moment, I'm sorry, that's a disaster, dude. And it's -- we could get into it. We could play the clip in a second, but go ahead. And he thought you had, bro. All right. I apologize because you have personal relationships that I do not have. No, you can give your opinion on a debate. It's not like -- we're not -- listen, go ahead. It's fine. But, to me, that moment really demonstrated the pursuit of debate tactics over honesty. And when he's there and he's trying to pivot away from the fact that he does not actually know what they are, and he's trying to pull every move of, oh, little, let's just pull it up. Oh, okay, now you lost them. Listen, one, two, three. And, to me, it's just demonstrating this is not really an honest conversation. It's not a pursuit over truth. It's a display of tactics. And that's -- Listen, I'll tell you. I think, just from my perspective before, I think Andrew is a very good debater when he's debating, but I do think you're right that he uses those tricks, too. And I think he'd be better off not using them, because we're about to see here. They can backfire. There's a reason why you don't want to use some of these tricks. I think, to me, it goes further than that, that it demonstrates that even when it's working, it's not really a pursuit of truth. And he gave -- to me, you just kind of showcased that he was giving away his cards of -- You're talking honest. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is crowd health. This summer, enjoy real freedom and health care that actually works for you. Now, you've heard me talk about crowd health for many years, but now they've made it even better with the Black Swan membership. 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If you're ready to make the switch, head over to join crowdhealth.com and use the promo code P-O-T-P and you'll get your first three months for less than $85. That's join crowdhealth.com and the promo code is P-O-T-P. Alright, let's get back into the show. Listen, I get your point here. Let's play this portion of the debate here. Thanks, Natalie. Yeah. Yeah, so I think what I think is that Tyler Robinson shot Charlie Kirk. Yeah, but of the seven charges that he's being charged. Yeah, can we list them real quick? I'll tell you exactly which ones we'll pull them up. Well, do you know any of the charges that he's up for right now? Yeah, of course. But I want to make sure that we have them listed. Yeah, but let's just pause it real quick. Because my general. So now listen, just to be clear here, Candice is the one who first engages in the Gacha thing here, right? Like she's going like, wait a minute. Can you name a single one of the charges that he's being charged with? Now, the, okay, look, the real problem here is that as you see Andrew responds, yeah, of course. Let's her know, yeah, of course. Now he again. Listen, this was a, I don't think Candice should have done that tactic. It's a risky tactic. All he has to do is name one. And then you look really bad. So like it's a risky thing. I don't know what people think. Like if you just stop in the middle of the debate and start quizzing your opponent, the thing about doing that is they got to fail the quiz. Otherwise, it really does backfire. And look, I'll break this down in a second here. But there's, you can't not count this as points against you, like in a debate. But so here's how Andrew handles this by being asked. First, he's asking to bring them up. Then Candice challenges him. Can you name one of them? He goes, yeah, of course. And then responds with this. Let's keep on. That's the question. He's not following it. It seems pretty like if you're going to engage and you're going to say the evidence is overwhelming that Tyler Ross. That's the question. He is not following it enough. Robinson is guilty. I just think that you should, can you tell me one, let's do it, pause it right there. Yeah, yeah, this is a great. Now look, I don't look I've been in in debates with people before where I really feel like they don't know the subject matter. And I just asking at point blank like this, I think is a risky move on Candace's part, but you do got to admit as far as these type of debate tactics go, for her to say, hey, look, like this is a really point blank call out. And this is a crazy thing to say to someone in the middle of a debate that like you don't know the topic. You know, this is like on the level of saying you have never read about this. You don't know anything about that. I mean, I do remember one time Austin Peterson was debating Clint Russell about Israel, Gaza, and he didn't know what the knockabout was. Clint brought it up and he thought he goes, he goes, oh, you're referring to the Balfour Declaration. He goes the Balfour Declaration, like what? No. And he didn't know and I and then Clint just moved on to like his next point. And I called Clint after and I go, dude, you had to like pounce on that more. You know, like he still won the debate. It was clear. But like I was like, dude, when someone's that right, you got to go, dude, then you have no business debating this subject. If you don't know that. But anyway, Candace, Candace goes here. She goes, I don't think you really know this. And if you're going to say the evidence is overwhelming, shouldn't you be able to list one of the charges? Now, I'm sorry. That is reasonable, Rob. Like that's a that's a reasonable thing to say, right? If you're you're saying the evidence is overwhelming, my God, I am assuming you know the charges of this case. Like I'm assuming you know the case very well. And you're paying 300 K to a debate on the case. I just assume you're going to show up with a mastery of this then. I've never paid 300 K for a debate before. But I've also never debated anything. I didn't feel like I had somewhat of a mastery of the topic. But anyway, she says, can you name one of the