The David Pakman Show - 11/3/22: Biden Devastates MAGA, Triggers Fox News

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

-- On the Show: -- Saul Kassin, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in NYC, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Williams College in Massachusetts, and author of DUPED: Why Innocent People Confess - And Why We Believe Their Confessions, joins David to discuss why innocent people frequently confess in the American justice system. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3DzKl37 -- President Joe Biden devastates MAGA and the anti-democracy movement in a primetime speech to the nation -- Fox News hosts are absolutely furious about President Joe Biden's speech to the country defending democracy, including Sean Hannity, Lindsey Graham, Kevin McCarthy and Jesse Watters -- Former President Barack Obama slams Arizona Republican Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, as well as Donald Trump, during a campaign rally in Arizona -- Former President Bill Clinton perfectly sums up 2022 Republicans' strategy, which is to anger voters, and then blame Democrats for the things Republicans themselves later destroy while in power -- Republican candidate Don Bolduc is confronted about his numerous repetitions of the bogus story that cat litter boxes are being placed in school bathrooms for students who identify as animals -- Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan refuses to back down from a Fox News mob audience during a town hall and is actually able to turn them around in real time -- Donald Trump's newest spokeswoman once again raises the bar for delusional and dangerous comments -- Voicemail caller praises David's lack of paywalls and reminds the audience that YouTube subscriptions are free -- On the Bonus Show: FCC commissioner calls for TikTok ban, "predatory gambling" has helped the lottery reach its super high jackpot, 7% of Pennsylvania voters dissuaded by John Fetterman's stroke, much more... ❄️ ChiliSleep by SleepMe: Get 25% OFF your bed-cooling system at https://chilisleep.com/pakman 🌿 Sunset Lake CBD: Get 20% OFF using code PAKMAN at https://sunsetlakecbd.com 🔊 Try Blinkist for FREE and get 25% off at http://www.blinkist.com/pakman 🌳 Use code PAKMAN for 20% off HoldOn plant-based bags at https://holdonbags.com 💻 Stay protected! Try Aura FREE for 2 weeks: https://aura.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 -- 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

Speaker 1 We start today with a stunning speech from President Joe Biden last night defending democracy. Joe Biden had to give a speech saying democracy is a good thing and we should work to keep it and we should fight against the people that want to destroy it and to want to tear it down. Imagine that. Imagine a situation in 2022, almost 2023, United States, where we have a movement in the country so unhinged, but also so powerful, not overwhelmingly powerful. They didn't succeed in 2020, but they didn't come that far. Let's be honest, a movement powerful enough in its extremism and unhinged nature that the current president on the proverbial eve, not the literal eve, but the proverbial eve of the twenty twenty two midterms, a president who won, even though they say he lost, by the way,

had to come out and defend democracy and argue we shouldn't become violent to overthrow democracy. That's a bad thing. It is a disgusting reality that we have to face, that this is where we are in almost 2023. Let's start with Joe Biden very clearly talking about what is the origin of this problem. You know, American democracy under attack because the defeated former president of the United States refused to accept the results of the 2020 election. He refuses to accept the will of the people. He refuses to accept the fact that he lost. He has abused his power and put the loyalty to himself before loyalty to the Constitution.

And he's made a big lie, an article of faith in the MAGA Republican Party. Indeed. The minority of that party. The great irony. About half of the party, let's be fair. About the 220 election is that it's the most attacked election in our history. And yet, and yet there's no election in our history that we can be more certain of its results. Yeah, we can be completely sure that Joe Biden genuinely won and Joe Biden not only putting the blame and the responsibility squarely on Trump and MAGA, but also pointing out that this is an extremely consequential midterm election, which is something I've been saying

at this point for a year or longer. I know there's a lot at stake in these midterm elections from our economy, the safety of our streets to our personal freedoms, the future of health care, Social Security, Medicare. It's all important. But we'll have our differences. We have our difference of opinion. And that's what's supposed to be. But there's something else at stake. Right. Democracy itself.

I'm not the only one who sees it. Recent polls have shown an overwhelming majority of Americans believe our democracy is at risk, that our democracy is under threat. They, too, see that democracy is on the ballot this year. These are the types of speeches that often opposition leaders give in dictatorships. OK, it is out of this world cuckoo that this is the type of speech that Joe Biden finds himself giving. And he could that we're going to get to how the right wing was triggered by this speech. He made clear, even when it comes to January 6th, that was not the end of the assault on

democracy. And as you know, if you've been following this show, there are dozens, if not more Republicans running right now on the ballot who deny the results of the election. Look, even as I speak here tonight, 27 million people have already cast their ballot in the midterm elections. Millions more will cast their ballots in the final days leading up to November the 9th, 8th, excuse me. And for the first time, this is the first time since the national election of 2020. Once again, we're seeing record turnout all over the country. And that's good. We want Americans to vote. We want every

American's voice to be heard. Now we have to move the process forward. We know that more and more ballots are cast in early voting or by mail in America. We know that many states don't start counting those ballots until after the polls close on November 8th. That means in some cases we won't know the winner of the election for a few days until a few days after the election. It takes time to count all legitimate ballots in a legal and orderly manner. It's always been important for citizens and democracy to be informed and engaged.

Now it's important for citizens to democracy to be informed and engaged. Now it's important for citizens to be patient as well. That's how it's supposed to work. This is also the first election since the events of January 6th, when the armed angry mob stormed the U.S. Capitol. I wish I could say the assault on a democracy to end it that day. It did. But I cannot. As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America for governor, Congress, attorney general, secretary of state who won't commit.

