The David Pakman Show - 10/27/22: Another Herschel Walker Accuser as GDP Grows

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

-- On the Show: -- Chris Finan, Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship and author of the book "How Free Speech Saved Democracy," joins David to discuss free speech movements throughout history, suppression of speech, and much more. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3gNEobi -- US GDP grows 2.6%, more than expected, in the third quarter of 2022, now combining with record low unemployment -- Failed former President Donald Trump is interviewed by Dinesh D'Souza and the interview quickly goes bad -- A second woman says that Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker paid for her to have an abortion -- Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker denies that he paid for a second woman's abortion in an unintelligible rant on television -- Unhinged Republican Senator Lindsey Graham explodes in an interview alongside Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, defending him against the latest allegations -- Fox News propagandist Tucker Carlson is dangerously priming his audience to reject any Republican losses in November as fraudulent -- Failed former President Donald Trump is holding a Florida rally only for Marco Rubio, conspicuously excluding Ron DeSantis in the latest element of a Republican civil war -- Confused voicemail caller wrongly thinks David is scamming people about "free" subscriptions to the podcast and YouTube channel -- On the Bonus Show: Joe Biden targets "junk fees," Texas goes permitless on guns, three men convicted of all counts in Whitmer kidnapping plot, much more... 💻 Stay protected! Try Aura FREE for 2 weeks: https://aura.com/pakman 🌳 Use code PAKMAN for 20% off HoldOn plant-based bags at https://holdonbags.com 🥕 Lomi by Pela: Code PAKMAN gets you $50 OFF at https://lomi.com/pakman 👍 Munk Pack: Code PAKMAN saves you 20% at https://thld.co/munkpack_pakman_1022 🧻 Reel Paper: Use code PAKMAN for 30% OFF + free shipping at https://reelpaper.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 -- Subscribe to Pakman Finance: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanfinance -- 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

I want to start today with some genuinely good economic news. And the news itself is a very small data point. But there's a bigger story here. And it's the story, first and foremost, about how is the economy doing right now? That gets us to what will the impact of the economy be on the midterms if people accurately understand the state of the economy, because it's about the perception of the economy more than the economy itself that affects how people vote. And then the bigger conversation, which I think continues to be a very interesting one, is what in general can we say about the state of the American economy when there's a Democrat

in the White House versus when there's a Republican in the White House? So come along for the journey. Let's you know, rather than starting at 30,000 feet and getting down to the runway, excuse the analogy, let's start at the base and then get up to 30,000 feet. So economic news, good news. GDP has accelerated in the United States at two point six percent in the third quarter. We just got these numbers. Remember, the third quarter is July, August, September, and we get those numbers at the end of the following month, which is now the end of October. Expectation for GDP growth was two point three percent. The actual number was two point six

percent. So having an increase rather than a decrease by standard economic metrics where we want indefinite growth. I know it's good to have GDP growth. And then when it is better than the expectation, then it is considered even better. And indeed, the stock market is reacting to this quite favorably. As of this particular moment, when we are filming, the Dow Jones industrial average is up over 500 points and we will see where the day finishes out a narrowing trade deficit and increases in consumer spending and government outlays boosted

the number all normal, a sharp pullback in housing subtracted from the number, part of a broader decline in private investment, consumer spending decelerated, increasing at just a one point four percent pace in the quarter, down from two percent. So understand that oftentimes the reports on this stuff are so unclear. Consumer spending decelerated might make some think that consumer spending is down. It is not. It grew at a slightly lower rate than in the previous quarter. So the obvious question when we get such numbers is this must be terrible for Democrats, right? How will Democrats and Joe Biden ever survive this?

Obviously good news. That's a joke. One of my followers on Twitter said something like the way Fox News will report it is, is the economy doing better right now because people expect Republicans to take over in November? So they are spending now because they know the economy will be better once Republic. It's a joke, but it wouldn't be completely foreign to Fox News to pull something like that.

So that's the GDP number. Let's now take a look at the broader economy. We have an economy where we have better than expected GDP growth, historically low unemployment to the point where one could argue we are within a few tenths of a point of what we would consider full employment. Remember, full employment isn't every single person has a job. But by the economic definition of full employment, we're very close to that. Consumer demand continues to grow, albeit at a slightly slower rate than it did in the second quarter.

