The David Pakman Show - 11/14/24: Matt Gaetz and Tulsi nominated as Republicans win everything

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Tim Miller, host of The Bulwark Podcast and former RNC spokesperson, joins David to discuss the aftermath of the 2024 election, the future of the Trump presidency, the future of the Democratic Party, and more -- Republicans win the House of Representatives, finalizing their takeover of the White House and both chambers of Congress -- If Stephen Miller gets his way with his immigrant plan, it will push the country towards civil war -- Donald Trump sits at the White House while Joe Biden behaves like an adult and does what Trump could never do -- Republicans give Elon Musk a standing ovation -- Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz is nominated for Attorney General by Donald Trump, an outrageous and dangerous selection -- Numerous Republican Senators confirm that they will gladly confirm Matt Gaetz to Attorney General despite his obvious lack of qualifications -- Fox News host Larry Kudlow struggles to defend the nomination of Matt Gaetz to Attorney General -- Tulsi Gabbard, a national security threat, is nominated as Director of National Intelligence by Donald Trump -- With the nominations of Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Gaetz, the involvement of Elon Musk in government, and the nomination of John Ratcliffe to CIA Director, our intelligence will be fully compromised -- Donald Trump and Elon Musk stand around awkwardly as a guy sings -- On the Bonus Show: John Thune will become the Senate Majority Leader, how Elon Musk's US government efficiency panel might work, Trump jokes about running in 2028 if Republicans "do something," much more... 👕 Cozy Earth: Code PAKMAN for 40% off at https://cozyearth.com/pakman 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code PAKMAN for $30 off & free baked goods at https://wildgrain.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 🥦 Lumen lets you master your metabolism. GET 15% OFF at https://lumen.me/pakman 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code DAVIDP for free shave cream at https://hensonshaving.com/davidp 💪 AG1 is offering FREE GIFT and FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- Pakman Discord: https://www.davidpakman.com/discord -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave a Voicemail: (219)-2DAVIDP

. Welcome everybody. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before the rebuilding can begin and we have now hit rock bottom. The Republican Party has now taken not only the presidency, not only the Senate, but also the House of Representatives yesterday officially securing many had already called that not everybody officially securing as of yesterday, the 218 seats required to have a majority. There are still votes being counted.

But what we know is that Republicans have gained a seat. Democrats have lost a seat. And as of this moment, it has it to 18 to two oh eight. That's four hundred and twenty six seats total accounted for leaving nine more pending results. So the rebuilding can now begin now here. You know, interestingly, I've been getting a lot of cameo requests over the last week. People saying, David, I need a pep talk for my sister. I need a pep talk for my mom.

Something positive to say. So here you can't always make lemons out of lemonade because sometimes the lemons are rotten. You know, I don't want to go off on a whole thing, but I was just reading a really good book stand firm by Sven Brinkman, a Belgian psychologist and philosopher. And he says, you know, one of the criticisms of this self-improvement and coaching culture is it's always about find the positive and glass half full and optimism. You know, the Stoics had a different view. Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius,

Seneca, they said negative visualization and just acknowledging, you know, a horrible disease doesn't always have an upside. You don't have to always come out and say, you know, I learned so much and I'm such a better. It might just suck and that's okay. And acknowledging that, acknowledging that some things are just negative is okay. And it's mostly just negative that now Republicans are going to get the chance to nominate, you know, tool C D N I and Matt Gates, a G we'll get to that. It's, it's, it's mostly horrible. If we have any. Silver lining or potential silver lining, it's that Republicans got exactly what they've been rallying for. They say we're better at everything. Everything's always better when we are in charge. The facts don't bear it out,

but that's what they say. They have their unbeatable orange leader back in the driver's seat. They have the power. They can now show us how their governing genius will make everything awesome for everybody. And you know what? I hope they're right. I would rather have a good four years for the country than a crappy four years. So now we can sit back and wait for the cheap gas, the low inflation, the low interest rates, housing to become affordable, eggs to become affordable, milk to become

affordable. We're going to have a triumphant trade victory over China with Trump's tariffs. The national debt will shrink like Trump promised. Economic growth will explode. Crime will go away. Obamacare will be replaced with something awesome. Obama immigration is going to be resolved and world peace will reign. And if that happens, you will see me on this show in four years saying he did it. He did it and he deserves to be rewarded. But remember the promises we'll get to evaluate. years saying he did it. He did it and he deserves to be rewarded. But remember the promises we'll get to evaluate promises made, promises kept or not.

And if it happens, I will congratulate the Trump administration and give credit and say I was wrong. Maybe that's just me. You know what? I shouldn't. I just criticize it no matter what. No, if they do it, I'll, I'll congratulate them. Uh, but if they don't, there will be no one to blame but them because they will control the white house. They will control the Senate and they will control

the house. Now, of course, if they fail, you know what they will come up with. They will say, well, we had the Senate, but only with 54 seats or whatever it ends up being. We didn't have a super majority Democrats still blocked us. And okay, we had the House, but like only by one seat or a couple of seats, Democrats still blocked us and then we'll get to evaluate. But if there is anything here, it's that they will now get to prove to us how awesome everything is when they are in charge. And if it's not, then we will hold them accountable. I want to be super clear and super careful in this next story. There are creators and pundits and influencers who have been talking about civil war as an imminent threat in the United States for years, and they do it irresponsibly. And it's the one hammer they have. So they go, that's a nail and that's a nail civil war here, civil war there.

