The David Pakman Show - 11/2/23: Shock poll says RFK 22%, Republicans turn on Republicans

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Tobias Rose-Stockwell, author of the book "Outrage Machine: How Tech Amplifies Discontent, Disrupts Democracy―And What We Can Do About It," joins David to discuss the book, social media, echo chambers, and much more. Get the book: https://amzn.to/49jnhEY -- Republican Senators Mitt Romney and Lindsey Graham turn on fellow Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville over his refusal to allow military promotions because he is against abortion -- A stunning new Quinnipiac University poll has Robert F. Kennedy Jr polling 22% in a three-way race against Donald Trump and Joe Biden -- Hamas official Ghazi Hamad promises the end of Israel and says that they will repeat October 7th type attacks over and over again -- Republicans say that President Joe Biden will be impeached in 2024 -- Donald Trump badly mangles the English language, inadvertently telling his followers not to support MAGA tyrants -- Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump will and have started to testify in the New York civil fraud trial against Trump's business -- Donald Trump melts down on Truth Social as his sons are set to testify in the New York civil fraud trial -- Voicemail caller responds to requests for David to debate a vegan by attacking veganism and vegetarianism on the basis of sustainability -- On the Bonus Show: George Santos avoids expulsion in the House, financial disclosures assert that Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has no bank accounts, the unexpected decline in dementia, much more... 🔊 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription at https://babbel.com/pakman 📈 Subscribe to Richard Vague’s free video series Tychos at https://tychosgroup.org/join 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 🖥️ UPLIFT Desk: Get 5% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://upliftdesk.com/pakman 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman 🧻 Reel Paper: Code PAKMAN for 30% OFF + free shipping at https://reelpaper.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

. Ladies and gentlemen, we start today with a mustache for Movember. Remember, in support of prostate cancer awareness and screening, testicular cancer, men's mental health, including suicide prevention. I know it's not good, but that's why. And people say, sir, what's with the mustache? And I say, well, it's Movember. And here is what we're doing. I start with a slight cold, which for the time being is not the virus, just a little something I picked up from my daughter. But if that changes, I will let you know. And we also start with an extraordinary confrontation on the floor of the Senate, not involving

Democrats, involving Republicans turning on their own. Tommy Tuberville has been holding up promotions for a number of important positions, including within the military. Remember, they support the troops. If you don't support the troops. Oh, but you're holding up. Well, no, that's different because of abortion. Tommy Tuperville doesn't like that.

Different elements of the federal government are able to procure and obtain whatever medical services are right for them. Abortion among that list. And so he's holding up a whole bunch of military promotions. He was confronted on the floor of the Senate. And we are going to look at this in some detail. Confronted by Senator Lindsey Graham, confronted by Senator Mitt Romney, Romney, a guy we are more used to seeing on the side of logic and reason.

Lindsey Graham, not so much. Remember that unhinged rant during the confirmation hearings of eventual Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. So we start with Lindsey Graham and Lindsey Graham is sort of telling it like it is, at least to some degree. Take a look. Even fellow Republicans are sick of Tuberville's antics. It's about keeping politics, politics out of the military. I did not put it in the military. Joe Biden and Secretary Austin put politics in the military.

This is Tuberville. And it's about the right to life. These are some of the most important things in the world to me and so mr president i object objection is heard mr president from south carolina yeah i'll have another one uh let me respond to my colleague respectfully and we have courts if you think they've done something illegal go to court right that's how you handle these things. The Pentagon has issued a legal opinion, I disagree with, saying this doesn't violate the Hyde Amendment. I disagree with it. Here's what's going to happen. You've just denied this lady a promotion. Right. You did that. All of us are ready to promote her because she deserves to be promoted.

She had nothing to do with this policy. Let me say it again. Everybody in this body could find an issue with any administration they don't agree with. And what we're going to do is open up Pandora's box. Today is abortion policy. If we take back the White House, we'll go back to the Mexico City policy, limiting dollars to be given to overseas entities that are engaged in the abortion business. Some pro-choice people don't like that. What would happen if they put a hold on all the officers because they don't agree with the Republican administration. There's a reason this this has not been done this way for a couple hundred years.

Right. No matter where you believe it or not, Senator Tarpeville, this is doing great damage to our military. I think he might have called them Trump or Ville right there, which is fascinating. But Lindsey Graham is exactly right. Three hundred nominations from the Department of Defense are being held up. If you claim to hold national security as our highest value priority and then you say, well, I don't like abortion, so I'm going to hold up these nominations. You are quite literally doing

what Trump accuses Obama of doing, which is the military. The cupboards are bare or whatever. You're keeping the cupboards bare of of nominees, of people, of staff. And in this particular case, Lindsey Graham is right, which is we will always have some disagreement when the president is from an opposing party. But that's a reason why we keep 300 people out of Department of Defense jobs that they are presumably qualified for and have been nominated for. That sounds almost like Tommy Tuberville doesn't actually stand by the principles and values he claims to when it's not convenient. Let's now look at Mitt Romney, Willard Mitt Romney, as some know him, or just Willard Mittens, as some know him. Let's take a listen.

Senator from Utah. Mr. President, I I rise out of great concern for our military, for its readiness at a time of great peril, but also out of concern for the men and women who are being held up. Right. And whose careers and prospects and families and plans are being interrupted by virtue of the decision by, in this case, two people. One, Secretary Austin, and the other is Senator Tuberville, to take intractable positions.

