The David Pakman Show - 11/1/22: Right Wing Political Violence Mixes with Conspiracy Theories

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

-- On the Show: -- Angelo Carusone, President and CEO of Media Matters, joins David to discuss the right wing echo chamber, Trump's absence from Fox News, the future of networks like Newsmax and OAN, and much more -- In light of the attack on Paul Pelosi, we review data that confirms once again most political violence is right wing -- David DePape, the man who attacked Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul Pelosi, admits to his political motives and debunks all recent right wing conspiracy theories about the attack -- Trumpists are absolutely deranged in response to the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul Pelosi, claiming the real issue is violence in Democratic-run cities -- Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom correctly blames political violence, including the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul Pelosi, on right wingers -- Fox News propagandist Tucker Carlson amplifies Elon Musk's recent conspiracy theory about the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul Pelosi -- Kanye West continues his unhinged antisemitic tirades, now claiming that a Jewish doctor could have killed him with the medication that was prescribed to him -- Donald Trump is completely unhinged in a new interview with conservative Latino media outlet Americano Media -- Donald Trump's interview with friendly host Sebastian Gorka is so bad, even Gorka himself can't save Trump -- Donald Trump is begging the Supreme Court to hide his taxes -- On the Bonus Show: Kanye West suspended from Instagram for antisemitic post, high school football coach who led prayer will get his job back, the future of Daylight Saving Time, much more... 🌳 Use code PAKMAN for 20% off HoldOn plant-based bags at https://holdonbags.com 💻 Stay protected! Try Aura FREE for 2 weeks: https://aura.com/pakman 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code Pakman for FREE blades at https://hensonshaving.com/pakman ⚠️ Use code PAKMAN for a free supply of BlueChew at https://go.bluechew.com/david-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

Speaker 1 I want to start today by talking generally about political violence in the United States. What I mean by this is acts of real world violence that are politically motivated or politically oriented. And of course, the context is this horrifying attack by a right wing anti-vaccine, anti-Semitic QAnon nut on Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, which we will get to. But one of the things that the right has been doing in response to this horrible attack to this obviously politically motivated attack is a lot of both sides. And while we generically condemn violence and violence is bad, no matter who does it,

violence in general is unacceptable. But let's not pretend that it is the same on both sides. First of all, they aren't actually telling the truth that they see left and right wing violence in the same way. Their reaction to the January January six Trump riots, excuse me, is great evidence of that. But more importantly, they are looking to say, well, just violence is bad. But overwhelmingly, the violence comes from their side. There's a very good study from the New America think tank, which found that most political violence is right wing. And in fact, they have a number of people killed in deadly attacks in the post 9-11 era. This is for deaths. And then we have other

incidents of violence where nobody dies. Number of people killed by ideology. And you will see that there is one hundred and twenty two which are far right wing and one hundred and seven that are jihadist. Seventeen are ideological misogynist slash incels, which is another right wing reactionary ideology. Then you've got your black separatist nationalist supremacists and one that is far left wing. Other than the one far left wing, these are all essentially right wing ideologies. Now, you might say, but David, the jihadists, folks, jihadists are right wing. Tell me what left wing views jihadist Muslims have. They have the exact same views as the far right Christians, except under the guise of Islam rather than Christianity. So overwhelmingly, right wing violence is the cause of a death in the United States in politically violent acts.

There's another study called A Comparison of Political Violence by Left Wing, Right Wing and Islamic Islamist extremists in the United States and the world. And what this study finds and will link to it and you can read through it, is that most political violence, both domestically in the United States and globally, is carried out by right wing ideology, by right wingers. Now, there is another layer. It isn't just the right wing that is perpetrating most of the political violence. It's also that the left wing is mostly the victim of that violence as well. You can have right wingers generically committing acts of violence and the victims are a random assortment of those based on political ideology. But no,

it is left wingers that are overwhelmingly the victims of this right wing violence as well. And if you think we can count on the right to help reduce such violence, forget it. Think back to the start of the pandemic. They couldn't even pitch in and just wear masks or get themselves vaccinated for the greater good. There is no way that they would pitch in to work together to make sure society doesn't collapse. Well, if under the weight of this violence, given that they are overwhelmingly the ones perpetrating that violence, they hate higher education. They say that's liberal indoctrination.

They say that medicine is increasingly biased left wingers giving their social opinions when it comes to vaccines and all these other guidelines related to the pandemic on all of these different things. They are willing to let the world, the country burn for their ideology. It doesn't matter. Science doesn't matter. Empiricism doesn't matter. Reality doesn't matter to them. The other aspect to this that is important to consider is that when you look at stochastic terrorism, meaning the vague calls to violence issued to their respective audiences, you just don't see that on the left. Now, I know you can find

isolated examples of some Black Lives Matter or Antifa activist with no following other than fifteen hundred people on Twitter saying down with their heads or something like that. But what I'm talking about is Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, Trump himself at rallies, the leaders of their movement, prominent people saying we got to knock them around, knock the hell out of them. I'll pay for the legal fees, all of these different things. They are causing this to a great degree.

And so the both sides ism has to stop. And by the way, the more we learn about the Paul Pelosi attack, the more we know that it was simply a right wing nut targeting Nancy Pelosi because he doesn't like her political views. Let's talk about that next. We now have learned about statements made by David DePape, the attacker of Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi's husband. And he is straight up admitting what this was.

