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In this episode of The Pharma Problem, host Dave Smith and co‑host Robbie "The Fire" Bernstein discuss a viral short video of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) that appears to show him supporting the U.S. war effort in Ukraine. Smith plays both the short, out‑of‑context clip and the longer, unedited five‑minute segment from RFK Jr.'s campaign kickoff speech. The hosts argue that the short clip is deliberately edited to misrepresent RFK Jr.'s nuanced stance, which calls for ending the war, warns against U.S. strategic entanglement with Russia and China, and emphasizes humanitarian motives. They recount a Twitter dispute in which journalists Jack Posobiec and Michael Tracey shared the short clip, and Smith responded by posting the full version and accusing them of spreading a misleading edit. Tracey pushed back, claiming the clip was not edited, leading to a heated back‑and‑forth about what constitutes “editing” and whether the short excerpt is dishonest. Throughout the conversation, the hosts intersperse sponsor reads (Progressive, Sunglass Hut, Nom Nom) and occasional banter. The episode serves as a case study in media manipulation, the importance of context, and the broader debate over U.S. involvement in the Ukraine war.
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Welcome to The Pharma Problem. We need to roll back the state. We spy on all of our own citizens. Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders. If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at What's up everybody, welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I'm Dave Smith, he is, he is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. Uh, thanks for joining us today. What's up, brother? How you feeling out there in Texas?
Oh dude, I had a great weekend.
Shoulders It was a blast.
Got to hang out at Rogan's place a little bit.
I'm having fun. Oh, awesome, awesome, awesome. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm going there June 9th through 11th. I don't know if there's any tickets left, but go on the website and check out if there are. If, uh, if not, you missed it. Uh, but looking forward to seeing all you guys out there. And of course, this weekend me and Rob will be in Syracuse at the Funny Bone. comicdavesmith.com for tickets. A bunch of dates coming up through the summer and fall. And stuff. We will be on the road quite a bit. And of course, you can go to robdefire.com to find all Rob's dates and all the stuff he's got coming up. Um, all right, so I want— I want to start off the show today by talking about, uh, an exchange that I've been having this morning, um, with, with a few people on Twitter. This— I did not— I did not intend to get into a war this morning on Twitter. This was not part of my plan. Um, but it's For whatever reason, this turned into a whole thing. I want to go through this on the show. So I— so I opened up Twitter this morning. My daughter left the house for school. I was feeding my boy some breakfast, and I opened up the Twitters to see what's going on. And I had been tagged quite a bit in this clip of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I guess because I had him on the show recently and we've done several podcasts about the guy and we have been, let's say, impressed with a lot of the things that he's running on. So I guess now we're kind of tied together. And so when this clip came out, a bunch of people started sending it to me. Dave, this is your guy. He's saying this awful stuff about Ukraine. And, uh, yeah, so I guess because we've done so many episodes talking about RFK, people felt the need to send this over my way. I don't know what's in it. At the end of this, I better get like— I better be hanging out with some Kennedys. Rob, we better find a Kennedy woman to marry Rob. We better get something out of all this, uh, this Kennedy coverage that we've been doing.
I don't know.
Wait, hold on, your mic's muted.
I was saying, uh, I'll take the last name, by the way. I'm not typically a feminist, but if I'm marrying into the Kennedys, I'm a Kennedy now.
Oh, Kennedy is a real upgrade from a Bernstein. Let's get real. They look down at that Jewish money. They're like, you call that money? All right. Uh, anyway, um, so I better be drinking some of the, like, the best Irish scotch with, with these boys soon. And, but, uh, okay, so the clip— I just want to— so I, when I first saw the clip, I didn't— for a minute I was like, whoa, what's he saying here? And then I remembered that I had seen this speech pretty quickly after it. It's from his campaign kickoff speech that we covered on the show. So I knew exactly what was going on. But let me just show you, just so people can understand how dishonestly edited this video that was circulating is. I'm just going to— you guys make the decision. I'm going to play both of the clips, the longer one and the shorter one. And then you tell me what you think of how honest a portrayal this is of where this guy stands on the war in Ukraine. So let's play the longer unedited— I mean, I suppose they're all edited because it's from a speech that's over an hour. But let's play the longer version with context first. It's a 5-minute-and-change speech. We'll play the whole thing so you guys can listen to it here. This is what he said about Ukraine in his speech where he announced his candidacy for president of the United States. Here's our piece of work.
