The David Pakman Show - 1/12/23: Inflation Drops Big, Pressure on Santos to Resign

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Steve Almond, author of the New York Times bestsellers "Candyfreak" and "Against Football," and whose new novel is "All the Secrets of the World," joins David to discuss his recent viral appearance on Fox News with Laura Ingraham to discuss the cardiac arrest incident of Damar Hamlin. Get the latest book by Steve: https://amzn.to/3ZwDyRV -- Inflation declines to 6.5 year-over-year in the latest report as President Joe Biden's approval continues to climb -- Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall says that women in Alabama can be prosecuted for taking the abortion pill -- Republican officials start to demand that lying Republican Congressman George Santos resign from Congress -- Lying Republican Congressman George Santos appears to also have lied about his COVID diagnosis -- Lying Republican Congressman George Santos has already been hit with three ethics complaints -- MAGA brains appear to break over the recent news regarding Joe Biden and classified documents -- Yet another Republican has been found guilty of voter fraud, this time a former New York official -- The Eggman calls in to remind David that despite being from Argentina, he's a "New York white guy" -- On the Bonus Show: Why US flights were grounded by FAA system outage, Biden administration will select first 10 drugs for price negotiation, House Republicans introduce bill to return federal employees to the office, much more... 🥂 ZBiotics: Use code PAKMAN for 15% OFF at https://thld.co/zbiotics_pakman_0123 👍 Get 10% off the Füm Journey Pack with code PAKMAN at https://tryfum.com 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 💻 Stay protected! Try Aura FREE for 2 weeks: https://aura.com/pakman ⚠️ Use code PAKMAN for a free supply of BlueChew at https://go.bluechew.com/david-pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Subscribe to Pakman Finance: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanfinance -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Well, my friends, inflation is down significantly and Joe Biden's approval rating continues to climb in a horrible turn of events for the right, which wants to continue to tell the lie that Democratic presidents are terrible for the economy. Now, you all know that I don't actually play these games when it comes to the economy. You all know that when we talk like this, it's sort of tongue in cheek because the reality is that on many of these issues, presidents have very little influence one way or the other. I don't play the gas prices game. I will jokingly say, how did Joe Biden get gas prices to be down a dollar seventy per gallon as they are? But of course, I don't really give him credit for that the same way that I don't blame him for the

fact that gas prices went up. But for the right wingers that see the world in this way, we should be aware of what is going on. And as I'm an idiot when it comes to this stuff, but I predicted we would get down into the sixes in the first part of 2023 and inflation would probably be down into the four fives by the middle or third quarter of 2023. And we continue to go in that direction. We learned this morning CNBC report consumer prices fell 0.1% in December in line with expectations, excluding food and energy core CPI rose 0.3% on an annual basis. Headline CPI, meaning top line inflation is now up 6 six point five percent, while core inflation is up five point seven percent. The biggest reason for the easing in inflation came from a sharp drop

in gasoline prices, which are now lower on a year over year basis. I want to tell everybody again, because people are so confused and they write to me things that make no sense. When we talk about 6.5%, what we're talking about is over the last year. So we just got the December numbers. So when we now say year over year, we're talking about price increase from December 2021 to December 2022. Every month you shift by one month. What is the 12 month period we're talking about? So in December, when we got the November number, we were talking about inflation from November 21 to November 22. It's now January. We've now added the December 22 inflation data and removed the November 21. So we've changed the range instead of November 21 to November 22. We're now talking about December

21 to December 22. That inflation number is down from being in the eights to six point five percent. That is what we are talking about when we talk about inflation. This is now six months in a row that inflation has come down. Core inflation from October to December was only three point one percent annualized. That's the lowest such reading in 15 months. Gas, as I mentioned, is down a dollar seventy per gallon from its peak. Food inflation is slowing. Last month, we saw actually the smallest increase in food prices in almost two years. The cost of goods is falling for electronics. Used car prices have come down, which got completely out of control. Wages are higher now than six months ago. So it's not prices are coming down and so are wages. Wages are still

higher. Prices are lower when you adjust everything for inflation. We have the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years, and it is at least partially being perceived by voters as Joe Biden being a generally good steward of the economy. You don't have to believe, as I don't believe, that every one of these numbers is related to who's president. I didn't believe it under Trump and I don't believe it's the case under Biden. I'm not playing games with that. But when you see the zoomed out version of what's happening in the country, you see a pretty steady uptrend in Joe Biden's approval, which bottomed out in late July. And as you if you're looking on the screen, it's been up, up, up. And there's a new little uptick here, even in the last week where Joe Biden's approval is now up to 44 percent. Now, you might say 44

percent. That's terrible. Yeah. I mean, listen, the point here is. In the modern, hyper polarized climate of American politics, you look at Bush, Obama and Trump approvals over time, 44 percent at this point in one's term is actually just fine. It's uncontroversial is the point. The idea that the country is furious and disgusted with Joe Biden, it's just not borne out in the data. So skip the David, you're a Democratic shill stuff. I've never been a registered Democrat. I don't care about Joe Biden. I don't care about the Democratic Party. What I'm coming to you and saying is the American people are realizing that what Republicans are offering is nonsense. If you look at the Republican priorities that

have been made clear since they took over the House of Representatives very recently, their ideas benefit the super wealthy. They want to essentially help the wealthy avoid taxes at the expense of ordinary middle class taxpayers. House Republicans introduced a bill to block actions that would lower gas prices. They gutted a bunch of ethics requirements. They are pushing a bill that would actually increase tax rates on middle class families at the net effective level. And they're open to open to cuts to Social Security and Medicare. That's what Republicans are offering. Now, hopefully they won't get any of it done because the Republicans don't control the Senate. But inflation numbers improving, very good economic numbers. You see what Republicans

are offering. It makes sense that Joe Biden's approval keeps ticking up. And quite frankly, 18 months ago, 12 months ago, roughly, I would not have said Joe Biden is well positioned for reelection in twenty twenty four. Right now, I think Joe Biden is dramatically better positioned for reelection. Doesn't mean he is running or should run or shouldn't run. But just based on the data, the economy is quite strong and that tends to bode well when presidents argue for their own reelection. They are continuing, by the way, on the Republican side to be complete lunatics when it comes to abortion. The latest is that the attorney general of Alabama says women can be prosecuted for taking abortion pills.