This was a politically motivated attack in which he wanted to, quote, break Nancy Pelosi's kneecaps so that she would then have to be wheeled into Congress in a wheelchair, which would really show Democrats that there are consequences to their actions. That's it, folks. It's just right wing violence. That's all it is. It's no he was a gay prostitute who was home with Paul Pelosi and they were engaged in a lover's quarrel. There's no evidence for any of it. And we're going to get to that in a moment. It's just terrorism.

That's all it is. There's a good Rolling Stone article by Miles Clee conspiracy theories about Pelosi attacker debunked by Pelosi attacker. David DePape told police he planned to take the House speaker hostage and break her kneecaps if she lied to him. That is the bottom line here. This was a sworn affidavit. FBI Special Agent Stephanie Minor, who's a domestic terrorism specialist, described 42 year old Berkeley man David DePape told police he planned to take Speaker Pelosi hostage, interrogate her and possibly break her kneecaps. She wasn't home at the time of the invasion. DePape broke through a rear glass door of the

residence with a hammer. He later used that hammer to beat Paul Pelosi. He brought zip ties, tape, rope and gloves. He was going to talk to her. If she told the truth, he would release her. If she lied, he would break her knee pack kneecaps. DePape described Pelosi as, quote, leader of the pack of lies told by the Democratic Party. There is nothing, nothing to the right wing conspiracy theories, which we will delve into a little bit more. But think about it. He is openly telling us why he did it. It's terrorism. It's a form of domestic terrorism. It's violence against our democratically elected officials. That's what it is. And the said to authorities, he didn't flee when Paul Pelosi was able to call 911 because, quote, much like the American founding fathers with the British, he was fighting against tyranny without the option of surrender.

Republicans are like, well, he was a gay prostitute. The papes like I'm not gay or a prostitute. I'm just a right winger like you guys. So maybe it was Antifa, some kind of double agent, a secret BLM member or whatever. But of course, none of that would be true. And meanwhile, Fox News continues to give the conspiracy theories the benefit of the doubt as the conspiracy theories are increasingly debunked. Fox News has to play more and more coy and just say it's not really all adding up. Here's one such clip. There are a number of unanswered questions regarding the case,

like who opened the door for police and why did Paul Pelosi allegedly describe DePape at one point in a conversation with authorities as a friend? And if he wasn't let in, how did he get up there and break in, given the amount of security in the area? Speaker 1 Of course, we have most of those answers already, and we will talk in more detail about some of those claims in a moment. But for now, I want to talk about one of the other claims that's regularly being made about this attack. One of the completely baseless claims that Republicans are making in response to the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, is that this is all the fault of Democrats defunding the police and that prosecutors are too lax and that Democrat cities so-called are extraordinarily dangerous.

This is the line that they're coming up with. The truth is that this was a right winger who didn't like Nancy Pelosi and wanted to break her kneecaps so she would have to be wheeled into the House of Representatives to send a message to other Democrats. You better be careful. Your consequences have actions. Here is Donald Trump's one time acting attorney general assistant, Matt Whitaker. You guys remember this guy? He said, we have to look at the bigger picture. How convenient. Forget about the fact that David DePape or DePape was a right winger, anti-vax, liked Tim Pool, anti-Semitic, all this difference. Forget about that. It's the bigger picture of Democrat crime in Democrat cities.

Your reaction to what took place to Paul Pelosi? Yeah, well, obviously, it's as reported, it's a horrific invasion of his home and an assault on him. Political violence should never and does not have a place in our society. We have to look at a bigger picture, Maria. Really? And that is that San Francisco is crime riddled, and a lot of it is due to the lax policies of the local prosecutor. And when you when you take that context, it's going to be very interesting how

this individual who is charged with some serious crimes, whether he gets the same treatment as of a lot of the violent criminals. Right. The problem is they're going to treat him more roughly than the other Antifa, BLM, whatever, because this guy is maybe a right winger, but maybe not understand that this analysis is bogus. Nancy Pelosi and her husband weren't the victims of a random home invasion related to the broader crime situation in San Francisco. They were targeted by a right winger for their political views. The lax prosecution, whether you believe that's what is taking place in San Francisco or not. The other one is the defunding of police, which hasn't happened. This is a specifically targeted crime. And this is a way of them trying to figure out how do we blame attacks

on Democrats, on Democrats themselves and understand the incredible difference between these two political groups. You don't see Democratic candidates with assault rifles in their campaign ads. You just don't see it. You don't see Democratic campaign ads with targets on Republicans the way dating back to Sarah Palin and much more recently we have seen Republicans do. And meanwhile, I think it's important to mention crime isn't even actually up in San Francisco. I know that they love to talk about this. Just look up violent crime and property crime and you will see that it's just it's just not up. The numbers are very steady and even a little bit lower than they were

five years ago. There has been no defunding of the police in San Francisco. Violent crime is just not up. And so even the premises on which some of these claims are based are completely and totally untrue. Make sure that if you watch our clips on YouTube, you're not just watching the clips. Make sure you hit that subscribe button. It is free. Every time you hit that subscribe button, Alex Jones grimaces. Thank your lucky stars every day. You're not Dave.

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voting 22. All right. Let's hit a couple of other small stories related to the politically violent right wing attack on Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi's husband. I continue to really like the tone and tenor of California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom's analysis of a lot of these realities of the modern right wing. He has been talking about this for a long time. He has been talking about these are this is a violent movement in many ways. And January 6th proves that so many different events prove that. And he was interviewed on KPIX five and he is making a stochastic terrorism argument here. I'm so glad that he is doing that. He is saying, look at what they put out on social media. Look at what they put out at rallies. Look at the language that they use. Of course, people are going to start committing violence on their behalf.

