The David Pakman Show - 11/18/22: Fox Targets Fetterman's Wife, Concerns About 2024 Explode

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

-- On the Show: -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces she will be stepping down from Democratic leadership -- Fox News starts targeting John Fetterman's wife, Gisele Fetterman, including with conspiracy theories -- Is Fox News actually turning on Donald Trump? -- Caller talks about the launch of Artemis 1 and space exploration -- Caller asks why some countries imprison former leaders and some don't -- Caller wonders if the 2022 midterm results and the lackluster Trump 2024 announcement are reassuring -- Caller has a friend who believes in conspiracy theories -- Caller explores the possibility that Trump loses the Republican primary and then runs third party -- Caller talks about foreign influence in elections -- Caller points out the realities of Trump's economy -- David responds to viewer emails and social media messages -- On the Bonus Show: Hakeem Jeffries likely Pelosi's replacement, Kari Lake won't concede, democracy may be saved, and much more... 🔊 Try Blinkist for FREE and get 25% off at http://www.blinkist.com/pakman 💻 Stay protected! Try Aura FREE for 2 weeks: https://aura.com/pakman ⚠️ Use code PAKMAN for a free supply of BlueChew at https://go.bluechew.com/david-pakman 🌳 Established Titles: Code PAKMAN for extra 10% OFF at https://establishedtitles.com/pakman 🔪 Kamikoto: Get an extra $50 OFF with code PAKMAN at https://kamikoto.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Subscribe to Pakman Finance: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanfinance -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Speaker 1 Speaker 1 Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi will no longer be in leadership. She is currently the speaker of the House. That speakership is set to end when Republicans take control of the House in January of 2023. And Nancy Pelosi announced on the floor of the House yesterday she is not going to be seeking a leadership role, but she will be staying in Congress. The Associated Press reporting that this is a, quote, pivotal realignment making way for a new generation of leaders. Nancy Pelosi gave a speech. She said that, first of all, she has led Democrats for nearly 20 years.

Secondly, she is dealing with the aftermath of this brutal attack on her husband, Paul Pelosi, last month in their San Francisco home. She was the first female speaker of the House, and she will not seek any leadership role starting in January. She says we must move boldly into the future. I will not seek reelection to Democratic leadership in the next Congress. For me, the hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect. She received a standing ovation. And it is not typical that a party leader stays on after withdrawing from the leadership. She was reelected. And there is much speculation about whether this will be her final two year term. She is 82 years old. We don't know the answer to that, but Nancy Pelosi made it clear.

And it is horrifying when you are influenced in your plans by such a horrifying attack like what happened to Paul Pelosi, because to some degree you feel as though you're I'm letting them push me out. But there were already questions about Nancy Pelosi's future. Whatever you think about her politics and I am to Nancy Pelosi's left, you have to recognize not only the significance as the first female speaker of the House, but her 20 year tenure in Democratic leadership and her ability to get things done. They're not necessarily the most exciting things. Always.

They're not necessarily the things I would prioritize. But she did understand how the House of Representatives worked. And while I have taken issue with Nancy Pelosi so many times on specifics, quite a career, quite a career. So Nancy Pelosi stepping down from leadership will stay in the House of Representatives. Fox News is now targeting John Fetterman's wife. This is a real study in character assassination as carried out by the American right wing and media apparatus.

Let's look at the clips first and then I'm going to explain. Aaron Ruppar assembled what was a roughly 24 hour period of attacks on Giselle Fetterman. Take a look at this going after Senate Senator elect John Fetterman's wife, Giselle. After she posted this pic, many were quick to point out that her husband is partially cropped out and accused Mrs. Fetterman of using it for her own 15 minutes of fame. Okay, so so far it's all fun and games, right? But let's continue. One critic said she wanted this so badly for herself. Lol. Another first day for Senator elect Giselle Fetterman. And why is she even there? Your thoughts? Well, she's a lot better looking than he is. So as a man who's married to a wife that is far better looking, I'm sure John

Fetterman would say, I don't even need to be in this photo. But he's not able to do the job, Harris. And the reality here is that it does feel as if basically Pennsylvania has elected his wife and she certainly is furthering that idea with these photos. Maybe she's going to step down. Oh, so even though it's a joke, there's still a truth in this. And now listen to this conspiracy theory. I'll back up, back it up a few seconds. And she certainly is furthering that idea with these photos.

Maybe she's going to step down and the new Democrat governor-elect is going to end up appointing her when her husband can't do the job. What? I still am so embarrassed that we could ever be in a situation where John Fetterman got elected in Pennsylvania. It's an utter failure of Pennsylvanians that he's their representative. Well, look, every Republican lawmaker that's dissecting this that you interview will tell you that they're going to take a close look at how polling was wrong. They really want to know what happened, not just in this race, because what happened is Oz lost.

That's what happened. So Max Kennerly explains the mechanism that is at play here. Fox does it and many do it. OK, this is Max writes. This segment is a case study of the four part Fox News method. Number one, pick a villain, preferably a woman and or minority. Giselle immigrated from Brazil. OK, that's number one. Number two, find something innocuous. The Fetterman's have a long running gag about John not fitting in pictures. So the fact that in the picture she posted, John Fetterman is only partially in the

picture. It's a known gag. It's a thing that they've had going for a while. It's just a joke. OK, then Max Kennerly goes on to explain. Number three is you reframe the innocuous thing as contemptible. And the fact that John Fetterman only partially is in the picture, even though it's a long running joke, is because Giselle is self-centered. It's because maybe she's really in charge. It's maybe because Fetterman can't do the job because of a stroke, etc. And then part four is you inject that completely deranged conspiracy theory, which is John is actually incapacitated and there's a plot for him to resign.