A report from AL dot com one week after the federal government made it easier to get abortion pills. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said Tuesday women in Alabama who use those pills to end pregnancies could be prosecuted. That's despite wording, writes AL dot com in Alabama's new Human Life Protection Act that criminalizes abortion providers and prevents its use against the people receiving abortions. Instead, the attorney general's office said Alabama could rely on an older lab, an older law designed to protect children from meth lab fumes. Quote, The Human Life Protection Act targets abortion

providers exempting women upon whom an abortion is performed or attempted to be performed. It does not provide an across the board exemption from all criminal laws, including the chemical endangerment law. That's what they would use to prosecute a woman who ingests an abortion pill to end a pregnancy. The chemical endangerment law. This is a terrible idea. And remember that Donald Trump thought of this before Donald Trump understood. You're not supposed to say we go after the women. Donald Trump had this incredible moment when being interviewed by Chris Matthews back in this was 2015 or 2016, where he said, yeah, you should punish the women. Remember this? Do you believe

in punishment for abortion? Yes or no? As a principle? The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment for the woman. Yeah, there has to be some form. Ten years. Now, the next day, Donald Trump backed back that he walked that back. He was told immediately, Donald, you're off script. We say punish the doctors. We don't punish the women. But this is something that Republicans have toyed around with for a long time. Now, when you criminalize abortion, you restrict access to safe and legal abortion. You don't actually limit abortion and you directly attack the autonomy and sovereignty that women should have over their own bodies. They talk about freedom, liberty, et cetera, except not in this particular case. Women should have over their own bodies. They talk about freedom, liberty, et cetera,

except not in this particular case. Women should have the right to make decisions about their bodies and their own health care. The government shouldn't be able to force them to carry pregnancies to term against their will. And the idea of criminally prosecuting a woman who makes the decision to take an abortion pill is really Gilead type stuff. Prosecuting women who takes who take abortion pills also puts their health and well-being at risk, because, again, when you dissuade women from legal and safe medical services, they pursue sometimes illegal and often unsafe services. And by the way, if you care about this, which a lot of them don't, these types of laws always disproportionately affect poor women and women of color, because I mean, listen, look at in Argentina, for example, where abortion was illegal for a long

time. You think wealthy women weren't having safe abortions? They were. But of course, they needed to have the money for it. And this is often the way that that that it goes. There seems to be one Republican who gets that this type of thing is a bad idea. And that's Nancy Mace. Nancy Mace, Republican congresswoman, appeared on Morning Joe. When was this? Oh, this morning, I believe it was. And she said it's not really a great thing for Republicans to be pushing this type of stuff. Now, just this week, the governor of Alabama said that women should be thrown in prison if they take an abortion pill. So Plan B is something that 90 percent of America supports.

Women shouldn't be thrown in prison. Neither should doctors at this juncture either. But one of the things that I've been harping on this week and for months now is that if we're going to get serious about saving lives, right, if we were serious about that issue, we have to have legislation that will pass a Democrat controlled Senate and a Republican controlled House. One of the things that we could do right now is giving women access to birth control. If you want to get serious about saving. Now, she is saying all the right things, but the truth is she voted for a lot of this stuff anyway. So she is apparently recognizing at least for PR purposes that Republicans should look in a different direction. But when you look at her voting record, it really leaves something to be desired. At the end of the day, this is not something the American people

are increasingly going for. And Republicans need to figure out where do we draw the line in order to avoid damaging ourselves, as they argue, arguably did to some degree in the midterms. But that's the new one. Alabama is saying we could prosecute women who take abortion pills. We're going to take a very quick break. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. Plenty more coming up today. responsibly like me. Sometimes you still feel it the next day and it can slow you down, especially when you start to get up there in the years like me. Check out our sponsor Z Biotics, which is a probiotic drink that breaks down the byproduct of alcohol responsible for those rough mornings after drinking. All you do is drink a tiny bottle of Z Biotics before you have alcohol.

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The info is in the podcast notes. The pressure is hilariously building on lying Republican Congressman George Santos or Anthony Devolder or whatever his name is to resign. Yesterday, there was an event held by the Nassau County Republicans and a bunch of other officials. And it is just delightful. And I am increasingly hopeful that they are going to force this guy out. And, you know, that they love to say, oh, they're trying to destroy his career. He lied about everything. He deserves to have his career destroyed. Sometimes it's right for you to lose your job, folks. Here is Nassau County Republican Chair Joseph Cairo saying that George Santos should resign immediately. The reason this

is the district he represents. That's why we're talking about Nassau County. So county Republican committee, nor should he serve in public service, nor is an elected official. He's not welcome here at Republican headquarters for meetings or at any of our events. As I said, he's disgraced the House of Representatives and we do not consider him one of our congresspeople today on behalf of the Nassau County Republican Committee. I am calling for his immediate resignation. Now this is all great and I love it and we'll get George Santos's reaction momentarily. Increasingly, it seems as though Nassau County Republicans knew that this guy was lying about

a bunch of this stuff. It's not been definitively proven, but it's increasingly looking that way. So really what they're having a problem with is that this makes them look bad. I don't know that they actually care about George Santos lying about everything. It's that now everyone knows George Santos lied about everything and it makes them look really bad. It's still very funny. Here is a claim that George Santos claimed he was a volleyball star at Borough College, which he didn't actually graduate from, and that he had a champ, a volleyball championship. Look at this.