I have never brought up civil war as a real possibility and I'm going to bring it up today only in the most careful and serious way with a caveat. And the caveat is if, if Donald Trump's deputy policy guy, Steven Miller gets his way with his deportation plan, it is plausible that we will have something that we would have to call sort of a civil war. Now, my hope is he doesn't get his way. I am not saying civil war is imminent. Like Tim pool has been saying for five years, I am saying that what

Stephen Miller wants to do is so insane that it could, if he does it cause a civil war. Now, let me explain here. We have to go back to a disturbing article in the Atlantic from February by Ronald Brownstein about Donald Trump's deportation plan, the architect of which is Stephen Miller. And in this article, there are two paragraphs that are very scary and I will read them to you. Quote, how Trump and his advisors intend to staff such a program would make a prospective Trump deportation campaign even more volatile. Stephen Miller, Trump's top immigration advisor, has publicly declared that they would pursue such an enormous effort, partly by creating a private red state army under the president's

command. Miller says a reelected Trump intends to requisition National Guard troops from sympathetic Republican controlled states, and they then deploy them into Democratic run states whose governors refuse to cooperate with their deportation drive. The article continues such deployment of red state forces into blue states over the objections of their mayors and governors would likely spark intense public protest and possibly even conflict with law enforcement agencies under local control. And that conflict itself could become the justification for further insertion of federal forces into blue jurisdictions. Notes Joseph Nunn

counsel at the Brennan Center. OK, let me give you the full list of problems with this idea. And there are many deploying National Guard from Republican states into Democratic states will pit state level authorities against each other. And it's going to set up this red state troops versus blue state governors to enforce policies in blue states, even if the blue state governments say we are opposed to it. Now, at minimum, forget about any further analysis for now. At minimum, this would provoke massive public protests, especially in cities that are against these policies.

And suddenly you will have the National Guard from, say, Pennsylvania doing crowd control on the streets of New York City. Now that alone is a recipe for horrible, tragic disaster. Secondly, this would unquestionably overreach federal authority to have one state's National Guard go to law enforcement in another state. Completely outrageous. And on that note, the plan probably violates both the Constitution's protections against the misuse of federal power as well as state sovereignty. All sorts of legal problems here. Remember, they claim to defend the constitution and support law and order, which is the opposite

of this plan. They support that stuff except when they don't. The deployment of the National Guard usually requires a governor's consent. If you force red state national guards into blue states, you're bypassing that authority. Not only will there be legal challenges, it could get much worse than that. And in addition, you have the posse cometatus act cometatus cometatus, I don't know, which restricts the use of the military for domestic law enforcement. This is one of the problems with, uh, deploying law enforcement

to the, to the border with Mexico, as Trump has talked about, which is it seems to violate the Posse Comitatus Act. And when you use state troops in that way, you're arguably violating that. Now, this is where it gets even uglier. Causing this chaos might actually be the plan. In other words, they may be looking to use this plan to spark protests, which they then use to justify more federal intervention. It's probably what they want. They use it to justify even more crackdowns. This is very dangerous territory. I hope it doesn't happen. I am not one of these magas praying for civil war. I hope it doesn't happen. But more than anything else I've seen come out of the policy ideas of the forthcoming

administration. It's this which would get me to say that might cause a civil war. I want to show you a video of what it means to be a man. No, I'm not going to show the video of the birth from from from health class in middle school. Get course. That's not what I'm talking about. Yesterday, President Joe Biden welcomed Donald Trump to the Oval Office.

He did something that Trump did not have the testicular fortitude to do when Joe Biden defeated him in 2020. Joe Biden not only welcomed Trump to the White House, he said he would assist to ensure a smooth transition, something Trump didn't do. He will, I believe, attend the inauguration of Donald Trump because Joe Biden is actually the man that Donald Trump has always pretended to be. Take a look at these 40 seconds of video from their public sort of statement in the Oval Office. Well, Mr. President elect and former president.

Thank you, Donald. Congratulations. Thank you. And I'm looking forward to having a, like we said, smooth transition to everything we can to make sure you're accommodated, what you need. We're going to get you in the office. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And looking forward to having, like we said, a smooth transition. Do everything we can to make sure you're accommodated, what you need. And we're going to get a chance to talk about some of that today. So welcome. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And politics is tough.

And it's, in many cases, not a very nice world. But it is a nice world today. And I appreciate it very much. A transition that's so smooth, it'll be as smooth as it can get. And I very much appreciate that. You're welcome. Thank you all. So listen, um, uh, this is very different than what we saw four years ago and we are now going to see what it was supposed to look like and whether it is Trump's ego or Trump's narcissism or whatever. Trump was simply not able to do the most basic stuff here that President Joe Biden is indeed doing.

When you think about the way things are supposed to work, you are reminded that it is not a question of money that allows you to just be a reasonable, good, moral person. You know, when you think of just basic humanistic values, empathy, uh, cooperation for the betterment of your society and whatever Joe Biden clearly doesn't like Donald Trump. Joe Biden, I can only assume is disgusted at the sorts of attacks that Donald Trump levied against them, but he's still doing this. And it is a stark reminder that money can't buy class. Money cannot buy class. And I know that if you look at pictures of Trump's bathroom and you see a weird carpeted

bathroom with a gold plated chandelier, you know, money can't buy class. Right. So we knew that we didn't need this White House meeting to remind us that money can't buy class. Right. So we knew that we didn't need this White House meeting to remind us that money can't buy class. But it is very much the case that we are dealing with two very different types of people. And there are millions of Americans who have been sold a bill of goods that Donald Trump is the manly one and the intelligent one and the good one and the one who cares about other people. And not that we needed any more confirmation that that's not the case. But this 42 second meeting yesterday at the White House certainly confirms that. And I got a couple of emails from people saying Biden shouldn't have done it. You know, Biden doesn't really prove anything

by stooping to the level of Trump. If he doesn't invite Trump to the White House as president elects tend to be, if he doesn't go to the inauguration, Biden doesn't prove anything. And I know that a couple of you said Biden looks weak by doing this. It's subject to opinion. But to me, it's very clear that it is Biden who looks strong and it's Trump who sits there and look at the look on his face. It's Trump who should be humiliated because he is getting the peaceful transition that he never provided to Joe Biden. He is getting the adult welcome that he never provided to Joe Biden.

So you know, it's the end of Joe Biden's political career. And he is going out with class, which is more than Donald Trump can say for himself. I want to just give you a vignette of the weirdness and pathetic nature of what we are up against the next four years. Elon Musk has in a way supplanted J.D. Vance as the right side man to Donald Trump. And Musk is everywhere. Now, as you all know, I'm completely disgusted by all of this. I long ago sold my Tesla stock. I have a month left on my Tesla lease and then we're going to flush it 10 to 15 times. I'm humiliated by the entire Musk thing. Did he advance electric vehicle technology rapidly and force legacy manufacturers of vehicles

to come to the table with their electric cars? Yes. And that's objectively a good thing. But he seems to have lost his mind. So here is Elon Musk. Trump spoke to Republicans yesterday for some reason that no one knows. Elon Musk was with him and the Republicans gave Elon a standing ovation. Listen to this.

