The David Pakman Show - 1/14/25: The fires breaking MAGA's brains, radioactive special counsel report released

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

-- On the Show: -- Marc Elias, voting rights attorney and founder of Democracy Docket, joins David to discuss the future of opposition to MAGA, what to expect in terms of autocracy and authoritarianism, and much more -- Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene suggests weather be manipulated to put out the California fires -- Lara Trump puts forward ridiculous and absurd claims about California fires, water availability and more -- Special Counsel Jack Smith's final report says that Donald Trump would have been convicted had the criminal case gone forward -- Donald Trump gets an easy interview from Newsmax's Rob Schmitt and still manages to mangle it -- Audio of Donald Trump's courtroom statement at his sentencing is released, and it's completely absurd -- Melania Trump confirms, in a pathetic interview with Fox News, that she will accomplish nothing during her second run as First Lady -- On the Bonus Show: Gaza ceasefire deal is in sight, Democrats blast maneuver to throw out 60,000 ballots in NC Supreme Court race, TikTok users flocking to new Chinese social media app ahead of possible ban, much more... 💪 Alpha Progression: Get 20% OFF your 1st month or year at https://alphaprogression.com/pakman 🛍️ BuildYourStore: Free AI store builder (w/ 3mo Shopify plan for $1) at https://buildyourstore.ai/pakman 🍷 Naked Wines: Use code PAKMAN to get 6 bottles for $39.99 at https://nakedwines.com/pakman 🥦 Lumen lets you master your metabolism. GET 20% OFF at https://lumen.me/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- Pakman Discord: https://davidpakman.com/discord -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave a Voicemail: (219)-2DAVIDP

welcome to the show everybody the California fires have really done something serious to the brains of many in maga now of course we've already talked about the human cost and the animal cost and the environmental cost and the financial cost of these fires. But another cost of sorts seems to be the destruction that these fires are causing to the

synapses in the brains of people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lara Trump, Laura Trump, Laura Trump, you know, that the woman, um, something seems to be malfunctioning. And I want to talk about a little bit of that today. A Marjorie Taylor Greene is bravely demanding that no, not a Jewish space laser, but rather weather manipulation be used to simply stop the fires. It's sort of like the folks who said, listen, Trump should just ban the virus and then we could be done with the pandemic. Uh, similarly, similarly, nonsensically, um, Marjorie Taylor green is saying, just use the weather manipulation techniques that

are out there to end the fires once and for all. Of course, Marjorie Taylor green's meteorological expertise seems to rival a broken umbrella in a windstorm. Her latest bout of cloudy thinking is as follows with regard to cloud seeding. She put out an excretion on her ex account where she said, quote, why don't they use geoengineering like cloud seeding to bring rain down on the wildfires in California? They know how to do it. Of course, there's one problem with that, which is that to seed clouds to cause rain, you need clouds. And of course, the problem

is that there are no clouds in LA other than what might look like clouds, which is the absolutely horrifying residue from the fires themselves and smoke and ash, et cetera. Part of the reason that we're in this mess to begin with is the drought in Los Angeles. Wildfires tend to happen when there are no clouds. And of course, details like basic science and atmospheric reality don't phase the Congresswoman who previously used the term Jewish space lasers. Now, Bryce Jones, who's a meteorologist, succinctly said, keep politicians away from weather. And, uh, you know, I'm not a bumper sticker guy myself. I don't, I don't, uh, I don't

use or put bumper stickers on my car, but keep politicians away from weather is, is one that I'd probably consider. Now, of course, this is not Marjorie Taylor green's first weather related meltdown. She previously claimed that the federal government conjured Hurricane Milton as if FEMA under Biden has some kind of hurricane machine collecting dust in a basement somewhere. And even Joe Biden couldn't resist calling those antics stupid. This is the bigger theme that we are seeing right wing politicians and right wing media blaming everything but the climate crisis for these fires, diversity policies and lesbians to blame a fire equipment donations to Ukraine that would otherwise have been available in Los Angeles. Why not? It's sort of like a conspiracy buffet, endless one. And Marjorie Taylor green is the star chef of these conspiracy theories. Now we sort of have a twofold problem.

