The War Sold On Lies

What's up? What's up? Everybody, welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem. I am Dave Smith and he is Robby the Fire Burnstein. How are you, sir? I'm doing well. Excited to get out for the weekend. Chicago tomorrow night and then you and I in Appleton and then I got Madison on Sunday. So stacked weekend. Oh, hell yeah. I am looking forward to getting back to Appleton, Wisconsin. We had some fun shows there last year. I'm looking forward to to doing that again, comic Dave Smith.com for all those tickets and then porchdoor.com for all the of Rob States, of course. And yeah, things are the summer, the summer's almost over Rob, but man, we can only pray this war is almost over as well. What is, what does seem to be over? It should be the credibility of some of these people pushing it. We got, this is kind of a fun one that we got today. I don't. Well, let's get right into it, Rob. Look, it's so weird to me at all that John Podhoritz even has a podcast. I don't know what it's called. It seems to only exist for the clips to circulate for people like us. It's, it's, it's, there's just still, I guess for people who have done like the deep reading about the Neocons, there's something about the fact that he is Norman Podhoritz as kid and he was really an institution at commentary magazine and just kind of a, and that the Neoconservatives had so much influence on our foreign policy and have for a quarter century. And in some way, he represents how the true like the origin, the nucleus of this whole policy, how those people feel about it now. I don't know what's the, what's the name of his show, Rob? I think it's fetching. I'm not sure. So that would be a perfect name if it wasn't. But I told the story. I met him once at Fox News and we kind of got along like fine for the moment. And I got to say I met him. It was years ago. It must be like 15 years ago, but I had already read a bunch of, I read two of his dad's books and I read a lot of, you know, I read all of the Neocons stuff by that point. And I was almost in all a little bit, you know, this, I was like, oh shit, that is John Podhoritz. And we like talked for a little bit. And he was a reasonably, you know, he's him, exactly what you'd think. But man, then he really turned on me. We followed each other on social media, but he really turned on me hard when he Thomas Massey said after October 7th that we're going broke so we can't fund Israel's war in Gaza. And he called him anti-Semitic scum for saying that. And I was like, dude, that's insane. You know, he blocked me. Anyway, been interesting to watch his takes over the course of this war, which Rob last I checked in isn't going great. I think that's a fair way to put it. So let's start. This was the clip that's been going around of him the other day. This is pretty interesting. I've been seeing a little bit of some of the cracks in the armor, you know, I guess if we were to talk about it broadly, do you remember Rob? It wasn't that long ago when this war was launched. I mean, it was, you know, almost six months ago, but around the beginning of the war, do you remember when we were taking on the argument, people were making that turns out the lesson of this is that Tucker Carlson doesn't matter. You know, it was like turns out the lesson of this is that now, now we find ourselves here with the Democratic Socialists having all of the wind at their back in this absolute nightmare. Turns out it did matter that Donald Trump lost his whole coalition. But as you, what you're seeing now is kind of people come to terms with this, you know, starting to cope with what, what we're going to be looking at after this, like even I think a lot of, so, so for example, Rob, when I would debate Will Chamberlain, I know I beat him up several times, but it makes sense that I'd bring this up several times on the podcast. It's now been, I think, over three months since Will Chamberlain guaranteed that the Iranian regime wouldn't be standing in another month, you know, but back then, Rob, three months ago, when people like Will Chamberlain would say we're going to get the, the enriched uranium, we're going to get the regime to, to, to total surrender. We're going to control the straight of her moves like all these things. I think some of them, I mean, I don't know how much Will is just lying through his teeth or just how much he's naive, but I feel like some of them probably wanted to believe that maybe convinced themselves of it. Me and you were saying, look, you're just not reading the cards on the ground here. None of this is going to happen. They're starting to come to terms with that now. You see a lot of this going on. They're starting to realize like those guys, they don't believe that anymore. They're looking at this situation more and more and more and going like probably whatever the result of this is, it's not going to be what they were claiming. As that realization is coming, here is John Pajarits' particular brand of cope. Is poll number stink? The war's poll number stink. The war's poll numbers are starting to stink among Republicans. He, this is the major commitment of his first term, and it's failing. And so he and the Republicans are going into the midterm elections. Just pause it already, that way. It's not just Rob. I don't know, dude, you're on this ride with me. I don't know if anybody else can quite answer this like you can. Is it the feeling of it just over and over years and years and years where it's like we just say shit on this podcast. It's a very controversial opinion to have. Add that plus time. Then all the sudden you have like, is that not exactly what and sometimes it just like, it just makes you want to bang your head against well, this is exactly what we've been saying. No, this is exactly what we've been saying. Just starting off the right there, but look, man, I mean, his poll numbers are terrible. It's unpopular. It's unwitting, but we're like, who could have predicted this? His poll, his poll numbers kept dipping after the start of the war and the thing just got more and more unpopular, Rob, who could have possibly predicted this? We got bored saying it. It's been the biggest challenge of the last six months, do it in this show. There's just how many times can I say over and over again that this is going to destroy Trump's presidency? And when you launch this war, you tie your entire presidency to it and it's already unpopular and he's unpopular and it's going to get less popular and less popular as they fail and fail. Sorry, already, just something. Let's keep playing. Oh, positive case to be made about the last two years of governance aside from the passage of the one big, beautiful bill, which doesn't seem to have much in the way of electoral legs. Since you don't hear anybody on a campaign trail talking about the greatness of the one big, beautiful bill and the tariffs are in question. The ballroom has been frozen. The ice is now sort of quieted down. It's public raids. His numbers on immigration are bad. His numbers everywhere are bad. And in the end, this is all going to be the fault of refusing to do the right things to win the war. Because winning the war, hello, I would have all sorts of ancillary benefits. You can't entirely guess at, but surge of national pride, a sense that, you know, a country's monstrous regime has been ended and that the people there have been liberated from its horrible yoke, even if you don't quite know what's causing that. Another second here, because we're up. I mean, Jesus. So, I mean, the thing about how out of touch a guy like John