And and it's simply a in my opinion, a an abuse of the powers we have as senators to say if there's something we vehemently disagree with, that we're going to use that power to hold up the promotion of over 350 men and women in our military. And Mitt Romney, by the way, would know. I mean, Mitt Romney, based on his religious beliefs, his personal beliefs, whatever, as a Mormon, as a conservative, I can only assume that his views on abortion have not changed dramatically, although I think he's for some legal abortions at this point, although I don't have his position in front of me, he is separating the importance as he sees it of having the fully stocked military and Department of Defense. And by the way,

it's important to say we can both have problems with the size of the military, but recognize that this is not about that. This is just about trying to place his beliefs on cultural and social issues. This is Tuberville over concerns about national security. Mitt Romney is able to separate. We each have things we might disagree with with the military, and some would come with deep personal convictions about their morality. There you go. But if each senator felt empowered to hold up all promotions in our military, unless we got our way on one of those issues, why our military would grind to a halt? Correct. This power is extraordinary that we're given as individual senators, but it's incumbent upon us to use it in a reasonable way and not to abuse it in such a way that we end up putting in harm's way the the capabilities of our

of our military and the well-being of our men and women in uniform. All right. And this goes on for several more minutes. But I think you certainly get the picture here. This is not about do we think we should have 50 bases in Germany? That's that's not what this debate is about. And by the way, on that debate, we would also find ourselves on the other side, on the opposing side of Tommy Tuberville. This is about Republicans who don't care about norms, don't care about institutions, don't care about the principles they claim to care about and use whatever tactic they can come up with to do what is convenient and expedient politically at the time. It's not that different than when Trump's principle supposedly was, oh, we need to protect

elections from Democrats who will steal them because stealing elections is bad. But then he loses and he says, well, it was stolen from me. I'm going to try to steal it. The principles don't actually matter with these people. And I know at this point the bar is so low, but good for Mitt Romney and to some degree, good for Lindsey Graham for calling him out. I still don't know that this is going anywhere. A stunning new poll has Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a three way race against Donald Trump and Joe Biden polling 22 percent. It's a good poll, but it's only one poll. And it's also a year before the election. So with those caveats in mind, this is an extraordinary situation. Let's take a look at the poll. Quinnipiac University did something

interesting. They did a three way poll. Biden, Trump, RFK Jr. And they did a four way poll. Biden, Trump, RFK Jr. Cornell West. Let's take a look at the numbers when it's just Biden versus Trump. That's that's actually the bottom one here. And hopefully this this will be clear when it's Biden versus Trump. Quinnipiac poll, 1600 registered voters. It's Biden plus one Biden, 47, Trump, 46. But of course, that leaves 7 percent of the electorate out of that doesn't yet know what they're going to do. When you add Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Joe Biden's lead grows from one to three thirty nine thirty six, with Kennedy coming in at twenty two percent, taking a little more support from Trump than he takes from Joe Biden. And then when you make it a four way race with Cornel West, what you see is Biden and Trump back to a one point

difference. Biden plus one. Kennedy drops from 22 to 19 and Cornel West gets six percent. Now, if I were a betting man and you know that I'm not, if I were a betting man, I would bet if West and Kennedy stay on the ballot until November of twenty twenty four, I bet Kennedy doesn't get twenty two nor 19 percent. And I bet Cornel West doesn't get six percent either. That's just how I would bet if I were a betting man, which I'm not. But the most important takeaway here, the most important takeaway is that what initially was an RFK Jr. primary challenge to Joe Biden that was welcomed by Republicans because they expected that it would hurt Joe Biden more than Donald Trump has done a 180 notice that since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, I'm no longer running as a Democrat, I'm now running as an independent. He was on Fox News with Sean Hannity, where Sean Hannity did a hit job.

And then Fox News barely ever talks about RFK. I don't think he's been on for another interview. Why? Because Republicans, Fox News, the machine of the Republican Party now recognize. He's going to take more votes from Trump than he is from Biden. And if Robert F. Kennedy stays in this race from now until November, I believe that if he takes more votes from anybody, it will be from the Republican nominee. The ceiling is there with the Democratic voters. If anybody was

interested in what was being offered by RFK Jr. when he ran as a Democrat, they would have already said, I'm voting for RFK instead of Biden. Now he's not even running as a Democrat. On the other hand, Republican voters seeing a beleaguered Trump, maybe they wanted Pence and Pence drops out, for example, which is what happened. A lot of that Pence support might say, I don't really want to go to Trump by default, but hey, look, RFK is anti-vax and he says other crazy things I like. Maybe I'll go to RFK Jr. So I believe that RFK has hit his ceiling when it comes to Democratic voters. I don't believe he has hit it when it comes to Republican voters.

This is very bad for Republicans. Now, one other interesting thing here, there's a Politico article that I recommend to you. It's from yesterday and it's called RFK Junior's donor data reveals his twenty twenty four threat. The whole article is worth reading, but there's one particular paragraph which is as follows, though both parties insist Kennedy will be a non factor. There is clear anxiety about his potential impact, especially among Republicans. An analysis of Kennedy's campaign donations shows why his large dollar donor base has a clear Republican lean that fits within limited polling, suggesting Kennedy might draw more support from Republican leaning voters. They are now running scared.

