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Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
71 attributed claim occurrences
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The speaker never podcasted with Ian Carroll
Ian Carroll appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience (Episode #2284) on March 5, 2025, directly contradicting the speaker's claim of never having podcasted with him.
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The speaker has only podcasted with Daryl Cooper once and Cooper absolutely did not downplay any Nazi atrocities
Darryl Cooper appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience and is widely documented by historians and organizations including Yad Vashem as having downplayed Nazi crimes and made Holocaust-denying claims; the speaker's characterization of the interview is disputed by external evidence.
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There was a guy who sold soup on Seinfeld who was authoritarian and was called a Soup Nazi
The 'Soup Nazi' is a real Seinfeld character from Season 7, Episode 6 (aired November 2, 1995), depicting an authoritarian soup vendor, exactly as described.
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The left called George Bush Hitler
Hitler comparisons to Bush were made by some on the left, but the claim oversimplifies — the Obama-Hitler comparison was predominantly driven by the right (Tea Party, conservative grassroots), not the left. Attributing all such comparisons broadly to 'the left' creates a false impression of symmetry.
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The left called Obama Hitler
Obama-Hitler comparisons were predominantly made by right-wing figures and Tea Party protesters, not the left. Multiple sources document this as a right-wing phenomenon.
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Saddam Hussein was called the new Hitler
Well-documented: a Gallant Foundation study found U.S. print media compared Saddam Hussein to Hitler over 1,035 times between August 1990 and February 1991 during the Gulf War.
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Muammar Gaddafi was called the new Hitler
Gaddafi was frequently compared to Hitler by Western politicians and media, especially around the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya, consistent with a long pattern of such comparisons to U.S. enemies.
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Putin was called the new Hitler
Multiple Western politicians and media figures have explicitly compared Vladimir Putin to Hitler, particularly after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
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Woodrow Wilson created the Federal Reserve
Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law on December 23, 1913, creating the Federal Reserve System. This is historically accurate.
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Woodrow Wilson created the income tax
Wilson signed the Revenue Act of 1913 implementing the income tax, but the 16th Amendment enabling it was passed by Congress in 1909 under Taft and ratified on February 3, 1913 — a month before Wilson's inauguration. Wilson championed the implementing legislation but did not singlehandedly 'create' the income tax.
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Imposing the Treaty of Versailles on Germany ended up in disaster — a fairly mainstream historical view
While it is widely accepted that the Treaty of Versailles contributed to conditions leading to WWII, some historians (e.g., Margaret MacMillan) argue the 'Versailles caused Hitler' thesis is oversimplified or erroneous, meaning the claim that this is uncontroversially mainstream overstates the consensus.
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The 2008 war in Georgia came 2 or 3 months after the Bucharest summit where NATO announced that Georgia and Ukraine would be entering NATO
The Bucharest summit concluded on April 4, 2008, and the Russo-Georgian War began on August 8, 2008 — approximately 4.2 months (126 days) later, not 2 or 3 months. Additionally, NATO did not announce Georgia and Ukraine would be 'entering' NATO; it stated they 'will become members' while denying them the Membership Action Plan at that time.
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Joining NATO was very unpopular in Ukraine around 2006
Multiple polling analyses confirm that before 2014, NATO membership had minority support in Ukraine, with public opinion especially divided between western and eastern regions; a majority of Ukrainians in that period did not favour NATO accession.
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Robert Gates, Robert McNamara, and William Perry were three secretaries of defense who warned against NATO expansion
McNamara and Perry did warn against NATO expansion, and Gates later called expanding toward Ukraine 'overreaching' in his 2015 memoirs. However, grouping all three as straightforwardly warning 'against' expansion conflates different roles, timings, and severity of objections — Gates's warning came retrospectively in memoirs, not as active policy opposition, and McNamara's role is less well-documented than Perry's on this specific issue. The speaker also misidentifies McNamara as 'Robert McNamara' without noting he was Kennedy/Johnson-era SecDef, not a contemporary of this debate.
