There’s Always a New Monster to Destroy (w/ Noam Dworman) #549

The fact that she's there with Candace Owlens and Tucker Carlson and his demons and underwater

UFOs and Alex Jones as a divine prophet and the fact that they can all gather together and be comfortable with each other

And that makes up like that's the

Intellectual Gold Standard of the Anti-Israel position right is these fucking nuts

Who will take in any other nut as long as they say the right things

Method of a pack

Greetings and welcome back to another exciting installment of the fifth column podcast

This is your weekly rhetorical the Sultan new cycle the people that make it occasionally ourselves

I'm Camille Foster. I'm delighted to be here. I feel a little bit better. Thank you so much for all of your kind words and the outpouring of support

It just means the world to me

My man of hand is here Matt Welch is here

His ankle had a small injury situation

It's just a minor brace just supportive as I get back into the physicality starting to get the reps doing the one-on-one again

And I'm talking to to our friend

Noam Dorman who is the guest on the fifth column today. No of the first time which is amazing

Interestingly because no you are this like fixture this New York City fixture an icon

But also an icon of the comedy world the the owner of the comedy seller and the family of properties associated with it

And pontificator on many things on your podcast

Pontificator has a negative connotation

But but not just that like the sort of person who on your podcast will bring in people

Who have disreputable perspectives on things and actually talk to them about those things in detail

You generally, I think try to operate in space and prosecute them

Yeah that's true sometimes it certainly seems very lawyerly

With the sheets and papers and your half glasses like wow

You said it's like I forgot to say because I thought there's a comedy show

So I don't know what you've got in hand today, but if that is directed at me I want to know I know I

Know that it's about the a bird watchers, but it's okay

I know what to set you off

But no you I think you probably

Not Christian Cooper, right?

I didn't know he's been mentioned

More than anyone who hasn't been on the show that we could get on the show

Right, just saying can you come over I'm saying this is just a we're talking about Trump

But he's not coming on the show

I got a cell phone number the other day. Did you this is just what everybody does?

Just drop him a text. Yeah, did you drop him text? No, I'm afraid

Why I don't know it could also be a fake number. I didn't even try wait a second

He actually did get his phone number. I'm just not talking about that now. Yeah

What?

Text him now let's go right now

Let's take the texture. What do you want to ask him?

Is it a warrior there? Yeah, is it a war for Israel? Yeah, he's a wow

Yeah, straight there he won't even respond

Yeah respond because he's answered this question repeatedly

Yes, no in private that he's like sure

He made the decision when he made the decision

Jared's talking

Made the decision when he feels it in his bones the war will be over

He had said at some point that like that the Israel like sort of

Talked him into it. He made some comment like that about 10 days in right on a new occasion

He's named dropped Israel in ways that are weird and strange

I think he said

I know within your times had a long story about that yeah that like Muhammad bin Salam was like

Let's go and he's like yeah, all right. I mean that is a more

Corrupted relationship you've been long obsessed with hating Saudi Arabia

But I just I'm always I says in the last episode

But it's one of the thing that mystifies me about the Israel thing is that no one can accept the idea of parallel interests

It's like it's like then they must have convinced him or you must have been so it's like everyone's gaining from this

Like everyone's getting something out of the steel and the people and I'm not naming any

Person in particular stop it. I who is

You know a couple of people have said the great thing about Trump is

You can't bully him into anything is that he's his own man

He doesn't give a shit about anything about propriety. He'll just do it. And it's like except for this

It's the only time I've ever heard anyone say it about I mean, can you think of another thing which somebody has said the Trump

He was swayed by a lobby or a group of people. It's only this one. It's I mean this real the Joe Kent

So Joe Kent resigned yesterday, right? What was his exact position enough the top of anyone's head?

It was enough to be a cabinet approved position and Tulsi as we're speaking as being grilled on Capitol Hill too

But he resigned and he can no longer in good conscious

work

when there was no even it threat from Iran and

and

But then he went on to say that

That this the Trump that's sort of like he was influenced by he didn't use the word cabal. It was more implied

But by an echo chamber of a right wing media and and somebody else that sort of manufactured like it was that

He was directed about his first wife not the current wife who works for Max Blumenthal in gray zone

But the first wife was killed. She's an intelligence officer in a war

Manufactured by Israel

Which I think it was in like the Turkish a Turkish occupied part she's she was killed in 2019

So is that incorrect that war was not manufactured by Israel?

The Syrian Civil War. Yeah

No

I heard the Brian Lamb question. I was

It wasn't it's like I I guess I'd have to try to reconstruct their argument, but when there's

There I don't know what it is start with the protocols. I mean everything. Yeah, I mean you can start

Yeah, the Zara's secrets police. Let's start there

But I think it they tend to see everything in the Middle East as you know the hidden hand of Israel

I mean they say at the bottom and I want to hear you take on this known since you're sitting here

But also because you're the person that we say is it anti-Semitic? No

So he says at the bottom that you know didn't want someone else to die for like he basically said the Iraq war

Yeah 2003 that that the Israel convinced America to go into this the disastrous way

I didn't notice that bit in his letter until this morning

When I got up and was like

Dooms growing through Twitter and I noticed on my Twitter trending was

Something about did Israel get us into the Iraq war and I was like is there a new one?

I was like oh 2003 and that was like it was Claire Laman from Kuala just saying this is ridiculous

Yeah, she tweeted that all of the people that you would expect saying I have a thousand articles that

Israel's responsible for it and Mitch McConnell called as a direct response said that this was he's clearly

anti-Semitic do you think he's clearly anti-Semitic?

Well, I mean it's it's not anti-Semitic

something gets passed around so much

To a people don't know any better and they just start repeating it. It's not anti-Semitic

They even if that person is a cabinet about somebody who absolutely should know better

Well is saying something which is obviously or which is likely untrue

Then you look for other motivations, you know, I I don't like calling people anti-Semitic so easily

Even to me

There's anti-Semitic

But um, I don't know what that means

But you know, I interviewed I could for you

I interviewed this guy Michael Mazar

Who wrote this really extensive study of the run-up to the Iraq war

And he interviewed like 150 people including people within you know this the inner circle of Bush

And I questioned him and questioned him is there anything about this

Narrative about Israel being responsible for the war and he's like no, no, no, no

He's not Jewish. He's not pro-Israelist. I never saw anything like that every and he went through each person and what their reasons were

And I I also asked him but isn't it true that Aril Sharon advised against it and he didn't know about that

We had Nadav Ayel on the show and Nadav said he was on the plane

With Sharon who's covering him at the time and remembered very specifically and has for a long time and was written about it

That Sharon was against this and again. I mean it's it's no

Like it's cold comfort to the people that here know he wanted them to invade Iran

So to attack Iran and you know knock out, you know

Beginnings of nuclear stuff at the time

But the question I guess that I stuck on is can you

Come to this conclusion just because of this

fog that is out there about this stuff because it's constantly repeated as he said

And think that Israel has this power and not be anti-Semitic and just think that well

You know they're this tiny little country that could it's the startup nation

They're responsible for those great technology ways and you know the someone some pointed out to that

That it was someone complaining about you know

We didn't get anything a Gulf country person in a Gulf country and they got iron dome and some is really something

Well, we developed iron dome. That was our technology

And they have all this stuff and they they punch way above their weight

And that tends to make people think that maybe there's something else going on here

Even if they're immune to

Anti-Semitic conspiracy theory which for generations is the puppeteer right?

That's always a thing with puppeteering of the world

But if you know nothing about that or no little about that and so many of our people out there that are have big

Audiences know nothing at all like really know nothing the people that you debate with on that are like in the Trump world

Did they know I said this this morning in our texturing do they know anything about the six-day war?