What was all fun and games? Yeah, RFK, they should let them debate. And the DNC is not running a primary. It was all fun and games until RFK said, hey, you know what? Instead of running as a Democrat, I'm going to run as an independent. And certainly part of that decision was informed by seeing these numbers and knowing these numbers and realizing, you know, I may be limiting myself by running as a Democrat because there are Republicans who might like my message but would not consider voting for a Democrat. So this is potentially significantly problematic for Republicans. We're going to continue following the polling. What's clear right now is even though it's limited polling and it's early polling, it all points the same direction, which is Kennedy third party is worse for the Republican candidate than it is for the Democratic one. Let me know your thoughts. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube. We are now

just about 30,000 subscribers shy of two million. It's happening faster than anybody could have ever dreamed. We did everything wrong and we're somehow still getting close to two million subscribers. We'll take a quick break and be right back. The Tyco's video series is sponsoring our show today. Richard Vague is an economic expert, former secretary of banking and securities for Pennsylvania. I've always thought that Vague was a great voice on macroeconomics, the US economy, government, individual debt, income inequality. Every week, Richard Vague covers economic topics to keep you up to date with the key economic issues of our time. U.S. debt forecasts for the U.S. economy, economic challenges facing

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one zero for 10 percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. Yesterday, I talked about the Israeli airstrike carried out in what has been described as a refugee camp in Gaza targeting a Hamas commander and reportedly killing 50 people and injuring one hundred and fifty of those 200 casualties. We don't know how many were Hamas and how many were not. But by all of the public information, as I said yesterday, that would have been illegal under international law and also extraordinarily counterproductive to Israel's long term goals for reasons I already explained. And we talked about what do we how do we deal with this?

What do we do? I now have something very different to show you. And hopefully people will think critically about this, just as many were willing to do yesterday. We now have video of a Hamas official, Ghazi Hamad, loudly and clearly stating Israel must end. Israel must be destroyed. And we will repeat attacks like those of October 7th again and again and again until Israel no longer exists.

It is a fascinating thing how you have these Hamas leaders, many of whom are living it up in Qatar. They have plenty of gasoline. They have plenty of food. They give none of it to actual Gazans. That's a story for a different day saying, oh, Israel must obey international law, which I also say, but then very clearly saying, oh, our goal is the destruction of Israel.

We are going to keep doing terrorist attacks until Israel no longer exists. Now it's difficult to do a segment like this, particularly for the people listening, because this is a trans. There is a subtitled segment. So I'll kind of tell you what's being said here and then we're going to discuss it. So I don't know. I don't know that we don't know that.

So right away, Israel must be removed. Israel has no place in our land. We must remove the country. This is the position of Hamas for those who say, oh, it's all wishy washy. It's so hard to know. We just don't know what they really want. It's very clear. Annihilation and destruction of Israel is their goal.

And so one of the things we have to think about is, well, how do you how do you fight a terrorist group who makes that their stated goal? Let's continue. Let me ask you, do you want to see it? It must be finished. Israel must be finished. And he says they are not ashamed to say that. So now saying that they are going to continue doing what they did on October 7th, we must teach Israel a lesson and we will do it again and again and says there will be a second and a third and a fourth. Now, that's also an important statement. Will we have to pay a price. Yes. And we are ready to pay. Now, unfortunately for many Gazans, Hamas is ready to pay the price.

I mean, this guy, this guy live in a five star hotel. He's going to be fine, right? Hamas leadership is ready to pay the price with Palestinian civilians as they always are. That is the will of Chicago. That is my job. I'm sure I do. And I've heard I'm going to show that I know that we read and I must love him.

But then he will and will have to live with him. Like I got to know, he thought he died to me. Don't saw. Now here he says they didn't want to harm civilians, but there were complications on the ground. Of course, they deliberately targeted civilians. Now, what do you want to come over with? You can when I go to the hotel, we can see Sukarno here.

He's saying, well, there was a party. I think he's referring to the music festival. Of course, if you look at the violence that was done at Kibbutzim where there was not a party, then you know that this is also very much untrue. The course of this is said to be about 40. But I was in the middle of it and I was in the middle of it. No, I'm talking about all the Palestinian lands. All right. So now he is asked, does that mean when you say that the occupation must end, do you mean

the annihilation of Israel? And he says, yes, of course. Yes, of course. So let's talk about this. This is you know, we've we've taken an approach on this that looks to adhere as closely as possible to international law. So, for example, Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal by international law. That's a very clear and easy position to take. It's important to understand that if you start and really think through what this Hamas leader says, again, he's from the safety of the five star hotel where he probably

lives or in Qatar or wherever. One has to ask if they won't end this, if and until Israel is annihilated, what should Israel do? And when I've had this conversation with lots of people, we say, well, what should Palestinians in Gaza do? Well, the things that they can do are quite limited by virtue of the situation. OK, what should Israel do? If you imagine a spectrum on one side is there's a terrorist attack. They do nothing. I don't know that anybody really thinks that's viable. On the other side of the spectrum is, OK, there was the October 7th terrorist attack. And what Israel should do is destroy all of Gaza, just level it and kill everyone that's there is that would be insane and unethical and illegal and all of the reasons why it shouldn't be done. And also, it seems pretty clear that that's not what Israel plans or wants

to do, because if that's what they wanted to do, they could have done it a long time ago. So we're operating somewhere in the middle. And then you get to, well, should Israel focus on airstrikes or should they focus more on special forces and going in and surgically taking out Hamas leaders? And then what do you do about the fact that many of the leaders are funded by Iran and living in Qatar? And what do you do? I don't have an answer. I don't pretend to have an answer. But a lot of the problem comes when folks say, well, the answer is obvious. Israel should have essentially not retaliated and they need to do an immediate ceasefire. How do you do a one sided ceasefire? How do you do a ceasefire

with one side saying we're not going to stop? We're just not until Israel doesn't exist. We're not going to stop. I don't know what the answer is. And obviously, this does not bode well for the people of Gaza. If Hamas is delusional enough to think that they can annihilate and eliminate Israel, that doesn't bode well for the people of Gaza. And that's a separate question from what it is that Israel should or should not be doing in violations of international law, which everyone I know is criticizing. If the purpose of Hamas doing this is to enrage Israel so that they do the worst of what that spectrum is, that guy is going to be fine, but it's going to be a disaster for Gazans and for Palestinians.