And then Josh Shapiro, who defeated Doug Mastriano to become the next governor, will appoint Giselle Fetterman to be the next senator from Pennsylvania. That's that's the four part system. That's really what's contemptible. And unfortunately, because you and I, we understand the parts and we go, OK, here's how they go from one to two to three to four. A lot of the Fox News viewers will just focus on that last thing. Yeah, you know what?

This is a plot. Fetterman can't do the job because of the stroke. And so this is all to make to sell Fetterman, an immigrant from Brazil, woman of color, a senator, even though she wasn't elected. There's no evidence for that. Obviously, this stuff works. Max Kennerly doing a good job of explaining how I want to revisit something we talked about earlier in the week.

And we talked about it with Angelo Carusone from Media Matters, and we've talked about it in other contexts. Is Fox News actually turning on Donald Trump? Our best assessment up until November 7th was Fox News isn't really turning on Trump, but they'd rather someone else be the nominee. They'd rather be done with Trump. And they are setting up escape hatches where they can hit the eject button if necessary. I'm starting to wonder whether Fox News is going more in the direction of openly turning on Trump. Now, there's a very interesting clip wherein Stuart Varney interviews Trump's daughter

in law, Lara Trump. Now, this is particularly interesting because Lara Trump is a Fox News contributor. So this is not just a guest. This is a Fox anchor interviewing a Fox employee, Lara Trump. And he brings to her Varney does that announcement on Tuesday night didn't seem very good. It really didn't seem particularly good. And it's interesting the way this conversation goes.

Take a look. So I'm sure you're very supportive of your father in law. But those of us on the outside looking at it, it didn't seem as he got the old magic. You know what I mean? Oh, well, I highly disagree with that. Look, for Donald Trump, from the very beginning, from the first day he came down the escalator in 2015. Right. That's the famous speech where he talked about Mexican rapists. In Trump Tower, it's never been about elected officials, politicians, people, you know, in the swamp in D.C.

It's been about the American people. And if you look around the room last night, you had people from all different walks of life. The energy there at Mar-a-Lago was absolutely incredible. It really did to me feel like the 2015 2016 campaign all over again. Speaker 1 OK, so this is Trump's daughter in law and a Fox News contributor who is paid for that commentary that you just saw. But there was no energy in the room. I mean, we looked at the clips.

The energy was so bad. People were trying to leave and Mar-a-Lago staff were keeping them in the room. The energy was so bad that Jonathan Karl from ABC, while Trump was speaking, was able to deliver a live stand up report, not talking particularly loudly because it was so dead in the room. So there may be something different going on. I think it's too early to know. Remember from a couple of days ago, Maria Bartiromo, who has been one of the biggest

Trump suck ups for years now, there's no Trump conspiracy theory too crazy for Maria. She hosted a segment wherein she brought guests on and even she made comments that are kind of like we might be over Trump. That's that's the thing that people keep pushing back on. They don't want to go into a whole nother storm of hate. And there is Trump derangement syndrome, right? There's definitely torture. And I think he started even that last night. He started with the China virus. He started with, you know, poking names at DeSantis. And we've heard that and people are tired of it. Look, I also think that, you know, DeSantis and Youngkin, like you said, are really the future of the party. Right. They're in a generation that I think needs to come forward. And as much as, you know,

his policies were good, Trump's policies were good and the first term. I don't think the majority of the country really wants to go back there. I'll tell you, I live in Florida. Florida is fully behind the Santa's. No matter what Trump wants to tell you, they are fully behind the Santa's. You know, it's interesting. Ivanka Trump, Ivanka Trump yesterday said she's bowing out of politics. Yeah, which we covered extensively already. So listen, I'll leave the question to you. Is Fox News proactively bailing on Donald Trump or are they just leaving themselves an exit? Let me know in the comments. Make sure that you were subscribed on YouTube. Three million of you, three point two million of you last month. Watch the videos. Didn't subscribe. Let's chip away at that and get to two million subscribers.

Make sure you are subscribed to the YouTube channel. Quick break. Back after this. I love reading. I read every day, no matter how I arrange my schedule. I never have enough time to read all the books that I want, which is why Blinkist has been such an important part of my life for years now.

Our sponsor, Blinkist, is the app that takes thousands of nonfiction books, boils them down into an explainer that you can read or listen to in just 15 minutes, which includes all the most important takeaways from the book with Blinkist. I can absorb the essence of 15 different books in an afternoon so I can quickly gather insights from all sorts of perspectives, make connections, have those kind of aha moments that don't happen so easily, which is why I feel enriched when I use Blinkist. Blinkist also summarizes episodes of popular podcasts into 15 minute explainers. And with the Blinkist connect feature, my girlfriend and I can share one account, share

books, podcasts with each other, talk about them on the go. And don't forget, Blinkist makes the perfect holiday gift. My audience can try Blinkist free for seven days and get 25 percent off. After that, go to Blinkist dot com slash Pacman. That's B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. The chances that your login credentials have been leaked in a data breach are higher than you might think, but you can actually check if you go to Aura dot com slash Pacman, you can try aura for free. Our sponsor aura scans the dark web for your personal information, login credentials,

social security number, and sends you alerts, sign up, and you could be shocked to see how many alerts you get on aura. One of our team members found his login credentials in three different data breaches. Now, of course, he changed his passwords right away. I've told you before about one of my accounts getting hacked. Scary feeling. But Aura also does so much more by automatically requesting the removal of information from data search engines, giving you fast alerts on suspicious credit inquiries. to the online security. And you can try Aura for free for two weeks at Aura dot com slash Pacman.

That's a you are a dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. The David Pakman show is, of course, an audience funded program. You can sign up at join Pacman dot com. The new coupon code, please. No more Trump. And you you type it with no spaces, but you have to think of it in your head as please no more Trump. It's like a desperation that the guy not be president again.

