The David Pakman Show - 11/22/24: Kamala winning 2028 primary, Trump victory margin shrinks

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump's popular vote victory margin continues to decrease, now down to just 2.5 million votes (1.6%) -- Polls show Kamala Harris leading the pack for possible Democratic presidential candidates in 2028 -- Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth gets confronted by a reporter about whether he committed sexual assault -- Matt Gaetz withdraws his nomination for Attorney General, after it became clear he wouldn't be able to get confirmed by the Senate -- Nancy Mace introduces a bathroom bill in response to Sarah McBride’s election as the first transgender member of Congress -- House Speaker Mike Johnson won't answer if Sarah McBride is a man or a woman -- Donald Trump appoints Dr. Oz to lead Medicare and Medicaid -- Trump appoints Linda McMahon for Secretary of Education -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: The Friday Bonus Show with Producer Pat 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 🐶 Ollie dog food: Use code PAKMAN for 60% OFF your first box of meals at https://ollie.com 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code PAKMAN for $30 off & free baked goods at https://wildgrain.com/pakman 💪 AG1 is offering FREE GIFT and FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/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

. We talked a little bit about this at the start of the week, but we have to follow up because Donald Trump's so called landslide victory, which gives him a supposed mandate is being used to defend so many of the choices that Donald Trump is now making with regard to cabinet and nominations and policy promises. But that victory has shrunk and shrunk and shrunk. In fact, it's experienced so much shrinkage that it is really now just a tiny little embarrassment with every passing day.

The margin has declined. It is now 1.6 percentage points and just roughly two and a half million votes. Now for context, Hillary Clinton in 2016 won the popular vote by 2.1%. That's more than 25% more than Trump's popular vote victory. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.8 million votes, hundreds of thousands of votes more than Donald Trump's victory. And Trump as of now is underperforming Hillary Clinton in 2016. He has indeed failed to get 50% of the vote and yet much of the justification that Republicans are giving for, well listen, Pete Hegseth accused of this and that and

has no qualifications. Matt Gates accused of this and this and this and this and this and that and paying for it on Venmo and has no qualification. Trump won a massive victory. It was a landslide. He gets to do whatever he wants now, even recess appointments if that's how he has to do it to get his cabinet confirmed. None of this is the will of the people, but more importantly, there is no mandate when

most voters voted for someone else. I want you to think back, as I said Monday, to how much respect Republicans gave Barack Obama when he won twice with real majority. They gave him no respect. They didn't acknowledge any mandate. And so we should respect Trump's none-existent mandate just as much as they respected Barack Obama's much more real mandate. Now, the reality, of course, is it's a pretty divided country. The concept of a mandate just because Obama won with with a bigger margin.

It's all a little bit shaky as as, as, as it is an incredibly divided country and the victories to kind of depend on the margins. But at least as far as the next four years are concerned, certainly not a red wave, not a landslide. It was a plurality win in an election where Democrats admittedly didn't show up. Now that's still something we should be concerned about. Trump upped his vote totals from 2020 a little bit. Harris's vote totals declined significantly more compared to Joe Biden's in 2020. That's a concern. What was it about Kamala Harris that didn't work for a lot of voters? What made people stay home? The postmortem must be done. It's being done. And we'll talk a little bit about how people are looking towards 2028, but that's not an

excuse, right? If more Democrats had voted, the conversation would be very different. Trump and the Republican party would be claiming a mandate no matter what, because that's what they do. But we should be clear. A plurality isn't even a majority, nevermind a mandate. The smaller Trump's margin, the stronger the case becomes for resisting the agenda because they don't have the majority of the American people behind them. They don't even have the majority of the voting public behind them.

So at the end of the day, it was never about facts for them. You know, it's about spin. It's not like if I go and tell, pick your favorite right wing influencer. If I go and tell Michael Knowles or Benny Johnson or Ben Shapiro or Dan Bongino or whoever, if I go, Hey, there's no mandate. Most people voted for someone else. You think they're going to go, you know what, David, you're right. Trump shouldn't really get to do whatever he wants with impunity because you're right. He didn't even win a majority of the votes. Of course not. They don't care. I'm not naive. This is not going to matter to the people claiming the mandate

because the people claiming the mandate aren't interested in facts. We are living in a completely dangerous reality where facts do not matter. The what's that phrase? Um, those may be the facts, but I know the truth similar to Donald Trump's don't believe what you are seeing and hearing. So what am I supposed to believe? What you tell me? Yeah. What Trump tells you is what he wants you to believe. Uh, we also, I know this gets a little edgy and some people write in and they go, David,

attacking people's education isn't a good idea. It's not an attack on education. We also have to just acknowledge this. This is a fact we can we can say how we feel about it, but it's a fact. More than one in five adults, 21 percent of adults are considered functionally illiterate. They read below a sixth grade level, even though they are adults. You see this, by the way, when we listen to some podcasts, right? You look at some of the podcasts that Trump and higher ups in the now incoming Trump administration

have done over the last three months. You do see hosts that are they seem functionally illiterate. They are operating at the level that many of the voters are operating on. It's not an insult. I wish they had more education. We should get more education to people. But that's also a factor here because the literacy level or the lack thereof, it can impact people's ability to perform everyday tasks, fully participate in society. But the point is they certainly don't care about what seems like a technicality to them of most voters voted for someone else.

