Tim Dillon, Sociopath, on Riyadh Comedy Festival: "So what they have slaves?"

I just got back from vacation and have a huge pile of work and emails to catch up on, so naturally I instead spent the day rounding up some of the latest horrible things comedians have said lately. In this newsletter you will find:

-Tim Dillon’s defense of his involvement in the Riyadh Comedy Festival, which boils down to “So what if they have slaves, they’re paying me enough to look the other way,” “enough” in this case being $375,000;

-Mark Normand, Sam Morril, and Greg Fitzsimmons laughing off Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses; 

-A bizarre rant from Theo Von about how if you take a woman to a restaurant, she’ll get it in her head that she wants to pursue the lifestyle embodied by that restaurant, his example being a woman he took to the Rainforest Cafe who then moved to St. Thomas and married “a brother”; 

-Patton Oswalt’s insistence that Dave Chappelle isn’t transphobic, his (multiple specials’ worth of) anti-trans jokes were simply a reaction to something that happened to him when he was young;

-Shane Gillis enthusing over the possibility of Trump getting away with his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein;

-Dave Smith, friend of Holocaust deniers, explaining that he doesn’t think Holocaust denial is all that bad.

Let us begin with Tim Dillon.

“They're paying me enough money to look the other way.”

Tim Dillon, Gutter Racist

“I don’t want him to lecture me,” he said of Mahmoud Khalil. “I don’t want hear anything about colonialism. I don’t want to hear any of that. I just want him to be silent in my country and shut up.”

HumorismSeth Simons

Dillon began his new episode on Saturday with a lengthy response to critics of his choice to appear in the Riyadh Comedy Festival. This is a long one, but it’s also one of the most depraved pieces of commentary I’ve seen from Dillon—a high bar, as longtime readers will know—in which he basically says that he’s happy to look away from human rights abuses for the right price, and if you really think about it, Saudi Arabia’s slaves have done great work. 

Dillon: Baby. We're in Saudi Arabia. Come on. Get your tickets now. Riyadh [racist ululations], Saudi Arabia. Tim Dillon live in the capital. Is it the capital? Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. October 8th. October 8th, the day after October 7th. Just funny how it all works, not something that I had planned, by the way. It's just something that happened. I will be in Riyadh at the Riyadh Comedy Festival at the Bakr Al-Sheddi Theatre. Come [more racist ululations] see me at the Bakker ti and apologies if I am not pronouncing that correctly. I don't know. I imagine I'll be doing more in the Middle East. I imagine we all will, actually. We'll be doing a lot in the—and there are people—and I'm doing Abu Dhabi the night before. We don't have that information yet, but come on out. Come on out for a night of laughter in Abu Dhabi. Am I doing Abu Dhabi? I think October 6th. I think we're chilling on the 7th. 

I don't think we're doing anything on the 7th because my agents are very worried, but I think this is exciting. I think is very exciting that we're all going to Riyadh and I know that people are very upset about—they're angry that comedians are going to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. They're very angry. "They don't believe in anything." Get over it. Get over it. We're going to Riyadh. The House of Saud is paying us hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some of us millions. Mot me, but they're paying millions of dollars to comedians. Get over it. We're taking the money. How about that? How about that? Sorry. Oh, you weren't invited? Oh, you got nothing going on? Boo-hoo-hoo. Boo-hoo-hoo for you. "I would never do it." You weren't offered. No one invited you. There's people that I respect that turned it down, but a lot of people are doing it. Like a lot, like almost everyone. A lot of people are doing it. They bought comedy. So what? 

"I imagine the slaves in those countries are good at what they do."

Listen, what's your problem? "Well, they have slaves and they kill everyo—" Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Get over it. Get over it. So what? So what they have slaves? So what? My friend—not a friend, somebody I don't even know, I bumped into them in TriBeCa and he goes, "I would never do that 'cause I don't wanna interact with slaves." I'm like, "Well, why not? They'd be deferential, right?" I mean, I imagine the slaves in those countries are good at what they do. "Well, I wouldn't want to interact." "Everyone you meet there is a slave," that's what they said. Everyone that works at all the hotels, they take their passports. They're not allowed to leave. They're slaves. 

