The David Pakman Show - 10/13/23: Senator charged as foreign agent, more bad news for Trump

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

-- On the Show: -- New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez faces new changes of accepting bribes on behalf of a foreign government -- Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville falls down the stairs exiting an airplane after making fun of President Biden for falling numerous times -- Prosecutors claim they can prove Donald Trump's motive in the classified documents case -- Caller asks about voter turnout in the 2024 election -- Caller reflects on Rudy Giuliani's 2008 presidential run -- Caller argues that Fox News is much worse than MSNBC -- Caller is a DSA member who is conflicted over the organization's response to Hamas's attack on Israel -- Caller asks why there aren't left-wing manosphere gurus -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Steve Scalise drops out of House Speaker's race, Israel says Gazans have 24 hours to move south, and much more... 🔊 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription at https://babbel.com/pakman 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 💥 SainSmart: Get 10% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://davidpakman.com/engrave 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 🧠 Mindbloom: Use code PAKMAN for $100 off at https://mindbloom.com/pakman 👍 Use code PAKMAN for 10% off the Füm Journey Pack at https://tryfum.com/PAKMAN -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

. It continues to look worse and worse and worse for Democratic Senator Bob Menendez. Bob Menendez has already been charged, indicted. We told you several weeks ago he was also indicted close to a decade ago. And it's only getting worse now, also charged with acting as a foreign agent. These are very serious charges. And I think you will quickly find that there are no Democrats going around defending Senator Menendez, at least none that I've been able to see. And we haven't been doing that on this show. That is for damn sure. NBC New York reports New York Senator Bob Menendez accused of acting as a foreign agent as new charges revealed

in superseding indictment. We had a superseding indictment several days ago for Republican Congressman George Santos with additional very serious charges. We now have a superseding indictment. We had a superseding indictment several days ago for Republican Congressman George Santos with additional very serious charges. We now have a superseding indictment here for Bob Menendez, also adding very serious charges. New charges accuse Menendez of accepting bribes on behalf of a foreign government and acting as a foreign agent. Now, remember, an indictment is an allegation. It's an allegation that is substantiated enough to get beyond an investigation to an indictment. But it is not proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in the same way that that applies to Trump and to George Santos and to everybody. We're taking the exact same standard here with all of these individuals, Santos, Trump, Menendez.

There seemed to be probable cause to start an investigation. The investigation turned up enough information to bring it to a grand jury. Grand juries believe that the evidence was good enough to indict. And we have seen indictments. Everybody gets their day in court. That all being said, if this were true. It is almost like saying he's a foreign spy. It's not. It's not. But this is extraordinarily serious. The superseding indictment alleges Menendez, quote, provided sensitive U.S. government information and took other steps that secretly aided the government of Egypt. If true, disgusting. If true, disgusting.

As you may recall, in September, Menendez and his wife were indicted on federal bribery charges, which came from their alleged relationship with three businessmen. Prosecutors allege Menendez received cash, gold bars, payments towards a home mortgage compensation for a lower no show job. Lower no show jobs are classics in Argentina where I was born. That's a classic scam, a luxury vehicle, other items of value. The superseding indictment accuses Menendez of providing sensitive U.S. government info to Egypt in exchange for the alleged bribes. I don't care about political party. You all know that.

And one of the things that has become really clear over the last six, eight, 10 years is that this is an area where there are serious differences between Democrats and Republicans, Republicans jumping all over themselves to defend George Santos or to ignore George Santos, to say, I'm more likely to vote for Trump now that he's been indicted because it's a witch hunt. I don't care what evidence there is or whatever. And if anything, Democrats in the past have been too quick to condemn other Democrats. When Al Franken was caught having when it when we learned that Al Franken participated

in a tasteless joke at a time before when he was senator. I think Democrats were too quick to demand his resignation when Anthony Weiner was embroiled in completely inexcusable behavior, texting, etc.. Democrats didn't stand behind the guy. They actually said that he should resign and they were right to do so in that case. So this is another area where there are differences, significant differences. And we're going to see ultimately what happens here with Bob Menendez. This is you know, I don't believe in karma. I guess I believe

in odds. And statistically, people fall downstairs at some rate. And it might be that you are a person who someday falls down the stairs. And if you're a public figure, you might fall down the stairs when there is a camera on. And if you are a public figure who has criticized Joe Biden for falling, there is some chance you will be someone who, after criticizing Biden for falling, fall on camera yourself. And that's exactly what happened to Tommy Tuberville, Tommy Tuberville, Tuberville. He is a Republican senator. He went after Biden for falling. He mocked Biden. Salon reports clip of clip of Tommy Tuberville falling downstairs elicits reminders of all the times he mocked Biden, known to crack jokes about Biden's various spills.

Tuberville's own was quick to be called out. Here's the video arriving on a Miami air. I guess this is some kind of charter jet. I don't know. Here's Tommy Tuberville. He's 69 years old. Remember Biden's 80 bringing his luggage down the stairs. The luggage does look too heavy.