And I I want to hear from thoughtful people in the audience. What should Israel do about this on that spectrum that I mentioned? And it's right there. Israel's annihilation and more October 7th attacks are going to be coming. And we don't care if we take losses. You heard it from the man himself after a brief period during which it seemed maybe Republicans were moving on from the impeachment inquiry and potential impeachment of President Joe Biden. They are back full force. And I really mean full force where now Republicans are saying we will almost certainly be impeaching Joe Biden, they are back full force. And I really mean full force where now Republicans are saying

we will almost certainly be impeaching Joe Biden in twenty twenty four when we ask them why the answers don't make any sense. We'll get to that in a moment. But let's take a look at a couple of clips. Here is Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna telling Jesse Waters on Fox News she indeed expects that that impeachment is something that will happen in 2024. I do believe that in my time in Congress for the 118th Congress, I will be taking a vote on impeachment and that's going to be against Joe Biden. When do you think the time frame for that's going to be? Well, I think Speaker Johnson is exactly equipped to lay that out, but I'm thinking it's probably going to be at the beginning of next year. Speaker 1

Now, she says likely impeachment of Biden at the beginning of 2024. Remember that if through some insane situation, they impeached Biden in the House and then convicted him in the Senate and removed him, then you get President Kamala Harris. I don't know how many of these people believe that if they were to do that, Trump becomes president or maybe I don't know what they think would happen. But then you just have President Kamala Harris. And of course, in 2024, there's still going to be a Republican Senate, a Democratic Senate, rather, which I can't imagine is going to vote to convict Joe Biden on impeachment, particularly when there's really no evidence against him. This continued last night. Sean Hannity hosted a room full of Republican members of the House of Representatives.

Really weird, really weird. And he asked for a show of hands. Do you believe we are heading towards impeaching Joe Biden? And basically the entire room raised its hands. Let's take a look. I continue. Let me scan the room. How many of you think that that's where this is headed?

Please raise your hand. Wow. Oh, room. Just about everybody in the room raises their hand and says, I believe we are heading towards the impeachment of Joe Biden. Now, to Hannity's credit, I guess he did sort of get into the question of like, why would you impeach Joe Biden? What is Joe Biden done that is impeachable? And it was a pretty funny moment where James Comer held up those two checks from when Joe Biden wasn't even president that involved the repayment of a family loan. Like it's not evidence of any wrongdoing. And also they're dated from when Biden was not president. After holding those

up, James Comer seems to suggest that Biden was involved in bribery, a claim, you know, bribing someone with their own money. By returning their money to them is really weird. It certainly doesn't sound like a crime, that's for sure. Listen to this lottery. I mean, this family, the crimes that they've committed is just money laundering. Or what do you call it when you get paid for something like that?

Well, it looks out if you know the answer. Right. Right. That's right. That's right. And, you know, bribery, bribery, folks, they have no evidence of this every single time. Forty years in public office and they just can't find the evidence against Joe Biden. It's really a stunning situation.

I am starting to think, call me crazy. I'm starting to think Joe Biden may not have done anything worthy of impeachment. I know that that sounds nuts. I know it sounds nuts, but it's possible that the simplest explanation is the correct one, which is they can't find the evidence, not because it's been covered up, not because it's been destroyed, not because Biden is involved in some genius criminal conspiracy, despite being demented and not knowing what day it is, according to these very same Republicans. That's not why there's no evidence. There's no evidence because the evidence doesn't exist because he didn't actually do anything wrong. Will they impeach him in 2024? I don't know. Let me know what you think. All right. One other real

quick one here. We have been following the cognitive gaffes of Donald Trump. This is a particularly funny one. And a bunch of people wrote to me and said, David, this is a Freudian slip from Trump. I don't believe it is. I think this is just Trump's inability to read off of a teleprompter. Donald Trump mangled the English language badly, badly, and told his supporters that they can now stop supporting MAGA tyrants. The syntax is off the wall. Trump really struggling to read pretty simple stuff off of the prompter. Take a listen to this with the 2024 election now less than one year away. This is your chance to take a stand against tyrants that support the one and only movement

that can save our country and make America great again. We must win in 2024. This is your opportunity to support the tyrants. He is saying not to support MAGA tyrants. I don't think he knows that he's saying it, but it's because he doesn't really know what he's saying when he reads off of a teleprompter. Now, some people wrote me and said, David, this is a Freudian slip. The idea of a Freudian slip is you meant to say one thing, but what came out is what you really believe. Trump really believes that MAGA is a bunch of tyrants. I disagree that that's the analysis here. It's not a Freudian slip with Trump because he doesn't

know what he's saying and he also doesn't know what he means. And he also rarely knows what he believes. It's just what's convenient at the time. Who's on my side? Who's no longer on my side? Who's disloyal? He's an automaton stuck in the teleprompter and doing a poor job with it, despite saying Biden and Obama and anybody else who uses a prompter is bad or wrong or whatever the case may be. And by the way, I know people will say Trump no longer looks orange. It almost looks like he's wearing some kind of really badly done blackface. I'm not even going to get involved in commenting on that. OK, leave that for the YouTube comments. I can't even delve into that. Let's take a quick break.