Don't tell me that's not any embedding all this. Of course it is. There's someone to seize it, creating a culture and climate like this. I mean, it's look online. Look at the sewage that is online that they amplify on these networks and in social media to dehumanize people like Nancy Pelosi and other political leaders. Governor Newsom also said he's no stranger to threats, but says he believes things are getting worse. There's no principle. I know what over the last three years has come in my inbox. Trust me, you don't, because I'm not sharing it. I don't even share it with my wife. I got four kids. So I know a little bit about this.

I mean, it wasn't just a recall against me. It was surround sound in every way, shape, or form. Of this venom. At a level, I've had, look, there's always folks in the extreme and you roll your eyes. This is there sounds with the arena, but this is different. This is something different here. There's you know, the mind is being stretched. People feel free to shove again. That's exactly right. You know, we all talk about it, folks in left wing media like me, all the usual suspects. If you watch any of our other shows, if you're in this ecosystem, we all get it to different degrees.

Certainly, if one is Jewish, you get more of it. We're seeing that for sure. But Gavin Newsom is completely right. What do you expect to happen when you create for years, year after year after year, a culture, an environment in which this type of violence is encouraged? Sometimes it's overtly encouraged, but sometimes it is more implicitly encouraged. It's knock them around. It's I'll pay your legal fees. It's targets on their backs in ads. It's someone's got to really show up and show Nancy. Just recently, Trump at a rally and others were specifically targeting her. So it's going to have an impact. And if it didn't, they wouldn't be saying it. And then the other really horrifying thing that we have to understand is. Their violent rhetoric encourages and causes the violence when it then happens, then they

use it to justify more violence by saying, listen, it's both sides are being very violent. Antifa BLM and it then justifies, hey, we're just being as violent as they are, even though it is, of course, completely untrue. Statistically, I gave you the data earlier. Fox News propagandist Tucker Carlson is now amplifying the conspiracy theory that Elon Musk amplified on Twitter, which he now owns. Yes, the owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, amplified a conspiracy theory. It's a conspiracy theory that goes something like this.

Paul Pelosi was in his underwear at the time of the home invasion, which suggests that maybe it was actually his gay lover who beat him with a hammer. And during the 911 call, Paul Pelosi allegedly also said, this man is my friend. So therefore, it's all an inside job. It was a lover's quarrel, et cetera. It's been totally debunked. We'll talk about it in a moment. But now Tucker Carlson is continuing to amplify this. Elon Musk deleted it from Twitter. But Tucker Carlson is saying, well, he was pushed into doing that and there might be something to that story. This has just come out with a piece that says and we're quoting Elon Musk in a tweet shares a link from a site known to publish fake news.

True. Really? What did Elon Musk do? Well, he linked to an article about how Paul Pelosi called the guy in his home a friend. Well, that's what the 911 tape says. You can draw your own conclusions or not. Maybe you don't care, which is also fine. How is that fake? OK, so let's go through this piece by piece. And, you know, the sad thing about this is it's the right wingers who need to have this stuff debunked, not mostly my audience.

But I think it's important to arm you with the knowledge about where all of this stuff came from. First of all, it was two in the morning. Lots of people sleep in their underwear. That's why Paul Pelosi was was in his underwear. OK, very, very simple. Secondly, there is no evidence that Paul Pelosi actually said this is my friend. Number one. So they keep saying the transcript shows Paul Pelosi said, this is my friend. What they have is the claim that the dispatcher said to police over the phone. He says it's his friend. But then moments later, the dispatcher clarified to police he doesn't know the guy. What is believed to have happened is that much like that viral 911 call where a woman

who is the victim of domestic violence pretends to be ordering pizza in order to not anger the individual that is being violent against her. It is believed that in order to keep things calm and not trigger David to pay into more violence, Paul Pelosi may have said something like, no, no, no, we're friendly. He's my friend. But it was made abundantly clear on the call. And the 9-1-1 dispatcher understood that this was a violent home invasion and that police were needed. That's it. There's there's nothing else to this. But Tucker wants to continue, quote, asking questions. But as long as this is But Tucker wants to continue, quote, asking questions.

But as long as this is a news story with public policy implications, and unfortunately, that's what it's become, it is fair to ask the obvious questions, as you would about any other violent crime that occurs in America, and especially this one, since so many facts, basic facts seem to be in dispute. Local KTVU investigative reporter Evan Sernofsky, for example, initially reported that the Pappy was, quote, found in underwear when police arrived. Today, Sernofsky made a specific point of retracting that claim. Yeah, it seems it was just Paul Pelosi who was in underwear.

It's the early details were not completely accurate. Was there underwear? There was. And Paul Pelosi was the one wearing it. I'm now told by other sources that thePathy was not dressed only in his underwear. Well, OK, fair enough. We'd be satisfied with either explanation, not really our business. But you can't blame and this is the point. You can't blame people watching all of this at home for thinking that maybe there's something weird going on here.

Yeah. And this is a classic of conspiracy theorists. Read Steven Novella's book about skeptical thinking. You find it's called anomaly hunting. OK, you find a piece of information that hasn't been released and you claim it's part of the story. That's part of the story. That piece of information was wrong. So later, when it's clarified that that's not a part of the story, you claim that the change or the inconsistency is a red flag.