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William Perry, the secretary of defense at the time, almost resigned over NATO expansion and said his biggest regret in life is that he didn't resign over it
Multiple sources confirm Perry nearly resigned when his advice against rapid NATO expansion went unheeded, and he expressed deep regret about the policy direction. However, the specific claim that he said his 'biggest regret in life' was not resigning is a strong characterization that goes beyond what is clearly documented in publicly available sources; Perry is documented as a strong critic and near-resignee, but that precise framing is unverified.
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George Kennan was the founder of the containment strategy and warned that NATO expansion would inevitably lead to conflict with Russia, predicting that when Russia responds everyone will say 'this is why we needed to expand NATO'
George Kennan is well-documented as the architect/founder of the containment strategy, and his 1998 quote to the New York Times explicitly predicted Russia would react adversely and that NATO expansionists would then say 'we always told you that is how the Russians are' — closely matching the paraphrase given in the transcript.
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The Maidan protests were genuine students in the center of the city uprising against a corrupt government.
While the Maidan protests did include genuine grassroots participation driven by anger at corruption and Yanukovych's reversal on EU integration, characterizing them primarily as 'students' is an oversimplification; the movement encompassed a broad cross-section of Ukrainian society including workers, professionals, and civil society groups.
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Washington poured a hundred million dollars into the Maidan protests.
The most commonly cited figure is Victoria Nuland's $5 billion, which referred to total U.S. democracy-promotion spending in Ukraine over more than 20 years since 1991 — not specifically funding for the Maidan protests. The NED spent roughly $22 million in Ukraine broadly. No credible source specifically documents 'a hundred million dollars' directed at the Maidan protests themselves, making this figure both imprecise and potentially understated or misattributed.
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Yanukovych was democratically elected with elections verified by the EU.
The 2010 Ukrainian presidential election that brought Yanukovych to power was assessed as free and fair by international observers including the OSCE, PACE, and a European Parliament delegation, marking a significant improvement over the disputed 2004 election.
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The January 6th / Chinese politicians handing out sandwiches analogy originated with Jeffrey Sachs.
The speaker attributes this analogy to Jeffrey Sachs, but no reliable source specifically documents Sachs as the originator of this particular comparison between U.S. involvement in Maidan and a hypothetical Chinese intervention on January 6th.
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October 7th was the worst terrorist attack in Israeli history.
Multiple authoritative sources, including the U.S. State Department and Wikipedia, confirm that the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack was the deadliest and most brutal terrorist attack in Israel's history, killing over 1,200 people.
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John Podhoretz called Thomas Massie 'antisemitic scum' because Massie said 'we're dead broke, we can't afford to fund everybody else's war.'
John Podhoretz did call Thomas Massie 'a piece of anti-Semitic filth' (not 'scum') for opposing U.S. aid to Israel. The speaker's paraphrase of Massie's reasoning is broadly accurate in spirit, but the exact wording of both Podhoretz's epithet and Massie's quote are rendered imprecisely.
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Tucker Carlson has been called antisemitic.
Multiple credible sources, including the ADL and news coverage of a BBC interview, confirm that Tucker Carlson has repeatedly been accused of antisemitism, particularly in relation to his commentary on Israel, U.S. foreign policy, and Jewish influence.
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Israel went from occupying Gaza to surrounding it and has had it under a brutal blockade since 2007
In autumn 2007, after Hamas's military takeover of Gaza, Israel formally designated Gaza a hostile entity and instituted a land, sea, and air blockade (significantly intensifying prior restrictions), which multiple international bodies have documented as severely damaging Gaza's economy.
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According to the World Bank, a blockade in 1996 contracted Gaza's GDP by 40%
Available data shows that real per capita GDP for the combined West Bank and Gaza Strip declined approximately 36.1% between 1992 and 1996 (not 40%, and not in a single year), driven by Israeli closure policies. There is no World Bank figure specifically isolating Gaza's GDP at a 40% single-year contraction in 1996; the speaker conflates a multi-year, combined-territory figure with a single-year Gaza-only figure.
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The Great Depression was a 30% contraction in US GDP
Multiple authoritative sources confirm the Great Depression resulted in approximately a 30% contraction in US GDP between 1929 and 1932/1933.
