The David Pakman Show - 10/19/23: Functional Biden actually does stuff, Jim Jordan loses AGAIN

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Jonathan Conyers, author of "I Wasn't Supposed to Be Here," entrepreneur, and neonatal pediatric specialist known by many as one of the best speech and debate coaches, joins David to discuss debating and influencing people. Get the book: https://amzn.to/46Ep6L8 -- After initial reports blamed Israel for the bombing of a hospital in Gaza, all evidence now points to Palestinians, and this further fuels the propaganda war -- President Joe Biden has a functional and successful trip to the Middle East, announces Palestinian aid, helps to secure passage of aid through Egypt, and generally behaves like a normal person -- Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, despite being endorsed by Donald Trump, loses yet another vote for Speaker of the House -- Republican Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks says she received death threats after voting against Jim Jordan for Speaker of the House -- Failed former President Donald Trump explodes, wildly attacking Judge Engoron outside of the New York courthouse -- Right-winger Harlan Crow, known for his generous gifts to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has made the maximum legal donation to Cornel West's presidential campaign -- Absolutely outrageous MAA Trumpist leaves a voicemail for David -- On the Bonus Show: Poll finds support for exploring alternatives to democracy, AI reads text from ancient scroll for the first time, Lauren Boebert loses donors to Republican primary challenger, much more... 🔊 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription at https://babbel.com/pakman 🍷 Naked Wines: Use code PAKMAN to get 6 bottles for $39.99 at https://nakedwines.com/pakman 🛡️ MonoDefense keeps you safe online! Get 30% off at https://monodefense.com/pakman 👩‍❤️‍👨 Try the Paired App FREE for 7 days and get 25% OFF at https://paired.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni: The first 100 people to use code PAKMAN will get 60% off at http://incogni.com/pakman 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.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

Well, it's a tragedy that this is where we are today. But this is exactly the reason why I urged caution yesterday and said we should wait before we say anything even remotely definitive about the bombing of a Gaza hospital that took place on Monday. We now are at a point where the best assessment based on all of the video, photographic and OSINT intelligence that we have is that Israel had nothing to do with the hospital bombing that took place in Gaza. And it was the result of apparently an errant rocket that was part of a barrage of rockets being fired from Gaza into Israel. Now, I'm going to go through

this piece by piece. Maybe do me the favor and do yourself the favor of waiting until I'm done before commenting on YouTube or writing an email. But this is exactly what I mean when I say that the propaganda war is an additional layer on the actual war that is taking place here. There are tons of people desperate to blame one side or the other, to be first, to be titillating, just posting crazy things for which they have no evidence. Streamers who know nothing more than I know about ordinance or explosions making breathless claims about this was definitely one thing or the other. Well, we have the analysis, we have the video, we have the pictures and we have the opinions

of intelligence experts saying this wasn't Israel. We have Hamas saying it was Israel with no evidence to support that. That's where we are right now. Initially, as I told you, reports were Israel deliberately bombed a Gaza hospital, 500 dead, 700 dead, 900 dead. And then suddenly Israel denies it. OK, well, alone, that's not much. Israel has initially denied things that they ultimately acknowledged in the past. That's not proof of anything.

Then there are reports. But look, Israel did admit it and then deleted the tweet, except it wasn't actually anyone with knowledge or involved with the administration. It wasn't actually a valuable admission of any kind. Suddenly there's an audio recording, but the audio recording is fake. There's doubt. Well, we now have a much bigger picture. We have video that, according to experts on the matter, show rockets

clearly coming from Gaza to the hospital in Gaza. The video is from the Israeli side, from the other side of the fence. And you see the origin and the destination of the rockets. And it's all on the Gaza side. Joe Biden said during his visit yesterday to the Middle East that it all points to Israel had nothing to do with the deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. And based on what I've seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But there's a lot of people out there. I. We also have White House National Security Council spokesperson putting out a statement saying, quote, While we continue to collect information, our current assessment based on analysis of overhead imagery intercepts and open source information is that Israel

is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. Now, you could say, well, I don't trust Israel and I don't trust the United States. I don't trust anyone. All right, well, let's continue, because it's absolutely reasonable to be skeptical until we have information. By the way, it makes perfect sense to be skeptical until we have more information. Big picture. None of us can personally verify the evidence. None of us is going to Gaza to look at the evidence. So we depend on others. And when we depend on others, ideally we will depend on the most authoritative sources that we can find. Right now, we have Democratic countries

who if they make a mistake or lie, are subject to negative consequences saying this wasn't Israel. They've released information, radar, audio, video, internal assessments agree. This was not Israel. On the other hand, you have a terrorist authoritarian group with no checks and balances and no consequences for lying, saying it was Israel. And if you don't believe that there's no consequences to lying, there are still members of Congress who on Monday tweeted Israel killed 500 people at a Gaza hospital. Now that it's abundantly clear that it wasn't Israel, they have not deleted their tweets.

Some of them have even doubled down. We'll get to that. Now, we always want to leave some caution. More information could hypothetically come out that completely changes our assessment. But right now, the reality is there's no evidence pointing to Israel. Now, some will write in, I know, and we'll say, but David, there is not a Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that could kill 500 or 700 or 900 people. So it couldn't have been one of those dinky rockets from P.I.J. or Hamas. Well, those numbers are very clearly false at this point in time. We have pictures of the damage and it's quite small. You don't have to believe me or trust me. In fact, I encourage you not to.