And there's probably more there. You find some benign or irrelevant detail that sounds strange. And you use that to amplify and say, well, we can't trust any of the story because this one detail doesn't make sense whether or not it's true. And again, the question you have to ask is not. What are the odds that Paul Pelosi is in his underwear and says this is my friend, even though it was clearly a signal to the 911. That's not that's the right question. But when you when you when you ask the question like that, it's like, wow, that doesn't make any sense. Instead, if you ask the question like this, what are the odds

that in a situation as traumatic and horrifying as a 2 a.m. home invasion by a violent lunatic with a hammer, the victim says or does something that we from the outside can't immediately explain or understand if that's even what happened. Then you go, oh, well, that's super likely. It's a crazy situation. I mean, I don't know what I would do in such a situation. Then all of a sudden, these anomalies don't really make that much of an impact on you. And of course, they benefit from people not thinking about things in those terms. It was a classic with the JFK assassination conspiracy theories. What are the odds that on a sunny day you have a guy with a black umbrella just 50 feet away from where Kennedy was shot under suspicious circumstances?

That doesn't make sense. The guy with the umbrella must be involved. And of course, we know the guy was the umbrella was a political protest. If instead you say, what are the odds that along a parade route with 80,000 people, someone does something weird on the same day JFK is shot? It's like, oh, yeah, well, there's 80,000. Someone's going to do something weird. All of a sudden, it's not that compelling. And that is exactly the type of skeptical thinking we should apply. Kanye West continues his anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish tirade.

He now is making the claim that a Jewish doctor misdiagnosed him apparently on purpose, wanted him to take pills, which could have then been swapped out, I guess, with poison. Kanye is very much unwell. But I'm going to tell you why this is so important. And he continues ranting about Jews controlling entertainment and media and medicine and on and on. Drove me to a point of exhaustion, which was misdiagnosed by a, I'm not going to say what race, what people, doctor, and what hospital, and what media it went to. We know I can't say that. It was a Jewish doctor that diagnosed me of having a disorder that would have had me on medication right now at a time like this, if I was on medication right now, then one pill could have been swapped out. Oh, right. So it's

not even that the real medication that the Jewish doctor wanted him to take was the problem. It's that if he was on the medication, the pills could have been swapped. Speaker 4 There would be Michael Jackson and Prince all over again. Right. But because Speaker 1 they might put propofol in there. Speaker 4 I didn't take the misdiagnosis and I didn't take the the medication. I'm able to speak to you guys clear of thought and transparent. So this right here is a chart of Universal Studios, 20th Century Fox, ABC. Oh, my God. Is he pulling up anti-Semitic memes on his phone? CBS, CBS News, Columbia Pictures, Warner Brothers, ESPN Sports, Fox News, Washington Post, Metro, Goldwyn Mayer,

MTV Music Television, Nickelodeon, USA Today, Wall Street Journal. And the thing is, I skipped over maybe about five of them because it was just unclear on this list. The red are the executives that are Jewish. OK, so listen. There's a lot of layers to this. It's very clear Kanye should be on medication, but I don't know what it was that was being prescribed to him.

I can't say this enough. I know that he said or someone said at one point, oh, Kanye has been diagnosed as bipolar. Maybe it's gets so effective, schizophrenia, whatever. Lots of those folks refuse to take medications. OK. For so he's having a mental health crisis. Lots of people who have mental health crises don't go to blaming the Jews. So we can't just say he's not really anti-Semitic. He's just mentally ill. OK. It can it can be both things at the same time. He it's really common that people find reasons not to take their meds. For him, it's because a Jewish doctor wanted him to take the meds, which could then be

swapped out with something that could kill him. Kanye on his own saying this stuff isn't really the issue. The issue is the alarming and extraordinarily large number of people that agree with what he's saying. Look at the comments on YouTube under this video. And I am sure you will find people agreeing with what Kanye says. That's the really scary part. It's an important thing to talk about. He's not anti-Semitic because he's mentally ill. He seems mentally ill and he's anti-Semitic and the anti-Semitism is coming out because he's uninhibited. And it's an important distinction to make.

I'm going to be on Dr. Rashad Richie's show later today talking about it. See these clips on our Instagram at David Pakman show and make sure folks, if you're watching this video right now on YouTube and you're not subscribed, please hit that subscribe button. I've had such trouble finding a great razor where I am not cutting myself or getting those nicks on my skin, which are so common with the cheap disposable razors. You have to meet our sponsor, Henson Shaving. Henson actually manufactures parts for the International Space Station and the Mars rover, and they are bringing that exact same precision engineering to the shaving experience. It hurts when you shave because blades extend too far and thus they wobble

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That is a three year supply. That's H.E.N. S.O.N. Shaving dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman. The linkN.S.O.N. shaving dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Today we're going to be speaking with the president and CEO of Media Matters, Angelo Carusone.

We're going to talk about, well, many, many different things. Angelo, it's great to have you on. I appreciate it. Likewise. Thank you. So to start with. There is a feeling that Fox News in particular and maybe some other right wing media are starting to set up a little bit of like an eject button or an escape hatch. Were Donald Trump not to be the Republican nominee in twenty twenty four, Fox

News ran like a man on the street segment where they had a bunch of people saying, oh, no, if it was up to me, it would be DeSantis, who's the nominee. They're not really against Trump, but it feels as though they're setting up an escape hatch. Is that your sense of what's going on? Yeah, I think that's a really I like the way that you put it, because a lot of people oftentimes put it like they've turned on Trump. Right. Oh, that's that's a little extreme.

