The David Pakman Show - 11/21/24: Election's biggest winners, Nancy Mace melts down

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

-- On the Show: -- A deeper dive into the real winners of the Donald Trump presidency, which are not the working and middle class -- Tom Homan, the nominated "border czar," makes it clear that those in blue states who don't help Trump's deportation scheme could face arrest -- If the ethics report about Matt Gaetz exonerated him, Republicans would be eager to have it made public -- Nikki Haley slams Donald Trump's selection of Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, but ignores that she helped make it a reality by endorsing Trump -- Donald Trump's Spacex stunt with Elon Musk inadvertently helped Joe Biden get more judges confirmed in the Senate -- JD Vance tweets and then panic deletes a post about Trump looking to replace the FBI Director -- Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace melts down when she doesn't like the questions asked of her -- The exodus continues from Elon Musk's Twitter since the election, and Bluesky is one place people are going -- On the Bonus Show: Trump gives Republicans an order on press freedom bill, latest Dept of Education nominee faces her own sex scandal, Texas board advances plan to allow Bible in elementary school lessons, much more... 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code DAVIDP for free shave cream at https://hensonshaving.com/davidp 💵 Sponsored by Ridge Wallet: Get up to 47% off the best holiday gift at https://ridge.com/pakman 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 🖼️ Aura Frames: Use code PAKMAN for $45 OFF & free shipping at https://auraframes.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 😺 Smalls cat food: Use code PAKMAN for 50% off & free shipping at https://smalls.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

Hey everybody, I want to start today talking a little bit about the real winners of this election and the forthcoming Trump presidency because when Donald Trump campaigned on make America great again, millions, maybe tens of millions of Americans fell for the idea that Trump was going to be fighting for them. Uh, the forgotten working class, these small town Americans left behind by globalization and the elites of Washington, maybe the deep state, if that's your preferred flavor of conspiracy. But after the four chaotic years of Trump's first term, it is worth asking

who really comes out on top of the Trump presidencies and spoiler alert, it's not the everyday people wearing MAGA hats or turning, uh, uh, showing up at his rallies. The real winners are going to be a mix of global strongmen, billionaires, industries that have played Trump like a fiddle when he has said that he has been fighting for the establishment. And yes, Vladimir Putin is on the list, not in a conspiratorial or cartoonish way, but we'll dig into that. It's fossil fuel executives. It's Kim Jong-un. It's weapons manufacturers, even though Trump claims to be antiwar. So let's get right into the list and let's just get the Vladimir Putin out of the way.

Trump cozied up to Putin in ways that no other American president has done. Think of Helsinki where Trump took Putin's word on us and over the word of us intelligence. And it's not about a conspiracy of Trump being an asset or agent. You don't have to do any of that. You just need to look at the way Trump approaches these things. When you look at Trump's view on solving Russia, Ukraine, whether he will or won't do it, we will see. By the way, he said he would do it within 24 hours of becoming president elect. It hasn't happened. In fact, we're seeing the biggest escalation yet from Putin. Trump

favors Putin in the sense of saying, I'm going to be neutral. I'm going to be objective. I'll sit down with both of them and I will fix it. Ignoring the reality that there is an aggressor and a defender here, that's already a gift to Putin. So it's not about shady backroom deals where Trump and Putin meet and compare sword sizes and to talk about favors. It's more subtle, but it's noticeable and Russia's global standing may not have improved thanks to Trump's first term, but its ability to operate with impunity certainly did the cyber meddling, the military aggression, the disinformation and Trump turned a blind eye to it all.

And he certainly will again, Kim Jong-un probably will benefit from another Trump presidency. Kim did get something that every dictator dreams of, which is to be legitimized and legitimated both their words. Check the dictionary, um, legitimized by an American president. Trump crossed the DMZ into North Korea. He said it was an honor to meet Kim. And meanwhile, North Korea kept building up its nuclear arsenal. Trump got no real concessions. Trump came away thinking he won yet. It was the same failed promises from a former North Korean leaders. Netanyahu in Israel.

Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, which was a long sought goal of the more evangelical type Israel supporter. The Abraham Accords, great PR for Bibi, while the occupations that are so concerning to so many continued unchecked, Netanyahu got to frame himself as a global statesman while the scandals piled up. And now, thanks to Trump winning, it's going to mostly be carte blanche for Netanyahu. Mohammed bin Salman from Saudi Arabia, his the de facto ruler who got away with murder literally in the case of Jamal Khashoggi. Trump refused to hold bin Salman accountable, boasted about selling weapons to the Saudis. Oil production cuts. No problem. Remember, while Trump was talking about lowering gas prices, he actually worked with the Saudis during COVID to limit supply in order to

drive prices up in order to help the Saudis. And that actually goes to another benefactor of Trump presidencies, which is the fossil fuel industry. Climate rollbacks. Yes. Withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. Yes. Maybe doing away with the $7,500 federal credit for electric vehicles. Looks like he wants to do it. The fossil fuel executives made a ton of money under Trump while we continued to fall behind on climate and Trump wants more drilling on public lands and war as he calls it. You name it. Trump wants to do all of it.