Many of you have written to me and said, David, you know, the guy who can be trusted on this, it's Mehdi Hassan. Mehdi is good on this issue. Well, let's do that. Mehdi posted to Twitter quoting Mark Garlasco, a military adviser who wrote, quote, Whatever hit the hospital in Gaza, it wasn't an airstrike. Even the smallest jay dam leaves a three meter crater. Widespread surface damage and a total lack of cratering is inconsistent with an airstrike. And many endorses this and says Mark has worked for the Pentagon, for the U.N., for Human Rights Watch and knows his stuff on war crimes and airstrikes in all of the fog of war and the fog of Twitter. He's a credible and serious voice worth paying attention to. At least I do. So if

you find many more trustworthy than I am on this, just look at what many says. Many also tweeting a report about the completely incorrect claims of 500 dead, 900 dead, quoting BBC quote. Based on available evidence, it appears the explosion happened in a courtyard, which is part of the hospital site. Images after the blast do not show significant damage to surrounding hospital buildings. So the reason for the confusion, how could there be 500 dead if this was a Hamas rocket or a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket? It's because there appear to be no 500 dead, not even close, nowhere close. Now, what's the takeaway here? The takeaway is not Israel is completely blameless in this entire fiasco or any of it. The takeaway is the destructive impact of this propaganda war,

the consequences where the cat is out of the bag and you have everyone from members of Congress to the entire Arab world still blaming Israel for something that pretty clearly Israel did not do. People are protesting at the U.S. embassy in Lebanon because Israel struck the hospital, except Israel didn't strike the hospital. We have pictures not consistent with the story. The small amount of damage the hospital not even directly hit. None of it is consistent with the type of attack that on Monday, half of the Internet was attributing to Israel. And the most the most insane thing about all of this is everyone's reaction would be thank whoever. Thank God. Thank the light. Thank the universe. Thank Allah. Thank Jesus. Five people, 700 people, 900 people didn't really die.

That should be everyone's reaction to this. But instead, the reaction is shifting the goalposts. Well, the fact that we believed it could have been Israel means they're still just as bad, even though maybe they didn't do it. Guys, please, please. American members of Congress like Rashida Tlaib tweeted Monday, Israel just bombed the hospital, killing 500 Palestinians just like that. And she was wrong and she hasn't deleted it. And when a reporter tried asking her about it, she walked away. And then an event yesterday, she just repeated the claim, which we now know to be

almost certainly false. People are still attacking me on Twitter for having waited. And and now I believe that it indeed was not Israel. And people are furious that I had the audacity to wait rather than to breathlessly go out there and say X, Y or Z. You can still hate Israel or whatever, but say, hey, I got this one wrong. That would be a far more respectable thing to do. And it's a really sad state of affairs. Now, thankfully, most of my actual audience appreciates the fact that I waited and that yesterday I said, hey, right now we just

don't know. And today I can come to you and say now we do know. One other note, there is a disturbing overlap happening between anti-Israeli left wing accounts and anti-Semitic far right accounts. It's really disturbing to witness. There are far right accounts that are just overtly anti-Semitic. They just hate Jews. They are using this moment and this layer of propaganda to rebrand themselves almost as if they are pro-Palestinian. Of course, they're not, but it's helping them. OK, and there are it's like a Venn diagram and there's an overlap in the middle between the anti-Semitic right and the anti-Israeli left. That is really

disturbing. And I think most of my audience is not falling into that. So this is the propaganda war we've been talking about. We now have an incredible amount of information about this. And my belief is that the vast majority of my audience appreciates waiting to get it right rather than being first and wrong. Let me know if you would have rather me be first and wrong. OK, we could not be a greater illustration of this. Let me explain. On the Republican right, you currently have the likely presidential nominee, Donald Trump, embroiled in four criminal trials, at least one. I think it's maybe two civil trials. He's been found to be a civilly liable rapist. He's regularly attacking court personnel after being

gagged by multiple judges, a Republican House that should have a speaker of the House, but they don't and they can't seem to find one rebellion within the ranks. It's chaos. And on the Democratic side, we have a trip to the Middle East by Joe Biden that carried with it significant risk, both security risk and geopolitical risk, and has been an incredible success because this is really Joe Biden's top area, international diplomacy and foreign relations. Joe Biden went to the Middle East yesterday, has now announced one hundred million dollars in humanitarian aid to Gaza and the West Bank with the warning from Biden that Hamas damn well better not interfere with the delivery of the aid.

Joe Biden has also been able to participate in securing that Israel allow the delivery of the aid. Joe Biden has also been able to participate in securing that Israel allow the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza through Egypt after applying pressure to Israel. Another success for Joe Biden that we would not be seeing under someone like Donald Trump or whoever else. And then like it or not, this is this is absolutely this is really Biden doing what he does best. Joe Biden is now structuring an aid deal to request one hundred billion dollars that will go towards Israel, Ukraine and work on the southern border, which Republicans claim is an absolute top issue. Now, you can say, I don't think these three things are worthy.

I don't want any money going to what's going on in Israel or Ukraine or the border. You can say that you can say, I don't like the strategy of bundling things together. Let's have an up and down vote on everything. I would agree with you. It's not the way politics works right now. Knowing how politics does work in the United States and how Republicans operate. This is Joe Biden realizing this is how I get everything done on this funding issue that I want to get done.