Putthoritz is, is that he's still like, he's still almost speaking about this as if this was the first of our Middle Eastern interventions in the 1990s or something like that. And we went, look, had it worked out, it would have been good, but it didn't end up working out. It's like, dude, it's a lot more than that when it's the seventh disaster in a row. And none of them have worked out. And you got to be a goddamn idiot to think this thing would have worked out well. Like you have to be the absolute dumbest, literally a caricature of Einsteinian definitions of insanity to have thought this was going to work out well. But like, leave that aside, how out of touch he is where America is, that he goes, dude, people are upset about all this different stuff. Everything here is failing. He's not popular across the board on any of these issues. People don't like his handling of the economy, his handling of immigration, his handling of all these things. But if we had just toppled the regime, there would have been a surge in national pride. And maybe something good for the Iranian people could have come of that. And that would have made us feel all very good, dude, Rob. I don't know. I think you are so removed from where America is right now to think that if like we were a bit hard or off, but you said, but look, we made the Iranian people better. That would be like a wildly popular thing when you ran on explicitly the opposite of that. What do you write? All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Hexclad. 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And for a limited time only, our listeners can get 10% off your order with our exclusive link. Just head over to Hexclad.com/Problem that's H-E-X-C-L-A-D.com/Problem to get 10% off your order. All right, let's get back into the show. Well, we're getting to the point that really made my blood boil, but yeah, I guess it kind of decided on this point, it kind of depends on both sides of the equation. If we had won the war, but let's just say gas prices went up to $10 a gallon, there might have been enough public outrage over price increases, which by the way, he does not mention on his list of things that people are upset about. Right. And people go, hey, it's not worth it. If, you know, gas only went up $1 and we won this thing within four months, maybe he's right that people would think, wow, America kicked some ass and we're awesome. So I think I don't think it's true or not true. It's kind of just depends on how it would have played out, but of course it did not play out that way. And we don't have a victory. And it's just so it's such a cop out. I mean, it's every bit. You remember the one that we loved so much when when Thomas Massey was grilling Pete Buttigieg and he's like, he's like, we have an initiative to make all cars, you know, you know, whatever the thing was like net neutral. Yeah, electric. Well, I think it was carbon neutral or whatever by, you know, 20, 28 or whatever. And he was like, what? So they're all going to be electric cars. So like, where are they going to charge? And he goes, well, electric stations is like, but that just goes into the power grid. He goes, the power, they just, it's like a game of numbers. Like it can't support that. And then he's like, that's why we need a new power grid. And you're like, oh, so you have nothing. So he's like, that's why we have to imagine a new thing. Then you're essentially in the same sense. If you just go, but imagine we had won the war, like that really is not, that is nothing. That is nothing. It's not, it's not even like he's going to sit here and all of them. I mean, when they attempt to, it's so like, it really is embarrassingly like juvenile whenever they attempt to actually say anything, you know, bomb the island and smash the thing. Do the, you know, they don't actually have a plan, but it's all just had we won. What was the possible path toward victory here? There's nothing. Anyway, all right, here, let's keep playing. Rest restructuring of the Middle East so that the so that we are less beholden to or in bed with forces like gutter that are doing domestic damage to the United States in terms of their propaganda campaigns. I don't know what, but losing is the war. The losing is the end of everything. Like this is, I literally don't know what he goes and tells the American people or that Republicans go and tell the American people that they should be brought back into the control of the Senate and hold the house, that the Democrats are crazy socialists who are evil. And indeed, I will say it is evil and many of the people who are running are extremists who are bad for America. So in other words, if you were America first and you thought that the socialist Democrats were the mortal enemy at the gates that we really have to keep out of government, maybe you don't want to risk your entire presidency on an Iran war. And maybe if you are going to engage in that and know that you have to win it, you'd really do your homework to see that it was winnable. And so I guess we can all agree that risking his presidency on this war as clearly we did not win it was a huge and epic mistake that puts Trump and those who advocated for this war at fault for potentially flipping the Senate towards the Democrats. It's always amazing when they kind of the people who will admit, because obviously for different reasons they admit it, right? So like people like I remember when I debated Stephen Crowder, this was kind of one of the themes, but say like the reason why John Poddharritz has to say this is a lot different than Stephen Crowder, but he has to hate the new left. See the thing is that if the new left was just Hillary Clinton, it doesn't matter how socially whatever they were, they could be pushing trans children, shit, John Poddharritz would be comfortable to just go become a Democrat. The problem he has is that the new ascendant insurgency in the Democratic Party hates Israel's guts. So there's no home there. You know what I mean? So that's why he's kind of sad. They weren't lamenting the destruction of the Republican Party in this way when Trump went up. A bunch of them just became Democrats or just worked against Trump. But anyway, so he's got an issue where he has to kind of hate those people there. And so he's saying to you, Rob, right? As was Crowder for different reasons. That essentially, look, the fucking these guys are socialist jihadists insane people who represent the absolute destruction of our country and our daughters and our daughters daughters being raped by Muslims and with open communist courts that, you know, throws in the gulags or whatever in the future like that. This is the end of America if this gets left in. And then they're also going to have to concede here that losing the war hands the country to those people. And so you just sit there and you go, so you're telling me that now this war was not that you what flipped a coin on the United States of America over whether we could what pull out a win in a regime change war in the Middle East. So that's what you were on board for. You flip, Rob, I'm sorry, just I want you to answer this question. I wasn't a philosophy major. I've read some philosophy books in my day and really enjoyed them and gotten something out of them, but I don't know. I'm not the smartest guy. Okay. If you were to flip a coin and just for no reason, you didn't have to, but you were to flip a coin that risked the future of the United States of America. Would you consider that policy to be conservative? Would that be a policy a conservative ought to embark in? You know, it's