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for men. With every purchase, you're supporting multiple nonprofit organizations related to mental health, homelessness, doctors without borders. Sheath is a very socially conscious company, which I love. Sheath has over twenty thousand five star reviews, fast shipping, world class customer service. And sheath is the perfect gift for any man or woman on your shopping list. Today, we're going to be speaking with Tobias Rose Stockwell, who's a designer, technologist, writer and also author of the book Outrage Machine, How Tech Amplifies Discontent, Disrupts Democracy and What We Can Do About It. Tobias, great to have you on. You know, maybe to start with, I think that if you ask a lot of people what started the cycle you describe in the book, it's very easy to say, oh, smartphones and

social media. And like that's basically the technological underpinning and the technological is more important than the sociocultural underpinning to where we find ourselves today. Is it that simple or is there more to how we got to where we are and the status quo that you now describe? Yeah, well, thanks for having me on, David. It's awesome to be here. Yeah, I think that's a great question. You know, we can look at the way that technology has influenced and amplified many of the trends that have been in process for a long time in terms of polarization, in terms of efficiency and targeting and segmentation of audiences in our media

environment, and in terms of the kind of specific outraged punditry that has come to define a lot of our political news. When we think about if it bleeds, it leads. And some of these phrases that have been around for a while, you could make an argument and some make the argument that, you know, local news 30 years ago, which is 22 minutes after you take away the commercials, half of which is, you know, sort of titillating or salacious local news, that it's not really different than the fact that negative or fear inducing or anger inducing stories do well now that it's a difference of maybe

scope and scale. They spread more quickly when instead of having to watch the news, you can just reshare it to Facebook, but that it's not qualitatively different. What do you think about that? Is there a qualitative difference to the outrage machine that you described now? Well, I think differences in degree ultimately make differences in kind, right? So if you have a news diet of, say, 22 minutes of kind of salacious and outrageous punditry that you're consuming every night, then you're not going to necessarily revamp your entire worldview around that. But if it's attached to a device in your pocket that is available to you any time of the day, and in fact is with you any time of the day, you know, through push notifications,

checking our phones when we're in line at the grocery store, checking our feeds at work, then that does actually dramatically change the types of perceptions that we have throughout the day. We are actually in these other rooms always, right? We're in these other digital spaces constantly when we have our phones on us. So that does actually, I think, fundamentally shift how we see the world when so much of our time is spent in these spaces. There's this interesting thing I've experienced where even the expectations placed on me as a content creator have really shifted, especially over the last three to five years. I mean, just some recent examples. When there was the news of this hospital bombing in Gaza that took place,

I didn't report on it the first day because the information seemed really sketchy. It really, you know, the Hamas said it was bombed by Israel, but was there evidence? And then there's videos that contradicted. So I waited and part of my audience appreciated that. And I was able to go to them and say, hey, here's the video. Here's what we now have. We now have a better understanding of what really happened. Others assumed wrongly that I was avoiding the story because of personal reasons or in some way predicting that I was going to say something that would enrage my audience. It's almost like there's been a conditioning now that if you take yourself out of what is in some sense expected, you're the one who's behaving in the wrong way. That expectation setting seems to be very much directed by the infrastructure that you describe in the book. Is that right? That's right. Yeah, there is a demand for opinions

and a demand for taking a side on every major issue that I think is very unique to this moment, right? You know, in any conflict, in any fast-moving story, there is this inherent tension, right, for journalists and for people that are covering it, which is that if you want to be first, right, you want to cover it quickly, you want to have the scoop, but the newest information is often wrong, right? The fastest-spreading, and, you know, declarations are often not the most accurate. So there's this kind of inherent tension that's that's present in all of news gathering for, for, you know, it's been the case since the beginning of journalism back in the day. recently, right? Since we're hooked up to this constant feed, since everyone has an opinion instantly, and this is largely a result of the way that Twitter is designed right now, which is

that the fastest spreading information, the most kind of salacious emotional stuff will tend to get the most attention, likes, reshares, comments, and followers, right, for the people that are actually posting it, that that process in itself actually has prioritized the gossip and the rumor and the hearsay above the verified information, above the verified facts. And yeah, this demand for opinions from everyone, right? This pick-a-sidedness on every single issue on an instantaneous basis is, I think, really toxic to our sense sensemaking, our ability to make sense of the world as really as a nation, as communities, and I think even as a species

overall. We're really struggling right now. What are some of the elements of the architecture that encourage and sort of generate the system that we have? I mean, I think we know a lot about on Facebook, for example, you're more likely to be shown stuff that already sort of confirms your worldview and also things that will make you scared or angry because you're more likely to share it. And so there's like this algorithmic component. But what are some of the different pieces of this? Yeah, so I think it comes down to three very specific features that were launched to social media companies between 2009 and 2012. And each of these features on their surface actually looked quite good. They were made and launched with, I think, good intentions.

But between the three of them, they've actually kind of upgraded our information sharing speed and the type of information we share. So the first is the algorithmic feed, which we're all familiar with, right? Which is how content is rank ordered by engagement, which tends to make outrageous stuff stick to the top of our feeds much of the time with a default engagement algorithm. The second is social metrics. So the likes, the shares, the comments, the numbers that are attached to each and every post and each and every profile that basically make it a game as we share.