And there is still high inflation. Of course, there's no there's no need to exclude that from our analysis or to pretend that that's not going on. So it's becoming very difficult to make the case that this is a terrible economy. But Republicans are still doing it. And that's what gets us to the impact on the November election. There was a point. Eight weeks ago, 10 weeks ago, something like that, where the number of Americans who said

abortion access and the overturning of Roe v. Wade are top issues in terms of the midterms that has diminished and has been supplanted by the economy, which at the end of the day, in most elections, it's the economy that regularly rates as the most important issue. Now, sensible people like many of you would say, well, David, the the economy is doing well. Most economic indicators are very good. Inflation is high, but everything else looks great. Clearly, on the strength of the economy, Democrats are going to do really well in November, right? Not necessarily. What matters is the perception of the economy. And by straight up telling lies and focusing only on inflation, Republicans have convinced many voters that we have a bad economy right now. Nearly full employment, GDP growth, choppy but not crazy

stock market. But many voters believe that there's something very wrong with the economy. And if indeed they do believe that, it wouldn't be unexpected for them to vote for Republicans since they are the out party currently in terms of power in the White House, House and Senate. This then gets us to the last thing I want to discuss a little bit, which is in general, does the economy do better under Democratic or Republican presidents? The data are extraordinarily clear on this. Don't trust me. Do your own research on this. But if you look historically in the modern political era, on average, the stock market does better under Democratic presidents. Job growth is stronger under Democratic presidents. The unemployment rate is lower under Democratic presidents. GDP

growth is greater under Democratic presidents. Inflation is lower under Democratic presidents. Are there exceptions? Yes. But that is an undeniable reality. Now you will often hear talking points from the right when confronted with this undeniable data where they will say things like, well, that's because a lot of Democratic presidents had the benefit of a Republican controlled house to rein them in.

Such statements have been evaluated empirically and they are without merit. Sometimes you will hear, well, there's a lag time. So really, like the first six months of a Democratic administration are the economic result of the previous administration, which might have been a Republican. It's been studied. And there is no empirical evidence suggesting that. So don't take my word for it. Unlike many others, I don't tell you that I hold the ultimate and unique truth or a monopoly on the data or a monopoly on evaluating the data. Do the research yourself. I've done it

myself. I've made the spreadsheets myself and I've looked at it closely. And unless I have lost every ability to interpret even the most basic data, this is the reality that I've presented to you. Fact check me. Tell me if you find something different. This is beyond parody. Donald Trump is having such trouble doing like normal interviews lately that he is increasingly relegated to doing whack job interviews. The latest is with conspiracy theorist Dinesh D'Souza. And it is, quite frankly, beyond parody. Dinesh D'Souza is increasingly a darling of the conspiracy right that believes Donald Trump was actually the winner of the 2020 election.

Dinesh D'Souza made the film 2000 Mules. This is a completely farcical, obviously completely debunked film that makes almost unfalsifiable claims based on mobile phone geolocation data to argue that because there were people with mobile phones more or less near ballot drop boxes at different times of day during the early voting period in 2020, it is clear that they were caring like mules. Remember, that's the idea. They were mules for thousands or tens of thousands of fraudulent ballots that they were doing massive dumps with into the drop boxes. There's no evidence for any of it. Widely debunked. Watch the film if you want to blow two hours and then research each

of the claims and you will find that it is vacant and vapid. But Trump loves it. So Trump agreed to be interviewed by Dinesh D'Souza and Donald Trump's lies are getting more and more sick and more and more disconnected from reality. If you can imagine that in this first clip, Donald Trump claims some people voted 28 times on the same day in 2020. This is a claim for which there is no evidence. There isn't a little evidence. There isn't some evidence. There is no evidence for this claim. And Dinesh D'Souza just nods along. And then, of course, they voted six, seven, eight times as much as they could in the local area. Some of the people went back, I guess they said 28 times in one day to vote at different places with, you know, numerous votes.

But they can't they can't put in a thousand because it wouldn't be a you know, wouldn't look right. Right. You they voted 28 times because voting a thousand times would raise suspicions. But voting 28 times was fine under whose names? They never answer that question. Just the most fundamental. Oh, if I, David Pakman, try to vote 28 times in 28 different places at each place, I have to give some name and it has to be someone who hasn't already voted, but it's registered in that particular precinct. How would I get the names? What names did I give?

They don't tell us. No, the people voted 28 times. They're very smart. You know, they go in with five votes, six votes, seven votes, and then they go to another one. But it adds up to millions of votes. Yeah, absolutely delusional. And again, it's the blind leading the blind. Dinesh D'Souza just nodding, nodding, nodding, nodding along in the next clip. Donald Trump raises the conspiracy theory that William Barr, his own attorney general. This is not, you know, Merrick Garland, Trump's own attorney general. William Barr covered up the election fraud because of fear he had of Democrats. It was wonderful.

They didn't even do checking. Bill Barr was afraid to be impeached. He was petrified of being impeached. And look at the next to Susan nod along to something so completely absurd when William Barr had almost no time left in this office at the time that he refused to participate in the lies and the delusions. Why would that be William Barr's fear in November, December and January of 2020 and 2021, respectively? The Democrats said they were going to impeach him. They went very big on the impeachment thing with him. And all of a sudden we have an attorney general

who is afraid to talk about he's saying, oh, the election was just wonderful and it wasn't. You know, William Barr was in the George H.W. Bush administration much earlier in his career. He didn't seem afraid of anybody or anything there. And then he had a lot of work that he did in the private sector. And you would think if he had a time to be afraid of Democrats when it might have damaged his future private industry career, it would have been when he was working for George H. W. Bush and he wasn't afraid then. Why would he be afraid at the end of 2020, the start of 2021, near the end of his career? It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And then lastly, Donald Trump saying Fox News is not what it used to be.