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Dov Weissglas was the senior adviser to Ariel Sharon, who was the prime minister at the time
Weissglas's formal title was 'head of bureau' (chief of staff) to Prime Minister Sharon from 2002–2004, not simply 'senior adviser' — though he did continue as a special adviser afterward. Sharon was indeed prime minister at the time of the disengagement.
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Weissglas said the reason for the disengagement was to put the peace process in formaldehyde
Weissglas explicitly stated in a 2004 interview that the disengagement plan was 'actually formaldehyde' supplying 'the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians,' and that its significance was 'the freezing of the political process.'
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The World Bank said there was a 40% drop in GDP in one year (1996) due to the blockade
World Bank data does show a significant GDP decline for the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the mid-1990s due to Israeli closure policies, but Wikipedia cites the figure as a 36.1% decline spread across 1992–1996 (four years), not a single year. No independent source specifically corroborates a World Bank finding of exactly 40% in a single year in 1996, and the 1990s closures are distinct from the more comprehensive 2007 blockade the speaker links it to.
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There has been a blockade on Gaza from 2007 onwards
It is accurate that Israel significantly intensified restrictions and imposed a comprehensive blockade after Hamas took control in June 2007, and Egypt closed the Rafah crossing the same year. However, this framing omits that Israeli and Egyptian movement restrictions on Gaza date back to the early 1990s, making '2007' a misleadingly precise start date for the broader blockade.
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Chaim Weizmann (referred to as 'Heim Whitesman') was essentially supposed to be the David Ben-Gurion, like he was in line as the number one ranking Zionist pre the creation of the state of Israel
Weizmann was indeed the dominant Zionist leader for decades and considered himself the political heir to Herzl, but characterizing him as 'in line to be the David Ben-Gurion' inverts the historical framing — Ben-Gurion rose to challenge Weizmann's leadership, not the other way around. Weizmann became first President of Israel (a largely ceremonial role), while Ben-Gurion became Prime Minister and the dominant political figure.
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Weizmann urged all Zionist militias to not embrace terrorism and he ended up losing that battle
Weizmann did advocate a more moderate approach and opposed the Irgun and Lehi's tactics, and he was not re-elected as WZO president at the 1946 Basel Congress partly due to opposition from more hardline factions. However, his loss of the WZO presidency was more directly due to American Zionist leader Rabbi Silver's opposition than simply because factions 'wanted to be more hardcore'; furthermore the Haganah (the mainstream militia) also engaged in armed attacks, complicating the narrative.
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Weizmann was the first president of the state; David Ben-Gurion was [prime minister]
Chaim Weizmann was indeed the first President of Israel (1949–1952), and David Ben-Gurion was Israel's first Prime Minister. The speaker's phrasing is somewhat confused but the underlying factual claim is correct.
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The Irgun, the Lehi, and the Haganah openly embraced terrorism to drive out an occupying force
The Irgun and Lehi did employ tactics widely labeled as terrorism (e.g., the King David Hotel bombing, civilian market bombings) and were designated terrorist organizations by the British and UN. The Haganah also carried out armed sabotage operations. However, the Haganah's mainstream leadership, including Weizmann, explicitly opposed terrorism and at times actively worked against the Irgun and Lehi during 'the Season' (1944–45). Characterizing all three as equally and openly embracing terrorism oversimplifies a complex internal debate within the Zionist movement.
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Nelson Mandela was not imprisoned because he was making picket signs — he embraced violence as a means to achieve a policy end
Mandela co-founded and led uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), the ANC's armed wing, and directed its sabotage campaign starting in December 1961. He was convicted at the Rivonia Trial (1964) for sabotage and conspiracy and explicitly admitted to planning sabotage at trial.
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You could drive out the French from Algeria because they go 'Screw it, we're going back home to France'
While French settlers (pieds-noirs) did largely leave Algeria after independence in 1962, this oversimplifies France's withdrawal. According to historians, France's withdrawal was driven by strategic erosion of political will, military costs, and international pressure, not simply because settlers had France to return to. Moreover, approximately one million pieds-noirs fled Algeria in a traumatic exodus — it was not a casual decision. The contrast with Jews having 'no home to go to' contains a kernel of truth but is overstated for both sides.
