The David Pakman Show - 11/22/23: 5 day ceasefire confirmed as Fox blames Biden for being old and turkey prices

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

-- On the Show: -- A 5 day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is established, during which some hostages will be released, in a 3-to-1 ratio of Palestinians to Israelis -- President Joe Biden helps to secure a hostage deal in the Israel-Hamas war, and while most networks report on this, Fox News reports that Joe Biden is old -- A potential 2024 Republican disaster comes into focus as Democrats raise almost twice as much money as Republicans in October -- Republicans are blaming President Joe Biden for supposedly high turkey prices this Thanksgiving, despite turkey prices being down from last year -- Failed former President Donald Trump releases a bizarre medical statement about his physical and cognitive health -- Failed former President Donald Trump explodes in rage over Republican Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds endorsing Ron DeSantis over him -- Donald Trump releases a dangerous fascist rant about going after his political enemies if elected President in 2024 -- The Trump civil fraud trial has Trump's worst day so far as a witness ties Trump personally to the fraud conspiracy -- 2024 Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie, polling just 2%, continues to go after Donald Trump -- Voicemail caller confronts David about his belief system -- On the Bonus Show: Biden approval ticks up over stronger economy, Mike Johnson says Americans misunderstand separation of church and state, appeals court says private citizens and civil rights group can't sue under the Voting Rights Act, much more... 🔊 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription at https://babbel.com/pakman 🎁 Uncommon Goods: Get 15% off at https://uncommongoods.com/david 🌱 Ounce of Hope: Get 20% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://www.ounceofhope.com/ 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 👩‍❤️‍👨 Try the Paired App FREE for 7 days and get 25% OFF at https://paired.com/pakman 🍷 Naked Wines: Use code PAKMAN to get 6 bottles for $39.99 at https://nakedwines.com/pakman 🧻 Reel Paper: Code PAKMAN for 30% OFF + free shipping at https://reelpaper.com/pakman 🖥️ UPLIFT Desk: Get 5% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://upliftdesk.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 -- 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

. Major international news, Israel and Hamas in conjunction with a number of different parties helping and involved in the negotiations have agreed to a five day ceasefire during which hostages will be released. This is going to be a trade. The details are important for our purposes. The way that domestic media has covered this process is also important, and we will get to that in a moment. We'll start with what we know as of this moment. Reuters reporting Israel Hamas agreed a four day truce, 50 hostages to go free. Other reports say it is a five day truce. Other reports say the day on which this was announced yesterday is sort of like day one. So four day, five day. OK. Israel and Hamas agreed Wednesday to a ceasefire for at

least four days to let in aid and release at least 50 hostages captured by militants in exchange for at least 150 Palestinians jailed in Israel. The first truce in a brutal near seven week old war reached after mediation by Qatar was hailed around the world as a sign of progress that could ease the suffering of Gaza civilians and bring more Israeli hostages home. Israel says the ceasefire could be extended further if more hostages are freed. And a Palestinian source says that as many as 100 hostages in total could end up released by the end of the month. If it is indeed 100 Israeli hostages, it would leave about 136 based on the four that

have already been released. The numbers change regularly, but that is roughly what the numbers are. And it is believed, again, that is going to be a roughly three to one ratio of jailed Palestinians released for each Israeli hostage truce expected to begin tomorrow morning, the start time yet to be officially announced. And this is where some of the confusion as to four days, five days is coming from. Benjamin Netanyahu's office put out a statement last night saying 50 women and children would be released over four days at a rate of at least 10 per day. And beyond that, the truth would be looked at day by day as long as Hamas continues to free 10 hostages per day. Israel's justice ministry published a list of 300 names of Palestinian prisoners who could be freed, who could be freed. Initially, the report was 50 hostages for 150 Palestinian women and children, as well as hundreds of trucks

of humanitarian, medical and fuel supplies entering Gaza. Israel will halt all air sorties over southern Gaza and maintain a daily six hour daytime no fly window in the north. We also have a report from Haaretz and Jonathan Leis, very, very similar information indicating that the six hour meeting in Tel Aviv that led to this was completed in the early hours Wednesday morning. The statement very similarly described. A few more details include that the plan will involve the release of 30 kidnapped children by Hamas, eight mothers and 12 more women. And again, the details are slightly different depending at which of these reports you look at. And then also now increasingly getting reporting on the negotiations described as excruciating, excruciating by U.S. officials speaking to France 24.

And we'll just look at one or two paragraphs in a detailed account to reporters by a senior U.S. official speaking on the condition of anonymity. A picture has emerged of a tense international effort beset by sudden communication cutoffs with Hamas disputes over the hostage lists and safety concerns on the ground. The U.S. official said it was an extremely excruciating five week process and it all started with a call from Qatar to Washington and to the Israelis to discuss the freeing of some hostages. So listen, when we do, we want to contextualize this in terms of since October 7th. Do we want to contextualize this as how has this situation evolved and changed in the 21st