And then he just goes down. And, you know, the video is actually he didn't get hurt. Apparently, I don't like making fun of people getting hurt. He apparently didn't get hurt from what we know. The visual comedy element can't be ignored. And it's sort of almost cartoonish the way he goes down the stairs and his whole thing to the railings. And it's visually it's really something else. So listen, I don't believe in karma. I believe in odds. And if you're going to criticize someone else for falling, humans fall and you might be the human who falls. This is not nearly as serious as Tommy Tuberville blocking military appointments for political reasons that cripple the United

States because he disagrees with what most people believe about abortion. This is not nearly as serious as any of those things. But it is certainly certainly an interesting thing to see. And I guess it could really happen to anyone. Biden's old. He's 80. He fell to Breville, 69, and he fell. And in all seriousness, you can tell from how he's holding the two pieces of luggage. At his strength and age, it was wrong for him to try to walk down these stairs with the two pieces of luggage. That's the takeaway I get from seeing this video. If you're just listening today, look up the video. It's compelling stuff.

All right. Now on to something more serious. One of the questions, one of the missing pieces in some of the criminal cases against the failed former President Donald Trump have been motive. Why did Trump keep the classified documents, for example, has been a question that has come up now many, many times. And although you don't need to prove motive in a large number of different crime allegations, if you have motive, it can certainly be useful in convincing a jury.

Many lawyers have said to me, I don't need motive, but I love motive. I'd rather have motive motive. Vice News is now able to report on a statement made by special prosecutor Jack Smith. They believe they have the motive for why Donald Trump kept the classified documents. We've speculated. Was it because he wanted to monetize the documents by selling them to who knows who? Was it that it was an ego boost and he's a narcissistic egomaniac and he wanted to have the documents and show the documents to look powerful and strong and, you know, big, strong guy? It's a possibility. Well, they're not saying what it is, but they say they've got it. Let's look at the vice article. Trump's secret documents case just

got worse for him. Prosecutors now claim they can prove his motive, answering a major question in the case. And the article presents it. Why on earth did Trump want those documents anyway? Now, prosecutors claim they have the answer. They haven't publicly explained what it is, but they say they're confident they can prove it in court. It matters because Trump's intent is far from academic. Legal experts have said, while the criminal case against Trump for allegedly violating the Espionage Act by bringing the boxes full of docs to Mar-a-Lago looks strong, it has a hole, which is Trump's motive. Jurors like to know why someone committed an alleged crime before they convict. Trump's behavior is so baffling,

writes Vice, that the lack of a clear explanation could leave lingering questions in jurors minds. U.S. Army General Counsel Jill Wine Banks, former Watergate prosecutor, says, quote, It's always easier when you can prove intent than when you can't, even in a crime that doesn't require intent. I think you could make the case without asserting a motive, but it's sure better with it. Special Counsel Jack Smith's team wrote in a recent court filing they intend to prove in court why the documents were moved and what Trump intended in retaining them. Motive is not an element in a crime, but motive is a gift to a prosecutor trying to prove a defendant is guilty beyond

a reasonable doubt. If I had to guess what the motive was, I don't think it's he planned to sell the documents to whoever. I know that Trump is greedy. I know Trump is selfish. I know Trump puts himself above national security and national interest. There's no moral quandary. Trump would find himself in. I just don't think that's what it was. I think it was much more tactical, not tactical, much more personal is, I think, the way I would put it. I think Trump planned to use the documents to make himself look like a big boy and a big, strong man and potentially even to try to find out some way to use the documents to help himself related to 2024. I don't know exactly what that is. We will eventually find out.

But this is no small thing. And certainly Donald Trump has been notified of this by his attorneys. I can't imagine his attorneys are thrilled about it. But at the end of the day, it is still not obvious to me that Donald Trump is going to end up in prison. And I know this angers many in my audience. And it's just an opinion. I don't dislike you if you think Trump's going to prison. I hope you don't dislike me for that reason. Maybe you would dislike me for some other reason. It just continues to seem to me that the way this guy has slipped out of so many things in the past, that the worst case for him is maybe a suspended sentence or some kind of home confinement. But I really don't think he's going to end up in prison if you make me bet. Now, I used to be 99 percent certain of that. I'm not 99 percent certain. At this point, I would say I'm like a two

thirds, one third guy. I think that, you know, 66 percent chance Trump does not end up in prison. Thirty three that he does. And by the way, that's dramatically higher than where I was eight months ago. So my views certainly have adjusted to the facts on the ground. Let me know where you are on that issue. Do you believe at this point in time that Trump's doing time at some point in his future? Let me know in a comment. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube, where we are barreling towards two million subscribers, where I think we're maybe close to one point nine four at this point, very close to one point nine four. So it's it's happening, folks. It's happening soon. We're going to take a break. We'll hear

from some of you upcoming. We have so many different things to discuss. Stay with me. One of our sponsors is Zippix nicotine toothpicks. Don't you think it's time you stopped putting smoke and vape oils in your lungs? Zippix toothpicks are a convenient way to curb the nicotine cravings. Zippix toothpicks are super discreet. You can use them anytime, anywhere. Smoking and vaping aren't allowed, including flights, sporting events in restaurants. They're available in six different flavors with options of two and three milligrams of nicotine. If you're not a nicotine user, Zipix also offers caffeine and B12 infused toothpicks. Zipix has already helped tens of thousands of customers ditch the cigarettes, ditch the vapes.