Not only do they identify the problems incorrectly, they also identify the solutions incorrectly seed clouds that simply do not exist. So that's Marjorie Taylor green net. Let's now look at another sort of classic of modern MAGA, which is a reverse causality. Lara Trump has gifted us another entry for things that maybe sound smart until you think about them for two seconds. And this time, Lara Trump is just stumped, baffled, truly by the connection between climate change and dry reservoirs as relevant to the California fires that we are currently dealing with. Lara Trump says, I want someone to explain to me how could climate change possibly be to blame even in part for

what's happening in California given that the reservoirs are dry, which I know you're probably thinking, David, that doesn't make any sense and you would be completely correct. Let's listen to what Lara Trump had to say. No one wants to take any blame for anything out in California. Instead they're blaming climate change. I would really love for someone out there to explain to me how climate change is the reason that the reservoirs were dry, that there's no water in the fire hydrants. Let me explain. OK, climate change disrupts rainfall patterns and makes droughts more intense. If you have more intense droughts

that leaves the reservoirs empty, that that's how it's completely backwards thinking from Trump. It's not even really rocket science. It's barely sixth grade science. If climate change patterns overall reduce rainfall and extend droughts, reservoirs will have less water inside of them. That's that's the whole story, really. And this is the sort of thing that they are pushing without understanding any of it. They are committed to. We will not in any way acknowledge even the mere possibility that climate change could affect what's going on here. Now, this doesn't mean that raking forest floors and forest management isn't something we should do and hasn't been done to the degree that it should be in California. Sure. Let's consider that. Let's consider zoning and the

sorts of building permits that were approved, maybe in places where they shouldn't have been approved, given proximity to and what could consider everything. But we've got to consider climate change as an aggravating factor as well. Now, here is Lara Trump, you know, her father-in-law, Donald Trump, obsessed with, uh, domestic, uh obsessed with domestic hot water, water pressure and all the appliances. And I guess Lara Trump has learned from him. She says boldly and courageously, people want to be able to wash their clothes. You're exactly right.

This is the kind of stuff that drove people away from the Democrat Party. People just want to be able to wash their clothes and only wash their clothes one time. Sean, they want their washing machine to work, their dishwasher to work. And my gosh, there you go. People want to be able to do laundry, a truly bold stance. Who among us is against laundry? But the twist, of course, is that if you ignore climate change as a cause, you're not going to help people wash their clothes. In fact, if you ignore climate change, you'll have more severe droughts, more water shortages, and eventually a world where laundry is really the least of our concerns, not the greatest of our concerns. And the real irony

here, of course, is that it's not Democrats making life harder for Americans. It's this non-thinking right wing obsession with pretending that climate change isn't real and lesbians, DEI and woke are the real cause of the fires. And voters are left wondering, why is it that we all of a sudden are running out of water? And Lara Trump's comments, it's just like the perfect example of Republican strategy. You take a problem, a real problem, and you distract from it with oversimplified bad faith arguments. Climate change won't go away even if they make these arguments. We also shouldn't go away. By the way, we should continue to push for policies that actually prioritize solutions based on on on real problems. And it's very similar to Elon Musk's

comments yesterday where we reviewed a tweet from Elon Musk where he said, hold on a second. If climate change is the problem, you should have more wildfires where there are more forests. For example, Texas has twice the forests as California. So Texas should have twice the wildfires of California. Pretty simple, right? Couldn't possibly be climate change because you don't see that. And as we talked about yesterday, and does Elon Musk really not get it? We talked about yesterday that Texas has different vegetation than California. Texas has different weather than California. Texas has different winds than California. Much of Texas is not coastal in the way that the area afflicted by the current fires is

coastal in California. Everything's different about Texas. So these are sort of distractions and tangential speech. And what we see is that the fires are really bringing out the absolute worst and most ignorant in people. Somebody hopefully will be able to really focus on what is the actual cause and how do we solve it. And as I've said for a very long time now, if you don't identify the causes, you can't possibly identify the solutions. And that's exactly where Republicans are right now saying that we've got to get rid of Gavin new scum. And then all of a sudden we

would solve the fire problem. We should manipulate the weather to seed clouds that don't exist per Marjorie Taylor green. Then you would solve the problem. None of these are solutions because they're not even acknowledging the problem. All right. Let me remind you once again, we are now just 11 days from the deadline to submit for your free goodies with my forthcoming book. I don't want a bunch of upset people on March 25th and I'm continuing to get emails from people very confused about what's going on. If you pre-order my forthcoming book and submit your receipt at davidpacman.com slash free book stuff by January 25th, you will get a bunch of free stuff when the book comes out. Okay. If you miss that deadline, January 25th to submit at davidpakman.com slash free book stuff, you won't