They will not commit to accepting the results of the election that they're running in. In fact, they're saying if I lose, it's rigged. If I win, it's fair. Joe Biden also addressing the rise in the number of people who are saying violence to achieve your political goals is OK. We have to be honest with ourselves, though. We have to face this problem. We can't turn away from it. We can't pretend it's just going to solve itself. There's an alarming rise in the number of our people in this country condoning political violence. Yeah.

Or simply remaining silence because silence is complicity. The disturbing rise of voter intimidation, the pernicious tendency to excuse political violence, or at least, at least, trying to explain it away. We can't allow this sentiment to grow. We must confront it head on now. It has to stop now. I believe the voices excusing or calling for violence and intimidation are distinct minority in America. I do not know. Well, a minority in America,

let's hope so. A minority in the Republican Party. I'm not quite sure. And unfortunately, many of the people minimizing the January 6th Trump riots, not necessarily welcoming, but certainly inspiring the perceived legitimacy of political violence in the minds of their supporters. Many of them could win, and some of them probably will. President Biden going on to connect Trump's big lie on the attack on Paul Pelosi. And they are connected. All this happened after the assault. And it just I thought it's hard to even say it's hard to even say. It's hard to even say. After the assailant entered the home asking, where's Nancy? Where's Nancy? Those are the very same words used by the mob when they stormed the United States Capitol on January the 6th.

Literally. When they broke windows, kicked in the doors, brutally attacked law enforcement, roamed the corridors, hunting for officials and erected gallows to hang the former vice president, Mike Pence. It was an enraged mob that had been whipped up into a frenzy by a president repeating over and over again the big lie that the election of 2020 had been stolen. Speaker 1 Yep. It is indeed the exact same line that you follow through those phenomena. Joe Biden warning ahead of time, as I mentioned before, that it will take some time to count all of the legitimate ballots and that that's OK.

And then eventually Biden closing by saying the following year. We're often not faced with questions of whether the vote we cast will preserve democracy or put us at risk. But this year we are. This year, I hope you'll make the future of our democracy an important part of your decision to vote and how you vote. I hope you'll ask a simple question of each candidate you might vote for. Will that person accept the legitimate will of the American people and people voting in

his district or her district? Yeah, it's shocking that that's the top line question we have to ask. There are there. You've got the candidates who have their policy and they will accept the results of the election. And then you've got the candidates that will not. That's a major dividing line. Who respects the will of the voter here? Speaker 4 Will that person accept the outcome of the election, win or lose? The answer to that question is vital. And in my opinion, it should be decisive. And the answer to that question

hangs the future of the country we love so much and the fate of the democracy that has made so much possible for us. Yeah. A good speech. A really dystopian reality in which such a speech is necessary and logical. So Joe Biden did a few important things here other than defend the idea that we thought we had a democracy. We should probably work to try to keep that. He issued a sort of warning about Republicans planning to undermine the vote on Tuesday. And we're going to have clips later on and on tomorrow's show of ways in which they are already doing this and other examples. So the Republicans are already doing that.

They're making it clear they're telegraphing. They're going to be doing that on Tuesday. Joe Biden sort of trying to sound the alarm in advance the way we were doing and many in progressive media were doing in advance of the 2020 election. It was very clear what Trump was going to do. And it to something in the morning on election night, 2020, he did. He came out and said, oh, I won, even though he had not won. And then the other thing is he's setting expectations about it'll take a few days in some of these elections to know the results, particularly because in some of these places,

they don't actually start counting anything until the polls close. There will be a whole bunch. Pennsylvania is an example. Actually, I don't remember if Pennsylvania doesn't start until the polls close, but they stop at a particular time. A whole bunch of accumulated mail in and early ballots will be there, but they will not start to be counted until polls close, in many cases at 8 p.m. local time. So an important speech. Very sad that he had to make it. Let's now look at the reactions from the right. Fox News was trigly triggered into being

a sputtering mess by Joe Biden's speech last night saying, hey, we should try to maintain our democracy. And Republicans running in November of running now in 2022 are increasingly threatening to upend it if they lose. If I lose, it was rigged. If I won, then it's fair. Joe Biden, with a very good speech, which we already looked at. Take a look at some of the reactions from Republicans each. I don't know whether to call these sad, whether to call these dangerous, whether to call them delusional. Maybe it's a combination. Let's look at them. Here's Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, reacting to Joe Biden's speech about democracy being in danger. That was the announced subject matter. We

knew the speech was going to be about democracy. And Kevin McCarthy says, well, it was a bad speech because he didn't mention inflation or gas prices. I listened to the president's speech. I don't remember hearing anything about inflation, about gas, about border, about fentanyl, about crime, or not even the 98 individuals on the border who are on the terrorist watch list they have caught. What we're really finding in these next six days, this is a hinge election. This is defining election like a 1980 election. Which direction does America want to go? That's go? That's why we have the commitment to America. We literally spell out what we'll do. He's holding up a piece of paper when

he says that because energy independent give us an economy that strong, secure the border, fund the police, stop the prosecutors who are woke, give you a parents bill of rights. Understand that all of those things, I mean, the economy, at least for now, is fine. We have almost full employment. GDP growth is back. Nothing has materially changed on the border since Trump. All these things are completely made up. But the critique is he didn't talk about inflation and gas prices. The speech was about democracy because Kevin McCarthy and the cronies in his party and their constituents seem not to care about democracy anymore. That's why the subject matter was what it was in reaction to Joe Biden's speech. Jesse

