Through his popular appearances on Joe Rogan, Piers Morgan Uncensored, Tucker Carlson, The Young Turks and everywhere in between, Dave Smith has established himself as one of the most formidable debaters of the 2020s.
Rising to popularity as part of the Legion Of Skanks comedy troupe, he quickly became a key voice in American libertarianism. As well as briefly becoming a figurehead of the official party, Dave can also be found defending his brand of isolationist anarcho-capitalism against the likes of Dennis Prager, Coleman Hughes, Chris Cuomo and, perhaps most famously, Douglas Murray.
Today, his show, Part Of The Problem, which he co-hosts with Robbie “The Fire” Bernstein, boasts over 500K subscribers on YouTube.
Why did we invite him on?
Last year, we had Dave on to discuss the changing face of the American right. A year on from Trump’s historic comeback, it was clear he was losing the culture to his critics. Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes and other right-isolationists were exploding in popularity, and in the meantime, Trump-apologist neocons were suffering their worst PR disaster since Iraq. We talked for nearly three hours, and when all was said and done, it was easily one of our favourite interviews of that year.
We were keen to have him back anyway. Thankfully (or perhaps, unfortunately), the past 12 months have given us a great deal to talk about. In that time, we’ve seen the Epstein files fiasco, the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America and, of course, Trump’s highly troubled war in Iran.
What does Dave make of it? Where do we disagree? What does he see in his country’s near (and indeed distant) future?
What did we talk about?
These days, you’d struggle to find a popular right-wing pundit still throwing their support behind Donald Trump. Considering the coalition he assembled in the concluding months of 2024, it’s a staggering fall from grace. Over the last two years, Tucker, MTG, Thomas Massie, Rogan and more have withdrawn their support for the president. Dave, as someone who voted for him, was perhaps the first major defector.
”I think virtually all politicians are evil criminals, and I’m much more wedded to my principles than I am any statesman. I even said at the time that my vote for Trump was the least enthusiastic vote in human history, but I was so disgusted by the Democrats, and I stand by that. There were some signals, but it’s been shocking what’s happened in the last year.”
For some dismayed supporters, it was death by a thousand cuts. Dave jumped off the train early, even calling for Trump’s impeachment during the 12 Day War of 2025. Since then, he’s only become more venomous, though what he sees as the cause’s nadir may surprise you.
”The one that really got me was when Joe Kent, a decorated veteran, resigned, saying, ‘I can’t be a part of this anymore.’ Joe Kent lost his wife in a war Trump presided over, and what does Trump do? He talks about what a loser he is, and makes a comment about how quickly he married. That woman died in Syria in a war under Trump’s watch. I don’t care what I voted for - that is a disgusting human being … Or Rob Reiner! Rob Reiner was part of Americana! A part of America just died, and you’re taking the opportunity to dunk on him?
Despite voting for him, Dave’s condemnation of Trump goes beyond even politics.
For all his criticisms of strategy and policy and failure to maintain a strong alliance, he sees Trump as a shameful figure. To an extent that borders on pity.
”I sometimes wonder: do people not believe in God? Because that would terrify me. It’d terrify me that one day my son would see what kind of man I was, and that one day I’d have to meet my maker.”
For being so outspoken - particularly being one of the first jump off the Trump train - Dave has earned his fair share of enemies, both on the left and right.
The leftists are no surprise; anti-PC anarcho-capitalism is unlikely to win many friends there. Yet, the real scourge of Dave’s public life now is the neoconservative wing. Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, Douglas Murray, and their ilk.
These figures made their names by opposing leftism running rampant. Today, Dave sees as many similarities as differences.
”The progressive left do this, but it’s also true of the worst of the war hawks … You’re talking to them, and it’s like, ‘You’re not actively trying to not hear the point I’m making. You’re working to not hear it, and you know it’, and it’s very frustrating. I don’t want to just win the exchange; I want to actually be correct. And the way to be correct is to have a good counter, so I need to hear the best version of your argument, and it’s going to bother me if I don’t.”
If the Iran War has exposed anything - and it has exposed a great deal - it’s the lack of honest inquiry from much of the modern right. Justifications for the war have changed on a dime a dozen times, and contrary examples have been used to explain all sorts of puzzling decisions. In that environment, the absence of major pundits publicly changing their minds can only be treated as suspicious.
”Konstantin was the only person I saw who supported the 12 Day War and then, when the full war was launched this year, went ‘Hmmm, I’m not sure about this’ … You’d think there would be a lot of people in that camp, but there wasn’t. All the things that were used to defend the first war could not be used to defend the second one, and yet they all signed up again. Polls would suggest there are a lot of people who would defend the first and condemn the second, but in the commentary class, there’s nobody else.”
We’ve caught our share of heat for coming out against this war, but let’s steelman it for a moment. Let’s say the central war aim - Iran is close to having a nuclear weapon, that cannot be allowed and must be stopped - is true, or at least that the powers that be genuinely believe it. Is war not justified?
”A nuke is not a just weapon. It cannot be used for a just purpose. A gun can be; you could argue a bomb can be - a nuke you can’t. It’s civilians being destroyed by definition … But if you have them, nobody can mess with you. We see that in North Korea. I don’t want them to have a weapon, but they do. They’re abusing their population, and that’s not good. I’m still not sure Bush invading North Korea to stop them would have been any better.”
This, Dave asserts, separates the Iran War from its bedfellows; this, unlike other conflicts that started arguably noble and went awry, was always an absurd war. An entirely avoidable, naive, and reckless bout of military adventurism. Precisely the kind that Trump was elected to not participate in.
”The sales pitch has been incoherent from the very beginning. The demands were ridiculous: STRAITS OPEN, TOTAL SURRENDER, UPRISING AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT, 100% TAKEOVER. All of these things that were never explained and for which there was no strategy.
Starting there, it was always a tough one to justify. In the 8 months since, it’s only become less defensible.
”This was always a war of choice. And maybe the 12 Day War had some upsides… but to justify the second one, he has to tell the biggest whopper of a lie. I’ve seen presidents lie us into war - almost every single one - but I’ve never seen a president use a lie that NOBODY believes. There was consensus in the country that we didn’t want to fight these stupid wars, so he had to claim Iran were 2 days away from a deliverable nuclear weapon. NOBODY believes that. He’s sacrificing all the things his voters put him in for to fight a war we didn’t need to fight and gain nothing from. It’s crazy.”
So far, we’ve not found much in the way of disagreement. We look deeper.
The bipartisan narrative out there is that Trump was tricked into the war by Israel.
The story goes as follows: Netanyahu wants this war to make Israel an even stronger figure in the region, and doesn’t care what it costs America. He’s been campaigning for it for decades with a case built on lies, and Trump was the first president to fall for it. Whether it’s because Trump is stupid or blackmailed depends on your preferred flavour of political prospection.
It’s a view held by great swathes of both the left and right. It’s not one that we’re convinced by. It seems to us that it diminishes the leader of the free world’s agency, and hands undue power to a small state in the Middle East. Is there any truth to the narrative? Where does it come from?