But listen carefully to the language he uses talking about. It's much different than it was when I first ran Fox. I will tell you, it's a lot different talking. Fox has changed. Fox is not doing for Trump when he first ran. And I know it says it sounds like Trump is saying when I first ran Fox, what he means is when I first ran, Fox was different. What Trump means is what was ultimately a 100 percent sycophant brown nosing channel. Fox News is now only about about 90 percent there, leaving themselves the escape

hatch, the eject button in case Ron DeSantis or someone else ultimately becomes the nominee. But that means you are on Trump's naughty list. You're no longer on the nice list. What a pathetic interview. And Trump reduced to being interviewed by Dinesh D'Souza. What a just totally humiliating display. And as usual, as usual, Trump only wants friendly interviews. And if it's anything but friendly, sometimes he'll hang up. Remember, with NPR, he'll attack the interviewer. The right way is to ask Trump the questions, tee up softballs for him to knock out of the park with lies and then just not Dinesh D'Souza. Really? You know, the right likes to use the term NPC. Dinesh D'Souza really playing the NPC. Folks, remember that our YouTube channel

is heading towards two million subscribers. This is an insane number for a little old show like ours. And the most important piece of data I have for you, we have nearly three million existing viewers who aren't subscribed. And as I've been talking about this, more and more of them email me and they say, David, you know, I watch you every day. I checked. I'm not a subscriber. I didn't need to subscribe. YouTube was already feeding me all your videos. Very, very important. If you were one of these, we call them the two point eighters. There's about two point eight million people last month who watched our videos but are not subscribed on YouTube. You can help us get to the two million subscriber number like tomorrow. If just you find folks who watch but don't subscribe were to hit that subscribe button,

we could be there overnight. YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. Subscribe free. It is free. And I will address this in the voicemail segment today. We'll take a quick, quick break and be right back. The chances that your login credentials have been leaked in a data breach are higher than you might think, but you can actually check if you go to aura dot com slash Pacman, you

can try or for free. Our sponsor, Aura, scans the dark web for your personal information, login credentials, social security number and sends you alerts. Sign up and you could be shocked to see how many alerts you get on Aura. One of our team members found his login credentials in three different data breaches. Now, of course, he changed his passwords right away. I've told you before about one of my accounts getting hacked. Scary feeling. But Aura also does so much more by automatically requesting the removal of information from data search engines, giving you fast alerts on suspicious credit inquiries. Aura has password management, malware protection for all of your devices. And Aura also helps you manage what your kids can do on their devices Thank you, David. The link is in the podcast notes.

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You'll save 20 percent when you go to hold on bags dot com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Well, another woman has come forward and says Herschel Walker paid for one of my abortions as well. And the question we have at this time is, does this even matter to the very same Republican voters who say abortion is the most important issue to them? Background on this. Some weeks ago, Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker had a woman come forward and say, hey, you know what? He publicly says no exceptions for abortion, nothing, nothing, nothing, always against it because it's murder. But he urged me to get and paid for an abortion for me some years ago. And then later, when he got me pregnant again,

he tried to get me to have another abortion. But that time I refused. And he is the father of one of my children. This was one woman, Herschel Walker, denied it with very little credibility, admitting that, yes, he did send a check to the woman, but it was for the kid they had together, even though he sent the check years before that kid was born. Completely unbelievable. Any sensible person looks at the facts and says, of course, Herschel Walker paid for this woman's abortion. It's very, very clear. Another woman has now come forward and said Herschel Walker impregnated me and also urged me to get and paid for an abortion. That woman, known currently as Jane Doe, is represented by attorney Gloria Allred. And let's listen to a

little bit of the press conference yesterday. This is again, a second woman. Our client alleges that Mr. Walker gave her cash to pay for the abortion and that she went to a clinic in Dallas, Texas. However, while she was at the clinic, she became overwhelmed with emotion. She could not go through with it. and she left the clinic in tears. When Mr. Walker called that night, our client told him what had happened and that she had not gone through with the abortion. He was upset. He pressured her to go back to the clinic with him the next day to go through with the abortion. The following day, Mr. Walker drove her to the clinic and waited in the parking lot for hours until the abortion was completed and she came out.

Then he drove her to the pharmacy to pick up medications and supplies as prescribed, and then he drove her home. In the days following the abortion, Mr. Walker began to distance himself from our client. She was very distraught because she felt that Mr. Walker had pressured her into having an abortion. She left Dallas. After she moved out of Dallas, Mr. Walker sent our client a note apologizing for what he had put her through. As you will hear from my client, Jane Doe, she has come forward at this time because

she feels that it's important that the truth comes out. So you get the sense and the picture of what's going on here. There is another moment at which Gloria Allred presents what is alleged to be a photo of Herschel Walker in the bed of Jane Doe's hotel room. This is a photo of Herschel Walker in our client's hotel room. On the bed. Again, this is Minnesota. OK, and then we also heard by voice from the woman herself talking about what happened and making it clear that she's a Trump voter. This is not political for her. I am a registered independent.