Can you just explain what was on that resume? Well, to my recollection, it said he went to Borough College, said he went to NYU. He later or perhaps at the interview, I didn't attend it, that he sought a master's degree. Said that he worked in finance. I don't recall. Was it Citigroup, I think. Said he was very successful. Told me personally that he had made a lot of money at that age and was successful in life. We got into it, started getting personal about the fact that he came from a poor background, but that he was able to be very successful. Told me I remember specifically I'm into sports a little bit, that he was a star on the Baruch volleyball team, that they won the league championship.

What can I tell you? It is a joke, but also the joke is these Republicans who it seemed like they had these suspicions for a long time. And now all of a sudden they're like, well, the guy should resign. I actually remember when George Santos developed an incredible surgical technique back in the 1930s. And it was a real, real big advancement in medicine, as you can imagine. Next, we heard from Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick. Now, this is meaningful because this is Fitzpatrick, who is a sitting member of Congress saying he shouldn't be here. And, you know, Kevin McCarthy has resisted saying this type of thing. Fitzpatrick says he simply

should not be here to happen before the House leadership you're you know part of that joins the calls for santos to resign yeah thanks for having me andrea i don't think you should be here that's for sure but there's a process in place that has to apply equally to all members from both parties in both chambers and that's the house ethics committee as your panel just pointed out to the extent that there's concerns about how long that would take we We should just have an expedited review. There's got to be a system in place that's consistently applied across the board. All right. So anyway, kind of playing a both sides sort of thing. But he is saying George Santos shouldn't be here. Then we heard from Hempstead Town Supervisor Donald Klavan, who says that the guy is a joke and he's making them a joke. And it is true. They were

already a joke, though. That's the thing. He's George Santos is making the more of a joke. You see a unified voice here. Now what? He's unified the country in their opposition to him. He's a national joke. He's an international joke. True. But this joke's got to go. Right. And it's on us calling him for to resign immediately. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Today. All right. So George Santos confronted at the House of Representatives yesterday by Rachel Scott. Will you resign? He says that he will not. Take a look at this. Will you step down? I will not. Guys, we're going to need a little bit of space here. The New York Republicans are calling you a disgrace. You will not resign.

What is your response? I'm. So off goes Congressman Santos Devalder, whatever his name is. I really hope they push this guy out. This is everything else aside, Republican complicity in this. They knew when did they know all this different that Republicans are dishonest. I hope this guy gets pushed out and I hope it happens soon. Let's talk about a couple other George Santos lies. It now appears as though George Santos slash Anthony DeVolder may have lied about his covid diagnosis. Everything has to be hyperbolic with Santos. And he once claimed to be one of the first people in the United States to be diagnosed with covid-19, which is like what this is the hallmark of pathological liars where they lie about things no one really cares about. Like someone had to be one of the first

people diagnosed with covid. Doesn't really matter who it was? But he had to claim he was one of those people. A business insider reports George Santos claimed to be one of the first people in the U.S. diagnosed with covid. That looks to be bogus, too. George Santos, his latest dubious claim involves a covid diagnosis from 2020. The timeline of testing positive and getting sick differs in various retellings of the story. His descriptions of the story.

His descriptions of the severity of his illness have also changed over time. The first case of covid in New York was confirmed on March 1st, 2020, and Santos said in a conservative podcast he had symptoms of covid just a week later, around March 8th, 9th. Unfortunately, on the 9th of March, I became symptomatic with what we all know very well. COVID, a.k.a. coronavirus, commonly known as the Chinese flu. On the 11th, I ended up in the hospital. Really bad fever, body aches. He said he was in a hospital in Queens. He was there by ambulance, spent five hours in isolation, had fever. He was hallucinating and ultimately tested positive on March 14th and subsequently negative on March 26th. But when he later talked about the story, he had a different story, both in terms of the severity

and the timeline. On the day Santos says he got a positive test, he was bedridden with a fever. His campaign put out a press release, including a quote for him from him and didn't mention that he was sick. It's kind of weird to put out a statement about covid on a day on which you're positive and you're so sick you can't leave your bed and you don't mention you have it. Four days later, he was on Fox Business and he seemed completely fine. Very weird. And meanwhile, in a September 2020 interview with the Long Island outlet, The Island Now, he says the hospital said, oh, just take some Advil or a leave.