charges? He's already said, of course I can. But now he takes this opportunity to double down and here's the here. Let's play the rest of it. One because my my general perspective is that you don't actually care about this case. You're not following this. That's the that's the question. It seems pretty like if you're going to engage and you're going to say the evidence is overwhelming that Tyler Robinson is guilty. I just think that you should. Can you tell me one? Then let's do. You can really, yeah, no, this is a great. No, no, you just got to ask me play clips out of context for me in the hot seat. So please just answer the question. You all seven since you've been following the case. Okay, sure. You name you name one. Yeah, you named all seven. I'm happy to do that. But can you name one? I think he's I think he's been charged with murder. That's actually okay, great. Just now all seven. I'm sorry, guys. I don't know how you say this any other way. This was a dev. It's already devastated. It's already devastating at this point. And it's not that he didn't get the qualifier. It's not that he didn't get aggravated murder and just had murder or whatever the charges. It's that he went in that moment. I think he's been charged with murder. You go wait a minute, dude. Not only do you not know the charges against murder, you weren't clear. Like you weren't 100% on what the top one was. You just said, of course, I know. And then you like you lost that, dude. Then when you went you went to I think, why is the word think coming out of your mouth? This is not like a subject that you either know it or you don't know it. So you pretended you knew it. But you didn't. And now I mean, this is like. By the way, I could have I thought this going in. I couldn't believe you because this next attempt now to double down on this Rob is this is just not. First of all, I agree with you're kind of like. It's not good faith. It's not a real pursuit of the truth. It's gotcha tricks. But this was also a really unwise one because why in the world would you? So I think I've told this story before Rob. I know I've told this to you, but I will tell this on the show right now. But it was a story of a really bad comedian. He was first starting. It was really bad at standup. And this was crazy me because Andrew Wilson is not bad at debating. He's excellent at debating. But anyway, this guy's a bad standup comedian and I don't know if you ever heard the old thing. It's like an old comedian thing. I've never done this. I've never actually seen anyone else do this. But it's a thing where there was a thing where a comedian would go, Oh, you think might like you get a heckler and you go, Oh, you think my job so easy. Why don't you try it? Why don't you get up here and they get bring them up and give them the microphone and the idea is that like standup comedy is hard. So they're not going to do very good at it. And then you show what a, you know, you take it back, get out of here, but you know what? Now this kid, I saw that this is like 15 years ago. He's bombing, bombing in the show and starts getting heckled. And then he tries to do that. He tries to give the guy the microphone to go, Oh, yeah, you think my job's there? And I remember when I first thought saw that being like, wow, talk about not getting comedy. Like just talking about your instincts being so bad because dude, obviously Rob, that move is supposed, that works when you're killing with the crowd. The crowd loves you. One guy's heckling you and you go, come on dude, now he's got the whole crowd against him. He fuck it. They already like you. And what are the odds when you're already killing that he's going to come out with something that kills? But, but when you're bombing the whole time and then you hand it over to this guy, all he's got to do is say one mildly funny thing and then he devastates you. You know, like, what are you doing? And in the same, I couldn't. So in this moment, Andrew decides to put it in on name all seven because I'm going to prove that you don't know what you're talking about. Already though, Rob, starting from a starting point of, as you said, he doesn't hold the same standards to himself. He didn't know one, but now she's got a name seven. It already doesn't make sense that he's expecting her to have such a higher burden. But Rob, I mean, I guess my point is that when you're in the biggest debate of your life, this is millions of people watching. It's a huge thing. And you just challenge, like, aren't you a little bit concerned with the off chance that maybe Candace knows the charges? I mean, whether you think her theories are off or not, she's clearly been living and breathing this case for a year. So, I like to put all of this thing and I'm sorry, but when you do that, when you stop a debate to go, I'm going to demonstrate that you don't know shit. You can't name the seven things. And then they do, you were trying to make them look terrible and ruin them. And so all of that has to be put back on you now. Now you, now you just look terrible for attempting this smear job and failing at it. You were not sure whether he was charged with murder and she goes on to list all of them. And not only does she list them all, but she calls him out on his tactic to hold. I mean, look, let's keep playing this. This just gets worse and worse. Let's keep playing. And I you name all seven. I can't do it. Sure. You don't have to do it. No, do it. I'll count them. Go ahead. You don't have to put your fingers up. I can't name them. Yeah, sure. The first charge is aggravated murder because that's what carries death sensitive. You know, that's not that is literally not murder. Okay. And so just are people. No, don't I don't have to do it in a time limit. I just explain people the difference of why that really matters and shows that he doesn't actually care about this at all is