Republicans resisting funding for Ukraine. Republicans wanting funding for U.S. border security and Republicans mostly wanting money for Israel, but not necessarily for Gaza. But here's a package that will do something for everybody. And Joe Biden saying, let's do it all. This is 48 hours of some of the most functional and productive presidenting that we have seen in years. And meanwhile, you've got George Santos still as a member of Congress with 30 indictments against him, a former wrestling coach who allegedly worked to not deal with serial sexual assault while he was a wrestling coach, Jim Jordan, endorsed by Trump, but losing multiple votes. It is disarray in the Republican Party. And look at the accomplishment after accomplishment that in 24 to 48 hours, hours Joe Biden has achieved. There's very little else to say. And, you know, I it would be nice if voters actually responded to what is taking place in the real world and observed this

incredible and stunning contrast and voted on that basis. Instead, it's all, you know, contrived cultural issues and failed talking points and grievance politics. But just a stunning 24 to 48 hours. Am I interpreting this the wrong way? Let me know. I'm glad to hear it. As many of you have heard me say before, when I go to a wine shop, I have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm Argentinian and I still know almost nothing about wine. So if you're like me, you might be able to use some help. Our sponsor, Naked Wines, has you covered. Naked Wines is a subscription service that will connect you to the finest independent winemakers on the planet. You pay a fraction of the price you'd normally pay in stores because they cut out the retail the David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. bottle you have friends over. You can seem like you know something by telling them something about

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the House. We are now beyond two weeks without a Speaker of the House and the Trump endorsed Jim Jordan, an extremist by any stretch of the imagination, has lost by even more in the second speaker vote, once again calling into question the power of the Trump endorsement, raising questions about how long this is going to go on. Are Republicans going to be able to do anything to get themselves a speaker of the House? So let's go over the numbers. ABC News reporting Jim Jordan loses more votes in the second round of voting for House Speaker. More Republicans voiced opposition to Jordan.

The Messenger reporting Jim Jordan rejected his House speaker for the second time in 24 hours. Jordan is hemorrhaging support, raising questions about whether he can remain in the speaker's race. Now, as of this moment, when we are recording today, the timing of these votes is not ideal for the timing of our show. I can't really control that. I would love to make a phone call and say, sirs, please hold the votes at a time more convenient to our show schedule. I can't do that. Once again, by the time this segment comes out, there may have already been another vote. We may already know is Jim Jordan even still in the running or is this it? But as far as the reporting we have

from this morning, Jim Jordan failed to be elected speaker Wednesday for the second straight day, losing votes from Republicans who supported him the day before. It appears exceedingly unlikely he can get the 217 votes he needs to be speaker. Jordan vowed to keep fighting, told reporters he plans to keep talking to holdouts and working on upping the vote count. We don't know when we're going to have the next vote, but we want to continue our conversations with our colleagues. Jordan got one hundred and ninety nine votes on the floor.

Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat, got two hundred and twelve votes. Another twenty two Republicans voted for other candidates not nominated by either party. It has now been more than two weeks without a speaker, and some Jordan opponents have already called for Republicans to consider a new candidate. There are Republicans saying Jordan's done. He failed the first vote. He failed the second vote by an even greater margin. And that's it. It's just it's over. There's no more for Jordan. Jordan claims he's going to keep fighting. These sorts of statements from politicians in the middle of these circumstances typically mean very little. But there are a couple of major, major themes here that I think are important to address.

Number one, this builds on the earlier segment and the contrast between what is happening on the Democratic side and on the Republican side. On the Democratic side, Joe Biden just completed an extraordinarily successful short trip to the Middle East, securing funding for Palestinians, securing the passage of aid through Egypt into Gaza, working on a package that will include funding to Ukraine, Israel and for the border, really making Republicans put their money where their mouths are, even if sometimes it's hard to know exactly where it is that their mouths are. Sometimes they could be confused for other orifices based on what's coming out on the

Democratic side in the House. You have Democrats united behind an excellent, qualified, superb choice for Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, who has been a guest on this program. Brilliant guy has his what would we say his head screwed on straight, which is a major contrast to the Republican Party. And then on the Republican side, you have, as I mentioned, Trump, their presumptive Republican presidential nominee facing four criminal trials, making a fool out of himself daily, getting gagged by judges on and on Republicans who, although they have a majority in the House, removed their own speaker due to disunity in the House, are unable to coalesce behind a new speaker

and are accomplishing nothing and are doing nothing for the American people. The contrast couldn't be more clear. And that's story number one. Story number two is, again, as I mentioned, as we've been following these votes earlier in the week, the diminished importance and strength of a Trump endorsement, Trump very strongly endorsing Jim Jordan on Monday and Jim Jordan immediately losing the vote for speaker on Tuesday. Trump maintaining his strong endorsement, as well as other Trump ists like Marjorie Trader Green and others on Tuesday and Jim Jordan losing that vote by an even greater margin on Wednesday. And so we also recognize the diminished power of the Trump endorsement at odds with the way that Republican voters are planning to vote in the primary based on the polls

overwhelmingly still supporting Donald Trump. And then number three, just another reminder that these Republicans really don't care about governing and governing in a way that is useful and productive for the American people. I've been I know this keeps coming up, but I'm really in the thick, the thick and the wide and the long of the research for my forthcoming book. And one of the areas that I explore in the book is the path not only starting with the civil rights era through Trump ism for how politics broke, but the abandonment of policy by the Republican Party in favor of contrived social issues, fear mongering, grievance politics, etc.