Hey. Is the hotel nice? Is it nice or not? Is it nice or not? I am not here to be a spoilsport. Look up "spoilsport." And I'm gonna tell everyone what it is because that's not what I'm here to do. I'm not on this earth to do that. "Spoilsport: a person who behaves in a way that spoils others' pleasure, especially by not joining in an activity." Yes, correct. I'm not here to be a spoilsport. I'm not here to ruin the good time that everyone's having. Do I have issues with some of the policies towards women, towards the gays, towards the freedom of speech? Well, of course I do. Of course I do. Of course I do. But I believe in my own financial wellbeing and I always have by the way, and I think you better start believing in that, okay? 

"I'm being paid enough money to look the other way."

'Cause when Peter Thiel puts all of you in a cage, you're gonna want some way to get out of that. You're going to want to bribe—when Peter Thiel has you in the prison from that movie. What's that movie where everyone's in that digital prison? Remember that movie? Well, when you're in that movie—but you can't get out—when you're in the movie of that digital prison movie and Peter Thiel's got you in—you're gonna want to have a couple of shekels to go to the guy and say, let me out of here. Hit 'em off a little Bitcoin, little Ethereum. Let me get out of this prison. 

[He goes on like this for a while, arguing at one point that Peter Thiel the Antichrist. I’ll skip past it, but it’s interesting to note that he often harps about how evil Thiel and Palantir are when he is clearly on friendly terms with one of Thiel’s protégés, JD Vance.]

Now, people might say to me, "Hey, you're coming out and saying you're doing the Saudi thing for money. They're paying you a lot of money." I'm not going to tell you how much they're paying me. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter how much. They're paying me $375,000. For one show. Now, a lot of other people are getting 1.6 million. That's not me. I'm not in that bracket, but they're giving me $375. Others are getting $150. Why are they doing it? Here's the point. Here's the point, okay, I am doing this because they're paying me a large sum of money. They're paying me enough money to look the other way. Do you understand? 

Let’s pause quickly here to observe that $375,000 is really not a lot of money for someone in Dillon’s position. He probably earns that amount in three or four shows at a midsized theater. His fellow Riyadh Comedy Festival headliner Louis CK, whom he opened for in Queens last month, earns it in just one or two. Presumably those million-plus paychecks are going to stars like Kevin Hart and Dave Chappelle, who are already centimillionaires and could command that sum in a weekend or two of stadium shows. In other words, all these comedians are selling their souls to the Saudi royal family for money they’re already making.

Okay, back to Dillon’s rant:

Dillon: Look the other way. That's a four word sentence that people don't do anymore. Look the other way, if something bad is happening to your left, look to your right. If for example, I'm at a breakfast and I see someone get grabbed and they start hitting them with that—you know that big stick? I don't know if it's bamboo or whatever it is, it's kind of a wood, but it kind of snaps back, it's perfect for a cane. If I see someone getting it, I will look the other way. If I look the other way and I see someone being behanded, meaning they're chopping a hand off, that might be interesting to just kind of see actually how they do it. Because I think they do it kind of a sanitary way, from what I've heard. If they're chopping a hand off, I might look down. And if I'm looking at the floor and I see some eyeless beggar grabbing at me trying to get my money, I will look up to the heavens. And if in the heavens I see a drone flying over, I will look the other way. Because I'm being paid enough money to look the other way. 

What don't you understand? What is so complicated? I'm the only honest person that's going to do it. Everyone else is going to have a million—they're gonna go, "Well, actually, the Middle East is more progressive now, and is trying to make some change." [Ed. note: indeed, we saw this take from the likes of Andrew Schulz and Jim Jefferies.] No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm being paid a lot of money to not care about what they do in their country. 

It's not my problem. They're paying me to keep my mouth shut."

I mean, it's very simple. If you pay me lots of money, I will not comment on what's going on. In fact, I will ignore it. And if something that I really disagree with is happening, the more money you pay me, the less I'm going to think about it. Truly, this is a really important thing that no one does anymore, and I'm recommending it. Look the other way. If you are in a foreign country and you don't agree—because the other option? We are gonna have to go into all of these countries and make them be Americans and make them live the way we live? That's not gonna happen. That's not gonna happen. We don't even know how to do that. All we do is try to do that and it fails miserably like every time. So I believe in looking the other way. 