Could they say the first thing about it when they make these grand pranhasmen without is right?

So I don't know I think is ignorance or defense I guess

It's something came to my mind just now which is that you made this point about Trump

This is the only thing that Trump's been bullied into it's kind of the same argument

They're making about roms fell condolese arise bush because obviously not cheney none of these people thought they were doing it for israel

Yeah, they just have a wall pulled over their eyes by war maybe wolf was

Wow, maybe by wolf was but but no like who by the way is wife or a girlfriend of time

I think they're still together is Palestinian so cheney was focused like a laser beam on this one percent idea

There's a one percent chance and they really did believe there was WMD and israel was not what they were discussing

In their private communicative private discussions. Yeah, and so yeah, there's this just this narrative that the Jews are so fucking clever

You they can they can manipulate

You know our world leaders are nothing compared to them

Well, I do think that the point that you were making one here the question you raised is a really interesting one first

I mean the fact that the United States can have interests that are aligned with other nations is not so unusual

It's something we broadly recognize and lots of other contexts

But the idea that there is just a kind of cultural

Proclivity to interpret things in a particular way a

Provasive belief now that the israel lobby is the most influential foreign lobby and in the country

Which is democracy enough people just generally believed this

This is widely accepted in the same way that the billionaire is a responsible for prices going up

And there's price-scaliging happening anytime the gas station raises the prices these are just

Things that are out there in the ether and I do wonder no because you adjudicate so much of this stuff if you have thoughts on

The way that anti-semitism is being deployed as as an allegation today

It definitely seems that there's been an uptick in anti-semitism

It's something we've talked about a number of times on the podcast

I cannot log on to x without seeing this jocant is not just some guy

He's not just some former military dude not an just an intelligence official

He has a relationship with

Right the factions of the right who are explicitly

Anti-semitic so when he says something like israel is responsible

It really does have a particular kind of ring to it because of the context

But I see a lot of allegations of anti-semitism and sometimes those things do have a kind of tenor to them that reminds me

Of the like white supremacy stuff that was getting more popular

And more commonly kind of trotted out there in like the early 2020s

But I don't so much hear that anymore, but I do hear anti-semitism a lot more frequently

And some of that stuff just seemed like it needs to be adjudicated a little more careful

It all grew from anti-semitic seeds

Right that that I'm convinced of at some point some bad ideas

They reach critical mass and they just start spreading in such a way that it's very

It would be it's unfair to call anybody who says them anti-semitic

He just don't know anymore

What what's in their head? I mean anti-semitism at root. It's an accusation against a person's character

What's motivating them?

I don't know enough about this guy can't to to make that accusation

But the at root like where it all comes from if you rewind the tape

At some point this is an anti-semitic thing. Okay, let me read something to you because this is something I saw

Steve Hayes

Friend of a show

Editor-in-chief of the dispatch

tweeted this I was unaware of this and my first thought when I hear this is that

I would never have a guy like this in my orbit. It's just uh

Byron Sanford who was Joe Kent's former campaign manager acknowledged text

That he sent referring to Jews as quote

Fucking kikes in writing hail fucking Kent in ala fucking Akbar

Yeah, except the you and I have guys like that North orbit

I'm

You so bad this morning

We're not talking about me. I swear how would I read that I'm like, you know? Yeah

No, it's like when we were talking at the uh

The uh

The exchange from ran Paul this morning when he was talking about

Mark lead with Mark ran mollum. He said I should be beaten up and I was like I said the same thing on the show

And it's like but at the same time I was joking and I'm not running dhs

So it's a little different, but yeah

But I think some some part of this and we've talked about this as well

You know where do conspiracy theories of anywhere kind of

uh

Especially take root is when people feel like they don't have any acts any ability to affect the way that the important decisions are made

And if you feel and I think they're mistaken to feel that way that they finally had in in Donald Trump and JD Vance

um a

White house that was not going to do the forever wars and all that kind of stuff

They really felt they were invested in that and yet here we go again not just here we go again

But here it's that israel's bombing like gas production inside of of uh Iran today

I mean it's bad and it's domestic stuff

Um, and that is just there's a lot of uh escalation that are going for so if you're if you start from the position of like my god

I can't ever really get control

We finally got someone who is finally going to allow us to express that position in policy and yet he does the exact same thing

Except it sort of differently you start

Caughting on to theories that would explain the behavior because there has to be some

Fantzful way, but there's a kind of to Camille's point. There's kind of like a lefty instinct and that's right

With anti-Semitism. It's like when we see a certain

You know

Industry which like well, you know, it's it's all white. This is clearly a race of superstructure and that's why it exists

It's what people on the rights anti-Semites on the right say about Hollywood right there's all these Jews there

Obviously they've the the the fixes in it's being rigged on behalf of the Jews by the Jews

Which is a mirror image of what people say about white supremacy the reason there's not certain minorities and a certain

You know percentage in this industry is because it's rigged against them

So I mean there's that that kind of element you seeing the right

Doing something that you know the anti-Semitic right through is it doing something

I mean, I'm not defending Joe Kent here

I'm just saying as a guy who barely I heard his name barely knew anything about the guy until yesterday

Yeah, I'm not pretty come on a podcast and say he's an anti-Semite right like he absolutely could be there's sort of substantial evidence

That's just no, I just don't want to make an accusation sort of satisfied myself. I mean, that's the purpose though

Isn't it that's the purpose of nobody knew who he was

What have he on to this guy start the podcast and I mean he's gonna be on Tucker Carlson show today

Most predictable in the world

And I know you guys are probably there's such

Absence of any kind of first principles discussion of why

Iran is a threat. Uh-huh. I think that's exactly in terms of two things one is and I've been doing a lot of reading about this

I'm not gonna read you but um

Including in academia and also Kissinger talked about it the tremendous risk of accidental explosion and

proliferation when a

Suicidal terrorist

Desperate regime gets an atom bomb the threat to the human race of having a country like Iran with an atom bomb alone

What it means a game theory all the other countries having it what it means when there's like if you see Chernobyl that

Yeah

Like you know that was the Soviet Union the most responsible actor and

Even when they knew they had this tremendous risk with the this nuclear

Plant accident. They were covering up. They was remember that scene. I'm gonna get the numbers wrong

We're says secretary general. Uh, it's only it's only a hundred Rengen

It's like many chest X-rays the guy knew it was much worse than that and the reality was the Geiger counter would have only went to a hundred

Like this is a scientist was reporting to the head of the country. No, it's nothing

It only goes. It's only a hundred

So imagine like what kind of fails say for the happening anyway, so that's a huge con network in Pakistan

I mean you can go on and on there's there's there's a professor Sagan at at Stanford. I'm reading about him today

He goes on and on about this how dangerous it will be that's number one number two is this kind of opposition creep

Where we forget why it is that we look back at the Iraq war is such a mistake

It was supposed to be that bush lied right meaning that if they had WM if we had found WMD

If we had found a terrorist network if we had found

One eighth one tenth of what we know is in Iran today nobody would be saying what we go into Iraq for

We saying yes, we had to go into or maybe maybe we got down

We found exactly what we maybe not I mean

That was what we were talking about and arguing about in two thousand three four and five for sure

But then when it goes on for 18 more years or whatever the number is then it becomes a critique of nation

Bill is just like Afghanistan people

Turned on Afghanistan not because they were against the original knocking out the Taliban

They were in favor of that they were not in favor of being there forever

I would say then it would become and it would have turned into an

Opposition to the continued presence there not to the initial decision to go to war if we had found

A nuclear program. Nobody would be saying we should have never done it. We should just let them have the nuclear power

Yeah, he's kind of built into the premise that we were lied into war and had it been true

It would have been more justifiable or just the five they'd be saying now all right

You got rid of the nuclear program. I got that why are we still there?

