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TRIGGERnometry · 3 min · Oct 24, 2026

How Dave Smith says Trump took control of the Republican Party

Dave Smith recalls Trump threatening riots if party leaders denied him the nomination, and says the threat stopped the RNC from changing its rules. He contrasts that with Democrats retaining establishment control after Bernie Sanders lost.

Dave Smith

Dave Smith is a stand-up comedian and podcast host.

Hosts Part of the Problem, a libertarian podcast, and co-hosts the comedy podcast Legion of Skanks.

About this segment

Dave Smith recalls Trump threatening riots if party leaders denied him the nomination, and says the threat stopped the RNC from changing its rules. He contrasts that with Democrats retaining establishment control after Bernie Sanders lost.

From “Dave Smith vs. TRIGGERnometry 2”, Oct 24, 2026. Watch the full episode

“this is the first time i ever looked at donald trump and i thought i think he's a political genius”
Dave Smithat 1:09:45 · TRIGGERnometry1:09:45

Takeaways

  1. Smith says Trump’s threat deterred the RNC from changing its rules.
  2. He says Trump’s victory transferred control of the Republican Party.
  3. He says Democrats retained establishment control after Sanders lost.

In this episode

Full episode
  1. 19:51Why Dave Smith sees the Iran war as a costly choicePro pick 8:35
  2. 1:28:27Why Dave Smith links housing costs to currency debasementPro pick 8:26
  3. 15:00Why Francis Foster says Iran’s geography makes the war unworkable3:17
  4. 57:29Why Dave Smith holds Trump responsible alongside war advocates7:18

  5. 1:09:14How Dave Smith says Trump took control of the Republican Party3:15

Up next · Pod Save AmericaWhy Pfeiffer thinks Trump's core coalition is weakening8:24

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

  1. 1:09:27

    Right. The Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and the Donald Trump versus everyone. OK, now what happened on the right, if you guys might even remember in 2016, what's his name? Priebus, who was the head of the RNC, he floated out late into the primary season that they might change the rules at the Republican convention to not allow Donald Trump to have the nomination because they can arbitrarily just say, oh, we decide you need to have 100,000 more delegates and no one meets it.

  2. 1:09:52

    therefore we get to pick who the nominee is he floated this out and i'll never forget in one of the moves of pure political genius all right this is the first time i ever looked at donald trump and i thought i think he's a political genius was donald trump in his press conference the next day said and i quote there'll be riots in the streets if you try to take the nomination from me and it scared the rnc out of doing it he literally went like he really threatened them and he went listen man every barrel chested man in america is a fan of me and i'm telling him to like do there we will not let you steal this from us which by the way he kind of had every right to do he had won the democratic process to strike okay so on the right side there was a civil war but the north burned the south donald trump won he took over the republican party for better or worse that's what

  3. 1:10:39

    the republican party is now and in fact ultimately even though donald trump was the anti-neocon no new wars he's now been in a weird way you know it's mark levin and ben shapiro's favorite president who anyway it's just kind of a stretch but the only way to take that back over was to take over the trump administration not to find someone else to beat him bernie on the other hand lost but he lost after getting cheated so the democrats had their revolution but the establishment kept control with the insurgency knowing that it was dirty the way they kept the control so that's kind of been like what's been bubbling.

  4. 1:11:15

    for for years now on the left now from my perspective kind of like the outbursts of the young leftists like wokeism uh covet insanity whatever over over the last few years that i guess all that stuff has been really soundly defeated in the grown-up public argument or whatever and so it does seem like that's kind of been left there was a very strange dynamic which i still even being me do not completely understand where after october 7th um the left after just not really caring about foreign policy and war since george w bush all snapped back into really caring about it but that changed the dynamic a lot um the you know it really changed the dynamic politically in 2024 now going into this new these last two years i think what's happened here is that there's this the left wing of the democratic establishment has been firmly against israel's destruction of

  5. 1:12:13

    gaza firmly against u.s support for israel and firmly against the war on iran and these are all