Weapons manufacturers, even though Trump claims he's the only real anti-war president, Trump pumped defense budgets to astronomical levels. It's funny now to see, as we talked about yesterday, Elon and Don jr and Jank on Twitter talking about cutting the Pentagon. We saw a 21% increase. It was four successive increases in Trump's military and defense budgets a little bit each year, totaling a 21% increase, more money for bombs, jets and guns. Uh, we will likely see more deals with authoritarian regimes, including Saudi Arabia. And that also helps the weapons manufacturers. And then of course, conservative Supreme Court justices win under Trump. Trump delivered a six three conservative supermajority.

If he gets two more, he is going to have five ninths of the court be his picks and reproductive rights loses. Voting access loses the court undoing decades of progress. And let's not forget that Mitch McConnell was the architect of much of it. But Trump was the figurehead. If we look at Trump's second term, communicable disease will be another winner. We know that Trump completely mismanaged the covid pandemic. But now with the anti science rhetoric, the undermining of public health experts and attempting to bring in Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run health and human services, it's almost like communicable disease has a campaign manager

here. And of course, there are concerns about measles. There are concerns about listeria through raw milk. I mean, it's a long, long list of stuff. Now, some honorary mentions of who else will win under Trump's second term, the QAnons and the conspiracy theorists, Trump mainstreams a bunch of their nonsense. although lately he's been doing a little bit less of it. The white nationalists, as you know, Trump didn't create white nationalism, but he certainly emboldened many of them. We recently saw more marches of white nationalists and they're much more comfortable taking a megaphone and getting out on the street. And then to some degree, right wing media figures, including Tucker Carlson, but also going beyond that, Trump skyrocketed their ratings, gives them access, interviews, content, et cetera, all while claiming that he's going to fix media and tell us who the enemies are in media and so on and so forth. So there are going to be a lot of winners to this presidency. I should also

mention the industry leaders from the industries that have donated bigly to Trump. It's it's quite a long list. But the story that the biggest winner under Trump is going to be the working class, the everyday folks. It didn't happen in the first term. If I were a betting man, which I'm not, I would assume it doesn't happen in the second term either. They are threatening to arrest us in the blue States. We have been watching very closely the unhinged and authoritarian statements from Donald Trump's nominated border czar or deportation czar. His name is Tom Homan. He appeared yesterday on Fox news. You've got to hand it to him. Yes. He's an authoritarian extremist. Yes. Much of what he wants is implicitly,

if not explicitly xenophobic. Yes. He doesn't care about the constitution or the rule of law, but if there's any praise we can make of Tom Homan, it's that he's not hiding what he plans to do. Here is Homan threatening people in blue States like me. Hold on. Where is it? I did everything right and they indicted me, me threatening everyone, including me in the blue states with prosecution. If we participate in hiding migrants from ice, which, by the way, if you simply don't help them, they're going to call it actively trying to hide people. Take a listen. Quickly, what happens to a mayor or a local police department chief that is under Democratic leadership that obstructs ICE in your federal agents that are

helping get these deportations? What happens to them? Right. Well, first of all, if they don't help us get the hell out of the way, we're going to do it. If I got sent twice as many resources to that city, that's what we're going to do. If they would give us access to the jail, that would mean less agents in the community. For them pushing back and not letting us in the jail, it just means more agents are going to be in the community. So they're hurting themselves. Finally, I'll say this. They need to educate themselves. They need to review this.

Title VIII, United States Code 1324, triple I. Read about that and don't cross that line because it is a felony to harbor and conceal an illegal alien from ice. Read the statute. Don't cross that line. So let's be very clear, very clear about what this means and what he's talking about. If you volunteer at a church or at a school, if you as a family provide someone housing, maybe this would apply to you specifically or people, you know, any of those activities are considered counter to what Homan wants to do.

Mass deportations of those who have been involved in specific crimes or not. They're even talking about revoking temporary protected status. They're even talking about denaturalization for individuals. We talked about it on the award winning bonus show. If you in any way are involved in that, I just volunteer at the church. That's it. He is saying that you will be targeted and he believes that they have the legal basis on which to go after you. And he is making it really clear that they are going to go in with force to blue states and blue cities, essentially doing exactly what I warned earlier this week and last week

that they seem to be aiming to do. We had Stephen Miller's roadmap for this from February. And of course, maybe they plan to do that. Maybe they don't. But Tom Homan is making it clear. And here he is on Newsmax saying much the same thing. He's making it clear that the Stephen Miller program is exactly what they plan to follow. They don't have to help us, but they need to get the hell out of the way because we're coming. We're going to do it, which means if I got sent twice as many resources, that's thanks for a city twice, many agents. That's exactly what I'm going to do. And I've been saying for the last several days that they need to study the law. They cannot help, but don't impede us and don't cross certain