century? Do we want to contextualize this going back to 1948? The answer is, depending on what your motivations are, you will have a different answer to that. I think it is a great thing that what seems to be and again, what it seems to be and what it is are often not the same. It seems to be that the priority is the release of hostages, as it should be. And there are many fair criticisms that can be made of the Netanyahu government. And one that has been made is that the hostages may be more useful to Netanyahu remaining as hostages rather than being freed. In other words, what Netanyahu can get away with may be greater if there continue to be hostages rather than the political benefit to Netanyahu from securing the hostages release. I don't know if that's the case. It's certainly plausible that that's the case. And we are going to soon see. Of course, if you look at

the numbers, if there were 240 hostages, four were released, leaves leaves leaves to 36. If you release 50 to 100, that means that you are still going to have somewhere between 136 and 186 hostages remaining. So this is not the end. But is it possible that if aid continues to enter Gaza as part of the ceasefire and that at least 10 hostages per day are released, this could continue? It is certainly possible. And that would be a good thing. Now, there are those emailing me angrily saying, David, why is anyone even talking about a ceasefire? There was a ceasefire up until October 7th. Hamas broke the ceasefire. And now Israel is going to do a ceasefire that Hamas says it won't accept because it's going to continue trying to do October 7th over and over again. Sure. That's certainly a perspective that one can have. But if it is true, I mean, listen, Hamas is going to keep

trying to do more of this stuff. But if Hamas is willing to say we will postpone doing more of that stuff and agree to this ceasefire, at least temporarily with the idea that they will get some jailed Palestinians back in order to release these hostages, it is still very much worth doing. And it doesn't project weakness on anyone's behalf if what is the top priority is maintaining the appearance. So can we say that this is good news? I think we can. It's not a solution to Hamas's genocidal goals. It's not a solution to the fact that Netanyahu's Likud is not well positioned to obtain any kind of long lasting peace. It's not a solution to the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But

for the question of the hostages, it is certainly progress and getting 50 or 100 hostages out, even if it is not the 236 that remain, is a good thing for our purposes. It is also very interesting and relevant to discuss American involvement, Joe Biden's involvement and also media coverage thereof. And let's talk about that next. Yesterday, in the hours before we learned that there would be a four slash five day ceasefire in the Israeli Hamas war in order to release 50 to 100 Israeli hostages in exchange for three times that number of jailed Palestinians in the hours before this was announced. We started to get reporting that this was close. This was likely to happen and that Joe Biden and his delegates were involved

and at least to some degree responsible for the progress here. Here is Joe Biden mentioning this relatively a midday yesterday. Let's put it that way. We are now very close, very close. You could bring some of these hostages home very soon. I don't want to get into the details of things because nothing is done until it's done. And we have more to say. We will.

But things are going to get better. And I think that's what we're going to have to do. And I think that's what we're going to have to do. And I think that's what we're going to have to do. And I think that's what we're going to have to do. And I think that's what we're going to have to do. And I think that's what we're going to have to do. And I think that's what we're going to have to do.

And I think that's what we're going to have to do. And I think that's what we're going to have to do. And I think that's what we're going to have to do. And I think that's what we're going to have to do. And I think that's what we're going to have to do. And I think that's what we're going to have things because nothing is done until it's done. And we have more to say. We will. But things are looking good at the moment. This is another accomplishment for the Biden administration. We know that one of the first calls that was made to try to figure this out was Qatar calling

the United States. We know that the Biden administration is at least partially responsible for what is now going to lead to at least 50 to 100 Israeli hostages being freed. Many media outlets were quick to report on this. CNN, any moment Israeli officials meeting on hostage deal, CNN reporting the involvement of the Biden administration. MSNBC reporting breaking news tentative hostage deal reached pending Israeli approval. Even Newsmax, although they did not give Biden credit, but even Newsmax talking about it. National report. Benjamin Netanyahu says progress is being made in the hostage release. And over on Fox News, over on Fox News, the big story at this exact same time, 1104 a.m. Eastern Time, 1004 a.m. Central Time was Biden's 81 voters age concern as Biden turns 81.

These are not serious people. And I know that there are going to be. Listen, I see all the same reports that you see young people displeased with Biden over handling of Israeli Hamas war, so on and so forth. Disaster for Biden in 2024. First and foremost, you're telling me that those people who don't feel Biden has done enough are going to vote for Donald Trump. That's that that doesn't make any sense, first and foremost. Secondly, it is actually remarkable the amount of success that Joe Biden has had here, pushing Israelis to allow aid into Gaza, warning Israel, don't overplay your hand, getting involved in the negotiation for hostage release. And that is major. That is tangible and that is major.

And meanwhile, Fox News is talking about Biden's age to CNN's credit. And CNN has been kind of a disaster lately. CNN accurately reporting on what what was going on and what was coming. Any moment now, Israel's war cabinet will need to review a deal to potentially to potentially secure the release of 50 of the estimated 239 hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza. The announcement of that deal could happen today, even in the coming hours. Earlier this morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said publicly that progress is

being made on an agreement. And a senior U.S. official has said that a deal is, quote, very close. But of course, stressing, and it is not done yet. And here's what we know so far about this possible deal. It calls for the release of 50 women and children in exchange for a four to five day pause in fighting and the release of three Palestinian prisoners for every civilian hostage. All right. And for those who are sort of confused by this three to one thing, why three Palestinian civilians for every Israeli hostage? This is often the way it is. I without passing any judgment on it, this is just often the way that it works out. So the major networks reporting

that this was happening, a major accomplishment, even some right wing networks reporting on it, but refusing to give Joe Biden any credit. Fox News, a picture of Joe Biden blowing out his birthday cake and talking about how Biden is old. That's where we are at this point in time. Sad state of affairs, I will tell you. But that's where we are. We all have someone on our shopping list who is tough to find a gift for. Here's an out of the box idea. Cannabis as a holiday gift. Our sponsor, Ounce of Hope, ships psychoactive THC cannabis products right to your door all over the US.