That code will save you bigly and you can use it at join Pacman dot com. Let's hear from people in the audience, the most important people, because without you, I'm a guy in a room with a mic and no one's listening. And it's sad. OK, we don't want that. Let's start today with Rose, I guess, calling from the United States. Is that you, Rose? Yes.

Can you hear me clearly? Yes. The United States is so general. You could you could be anywhere, you know. Privacy preserving. So did you watch the launch of the SLS and the Artemis one mission? You know, I did not see it, but I saw, you know, a little bit of a replay. Oh, it was, it was unexpectedly moving and spectacular. Like the plume itself from the rocket was like a mile long. Yes. That's a lot of pollution. It sounds like Rose. Well, I know it's hydrogen and oxygen, so it's mostly ionized gases. It's just water vapor. Oh, is that right? Is that true? The first stage is hydrogen and oxygen.

The solid rocket boosters, they do burn fuel. But yeah, most of the output is just water. All right. Well, if that's true, then I like water. Water is good. Yeah. like water water is good yeah um the question i wanted to ask was that it took us um 11 years at this point 10 years a decade to get to this launch and the program so far has cost around 27.5 $5 billion in 2022, right? And I am just, and the reason why we have,

this is like a 62.5% of our Twitter, like Elon units. So the reason why we have that is because a single senator from the great state of Alabama, Senator Shelby, wanted to save jobs in a state so we have an entire 27.5 billion dollar program because of him not because like people at nasa wanted to do this and this was the best technical way forward but mostly because of congressional and senate interference in the process. Have you given thought to how we can get past this kind of corruption? Speaker 1 Well, I would like to see one of the things in general.

I mean, I can't speak to the exact process you're describing because I did not follow it clearly as closely as you did. But one of the things I would prefer to see when it comes to everything in under the umbrella of science, and I would include space exploration there, is if there could be. A way to depoliticize some of the decisions, like, of course, the jobs for a lot of the spending will disproportionately be in some states and not others that there's no real way around that. You're not going to be able to say, let's do space exploration and divide the money

equally among 50 states. It's not going to happen. So I know they actually do that. Sorry. So if you're presenting a contract like when Boeing presents a contract or even SpaceX, they actually make sure that they have suppliers from all 50 states. From what do they have from North Dakota for this project? Like something from Tarknot or something. There's a list of suppliers that I was reaching on that. That's great. But I think the point still stands that you don't have exactly equal dollar for dollar and job for job division across all 50 states. So there's going to be some elected officials that will be more incentivized than others maybe to go with a particular approach. I don't know if we need

a nonpartisan advisory committee, which I'm sure it probably exists, at least in some name. But clearly it's not effective enough because you still get these extremely political outcomes. I don't know what it is. It's something that needs to be equivalent to the ways we could draw districts more fairly. But I would love to see more scientists involved in figuring out rather than doing it this way, which is most appealing to these senators. We should do it this way, which is actually where the most exciting potential rewards exist based on where the science is. And I don't know what the answer is, Rose, as to exactly how you do that. So in Europe, like CERN, for example, gets a specific inflation adjusted contribution from member states. Member states get to get sent people to their council,

which sits on top and basically votes on spending decisions by CERN. If CERN wants to build a big particle collider, they start decades in advance. They've already started for saving money and setting aside debt and financing and everything else for a client that's going to be built in the 2040s to the 2050s, right? So they plan in like a 30, 40 year time horizon. NASA is constrained by the yearly budget and they have to spend every single penny in that yearly budget and they're not allowed to save money. That makes sense.

Yep. That absolutely. I totally understand that mechanism. I do think that having to plan 30 or 40 years ahead also makes the progress at least seem slower. And I don't know if that will work for an American audience that wants to see action more quickly. But I think we should explore all of these options. And I really appreciate the call, Rose. Of course. Thanks for taking the call, David. It's always a pleasure talking to you. Thank you. There is Rose from the United States. Let's go to Dean from Dallas, Texas. Dean, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Hey, David, can you hear me? I can. I was wondering, are you familiar with South Korean politics at all? Only in passing. So South Korea has kind of had a historical problem with their presidents.

They've sent Lee Myung-bak for embezzlement and bribery. He's gone to jail for a long time. Park Geun-hye is a female president. She's been to jail for abuse of power, bribery, coercion, leaking government secrets. Even the former President Moon, he's under investigation. He could go to jail. My question is to you, why a democratic country like South Korea has no issues prosecuting and jailing former presidents and politicians, politicians, but the U.S. can't. Do you think culture and tradition trump law? I do. I do. And, you know, if you go to my birth country of Argentina, you'll see there is also a long tradition of corruption and arguable criminality from presidents and leaders. And the last one, the previous one seems almost always to be under investigation. And the dynamics within countries, I think sometimes maybe the right term is that there

are these over time implicitly. It's not like people sit down and say, here we jail former leaders. And then in another country, people sit down and say, here we do not jail former leaders. I believe that it's small decisions over time that are a combination of how the judicial system and court system, the judiciary is set up, how judges are chosen, cultural attitudes towards misdeeds by elected officials. All these little things together lead to some countries where it's completely typical that you jail former leaders and others where you don't.

It also exists in the U.S. at the state by state level. I mean, look at New Jersey's history of prosecuting former governors, which I mean, you could say, well, they've had a lot of more criminality among former Jersey governors compared to another state. But there also seems to be something there about expectation. So I think it's all of these things. OK, so you think like the fear of public retribution or violence impacts our justice system that I don't know specifically, it's it's possible that's possible, but we'd really have to ask more to understand people's attitudes. But I think there is a cultural component and there's also a sort of cumulative component over time related

to expectations. OK, well, thanks for taking my call. All right. Dean from Dallas, thank you very, very much for the call. Let's go next to Tristan from Oregon. Tristan, welcome to the program. Hi, David, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Hi, David. It's been a long time since I've called your show. I'm the blind guy who called your show a couple of years ago during the height of the pandemic. I was dealing with some backlogged grocery issues at the time. OK. Great. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you. So two questions. One's much more relevant than the other. I know on one of your recent streams, you you said that you were a fan of chocolate babka. I just got recently introduced to the world of chocolate babka via Trader Joe's. And I just wanted to get your opinion. Like, is that Trader Joe's chocolate babka any good?