But the escape hatch is the right way to think about it, which is that, you know, one of the things that has happened and is that, you know, in the past, Trump sort of captured Fox News's audience and was able to really leapfrog Fox News and speak directly to them. And then the audience, you know, kind of forced Fox to align. That's how he captured them. He seized it. Yep. He doesn't have the same tools available to him. There's opposing candidates like DeSantis that help create some of that friction. So what they're basically doing is hedging. And I would just remind everyone that this is a very similar posture that Fox News was in and put in place in 2015. In 2015, they had the Fox News primary where you would have candidates that would get a ton of attention. That would be the flavor of the two weeks and they would shoot to the top. And there was people criticizing Trump on air, on network. You know, there was factions within Fox that had different people that they supported. And I think that's

starting to emerge right now. I also think, you know, they're trying to they're hedging because it's not clear that Trump is going to be able to replicate what he did in 20 in 2016. And they kind of know it. So escape hatch is exactly the right way to put it. To go back to 2015, 2016, there was that early period where Fox was very much not on the Trump train. And as you say, ultimately, they did acquiesce. Is there anything about the backstory of the relationship between Trump and the Murdoch's that is relevant to how that went? Or was that not a factor in your mind? It was not so much of a factor. It was really about Roger Ailes. The only thing that was relevant at the time about the Murdoch's is

that Rupert Murdoch has always wanted Fox to really have a president like like not to just have an alliance with the president. You know, they were obviously aligned with the Bush administration. But there was a they were two different entities that sort of had some synergy and alignment. What Murdoch has always fantasized about has been to really create a president or, you know, a world leader, but really a president. And so what, when Al started to put more of the, you know, Fox News juice behind Trump, as things started to seem to break in his favor, Murdoch really saw that as an opportunity to create something. And that's where he sort of said, OK, I'm all in now.

And then he cashed in on those favors as soon as Trump got into office, right, by doing some pretty outrageous things, trying to get him to slow down the deal so that he could muck with and maybe even buy CNN. And, you know, it really that was the determining factor. But it wasn't until after it was pretty clear that Trump could capture the nomination that Murdoch said, OK, we can go all in now. Before the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, there was the stretch of time where Trump was just gone from Fox News. He was doing and still is doing interviews where oftentimes he's just literally phoning it in channels that nobody's heard of. And, you know, it seemed as though maybe this was a sign that his star is fading after the search. There was the entire the Sean Hannity interview, which, by the way, was a total total disaster.

Didn't really do anything good for him. But put that aside for a second. Was there something to that absence from Fox News in your mind? There was. Now, they still talked about him nine to 10, 15 times more than anybody else. Yeah. But there was something to it. Two things, actually. One was that was the beginning of the January 6 hearings. And there was all of this information coming out, testimony where, you know, there was actually Fox News hosts were part of it, where they were actually texting and talking. So it complicated things a little bit. And then the second thing, and this is really important, is that the defamation lawsuit that from Dominion, which is that voting machine company that's suing Fox News for a billion

dollars, they had been arguing for almost seven, eight months that the Murdochs would not be part of it. And just at the beginning of the summer, it was the courts ruled that actually the Murdochs will be a part of this litigation. And what that meant is that Fox executives and the Murdochs were trying to demonstrate that, oh, there's some distance between us and Trump. And there was a little bit of back and forth over that summer as they started to calibrate their legal strategy. So I think it was really those two things coming together, which is let's keep him at arm's length, because every time he appears on our network, he's either it's either going to create a new round of stories about our host for January 6th, or it's going to complicate the back end stuff that we're dealing with with this massive billion dollar lawsuit. So I want to get off Fox after one more question and get onto some other right wing media outlets. But at this point, do you have a sense of who's more powerful within the Republican base in terms of Trump or Fox News

in the sense of if Trump says I'm running and Fox did decide we actually want to prevent Trump from being the nominee? Who who is the power right now? Tucker Tucker. OK, specifically. Yeah, it's just Tucker. And so the rest of Fox would have to break for Trump at this point. Fox would be able to capture Trump, would be able to hijack the Fox audience. And we're seeing that play out a little bit right now with the attacks on Pelosi, Pelosi's husband. You know, Fox initially treated like a traditional crime story. And then after sort of the Trump part of the ecosystem was weaving conspiracies, all of a sudden Fox News sort of broke and went with the conspiracy direction. So there's lots of indicators like that.

So if Fox was against Trump, Trump would win that fight. But if Tucker is, then Trump is in trouble because Tucker really has replaced Limbaugh as sort of like the what he used to describe as the titular head of the Republican Party. Tucker has really filled that space. So Trump v. Fox, Trump, Trump v. Tucker, Tucker. Speaker 1 What do you make of recently even Newsmax? So the way I put some of these on a spectrum is you've got Fox, which is on the right, and then you've got Newsmax, which is crazier than Fox. And then you've got OAN, which is crazier than Newsmax And then you've got OAN, which is crazier than Newsmax that I sort of have them like that. And you can tell me whether you agree or disagree. Newsmax recently is not even taking all of Donald Trump's rallies. They still take most

of them, but not all of them. Does that mean that even within the even crazier wing, maybe Trump's star is fading? A little bit. And it's also, you know, it's a little complicated, too, because they a lot some other entities went out there and really cornered that market of the rallies live. So, you know, Trump's own lawyer hosts the right side broadcasting. Right. I mean, when they're so I mean, they have an inside track. Fox News actually has an entire channel on their Fox Nation app that they will give away free trials for. So they use the Trump rallies to get more people to sign up. The entire section is devoted to just Trump's rallies.