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take over some governor's mansions around the country. And yet we are struggling to really find a broad signal that suggests that's going to happen. Reports of the inevitable domination of the Republican Party have been exaggerated in the past. And there is a very bad news signal. If you are hoping for such a Republican domination in twenty twenty four Democrats in October raised nearly double the amount of money that Republicans raised. Now, I am not a cheerleader for the status quo of campaign finance. I actually think that the system we have is terrible. I wish we had public financing of elections with a limited election calendar. You can't start them earlier and earlier. I wish we changed the entire thing. But to the extent that we want to look at what

information do we have about what might be in the minds of voters? One of the metrics we can consider is who's raising more money because the party, rather the candidate that raises more money, tends to win in most races, not always, but overwhelmingly. And look at these numbers. The DNC far outperformed its Republican National Committee counterpart in fundraising in October. Look at these numbers. The latest FEC filings show that the DNC brought in thirteen point one million dollars in October

compared to only seven point one million dollars for the RNC. A couple of other numbers. The DNC spent about 16 million and had close to 18 million on hand at the end of the month. The RNC spent 7 million and ended the month with about 9 million. You will notice the RNC is almost three million dollars in debt, whereas the DNC is about two hundred and thirty eight thousand dollars in debt. This is very bad news for Republicans. Now, I know that nothing is over. I know that none of this matters and we all have to register and we all have to plan to vote. There is no question that when you look at polling, some of the polling doesn't look

great for Joe Biden and how valuable that polling is. Eleven plus months before the election is a question mark. I'm not ignoring anything when I discuss this, but the fact that Democrats raised almost double what Republicans raised in a single month this close to the election when primaries are getting going, et cetera, is not a good sign for Republicans. Now, one of the problems that we describe in the American it's not the system, but it's the sort of political reality of who voters are, is that very often you have reality. And you have many voters completely unaware of that reality. For example, the economy is pretty good and you have many voters who are saying the economy is actually not good.

That is starting to change. And we are going to talk about that on the bonus show today. We do have a situation where it is logical that if you see Democrats, quote, in power, at least to the extent that the president is a Democrat, Democrats control the Senate and they have a small deficit in the House of Representatives. And you see sustained low unemployment rate, solid GDP numbers, inflation, which has come down dramatically, wage growth matching just about any period in history in terms of some of the most rapid wage growth. When you look at that, it's logical to say, oh, things are pretty good.

Maybe I should give the people in power a few more years. It's not shocking. It's not controversial. It's what you would expect to see. And yet, as you will see shortly, you have Republicans coming up with new things to blame Joe Biden for economically because they know they can't talk about the unemployment rate. They know they can't talk about inflation, which is down to three point two percent. So this is actually what we would want to see. We would want to see voters respond accurately to what is happening. I know it's a crazy thing to consider, but that's where we are right now. So very, very good news for Democrats. It is not a guarantee of anything. Everyone must vote.

We're all going to be voting. We're all going to be talking about it. But it certainly is a sign that bodes relatively well. Let's now talk about how desperate Republicans are getting in response. We know that when we look at economic metrics, things are pretty good. Stock market's doing pretty well. Unemployment is low. Inflation's down. GDP is fine. Wages are growing, et cetera. And so Republicans are scrambling to come up with new things to attack Joe Biden. It is Thanksgiving this week in the United States. Turkey is traditional on Thanksgiving. And Jason Chaffetz, a Republican, went on Fox News and he is blaming Joe Biden for what he says are 90 dollar turkeys. Take a listen to this. Speaker 1 We went to go buy a turkey today. It was 90 dollars for a turkey. The price of stamps

is up 32 percent in the last four years. But it's all a choice by Joe Biden. That is what Bidenomics is. Joe Biden has chosen to make turkeys $90. Now, the unfortunate reality for Jason Chaffetz is that turkey prices are actually down. They're back down to 2021 numbers. And we're going to get that in a moment. Jim Jordan also putting out on X, he posted an excretion on X where he said, why is Thanksgiving so expensive this year? And he put a picture of Joe Biden up there. Now, first and foremost, Joe Biden doesn't control Turkey prices. He just he just doesn't control them. He doesn't control them. But Turkey prices, first and foremost, are averaging 98 cents per pound. This means that an 18 to 25 pound turkey would cost somewhere between 18 and 25 dollars.