Trump didn't get 50% of the vote. It's not going to make a difference if they can even conceptualize the difference between majority and plurality. So it's really just for us. If you were thinking of I might not really try to resist or activate because after all, it really was a big win for Trump. Well, turns out it wasn't quite as big as Donald Trump wants you to believe it was. That's the important message. And so it should just reinforce and embolden us to say most of us did not vote for this and therefore it's even more important that we resist it.

All right. I am not going to spend the next four years talking about polling. I promise you I'm not. I haven't spoken about polling for weeks. I am going to tell you today that we have a baseline for 2028 polling, so we won't talk about it for months, if not years. OK, I'm promising you. But we have a baseline to compare to when the 2028 primary actually starts. We have two new polls and Kamala Harris is crushing both of them. This is making a lot of people very upset and it's making some people very happy. Uh, in a, a morning consult poll, Kamala Harris

currently has 42% support to be the party's nominee in 2028. Kamala Harris should be the nominee in 2028, according to 42% of Democrats and democratic leaning independence. Pete boot edge edge is in second place at 9%. Gavin Newsom, California governor at 8%. That's not the only poll looking at 2028 for Democrats. We have another poll from Echelon, which finds similar but not identical numbers. This one has Kamala Harris at 41%. Gavin Newsom in second place at 8%.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro at 7%, and then Pete boot edge edge and Tim walls with 6% each. Now, before I give you any thoughts four years out or two and a half years out from the start of the primary, this polling is more about name recognition than about anything else. That all being said, my opinion today, and it could change, but as I sit here today in late November, 2024, my opinion is that we are better off without the same person at the top of the ticket. Now, I understand that running in the primary, losing and then running again can work. Biden did it. Biden previously lost a primary, won a primary, ultimately became president. Losing the general and running again

is a different thing. Now, the one example in modern political history that people often look at is that Richard Nixon lost to John F. Kennedy in 1960 and then ultimately won the primary and the presidency in 1968. So we do have that example. Didn't end well for Nixon, as we know, but that didn't have to do with having lost the election in 1960. But if you want examples before that, you have to go to the 1800s. I don't think that if we're talking about 2024, things that happened electorally in the 1800s are good instructors because so much was

different about the country. Then population distribution, everything was completely different. So really we have like this one relatively modern example. And even that at this point is a 80, an 80 to 70 to 80 year old example. My, my bigger takeaway is with such a deep bench, it doesn't seem necessary to run someone that already lost a general election with J.D. Vance, by the way, polling at the top of the Republican 2028 primary ticket. It doesn't seem to me that a rematch of Harris, Trump, Harris, Vance, a pseudo rematch, we can call it. I don't see it as going that well. The one caveat would be if the next four years go so terribly, if the next four years, everything just craters. And I don't mean a little bit. I mean,

undeniably so that Republican voters know that this just this has been an absolute and total disaster. We're not voting for Vance. But if they make him the nominee anyway, maybe in that situation, it ends up being just a referendum on the people in power and Harris or whoever could win. Much like I think a lot of candidates would have defeated Harris. It wasn't just Trump. So I'm not going to plague you for four years now with the Democratic primary polling.

But I did want to tell you where we are today. And it's not crazy to say none of this even matters because at this point it is merely name recognition. Donald Trump's increasingly beleaguered nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, known mostly for being a Fox News weekend date daytime host. He was confronted. Did you sexually assault a woman? And his answer was not no.

Do you need to know anything else? I'm not sure. Let's take a listen. This was broadcast live or not live. Or maybe it was like this was broadcast yesterday on CNN. Pete Hegseth was in California and he sorry, he was not in California. Pete Hegseth was asked about the allegation that he sexually assaulted a woman in California. And his answer does not include the word no. We take absolutely nothing for granted and we welcome the opportunity to talk to any

senator that wants to talk to us. Bitching sexually assaulted woman in Monterey, California. I have, as far as the media is concerned, it's very simple. The matter was fully investigated and I was completely cleared. And that's where I'm going to leave it. Thank you very much. Okay. So the answer, what did you sexually assault a woman?

Imagine that I was asked that I would go now. Now, let's didn't sexually assault anyone. Now, he says a lot of different things. He says that it's a simple matter. He says that it's a matter that was investigated. That's not a no. He says it's a matter in which he was cleared. That has actually that that's even complex. We're going to parse cleared in a moment. And he says that he's not going to be saying anything else about it. That is a lot of words, none of which are no. The correct answer, if in fact the truth is no, I didn't sexually assault anyone. The correct answer would be no. I was completely cleared, of course, raises questions about

why did you pay her money? Completely cleared is not the same as paying someone to be quiet, paying someone to tell police I don't want charges pressed. The police not filing charges is not the same as I did not sexually assault someone. All of these answers aren't no. And that's the one takeaway. Did you sexually assault a woman in Monterey, California? No. What would you think if I was asked the question? Oh, you know, David, you you've been to you've been to Argentina. Did you sexually assault a woman in Argentina? If I were to say, listen, no charges have been brought against me. I don't really have anything to say about the matter.

It's something for which I am not going to be charged. You would say, David, why the hell aren't you saying no? Why? Why? Why is your answer anything other than no, I didn't sexually assault a woman in Argentina. Congressman Warren Davidson is dismissing the payoff of the woman as a distraction. Hmm. We're going to move on from that, right? Because I want to talk about Pete Hegseth, who you brought up.

