Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
What's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith, riding solo for this episode. Before we get started, a couple of quick plugs. I should let you guys know because I'm on the road for the rest of the year. The next stop is June 5th, one night only. I'll be at the Parkdale Hall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which I've not been to Toronto in a
many years uh but i lo i always love doing comedy there so really looking forward uh to getting back there and then uh denver colorado houston texas huntsville alabama nashville tennessee cincinnati ohio fort lauderdale florida appleton wisconsin austin texas uh back at the mothership louisville kentucky fort worth texas dallas texas salt lake city uh san diego california bunch of stops comicdavesmith.com for all the tickets to come see uh me and robbie the fire
do some stand-up comedy. All right, so for today's show, I wanted to give my thoughts on a podcast that came out yesterday, of course, talking about the greatest podcast in the world, The Joe Rogan Experience, and Joe had on Gad Sad. And I just want to start, I thought this was a fascinating episode. really, really interesting. And it's kind of lit the internet on fire, but that's typical.
Almost every Joe Rogan experience episode does that. But so we're going to play some clips from this. I'll kind of give you my thoughts on it. There's too much here for me to do an episode on. I don't even know if we'll get through the clips that I had prepared. I'd sent Natalie a bunch of timestamps. It's just, you know, it's a two and a half hour episode and it, it,
I don't know, it takes a lot of time to respond to all this stuff, but I'll go through what I can. I just wanted to kind of say this. First of all, I'm going to try my best here to like, I don't know, to be as generous as I can be. So I will start by saying, now, me and Gad have had some, you know, not friendly back and forths. Um, he's, he's just kind of does this thing.
He mockingly posts about me a lot and it's always the same thing. It's always just like, oh, let's hear what professor Dave Smith, geopolitical expert has to say on this. So it's always kind of this, like, um, just, just kind of mocking me, like who, who the hell is this guy to even be credentialized to be in the conversation, which as I've always said, fair point.
You know, like, all right, fair enough. But there's something interesting when, when he does that. And, and of course I've taken shots back at him. I believe on the last time I was on Joe Rogan, I did, you know, I said that was being a little tongue in cheek, but I said, he doesn't like me because I'm a critic of Israel and he's a Mossad agent.
And you know, I was kind of joking around, but he did used to work for Mossad. He's been open about that. So anyway, yeah, I really did try this, okay? In this episode, so Gad had posted on Twitter, it was great being back on the Joe Rogan experience. It got a little contentious, but I'm glad that we did it. And so I was immediately like, ooh, that's really interesting.
And he had posted this before it came out. So I was very excited to watch the show. I watched the entire thing. And I really tried, you know, take me at my word, but I swear to God, I really went... I'm going to do I'm going to work as hard as I can to just keep an open mind. Let me listen to what this guy has to say.
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Chapter 2: How does Dave Smith critique Gad Saad's arguments?
He was friendly. He wasn't bad faith. He wasn't trying to like smear Joe. He wasn't like, he was having the conversation with him. And I give him a lot of credit for that. Obviously he's selling a book and the Joe Rogan Experience is the biggest show in the world. So of course everyone wants to go on the show, but still, whatever.
give him credit for that also just for no reason i'll just say this part out loud i think the term suicidal empathy is a great term i think it's very useful um it's very useful in describing a particular thing and i think gad applies it to something else that doesn't make sense at all but like I mean, I've over the years talked about this dynamic on the show many times. There was one example.
I can't remember the details of this, but it was right around the time. If you remember, there was that guy on the New York City subway. There was like a crazy homeless guy who was threatening people. And then he tackled him and chokes him out. The guy ends up dying. And then the guy's charged with murder. And this kind of kicked off a whole conversation.
And there was this one woman, I can't remember her, but she told this story. It's like a reporter lady. And she told this story about when she was assaulted on a New York City bus, but that she didn't call the cops because she just had so much empathy for what this guy must be going through and this crazy person. I'm like, okay. What a better term than suicidal empathy for something like that.
Biden border policy and the kind of left wing idea of just like, oh, but like, think about all these migrants and how hard their life is. It's like, yeah, but if they're going to overwhelm your country, you can't have empathy to the point that you kill yourself.
Um, I talked about this a lot last time I was in San Diego, as I just mentioned, I'll be back there later in the year is this beautiful city. It's just gorgeous and great restaurants and great culture. The American comedy club is a great club. One of my favorite clubs in the country. And then there's just like entire blocks taken over by homeless people.
And I also think suicidal empathy is a good term, a very useful term for things like that. It's like, what do you do? I understand having empathy, but empathy to the point that you destroy your own civilization, that seems problematic. Because if you die, you won't be around to have empathy anymore. So even if you value empathy, you don't wanna have suicidal empathy.