OK, here's the math. 98 cents a pound is very similar to a dollar a pound. I know that a lot of people apparently aren't able to do this math. Jason Chaffetz maybe is one of them. If turkey is about a dollar a pound, a 10 pound turkey is roughly ten dollars. Is that number right? Yeah. A 20 pound turkey, 20 times one, one times a 20 pound turkey is roughly twenty dollars at a dollar per pound. Now, can you find some kind of hipster turkey at three fifty per pound and maybe you get yourself a 30 pound turkey. I guess you could probably find

that if you're Jason Chaffetz. I was recently at the Whole Foods and it wasn't anywhere near that expensive. So we have a report. We actually have information on this stuff. Morningstar reporting average Thanksgiving dinner drops to sixty one dollars thanks to cheaper turkeys and cheaper cranberries. The cost of hosting Thanksgiving is down four point five percent from a year ago. So they are desperate. This is a sign of desperation here in order to try to make it seem as though everything is bad and everything that's bad is Joe Biden's fault.

Now, I do want to say one thing about Turkey. I am increasingly of the mindset that we are far better off rather than getting the entire turkey and it takes hours to cook and people are messing with brines and all these different things. What I think is actually far more practical is to get yourself turkey breast. The turkey breast will cook much faster. You don't have to worry about the difference in cooking time between the dark meat and the white meat and figure out, do I use tented foil? Do I foil make a foil tent or all these different things? You can get the skin beautifully crispy. And let me be perfectly honest. If you ask 10 people, nine tell you I'm not interested in a turkey leg, sir. Just give me

the breast. So my recommendation on this is skip the entire turkey anyway. Go with turkey breasts. You slice them up beautifully. You don't have to start brining days in advance. Just I'm not even American. OK, so you could say, David, you have no right to even comment on this. Argentina doesn't have turkey. We actually have turkey, but Argentina doesn't have Thanksgiving. And you would be right. It's just a humble opinion from a humble podcaster. Take it for what you paid for it, which is zero. Donald Trump has released a bizarre medical statement from what I guess is his latest doctor. It addresses Trump's physical health and it addresses Trump's cognitive health.

And I have to tell you, it only raises more questions than it answers. As many of you know, the context of this is Trump is obese and he doesn't exercise. And life insurance actuaries have evaluated Biden and Trump. And even though Biden is I think it's two and a half years older than Trump, three years older than Trump. Statistically, Biden is expected to live longer than Trump because Biden has a healthier lifestyle, is not overweight, exercises, eats a healthier diet. OK. Also, there is the cognitive question. There are many Republicans who are insisting Joe Biden is demented and a genius criminal mind who has carried out a 40 year criminal bribery scheme and has covered up all the evidence. But he's demented. He doesn't know what day it is. He doesn't know he's president. But the problem with that is that Trump has a

dozen monthly cognitive gaffes where he forgets who's president. He forgets which countries Viktor Orban is actually the leader of. He forgets which countries Hungary borders. He forgets what city he's in. He forgets that World War Two happened 70 years ago. So it's becoming increasingly difficult to argue that Trump is more healthy physically or that Trump is more healthy cognitively. So that brings us to this letter. And this letter only raises more questions. This is a letter from Bruce Aronwald from the Morristown Medical Group dated two days ago. Let's take a look at the letter. I have been President Donald Trump's personal physician since 2021. During this time,

I have conducted several comprehensive examinations, the most recent being September 13th, 2023. So he he admits it's been months since he examined Trump. Since this examination, Trump has had about 30 cognitive gaps. So right at it, right at its face, we know that this guy isn't even claiming to have examined Trump during the period of these accelerating cognitive gaps. OK, fine. It's been two months since you saw the guy. Two months plus a week. I have supervised specialist consultations along with ancillary testing for screening and preventative health maintenance. Immediate questions.

Which specialists examine Trump and why? Why were specialists brought in? What preventive health maintenance do specialists do that you supervised? And exactly which screening tests were done? What were the results of these tests? Why were these tests done? Were these tests done because they are the standard of care for an individual Trump's age and health, or were they done because there is cause for concern? None of those questions are answered. Second paragraph. I'm pleased to report Trump's overall health is excellent. Well, call me convinced his physical exams were well within the normal range,

which metrics and which ranges and which tests and his cognitive exams were exceptional. Notice that it says exams, plural, obvious question. What cognitive exam exams was Trump given? The last one we found out is basically a brain injury test where he was asked to identify a tiger and draw hands on an analog clock. So which tests was Trump given and why was Trump given multiple cognitive tests? The letter continues. In addition, his most recent extensive laboratory analysis remains well within normal limits and was even more favorable than prior testing in some of the most significant parameters, most likely secondary to weight reduction. We don't know which are the significant parameters that Trump is so healthy on.

What is his lipid panel? What's his CBC? What about his sugar related, you know, diabetes related. We don't know what they're talking about. It actually raises even more questions. And lastly, the third paragraph in this very short three paragraph letter about how Trump is so healthy, it says, quote, cardiovascular studies are all normal and cancer screening tests are all negative. Which cancer screening tests are we talking about? Prostate? Or are we talking about other blood markers that are can be used to screen for other types of cancer? We just have no idea. President Trump has reduced his weight through an improved diet and continued daily physical activity while maintaining a rigorous schedule. It is my opinion that President Trump is currently in excellent health. He already said that.