I have no idea. I've never had it. I've never had it. You know, I do think that I don't know what the situation necessarily is where you are as far as babka goes. But if you could find like a Jewish deli that has babka, I might go there before I go to Trader Joe's. But maybe the Trader Joe's chocolate babka is fine. I mean, I've already tried it is excellent of the highest order, I must say. So I imagine I imagine the Jewish deli would be otherworldly. And maybe so. Maybe so. But listen, it's good. It's good if you can find it at all. I think that's a good start. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. But on to my next question, just given all of this sort of atmosphere that we have in this country and Trump's announcement on Tuesday. Yep. Just with everything going on, and this is very sort of philosophical, esoteric question. My favorite type of question. Yeah. How much time do you think we've bought American democracy just in

terms of the election and Trump's announcement? You're saying with his announcement, how much time we bought? Well, just the totality of it, the election and his announcement and just the general political sort of atmosphere. I mean, listen, I don't for me, it's so the results of the midterms to some degree are reassuring, although Republicans are still taking the House and they almost took the Senate, but they didn't. And, you know, it's going to be two years of gridlock. But to some degree, at least enough people cared about the outcome to hold off an actual red wave. On the other hand, with Trump's announcement, Trump's announcement itself was pretty dystopian.

But what I'm a little bit reassured by is how boring everybody in the room found it and how in all the polling that's recent, Trump seems to be losing in most of the polls to DeSantis, who hasn't even announced his candidacy. So I have like a small, cautious optimism that the Republican Party is ready to be done with Trump. Yeah, I'm hopeful I had to actually tune away from his announcement because I just I was falling asleep. It was incredible. It was a lot of the same stuff he's been doing at the rallies, but presented in a more boring monotone combined with I'm running for president. It was very strange.

Very, very strange. Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm not I'm not quite sure. Yeah. Do you think that like if Trump loses in the primaries to DeSantis or somebody else, do you think he's going to keep claiming fraud or do you think he's going to pivot somehow? I hope that he runs as an independent if that happens, just because it would be so terrible for the Republican Party. I don't I'm not kind of holding my breath, but it would be amazing for Trump to just run as an independent, take like 15 percent of the Republican vote and

prevent the Republican nominee from winning. That would be great. Yeah, you definitely have a point there. I hope he does, too. Well, that's all I had. Tristan, just remind me of your blindness. Tell me about it. I just don't remember. Are you completely blind? I am completely blind in both eyes have been since I was born. Yeah. So you this is if I know that this is not new ground, but like if I say to you that like the background of my set is blue, does that have any meaning to you? Yeah, I mean, like so just throughout my lifetime, I've just kind of been able to contextualize what colors are. I remember like asking my dad, what black like what is red like and you know red is like the bright you know sort of you know i remember being on you know describing it while i was engaged in some substances like man it's like it's like you're it's loud to the eyes and you know blue is kind of like it's softer, but it has a bright color.

It's hard. Interesting. They have some meaning to me, but it can it can be a little tricky. But and yeah. And so you have no idea what I look like, right? Not really. No, I mean, you've described yourself a little bit, but I don't have any idea what you look like now.

Interesting. Very, very interesting. Wow. Well, Tristan, listen, I appreciate you calling in and we're going to keep an eye. It sounds like you and I are keeping an eye on a lot of the same thing. So I appreciate it. All right. Thanks so much, David. You take care. You too. There is Tristan from Oregon. Great to hear from him. Let's go. Why don't we go next? I mean, why not? Right. Let's go to Bryce from Scotland.

Bryce, welcome. Oh, so can you hear me fine? You sound like you're completely underwater. Your audio is totally muddled. OK, I will do my best to try. Oh, that's a little better. Is that all bad 1 Oh, that's a little better. Speaker 5 Is a little better. Speaker 1 Oh, God. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Oh, boy. Speaker 1 Second. Speaker 1 Well, what was your question, Bryce? Let's see if we can understand each other. Speaker 5 Right. I'll do. I'll do my best. Yeah. Not trying to be too pessimistic, but do you think there's

a way at all? Obviously, you've probably seen the joke that UK politics is at the minute with three prime ministers in seven weeks. Sorry, what's happening in seven weeks, Bryce? Oh, sorry. Let me. I'm going to let you go for now, just because the audio is it's it's not

maybe it's me. I might be having an issue, but I'm going to let you go for now and let's see if we can let's see if we can reset. Let's try. Oh, I don't know. How about Nate from Rhode Island? What's going on, Nate? Hey, David, how you doing? I'm doing well. So I had a question for you. It's not as mainstream, but it's about the second amendment. So, you know, the first sentence of the Second Amendment states about regulation of all regulated militia. Does that mean we can regulate them to the point of like Japan, for instance? Like and not to say that I doubt this court current court wouldn't strike it down. But what do you think about that? No. So a lot of those semantic Second Amendment arguments have all kind of been explored and and they're just kind of retreads. So I don't know the answer to that there. It's not where I would be focusing my let's do the things we know we can do that don't depend on the

linguistic nuances of how it's written and instead say, like, we got to eliminate the possibility of any gun sales without a background check. We've got to limit high capacity magazines. You know, we have this full list. I would focus there instead of on these linguistic concerns. OK, well, thank you. I just had that thought in my head for a little while. I wanted to get that out. Thank you so much for taking my call. Appreciate it very much. Let's take a very

quick break. We're going right back to the phone. So if you're holding on to talk to me, don't hang up and we'll get back in just a minute. One of our sponsors today is Blue Chew, a unique online service delivering the same active ingredients as Viagra and Cialis in a chewable form and at a fraction of the cost. And they're giving my audience an entire month supply for free. So if you think you could benefit from an extra boost of confidence, all you have to do is take a short quiz on their website. A licensed doctor approves your prescription. The medication comes straight to your home within days in a discreet package. No driving around to the doctor's office or the pharmacy. No waiting around. No awkward conversations with your doctor. All of Blue Chew's tablets are made in the USA.