I want to talk about the war in Ukraine. And we need to have a national conversation about this war. We need to have a mature— we need to have a mature conversation that allows for nuance, that allows for complexity, and we need to do it respectfully. We can't be telling one side that they're Nazis and the other side that they love the people. Everybody in this country loves our country. And we have to respect differences of opinion. We have to respect people's capacity to ask questions. And, you know, some of the issues that we need to talk about is, number one, is this war in the U.S. national interest? We just need to isolate that question. Isn't in the U.S. national interest. And there are some of the leading panegyrics of most respected people in, in sort of our national diplomats, let's say Henry Kissinger, Jack Matlock, Larry Wilkinson, Colin Ballard's chief of staff. They all have said the same thing. If you just want to ask, is it in our national interest? It is not. It is not in America's national interest to push Russia closer to China. That is a cataclysm. Number two, it's not in our national interest to do something that could involve us in a nuclear exchange with a country that has more nuclear weapons than us. Now, having said that. I want to say that we are in the Ukraine for all the right reasons. We are there because we are a good people. And one of my favorite Africans said, America is a great nation because we're a good nation. And we continue to be a good people over here. And we are there because of our compassion, The Ukrainian people have been brutalized, have been illegally invaded, and have shown extraordinary valor and courage defending their country and defending, you know, their families and their beliefs and their liberties and their independence. Things that Americans have to admire. My own son Connor, I'm very, very proud And Connor joined the Foreign Legion and fought in the Ukraine during the Kharkiv offensive as a machine gunner for special forces. But I think that we need to know as Americans, and we have the right to know, what is our government's Chief objective in this war. Now, we were told initially that the objective was humanitarian, and that is a good reason to be there—humanitarian. What that means is trying to end the bloodshed and minimize it as much as possible. But in recent times. President Biden said that one of our objectives, at least, is regime change of Vladimir Putin. And this is the same strategy that did not work for us in Iraq. And it's many of the same people who are around the Pentagon, who are around President Biden, who have been talking about that for a long time and have been engaged in geopolitical machinations in the Ukraine. Ukraine since 2014. And then President Biden's Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, validated President Biden's statement by saying that our objective in Ukraine is to exhaust and degrade the Russian army so they're incapable of having battles anywhere else in the world. Now, and indeed, Many of the steps that we've taken on Ukraine have seemed to indicate that our interest is in prolonging the war rather than shortening it. So if those are our objectives, to have regime change and exhaust the Russians, that is completely antithetical to a humanitarian mission. If it's— if we're there for a humanitarian mission, it means to reduce aggression, to bring an end to it. If we're there to exhaust the Russians or regime change, then doesn't it mean that the Ukraine is Just a pawn in a geopolitical battle between 2 great superpowers, and that our strategy is to, is to put the flower of Ukrainian youth into an abattoir of death in order to exhaust Russia. And if that's true, then we need to know about it. If it's not true, then we need a pretty good discussion. With the president and the Secretary of Defense and others to tell us exactly what are we doing.
And okay, so that was a longer clip from what, uh, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had to say about his, uh, his position on Ukraine. And it leaves one— the, the takeaway from that, I think, more or less, is that he's saying, um, we need to be trying to end this war, not prolong it. That it's not in the U.S. interest to push Russia and China closer together. It is not in the United States' interests to provoke Russia into what could turn into a nuclear conflict. And that if we actually care about the Ukrainian people and we want to be humanitarian about this, we would be working to end the war rather than what they're currently doing, which seems to be working to prolong I think that is the only reasonable takeaway from this. Here is the clip that was going viral because it was shared by several huge accounts. Here's the clip that they were sharing that I was getting sent this morning. Here you go.
I want to say that we are in Ukraine for all the right reasons. We are there because we are a good people. And, you know, Abraham Lincoln said America is a great nation because we're a good nation and we continue to be a good people. And we are there because of our compassion for the Ukrainian people who have been brutalized, who have been illegally invaded and have shown extraordinary valor and courage defending their country and defending you know, their families and their beliefs and their liberties and their independence, things that Americans have to admire. My own son Connor, I'm very, very proud that Connor joined the Foreign Legion and fought in the Ukraine and during the Kharkiv offensive as a machine gunner for a special forces unit. Fire!
So granted, when you just take that part of it, it doesn't look great. Okay? Right? But is this not? I mean, Rob, isn't this the most obvious? Like, oh, you took that out of context and left out the entire point. Like one, when you look at the longer clip, you come away with the obvious impression this guy is against the current policy and for ending the war. And when you just play that little snippet, it sounds like he's. Supporting the whole thing. 101 slam dunk, very basic. This is a misleading edited video out of context. Am I wrong?