You're right. Wow. We have to prepare ourselves for the reality that like a leech or parasite on a sperm whale, Elon Musk is going to be just kind of hanging around, attached to government for the foreseeable future if and until he and Trump have a falling out last night at Mar-a-Lago. And if you have any question as to what Elon's goal here is or Republicans' goal, there was the mention of a right wing George Soros. And Elon Musk raises his hand and says, that would be me. And many of us have long said, where is the George Soros of the right?

Where do we find him? And there is Elon Musk proudly raising his hand and saying he is the George Soros of the right. Once again, principles only matter until they're inconvenient. They say they shouldn't be anybody like George Soros, no matter what George Soros is. Political views are except now they say, actually, it would be cool to have a Soros like figure on the right as long as they are right wingers. Another principle they claim to care about just poof evaporates when it's inconvenient. Elon's going to be around. And if you think that's bad, just wait till after the break.

I'll tell you who Trump nominated yesterday. One of our sponsors today is cozy earth. wait till after the break. I'll tell you who Trump nominated yesterday. Thank you. Two Cozy Earth's pajamas are designed for the cherished moments of relaxation, ensuring that you are cozy and stylish all season long. Also, check out their cityscape collection of sweats designed for comfort and functionality. Cozy Earth's cityscape hoodie is the go to for comfort on the move. A must have loungewear staple. Never forget that the holidays are best spent lounging at home and staying comfortable. Cozy Earth is the best way to do it from their amazingly soft bath towels, luxurious bath robes, slippers, a lot more. My favorite part is their commitment

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in every box. When you go to wild grain dot com slash Pacman, that's wild grain dot com slash Pacman to get thirty dollars off and a free item in every box you receive. The link is in the podcast notes. In a recent interview before the election, Trump said that he didn't think his supporters would cause problems after the election, but that the left would, saying the left is the enemy from within and might be needed to be handled by the National Guard. The Washington Times reported this interview with the headline Trump says no chaos from his supporters this Election Day, which totally whitewashes and saying washes what Trump actually said.

Luckily, we have ground news, the app and website that provides context on every story. Like for this Trump interview, ground news provides more context. Like Trump's defense secretary said, we should believe Trump when he says he wants to use the military against Americans because that's what he wanted to do during the unrest in the summer of 2020. That's why ground news is so valuable. Our sponsor ground news is an independent, nonpartisan news analysis tool dedicated to exposing the hidden agendas that influence the news you consume. Ground News has features designed to expose the narratives that circulate in biased media

bubbles, and it'll even show you your own media blind spots. We all have them so that you can understand every story from every angle. Thank you, David. The link is in the podcast notes. The David Pakman show is an audience supported program. Appreciate everybody's support. Of course, memberships come with the daily bonus show, an extra show for our paid subscribers, as well as commercial free audio and video streams of the show access to the members only soundboard invites to members only town hall events and so many other things. I have four words for you. Attorney General Matt Gates, ladies and gentlemen, we are once again becoming a laughingstock. We were a laughingstock globally under scrumps

and Trump isn't even president yet. And we are already going in that direction. Donald Trump has selected beleaguered former Congressman Matt Gates. Now you might be saying former Congressman, what do you mean? He resigned yesterday. It relates to an ethics investigation. We will get to that. If you thought random Fox news host for secretary of defense was bad. Well, Trump has now nominated a guy investigated for underage prostitution to be his attorney general. This is the scariest pick so far

and he's giving tool C access to intelligence. So we'll get back to that in a moment. Now, here is Matt Gates saying when he spoke at CPAC that we've got to get rid of the FBI, the CDC, the ATF and the DOJ. And he is theoretically, if he can pass confirmation hearings, going to be running the DOJ, the department he thinks should not even exist back on our side or we defund and get rid of abolish the FBI, CDC, ATF, DOJ, every last one of them if they do not come to heal. Now, there is a chicken egg situation here that we're still trying to figure out. As some of you know, there was an ethics investigation going on into Matt Gaetz because of these

allegations of underage sex trafficking and horrible, horrible stuff that one of his buddies actually pled guilty to. Within minutes of Matt Gaetz nomination, he resigned his seat in Congress. The ethics investigation was scheduled to come out in just a few days because the house of representatives can only investigate sitting members of the body. You hit the body with an investigation. The ethics investigation into Matt Gaetz evaporates. Now we can hope that it will leak or be published, but strictly speaking, it's not supposed to.

So what was the order of operations here? Was part of the reason that Trump selected Gaetz, a guy who has no business in the world being attorney general. The Trump select him in order to save him from the ethics investigation. Did it come opportunistically that while Gates could certainly wait, I mean, there are some who say this guy won't get confirmed, so he might as well. He should have kept his seat in Congress before resigning so quickly. Was it opportunistic where he said, this is my get out of jail free card. Now I will immediately resign in order to prevent the ethics report from coming out. We just don't know what we can hope for right now is that his confirmation hearings are absolutely nuts, that the liaisons with underage women come out. And there's sort of a, there's two views on this. One view is he wasn't even

nominated to be confirmed. The idea is like, he's sort of a Harriet Myers type nominee, like what George W. Bush did where Harriet Myers was nominated to the Supreme court. Uh, it went so poorly and she was clearly so unqualified that she ended up withdrawing. And then they put in somebody even worse. So there is a fear that if the Democrats and maybe some Republicans in the Senate are successful at blocking this nomination, that it will lead to whoever Trump really wants is AG and it will be somebody less incompetent, but far more weaponized. Or is this really who Trump wants? And maybe we can get him blocked.