Waters, another beauty on Fox News, says this is all nonsense because we're just going to win. There's not going to be anything to deny. Speaker 4 That was the president of the United States confessing that he's about to get wiped out a week from now. No one is going to question the results of this election, Mr. President, because it's going to be a blowout. Speaker 1 Now, understand, Jesse thinks he's being clever. He thinks he's being clever by saying you're not going to have any questioning because we're going to win. There's not going to be anything to question. But he's actually proving exactly the point that Joe Biden made, which is they don't

question it when they win and they question it when they lose a priori, saying losses are fraud. We'll talk later about what a priori means. He seems to actually be proving Joe Biden's point. Now, is it true that Democrats are going to get wiped out? Maybe. We talked about new polling at the same time. There are growing concerns that the new polling is very bad polling. We're going to find out in, you know, what is it?

Five days. We'll know before you know it. Just make sure you take your vote and use it. One other clip. Here's Republican Senator Lindsey Graham also talking about Joe Biden's speech and saying he didn't even mention the border. Well, no, it wasn't about the border. Speaker 4 Stacey Abrams herself, but that's not happening either. What was your reaction to Biden's angry speech? By the way, it's logical to be angry when one side doesn't care about democracy.

If I'm a liberal Democrat, I would say, Joe, please stop helping. I thought it was pathetic. I thought it was divisive. Not one word about how I'm going to secure a broken border. I'm going to lower gas prices as president. I'm going to challenge rampant crime. I got money is he already lowered gas prices as president. I'm going to challenge rampant crime. I got money is he already lowered gas prices as president. This energy independent.

It was if you believe the president has anything to do with it, by the way, which I don't. But again, this is their story. It's about half the country basically being a political terrorist. Yeah, it's not half the country that are political terrorists, but it's a non zero portion of the Republican Party. And we're seeing it's a non zero portion of the Republican Party and we're seeing it day to day. These folks are pathetic. These folks are pathetic and they are openly subscribing to.

If we win, it was fair. And if we lose, it was rigged. Let me know your thoughts in a comment or find me on Twitter at Deepak. Remember, we are pushing to two million YouTube subscribers. Many of you out there. Maybe I'm talking about you. You watch our clips on YouTube, but you're not subscribed. Do us the favor of subscribing even if you're seeing our videos in your feed, because it is the most important signal to YouTube's algorithm. Hey, our viewers. Thank you so much, David. The ruler, the cube and the new dock pro with double the cooling power. All three systems are water based, temperature controlled mattress toppers that fit over your existing mattress to provide you with your ideal sleep temperature.

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They are a socially responsible company. They support what we do. Sunset Lake CBD dot com. Use code Pacman at checkout for 20 percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. Remember that the David Pakman show is made possible by our viewers, by our listeners. That is the primary source of funding for our show. And I would love for you to sign up at join Pacman dot com, where you will get instant access to the commercial free audio and video streams of the show, as well as the bonus show. That is a frickin predator right there. No, it's not predatory, Alex. It's just it's just the bonus show through Tuesday through Election Day. You can use the coupon code big voting 22 to secure a perfect discount. Let's take a spin through the campaign trail and the last 24 hours,

a number of former Democratic presidents out on the campaign trail hoping to stem losses, hoping to create wins, hoping to turn maybe at least a couple of elections. One of those individuals is former President Barack Obama. Former President Barack Obama really stung Carrie Lake and by extension Donald Trump by pointing out we've tried electing people who are just known for being on TV and it didn't go particularly well. Reports are many on the right, particularly upset by what Barack Obama said yesterday during an event in Arizona in support of Democrats running in that state. Speaker 4 Here in Arizona, there's no question that that Katie Hobbs is opponent. She's good in front of the camera because she's been doing it for a long time. Right. So some people don't

know this, but apparently Carrie Lake actually interviewed me back in 2016 when I was president. She was she was a local news anchor. She was doing her job. At the time, I don't remember thinking that she was the kind of person who would push debunked COVID remedies or promise to issue a declaration of invasion at our border. That's a very important action. Or claim without any evidence that the 2020 election was stolen. I guess that stuff came later because she found it convenient. Because she thought, well, there's an opportunity to get attention. Yep.

Listen, if we hadn't just elected somebody whose main qualification was being on TV, you could see maybe giving it a shot. What's the worst that could happen? Well, now we know. Yeah, it doesn't just work out just because somebody's been on TV. President Obama is is is quite good at this. And indeed, he is needed in Arizona. And the reason that he is needed in Arizona is just look at the polling. Carrie Lake is an individual who has no business whatsoever in public service. She talked about Arizona seceding from the United States. She spreads the big lie. She said she was taking prophylactic ivermectin on and on and on. And she is I don't even want to say potentially. I think at this point we have to

say if you believe the polling, she is the most likely heir apparent to become the governor of Arizona. Currently, Carrie Lake is leading Democrat Katie Hobbs by an average of two point eight. Now. What's going on with the polling? Do we believe these numbers? I don't know. We will have a report either tomorrow or Monday about the allegations of bad polling, unreliable polling and push polling related to the election. But why chance it? Why chance it? Two point eight. Maybe she's winning by two point eight. Maybe it's a tie or not. Your vote really matters this time around. And for everybody who says, well, what do you what do you mean my vote? It's never it never comes down to one vote. Here's the way you have to think about that. How often does the

election come down to one vote? Very rarely. But a lot of people say that to themselves. A lot of people say, why do I need to vote? It never comes down to one vote. If all the people who thought that stayed home, it would actually flip elections. And that's why it's important when you say to yourself, it never comes down to one vote. Why do I need to vote? Understand that there are thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of other people saying the same thing to themselves. If you all stay home, one candidate wins. If everybody who has that votes, the other candidate wins.

