Your gut instinct is correct he is spewing bullshit. Tx relaying is an integral part of the network and a crucial part for censorship resistance. In fact, arguing against filters is arguing for tx relaying.

I recommend listening to the full podcast, because my interpretation of his opinion is not necessarily accurate. That said, he *seems* to think that a given node is supposed to relay transactions to its peers not for *its peers'* benefit but only for *its own* benefit, namely, so that blocks will get to it faster, since its peers won't have to spend as much time downloading transactions they already have. I am glad that he seemed to concede that *if* a user wanted to run a node "altruistically," e.g. as a public service to help other people's transactions reach miners, then *for such a user* it makes sense to filter some transactions. I think a lot of users run a node for reasons that include such altruistic motives, and I suspect he thinks that's silly.