The entire process is just a few clicks. 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. If you have a friend or loved one who is passionate about the environment, here is a perfect holiday gift. Our sponsor, Established Titles, is a project that lets you ceremonially purchase as little as one square foot of dedicated land in Edelston, Scotland,

so that you can call yourself a lord or a lady like the historic Scottish tradition. Some people even change their plane tickets or credit cards to include lord or lady. The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. Established Titles plants one free tree for every plot of land sold. Established Titles does really good work all over the world with reforestation organizations like One Tree Planted and Trees for the Future. So you'll have a great laugh whether you're Scottish or not. I'm not. But you're giving the gift of reforestation to fight climate change. If you use my link, you'll get 10 percent off and your plot of land will be right next

to mine. You can see it on a map. Go to establish titles dot com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman for an extra 10 percent off on top of their Black Friday deal. The link is in the podcast notes. Let's go back to discord and talk to a few more people. David Pakman dot com slash discord is the place to find it. Why don't we go next to Thomas from Denmark? Thomas, welcome to the program. Thank you, David. Just a quick question about gun laws and how Republicans, they view it, types like Ted Cruz. What do you think it will take to change the way they look on gun laws or how?

Sorry, it doesn't do it. Speaker 2 Thomas. Oh, and Thomas Thomas is gone. Oh, boy. All right. Let's try. I hope this is correct. Jireh from Atlanta. Is that how I pronounce it? Speaker 3 I'm Jireh. You're OK. Speaker 1 Jireh from Atlanta. Is that how I pronounce it? Speaker 4 Jireh. You're okay. Speaker 1 Jireh from Atlanta. Welcome Jireh. I apologize. Speaker 4 But you're good. So I was in an argument with an election and I was telling him how the burden of proof is on the people claiming that the election is false. And he made like a point about how like people on the right

just don't trust the elections. And I told him the reason they don't trust the elections is because political figures like Trump tell them that they can't trust it. Correct. And he brought up a point how like Trump was in support of the vaccine, was telling his supporters to get it, but they didn't really like blindly follow him on that issue.

I didn't know how to counter that. So I kind of asked, like how you would counter that. You it doesn't it doesn't need to be countered. I mean, it's just there are two different things. So on the vaccines, the issue was Trump initially convinced some people on vaccines by saying he developed them. OK, but then the rollout of the vaccines was mostly under Joe Biden. So then a lot of them were able to kind of off ramp by saying, well, it's not it's less about the vaccines per se, which Trump did do a good job in developing. But it's about how they're being forced upon me by Joe Biden. So for a lot of it was just a different situation when it comes to the election stuff. They got the idea that it was stolen from the things Trump said and Mike Pillow and Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani. I mean, where else would they get it? Where else

would they get it? And then on the vaccine thing, if you present them with what what we're talking about here, a lot of them would say, well, I was able to do my own research on the vaccines, like the research is a joke and it's nonsense. But when it comes to the election stuff, it's not about research they did. It's just quite literally the stuff that Trump and others have been saying. So I don't even really get the it's one of these kind of weird analogies that doesn't really make any sense. Speaker 4 Got you. Thank you. Speaker 1 All right. Thank you very much for the call. Appreciate hearing

from our friends in Georgia. Remember to vote. Remember to vote in Georgia. Let's go to Kevin from San Diego. Kevin, welcome. What's on your mind? Hi there, David. First of all, say, sir, thank you for telling me to go to Puesto last time I was there. It was incredible. Oh, my God. Did you get the brisket taco? I did not god did you get the brisket taco uh i did not i did you say the brisket taco i got the i got the filet mignon tacos i got the i got the ones with the filet mignon and uh lobster in them and they were it was like the best tacos i've ever had that sounds criminal that sounds criminal yeah no it's it should be criminalized honestly but uh anyway um okay on on on that that's that's a that's a good thing that's happened. But unfortunately, we seem to be sliding towards a bit of a bit of a fascism here. be. It would be best if we had like Trump v. DeSantis get really ugly and they I don't know

if other people have talked about this before I joined a little late, but nobody has talked about it other than me earlier in the week. I my concern with this entire primary that is building wherein Trump has announced and DeSantis hasn't. But there's polls where he's already winning DeSantis. That is my priority is whatever scenario will get these people to destroy themselves and each other. And right now, the most likely destructive path forward is you have a very ugly primary wherein the Trump and the DeSantis people, if DeSantis runs, hate each other so that when hopefully DeSantis wins the primary. And the reason I say that is DeSantis won't go and run third party, but Trump might.