lines. There's a statue under title eight, United States Code 1324 that talks about harboring. All right. So he mentions the exact same thing here. And then one more clip from Newsmax, Tom Homan, making it abundantly clear. Deporting non-criminal migrants is something he is absolutely consider. If you're in the country illegally, you're not off the table. I mean, we've been looking for fugitives. There's over a million illegal aliens in this country who got due process at great taxpayer expense, were ordered removed by a judge and failed to leave. So they're also a priority. But yeah, I mean, we'll be moving on to those who may not be a

criminal, may not be a fugitive, but they enter this country illegally, which is a crime. And they're here illegally and they are not off the table. I want to be clear on that. Now of course, you know, and I know, and economists know that if they really did this, this isn't a justification for crossing the border illegally. It's simply reality. If they really did this, the economy of the United States would grind to a halt. I'm not even saying it's fair that so much of our economic activity is on the figurative

and sometimes literal backs of undocumented immigrants who have committed no crime other than being in the United States illegally. It's actually a bad thing that that's the case. It makes us economically fragile. It's a precarious economic situation, but it is the reality. And if Tom Homan gets his way, it means a disastrous economic situation. If you care about the humanitarian aspect, great. I do too.

But if you're one of these right wingers who doesn't care about the humanitarian aspect, if they care about the economy, they should also be very, very worried about Tom Homan's plan. I hope that you're following me on blue sky at David Pakman dot com slash blue sky. We gave away a bunch of early copies of my forthcoming book there. We'll take a break and we're going to talk a little bit later in the show about the Twitter exodus that is taking place. 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

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So go grab a gift for someone special or yourself. Head to ridge.com slash Pacman. That's R I D G E dot com slash Pacman for up to 47% off. The link is in the podcast notes. The David Pakman show, thankfully, depends on our audience, not on Russian influencer money filtered through some domestic company whose owners recently got indicted. That's not a hypothetical that really happened. Not some major media conglomerate where I have four layers of editors and producers. No, we are funded primarily directly by you.

I invite you to sign up at join pacman.com. We are working to build the media ecosystem. You know, it's a, it's either funny or scary. We estimate about half of 1% of our audience supports us directly through something like membership. If we could go from half of 1% to 1% that little difference, it would make us immune to any reductions in revenue from any of these algorithmically driven platforms. We can't control the YouTube algorithm.

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be his attorney general. Yes, Gaetz is unqualified. Yes, Gaetz is immorally and completely from an ethical standpoint. He has no business being in that role. It would make more sense to nominate Matt Gaetz to the primary committer of crime rather than prosecutor of crime. And much of it centers around wild allegations of Gaetz participating in drug fueled orgies with underage prostitutes whom he appears to have paid for sex through Venmo. Venmo, ladies and gentlemen.

And there is an ethics report that was scheduled to come out last Friday. However, it hasn't been released. And the reason it hasn't been released is that earlier last week when Donald Trump nominated Gates, Gates immediately resigned from Congress. It is not typically the case that ethics reports are released by Congress about individuals who are no longer members of the house. It has happened before, but it is not typical. And so now there is an argument happening involving Republicans and Democrats and the usual suspects who have their own careers primarily in mind, not what's best for you

or what's best for me. There is an argument now about whether that ethics report should be released counter to the claim that you don't usually release ethics reports about individuals who are no longer members is the obvious relevance and salience of this report, given the role that Matt Gates has been nominated for and given Gates is obvious attempt to suppress its release by resigning from Congress. Here is CNN's Brianna Keillor asking Republican Congressman Carlos Jimenez whether Gates would be a good attorney general. And Jimenez is doing the normal kind of distraction reaction. Do you think that Matt Gates would make a good attorney general?

It doesn't matter what I think. The united the president-elect of the united states thinks that he'll make a good attorney general look the president has every right to choose who he wants to choose as attorney general i have made no secret i'm not a fan of matt gates i wasn't a fan of his when he was here and i think that he was disruptive here in the in the house of representatives but But the president also thinks that things need to be shaken up at the DOJ and the FBI. And Matt Gaetz has shown, if he's shown anything, that he is a disruptive force. And so, you know, the president has faith in him. Now it's up to the Senate to determine whether they want to affirm that nomination or reject it.

And that's how it goes in our country. And so I expect that the process will be followed and that we in the House should facilitate the Senate and in their deliberations and how they determine whether he should be affirmed or not. You can't find a more banal,odyne borderline, meaningless comments about the Matt Gates situation. And this is the way a lot of them are sort of playing it. Michael guest is the Republican chairman of the house ethics committee. He told CNN's Manu Raju, he's not sure he does want that report released from Trump

or his team at all about this? There are two options. Well, what I said is, is I view a public release versus a conversation about transmittal to the center. I think those are separate conversations that the committee needs to discuss. Is the report actually done at this point? The report is not. It's not? That's correct. And so how could you possibly release it if it's not done?

That is something that we will be talking about today. And that's another reason I have some reservations about releasing any unfinished work problems. How far would you say it is from its completion? That's another reason I have some reservations about releasing any unfinished work property. How far would you say it is from completion? It has not gone through the review process. So of course, they might just never finish it. That would be another way to suppress its release. Now I know that most of you know exactly what is going on.

Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell, who's been a guest on this show, says what every single one of us is thinking, which is they're just trying to hide something. It's blatantly obvious to anyone with a brain within a brain from the ethics committee chairman, Michael Guest, saying that he would prefer to not release an unfinished work product, saying that he's weighing whether to release it publicly or directly transmit it to the Senate. What do you make of that? They're hiding something like where I come from. If there's a report about somebody's misconduct and there's a gang that's trying to keep it from coming out, most people in America in any cafe,

any bar, any church that I go to would be like, what, most people in America, in any cafe, any bar, any church that I go to would be like, what are you hiding? Why won't you let us see this? And so that is the conclusion that an American jury would draw if you tried to hide the ball on something. But the court of public opinion, which is more important and needs to have faith and trust in its top law enforcement officer, is going to say say this guy has no credibility. He can't lead America's police force and our law enforcement agencies if there's these questions that are being hidden by his own people. Now there are two realities that we have to contend with. As Eric Swalwell points out, any reasonable person capable of even the most basic critical thought

would say if the report cleared him, they would release it because it would put this entire controversy to bed. Imagine if they could turn around and go, listen, you know what? We did an investigation. We reviewed it. We're ready to release it. Gates didn't pay underage girls for sex on Venmo. Gates didn't hide some of those expenses on Venmo by saying he was reimbursing people for gas or

whatever it was that's being looked at. He didn't do any of this stuff. And now we can confidently move forward with him. If they could do that, that would help Trump. That would help Gates. That would help everyone who wants to be close to power. The fact that they don't seem to be doing that, of course, suggests that the report would not exonerate him. But then there's another side to this, which is that it doesn't seem as though in 2024 statutory rape is a deal breaker for MAGA, even if they did release it. And even if it said, we do have reason to conclude that Gates was trafficking underage girls across state lines and paying them for sex and drug fueled orgies,

even if that's what it concluded. A lot of the people that right now are spearheading, at least the public facing apparatus of MAGA would either say the report isn't trustworthy or and can't be believed or the allegations are unfounded or this is what they did to Trump and this is what they did to Kavanaugh. And now they're doing it to Gates and we're ignoring it and moving on. And most Magas would be absolutely fine with that. So I don't even really see that this as as big of a deal. If the report was damning, the question is ultimately going to be.

And in this sense, Congressman Jimenez is right. What are the Republican senators belief? Because if reports are true that half have already said we're not voting to confirm this guy, Gates's nomination is going nowhere. Let's move from Gates to Tulsi, Nikki Haley, who I guess now has a radio show. This is wild stuff. Nikki Haley, I guess, has a show on Sirius radio where she just reads. I guess the show is her reading a script. I don't know. She is slamming Donald Trump's selection of tool. See Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence.

She is slamming that nomination for obvious reasons that people on the left and the right are slamming the nomination for. She seems to have a long history of siding with Russia, China, Iran, Syria over the United States. Nikki Haley in this clip I'm going to play is making a completely fact based, accurate indictment of why Tulsi Gabbard is such a bad nominee. But what she's ignoring here is that she said publicly Trump's unfit and then she endorsed Trump and thus she shares the blame for everyone that Trump now picks. She should be looking at herself and other Republicans to a degree for the fact that Trump is in a position to pick tool. See, take a listen to what Nikki Haley had to say. She said that Donald Trump turned the U.S. into Saudi Arabia's prostitute.

This is going to be the future head of our national intelligence. In Congress, Tulsi criticized Trump's authoritarian strike against Qasem Soleimani. Now, I will remind you, he was considered the master of death in Iran. She said he had no justification whatsoever for killing him. She tried to limit Trump's war powers against Iran. She tried to cut our annual defense budget so that we couldn't punish Iran and hinder their influence. Reminder, Iran is our number one sponsor of terrorism, and Tulsi Gabbard was defending Iran. She went to Syria in 2017 for a photo op with Bashar al-Assad while he was massacring his own people. She said she was skeptical that he was behind the chemical weapons attacks. Now, this to me is disgusting because, Cheney, you and I were at the United Nations when Assad did those chemical attacks on those children.

And you can go back and look at a speech I gave holding up pictures of dead children who had been killed by chemical attacks. This goes on. OK, most of what she says is prescient with regard to the Tulsi nomination. She's kind of hemming and hawing about how Tulsi wanted to cut the military budget. The military budget must be cut. It absolutely must be cut. The question is, what do you cut and how do you do it? But it absolutely must be cut. But other than that, Nikki Haley is prosecuting the idea of Tulsi Gabbard as DNI in an accurate and fact based way. But Nikki endorsed Trump. And we all knew that Trump would make these nominations. We all sounded the alarm when Nikki Haley went from saying Trump's unfit, he's deteriorating,

something's wrong with them. He's not who he was before. This is not a guy who should be in a position of power, decision making, uh, circumstances. And then we all said, yeah, I know because his cabinet's going to be crazy. He's going to appoint sycophants. He's going to appoint unqualified people, people who maybe don't even have the best interests of the United States in mind. And now Trump did it.