So anyway, I agree with him on that. And I agreed with him when he said, Empathy is a good thing to have just, you know, not a suicidal amount of it. Okay. That's as nice as I can be. Okay. So now I'm just, there's no other way to get to it. I sit here, it reminded me very much of when I debated Dennis Prager.
When I debated Dennis Prager, it was, you know, it wasn't the first debate on Israel I had done. No, I debated Laura Loomer. I think I had some other ones before then. But there was something about debating Dennis Prager where, you know, look, I'm a political junkie. I'm obsessed with this stuff. I've literally been, Dennis Prager had been on TV since I was born.
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Chapter 3: What historical context is provided regarding U.S. involvement in Iran?
So I'm there with that energy, nerves or whatever. He gives his opening statement. And the second he gave his opening statement, the second it started, like a sentence into it, I just had this unbelievable sigh of relief because it just dawned. I was like, oh, wow. He has nothing. He has absolutely nothing. that was this episode. I really sat there.
I went, let me approach this with an open mind. Let me listen. Like, let, let, let, teach me something, Gad. What do you got here? And I just couldn't believe it. You're sitting there watching. I couldn't believe he's making some of the arguments he's making. He has nothing, nothing.
And I mean, listen, I thought Joe did a great job, you know, being also being fair and being kind, but really kind of carving up his arguments. And I, I don't know. I mean, I left it. I texted Joe about this. I go, dude, can I get together? I want to have dinner with Gat. Forget a debate. Forget a discussion. It doesn't even have to be public. Like, can we talk?
Because he seems like a good enough dude. Like, I'm like that guy. I can fix her. You know, I can change him. Anyway, the internet is just eviscerating him. I was very curious to look. I looked through the comments section on Spotify and YouTube. Holy hell, is he just getting torn up? And I think... Rightfully so. Anyway, let's get into it. I got a few clips here. Let's start playing some.
Let's get into the first clip here, Natalie.
PEC famously promotes and supports a tremendous amount of politicians in the United States. That's the big fear is that there's an inordinate amount of influence that Israel has over foreign policy, our decisions, and even our political structure in the country.
Right.
Several ways to tackle this. Say the Iran war. Take Israel out of it. Do you think there are multiple countries that would share in the recognition that probably an Iranian regime that has an eschatology that basically says the end of times requires that there is sort of death to everybody before the final imam comes back?
Would it be a good idea for the Brits or the Romanians or the French or some of the other, the Gulf countries, would they be happy if Iran had a nuclear weapon? So to frame the issue of the US is attacking or is involved in the attack on the Iranians, as, you know, the United States doesn't have personal agency.
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Chapter 4: How does Dave Smith respond to claims about the Israeli lobby?
I don't know who they're talking about. Every time they respond, well, you're denying the U.S. has agency? No. I mean, this will come up again later. Nobody's saying that. Obviously, all people have agency, okay? Or all people with like an IQ above 80 or something like that. All adults who aren't mentally impaired have agency. Okay.
Gad says here, Joe Rogan brings up AIPAC, brings up the fact that the Israel lobby has a lot of influence over our politicians. And Gad says, oh, that framing doesn't pass the smell test. And instead, his framing is wouldn't a lot of people, wouldn't a lot of nations like it if Iran didn't have a nuclear weapon? Well, yeah, but what kind of standard is that?
Hey, Gad, a whole lot of nations in the world would like it if the U.S. didn't have nuclear weapons. A whole lot of nations would like it if Israel didn't have nuclear weapons, their secret nuclear weapon program. That has nothing to do with whether we should launch a war of aggression against Israel or someone should launch a war of aggression against the United States of America.
This is just an absurd, like, like distraction, essentially. Yeah, we launched a war of aggression against Iran, a joint military effort with Israel. The Israeli lobby has been pushing for this war for decades. The longest serving prime minister in Israeli history, the current prime minister, said after the launch of the war that this is a culmination of my life's work.
So yeah, we're going to talk about that. And then he goes, no, no, no, leave Israel out of it. Leaving Israel aside for the better. It's like, no, I don't think we're going to do that, actually. Leaving Israel aside, but don't all these other countries not want Iran to have nukes? That is just completely irrelevant. Hey, guess what? I don't want Iran to have nukes.
What does that have to do with anything? Okay, let's keep playing.
where they both agree that probably an Iranian regime that has nuclear weapons would not be a good thing for world peace. And so because these two countries have maybe greater testicular fortitude than the NATO countries, it seems as though the Israelis are puppeteering the Americans. But do you really think that Donald Trump is sitting and saying, you know,
Had I not been such a weak guy with no personal agency, I wouldn't have fallen sway to the incredibly influential Zionist lobby.