It's like a game of getting the most points for every single point of information we share online. And the third is the one-click share, the ability to press a single button and spread a piece of information to your entire audience. And it turns out the stuff that travels the fastest tends to be very low quality information. And, and if you don't have certain, if you don't have counters and weights in the way that information spreads and limits the way that information spreads rumors, gossip, hearsay, like terrible, terrible information actually ends up spreading the fastest. And, you know, there's, there's a precedent for this in history, which is that, you know, there was, there were violent mobs that used

to, you know, a rumor would spread in a community back in, you know, back in the day, and violent mobs would, would form spontaneously and do horrible things, right? So, you know, the sacking of, of, of, you know, of government buildings would happen pretty regularly. And in ancient times, pogroms against ethnic minorities would happen pretty regularly. And we basically built a system of doing that digitally now that operates much, much faster than historically it did. And the outcome is pretty tragic for a lot of us. In terms of the why would social media platforms do this? Is it quite simply that more engagement, more shares means more time on the platform for people, users, and then that generates more revenue for the social media companies? I think it's a little bit more nuanced than that.

I think that the fundamental business model is a big piece of the problem, I think, when it comes to just ad based engagement revenue. I think that's that is there is a fundamental problem there. But it does come down to kind of a set of, you know, of conditions in which the platform defaults, right, the platform was built in the way the platform was built, that were many of them were on accident, I think, you know, a lot of these people are actually good people. If you look at the Facebook files, there's a lot of people internally that are struggling with these issues that are trying to figure them out that are, you know, that are trying to study them and, and understand what's actually wrong, and trying to fix them on a case-by-case basis. The problem is it's just a huge task. And a lot of these companies don't have the executive leadership to tackle these problems and not enough pressure, like external pressure for

them to actually fix them, which is kind of a crazy thing to say, but there hasn't been any meaningful government regulation to actually help encourage these companies to fix these harms. And they're sitting on a lot of the data and evidence of the harms that we can't see, right? So that's actually part of it is that they're sitting on a huge trove of evidence of harms that are actually just not visible to us as a society. So until there is more transparency, we're going to continue to see feet dragging internally at these companies before these problems are fixed. And I think that's a big problem. Yeah. Not to excuse the fact that some of these things haven't been fixed, but also I have a number of friends who are former employees at a lot of these platforms and they

said, you know, any even if seven different teams have identified an issue and agree on it, the communication among these seven different teams and the empowerment of anybody to actually coordinate making some of the changes that we all agree need to be made on a purely logistical level didn't happen because there was just no infrastructure to coordinate some of these changes. Even if everybody knew what the problem was, had an idea for the role of each of the seven teams in fixing it. There were these sort of like, I guess we would call them practical sort of employee related employment structure related elements that prevented resolution because these platforms have gotten so big. Yeah, definitely. And, you know, the internal politics and difficulty in communication aside,

communication across these companies is also pretty bad, too. Right. So if one company finds a set of harms and a very specific mechanism that causes those harms, oftentimes they're not they're not going to share that with other companies that are dealing with the same problem. So so there is really a lot is a big coordination problem collectively that these companies are facing both internally and externally to tackle these issues in a meaningful way, which is why I do think we need to have some some effective government regulation that comes in to help resolve it. You emphasize in the book the importance of individual user behavior and sort of like without changing the system through regulation or whatever, that we as users can also take certain actions. And I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about that. I mean, I think there's been interesting work done on this. Cal Newport speaks about this regularly on his podcast and also in his books about, you know, as a starting point, you might want to disabuse yourself of the notion that it's even necessary to keep up breathlessly with the minute to minute of a lot of these sorts of stories,

particularly when you're going to have zero influence on it at all. And one of the things you can do is actually say, hey, I'm going to in advance decide I'm going to keep up with certain people on Twitter for 20 minutes, three times a week, and that is going to get me what I need. I don't need to then fall out of it because of algorithms or whatever the case may be. It's sort of like a restructuring. It doesn't mean you cut out all social social media or things that are kind of unrealistic long term, but the individual decisions of people, what sorts of individual user behavior do you recommend? Yeah, so I think there's a lot we can do as individuals, fortunately,

right? There's a lot of actually good tools and mental models we can deploy to kind of make our relationship with these tools more healthy and making sure our contributions to these online spaces are actually more healthy. One of the tools that I use on a regular basis is called OneSec, which is a simple app. It's a Chrome plugin. It's an iOS plugin and an Android plugin that you put on your phone. And what it does is it forces you to take a deep breath in and out before you actually enter into one of these apps. And just that simple act of being forced to take a deep breath before you enter into this app, it reduces the automatic habitual clicking and kind of automatic typing to the news site, to the social media feed, and actually does a pretty good job at kind of snapping you out of that automatic processing and pushing you to some more reflective processing. You're like, why am I here? Why am I actually in this space?

Another thing is just recognizing that diet, right? Like, you know, you wouldn't eat junk food every single day of your life if you're trying to be healthy, right? News and information is a very analogous input, right? information to keep our communities together and to stay informed about the world. But if you have too much of the wrong kind of information, it's going to actually toxify your worldview, right? So thinking about it in terms of information diet, I think is really important and making sure that your inputs are in moderation and that you're not regretting the time that you spend on these sites, right? So much of the time we actually have this kind of cycle we get into, we'll drop into a feed when this happens, when we're tired, when we're hungry, when we're maybe emotionally

distressed or depressed or sad or unhappy. That's when the algorithms really get us. That's when we'll find ourselves spending, you know, four, five hours just scrolling, just stuck in one of these feeds. And so in those moments, when you snap out, when you're finally on the other end of that kind of cycle, uh, that is the moment when you should act and we should put in some real constraints, right? So delete the app from your phone. Um, uh, like Cal says, you know, find, find some very specific times and schedule those

times for actually using these tools. Um, there's no need, literally no need for anyone on earth. I mean, maybe a couple people on earth, but very few people on earth to be plugged into these things 24 seven. They're not healthy for us overall. And you can get a good chunk of information. You're actually gonna get better information the longer you wait from the point of a conflict,