DeSantis was the primary. Trump goes and runs third party, takes a bunch of his supporters because they hate DeSantis and just splits the vote. And a Democrat easily wins. That, to me, seems like the dream scenario right now. Yeah. I mean, and I think that Trump is probably aware that that could happen, but he's still too like arrogant and narcissistic to not do it if he doesn't take the primary in the first place. Like if he doesn't win, I don't see any way he he just like lets it go and doesn't. Yeah, he's because he's just he's

too crazy to not do that. I believe that you are exactly right, which is Trump may be so narcissistic that even if he intellectually understands or has people around him saying you will just hand this to a Democrat if you run third party, I hope he does it anyway. Right. Yeah. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. The first question is, does he win the primary? We're assuming he does. He still might. Yeah, he still might. And that would be bad. I just think that like there's enough things where the Republicans are like kind of even if even not counting the current primary, there's like the Supreme Court, the Morvey Harper. I don't remember exactly what, which the one that was,

um, that that's deciding things so that the states can make their own things with no federal, their own election rules with no federal oversight. Um, which if that is decided by the court in favor of like the, what the Republicans want, um, I feel like there's a bunch of states that are just going to be like, Oh yes, the Republicans won again, no matter what. Basically, they're going to make rules to to not necessarily to, you know, decide the elections against what people actually voted, but essentially suppress enough of the vote and make it so only the places that they know we're going to be voting for Republicans are going to count, essentially. And then they'll they'll never be won by anyone anywhere close to progressive again. That is a horrible of worse. It's horrible what you're saying, but it's a few steps ahead. So let's reserve judgment and see what happens next, if that makes sense.

Yeah, well, it's not bad to think about it. Just to plan ahead. I'm with you. I'm with you. But I appreciate the call. Yeah, it's nice talking to you. All right. There is Kevin from San Diego. Let's go next to how about. Oh, no, I don't want to go to this person. I'm getting a notification that their audio is just a disaster. Let's go to Guillaume

from beautiful Montreal. I understand you got snow last night, Guillaume. Yes. Can you hear me right? I can hear you fine. Perfect. And I'm not going to say it right because it's still coming on. It's still snowing. And then you're pretty, pretty big one. I'm probably going to have to shovel somewhere tonight to beautiful. So how's the weather on your side? Speaker 2 The weather's good. No snow here. But, you know, I don't remember when we last spoke.

I am considering making my next return to Montreal very, very soon as I have friends and family there. And it's been a while since I've been there in winter. Last time I was there in January, my nose would instantly freeze when I would step out into the street to give a recommendation as to when maybe closer to mid to in February. Well, I see that's that's already better. The weather at that point is usually not less cold, but less aggressive. If you get one.

All right. I'll try to make that happen. But this isn't about me. What's on your mind today? So the last couple of times we talked, I threw hypotheticals out there, but it was mostly me trying to formulate the best way I could. And then I decided to just wait after the midterms to also not get accused of trying to influence anything. But there was a question that came up.

I was on Twitter a lot recently. I know, pretty bad. That's on me, I guess. And a lot of the conversations ended up moving towards people attacking the moderation of Twitter, working along with the US government, which I'm not entirely sure they were that active with. They might have been in communication, I don't know.

For censorship, when most of what we could see was essentially the – I'm not entirely sure what agency would have worked with Twitter at that front, but it was trying to reduce the impact of Russian misinformation on influencing the midterms. Yeah. The question was, well, the problem was the persons to whom I was talking to were all about we should allow Russian misinformation to affect the U.S. elections and whatnot. other country's economy and government system and everything, maybe without necessarily trying to give them a vote or any actual power, why don't we, I'm trying to phrase it, why don't you guys more regularly consider what other countries think about candidates. In terms of trying to. Speaker 1 But there's two different things here. So there's actually three different things here. Yeah. So the first one is, is there not a hypocrisy in that the US has interests in leaders around the world and works to influence the way elections go occasionally or sometimes. And yet it says it's

wrong when other countries try to do it to the US. Yes, that is a double standard. But every country does that. Every country wants to have a say about their own leaders and to have a say about everyone else's leaders. So it's a hypocrisy that is not unique to the United States. However, the United States has the resources to maybe better affect what happens in other countries more so than other countries. That's number one. You still with me about it at times? Sorry, what was that, Gail? And I said something at times they can get really aggressive about it. I mean, we're not absolutely real. Absolutely. So we're not one thing. It is a double standard. OK. Second part of it. Shouldn't Americans care more what the world thinks about the leaders we pick? My opinion is that the answer is yes. Now,

that doesn't mean that people around the world should get votes. That's not what I'm saying. But for example, when I think about when George W. Bush was president and the world was essentially against the invasion of Iraq and Republicans here said that doesn't matter, we do what's best for us. I think it would be smarter and more sophisticated to say, well, it would be good to know why the world is against this invasion, even though ultimately we do what we do. Let's actually think about that. And similarly, when world opinion of Trump was very low and world opinion of Biden is higher, I don't say, oh, those are sissy Europeans. Who cares? I say that's interesting. I want to know more about why, because it's important to me

what the world thinks about what we're doing here. So to answer that question, the answer is absolutely yes. But these are sort of a couple different things you're asking about. I guess there's the fact that I was not entirely sure how to bring it up. Well, you did beautifully. Yeah, you really did. I mean, there's the whole there's the whole aspect of according to the people I was talking to, Russian misinformation is all good, all Gucci, everything should be accepted and seen as fact. But oh, you damn communist Canadians over there. Yeah, they're I mean, listen, that as it specifically applies to your friend, I don't I don't find your friend to be particularly, you know, sophisticated in their thinking. But but

I hope I've at least outlined a few of a few of my thoughts. Guillaume, I've got to run, OK? I appreciate you calling. Yeah, I agree. All right. There we go. Always good to hear from Guillaume from Montreal. Let's try Bert from from Jersey. Burt, are you able to get right into your question? Yes, I am. You hear me OK, David? I hear you fine. OK, thank you for taking. Here's my question. You hear a lot of Trumpers and Trump people, you know, they talk about his accomplishments to come to countries moving in the right direction. You know, all these subjective things that's hard to deny what i don't understand is if you look at trump's fiscal record right

yep we are eight trillion more in debt from him from the beginning when he started to where he is today right he's supposed to be his financial genius he's supposed to be the businessman and yet he added more debt in four years than any U.S. president ever in that history, that time period. Like there's a lot of criticism of Trump and, you know, swarming Daniels list goes on. You never hear any criticism of his financial record. So why is that? And where is it?