Trump did exactly what we said he would do. And now Nikki gets to read her scripted radio show, I guess. I don't even what is this show? I don't even know what it is. She gets to read her scripted radio show and say, this is so terrible. She should say, I'm partially to blame. I would actually be able to conjure up a little bit of respect for her if she said, you know, I went back and forth and ultimately I made the decision that this

was a better option than Kamala Harris. But maybe I was wrong because these picks, these selections, Tulsi, Gates, Hegseth, et cetera. These are a disaster. Dr. Oz, right? They're eating the cats there. The whole thing. If she was able to do that, I would respect her a little bit more. And so a mostly, you know, 95 percent great analysis of why Tulsi shouldn't be in this position, missing that final 5 percent, which is saying I and so many of my fellow Republicans are to blame because at the end of the day, we kissed the ring and we endorsed Donald Trump.

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Okay, fine. Socks. This is really great. Uh, the New York times called aura, the best digital photo frame, very easy to set up and connect. You add the photos, you add the videos connects to your photo library on your phone. You upload the ones you want. And if you're giving it as a gift, you can personalize the frame the Pacman at checkout. That's a U R a frames.com use code Pacman to get $45 off their bestselling Carver mat frame. The link is in the podcast notes. As many of you know, I find it funny when the optics backfire for the MAGA, right? But I find it funnier when the optics backfire and also it leads to some other kind of substantive loss. And that's exactly what happened with Donald Trump's hilarious SpaceX stunt with Elon Musk earlier this week. So I'll remind you about the whole thing.

Earlier this week, Trump went down to Texas to see the launch of a space sex rocket with Elon Musk and the optics were horrible because Trump looked like absolute crap. We looked at it, gaunt, some kind of self Tanner disaster. His lips looked white. He looked sickly. Everything about it just looked terrible. Okay, but what else? We've now learned that that stunt has actually caused cost Republicans the ability to have

a better shot at blocking some judicial nominees from Joe Biden. Here's a daily beast article. Republican no shows helped Democrats approve judicial nominees against Trump's wishes. Trump also helped Democrats by taking a few Republicans on a field trip to see the SpaceX rocket launch. So here's the deal. Republicans on Tuesday ripped JD Vance, Marco Rubio and others for their absences from the Senate, which allowed Senate Democrats to ram through key Biden judicial nominees. Vance and Rubio, Donald Trump's choice for secretary of state.

Weren't the only Republican senators missing, but they were singled out, asked about the absences of several Republican senators who would have blocked, who could have blocked Biden's judicial nominees. Senator John Kennedy, a Republican fumed. I am not going to bubble wrap it. There's no excuse for that. It's our job to be here and vote. Another article from the international business times, Trump accidentally helps Dems get key

judicial nominees approved by taking Republicans to space sex launch. If the Republican senators had been there, the article writes, they likely would have been able to defeat the judicial nominations. And then finally, Republicans are mad that Democrats are confirming lots of Biden's judges. So what? I'm so sorry I punched my mike there. I haven't done it for a while, but I did it. And I'm sorry to the headphone viewers, listeners.

There's a few stories here. It is not abundantly certain that Biden's nominees would have failed had Rubio Vance alone Rubio advance alone been there. But it does seem to be the case that if Rubio Vance and the other missing Republicans had been there, it is a totally realistic possibility that they wouldn't have been able to block these nominees. But there's a broader story here. And I think it's a story that as we think about what our activism is going to look like over the next two and four years, I say two and four, because if 26 does not go well for Republicans, it the second two years of Trump's term will

be different, but for two and potentially for four years, as we start to think about what are the textures and contours of our activism and resistance going to be one of the tools or strategies or approaches that we've talked about is when they hurt themselves, we just let them do it. As we talked about earlier this week, they've won the white house house and Senate. They should have a clear path to whatever they want. Well, now Trump nominates Matt Gates and we immediately hear from Republicans that half of Senate Republicans don't plan to vote for the guy. We've done nothing. Trump has this clear path. He can nominate whoever he wants. If he only nominated sane and reasonable people, this wouldn't be happening. Hegseth now the Trump transition team apparently didn't know that Hegseth had paid off a rape accuser.

That was news to them once it became public after the nomination. This is self inflicted stuff. And so one of the strategies, you know, uh, it's sort of like in medicine, there's this idea of do no harm. And sometimes my doctor likes to use the term a tincture of time. He didn't invent it. It's an old phrase which basically means give it two weeks and disease will reveal itself. And if you're fine in two weeks, then we were better off standing aside and doing nothing. It's sort of the gist of it. In some cases, we will have to activate if and when these mass deportation roundups or

whatever you would call them start. We are going to have to activate. And Tom Homan is saying we're going to start arresting people. We're going to force our way into blue cities and blue states. OK, well, that that's going to require action. That's not an instance where what we do best is achieved by standing aside. On the other hand, there are times when, listen, we do we even need to do anything here if half of Republicans are going to vote against a bunch of these guys?

