The David Pakman Show - 1/10/25: Trump sentenced to NOTHING, Mel Gibson still whacked out

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump gets sentenced to unconditional release in the New York hush-money case, meaning he will face no jail time, probation, or any other penalties -- The Supreme Court refused to step in to block Trump's sentencing in New York -- Trump sends out a fundraising email about his criminal sentencing -- Mel Gibson talks about evolution and cancer on The Joe Rogan Experience and struggles to make sense -- The economy is likely to tank if Donald Trump implements the policies he promised -- Tulsi Gabbard is having a difficult time winning over Republican senators, putting her nomination to become Director of National Intelligence in doubt -- Meta announces it will end fact-checking on posts in favor of community notes -- Fox host Maria Bartiromo says she's learning how to use a gun ahead of Trump's presidency -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Obama and Trump chat at Jimmy Carter's funeral, Newsmax host says California wildfires don't indicate climate change, and much more... 🧔‍♂️ Integrated Men: Watch David’s interview with their founder at https://integratedmen.net/pakman 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code PAKMAN for $30 off & free baked goods at https://wildgrain.com/pakman 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 🧠 Try Brain.fm totally free for a month at https://brain.fm/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- Pakman Discord: https://davidpakman.com/discord -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave a Voicemail: (219)-2DAVIDP

All right, my friends, he got away with it. Donald Trump has been sentenced very strongly with no penalty after 34 guilty criminal counts in the New York hush money case. CNBC reports fresh off of the sentence this morning, Trump sentenced without penalty in New York hush money case. President elect Donald Trump was sentenced to unconditional discharge in his criminal hush money case. Trump, who attended the hearing remotely, was found guilty in a New York court of falsifying business records in connection with a payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before in the 26 before the 2016

election. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to stop the sentencing. We will get to that in a moment. Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan sentenced Trump to unconditional discharge. This means no jail, no probation and no fine. This has been a terrible, a very terrible experience, said Trump before receiving the sentence. This has been a political witch hunt to damage my reputation. So I would lose the election. So a couple of different things. Number one, was this the expected outcome? Yes, it was. We knew that this was the plan that the judge had an unconditional discharge. It doesn't reverse the guilty verdict.

It doesn't change anything about the facts of the case or the prosecution or the trial. It simply says you've been found guilty. I am unconditionally discharging you. There is not no other business here. We have concluded our business. You have still been, been convicted, but there will be no penalty. Now Donald Trump was particularly triggered by all of this because this path, while it ensures Trump will serve no sentence, does not reverse the guilty verdict.

And so Trump will now enter the Oval Office as president as a convicted felon. And Trump didn't want that. But the truth is that this is really the outcome that is best for Trump in the sense of even a year and a half ago, even two years ago, we knew and he everybody that if he is president elect at the time of the sentencing or even sitting president, the judge, despite all of the allegations from Trump that he's so conflicted and his family, this and his clerk that that the judge at the end of the day was not going to step in and say, we are going to imprison a president elect or a sitting president. And that is exactly what

happened. So you've got to hand it to him. You know, he was prosecuted, he was convicted, and he won the election. And we all knew that that is his ticket out. It should be mentioned that you can simultaneously believe, as I do, that it would be reasonable to sentence someone convicted in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records, FBR for short. It would be totally reasonable to sentence someone in that situation to prison time. And also that there was a political aspect to the bringing forward of this case when it was brought forward. It doesn't mean that the case had no merit. It doesn't mean that Trump is innocent. And so, so my view is not exactly that of legal analyst Ellie Honig, who we interviewed on the show months ago, but I think it's hard to argue that there is no component whatsoever here that was OK.

This isn't just a random potential defendant. It is indeed Donald Trump. Now, I believe that the charges could and should have been brought earlier, and it may have circumvented a lot of the timing of the sentencing that ultimately became problematic. But we can both acknowledge that part of the decision to charge Trump in this case when it was done came from the discretion that prosecutors have. Not everybody gets charged with this. Some people do, some people don't. Given that he was indeed convicted, it wouldn't be crazy to say he gets prison time. And many people who are convicted on a felony falsifying business records do get prison time. So that's it. Trump got out at least

of this one without any jail time. Let's discuss what the Supreme court did not do for Trump, because that's interesting as well. Last night, the Supreme Court denied Donald Trump's desperate last minute request. Stop my sentencing, please. Please make it go away. Now, you might be saying to yourself, why does Trump care? Why did Trump care? He expected to have an unconditional discharge with no prison time. This morning, Judge Juan Merchan indeed gave that to Donald Trump.

Unconditional discharge, no probation, no prison time, no fines, no nothing. Why was Trump so eager to have the Supreme Court step in and say he's immune? You can't even sentence him. The unconditional discharge does not reverse the conviction. And one aspect of this is that Donald Trump, even though he won't see a day inside a prison cell, will now, as I said earlier, enter the Oval Office as president as a convicted felon, the only president to do that. So Trump went to the Supreme Court and said, please don't let him sentence me. The Supreme Court disagreed. President elect Donald Trump

can be sentenced in his New York hush money case. The Supreme Court disagreed. President-elect Donald Trump can be sentenced in his New York hush money case, the Supreme Court decided yesterday in a five to four ruling. The high court rejected Trump's emergency request to delay the proceeding, setting the stage for him to be sentenced. Of course, he was unconditionally discharged. Four conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, said they would have granted Trump's request. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the three liberals against Donald Trump. And indeed, that led us to this morning's sentencing. In a brief one paragraph statement, the court said Trump's concerns could be handled in the ordinary course on appeal. In other words, if Trump really believes that there is something unjust, illegal,

unconstitutional or violating of presidential immunity in being sentenced after the sentence, Trump would be able to appeal and there was no real need for the Supreme Court to step in. Now, here is the most important aspect of the Supreme Court's decision. We knew Trump wasn't getting jail time. He didn't get jail time. Some saw this and said, oh, my goodness, two of the six conservative Supreme Court justices, including Amy Coney Barrett, who was nominated to this very court by Donald Trump, joined the liberal justices and rejected Donald Trump's request. This means that they are independent.