get the free stuff and I won't be able to do anything about it. It's all being handled by my publisher. I will have none of the goodies here at the studio that we can send you. I will have none of the goodies here at the studio that we can send you. I will have only one option, which is to say, I'm so sorry you missed the deadline. Okay, so preorder the book anywhere. Preorder any version of the book, audio book, Kindle paperback of a hardcover book, whatever you want. Go to David Pakman dotcom slash free book stuff. As of last week, we had 5,000 pre-orders for the book and only 2000 submissions for the free stuff. Okay. So I want to prevent, you know, sort of

like a Grinch stole Christmas moment. Um, please submit it no later than 1159. on January 25th. And finally, Monday, MLK Day, Inauguration Day, we are doing a huge membership discount special, hoping to set a new high watermark for a single day membership drive. If you've been dabbling in thinking about maybe getting a membership, get on my newsletter at David Pakman dot com or by emailing info at David Pakman dot com. And then Monday Memorial Monday MLK Day Inauguration Day, you'll get an email telling you how to sign up at a drastic discount for a membership. All right. All that being said, let's take a very quick break. We'll look at the blockbuster report from special counsel, Jack Smith, and much, much more. The new year is here and there is no better time to commit to your fitness goals. Alpha progression is the ultimate science backed workout app to help you crush your goals in the gym with fully customizable plans. Why choose alpha progression? the David Pakman show at a fraction of the cost.

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too little too late moments of this political cycle. A special counsel, Jack Smith has put out a report saying if we had gone forward with this case, Donald Trump would have been convicted. A Jack Smith's report on Donald Trump is objectively one of the most damning documents in recent political history. And it lays out in detail that Trump committed crimes to overturn the 2020 election. This is not hush money. Okay. These are crimes so clear that the evidence could have convicted him in court.

But the catch of course, and Trump knew it and we knew it was coming, is that because Donald Trump won the 2024 election, the Department of Justice was unable to prosecute him. The man who tried to end democracy is shielded by the very office he tried to steal. It's a sort of sick irony. And of course, as we've asked before, if the law doesn't apply to the president, then what are we really doing here? At that point, you've essentially made Trump King. Kings are above the law.

Kings can do whatever they want with no consequences. In theory, the United States of America is not supposed to have Kings and the idea that a president can break laws and incite violence and still not face consequences because they got elected again is not only completely antithetical to the way this country was created, but it also sets an absolutely terrifying precedent. Think about how other countries handle situations like this. Usually, ideally, maybe better said, when someone stages a coup, they're arrested and tried and in theory thrown in jail if they are convicted of what they did. It's it's sort of common sense.

If you try to overthrow the government, no matter who you are, you deserve to lose your freedom with due process, of course, but apparently not here. We are special in the United States of America. We didn't just let Trump avoid accountability. We let him run for president again. And now we're going to be stuck with him in office, unable to do anything about the crimes that he has already committed. And if you look at the report and I encourage you to, to, to read articles about it, Jack

Smith's report really shows how deeply Trump corrupted the system. He encouraged the mob on January 6th. He spread lies about election fraud to both further encourage the mob, but also create a context of sort of deniability that there are really good reasons here for folks to be so angry. He weaponized his social media following to intimidate witnesses and to drag out the legal proceedings. And here we are sort of acting as though, well, he did this stuff, but he won. So that's it. It's no accountability whatsoever. We are so far removed from reality that instead of holding Trump accountable,

we're letting him hold the highest office in the land once again. And the kicker is, of course, Donald Trump's Trump's own reaction to this very report where he says that it's deranged prosecutors and mentioning that he won the election in a landslide in 2024, which has no bearing whatsoever on the criminality of previous acts. And it's the same playbook. It's you deny and you deflect and you distract and you blame other people. But this really isn't about whether Trump believes his own nonsense. It's just will the system stand up to him and the system is not standing up to him. The system has failed.