And with his continued interest in preventative health monitoring and maintenance, he will continue to enjoy a healthy, active lifestyle for years to come. If you are trying to disabuse the public of the notion that you are having a health issue, this letter certainly doesn't do it. We don't know what cognitive exams Trump was given. We don't know what metrics Trump's blood markers and other tests are reflecting. We don't we just don't know anything about it. There is, in fact, the language suggests a deliberate runaround to avoid mentioning anything specific. And we still don't have even simple answers like specialists.

Multiple specialists are evaluating Trump. Why? What tests did they perform? What's Trump's blood pressure? What's Trump's weight? What medications is Donald Trump on? Certainly not reassuring at all. And the timing seems very clear.

It's because Trump has been gaffing cognitively dozens of times since the last time his doctor examined him. If I'm being too critical, if I'm missing that, this three paragraph letter clearly proves Trump is doing great. Just let me know and I'll revise my opinion. Sometimes it can be tough to maintain an emotional connection with your significant other. You might work in different places at different times. There might be a kid in the way. It can be hard to find time for date nights, especially because kids demand so much attention, which is

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Pacman for a free trial and 25 percent off. The link is in the podcast notes. As many of you have heard me say before, when I go to a wine shop, I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm Argentinian and I still know almost nothing about wine. So if you're like me, you might be able to use some help. Our sponsor, Naked Wines, has you covered. Naked Wines is a subscription service that will connect you to the finest independent winemakers on the planet. You pay a fraction of the price you'd normally pay in stores because they cut out the retail middlemen. You get exclusive access to hundreds of top quality award winning wines. They get delivered however often you want. Perfect for

any type of wine drinker. You'll get background information on the bottle. You have friends over. You can seem like you know something by telling them something about the wine. My girlfriend likes white wine. I'm more of a red guy by necessity just because I'm Argentinian, even though I know absolutely nothing. So we get like a split box that has a few bottles of each. Every bottle is a passion project from some independent winemakers. So you're literally making an independent winemakers dream come true. You'll get your The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. code and password. The info is in the podcast notes. Failed former President Donald Trump put out a series of vlogs, including one absolutely losing his mind because a Republican governor, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, had the audacity. Can you imagine she had the audacity to endorse

someone other than Donald Trump? She is endorsing a loser. Let's be honest. She endorsed Ron DeSantis, as we previously discussed. Here is Donald Trump attacking Kim Reynolds because she's not being loyal. And we know how Trump defines loyalty. Kim Reynolds of Iowa has gone from a popular governor to the most unpopular governor in the entire United States of America. There is absolutely no evidence of that.

An easy feat. Her endorsement of Rhonda sanctimonious, who is 50 points down to me in the polls, has given him exactly zero bounce. He's a wounded bird falling violently from the sky. I wonder what position Kim was promised in order to back someone who is so far down in the polls. It is not just you who might be seeing this video and saying, wow, Trump looks pale. His right eye is almost completely swollen, shut.

He's rocking back and forth rhythmically as he delivers these lines with almost no meaning, no emotion off of a teleprompter, the very teleprompter type that he says Obama is bad for having used. You're not the only person reacting to these videos in that way. And this continued. It is getting close to election time. So certainly there must be migrant caravans coming. Right. Right. Massive caravans of people are headed our way through Mexico. They're coming right up through our border.

Yep. It's election time. So there must be caravans coming. Donald Trump also talking about Joe Biden making this an election that is fundamentally a referendum on who supports democracy. Trump says he is the supporter of democracy. Hard to believe. Nothing about crooked Joe Biden and the anti-democratic party has anything to do with defending democracy. So if crooked Joe wants to turn this election into a question of which candidate will defend our democracy and freedom, then I say, bring it on. Let's go, Joe. Bring it on, because you are a corrupt person. You're the most corrupt president in our history. And by the way, the most incompetent president in our history. Can you imagine the there is no worse argument that could

be made for Trump over Biden, right? Trump can say, well, the Biden economy is not that good and my economy was good until covid hit. It's not true, but it's not as laughably absurd as saying I am the candidate for democracy. I am the candidate for freedom. And you need only go back and look at the last however many years to see that from day one, Joe Biden simply did not get involved in the entire election hijinks as Donald Trump made dozens of legal complaints to try to overturn an election that he lost as Donald Trump worked to secure slates of fake electors or fake slates. Are the electors fake or are the slates fake? It doesn't really matter. The point is, as Trump worked to

try to get people who were not actually the rightful electors to say, hey, our state casts are our electoral votes for Donald Trump instead of Joe Biden. As Trump did all of these things, strong arming state officials to try to find votes in order for him to win. Joe Biden. Allowed the process to go forward. He did not inject himself into it because he actually defends the Constitution and supports the elements of democracy that support that very Constitution.

When it comes to the criminal trials, the DOJ, et cetera, although Donald Trump continues to insist that if he becomes president, he will indeed weaponize the DOJ against his political opponents, try to shut down media outlets, unfriendly to him, all of this different stuff. Trump is overt about it. Joe Biden has stayed completely out of all of the criminal trials and investigations into Donald Trump to the point that some actually said he should really weigh in. He should give his opinion. And Joe Biden has said, I'm not going to get involved in that.