This means that they can be trusted. This means that they are not just doormats for right wing jurisprudence or whatever. Guys, everybody knew Trump wasn't getting jail time. OK, this is not a real test of these justices where we can say, oh, they were so objective. I'm so glad that they just enter. First of all, Alito, who Trump spoke to recently, although supposedly not about this note, they spoke days ago, but no, never about this. OK, Alito said he should not be sentenced.

The other selections of Trump, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch said he cannot be sentenced. But more importantly, this would be a much more interesting decision from the court if Trump was really imminently and obviously facing jail time. In that case, imagine that we had a scenario where rather than leaking and being made clear that Mershon was going to say, go have fun, live your life, be president of the United States. If we learned that instead of that, judge Mershon was planning to impose a five year prison sentence on Trump, then there would have been real stakes here for this Supreme Court to say, we are going to allow the sentence to go forward. If Amy Coney Barrett had really been put in the position of you realize if

you allow this to go forward, the guy who nominated you is going to sit in prison for five years. Of course, Trump could appeal it. He could delay it. It might not be enforced until after Trump's out of office and he's 82 years old. Who the hell knows? But the point is it, we all knew there was going to be no sentence. So seeing this as a strong and objective, independent decision from the court, given that there was no real risk to Trump of sitting in prison, uh, call me crazy, but I'm not finding myself particularly impressed. And that's where I will leave it. There is no situation in which Trump does not grift his cult. And in fact, this morning's sentencing for Trump, where we all knew he would get no jail time and he knew he would get no jail

time and there was no chance in hell he was getting jail time. Trump still used it as, oh my goodness, I need your money. Trump sent out a fundraising email called all hell breaks loose today where Donald Trump said, I'm being sentenced today just so they can label me a felon before I'm sworn in. Do you think it's a coincidence? My inauguration is just days away. You know it and I know it. All charges should be dropped. Legal pundits agree.

Legal scholars agree. Plain and simple. This is an attack on their political opponent. Me. Justice is not the goal here. This unlawful witch hunt is only meant to obstruct the presidential transition process. We can't let that happen if we want to save America when I triumphantly returned to office. And then of course we have all of the various pleas and requests down below.

This is just Trump grifting his cult. There was no real risk to Trump here. Trump wants to convince the MAGA cult that this is some grave injustice that the sentencing is even allowed to go forward. If we are to believe that no one is above the law, not even presidents, Trump got due process. He got a trial. He got a jury verdict. The the only thing

really that's unusual here is all of the special treatment that Donald Trump got. Remember during the trial being allowed to flout the gag orders time and time and time again with I'm going to warn you again, I might do something if you do this again or again or again or again. OK, Trump got an unconditional discharge, which most people, if convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, would not get. So as usual, Trump is playing the ultimate victim. The more privileged he seems to be, the more of a victim and martyr he proclaims himself to actually be deep down. And of course, the MAGA cult must be grifted just like he grifted them after the 2020 election saying, donate for the recounts, donate for the legal challenges,

donate so that we can actually get this election reallocated to me as the winner. And then in the fine print, it's 50 cents of every dollar, 70 cents of every dollar are going to go not to these legal challenges, but they're actually going to very quietly go to pay off Trump's campaign debts and be used for other things. If there's anything you can set your clock to, it's that Trump will say he's really the victim and that he will attempt to grift his followers. And both are exactly what he did. Mel Gibson has resurfaced and appeared on the Joe

Rogan program. A very, very disturbed Mel Gibson. I want to play just a couple of clips. And there are a bunch of different interesting things here. Uh, first and foremost, Rogan asks Mel Gibson, what do you think about evolution? And in some sense, who cares what Mel Gibson thinks about evolution? Because he doesn't know anything about evolution and he's an actor. It's just not his area of expertise. One of the things that does seem to be going on is that Joe Rogan is increasingly going down this sort of Christian path. He recently had on, I don't even remember the guy's name, but he's a Christian apologist who appeared on Rogan's program and spent hours claiming that every biblical story is true and talking about how

Jonah quite literally was eaten by a whale and then was resurrected. And it was like wacky, wacky stuff. And Rogan sort of seems like he's getting more and more pulled into it. Okay. So in comes Mel Gibson and says the following when Rogan asks him about evolution. What are your thoughts on evolution. Hmm. Wow. Eh. The Darwin thing? Yeah. I don't really go for it.

No? Eh. Ice age dinosaurs, you know. What do they turn into? I mean, things became extinct at some point. I don't think I was some kind of like, you know, legless thing that crawled out of the ocean. I don't think I came from that. Well, there you go. I mean, hard to argue with that.

Mel just doesn't think he came from it. What's the value in asking Mel Gibson what he thinks about evolution? I mean, like, really, who cares what he thinks about evolution? And you might be saying, well, at least that opinion doesn't really damage anybody, right? Well, then he got into the cancer cures. Yes, Mel Gibson getting into the cancer cures. I'll play it for you and then we will discuss. I'll tell you a good story. Okay. I have three friends. All three of them had stage four cancer. All three of them don't have cancer right now at all.