He knew based on inner circle reporting that is get out of jail free card is winning the 2024 election. That's how he escapes accountability. And he did it. And, uh, Trump is, uh, getting away with it. And it's a nation that is allowing him to get away with it. That doesn't mean you specifically or me or any one person allowed him to get away with it, but it is a system whereby winning, he gets away with it. And if the United States is supposed to be a democracy, then presidents should be accountable to the law like everybody else. Otherwise, what's the point? Then we're no longer

a democracy. We really are more of a monarchy where the king can do whatever he wants as long as he continues in power. At the end of the day, this report from Jack Smith is more than just an indictment of Donald Trump. It's really an indictment of the country. And it's a reminder that we have the idea of checks and balances and we have the idea of due process and we have the idea of accountability and democracy. But it doesn't work unless we make it work. And maybe the checks and balances and the safeguards really are not as robust as the framers of the constitution intended them to be. In fact, I think it's clear that they're not. And right now where we end up is just watching as this entire thing unravels.

What is the hope? What's the silver lining? What's the, I mean, I know we're, we're looking for like, what can we even really do at this point? We can't let this scare us into submission. It should terrify and motivate us into opposition. And that's what I'm going to be talking to Mark Elias about. Donald Trump was given the easiest, most pathetic softball interview on Newsmax, and he still managed to mangle it into a disoriented, glitchy mess. Trump went on Newsmax last night and was interviewed by friend of Trump, Rob Schmidt. Rob Schmidt has never done a serious interview of Trump ever, ever, ever.

And this also wasn't one. But despite Schmidt teeing up softball after softball for Donald Trump, Trump still managed to screw it up. Much of the subject matter was about California and the fires. Trump, of course, focusing on personal grievances, ad hominem attacks against Democrats and confused statements about things Trump doesn't really understand. Take a list. They they're going to try and blame the fires in Los Angeles. They'll probably try and blame us for that.

You know, I was when I was president, I demanded that this guy, the governor, accept the water coming from the north from way up in Canada. And now remember what he's saying, because this is nonsense. I'll explain it in a moment. And, you know, the north, it flows down through and right through Los Angeles. I mean, massive millions and millions of gallons of water a week, probably I think even a day, massive amounts coming out from the mountains from the melts. And even without it, even during the summer, it's a natural flow of water. If you're getting confused, if this is not lining up with geography, as you understand it, you're right. And I'll explain it in a moment.

They would have so much water, they wouldn't have known what to do with it. You would have never had the fires. People would have been able to sprinkle their lawns and everything else. You know, the problem is it's so dry. It was always so dry there. And it's just a it's just a mess. They could have they could have, you know, maintained their big water, quick geography refresher. Water does not magically tumble down from Canada to Los Angeles. The California water system is complex. It relies on aqueducts and infrastructure, not some fantasy imaginary flow of natural water cascading from the north. And of course, Trump continuing to claim that there would be so much water that they wouldn't know what to do with it is completely absurd. California's droughts are caused by climate change. They're caused by overuse,

not a stubborn governor saying, don't give me your beautiful flowing Canadian water. It's just not comporting with the facts. And of course, Rob Schmidt does nothing other than just not along a Trump then raising the topic of Austria. Yes, Austria. Trump's heard of Austria. That's a win, but he seems very otherwise confused. When I was visited by the presidents of places like Finland and Austria and others, they would talk about it because we used to have to give so much money, mostly to California for the fires. And they said, we have a much more flammable tree, very good wood, but very flammable. Good wood, very flammable. In Austria. And they said, we don't have forest fires

and they rake their floor. You know, they rake the leaves off every, uh, I think twice every year and they rake the leaves and they have a nice and spick and span. If you look at it, spick and span, there you go. Okay. So as I said before, we should consider, we should evaluate, we should explore the degree to which forest management can to a to to some extent mitigate wildfire risk. But Trump's making all of this up. Austria is not solving wildfires by raking leaves. They do forest management. It involves controlled burns.

It involves sustainable logging practices, a concept way more sophisticated than Donald Trump's leaf blower fantasy. And also when you when you say sustainable logging right away, they go, no, that's the green new scam. And the repeated absurdity of this claim about raking leaves is is almost impressive. Now, then it gets very dark during this interview where Trump talks about bodies that only dogs will be able to find vast miles and miles of houses just burned to a crisp. There's nothing standing and they're going to find many bodies. You know, only the dogs will find them, right? You know, our German shepherds will, they can, they can pick out the ashes immediately. It's amazing. But we're

going to find many bodies and many more, many more dead. Instead of focusing on the systemic failures behind the tragedy or something useful, Trump dives into tangents about bodies and German shepherds and ashes. I mean, it's just like a callous spectacle. Uh, and then finally Rob Schmidt sort of considering, uh, or adding his own opinion to this about, uh, watering lawns, which again, just like a big, I guess, topic of concern to Rob more than 200 billion every year to that state government, and they still can't figure out water. You still can't water your lawn in the fall when you live in Los Angeles.