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only town hall events and so much more. Sign up at join Pacman dot com and you can use the coupon code four years for indictments to save bigly. Let's hear from people in the audience. We do this on Fridays via discord. You can find our discord at David Pakman dot com slash discord. I think there's about 20,000 of our viewers on there. Lots of political discussion happening and exciting and different things. So let's hear from some folks starting today with Demoree from Texas. Demoree from Texas.

Welcome to The David Pakman show. What's on your mind today? Speaker 4 Hey, David, glad to be back on. I came across something from Tick Tock's and reporting from I forgot the I forgot the person who goes and does it. I forgot his name, but have you heard of that from Tennessee who is running to be mayor? I forgot the county, but at the mayor forum there was white. Is that indoors? All right, you're you're you're breaking up. I think what you're talking about is there was a hate group that showed up at a mayoral forum in Franklin,

Tennessee. Is that what you're talking about? Yes. Sorry for the audio. Yeah. It's not a story I'm following closely, but I did see something about it. I guess neo-Nazis showed up in support of Gabrielle Hansen and the Hansen campaign is like, this has nothing to do with us. We denounce it. And so now there's a question as to whether it was staged or not. I don't really know. Oh, OK. Being staged. Yeah, I just wanted to ask you about that. It was it seemed very, very blatant and out there to be as a mayor or a candidate and having those type of people openly support you, like literally why walk with you in the building? Why are there all that crazy stuff? But Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't I have no clue whether it's legit or a false flag or something made

to make Hansen look bad. I just don't I know they were there and I know the campaign denounced it, but I don't know anything beyond that. OK, well, thank you for your insight. All right. D'Amori from Texas. Great to hear from you. Why don't we go next to Rithik from Maryland? Rithik from Maryland. Welcome to The David Pakman Show. What's on your mind today? Speaker 4 Hi, David, can you hear me? Yeah. Speaker 5 Yeah, so I'm first time caller. So I had a question about voter turnout. So the 2020 presidential election had like the highest voter turnout for a really long time.

It was over 66 percent. So my question to you is, do you think we'll see an election with even higher voter turnout in the future? Well, you know, you're asking about you're asking me to make a prediction, which is always like, I don't know, I can make any any prediction and we'll kind of see. I think that we have an opportunity for higher voter turnout in twenty twenty four, actually, if Donald Trump is the nominee. And this is something why there are a number of ways in which the polling today that everybody's

freaking out and going, oh, Biden's tied with Trump or Trump's winning by two. There's a number of reasons to be skeptical that those polls, not that the polls are being done incorrectly today, but rather that they can't possibly reflect what is actually going to be the situation 13 months from now. And one of the reasons is if Donald Trump is the nominee, there are I don't I don't know. I don't want to give a number, but there are significant numbers of people in this country who will be motivated to come out and vote for Joe Biden specifically to prevent Trump from becoming president again.

I think that will be a motivating factor like we will not have seen for a long time. And so if Trump is the nominee, I would not be shocked to see equal or greater turnout in twenty twenty four than what we saw in twenty twenty, which, as you say, was already quite high. Yeah, I think the one benefit of the Trump era was that it made a lot more people engaged in politics, especially on the left. Absolutely. I'm worried about the the voting restrictions that we're seeing in red states

in particular, making it harder for people to mail in ballots, which was a widely used and easy way of voting during COVID. So I'm just worried that that will affect turnout in 2024. But but yeah. So thanks for taking my call. All right. Rittich from Maryland. Great. Great talking to you.

And we are hoping I always hope for high turnout. More involvement is better. That's that's my view. Let's go to Brittany from Texas, who is also a member at join pacman.com. Brittany, thank you for your membership. Welcome to the program. Hi, David. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Okay, cool. Um, so a few days ago you were talking about, um, I cannot remember what you were talking about actually, but you mentioned that Rudy Giuliani had a presidential campaign and I somehow did not ever know that. And I went down this rabbit hole.

I just wanted to thank you for that bit of information, because, wow, was that a disaster? Yeah, I mean, some people might not remember, but there was a period of time where in the Republican primary of 2008, it really looked like Rudy was going to be the nominee. He was well liked. He was one of the more reasonable Republicans at the time. He had high initial popularity. He had a campaign strategy of essentially going for I think it was going for Florida like he wanted to get a big win early. And it was, you know, and he's fallen so far. Obviously, John McCain ultimately was the nominee.