You are a veteran and a former army ranger. The allegations against Pete Hegseth are serious. Should those be discussed by the senators who would interview him during confirmation hearings? Well, the gossip's already going on, and people want to talk about everything but the right kind of leader to change the Department of Defense. And we need a strong and focused military. That's what Pete Hegseth's going to bring. And we need to not deal with these distractions. It's the same playbook as always. Character assassination, stuff that stayed idle for years is somehow magically re regenerated and brought back to life to try to take down. And of course, that's one they love. They love it. Nobody was talking about this stuff for years. The allegation is from years ago and now it's sudden.

Well, it's back up because we kind of assume that let me let me take that's a little strong. We aren't shocked that the weekend daytime co-host on Fox and Friends once paid off a woman after being accused of sexual assault. It's kind of like, OK, it's not surprising news. If you're going to make him the secretary of defense, absent any qualifications for that office, of course it's being brought back up. Now, now is when he's been nominated for something. That's not a defense nominees. Pete Hexos needs to be our next secretary of defense and he's going to do a great job. Okay. Um, I, I, I hear what you're saying about, you know, moral assassination.

Just to be clear to our viewers, there was there are there. This was an allegation that police did investigate. OK, so as we talked about on the bonus show yesterday, I don't even know that such allegations hurt you in Mago world right now. Trump's got 50 allegations against him and they made him president. Their reaction is exactly what Warren Davidson said many times, which is they do this to everybody. They did it to Kavanaugh. They're doing it to RFK. They're doing it to Matt Gates. They're accusing Linda McMahon of covering up or looking the other way

about sexual abuse. And of course they are doing means to suggest that these are fabricated allegations at the time of the nomination. But of course we've known about all of these before. I remember years ago, March, 2021 or something, uh, being in Aruba first trip during the COVID after COVID vaccination, all that, and hearing about the Matt Gaetz allegations, it's coming back up because he's been nominated for something he's way in over his head about. That's why it's coming up now. The reason that these things are coming up now about all of these people is Trump is selecting people with these allegations that are known.

Now, the Trump transition team reportedly was stunned by the revelation about Pete Hegseth, even though, of course, the police records and the investigation, it all dates back quite a while. Apparently, the vetters did not find this and they are considering themselves blindsided. So I don't know if Hegseth gets confirmed. Certainly shouldn't forgetting about the allegations. He has no business being secretary of defense. It seems as though Matt Gaetz's chances are dwindling. I don't want to say they are done,

but they are certainly dwindling. And if I were a betting man, which I'm not, I would bet that some of these first picks do not ultimately get confirmed. Let's take a break. Make sure you're following me on blue sky at David Pakman dot com slash blue sky. The Twitter exodus continues. And also make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. Well, the first domino has fallen and it couldn't happen to a more horrible person. The Matt Gaetz AG nomination is dead.

They're eating the cats. You know what I'm talking about. It's over. And Trump humiliated and will now try to save face and come up with someone even worse to fill the job. CNN exclusively reporting ethics committee told of second sexual encounter between Matt Gaetz and 17 year old at a party. This is not the first 17 year old Matt Gaetz has been accused of engaging in sexual contact with. But the second one,

it's all imploding. And Matt Gaetz asked to comment on this by CNN and responded by saying, I will be stepping down from the nominated position in which I find myself. In a sense, it's almost like the investigative reporting from CNN was the last straw and Trump posting to truth central about this with a completely kind of nothing statement. Trump said, quote, Trump or whoever wrote this said, quote, I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gaetz in seeking approval to be attorney general, which is funny because he didn't really do much to seek the approval. If anything, he had most of his actions got him further from approval. He was doing very well,

but at the same time did not want to be a distraction for the administration for which he has much respect. Matt has a wonderful future and I look forward to watching all of the great things that he will do. So a number of different questions here. Question number one, will Ron DeSantis now appoint Matt Gates to the Senate to fill the seat vacated by Senator Marco Rubio because Rubio was nominated by Trump to be secretary of state. That's question number one. Question number two, a more interesting question, more theoretical. Honestly, was it all a surprise? And what I mean by that is to many of us within 15 seconds of Matt Gates being nominated, we were saying, how on earth can this guy get confirmed? Within half an hour, you had a couple Republicans saying, I'll do whatever Trump wants.

But you had a couple of Republicans saying, this is not seeming like the right direction. Wasn't it obvious that this wouldn't work? And then the question becomes, did Trump select Gates originally knowing that it wouldn't work or did Trump genuinely think they were going to be able to get this through? The counterpoint is, was this meant to be someone so outrageous who sucks up all of the attention so everybody else now skates by the counter counterpoint would be if that was the plan. Pete Hegseth is now in a bundle of trouble with his nomination. He may be the next to fall. The Trump transition team is already dropping little hints. We had no idea about this allegation. We had no idea that Hegseth had this particular report about the incident in Monterey, California.