So do not allow yourself to fall into that thinking. One other funny Barack Obama clip from the Arizona rally talking about Blake Masters, that really bizarre dude who's running against Mark Kelly and also who might win. Just very funny commentary about him. If you were trying to create in a lab. Yes. A wacky Republican politician. It'd look a lot like this guy.

Mr. Masters. True. Campaign backed by a tech billionaire who's questioned the value of democracy? Right. Check. Got it. Wants to give tax cuts to big corporations that are jagging up prices on consumers? Check. Thinks it's a good idea to privatize Social Security and, quote, cut

the knot on the benefits that more than a million seniors here in Arizona depend on check, check, check. I got a little fired up about this the other day in Wisconsin, but it's true here in Arizona, too. Folks in Arizona have Social Security, not because somebody is giving it to them as a payoff, as a as a gift. They earned it. You know, that's exactly right. And the Social Security issue is increasingly becoming an issue.

Very good appearance by former President Barack Obama. He was not the only former president out on the campaign trail yesterday. Former President Bill Clinton appeared at a campaign event for a Josh Riley, a Democrat running for the New York House. And it's less this showing you this clip is less about Josh Riley, a Democrat running for the New York House. And it's less this showing you this clip is less about Josh Riley. It's more about Bill Clinton perfectly summing up modern era Republicans. I'll just play the clip and then we'll talk about it. The Republicans are pretty simple, actually. They're pretty straightforward. They say, I want you to be very miserable and I want you to be very angry.

And I vote. I want you to vote for us and we'll make it worse, but we'll blame them. Yeah, you can make this up. That is exactly what the modern Republican Party is. They don't propose policy. They don't bring any big ideas of any value or substance. Let's think through an example. Think about the economy right now. Republicans are saying the economy is bad right now. The economy is bad right now.

That's not true. The economy is actually pretty solid right now by all standard economic indicators. Is inflation high? Yes. But we're at almost full employment. GDP growth is back. Stock market is shaky, but not a disaster. We have all the data. So they lie by saying the economy is currently bad. They say Democrats are terrible for the economy and will make a better vote for us. The truth is, historically, Democrats are better for the economy. Historically, we have higher job growth when there's a Democratic president. Stock market performs better under a Democratic president. We have lower unemployment under a

Democratic president. GDP growth is higher under a Democratic president. Inflation is lower under a Democratic president on average. OK, so then you elect them. They don't make it any better because they're worse for the economy. We know that. But when it gets worse, they'll say, well, it's the fault of Democrats if they control the Senate and the White House and the economy doesn't do as well as they claim it should have done. They will say, well, even though we had the White House and the Senate, the economy didn't do so well because Democrats controlled the House. It is spot on, spot on analysis from Bill Clinton here. And they've abandoned policy, as I've told you many times before.

And it's these cultural issues, these contrived issues of wokeness and litter boxes. And in fact, that's exactly what I want to talk about next. I don't want to spend a ton of time on this, but I have an example for you of what happens when you confront one of these right wing Republicans who repeats fake stories. One such fake story is schools are putting litter boxes in the bathrooms so that students who identify as animals can use the litter box as their bathroom. It's made up. Didn't happen.

It has been repeated and repeated and repeated, but it did not happen. Don Baldock, who's running in New Hampshire, was confronted about it. Why did you say that? That's just not true. And he says, well, it's what I was told. Speaker 2 You made it a recent event about children using litter boxes in schools. Speaker 3 You know, there's there's no that's not what I said. Speaker 2 Well, then tell me what you said. I heard the audio.

Speaker 2 So what? Yeah. So what I was talking about is all the craziness going on in our schools and this is just one of them. And I had a I had a parent and a student in that audience who came up to me and told me all about it. Yeah, guys, listen, a parent and a student, if it was only a parent, OK, if it was only a student, but a parent and a student told them students who identify as animals are going pee pee and poo poo in a litter box. So he started repeating it. I've had that all across the state. So I'm only articulating what I heard from the parents. He didn't make it up.

He heard it. Guys and children. Craziness is going on in our schools. Senator Hassan is responsible for it. She's doubled down on all the bad education policies out there. Understand how crazy this is. It's not happening in schools. And Maggie Hassan has nothing to do with it because it's not taking place.

So you should be asking her why our children can't read and write to grade level, why we have the lowest scores, why we can't compete in the world, why our children require remedial courses to go to college, because she has took her eye off the ball on the future of our nation. And that's our children. You had a parent tell you that this is happening and student happening in the schools. The school has come out and said that that's completely false. Well, you know, they came out and said they didn't mask children. They came out and said they didn't do a lot of things right. They don't teach CRT, which they do. They don't treat transgender, which they do. They teach transgender.