But then since then, it's only been downhill for Rudy. Yeah, that was crazy. Yeah. Sorry to start joking. Are you are you eating during the call, that was crazy. Yeah. Sorry to start joking. Speaker 1 Are you are you eating during the call, Brittany? Speaker 2 No. Speaker 1 Oh, you just randomly choked. Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 Yes. Speaker 1 I hope you're OK. Speaker 1 So my other thing that I wanted to talk about was I don't remember if it's ancestry DNA or. The other one, I think it was a 23 and me, you're talking about the leak of information. Oh, my goodness. Yes. You know, I don't totally understand. Initially, the reports were that the information was stolen. Then it was that it was hacked. Then it was that it was scraped. Then I read it's actually just that they were able to comply. I actually don't really understand the nature of the information

released or a leak, I guess I would say. Do you understand it? So I know I don't, but what I I was reading about, it said that the only thing that I really understand was that a certain type of person was targeted. Yes, Ashkenazi Jews like me. Correct. And it was leaked through the black web. That's really as much as I understand about it as far as like where it where the leak came from. I think now I'm understanding what it was. So 23 and me is saying they weren't hacked. That what happened is the hacker took releases of username and password combinations from

other websites and then started trying them on 23 and me. And then when they would successfully because, you know, some people use the same username and password on multiple websites. So when the person was able to log in to 23 and me using the password data from other sites, if the person was either Jewish or Chinese, apparently they would put them on a list. And then now they're trying to sell the lists, I guess, of Jewish and Chinese people. That's so it's so crazy to me because like, yeah, you know, it's such an innocent thing to want to find out where you come from or health issues. Maybe if you don't

know your family and it's, I don't know, I just was wondering if you thought there was any, because personally I've really been looking into it. I don't know much about where I come from. So, um, me and my brother wanted to look into it. And so I always tried to look at the good and the bad. Um, so I was, I was, I don't know if it's just my algorithm doing algorithm things, but I was just recently looking into it. What could be the bad, what could be the downside of it? And there was a lot of very tinfoil hat type of things. And then, yeah, I think some of the more realistic concerns would be what if, like health insurance companies were able to look at your genetic data to decide if you're a greater risk and then charge you more on the basis of some genetic thing or something like

that? I think, you know, that's it's kind of a different conversation, Brittany, as far as the information security. If you use a unique password on every website and maybe even different usernames when the username is not your email address, you would be pretty well protected from what happened on 23 and me. Interesting. Yeah. Well, thank you for that. All right. Brittany from Texas. So great to hear from you. Why don't we go next to. Oh, I don't know. Maybe drew from Los Angeles.

Drew welcome to the David Pakman show. What's on your mind today? Hello, David. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Oh, fantastic. Thanks for taking my call. Pleasure.

First of all, I just want to, fantastic. Thanks for taking my call. Pleasure. First of all, I just want to say I really love the show. It's really great to have just such a comprehensive presentation of everything that's going on right now. You do very well at letting everyone know what's going on in a very rational, even-handed way. Thank you. And I generally agree with just about everything you've got to say, although you said one thing a little while back when I first started listening to the show a few months ago that I was hoping you could maybe elaborate on.

Somebody called in and said that, you know, you should have a show on MSNBC or something like that, and you said that, and I'm paraphrasing a bit, correct me if I'm wrong, but you said something to the effect of, you know, they weren't interested in what you had to say or what you were selling. And I was just hoping that you could maybe elaborate a little bit on why you think that is. I'm just curious. And also you made a remark about, you know, MSNBC and Fox and all these news corporations being profit-driven media, which I do generally agree with because we're not really in the age of Cronkite anymore. And by that I mean like Cronkite

was a journalist that everyone in the country, for the most part, generally kind of trusted. And when he said Vietnam was a stalemate, everyone kind of went, well, I guess Vietnam is kind of a stalemate. We don't really have that anymore. Right. But even though they're all profit driven at this point, don't you think it's fair that to say that Fox is kind of in its own category as far as like misinformation? And, you know, there's slants on things, especially in the wake of the Dominion lawsuit and all that kind of stuff.

Hundred percent. So let me address a couple of these issues first and for and by the way, I don't know if we were just on speakerphone or something. My voice was feeding back. It no longer is. And that's a really great thing that you were able to apparently fix that, Drew. So first and foremost, there is no question that the Fox News rhetoric and narrative is damaging to the country in a way that MSNBC is not. The similarity,

the point to be made is that at the end of the day, the corporate structure is essentially the same. Fox News takes this radical right editorial perspective. MSNBC takes a center left sort of Democratic Party perspective. Both of those perspectives are to my right. But of course, MSNBC's perspective is not damaging to the country in the way that Fox News is is with regard to the idea of they they don't want what I'm selling. You know, Jenk Uyghur from the Young Turks has a million stories from when he was doing some guest hosting and weekend hosting on MSNBC. And you know, we they have a center left perspective, often right in line with the Democratic Party. And if you want to step outside of that, you will be limited in the same ways that you

would in any platform or you have that number of layers of bosses or whatever the case may be. So my view on MSNBC is it's just not super interestingly because to me, because at this point my reach is such that I am not I don't feel like I would reach dramatically more people by getting, you know, a half hour on MSNBC or whatever the case may be. It's way cushier to not have 12 bosses above me and to do whatever I want to do, cover whatever I want any day that I want to do it. And also, it seems like a much more honest path forward where my audience knows everything I'm saying

is because I've chosen to say it and it's genuinely what I believe rather than wondering how much of this corporate superstructure might be impacting what they see on my show. That's kind of my view at this point. Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, that's that's fair. That's fair. I just I do see a fair degree of overlap with like certain certain commentators on that network and some of what you have to say and say, like, you know, Joy Reid or some of many many with Hassan, what he does over there. No, I think there's a couple of people who were generally on on the level. But that does make sense.