We don't know. But if you're looking for early signs as to whether Republicans will be falling in line. Yes, sir. Mr. Trump. Let's take a look at that next. One of the people who has been very critical of Matt Gaetz is Senator Mark Wayne Mullen. I'm going to play for you in a moment some of the things that Mark Wayne Mullen has previously said about Matt Gaetz. They are horrible. But in the immediate, in the immediate, Mark Wayne Mullen went on CNN yesterday and said, I completely trust Trump's decision making ability even when it comes to someone that I think is dangerous like Matt Gaetz. Listen to this. Are you going to vote for Matt Gaetz? You know, Matt Gaetz and I, there's no question that we've had our differences.

They've been very public about it. I completely trust President Trump's decision-making on this one. But at the same time, he's got to come to Congress and sell himself. There's a lot of, or to the Senate and sell himself. There's a lot of questions that are going to be out there.

He's got to answer those questions. And hopefully he's able to answer the questions right. And if he can, then we'll we'll go through the confirmation process. Senator Mark Wayne Mullen from the great. Senator Mullen completely trusts Donald Trump's decision making abilities. Mullen accused Gates of sleeping with underage girls, of showing people videos of the girls that he was sleeping with on the floor of the House of Representatives. He accused Gates of bragging publicly about taking erectile dysfunction medications in order to engage in sexual intercourse with the underage girls.

And he says, oh, Matt Gates, I totally trust Trump's decision making. Yeah. Remember this interview? You got to think about this guy. Um, this is a guy that didn't have that. The media didn't give a time of day to, after he was accused of sleeping with a underage girl. And there's a reason why no one and the conference came and defended him because we had all seen

the videos. He was showing on the house floor that all of us had walked away of the girls that he had slept with. He'd brag about how he would crush ED medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night. This is obviously before you got married. And so when that accusation came out, no one defended him, and then no one on the media would give him a time of the day. All of a sudden he found fame because he opposed the speaker of the house back in November and he's always stayed there and he's not, he was never going to leave until he got this

last moment of fame by saying by, by going after a motion to vacate. So listen, despite all of that, Mark Wayne Mullins says, I trust Trump's instincts on this. And most of them do seem to be bowing down here. A Republican senators, Kevin Kramer and Ron Johnson, they certainly sound like they're going to go for attorney general. Matt, we all learned that lesson that time is of the essence. And I think Ron and I and our 51 colleagues are equally committed to the same thing.

You know, Senator Johnson, another very interesting and I think inspired cabinet choice was Pete Hegseth. Of course, I know him here from Fox, but he's, you know, a very smart guy, very well educated, Princeton and Harvard, distinguished military man with any number of bravery medals. He wrote a great book called War Against the Warriors. He wants to root out DEI and CRT and so forth. He's concerned about the way the Defense Department's going. Now, that's going to be controversial, I guess, although anybody knows Hexeth knows he's qualified to run the Pentagon. What do you make of that, Senator Johnson? That's a breath of fresh air, it seems to me, also. Well, you used the term that I would apply to, to the people that

president Trump is picking smart. These are highly intelligent people and that's kind of the first criteria. There you go. Ron Johnson is satisfied that Trump is picking all smart people. And then here is Lindsey Graham saying, basically, listen, as far as Matt Gates goes, Trump won. He gets to pick. He's bright. He's qualified. He won the election. He deserves a chance to pick his cabinet. I am predisposed

to allow him to do that. I think Matt Gaetz, Matt Gaetz is very bright. I think he's qualified. He'll have a hearing and he'll have some tough questions to answer. But to every Republican, please follow a process to give President Trump the ability to pick the people he thinks can do the job and give Matt a chance. And you have a history of that. You know, the funny thing about assuming that Trump is able to pick people to do the jobs, it's that a lot of the people he picked in the first term couldn't do the jobs and they ended up, ended up either resigning in shame or being fired by Trump with Trump then coming up with explanations as to why it went South. So listen, if we zoom out,

there are a lot of Republican voices who seem to be giving Trump carte blanche, a blank check, the keys to the city, Do whatever you want. Sure. Senator Susan Collins from Maine was shocked that Matt Gates was nominated. We will see what happens in the confirmation hearings, but here is something really funny in response to the nomination of Gates. So Fox news host Larry Kudlow, who's also a former Trump economic advisor from chapter one of the Trump presidency, which we also know is the first term. Larry Kudlow made an attempt at defending the nomination of Matt Gates.

And it's so funny because he's coming up with a lot of stuff to say, but he doesn't even really seems like he believes it. He he sort of seems like he's in physical pain actually while he's giving this defense of Gates. This is really, really funny. So there's what Kudlow is saying and then there's how he's saying it and the look on his face as he does it. And he looks in physical pain here.

Gates went to Florida State College degree, got his law degree at respected William and Mary. He's a member of the Florida Bar and Good Standing. He practiced law privately. He just won his fifth term to Congress, where he has served on the Judiciary Committee all during that time. And yes, there were some unproven ethics accusations that were made by the Biden Justice Department that came to nothing, just like all the other Biden weaponization, lawfare charges aimed at President Trump. And yes, Mr. Gates is loyal to President Trump. Right. So including Senator Rubio at the State Department and Tulsi Gabbard at the DNI and Mr. Gates of justice, all those announced today that comes to

20 top level president elect appointments in just eight days, 20. So Larry Kudlow going with the Trump's doing well because he's made a lot of choices in a short period of time, but the defense of Gates as a nominee beyond he has a law degree and was on the judiciary committee is pretty damn weak. Now one outcome of Matt Gates confirmation hearings in the Senate would be he gets confirmed and becomes attorney general. Another outcome that would seem more logical would be that he, that he is let out in handcuffs. That's actually the one that seems more appropriate based on the things he's accused of doing.

Of course, due process, innocent until proven guilty. All of those things obviously apply. But if you said to me, based on everything I know, this is not a court of law, but a court of public opinion based on everything I know about Matt Gates, which is more appropriate putting him in charge of the department of Justice or putting him in handcuffs. Handcuffs certainly do seem more appropriate. And I'm wondering, I'm just thinking out loud, is it possible that Trump thinks the attorney general is the person who's supposed to be committing the crimes rather than prosecuting crimes?