We were blindsided by all of it. They are preparing to completely throw Hegseth underneath underneath a bus or a train. So if the idea was make one cookie nomination so that it'll get all the attention and everybody else gets confirmed, that doesn't seem like it's working either. Now here's a funny little side note. Republican Congressman Jason Smith appeared on Fox news with Neil Cavuto and said, he actually thinks that, um, this, it's, this reminds me of a Seinfeld episode. Remember the whole thing where George Costanza quits and then he goes back in the next day, like it never happened and just pretends it was a joke, which is based on something that happened to Larry David. Larry David has told the story where he

was like, I told off my boss and then I completely regretted it. I just went in the next day and said, oh, that, that, no, that was just a joke. Jason Smith seems to be suggesting that because the house is not currently in session, Matt Gates saying that he's resigning from the house doesn't really do anything until he does something more formal. It's the wildest technicality. But the point is Jason Smith is acting like Gates can just show up to the new Congress. Take a listen to this. I know this was a Senate matter taking up these cabinet choices of the president elect. But that dates, as you know, your colleague from Florida stepped out of this contest. I don't know what he's going to do. Could he conceivably return to the House? Oh, I think so, Neil, because I think it's

hard to resign from Congress that isn't in session yet. It's like a relationship you can't get out of. And that's the hundred and nineteenth Congress, which he's been elected to. So I think that in order for the one of the best signs that this is very weak is that even Jason Smith is using up speak where everything is a question. This is a Congress that he was elected to. Really, Jason, who are you asking? It sounds like you're asking rather than telling Speaker to accept a resignation. It's probably going to have to be the speaker that's elected in the hundred 19th. Mike Johnson will be the speaker that's elected in the hundred and nineteenth. Mike Johnson will be the speaker in the hundred nineteenth, but we're currently in the one eighteen. So anything's

possible. This is Washington. You know, expect the unexpected. That's how I look at it. I guess the better argument. No, I'm sorry. Not better. These are crazy arguments. But more accurately, I think what Jason Smith might be saying is, oh, Matt Gaetz resigned from the hundred and eighteenth Congress, but he was elected to the hundred and nineteenth and therefore he can just show up on January, whatever, and take the oath. The counter to this is that in his resignation letter, Gaetz says, I will not be taking the oath for the hundred and nineteenth Congress. So listen, I don't deny for a second that Maga Mike Johnson might allow it to happen. Matt Gaetz will just, you know, he'll call one of those companies like it never even

happened. They'll clean up the mess and a resignation letter. We don't know anything about a resignation letter. It may be the case that Matt Gaetz does show up and tries to continue being a member of the House. If that's the case, we absolutely need that damn ethics report. That's for sure. And then finally, finally, who now

for attorney general, it's not easy to find someone worse or less qualified than Matt Gates for attorney general. But if there's one thing Trump knows how to do, it's find the absolute worst people. So if I have confidence in Trump to do anything, it's find someone equally appalling for attorney general. We will see. are a convenient way to curb the nicotine cravings. Zypix toothpicks are super discreet. You can use them anytime, anywhere smoking and vaping aren't allowed, including flights, sporting events in restaurants. They're available in six different flavors with options of two and three milligrams of nicotine. If you're not a nicotine user, Zypix also offers caffeine and B12 infused toothpicks. Zypix has already helped tens of thousands of customers ditch the cigarettes, ditch the vapes.

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I'm actually embarrassed to say it's it's much more than 50 percent. OK, if you use the coupon code, not again. Congresswoman Nancy Mace has introduced a measure to ban men from women's bathrooms on Capitol Hill. Do I still have my ban men button? Oh, I don't have it. Dear God, that's too bad. Hold on. Is it this one? I did everything right and they indicted me. That's not it. Um, this is all targeted at Sarah McBride. Sarah McBride is the first

trans member of Congress. This is very much overt. It is all about being anti-trans and about getting attention. Now, Nancy Mace defended her proposal to ban trans women from using female bathrooms in the Capitol as being about protecting girls. We, we must protect girls. She also said she wants to introduce similar measures that would apply to any federal building or federal property. Here is Nancy Mace. I find it reprehensible. I find it deeply disturbing that a biological man would demand to be in a private woman's space, whether it be a locker room, a changing room,

a restroom. I don't care what it is. You don't belong there. If you were born a biological male, you can use the male restroom or a unisex space. I didn't sign up for that. Okay. Uh, she also started posting uncontrollably to her ex account about this post after post after post. I'll be frank. I don't know if it's that she really cares about this or she thinks it will help her get positive attention from her fellow Republicans. I don't know which it is. She also posted this video about the issue.

Call me an extremist for being a feminist fighting to protect the rights of women and girls. this video about the issue. She is fighting for every woman and every little girl to keep them safe. Very much runs counter to her policy on reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. But why let the facts get in the way of a good story? She did eventually in the, in the, uh, uh, in the middle of putting out propaganda videos, she did end up getting interviewed and a reporter asked, is all of this specifically because of Congresswoman Sarah McBride coming to Congress and Nancy Mace admits, yes, it really is. And last night for fighting to protect women and girls, it's ridiculous. So that being a feminist makes me an extremist, I'm totally here for it.

Is this effort in response to Congresswoman McBride coming to Congress? Yes, and absolutely, and then some. I'm not going to stand for a man. You know, if someone with a penis is in the women's locker room, that's not okay. And I'm a victim of abuse myself. I'm a rape survivor. I have PTSD from the abuse I've suffered at the hands of a man. And I know how vulnerable women and girls are in private

spaces. So I'm absolutely a hundred percent going to stand in the way of any man who wants to be in a women's restroom, in our locker rooms, in our changing rooms. I will be there fighting you every step of the way. What a hero. What a real hero that Nancy Mace is making herself out to be truly a legend in her own mind. She then appeared last night on the Laura Ingraham show on Fox News. Uh, and she expressed that, uh, it's straight up assault. It's assault what these liberals are trying to do. I know the left will say in response to what you just said is, well, it's horrific that you were subjected to any abuse or assault, any of it. But are you intimating that this new

congressman elect would somehow assault you in the bathroom? That would be the argument. The idea of a man walking into a locker room where I'm changing is actually, it feels like assault. I'm a victim. I have actually, I actually, I have PTSD from the trauma that I have endured at the hands of a man. And I absolutely, I'm going to stand in the way solidly of any guy that wants to come into our spaces. And guess what? Sarah McBride doesn't get a say in this. And I'm not going to, I'm not going to succumb or be silenced by bullies online or by the radical left. They lost, they lost big. And I'm going to push back harder than ever before.