I believe in pretending things are not happening that are. I believe in cognitive dissonance. I believe in ignoring the scream—I will sleep so sound there. [Snoring and screaming noises.] I will sleep through the screams, sleep through the screams. I'm staying at the Ritz. Google it. You know what happened there? And it's fine. Folks, mind your own business. My best friend's mother used to say that. "Eileen, mind your own beeswax." She used to say that. "Mind your own beeswax." She used to say that. Okay? What that means, for those of you who don't know, is that there's your beeswax and everyone else's beeswax. There's a lot of beeswax in Saudi Arabia. It's not my problem. They're paying me to keep my mouth shut. 

"If you think for one second that some of the slaves in that country are not proud of what they've built, you're crazy."

I'm telling you right now, they have realized something very important, and this is an important lesson for everybody to learn, okay? If you want people to like you, give them lots of money. I don't know why this is so hard for people to grasp. I know that this is something, and again, people are probably listening to this and they're angry or they're disagreeing with me, and that's okay. You're allowed to do both. You're allowed to do both. I don't care what you do. It doesn't matter. I'm going to be such a model citizen there. Let me tell you right now, my aunt's like, will you be safe there? I'm like, the crime is in our own country, you dunce. The crime is in our own country, you dunce. Okay?

I feel very, I will feel safe in Riyadh. I believe in luxury, and a lot of people don't, and I always have. I believe in the ability of a society—I'm gonna say something and people aren't going to like it. If you think for one second that some of the slaves in that country are not proud of what they've built, you're crazy. You're literally crazy. You're literally nuts. There are so many beautiful things that have happened as a result of forced labor. When you look at something beautiful, even if making it has almost killed you or killed people you know—and I'm using the word "slave" not even knowing, by the way, and I'm using it only because people have told me that. I haven't looked into it. And I won't. But I don't even believe it. But let's move on. 

Let's say in this hypothetical world, they are slaves who can't leave and they have to build these beautiful things, gorgeous marble crystal things. Do you think a slave father wouldn't look at his slave children and go, "Your father built that?" You're nuts. You're nuts. It is beautiful to have beautiful things. And if I'm a slave and I've just built a beautiful thing, I am telling my wife and my children, "look how beautiful that is and how grateful and how thankful we are." 

"There are so many beautiful things that have happened as a result of forced labor… if I was a slave and I had the chance to make a beautiful hotel, it would make me happy."

Now, yes, there's problems. Sure, sure. Israel gave none of us any money and expected we were all going to just defend them for what? For no money? for zero dollars?. The threat that I won't get a sitcom on ABC Family? I'm supposed to go out and defend this genocide because maybe I won't be on ABC, I won't get to play a gym teacher on a network that won't be in business, and I'm supposed to care about that. Who gives a fuck? Where's the money? You bum. Where the fuck's the money? Of course, Israel's doing a horrible thing, and I would call it out no matter how much money I got, because you're genociding people in front of my face. It's on TikTok. But what these people are doing seems to be less public. 

[...]

But I'm telling you right now, this was Israel's big mistake. This was their big mistake. They should have had the Tel Aviv Comedy Festival, and they should have paid us all millions of dollars. And then I would've went over there and I would've went, "Listen, it's human shields, and Hamas is stealing the food," or whatever they're fucking talking nonsense for the last nine months we're all supposed to believe. Whatever. I go "Release them, and this is what it's about, the hostages, it's not about all the other greater Israel stuff. Why would you say Epstein was in the Mossad? What are you talking about? He had no connection with anyone. He was just a pervert who had $2 billion and was friends with—what do you want?" Israel thought this was all gonna happen with no money? What are you, nuts? 

I'm sad about what's happening. If it's happy, is it—I don't see it. If I was a slave, I would love to make a beautiful hotel for people. I would. I would. I would love to make a beautiful hotel for people to stay at and enjoy. If I was a slave—not a slave, but if I was a slave, if I was a slave and I had the chance to make a beautiful hotel, it would make me happy. Life is, it's a whole thing. Life. It's a whole thing. It's a whole thing. And we're called to be—I believe, and this is Kamala Harris—but I believe if you asked me about the Riyadh Comedy Festival and you said, "Well, there's all these problems." I'd go, "Listen, hey, life is a long thing and it's a beautiful thing." And that's my comment.

Whew. Not great!

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The usual crowd is getting increasingly divorced from reality—and increasingly homophobic.

HumorismSeth Simons

“You think I'm an asshole? Well, they'll cut your clit off, bitch.”

On a recent episode of Mark Normand and Sam Morril’s podcast, guest Greg Fitzsimmons asked them about their upcoming gigs in Riyadh. In response, they cracked up at the kingdom’s repression of women’s rights:

Fitzsimmons: So just randomly you're both going to Saudi Arabia?