And I voted for Donald Trump in both elections. I do not believe that Herschel is morally fit to be a U.S. senator. That's clear. And that is the reason why I am speaking up and providing proof. So the question, of course, is, is this going to matter? When we look at the polling in this race, it is a dead heat. Half a point on average separates Raphael Warnock, the incumbent Democratic senator and Herschel Walker. Walker is a liar.

Walker is incompetent. Walker has no business being even in this race. But because of what has happened to this country, because of what has happened to the Georgia Republican electorate. Herschel Walker may be the next senator from Georgia, which is an incredible, incredible thing. If you vote in Georgia, there are just days to go 12 days. Right. Is that where we are? Let me see here. Seven. And yeah, 12 days with 12 days to go. We've got to do everything we can to prevent a dangerously unqualified individual from becoming the next senator from Georgia. Let's go now to Herschel Walker's reactions. Herschel Walker held some sort of

a press conference yesterday. Whenever he does this, it's a very, very bad idea. And during this press conference, he denies yet another abortion claim. Remember, a second woman has come forward saying he urged me to get an abortion. He paid for it. I didn't want to do it after going to the clinic. He went back with me the next day to make sure that I got that abortion. Um, Herschel Walker denies it never particularly credibly and then also says he didn't kill JFK kind of making light or making fun of the mere allegation here as it is as if it would be equivalent to accusing him of killing JFK. And you see in the background over Walker's left shoulder, if you're watching, that's Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. We'll get to him and his role in all of this in a moment. Lindsey just laughs at the entire thing.

You know, I would just say right now, you know, guys, I'm done with this foolishness. I've already told people this is a lie. I'm not going to entertain and continue to carry a lie alone. And I also want to let you know, I didn't kill JFK. And right now, Lindsey really liked that one. I didn't kill JFK either. Senator Warnock, he got crushed in that debate. Now the Democrats are doing whatever they want. By the way, Walker is saying that he crushed Warnock at the debate where Walker pulled out a fake badge. Again, to win this fight, win this seat. But I would then to know they don't know Hershel Walker. They don't know that I'm from Wrightsville, Georgia, and I'm going to win this seat. I told them when I got in this race, I'm going to win it. They now see that I am going to win it.

So I just want you guys to know that this right here, that right now I'm winning this seat. So I think that Senator Warnock seems not like me too hot, does it? This this, of course, has nothing to do with Warnock. This has to do with now multiple women who accuse Herschel Walker of the exact same thing. Just to clarify, can you unequivocally deny you've never paid for any woman to have an abortion? So I've seen this movie before, folks.

I remember the Kavanaugh storyline really well. Yeah. Lindsey Graham is completely pathetic. And again, all of the denials are really not very credible. Here is one from Fox News yesterday where Brett Baier asks Herschel Walker, are you saying you don't even know the person making the allegations? And Walker simply says it's a lie, not a very strong denial. And remember, this is how it started with the first woman. With the first woman, Walker was asked, do you even acknowledge

knowing the woman? And he said, I have no idea. And then it was, well, yes, I do know the woman. Well, yes, I did send her the money. Well, yes, I do have a kid with the woman, but I never urged her to get an abortion. So this is this is his denial. You tell me how credible this is. All right. Well, this was Gloria already came forward with this client. You're saying you don't know this person. What I'm saying is this is a lot. Speaker 1 Well, that's a different question. Speaker 2 I've said it once and I've moved on my campaign. Speaker 1 He said it once about a different woman. Speaker 2 Don't because we're worried about what the Georgia people are talking about.

Speaker 2 Yeah, not particularly convincing denials. But then maybe the wackiest part of this entire thing was when Lindsey Graham got involved. So I've already played for you a clip of Herschel Walker yesterday, not very convincingly denying a second allegation of him urging a woman to get and ultimately paying for her abortion. You saw Republican Senator Lindsey Graham just laughing in the background, laughing off the entire thing. Lindsey Graham saw this as a great opportunity to go on Fox News and to do his I'm angry routine. This is the same routine he did during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings where he framed Brett Kavanaugh as the biggest victim, maybe not

only in the history of the United States, but maybe the history of the world screaming and just acting completely ridiculous. He is now doing the exact same thing. He appeared alongside Herschel Walker last night on Fox News, and he says the reason this is all happening is because everybody is scared to death about what a black Republican senator might mean to other black kids. And there may be more Republicans. And it's just scary to Democrats. They're scared to death of Herschel Walker because if Herschel Walker becomes a Republican, maybe every other young child in America of color might want to be a Republican. That's what they're trying to do.

Don't let them get away with it. Team Herschel dot com. I want the biggest night for the Herschel Walker campaign to be tonight. Right. This is a character that Lindsay has developed. I call it the faux indignation where he is just absolutely furious at grave injustices that don't actually exist and that are only meant to prop up bad candidates and the lies of others.