Of course, this is nothing more than virtue signaling. Nancy Mace wants us to believe she cares about women and she cares about girls and she cares about what happens in locking rooms at locker rooms and dressing rooms. And yet EG and Carol, a jury found was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump in a dressing room and Nancy Mace doesn't care about that. Donald Trump openly talked about going into the Miss Teen USA dressing room with underage girls, several of whom later confirmed, yeah, Donald Trump did that. And Nancy Mace supports Trump and voted for him.

Nancy mates regular Nancy Mace supports all sorts of candidates with allegations against them, including attorney general nominee Matt Gates, whose nomination is hopefully collapsing into a fiasco. Um, so this is all of course, just virtue signaling. She, to the extent that she means it, what I mean by means it is she means that she wants to get attention for these issues, but that it's actually about protecting women and girls is a whole different story altogether. All right. I think this one you're really going to love for years now.

Maga Republicans have been telling us there is no simpler question than is this a man or is this a woman? What is a man? What is a woman? And yet Trump's little Johnson that's Maga Mike Johnson, the speaker of the house was asked is incoming trans member of the house, Sarah McBride, a man or a woman. And Mike Johnson said, that's not a question that he's going to answer. What?

What? Let's take a listen to what he had to say. Speaker. Is freshman elect Sarah McBride a man or a woman? Look, I'm not going to get into this. We welcome all new members with open arms who are duly elected representatives of the people. I believe it's a, it's a command that we treat all persons with dignity and respect, and we will. And I'm not going to engage in silly debates about this. There's a concern about uses of restroom facilities and locker rooms and all that.

This is an issue that Congress has never had to address before. We're going to do that in a deliberate fashion with member consensus on it, and we will accommodate the needs of every single person. That's all I'm saying. Do you plan on bringing a Nancy Macy's transgender bill and putting that into the rules package? We're not, I'm not going to address the plans on any of that. I just told, so listen, I know you all know how pathetic and spineless this guy is.

This is the one question they've been telling us for years is the simplest possible question, man or woman, and he won't answer it. I guess it's not as easy a question to answer as they've been telling us for years that it is. And these even genitals need to take a position here. Their genitals based idea doesn't really make a lot of sense when they do weigh in on this stuff. They seem to argue that either birth sex or genitalia determine which bathroom you use. And of course, maybe that sounds plausible, but it doesn't make sense in a lot of a lot of ways. Here is a picture of Chaz Bono. And you want me to believe that the way to make things calmer,

prevent anybody from getting agitated is by having Chaz Bono in a women's bathroom. That makes sense to you. Or conversely, here's a picture of Blair White. And you want me to believe that having Blair use the men's bathroom at LaGuardia is going to keep things calm and prevent any of the drama that these right wingers are worried about themselves starting. These are just a couple of examples, but the entire paradigm here is nuts. And what I really, the most critical part is that they love to tell us, these are the simplest questions with the most obvious answers. And he's not even willing or able to answer such a simple question is Sarah McBride a man or a woman and he just

refuses. So remember when they tell us this is how we grade a question difficulty. This is the list of questions everybody should be able to answer with a simple yes or no man or woman or whatever the case may be. Even they don't actually do it when it comes down to it. We are going to continue following this because between Nancy Mace and a Maga, Mike Johnson, these are individuals who primarily are looking to seize on opportunism and to get as close to power, notoriety and influence as they can. And I want

you to think back to Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Madison Cawthorn. They were sort of this first kind of the first round in a way of the overt MAGA candidates in Congress and Madison Cawthorn's out. He lost his primary. And beyond that, it is the case that Boebert and Marjorie Taylor green aren't getting nearly the attention that they used to get. And so MAGA is now shifting. Nancy may seize an opportunity here to get attention. MAGA Mike Johnson was at UFC with Trump. He's down at Mar-a-Lago. They all are seeing, wow, I have a real opportunity to become one of these celebrity members of Congress. They want it more than they want anything else.

And uh, I guess they see this as, as potentially the way to get it. The holiday season is here and it's time to start baking delicious homemade favorites with family and friends. And our sponsor, Wild Grain, makes you look like a baking expert without the stress. This holiday, treat yourself and your loved ones to fresh baked goods. Wild Grain has incredible new fall and winter pastries. But don't wait, because once they sell out, they are gone for the year. Wild grain is the first bake from frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, pastries, and pastas. And my favorite, the croissants. Every time I talk about it,

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a G the number one.com slash Pacman to get a free gift, a welcome kit and free vitamin D three and K two. The link is in the podcast notes. Well, he did it. He's hiring Dr. Oz and the wrestling lady, Linda McMahon. Oh my goodness. Um, remember when Donald Trump endorsed Dr. Oz, we've endorsed JP, right? JD Mandel. Okay. Anyway, um, Trump is hiring Dr. Oz to lead the massive Medicare and Medicaid agency. CMS CMS as reported by CNBC operates or oversees healthcare programs that provide coverage to about half of all Americans. Think of that. Dr. Oz will be overseeing the programs through which half of Americans get health care. Those are Medicare, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, as well as the Obamacare Marketplace Exchange, Health Care Dot Gov.