I'm not involved in the investigations. I'm simply not going to get involved in it. And so the idea that it is Trump who is the candidate, if you believe in our democracy rather than Biden, is a laughable joke. But it's a scary one because many of his followers believe it. And if you're not concerned by this, we now are going to look at another element from Trump's vlogs yesterday that is even more disturbing. I'm going to play for you now. 40 seconds of Trump delivering disgusting fascistic language during his vlog recording session yesterday. Now, we already looked earlier. First of all, Trump's right eye is almost completely swollen shut in these videos. We don't know why. We just don't know why we never get an

answer. But his health is perfect. His cognitive health, health, his physical health, it's all perfect. But his eyes almost completely swollen shut. We don't know why. We played a clip earlier in the show of Trump saying if this election, Trump versus Biden 2024, if this election is about who supports democracy, who defends democracy, I welcome that. That's what Trump said. It's laughable. But you don't need to go back to January 6th. You don't need to go back to the aftermath of the 2020 election to find evidence of Trump

not supporting democracy. Here is Trump delivering yesterday within minutes of saying I'm the democracy guy. A completely unhinged fascistic screed. Listen to this. Twenty twenty four is our final battle with you at my side. We will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists.

We will cast out the communists, Marxists, fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media. We will evict Joe Biden, crooked as you can be. Joe Biden, the worst president in the history of our country. We will evict him from the White House and we will finish the job once and for all. We will make America great again. The guy who says I'm for democracy, I'm the candidate for democracy, is citing conspiracy

theories that don't exist about the deep state actually controlling elections and this and that and the other thing. He is saying he is going to cast out those with political views that are not in line with what Trump wants. And listen, I'm not a socialist, I'm not a Marxist, I'm not a communist, but there would be nothing even remotely American or constitutional or legal for saying you believe in socializing the means of production. We're going to kick you out. No, I just don't agree with doing that. I'm not a socialist, but Trump is talking about something far more nefarious.

He is talking once again about going after the media outlets. This is extraordinarily dangerous. And my real worry, you know, I could list 10 or 12 different things that are concerning about this fascistic rhetoric. But my major concern is that it's happened to all of us over the last eight years since Donald Trump started his 2016 presidential campaign in 2015. Right.

It's been eight years. It's incredible. Over these last eight years, we have become really desensitized to a lot of this insanity. It is not normal. It is not normal. And one of the biggest challenges is that we continue to communicate to people who might say, ah, yeah, you know, Trump with his rhetoric again. I don't know.

I don't love Biden. I might stay home. We all have been desensitized to some degree. We need to proactively work to resensitize ourselves because this stuff is not normal. This stuff is dangerous. And he's telling us what he plans to do for the love of everything. Holy. Let's not assume he won't try to do this stuff because it would be crazy to do it. He will be completely unrestrained if indeed he is able to get four more years in the Oval Office.

He's telling us what he's going to do this time. He's going to make America great again. Last time he almost did it. He just didn't get enough time. No, it is going to be a fascistic nightmare and we all need to ensure that it doesn't happen. 30 million trees are destroyed every year for toilet paper in the US alone. So toilet paper is a big contributor to deforestation and climate change. Our sponsor, Real Paper, makes toilet paper from bamboo. Bamboo plants keep growing, which means no deforestation. Bamboo also absorbs five times as much carbon from the atmosphere as pine trees.

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A devastating day for Trump at this trial. Let me tell you what happened and what's so interesting about this. Business Insider reports Donald Trump has worst day yet in New York civil fraud trial as underlings scribbled note ties him to conspiracy. It's really important to remember what this is all about. And this civil fraud trial is about the defrauding of a number of different entities by virtue of misstating the value of properties that Donald Trump and his organization own and manage. And one of the primary questions at play in this trial is to what degree were these lies being told about the value of Trump's properties at Donald Trump's direction specifically?

A note has now been presented during the trial where it says Donald J. Trump to get final review, suggesting certainly that ultimately the buck did stop with Donald Trump when it came to the stated valuations of these properties. Let's look at the highlights from Business Insider. The Trump civil fraud trial is now in its eighth week. The defense called Donald Trump's former spreadsheet czar Jeffrey McConaughey to testify. McConaughey said he wrote Donald J. Trump to get final review on a document the state alleges is fraud filled. This is People's Exhibit 3054. And it is a draft of Trump's net worth statement. It contains it

is sort of a primary source of many of these obviously false financial claims about Donald Trump's properties. And it says Donald J. Trump to get final review. Now, you could make the case just because someone wrote on that piece of paper, Donald Trump is going to get a final review doesn't mean that he did get a final review or that it was ultimately he who decided what values are on this piece of paper. But one of the things that Trump's defense lawyers have tried to do during this trial is to distance Trump from even the process. Just saying, listen, people did this.