I'm not backing down, OK? He's not backing down from something that is just not happening. And so you can Google this. It's widely documented. There's a good NBC News article from a couple of weeks ago how an urban myth about litter boxes in schools became a Republican talking point. At least 20 Republicans claimed schools are making accommodations for students who identify as cats. The school districts say these claims are untrue. We would be able to write this off as an insanely

stupid timeline if people weren't falling for it and if people weren't actually being influenced in their votes based on these bogus false stories, really scary stuff. Make sure you're following us on Instagram at David Pakman show to see all sponsor is Blinkist, the app that takes thousands of nonfiction books, boils each of them down into an explainer you can read or listen to in 15 minutes. Blinkist also condenses episodes of popular podcasts into 15 minute explainers. I've been using Blinkist for years to supplement the books I read. I love reading. I read all the time, but there's even more books I don't have time to read. And you can often find those nonfiction books on Blinkist and consume the entire thing in 15 minutes. My favorite new feature on the app is Blinkist Connect, which lets you share your

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Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Today, we'll be speaking with Saul Kasson, who's distinguished professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and also professor emeritus of psychology at Williams College in Massachusetts. He is author of the book Duped Why Innocent People Confess and Why We Believe Their Confessions. Really appreciate your time today. Glad, glad to have you on. I'm very, very happy to be here.

So anecdotally, we all hear stories of innocent people who confess to crimes they did not commit. I think a natural reaction, a common reaction is to say, I would never do that. I can't imagine any circumstances in which police sit me down and they suspect me for a crime. And I know I didn't commit it. I would never, ever, ever confess to a crime I didn't commit. And yet it happens all the time. Can you tell us a little bit about why this happens? You're absolutely right. I think the first myth that has to be debunked is I would never confess to a crime I did not commit.

Yeah. Answer. Yes, you would. And you will note that there are two titles to the title of my book. One is why innocent people confess and two, why we believe their confessions. We are duped into believing false confessions. So when those of us who are presented with a confession and we're thinking, an innocent person would never do this, we can't see past a false confession. It looks true. It sounds true. It feels true. I would never do that. Innocent people don't do that. Wrong. Imagine yourself being brought in as a suspect in a crime. You're taken into the station. You're alone.

You're isolated. You're not with family. You're not with friends. If you're a kid, you're asking, can I call my mother? And the answer is not till we're done here. And then you come in and the detective walks in and slaps a folder on the table and says, we know you committed this crime and we have a boatload of evidence against you. And that's how that session proceeds, privately, without you having any access to outside sources of information or people. And that goes on sometimes for hours.

Until the officer, the detective, or detectives, plural, offers you something of a way out. You know, I think you're a good person. I don't think you intended to do this. Maybe this was just something your friends put you up to, or you had one too many drinks. And they start to make it sound as if the consequence would be minimal. You want out, you believe for whatever reason they seem to have this overwhelming evidence against you, and you've been denying this for hours, and they keep calling you a liar every time you deny it. You try to get out of the situation and now they're offering you an escape hatch. The escape hatches.

You know what? Just cooperate with us. We think we think you're a good person. We don't think you're meant to do this. And before you know what, you're signing a statement believing that that signature and that statement is in your best interest. It sounds like to some degree, you know, we've talked with attorneys about the kind of plea deal industrial complex and some of the circumstances, including being able to get out of pretrial

detention, including a known smaller penalty than chancing the possibility of a much stricter penalty. We've talked about that. It seems that there are some similar dynamics between that and false confessions, although they clearly are two different things and they relate to the isolation, the disproportionate power that dynamic that exists and the unknown of it could be even worse if I stick to my guns. That's exactly right. And what a what a perfect parallel to plea bargaining that you just described, because they are the same process.

People are making what a decision making theorist would say is a rational decision, given the information they have. They're trying at this point to cut their losses. And you know what's interesting about the parallel between the confession that a suspect gives to police in an interrogation room and then the guilty plea confession that they give in court to prosecutors and defense lawyers? It's the same dynamic, But here's what's interesting. People who have confessed to police are then later more likely to accept a false guilty plea. Why? Because everybody correctly is telling them, if you go to trial, you're going to get convicted.

So the confession now gives rise to and spawns a false guilty plea. And, you know, I've got a whole chapter in this book about this system of ours being obsessed with confession. It happens one more time. Imagine the person who confesses, later pleads guilty, is sitting in prison and is now eligible for parole. And they have to appear before a parole board. Well, guess what? They can't get out until they accept responsibility and show they've been rehabilitated. And so I've spoken and worked on cases of exonerees who confessed and then said,

the most galling next thing I ever had to do in my life was reconfess years later in order to become paroled. And once again, here's the system, not understanding that the baseline level of wrongful conviction, it's not zero guys may have been conceived of a zero 50 years ago. We now know it's not zero when there is a confession and the confession isn't thrown out when it's thrown out. We can put it in another category. But when there's a confession that makes it into an eventual trial, is it overwhelmingly difficult to to overcome that when when there is an accepted confession as part of a trial? Speaker 3

once? First of all, I seldom see confessions that are suppressed from evidence. Yeah. They almost always are admitted that these days, the question the judge will ask at a suppression hearing is, well, did he waive his Miranda right? Did he, did he receive and waive his Miranda rights? Yes. Well, then it's a voluntary statement. That's, that becomes proof of voluntariness. Miranda is a whole separate problem in this business. So now the

person comes to court and there's a confession in evidence. I don't want to overstate it, but almost nothing else matters. In the infamous Central Park jogger case, for example, people don't realize this. Those kids confessed on videotape. They were induced after 14 to 30 hours of questioning to confess. And only the confession was on tape, not the. And just so people know, sometimes this is known as the Central Park five case. It's the same. We're talking about the same case. Yeah.