This is absolutely outrageous. Now if there is any good here, it's that all of these programs for the most part relate to mandatory spending. And I know that this is a very low bar, but the saving grace we have here is that at least it is statutorily designated that there's a whole bunch of things with these programs that Dr Oz is just not allowed to mess with. Now I want to remind you about some of Dr Oz's ideas. One of them was 15 minute physicals at a festival sort of thing.

Uh, he can probably explain it better than I can. Now, when you go home today, what should you do? I think you ought to think about 15 minute physicals. Your local hospitals will fund these. They're incredibly inexpensive to run. You can screen thousands of people for almost nothing and you allow a conversation and take place in more of a festival like setting. It's not scary. And I mentioned earlier that almost everybody who comes to our, our 50 minute physicals has a job, but a lot don't have insurance. Give them a way of crawling back out of the abyss of darkness, of fear over not having the health they need and give them an opportunity because they don't have the right to health,

but they have the right to access to a chance to get that. There you go. They don't have a right to health, but what about a festival with 15 minute physicals? Now I'll admit getting people any physical is better than none. I'm not so cynical that I just want to oppose that in principle. Any physical is better than none. But the idea of people don't have a right to health and the best we can do is a festival where people

get 15 minute physicals. This is the guy who's going to oversee the programs through which half of all Americans get health insurance. It's not good. Also remember during the heart of the COVID pandemic when Dr Oz said we might be able to reopen schools with only a two to 3% additional death rate. Yikes. That doesn't sound very good. But Dr. Oz said it was appetizing. Dr. Oz, help us.

Well, first, we need our mojo back. Let's start with things that are really critical to the nation where we think we might be able to open without getting into a lot of trouble. I tell you, schools are a very appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing that the opening of schools may only cost us two to three percent in terms of total mortality. And, you know, that's any life is a life lost. But to get every child back into a school where they're safely being educated, being fed and making the most out of their lives with a theoretical risk in the backside, it might be a tradeoff. Some folks would consider we need't get industry back supply lines. I mean, yeah, I don't know if Dr. Oz's kids would have been in that likely two to 3%, but that's not sounding so good. And then finally we can't move on without the crudite fiasco. This was Dr. Oz during his failed Senate bid, attempting to buy groceries and show

how expensive I guess everything is. But it isn't grocery shopping. I'm at Wagner's. And by the way, I've never heard of Wagner's. I know Wegmans. I looked up. Is there a grocery chain called Wagner's? I didn't find it. I just want to hear it again. I don't think he knows where he is. But it isn't grocery shopping. I'm at Wagner's. And he says Wagner's. I couldn't find no evidence of such a grocery store. My wife wants some vegetables for a crudite day. Right. So here's a broccoli. That's too much. A broccoli. It's not the kind of broccoli there. Sounds like I will have one marijuana, please. Here is a broccoli. Here's some asparagus. That's four

dollars. Yep. Carrots. By the way, I've never seen asparagus in a crudite, but maybe that's just me. That's four more dollars. That's $10 of vegetables there. And then we need some guacamole. That's $4 more. She loves salsa. Yeah, salsa there. $6 must be a shortage of salsa.. That's $20 for crude day. This doesn't include the tequila. I mean, that's outrageous. We got Joe Biden to thank for this. Yeah.

Now of course you could just buy a crude. You can just, usually they have these pre-made, uh, in, in trays. Yeah. So you don't, you don't have to do it this way, Dr Oz. But you might be asking yourself after this revelation of Dr Oz being hired by Trump, is Trump's administration just going to be TV hosts? And the answer is to a great degree. Yes.

Trump doesn't read. Trump's understanding of the world comes from what he watches on TV. And this actually should be really instructive to us more generally. People who read might say, why, how are these people even considered for these roles? And it's because Trump does not read. There is no greater center of intelligence and expertise than what Trump happens to stumble across on television. Trump was president four years.

I bet he doesn't know how NATO is funded. I don't know that he knows the difference between Medicaid and Medicare. And we know he still doesn't know how tariffs work or how French fries are made. So you have to understand Trump's worldview is informed by TV and entertainment. That's why he picked Dr. Oz. And that's also why he picked this next selection. Donald Trump is hiring the wrestling lady, Linda McMahon, to be secretary of education. Yes, that Linda McMahon of WWF, WWE fame. Donald Trump putting out a statement. It is my great honor to announce that Linda McMahon, former administrator of the Small Business Administration, will be

the United States secretary of education. She's been on the America First Policy Institute. She advocates for parents rights. Yikes. She advocates for universal school choice. I yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's all very, very bad. And you probably know Linda McMahon from her role as a wrestler and executive for the WWE.