like, this is even by their own admission here. It's just like, oh, we lost, well, man, it's too bad we lost. Oh, there goes everything. Well, it was worth it to attempt it for Israel to risk the United States of America or something like that. What is the actual answer here, Rob? Let's continue because we're coming up on the thing that really set me off. All right. Yeah, let's go. But that's not a case for the Republicans and right now, the democratic candidate for Senate in Texas is in the lead. Multiple polls, he has a small but measurable lead outside the margin of error. That's Taloriko in Texas, the race in Iowa is a three point race one way or the other, not clear. Texas and Iowa lose. Republicans lose in Texas and Iowa. I will say it can lose in Michigan to a Republican and with enough other dominoes falling, Democrats can still take the Senate. This war ends with Iran with the acceptance that Iran has some sway or control over the straight of our moves. The war, we lost the war. Point one way or another before and I think it applies. to all of us, I'm sure, if you would said to, you know, people say, oh, well, the Neocons got what they wanted. They got to go on. No, none of us wanted this. If you would come to me and any of us, I'm sure in late January and said, hey, we're going to go into Iran. What do you think? I go great. And they'd say, but we only have enough defensive missiles, enough defense batteries and maybe enough long, long range missiles for like an honest month of fighting. And then we're out. I'd say, no, no, no, don't do it. Can we pause it? You'll stop. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, Rob, this is, this is good. You can go, this is truly remarkable here. You go ahead. So this is the part that just drove me absolutely insane because, and I was thinking about this today, that imagine the biggest spaceship you could ever think of came from a foreign planet, like the size of space balls. And there's a room of 10 government officials and they're deciding what they want to do. They get an invite from the spaceship to go up there and talk. And half the room goes, you know what we got to do? We got a surprise attack and nuke these guys. And the other half of the room goes, well, why don't we at least hear them out first? Maybe that's going to tick them off. They got here. They have better technology than us. We don't want to pick the fight. They flip one six decide, no, we got a surprise nuke these guys. They go up there with the nuke. They sit off the nuke. The aliens instantly neutralize the nuke and then broadcast a message to all of earth. We were here to send healthcare and to help the human race. But after you guys tried to kill us, we're now going to annihilate you. And they're sitting in the room and those six people go, well, that's not what we wanted. Right. Yeah. Right. The way that decisions are held responsible. The way that decisions are made is you make a risk assessment. And more often than not, when a government policy fails, it's because they got it wrong. And they did not pay attention to the people that were calling out the unintended consequences. And you guys pitched this war. You supported this war with the variables that Donald Trump was running the war. That was the risk assessment. If you had said, hey, we would love an Iran war, but we don't think Donald Trump is smart enough to pull it off. And so we don't want to do with this administration. Then you could not own this war and turn around and go, we didn't support this work because we think Trump is bad. That's not what you guys said. All of the variables were on the table. You could have done enough homework to see how prepared our military was. The fact that Donald Trump was seemingly unaware, unconcerned with the Straits. You guys knew all of this and you supported it. So the point is you got it wrong. This is actually the war that you wanted. You just don't like the results. That's exactly right. Look, man, it is such an unbelievable cop out to just go like, I wanted it. I don't know. You told someone it's a stupid fight to pick. You go and get killed in the fight. And then you go, well, I didn't want to do it if we were going to get killed. I didn't want to do it if we weren't prepared for the fight. And it's like, yeah, dude, well, that's the whole game there. Now, isn't it? I mean, maybe not the entire thing. You know, you want to think about whether it's a noble and just war or not, which this one clearly is not. But in addition to that, whether you're going to get creamed, yeah, that's a, like, that's not a thing like, oh, we didn't know. Well, you could better make sure you know that before you support a war. And you know, I mean, look, even going into it, it is, I'm sorry. It's a shocking thing that me and you have such a more sophisticated analysis of this stuff than people who were like professionals. And this is what they've done their entire lives. I mean, I guess we've done this for a while now, too, but it's still kind of strange. But look, man, think about this, Rob. Put Horace says before he throws it to his friend there who says we didn't want it like this. He says that, well, look, if they still control the straight of Hermussen anyway, then that's a loss. That's how he defined the loss. But Rob, this is the reality that the Trump administration and all of them are coming to. Number one, that's right. And number two, there's no way to ever stop them. The only way is to have a regime in place and make a deal with that regime. That's why they've been trying to make a deal this whole time. That's the reason Trump hasn't just walked away or destroyed the place already. Because fuck, look, you, you look at it like this, right? When he's saying victory, like, he almost in the beginning was defining it like we overthrew the regime. And he said, well, now the future of the Iranian people maybe end out, we don't know, but maybe there's hope, you know, we just overthrew this terrible regime. Maybe they have a good, but the regime falls, Rob, by the most modest estimate, you know, like 10% of the country is loyal to the regime. By the, I mean, literally the most fucking came out of a misad laboratory numbers are that 10% are, are dedicated to them. Okay, 10% of 90 million is 9 million. That's a healthy pool for an insurgency. Well, this is assuming those numbers don't go up at all after, you know, everything that's happened, which is kind of ridiculous to think that there aren't other factions that maybe didn't love the Ayatollah, but at the same time, don't really love the Americans who just overthrew their government or whatever. But I mean, you're talking about pool millions and millions of people. And Rob, as you know, they've been using $10,000, $20,000 drones to harass boats on the straight of her moves. How do you possibly? So in other words, right now, right? In the same sense, it's another neocon war by his own logic. It's as soon as we bring feminism to Afghanistan. That's when we've won. That, like, you could look at that already just on paper, Rob, and you would just go, it's almost, this is, this is almost like on the level of, like, a 10th grade class. If someone just, like, came up and thought they saw, like, you put a problem on the board and they go, I think I solved it. You go, nope. See, that doesn't work right back. Like, it's just, sorry, that doesn't work then. How do you win that war? And this is why this is so disingenuous. So you go back to the initial strike on Iran, and what was the, what was the argument between the non-interventionist and the war hawks is you're