Yes. And they've all been exonerated since the exonerated. What people don't realize is after they confess and before they went to trial, the jogger was raped and there was a rape kit and there were several semen samples and those samples were sent to the crime lab. And when those samples came back, here was the result. All of the different semen samples traced to a single individual, not five, not six, one person. And that person was not one of the five confessors. The confessors were excluded. So they come to trial with their confessions, no other supporting corroborating evidence, contradictory DNA evidence, and they were

convicted. That's how powerful confession evidence is. Almost nothing else matters once that is in evidence. As a general question, how relevant in these situations is some level of education as well as the financial access to a lawyer? And the reason I ask that is in my mind, I would never even go in to talk to police voluntarily. Number one, if I had to go in, I would absolutely get a lawyer. And if I was arrested and then, you know, if it wasn't a situation where they call and say, hey, would you like to come in if I'm arrested and brought in? I would say literally not a word other than I want a lawyer, which seems like it would

help me in this situation. Or even when doing that, do you still see false confessions? Man, you're asking all the right questions. So myth number one, I would never confess to a crime I didn't commit. Myth number two is I'd know a false confession if I saw one. If I sat on a jury and this was an innocent person, I'd know it. Okay. Wrong would not.

Okay. The third myth is that Miranda protects us, that our Miranda rights matter. Here's one fact that was discovered within one year of the Supreme Court's Miranda decision, that roughly 80% of people waive their rights right out of the gate. Yes. And we now know that that number is holding steady and higher. Here's what else we know. You know who's the most likely to waive their rights? Innocent people. When I work on cases involving false confessors who are later fully DNA exonerated without dispute. They're factually innocent.

I asked him two questions. One, why did you confess? And the second question is, when things got ugly, why don't you call a lawyer? Why don't you stop talking and call a lawyer? Every one of them says the same thing in almost the same words. I didn't need a lawyer. I didn't do anything wrong. Innocent people don't understand the peril. They have some fundamental belief in the power of their innocence to prevail. They have some fundamental belief in the world as a place that is more just than this. And so they figure, you know, I'll talk, we'll talk, they'll see I didn't do this. Very often when the police imply or outright state, we have evidence. We've got prints we're sending off to the lab. Now, that sounds like a threat. We've got you, we've got prints. To the innocent person, imagine yourself innocent, and you know you're innocent. They say they've got prints. You've

been here for hours and you want to get out. And you're thinking, Prince, that's going to show my innocence. To the innocent person, that threat, that bluff of having evidence is a promise of future exoneration. And so they think, OK, I've been here for 19 hours. I can't take it anymore. Where do I sign? And when the prints come back, you'll see I didn't do this. Speaker 1 I don't know the law around. You mentioned 19 hours, 13 hours, 14 hours. This is sort of an interlude, but I don't know the law around that. But if you ask for a lawyer right away, is a lawyer going to allow you to be there for 19 hours or does a lawyer prevent that from even becoming the situation?

A lawyer seldom. People seldom ask for a lawyer right away. And part of it, too, is and this gets to some points about Miranda. First of all, people don't fully understand their rights. And, you know, Miranda is something we hear. We hear it on Law and Order. Everybody can recite the words by heart, you know, almost by memory. And yet, when you measure people's comprehension of the rights themselves and how they operate them, it's amazing how little comprehension people have. So, for example, what if you come in and you don't realize that you're a suspect, and you think maybe you're a cooperating witness and you're not sure that the police are about to fully accuse you. Yeah. But they read your Miranda rights and say, we'd like to talk to you, but we can't really

do that until we get past this formality. And so I'd like to read your rights. You've heard them a million times before, but you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you. The suspect says, yes, yes, yes, I understand. Where do I sign? And they sign away that waiver. Now, what if things start to get ugly? Ask the average person, are you able, once you've signed a waiver of your rights, are you able to re-invoke them later? The answer is yes. A lot of people don't know the answer is yes. So there is one aspect of comprehension that people lack. People

think once they've signed off on that waiver, that's it. And they worry also about the optics of silence. And of course, for innocent people, they don't understand the peril of talking. Right. And so they do. And so the people that require, in some sense, the greatest protection, those accused who are innocent, they're not going to use that protection. And so it tends not to happen. Now, as far as the time frame you mentioned, the average interrogation only lasts for 30 minutes to an hour. And if you want to encompass 90 to 95% of all interrogations, it's a couple of hours. When you look at the database of wrongful convictions in which people gave false confessions, now you're looking at eight hours, 10 hours, 16 hours, 20 hours. Time breaks people down. Time breaks people down because

we start to get lonely. I don't mean that in a clinical sense, but people need others around and they need social support, especially when times get stressful. They need someone to check in with. They need breaks. They need sleep. Sleep deprivation is accompanied by these 20-hour sessions. Food breaks, you know, so it's both, it's both biological and social needs and fatigue sets in. I've worked on cases where I literally did a count of the number of times the innocent person said, I didn't do this and was called a liar. Sometimes that happens over 100 times in an interrogation. So if you want out, if you're exhausted, if you can't take it anymore and every time you deny involvement, they call you a liar

and you realize this isn't my way out of here. You've got to try something else. Last thing I want to ask about you write in the book about the Amanda Knox murder case in Italy. There's a Netflix documentary about that. And if I recall, generally speaking, this is a case in which Amanda Knox, an American, was accused of a murder, along with I believe it's a guy she may have been romantically involved with of a third person, a woman. Can you talk a little bit about what happened in that one and how it's relevant to what you write