Do we even need to do anything if Trump's publicity stunts and the fact that these other senators want to be with Trump, that gets in the way of blocking Joe Biden's nominees and Joe Biden gets a couple more judges confirmed. Fantastic. We'll stand aside and allow that. So the bigger takeaway here is depending on what we're fighting against, sometimes you fight it by doing. And when people are as incompetent as these mega folks have shown're fighting against, sometimes you fight it by doing. And when people are as incompetent as these MAGA folks have shown themselves to be, sometimes

you fight it by not doing one other thing that I want to address before I talk about J.D. Vance's panic deletion of of some tweets. I got an email from someone yesterday who said, you know, David, you're doing a really good job of exposing the problems with a lot of these Trump nominees, but something you're doing that maybe is wrong. And and this viewer said she said everybody's doing it is everybody's acting like Trump is really making these decisions himself. We don't know that to be the case.

It would be interesting to know who is spearheading this because Trump has admitted before during his first term, he'll pick judges from a heritage foundation list and he'll get advice about the Southern nominee from somewhere else. It's an absolutely brilliant question. Was it Trump's idea to nominate Gates AG? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. Was it Trump's idea to make Linda McMahon, uh, the secretary of education or

Pete Hegseth secretary of defense? I can only assume Trump isn't coming up with every single one of these names out of thin air. He is the ultimate decider, but who is it that is setting up Trump's cabinet? And I don't mean it in a, there's a hidden puppet master. It's always the case that presidents elect have a team that helps them figure out these people. What would be interesting to know is who thought that Hegseth was a good idea and why is it just the idea of we like people from Fox news? Is there some deeper or hidden agenda?

And that's hopefully an answer that at some point we will get. All right. So let's talk about J.D. Vance panic deleting a complete and total disaster tweet. So let me give you a little bit of the context. J.D. Vance is kind of missing in a way. He wasn't invited to Donald Trump's visit to Madison Square Garden for the UFC fight over the weekend, even though Trump's little Johnson was there. That's MAGA Mike Johnson. Elon Musk was there. Vivek Tulsi, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Vance was not invited there. And there's been some question as to what's going on with J.D. much more, uh, seems far more deferential to Elon Musk, whereas he just kind of bosses around JD Vance and the relationship dynamics seem interesting. And now JD is making it even worse by seemingly accidentally leaking himself

that Trump is planning to fire the FBI director. Here's the tweet, which I want to examine with you. J.D. Vance tweeted. Grace Chong is a mouth breathing imbecile who attacks those of us in the fight rather than make herself useful. If I had shown up to the vote in question, the nominee would have succeeded. Forty nine, forty six rather than forty nine, forty45. If every Republican had showed up, Fetterman would have come in and the Democrats still would have gotten their nominee across. When this 11th circuit vote happened, I was meeting with president Trump to interview multiple positions for our government, including FBI director. Oh, I tend to think it's more important to get an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than it is for Republicans to lose a vote. Forty nine forty six

rather than forty nine forty five. But that's just me. So a few aspects to this. First of all, his attacks on Grace Chong for calling him out for the Senate absences by calling her an imbecile. Okay. So ad hominem, not substantive. The fact that this is his immediate reaction tells us a lot about JD Vance. It's not clear that he's completely correct about this. It's possible that they would have gotten the nominees through anyway, or maybe not. We don't know.

Trump certainly seems to think it's possible that they could have blocked them. Secondly, he then alludes to hiring a new FBI director. Um, why is this a big deal? Well, FBI director Christopher Ray's term isn't up until 2027. Now I know Trump appointed Ray in 2017. Why would he want to get rid of him? But for years, Trump has been furious with Ray for years because of the supposed weaponization of the FBI that Trump loves to claim. It hadn't been made public that Trump was looking to fire the FBI director and hire

a new one. And it appears that Vance accidentally leaked it. The blowback must have been so immediate and so strong that Vance panic deleted the tweet altogether. The Trump transition team was asked about it. No response. The FBI was asked about it. No response. The FBI was asked about it. No response.

And then hilariously, Trump even seems to be criticizing Vance for being missing for the judgeship votes, even though he was missing with Trump. Trump posting to truth central. The Democrats are trying to stack the courts with radical left judges on their way out the door. Republican senators need to show up and hold the line. No more judges confirmed before inauguration day. So it seems as though at least Donald Trump sees something substantive about Grace Chong's

critique. This is all a preview. It's already exhausting how much insanity and absurdity has taken place within the Trump transition. We're still two months from the inauguration. We're two months from the starting line. I expected it to be worse than Trump's first term, but I didn't expect it to be this bad so quickly. And of course, everything points to Trump term number two being a way bigger disaster than the first term. So as I said, sometimes the strategy is we act. Sometimes the strategy is we don't act depends on what is most convenient. But we often hear

from people retrospectively looking at Trump's first term that for all the fear mongering, Trump's first term wasn't really as bad as some people said it was going to be. Well, I think it was pretty damn bad, but we're hearing the same thing now. Oh, all the fear mongering about this Trump's second term. He's not going to do anything crazy. He doesn't want to do anything crazy. Just the first two and a half weeks of the transition, two weeks,