And we are seeing it come to a head. I continue to go back to chapters I thought I was done with to flesh out the nature of this insanity based on what is almost in real time happening. And so we'll have a lot more to say about that. Will there be a speaker by the end of today, by the end of the week, by the end of next week? I don't really know. But one of the things that is becoming very clear is that the people that want Jim Jordan

to be speaker, they claim to be about law and order. It doesn't seem like they actually are. Let me explain. A Republican lawmaker is now speaking out and saying that she received death threats after voting against Jim Jordan for speaker of the House. This is a report from NBC News. Republican lawmaker says she received death threats after voting against Jim Jordan in the speaker's race. Congresswoman Marionette Miller Meeks of Iowa voted for Jim Jordan on Tuesday, but threw her support behind another

Republican on Wednesday. She says she has received death threats and threatening phone calls after that vote. She revealed the death threats in a statement hours after Jordan failed to get votes to win in round two. Quote Since my vote, I have received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls. The proper authorities have been notified and my office is cooperating fully. She said this in a statement posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. One thing I cannot stomach, she wrote, or support is a bully. Someone who threatens another with bodily harm or tries to suppress differing opinions undermines opportunity for unity and regard for freedom of speech.

Jordan tweeted, no American should accost another for their beliefs. We condemn all threats against colleagues. It's imperative we come together. Stop. It's abhorrent. It's the party of law and order, right? Desperation for power, a propensity to resort to violence. Absolutely no regard whatsoever for our Democratic institutions.

It's everything we saw on January 6th personified and surrounding this vote for speaker. And we are seeing what some of these folks are willing to do for power. Now, I'm not saying Jim Jordan orchestrated the death threats. I have no evidence of that. It's not even what I'm implying. What I am saying is that these threats are clearly coming from the MAGA wing of the party. That's the wing that wants Jim Jordan. It's the wing that opposed Kevin McCarthy and wanted him to post. And they are, as usual, claiming one thing and saying one thing and doing another. Now, following their words and following their actions gives you two very different understandings of what's going on. The real tragedy here, though, forget about the death threats against Marionette Miller Meeks. There are around 200 Republican members of

Congress who think Jim Jordan would be a good speaker of the House, good enough that he deserves their vote. That is chilling. Jordan should be under investigation to figure out what did he know and when did he know it and why didn't he act when he was athletic director or whatever at Ohio State? And there was an official there in the program, Dr. Strauss, committing a serial sexual assault of wrestlers. And Jim Jordan, by all accounts, knew about it and did nothing about it. The guy who allegedly knew kids were being sexually abused and did nothing and did not

report it. He should be under investigation. He in my mind should be more likely to be thrown out of the House of Representatives than to be made speaker. And there are not only millions of voters who like the idea of Jim Jordan as speaker, but there are 200 as of yesterday, 199 Republican members of Congress who say this guy is good enough to be speaker of the House. That's the really scary thing.

Obviously, the death threats are deplorable, but the 199 votes in favor of this guy for Speaker should really freak us out. Sometimes it can be tough to maintain an emotional connection with your significant other. You might work in different places at different times. There might be a kid in the way. It can be hard to find time for date nights, especially because kids demand so much attention, which is why I love our sponsor paired, which is the app for couples. The app will prompt you with a daily question or a game or a guided conversation, all designed by leading psychologists. And the point is to just have a deeper connection with your partner, boost intimacy, build a deeper knowledge of one another. My girlfriend and I will use the prompts on paired throughout the day to stay connected. For instance, we answered a prompt about what we remember most

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His new book is I wasn't supposed to be here finding my voice, finding my people, finding my way. Jonathan, so good having you on. I really appreciate your time. Thank you, David. It's an honor to be here and I'm excited to chat with you. So, you know, we talk about debating a lot on my program because it's a political program and sometimes I engage in debates. Sometimes I opt out of engaging in debates. One of the things that I think is frustrating to many is that when we're debating serious policy issues where ideally the goal is to figure out, like, what's the best policy to help the most number of people that we can?

The winner of a debate is not necessarily the person who has the best or the right ideas backed by science or evidence or empiricism. It's whoever is most articulate or is has the best tone or has the gotchas or whatever the case may be. Do you agree that this is often the case? And if so, do we basically just need to accept that and try to be the people that are the most articulate and bringing the best arguments because that's the name of the game? No, I don't agree with that. And honestly, I think, unfortunately, you're right. That does happen. But in our world, where we do real debate and we teach kids all throughout the United States how to speak and how to fact check and how to control your emotions and how to talk about things and policies

that really can change our world and our viewpoint, we base it on facts and evidence. So now there's a difference between something called speech and debate. So when we train kids, we do something called speech and debate. Now, speech is about tone. How do you articulate yourself? How do you take up space in a room? How can you deliver something that's so powerful that can sway people's opinion, regardless if you're using 100% facts or you're doing something that, how can I say it, like that may not have the most evidence or fact base or you can prove how does it affect people in the real world. So speech and debate is two separate things. And unfortunately, we have so many people that you watch people in power, politicians, lawyers, that don't really know how to debate,