from the point of an explosion of outrage online. You're going to get better information and more reflective information the longer you wait from that point of the news item. So yeah, it is really important to just put some space between you and these feeds because they are asymmetrically powerful in pulling us in, keeping us there. And they don't have our best interest in mind. And so so we can't we can do a lot to fix them. Yeah. To my own detriment, I have both included a chapter in my forthcoming book and regularly talk about this. If you imagine an informational pyramid like the dietary pyramid, the bottom should be, in my mind, critical thinking, philosophy, epistemology,

media literacy. Then you would go to history and economics and understanding the basics of some of these big topics. At the top is the sort of stuff that I do, which I think is absolutely fine. But it's the sort of stuff I listen to at the gym when I'm just at the gym. And really, I'm putting time aside to focus on the lower parts of that pyramid. And it sounds like it's very similar to the sort of strategy that you're outlining here. That's right. Yeah, I think I think you're absolutely right. It is a very like we actually have a lot of agency in how we control our media environment and our choices and what we consume. But, but it does require effort. It does require work the same way that you want to get, you want to go to the gym to

get healthy. You know, uh, you need to, you need to reorient your, uh, your attitudes and your behaviors around the information you consume and you, and you can do it. It's very possible. You know, millions of people do it and billions of people do it, uh, effectively. Um, and I think the people that do it well are the ones that actually end up with the healthiest perspectives, outlooks and and media environments, you know, in their lives. We've been speaking with Tobias Rose Stockwell. The book is Outrage Machine, How Tech Amplifies Discontent, Disrupts Democracy and What We Can Do About It.

We're linking to the book. Tobias, I really appreciate your time and insights. Thank you, David. This is awesome. 30 million trees are destroyed every year for toilet paper in the US alone. So toilet paper is a big contributor to deforestation and climate change. Our sponsor, Real Paper, makes toilet paper from bamboo. Bamboo plants keep growing, which means no deforestation. Bamboo also absorbs five times as much carbon from the atmosphere as pine trees. And bamboo toilet paper is stronger than regular toilet paper and even softer. So bamboo toilet paper is all around a win for you and for the environment. It's time to move on from that toilet paper from trees that you're using at home. When you use real paper, it doesn't feel like you're sacrificing anything.

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Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have started to and will continue to testify in the Trump organization New York civil fraud trial. I know it's really difficult to keep track of all these different trials, which ones are criminal, which ones are civil. What would the potential repercussions be? We actually have video of Don Jr. arriving yesterday and sitting in the courtroom. And we're going to talk about a lot of different elements of this. But it's really important to understand that the consequences here are potentially huge for the Trump organization. And Donald Trump is furious that his kids are being brought in to testify.

He refers to them as kids. They're in their 40s. You know, they're running businesses. It's actually a crazy reaction from Trump. AP reports Donald Trump Jr. testifies that he never worked on the key documents in his father's civil fraud trial here. He was just like a water boy or something like that. Here's Don Jr., as you can see, arriving, surrounded by police officers and I guess maybe his lawyer's Secret Service or something like that, giving the prototypical Trump thumbs up and in he goes. And it was sort of an entire spectacle, kind of circus atmosphere there

at the courthouse. We then saw a video of Don Jr. sitting inside. I don't even know what was going on here. I guess maybe some some photography was taking place. I should have worn makeup. There you go. And then you see to Don Junior's right, Alina Haba, who is indeed a current Trump lawyer. She later appeared on Newsmax and she said that it went it all went really well. Like what went well or what about it went well? It's not really clear, but she says it was just a great day of testimony for Don Junior have. Alina, you were in court today? Tell tell us how it all went down. Don Jr. was there, I believe, testifying as well. Tell us. Yeah, we had a very strong day

today. There you go. That's us. Don was clear, concise, made it very clear that he relied on professionals. And and I think the testimony speaks for itself, frankly. You know, they did nothing wrong. We know this, Eric. This is not a witch hunt that has any meat to it. Most of them are completely nonsensical, as we know. But it was an event for Letitia James to show up and have her press moment. And that's why, you know, this is all happening. Let's just not get it twisted. It's political. It's all political for criminal trials from four different jurisdictions, multiple civil trials, hundreds of witnesses. It's just all staged and set up and, you know, the entire thing. Now, Donald Trump has been really freaking out about this testimony, and we'll

delve into that more in a moment. But this whole concept of these are good kids, please leave them alone. It really starts to get weird when we're talking about men in their 40s who were running the company during the time under review, during which the fraud supposedly took place. And it's not even supposedly at this point it's been determined that it did take place. Now it's a question of what what should the penalties be? This these are good kids and they're going after them. You imagine a 13 year old, right, who got caught stealing a candy bar and they're charging him as an adult or something along those lines.

