Dave Smith

I don't know.

I thought it was oversimplistic and not accurate.

Uh, I thought there's an important point to be made when you let people know that like culture really does affect politics.

That is true, but it's not, it's, it's not sufficient to say politics is downstream from culture because obviously oftentimes culture is downstream from politics.

Um, and politics has huge impacts on culture and vice versa, but there is some impact that culture has on politics.

And, um,

perhaps this is the, you know, we've played a role in this, but the fact is that the Israel issue is just out in the open now in a way that it's never been before.

And with this war in Iran, it's just, it's more clear than ever that the Israel lobby and the Israeli government have kind of dragged America to this point and are trying to keep them here.

And I think part of that is why you see these phony stories.

OK, like it's not real, but Donald Trump needs to kind of give the impression that he's not being bullied around by these other people.

In fact, if you saw in his interview yesterday with the Financial Times, he just straight up says, I'm in control.

And Benjamin Netanyahu isn't, which is a really weird thing to have to say.

You know, like there's just there's never been.

For example, how many times have you heard Donald Trump in an interview say, I'm the commander in chief, not Pete Hegseth.

I'm running this, not Marco Rubio.

I'm in charge of this operation, not, you know, London.

You know, like how many times has he has he had to make it clear that Brussels isn't calling the shots when it comes to European policy?

Right.

Like there's there's an admission in the denial in a weird sense.

But so I think that, you know, I think like what's going on here essentially is that Donald Trump is trying to control the narrative and change it and, you know, kind of reassert his perceived dominance.