and it's so unfortunate, and they come up and they insult. They scream a word louder and make it like it has more emphasis or more impact, even when it's not sticking to the points, even when we're not showing why these policies matter or how it affects our world and how does it make the world a better place. So it's unfortunate that a lot of people in power and a lot of people in these positions, when you watch the presidential debates, actually debate, but they're not really debating. And it's literally based on status, who has the most followers, who is attacking the person character the most. And we have really lost the art of debate and why it's so important. And that's why a lot of the work I do is how we change that and how we take back that narrative

of what debate really is. Public speaking is often listed as one of the greater fears of people when it comes to things that cause anxiety, nervousness, stress, etc. How much do you think that being good slash comfortable speaking in public, whether it's in a debate setting or not? How much of it is something that is just sort of a fundamental personality trait versus something that can be taught and learned? I think it can 100 percent be taught and learned. Me personally, I think debate is probably the most important activity that you could teach any human being

from social, social, emotional learning. How do you get up and talk about what matters to you and what's important? I had the honor of being on Malcolm Gladwell's podcast, Revisionist History, and he said, Jonathan, take me to debate school. And he came to my program, he watched me with my students, and he said, Jonathan, this is like finding a new voice. I can see your kids and your scholars finding a new voice, being able to stand up for what's right. And a lot of people say, oh, you're a great debate coach. And I say, you don't have to know much about debate. It's how do you create environments? How do you create systems where kids feel comfortable and adults feel comfortable saying what they mean, saying what they feel and saying what's on their mind without all the chaos around them of who's going to feel this way. Am I going to get canceled? And how do we have real

dialogue and understand as a necessity to listen to all different viewpoints to make the world a better place or to find understanding and topics that need to be talked about? So I think it's a learned trait. I think it comes with a lot. It's not easy to do. It's very hard. But once you do it enough, once you really understand the art of debate and once you understand that your voice have power and that your voice can change people and shape the world and shape policy, then it's off to the races for there, at least for a lot of my students and a lot of experience I've had in this in this industry. I want to talk a

little more tactically about some specific questions from the audience, things that have come up over the last year or two and kind of get your thoughts on them. One of them is something that Sam Harris talked about on his podcast. There was a period of maybe six, eight, 10 months ago where Sam Harris was getting a lot of pressure to confront or debate people who had different views about vaccines. For example, a guy named Brett Weinstein. And one of the reasons that Sam Harris expressed for why he was not going to do it, at least at that time, was that no matter how prepared he was, no matter whether the big picture of the facts was on his side, that someone like Brett Weinstein or whoever

can show up and do what Sam called setting a series of small fires by bringing up. Didn't you see this study? Didn't you see that study? And even if Sam has the totality of the evidence on his side, if he's not familiar with every single little thing that is brought up, if he doesn't have a retort that he could be unprepared to respond or end up looking like he was on the losing side of that debate and that that's not something that he thinks is productive. Is there a technique or a series of techniques for when the person you're speaking to does bring up sets these small fires, as Sam Harris calls them? Well, hopefully I answered this correctly. So one of the things that we do, so there's many different forms of debate, right? And one of them

is called Lincoln-Dulles, which I did in high school, which a lot of my students do. And what we do in Lincoln-Dulles is that kids don't decide whether they want to affirm a topic or they want to negate a topic. They have to prepare for both sides. And a lot of time, my kids who mostly come from Title I schools or under the poverty line have to go into some of the top schools and top private schools within New York City and debate against kids who come from a different world, who may not understand their circumstances, who may not understand what it's like to not have a meal at night or not even have the textbooks or have to walk through a metal detector in high school every day. And we teach our kids and a lot of people that learn speech and debate the importance

of knowing your audience, the importance of trying to dissect what is in the room and trying to dissect how I can appeal to this group of people and what would my opponent be saying and what would my opponent be doing. Now, I don't know if that's like a secure tactic. I don't know if that's like a secure way of saying that you can get rid of these small fires, which happens a lot. And it happens in uncontrolled settings. It happens when there's no really good moderator. This happens where there's judges who don't have bias. I was teaching a class yesterday and I was talking to my students and I asked them something that was very important. I said, do you believe that every judge that walked into the room just can basically just say, hey, I'm not going to be biased no more. I'm going to take all the things I've learned throughout my life. I'm going to take

all my experiences and throw them out the window. That's impossible. So we understand that judges naturally have bias, but in our settings at least, it's controlled. And we have guidelines because we understand what debate is like, and we understand why giving everybody a voice or a platform matters. Now, unfortunately, in the adult world, or when we're on these platforms and we're talking to experts, it's not really moderated. It's not in a controlled setting where everybody's going to be able to be fact-check checked, when everybody's going to be able to sit down and say, what do we do? I think it's hard to overcome. I don't think there's like a concrete tactic to how to defend that because it just happens naturally. I think the thing is, how do you control your emotions? How do you not let that sway you from what you know is true? And you cannot control an ignorant crowd. You cannot

control people that are not willing to fact check and really dive in and do the research. It's one of the most unfortunate things that sometimes we just have to deal with and we have to overcome it internally and pray that the people that we are giving this information to will go above and beyond to do their own research and their own homework on things that matter and what the topic in hand is being discussed on. So it sounds like to a degree you're saying, number one, Sam Harris is concerned in such an unmoderated format is a legitimate concern. Number two, you prepare as best you can to try to anticipate all of those small fires that will be set, although you might not succeed at anticipating every single one of them. And number three, and maybe this is now me adding

my thought onto this. You you try to take the approach of speaking maturely to the audience where you say, listen, regardless of whether I've heard about every single one of the things that you're talking about, the big picture here isn't changed. Here are the broader truths. And the audience should and can investigate further for themselves. It sort of seems like that might be the totality of the approach. That's maybe the best you can do in that scenario. Yeah. And that term is called waiting. So we have an impact. Right. So when we teach kids about debate, right, there's an impact, right? So you look at something called scope. How many people does this affect?