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Hamas did not win a majority in one single precinct — they won pluralities all around
Hamas won 74–76 of 132 parliamentary seats — an outright parliamentary majority — with about 44% of the popular vote. While Hamas did not win an absolute majority of votes (over 50%) in many district-level contests, characterizing their victory purely as 'pluralities' omits that they secured a clear parliamentary majority of seats. The framing obscures the real extent of their electoral win.
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Half the population of Gaza today is under the age of 18
Multiple sources, including the UN and Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, confirm that approximately 47–50% of Gaza's population is under 18 years old.
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Misleading▶ 1:56:33
There was an attempted coup after the Hamas election, and that's when Hamas seized complete control
It is disputed who initiated the 2007 conflict. The pro-Hamas view holds that it was Fatah (backed by the US) who planned a coup against Hamas, which Hamas pre-empted. The pro-Fatah view is that Hamas itself staged the coup. Framing it unambiguously as a Fatah coup attempt that Hamas foiled is a one-sided characterization of a genuinely contested historical event.
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More children have died in Gaza than in any recent war
Multiple UN agencies, including UNICEF and UNRWA, have confirmed that more children have been killed in Gaza than in four years of global conflicts combined (2019–2022), making it the deadliest conflict for children in recent recorded history.
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Israel has dominated Gaza since at least 1967
Israel occupied and administered Gaza following the Six-Day War in June 1967, exercising control over the territory continuously until its 2005 disengagement, after which it maintained a blockade. Its control since 1967 is a well-established historical fact.
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Many Palestinians in Gaza are there because of the creation of the state of Israel, having previously lived in what is now Israel
A large portion of Gaza's population consists of Palestinian refugees and their descendants who were displaced from areas that became the State of Israel in 1948 (the Nakba), a widely documented historical fact confirmed by UN and historical records.
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Hamas was forced on the people (in the context of the George W. Bush exporting democracy policy)
Hamas won the January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections with 44% of the vote (to Fatah's 41%), giving it a majority of seats. However, Hamas then seized full control of Gaza by force in 2007 after a violent conflict with Fatah, going beyond its electoral mandate. The statement that Hamas was purely 'forced on' the people is an oversimplification — it was democratically elected (though later consolidated power by force), and its rule was not simply an external imposition.
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We saw protests against Hamas just recently
There have indeed been documented anti-Hamas protests in Gaza. Large-scale protests occurred in July–August 2023 over economic conditions, and further protests took place in January 2024 and as recently as March 2025 in Beit Lahiya, with protesters chanting 'The people want the fall of Hamas.'
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Gaza has been under full blockade since 2007
A tightened blockade of Gaza did begin in 2007 following Hamas's takeover, but the blockade was not immediately 'full' — it was progressively tightened over subsequent years. Additionally, an initial blockade and economic sanctions were imposed as early as early 2006 after Hamas's electoral victory, predating the 2007 Hamas takeover by force. The naval blockade itself was formally declared even later.
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Israel rules the seas and the air over Gaza, controls electricity that goes in, Gaza is not allowed to have an airport or a seaport, and Gazans don't have freedom to leave without Israeli permission
Multiple sources confirm Israel controls Gaza's airspace and territorial waters (established under Oslo and maintained since), that the Gaza airport was shut down in 2000 and bombed in 2001, that no seaport exists, and that Israel supplies and controls electricity into Gaza. Freedom of movement is heavily restricted by Israeli controls.
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Gazans don't have the freedom to vote over the government that rules them
The last Palestinian legislative elections were held in January 2006. No subsequent elections have been held in Gaza, meaning Gazans have had no opportunity to vote on their governing authority for nearly two decades.
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Donald Trump had his envoy Witkoff go over there and work out this ceasefire deal that they had for a few weeks
Steve Witkoff was indeed Trump's envoy involved in the ceasefire deal, and a phase one ceasefire did take effect in January 2025. However, the ceasefire was mediated by the US, Egypt, and Qatar together, and was originally drafted under the Biden administration — Trump's team helped finalize it as president-elect, so attributing it solely to Trump/Witkoff is misleading.