The Associated Press reports McMahon went from wrestling to politics. She was part of the founding, along with Vince McMahon, of what is now known as the WWE. Um, when Trump was on the apprentice, he made an appearance at WrestleMania and uh, there was this whole, you know, kind of fake feud with Vince McMahon. Linda McMahon has since stepped down from WWE, ran for Senate, lost both times, and then she became a big donor and now is going to be running the Department of Education. You know, there's this like beggars can't be choosers sort of thing. We have seen those in charge of D.O.E. get worse and worse and worse under Republican

administrations. And uh, Linda McMahon would be really bad. Now, if you need more evidence that it's bad, look at the fact that Tennessee governor bill Lee likes it. If Billy likes it, it's probably bad. He tweeted out quote, Linda McMahon is a proven leader who has delivered school choice for families across the nation as secretary of education. She'll work with Trump to empower parents with education, freedom and send education

back to the States so that every child can thrive. Linda McMahon is also tied to project 2025 as she has worked with the founder of project 2025. Understand that when they talk about school choice, what they mean is defunding public schools, either through voucher or other programs. Understand that when they say empowering parents, they are usually talking about allowing parents rather than professional educators to decide what are the right books for particular age groups. What are the is it appropriate for children to be required to be vaccinated, to go to public schools? That's what they're talking about. And when they say send education back to the states, what they're talking about is eliminate

any kind of federal rock bottom for what must be taught and instead allow school, allow states that have already disastrous education programs and systems, states like Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, you know, the ones, the red states allow them to be even worse by doing whatever the hell they want. That's the agenda of DOE. And remember that Vivek and others have talked about, I don't know that we need the department of education. So we are once again, moving in the direction of, uh, what is it putting the, putting the Fox in charge of the hen house or something along those lines. It is ugly dystopian stuff. They won. They get to do it if they can get these people confirmed, but it is going to be very, very ugly. Data brokers are continually collecting extensive details about your online behavior, address,

phone number, email, financial information, even political views. This sensitive information about you can easily be found on public data search sites by anybody. Could be an ex, could be an employer. And these brokers sell the data to other businesses and even government agencies like the FBI Thank you, David. the calls and the emails. But you can stop it. Our sponsor, Incogni, will send removal requests to data brokers who are legally obligated to comply. If any of your information remains online, Incogni will follow up and ensure that it's taken down. Incogni keeps you informed every step of the way, and it just saves you countless hours of work that would be nearly impossible to do on your own. I use in Cogni and what they've managed to do is remarkable. Go to incogni dot com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman for 60

percent off. That's I.N.C.O.G.N.I. dot com slash Pacman for a huge 60 percent discount. The link is in the podcast notes. 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 decide where is the truth. We have to stay aware of what Republicans are up to. Ground News is a really valuable tool so that you can stay on top of it. Go to ground.news slash Pacman to take advantage of their biggest sale of the year. You'll get 50% off their top tier vantage plan. That's ground.news slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. All right, let's get into Friday feedback. If you want to email in to be featured on the show, it's info at David Pakman dot com. Of course, YouTube comments, tick tock replies. Other stuff will sometimes be featured. Here's something kind of funny.

So I was on the Piers Morgan show recently. A lot of people wrote in and said, David, this is not worth doing. Do not do it again. It's a complete and total waste of time. Here's something funny that is going on. There is now a cottage industry of, I guess I would describe it as AI type, AI type video content that is just on both sides of the aisle. And I'll tell you exactly what I mean. So one video reacting to my appearance with Dave Rubin on Piers Morgan says, get the fuck off my show. David Pakman shuts down MAGA stooge Dave Rubin in one reply. Got it. And then there's also a competing channel which did a video about the exact same thing called shut up, bitch. This shit goes bad.

Woke David Pakman destroyed by entire panel on live TV for unhinged take. I would not be shocked that both of these videos were made by the same content creator. This seems to be a really big thing. Now there's these YouTube channels that just play up controversy essentially from other channels or shows or whatever. And, um, hopefully they're making some money off of this. It seems like you can really generate a lot of content this way, but more substantively, here's a comment about the appearance with peers, peers. This is Mr. Desautels, Desautels. Peers's show consists of him asking loaded questions, getting mad at the answers, then crying victim whenever his own crap logic is used against him. Every

time I don't know how he still has a show. Well, I can tell you how peers as a team around him, and I've seen it happen where they will assemble these panels to generate as much drama as possible. And I have to hand it to them. They do it right. I mean, they put me up there with Dave Rubin. Dave Rubin says things that I think aren't true. In Rubin's defense, I say things that I'm sure he thinks aren't true. He resorts to ad hominems. I don't. But I resort to smugness apparently. And it explodes. And I've seen them replace people on these panels even at the last second if they get a whiff that it might generate more drama. So I don't know. I was talking to Brian Tyler Cohen and other people about about the peers show. And I said to them, I don't know that I want to keep doing it because it's so frustrating and they make you connect 15 minutes before it starts.

Sometimes they'll make you sit there while they interject an additional interview. And I'm just, you know, sitting here. It's just a lot of time commitment. Obviously they don't pay, but if it generated interesting discussions, it might be worth it. But is this really the best use of my time right now? So my question to you, should I continue doing the peers Morgan appearances? That's my question to you.

Okay. From the subreddit, this is a huge wall of text. I'm going to summarize it. Don't worry. User Wegmans groceries wrote Gavin Newsom is a horrible choice to be the democratic candidate in 2028. And they write, I'm seeing a ton of people saying Gavin Newsom should be the candidate in 2028. Their justification is he matches Trump's evil energy is physically attractive and has the experience to do the job. I've not seen another potential candidate floated as much as I have Newsom. He says, have you learned absolutely effing nothing from this election and 2016 Democrats lost big with working class voters

this year. You must have the weakest political instincts ever. If your suggestion is to nominate the right wing's personification of a coastal elitist at most Newsom would help us win a sliver of the white female voting block because he's nice to look at and speaks well and goes on to say Newsom is the absolute worst idea. California successes don't matter. Nothing matters. Nothing matters. And then I want to go to the last paragraph, which is interesting. Lots of people commenting point out Trump is also a coastal elite. In 2016, he did not have a political record to defend because it did not exist. By 2020, Trump was a cult leader, so his record didn't matter.