And they had some serious stuff going on. And what did they take? Jesus. They took some what you've heard they've taken. Ivermectin. Fembendazole. Fembendazole. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm hearing that a lot. They drank hydrochloride something or other. There's studies on that now where people have proven that they have. People are drinking methylene blue and stuff like that. Yeah, methylene blue, which was a fabric dye. Yeah. Yeah, it was a textile dye. And now they find it has profound effects on your mitochondria.

Yep. Yeah. This stuff works, man. There's a lot of stuff that does work, which is very strange. Because, again, it's profit. When you hear about things that are demonized and that turn out to be effective, you always wonder, well, what is going on here? How is our medical institutions, how have they failed us so that things that do cure you are not promoted because they're not profitable? You know, this is one of the most tired arguments around pharmaceuticals.

And we've already looked at this profit argument, you know, we've talked about it with aspirin, right? I mean, we, it, a lot of these things that come from nature, if they really do work, then we isolate that molecule and we make it into a medication. What was it that aspirin originally came from? Was it the, uh, the, the, the skin of the, what tree was it anyway? Birch tree or something along those lines, statins for cholesterol, which everybody says it's the most profitable thing in the world. Well, listen, number one, it also came from something found in nature, which was isolated and it's also dirt cheap. So not a lot of money is being made on these statins.

It would be important to mention. So when, when someone makes a claim like Mel Gibson, how do we evaluate it? Because he goes and visit three, four friends, stage four, three friends, stage four cancer cured. Here's what they did. You first, if we really wanted to take this seriously, we first would say, did they really have cancer? Someone I know recently said they ran into someone who told them they cured their own, uh, they cured their own prostate cancer. And then when you look into the story, they never had a confirmed prostate cancer, right? So that you, you cured nothing essentially. So we would of course have to know the, did these people really have cancer? What kind of cancer? Was it really stage four? Did they only take ivermectin and fenbendazole and methylene blue? Or did they take that plus also doing the prescribed treatments? Do they really no longer have cancer?

You need to answer all of those questions first to even be able to engage with this stuff. But let's talk about the three things that were mentioned. Ivermectin, fenbendazole, and methylene blue. I am open to anything that would be a safe and effective treatment. And these three things are being studied. Could they have played a role? I don't know, but let's look at the science. Ivermectin. Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic drug. It has shown some anti-cancer activity in lab studies. Okay. The mechanism through which Ivermectin might help with some types of cancer in combination with other treatments is that it might inhibit certain pathways. It might induce death in some cancer cells.

It could disrupt the energy production in cancer cells. Now you would say, well, what dose of ivermectin for what types of cancer? Of course, that's the critical question. The evidence we have right now is in vitro, which is very far from working in humans and in some animals. It's not validated. And the concern is that the doses a human would have to take of ivermectin to have the same effect would be so high that they might be damaging. Should it be studied? Absolutely. Should Mel Gibson show up and just say, my friends cured themselves with ivermectin? I don't know that that's exactly responsible. Then we have fenbendazole. Fenbendazole is a deworming medication for animals. It is being looked at for anti-cancer properties. Now, what would be the mechanism? How

would fenbendazole work on cancer? And remember, cancer is thousands of different things, okay? You know, hundreds of cancers with thousands of different variations, mutations, et cetera. The way that the fenbendazole might work in certain situations would be by disrupting microtubule formation in some cancer cells. It's a similar mechanism to chemo, right? It would reduce glucose uptake in cancer cells, which is where cancer cells get

energy. This is all maybe stuff. We have preclinical studies in cell lines and in some animal models, super high doses of fenbendazole might do that. Is it safe for humans? We don't know. Is it effective in humans? We don't know. The doses required in humans to do the same thing might actually be unsafe. Should it be studied? Sure. Study it. Absolutely. And then finally, methylene blue, this one's getting really, really popular. Methylene blue is a dye with applications in medical diagnostics, and it is considered to have potential anti-cancer properties. It's hypothetical. The idea is that it would interfere with mitochondrial respiration in cancer cells and maybe damage the cancer cells to take this stuff, methylene blue.

It's being studied on cancer cell lines. This is sort of like in vitro type stuff. It's before animal stuff. It's before human stuff. There's research that if you combine it with photodynamic therapy, you might make the photodynamic therapy more effective. We've got to look at it. No thorough human testing, huge side effect risk, neurotoxicity at the required doses to achieve this effect. And so is this stuff intriguing? Is there something there to say, let's look at ivermectin, fenbendazole and methylene blue? Yes. Is Mel Gibson showing up on Rogan and saying, my friends cured themselves with it responsible? I don't think it is responsible. And what's important is that even though methylene blue, fenbendazole and ivermectin are now

very popular in the sort of online space, there are hundreds of similar things that are also being tested with similar lack of empirical validation, just like a theoretical use that we don't hear about because they're not popular. So the other important thing to mention is there's no like conspiracy around not talking or not using ivermectin and fenbendazole and methylene blue. It's that like hundreds or thousands of other things, we've identified a potential anti-cancer property. It's been looked at maybe in vitro, maybe in cell lines, maybe some super high dose animal testing. You know, some, sometimes when we say it seems to have worked in animals, what that means is that when they stuffed an animal with such a high dose that it killed them,