And March 5th, 2021, he said on Twitter, it was his anniversary of going to the hospital for covid. But that lines up with a completely different date. So he lied about his employment history. He lied about his educational history. He lied about his athletic acumen. He lied about being Jewish from a family of Holocaust survivors. It appears as though he also lied about the covid-19 timeline. Really wacky and bizarre stuff. I hope they do destroy his career because he deserves to have it destroyed. Now, I'm not saying he shouldn't work and he should starve. OK, he should have his career in the position that he obtained based on lying about everything destroyed that career. He can go back. And,

you know, if he thinks that he's a finance guy, even though those were lies, go go back and work in finance or, you know, get some job somewhere else. But the job he got on the basis of the lies he should lose. And let's hope that that happens. One last George Santos slash Anthony DeVolder story. George Santos is now the target of three ethics complaints over his campaign spending, his campaign fundraising and his financial disclosure. Business Insider and Brian Metzger have a piece about this. The left leaning advocacy group and Citizens United is going to be filing three ethics complaints against George Santos, alleging campaign finance violations and adding to a number of other complaints. The group's complaint with the Department of Justice argues

Santos violated the Ethics in Government Act, but not by not only filing a required financial disclosure almost a year late, but also most likely making several omissions related to assets he's purported to hold. The complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics argues that he violated federal law by soliciting campaign contributions in exchange for attending a swearing in event on Capitol grounds. Last month, his team advertised roundtrip bus tickets from New York to D.C., a lunch and attendance at Santos is swearing in and a tour of the Capitol. If you donate at least 100 bucks, federal law prevents the use of official resources in connection with campaign activity.

Huh? That's disappointing, isn't it? The group's complaint with the FEC focuses on a purported seven hundred thousand dollar personal loan that he made to his campaign that the group says either came from a shell company or was a prohibited corporate contribution. You can read about the details of each of each of these complaints. This is you know, this is a very important guy. At the end of the day, George Santos is the first person to ever walk across the Pacific Ocean. He can turn Mountain Dew into liquid silver. And obviously, I'm kidding. And this is a very, very bad start for George Santos. It is increasingly clear that the Republican Party is panicking, but only because it looks bad. They don't actually care about this guy being a liar. McCarthy has still not even made any criticisms. It appears as though

there's some kind of, you know, I'm not saying it's an illegal bribery, but just a sort of quid pro quo. Santos pledged to support McCarthy for speaker and McCarthy may be pledged not to suggest that Santos should resign. That at least seems to be holding true for the time being. We'll see if it changes. But Republicans only care about this insofar as it's damaging their credibility. I hope Santos resigns. Let's hope by Monday he's gone.

All of these clips will be on our Instagram, which you can find by searching Instagram for David Pakman show. One of our sponsors today is Zippix nicotine toothpicks. Zippix brings you a convenient alternative to smoking and vaping and the vape clouds, the ashtrays, the thing in your lip that people can see. I've seen that around. This is an easier and less messy way to curb the cravings. And you can use Zypix just about anywhere. Zypix is available in six flavors with two or three milligrams strength. The nicotine and the flavor are long lasting and Zypex has helped countless people kick the bad habits and they are bad habits. Zypex toothpicks

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can restrict apps or manage screen time, set focus time, make sure they're doing homework instead of binging on YouTube. You can try Aura free for 14 days at aura.com slash Pacman. Use the free trial to see if your email password are already out there. You may be surprised. That's a U R a.com slash Pacman to try or a free for 14 days. The link is in the podcast notes. It's great to welcome back to the program today, Steve Almond, who's the author of the New York Times bestsellers Candy Freak and Against Football. The new novel is called All the Secrets of the World, and you can find him on Twitter at Steve Almond Joy. Steve, great to have you back on today. Yeah, good to be with you,

David. So we reviewed in the aftermath of this horrible incident that took place on the NFL field with DeMar Hamlin, your appearance with Fox News host Laura Ingram, where you pointed out some of the things she has previously said on her program, which she didn't particularly like. And there was so much that took place in that interview. And I know many in our audience really appreciated it. So let's just start at something very, very top level. What happened with DeMar Hamlin was very visible in the sense that it happened at a very particular moment in a game. He suffered a cardiac arrest during a game. And that makes it a much more interesting media story because it has a sort of beginning, a middle and presumably some end where he's now been released from the hospital and so on and so forth. The truth is, and you've

been writing about how there's a much slower motion story that afflicts many other players that doesn't lend itself to this beginning, middle end of, hey, it happened during the game, which is the brain injury and the cumulative effect of football. Talk a little bit about how the media reaction is so dramatically different to what took place on the field over a week ago versus that bigger story. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. Like you saw in the appearance with Ingram, I basically said, hey, you know, there are these big media events that, you know, the reason I'm even snuck onto your fascist network is because, you know, somebody let's find a libtard who hates football.

It's that kind of zero sum thinking, propagandist thinking. Yeah. And I tried to sort of calmly say to her, you know, the NFL's own actuaries did admit that 30 percent of their players are going to wind up with brain damage because of the accretion of these sub concussive events invisible inside the helmet. Thousands of them absorbed over a career and literally they cause brain damage in this major American workplace. And you sort of said it before her, like, what if 30 percent of Fox News were getting brain damage? I think actually they're giving brain damage. Right. But what if by design? But I think what if this was in another American workplace and just try to set out for her the the monstrous double standard that applies when it comes to football, that there's this workplace where literally a third of the employees are going to get. And it's just crickets. It's like no reaction

to that at all. And it's because and I think that's actually writ large, the media's general reaction. It's a complicated story. It's a story that's happening out of view. And in fact, the NFL paying off that lawsuit, settling it is precisely what the NFL wanted to happen. Their nightmare is Junior Seau's family or Mike Webster's family or any of these guys, even Tony Dorsett, you know, famous players and their families talking about what it's like to live with CTE. They just want none of that in the public eye. And they're content, I think, in a sense with the

DeMar Hamlin story, because that is, as you point out, that's going to be very satisfying. He's getting better. The medical, you know, he recovered and God, thank God he's getting better. But let's step back and say, literally for every DeMar Hamlin, there is another player who is in his 40s or 50s or 60s who doesn't know where he is, who doesn't recognize his family anymore, who suffered permanent cognitive decline and brain damage. And that's happening out of view. And I think that's kind of the deal that Americans make.