So they kind of others got into the space to try to commercialize it. So I think there's a financial corner in the market factor. But I look at the metrics. You know, they see that, you know, the rallies don't have the same juice and star power that they did in the past. And for Newsmax, which has slightly thinner margins, it doesn't get them the same bang for the buck. And also every time he says something about the election, they have to worry about their channels and getting zapped. And so for them, it's just it's just not worth it. So you talked a little bit about the Trump versus someone else primary in terms of Tucker and the power dynamics there. But if we zoom out a little and even like separate it maybe from from Fox News,

how do you believe right wing media more generally will handle if it's Trump DeSantis? Because I don't think DeSantis can be written off as a rhino in the same way that they do with like Mitt Romney, for example. So what do you think they're going to come up with for covering such a primary? It's going to be really hard. There's two complicating facts. There's two big considerations. One is that DeSantis has a pretty potent piece of like kryptonite that he started to deploy, which is vaccines. And it started over the summer. And he started to basically, you know, he's been apologizing for saying that he was misled. He should have never promoted the vaccines. It's probably the only wedge where he can really successfully outflank Trump to the right and have credibility with the right wing media.

And that's what it's about. It's about sort of hijacking or outflanking Trump when it comes to some of these right-wing personalities to say, look at DeSantis. He's willing to accept the fact that he should have never, and he's been anti-vaccine, he's anti-state control, and we're free, you know, liberty. And he did it a little bit over the summer and it worked. It changed the way right-wing media talked about them.

That's when Alex Jones started to really hit Donald Trump, was on the vaccine stuff. And then you could look at a bunch of these right wing media hosts that were saying, oh, Trump's going to have to grapple with this at some point. Why won't he just say he was lied to? Why won't he apologize about this? He's so stubborn. And DeSantis started to basically deployed it as a trial balloon, did it for about six weeks and he walked it back. So I think one is how heavily he leans into that and how Trump navigates that is a weakness because Trump's base is not with Trump on this. And that is this weird tension where he's out of step with them. And so that's one. And I think that will affect the way the right-wing media lines up because it will give them cover to then criticize Trump in a way that doesn't

get them blowback from their own audiences is to get him on that terrain. So that's one part. And then the other part is actually a knock against DeSantis, is that DeSantis is no fun. So the truth is nobody really likes him. That's what everyone's hedging on. And I'm not trying to be mean or glib about it. It's the truth. He really is no fun. Even his closest allies acknowledge that he's genuinely no fun. He's aloof. He's not charismatic. And if you're in the media, you need to think about the product. And what's the sustaining and staying power? And that's the challenge with DeSantis, is that I think from the media perspective, they're all aware of the fact that DeSantis

doesn't have the same sort of like regenerative power in terms of media consumption in the way that Trump does. So it's this weird thing. But I do think the vaccine piece is going to really be challenging. And Trump is going to take a lot of flack for that from the right wing media. And if they want to jump, that's going to be their launchpad. Last thing I want to ask you about, what is the timing of the twenty twenty four primary getting going? Because some part of me thinks it gets going on November 9th, quite frankly. Yeah, I think you're right. I have always been pointing to the fact that there's no way that Trump would announce a candidacy until his airplane was ready. And it was supposed to be ready back in July. But of course, because of all the supply chain issues,

pieces of it weren't complete and the timeline got radically disrupted. It is now officially finished. There's no way that he would run for president without his plane. It's too much of an important part of the staging. And so it was an obvious, to me, it just felt very obvious that he couldn't be a candidate without his plane. It doesn't work. And so that's to me, if this plane wasn't ready, I would say we have to wait. But because this plane is now ready, I agree with you. I think it's going to start almost immediately after November 9th. And that ties into what's happening now, because a lot of what's happening on the ground, the infrastructure at the state level, a lot of the organizations, the cluster of groups that

are going to get power or potentially get power if the election goes in their favor. This is all part of the Trump ecosystem that has been building this groundwork. So it's going to almost be at the apex and a lot of momentum for him to make a quick jump. And he's also seen to the extent that they're going to challenge any elections. He's really the face of that strategy and approach. So I think you're right. It's going to start very, very, very early. And it sounds like from the language you're using, you have no doubt whatsoever that Trump is running. Speaker 2 Yeah, I think he's going to run for sure. I do. I don't think there's any reason to

stop him from running. And he is fueled in large part by spite and revenge. And every measurable indicator still shows that he could succeed in the primary. His assessment of DeSantis is that he is too miserable of a person to successfully hide, to replace him as the head of the party. And DeSantis, I think, is going to, I think he's a little hesitant to get too bloodied up by Trump because it can be a messy battle. So there is a little bit of a delicate balancing act there. But yeah, I do. I think for a lot of reasons, there's no doubt that he will, in my mind,