because aggravated murder. It's it's narrowly defined. And because it carries a death sentence, I'm not I'm going to answer the question. Okay. I'm just going to recognize that your strategy of thinking that people are intimidated when you try to put a time constraint doesn't work. And you'll be better the next time you do this one. I got it. I got it. Give me the other ones. The more you cut me off a long girl take. Don't get to pretend there's a time constraint for me to do that. Well, how long is it taking to list seven charges? I'm speaking. You just got to. It sounds like you're just delaying it because you don't know. I know all seven of them. And I'm going to say again, because like you're going to get embarrassed. You don't have to rush this. I'm also showing an example of a very flawed debate strategy. I actually want to know time constraint. Great. The second charge is the felony discharge of a weapon. The next two charges are for obstruction of justice. Okay. The next two charges are for witness tampering. And the final specific charges though. That is them obstruction of justice, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, witness tampering. Okay, there's no other specifics to. Well, I can tell you why he's being charged with it. No, no, just the charges and then seven. Yeah, you see the bad thing is when you try to be an A hole. And it doesn't work. What's the seventh? The last charge is violence in front of a minor. Okay, got it. So then he's being charged with murder. You just say aggravated murder. That's the distinction. He just want. It's a magic. We're just supposed to pretend that she didn't just rattle off all seven. Now we just move. It's like I that's the tactic that just I'm sorry, dude. When that backfires, it'll lose you a debate. Because you're trying. And then you just took. We're just to pretend that like because otherwise, dude, like the whole debate can just be you quizzing. And if they get everything right, then what? It's a tie. It's like, no, you stop the record. When you do that in a debate, you're stopping the record to pause to go no, no, no, no. My opponent's a fraud. This whole thing is bullshit. It's a move. When that doesn't work, it reflects poorly on you. And she named all the charges, dude. I mean, I don't know. I don't know how anybody can can look at this and not think that like, yeah, that's a bad moment in a debate. I'm sorry. It's just cope to say it's not. Um, so I just, you know, I cringe rewatching this. I find it just overwhelmingly exhausting to watch someone play a confidence game of what I will call controlling the call.
very arrogantly pretending like they're still in control and then constantly pivoting. It's just not an honest pursuit towards truth. It's sportsmanship of debate and I don't appreciate this rare art form. And so to me this is just gross and exhausting. And showcases that even in other times where people don't realize that's what's happening, this is the way he's engaging with you. It's not a conversation I could even partake in because I couldn't sit there as calmly as I can't get what you're saying. In these kind of environments, like I will never debate and not that it's offered, I couldn't sit there and engage in that conversation. It would just be too annoying to me, but it's just dishonest and it's showing his hand of that this is sportsmanship and it's dishonest. Well, I mean, it's then, I mean, whatever we don't have to plan anymore, but then he accuses her of getting the information fed to her from the phone and so she passes her phone off to Patrick, but David and I'm just saying it's like, dude, when you again, you paid her 300 grand, you know, she's seven months pregnant. You come in with this written, you know, like prepared thing. You got all these clips prepared that you're going to go after her on and all of this, but then you're going after this stuff and just missing these like wild swings and just missing. This just doesn't, this is precious time that you were supposed to be using like eviscerating her claims. And I also got to say, you know, and sometimes these things are, you know, as you know, Rob, like you've done a lot of like live shows and like Rob will do like on the porch tour sometimes. Like you'll do like a whole presentation and a whole thing with, and it's hard sometimes to plan out like how a presentation is going to go along with the punch line and the timing and as you know from, you know, I've talked to you about some of your shows where you're like, Oh, it really all came together perfect on this one. And then you're like, Add this one. It was a little bit off. And then it wasn't add an account for this. But then you know what I mean? And like, so there's it also just unfortunately for Andrew, his team pulling up videos in the back and feeding him to Pat and then them waiting for the, like it just didn't click and work. You know, I had the the moment that every was everybody's big like takeaway moment of my debate with Cuomo was the thing where he kept saying he never said this about Ivermect and Mock and Joe Rogan. And then the team had the clip pulled right up and there. But that was out of my hands. The team, I don't like come with a clip and go, he's going to lie about this guy's have this ready. I got lucky that someone on Pat's team is good and pulled that thing up and then had it ready to go right away. So it's like the stars kind of aligned. There were a few moments there where it was like dead air because they're waiting for the next clip. And I got to say it ended up coming off like you said, Rob is more gotcha. Like I don't think Andrew was best served going into that debate, going let me pull the seven most outrageous clips of Candace Owens because it does, then it does seem like it's like, oh, this is just gotcha stuff. I think he would have been that much better off if he