And that is exactly what is happening here. Lindsey Graham is using this to try to justify that Democrats are the real racists. Democrats, they only want black people in power if they are on their side. When, of course, we actually know it's the Republican Party that has this very long history of only allowing very narrowly defined black folks to be part of their movement. Herschel Walker fits the bill. Take a look at more of this.

Lindsey Graham insanity on Fox News. I Herschel, they're beating all of our guys up. But what is it about this guy? He changes the entire narrative of the left. We're a party of racists, Sean. Me and you are Olympian. It destroys the whole narrative. John James, Tim Scott, Herschel Walker, everybody in San Francisco is going to jump off a bridge. Now, the reality is Herschel Walker winning. First of all, Herschel Walker being nominated changes nothing about the narrative of the left. And Herschel Walker winning would change nothing about the narrative of the left. Republicans have for a long time accepted and allowed very specific minorities useful

to them in very particular ways to try to prove how not racist they are. And in fact, they've done it with Herschel Walker, where Herschel Walker has a platform that is simply lies. He doesn't know what he's talking about on any political issue. The big issue for him was abortion, where it was absolutely pro-life. Abortion is murder. No exceptions, no exceptions, no exceptions. Turns out he now has been accused of urging multiple women and paying for multiple women to get such abortions. And now when you criticize him and you go, Walker has no clue what he's talking about. He's a liar. He's dishonest and he's a hypocrite.

They come back and go, that's racist. You're that's racist. You're being the racist because you're saying this guy is a hypocrite and incompetent. No, he's racist. I'm sorry. He's incompetent and he is unqualified. And that's why we are saying it. It has nothing to do with his race.

He hasn't actually said, by the way, even a single thing he would do for black folks in Georgia. Nothing. He's not actually articulated a single policy idea that he has to help black folks in Georgia. And then and at this point, it's just beyond belief. Lindsey Graham tries to interfere in the Herschel Walker stuff by bringing up Hunter Biden's laptop. Now, you might be saying, well, that's important because Hunter Biden voters have to decide are they're going to are they going to vote for Hunter Biden for the position of for the position of.

Oh, right. Hunter Biden's not running for anything. Say anything. But as I said earlier, they mess with the wrong Georgian right now. Well, can I say something? Well, Hunter laptop, Biden laptop, It was supposed to be Russian disinformation right before the election. It was true. It got suppressed right before the election. You have an anonymous allegation from a lawyer in LA to try to affect the outcome in a Georgia race. They tried to destroy Kavanaugh

because they wanted the Supreme Court seat. They're afraid of this man coming into the Senate because he would transform the Republican Party. We're not going to let him get away with it. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of seeing people I know. Yeah, OK, he's furious. We get it, Lindsay. By the way, the only transformation that Herschel Walker would do of the Republican Party is he would continue to prove that there is no low there. There is no standard too low below which Republican voters aren't willing to go as long as it isn't a Democrat.

You could be out there paying for abortions and unable to explain your position on any issue. But as long as you're not Raphael Warnock with a D next to your name, there is no standard below which these Republican voters won't go. Absolutely stunning stuff. Make sure you're following us on Facebook, Facebook dot com slash David Pakman show. We'll have all of these clips there for your viewing horror, I guess I would say. chemical fertilizer. It also reduces methane emissions from landfills. It reduces your carbon footprint. The big downside is that it can take over a year for food waste to fully decompose,

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Pacman saves you 20 percent. Use the link in the podcast notes. Today, we're going to be speaking with Chris Finan, who's the executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship and also author of the book How Free Speech Saved Democracy. Chris, really great having you on. I appreciate it. Well, thanks. I appreciate you having me. You know, we've had conversations about the First Amendment that were very legally oriented, and we've had those often with law professors and others. One of the interesting things about your book is that you delve more into the history of when the suppression of speech and the fight for free speech were you contextualize it in history

in some interesting ways. And one of the things you point to just to start somewhere and we could start anywhere. You talk about war as being one of the big culprits used by governments to suppress free speech. And I think that won't come as a huge shock to many in our audience when we understand the idea of for the purposes of supporting the troops for national security, whatever. Don't say this or say that. That, I think, will make sense. But can you talk about some of the examples of civil liberties meltdown in this country and actually precipitated lawyers for the first time to start thinking about using the First Amendment to protect speech that the government might not agree with. You know, the Sedition Act passed by Congress at the behest of President Wilson actually

provided prison sentences of up to ten years for people who spoke out against the war, and it was ultimately used to prosecute over 2,000 Americans, some for the most inane kinds of criticisms like Wilson is a blockhead or people who circulated petitions. You know, the most today what we would say is the most frequent forms of speech were suppressed and people were sent to jail. Over a thousand people were sent to jail. Many lives were ruined. And it was against that background that the ACLU was formed in 1920 and began to fight. And of course, you know, in subsequent wars, we would see

similar efforts at suppression, certainly during the Vietnam War. But what modern administration and we can include the Vietnam War era in that, I mean, you know, in the last 80 or so years was most harmful, I guess, is the word I would use when it comes to suppression of speech. Is the is there a clear administration, I guess? Well, yeah, Wilson clearly stands out because there was so, uh, there was so little law actually on the first amendment before the 20th century. And there had been a whole century before it go, you know, go all the way back to the alien and sedition acts right at the turn of the 18th century into the 19th, newspaper editors were thrown into jail for criticizing the administration of John Adams.