two and a half weeks, um, just the first couple of weeks of the transition have already been nuttier than, uh, what we anticipated. And so my expectation is that this term is going to be an absolute fiasco and disaster. The best we can hope for is limited the damage during the first two years and then take back control of at least something in the 2026 midterms with Donald Trump being elected and the insane cabinet appointments and everything else he has planned for the next four years. Right wing media is trying to create a new normal and convince us that the zeitgeist is changing. So it's never been more important to be an engaged and savvy news consumer. And that's

where our sponsor ground news comes in an independent app and website designed to help you navigate the chaos of today's current events. For every story circulating round news will give you instant access to the sources reporting on it. Transparency on political bias and credibility. You can see who owns the news outlets, what are their narratives and special interests that might influence them. This will ease the mental load of sorting through what we see in the media so you can

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and free shipping. The info is in the podcast notes tomorrow. I'm going to look at the week of videos of Nancy Mace obsessing about which bathroom trans Congresswoman Sarah McBride is going to use when she's sworn in to her seat in the House of Representatives. Nancy Mace clearly seeing an opportunity to get on Fox news and she's going out of her way to make a lot of noise about trans bathroom issues, uh, in Washington DC. But that's tomorrow. Today I want to talk about something else involving Nancy Mace. Nancy Mace is very much like a lot of these other easily triggered Maga people, which

is they want the attention. They want to be interviewed. They want a microphone. They want a camera in front of their faces, but they don't really want to answer serious questions. They like punditry that's friendly to them, but they don't like journalism where real questions are asked. And Nancy Mase agreed to be interviewed by Scripps news and she had a complete and total

meltdown because she didn't like the questions that the anchor was asking about the Boeing layoffs in her home state of South Carolina, the state which she represents. This is emblematic. This is the microcosm that we've been talking about of how these people operate. Give me attention. Give me interviews. Let me answer questions, but not those questions.

Ask me about how we're going to courageously bring back Merry Christmas under Trump or ask me about how I am bravely going to force trans women into the men's bathroom because that's what I want to do. She doesn't want to talk about layoffs, but that's what she's asked about. And she attacks the interviewer. I am giving you the chance to address the Boeing, uh, layoffs, but that's what she's asked about and she attacks the interviewer. I am giving you the chance to address the Boeing layoffs here. Have you posted anything about that? Have you made any comments about that publicly? What are you gonna do for your constituents about that? I looked on your social media, I did not see anything regarding the Boeing layoffs and

I'm sure that is going to impact people in the Palmetto State in South Carolina. You are incredulous and so insulting to women. Number one, it was just announced yesterday. And before I make a comment on any company's position or, you know, firing their employees, I'm going to get all the facts and understand what's really going on. So I don't shoot from the hip prematurely. It's just like when the monkeys were released two weeks ago by Alpha Genesis Lab again in my district. I had a meeting with the CEO before I commented publicly. It's really, I think, important to be deliberate when it comes to people who are going to lose their jobs. It's important to get the facts before commenting on something

prematurely. I think my voters and my constituents deserve that. I will tell you, no one will work harder than I will for South Carolina. I notice how there's no answer or even a semblance of accountability. I mean, this is just completely vapid women's women's. What is she talking about? Women, tens of millions of dollars in resources to my district because people need them, whether it's infrastructure, whether it's women's issues, whether it's cybersecurity. I sit on the oversight committee, work on a lot of cybersecurity issues.

I have worked diligently seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and nothing. Some left wing journalists like you can say will stop me from working hard for the people of South Carolina. This is both a completely abortive answer. It fails to be an and it's just not an answer, but it's also a classic answer that we get from Maga. You don't like the question or the premise of the question. You don't like the facts.

You just make up your own. You misdirect, deflect and of course attack the person who is asking the questions here. And although this Boeing layoffs in South Carolina might not affect you, what happens here is textbook, uh, disinformation. First of all, rather than addressing the layoffs, she tries to to to bring up that these aren't the real issues. Classic move number one. Secondly, rather than addressing the layoffs, she brings up that under her representation

in South Carolina, all sorts of money has come in for women's issues and infrastructure and all these different things. She fails to mention that that's money that's come in thanks to the Biden administration, despite many Republicans voting against a lot of that stuff. Now, I don't want to say all of it because there's a lot of bills that lead to money going to South Carolina. But much like has been the case with Lauren Boebert and others, the people who love to brag about the money I've brought into my southern state as a Republican often are people who voted against a lot of those projects, but then still want to claim credit for the fact that that the money came in. And then finally, there's something really interesting going on with Nancy Mace here. In some sense, Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Green have kind of been demoted. They have become so cartoonish and I'm not saying Trump has denounced them, but they are less frequently interviewed. They're letting, getting less media oxygen.