No, that's, uh, that's very misleading. Uh, I mean, I think he even started with, we have to have a nuanced conversation.
Yeah, they cut that part out too.
Yeah, this would be like when you, uh, talk about, hey, I care about homeless people, I feel bad for homeless people, but they can't just be in our streets. And someone took just the first part of I care about homeless people and said, look, Dave likes homeless people in your community or in your school or in your whatever. It's like, I mean, this is like classic, like, hey, we got to, you know, we have to care for our elders. But it's like you were like a real conservative. You were like, well, we got to take care of spending cuts. And then you just took out of the, well, we have to do spending cuts. And you said, look, this guy cares about social welfare goods. Yes.
It's right. It's just that. I mean, it's just like— so I'm getting flooded with this now. I notice the— so this morning I noticed this is going, you know, like when I go on Twitter, everyone's sending this to me. It's going crazy. Crazy. Go ahead, Rob.
Oh, I was just going to say, with that said, while it does sound like Kennedy's on the right side of this issue, he's being a little bit too much of a politician here where he wants to allow people to feel good. And so he says we're in it for the right reasons. At least my interpretation is that he's talking about the American people are supporting this. Yes. For the right reasons. But he has a full understanding of the fact that this is just profiteering and, you know, just really bad policy, as he explores later on, saying, hey, it's clear that, you know, Biden doesn't have us in here for moral reasons.
Yes, that's, that's how I took it as well. And of course, also on lots of other interviews and speeches, including with, with me right here on this program, he explains his position much clearer. And he Really knows his stuff. I mean, he knows all about how NATO expansion was a provocation, about the 2014 coup. I mean, he, he was talking about this on the show without me, like, leading him to do so. So he knows all this stuff. And yes, I agree with you. I think that was what he said. He's also— he's running for president as a Democrat. He's trying to kind of have a uniting, unifying message here. Anyway. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show. Brand new I'm gonna love you. All right, we're gonna talk about today's sponsor, and you're gonna love them if you love your pet. If you love your pet like a member of the family, don't feed them like they're in the doghouse. Give them Nom Nom. Nom Nom delivers fresh dog food with every portion personalized to your dog's needs so you can bring out their best. Nom Nom is made with real whole food you can see and recognize without any additives or fillers that contribute to bloating and low energy. That's because Nom Nom uses the latest science and insights to make real good food for dogs. Their nutrient-packed recipes are crafted by board-certified veterinary nutritionists, made fresh and shipped free to your door. Nom Nom's already delivered over 40 million meals to good dogs like yours, inspiring millions of clean bowls and tail wags. This is awesome. As a dog lover, I think it's Very cool that we actually pay attention to what we're feeding them because you look on the back of the dog food you buy at the supermarket and it's not great. This is where you need to go. Nom Noms. Plus, Nom Nom comes with a money-back guarantee. If your dog's tail isn't wagging within 30 days, Nom Nom will refund your first order. No fillers, no nonsense, just Nom Nom. So right now for 50% off your no. No risk, 2-week trial at trynom.com/potp. That's trynom.com/potp for 50% off. trynom.com/potp. All right, let's get back into the show. So I noticed this morning this video is going super viral. Everyone's sending it to me. I noticed 2 big accounts that have, uh, have tweeted it out. So there was Jack Posobiec. I apologize, Jack, if I'm butchering your last name. I'm never quite sure how to pronounce that, but he goes by Jack Poso on Twitter, probably because I am not the first one to butcher his name. So I apologize. So he shared— he's a journalist. He's got millions of followers. So he shared it and Michael Tracy both shared the video. Now, I responded to— because everyone's sending this to me, so I responded to it. a few different people. And then I responded to Michael Tracey, or I should say I quote tweeted his sharing the clip of it. And I said, this is really dishonestly edited. It's essentially his disclaimer before he goes on to explain why he opposes the war. Have whatever problems you have with RFK, but he's solid on Ukraine. That's what I said. Now, I like Michael Tracey. I think Michael Tracey is a good journalist. Michael Tracey was great on the Russiagate hoax. He was good on COVID, I believe. Like, he's a good journalist. I'm not trashing him. I'm just saying, like, hey, I think you got this one wrong. You know, like, listen to the full clip. And then I went and then I posted the full clip. Now, Jack Posadniak, to his credit, I didn't even respond to him. He DMs me and he goes, hey, dude, got this one wrong. Someone sent it to me, the clip. I didn't say I thought it was a news I didn't realize this was from his announcement speech. I just saw the whole thing you posted. He goes, I deleted it and I'm leaving yours up. Handled with integrity. Perfect. That's literally— that's the reaction you're supposed to have, right? I just don't get why that's so hard. We've all gotten got before on Twitter. I've shared videos before. Ah, crap, I thought that was new but it's old. Oh, I didn't realize it was out of context. Whatever, it happens. Um, so I said this I sent this to Michael Tracy, and by the way, I didn't think there was anything like shitty about what I said to him. I like the guy. I wasn't trashing him. Um, I said that this is really dishonestly edited. It's essentially his disclaimer before he goes on to explain why he opposes the war. Michael Tracy responded by saying, what? This clip is not, quote, edited. What's dishonest is to claim that the clip of a segment from a politician's speech is somehow malicious. I didn't have to edit him rousing the crowd into applause about his son hauling off to fight as a machine gunner against Russia.