Well, it's not just incredibly influential, it's the amount of financial support. No, I don't think Donald Trump is saying that. I think he's doing that. I don't think he's saying that. In the same way, I don't think Gad Saad is saying, I'm going on Joe Rogan's podcast right now to defend genocide. I don't think he's saying that, but that's exactly what he's doing. Right.
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Chapter 5: What examples does Dave use to illustrate the consequences of U.S. foreign policy?
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closes definitely check that out all right let's get back into the show you know there's oh this i actually i kind of meant to say this at the beginning of the show but i also would just point out as we go through this there's something to kind of keep in mind here because there's there's a real asymmetry between the two sides here and one of the things that you might notice when i say the two sides i know that that's a little bit of a clunky term because there's different factions and different individuals but broadly speaking the people kind of on the like
pro-Israel side versus the critical of Israel side, you might notice that you will not hear a single one of us angry that Joe Rogan platformed Gadsad. Just think about that for a second. No article will be written. No one will complain. The next time I go on Rogan's show or the next time Daryl or the next time Tucker goes on, assuming any of us go back on the show, which I'm sure we will.
But the next time we go on, you notice it won't start with 45 minutes of us, you know, woke scolding, trying to take him through a struggle session about how he's had too many pro-Israel people out of this. Just notice this, because we're not a bunch of woke leftists. So none of us do that.
None of us do that, even though think about the asymmetry here, even though when we go on Joe Rogan show, we're essentially saying, hey, let's not launch another disastrous war. And Gad is quite literally, as he's doing in this episode, defending, excusing away and supporting a genocide. That's actually what they're doing.
Like the way they pretend, they have to pretend that Daryl was doing that on Rogan's show, even though he never said that at all or anything like that. But like no one on our side is going on and going, dude, the Nazis really weren't that bad. They really didn't kill that many people. Now, I know there was this horrible thing where millions of people died.
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Chapter 6: What is the significance of the term 'suicidal empathy' in this discussion?
Like, look. Say what you will about Neville Chamberlain. He gets absolutely destroyed because he made an agreement with Adolf Hitler. Now, it's not that he was like, oh, I trust Adolf Hitler. I think he's such a good guy. We're coming off of World War I. He was trying. to avoid another catastrophe, the likes of which are impossible for us to even wrap our head around.
People dying by the tens of millions. He was trying to avoid that, okay? And then Adolf Hitler humiliated him in front of the world to his own demise. You know, like humiliated the most powerful guy who was trying to avoid another world war. And it got his entire nation and himself destroyed.
Anyway, that being said, to extrapolate from that, that you can only have appeasement if someone else is 100 percent trustworthy. Like that is just a recipe for forever permanent war. This is the lesson. Look at World War II, and therefore, we know from that that you can only have appeasement if somebody is trustworthy. And then, of course, what does appeasement even mean? Not launching a war.
Not launching a war of aggression on them. By that definition, we are appeasing everyone we're not at war with right now, right? We're not going to war with them. Is everyone trustworthy? Are you telling me that the Chinese and the Russians and the North Koreans and the, you know, insert country there, are they all 100% trustworthy? I mean, we're appeasing them. We're not going to war with them.
And that can't work because of World War II. So tell me right now, are you advocating we go to war with Russia right now? Russia's done a lot of really bad things. In fact, they have nuclear weapons. They got a whole lot of them. And yeah, it risks the end of humanity. I mean, if we go to war, probably we destroy the whole world. But what's the alternative? Gadsad? Appeasement?
Are you suggesting that Vladimir Putin is trustworthy? Just think about the logic of this. It's ridiculous. No, you don't launch wars of aggression and you don't. And now have you gotten to the point where the standard for launching a war is not even has the country attacked you?
It's not whether this is a war of aggression or a war of necessity, whether it's a war of choice or a war of necessity. It's not a constitutional process where the people through their electorate you've got. They're not trustworthy. That's the standard. That's the standard to launch a war now. OK. Every single government is not trustworthy. Our government is not trustworthy.
Donald Trump lies every single day about this war. Donald Trump attacked Iran in the middle of negotiations twice. But they are not trustworthy, and they may have nukes someday, and lots of people don't think they should. That's what we get. Let's continue playing from where we were here.
iranian regime in its current form could ever cause great damage to everybody not only israel right i mean the gulf countries are not exactly putting up barriers against this war because they are also are the enemies of the iranians so the it's undoubtable hold on hold on does get i mean like does gad not read the news
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Chapter 7: How does the conversation address the concept of agency in international conflicts?