had been okay, Candace. If he had said, okay, Candace, it's been a year. What's your working theory? You know, you've done all these big shows on it. You've had a huge successful run, you know, and I mean, like, what do you got? Because after all this, like, what do you really got as your theory? Okay, here's why I think it's Tyler Robinson, like let's compare your theory to mine. And then really had a mastery of like, why did the evidence here is pretty overwhelming. And he should have been prepared for her things like, oh, like I don't know, Rob, what's the answer? Why are his fingertips degraded more so than the other ones of his family? Well, I got to guess here, there's an answer to that, right? Well, there's at least an answer that the prosecution is going to present at trial. I didn't hear that. And if I had, I think he may have been in a position of just be like, I'm sorry, dude, like we're comparing overwhelming versus overwhelming. I got DNA evidence, eyewitnesses and a confession. You got nothing. You know, like, there was it, but he never really had that moment. And instead he chased kind of gotcha wins the whole time. That was kind of how I felt. All right, guys, let's take a moment and think our sponsor for today's show, which is Ridge. I love this company. 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And I don't think he demonstrated, hey, there is incredible evidence of the fact that this guy's the shooter. And so this is ridiculous that you're exploring it and that you're trying to potentially pin blame on other peoples. I think she demonstrated that there's a lot of open-ended things in the case. I mean, to give you guys the short, just what is the evidence at the moment that he did it outside of the note that was left? And the text message he sent, which was basically a guy who seemingly doesn't want to be convicted of a crime going, hey, I committed this. And so we supposedly have a reference to a confession to his parent and a cop. But we haven't actually heard them say that, so it could be a kid who thought, was nervous that he was going to get in trouble and so decided to turn himself in and the family said your best move is to turn himself in. The evidence is supposedly that, you know, they don't have video of him pulling the trigger. The best evidence that they have is a guy who looks like him moving around on a campus. There's nothing like just spectacular from what I've seen that's been presented outside of, oh, there's this confession note, which, you know, maybe he is a Patsy and he didn't write that note. And on the same note, it is rather odd that evidence was given back to the Kirk family and that the site was instantly paved over, that that camera that was taken down behind, I don't think that was ever turned over, there are weird elements here that create a question. And I certainly think exploring whether or not our government engages, I mean, it happened with, probably happened with JFK, probably also happened with Martin Luther King Jr. I think it's very fair to explore if there's certain forces that rise up and pop in the general culture that are so big and mighty that the government wants them out of the way and that they're taking people out. And I think that's a fair thing to explore. Well, I think if I were Candace in the debate, and again, I'm not like taking Candace's position, but if I was Candace in that debate, I mean, I would have really focused on Joe Kent and the comments that he made and really tried to drive home that met that, that just kind of it. Look, and look, this is kind of where I am with the Charlie Kirk thing in general. It's like, well, first of all, as I've said all along from a year ago, there's a goddamn like, personally speaking, this is a very strange topic. This is like a real person who I knew who, you know, got murdered in the most horrific violent way publicly, I said immediately after Charlie Kirk was killed and took a lot of shit for this. Rob, if you remember, you know, this actually really bugs me because I've seen like a few people give me shit for not talking about Charlie Kirk more over the last year. And you know, they go, oh, Dave's a coward or something like that because he won't touch this issue. Like, yes, that's me. I just avoid radioactive issues and uncomfortable taking a public stand, like, okay, whatever. It's like, no, actually what happened was I, um, I pretty publicly took a stand early on in it. If you remember, Rob, there's, I don't know that there's been three times since we've been doing this show where there was a damn near revolt from the audience against me. This was one of them because I was publicly saying, and I haven't, I haven't changed my mind on that. I go, I thought it was crazy that people were saying Israel did it, even speculating some outright saying Israel did it, others speculating some people who I respect who I like were doing that. I called them out for doing that. Stand by that. I think it was like, you know, whatever, I think it, I, I'm not for goofy conspiracies and And I don't like. presenting wild ones that I shouldn't say, where I say goofy theories. Nothing wrong with a good conspiracy. They happen all the time. But some theories are right and some theories are not. And I've kind of maintained basically the whole way through it. Look, I know I did a couple shows on it after Charlie Kirk died. One where I read his text messages and I've explained that several times 'cause I thought it was the right thing to do. All things being considered. These episodes were enormously successful. There's some of our most downloaded episodes ever. And then I stopped talking about it. Even though I knew this was a topic, you'll blow up, you could have huge here. Because it's like, look dude, honestly, there's a few things here. Number one, this isn't my strength. I know people get confused