Well, it's so you're saying economically, economically, right. We are eight trillion poorer after Trump than before him. Yeah. I mean, listen, most people don't even understand the difference between the debt and deficit and are confused about reducing the deficit versus reducing the debt. And so it's honestly ignorance is a big reason why this conversation isn't had more. You say to someone, hey, Biden reduced the deficit and then they go, no, but the debt has continued to increase. Right. Biden slowed down the rate at which the debt is

increasing. You've lost people. So a lot of this, quite frankly, with that particular issue is people don't know what's going on. They don't understand that. And I've tried so many times to explain the difference. But I do think there are easier metrics to look at stock market, GDP, job creation, unemployment, inflation, consumer confidence, etc. And on average, all of those do better under Democratic president. So I tend to focus there. The thing is this, their their big accomplishment is that, oh, financially, we were the economy was booming. Everyone was doing great.

No, we're not. We're as a result of his policies and him and putting taxes and increasing spending were eight trillion poor. We the debt is higher without a doubt. But I can see that there were many economic indicators that were strong under under Trump. I just don't think it had anything to do with Trump being president, if that makes sense. But I guess he doesn't you never hear people criticize about this. It's never you don't know.

You're right. And like I said, I think a lot of people don't don't even understand the difference between that. But I got I apologize. Let's keep it to one thing today because I'm up against the clock and I got to run. OK, thank you. All right. There we go. It's a good question. We should be talking more about that. People don't even get it. So you're sort of like trying to tread water with people that are trying to pull you under. It's

a sad situation. Let's go to a break. We will take calls again. And I apologize. I wasn't able to get to everybody. I love cooking at home. I cook all the time. Having a good set of knives that you actually like to use is really important. For years, I have been a fan of the advantages that Japanese knives offer. And our sponsor, Kamikodo, makes amazing Japanese steel kitchen knives using the traditional techniques that date back to the Edo period of Japan. Kamikodo only uses steel from Japan. Each blade takes years to craft and goes through a rigorous 19 step inspection process with

a lifetime guarantee. The knives come in a beautiful heavy duty ash wood box, makes it a really great gift, easy to store as well. Thank you so much, David. Japanese knife perfectly balanced in your hand. And Kamikodo is now running a big Black Friday sale. My audience gets an extra fifty dollars off. Go to Kamikodo dot com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman. That's K-A-M-I-K-O-T-O dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman for an extra fifty dollars off. The info is in the podcast notes. All right, let's get to audience emails. The mailbag for the week. You can email info at David Pakman dot com. There are some very aggressive ones this week, and I will let you know sometimes a tweet will be used. Sometimes

a YouTube comment might be included or a Facebook comment or whatever the case may be. We start today with Donnie via Facebook, who and I'm going to try to do my best reading of this that I can. Donnie had an opinion and wrote in shortly after the midterm election and said, suffer from TDS much. You pedo supporting libtard goof. Go sniff a little kid like your potato in chief pedo Joe. Then go smoke crack with Hunter and F some hookers. You and you is misspelled almost every time. F-ing libtard loser goof. They then got our standard auto response that, you know, I'm not going to be writing them back. And then they wrote back, get effed. So someone very much struggling with emotions and that type of thing. I do often wonder, like, what type of job could this person

have? Could this be your accountant, for example, where you go in and they go, listen, I would advise you to take the full 179 depreciation on your new six thousand pound vehicle. Excuse me a second. You pedo sniffing. Sorry, I'm just writing a message. Go get. Are these people are doctors, are accountants, et cetera, or not? Just a question. I don't know. I never know the answer. Next message is another person on teaching transgender. This person wrote in and said, you lie when you say they don't teach about trans. It happened to my son and daughter at a young age. You POS who can't define woman. I don't know if that's a question or a statement. You looked like such a loser on Michael Knowles show.

Laughable how smug of a liberal you looked like. And what's wrong with singing our national anthem? Leave that. That's a classic. You don't like it. Leave. It's progressives like you who change everything good in this country. I know it's like we have weekends now and we have minimum standards for health insurance and minimum

standards for education. Give me a break, dude. You're all sick. And yes, I just paid five fifty for gas and our store said they were late getting turkeys. What guy talks about cooking a beautiful chicken? See, you change traditions. I guilty as charged. OK. For me. Spending what is it, six hours with a turkey in the oven and then you get it out and the dark meat is just it's just not that good, guys. Let's not pretend like turkey's that great. OK, and then you've got the breast and you're slicing it and it's enormous and you're checking, is it done or not? I say get yourself a couple of just nicely sized pasture raised organic chickens, beautifully crispy skin takes forty five to seventy five minutes in the oven. Everybody's happy.

It's just better. I'm not telling you to change your tradition. I'm just telling you it's better. And by the way, plenty of turkeys at every grocery store I've been going to. OK, Casey wrote in. Casey says, David, seeing that many of Trump's handpicked candidates underperformed and a clear split in the Republican Party is about to materialize. Do you think it's at all likely Trump runs as an independent in 24?

If the Republican Party and media turn against him, what do you think would happen if he just took his base with him and started his own party? I doubt he'll do it or that it would occur to him, but it's something I could see him what do you think would happen if he just took his base with him and started his own party? I doubt he'll do it or that it would occur to him, but it's something I could see him doing, if nothing else, out of pure narcissism. I think that that's actually the critical part of this question. If Trump actually cared about the Republican Party, we would all be saying he would never do that. He would never run as an independent because it would almost ensure even if he just brought over 10 percent of the Republican vote, 15 percent, some small, relatively small amount.