Being able to be your own boss and choose your own topic. And that may be honestly, I don't watch any MSNBC, so I have no idea what any of the people you know, I know many. I don't know that I've ever really seen Joanne Reed's show. I don't know what they're saying. I'll take your word for it. Yeah, no worries. Well, thanks for elaborating on that. I really appreciate being able to talk to you. One one quick thing before I go, I just wanted to give a shout out to your friend and collaborator, Luke Beasley, who I think is doing a fantastic job over on his channel. He doesn't seem like a super physically intimidating sort of guy, you know, so for him to be putting himself in that situation with those lunatics, I think, is incredibly brave and important and awesome.

And I just want to commend him and just, you know, give a shout out to anyone who's listening and isn't subscribed to his channel as well. Absolutely. Check that out. And we have a shortcut to I'm going to let you go, Drew. I appreciate the call. We have a shortcut to Luke's channel at David Pakman dot com slash Luke. If you want to check out Luke Beasley's channel. Why don't we go next to Brett from Chicago?

Brett from Chicago. Welcome to the David Pakman show. What's going on? Hey, David, how's it going? I'm sorry. Yeah, I talked to you a while ago. I don't remember. I mentioned I'm in the DSA here in Chicago. Oh, yeah. I vaguely remember. imagine there's a little bit of a situation going on and i'm in the midst of trying to figure out how to you know process it and act within that because like i'm in a leadership

position and oh boy yeah and as you've seen some of the things the dsa has been saying broadly uh about the whole uh issue of israel and palestine and hamas specifically you mean the terrorist attack by hamas last weekend yes yes i mean the uh the terrorist attack by hamas and it's just yeah yeah the it's so weird because I'm a socialist, right? And whatever happens in this framework shouldn't change someone's economic position, right? Right. people around me are like their perception of the world and what they choose to like support is going to make me like could make me very well like disassociate like from these people like have to not be involved in this movement anymore, even though like on the all the other fronts were on like the same page. But just like let me see if we can explore that.

I want to make sure. And just so I know, Brett, how to use our time. This is what you wanted to talk about, right? There's not some other thing you're going to switch. Like this is what we're talking about today. Yeah, yeah, no. Yeah, what we're talking about. I have a question if I understand correctly, if I if I understand correctly, you're sort

of saying. You as a DSA person in leadership at Democratic Socialists of America, have a set of economic sort of circumstances that you believe are best and you are struggling with the reaction from DSA to the Hamas terrorist attack. And you're sort of it sounds like in a way disaffected by the fact that why do those who share certain economic beliefs have to go and delve into saying what you think to be problematic things about what happened in Israel? Am I understanding that correctly? And it's making you question the relationship to DSA. Yes, that's that's a very good summary. Have people expressed to you why they believe that their economic views are inextricably

linked to the things that DSA says about the Israeli Palestinian conflict? Has anyone explained to you the connection as they believe it to be? We definitely have to speak about it more. But from the gist, from i've like been able to um think you know understand the idea that i have now which may change is that it's rooted in a much more deep like almost like a metaphysical belief about the functioning of the world like like a class analysis taken to a degree because i've been a part of an organization before that was turned out to basically be a cult but like i thought was like just a left-leaning um you know

organization to help the the working class or whatever turned out to be a cult and had no real um epistemological framework and i'm seeing like that there's a similar there might be a similar thing here where people have like a very very black and white view of the world, where there's, like, the hegemony and the United States and the oppressors, and then there's the oppressed people, and there is nothing. I mean, a friend, I mean, my friend in this organization literally said to me, you cannot do violence against oppressors. Like, that is not, like, possible.

Like, you cannot, like, anything you do to oppressors is not that is not like possible. Like you cannot like anything you do to oppressors is not violence by definition. Right. And like that's it's like sort of it is like a metaphysical framework from some sort of, you know, Marxist, Hegelian, some sort of deep like philosophy that I have no connection with, you know. Yeah, I know. I totally understand. Well, listen, that's quite a situation. What do you think you're going to leave the group or what are you thinking of doing? I think it depends on how we end up like voting on like what our specific like chapter like endorses, because it's, you know, a democratic institution. And if it's

too much for me, I've still got to think about it because the specific statement wasn't as bad as I had feared. But it's still pretty problematic. So yeah, I mean, yeah, it's going to be a tough decision. Well, Brett, let us know what happens. I appreciate you calling in about it. Thank you, David. All right.

Brett from Chicago DSA leadership reconsidering his role there. Let's take a quick break. If you're holding on, just hold on a little longer. We'll continue on taking calls on discord in a moment. Staying properly nourished is just so important to feeling your best every day. Our sponsor, AG1 makes it so simple. Just a single scoop of AG1 a day. You get 75 high quality vitamins and probiotics from whole food sources. You're covered for the day. Half of Americans are deficient in vitamins A and C and magnesium. Not everybody has time to perfectly plan every meal.