Severity. How severe is this is? Probability. What is the chance of this happening? And when you look at these things and you look at impacts, you have to weight the impacts. So, for instance, in the example you're given, if somebody said X, as a good debater, you're going to say, I understand X. That's fine. But look at it from this viewpoint

that I have. And you constantly weight those impacts. And whoever has a bigger scope is going to affect more people. Whoever has more severity is going to affect more people. Then technically, they win that debate. So it's less about, you cannot predict. It's impossible. When we teach kids debate, I try to tell them, do not worry about every single article, every single argument that your opponent may come with, because it's just not, it's impossible. You cannot sit there and think about everything they're going to say. However, you have to be very content in your arguments. You have to be very content in your impacts and your research, and that you hope that you do in your due diligence, that your impacts will outweigh their little articles or what they're saying or what their beliefs is to why their point matters more than yours. So you're 100 percent right with your third point, and we call that in debate impacts.

And then as a judge or as a moderator, we try to figure out the person who wins is the one who can weight their impacts above their opponent. So if you're really rooted in what you're doing, if you're rooted in your facts and your statistics, then you should feel comfortable with that debate regardless of what your opponent is doing. And now public perception is public perception, right? That's all dependent on the audience. Who's willing to do extra research? Who's willing to believe things? Sometimes you can say whatever you want to say. You can do whatever you want to do. People are going to have their bias. They're going to believe what they want. And I don't think that should ever deter you from speaking truth to power and having a voice and caring about what matters to you in this world. You talked about controlling emotions, especially in some of the places where I operate

and I observe a lot of these discussions either on corporate media or on YouTube channels or in person discussions or whatever it may be. It seems that this is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do, especially when you're not just assigned a position to defend, but you're actually defending something that is part of what you believe, part of your personality, part of how you operate in the world. It's very personal. It's inherently emotional. What are some of the ways that people can control their emotions when they're engaging in these conversations? Yeah. So it is very, very, very hard. Right. It is very hard. I've had students debate about should immigrants be allowed into this country the week their parents have been deported. I have had students debate about juvenile reform and should juveniles be tried as adults the same

week their brother has been locked up and tried as an adult, as a minor. So I always tell adults, if my students can do it, you can do it. Now, how do I do that? It's not black and white. It is not simple. A lot of it is putting them in places where they're going to explode. A lot of times it's me pushing their buttons and allowing them to process their emotion and proving to them that you're never going to win that way. You're never going to be heard that way. There's a difference between arguing and debating. And a lot of times when students really understand the value, the value, yes, when students understand the value of their voice, when students understand that what they're talking about matters, when students feel content and confident in the subject matter, it's very, very easy for them to control their voice in that manner because now they know, hey, this is bigger than me. I am prepared. I'm excited. This is a safe space. And once you start to build that confidence in them, once you start to teach them that their voice matters, once you start to combine that social-emotional learning, then you learn how do I speak truth to power and how do I take over this room and control my emotions and also you have to teach them that you can't control you can't control other people's actions so many times we get hung up on what this person may say or their characteristics or how

ignorant they are that you let it make you become ignorant and it gets you off your a-game so all the ideas of look how hard we prepping look at the changes we're trying to make. Look at the rooms we're in, you know, and once you start to build that characteristics, once you start to put that and instill that discipline into this, into my scholars, that's what usually helps us. And unfortunately, you know, sometimes when you're trying to work with adults, sometimes we're stuck in our ways. Sometimes we have our belief systems already. So it's much harder doing it with adults. But you pray that the people in power, you pray that our politicians and people who are having these deep conversations that's going to shape our viewpoints and the way the world looks care enough and is educated enough to have these conversations in a concrete manner and to put their emotions aside, even though unfortunately, as you know, David, that usually doesn't happen. Right. Right.

In addition to the controlling emotions tactic that sometimes doesn't happen, what are some of the other common mistakes that people make when engaging in these debates? Assuming they're an expert, not paying attention to their audience, assuming that their title is going to allow their words to be held at a higher standard, not looking at the viewpoint of what your opponent may say. No matter what I believe, I always try to put myself before a debate, before a public speak, I put myself in the opposition's viewpoint. I write a speech if I was going to go against myself and allowing to understand all these different viewpoints and how the opposition may think makes me better at defense, makes me

better at jumping things before it becomes big or like the little fires becoming a big fire. So always trying to stay ahead of what's out there, educating yourself and, you know, just staying rooted and grounded in your beliefs and being able to dib and dab in any type of conversation, whether it's against what you're saying or whether it's extremely for what you're saying. We've been speaking with Jonathan Conyers. Jonathan, I so appreciate your time and your insights and keep up the great work that you're doing. Yes, David, thank you so much. And for anybody who's interested in continue to follow my journey or just love to chat with me, you can

follow me on my socials, Instagram, Twitter at I am John Conyers. I am J-O-N-C-O-N-Y-E-R-S. And if you want to learn more about me, my debut memoir, I wasn't supposed to be here is out pretty much anywhere books is sold. David, thank you so much. And I appreciate you allowing me on your platform. My pleasure. If you're familiar with me and my show, you know that I don't promote crazy supplements, drinkable silver, wacky stuff that right wing shows do.