This is this is why I have always had the anti-Balton argument and it's lonely and it makes me no friends

But is that who died and made us the single global

nuclear anti-proliferation police?

Um, I'm not sure that that that role is a great role a stable role

And you can point to there's always a monster to destroy and I that you know that's a famous quote from

I guess John Quincy Adams or whoever it was George Washington, George Washington, Fairwell address

Um, I think it goes from something else, but anyways early guys founders beards

but um like

There are

There

There are monsters monsters isn't like hyperbole there are really really awful monsters with nuclear weapons right now and

Do you can I can build a case for taking out Kim Jong-un right now and one hand wants to

But like is that is that a prudent thing to do?

I don't think that it is well, okay, I've been making this argument for a while that you know gain a function research

Was not it turned out not to be the threat. It was the accident wasn't the use of the biological elements

It was the accident the lab leak was the worst most deadly event in modern history

And we're fucking with a lab leak if if we have 30 more

Despots and they just

Terrorists or people they're they're you know, they're crazy people with atom bombs

Something terrible is gonna happen and why would we want to allow this and the particular the particular

Actor matters a lot. I mean Iran has a particular

contempt for the United States for Israel the fact that we would take a particular interest in checking their ability to develop that technology

Makes sense and I think a perhaps under discussed dimension of this is also the security pack that they had with Russia and China

And the fact that they've been talking about getting these hypersonic missiles from China

The discussions were ongoing. I think relatedly there's just this broader context of

The whether or not this was the right decision. We've talked about it on the so many times before

I have deep concerns about the constitutional issues with the way that the war was declared

The war the non or not declared or not declared for that matter

I have very real concerns about the kind of political viability of the strategy

Not just because the Republicans will get their clocks clean, but because

Part of the problem with the Second Gulf War

Wasn't so much that this is just like a bad strategy because obviously you can't cultivate democracy in that region

It's that you're trying to sustain this policy over the course of multiple presidential administrations

And to the extent you wanted to transform the region you had to know that that was part of the deal from the outset

That was always bad math and always imprudent and impractical

Here however

Like if they could go in and achieve a result that looked something like Venezuela like really really quickly

And knock these people back into the Stone Age really really quickly

And and maybe just scramble the circuitry of the region that

This is not even a this is not even a belief this is more so we're in the circumstance now

And if I'm hoping for a good outcome like that is a that is a good outcome and take it a step further

Both between Venezuela and Iran the the perhaps principal victory here

Isn't even checking those actors necessarily

It's maybe proving that the weaponry the defense tech that had been deployed in that region of the world in both places

He's got war boners in the world

It didn't you're a romp all guys you got

I'm like making another

Make sure we have that clip on Bolton must have

I'm not making the case for intervention, but I am acknowledging like the complicated

geopolitical context and if the United States isn't going to take an interest and stuff like that

given the bad behavior of the Russians in Ukraine and various other places

And the clear designs of the the Chinese with respect to Taiwan and in other areas in Asia and around the globe

Really where they've been doing their belt and road stuff

Then who else is going to take an interest in this and that doesn't mean that what you have to do is declare war

I think there's a lot of really credible case that you could have done more tariffs and all sorts of other stuff

But you know commentary podcast

So you're aware probably better than I am of all the close calls we had

The times that bombs fell and and three out of four the dip switches or the the Russian guy who just decided it wasn't an actual

Yes, but my dad worked in defense and he told me about the death contours

There's like four or five and as we had one in Hawaii

Not so long ago when we thought no trick and all you have to do is imagine

How many other countries in the world would you be ready to risk

their reactions to those same scenarios

What would Iran do if their early detection system went off

Would they do what we did and say I would they have you know very sober deliberation about it or was it

Let's not and you know, you multiply this risk by every two-bit nutty person in the world that has an atom bomb

Why would we want to take that chance to question go ahead when Iran is now prostrate right no in the Ukraine thing is

Relevant to because yeah, you were talking about was it

When did we talk about david sacks the brilliant fantastic last episode?

Well

I can't know not that that's the different sacks. There's a lot of sacks out there. This is the tech sacks

Who's been yes been pumping for the for the Russians for a long time. Yeah, but he like a number of people

We're saying we couldn't do anything in Ukraine. You can debate whether this sort of you know efficacy of it the morality of it

But the conversation is always it's going to bring about world war three in a nuclear exchange because

They have nukes so therefore we have to back off and so what does that tell you the idea that somebody has nukes means that you are handcuffed

And that is a very real issue in Iran and you know the problem is is that you know Donald Trump is so schizophrenic

That he literally said yesterday. There were two weeks from getting them. They're two weeks away

And this is the person who in June said we had obliterated yeah their capacity in their ability to create nuclear weapons

And it's like the overriding issue here that we can't take our eye off is that the people who are prosecuting this seem to be unstable

And seem to have the joke and thing is a good example of this Tulsi Gabbard's kind of deputy

And you know he goes in and says it's going to resign

According to reporting to JD Vance who then says don't say anything about mean about Trump in your letter

And there is a let's use the word that they love a cabal of people who have a very different view of this

And Donald Trump doesn't seem to have one coherent view of this. So is it effective in the long run

I have no idea when it comes to the most important thing to me

Which would be dislodging that that wretched government

But there was the thing that was widely passed around from Al Jazeera

This guy who's based in Doha to think I was just gonna ask you about that

It's a really fascinating piece and it was in I somebody was asked about it on CNN the other day

So it really moved around yeah, and he lays out the case for this strategy from Israel and the United States being effective

But that's yeah the US strategy against Iran is working here is why

And the guy is some what is his name here Muhammad saloon

And one of the things about it is that

There's a lot of wisdom in the piece

But there's the second piece of it that he doesn't get into which is what's next?

Okay, you eliminate all of these stockpiles of very

sophisticated ballistic missiles

You degrade the IRGC you kill these leaders who deserve to be killed

And then what

That's the thing that where the Iraq example is so I'm like

I think I'm weirdly like between two of you guys like both physically and intellectually in this of that

Yeah, I the skepticism I have about steps three and four because Donald Trump has said he doesn't care

About what happens in Iran provided their client

He has said something very similar or it's been leaked and Mark Rubio

has

Contested this in the last day and his own private personal twitter account

But he said supposedly the same thing about Cuba

If there's some fuguese caster that can take over we don't care

Provided there are basically our client state that seems to be the post

Maduro

Idea of American foreign policy is the bad guys can stay in place provided they play ball of us with don't I don't think that's a long-term strategy

That I'm ready to sign up for let me ask you

I'll ask you question. No, and when you went the three of us not Camille because he didn't get a ticket that he liked

Went to Israel

I mean you got plenty of money. Yeah, let me first class. Yeah, this is junk it

You want the Shvatsu wants to take it there and walk

But when we were there and and it was a it was a really lovely trip and one of my favorite parts about it besides you arguing with Jesse

Single every day on the fucking bus for like eight hour. Is it really in the part-time state Jesse? Yeah, and Jesse's like

Eating like a monster, but um was your question to all of the Israelis which is

Again and again and again what regards of who we're with we met with some

High-level people in journalists and other people was like

Basically, don't you realize you're losing America right now?

