F**king Mondays: Douglas Murray Hits Podcast Bros, Trump's Lawfare, and Disappearing Immigrants

Douglas Murray knifes Joe Rogan and Dave Smith, Trump uses lawfare, and the terrifying case of Abrego Garcia.

Welcome to another edition of F**king Mondays! In the round up today:

Real journalism vs Podcasting bros

I have mixed feelings about Douglas Murray. He’s a polemicist with hardline conservative views on issues like immigration, Israel, and identity politics. But Murray is a real journalist and a powerhouse intellect with decades of real reporting experience. Regardless of whether you agree with Murray, his journalistic chops are unimpeachable and he has a lot of credibility in the public sphere.

Dave Smith on the other hand, is a self-professed libertarian and a comedian with no background in journalism or history. Smith, who is Jewish, identifies as an anti-Zionist who believes Israel is an apartheid state, and thinks NATO expansionism was a leading factor in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Smith has made a name for himself as a political podcaster by promoting these alternative narratives that have now filtered into the mainstream. Smith is not stupid by any means, but his dogmatic libertarian worldview and reflexive distrust of authority puts him squarely in the unserious camp. No one would look to Smith as a source of authority on anything — a fact that to his credit, he would probably agree with.

Murray and Smith recently debated these issues for over three hours on Joe Rogan’s podcast—a sprawling, occasionally bizarre exchange that illustrated something deeper than a disagreement over Israel or Ukraine

I listened to the episode carefully and came away with one real observation.

The biggest issue for me wasn’t whether Smith or Murray was “right” about Israel/Ukraine or Winston Churchill. It was Smith and Rogan’s almost complete inability to understand Murray’s central argument; that promoting yourself as an expert and mainstreaming alternative views can have terrible consequences. This interaction was highly instructive:

Murray: If you’re gonna interview historians of the conflict, or historians in general, why would you get somebody like Ian Carroll?

Rogan: Yeah but Ian Carroll, I didn’t bring him on for that purpose. I brought him on because I wanted to find out, like, “how does one get involved in the whole conspiracy theory business?” Because his whole thing is just conspiracies.

Murray: There’s been a tilt in the conversation, in both conversations in the last couple of years. And it’s largely to do with people who have appointed themselves experts, who are not experts.

Rogan: Oh you mean like Ian? I don’t think he appoints himself an expert in anything.

Murray: Who’s that other dude who thinks he’s an expert on Churchill?

Rogan: Oh, Darryl? Cooper? He does not think he’s an expert.

Smith: In fact, I think it’s everybody else is always calling him an expert and he’s like, “I’m just a history–

Rogan: Have you ever absorbed any of his material? Have you ever consumed any of his podcasts or anything like that?

Murray: I’ve tried.

Rogan: Yeah?

Murray: It’s pretty hard to listen to somebody who says, “I don’t know what I’m talking about but now I’m gonna talk.” Or, “I don’t know about this.” Or, “I’m not capable of debating this historian but I’m gonna just tell you what I think.”

Smith: Yeah but I mean that’s not exactly what Darryl was saying… what Darryl is saying is, he doesn’t like to do debates, he likes to do long-format stuff where he can really explain his position.

Murray: But if you throw a lot of shit out there, there’s some point at which “I’m just raising questions” is not a valid thing. You’re not raising questions. You’re not asking questions. You’re telling people something.

Rogan’s answer for bringing on people like Ian Carroll, who claimed that Jews were behind 9/11, or Darryl Cooper, who offer wildly revisionist takes on World War II and Winston Churchill, was that he has no agenda — only an interest in having a conversation with them. Murray repeatedly tried to get Rogan to understand his contribution to the rapid rise of vile, often antisemitic conspiracy theories, by platforming these people, but he seemed unable to understand how he might be complicit.

Murray also took Smith to task for talking about subjects he has only superficial knowledge of — particularly Israel. “It’s like some weird jiu-jitsu move where someone says, “I’m not a historian,” but then spends all their time talking about history,” said Murray. “Or, ‘I’m not a journalist,’ but talks about journalism. Or, ‘I’m not an expert,’ and still focuses on expert-level topics. It’s a strange rhetorical move.”