it might've destroyed some cancer cells as well to go from from we killed cancer cells in a rat with a dose so high that the rat died to this is useful in humans, that is a very far leap. So I have no issue with studying this stuff, exploring the anti-cancer properties, of course. But when Mel Gibson shows up and goes, three of my friends cured stage four cancer with some combination of these things, were they on the traditional treatment as well? Were they getting standard of care or not? We have no idea the responsibility of platforming it. I don't know. I'll leave it up to you to decide. Thank you so much for joining us today. trying to please others at the expense of your own happiness, this community can help you break free. It's not about pretending everything's easy. It's about embracing the chaos, facing fears, learning how to live with real integrity. They help men confidently into their purpose

to stop seeking validation from others. Start leading your own life. The community dives into everything from setting boundaries, developing emotional resilience, understanding the four archetypes of mature masculinity. It's deep, it's practical, and most importantly, it's effective. If you're ready to step up, move past your old habits, live a life driven by purpose, not fear. I highly recommend checking out integrated men. Go to integrated men dot net slash Pacman to learn more and check out my interview with a deal and check out also the quiz. That is a short assessment for taking that first step.

That's integrated men dot net slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Winter is the perfect time to cozy up at home with some freshly baked treats like flaky pastries, hearty breads, comforting pastas, and you can do it without any effort. Our sponsor, Wild Grain, is the first bake from frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, pastries, and pastas. Wild Grain simply takes the hassle out of baking. Everything bakes from frozen in 25 minutes or less. No mess or cleanup. Your family will be amazed thinking you've become a master bread baker. All of a sudden, my favorite is the croissants. You throw

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You know, I've been hearing from a lot of people in the audience lately who are worried about what another Trump term might mean for the economy. And some of you have written that in and said things like, you know, David, I intuitively feel that Trump's policies could tank the economy, but I can't really explain why. And the economy was mostly okay under Trump until COVID during his first term. Am I right here or is it just a feeling that's not based in fact about what's looming here with Trump's economy? And it's a fair question and it's one that's worth looking at in a little more detail. Now, the truth is that the concerns

are valid. When we dig into the details of Donald Trump's proposed economic policies for the second term, there are clear reasons just looking at what we know about basic economics to be worried. Standard economic analysis does suggest that Trump's ideas could harm the American economy for the medium to longterm. One of Trump's cornerstone proposals is to expand those 2017 tax cuts. Remember those they were sold to us as these are going to boost the economy by generating growth. It ended up adding nearly $2 trillion to the national debt

over 10 years. We didn't have the 10 years. That's where it ended up coming in. Uh, as a result of those tax cuts that Donald Trump did, the benefits overwhelmingly went to the wealthiest to corporations with really no economic evidence that it spurred any economic growth. Trump is now pushing for what he's calling the tax cuts 2.0. These cuts would go further. It would be the same sort of thing, but the problem remains the same, which is that we have no economic data that suggests cutting taxes for the ultra wealthy is good for the economy. We just don't have evidence that it causes growth.

They're not spending that money. It gets parked in investments or stock buybacks, which can have a very small, not a zero, but a significantly smaller positive marginal impact. And meanwhile, the government loses revenue, which could be used for infrastructure, which could be used for education, which could be used for healthcare, things that in the long run grow the economy, although in the short term they do cost money. Another sort of hallmark of Donald Trump's economic approach is his expectation that he's going to rely on tariffs and trade wars. And we've already

seen the effects of that during the first term, the trade war that Trump did with China ended up costing American consumers and corporations billions of dollars, higher prices did not bring back manufacturing jobs the way Trump claimed it would. And in fact, we have research from Moody's analytics, which found that the trade war shaved 0.3% off of the GDP in 2019. That's term number one. Second term, Trump's proposing these universal tariffs on imports from China. He's talking about Mexico. He's talking about Canada. This is a tax on consumers. This is a tax on imported goods. It will make electronics cost more. It will make groceries cost more.

And while tariffs might sound like they'd help American producers by incentivizing domestic production, the reality is that in the short and even medium term, they end up hurting businesses. They increase costs. They reduce competitiveness. Third policy of concern. Trump has floated the idea of large scale infrastructure spending. Now you might say, why is it a concern that Trump's going to do infrastructure spending? I like infrastructure spending. Infrastructure investment is something we need. The problem is

that under Trump, by their own economic analyses, Trump has no way to actually pay for it. If you ask him, he'll say, we'll pay for it by the growth generated by the tax cuts for the rich and the tariffs. The problem is the tax cuts for the rich and the tariffs are not going to generate growth. So Trump wants to do infrastructure spending with no actual way to pay for it. He wants to instead cut the taxes. So it leaves two options. You borrow a ton more money or you quote print it, which is digitally created, both of which by their own economic analyses will drive up inflation even more. We've seen how Trump undermined the federal reserve during his first term. He said, they're not helping me or they're deliberately hurting me and hurting my economy. That type of interference, when a president

messes with the Fed, interferes with the Fed, that will shake up, uh, uh, the economic stability of the country that will make markets nervous. That is likely to be a drag on the economy. Uh, finally, Trump says he's going to do a ton of deregulation of financial markets. He already did some of it during his first term, and he's going to do more of it, at least according to what, what he says. We know that when you remove those safeguards, you make a financial meltdown more likely. Doesn't mean it will happen, but you certainly make it more likely when you combine that with the destabilizing impact of tariffs, tax cuts for the rich, unchecked borrowing, trade wars. All of that is logically making economists think this could be really bad. So now let's look at the counterpoint. Let's let's see if we can play devil's advocate a

little bit. OK, some of that stuff sounds bad, David, but it's not that different from the things Trump ran on for the first term and pre COVID the economy was good. You've even admitted it, David. And it's true. That's right. I hear this all the time. If Trump's policies are so bad, why didn't the economy crash during Trump's first term before COVID wiped it out? The answer