that he will run unless there's some major intervening circumstance. This is really the last thing. And then I'll let you go. It seems very clear that there's a lot of people in right wing media right now and even some of the candidates starting to prepare for if we lose, it was rigged. But we also know that that caused significant legal problems for a lot of media when they did it with 2020. What do you expect on November 9th, 10th, 11th, as far as that story goes? Yeah, I think the one thing that I would just point out, I'm glad you asked this, is that because it demonstrated to be a challenge, they've adapted. And what the way that they adapted was by building an infrastructure of these groups and entities that they'll be able

to cite and reference and they're disposable. So you could say they can say this group makes this claim and they filed this lawsuit. Yeah, exactly. And so they really and there's a lot of about 14 of them in operation right now. They're promoting all these apps that help collect this information. Most of them are disposable. They're not infrastructure. They're not designed to have staying power. They're shells. And that was a way that and they've done little ones at the major states. There's one in Pennsylvania. There's one in Arizona. They're all tied into right wing media. They get a lot of attention, a lot of press, a lot of engagement, a lot of audience traction. They've been bumping, pumping them up now for about about 10 months. And so that's the workaround is that they found a way to essentially create a shield so that the media operations can engage in the same kinds of attacks. But now they have this layer of cover. They'll never get sued for citing a third party organization. The third party organization can get sued, but they won't. That was Fox's problem, you know, in 2020 is that they were just saying these things that they were getting texted. You know, they were the source. And now they've really found a way to create that. And I think that is the one thing that I don't think people

broadly have a full handle on is that they've built the infrastructure to actually do what they did in 2020, but at scale in a much more professional way and in a much more scale and much more volume. Yeah. Slick and scary at the same time, I guess I would say. We've been speaking with the president and CEO of Media Matters, Angelo Carusone. Always great to talk to you and appreciate your insights. Thanks for having me.

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Go to Bluetooth dot com. The link is in the podcast notes and they'll give you an entire month's supply for free when you use promo code Pacman. That's P.A.K. M.A.N. All you do is pay five dollars for shipping. Donald Trump did a couple of whacked out interviews, the first of which is on a platform called Americano Media or Americano. In other words, it's a right wing. It's new. They get like 2000 views a video. It's quite wild. It's a right wing American Spanish language outlet or channel. I don't even really know what to call it.

And this is, I guess, where Donald Trump is now being interviewed. These clips are sometimes only getting a couple thousand views. This particular one has 7000 views. And this is where Trump's now being interviewed. The topic of Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter came up. This has been a big point of contention. Is Trump going back to Twitter if he is unbanned, which would, of course, completely torpedo truth social? Trump says he's not with truth social. Yeah. And the opportunity to have freedom of speech, which is very important for democracy. Right. And now knowing that Elon Musk has taken control of Twitter, do you see that

there is an opportunity for a broader freedom of speech in this country that can help, you know, ease up all these ideas and all the censorship that that, you know, many people have been submitted to in the past few years? It's very good that Elon took over Twitter. It was run by maniacs, radical left lunatics. And they were, I mean, it was all bots and fake accounts, a lot of it. And it was a disaster. OK. And I had hundreds of millions of people between Facebook and Twitter, more than just about anybody else. And all of a sudden, one day you don't have your voice anymore. And I created. After telling all sorts of corrosive lies and inciting violence,

right, that's the little detail he lives. Suddenly my voice was gone after I did ABCDE, all in violation of Twitter's terms of service. Truth Social. And it's been amazingly successful. It's almost bankrupt. Last week, as you saw, it was above TikTok. It was above Twitter. It was about it's been an amazing success. So, you know, I like it. I'm staying on Truth Social. I like it better. Yeah. So Trump is staying on truth. Truth Central is where he will be staying. Donald Trump, in a moment that makes no sense whatsoever, says he thinks the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago will make Hispanic people vote for him. But Trump thinks everything will make Hispanic people vote for him.

We don't straighten this country out. You're going to end up you are literally going to end up with a Venezuela on steroids, meaning a bigger version of Venezuela. And that's where our country is going. If you look at what's happening, yeah, the raid on Mar-a-Lago. People were disgusted by it. But Hispanics saw that as what happened. And many of them come from countries that we know very well. Oh, God. Is he saying that when a search warrant was served at Mar-a-Lago,

it was like the abuses of power, corruption and dictatorial insanity in Venezuela? Is that is that the argument he's making? They said that's what happened from where they came. Oh, God, that is just rich, a completely legal eyes dotted and T's crossed search warrant being executed when there is so much probable cause. That's like that's like what Chavez did. That is just wild. And Trump actually talks more about Venezuela. You take a look at Venezuela.

Go back 20 years. Venezuela, very prosperous, rich country. It was the richest country in Latin America. It was, you know, everything was pretty good. And now you look, they don't have water. They don't have food. They don't have anything. They have a dictatorship. And on the campaign, I was saying that if we don't straighten this country out, you're going to end up, you are literally going to end up with a Venezuela on steroids. There you go. And I have to tell you, Trump finally getting something right.

It is true. I believe in the year 2001 or 2000, Venezuela was the most prosperous country in South America that he finally stumbled across a historical fact that is true. Trump is now also doing the communism stuff without understanding a word of it. Well, the American dream will be gone. The American dream with communism is never going to be here. And, you know, once it goes there, it's very hard to bring it back. Yes, of course. There are no communists in positions of power in the United States. There just aren't any. And then Trump confirming he doesn't even know what these terms even mean.