It's very much not the case of what is going on here. And the next thing that I do want to look at in more detail is this is really, really, really triggering Donald Trump. And it's actually potentially going to cause even more violations of the gag order. Let's talk about that next. Yesterday, Don Jr. started testifying in the New York civil fraud trial against Trump's organization that will continue, I believe, today. Eric Trump is going to testify. That's always you know, Eric Trump is not exactly the smart one, for lack of a better term. And Donald Trump is really melting down. The New Republic has a good piece about this. Trump melts down as idiot sons are

set to take the stand. The big takeaway here for me is how disastrous the entire entry into the political world has been for the Trump family. And I know that there are people out there. I don't think most of them are watching my show. I think they're probably watching other shows. But I know that there are people out there who believe that the Trump family is God's gift to the world, God's gift to business, God's gift to humanity and politics. And they are just being targeted because Democrats don't like how successful the Trumps have been in making everything great for everybody, period. I have a different perspective. Trump's mob connections and bully tactics have been known for decades. And one of

the things that is an unfortunate reality or a fortunate reality, depending on your perspective, depending on who you are, is that if you stay, not that Trump was unknown. Obviously, Trump is a celebrity as well, in addition to being a business guy. But there is a sort of wall where once you become a public servant, your activities, your actions start to be scrutinized in a way that's different than when you are merely a business person. Now, that doesn't mean you can't get in trouble as a business person. Of course you can. But what happened here is that for decades, Trump has been running his business like a mob boss in a number of different ways. And he managed, although I mean, listen, he's had

problems using the charity as a slush fund and having it forced to be shut down. And he's had problems. But once he became president. The brazen nature of the last many decades of running his business was front and center, and it got attention because in politics, you very quickly make enemies. And now it's a real problem for the Trump family because the way they operated for decades is now coming back to haunt them because they chose Trump chose to get involved in the political world. That's what's going on here. And now Trump is panicking. So the New Republic article, Donald is not handling well that Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are going to be testifying. And there's a number of different truth social posts that Trump has been putting out there.

Leave, he says, leave my children alone. And Goran, you are a disgrace to the legal profession. Again, this idea that these are just kids, these are 40 plus year old men and also continuing to attack the judge. Trump's already been gagged for doing that. Trump posting. Additionally, however, the financial statements statements values are conservative. Low Mar-a-Lago is worth much more than 18 million. There is a 100 percent disclaimer clause on the first page of the statements. The banks and insurance companies were paid in full. No defaults. They all made money. There is no victim except me. Hours later, Trump was again up in the middle of the night saying, quote, someone else offered me much more. So what? Now they come up with something called disgorgement.

I never even heard of the term witch hunt election interference, Trump wrote. Trump then continuing to attack Judge and Goran by saying and Goran is crazy, totally unhinged and dangerous. Our judicial system has gone to hell, Trump posted. Any other person who engaged in this level of abuse of judges, prosecutors, witnesses and potential witnesses, court personnel, I've already said it before, would be in jail by now pending trial for violating gag orders. That's the bottom line. Trump is benefiting greatly from his status as a former president and the practical difficulties of if you throw Trump in jail for the weekend, where does Secret Service go? What sort of facility does Trump need? What are you required

to provide? And you know that any judge that says you're going to have to spend a night in jail, you're going to have to spend a weekend in jail. You know that that judge is going to get a deluge of death threats. So on the one hand, judges are giving Trump special treatment. On the other hand, they're probably also being cautious for their own sake because they know the holy hell that will be unleashed upon them if they were to jail Trump. Bottom line, there is a two tiered justice system and it is one that Trump is benefiting from not being victimized by. If you have a different view on this, if anybody else thinks that Trump is getting treated worse rather than better by the justice system, let me know. I just don't see it. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two David P. Last week, I got a voicemail asking for me to debate a vegan. And overwhelmingly,

people have said, David, don't do it for a whole bunch of different reasons. Even most of the vegans who wrote in said, David, don't do it. It's just pointless. Here is someone who called in not only saying don't debate the vegan, but also saying also saying really negative things about vegans and vegetarians. Take a listen to this. Hi, this is Sarah from Prior Lake again. I thought of another comment after a bit with people who go for a vegan or vegetarian diet. They're not helping the planet much, I don't think, because, of course, their foods aren't right from their area, but they're coming from all parts of the world. You know, the nuts are being transported probably from parts of the South. Dates and things are certainly coming from

there or from Africa or olives probably from Europe. And so there's many dates in Arizona, although I don't know how much they are sourced that way versus another way. They think that they're helping the planet, but all the transportation for these types of foods that are not native to their area, not grown in their area, are helping pollute the earth. So that's no solution. I was listening to Bioneers the other night and the architect, who is an advocate for a better environment, said that 40 percent of pollution comes from our homes. OK, so listen, for every argument I have ever heard in favor of veganism, I have also heard a counter argument.

OK, you what about this? What about that? Well, we should get our protein from these sources. OK, but if everybody were to get the protein from those vegan sources, you would need monoculture of fields, which is also not so good for the environment. Or we get our protein from avocados and almonds. OK, but those the amount of water that those require and the number of salamanders and voles and whatever else mice that are killed by draining their habitats to water

the almond and avocados. Here's my view on this. And I'm I don't we're not going to host a debate on this show, but my view for a long time has been. What we have really good evidence for is that for health reasons. Limiting intake of meat and especially trying to get your meat intake from leaner meats. Right. I very you know, I'll make a Hanukkah brisket, of course, of course. But I'm not having red meat often at all. When I get a hankering for some breakfast meat, I'll get no sugar turkey bacon. OK, the point here is it seems that in general, it's a good thing to eat a Mediterranean style diet. And so that's what I'm doing. I have no issue with anybody else eating whatever diet they want. And it's just really not a debate. I'm this voicemail and the voicemail from last week are exactly why I have no plans

to stage any debates about this issue. All right. On the bonus show, George Santos survives being kicked out of the House of Representatives. How did the vote come down? We will tell you. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson apparently has no bank accounts. Where is his money? Very strange financial disclosure from the guy. And number three, there has been a decline in dementia. Why? It is being looked at very strongly. And we're going to discuss it when producer Pat joins me on the bonus show. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. You can use the coupon code four years for indictments to save Speaker 1