We put a disclaimer on there. These properties are way worth way more than what anybody else is telling you. Partially, that's based on confusing and conflating market value with assessed value. That's a story for another day. But once again, when everybody who testifies says, no, Trump was involved, Trump did opine. Trump admits he would give his opinion. It is building up a picture in which we all realize that Trump is very much involved here and is to some degree responsible for the numbers that are stated out there. So this case is getting a little bit less attention lately as Donald Trump's testimony

is now over. And again, remember, this is a bench trial in which the judge has already decided that they did the fraud. Now we are talking about what should the consequences be? Another interesting note about these documents is that these incriminating, you know, hand scrawled notes were not turned over by the Trump organization. And that, again, in a bench trial, when we talk about complying with discovery, complying

with the spirit of discovery, complying with the letter of discovery, once again, relevant documents not turned over. And as I've discussed with you before, these things can have different impacts in a bench trial where it is a judge that is making decisions rather than a jury. So a devastating day, a devastating day in civil court for Trump. My feeling is within a few months, I will regularly be saying on the show a devastating day in criminal court for Donald Trump. Obviously, the consequences in criminal court for Trump can be effectively life in prison. So the stakes are high and Trump knows it. And things are going to get very crazy in the first quarter of twenty

twenty four. Chris Christie, God bless him. He's still out there pounding on Donald Trump, seeking relevance, but it's going nowhere and it's going nowhere. Not because Chris Christie isn't obviously the best Republican candidate. He is. Don't get me wrong. Chris Christie is the best Republican candidate. He's the sanest. He's the one with the least outrageous political views. He's the least dishonest, but the Republican voters don't want it. Here is Chris Christie speaking two days ago, three, two days ago, and he's in New Hampshire. He's telling the truth about Trump. But it's just not landing. Listen to this. You cannot get in this business and decide that the only election that you'll accept is one you win. That the only election that's fair is the one I win.

You can't go out behind the seal of the President of the United States in the East Room of the White House on election night and say the election was stolen when you have no evidence to prove it was. And in fact, we sit here now, three years later, and there's still no evidence the election was stolen. You want to know why? Because it wasn't. He lost. Then he sent this country and so many supporters of his down a road that's led many of them to prison. And more of them are going to go to prison because of what happened on January 6th. And people who worked right around him are now going to prison because he asked them to commit crimes on his behalf. And let me tell you what's going to happen this March.

He's going to walk into a courtroom in Washington, D.C., and his own former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has cut a deal for immunity, and he is going to testify as far away as I am from you. He's going to be from Donald Trump and saying, I committed crimes at his instruction and he committed crimes right before my eyes. Now let me ask you something, everybody. If that doesn't disqualify you from being president United States. What the hell does everything that Chris Christie says is undeniably correct? And yet and yet the Republican Party doesn't

want to hear it. Yeah, there's voters in the room. OK, I mean, he has some support. When you get two point five percent of the Republican electorate, you can fill a room with people. For some reason, DeSantis can't. But anyway, Chris Christie can. But this is not what the Republican Party wants. And it's evidenced by the polling numbers. Candidates keep dropping out. Pence is gone. Tim Scott is gone. These guys are all dropping out. And Chris Christie is still polling two point five percent. He entered the race at one. He got up to what does this look like? Two point eight three at one point. And he's back down to two point five. So this is going to be a question about the Republican Party going forward. What will it take for them to move on from MAGA Trumpism? Or has that ship sailed for a decade, a generation? I don't know.

Will it take Trump losing in 2024 to get the Republican Party out of this mega Trump delusion? Will it take Trump's death whenever it comes to get them out of it? Will it take the removal of mega Trump from Congress if Marjorie Taylor Greene loses and Trump loses and Trump dies, will they exit this seemingly impossibly attractive direction? I don't know the answer because a great number of these Republican voters are only even engaging with the political system because of Trump. That's why. So I don't have an answer.

Chris Christie is completely correct in everything he's saying. But it seems that at least for 2024, unless something really unprecedented happens, it's going to be the direction they go. And we can only hope that it will go as poorly for them in 2024 as it went in 2018 and 2020 and 2022 and 2023. Educated professionals are fleeing red states. It's being called the red state brain drain, and it does not bode well for Republican states, which on average already struggle economically, infrastructure wise, health care, educationally. It's only going to get worse for red states because of these victories for radical republicanism, if that's what we're calling it. There's a very interesting article

in The New Republic. I'm not going to read it to you, but we will link to it. It's called The Red State Brain Drain Isn't Coming. It's happening right now. And it argues as conservative states wage total culture war, college educated workers, physicians, teachers, professors and more are packing their bags. The article is very much worth reading. It both is anecdotal in it tells in that it tells the stories of individuals and how they said, hey, you know what, we're getting the hell out of here based on what's going on. But it also gives us some broader data, specifically young professionals,

educated young professionals in academia and health care, important areas, important industries in so many different ways are saying we're going to go elsewhere. When you look at what's happening with OBGYN residencies in red states after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, we are it's early, but we are starting to see that when you want to do an OBGYN residency coming out of medical school, you're increasingly not going to go to a red state because it's a combination of immoral what they're doing. But also there are doctors that are worried about their medical licenses. They're worried about their freedom when it comes to are they

going to arrest me depending on what I do to provide care to my patients. So you are now going to start to see over the next five to 10 years that it is already the case that when you restrict abortion, et cetera, you make health care less safe for people within those states. You are going to see those who seek to become OBGYNs do their residencies in other states and presumably stay in those other states. It will worsen the health care system and access to women's health and quality of women's health even more. Other examples from the article include when it comes to teaching. As we see these contrived cultural issues