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to go play golf instead, reminding us he doesn't actually have to be there and is choosing to be there. These videos truly have to be seen to be believed. Here is Donald Trump after regularly attacking Judge Tanya Chutkin over the last few days, attacking here Judge Angeron, who's presiding over his civil fraud trial. Trump insisting that it's rigged, that the judge is hostile and on and on and on. These videos, my prediction is and I'm very careful about predictions one way or the other. These videos are going to be looked back at as very bad ideas for Donald Trump. Take a look at this. We have no rights whatsoever.

Any company coming to New York would be crazy because it's a setup. It's a rigged trial. We have a hostile group of people. We have a very hostile judge. I hate to say it. We have a very, very hostile judge. And I think everybody knows that. And we see that.

But the good thing is we have all of the evidence on our side. They have nothing. And it's a case that should have never been brought. I just read many, many articles saying this case is a disgrace to our nation. Now you know, Trump is lying because he said, I just read many, many articles. We know Trump doesn't read. He's not read a book. I don't think he's written any books either.

Obviously, other writers did it for him, but he's not read a book that we're aware of in his entire adult life. So when Trump says, I know this is true because I read many, many articles, you have to assume that that's a lie. Maybe most importantly here with regards to this trial, it's really important to understand that there's already been a decision against Trump. Trump is acting like the facts are in question here. And with at least some of these counts, they are not. There's already been a decision made by the judge, a decision that Trump disagrees with

the other. The whole victimhood narrative is really wild. This is one of the most powerful people in the world. I mean, a former president of the United States. It's such a small group of people. The presidency of the United States has so much power globally. And Trump wants you to believe that he's the poor little victim. He's a victim of the press. He's a victim of prosecutors. He's a victim of the state of Georgia. The Department of Justice Joe Biden is targeting him. The judge, Judge Tanya Chutkin, Judge Anger on the prosecutor, Jack Smith, Letitia James.

Everybody is just beating on Trump and he's just the poor old victim, despite being one of the most powerful. You know, they talk about elites. It's hard to be more elite than a billionaire former president of the United States. Trump continuing, continuing ranting and raving about how I guess at this point, you know, the value of Mar-a-Lago has continued to climb as this trial. The longer the trial goes, the more Mar-a-Lago is worth. I guess now it's worth $11 billion or something like that.

Probably what they have a disclaimer in their meeting. You can look at it a lot of different ways, but it means go out and get your own analysis, do your own analysis. And everybody that's seen it, they said they've never seen a clause like that. Go out and do due diligence to the banks. The banks came in, as you know, Deutsche Bank came in. He was their witness and he was a great witness for us. They said they were very happy. The loan was paid off. There were no defaults. There were no deficiencies.

There was absolutely nothing. And I will tell you, what they've done here, the Attorney General sitting inside, spending her whole day here, day after day after day, when people are being murdered all over the streets, the sidewalks of New York, violent crime, and no business is going to move into New York. They used a statute on me that's never been used, not once, has never been used for anything

like this. And they used it to be where I don't get a jury. I don't get anything. We have no rights whatsoever. Any company coming to New York would be crazy. Now, if you're wondering why he's repeating these things over and over and over again, I don't actually have an answer for you. Also really, really funny.

Trump insists that he's being forced to be there and they want to keep him there and all all this stuff. He doesn't have to be there. He's he's there voluntarily. And he proves this when he's asked whether he's going to be in court today. And he's like, no, no, no. We have a golf tournament tomorrow. But this is what we go through because they want to keep me here. Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and lots of other great places.

They want me to be here. And you have probably not. Probably we're having a very big tournament, professional golf tournament after. So probably isn't that insane? I probably will have a very big tournament, professional golf tournament after. Isn't that insane? They won't let me leave. They're keeping me here. I could be campaigning.

I could be in New Hampshire, Iowa. Will you be here tomorrow? No, no, no. We've got a big golf tournament going on. So tomorrow I'm not going to be here. Oh, I thought they were making you be here, sir. Insane stuff. And at a certain point, is this going to go over the line and be a violation of Trump's

conditions of bail? Is this going to be a violation of the gag order? Will there be any consequences at any point in time? I genuinely have no idea. A hardcore right winger. Has made the maximum legal donation. To Cornel West. That's right to the left wing candidate for president, Cornel West. We're going to really have to talk about some things here.

My friends, NBC News reports Cornel West draws maximum donation from Republican mega donor Harlan Crow. Cornel West is challenging Joe Biden from the left running as an independent now after dropping a Green Party bid. Harlan Crow made the thirty three hundred dollar donation in August, weeks before West abandoned the Green Party nomination to run independent. Crow has called West a self-proclaimed non-Marxist socialist and longtime professor at Princeton, a good friend. West has defended his campaign from questions about whether it would draw support from Joe Biden, calling the two party system an impediment for the flower of American democracy. It's really important to understand why a right winger would donate to Cornel West.