going to end up with a quagmire. And they were trying to go, no, there won't be a quagmire. We can just do target strikes. Then they start a war and they go, we can do a quick war. We can win this thing easily. And then what does it turn out? We can't. And we're right back to what we've been complaining about Iraq and Afghanistan that you've started some new ongoing thing that's going to cost us a ton of money and won't actually get you anywhere. And these were the people who were trying to pitch you on the idea of, no, we can engage in warfare and we can win it. And it doesn't have to be a big old mess. And then you end up six months later where it's a big old mess and they go, well, that's not what we wanted. Yeah, exactly what we were telling you at the outset is that we are not good at this and it does not work. You guys were the ones who were saying, no, we can pull it off. It will work. And if you weren't smart enough to go, oh, well, Donald Trump's the leader won't work under him. Then you needed to say that at the time, or acknowledge that you were wrong, which you were. And again, again, you know, like the term, the term neoconservative, you guys, you sit, I'm just saying you sit in the dynamics of the context of the time that you were speaking. You are two people who are identifying with the word neoconservative, right? The guy next to him actually says, oh, people say the neocons wanted this war. No, this isn't what we wanted. Like we are the neocons. You understand you were at a time the most influential foreign policy group in the country. You are nobody even identifies with the word anymore. People are, it's purely a pejorative that in common parlance means the people who advocate for wars that always become disasters and don't work out the way they said they were going to. That's what neocon means at this point. Like to like in the discourse for reasons. And so you're talking about yet another catastrophic war and not even not even like the sense of just kind of like, I mean, it didn't work, you know, almost with a tone of just kind of like, it was a 50/50 thing you could have been right. We could have been right. Who knows you tend ended up being right. But like, had we been right, this would have been better. That's the way you, that's the way neocons think about launching wars of aggression. There, six in a row, we're bad, huh? Let's do this seventh disaster too. Well, you know, you win some, you lose some. Like, when do we win some? Is there more, is there more to this clip? Natalie, or did we finish that one? I think that was pretty much the meat of it. Here, you play the last few seconds. There's anything worth cited in the changing direction. But don't do it the wrong way. That's, that's going to be a disaster. I just think that's, that's, that's axiomatic. I mean, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're insane, you know, you're insane to support a war that you're not prepared that you don't have the preparedness to fight. See me, what you supported. So in other words, you weren't saying, well, I just think your point is axiomatic is another way of saying that there was no point in me. There was no point. In other words, there was no point. Of course, you, you can't be forestarting a war that you're not prepared to fight. And therefore, that's already baked into the price of whether you're for a war or not. And therefore, after you were for a war, you can't go, oh, that doesn't count because we weren't prepared to fight. That was one more thing. The onus was on you. know that at the time. Rob, do you remember when people, how much the hawks used to mock me for talking about escalation dominance all the time? Okay. Now the line is that, oh, we didn't know we couldn't handle it. So it doesn't count that you were right. Yeah, this is the whole point. This was the whole point, the entire time that they're going to sit here and pretend like, I don't know, dude, like, like, this is, you could just rewind the tape years and hear, you know, us talking about that, like our, our, I don't mean us mean our whole side. Scott Horton's been breaking this down forever and a bunch of great people have as well. But just that, like, yeah, they can touch us. They can hit, they can shoot missiles off. This is going to be a tough regime to overthrow because it's a very difficult country to conquer. And you're going to have a tough time overthrowing the regime from the skies. They can close off the straight of her moose. They can pretend these are new factors that we didn't need to be considered at the onset. It's ridiculous. And it's also, I suppose, Rob, because they, they opened themselves up a little bit to the wrath of the fire. And so if they're going to say, well, hey, you're blaming the neocons for this policy now, but this isn't what we wanted, not like this. Rob dug in a little bit to like what some of them were saying as the war was going on. And what was that exactly? Well, I pulled up a whole bunch of clips. Here's the thing. I'm not actually familiar with these guys outside of the last time you brought up hot irats on the show. But I've just seen enough times where people ignore the unintended consequences that somebody was pointing out at the outset of a policy decision. And then exactly what the critics were saying comes true and all the uncut and unintended consequences are what results from the policy. And then people turn around and go, well, that's what we wanted. And I'm like, yeah, that's the point is that you guys are bad at making these decisions. You lied when you pitched it. Your best case scenario didn't come true. And now you're trying to keep your job and credibility when you shouldn't have any. I mean, you just heard it from the guy when he goes, oh, supporting this would have been insane. So in the next time you pitch a war, we can all go, oh, you're not good at making a decision about whether or not we're in a situation to fight a war because you pitched the iran war. So I wanted to dig in and find out to what extent these guys were going. We're winning this war or this war is a good idea or we should be fighting this war. And if at any point in time they had said this war is not a good idea because the country's not prepared or we don't trust Donald Trump's administration to do it well. And so I went through a fair amount of transcripts of the show. You know, I use the AIs to try and point me in the right direction. And I think I located some clips that directly contradict what they're trying to put forward here, which is that they were against this war from the outset because they didn't trust this administration to do it or they didn't think that we had the supplies for it. All right, guys, let's take a moment and think our sponsor for today's show, which is ultra pouches the ultimate guilt free nicotine free caffeine free pouch. And now they have the sleep pouches out the ultra sleep pouches. So if you have trouble sleeping, if you wish you could follow sleep faster, sleep deeper and wake up without groginess, well, you got to check out the new ultra sleep pouches. The idea behind this is genius. Everyone uses pouches for increased focus and energy. But ultra took that idea and flipped it. Now they have the pouches that help you wind down, fall asleep and stay asleep. And the great thing is that they just use six clean research back ingredients. 