What are you doing about that? So my question to you put that in time. It's pre October 7th

It's pre October 7th. This is back when it was the judicial

Fights that Netanyahu was doing um and just the ongoing you know occupation West Bank or whatever the way that that life

Was in Israel that are you know, it's still ongoing

Issues and problems, but um

What do you think about how do you look at this war with that question? We asked the same thing in the DAV

About that and he's very worried. This is a war

There's no puppeteers, but two countries decided to do this war

And it's a big deal and Americans don't like this war so far at the beginning of it

and

You know Israel like if Israel hadn't been as strenuous. We might not have been as strenuous

I mean, it's not it's two people decided that they had parallel interests here on a big and kind of traumatic thing

Do you worry about what that's going to do about your question that you posed to Israeli politicians?

Yes, of course. I'm very worried about so at the time. I was very worried about it

Wasn't even about the judicial overhaul. I remember writing a lot of emails saying you know

All the liberals all the Jews are liberals and they hate the Republicans, but the Republicans are the bulwark for support for Israel

And I remember saying almost you know verbatim if support

Among Republicans for Israel ever gets to where it is now among Democrats

We're going to see a free fall in both parties and that's what I was worried about basically what we're seeing

But these were small matters that Israel was alienating America with that they didn't have to if you're asking me now given what they've accomplished

Iran on its you know deathbed maybe has ball a gun

Hamal everything that they accomplished in this war

Would they trade that all for better PR with America now? No, they they couldn't and wouldn't yeah

Could if they had done things differently

Could they have accomplished all that they've accomplished and done less damage to themselves PR wise if they could have they should have

I'm not convinced

They actually could have maybe marginally

Camille said when you see I'm just like when you see all those people dying as we saw

That's just a such a powerful thing. Yeah

Camille said something in the intro about for those of you out there who haven't

listened or watched us podcast live from table

You have a very

Interesting way of doing shows that most people don't do which is the thing that I appreciate

Which is not only the chief of papers that you bring but you're ready to go when you have you've done deep research and stuff

But it's not what

Tucker Carlson show or any of these show which is just a you know to quote Pat you can and

About the israel lobby the amen choir, right? It's not just they're like we agree on all this stuff

Let's talk about how dumb all these other guys are

Right when October 7th happened

You had Rashid Khalidian I was there with I was on that with you

um

Then you had Norman Finkelstein and then I think you had Finkelstein back and you kept on this correspondence with Finkelstein

Until he basically told you to go fuck yourself

But can you can you do a little rendition of no I cannot

Um, there's the greatest thing about that story was was your producer

uh periel who I love um

When we were waiting for him that I would tell this one when he she said I don't know if he's gonna be here if he's gonna come

I just give him a call and he said he had no cell phone

Yeah, no phone and and and he then later explained that when he needs to make a call of his he'll ask somebody on the street

And you just think of Finkelstein in his like Tiva sandals going excuse me

I have a very important call

To make the professor darshwitz

And then get the phone

And that

That's going to be late for a podcast

Yeah

The shoppers

What would it all right go with it

He said that about Coleman yeah

Maybe I don't reveal that

But you have it's been out there

Is he said that I probably I think it's been out there hasn't it?

I don't know

Maybe they called Coleman a black shoppers boys

Yes, yes, yes

In the Yomokas shutting off the lights

Why did you start getting careful about that Volga?

Well, I don't know, personally, I don't know

I don't want to I don't want to make him seem like a racist

But there's a long list of these people that you've had on

I mean most recently um

I was gonna say Tom Seggeve it wasn't Tom Seggeve

Bartov?

It was Omar Bartov who wrote that it was a genocide in the New York Times

And he's a well-regarded historian, Israeli historian

He's written about um the Holocaust Nazis and etc

And one good book that I read uh read called Hitler's Army which is a very good book

But you had him on and

I find it very funny because when we were in Israel

You we would go around in the circle

He's meeting some minister or something

And I would say at the time I was advised

I'm like one advice and he was mad

And you would look up and say

I know my own a nightclub

It's all to be absolute

incredulity of things like

But you're the guy who was a nightclub

He uploaded for bear against

Against Bartov

And I thought that was masterful and you did a great job of kind of dismantling him

But

Beyond the praise of you for that which you deserve

Is

Through talking to all of these people who are at the outset

Diometrically opposed to you in your opinions on these matters

What have you taken away from that?

Has there anyone been moved you in a particular direction?

You said, you know what?

Because I know you

I know you well and I know you're open to persuasion

Yeah, of course

And you're not somebody who's like firmly on one side

You end up on one side

It's everyone does

But you can be moved

Did any of those things ever move you?

No

Maybe something will come to me

No, as a matter of fact

What I've come away from like really macro on a lot of this stuff

Is and this is going to sound bad in a way

Is that like the people I know who I agree with

Like you

You guys

Coleman the various people that we know

You're you're clearly not like nutty and crazy

You're clearly you know

Open to

Arguments in the other side we'll discuss it privately

And there's just so much nuttiness

On the other side of the argument extreme nuttiness

And the fact I mean can I talk about Megan Kelly?