I don't know. But if he believed that it would make a lot more sense to nominate Matt Gaetz. Did you know that countless commercial databases and people search sites are storing your personal information? Anyone from an employer to a former partner can use these platforms to get details about your online presence, your home address, phone number, email, license plate, family members, financial information, even political views. Europe has laws that offer some protection. But in the US, the data is widely accessible. Even the FBI will buy this information from companies to spy on people without a search warrant. Our sponsor, Incogni,

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understanding of that. Go to Lumen dot M E slash Pacman to get 15% off your Lumen. The link is in the description. It's great to welcome back to the program today. Tim Miller, host of the Bulwark podcast, a never Trumper and former RNC spokesperson. Tim, I don't know what we could start in any one of many different places. We could talk about DNI, Tulsi Gabbard or AG Matt Gates. We could do a postmortem on what happened to Kamala Harris's campaign. We could I mean, I guess let meup call for people. It's funny, my personal reaction to it was almost like, relief is the wrong word, but kind of like this exhale after the week of dealing with the election. Because everyone else, I think, who hasn't seen things

as clearly as we have, I think that there was a false expectation about what was going to happen after the election. And the Hegseth appointment, to me, kind of brought everybody into alignment with reality, or slowly people are coming into alignment with reality. Because I think that those trio together, Hegseth, Gabbard, and Gates, they are unqualified in their own ways. They're troubling in their own ways. But what is uniting about them is how Trump is going to see this next administration. And it's going to be fully based on loyalty. It is going to be clownish in certain ways. But it is going to have people that have specific objectives

that they want to get across that are very contrary to what kind of the bipartisan consensus has been, you know, about how to manage a federal government. And and and all three of them are far outside. It's funny to see people like Gates might not get confirmed. It's like all three of them are far outside of the norm for what anyone has nominated before, including Trump in his first term. And so I think it's quite clarifying. And we can talk into some of the details about what I worry about with each of them. But I think that they're of a piece with each other. One of the things that I've been noticing, and I'm wondering if you agree, is that there

seems to be a confidence sort of floating around, an aura of confidence around Trump, the people around him, the people being nominated. Everybody has a serious confidence here. And part of it seems to be the perception, which maybe is reality, that there was some kind of landslide mandate giving result last week. Now some of that is based on the popular vote results, which are narrowing and narrowing. And right now, Trump's popular vote lead is smaller than Hillary's victory margin in 2016. So that's unclear to me in terms of, is it a mandate?

Some of them will point to grew the percentage of these demographic groups. And so like just everybody kind of voted for him and we, you know, whatever. Do you see, is it about, I have nothing else to run for that might give a level of confidence to do these types of things? Or is it the election results that's giving the confidence or what do you think it is? I think that there is an expectations game beating that's giving them a little bit of the confidence, right? Like to win the popular. I don't think even the Trump people thought they were going to win the popular vote, to be honest. I think the Trump people think that they were going to win the Electoral College. And I thought that he very well could. I thought it was a flip. But I was surprised that

he won the popular vote. And so I think that life's about expectations. You know, there's a little bit, I think that they have a little bit, their chests are out a little bit because of that expectations beat in the popular vote, even if it ends up being very narrow. But really, David, like what it is, is a total takeover root and branch of the of the Republican Party. And I think that is what is driving a lot of this confidence, which is that there's nothing like people, you know, in some level, Trump's taken over the party since 2016. Right. Right. Bring in 2016. But still, it's different. In 2017, people don't remember.

Paul Ryan's still the speaker. Mitch is running the Senate. Trump kind of outsourced policy to them, really, for the first year or two. And Paul, who was cowardly in so many ways, stood up to Trump from time to time, right? And Elise Stefanik was anti-Trump still. Our new U.N. ambassador was anti-Trump still up until 2018, up until Trump from time to time. Right. And there's a period, and at least Stefanik was anti-Trump still. Our new UN ambassador was anti-Trump still up until 2018, up until the Ukraine impeachment, really. And so like, so he had, he had control of the voters, but he didn't have control of

the apparatus of the party. I think he is coming in with extreme confidence and that he has control of the entire party and he's going to dare people to stop him. And I think that there are a lot of people that are working in a 2017 mindset out there that are like, oh, these confirmations could be tough. And John Thune might. And I just I'd love to be wrong, but I just don't see it. I think that they're all I think that he's right, that they're all going to fold to him. And I think that the confidence comes from that knowledge. In addition, kind of surprising popular vote win with the three

picks you mentioned. When I look at the three of them, I say, okay, Hegseth history of unhinged hawkishness. Yeah, that scares me. Tulsi it's the Russia stuff and her complete lack of qualification. And then with Matt Gates, it's, this does seem like the guy who will weaponize the justice department against trump's political adversaries what are your three concerns yeah same i mean gates gates is the only one of the three that i know personally um from my time as a republican which is now over officially if it was ever any doubt um and gates is a lot smarter and people give him credit for you You know, I saw I saw, you know, a newsletter today from a lefty lawyer, who I respect, who's like, Gates is too stupid to

work the DOJ. And I just I don't see that. Matt Gates is a very savvy person. He's demonstrated his savvy a lot of times. And he's not a buffoon. And so i would will he know how to work the levers of the justice department in an efficient enough way to target folks you know what i mean that's for sure there are questions will he be able to deal with the the um career lawyers there and and like how long will it take to really wrest control from like all of that i think is question but i think that gates is savvy and i think that people uh and I think that definitely there will be a weaponization targeting. The people I think I'd be the most worried about are those who investigated Trump. Right.

That were involved in the Russia investigation. People are involved in the impeachment. I think that is kind of that's the first circle. And I think we'll learn a lot from what they do there. I think Hegseth, on the other hand, is a clown. And he's running the biggest government apparatus. He's running the U.S. military. There are 3 million employees, uniformed and non-uniformed.