is basically timing. If you've been paying attention to this show beyond just the last couple presidential terms, you know that I'm not playing politics with this economic stuff. I don't play politics with gas prices where I blame this person or that person or praise them or whatever with most of this stuff. A huge factor is the global economic cycle, uh, business cycles and timing. Trump inherited a very strong economy in 2017. It was the result of years of recovery and growth after the 2008 financial meltdown during Obama's presidency, we saw steady declines in unemployment. We saw job growth. We saw a strengthening job market. It was the very same momentum when Trump took office. I'm not even crediting Obama. I don't, I'm don't misunderstand me as saying Trump has Obama to thank Obama has circumstance to thank mostly. And Trump also has circumstance to,

to, to thank mostly much of what Trump took credit for was the natural global business cycle. Go back to 2012. I was saying at the time, if Romney wins rather than Obama winning reelection in 2012, the economy will probably still be pretty good. Romney's plan to cut taxes for the rich certainly would have had some impact. It would have dampened, put a damper on the economy to a degree. But I expected that from 2013 to 2017, January 13, January 17, Obama's second term, even if Mitt Romney had won, the economy was likely to be pretty good. And similarly, Trump stepped into an economy that was on an upward trajectory.

We then saw a real crisis, COVID-19, and we saw that Trump's response was so chaotic that the U S did worse in the aftermath than other Western countries. Under Biden, the US did better economically than other than, than other Western countries. Inflation came down more quickly, et cetera. Is it all Trump or all Biden? No, but on the edges, did they have an impact? Yes they did. So the inconsistent leadership from Trump, the bad economic ideas, the takeaway here is straight forward.

Trump's economic proposals for a second term are deeply concerning revenue cuts, more spending, destabilizing economic policies, trade wars. This is not about ideology, it's just basic math and standard economic analysis tells us over and over again, these are the sorts of policies that slow down growth, increase deficits and generate instability. So when people come to you and they say, oh, Trump's a businessman, he knows how to run the economy. Remind them that number one, successful businesses don't survive by cutting revenue and taking

on a ton of debt. Of course, a business and a country are two different things. And even the comparison is fraught. But if you want to make it, Trump's history as a businessman is one where if he didn't do any of his business hijinks and he just calmly let the money he inherited ride a total stock market index fund, he'd have more money than he has today. Uh, Trump is going to do these things if he gets his way, unless someone talks him out of it, which they may. And if there's any saving grace, it's Trump might abandon some of these campaign promises.

That's the best we can hope for. It looks as though Tulsi Gabbard may be facing a bit of a problem here in her path to becoming director of national intelligence. We are learning now from Axios that Senate Democrats are delaying the Tulsi Gabbard nomination. Why is this? We'll listen to this. Senate Democrats are forcing a delay in Tulsi Gabbard's confirmation hearing next week, claiming she hasn't provided required vetting materials while Republicans are accusing them of playing games. It's the first taste of what's expected to be a drama filled few weeks. Mark Warner says we're not going to hold the hearings next week. Gabbard is, of course,

selected to be Trump's DNI. Warner says the committee hasn't even gotten her FBI background check. We haven't gotten her ethics disclosure. We haven't gotten the pre-hearing questionnaire. The other side of this is saying, listen, she did the background check. They may have not have received it, but she did it. She's submitting all of this stuff. She will submit it by next week. There's no concern whatsoever. Two sort of sides to this. Aside from Tulsi's qualifications or lack thereof, one of the things we regularly see is that these right wingers and MAGA in particular, they're just terrible with paperwork. They're just terrible

with getting things done that you're supposed to do. Remember during Trump's various trials and hearings, a lot of things would go sideways because Trump's lawyers just hadn't submitted paperwork that they were supposed to have submitted. So it wouldn't be a shock that Tulsi is simply not doing the paperwork she's supposed to do. The second part of this is I don't care what gets in the way of Tulsi's nomination. She has no business being director of national intelligence. Electing Trump is bad enough. Allowing Tulsi Gabbard into this role, it's sort of like giving the Fox a key to the hen house. Director of national intelligence is too sensitive a position for Tulsi Gabbard to have any part in it. It's too dangerous for Tulsi to have any part in it. It's too dangerous for Tulsi to

have any part in it. She has no business being there. Now, many of you continue to write in and you ask me, David, who's more dangerous or potentially dangerous cash Patel as the director of the FBI or Tulsi Gabbard is the director of national intelligence. I'm leaning towards Tulsi as DNI, uh. DNI spans multiple agencies. It has its hands in almost all intelligence. It affects FBI. It affects CIA. It affects NSA and other agencies as well.

I don't want to minimize the dangers of cash Patel, a Trump doormat who will do whatever the hell Trump wants, focus on revenge and retribution, et cetera. I don't want to understate the danger of that, but I think the danger of Tulsi as DNI is even greater. I want to hear from you info at davidpacman.com. Who do you believe poses the greater threat to the United States, Tulsi as DNI or cash Patel as director of the FBI? Let me know what you think. We'll follow up next week. to that. PIA is the only VPN fully optimized for lightning fast streaming and downloading 4k content without the buffering, changing your IP address with a VPN lets you do things like watch the UK version of Netflix or the Australian version of Hulu. So you can watch lots of great

content, not normally available in your country. For instance, PIA lets me see a bunch of great Argentinian soccer I can't normally get in the U.S. They have servers in 91 countries and with just a single account, you can use PIA on unlimited devices, computer, tablet, phone, TV, game console. If you sign up for PIA today and you don't love it, you can get a full refund anytime in the first 30 days. So try private Internet access risk free and get 83 percent off, which comes out to just two or three a month, plus four extra months for free. Go to PIA VPN dot com slash David. The link is in the podcast notes. Once again, Donald Trump's cabinet picks are all about loyalty over expertise,