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I mean, things are looking pretty good. I mean, the decapitation of the malocharcy, if not the removal of the regime happening within hours of the wars. Beginning is almost unprecedented, I think, in the history of warfare and sets this on a very new kind of course, obviously, the reaching, reaching the guy in the bunker is what you do systematically after years of fighting. That's Hitler's in the bunker in 45, not in 39 or 41. And so who knows what the knock on effects of that are going to be and the systematic ability given the apparent apparently amazing intelligence penetration that we not only know where he was and where those leaders were on Saturday morning, but that, but that we also know who's in the secondary tertiary levels of the leadership to eliminate them as well and cut off their control command and communications capabilities so that they can't really systematically respond, you know, say, it appears what they're doing is kind of spraying missiles around the gulf and toward Israel, but there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it. And that seems to be the result of the ability to make it impossible for them to make a plan and stay up to it. Just, just already, or if you just, if you just pose it here for a second, just already, man, they just like come, like again, just compare that to like what we were saying when the war first launched and think about what's aged better where he's come all the way around to what our position originally was while he was this dumb to think that this was an indication that we had shorted some new course. It wasn't a new course spoiler. It was the exact same course. And yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead, Rob. Well, actually what he's speaking to here is making negotiations tougher because you took out the head of the leadership and then you had to diverging factions that you have to try and meet with and the fact that they didn't actually need to have one cohesive government because they could give instructions to different people and just take the straight. So it's just kind of showcasing this isn't at the beginning of the war going, hey, we're off to a great trajectory here. And overlooking, you know, the closing of the straights or any of the other risk factors and making it harder to get a deal when you took out the probably most moderate person to actually negotiate with about whether or not I ran should have nukes. Yeah. And even like when he goes, look, man, like Hitler didn't get taken out in 1939 at the beginning of the war, Rob Hitler got taken out in 1945 after the bloodiest war in human history. And this didn't take nothing like that. You know, it's like, well, yeah, it's almost like the enemy was nothing comparable. Like, right, there's, there's another way to look at this. Like, but yeah, yeah, but just the entire tone of it, like no, and no, um, if you notice with these guys with all of the neocons, like, dude, even if you, uh, even if you're pro war, even if you're for a war, you know, you launch a war, you don't have any kind of like, you know, there's no feeling of the weight of the risk of man. This is the, you never want to do this, but you have to and there's always this huge risk of human suffering and butt. And, uh, you know, there's probably this, this might have been within hours of like 170 little girls getting blown up or little kids, whatever, maybe now they said it wasn't just a girl's school, whatever, but all these, these little kids dying, it's like, that's happening as you're sitting here going, looks good to me. And what's his comment? It is this Iranian response, man, it looks really disorganized, looks like they really can't touch too much around here. Yeah, that aged well, oh shit, we ran out of missiles firing them at all of their missiles. Okay. Um, I believe that this, this from five months ago. So it's either from March or April because YouTube didn't give me, oh, it's from March 2nd, 2026. Um, and now we're going to jump ahead because he's so sure that this war is going to work out. He even talks about how this is going to, um, spook China and we're going to be thwarting China with the success that we're having in the Iran war. So, uh, Natalie, we're going to jump ahead to the second timestamp from this video. John, I'm five years older than you. So I make many more mistakes than you do. Uh, Jesus. I want to zoom out to what to be ready. Gordon did today and his ask of even anything podcast, which is look at the great game, the grand strategy. So there's a chessboard over here at the middle east. It's been turned over and we'll see what happens. But over here, there's China, the United States, Russia and Israel. And it looks like China is the big loser this week. What do you think of that? I, I think that's true. And you, oddly enough, you see this weird, the world of people who are resistant to the idea of this war saying we're somehow being distracted from China or we are, we're being, we're pulling into their hands because we're getting tied up in Iran. China and Iran are very closely allied when Operation Midnight Hammer destroyed not only the nuclear program or most of the nuclear program but the ballistic missile capabilities of Iran you know in the summer where did Iran turn to start rebuilding which it chose to do what didn't have to do right it turned to Iran to get more equipment to start reconstituting its its ballistic missile threat so taking out of Iran and not only takes out a customer for China but it restricts China's projection of its own power beyond its borders to an ally in the least. All right, let's pose it, let's pose it there for a second because I'd have to pose a question to John Pudhoritz who obviously is much smarter than any of us. I mean he's a professional, we're just a couple of comics right but I'd pose a question to him. There should be like, well, if if winning this war and taking out Iran as you say would have degraded China then what is losing the war and transitioning China into a global power do? I mean look at this point he would have to admit right that losing the war didn't hurt China right that hurt America right now that he says we lost so again Rob like also apply your whole thing to geopolitics I guess you can't do that either. I mean I don't know what to say you're sitting here going look at how clear cut is this he goes the detractors of the war are saying this will degrade us and help China but I'm saying no they're wrong this will eliminate Iran and degrade China now you're saying we lost okay so you were wrong again and the critics of the war were right like I don't know you have to rub the thing that's infuriating about it right the thing before that guy just is that that's the conclusion not oh we didn't want this we wanted the war but with winning like no the conclusion is you should have fought the thing because you couldn't win it. All right so now let's jump to the next clip where he more directly makes the pitch for that we're winning and this is from April and we got two clips where he pitches he pitches the fact that we're winning. It's a very important and interesting piece that obviously reflects the reality on the ground which is the United States has is and will likely secure what is an astounding military victory over the regime in Iran that the regime in Iran simply will not acknowledge as a profound victory over it and what does that mean really does it matter whether they do does it matter whether they say we lost will we know that we won if they refuse to say that they lost and I think actually the events of this week and a lot of things that have happened this week are increasingly making it clear that we are on the path to victory without question but not a victory that is going to be universally