He's never run anything in his life. He ran a nonprofit where he hired his brother and I think two other employees. And he's been a weekend Fox in fred's house for eight years so i just i worry about that being incompetence like and and and how that what could be the downstream effects of his incompetence um tulsi i i i worry i don't know her and so maybe i'm wrong but i sense that she is a screw loose and i worry a little bit about a general flynn type situation yeah he's been totally red pilled and is believing conspiracy and having somebody like that in charge of our intelligence to me i actually can't even wrap my mind around the threats because i i think that it might be outside of our imagination um for the types of things we could

see well let's explore that a little bit more tim because one of the things i've said before is like there's a couple of figures kind of like loosely in this space. There's this guy, Dave Rubin. I don't know if you're familiar with Dave. We've got Tulsi now. There's this host, Jimmy Dore, where relatively late in life they had supposed complete one eighties with regard to their politics. I genuinely don't know how that happens. And you are someone who has also

had a shift, but you're, you seem sane to me to be perfectly frank in a way that they don't always. And so I kind of wonder, do you start to get captured where you think you're going to get play and attention and maybe money and access to power? And you don't really believe this stuff at first, but then you go, you know, maybe I do kind of believe this stuff. These people are being nice to me. Is it an overt grift? Are you so clueless in your first political life

that then when you find, maybe you were like, you had the wrong views all along and then you stumble across them. Like, do you think it's genuine with someone like a Gabbard? I just don't know. Yeah, usually I would say it doesn't matter,

actually, because like the result is the same. But in this case, I think it does. It's a question that does matter because if it's a genuine switch, if it's a grift, right, then it's kind of like she's going to go along

to get along in there, do a couple of ostentatious things for PR to keep Trump happy. And it's not great, but like the risks are potentially small. It's a Flynn situation, right? Where fully red-pilled,

genuine switch, buying the conspiracy theories of the deep state, and she has the whole apparatus of DNI at her beck and call, and she's got Donald Trump and the people around him encouraging her.

Yeah, I mean, that again, that worries me. I just I think back to 2016. Right. And it's like I was as as deranged about warning about Trump as anyone in America. But even then, if you'd said to me, here's a picture from 2020, the Capitol is stormed, Trump flag smoke. Like, do you think this is real? I think I probably would have been like, I don't know that that seems a little out there like i i had more ordinary concerns right um and and to me like that's how i'm going into this next round is i think that there are i have concerns about tulsi they're kind of outside of ordinary that are outside of our imagination and i don't i don't want to like speculate on what that is i guess i'm just saying that i think that

we should be a little bit more open-minded about what the potential threats are. Do you think that this is a, if, if Trump gets these people that we know of so far all confirmed, is this a dangerous group of people at the helm of the, of the government? Yes. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Um, I, I think that they'll get through again. I could be wrong. I've been wrong, but I feel, I think that the party is through. Again, I could be wrong. I've been wrong. But I feel, I think that the party is going to submit to him. Could any of these be sacrificial nominations, like the Harriet Meyers thing? You don't think so?

No. My colleague, Mark Caputo, is as well-sourced as anybody in MAGA world. And he's like, Trump wants Matt Gaetz to be the attorney general. Might a couple Republicans retiring, like Mitch McConnell's going to retire. Might a couple of retiring, Mitch McConnell's going to retire, might a couple of them decide to grow a spine. I don't know. Who knows? I couldn't predict when what Mike Pence's line was going to be. He went along all the way until the very last day. These guys all, maybe not all of them, but many of them have a line somewhere. So maybe Matt Gaetz is that line. But then I think Trump will try to do the recess appointment

thing. And I also don't think that anybody should assume that the replacement the replacement for matt gates would necessarily be better right i mean no it might be worse yeah it could be worse um so i i think that they're dangerous um i do and again i like the day the question is is it a danger of incompetence or is it in a danger of malice um some combination of both and and i just i think that remains to be seen. And I and I I think that despite the fact we're in year nine of this, people are still underestimating just how how wild I could get. Let me switch gears a little bit. Kamala Harris did a number of things, at least theoretically, to make inroads with Republicans. She did a little campaigning with Liz Cheney. She said many times, I will be everyone's president. I'm not. She declined to take the bait on attacking Trump supporters in a number of different high profile interviews.

She did a bunch of different things. OK, she got about five percent of the Republican vote. Biden got six percent in 2020. I think Hillary got 7% in 2016. What happened? Well, part of that is that some of the Republicans aren't Republicans anymore. So there's a shift. To me, I look less at the actual Republican numbers than I look at the counties. Where did Harris do either better than Biden or equal? The Atlanta suburbs, right? Some of those people, they might not be Republicans anymore, but they used to be Republicans. I look at, and so I listen to criticisms for the left where they're like, she spent too much time trying to reach these people. She should have focused more on other groups.

Maybe that's true. But I think that when all said and done, if you look at the results, Kamala Harris did essentially about even among, maybe even up a tiny bit among the college educated one-time republican voters however you want to call it like maybe not current republicans but people that had voted republican before and so i i think that the campaign was fine in that regard um there was some expectation that there was going to be bigger growth there right and so that uh obviously didn't come to pass. We could have some thoughts on why. The problem, though, is the is the law, the drop among. Well, Trump continued to run up the score among rural Republicans. And then and then this drop in urban settings and in highly in communities of color, Hispanic, across the board, Arab, Hispanic, Asian even. And so what particularly working class, particularly working class men. And so, you know, I mean, that's a massive problem for the Democratic Party. Her message wasn't resonating with them. I don't think that she thought that the Liz Cheney events were supposed to resonate with them. I think that they were doing a lot of other stuff

on ads about middle class jobs and like the other parts of things. And so to me, it's I think that it's easy to say, well, she shouldn't have done the three events with Liz Cheney. I just I don't think that had an impact one way or the other. I think that the problem problem was that clearly the message for working class voters of all races didn't land. And I think that's something the Democrats need to reflect on. And maybe that's about policy. Maybe it's about messenger. I think that there'll and I'm kind of open minded about about the potential solutions. Maybe there is no solution. And maybe like we just need Donald Trump's tariffs to cause a recession. And working class people will be like, Oh, wait,

I didn't want that actually, and come back and the Democrats don't need to change anything, right? Like the Republican laws last time, they didn't change anything and they won this time. Right. So sometimes you can overanalyze. But that's that would be my brief assessment. And I'm happy to talk more about any of those elements. I want to get your take on one of the things that we're hearing from some is the decision not to do the Rogan program had an outsized role. I struggled to think that that one decision really had an outsized role. But what I have talked about is that the right does have an excellent ecosystem of media and interviews, and sometimes they're not even overtly right wing, but sometimes they are.