Morril: A lot of comics are going.

Fitzsimmons: Really?

Morril: It's a big festival. It's a—

Normand: No women.

Morril: Jess Kirson's going.

Normand: Oh, she is?

Morril: Yeah.

Normand: Oh, all right, great. They got one.

Fitzsimmons: She can't do any facial jokes because she'll have that wrap around her head.

Normand: One of the rules is I can't kiss my wife in public.

Fitzsimmons: Really?

Morril: Are you bringing her?

Normand: Yeah. I'm gonna bring her.

Morril: Wow.

Normand: Oh, yeah. Just to show her how good you got it.

Morril: Can I kiss your wife in public?

Normand: I want to be like, "You see? You think I'm an asshole? Well, they'll cut your clit off, bitch.

Morril: [Cracking up] What the fuck.

Normand: We'll see you in hell, everybody. Thanks a lot.

Like I said the other week, what stands out about these guys is that they don’t even bother to reckon with the ethical considerations of the gig. It’s all just a big joke to them.

"Bitch, you didn't even pay half for the food we ordered.”

Now let’s turn to Theo Von, perhaps comedy’s most beloved overt racist. In a solo episode of his podcast last month, he read a news story about a missing Texas woman who turned up living in the woods of Scotland as part of the “Kingdom of Kubala,” a group of people claiming to be a lost Scottish-African tribe. In his commentary on the story, Von speculated that she joined the group because someone took her to a Caribbean restaurant:

Von: You gotta be careful, man. I think because—I noticed this in my life. If you take a woman to a certain restaurant, they want that lifestyle. They want that lifestyle. Dude, I was dating a girl in LA for a bit, I took her over there to Rainforest Cafe. Three weeks later, that bitch moved to St. Thomas and married a brother. [Affecting a racist accent:] "St. Thomas!" All because I'm out here getting that bitch apps over here at Rainforest Cafe. Be careful. You take your lady to P.F. Chang's and next thing you know, she got all your shit all fucking chip chopped out at the house, lampshades and everything, motherfuckers. She got ninjas on the bookshelf. She got a stack of books and then two ninjas just pushing against each side of them.

That's the kind of shit. Women'll do that, bruh. You take them to P.F. Chang's over there, you take a lady over there to P.F. Chang's and next thing you know she got you brushing your teeth with a damn bamboo stick or whatever. And that's your money buying all of that. So you gotta be careful. You can easily lose a woman. Somebody probably took this lady to a nice restaurant of some sort. That's what I would guess. Probably took her out to a Caribbean dinner or Scottish meal or something. Because that's it. "Missing Texas woman found living in lost 'African' tribe in Scotland."

But yeah, man, that's what happened for me, man. I took a lady to Rainforest Cafe and bam, that bitch gone out there. [Affecting a racist accent again:] "Biting dice, dice. Living out there, gambling. Place a bet with me." She's living out there on St. Thomas, wearing a grass skirt and shit, married to some guy who played in the NBA DL out there. G League. That was it, bruh. She didn't even tell me bye. She's out there, "I love the islands." I'm like, "Bitch, you didn't even pay half for the food we ordered. You didn't even pay half for the food. You don't love shit."

This is just racism. Nothing else to say. 

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“The fucking Underground Railroad was a sausage party. Oh, I bet dudes were hooking up, bro.”

HumorismSeth Simons

“I don't think he's transphobic.”

On another episode of We Might Be Drunk last month, Normand, Morril, and guest Patton Oswalt all agreed that Dave Chappelle is not transphobic:

Oswalt: One thing you were saying earlier about a lot of the hate that you get online, you're like, "Oh, this isn't real." You never meet them in real life.

Normand: Sure.

Oswalt: And also you realize, "Oh, there's some things that they were going to hate you anyway, or they already hated you and you just gave them an excuse. They can now always bring..." People always bring up Chappelle to me because I wrote that thing about, and again, the thing that I wrote, and I did post a really douche-y picture of me writing the thing that I was going to post, which was so fucking douche-y. It's like Mr. Poetryville sitting there writing.

Normand: But when you're in the eye of the storm, you're like, put some—

Oswalt: So I'm like, what the fuck do I do? But if you read the thing I wrote, I'm like, "Dave Chappelle's fucking brilliant. I came up with him. He's a friend. But we disagree on this one fucking thing. I don't agree with his stance on this one thing." Comedians fight about all the time.