And so, so there was, but there was very little law on First Amendment rights before, you know, before World War One. So and then, you know, the there were certainly efforts during the Nixon administration around the Pentagon Papers, efforts to suppress. Right. You know, that very critical study of the Vietnam War. You know, Daniel Ellsberg was actually indicted for sharing that with The New York Times and The Washington Post and it might well have gone to jail if

the Supreme Court hadn't stepped in and said that that that was protected speech. Are you surprised or I guess what do you make of how the American right wing recently has very proactively claimed free speech as one of its core tenets, despite sort of not only having a shaky history on the subject in the past, but even while claiming that as one of its tenets, you know, talking about Trump wants to jail flag burners or open up libel laws, which basically is code for make it easier to sue newspapers and media outlets for doing journalism. Is it is it surprising historically that you would see that seeming conflict? And what else do you sort of think about that?

Well, it's wildly ironic. Yeah, it's it's wildly ironic to hear conservatives advocating as defenders of free speech when over the course of American history they have been the major violators of that freedom because they've often been in the majority and the people who have been advocating for free speech have been people fighting for equal rights. And that was something that, you know, they opposed. And, you know, this goes back to the, you know, goes back to the abolitionists and to the women's rights activists and activists for sexual freedom, you know, they, you know, they have at every turn conservatives have tried to suppress their speech. And right through the civil rights movement, of course, and into the modern era. And as you say, Donald Trump was a big, you know, waved the big stick against the press, call the press the enemy of the people. So, yes, to suddenly see conservatives advocating, you know, for free speech rights is

ironic and also difficult for us because it alienates our kind of our traditional base, which is young people and liberals and progressives who have been part of those equal rights fights. There are many accusations hurled at the left about suppressing speech, including different types of alleged censorship on college campuses, both when it comes to alleged lack of political diversity among faculty, but also as it pertains to invited speakers to college campuses has become a very big kind of flashpoint to some degree along the lines of LGBT discussions. Most recently, when it comes to trans rights, the right will sometimes hurl allegations at the left.

What do you think is the biggest area of concern on the left when it comes to stifling free speech? Well, I think, you know, I think and that, again, is a change in the political climate around free speech. But, you know, I think that it's understandable in a world that's suffused now with misinformation and hate speech that people, progressives, have sometimes tried to suppress speech themselves. And we are concerned about those efforts on campus and we are concerned about we certainly support the right to protest speakers on campus and to and to present the other view. But we really think it's it's a mistake to try to suppress them because

then then conservatives just turn around and point to that as justification for the suppression that they wanted. Right. Yeah. My view on this has been, you know, an unsavory guest is invited to a campus, someone I'm not interested in seeing fine. If they have been properly invited and there's no criminal issue and whatever else, certainly in that there's nothing wrong with the invitation and

the fact that they have an event protesting outside the event. Absolutely fine with it. The protesters shouldn't be restricted to some pen a block and a half away where nobody sees that. Absolutely fine. Once the event starts, it does seem to me that it's correct to allow the speaker to speak. And then you can continue expressing your displeasure during a Q&A, for example. The counterpoint will be, well, there might be no Q&A. So your only opportunity is while the speaker is speaking. Or I understand that it starts to get to one of these things of, well, you know, the protests

can't only be the way everybody's comfortable. Part of protesting historically is sometimes the protests happen in a way and at a time and in a place where it is an imposition on someone else. But fundamentally, I do think that preventing the speaker from speaking is a mistake. Yeah, and I think it also applies to trying to revoke invitations that have been made to speakers. If there are people on campus who want to hear that speaker, they should have the right to hear them. But by the same token, those who don't have an absolute right to protest. But we don't want to, you know, we don't want to say free speech only for our side, which is really what the conservatives are saying. It is free speech for us and not for you,

because then that lays the groundwork for what we are seeing now around the country, which is these hundreds and hundreds of challenges to books in schools and libraries that progressives care deeply about. These are books about race and the persistence of racism in America and how to look at slavery and the lives of LGBT people and, you know, their right to be represented in school libraries. And and so, you know, we can't we have to protect. This is the classic statement. We have to protect the rights of all is overwhelmingly the side that has the lists of books that should not be in libraries. But very often the right will hurl back at the left.