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Go to drink AG one dot com slash Pacman to get five free travel packs of AG one plus a free one year supply of vitamin D. That's drink AG the number one dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Anxiety and depression are mental health challenges that affect millions of Americans. Thirty two percent of American adults have reported symptoms of anxiety or depression, but finding the right treatment can be tough. You might have tried things already, might have not been enough, might have not been the right fit.

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one hundred dollars off your first six session program by going to MindBloom dot com slash Pacman and using the code Pacman. That's M.I.N.D. B.L.O.O.M. dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman for one hundred dollars off. The info is in the podcast notes. Let's hear from a few more people via discord. You can find our discord at David Pacman dot com slash discord. Let's go to I don't know if it's Ali or Ali in Seattle, Washington. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Hi, David. So I wanted to talk about the legal immigration crisis that I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the ones that people are crossing the border. I'm talking educated degree holding people not getting enough jobs. So I work in IT and everybody around me, what I'm seeing right now, major companies

like Amazon, Facebook, Google, people who graduated from US from top universities, these companies offer them jobs, but then they say, oh, you can go work in Ireland, Singapore, Canada, and your team is going to be like all over the place. So most people I work with, their teams are in, like their managers are in US, but these companies legally hire people from US educated people that they cannot sponsor visas and send them to other countries. Same thing happening with my doctor friends. So a lot of he works in hospital, their psychiatrists are in Europe. They don't have enough people to hire from US. And since I've lived in New York and Seattle and

mostly like these urban areas, I'm seeing this more and more that these like educated degree holding people do not have ways to immigrate to U.S. and they're leaving. And in contrast, I go to Canada, it's completely opposite. Enough people there everywhere for everything for now. So in U.S., since George W. Bush's time, people or politicians have made immigration like a security issue. I remember before 9-11, the immigration you're supposed to be a different department than Department of Homeland Security. So when that emerged, it made an immigration into the security apparatus where you just hire people to protect border.

Nobody talks about immigration as immigration anymore. What's your view on that? I'm trying to understand exactly the point you're making. The point you're making is, if I understand correctly, there are shortages in the US in certain fields and we could be filling these shortages with qualified degree holding immigrants from other countries. But because because legal immigration to the US is so limited, people are unable to be brought in to do certain jobs. And as a result, there's not enough doctors or engineers or whatever. Am I understanding that

correctly? Speaker 3 Yeah. And I just add the final point in that when fog when Biden gave this subsidy to Foxconn for that chip program, the biggest complaint Foxconn had was the U.S. does not have enough talent for them to operate a factory. The Foxconn CEO said it in an interview, if you remember. Yeah, I don't remember. I remember the chip issue. I don't remember that interviewer. I didn't see it. So, I mean, listen, a lot of the things you're saying intuitively seem sensible, but I would need to verify every single aspect of what you're saying. You know, in some of the fields you're mentioning, my belief was and, you know, my dad is a doctor who came to the U.S. from another country. He essentially had to, like,

redo his residency and his boards. It wasn't like you can just, hey, we have a doctor shortage, bring in a bunch of doctors and then they their doctors right away that it takes quite a long time. And I believe I mean, we have to look at licensing and different industries and whatever, to the extent that that's going on. I am in favor of when Republicans say we want legal immigration and Democrats say we want legal immigration. You say we want legal immigration. You would think that on this issue, they would be able to work together to get the U.S., the workforce it needs. Now, the counterpoint that many Americans will make as well, when you bring in doctors

or engineers from another country, they're taking away the jobs of Americans. You're making the argument that there are quite literally are not the people in the United States to hire for those jobs. I just need to research more to find out if that's even the case. It's it's it's hard for me to comment without really digging into every element of what you're saying. Let me just add one more thing to it to end this point is that you're absolutely right.

You know, people with Republicans or Democrats should be able to come together for this particular point. And I've seen some of the, you know, people from a little bit right talking about it. I think Kevin O'Leary had a whole shorts about it. But what I want to add to finally to this was that just look at the because the only way these people can come into US and legally is H1B. And everybody.S. legally is H-1B. And everybody knows how disastrous that is. The last time... Why is that disastrous? Because 800,000 companies...

800,000 was last year's number. In 800,000, the companies wanted people to come in, and the quota was 85,000. It hasn't been revised since Reagan's time. Reagan was the last president that had a quota set. Got it. So your argument is not that H-1B is bad, like H-1B does allow filling the gaps of labor. It's just not allowing in nearly enough people. It hasn't been updated for 20 years. Right. Which, by the way, Vivek Ramaswamy says he wants to get rid of H-1B visas altogether,

which is a whole other story. You should go to like these smaller cities and see the story yourself. I'm not talking big metropolitans. I'm talking. So my friend was getting like getting paid three times in South Dakota just because there's not enough doctors there. Speaker 1 Right. Right.

Yeah. I have a friend who got an offer to go to like the middle of nowhere, Iowa, making like two or three times what he was making in New York. That's that's interesting. All right. Ali, thank you. I'm going to research this much more, but I appreciate you bringing it up. Speaker 4 Thank you.