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They did get I believe 30 hostages back during the phase one of this ceasefire
During phase one of the January 2025 ceasefire, Hamas released 33 Israeli hostages and 5 Thai hostages, so the claim of approximately 30 is accurate in magnitude.
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Just like we helped teach Osama bin Laden how to do the Soviets
The US (via CIA Operation Cyclone) funded and armed Afghan mujahideen to fight the Soviets, and bin Laden was part of that broader movement. However, the CIA did not directly train bin Laden — the claim of a direct training relationship is disputed and overstated; the US aided the mujahideen generally, not bin Laden specifically.
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Osama bin Laden knew that he couldn't bankrupt the United States of America by taking down the Twin Towers. But he thought he could lure us into a war in Afghanistan that would bankrupt us.
Multiple sources confirm bin Laden's stated long-term strategy was to bleed and bankrupt the US economically by drawing it into prolonged wars, explicitly modeled on what he believed happened to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
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John Brennan and Barack Obama had a policy of funding al-Qaeda and ISIS in the Syrian civil war, committing literal treason
The CIA's covert Timber Sycamore program under Obama did arm Syrian rebel groups, and weapons/funds did end up with extremist factions linked to al-Qaeda (al-Nusra Front) and ISIS. However, characterizing this as deliberately and intentionally 'funding al-Qaeda and ISIS' or as 'literal treason' is a significant overstatement; the program targeted anti-Assad rebels broadly, with extremist diversion being a consequence, not the stated intent. No legal treason charge was ever brought.
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John Brennan accused Donald Trump of treason
Confirmed by reporting in The Hill, which noted that Brennan, as an MSNBC commentator, accused Trump of 'treason' in relation to the Russia investigation.
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Billions of dollars and tons of weapons were poured into the Syrian civil war by the US
The CIA's Timber Sycamore program had a budget approaching $1 billion per year and ran for several years, meaning total expenditure plausibly reached billions of dollars; weapons transfers to rebel groups are also well-documented.
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Vladimir Putin came in on Assad's request and took military actions against ISIS.
Wikipedia confirms Russia launched its military intervention in Syria in September 2015 at the request of the Assad government, and the intervention included operations against ISIS/ISIL alongside other rebel groups.
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In 2017, Donald Trump cut off the CIA program to fund the anti-Assad rebels.
Multiple credible sources, including The Washington Post and Al Jazeera, confirm that in July 2017 President Trump ended the covert CIA program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels fighting Assad's government.
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The former Amir of al-Qaeda, Al Galani (al-Julani), is now ruling Syria.
Al-Julani (now known as Ahmed al-Sharaa) was never the 'Amir of al-Qaeda' itself; he was the emir of Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, not the overall al-Qaeda organization. He formally severed public ties with al-Qaeda in 2016 when he dissolved al-Nusra and formed Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, and more definitively broke away with the formation of HTS. He did become president of Syria in 2025, so the 'ruling Syria' part is accurate, but characterizing him as 'former Amir of al-Qaeda' overstates his historical role and ignores his documented break from the organization.
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Under law, knowingly dropping a bomb on a building with women and children inside — even to target one person — constitutes intentional (first-degree) murder.
In domestic criminal law, knowingly causing foreseeable deaths can constitute first-degree murder in some jurisdictions, but international humanitarian law explicitly distinguishes between deliberate targeting of civilians and foreseeable collateral damage through the 'doctrine of double effect' and the principle of proportionality — meaning the legal analysis in warfare is fundamentally different from the domestic murder analogy presented. The claim conflates domestic criminal law with international law of armed conflict.
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There have been documented cases of Hamas placing missiles in mosques and in schools.
Multiple independent sources, including CBS News, CBC News, the AP, and the IDF, have documented instances of Hamas storing or launching rockets from or near mosques, schools, hospitals, and UN facilities. A Hamas official even acknowledged some of these incidents.
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Madeleine Albright, when asked about the sanctions on Iraq and 500,000 children dying, said 'yes, we believe that price is acceptable.'