Smith response was that “I’m a free American I can talk about what I like to”, as if Murray was arguing he should be censored.

That moment—Smith equating Murray’s critique with censorship—perfectly encapsulated the broader problem. It’s not that people like Dave Smith or Joe Rogan are necessarily malicious — or even wrong on every issue. It’s that they wield enormous influence while refusing to accept responsibilities that come with it. They sidestep accountability by hiding behind the “just asking questions” defense while promoting fringe views that shape how millions of people see the world.

Murray’s frustration wasn’t about shutting down debate, it was about drawing a line between being curious and being careless with extremely complex subjects. In an age where podcast clips often carry more weight than peer-reviewed research, that distinction matters. Murray, for all his flaws, at least tries to hold that line. But his point, that elevating unserious voices to the level of actual experts has consequences, was too subtle for the room, and likely too subtle for much of the audience. And that’s part of the problem. Reflexive contrarianism shouldn’t be censored, but it shouldn’t be mistaken for intellectual courage either.

Donald “Free Speech” Trump

Donald Trump was elected by millions of Americans who were convinced he was the “free speech” candidate. Kamala Harris, they believed, was part of a Democratic Deep State committed to censoring speech and using “lawfare” against anyone they disagreed with. As is often the case with everything Trump alleges, the exact opposite is true. From the AP:

President Donald Trump bitterly attacked “60 Minutes” shortly after the CBS newsmagazine broadcast stories on Ukraine and Greenland on Sunday, saying the network was out of control and should “pay a big price” for going after him.

“Almost every week, 60 Minutes ... mentions the name ‘TRUMP’ in a derogatory and defamatory way, but this Weekend’s ‘BROADCAST’ tops them all,” the president said on his Truth Social platform. He called on Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr to impose maximum fines and punishment “for their unlawful and illegal behavior.”

Trump’s war on '60 Minutes' is a perfect case study in projection. This is on top of his $20 billion lawsuit against “60 Minutes” for its interview with Kamala Harris last year, where Trump claims it was deceptively edited to make Harris look good (there is no evidence for this).

Is MAGA world up in arms about Trump’s blatant attempts to suppress speech and use of lawfare to shut people up? Of course not.

Disappearing people

Abrego Garcia was a 29-year-old Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March 2025 as part of Trump’s sweeping detainment orders, despite a U.S. court order protecting him from removal. Garcia is now imprisoned in El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a maximum-security facility known for its extremely brutal conditions. The deportation sparked legal action in the U.S., with a federal judge ordering the Trump administration to “facilitate and effectuate” Garcia's return. The Trump administration acknowledged the deportation was a mistake but argued they had no legal obligation to secure his return.

Now it seems El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele, who is currently visiting the White House, won’t be returning him. From the NYTimes:

In an Oval Office meeting with President Trump on Monday, President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador said that he would not return a Maryland man who was wrongly deported from the United States and sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

“Of course I’m not going to do it,” Mr. Bukele said when reporters asked if he was willing to help return the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whose case is at the heart of a legal battle that has gone to the Supreme Court.

Mr. Bukele said returning Mr. Abrego Garcia would be akin to smuggling “a terrorist into the United States.” As the Salvadoran president talked, Mr. Trump smiled in approval, surrounded by cabinet members who spoke in support of the president on cue.

rump’s decision to avoid defying the court directly—by letting Bukele do his dirty work instead—likely reflects a desire to save his bullets for a bigger battle with the courts (such as the midterms or the 2028 election). With economic conditions deteriorating, Trump is conserving political capital.

He could have instructed Bukele to return Garcia and complied with the court order. But doing so would have looked like a concession—and Trump never concedes, even when caught breaking the law.

In Trump’s America, the courts can be ignored, the law can be bent, and the state can disappear you—even for charges it admits are false.

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