I think that the election coming up on the 8th and the following election, very importantly, which is now think of it, it's two years away. It's very quick, quick how it happens. Time flies. I think if we don't do well in those two elections, our country is gone. And I really believe we've passed socialism. You know, we've just stepped over socialism. We're into communism. That's what's happening. If you look at the Justice Department, the FBI, you look at the kind of things that are going on with law enforcement

and what they're doing. We have forgotten. So he's gone from supporting law enforcement to now that the FBI served a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. Law enforcement is evidence of communism, socialism. We're into communism. We're into Soviet Union stuff. It's very bad and it's very dangerous for this country. And people are angry about it. Yeah. Trump continuing to have no idea what socialism is, what communism is, the difference between the two or whether there's any of it here in the United States as orange and sweaty as ever. And even the friendliest interviews, he just cannot make any sense.

Let's go down to another interview that is absolutely chilling. Donald Trump says that the reporters who broke the story on Roe v. Wade getting overturned should be jailed and forced to give up the name of the Supreme Court leaker. This was an interview with the right wing, Sebastian Gorka. Hard to imagine a friendlier interviewer to Trump. And it is just absolutely bone chilling. Catherine Engelbrecht, the the heroine and the hero of 2000 Mules, her partner, Greg Phillips, were arrested for refusing to give up their source. How come they don't do this with the leaker, the leaker of the Supreme Court? Because if you went and got to that reporter, that's a terrible thing that happened. It puts our justices at tremendous risk. And that continues. So they can't find the leaker. It's very easy to find the leaker. If you did the same thing to the reporter as you did to Katherine Engelbrecht, who's a great woman, you say, we want to know who the leaker was because the leaker gave the story

to this reporter. So why aren't you doing that? And yes, as you can see, a very healthy respect here for freedom of the press and independent journalists. Now, they're lying to you, by the way. You know, they talk about, oh, but other peoples have been other people have been jailed when they didn't give up their source. The truth of vote leaders were jailed after being found in contempt for not complying with the legal judicial order to identify a believed criminal behind a data breach at the heart of these conspiracy claims regarding China and our elections. It was not about journalistic sources. It was about identifying a criminal, a believed criminal, completely different situation altogether.

Just doesn't it doesn't make any sense. Phillips and Engelbrecht declined to name a particular individual because of the conspiratorial belief that the guy is an FBI informant, which is just crazy. They're just bonkers people. They were escorted out of a courtroom by U.S. marshals. It's it's has nothing to do with what Trump and Gorka are talking about here. It is a chilling attack on journalism and independence of media. And then Trump talks about General Mark Milley and the infamous walk to the church. And it's it's just insane. So Milley was weak when I heard what he did, because what he walk in with the president, he should have said this is a great honor.

The president held up a Bible and many people. I should. Why should a general praise. Of religiously tainted stunt by a president. Why is that what Milley has to do? Well, I'm very proud to have been in that group. But really was when he when I heard him give an apology, I said he's gone and he was gone. He was weak.

He was in a fan. He's woke. And now I understand. I watch him talking about white privilege and how terrible everything is. And, you know, it's just it's not even believable that a guy could have gotten to that place. Yeah. Listen, anybody with a good head on their shoulders would have seen that Bible walk stunt where they cleared the protesters and walked to the church with Trump holding up a Bible. Any reasonable person would have seen that and said. That looks like a fascist. I'm not saying he is one or that the country has gone fascist, but that looks like the imagery

of a fascist, of totalitarianism. It looks horrifying and we should all be against it. But Trump is mad that Milley didn't suck up to him and go, wow, sir, this was such an amazing thing. Scary, scary stuff. One last quick story here on Trump. Donald Trump is now begging the Supreme Court, please hide my taxes, please, please hide my taxes for someone who has nothing to hide. I have never seen anyone go through this amount of trouble to prevent their taxes from going public. CNN reporting former President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to put on hold the release of his tax returns by the IRS to a Democratic led House committee. Trump filed the emergency request Monday with the high court after a federal appeals court, as I told you,

cleared the way last week for Trump's returns to be disclosed to the House Ways and Means Committee. The case is the most direct way for the House to get Trump's federal tax returns after trying other avenues for years. The Trump team wants the Supreme Court to put the release of the tax returns on pause while the justices consider whether to take the case up to review the lower court decision. This is this is the last salvo. This really is the last salvo as far as every legal analyst I've spoken to has told me. An appeals court has already ruled. Asking the Supreme Court to look at it is the 100 percent last chance if they don't take it up, then the Democratic House committee gets Trump's tax returns. Do they probably leak from

there? I don't know. Maybe they do. I would never encourage anybody to do anything illegal. And if they were to leak, I would absolutely look at them. That's where I will put it. So this is Trump desperately begging the Supreme Court to save him. What do we believe at this point would be in those documents? Well, I don't think it has changed. Number one, the documents might reveal Donald Trump is not as wealthy as he claims to be. At this point, we know that. So I don't think that that would be a big surprise.

Number two, they might reveal income sources that are inconvenient or problematic for Trump. What specifically they would be is the stuff of speculation. And number three, they might further confirm another thing we already know, which is Trump uses very different values for assets depending on what his objective is. All things we suspect, but it would be confirmation. We have a great bonus show for you today. We will talk a little bit more about Kanye West, who is now suspended from Instagram for anti-Semitic comments. The high school football coach who led the prayers on the field is getting his job back. And we do it every year. We will again rant and rave about daylight saving

time. It is not a settled issue. It is very much not a settled issue. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. The money is being made and everybody here is good. You can sign up at join Pacman.com. I will see you then.