If I can't see it really in a sense, what's fascinating to me, David, we're a lot of businesses are in the empathy suppression business. That's what the NFL is in. It's in the empathy suppression and their players have to suppress their empathy. But also by implication, the fans also have to suppress their empathy. They have's really destructive, whether it's a football game or hamburger, whatever it is. We ignore the slaughterhouse and we like take a big bite of the bacon cheeseburger. That's kind of the big deal of American capitalism. And when you try to connect those dots and say, I know you can't see it. I know that in your fragile mindset, we're hiding from you all the child labor that makes our miraculous devices. I think most Americans, myself included, to a large extent, agree to that. It's a kind of complicity because

we don't want to look at the underside of these complicated moral undertakings. It's too complicated, too nuanced, and it's too psychologically and emotionally inconvenient. And with you know, I think you can you can find in other sports not exactly analogous circumstances, but moral questions that come up. Maybe we can say, I mean, you know, with the World Cup in Qatar for a decade, I talked about corruption was how it even ended up in Qatar, slave labor and death in terms of the building of the stadiums claims that there's going to be kosher food. But then they say then all of a sudden there's no kosher food and it's based on, you know,

the religious perspective, all these different things. And then at the end of the day, I'm from Argentina. And every four years, I want to see if maybe we're going to get a win. And we finally got it. And I watched the games. Right. At the end of the day, I watched the games. Am I making a moral trade there in some sense? I mean, I guess I kind of am, but it feels like it's a different one than with football because it's well, I don't know. I mean, what's different about the Qatar World Cup thing and then saying football's bad for the players brains?

But I really enjoy it. I'm going to watch it anyway. Well, I think they're the same. It's the same cognitive dissonance that and I guess what I tried to do and against football was not say football is dumb and brutal and you shouldn't, you know, consume it because it's misogynistic and systemically racist and blah. I didn't, you know, I think those things happen to be true. And it's also a remarkable spectacle. And it's also, you know, what's happening in the culture and therefore a way to feel connected to it.

Or you have a personal connection to your team. And those two things have to live side by side. And what I think the media tries to do is sort of partition them out and say, well, it's time for your five minutes of moral contemplation and anguish. And now it's time for your three hours of game. Right. And I think it's very uncomfortable when people have to live with this sort of negative capability that two opposing thoughts have to be held in the mind and heart at the same time. But that's like what adults are doing all the time if they're living, you know, sort of awake in some way. And I think it's partly what Fox and other propaganda outlets are in the business of trying to suppress. They want everything to be either or. It's never both and. And so, you know, when I come on the Ingram show, the Chiron, which I couldn't see, of course,

because I'm sitting in a little van just staring at a black dot with Laura Ingram interrupting me in my ear. But what I what I see later on is they're they're trying to turn you off to football. That's what the Kiron reads. And it's just this classic. How can we make you afraid? Who's trying to you know, how can we exalt your grievance so that you can hide from your own vulnerabilities? We will help you with that. And what to me is really sad is is the sense that there isn't an opportunity. Like I go on the Ingram show and I realize we're not going to have a serious discussion. At a certain point, I go, OK, I'm going to take my shots here because you're not going to actually be in a good faith dialogue with me about how complicated football is, that it can be beautiful and bonding and blah, blah, blah, and narratively very satisfying.

And at the same time that it's got a set of values and practices that are just inherently corrupt. And that is not ever going to be the discussion that I can have with with her. So I just we just get into a brawl, which is really just sort of feeding the anger tainment industry that she's in. But there does exist a world or they used to in media, where that was really literally the rule of the fairness doctrine said you cannot have a single outlet that just puts out one idea or philosophy or set of propaganda. You have to have the essence of free speech is sort of different shades of opinion, reasonable opinion coming up against one another. That's what you that's the reason I lament the death of the fairness doctrine, because it created the opportunity for somebody like Laura Ingram or Tucker Carlson or any of these propagandists to be challenged in real time and to not just be able to blather basically what I view to be kind of brainwashing propaganda at their audience with

nobody having a chance to say, hold on, Laura, you just said that only certain kids, the only path out for certain kids in America is by playing football. Are you admitting that there's systemic racism in this country that disadvantages kids of color and especially poor kids of color? It sounds like that's what you're saying to your audience. Can we have a discussion about that as well? Speaker 1 That's that's not a conversation that is easy to imagine happening in good faith on Fox News, as you point out. You know, in terms of football, I believe I correctly understand that recently football ratings are down to some degree. And there are those on the political right in the United States that say it's because

of the kneeling and the woke and, you know, the stuff that that they say about it. Do you think that the the brain injury awareness of the brain injury component is a factor or is it just the fragmentation of audiences as there are more and more alternatives to watching live sports? That is really what is to blame or is it hard to know? Is it a combination? Yeah, I don't know. And I think probably on the margins, there are some people who were sort of marginal football fans who have either stopped watching or maybe cut back their consumption. But it's still the biggest thing in America. And I think the the Hamlin injury happening at the time it did became such a huge story because it's a Monday night game because it's two teams really good. The ratings were really high.