Yeah, like like

The fact that I mean this has to be this is crushing to me

It has to be for you guys

The fact that she's there with Candace Owlens

And Tucker Carlson and his demons

And underwater

You have falls and

Alex Jones is a divine prophet

And the fact that they can all gather together

And be comfortable with each other

And that makes up like

That's the intellectual gold standard of the anti-Israel position

Right is these fucking nuts

Who will take in any other nut

As long as they say the right thing

But is that the intellectual gold standard of the anti-Israel position

Like is it I mean you've done the Lord's work

I think really since October 7th

Specifically in engaging with people

And including on Twitter and in long exchanges

And it is it's terrific

And like I think it's an it's an ideal

That I would never even think about aspiring to

Because I would just get too furious

With people I find it the odd

I mean keeping in mind just to interject

Sorry that martyr made Darryl Cooper

Scott Horton

Yeah

Dave Smith

All these people have been on your show

And you've engaged with them

Which is great

Great one was post-con

But I mean I think it was time

So yeah I mean who then who is the intellectual

Well I don't know

I just I wonder if

In pop culture they are

If in

If in

Following the people who have big followings

And some of whom are saying

Like really kind of on the edge

Or over the edge types of

Collectively denunciatory statements

That don't have a lot of basis

In fact while also getting into a lot of

Kind of social media troll type wars

Do you run the risk of like

You're a dog chasing a squirrel over there

Because it's putting up a ruckus

When there's actually you know

Mier Shimer and Walter

Actually doing more serious work

I'm throwing their names out there

I don't really

Rubberpap on me

But Mier Shimer is a good example

Mier Shimer who says that Israel

That Hamas actually didn't kill all those people on October 7th

That that Israel is blackmailing Trump

Into his pro like this

He said that

Yeah

This is John Mier Shimer

No I know

I'm not holding on with the standard at all

Just like

Imagine Michael

Like you know

I think that this leader is blackmailing this person

I was like Michael where do you get that

No I just

I just have a I have a

I would hope that you would stop in front of me

But he would never

Like it

It's so not something he would

Why do you think it happens in the sense that

Joe Kent thing you can make a pretty

You know just reasonable guess

That he's going to go on Tucker Carlson show

And he does and he's doing that today

That he will

No one had heard of him

And now he's going to have this profile

Now he's in newspapers

And on cable tv

And people are talking about this

And now he is almost instantly

A person in that orbit

And can do a podcast

And probably he's done some big podcasts before

He has done it before

But the name recognition is

Should be much higher now

And people that

I think

Change their I mean his opinions

People came out with with with with Kent

And finding all of these things

Fairly recently of him saying

Arana Arana is a threat

Yeah

And Arana's nuclear

Capabilities have to be taken out

And taken out or just said there are three

I think there are three

Maybe he just maybe hit me

Yeah that's a good distinction

But it's something that I don't think he would say

Now and I wonder

How people can have such

Big intellectual changes

When they're in government

In huge positions

Pizzons of incredible influence

In such short periods of time

How did you not

Kind of come to these conclusions

Earlier was there something

Internally in the White House

That you saw

Or is this just

It's possible

Or is this just a

Kind of political move

Or a

Move to make more money

And get a bigger kind of

Meershymer was a dry academic

And there was a point at which

He became a big name

And people

I think the same thing is happening

I you know I was

No, I was saying that you don't

You don't really protect people's

Anatomy I'm not going to do that right now

I was talking to Peter Meyer about this

Our friend and former congressman

Was that the hair salon about

We were getting our hair

We're getting blowouts

We're getting we call them a Michigan blowout

He looks like a fucking lion

That's great

Did his head that you just peered

No, it's good

We're starting a metal band together

But we were talking about this with paper

Because Peter knows this stuff

Very well

Served in a rock

And he's and he said something to me

A bad paper

And like this guy

Who is a nobody

Not a nobody

But in academia

Everybody knew him for a book

Called dying to win

I went to Libya

With Robert Pipe

In another journalist

And now he's everywhere

And I see this stuff on Twitter

And I'm like

Oh yeah, he is

And this was Peter's point

And

I want to reveal him

Because I want to give him credit

Because it's a smart point

He's like he's mirror-shimering

This guy who was like

A sort of nobody academic

Nobody in the bigger sense

Is now all of a sudden

On Twitter all the time

He hadn't been on Twitter for years

And now he's tweeting all this stuff

And he sounds like

He's a big market for this stuff

And people are racing towards it

And I think the danger in a way

Are those people that did have academic credentials

That are like

Oh, well, this is the guy from University of Chicago

And I think both

Mirror-shimering paper at University of Chicago were

And that kind of thing

The incentives of this are really bad

You know, it's disillusioning

And you probably had the same thought

So when Pipe was all in about

This war was only helping Hamas

Hamas is winning

I remember thinking at the time

Wow, why are you going all in like that

Like what if it doesn't turn out that way

You don't know how it's going to turn out

You're going to look foolish

No, you don't look foolish

He doesn't even care as that he went all in

He's lost no credibility

And now he's going even further all in

Saying, Iran is winning

The eye, which is remarkable

And so the instinct is

Well, yeah, but if this regime falls

You're going to look like a fool

And you're going to be discredited

No

I mean, he's tweeting fake AI videos

Of comedians

Which was actually

On Net Yahu

Speaking Hebrew

In a coffee shop, he's like

You know, I am at the coffee shop

And Teran is like

To run that

Are you the fuck is it?

I have a kind of friendship with Robert Pape

Of a proposition

Of course you do

So, you know, as you know, I

I want to take that

What do you take all of your friends, I know

Because I know I'm

You know

Vellies, we have in our very long history

Almost 10 years now

Never done a formal sponsorship with anyone

No

And I would not even say that this is us

Kind of go incorporate and tell that

Because in truth, this particular

Merchant of services

Is someone who I've mentioned many times

Positively, who

A product that I've used and enjoyed in many respects

So I am very pleased to be able to talk about ground news

Ground news is a great application

For sifting through the news cycle

Keeping your finger on the pulse of what's happening in the world

And just generally understanding the media landscape

And there are many great features on ground news

Which I'm sure we can talk about it length

I just want to talk about one

Briefly and it is the blind spot feature

Which is incredibly valuable

I love the blind spot tab

Because it helps me

Realize not only the stuff that I have

Potentially overlooked

But the stuff that other people are overlooking

So blind spot from the left

Criminal will pay for his blood

Wow, it's Chameleon

Chameleon on killing of Iran's security chief

And that is something that is kind of

For the left, it is a blind spot

So it codes right

But then there's another story

Japan's leader heads to Washington for visit

Complicated by the Iran War

And you can imagine that this is a story

That might be ignored by people on the right

Both of these are worthwhile stories

To pay some attention to

But it is the sort of thing that you might lift

Miss if you are kind of stuck

In a particular bubble

In terms of your kind of political readers

You might not know if you're in the bubble

Yeah, I think that's right

Your normal consumption habits might have

You knowing that this thing is happening

And that thing is not happening

The way that you use this for fifth column

Listeners and viewers

Is you go to groundnews.com

Slash fifth

Why Michael do they go?

Well, does it get 40% on?

40% on limited access vantage plan

Factage

What is 40% off

And you get the unlimited plan

What do you want the limited plan?

No, this has been never

No, we can do the unlimited plan

The Neverfly Coach of this

Neverfly Coach

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We've never done an ad

And we're doing this now

Because this is actually a product

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And all that you can just record

I downloaded the app

I just thought you had a call your daughter

For the first time on your phone

Now you're actually using it

Because of groundnews

And you guys should be too

And that is groundnews.com

Slash fifth

And you get 40% off

The unlimited access

A vantage plan

There's a bunch of stuff that I want to

That I want to double click on here

I mean first like

Kent and I are about the same age

I think he's 45

And like

In the past couple years

I've certainly had my baggage shift

On a couple of things

And certainly on like foreign policy stuff

My baggage has shifted

And I'm not a war hawk

I'm not a neocon

I think I have a realistic perspective

On the appropriateness

Of sometimes projecting power abroad

But more specifically

What I have in openness to

Is a nuanced thoughtful argument

On the other side of an issue

That might be in opposition to mine

I was not desperate to see an

In an incursion into Iran

I don't have whether it be

But it looks on the grounds or not

Excursions are fun

We're having a big association

We go to extursions

Trump's fucking a technical basket

We got an excursion to Iran

But once one happens

To evaluate it seriously

To think about the best possible objectives

Even if the administration

Cannot to save their lives

Articulate those things

In a sensible and coherent way

I can imagine them

That piece in Al Jazeera

But it's interesting

It's interesting

To think about the aspects

Of this conflict that are going well

So to speak

From a Western perspective

From the perspective of someone

Who wants to see Iran checked

And contained

In the long run

Is it the best possible goal

I don't know

I'm skeptical

And I have profound doubts about that

But I can change my mind about that

At 45

And we do this stuff

I'm not in government

But we read about this regularly

I had a

I thought a

Well-informed perspective

Before

And a perspective can become more

Better informed

And perhaps more nuanced

And more

And for me

I think there's actually just more

More humility in my perspective

Like it's a more modest

Perspective

It is not a conclusion

That precedes all evidence

And asserts with confidence

A kind of fundamentalist value

That interventions abroad

Are categorically well-informed

It's used to be

To do something

Can I ask you a question?

I suppose it does

Because it's like

What would you call it?