about this sometimes, but it's like, I don't know. It's like if there was a bomb that was about to go off and you go, "Dave, defuse the bomb." I'm like, "I don't know how to defuse a bomb." You'd be like, "But I heard you do a great rant on Israel Gaza, on Joe Rogan." So defuse a bomb. Those are two different skills. I understand arguments about economics and I know the history of military conflicts or whatever, but I don't know anything about detective work and forensics and all of this stuff. So it's just not really my strength. I will say one of the big holes in the Candace Owens, he's a Patsy theory to me, seems to be that he's alive. And about to face trial, the kids gonna stay on trial. They're gonna present a defense. We're gonna get to learn some more stuff. So like, I don't know what, okay. So like all of that, I'm not jumping out on theories. I'm not just trying to chase clicks. I want to respect the fact that this was an actual person who I knew, who I respected, who has children. You know, like, I don't know. But Rob, Joe Kent, the director of counterterrorism, came out and said the investigation had been suppressed and that he had major questions. He said this on the biggest news show in America when he resigned. The highest authority in the land came down to comment on this and he didn't admonish Candace Owens who had had her investigation going on at this point, Rob, four months, right? He didn't, he didn't say, oh, this is crazy. He goes, hey, the only person trying to shut down the war in Iran who had Trump's ear was publicly executed and there were leads we should have followed up on. That were stifled by the FBI. That's what he said. At that point, how am I supposed to sit here and be fear? You know, it's like, after I know that they lied us into Iraq, I'm supposed to be furious at the people that are like 9/11 truthers. Even if I'm not a 9/11 truther, I'm supposed to be mad at them. I think I'm actually more mad at the regime when we just took us into war. So again, none of this really makes any sense to me. It's like, that's essentially where I'm at. I don't know. There's some things that seem weird. The story between what was going on with Charlie and the Israel lobby is really fascinating. They definitely all lied through their teeth about that. The big said, I don't really have a theory other than that. Very interested in the trial. I don't know, Rob, is that unreasonable? Is that an unreasonable position to take? Because I don't think it is. No, and I just feel like after what we went through with COVID, anyone that wants to question official narratives, I don't ever want to, I just, I'm never going to take the side of, but there's an official narrative from the state here. Now, listen, I don't watch all of Candace's shows, so I don't know to what extent these claims are taking place. I don't know. I do think that without great evidence, unless I'm just not on the side of censorship whenever people should do what they want to do with their shows, I think that accusing Erica Kirk in a public format without great evidence, does maybe borderline inappropriate, 'cause like it's kind of similar territories to Sandy Hook, where I totally respect people being concerned about false flags, but getting that aspect wrong, does just become a little bit more inappropriate. But I mean, the idea of exploring the case and going, hey, I don't think this official narrative is true. And was there a government motive here? The idea that you're gonna criticize anybody for, for doing that or wanting to do a gotcha ruin them show. I just, I don't know, I feel like they're on the side of state censorship. - I, you know, there was one point in the debate where Candace says you're here to argue the state's case and Andrew seemed to get offended by that, but then it is like, I mean, that is what you're doing. Like you are, that doesn't make it wrong, but like that is what you're doing. I do think that there was a point in the debate that Candace, and I think she could have maybe perhaps even made this point stronger, but she had said that like, well, look, she goes Benjamin Netanyahu immediately started lying, and that's what brought Israel into this conversation. And I do think there's something to be said, as I've sat back and kind of watched all of this happen. I get your point very much, right? Like, you know, in fact, I've made this point. In fact, I made this point to a guy who was a Sandy Hook truth or back in that time. This is the guy you set host a podcast with Mike Cannon back in the day, but I remember he was saying, and I just thought all of it was dumb. He had no argument and what he sent me stuff. You got to watch this and watch, it was just terrible. But I remember saying to him about the Sandy Hook thing, I go, hey dude, let's say 95% you're right. Sandy Hook was a false flag or whatever, no one died. That's what you're trying to tell me. Okay, let's say there's just a 5% chance you're wrong about that. Okay, if you're wrong, then you're publicly mocking the parents of people who just lost their kindergartener. Like, I'd be very concerned if there was a 5% chance I was doing that. Because like, even if it's only 5%, you're like, oh, there's a 5% chance that I'm being like the worst, most despicable human being are imaginable right now, you know? And so like, yes, you get into that territory, anytime you start talking about a wife or that being said, it's not wrong if the wife actually is guilty, but it isn't like, hey man, you take a swing at that, you better not miss type of deal, right? But I will say to, and I think this was the point, at least I think this was part of what Candace was getting at. In fact, I'd be interested to talk to her a bit more about this, but maybe I will soon. But she was kind of going, no, look, that's what brought Israel into this. And I will say that with the