I lived out there for a few years. They're telling people to take short showers. They have an ocean right there, and they can't figure out the most basis things that people need with $200 billion a year. Yep. It's not believable. Why is this clip interesting? Well, it's interesting because in all of these conversations

about fire and water and the Pacific ocean and Los Angeles, they keep bringing this thing up about, you think you can water your lawn with seawater and this gets us to desalination. And there's a clip of Neil deGrasse Tyson. I don't think it's a new clip. It's of him explaining to Joe Rogan why desalination just doesn't make sense. And he explains it's simply a matter of energy. It's how much energy do we need to remove the salt from saltwater and what does that energy cost and where does that energy come from right now? Doesn't mean forever. Right now, desalination is expensive and energy intensive and you don't water your lawn with

saltwater. That's why despite being near the Pacific ocean, there's no connection between the Pacific ocean and water use restrictions in Los Angeles. This is why most coastal cities don't just hook up a hose to the Pacific ocean. It's not a lack of creativity. It's basic science. So this interview should have been a softball for Trump and this really is a preview of what we are, I believe, to expect during Trump's presidency,

complete and total softball for Trump. He somehow manages to fumble every single talking point from imaginary Canadian rivers flowing directly into Los Angeles is water supply, leaf raking legends in Austria. And it's a reminder that when Trump speaks, reality takes a backseat. We're all thinking back to the crazy bleach injection, COVID press conference and the nonsense that was associated with it. This is what we are up against for the next four years. We need a strong opposition. Mark Elias is going to talk to us about that. is a subscription service that just connects you directly to the world's finest independent winemakers. So you can get award winning wine delivered straight to your door with my code Pacman. You can get six bottles for just thirty nine ninety nine. My girlfriend likes white wine.

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between a couple of weeks and five years ago. I mean, you know, I'm losing track of time, but after the election, of course, about the difference between the resistance of Trump term one and the need for an opposition in Trump term two. One of the things folks have been writing to me about, which I wanted to pose to you is, do you think to a degree resistance, opposition, whatever, right? We figure it out. But to a degree, a lot of the opposition is going to really be predicated

on the things Trump's going to screw up more so than anything we do. Or like, where is the balance, I guess, between our organization and the inevitable screw ups of Trump? Yeah. So I think there is some truth to that, but only some truth. There's no question that in the electoral space, one of the reasons why you oftentimes see the out party do better in the midterm elections is for precisely that reason, right? Which is that setting aside Donald Trump, setting aside Joe Biden, setting aside Barack Obama, whoever it is, you know, that you tend to see that the faults of the incumbent administration get revisited in the next set of elections. And certainly Donald Trump is capable of being worse than normal, than most presidents. And therefore

you will, some of what you may see in terms of an opposition or opposition success will be the function of Donald Trump screwing up or going overboard. However, that said, part of what I was writing about the need for new opposition has to do with the need for structure, institutions and a timeline. And so, you know, the fact is that the Democratic Party, the left has under invested in those more permanent institutions. You know, I've been a big fan of yours, a big fan of others in the in the left of center space on YouTube, because part of what you are building is a permanent infrastructure for there to be an opposition. You may or may not consider yourself part of it, but it is a space in which people who are part of it can come and get their message out. And that is irrespective of whether Donald Trump is successful or unsuccessful. I've talked about the need to develop policies that are not just oppositional policies to Donald Trump in the moment, but are sort of big tent policies

that can help rebuild a winning coalition around elections that are not dependent just on, you know, Donald Trump or some politician failing in the moment. So sure, you have to take advantage of the moments that are offered to you, and I think Donald Trump will offer them. But there are other things that we have to do, uh, that are more structural and more longterm that don't depend on one election cycle or one, uh, you know, one failure or one president. Does the left opposition need a leader? And the context of the question is at a sort of structural level, my experience has been that the left, number one, we don't really idolize our elected officials in the way that the right sometimes does. You know, like I supported Bernie