It's like justification

Cre... like

Sure

No, like

Things are smuggled in

And we don't really question them

Like when people say

Iran is not an imminent threat

As if imminent threat

Is the standard for war

The question I would ask you is

And yet is

I said it before

Is it okay for Iran to get nuclear weapons

If you decide it's not okay

Then you say

We're never going to have a chance like this again

If we wait until it's imminent

Who knows

I don't know what that will be

I think that is true in this argument

But you think it's okay

I don't think it's okay

It's terrible

Yeah, I think it's wrong

No, it's a terrible place

I mean that you don't think it's terrible

I mean like you think

We should do something to prevent

We should allow that to happen

I don't think that's the choice

Of we should allow it to happen

I think that you can apply pressure

The short of dropping a lot of bombs in the country

But if you know that Iran might get hypersonic missiles from China

Like in the next year or so

And they have this demonstrated interest

In trying to develop nuclear weapons

Do they perhaps

It's the you know part

It's the we know part

We do know about the we know

But we do know those things

They know that they were trying to

I mean I pardon themselves as a target

This short to do these other bad

There's going to be arms races

If you are

Decapitating regimes

Yeah, that's true

And also if you

Yes

Proven both in Libya and Ukraine

That if you get rid of

If you're nuclear weapons

You're in trouble

You're in even more trouble

Yeah, so of course people are going to see you

The knock-on effects are real

And I respect all of that

I'm just saying that

You can change your mind

You can become nuanced

But there's one other thing I wanted to double click on

And it was

The characterization of

Like

Candace, Tucker, Megan, Camille

Camille the people

I think you mentioned

I think you mentioned Alex Jones beneath that

There's a couple of things

One, I would draw some distinctions

Around some of those characters

Two

There's something about

The way that someone like Dave Smith

Has gained more prominence

Than he had before

Talking about these issues

And the fact that a lot of

As we were saying earlier

A lot of people at this point

Just buy those arguments

They are bought in

And in many instances

It means that they go

Intertain other

More even

Out there conspiracy theories as well

I wonder about

The charges of anti-semitism

About the

Kind of categorical dismissal

Of people as like

Cooke's

The reality is that

If we don't confront

These bad arguments

And confront them

In this sort of detailed way

That you do

Things tend to

Perhaps get out of hand

And it feels like

That's where we are now

And I don't know if we really

Ressled with that enough

The fact that

People were making these bad arguments

For a very long time

And in many instances

Would be just kind of ignored

Because well

Nobody's paying any attention to them

Well they are now

I want to be clear

I wasn't calling Matt and Anti-Semite

No, I'm not

Cormulant

I do that's fine

But um

I just just

To

Answer what you said

Think it back to you

Is um

Do you agree that

Once

That's

No because

Because I

I hear what you're saying

But pressure

Diplomacy

Whatever

Once

Israel

Whenever it was

The first time

Bomb the Iran

Your

Your half go

Whenever it was

It seemed to me

At that point

We all understood

Well if Iran has a chance now

They're going to

Realize they have to have new

Nothing is going to stop now

The best argument for this war

To me is that

It's that um

It's the opportunity

The opportunity is now

There's been a degrading

This has been a malevolent country

It's been threatening everybody

In the region

A bad actor

Doing bad things

To America even beyond

Just the

Americans are everywhere

And so you're going to eventually do that

A little bit

Consider a little more wicked

Then just that

Argument it's a low cost

But not just the opportunity

But the fact that if

Five years ago we could

Maybe toy with the idea

Well, we're not sure if Iran

Is really decided on having nuclear weapons

Once Iran was humiliated

There is no way they didn't decide

If we have a chance again

This is never going to happen to us again

And we know if we had an bomb

They would have never dared

So the first chance we get

We're getting at it

I just see

I can see the intervention spiral

Happening with that logic

Sometimes you have to intervene

Okay, but also

I've heard that logic a lot

And that logic was used to intervene in Libya

Which I think was a mistake

It was used to intervene in Iraq

Which I think was a mistake

We can talk ourselves into war really easily

Because it's the world's greatest

Do something about it

It's a very small sample size

Of historical scenarios

And they're all different in their own way

And to decide

Based, you know, at any given time in history

You could decide a decision

That turned out well

Based on a previous time

It didn't turn out well

I don't know

But yeah, I don't need to be clear

I don't either

It's a chance

I think airing on the side of reticence

Is there's wisdom in that

Among other reasons

Because what kind

If you're taking full responsibility

For the world at all times

At a time when your own public

Doesn't want you to

Right

Which is that's a bad dislocation

And it's going to lead to a lot of

Irratic behavior

And what is Trump

If not really doing a lot of

Irratic behavior

As president

Then I think that

That prevents other people

From taking responsibility for their actions

Yeah

The couple of things about this

I mean, historically

It's hard

Obviously the way that the Cold War

I mean, people

During the Cold War

There was an enormous segment

Of the liberal left

And some parts of the kind of mainstream democratic party

That even disagreed with the idea

Of confronting the Soviet Union

In a containment way

We didn't take the option

In 1956 and Hungary

We didn't take the option in 1968

We didn't participate in the Suez crisis

In 1956

The same thing true there

We

You know

Pulled out after the debacle of Bay of Pigs

To just actively supporting

You know Cuban resistance in some ways

But not in an armed way

But we did intervene in

Nicaragua

We did intervene in Grenada

The entire thing was pushing

But the one of the overarching things

Was that the Soviets were rational

There was a rational basis

For what they were doing

And there was a rational response

To us pushing back

There does

It does change the calculation a lot

When actors seem irrational

When you're waiting for a hidden a mom

When there is glory in death

When the drones that you were producing

For the Russians

Are called, you know, Shaheed drones

It's a bit martyrdom

This kind of stuff

Should change the calculation of how

How you

So I agree it's always

Sort of different

But as far as like just in one thing

What you mentioned before

Is there two things about the cookery

There is a natural change

That people

I'll give you an example of a natural change

I think that our friend

I know that I've been friends with him

Is Saurab

Saurab and Mari

Who is Iranian-American

Was a hardcore neocon

And is the exact opposite now

Yet another in a long list of people

Who work with John Putt-Harritz

Yeah

Yeah

Exactly

Go ahead and say you know what

That's how you try to land it

Carrelation is not a causation

But that kind of like

I think Saurab

Had a pretty honest intellectual journey

I don't doubt Saurab's motivations on this

In one of the reasons I say that

As he did an interview

Because he's like the America editor

For unheard

The British publication

And an interview about Iran

With their overall editor in chief

And um

It was like not

It was not

Joe Kent

I mean he has a deep sympathy

And he always wanted

Military action in the past

To free their Iranian people

Etc

I think those kinds of journeys are normal

And if you don't change your mind over time

I've changed my mind

Some of things

I do think there's opportunistic stuff

Which is pretty easy to test for

Like very easy to test for

I mean you look at guys

I used to criticize guys like Larry Cuglow

And Stephen Moore

These guys who are non-economists

That play economists on TV

And they talk to endlessly about free markets

And free trade

They got jobs in the Trump administration

And they have the exact

Tariffs are great

Tariffs are great

They're going to live

I interviewed Art Laffer about this

In 2016

He's like wow you know

Terrifying

He's like he can be a good tool

And it's like yeah but that's not the question

So I think there's so much opportunism

And politics

Sure

That it depresses me

But I think the thing that

Probably is true

For everyone at this table

Is that you would stop going on shows

And you would stop interacting with people

At a certain point

Everybody has a different line

But we have lines right

It's like when you're doing something I'm chemtrails

When you're talking about you know

January 6 was an inside job

Like there are a lot of people I know

And you know I think maybe us included

That have understood that the

2020 election conspiracies

Are something that people do

Because they that was literally the litmus test

When you were being interviewed

For this second administration

Was the election stolen

They're like yes it was stolen

I want a job

Like I get the people do stuff like that

But when you are indulging stuff

That is easily

Almost instantly falsifiable

That is just not true

That no one ever made the claim

I mean probably people here and there

But you know we were texting about Mark Lane

The dean of all Kennedy conspiracy theorists

And all of these people all over stone

Had 90 days of CIA it was LBJ

No one ever talked about Israel

That was the oh look

Because they wanted APEC

The precursor to APEC to register as a foreign agent

So therefore they pulled off this enormous

Assassination of the century

The fact that people who were once serious

And people that were once friends of mine

Believe that stuff and entertain it

And don't laugh it off the show

And say you are bringing the intellectual level of the show down

Into the basement for what

For clicks for clips online that get you know 20 million views

Because you are giving things to dumb people

It's like people with addiction saying you know

You should guys you gotta start gambling

It's like this is this is stuff that you just at

You know you shouldn't do if you were in this world

And that I think is the red line

You should have that red line

And once people start engaging in that sort of stuff

All of a sudden everyone became a 9-11 truth

Yeah that was like in a week

Yeah I mean was it Michael Schellenberger?