Charlie Kirk case, I could see under some normal rule of honor or something like that being like, you shouldn't mention Israel and you shouldn't mention his wife unless you really got some hardcore evidence, you know, to point in that direction. The thing is that when the body is still warm and I got the Israeli prime minister lying through his fucking teeth about what Charlie believed, like really, really trying to manipulate the situation in his favor, along with the entire Israel lobby, who he was openly calling out and like kind of maybe turning on and then to watch them all lie about it. And then his widow is out in leather pants holding a Republican national convention groping the vice president. I do feel like Rob to some degree that changes that calculation of whatever is you were saying is inappropriate or whatever the honor code bound thing you would have to do. It's like you can't really say these things are off limits to talk about when they are so egregiously shoving themselves, inserting themselves into the conversation. And so I got to say if people don't like the conspiracy industry that's a risen out of this, like don't you kind of got to look at that behavior too and go, Jesus, guys, I mean, this was the worst way to handle it. They essentially gave permission to like start talking about this stuff 'cause look, it's so weird and it's so right in front of your face. - And just for the sake of transparency and calling myself out for being a hypocrite, I do have a joke in my act that maybe insinuates massage involvement in the court case and I also did have a conversation on my podcast at some point with the guest about whether or not an Erica Kirk could be MK Ultra. Both of those I thought were valid 'cause I think it is, I think it's, I'm open to exploring the idea that MK Ultra is involved in these kind of actions. I'm not saying that that's what took place here. I also don't quite know what takes place on Canis to show. This is why I kind of hate debates is that it brings you into like the pure evidence place which almost removes the poetry of exploring ideas and trying to find truth, but I just kind of lean towards, if you're criticizing the official narrative, I don't think you're instantly just like wrong or everyone needs to go shame on you. - Yeah, listen, look, I agree with you. It's, look, when I debate and you see this, I like to debate the war that's going on right now or economic policy or just something where it's like, look, it's very clear what we're arguing about here, and not, you know, it's a little bit of an awkward thing to try to like win the debate in devastating fashion that you did a conspiracy that wasn't true. You know, it's a little bit of a tough thing to, so and there was at least one point, and again, I don't really, I don't know enough about the details to know this stuff, but there was one point where Canis did walk away from the thing she said. She goes, oh yeah, I got that wrong, you know? And it's like, and that kind of takes all the power away from it. 'Cause it's like, "Bell, I mean, never." She's allowed to hunt down theories, right? And like, she can admit. you got one wrong. Anyway, I think that like I always I always saw it this way that it's like they're it's not my job. I don't know. It's not it's not my job to be the whole monitor of the dissidents. I mean like again, you know, there's probably a lot of there's a lot of things that I think people who listen to the show ought to be able to figure out about my views, even things that I don't talk about that much, right? Because like Rob, if you were to go where does Dave stand on building seven? I never talk about tower seven, right? But almost that almost tells you where I stand on it, right? It's like, I'm not a 9/11 true third and people know that and I don't know. You know, and like you would just go, how is that never come up? If I believe that it would have come up one of these times, you know what I mean? I've talked about this stuff so many times on such big platforms. You would have heard me say that if like where do I stand on chemtrails? Well, like I don't believe in that, right? Because I never talk about them. You would have heard me talk about them once if I thought this was like a major thing that was that was going on again, that doesn't mean I have to run around and like the goat to every dissident go, oh, you got out over your skis here or you you were a little bit too racist in your criticism of the war or something like that. It's like, I don't know. There's we got, you know, we have a government that lies to us about everything, commits enormous crimes against us. You know, it's like here you have a guy who was who was an open advocate against a war that we fought jointly with the Israelis and he was clearly in the president's ear had a huge mobilization at like outreach, you know, organization. So the biggest political organizer of young people in the right wing in America, that's a big deal. And he was against this war. Also, that government's known for their targeted assassination campaigns and stuff. So like all I'm saying, I'm not saying none of that is evidence that that is real that anything because I don't have any evidence that is real that anything, but it is fertile ground for conspiracies to bloom. And it's almost undeniable that they're going to happen. I don't I don't think like, you know, I to me, it's always been clear that like my job is to tell the truth and to focus on the evil people in power who are doing the worst thing because on the major crisis, the major problem, I don't think like, you know, if you're when you're when you're going after people for being, you know, if you're going after Alex Jones for being Alex Jones, you have to really demonstrate why it's so bad, you know, which there is an argument to it yet you're discrediting the entire movement that's against this thing. But like you got to really connect those dots. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is pro long by El Nutra. Long work weeks and busy weekends can leave you feeling and looking depleted. But pro lawns five day fasting mimicking diet works at the cellular level to reset and rejuvenate you from the inside out, supporting sustained fat loss, lean muscle, metabolism, slower aging and even glowing skin. 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All right, let's get back into the show. So yeah, I don't know what to say other than that on the topic. That's kind of where I am. I'm open to this. I know I know I got some friends who have really gone down the rabbit hole and Oakland Russell has and he really thinks it's shady as shit. I'm kind of open to that. I think we're going to probably learn more at this trial. So let's see what comes out of all this. You know, I don't, it's not, it's it's not like I almost in this, I guess, is where what I said, right? I think Clint, I saw I saw part of his stream the other day. We talked on the phone briefly while I was watching the debate, but I saw part of his stream. And even he had said, I mean, Candace has it at zero. I'd probably be way higher than that, you know, like so he was going like he, I think I probably am, and this is what's kind of a, you know, ironic, I guess, that I, I thought Andrew lost the debate despite the fact that I don't know that I necessarily disagree with his opinion. I think I disagreed with a few things he said, but, but if you said 75% and I say this with like real ignorance, Rob, like not as someone following this, that's kind of about where I'm at, right? I go probably like odds are that this kid did shoot him, right? I mean, if they got a gun and they go, I don't know, that's kind of where I am. I don't know, but that's not that, like that number isn't that high. That number leaves a whole huge percentage that maybe there's something else here that we don't know about. I'm not against people digging for that. If they think that's the case, figure it out. And I'm not, I'm not for, you know, somebody playing the role of being like, Oh, I'll call you out if your theory doesn't add up. It's okay. Not quite sure why it needs to be the number one debate though. Right? Like it just seems like I don't know, guys, like there's a war going on, but he put $300,000 on the line with, uh, I'm going to ruin you and you're much bigger than I am. There's no reason for you to have me on the show for the opportunity to ruin you. And, uh, people like stakes, you know what I mean? That's like watching a, uh, evil con evil jump the grand canyon. You're like someone's going to fail today. And so when you put up $400,000 of I'm going to ruin someone, you're like, Oh, man, is someone about to get ruined or someone about to lose $300,000 on a failed attempt? Well, that's right. And it does look don't get me wrong because to some degree, these things are all intermarried, right? Because there is, like, like in theory, Rob, right? You could win a debate. You could really win the argument, but the crowd could just disagree with you. Like 90% of the crowd could think you lost, even though you're like, wait, I had way better arguments. But then in some other sense, that's a loss because you're the goal of doing the thing is to get the people to be on your side. And so I just, it's hard to go like, how can you look at a situation? Just even if you're on Andrew's side and even if you think he won the debate and even if you can overlook moments like that in the debate that didn't really go very well for him, Candace Owens collected $300,000 and didn't lose a fan over this. Like if the goal was to expose her or to stop this or to anything, it just made her look good. Everything, all of the optics even, even the fact is that Andrew seemed a bit nervous that he was twitching his leg the whole time that she that he wrote this whole opening thing and she just cracked her knuckles and came out and went like, okay, let's do it. And was calm the whole time and just, it's just, it's hard. How do you look at that and not go? This was a win for her. This was a big win. That, I don't know, seems clear to me. That's my honest opinion on it. I knew there were a lot of people who were like, I saw a few people on Twitter who are like, they'll be very interested to see how Dave's going to handle this or whatever. But I handle it by telling you what I think is true. Like how I always do. And you know, I don't, I also, you know, I guess maybe more broadly, I would say, you know, kind of like an in defense of Candace Owens that, yeah, it's like, look, somebody said to me the other day, when I was shitting on Hassan Piker, someone said to me, they go, well, Dave, you don't want to be doing the CIA's bidding, you know, like you, they're trying to ruin this guy because he's anti-war now you're going after him. And I'm like, yeah, but everything within reason, like there's a line. And, you know, the guy is openly pushing like Maoism or something like that. And it's like, yeah, okay, I actually think that's bad. And I also just find him reprehensible on a lot of different levels and whatever. But like, there is something to like when people go, oh, Candace Owens collected money. She made all this money off talking about Charlie Kirk for the last year. It's like, this was going to make a lot of money in the last year talking about whatever she wanted to talk about, okay? Candace Owens has been humongous for a very long time. Candace Owens got fired from the daily wire and they kept her YouTube channel. So she had to start a whole new one from scratch. And she had millions of subscribers the first day because she was the chick who told she became in many ways the face were one of the faces of the anti-Israel movement. You know, and because she was at under Ben Shapiro's company, it just, it made the dynamics of it so much crazier and more interesting and compelling. And then she went on to have like huge, huge, huge success. So she was going to be huge no matter what, you know? And like, I don't know, I do think that people