acknowledged as such we have on the side which is what we should get to first seemingly on the side. He just pause seemingly having been so this is from April 17th does this sound like he was against this war. I mean dude this wasn't the war that he wanted to see it is crazy right dude that like let's just say I mean honestly like I want to try to run this thought experiment for a second here I want you to try to imagine that I'm going to come on the podcast right now and I'm going to say we won the war like let's say this is the conclusion of the war and I'm going to go wow that worked out well we won that worked out well I'm glad we did that like let's just say that was my take on the show and I'm not going to acknowledge that I was wrong I'm just going to come on the show say that worked out great was a great decision glad we did it we won and we're gonna move on it I'm not gonna like I don't know I just I don't know I cannot wrap my head around this and likewise Rob and I had not seen this until literally this moment you I mean I saw you had sent the list of here's let's look at their stuff but I had not seen this clip he literally was just saying that it's a it's clear we're on the path to victory and now he's saying we lost and he's not there's not an in-between part there where he goes I got it wrong you know like even when he was talking about I mean there's like implicit that like well it's because we didn't know that the stockpiles were low but regardless even it's if it's because of something you didn't know then that means you got it wrong because of something you didn't know you're sitting here once again sitting here and again as I've said many times this war it was just another it was another neocon classic it's it's just like a neocon war it had all the earmarks you know it was sold the same way it was conducted the same way the only differences it was hypercharged it's been super fast it's it fell apart quicker than than most of them did but in the same way they always like even watching this through the whole thing they just bullshit you man until it's too beyond the point where no one can see anything except like catastrophe and it cannot be you know you can't be the citizenry can't be gaslit anymore about what's going on but up until that point dude the Afghan army that we're training up is awesome man they're gonna hold down that country no problem no problem for years to come this will be you know it's just the whole time and now let's let's jump ahead to the next timestamp so we can cover all this but this is where he says we're minutes away from victory and the blockade is working and that's the second timestamp on the sheet picture about whether or not whether or not Trump is engaged in some kind of a weird gavot with Iran over over the straight that involves Pakistan and China okay I you know you know this way better than I do it looks to me like the closure of the straight that is really the opening of the straight that we call the blockade of the straight that isn't the blockade of the straight is working has worked for the last 48 hours in the sense that the Iranians are getting nothing out but other traffic is moving through the straight so explain to me if you can why Trump wouldn't look at that and say or I think Abe is actually asking that question also they're on the ropes like we're like we're like we're we're minutes away from crushing their hopes and dreams and leaving them a tattered husk of a of a fourth rate power that can't even close the straight of hormones I love the optimism you can stop it there by the I just almost like even one second because I'm sorry yeah yeah you can stop it there it's fine I'm sorry right away but there's something about I want to hear what that guy says in response because he went hey you're more of the expert in this than I am but like I could so easily have just answered those questions just from paying attention and happy I know exactly where he is now he's in the time period right after the blockade of the blockade he's saying oh look what he's going look Iran's not getting anything out and ships are getting through why isn't Donald Trump looking at this and saying hey we're crushing them they don't have time and it's like the obvious reason we knew this at the time is because yes ships were getting through in the vagus sense of the term but the number of ships getting through actually bottom down to their lowest so at first even in the first Iran immediately you know close the straight of her moose meaning they were demanding permission and fees for people to enter okay but the people who were getting permission and fees were still able to come through so a certain amount of oil is still getting through I forget the exact numbers but they were there was really good reporting on this in the Wall Street Journal drop site was all over this so there was there was a certain amount getting through with Iranian permission so it was down from the amount of oil that usually gets through the straight of her moose but a certain amount was still getting through then the US came in and blockaded the blockade and so they said none of those ships are getting through with just Iranian permission you can only get through with US permission and that number that was getting through nose dive it was the lowest number going through the entire time was when we put the blockade of the blockade so number one it wasn't an opening it didn't solve the problem the it actually squeezed the problem worse which was the global economy and number two why didn't Donald Trump it was blockading a lot of Iranian ships from getting out now but why didn't Donald Trump think well ha ha I'm blockading your ships you're about to collapse you can't outlast us well because all of the intelligence said that they could we were covering this at the time on the show Rob like the actual reports from the Pentagon said they could survive it and guess what Rob we now know that is the case we ran the experiment the reason why Donald Trump wasn't thinking that as we were saying at the time was because that wasn't the case they weren't about to collapse anything but I'm sorry you say what you want to say but I do want to hear what this expert at the time said because he really should know and the first thing he did say was well that's optimistic. Well, the detail, the detail I'm picking up on and you can crack me if I'm wrong here. Uh, but I believe we blockaded the Straits while we were negotiating with them the first time that we are, uh, that this predates the MOU and you would think if you were against this war because, uh, we didn't have the proper stockpiles for this war. You would criticize Donald Trump for escalating the warfare environment and you would go, well, Donald Trump just blocked the Straits, but I know that this is a mistake because their missile capabilities are not reduced as much as what's being reported. And I've looked at the numbers of, uh, how many interceptors we've used. And so actually I think we need to be stopping this war because we don't have the supplies to win the war, but he's not saying that is he? No, he's not. No, look, Rob, they're not even claiming that we knew that we didn't have the supplies. They're going, we were for the war, but we wouldn't have been for the war had we known this and somehow it's not our responsibility that we didn't know or something like that. But as you sit here and you listen to what they were saying throughout the whole war, it is just, this is why I said this whole thing. And look, Rob, the reason we're even doing this as a show, nobody