Was it he was one of those 9-11 truth

Like oh that's this stuff is

Basic it's as I was saying in the last episode

It's the X-ray machine for stupidity

Or I don't think Michael Schellenberger is a stupid guy

No I think he was on the other side of like the Epstein argument

When he was talking to Rogan the other day

Yeah I mean like in maybe in he by the way

Said in that and I just thought clip a bit

That he was expecting a conspiracy and didn't find one

So therefore he changed his mind

So yes but then you talk about 9-11 as an inside job

But doesn't that suggest since I mean I don't know

No it's not that sensitive

You have to be consistent about these things

You can be consistently smart and be snowed

But it's the rare thing as you said

And I've said this a million times in the show

Nobody ever believes just one conspiracy there

It's a mindset right

Nobody says the moon landing was fake

Nine lives inside job because they're insane

It's no it's that mindset

But when you see people descending into that

For whatever reason

If it is the reason of getting more clicks

And getting more money and getting more ad dollars

I don't give a shit

So if you believe it

I don't give a shit

You're saying it

I have two things I want to say

First of all is that people lump to

You don't mean to do this

They lump to get like politicians being hypocrites

With like intellectuals being hypocrites

And I know we all believe that

Okay but intellectuals take an oath to the truth

Politicians oath is very fuzzy

It basically is to get elected right

Yeah and once they get power

Maybe to do things who go to basically

And it's part of the deal

Although they take an actual oath

The commentators and stuff don't actually take it

So when I hear a politician speaking

When I hear politicians speaking out of both sides of his mouth

I don't like it

Yeah but I said grow up

No

When I hear somebody like you know

Sarvamari who I think is a hack by the way

And I had a whole thing with him

But I say yeah but you know

But you know the honest hack

But well I had to think with him

Because he published a thing about Ilhan Omar

Where he was totally misquoted

And I sent him the videos

And she didn't say that

She actually meant the opposite

And he and I had an email exchange up until that moment

And then at that moment

I never heard from him again

And he should have retracted

He should have corrected

How many ongoing email exchanges

This is how many years ago this is right now

But I mean

You've got a few moments

You've got an email exchange

So as far as

Not zero

As far as the cookery goes

I think a lot of these people are mentally ill

And I'm going to find mental illness in this way

In the same way we all observe

That people have very thin slices of intelligence

Like very very thin

Like oh my god that's actually a very finite talent

That this person has

And it's clearly above and beyond other people

They don't seem that smart in other ways

I think people's mental picture can also be

Like these people have a thin slice

Of a huge defect in their mental health

And Tucker Carlson

And a lot of these people

And this is what we saw heartbreaking about Megan

Is because I don't think any of us

Think she actually has that slice

It's a matter of fact

I think it's just opposite

Of Megan's kind of turn

But Sheldonberger must have

Tucker and you know

Aligning herself with Tucker

And saying I wouldn't pronounce him and everything

You and we on this show too

Said and you said publicly

I don't believe she said that

I say mine

I don't think she has any symmetric bone on her body

I mean you said that

And I don't

I still have no evidence

Of that from her

But you've engaged her quite a bit

In in in the time since

Right

Thank you for they've all seen that

Mike

No I'm just saying

You tweet you're tweeting at her

He's totally insane

When he doesn't see it

You just revealed that it was private

He's kind of retweeted

He's saying

He's like showing up at her house

No I don't think she's an anti-submitted girl

I don't think she's an anti-submitted girl

Although I do think that she's

I had tweeted about this

That when people want to think

Well of themselves

And when they do something wrong

They begin to rationalize

Why the person you're doing it to

Deserved it all along

And I think this is

Sucking her into a dark place

Where she's retweeting

Stuffed by known anti-submits

And she ought to know better

I don't believe

I just can't I can't imagine that she isn't

I can't picture her that

I mean I think part of the choice

Architecture here about all of this

Like you know what's a red line what's not

When you see someone

And this is sort of a blanket thing

Who definitely knows better

And then is start the suddenly embracing

Other people who have the long career track records

Of being

Cooke's of being

Of being just never having any kind of

Fidelity to the truth

Of being

Controversial in the things

But suddenly you are now on their team

And you're

And you're talking about them

And when you're sharing information

From people who are known to be really bad

At the information game

That's when I'm just going to step off your

Your train because we're not engaged

In the same project anymore

That's just it like

I don't I don't know about an oath

But I like the idea

That we're like we're trying to arrive at stuff

Honestly and talk about disagreements

Honestly too

No I absolutely know what you're talking about

I mean like you know

I write a lot

And I you know the idea of getting a thing wrong

I wrote a

I know that it's

It's a bit about Brian Doherty

And I said he was born in Brooklyn

He was born in Queens

And I want to fucking jump off off off off off off off off

It sucks

Right

And I know I'd say stuff

This is an oral medium

And we all

And we're having fun too

But we're also like trying

To say things that are

True

And accurate

And when you see people

Who have worked in this

industry or in this vocation

Who are

You can see they're standards slipping

They're vituperation growing

And they're affinity and affiliations with people

Their standards just going straight to the toilet

That is a scientific

I say those in the same manner

I'm not a sympathy too

But I think that people who

Look at what we do

And look at journalism general

Believe or just intellectual combat

Believe that it all comes

From a place

Of looking at the facts

Adjudicating the facts

And people come to different conclusions

But what they never account for

Is there so much personal stuff

Of course

There's so much

And you know

We're talking about Megan

And I

You know

We're done to her show anymore

I'm not bad

Maths her

I'm not bad

Mathing her now

But it's in her case

She's been very open about

The fact that when people

Tell her to say something

She will do everything to not

Say that thing

And it might drag her to places that I don't like

Okay, we disagree

But that is not an intellectual rationalization

That's a personal position that somebody has

And they can have that and hold it very firmly

And that will kind of color

The way that they look at particular issues

And I think that most people

Take this 30,000 foot view

Who are engaging the stuff

By just driving in their car

And listening to the show or something like that

And assume that people are dealing

With this only on a factual level

And they're just absolutely not

And I'm keeping myself as part of that too

I mean, I will never

And I say on a show all the time

I will always hate Sam Altman

Because I had a horrible entrepreneur

We know

It's personal

And I'm like that guy was a fucking prick

And I don't trust him anymore

But I try to be upfront about it

Like this is why I hate him so much

But there's so much more to it

Than just like we're looking at these facts

If that were the case

These conversations would be

Very, very easy

The people that you point this out

I'll give one example of this

And I won't name any names

But I know you had an interaction with somebody

And as you often do invited them

Down to have a have a drink

And this is a person who was a young person

And you said

I mean, Christian Cooper isn't that young

You will

If we're wrong

Younger than no

And said, you know

Look

You gotta get things right

And you're getting things wrong

And you're a young guy

And it was just not penetrating

And the action is admirable

The result is frustrating

And that's why Matt says

How many open email

Because you're constantly emailing people

From your perspective

Which is an honest one that says

If you get it wrong

I presume that you're gonna want to fix this

How many what percentage of time do people want to fix it

Never

Almost never

They don't want to fix it

And I think Coleman Hughes

Yeah

He's the one person I know

He's like, oh, shit

I better

Yeah, yeah

Cause you're gonna backhand him

Yeah, he's the top of his son

Like, come in

Yeah

Coleman

Comes down

Fired from the band

But Coleman, Coleman's an interesting example of a guy

I mean, you mentioned Dave Smith