There's been some contradictory reporting on that, but it's been a disaster for them, whether they whether they thought it would be or not. And yes, of course, Iran has regional rivals who wouldn't mind seeing that country taken out. This is also true for every single nation on Earth. But that isn't really what matters. Yeah, let's keep going.
the Israelis in their ear pushing for their self-interest. But that's also called the reality of every nation on earth. Every entity fights for its own interests. But that doesn't mean that the Americans are so lacking in personal agency, are so gullible, are so easy to puppeteer that there must be this Zionist lobby that otherwise is pushing us into an unnecessary war.
Maybe another three years, maybe another five years, maybe another 10 years, it would have resulted in a disaster. So if you are a universalist and you want the Iranian people to maximally flourish, forget about Israel. Don't even mention the word Israel. Do you not want these 90 million people called Iranians who have a deeply rich historical legacy? you know, heritage to flourish.
I've had many graduate students who are Iranians in my classes and so on. They're some of the most modern, secular, outward-looking Westerners that have been choked for 47 years by a really nasty regime. So maybe we could celebrate that if all this goes well, 90 million people are going to be freed. And I could say that statement without ever invoking Israel.
What do you think? Okay, just pause it right there.
I think the reason
I mean, dude, what is that? Like, are you listening to this? It's like, what is this is what they've got. You know, I do because I, I have my own, you know, imposter syndrome or whatever. And I do sometimes like, you know, I'm out on so many public shows saying, Hey, this is the way it is. And I do wonder sometimes like, man, I better be getting this right. Cause yeah. And then,
I sit down with an open mind, like, give me something, Gad. What do you got? Teach me something. Give me something that's going to be like, ooh, man, he did poke a chink in the armor there. Man, I got to go back and think about that. But then I hear it, and like, this is what they have. A Rand maybe would have done something someday to somebody, and then it could have been bad.
pretend there isn't an Israel lobby, but there is. And they've openly been pushing toward this war. Like Israel exists. The Israeli lobby exists. Now you can say, hey, lots of entities exist and lots of entities have their self-interest and lots of entities want to get things done. Like, okay, but this one is.
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Chapter 8: What conclusions does Dave Smith draw about the future of U.S.-Iran relations?
Nobody is suggesting Donald Trump doesn't have agency. That's not a thing. Secondly, there is absolutely no contradiction between having universal goals, wanting the Iranian people to be free and flourish, and also not wanting to launch a war. These things are not contradictory. I wish all 92 million people in Iran
freedom liberty prosperity all that stuff that's also true for all of the world right we'd all like that we don't want kids to die and starve to death and suffer we want them to live well that doesn't it doesn't then follow that therefore we should launch a war of aggression against the entire world which by the way is not free or prosperous or thriving That is going on all over the place.
Entire continents are not doing great. You know, like Africa isn't doing great. It doesn't mean we launch a war against the entire continent of Africa. There's no contradiction between that and wishing that like it also would be really awesome if Africa turned around and everybody was rich and free. That'd be great. But then also you've I mean, literally like.
You've built a case for war that is, if you really take it down, someday, somewhere, somehow, maybe five years from now, maybe 10 years from now, maybe 15 years from now, Iran could do something really bad. And so we got to launch a war because also at some point, if this all works out, the Iranian people could be doing really good. I mean, come on, dude.
What are these kindergartners launching wars? Like who even publicly would speak this way? I mean, there's it totally also ignores the fact that every single estimate says this regime is not going to fall. There is no Iranian liberty on the horizon as a result of this war. And all there has been so far is death and destruction for those people who you claim to care about.
Like, I don't, yeah, the Iranians are cool. Great. I'm glad you observed that. I'm glad you noticed. Oh yeah, there are cool Iranians. I had some students who are Iranian. They're cool. Those 168 little girls, maybe all could have grown up to be cool people. Now they can't. Like, I don't know.
I mean, it's like this stuff just gets me angry because it's like, dude, you're talking about murdering real human beings and you're going off this abstract bullshit that's like contradictory. It doesn't even make sense. What are we talking about here, dude? Every war ever is justified by Gad's theory.
They could have done something bad one day and it could have maybe worked out good for the people. And so therefore you got to do it. Let's just not talk about Israel. All right, here, let's keep playing on this section for a little bit more. I feel like there was something else good in here.
The reason why they're in the situation they're in in the first place is because the United States. It's because the United States and the British Petroleum Company. It's because they were trying to nationalize oil. That's what happened in the first place. You mean the Islamic Revolution? Yes. This is how it started in the first place.
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