really cares about John Padaharits, but there is something just truly remarkable about all of this. It's remarkable that anyone is capable of this level of like cognitive dissidents or compartmentalization or something like that, but where you could just be getting it so wrong up to supporting a war and then every step of it through the whole thing, getting it wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, come to the conclusion that obviously it was all wrong and not have any, even I don't know, even any type of process. I mean, my gosh, Rob, like this war has been at the center of a massive political fight you know, he's calling the people who oppose it evil, you know, I mean, he's like, and you got the whole thing wrong and man, that doesn't give you any pause. It's it's something these people really are, and I'm not even saying like in his personal life, I don't know who John Padaharits is, I've heard some stories that are disturbing. But you're like, it's, it's amazing, like this is sociopathic to be this type of political commentator, it's like, I don't know, it's, it's, it's something to say. All right, guys, let's take a moment and think our sponsor for today's show, which is crowd health. I love this company and we've been promoting them for many years. You got to check out crowd health. It is the alternative to the broken health insurance system. 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Visit join crowd health.com and use the promo code P O T P today. All right. Let's get back into the show. What do you think Rob? What should we get to? I mean, if you want to watch the response, we can. Okay. That's right. I wanted to watch this guy's here. Let's see. Let's see if this guy even gave him a little bit of something on that podcast. I love the optimism and it's probably actually not really a bad frame for this at all. I think Trump is trying to get out and and and you know, and he wants to get out clean, right? And he's concerned about the regime fighting back and deciding that it wants to draw in American troops and American vessels. Wow. Okay. So you just close that. I mean, just again, you can buzz there. It's just these hacks who they bring on. This is the expert that they have. You have more expertise than you do in me just, I mean, basic keeping up with what was going on. This was easy to see. He didn't point out any of the things. I love your optimism. And yeah, that's not a bad framework. Sure. We're crushing them. The straight is opened by our blockade. Okay. And then this is the last one from putt arts. And then we're going to jump to the other guy and we've got even more damning stuff from him. But this is an article from February 28, 2026. The title is first thoughts on the new Iran war. And I think the last two paragraphs are what's worth reading. Okay. So let's see. These two paragraphs here. Okay. But regime change war or not. I think my question now, I think my questions now have pretty clear answers. The six week campaign of diplomatic dithering following the Iranians slaughter were in fact simply temperizing. We got our ducks in a row and presumably gave Israel time to help us locate the necessary targets inside Iran to strike the bad guys while leaving the general population largely on molested today. February 28, 2026 may be the most important day of the 21st century so far. May God bless our fighting force as they place themselves in harm's way to protect defend and save the West and may we triumph over this remorseless, consciousless and evil enemy that has been at war with the great Satan for nearly half a century. Yeah. That's like a man who knew we were going to lose, um, yeah, it is something man. You could cheerlead a goddamn war, have it be a disaster and not even feel like, I mean, we did not get a, my bad, you don't even get that. And now let's, uh, let's move to Abe Reimwald and you know what, let's start with the tweet before the video. Because this is the co-host in the, yeah, this is Abe Reimwald and when you see this, uh, when you see this quote, oh my God, um, one second, we'll have it up. It is, uh, all right, I'm bracing myself, how neocond illusiony are we talking here? I'd give this an 11. Okay. Wow. Cool. Okay. Yeah. Okay. This is a tweet from Abe Greenwald. Let me see the date here April 7th. Okay. All right. If the US were to walk away from this war at this very instant, it would still be the greatest American victory we've seen in decades. If we go further, there's no telling the extent of our triumph. I'm merely, uh, thankful for the obvious success that's been achieved thus far. Anything else is gravy. Jesus Christ, Abe, yeah, dude, oh, so this is the guy who starts by saying, oh, when people say the neocons wanted the war, no, no, this isn't the war we wanted. You motherfucking liar to the ability of neocons to lie you into war. What is it about you people with lying and war? Did no one ever tell you that they're both bad? Jesus. That's unbelievable. Oh, absolutely. This is the war you wanted in the war you got. You already said it's a victory. Okay. So you didn't get the gravy. Where's that victory you were talking about? Oh, Jesus Christ. I mean, that is, wow, that is damning, Rob. He straight out said that it had already been won, that he had already been proven right. And now he's got to say, I mean, and, and even think about it, right? Like just how, how childish and like even he says even there that it's an ought, the victory is obvious, like, you know what I mean? Like at the very least, if you were just not such a liar, you'd go, the victory may not be obvious, but here's what you know what I mean? He's, he's like, oh, it's obvious. So yeah, it's totally obvious, dude. Some kids died and hundreds of billions of dollars was squandered and we're in the exact same place with around having more control. What? Wow, Rob. What can you say about that, dude? And I got one last clip. You were right. 11. Yeah. And then I got one last clip from a dream wall, which is along the same lines and theme. I mean, is any of this going to happen, probably not, but that's what the Iranians are saying. This seems like, oh, if you thought from a neoconservative perspective that the Iraq war was a very difficult thing to argue against to sort of propagate your ideas about foreign policy, Trump looks like he's in a place to make it even worse by saying, well, we got kind of nothing out of this. The regime stays in place. You know, if, like if we say, okay, we're going to keep the straights open, but honor these very onerous conditions, like what do we win from this beyond the very short term thing that people don't think about, by the way, of the degradation of missiles, of the debt of killing how many members of the RGC? Those are all victories. Those are all very positive things if you hit the Iran and regime. But in the long run. I don't know. kind of damaging to. I'm sorry, I shouldn't say it about him, but the we the fifth guys are just so painful, dude. Just the way they just sit there and go like, well, you know, it's something could say that your seventh catastrophic war in a row could perhaps hurt your credibility with the general public who literally might win sheal if you were to walk into a mob of them right now, who already hate you so much that they like, you better pray anyway, I don't know, just that they're, hmm, do you think maybe that would be an approach? Maybe that could go bad. If we launch this, well, I mean, it really is so good that we killed some bad people there. If you overlook all the innocent people, we killed. So okay, that's a