And that's a good thing. Clearly, Nancy Mace has seen an opportunity here to try to align herself more publicly with MAGA. The entire trans bathroom gambit, um, is very, very clearly an attention grabbing thing. She's previously said she's a supporter of LGBT. And you know, when the stakes were not about getting on TV and getting Trump's attention, Her genuine views about LGBTQ plus individuals seem to be, I don't want to say enlightened, but it doesn't seem like it's a major issue for her. She sees this as there's a little bit of kindling that's smoking over there. I'm going to go over and fan the flames to really get this fire blazing. So we'll deal more with the trans bathroom stuff and Nancy Mace tomorrow, but understand

that she is actively, actively trying to get Trump and Maga's attention. She wants to be the next Lauren Boebert or the next Marjorie Taylor green, uh, as far as being aligned with Trump saying all the right things, getting the media attention and to be Frank, she may succeed. It is happening. My friends, people are leaving X formerly known as Twitter in droves. It is an exodus. Multiple articles lay it out.

Here is the Guardian. Blue Sky adds one million new members as users flee X after the election. The social media platform Blue Sky has become a refuge from the far right activism on X. Experts say after Musk teamed up with Donald Trump, the number of people deactivating their X accounts, they will no longer put out excretions on X is exploding. Reports are that blue sky picked up 3 million new users in the week after X was suspended in Brazil. Another 1.2 million in the two days after X announced that would let people view posts from those who block them.

And recently, uh, blue sky has been accumulating nearly 1 million new users a day. Another article from tech crunch, blue sky is benefiting from an exodus of unhappy X users following the election. Uh, the exodus briefly made blue sky the number two iPhone app in the country. Um, up from 27 previously subsequently dropped to third multiple outlets report blue sky gained more than 700,000 users, 700,000 users over the last week, getting up to 14 million. That number is now up to 21 million. So let me tell you a couple of different things. Some of you may have noticed that I have mostly retired from tweeting myself.

It's become a mess. It's a mess of algorithmic chaos, low quality ads, trolling, forcing extremist right wing content into everybody's algorithmically led feeds. If you just go to what's called the for you page on X, you will find Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, Don Jr. They are artificially forcing down the throats of users, um, right wing content that it's hard to believe too many people are even really looking for. So I have made the transition to X, I'm sorry, off, off X and to blue sky. I'm, I still have my X account every once in a while. I'll put an excretion up there. But for the most part, I'm over on Blue Sky and I hope that you'll follow me there at

David Pakman dot com slash Blue Sky. It has been a great experience for the time being. For now, a lot of this stuff is for now. It may change, of course, and then we'll reevaluate for now. There are no ads. Your default feed is a chronological feed of the people you follow. Imagine that I looked at it this morning and I saw here are the posts from a minute ago. Here are the posts from five minutes ago, then 10, then a couple hours. It's just a generic

chronological feed of the people I follow. If you want to find new people to follow, they have a discover feed. It's marked clearly. This is what it is. If you want to find new people to follow, they have a discover feed. It's marked clearly. This is what it is. If you go to the popular with my friends feed, you'll see who are the people I follow following. It's a better, cleaner, less chaotic experience. Hilariously, Manosphere influencer Andrew Taint signed up on blue sky lasted about a day. He signed up to just troll people and attack people lasted a day and he was banned. Now this has raised some questions as to whether right wing views are allowed on blue sky. And of course they are. I have no horse in this race. I'm not an investor. I don't get paid. I'm just evaluating these platforms. Of course, all views are welcome

on blue sky. But what seems to be taken seriously is trolling and insults and personal attacks. That stuff just isn't allowed on X. I can get 10 responses with overt anti-Semitism against me. The K word stuff about oven stuff about Hitler should have done this or that. And you report not that I reported anymore because they always come back and say we found it doesn't violate our policy. That's their right. This is not about legality. They have their terms of service. They can enforce them or not enforce them however they want. But that stuff is implicitly allowed. It seems that blue sky isn't allowing it. So for now, it's a breath of fresh air compared to the dumpster fire that Elon Musk has turned

X into. Will it last? We will see. But right now, about close to a million people a day are making the jump. There's very good reason for it. We actually did a giveaway. I gave away seven early copies of my forthcoming book, The Echo Machine on Blue Sky. About a thousand people participated in the giveaway.

My publisher chose seven. And so we're sending them the book and some goodie boxes and the engagement is off the charts. So if you're looking for something different that doesn't have a lot of the horrible problems of some of the algorithmically led platforms, consider getting an account. And you can find me there. David Pakman dot com slash blue sky. And by the way, Janine Piro,iro judge Jeanine once referred to it as blue ski, which I don't know why I find it absolutely hilarious. So anyway, find me on blue ski for the foreseeable future. We have such a great bonus show for you today. Donald Trump is giving Republicans an order over a press freedom bill.

What is the order? That's the question. We will talk about it. Donald Trump's selection of a former wrestling executive, Linda McMahon is facing her own sex scandal. It seems that you either need to be accused of participating in or covering up sexual violence in order to really be considered seriously for Trump's cabinet. We'll talk about it. And a Texas education board is advancing a plan to allow biblical material in public

elementary school lessons. It's Texas. Yes, I know. We will discuss all of that and more on today's bonus show. Sign up at join Pacman dot com coupon code. Not again. We'll save you 75 percent. I'll see you on the bonus show and I'll be back here tomorrow.