There was a

Like, he did a

Kind of now

Amongst a certain

Small Coder of people

That was kind of a famous episode of a show

Where Dave Smith came on

He said, you know, give me your best arguments sort of thing

And I was about to put it on

And I was like

Three fucking hours

Yeah

I can't do this

And then at three hour three I was like

You got more to go

Give me another argument

Cause he did such a calm

Job of going after every argument

Because there are people who become like David Sachs

As I said the other day

I had never tweeted about Ukraine

And became a Ukraine expert overnight

All these people now are on experts

They're Ukraine experts

They're gonna be then as well experts

They'll be Cuba experts

You know, in two weeks

And they learn a script

They're like actors

They have all the stuff that

You know

I'm not, you know

I'm not going into the role

Like Robert De Niro

I'm inhabiting the character

And I'm gonna anticipate what that person would say

They have the scripts

They have the

The usual points that I make

And Coleman in that episode

I thought was so good

Because he's somebody who's done

Very, very deep dives

Over a long period of time

And just

New the scripts

Very easy to know what these people are gonna say

Because it's like watching fight tape

You understand

It's like that Superman movie

Where like Luther knew all the

All Superman's movies

Yeah, yeah exactly

99, 97

Exactly, exactly

And that is exactly right

And it was like, you can

You can

Dog was good

Come back at this stuff

That, you know, with arguments

That are a little more contextualized

And nuanced

Because people know a script

And that's the problem that I have

It takes a lot of time

That's like a lot of time

And before it ends

I want to bring something else to you guys

I got one thing before we get on with this

But, you know, it used to be the

Like, it went from like, I don't know

Who like

Like Robert Wright

David Rothkoff

All the way to like Glenn Greenwald

And Norman Finkelstein

Right

And then it blew

And these were kind of like

All people dealing in facts

Sort of, like for the most part

I mean, including Glenn Greenwald

And it blew past them

To Ian Carroll

Yeah

Mm-hmm

And

Norman Finkelstein to his credit

Has expressed some

Uncomfortableness

With this Ian Carroll

It's because you're in love with Norman Finkelstein

We've established that for a long time

Well, I do, and you know

If you're in Norman Finkelstein book

And you'll check his footnotes

They're very thorough

He might leave some stuff out

But what he says in the text

Is actually backed up in the footnote

Which reads like, Caledie

They're on

Basically, the footnotes are just bullshit

Right

So I respect that

But that

How like

How do these people live with themselves

Like Greenwald

And

I'll leave Finkelstein out

Now that they can go

Like, they hang out with their friends

And who's coming to the party tonight

Oh,

Carroll's

Ian Carroll's gonna be their Alex Jones

Tucker Carlson

That's their new crew

I think the way people get there

Is

That

They have lived on the ideological margins

And so they can have aggressive toleration

For

Errant and

Potentially ugly viewpoints

Because

Like with Greenwald

Who I

Now on Substack

We've had on the show

And I've been friendly with him

For a long time

And also we fight a lot too

But um

He's been nice to me too

He is so obsessed

With the

Kind of what he

Would portray as the Omerta

Of like you can't say anything bad about Israel

And bad things are going to happen to you

And you're going to be

Uh

Branded an anti-Sema

And you're going to have your free speech

Taking away

That

That leads

And I've seen some of the libertarians

Who are brand new ideas to do

This is well too

The label brand new ideas to work for reason

Like

Because you are on the margins

And because you are

Actually genuinely pro free speech

And you have some out there opinions

Other people who have out there opinions

You don't want them to be silenced

Of for those opinions

Or for other like ugly

Seeming opinions that you might have

Like there's a

Like an aggressive toleration

That can that can be behind that

And that I find on some level

Noble

But on some other level

I think that they're turning a blind eye to

Like oh that's a bad ally

Because they agree with you

That's not enough

Like they're actually not being

Right so is it the ACLU

When they were defending the Nazis in Skoky

Refused to say a bad word about the Nazis

Right

Yeah I don't think that's...

I think you're right but I think it's very unwise

But that's actually

That is perhaps the perfect example

Of like my own approach to most of these things

I want to be

In a position to disagree forcefully with you

And still have a conversation with you

In particular

And whether or not it's fair

Like I'm going to give you a little bit more rope

If you happen to be particularly influential

And if you have access to say the corridors of power

For example

And I mean it's funny because we really haven't

Talked about it publicly

But like Megan has come up a few times

Like I'm still willing to have conversations with Megan

In public

I would talk to Dave Smith

In public

And I'd talk to Dave Smith

privately in every single conversation we've ever had in private

Has generally been like

Cool and fine

I haven't talked to him in a couple years

But I would

He's a nice guy

And you know with like Megan

I'm supposed to do her show

Like soon I've been talking to her producers about it

Maybe that will or won't happen

But there's a willingness on my part

To have a conversation

With prominent person

With whom I have

Meaningful disagreements

And always have

What is she going to do?

Ground rules

Don't ask me about this

Don't ask me about that

That wouldn't really be acceptable to me

But I don't know

She's never done that before

So until that day comes

Until that happens

Then I'm willing to do it

But I will say

Just again

Lated to this conversation

And what you were just saying Matt

There is a particular kind of sensitivity around these issues

That does remind me

Of the kind of excesses

That we've seen on the left

With respect to quote unquote

Wokeness

And the reality is that even my saying

What I just said

Like I've said it on

On social media for example

And have literally gotten back

Stuffed allegations of like anti-Semitism

Directed at me

For having a willingness to talk to someone

People on Twitter

Which in

Yes

Occasionally

But it's not hard to imagine

And it's certainly not something that I haven't seen

Where there is a kind of lurch

To the assailing of motivations

And even the sort of speculation

About people's like internal worlds

And they're their particular

The particular way that they reach

Certain moral conclusions

And I think you used the phrase a moment ago

Like how can you sleep at night

Well, I suspect it's because

They approach the thing from a different direction

And the ideal thing to do

In most circumstances

If there's an opportunity

To air out the grievance

To expose the actual terrain

Of the disagreement

That can be beneficial for a universe of people

And my instinct is

That it is almost certainly the case

That when I have a conversation

In public with someone I disagree with

The likelihood that I might appeal

To some small percentage

And maybe a huge percentage of their audience

And prevail in the argument

It's not it's not zero

One small thing about this

Is that there's

You know the reason I

Praise

No, I'm sure it's not just because we're friends

Because I think it's

The ideal of how to do

I think that's true to the way

The venue matters a whole lot

The venue matters

The person that your interlocutor matters

Because

I think there are certain people that I have no interest

In that kind of debate

I'm not saying anyone in particular

But it's just I see as a cross

I mean I can't

I mean you

The people who have disagreed

In this mega thing which I haven't paid attention to

I just don't

One of the reasons that I'm

You know

Mostly I'm going to say

I just have no interest

In the kind of real housewives

Of of Twitter

And real housewives of conservative politics

But those people who disagreed

Now don't talk to each other

And say you got a small dick

And you got this

And you're a harlequin

Ben Shapiro

And this and it's like

That's not debate

It's not people going

In the thing that I respect

About Finkelstein

Which is

Not a phrase you hear out of my mouth often

Is that he will come and sit down with you

And have an argument with you

And have a debate with you

And come back and keep doing it

And that is

Maybe that's something about

You know his background

I mean he's like a 68er

An old Maoist

He's in academia for a long time

And you know he's also been attacked

By people on the left

To be a whole book about it

It was I'll burn that bridge when I come to it

So he has no kind of political

Home in a lot of ways

And I think that

Makes people a little more

Willing

I mean greenwald

You know