And I just have the feeling as I was trying to sort of explain, like, football is not going to go away because the government's going to ban it. Football is not going to go away because the woke mob is going to take it away. That's part of the old, you know, they're going to take your guns. They're going to take your hamburgers. mob is going to take it away. That's part of the old, you know, they're going to take your guns, they're going to take your hamburgers, they're going to take God, they're going to gas stoves now is the new one. Right. Well, right. It's like this idea of if you try to make any moral improvement in the culture, we've got to frame it since it's the enemy of our business interests. We got to frame it as some sort of assault on your personal liberty or your prerogatives or privilege. And I think football is going to diminish in popularity only at such

a time as enough fans sort of say, I think there are other things that I can consume that are narratively satisfying to me that don't cause me to come up against my own sense of maybe I'm rubbernecking people getting brain damage. And those those those wires are really hard to connect. There's a great book that was written by a former NFL player years ago. And he said, I dream of a day in which football isn't necessary for the American culture, because I really do think there's a direct line between kind of the reason that America is not able to put sensible gun control measures into place. The reason that our sort of popular culture is awash and all these images of violence and our video games and, you know, and football. I think there is like this

underlying, uh, kind of need to purge our, um, aggressive impulses and to kind of consume that violence that I think is, there's a through line there. Nobody wants to connect those dots, but it's not a coincidence that most of the world watches football, that is soccer. And our big sport is, you know, is American football, which is just, I know people try to what about with hockey and this, that and the other. And it's like, okay, yeah, any sport can have its dangers. But baked into football is really big, strong, fast guys smashing into one another. It's hidden underneath the helmets and the uniforms. But if those behaviors were happening outside the context of football, I'd be like, oh, yeah, that's aggravated battery. Is there a way to make football safer in the sense of, you know, you read about where you can have

sensors in helmets which can track cumulative sort of impact on a player during a game? And then in theory, you could pull them out once some threshold has been reached or, you know, all all these different ideas on one level. It's like when your brain changes direction that quickly, doesn't matter how thick the helmet is. It's the brain hitting against the skull to some degree. So like can football actually be football and be safer to the players? Well, it's kind of what you're saying. Like when you say football, I think what you're implying is that there's a certain amount of risk going back to like Cormac McCarthy sort of saying like, what is it that we get off on? And it's basically kind of the risk, the big hit. We don't want to admit it, but there's a primal sense of these guys are

putting their life on the line. And why are they lionized? Because they can survive and play through injury because there's something real that, that that that I think is lacking somehow in our lives, probably. That's like this primal atavistic need to see other people play out a kind of danger that we're insulated from. So I don't think there's any way around the fans unacknowledged, but powerful lust for other people to risk on their behalf. I think that's part of the modern condition. I do think that if there were financial incentives, Ibbitt, the Fox sexual harassment, a corporation that makes a lot of money only changes, or a particular demagogue like Laura Ingraham, they only change their tune when they're hit in the pocketbook. The only way the NFL is going to change their behavior is if fans change their behavior

first. And there are plenty of things that could happen, as I tried to point out, like tomorrow, weight limits would be one way since these players are now average, whatever, 270 pounds. Well, what if they weren't bulking up in the gym? And what if, in fact, they were, you know, 200 pounds? It's not going to cure it, but it would decrease the amount of impact in the G-forces, the amount those brains are shaken around. Putting monitors and helmets would create a different set of incentives because suddenly players, like a pitcher with a pitch count, suddenly a player would be saying, I am not going to go in with my helmet or I'm not going to partake in a big hit because if i do that i'm going to be pulled out of the game because it's

bad for my brain they don't want the fans thinking about that again the big goal of the nfl is to keep the dots unconnected and they have like a willing accomplice and fox and the right wing in this country which essentially says implicitly or explicitly a buffoon like Trump says it explicitly like, oh, yeah, you know, football is like a man's game. Now it's sissies. They throw the flag all the time. What they're basically saying is like, I'm into violence. I know I'm personally a wimp who tries to get out of the military and but I'm into I

get off on watching other people be violent. Right. Steve, last thing in the limited time we have left, you mentioned the fairness doctrine. One of the difficulties, I think, of a reinstatement of the fairness doctrine now is that so much of what we are now are consuming wouldn't be subject to the fairness doctrine as it previously existed because it's on the Internet. Would you want to see something specific applied to the Internet when it comes to that? Or is that a different question? Well, I honestly think that if you have the power, I mean, the Fairness Doctrine came into being

because in the early 20th century, something happened that the founders could not have foreseen. Right, David? What they what happened is mass media and some people in Congress who were smart said, oh, my God, there's now this tool that can sway the hearts and minds of Americans. And if it falls into the wrong hands, hands that are avaricious and only interested in business or even worse, that have a kind of moral agenda that's inimical to democracy, that would be terrible. We can't let that happen. We have to have some form of regulation. And people, of course, on the right and greedy people freak out about that because propaganda, as you know, is very, it sells, right? Ingram and Tucker and all those people, they are fear mongers for a living and they make a tremendous amount of money doing it. The Fairness Doctrine said, look, that is,

if we're going to have debates, it's important that media cover and participate in debates of issues that are publicly important. But they have to do so in a way that includes all reasonable shade of opinion. That's what's in the Supreme Court decision, all reasonable shade of opinion. Now, I happen to find a lot of the outright lies and innuendo and insinuation that demagogues traffic in to not be reasonable shades of opinion. But whatever, I'm even cool with having those propagandists do their thing. I just want somebody like you or me to have equal time to say, Laura, when you say that only certain kids are going to make it through football, what you are admitting is that America is systemically racist against

people of color, and we do not give them schools and social workers and economic opportunity in their communities. What we give them is like the lottery ticket of maybe you can find your way out, not by the content of your character or your intelligence or creativity, but because you're really good at throwing a ball and getting tackled and eventually getting brain damage for my benefit as a cosseted little, you know, wimpy person sitting on my couch, getting off on the risk that you, you and that your body assumes. So like, that's what I want is for people like Tucker and Laura Ingram to stop being such cowards hiding in their little

media silos, you know, plowing out their propaganda to fear monger and brainwash their audience. Cause I really have a personal stake in this People in my life who are important to me or used to be important to me no longer think in a reasonable way. They've been scared out of their wits, literally. And I think a lot of families, Trumpism is the symptom of this, but I think a lot of American families would be like, you know what, we would be so much healthier and our family systems would be so much healthier if there wasn't propaganda allowed on any side, Right. climate change and inequity and the violence that besets the culture, all these very real problems.