Look at what happened with Dr. Seuss. They canceled Dr. Seuss, et cetera. To me, it does not seem analogous for a publisher to decide we're not going to continue new editions of certain books because some of the imagery or messaging is outdated based on current norms. That's very different than here's a list of 20 books that shouldn't even be available in the library. From your perspective, are these two very different things or are they equivalent the way the right states? No, I don't think they're equivalent. I think that and they're in the cases are very slim. You know, the cases that they can point to of alleged suppression of

books certainly just don't hold up. The overwhelming majority of challenges to books in schools are coming from coming from conservatives and and parents who just don't want their kids or anybody else's kids to have access to books that in many cases are are life-saving because they they show lgbt kids that they belong that they are accepted. And these are you know, these are very important books and also how we present our history. Last thing I want to ask you about, what do you make of the tie between actual issues of suppression of speech by governments and some of the sort of cancel culture, social media, private business discussion that now is going on. Certainly legally, I think at this point, most of us, although some people call me and they don't seem to get this difference, most of us understand that legally Twitter can have terms of service wherein they don't allow certain types of statements to be made. It's not a First

Amendment issue. It has nothing to do with that. That we understand. So we can sort of skip beyond that. But ideologically and from a principal's standpoint, when there is not a legal issue, what would an organization like yours say about some of the terms of service on these social media platforms that do limit the things that are allowed? Well, we understand the power of social media and we understand, you know, why the decisions that get made on social media are so important to people. We have an arts advocacy project ourselves to, you know, try and push back against algorithms that are banning all nudity for example including artistic nudity from from social media but ultimately you know we hold with the view that that the companies have to be allowed as as is their First Amendment right to make decisions about, you know, what content they allow and don't allow. And, you know, and unfortunately, at this point, you know, there are efforts underway. There are

laws that have recently been passed in Texas and Florida that are trying to force social media companies to accept content that they don't want. Right. And that, you know, that is a step toward government, you know, government intervention in free speech that we just can't we can't allow that we have to challenge. Yeah, that's an important point. It's ultimately government intervention either way. And that's that's a critical point. We've been speaking with Chris Finan, who's the executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, the book is How Free Speech Saved Democracy, which we will link to from our YouTube clip for this interview. Chris, really appreciate your time today.

Thanks for having me. Something in your home that you use every day contributes to deforestation and climate change. And that's toilet paper in the U.S. alone. Over 30 million trees each year are required to meet toilet paper demands contributing to deforestation, soil erosion, devastating loss of biodiversity. Our sponsor, Real Paper, makes sustainable toilet paper that is 100 percent made from bamboo. The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. on deforestation and climate change. But you alone using bamboo toilet paper can make a positive impact because for the toilet paper that just one American uses in their lifetime, hundreds of trees are required. Put an end to that right now with real paper. The best part is this stuff is really great. It's just normal, soft toilet paper. Real paper loves the David

Pakman show. They're giving my audience 30 percent off your first order and free shipping. When you go to real paper dot com slash Pakman and use the code Pakman at checkout, that's R.E.L. paper dot com slash Pakman. Use the code Pakman at checkout for 30 percent off and free shipping. The link is in the podcast notes. So tomorrow or probably next week, I will have a report for you about the legal challenges that are already starting for the midterm elections that are 12 days away. Yeah, they're doing it again. There's no question that they're doing it again. We've already seen a number of legal challenges, challenges start. And if you want to

sort of get a jump on that story, you can Google it and you'll find some examples. Fox News propagandist Tucker Carlson is doing something very dangerous. And I fear and I believe that the fear is a very rational and sober fear. I fear that they are going to be doing 2020 all over again, where they are priming the right wing and the pro-Trump people are priming their audiences and their voters to believe if we lose, it must have been fraud. And they are priming them to be angry to the point where they may again become violent. Here's a clip from last night's Tucker Carlson propaganda show on Fox News, where he is in an overtly dangerous way, starting to say, listen, some of these people, if they supposedly win, they definitely didn't.

And you should be ready for that. Then he brings on Glenn Griffith walled to talk about it, which we won't be looking at. He keeps working. It's not about the person. It's about the party. It's not about the individual. It's about the group. And to prove it, they can even run mentally defective candidates who can barely speak.

Now by the way, when he says mentally defective candidates who can barely speak, we know he's talking about John Fetterman, but Fetterman is not barely defective, mentally defective. Fetterman had a stroke and as an auditory processing issue and it's abundantly clear when you see Fetterman right, that he can absolutely make the case, as his doctors have, that he has his mental faculties in place. Tucker should be talking about Herschel Walker, but he's not. But he's talking about Fetterman. OK, let's continue with the video. I'll go back a moment. Mentally defective candidates who can barely speak and not only expect them to win, but expect you to win,

but expect you to accept the outcome no matter how transparently absurd it is. On November 9th, they'll be telling you that John Fetterman got 81 million votes in Pennsylvania and they'll threaten to put you in jail if you don't believe it. Why wouldn't they do that? Speaker 2 They work with Joe Biden. Glenn Greenwald is an independent journalist. His work is on Substack. Speaker 1 Yes, Substack. Okay, so candidates that can barely speak. He should be talking about Herschel Walker. He's talking about John Fetterman. Tucker just makes things up.