dip into parents and right wing nuts saying, here's the books you're allowed to teach from. Here's how you're supposed to teach. Here's what you're allowed to talk about in the classroom rather than leaving it to the actual educational professionals. Teachers also will say, I'm not going to teach here. I'm going to teach where they don't give me a list of banned books, where I'm not going to be fired if I mention, hey, gay people exist, trans people exist. It's going to further. And remember, education on average is already worse in red states. Health care on average is already worse in red states. Average income is lower in red states. All of these things are already true. It's going to get even worse. Now, I want to say one more thing about that. For some Republicans, education getting worse is a

good thing. Public education, because what many of these right wingers want to do is they want to make public education terrible because it builds up their argument for these voucher programs to charter schools, which hurt public schools even more. And it also builds up demand and willingness to pay for those who are able to afford it to send your kids to private school, which also hurts public schools even more. So some Republicans are going to see the worsening of education, the damaging of education as a good thing, which is a very scary reality to consider. But the red state brain drain, it's not off in the future someday. It's happening right now. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine

two. David P. Here is a caller wanting me to lay out my beliefs. I get a lot of calls like this. Listen to this. Hi, David. My name is Rob. I'm from Des Moines, Iowa. I have a question about the philosophy that underlies your politics. I know in the past you said that you're a nonbeliever, maybe an atheist or an agnostic. But do you have a label for your philosophical or your religious perspective? I would guess that you're a humanist, meaning that you believe reason and science are the best way to understand the world, that you don't believe in claims without evidence or in the supernatural, that you believe humans should figure out our problems cooperatively, and that morality is all about creating the most happiness and well-being for people in

the here and now. Or maybe you have another label for your beliefs. If so, what might that be? So let me give you some labels, OK? I actually I have I have an entire chapter in my forthcoming book about this, which is when principles and values in the abstract replace actually dealing with issues in the here and now. That's not what we're doing here. So I'm glad to kind of label some of my beliefs. And maybe maybe this is useful. I don't know. So the caller asked about religion. They asked about ethical and moral beliefs and a bunch of different things. So I'll just kind of go through it in no particular order. I am culturally, ethnically and culinarily Jewish.

But my religious beliefs are agnostic. Now, I'll tell you what my beliefs are. Sometimes people will hear this and they'll go, David, just admit that you're an atheist. You're unwilling to admit it. Honestly, you know, agnostic atheism, I don't know, it does. The way I've always described it is. I am glad to believe in anything for which we have evidence right now. My connection to Judaism and the idea of a personal God is not how I'm connected to Judaism. I'm connected through culture, ethnicity, and I joke around through food as well. But it just has not been demonstrated to me that there is any reason to believe in the existence of a personal God.

So that's my religious beliefs. I do consider myself a secular humanist. My moral and ethical framework aligns with secular humanism. So human reasoning is a big part of that. Ethics and justice as as goals are a big part of that, primarily as informed by science and empiricism and without relying on any religious doctrine. Religious doctrine is not a factor in informing my secular humanism. For some people, it is. Some people say I am a humanist as informed by Christian values. For example, that's not what I'm saying at all. In terms of political alignment, I'm a social Democrat with little L like not, you know, the big L like the loser L. I'm talking about little, little, little, little L social Democrat with little L libertarian tendencies. And what I mean by this is when we look at a political

spectrum, often as is sort of two axes with four quadrants, there's authoritarianism and libertarianism. This is not like I'm a Gary Johnson libertarian. It's when given the option, I opt for saying let people do whatever they want, except when there's a really good case to say government should be involved or whatever the case may be. So I identify with progressive social democratic values, those found in northern European countries. And my instinct is always unless you can show me why to do it otherwise, I want to be a libertarian and let people do what they want, direct their lives, et cetera. I also consider myself a pragmatic rationalist.

And what I mean by that is and this relates to secular humanism. I prioritize empirical evidence and logical reasoning to form my beliefs. I value the scientific method, but I recognize the importance of personal experience in thinking through a lot of these issues. So this is relates to identity politics. I've said this before. I never want to see identity politics used to silence people as a cudgel to disqualify people's views as a blank. I'm allowed or not allowed to comment on this, that or the other thing. That's destructive identity politics. I recognize

that there are people who, because of their identity, have experiences I don't have and vice versa. And those can be valuable in pragmatically informing our rationalism. And then lastly, I'm an economic pragmatist. I align with progressive economic policy in general, northern European. I also am concerned about any increases to taxes when we are already doing such a poor job of spending the tax money we already collect. And so it's not that I'm against a progressive taxation system that all of that is part of my economic pragmatist, social democracy, etc. I also see that too often because it either seems too

difficult or politically impossible to fix how we're spending the tax money we already collect. I don't like the answer often being, well, it's easier to just raise a tax. So let's do that. Those are my views. Those are my principles. And maybe that's you. Hopefully that's useful to some degree. All right. After yesterday's tech disaster, we will do yesterday's planned bonus show today. Get access to the bonus show by becoming a member at join Pacman dot com. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Wouldn't it be amazing to come? We're at one point nine eight million YouTube subscribers. Wouldn't it be amazing to come back from the Thanksgiving break and be at two million? Just a thought. Just a thought.