Speaker 1 All right. There goes Ali from Seattle. And it is quite a situation there, that is for sure. Why don't we go next to Tom from New Jersey? Tom from New Jersey, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Hey, David, can you hear me? Yes, I can.

All right. Great. I was just wondering why the right wing has so many Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate men guru types. And the left doesn't really have that kind of thing. Speaker 1 Yeah. You know, this is something systemic to the left. If you do a general like an Internet search for why doesn't the left have as many of the

male gurus or whatever, much of what you will find written about it actually misses the mark. And it's about there are fewer leftists who want to be the male gurus. I believe the reason that you don't see as many of them on the left is because the leftists are less interested in having such male gurus. The you know, it it you know how you sometimes hear from Trump and others. Nobody's driving around with Trump flags. The voters aren't doing both. I'm sorry, with Biden flags, nobody's doing Biden boat parades.

How could he possibly have any support? You know how sometimes they will say this on the right. Right, right. And we say there's a reason for that. It's not because people don't support Biden. It's because we decide I'm going to vote for Biden over Trump. I don't need tchotchkes. I don't need gear. I don't need flags or bumper stickers. We don't see these individuals as sort of semi deities of sorts. And so I believe that it is because of the dynamics of the left being less interested in these people who hold all the answers.

I mean, much of what is implicit with these gurus is what Trump said himself. I alone can fix it. I'm the only person who knows how to deal with this stuff and to to to follow the gurus in the way that some people follow people like Jordan Peterson. You have to kind of suspend the the the obvious reality that no one person is an expert on everything or right on the time and whatever. So I think the left just isn't as interested in those figures. Makes sense. I have one other question. I was just wondering. I've been seeing a lot on Twitter, even under your replies, a lot of left wing people lashing out at people that are

pro Israel. And I know that you covered that yesterday. I just don't understand why. You don't understand why left wingers are lashing out at people that they see as being pro-Israel. Correct. Correct. Oh, it's been a sort of almost litmus test to some degree among a portion of the left for decades where unless you, you know, even when there is a Hamas terrorist attack, you still have to find some way to say Israel's ultimately responsible. Unless you do that, you fail the litmus test for some parts of the left, not all of it, but for some parts that's been around for decades.

OK, well, thank you for answering my questions. All right. Tom from New Jersey. Great to hear from you. And sadly, that will do it for calls today. I never get to everybody. I want to talk to more people, but I'm just out of time for today. So we will take calls again. We're going to take the quickest of quick breaks right now and then continue on the Friday show right after this. Many people know how hard it is to break bad habits and sometimes you have to replace a bad habit with a better habit. And that is exactly what our sponsor fume helps you do. Fume is not a vape. I don't advertise vape stuff. There's no nicotine. There's no electronics. Fume is a small cylindrical wooden device that just

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podcast notes. All right, let's get into Friday feedback. You can email info at David Pacman.com. You can comment on Facebook or Tik TOK or however you want. What you say may be featured in this segment. We start with a couple very aggressive messages just for context. Here's one just a single sentence in the sense that there's no punctuation reading. David, wake up, throw away your nappy. Stop sucking. You know, be a man. You're a joke. B, you want to be

remembered as the perfect fool, foolish news, fake all the way, grow some ball, stand up, fight against the demonic party. You represent bum bum. Also, it's the wrong you're under. You're a joke. It's the wrong you're. Listen, my approach with these now is I want to make two main points. Number one, actually three, three main points. And they apply to every single message like this. Number one, how sad and sorry is the life of a person who takes time out of their day to write stuff like this to someone they don't even know in real life. I've never written to anyone whose show, movie, podcast article. It just I'm just busy with my life. And if I wrote to them, it would be something constructive. I either have something to share about an experience related to something. The idea of it just just imagine what's going on in the lives of people who do this stuff.

So when you see them on the Internet, yes, protect yourselves from them. But also I would feel really bad. Number two, education in this country really is a problem. I mean, not a single element of punctuation in sight. And it's just all completely and totally a mess. And then lastly, these people vote or at least they are allowed to vote. And so if you ever wonder about the importance of voting, understand that for every one of us that says I'm not going to vote, one of these people gets their

choice unopposed if they choose to go out and vote. So keep that in mind. Elaine wrote in. Elaine said Trump will be president in 2024, regardless of what you say or in the tone you say it in. The people had gains with him as president. And with Biden, we have many losses. Pure and simple. It's the way it is. And former President Trump is a godly man. And with Biden, we have many losses, pure and simple. It's the way it is. And former President Trump is a godly man. And just by your appearance, I can see you are not a godly man and that you probably have a same sex relationship, which is totally against God. Your career will never prosper if you cross God. Well, my career is prospering just fine. Elaine, I wonder what you're up to. On the basis of this email, I'm concerned

and I can assure you that the reason that I don't have any same sex relationships has nothing to do with what God would think about it. It just so happens that I was born only attracted to homo sapiens females. That's what it is. But listen, at least Elaine's concerned about my crossing God. All right, let's get into some more substantive stuff here. Pierre says unemployment numbers are not true. That number is the number of people who collect unemployment benefits. So for any politician to say unemployment is low is a lie. Drive through the cities and see the rise in homelessness. So two totally different issues. Many homeless people work. Employment and homelessness and poverty are three different

things. They love to pull this when a Democrat is in the White House. When a Democrat is in the White House, people like Pierre come forward and they go, do you know how the unemployment rate is measured? If you stop looking for work because you're you're exhausted of looking for work, you no longer count as unemployed. Yeah, it was that way under Reagan and it was that way under Bush one. And this is every metric has its limits. But importantly, it's being measured the same way.