Gavin Newsom has had decades in public service. There are millions of things to pick apart. He's also not a cult leader. Please think critically. I am going to reserve judgment on this for the time being. And I want to hear from you. Is Wegmans groceries right? And to be clear, that's not the Wegmans grocery chain. It's just a person on Reddit named Wegmans groceries. Is this person correct? That there could be no worse choice than Gavin Newsom for the Democratic nomination in twenty twenty eight. Or is this person wrong? Email info at David Pakman dot com. Newsom should be the subject line. We'll cut. We'll put together collate, I guess. I mean, some of the responses and do a follow up. OK, we did a poll on our

YouTube channel. Should Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor retire? Fifty eight thousand of you voted. Seventy five percent said no, she should not retire. 25% said, yes, she should. For those who haven't been following, it is now a possibility that after Joe Biden leaves office, you could have four years of Donald Trump. And then even if you get a Democrat back in the white house in 2029, you might not have a Republican Senate. And the point is there may not be an opportunity to replace Sonia Sotomayor with a left-leaning justice for a decade or who knows how long. And so some have been calling for her to retire, um, based on her age and how old she would be in 2028. And in 20 two. Three quarters of my audience says, no, she should not.

And you know, instinctively, it feels like she should not. Although mathematically, I understand the case for her retirement. It is a less obvious case than that with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for sure. But I but I do understand the case. The audience has spoken and they say she should not retire. Owen loves butters wrote on YouTube. Kamala did almost everything, right? The key piece of the puzzle puzzle that was missing was economic populism. When it comes to things, Democrats in general need to do better. That's one of them. But we also need to stop ceding ground to Republicans.

We keep letting them control the narrative on everything. We also need to give up the whole when they go low, we go high stuff. We need to be as ruthless as them. And perhaps most importantly of all, we need to promote the building of a left wing media ecosystem that rivals what they have on the right. It's not just Fox News. It's an intricate web spanning all forms of media. Yeah.

You know, we've now had a bunch of different debates and conversations about the economic populism. It's you could, let me see how I want. I want to be clear. You could do an economic populist message to your advantage, but if the economic populist message doesn't make people believe the economy is good right now, which a lot of people didn't, it still becomes an election. That's a referendum on the perception of the economy.

And as I pointed out many times, unemployment was low. GDP growth has been good. Stock record, stock market record after stock market record. By all economic indicators, the economy was good. But it didn't matter because enough people did not experience it or believe it to be. And so in the same way. If you use a more economically populist message, but people don't believe the economy is good right now and you are already in power either directly or because you're the vice president,

if people don't believe it, they're still not going to vote for you. So there's sort of a couple of different aspects to that. Boney Bolido wrote on Reddit, anyone else just sort of numb or gallows laughing at this point? I spent the last 10 years paying attention to and getting anxiety from this stuff. I believe that at its core, Trumpism was a disease latched onto the American dream that even if Trump won or won again, it wouldn't be because the majority of America at its core wanted it or was complacent with it. It would be because of the electoral

college or voter fraud suppression or a coup. But as Michael Waldman at the Brennan Center put it, voters did this with eyes wide open. Somehow Trumpism became the American dream itself. So when I see news like Matt Gates being selected as a G, I laugh not because I think it's funny. It's not, but because I feel like I have no other response left within me than to just laugh at the absurdity of it all. Can anyone relate? Well, many people I know can relate over the weekend. I was chatting with a bunch of my friends and they said, you know, I just laugh right

now. I see tool CDNI and she seems to prefer rush over the U S and I just, I laugh. I laugh to avoid crying. So I get it. And similar message came from guitar goddess who said, I can't watch the videos right now from David to Jesse to Farron. The videos all seem like too much right now. I'm not on subscribing. I'm just tuning out. I'm prioritizing taking care of myself and being reminded of the horror that awaits us is not helping. Appreciate your hard work, David. I'll be back. Well, guitar goddess, we will be here anxiously, anxiously waiting for you.

Dynamic photography on YouTube said, Hey clowns, do you want to do better in the 2028 presidential election, figure out what a woman is. Mic drop. This is very dumb because that simply was not an issue in this election. Is it Kamala Harris wasn't talking about it. However much right wing podcasters want to say, oh, they don't even know what a woman is. It wasn't an issue in the campaign and it did not rank as an issue in opinion polling about what issues do people care about so they can repeat this all they

want. They can say it was about woke. It was about trans sports. It just wasn't. You can't find any empirical basis to make that claim. Finally, would he says on the subreddit fool America once shame on Trump, fool America twice. Shame on America. I think the main thing I'm feeling is disappointment in my fellow Americans because it was a loss by popular vote. Like 2016 Trump running and winning via electoral college on a populist lie can be forgiven if folks had learned a single thing from it.

Yeah, you know, I never wish harm upon people. I just just stop my nature. But as I said earlier this week, I am very much done with the level of empathy I was feeling for the people who vote Trump and then they get screwed at some point. The right likes to say it's personal responsibility. You're going to have to suffer the consequences of your actions. And some people are going to have to suffer. They voted for it.

They fell for it again and they are going to suffer. The tragic part is a lot of people who didn't vote for it are also going to suffer. And that's a really sad thing. Info at David Pakman dot com. Follow me on blue sky. David Pakman dot com slash blue sky. I will see you on the bonus show.