I'm talking about Patrick, bet David Rogan, Theo Vaughn. I'm not even saying all these people are right wingers, but it generates this kind of environment where it ends up pushing people that way. The NELC boys, Lex Friedman, you know, shows I've even done and they're completely fine with me. We just don't really have that on the left. And Brian Tyler Cohen and I were talking about how it's hard to even just get like, you know, a random congressperson to show up and they'll reschedule five times and eventually give you 13 minutes. And, you know, I do think there is something missing on the left as far as the ecosystem that generates social interest. Do you agree? Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on this. I think the one thing the left isn't really necessarily missing is what you and brian are doing i think like overtly left stuff exists um the politicians could have more buy buy into

that is it bigger on the right probably so could it be built out more sure but to me i think the big problem is those not the people you're talking about like the theo vons milk boys right the non overtly political cultural commentary spaces right for particularly not for non-overtly political cultural commentary spaces, right? Yeah. For particularly non, for non-elites, right? Like the Democrats are doing fine on cultural commentary with elites, but for non-elites and the Democrats aren't trying to go there, right? Like to me, and do they have any, like,

who could you think of off the top of your head? That's like a Democrat. I think that they do very well with Theo Vaughn. So it's hard to kind of think of some names. I can think of a couple, but even like nobody that jumps straight out. Maybe Federman or something, right? But Theo, so I'm from Louisiana. Theo's from Louisiana.

I know him better than the other people. So I'll just use him as an example. People don't know. He was on Real World Road Rules. He's non-political he like he's mega-ish culturally but he also had bernie on uh you know he's opened he thinks that there should be more regulations on pharmaceuticals like that's a random issue he cares about that's a democratic coding issue right um and and the democrats didn't try to go talk to him and the Republicans did. And so to me, the ecosystem sure could grow.

But to me, it's the Democratic are not the politicians are not engaging in in broad enough worlds. And I think that you could also we spend a lot of time talking about the white bro podcast. But you can also talk about that, about, you know, cultural podcasts that appeal more to people of color or Spanish speaking. And I think that I do think it was a failure. And I don't think the one Rogan interview would have mattered. And I don't actually think that Kamala Harris, for all her strengths, would have been that great in those settings. And I think I should start thinking about who are politicians that can do well in those settings, because that's where the media is going. Right. Like that's right the media is going, right?

Like that's the future. Doing good speeches and good conventions, it's not nothing, but it has more limited impact than it did in 2004. We've been speaking with Tim Miller. Check out the Bulwark podcast and the YouTube channel. Tim, always great to talk to you. Thank you. All right, David, let's have you on the other side and we'll switch the microphones around and do it again sometime. There are two big problems with the cheap plastic disposable razors. Two thirds of people have skin irritation and then over two billion plastic razors enter our landfills in the United States alone.

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Former democratic Congresswoman, now an independent Trump supporter, Tulsi Gabbard has been selected by Donald Trump to be the director of national intelligence. You know, let's just give Putin an office at the White House and be done with it. Why are we even going to pretend here is Tulsi Gabbard back in 2022 parroting Russian talking points about Ukrainian bio labs. Here are the undeniable facts. There are 25 to 30 US funded bio labs in Ukraine. According to the U.S. government, these bio labs are conducting research on dangerous pathogens. Ukraine is in an active war zone with widespread bombing, artillery and shelling. And these facilities, even in the best of circumstances, could easily be compromised and release these deadly pathogens. Now, like COVID, these pathogens know no borders.

If they are inadvertently or purposely breached or compromised, they will quickly spread all throughout Europe, the United States, and the rest of the world, causing untold suffering and death. So in order to protect the American people, the people of Europe, the people around the world, these labs need to be shut down immediately. This was verbatim, verbatim Russian propaganda. It backfired so spectacularly that Tulsi later went back and tried to clean it up by saying, I just meant it's bad to have this stuff in a war zone. It's not specifically about Russia,

Ukraine, COVID, whatever. And of course, the idea even generally that Tulsi Gabbard has any business directing national intelligence, never mind even having a security clearance is absolutely cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. As always, there's funny tweets to look back at. Remember when in 2018 Tulsi tweeted, Hey Hey Donald Trump being Saudi Arabia's bitch is not America first. My, my, my, how things have changed. And of course there's much, much more in 2019 she tweeted, president Trump's actions make the American people and our country less safe while wasting taxpayer dollars to pay for

the new arms race and nuclear weapons dollars that should be used to address the needs of our people and communities right here at home. Tool C tweeting also in 2019, president Trump's reckless decision to pull out of the INF treaty heightens this threat by exacerbating the new cold war, sparking a new arms race between the U S and Russia and bringing us ever closer to nuclear Holocaust. The receipts are brutal and I could go on. So there's two things here.

First of all, this is sort of like a Dave Rubin, Jimmy Dore, whoever thing. Okay. I don't know whether they realized where the gravy train was and so they just pretend to have done a political 180 in middle age or whether they have been so captured by I've got access to Trump. They invite me to this. They invite me to that, that they've convinced themselves that actually these are the right points of view, but it's not normal as an adult of 35, 40, 45, 50. I don't know how old Jimmy Dore is.

He might be close to 60. It's not normal unless you were painfully clueless and had no business even commenting on this stuff to have a one 80 politically. At that point in time, I get the 13 year old who gets exposed to Andrew taint. And then when you're 17, you actually find real experts on stuff and you go, I just did a one 80. I understand the 18 year old who in high school ends up with one set of political beliefs.