He guarantees Democrats win. But that's if Trump cared about the Democratic, the Republican Party. Trump doesn't care about the Republican Party. That's the reality. And therefore, I do think it's possible that Trump might run as an independent out of desperation, out of humiliation, if indeed DeSantis just outright defeats him in a primary. I hope it happens. I think it would be a great thing for the country in that it would hurt both Trump and whoever is the eventual Republican nominee. I love it.

We should encourage Trump to do it. Ellen wrote in about Maga as a mental illness. This is interesting. Ellen says, hey, David, a few times on your show, you've wondered aloud about the cause of the Maga condition. You expressed concern that you might be overstepping by calling out their behavior if it's mental illness that's causing it. I think it's good you're considering that it shows your empathy. But I also suspect you believe, as I do, that they're caught. Their causes are multiple and nuanced. And you're going

to keep doing it because the bottom line is we can't become apathetic towards the movement. I think the way you handle them is fine. Very little mocking there, which is pretty impressive. Yeah. When we say. Is MAGA a mental illness in some of those people? I'm not laughing at it. I think we need to deal with mental illness in this country. If we determine I mean, listen. I want undiagnosed and untreated mental illness to be diagnosed and to be treated. That whatever it is, and if that mental illness is part of why someone falls for MAGA delusion, it's good to treat it both because it's better to help people when they're struggling with mental illness and it might prevent us from going down this insane path of Trumpism once again. So I appreciate Alan's comment very much. Eric wrote in our people like

Mike Lindell and Herschel Walker, part of the MAGA grift or victims of it. This is another interesting perspective from Eric. Eric says, Hey, David, do you think people like Mike Lindell and Herschel Walker are knowingly part of the MAGA grift or were they victims of it? What I mean is, do these mid-level front men know it's all a grift or are they just patsies being exploited due to their celebrity status and psychological vulnerability? For example, I don't think Herschel Walker woke up one morning and decided running for the U.S. Senate is the next logical step in his professional and personal life. Obviously, somebody approached him with the idea. Likewise, Mike Pillow is destroying himself financially and seems to be used by other people as a pawn and ATM machine for,

I guess, their own profit and ambition. The reason I ask this is while we can't change the minds of MAGA followers directly, it would be great if we could find a way to wake up these linchpin people to reality. Yeah, I I don't know the answer to that. Mike Pillow seems like a true believer. Herschel Walker kind of seems like he might have been grifted in with appeals to his narcissism and ego. And that's what you have to understand. Ego is a common thing, OK? If you have a show like mine on some fundamental level, you think your opinions are interesting enough for other people to listen to them rather than to just make their own show. Right. So, like, can it be denied that on some level I must think, well, I don't know what I

have to say is at least interesting enough that I should make a show with elected officials. This is significantly bigger. And we've looked at traits of narcissism, et cetera. And what happens with a lot of these people is they become convinced, like Trump did and apparently like Herschel Walker, that they're somehow needed by the country, that they're doing some great thing. And I wonder whether at this point it's too late for Herschel Walker to be talked out of that. He may soon be gone if we do our job in in the state of Georgia. And we'll get back to that in a moment. Interesting email from Julian. Julian says interesting subreddit drama. David, an interesting segment

for the bonus show or something could be reading replies on the conservative subreddit. Very interesting to see what some of them are saying about Trump. Imagine he runs as an independent in 24 and splits the vote. I recommend checking this out as it reminds me of the betting market segments in terms of indication of conservative opinion. Yeah. If you check out the conservative subreddit like reddit dot com slash are slash conservative, you will find that there is a not insignificant portion that is mad at Trump and ready to abandon Donald Trump.

Now, what, if anything, it tells us about 24. I think it's just way too early, but it's interesting. Let's deal with the December runoff first. Kerry wrote in and said, please come to Georgia. We need you. I am figuring out, Kerry, how can I get as involved as possible in Georgia, given that I don't think I can make it down there in the next few weeks? And we're going to be doing a bunch of stuff critically important to get 51 rather than 50. Imagine a supposed red wave. In which Democrats gain a seat in the Senate. I mean, that's just that's amazing. Brian wrote in. Brian has sad news and says you lost a daily listener. I'm sure you don't care, but I actually loved your show

prior to the last few days with all your negativity, which never happened. Sorry. Need more positive in my life. I know you want to keep it real, but holy cow, your negativity was the worst. I'm switching to Mighty Midas as I watch them as well. And they were dead on right with all their content and even head on a guest that nailed the election that Fox News had made fun of. Their guest was 100 percent right. Listen. I was. As honest as possible in the lead up to the midterm, I said the momentum had shifted to Republicans, and that is indeed the case. What over the summer was looking like a much bigger Democratic victory in the Senate came down to just one or two seats. A lot of these races ended up way closer. Look at Fetterman Oz way closer than it was supposed to be in July.

I correctly told you the momentum is going to the Republicans. And I said the specific numbers may be skewed because of right wing polls that are being included in the averages. I was very upfront. And the most important thing I said was we're so close that the polling no longer matters. It's about voting. Oh, Fetterman's up three or down two. Doesn't matter if we are allowed to vote in Pennsylvania. We vote in Pennsylvania. So, yes, Brian is done with this show because of that, because of something, I guess, that I don't really understand.

I do appreciate all the very nice messages I got from people saying, David, I think you struck the right balance between this is the polling. Here are the limitations. Here's what might be going on and making sure that everybody votes. That was the critical message. And enough people did, including 18 to 29 year olds, that the red wave ended up being potentially a ripple. We have a great bonus show for you today.

Sign up at join Pacman dot com. And of course, we will be back Monday with much, much, much more.