And the line that he is implicitly going with here is elections we lose are rigged. That's the name of the game. And this the groundwork was laid in 2019 into 2020. They tried it in 2020. They may have been able to get away with it in some localized instances, which fortunately they did not. But they got close enough to stealing some electoral votes that, of course, they're going to try it again.

And the name of the game now is. If we lose, it was rigged. And if we win, we say nothing at all. Look at what was happening in the Arizona gubernatorial race where it was a close race. Carrie Lake ultimately won when it looked like Carrie Lake was down by a little bit, she and others immediately started with the voter fraud claims, irregularities here, early voting problem there, mail in ballot problem here and on and on and on. And then she ended up winning by a little bit and they basically shut their mouths about

the fraud. If you ask them, they do have a ready made explanation. And the ready made explanation is, well, there was tons of fraud and attempts to rig it. We just won by so much that even with the fraud, we ended up winning by a little bit. That's their explanation. And of course, it is unfalsifiable. We are soon going to be putting out a really good white paper guide sort of thing. It'll be free to everybody in our audience of how to approach people when they make claims like this. How can you start and kind of have a conversation where you agree on what is it we're trying to

figure out and how do we determine what is the truth? And one of the things that that guide is going to include is a sort of not a warning, a sort of notice that when the standard is one that depends on you to falsify something that's not falsifiable, it's not even really worth getting involved. And what I mean by that is the voter fraud, election fraud. It was rigged people. They can always say you haven't definitively proven to me that there was no rigging. And of course, if there is no rigging, it's hard to prove definitively that there was no rigging because there is an absence of evidence for rigging. That's it.

Burden of proof has been shifted. And so it's really important to consider is the standard of proof that someone else is putting out an impossible standard to me because I can go to them and say, OK, the number of registered voters and submitted ballots perfectly aligns with the state's population, age demographics for how many registered voters there could be, historical turnout. That all looks fine. The anecdotal reports of specific fraud, double voting, dead voters, etc. We've run them down and found that they are without merit. So we have no reason

to believe that there was election fraud here. And they'll say, you have not proven to me. What about that claim and that claim and that claim and increasingly unbelievable claims? So it's very important at some point to be able to understand the burden of proof. You are claiming something that is not supported by the by the data and is an extraordinary claim that all of the results we have reflect the wrong winner per the will of the people. You have to prove it. At some point, the burden of proof has to be on them. And unfortunately, when Tucker just goes, listen, they're going to make you accept that candidates who can't speak got a ton of votes. It's just it just doesn't work. He is priming these folks dangerously to reject losses

as fraud. And it could it's we know it can get very ugly. Look at 2020. OK, lawyers losing their licenses, violence, death. OK, we know it can get very ugly and it may again get very ugly. Florida is at the center of a Republican civil war that I absolutely love. Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is almost certainly going to win reelection. It's just what the polls say. And everybody should get out there and vote for Charlie Crist. But in all likelihood, the winner is going to be Ron DeSantis. Donald Trump has announced a series of rallies, including in Florida, in support of 2022 candidates. He is doing a rally in Florida with Marco Rubio, who's running for reelection to the Senate. But Ron DeSantis is conspicuously excluded from that. We know what this is all about, my friends. This is a snub because Trump is furious with DeSantis. DeSantis, when asked, has not ruled

out running in 2024 for the Republican presidential nomination, even if even if Donald Trump wants the nomination as well. Donald Trump expects unending loyalty from other Republicans. What Trump wants DeSantis to have said is I won't challenge Donald Trump. This nomination is Trump's if he wants it. If he doesn't, then I'll think about my political future. DeSantis hasn't done that. And why hasn't DeSantis done it? Well, if you look at the betting markets, you see that DeSantis is essentially running tied with Donald Trump. When you ask people, who do you believe will be the Republican nominee? These aren't polls in the polls.

Trump is still doing much better. These are betting markets. DeSantis and Trump have been right neck and neck for a couple of months at this point in time. DeSantis knows he is positioned to maybe be the Republican presidential nominee, which would be a big boon for him, without a doubt. And this is making Trump furious. Politico reports Trump to hold rally in Florida with Rubio, but not DeSantis.

The apparent snub are angered. Some people within DeSantis is orbit who complained that the Florida governor's team was not informed of the rally prior. It is abundantly clear what is going on here. Donald Trump correctly and accurately sees Ron DeSantis as a threat to Trump's potential desire to be the Republican nominee in 2024. And so this civil war is growing and growing and growing. I've told you before the numerous reports of Donald Trump privately fuming at Ron DeSantis.

And increasingly, we have seen Ron DeSantis publicly distance himself from Donald Trump when it comes to Florida's covid response and other things. This is a great thing. This is a great thing. The more strife there is from now, because listen, 2024 starts in 12 days after the November midterm. The more strife there is between these folks leading up to the primary, I believe the more they will weaken each other and hopefully hurt themselves in the eventual general election of 2024. We will have plenty of time to discuss that, but you really love to see it. We have a voicemail

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