I know most of you know the answer. I know you do. And it's because Cornel West genuinely could hurt Joe Biden. Initially, there was this idea that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to hurt Joe Biden. Then we figured out it's a lot of right wingers who like RFK. And now that RFK Jr. has abandoned his primary challenge of Joe Biden and is running independent, there is disastrous new polling out from Marist PBS NewsHour that shows that actually the addition of RFK as a third party candidate takes significantly more support from Donald

Trump than it does from Joe Biden and probably gains for Joe Biden somewhere around three or four points when you add RFK Jr. That's fantastic news. I would love the entire RFK Jr. thing to backfire and to help Joe Biden. But let's now talk about Cornel West. Cornel West probably is more likely to take support from Joe Biden than from anybody else. And so when you see Harlan Crow, and if the name sounds familiar, Harlan Crow is the guy who gave Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas vacations, the trips, the yacht stays, the private flights, all of that stuff. The reason that a right winger would fund Cornel West other than it's his friend, is that it is going to hurt Joe Biden, which if I were a right winger, I would be trying to find ways to prevent Joe Biden from getting

reelected. There is no way at this point in time that Cornel West doesn't recognize that he is potentially a spoiler candidate. Now, you can make whatever argument you want about our system or about Cornel West or Joe Biden isn't entitled to be president or to the nomination. That's absolutely and completely fine. As long as you at some point come around to the undeniable reality that Cornel West knows he can't win, that Cornel West knows that the greatest impact he could have best case and by best, it's worse, but best in terms of the most impact he could have is helping to elect Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis or whoever is the Republican nominee. I don't even know many of you wrote in significantly reacting to the

news that Cornel West owes half a million dollars in unpaid taxes and child support and said, you know, it changed my view of his ethics and his morality or whatever. Forget about all those are legitimate reasons to say, I don't know that I'm going to vote for Cornel West because I don't like that. That's totally fine. But you have to go beyond that and say the the best he can hope to do in terms of impact is to deny Joe Biden the presidency in lieu of Donald Trump. And to me, that seems like a disastrous thing to do. Maybe you don't see it as disastrous.

And if that's the case, leave a comment. Let me know your thoughts. We have a voicemail number. You can call it any time of day. It's two one nine two. David P. Here is a very extreme Trumpist who called in. OK, I'm I want everybody to be ready. This is pretty bonkers stuff. OK, let's listen. Oh, I can speak. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I'm watching you here for him next year with the help of God. What does that mean with the help of God? Does that mean God will help this guy vote or God will help Trump win? I don't know what that means. And and by the way, if God's involved, why didn't Trump win in 2020? This guy probably believes Trump did win in 2020. I'm so sorry for, you know.

What am I sorry for? Let me think. Yeah. What are you sorry for? I don't have anything to apologize for. Oh, OK. OK. OK.

There are things that Mr. Trump shouldn't have said, but at least I know where he's coming from. And he did a great job while he was president. And did he? If you can't see that, I'll pray for you, David. Please. That was one of my favorite games, by the way. Pacman, have a nice day. Well, I am really relieved that this guy is going to be praying for me rather than praying for me. He could have just cited all of the great things that Donald Trump did. I don't need the prayer. I need the facts.

Give me the facts, sir. All right. So, you know, we you got to remember it is this gentleman's constitutional right to vote. It is also our constitutional right to vote and to attempt to cancel out every single one of these Trump is votes for every MAGA like this guy that votes. We also get to vote. One of us gets to vote to make that vote irrelevant. And we are going to be building onto this message and recognizing that. If we don't vote, people like the guy who called genuinely could get Donald Trump elected again, and the risks are significant. If you're worried

about an 80 year old Biden. You've got to be worried about an 83 year old Trump at the end of this next term. We'll have plenty of time to discuss it, but make sure you're registered, folks, please. We have such a great bonus show for you today. There is a new poll that finds there is support for using violence to stop political opponents. How much do Americans support the use of violence to make political progress? We will discuss it on the bonus show. Secondly, artificial intelligence has now been used to read from an inscrutable ancient scroll for the first time. We'll talk about that, some other interesting uses of A.I., as well as concerning uses of A.I., how schools are dealing with the possibility of cheating with A.I. So many different things. We're going to have an A.I. conversation when I'm joined

by producer Pat on the bonus show. And lastly, this is really not looking good for Lauren Boebert. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is losing donors to her Republican primary challenger. Now, she'll probably still win the primary. The question is whether Adam Frisch will ultimately defeat her in the general election in November of 2024. I hope the answer is yes. We'll be talking about that race. But the fact that there are Republican donors. Going from Boebert to her primary challenger tells you a lot about the way that she is being perceived after her latest hijinks. So all of those stories and more will be discussed on today's bonus show.

You can get instant access to the bonus show, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. A David Pakman membership costs six bucks a month. Right. You can get instant access for six bucks a month or for three bucks a month if you use the coupon code F Fox. All one word F Fox or Fox with two F's at the beginning at join Pakman dot com. I hope to see you on today's bonus show.

I'll be back tomorrow with a new program.