are going after her in a way that doesn't make sense even if she was wrong about all of these theories. Like even if that's the case, I still just don't find that to be something that is worthy of like, you know, again, like I said, Alex Jones has a track record of getting a million things wrong. I still don't look at Alex Jones as like this awful evil person because essentially he was against the awful evil people as they were in power doing terrible things. He just thought they were communicating with aliens, you know, like I don't know. It's just I don't, I just don't, it doesn't do it for me. So it doesn't seem right. I also think she validated if you thought she needed, she validated the pursuit. She showcased that there wasn't a co here in enough story for this guy definitely did it. Why are you looking into this? And I think she definitely spoke to the fact that this one's personal for her because, you know, Charlie was a friend and that's why she's digging in and I just say one more thing. By the way, I just forgot to say the final move. I agree with you completely that I also thought what backfired weirdly was him reading a new text message from Charlie Kirk that turning point had given him. I mean, that just like look, it's, it made turning point look terrible, which doesn't help Andrew ever as he is in some way here de facto, de facto, they are representative. Not technically, I guess, but I don't know. You worked with them and now you're doing this and they're feeding you information. But so now you're telling me, wait a minute. So you're telling me that first of all, this completely contradicts what Erica Kirk published, publicly said when she attacked Candace Owens and said that this is untrue. It's completely made up that Charlie ever said anything about how he feared for his life and I have his phone. So I know for a fact, this isn't true. Now we're going to completely 180 on that and we're going, no, no, no, he was afraid but of the left and we have kept this quiet all this time only to reveal it now in an attempt to own Candace Owens that I don't know. I just thought that didn't help the case at all. And like I don't know what else do you got? And then when he said he's going to reveal the more stuff on his show, kind of I think trying to needle her for doing the same. So now you're doing the same thing that she did, but you're very upset at her. It just none of this was coherent to me. I don't know. You know, look, I know something about getting these big debate moments. You got to go win the debates. I don't know what else to say. Okay. We're going to wrap up there. Catch you guys next time. Big episode tomorrow. Catch you then. Peace. [MUSIC]
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Dave Smith and Robbie discuss the recent Candace Owens vs. Andrew Wilson debate about the Charlie Kirk shooting case, moderated by Patrick Bet-David, which drew millions of views.
Dave believes Candace won decisively, despite agreeing with Andrew on many points, citing audience polls (70%+ for Candace) and Andrew's poor performance.
Andrew's key failures included reading his opening from his phone, lacking mastery of case details (e.g., failing to name charges, initially saying "I think he's been charged with murder"), and relying on gotcha tactics that backfired.
A pivotal moment
Robbie criticizes Andrew's debate style as tactical "sportsmanship" rather than a genuine pursuit of truth, finding it dishonest and exhausting.
Both hosts agree that questioning official narratives is legitimate, especially given government lies (e.g., Iraq War, COVID), and that Candace's exploration of the case is reasonable despite some questionable theories.
Dave notes the case has "fertile ground" for conspiracy theories due to odd elements (e.g., evidence returned to the Kirk family, site paved over, Joe Kent's resignation comments), but he remains agnostic, estimating ~75% chance Tyler Robinson did it.
The hosts criticize Andrew for reading a new text from Charlie Kirk that contradicted Erica Kirk's earlier statements, further damaging his case.
Summary:
In this episode of "Part of the Problem," Dave Smith and Robbie discuss the massive debate between Candace Owens and Andrew Wilson over the Charlie Kirk shooting case. Dave opens by stating he likes and respects both participants and largely agrees with Andrew's position, but he concludes that Candace won the debate decisively. He argues that Andrew's strategy backfired: he read his opening statement from his phone, appeared nervous, and failed to demonstrate mastery of the case.
A critical low point came when Candace challenged him to name the charges against Tyler Robinson—Andrew could only say "I think he's been charged with murder," while Candace confidently listed all seven. Dave and Robbie both criticize Andrew's reliance on gotcha tactics and debate tricks, which they see as dishonest and ineffective. Robbie goes further, calling Andrew's approach "sportsmanship" rather than a genuine search for truth.
The hosts also defend Candace's right to question the official narrative, noting the government's history of lies and the strange aspects of the case, such as Joe Kent's resignation comments and the rapid cleanup of the scene. Dave clarifies he doesn't endorse all of Candace's theories—he estimates a 75% chance Tyler Robinson was the shooter—but he believes the case warrants scrutiny. Ultimately, they conclude that Andrew's attempt to ruin Candace backfired, boosting her credibility and leaving him with a significant loss.
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