about? Speaker 3 You know, it's such a perfect illustration of something that's so important to know when people hear that an innocent person confess, knowing as you opened with, I would never do that. A normal person would never do that. Everyone's first reaction is what's wrong with that person? Yeah. That what is they immediately make an attribution to something is wrong with that person who did this. They don't think about the situation that person was in that might afflict just about anybody. Amanda Knox was a 20 year old American student in Italy. Smart, smart kid. But she was in Italy. She wasn't fluent in the language. And her roommate was murdered in a vile way. And she was the person

who discovered the crime scene and called it in. And over the course of four days, for no good reason, she was identified as a suspect. For no good reason. And I could catalog the numbers of demeanor cues, oh, she did that, she looked like this, she looked like that, she didn't cry enough, she cried too much, that were used to identify her as a suspect, to the point where she was interrogated on and off for four and a half days for over 50 hours, culminating in a final night where they brought her in, told her that that romantic, that person she was romantically involved with, who was with her that night, that he disavowed her alibi, that he said he wasn't with her that night. Now, it's now five in the morning. She's confused. She's been at this

for days. Her mother said, maybe we should come and get you and bring you home. And she says, no, I think I can help them with this. So she stayed back and had that phenomenology of innocence where she didn't appreciate the peril she was in. She didn't, when I asked her about this, she didn't realize she was a suspect until the very last moment. And then at five, six in the morning, they hand write a confession in Italian and get her to sign it. And she confesses. And then they take another confession a couple hours later. And as soon as she as soon as she has a little sense of mind and she's left alone, she immediately realizes, oh, my God, I DNA splattered all over the crime scene. They find the guy who did it, and he has a criminal background, and he fled to Germany right after the crime. I mean, they got the guy, but they would not overturn her confession, and they proceeded to prosecute

her and the boyfriend, despite having DNA all over the place from another person. By the time she got to trial, and this tells a lot about confession cases, by the time she got to trial, it wasn't just her confession. Her friends turned against her. New witnesses came out of the woodwork. Forensic analysts were misinterpreting forensic evidence in ways that suggested her guilt. It illustrates some other point about confessions. When somebody confesses to a crime they didn't commit, all of a sudden it corrupts. That confession, once the word gets out, corrupts other witnesses,

corrupts forensic scientists. And so by the time a confessor, an innocent confessor, gets into the courtroom, they face a mountain of evidence, which is really nothing but a house of cards built on the back of a false confession. And that's what happened to her. She appeared in court, and all of a sudden, there's this parade of lying and non-credible witnesses and forensic examiners who are not correctly interpreting the data. And you know, her case has ultimately been resolved. Italy's Supreme Court said so, declared her innocent, was critical of the prosecutor for the case to begin with.

Yeah, but but she went through hell. And and part of the reason she went through hell was the constant surprise of witness after witness who appeared in light of her confession. Yeah, that's a quite a quite a emblematic story of exactly what you write about in the book. I'll remind you, the book is duped why innocent people confess and why we believe their confessions. We've been speaking with the book's author, Saul Cassin. Really appreciate your time today.

It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. for free. Our sponsor, Aura, scans the dark web for your personal information, login credentials, social security number and sends you alerts. Sign up and you could be shocked to see how many alerts you get on Aura. One of our team members found his login credentials in three different data breaches. Now, of course, he changed his passwords right away. I've told you before about one of my accounts getting hacked. Scary feeling. But Aura also does so much more by automatically requesting the removal of information from data search engines, giving you fast alerts on suspicious credit inquiries. Aura has password management, malware protection for all of your devices. And Aura also helps you manage

what your kids can do on their devices by restricting certain apps. It's really like a Swiss army knife of online security. And you can try Aura for free for two weeks at Aura dot com slash Pacman. That's A-U-R-A dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Fox News did a town halls with the Ohio Senate candidates. That's Democrat Tim Ryan, currently a congressman and Republican candidate J.D. Vance. During the Tim Ryan portion of the town hall, Tim Ryan did not back down from the Fox News mob. And this is really interesting to see. It's it's quite impressive. In fact, this seems to be a stacked audience.

Some may be Democrats, but the lion's share of the noise certainly was not pro-democratic. That's for sure. And Tim Ryan turned what were initially boos into at least some cheers on the topic of January 6th. Take a look at this. Listen to the initial jeers and look at how he turns it around. And we'll talk about what he does. They storm the Capitol on January 6th. They beat up 140 police officers, killed, killed one. OK, they killed what they killed. We all we all we all watched. We all watched that. We all watched it. OK, so they boo. But here he turns it around. Yeah, we all watch the video and I.

Let him finish, please. And I work. I'm happy to have this conversation. I'm not afraid to have this conversation. These are the conversations we need to have in this country. I welcome you guys. Let's just be respectful. But I'm not afraid to stand here and defend my position. On January 6th, 140, I sit on the subcommittee that funds the Capitol Police. These are my friends.