And so we can still use it. We can look at labor force participation rate, knowing its pros and cons and limitations. We can look at inflation. There is nothing they think they're being clever when they point out what the unemployment rate is. They're're being clever when they point out what the unemployment rate is. They're not being clever. Yoshido Mosito says, I came from Japan and lived in the United States for the past 40 years. I've witnessed 40 years. I've witnessed many changes in American society. By experiencing that, I had thought that I generally understood American

culture well, but that was until I ran into this Trump cult. It is by far the weirdest and I have no idea how to comprehend. Yeah, it it is beyond comprehension in many ways. There are ways in which this cult is so bizarre and incomprehensible that it generates part of the uncertainty as to how we defeat it. We know in general how you deprogram people from cult beliefs. How to do it at mass scale remains a question, but there is a genus say qua about this particular cult. I don't know that it's particularly evil.

I don't know that it's particularly made up of stupider people or any of that. Although ignorance is a role in Trump support, we know that there is something about this cult that exceeds explanation. And all we can do is continue trying to get ourselves out of it. Brandon wrote in and said it's the other way around. Democrats are tariffed that he is going to win. Trump will save this country. Trump 2024. He's with the Lord Jesus Christ vote. I don't know what this person is talking about. As usual, these are seemingly

Americans who learned English as a native language. I don't know what this is. It's the other way around. Democrats are tariffed that he is going to win. Trump will save this country. Yeah, I don't I don't know. It's really common that the messages are undecipherable. MG wrote in John Fetterman should have worn a tan suit. It's a real missed opportunity.

Yeah. The level of comedic subtlety and cleverness if so, some of you might remember Senator John Fetterman wore a hoodie and basketball shorts to the Senate. Subsequently, the Senate formalized its dress code. Fetterman should have shown up wearing one of those light tan suits that Obama wore and was widely criticized for. I do think that that would have been extraordinarily clever and exactly the type of comedy and satire that I love. Yusuf says after Jared Kushner left his White House position two days later,

he was given two billion dollars from the Saudi government. We need to get a special prosecutor to review the situation. Yeah, I don't know that it was two days later. It may be. I'm not sure. But it is true that Jared struck a beautiful deal, a beautiful deal with the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. Should it be investigated? I, you know, I really do support law and order and due process. I at least want it looked into. And if it seems that a special prosecutor is necessary to investigate the relationship between Kushner and the Saudis and what of that relationship germinated with Jared working for Trump while Trump was still president, I believe that that would be a worthwhile thing to look into and would be very, very much supportive of it. Mice Gaming asks, David, were you a college professor? Do you have any stories to share?

Yeah, I did teach one semester of college. It really wasn't for me. It turns out I have other things I prefer to do. The thing I was really shocked about was the number of people I caught plagiarizing and cheating in the class. I taught one semester and I think seven people or something in different ways were caught cheating or plagiarizing. And this was I had never done it before. I didn't even know what to look for. I wasn't expecting to deal with that. So that was the biggest shock. And beyond that, it was I mean, I liked teaching and the interaction with students, but I don't really have it. I think a story to share is there was absolutely no academic wokeness that in any way impacted what I was

able to teach. I taught whatever I wanted and sometimes students got grades they felt were too low and it was just like, well, that's the grade you earned. And there was no, you know, identity politics used to try to generate a higher grade or anything like that. But it was not for me, needless to say. T.D. Soldier says we need people in Congress who will defend democracy, not people who tried to overthrow democracy. It's so seemingly simple. You're there to defend the democratic system, and yet we have insurrectionists all over the place. It's like an explosion and

insurrectionists are just landing everywhere. It's not just disturbing. But it makes it so we have to be worried about the future of the country in more than just the normal ways one would worry about the future of a country. And the focus in the immediate needs to be prevent Trump from winning in 2024. And by the way, there are people who aren't even satisfied with 2024. Check out what Laura De Leon wrote to me, Trump 2024 and 2028 and 2032. Yes, this is called a pseudo dictatorship. This is called declaring yourself king rather than president. We're against this if we support democracy. If you're going, well, we're a constitutional republic. We are a republic which uses representative democracy to choose our leaders. OK, that's the you're not clever or enlightened because you can go. But we're but we're a constitutional republic. You're

not changing anything about the fact that Trump doesn't get to run seven times or he can't get be president seven times or however many they want him to be president. If he loses in 2024, by all means, he's welcome to run in 2028 or 2032 if his health allows him. Info at David Pakman dot com. If you have anything to say, become a member at join Pakman dot com.