election denier, Carrie Lake to lead voice of America. The government funded broadcaster meant to report unbiased news. Ground News found hundreds of articles covering this story, which is an app I've trusted for years to help me critically analyze the news. I consume our sponsor ground news. Doesn't tell you what to think. They show you each news outlets, biases, credibility, financial incentives. So, you know, who's benefiting from the spin they put on each story. You can even filter out certain sources you don't want. So you can stay informed without getting buried in the noise. Trump is shaping our future in ways that will last decades. And if we're not paying attention, we will allow history to repeat itself. So stay engaged with ground news who is fixing what is breaking right in front of us. The trust and transparency in the media. What a giveaway. We spoke earlier this week about how in its continued Trumpian slide, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg announced that UFC CEO Dana White would join the board of directors of Meta, which is the parent company of Facebook.

Now, what does he know about, uh, AI and misinformation, disinformation, social media, really nothing. But Mark Zuckerberg has become a big fan of, uh, MMA mixed martial arts and UFC, uh, as part of that. And it seems like he's kind of fanboying and saying, oh, I would love to have Dana White on my board of directors. Of course, Dana White, a big Trump supporter claims to be a friend of Trump's, will never say, you know, a bad word about Trump, really the emblem of doormat loyalty that Trump likes. So now we get the latest news, meta to end fact checking program in a shift ahead of Donald Trump's term. The social networking giant will

stop using third-party fact-checkers and instead rely on users to add notes to posts. It is likely to please president elect Trump and his conservative allies. Uh, meta on Tuesday announced a set of changes to content moderation that would effectively put an end to its longstanding fact checking program, a policy instituted to curtail the spread of misinformation across its social media apps. My how much things have changed. Think back to the COVID era when in order to stop the spread of disinformation, Facebook instituted a fact checking policy and it was criticized by MAGA and Trump and the right wingers. Why are they doing this? They are directly going after our views. This is a complete and total reversal. And as the New York times points out, it is a stark sign of how the company is

repositioning itself for the Trump presidency in the weeks before it begins. Meta described the changes with the language of a mea culpa saying that they had strayed too far from their values over the prior decade. Dear God, dear God. You know, we spoke earlier this week in the context of Dana White joining the board of Meta that we really don't know what the social media news landscape is going to look like a year from now. One of the reasons I have been so focused on, let's go directly to our audience for our financial support. Let's have them sign up on my website. Let's circumvent all of these other platforms is that we've already seen that the vagaries and whims of these platforms often screw independent news media. And very often it's progressive independent news media. We had YouTube adpocalypse in 2017. We had the October 2023, uh, let's call it the Facebook decimation

where Facebook said, Hey, we're not going to promote political stuff anymore. And then our views went down 90% and our Facebook revenue went down 90%. I've learned from doing this long enough that we have no control say or influence whatsoever, nor any leverage over the ways that these platforms promote or don't promote our content over the ways that they monetize or don't monetize our content. And it's bigger than just the revenue streams for independent shows. It's that it correlates with what they value and the degree to which these platforms can be.

I don't need them to be friendly advocates of what I do, but just be neutral in terms of providing the platform and having some system of evaluating its truth and empirical basis and saying, let people decide what it is that they want to share, but don't say, ah, we're not going to promote the news at all. And we're not going to say anything at all about are you promoting an accurate representation of medical guidelines or are you promoting dangerous quackery? We're just going to take ourselves out of it. And we've talked before about how sometimes neutrality is not objectivity. Sometimes it is.

And this calculated decision is a decision that clearly helps Donald Trump. We know from just observing for a decade now that it is under Trumpism that endless lies are told. I don't like the hurricane map for political reasons. I'll use a Sharpie to change the map. I don't like the numbers about COVID. I'll say, let's stop testing. Or if I don't like what's going on with vaccines, I'll talk about hydroxychloroquine or whatever the case may be. And we are in the position of having to try to fight back against that. And now it is going to be a fight

on Facebook for these sort of community notes type things that they're replacing the fact checking with to say, no, these notes are actually further leading you astray. You can't trust the notes because it's the very same MAGA people that are generating these community notes. So this is going to become a mess. There is no question about it. If there was any doubt at all about Facebook under Zuckerberg becoming more of a Trump is node. It seems as though any of that doubt has now been eliminated. This is so pathetic. A Fox news host, Maria Bartiromo is pretending that she's so worried about what's going to happen because of angry anti-Trump people once Trump is president that she's learning how to handle a gun.

You know, she it's it's so nakedly absurd. The idea that Maria Bartiromo is going to be endangered in such a way that she needs a gun when Trump is president. It's so pathetic. Here she is interviewing Donald Trump Jr. And she says, no, I'm worried. I'm now starting to, to, I'm, I'm afraid I'm learning how to use a gun. I have people from New York city, people who have, I've known my whole life were probably quite anti-gun for most of that, calling me, understanding that I've been into this world for quite some time.

Hey, how do I go about doing this? How do I go about getting the training? How do I go about purchasing a firearm? Because they believe they are their last line of defense to protect themselves. And they're 100 percent right. We've seen the failures across the board, Maria. This is a fundamental American right, and we're going to protect it at all costs. You're right. We've seen the failures across the board, Maria. This is a fundamental American right. And we're going to protect it at all costs. You're right. Omid, I mean, I've been training myself on how to handle a gun just because of the fear that you don't know what you don't know, Omid. So what about that? Are you seeing that market as your growth opportunity here, Omid? Women, young people?