victory that like what? Talks about launching the most disgusting fucking Pearl Harbor style sneak attack started war of aggression and choice this way. Like, I know they have something where they think like they are being the grownups in the room because we approach everything with like a khaki pants flavor, but it's not. It's just like moral cowardice, whatever. Sorry. Anyway, yeah, you can get to the part you wanted to play foreign policy that should be reflected in the kind of neoconservative way. I don't think so at all, actually. I mean, you know, I should say off the bat, one of the things about new conservatism is that it's, it is not a sort of code of beliefs, you know, and there's always been a great deal of disagreement about neoconservative. It's a kind of an impulse for up. And, you know, today, it's arguable that there is no such thing as new conservatism that it's sort of element in conservatism, but setting all that aside, I think the achievements that the US and Israel have been able to carry out in this unbelievably short, short period of time, speak for themselves. I don't, without a, an anti-war media, an anti-war movement, and it's not much of a movement, but a sort of social media mob, well, no one objectively would look at what has gone on in Iran for six weeks at the hands of the US and Israel and say, Oh, this, this, this was up, this was a bad move for the US and Israel. And this, this was great for a long, I mean, you talked about way pause. You mean you right now? Oh, nobody would possibly say that flash forward six months later. Oh, man, I would never have agreed to this war. I mean, it's just again, Rob, like I said, well, how many times, dude, have we watched this happen? Isn't it just, isn't it wacky? How many times, dude? Have we watched this happen with different topics, different things? Nobody serious thinks this. Oh, these are just such clowns. Few months later saying exactly the thing that was obvious at the time. It's like, all you got to do is like have a room temperature IQ, fucking pay attention and tell the truth. I don't know. It's really not that, it's not rocket science, man. But it is, I got to say again, just, you know, I like Matt, like I, I don't know him, I've never known him super well, but I always liked him enough. I always thought he was a nice guy. And I don't know the other guy going to him, well, other than us like responding to him one time. And I think him just being unimpressed with that. But it's just like there is something about, I just can't always kind of can't believe those guys where they do this show where they just sit there and just let this neocon bullshit them with the dumbest, most insane should ever and go, huh, yeah, fuck from, oh, that's a good point. Are they the successes obvious? At what point in this thing was the success obvious? And this is just so, I mean, it's so unbelievable that like, you know, it's like their whole goddamn thing. It's like they have like a, they have like three modes. Okay? Here's the neoconservative modes. It's like they, some poor third world country over there that doesn't have an air force capable of, you know, touching your continent, doesn't have a navy capable of block cating their own, you know, country, doesn't have, you know, an army that could invade their neighbor is working on weapons of mass destruction. If they're a huge threat to the world, that's, okay, that's one phase. There's three phases of neocon. Okay? One phase is this, this, this puny third world country that just happens to be an enemy of Israel located in the Middle East happens to be a threat to world conquest and they're working on weapons of mass destruction, which they never end up being, that that part never ends up being true. That's one phase. Number two is just like permanent mission accomplished, you know, just like the mission accomplished banner of George W. Bush, but just forever in all of this form that we just watched. And number three is the clip we started with. Well, that was a big fat failure. Not our fault. Moving on. Hey, I think Turkey is the new around, you know, whatever the next, whatever the next one is, that's literally it. Those are the phases. It is unbelievable. It really is unbelievable to see people who have a track record like that, Rob. Final thought to you. Well, and it's fun with AI, because you can track it down. I actually, I think you should say as a closing statement that hilarious, uh, Mark Levin tweet that, uh, that you shared. Oh, oh, yeah, Natalie, can you pull this up? I sent it to the group here. Yeah, why not pull it up? Because the visual of it might be fun too. Oh, yeah, how about it? It's, um, it really is just as, um, you know, what, because I was saying these guys are just, there's something. It truly is remarkable to watch this arc. It goes all the way back. I've been, uh, um, yeah, follow me on social. I've been posting some of my old, uh, COVID jokes that have come very true, uh, and luckily also with AI, it's easier to like clip things up. But in my first, uh, end of your recap, I was working on it at the time, but I was talking about that we need to create like, almost baseball style scorecards for people so that you could see how many things they've got them wrong in the past. And, uh, I wasn't, I've tried twice. I wasn't able to get it off the ground, but it is kind of, uh, interesting that with AI, it is a lot easier to actually, uh, I could not have found these moments a year ago. And it's not that it didn't take me time and I don't have to read through things, but like, I could not have found all these moments. And it's going to be interesting to see if people have to start being more honest moving forward or actually can't get, uh, can't get like away from their terrible track records. Cause when you see it laid out like this or this Mark Levin tweet that we're about to see, uh, these people just don't know really how to contend with the reality in which they have to actually be responsible for what they said a week or even just a few days earlier. Yep. You're making claims with certainty about what's happening or what's going to happen or what policy is wise. And yeah, you should be held responsible. So here, let's pull up the, uh, the Mark Levin tweet. This is real. Um, Mark Levin, which quote neo cons are calling for ground troops in a round. I heard it mentioned again last evening and it's thrown around by the woke right isolationists. It must be a long list. So let's see it. And man, if this isn't a great community note, Mark Levin seems to have forgotten. He personally called for ground troops in a round and a link to the article. Yeah. And now open the article to where it's just seeing the headline. Mark Levin calls for troops in a round. It was the night that Donald Trump plugged his show. It was the night. Donald Trump plugged his show. He said, look out for a big Mark Levin show tonight. That night, Mark Levin said we should send troops to a round. We all thought it was a tactic to try to scare the Iranians to be like, oh, it's a signal. He's going to send troops in. Now Mark Levin, I mean, it's just, it's amazing that these guys can get away with this shit. War after war, after war. All right, we got to wrap on that Chicago Come see Rob. And then of course, Appleton Wisconsin will be there all week and come on out and then Austin, Texas, porchdoor.com, Comic Dave Smith dot com. Any other dates that I missed of yours, Rob? Now I'll plug next week's gigs next week. There you go, porchdoor.com, Comic Dave Smith dot com, part of the problem dot com. Catch you next time. Peace.