Joe Rogan Experience #1977 - Dave Smith

Dave Smith returns to the JRE for a nearly four-hour conversation that opens with Joe's new comedy club and quickly moves into politics. The bulk of the episode is an extended anti-interventionist argument about NATO expansion as the root provocation of the Ukraine war, citing CIA cables, Wesley Clark's 'seven countries' memo, and Fiona Hill's reporting on a scuttled peace deal. They also dig into COVID-era policy failures, censorship, the war on drugs, the Prussian origins of public schooling, and the decay of trust in institutions. The final hour turns lighter, covering Elon Musk's Twitter, China surveillance, parenting, and a long MMA GOAT debate.

• Bill Burns, now CIA director, warned as ambassador to Russia in a 2008 cable that Ukrainian NATO entry was 'the brightest of all red lines.'
  01:08:25
• Wesley Clark interview clip describes a post-9/11 Pentagon memo to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.
  01:22:57
• Fiona Hill reported a Ukraine-Russia peace deal was nearly agreed before Boris Johnson convinced Zelensky not to negotiate.
  01:59:45
• Leaked Discord documents indicated Western special forces (UK, Latvia, France, US, Netherlands) were embedded inside Ukraine.
  02:08:09
• Smith argues the Nordstream pipeline bombing was not Russia, citing Seymour Hersh's reporting pointing to the US.
  02:16:27
• RFK Jr's book 'The Real Anthony Fauci' alleges AIDS-era vaccine testing on foster kids and harmful AZT treatment.
  00:30:46
• The American public school system was adapted from the Prussian model, originally designed to make conscripts subservient to the state.
  02:47:38

• Most illegal marijuana in America is now grown on US public land by cartels, per John Norris's book 'Hidden War.'
  00:21:18
• Obama signed the NDAA's indefinite-detention provision while attaching a signing statement saying he wouldn't use it.
  00:40:42
• A UN study claimed 500,000 children died from starvation and malnutrition under 1990s sanctions on Iraq.
  01:55:36
• Dave Smith was diagnosed with ADD as a kid and put on Ritalin for a week before his mother took him off it.
  02:45:02
• Extended MMA GOAT debate weighs Jon Jones, Khabib, Demetrious 'Mighty Mouse' Johnson, and GSP.
  02:59:05
• Joe and Dave note the Iron Sheik was a legitimate elite wrestler for Iran before the 1979 revolution.
  03:16:54
• The CIA overthrew Iran's government in 1953 and installed the Shah.
  03:17:25