And then you go through college and a few years of work and at 26 you go, my views have really changed one way or the other. Some people get more conservative. Some people get more liberal. I get that as you get to 35, 40, 45, 50, it starts to get really weird. So that's one aspect of this, which is, I don't even know that I believe that tool C really did the political one 80. She did. Maybe she did. Maybe she didn't. But more importantly, she has no experience with the intelligence community in project 2025. The authors advocate for giving the director of national intelligence more power. And now Trump is going to follow that and make Tulsi Gabbard the position that has a,

that, that the individual that holds that position with more power. And uh, as I think back to Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton wasn't right about everything. She wasn't, but she seems to have been right about this when she suggested that Tulsi Gabbard is a favorite of the Russians. And that seems to be the case. Remember that this is the same Tulsi that Russian state media called our friend. She met with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in 2017, which was seen as legitimizing that regime, which is something that Russia absolutely supports. She constantly opposed us intervention in Syria. I'm all about non interventionism, but once again, it's when it happens to align with Russia's interests during the 2020 election cycle.

We had these reports of Russian bots and trolls amplifying tool. See Gabbard's messages on social media because they help to point to destabilizing the American status quo. And uh, it is all just playing directly into Putin's hands. So putting someone with these sympathies for foreign adversaries at this important position at this time in particular is not America first. Whatever Trump thinks America first is tool C as DNI is certainly not America first. So now we get to the 30,000 foot view. It brings me no pleasure to report to you today that if Donald

Trump gets his selections confirmed, our intelligence agencies and the white house will be fully compromised. Putin can manipulate Trump. We know that he's done it before. He'll do it again. I don't know. Putin denied hacking very strongly. And why would he hack anyway? It doesn't make sense. No, he was very strong in his denial. All right. So Putin manipulates Trump. We know that Elon Musk, who is going to co-lead Trump's new department of government efficiency or Doge, as some are calling it, he has amplified pro-Russian propaganda many times in the context of the Russia Ukraine war. And in other scenarios. He now controls Twitter and is going everywhere with Trump. He seems to be with Trump. He's at Mar-a-Lago. He's meeting

with Republicans. And at least for now, Twitter remains a major platform. Many users are heading for the exits, by the way. I'm on blue sky. Please find me there. That really is me on blue sky. Great platform alternative to Twitter. But so Trump will have the he'll be manipulated by Putin. Elon Musk, who also has been manipulated by Russian propaganda, controls Twitter. Tulsi, with her history of amplifying pro Russian propaganda and doing Putin's bidding, will be director of national intelligence. A clueless Fox host will be the secretary of

defense. And the nominated CIA director, John Ratcliffe, was a purveyor of 2020 election conspiracy theories. And he will be leading in theory the Central Intelligence Agency. This is really, really, really bad. It's a shit show. I apologize for the language. And I'm not talking about Donald Trump's toilet flushing problems that he keeps reporting to us. It's a shit show. I apologize for the language and I'm not talking about Donald Trump's toilet flushing problems that he keeps reporting to us. It's a shit show. I expected it to be bad. I expected it to be worse than the first term, but even I didn't think it would be this pathetic

and humiliating. We are not going to have adults in the law in the room for a long time and then throw on top of it. Matt Gates is potentially attorney general. It is very bad. So hopefully the city or town you live in is run by sane people. Maybe the state you live in has a sane governor or a state legislature and or state Senate that is somehow connected to reality. I hope that that's the case for you. That's what I'm kind of taking, you know, some comfort in for these upcoming years. But it's looking like it's going to be worse than even I expected.

And my expectations were very, very low. Just to sort of wrap today with something a little less serious, but also kind of scary. We've talked about how Trump and Elon now seem to be best friends to the extent that Trump has friends. Of course, as soon as Elon says, I'm not so sure about this policy or that policy, it'll be over. You'll never see Elon near Trump again. My hope was that a lot of the Elon weirdness, the jumping around and the just the weird stuff would stop after the election. No. Last night, I guess this was at Mar-a-Lago.

I'm not even sure. Here are Trump and Elon awkwardly standing on stage while a guy sings. Why are they so weird? Tim Walls was right. This is a preview of what we will have the next four years. but there's actually a more important substantive message here. Check this out. I really don't know what Elon's role is in this entire thing, but I jokingly said before JD van seems to have been replaced by Elon as acting VP running mate. This was before the election. It sort of seems like Elon is even replacing JD as Trump's right hand guy. And I'll be honest, compared to Elon, JD seems so boring

and uninteresting that if you're Trump and you're like, I can have JD with me at everything or I can have Elon here. I'll go with Elon. Also, Trump is impressed by rich people and Elon is much, much wealthier than Donald Trump. And so, you know, nobody elected Elon Musk to anything. Trump and Elon are sort of acting as if Elon did get elected to something. And the takeaway here is twofold. Number one, on a superficial level, the bizarre optics and strange behavior are going to continue the standing on stage while, while people sing or play music, the palling

around with Elon Musk. You know, if you if you zoom out for a second, imagine if we learned that a billionaire and his little kid were following Joe Biden around everywhere. And when Joe Biden met with congressional leaders, the billionaire and his son were there. And when Biden went to his Delaware home, the billionaire and his son were there. And when Biden went to his Delaware home, the billionaire and his son were there every day, day in and day out. They would be talking about a 24 seven on right wing media. They just pretend it's normal when

it's Trump and Elon. But secondly, secondly, the whole people hanging around thing, it's not going to just be a strange veneer. It's going to have real consequences. Matt Gates hanging around with Trump for the last couple of years now has led to the nomination of Gates as attorney general tool. See doing a one 80 and placating Trump and kissing Trump when he introduces her at events and saying she's found her way. Weird veneer. She now has

been nominated to be the director of national intelligence. So the repercussions are real. That's the sad part. We've got a great bonus show for you today. We will talk to you about the changeover in terms of Senate leader for the Republicans. We will talk about how Doge may work the department of government efficiency. And we also will talk about the joke that maybe Trump will run again in 2028. And is it really a joke or not? All of those stories and more on today's bonus show, the bonus show where you want to make money. Yes.

Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Let's make some money on the bonus show. Sign up at join pacman dot com. Preorder my forthcoming book, the echo machine, anywhere books are sold. I'll see you on the bonus show and I'll be back tomorrow.