140 of them got hurt, and some of them still can't go back to work because they were beat up with lead pipes, they were sprayed with pepper spray, they were beaten with flagpoles, okay? They were trying to overthrow the government. They were trying to stop the peaceful transition of the government. What else were they doing there? Are they going to kill Mike Pence, right? Want to kill Nancy Pelosi? Now somebody's beating up Nancy Pelosi's husband with a hammer. J.D. Vance raised money for the insurrectionists. He made several social media posts to raise money for them. Now, again, I don't care what your politics are, but Americans

should say no. We have to say no to that. We're going to try to get as many questions. All right. So a smattering of applause. What turned the tide here for him? It's a couple of different things. Number one, Tim Ryan stood his ground. He stood his ground. He said, hold on. I'll go up against any of you on the facts, but let's do it respectfully.

He backed up what he was saying. It helped that he was telling the truth. And then he found common ground with the audience. And we're going to have I've told you all before, we're very close to releasing a white paper about how to have conversations about politics that can be contentious. We're going to give it away for free. We've been working on it for weeks, giving it away soon. And finding common ground is a really critical part of this.

One other element to this, Tim Ryan also getting applause when talking about his answer on energy policy tax that President Biden mentioned a tax on oil companies profits. Are you for that? I haven't looked at exactly what he wants to do. I think the fact that oil companies are making huge profits and having stock buybacks right now, while average person here is paying nearly four dollars a gallon. I think that's wrong. And I think we need to crack down.

We need to crack down on it. We're going to move on. So I mean, listen, Tim Ryan is not the most progressive, but he was able to find common ground with a lot of these folks. And I think that that is instructive in many ways. Unfortunately, if you believe the polling, J.D. Vance is now up by about two point two points on average. The important message is if you vote in Ohio, make damn sure that you participate in this

election because Tim Ryan could win this thing. Donald Trump's sort of newish spokeswoman, Liz Harrington, appeared yesterday on the water cooler on Real America's Voice with this guy, David Brody. She was asked to comment about Joe Biden's speech and also about the upcoming midterms. And this is a prototypical example. This is the textbook example of a priori reasoning. OK, forget about everything I just said. Just let's listen to the clip and then I'll explain to you what I mean. Somehow he thinks he's going to be this last minute savior for his party at the last moment with the midterms. Why is Biden doing this tonight, Liz?

Speaker 5 You know, that's a very good question because anyone who knows it's not that great of a question Speaker 4 is he's such a drag on the Democrat Party and any chance they have, which we know they don't come next Tuesday. They don't have a chance unless they cheat. As you documented very well, there's so many cases already of just irregularities and misdeeds. That's not true. Evidence of the corruption in our election process.

And that's the only hope that they have. Because the fact is, Democrats do not like democracy. They don't want the voters to decide. They want to decide for the voters. That's not really the way it went in 2020, is it, Liz? And look at how that has worked out. They're destroying the country. They've destroyed our border.

They've destroyed the economy. They destroyed our energy independence. All of these things that were so hard fought by President Donald J. Trump to put America first, they're destroying and the voters know it and they know they're going to lose come election day unless they do some of these outrageous things that they did in 2020 and do it on such a scale that we've never seen before, because they're going to have to overcome really this mammoth red wave that's coming. Yeah, this is red alert stuff, folks.

They're doing it again. They are doing the fascist authoritarian thing. If they win, then they must have cheated. Democrats, that is a priori. Now, a priori means reasoning which proceeds from a theoretical deduction rather than from observations or experiences. So what does that mean in this context? They're not observing actual cheating or waiting until Election Day to see how the election goes. And then if there really are irregularities or cheating,

then you go, oh, this is what happened. It's theoretical. It's in advance, absent any actual data or empirical reality. If they win, they cheated regardless of what we actually observe. And of course, they add on to it another classic authoritarian wrinkle, which is to claim you observed the thing anyway, even though you didn't. Oh, there's already irregularities. The irregularities we're seeing now are, for example, armed individuals hanging around Arizona drop boxes, right wingers trying to intimidate voters. The only irregularities we're seeing are from people on Liz Harrington's side.

These folks are disgusting and they're delusional, but they're dangerous. And we've talked about all of the reasons why. And it should really scare the daylights out of all of us, because what they tried to do in 2020, they might get close enough in 2022 to then really be able to do it in 2024. We'll have all the results, but these folks will say it's rigged if they don't win. And that's really scary. We have a voicemail number and that number is two one nine two. David P. Here is a caller. I this is one of the guy who calls in his connections. Always very strange. It sounds like a 1930s phone connection. It's very interesting. He very strongly and powerfully denounces paywalls and reminds me to remind you we produce the show and you can watch it for free.

This is a good guy. David, I know you've got a lot going on in your in your show. Yes, you've got a lot of stuff to get through and limit time, and maybe that's part of the reason why you slipped up this time. You forgot to mention, when you ask people to subscribe, remind them this is not something they have to pull a credit card out for. Correct. They can go on their computer and subscribe and not worry about having a paywall. It's free.

You forgot to mention that. So I'm reminding you. A suggestion. That's exactly right. And of course, this gentleman is talking about podcast and YouTube folks. We're giving it away. We're giving it away. The entire YouTube show is free. You subscribe free on YouTube. The audio podcast is free. Now, the way we pay for that is there's advertising.

And if you want to get rid of the advertising, you get a membership on my website. Speaking of the membership, the membership gets you the bonus show on today's bonus show. We will talk about the FCC commissioner calling for a tick tock ban. Wow. We will talk about how predatory gambling has helped the lottery reach this sky high jackpot that so many people have written to me about. And we have polling from Pennsylvania, which finds seven percent of Pennsylvania voters have been dissuaded from voting for John Fetterman because of his stroke. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Sign up at Join Pacman dot com.