We can't do that if we are allowing a for profit, allowing media to become a for profit marketplace. It's not. It's supposed to be a civic institution. It's not supposed to be a for profit segment. Yeah. And as a as a topic tangential to this, you mentioned the grievance component, while all at the same time saying it's the left that has become about grievance, which is just another instance of the projection that we're seeing. But that's that'll have to be a topic for another day. Steve Allman, the new novel is all the secrets of the world. You can find him on Twitter at Steve Allman Joy. Steve, always great to talk to you. Hey, David, it's a delight to talk with you.

And the thing about the Fairness Doctrine, which we're going to finally get restored at some point, is you can you would be fabulous. I want to see a David Pakman sitting in the same DS with one of these propagandists and saying, look, I do not consent to the false narrative that you're weaving like that's my dream. One of our sponsors today is Blue Chew, a unique online service delivering the same active ingredients as Viagra and Cialis in a chewable form and at a fraction of the cost. And they're giving my audience an entire month supply for free. So if you think you could benefit from an extra boost of confidence, all you have to do is take a short quiz on their website. A licensed

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every effort and it hasn't been very difficult to be consistent about this story. Donald Trump should have and is it being investigated for his handling of classified documents, including taking a whole bunch of them to his house and then lying about where they are and then avoiding returning them and all these different things. And Joe Biden should likewise be investigated. Now, the circumstances, of course, are completely different. We're talking about a couple about a dozen or so documents with Joe Biden. And we're talking about what hundreds or more with Trump. We're talking about something with Joe Biden, where when his lawyers found out, they immediately notified the National Archives. It was the opposite with Trump.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Joe Biden asked or was even involved in these documents remaining where they were, whereas there is widespread testimony that Donald Trump specifically said, take these documents down to Mar-a-Lago. There's there are no similarities, but I'm consistent. Investigate everyone and everything and see where it shakes out. Right wingers brains seem to have been scrambled by this. Here is Ronny Jackson, who says he believes these documents were found as part of a conspiracy by Democrats to push Biden out before 2024. And it could be happening here, Jen, is that I've been saying for a long time that the Democrats are going to have to figure out a way to get rid of Joe Biden.

They don't want this man to run for president again. He's a recipe for disaster in the next presidential election. So I think, you know, a lot of people thought it would be his cognitive issue. You know, I thought so as well. But I thought, well, maybe they won't go down there because that's admitting defeat that they put this cognitively incompetent man in a position like the president of the United States. I said all along, I thought maybe they would let the Hunter Biden thing blow up a little bit. But maybe this is what they're doing. Maybe this is the first shot that they're going to fire to try to get him in a position where he ultimately has to resign or at least has to decide that he's not going to run again. Yeah. Now, the reason this is very stupid

is, of course, number one, there's no evidence of that. But number two, it doesn't really make sense because, as I talked about at the top of the show, why is Joe Biden a disaster in the sense that in polling against Trump, Biden is mostly winning for twenty twenty four. Unemployment is the lowest it's been in 50 years. Inflation has come down six months in a row. Wages are up. The idea that it's obviously a disaster for Biden to run isn't borne out by the facts. Now, here's Alina Habba, Trump's lawyer, who says, what about her being special prosecutor on Biden's boxes? Of course, there are no boxes. We're talking about 1212 documents. Alina, do you think this completely exonerates Trump from the Merrick Garland documents witch hunt? I think so, and I think that more importantly, we should.

Oh, by the way, on this exoneration thing, they don't seem to get that just because someone else is being investigated for something, it doesn't mean you're exonerated. It's sort of I use this analogy yesterday and it's so simple, but it's so so emblematic of this. If I am accused of murder and then someone else is accused of murder, I don't get to say I'm exonerated because someone else is now being investigated for murder. That's the argument they're making here. And it's a very silly argument. Point out one thing very important. Donald Trump was the sitting president of the United States. He had the ability to declassify. The Presidential Records Act applied to him. Biden doesn't have that excuse. He was the vice president. Yes, now he's the sitting president. But these are documents that were taken during the Obama administration. They are in places that are not secure. He was not a president at the time. He

had no right to them. I saw an article today, I believe, and it said that he had the Presidential Records Act. Incorrect. He was a vice president. He's not afforded those protections and he doesn't have the ability to do so. So I think that this does help President Trump. Quite honestly, I don't think President Trump needed help because I don't think he did anything wrong. We now, by the way, I know Alina Habba is an attorney. The research, she says the Presidential Records Act doesn't apply to the vice president. I believe it does. The research I've been able to find says that the Presidential Records Act of 1978 governs both the president and vice president.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding that. I don't know. We're cooperating, as you know, and that matter is underway, but they weren't cooperating. They have to show that they're going to treat everybody the same. And I would like to personally offer to be the special prosecutor on Biden's boxes because yeah, there are no boxes because we're talking about 12 documents that were immediately told. The National Archives were immediately notified by Biden's lawyers. Lastly, here's Claudia Tenney saying that Biden's the biggest liar in American politics. She may be