Morril: Do you think he's transphobic? Or do you think the jokes are just like—

Oswalt: I thought the jokes were lazy.

Morril: Okay. Yeah.

Oswalt: I thought the jokes were lazy. I don't think he's transphobic.

Normand: I don't think so either.

Morril: I don't think so.

Oswalt: I think he was reacting to some things that happened to him when he was young. And people... Look, I've said plenty of shit in my early albums that now I know better. You know what I mean? Trust me, I—

Morril: Some comedy doesn't age well. [Ed. note: Chappelle started releasing his anti-trans material in 2019.] I was listening to some comedy I loved 15 years ago and I was like, "Oh, it sounds a little weird now." I still think it's funny. It just sounds a little weird now.

Oswalt: But also, we got into this—

Morril: But that's okay.

Normand: It's okay. It's normal.

Oswalt: We signed up for, we said yes to one of the most ephemeral art forms in existence. Comedy. It doesn't age.

Meanwhile in the real world, it’s been almost four years since Chappelle said “I’m team TERF.” and lectured a room full of schoolchildren for taking issue with it.

What Goes Up

On Chappelle.

HumorismSeth Simons

“Trump Dog is going to get out of this.”

I have a few interesting Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast segments to share with you today. First we’ll go back to a Patreon episode released on August 15th, in which Gillis—chatting with comics Nate Marshall and LeMaire Lee—excitedly observes that Trump is getting away with the Epstein scandal, then defends El Salvador president Nayib Bukele’s concentration camps:

Lee: Are you over the Epstein files yet? Are you guys still—

Gillis: Yeah, all you got to do is not say anything about it. Trump Dog is going to get out of this. All you have to do is ignore it. 

Lee: I finally get—

Gillis: It's crazy.

Lee: —why people get conspiracies now, it's driving me crazy.

Marshall: What? The Epstein files did?

Lee: Yeah. I didn't care, but now I care because—

Gillis: Well, no, because you're a lib, dude. Now all of a sudden that Trump's under—

Lee: I'm big lib.

Gillis: —fire for it, you're like, "We do need to investigate this." 

Lee: No, no, no. I've always been goofing about him. 

Gillis: True. We've all goofed. But, it's funny how that works. 

Lee: [Unintelligible] tell you how mad I was on Monday?

Marshall: No.

Gillis: Did you lib out?

Lee: I libbed out so hard on Monday.

Marshall: Oh, he did. He libbed out. He libbed out.

Lee: I was like, "They're killing people in El Salvador." I libbed out hard.

Marshall: You definitely libbed out—

Gillis: Who the fuck's killing people in El Salvador?

Lee: The guy.

Marshall: That's kind of what I asked, but.

Lee: The guy who took over. He was jailing all the, well—

Gillis: Oh, the guy who cleaned up the—

Lee: Yeah.

Gillis: No. No. Look, I don't know anything about it. I just heard he arrested fucking everybody that was—

Lee: Yeah.

Gillis: I think they needed to make a big change. 

Lee: Yeah. I—

Gillis: Bro, if your people are leaving to walk out of the country—

Lee: Absolutely.

Gillis: —they're walking out of the fucking country, you gotta make some fucking changes. 

Lee: Fuck this. I'll take a chance in the Amazon. [Ed. note: the Amazon is south of El Salvador.] 

Gillis: Yeah, that's—I don't know about it. 

It’s the Epstein comments that are primarily of interest to me here, but I wanted to include the El Salvador section because I think it shows Gillis’s reflexive acceptance of authoritarianism so long as it’s his team in charge. His ignorance of the specifics also reveals that, like every other podcaster in his class, he basically has no idea what’s been going on in the world for the last six months. 

Anyway—the Epstein thing. In another episode released the following week, Gillis again reiterated his hope that Trump gets away with it:

McCusker: …But it is tight to just get up on the roof and be like, "I'm making a big decision right now." 

Gillis: "I'm just thinking up here." He didn't even say he was thinking. He literally, a reporter yelled and he goes, "Just taking a walk." Jesus Christ. I'm back though. That's all it takes. Give me one fucking shot of him walking on the roof. I'm like, yo, that's the bro. Forget about the list, I forgot about Epstein. 

McCusker: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Gillis: Forget about the fucking list, dude. 

McCusker: Yeah, the letter. The letter is, hopefully it's not real. 