The interview and the figure of 500,000 children are real — the exchange took place on 60 Minutes in 1996 between Lesley Stahl and Albright (then UN Ambassador, not yet Secretary of State). However, the speaker slightly misquotes and misattributes the phrasing: Albright actually said 'I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it,' not a flat 'yes, we believe that price is acceptable.' The speaker also refers to her as 'Maline Albright' and implies she said a simpler affirmative, losing the nuance of her actual wording. Additionally, Albright was UN Ambassador at the time, not Secretary of State.
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The United States federal government is the largest, most powerful organization in the history of the world.
While the U.S. federal government commands unparalleled military and economic power, describing it as definitively the 'largest, most powerful organization in the history of the world' is a subjective geopolitical assertion without a clear metric. Some historians would compare it favorably to the British Empire or Roman Empire, making this claim debatable rather than straightforwardly verifiable.
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George W. Bush invaded Iraq on a bunch of lies.
The Senate Intelligence Committee and independent investigations found that key pre-war claims (e.g., WMD stockpiles, nuclear program) were not supported by underlying intelligence, and some were exaggerated. However, characterizing them solely as deliberate 'lies' rather than a combination of intelligence failures and politicized assessments is contested; the official findings describe distortions and misrepresentations rather than outright fabrications in all cases.
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George W. Bush overthrew Saddam Hussein and installed democracy in the Shiite majority country [Iraq].
Iraq is confirmed to have a Shia Muslim majority (55–65% of the population per U.S. State Department and Wikipedia), and the U.S. did overthrow Saddam Hussein and subsequently oversee elections and a new democratic constitution. The 'installed democracy' framing is broadly accurate, though the outcome was contested and fragile.
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The US military funded and armed anti-Assad rebels in Syria.
This is well-documented. The CIA's covert 'Timber Sycamore' program supplied weapons, money, and training to Syrian opposition groups, and a separate Pentagon program also attempted to train and equip rebels. These programs are confirmed by multiple credible sources.
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Syria was on the US government's 'seven countries in five years' list of countries to overthrow.
According to General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, he learned of a Pentagon memo after 9/11 listing seven countries to be targeted in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. Syria is explicitly included on this list. This is Clark's personal account and has not been officially confirmed by the U.S. government, but it is widely reported and Clark has repeated it consistently.
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The UK parliament did an investigation and found the claim that Gaddafi was about to go genocidal was completely wrong
The UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee published a report in 2016 finding that the Gaddafi genocide threat was not verified, that his rhetoric was selectively taken at face value, and that his 40-year record 'did not include large-scale attacks on Libyan civilians.' Experts testified there was no real evidence of an impending massacre.
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Wesley Clark was Supreme Commander of the NATO forces
Clark's actual title was Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), a specific regional NATO command, not a generic 'Supreme Commander of NATO forces.' The distinction matters because SACEUR is one of two NATO Strategic Commanders, not the singular supreme leader of all NATO forces.
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Wesley Clark saw plans in 2001 to overthrow seven governments in five years as part of a neoconservative strategy
Clark has publicly stated that weeks after 9/11 (fall 2001) he was shown a classified Pentagon memo describing plans to 'take out seven countries in five years.' This claim is well-documented across multiple sources and Clark's own books and interviews.
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Wesley Clark said he first saw plans from Wolfowitz (who brought them to the national security adviser)
Clark's documented accounts describe a Pentagon memo shown to him after 9/11 originating from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and a separate 1991 conversation with Wolfowitz. The specific detail about Wolfowitz bringing plans to the national security adviser who said 'we'll look at this after the election' is not clearly corroborated in Clark's widely cited public statements, making this a more specific attribution than what Clark is on record saying.
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Richard Perle was involved in resurrecting/producing the neoconservative strategy (Clean Break memo)
Richard Perle led the study group that produced the 1996 Clean Break memo for Benjamin Netanyahu, outlining a neoconservative regional strategy involving regime change. This is well documented.
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Wesley Clark is a four-star general
Wesley Clark served 38 years in the U.S. Army and retired at the rank of four-star general, having served as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).
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