And good old-fashioned double down.
I was like, wait, what? And so I say to him, I go, did you— I just posted the unedited version. Did you check that out? Can you honestly look at this and say it's not misleading? And he goes, This was his response to me that really blew me away. He goes, you falsely claimed that I somehow deceptively edited footage that I did not edit. Please retract your false claim. I go, wait, you're asking for a retraction from me?
Huh?
So I go, dude, the biggest account who shared this just retracted it. You, you should be retracting this, not me. So I responded, I said, are you kidding me? I said, I didn't claim that you edited it. I said the clip is dishonestly edited and out of context. I assume you just shared a clip you saw, and upon seeing the whole thing, would make a correction. I'm surprised by your reaction. To where he responded and said, you said, quote, this is a really dishonest edited About the clip that I posted, but you weren't claiming that I just edited— that I dishonestly edited the clip? That makes absolutely no sense. So I said, I said, uh, sorry, but if I were— I said, what? Just because you shared the clip doesn't mean you cut it. The point, uh, the point is that the version you shared is misleading and the The longer version makes it clear. I don't understand why you can't just admit that. This was not meant as a personal attack on you, but you should correct. Um, to which he says, I did cut it though. I cut the segment from his speech, uh, where, um, where he claims blah blah blah, that his son fought against the Russians, that the U.S. military, uh, presence in Ukraine is, quote, for all the right reasons. No editing required. It's RFK's own words. To which I responded, okay, I stand corrected. You dishonestly edited the clip. What do you want me to say? So anyways, he is just getting, I mean, just ratioed like crazy over this. And I gotta say, uh, and I'm— I've never had anything against it, but he deserves— he deserves Watch this. So finally, the last thing I've seen— he's probably still tweeting at me while we're recording here— but the last thing I said was, he said, notice how instead of addressing the actual words that came out of his mouth, the Kennedy cultists scream about, quote, editing, as though it's now suddenly a mortal sin to quote lengthy excerpts from a politician's speeches. To which I replied, sir, I am a Ron Paul cultist. Not a Kennedy one. Anyone can watch the full context and see how misleading your cut was. Just take the L. Jack Posobiec handled this with integrity. You can too. Um, so I don't know what to say here, Russell. I did not choose this war. But I will say that, like, especially since coming on the show, um, and the fact that I think he's been really great on this issue, I'm just— I'm not going to stand by while they, like, try to pretend the guy is something that he's not. And I'm not really sure where this is coming from or why they would be trying to do this.
I think it's fair to categorize taking something out of context as a misleading edit. He's trying to be technical in saying that unless you're splicing together 2 different things, That you would have to take 2 different chunks of material or 2 different points and actually slice it in order for it to be considered edited, which is— he's making a technical argument to try and backpedal, but I think it's a fair categorization to say something taken completely out of context where you're giving your warning, hey, I understand the following, but here's my opinion. If you don't take that but here's my opinion part and just take the front part, that is a lazy edit.
Yes.
That is a fair way To describe it.
And cutting something is editing it, right? If you open up like an editing program, one of the first options you'll have for you is to cut things.
Crownland, baby!
Hey, if he wants to like even just like get into this—
Let's go!
And I— fine, I'll concede whatever editing means, whatever you want it to mean. You dishonestly cut this video to remove the context. You put up a clip that—
All right, we're gonna take a little break.
We'll be back. And he's for this. We'll, uh, catch the next part after this.