Gillis: They didn't—Trump continues to just do the best work of all time. Never bring it up. This will pass it. These fuckers will forget about it

McCusker: It. It will. It'll pass. It is funny just to be like, bro, man, that's such fucking old. That's old hat, man. That's crazy. That's such old news. 

I often see people on the left remark that Gillis is not actually a Trump supporter, that in fact he is a liberal, and that anyone who actually pays attention to his material will see this. My counterpoint has long been that his standup is deliberately calibrated to give this impression to the center and left, when all you have to do is watch his podcast to see that he is very obviously a right-winger fully in Trump’s camp. This is exactly what we see here: he likes and supports Trump so much that he’s willing to forgive Trump’s friendship with a child sex trafficker. 

You’ll Never Guess Who’s Going All In on the Right’s Latest Racist Conspiracy Theories

“Obviously putting 20,000 Haitians in a small town in Springfield, Ohio is crazy,” Shane Gillis said today.

HumorismSeth Simons

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And a few more thoughts about Marc Maron’s comments about comedy’s right-wingers.

HumorismSeth Simons

“People get real hysterical about Holocaust denying.”

Dave Smith has spent the last several years criticizing (rightfully) Israel’s genocide in Gaza, earning himself (questionably, given his far-right politics and affiliations) substantial credit in left-wing media outlets like Zeteo and Drop Site. He has also continued saying strange things about the Holocaust, which, as a refresher, he blames on Winston Churchill, believing that World War II could have been avoided had England not gone to war with Germany after the latter invaded Poland. Last week, in the midst of an argument (reasonable) about how mind-boggling it is to watch people deny Israel’s genocide in real time, he reflected (unreasonable) that he doesn’t understand why Holocaust denial is supposed to bother him:

Smith: People get real hysterical about Holocaust denying, or if anybody says anything about that, even someone like Darryl Cooper who never said nothing about the actual Holocaust, but just said that maybe it was Churchill's fault that this thing wasn't just a war in Poland and instead turned into the giant catastrophe it was, and that you see the reaction to that. 

I've always kind of had the attitude that, I don't know, I just don't get that—someone denying the Holocaust doesn't get me like, "oh my God, I'm so angry." I think it's silly. I think it did happen, and it was horrible. And if you're telling me "I don't believe something that happened in the early 40s actually happened," I don't know why I'm supposed to be so exercised by that. 

But watching this in real—it does feel like the people who are still defending Israel at this point, you're actually watching it in real time. Like they're sitting here writing articles—did you see this, Rob? I swear to God, I can't be—you think I'm making this up. Did you see The Free Press—Bari Weiss's publication—wonderful, totally neutral on this issue—they wrote a piece "debunking" the starvation in Gaza, and I'm not making this up, one of the cases, they go, "See, they tried to tell you that this 2-year-old was starving to death, but actually she had prior injuries when an Israeli skull cracked her skull open."

[…]

But anyway, once you just get into this realm, you're like, what is—this does feel like—Norman Finkelstein said it to Benny Morris, which, I think this does hold particular weight when two incredibly Jewy people are talking, but when he just said it at one point to him, he goes, "You're nothing but a Holocaust denier." And I do get what he meant by that. Like, it does seem like, you're doing the exact same thing, where you go, "Oh no, you know, I know you see pictures of starving corpses or whatever, but that's not actually evidence of anything." Like, okay. All right. Anyway, thats just how it feels to me.”

You might think these revelations would lead Smith to reconsider his longstanding Nazi sympathies. Alas, two days before releasing this episode, he recorded a podcast with Jake Shields, a streamer and MMA fighter who has said that he doesn’t believe “a single Jew died in gas chambers,” and who hosted the likes of Holocaust deniers Germar Rudolf and Nick Fuentes on his podcast. (He has also hosted Smith in the past.) After posting a picture of himself and Smith on Twitter last week, he got flack from his fans for hanging out with a Jew, to which he responded:

People are angry I'm with Dave Smith because he's a Jew

Dave and [I] have a few differences in our beliefs (Hitler) but Dave has fought harder than almost anyone for the people of Palestine  

Jews hate Dave with a passion for being a “race traitor”

Why attack a man on our side?

Smith, meanwhile, got flak from conservatives for hanging out with a Nazi, to which he responded: “Dude, I was being a dude with another dude. Try being a dude for once.”

Just another week in comedy.