forgetting about a guy who told like 14000 lies during his presidency. Look, I give her credit because to be the press secretary and have to lie for the biggest liar in modern politics is quite an extraordinary obligation and job. I give her I mean, what's she going to say? He may not even know where they are. But look, we look, I give her credit because. So that's Republican Congresswoman Claudia Tenney. Now the story is Biden is the biggest liar that is out there. Their brains have been scrambled. And it's very, very easy to be consistent on this. We say, oh, any time there's a question about documents and presidents or former presidents or vice presidents, investigate it and

then go where the facts take you. What we know about the facts of the Biden situation and the Trump situation are so dramatically different that it's laughable to suggest there is even any similarity. But again, investigate everyone. Hunter Biden, investigate Hunter Biden. It's just not an issue for the House of Representatives since it has nothing whatsoever to do with politics or the Biden administration. But if Hunter Biden broke some law, the law enforcement investigate them. It's we this isn't about protecting Democrats. It's about having some kind of consistent standard about what we consider to be wrongdoing. Hey, this may or may not surprise some of you.

Yet another Republican has been found guilty of voter fraud. And, you know, I saw the headline former New York election official pleads guilty to ballot fraud. And, you know, I saw the headline former New York election official pleads guilty to ballot fraud. I knew it was going to be a Republican, but I figured I should look at the article just to make sure. And of course, it was Jason Schofield, a Republican who recently resigned from the Rensselaer County Board of Elections in New York, admitted he applied for absentee ballots using other people's other voters personal information. He pleaded guilty yesterday to applying for absentee ballots in the names of others. He's from Troy, New York. He resigned last last month and he admits back in 2021, he unlawfully used the names and birthdates of voters

in connection with 12 absentee ballot applications that he electronically submitted to the New York state voter absentee ballot application request portal portal. He's 43 years old. He admits he falsely certified that he was those 12 different people. He was originally arraigned in September. His attorney said Schofield maintained his innocence in the 12 count indictment. He's scheduled to be sentenced May 12th. He faces up to five years in prison, a fine of a quarter million dollars and supervised release of up to three years for each count. The really important takeaway here continues to be individual voter fraud of this kind is very, very rare in the United States. There's a study by the Brennan Center for Justice. Voter fraud occurs at a rate of less than zero point zero zero zero three percent.

That's like one case of fraud for every 30 million votes that are cast. And other studies have found the same. However, when we do find stories of individual voter fraud, aside from being really rare, they are mostly Republicans. And it's a really terrible way to try to win elections. And the reason is that the scale is so small and the risks so big voter fraud of this kind often involves one or a few people trying to sway the outcome of an election, at least in theory. And even if they get away with their small scale voter fraud, the impact on the overall results would rarely be significant. Now, if it's a really, really, really tiny election, you know,

a town of 800 people in which only a fraction are adults and only a fraction vote, and it could come down to five votes and you do this with 12 ballots, maybe you can swing an election. Insanely unlikely. And the risk is too high. They love to say we have no way of catching these people. We seem to catch plenty of them. And they almost exclusively are Republicans who are either trying to test the system or are saying it's actually Democrats who are doing it. So another case, relatively rare, but it just so happens that it's yet another Republican sentencing in May. We'll see if they throw the book at him, which would mean five years. And that would be pretty interesting to see. I must say we have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine

two David P. If you have something to say to me. You can say it to my voicemail line, even if it's three a.m. when you get the idea. Here is the egg man. He is not buying my entire I'm Argentinian thing, at least not in terms of me just being a white guy. Take a listen to this. Hi, Dave. I know you're Argentinian and you guys won the FIFA thing, you know, whatever. Right. Congratulations to you. The egg man is not big on sports and he will admit that to you. David, you're a New York white guy. I'm going to have to agree with Donald Trump over you in the pronunciation of his sock draw a sock, the problem? Shallow brother. Sock drawer. Yeah, listen, I didn't grow up in New York, so I have not adopted any of these New York accent

elements. I believe that my accent is what's called the southern western New England accent and sock draw doesn't make any sense to me. It's it's a sock drawer. It's a drawer. It's a a number of drawers, many drawers draw. It doesn't make any sense. But in any case, the story Trump told about the sock draw was very much untrue. OK, on the bonus show today, what the hell happened with the FAA and all flights being temporarily grounded? And how much blame does Secretary of Transportation Pete Boot Edge Edge Buttigieg? How much blame does Secretary Pete deserve? Fox News thinks it's a lot and we'll talk about it. The Biden administration is going to be selecting the first 10 drugs for which it will negotiate

prices within the Medicare program by September. What drugs might those be? We will discuss. And what will the impact on pricing be? We will also talk about that. And lastly, House Republicans, they want people back to work. They want everybody back in the office. House Republicans are introducing a bill to return all federal employees to the office. I have a number of friends who are federal employees and they aren't thrilled. And I understand why many of their jobs really don't need to be done in an office. Quite frankly, we will talk about it on the bonus show when producer Pat joins me from sunny Florida. You can get instant access to the bonus show by signing up at join Pacman dot com. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money, please. Everybody else that makes

money to fund themselves is bad. Yeah, well, I don't know about that, but you can sign up at join Pacman dot com and you can use the coupon code. Twenty 24 starts now to save big. You get 100% of the benefits, but at half the price, hard to beat that. I will see you on the bonus.