Absolutely. There's no question. If you look at the data, the fastest growing cohort for gun ownership are millennials and Gen Zs. They're growing exponentially. Yeah. Maria Bartiromo, who's worth 50 million and I'm sure lives in, you know, a building that is perfectly safe and, you know, travels with car services and all of it. She wants us to believe that it's getting so dangerous out there when Trump is president. And, you know, you've got all the urban crime and then all the anti MAGA people that might target

her. She now needs to know how to handle a gun. This more than anything brings me back to the arguments that gun lobbies make, which is if gun crime goes up, they say, oh, you too need a gun to protect yourself from all of the crime. If gun crime goes down, they go, you know, it's down thanks to more people having guns to protect themselves. Since the criminals know everybody's got a gun. They are now committing fewer crimes. Either way, the answer is get yourself a gun. And one of the things that they're now realizing is we need to expand. Now, I've said this before and I do want to restate it.

I can't remember any period like the last few years where so many of my liberal friends have started to acquire firearms and they all give the exact same reason. They, it's some version of, listen, David, sir, they're so respectful to me. They call me, sir. They say, David, um, it's not that I even really like guns. It's not that I think they're cool. It's not that I like having them around. In fact, I'm concerned about a lot of that stuff. But when I hear that there's 400 million guns in the U S and they're disproportionately in the hands of these whack whack jobs, I don't want the other side to be the only ones with the firearms. And this is the number one reason that probably a dozen friends of mine over the last few years have decided to obtain guns. It's not because they're

falling for false statistics about crime. It's not because they are falling for false notions about how likely you are to use it for self-defense and all this stuff. It's simply, we need to have, it's a race to the bottom of sorts. If they have nuclear weapons, we need them, right? Not, not because we plan to use them, but because we need it for deterrence, whether that works or doesn't is another question. If they have all of these firearms, we need some too. And then there's also like my pseudo prepper friends who say, I just, if, if the shit really hits the fan, I just want to have something so that I don't feel completely naked proverbially in this case.

But Maria Bartiromo, give me a break. with it. And Brain FM's focus music has really helped me find my groove. I used to think background music from Spotify or YouTube would help me focus, but I ended up distracted and then I'd start looking for better tracks that would actually help. Then I found Brain FM. It's not just another music app. It's really music designed for when you are trying to do deep work. It's science-backed. The modes can be for deep work or more creativity focus or motivation. They have a turbo mode designed to support ADHD brains. Brain.fm's music works within minutes and it delivers results.

A peer-reviewed study showed that Brain.fm's music boosts attention, especially for people with ADHD tendencies. Brain FM's focus music is the only music made to support ADHD brains. And Brain FM is the only music app funded by the National Science Foundation because of their unique audio technology that changes the patterns in your brain. With Brain FM, I am locked in. Thank you. focus music for an entire month, totally free. I think you'll find it as useful as I do. Go to brain.fm slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. at David Pakman dot com. We will feature emails, YouTube comments, some Twitter replies, although we're kind of getting away from it. Subreddit posts, tick tock comments. Who knows? We start

with the subreddit and user James Brown's hair asks, are progressives overestimating progressive support? Last three presidential elections have been the same cries of we need a true progressive to actually win. However, when progressives run in primaries, they lose. Even more puzzling is the way Trump ran against Kamala. You'd think she was a far leftist. If being a progressive is a winning strategy, wouldn't we see more winning? It's hard for me to believe that an electorate that voted for Trump is heavily concerned about policies, let alone progressive ones. It's even harder for me to believe the people who chose to sit out also care as much as progressives think they do.

Two things can be true at the same time. And I've thought about this a lot, not only in the aftermath of this recent election, but previously. It can both be the case that the country is to the left of our elected officials, but to the right of the most progressive vision that we ever see represented publicly. I'll give you examples on the issue. For example, of abortion, Americans overall are well to the left of the average member of the house or Senate members of the house or Senate on average over represent anti-abortion views. The real view of the average American is to the left of those by whom we are represented. However, you can find further left views on abortion, uh, that go beyond where the average American is. So I think that two things are going on. The system that is in place favors elected officials that are to the right of the country. Gerrymandering is one reason using divisive cultural issues who very loudly, you know, the loud wokesters or the people who say it's completely fine for anyone, period, to participate in any sport on the men's or women's no matter what.

Like you can find that, but that is not where most of the left is. It's not really even a big issue to most people. So I don't think the answer is a cartoonishly left wing individual, but those folks don't have a chance to win anyway. So the concern about, imagine if we select someone that's crazy to the left. I've seen no evidence that democratic primary voters would select such a person. So the, the, the debates isn't between what we've had and some extreme left wing thing. It's a debate between what we've had and just sort of someone closer to social democracy, which is a form of capitalism that we see in Northern Europe.

All right. So I hope I hope I'm being clear about what I mean there. OK, next message here. Marrow Marix says watching from Europe, Kamala did not lie enough. Orange Clown promised policies which cannot be implemented but sounded attractive. You know, I received several messages like this after the election. The idea is Trump promises whatever Trump says, whatever. We know he's not going to do it.

We don't even know if he intends to do it. Why doesn't the left just start promising stuff? I think there are two reasons not to do it. Number one, I don't think it makes sense to stoop to their level. As I've said before, let's use their aggressiveness. Let's learn from how they don't do purity tests and exclude people. But on just making crap up deliberately, I'm not into that for moral reasons, but who cares about my morality? More importantly, I don't think it would work because for whatever reason, the right is much better at calling the left's policies implausible than we are at pointing out that

their policies are completely impossible and unbelievable. So the real reason not to do it, whatever your morality or ethics are, is I just don't think it would work. Back to the subreddit. Emotional Ant says Kamala Harris should not run for the presidency again. Harris dropped out of the Democratic primary early on in 2020. She lost the presidential election in 2024 against the convicted felon. It would be selfish for her to try again when there are so many other good candidates in the democratic party. I like Harrison voted for her, but I will lose respect for her if she puts herself ahead of the country in 2028, we need fresh faces.

I agree. Listen, I don't think Kamala Harris is a bad candidate. I don't think Kamala Harris would have been a bad president. I think she would have been a good president, a better president than Trump's going to be. I met her. She was extraordinarily impressive and qualified, uh, knowledgeable about a wide range of issues, able to think on her feet, et cetera. And then the campaign started and the Kamala Harris that I met in DC a year ago was nowhere to be found. And I think to some degree it's, she's less good in formal settings. I think to some degree it's the beginning of the campaign was much better than the middle and the end. And the consultants get in and the focus groups and they get away from stuff that was working. There's a whole bunch of

different reasons, but I tend to agree. It's better now to move on to somebody else. It's not an age thing. I guess she would be. Let's see. How old is she right now? She's 60. OK, so she'd be 64. I mean, listen, it's not that she would be too old in four years.

I just agree that there are lots of great people to look at and to move on to. And I agree. Harris should not run again in 2024. Cultal aiders says MAGA didn't turn on Musk. What the hell is Pacman talking about? The David Pacman show. If you want to create division on your own cult, don't create division between others. Stick with your Pacman cult. Stop implying MAGA is divided. Kaldal, I don't know what you're looking at, but MAGA is extraordinarily divided. MAGA is as divided as we have ever seen it. Laura Loomer and Musk and Trump and the Groypers and the anti H1B people and the

pro H1B people. I'm not saying that this will make it so Trump can't do anything. We don't know. He hasn't even been sworn in yet, but it is absolutely the case that MAGA is as divided as it has ever been. If you can't, if you can't see that, you just don't want to see what's in front of your face. Ruth Watson said on YouTube, he didn't win fairly nor legally. You know, I understand the frustration. I would rather, to some degree, be able to honestly tell myself it's not that people chose MAGA over sanity. It's not that Harris really lost.

He cheated. I would rather tell myself that because it would make me feel better about the candidate I supported and it would make me feel better about the country. It's not that people fell for it again. He simply cheated. I just am unable to find evidence of that. I've looked, I've explored all of the claims that people wrote to me about, and I just can't find evidence that Trump won unfairly or illegally. And unless we want to end up being like them, I suggest we get it together on winning in 2026 and getting a good candidate in 2028. That's where my focus is. Ogre scar says, I live in Texas. I fled from Christmas dinner when one of my relatives started talking about all of the great things that Trump administration would bring. The reason I

left setting personal issues aside was because regardless of my arguments, Trump is perceived as some heroic figure who will save the world. Bottom line, the blunt skulls refuse to accept reality and are looking for a savior. Think Trump is that savior and are going to be sadly disappointed when they realize he is not. They will invariably blame Democrats for their problems because critical thinking is an alien concept to which they have never been exposed. Yeah. I mean, listen, this, this is basically the concern, which is Trump can't possibly do tariffs and bring prices down. Trump can't possibly do tax cuts for the rich and corporations and bring the deficit down. There's two choices. And I laid it out last week. Either Trump does all of this stuff and it goes poorly or he abandons it.

Either way, he's losing, except as Ogre Scar points out, critical thinking is an alien concept and anything bad that happens, they will find some Democrat to blame it on. Now you might say, well, they don't control. Democrats don't control anything. Who else could they blame it on? The deep state Soros, the Illuminati, someone over there on the grassy knoll. They're going to find someone else to blame. And so part of our difficult task for the next two and four years is going to be not allowing them to do that. They will be to blame for the things that they do. CBDB says, can someone tell me how exactly the MAGA right wing could possibly think an immigrant billionaire who bought his way into the presidency has the American working class's

best interests in mind? Well, you know why? Because he's behind a Republican when they claim that it's George Soros, older, wealthy immigrant, when it's his money, it's bad objectively. And his motivations are negative and selfish and self-centered and but all of a sudden it's Elon who's dumping money in a beneficiary of government contracts, has all sorts of things he wants done to help his companies, Tesla, SpaceX, et cetera. Suddenly they just say he just has the best interest of the people in mind. It's not about facts. The answer to how how do they fall for it? It's because they want to. They don't want to think critically about what they are getting. A three Renat says, unfortunately, Biden will be remembered simply as an interim president during the Trump years, simply a pause on Trumpism.

Well, I hope that that's not true. But if it is, there was probably a lot of benefit to interrupting Trumpism for four years. We won't know until we're beyond Trump's presidency. We don't yet know. But if that was all Biden accomplished, it's probably still worthy. However, I think there's a lot more. Student loan forgiveness, getting us out of Afghanistan,

chips and science act infrastructure bills, COVID vaccine distribution changes with regard to pharmaceuticals and prescription drugs under Medicare. It's a very long list. Are these the sorts of things that in a hundred years people will say, remember when Biden did chips and science? No, maybe not. Maybe not. But the idea that he will be seen as a failed president, that I don't think. All right. We'll talk to everybody very soon. Bonus show coming up right after this. Sign up at join pacman.com.