in his primaries and then he lost. And then I supported whoever was the best match for my views, but I don't have any bumper stickers. I don't have any flags. I don't, you know, I just, I, I, I support and I vote and I talk, but we don't idolize in the same way. And so sometimes it seems like there's a natural antipathy to a leader of whatever movement this is going to be. Yeah. I don't think that you need a leader to have an opposition. I mean, I think if you look at, um you look at the way in which many political systems around the country work, I'm sorry, if you look at the way many political systems around the world work, I should say, you don't see just personality-driven oppositions. You oftentimes see programmatic oppositions or coalitional oppositions. So, you know, and I'm arguing,

frankly, in some respect for a coalitional opposition, you know, and I'm arguing, frankly, in some respect for a coalitional opposition, you know, which is why I talk about a big tent. There should be room for Bernie Sanders. There should be room for AOC. There should also be room for people who are more centrist, but who are committed to the fundamental values of liberal democracy and the left. So I don't think it has to be one leader. In fact, I think that that actually oftentimes makes opposition movements quite brittle, because when that leader falls in or out of favor, then the movement fails. I think, you know, you could argue, honestly, that, and I'm going to get myself in some trouble here, that the Dean coalition was more brittle than the Sanders coalition, you know, because the Dean

coalition in 2004 in the primary really did feel, and I was working, I should be clear for John Kerry, did very much feel like it was around a couple of people, whereas the Sanders coalition actually, and I worked again, full disclosure for Hillary Clinton, the Sanders coalition actually was a coalition. There were lots of there were it was sure he was a very important figure. He was the candidate. But there were lots of other people building it up and around it that it could it could be part of something larger. So I do think that there is that there is some virtue in not having a single leader. What are some of the strategies that would distinguish the opposition, the robust opposition

you want to see from maybe the resistance of Trump term one, like in really practical terms? Yeah. So this is a place where honestly I, I've always thought that Sanders was a better oppositional leader than a resistance leader. I'm not sure that the people who followed him would agree with me entirely. But because, you know, and Bernie Sanders is, by the way, a college professor of mine, so I've known him a very long time. And he is fundamentally, he has a programmatic approach to this, whether people agree with it or not. He has a very clear

set of policies that he thinks animates it. And I think that one of the things we need to do on the left is not necessarily agree on what the policies are, but frankly, we need to commit that we are going to look at the policies that have worked and extend them. We're going to look at the policies that haven't worked, and we're going to revise them. It is not the case that everything we thought was their solution in 1990 or in 2010 or even in 2020 is still the right solution today. And so I think that, you know, we cannot be intellectually lazy and just say okay the thing that we were advocating for uh in in you know in 2008 or 2016 is the same thing we need to advocate for today challenges change and oppositions when they're successful are dynamic they are dynamic in that they they incubate ideas they surface those ideas but they are also willing to shed ideas that have not worked

and so that's one of the things I'd like to see. The second is, I think the biggest thing that I think that I feel urgency around right now is independent media. It's one of the reasons why I really look forward to talking to you, because the fact is there are too few places for people to get out the word if they are oppositional leaders. And the New York Times is not your friend. It is basically a puzzles and games company that is getting into cooking. And that doesn't mean that you don't have some great reporters, but it is not the place to go if you want to build an opposition.

The Washington Post we have seen in utter collapse. But we see a lot of really strong independent media outlets out there that are, and influencers and, you know, people who cross genre. And that I think is as important right now to building the opposition as anything else. You would not have Trumpism if you did not have Rumble. You would not have Magism if you did not have Rumble. You would not have MAGAism if you did not have Steve Bannon. You would not have the modern Republican Party if you did not have the Daily Wire and Breitbart and a whole constellation of organizations and people who were able to platform and put out what I think are hateful messages and terrible messages, but, but serve as that. And, and, and we simply don't have that. If people think that going on for reads a Korea is the way to build an opposition rather than David Pakman, then you have just met the problem

that we have to confront on the other side of the, what should we do? There's like a collection of critiques that have started to become a little popular in enclaves of the left. And I want to just run a few of them by you to see if you think any of them are legitimate. Um, they take on, again, this isn't, these are not my arguments necessarily, but some of the ones that have been made, uh, not enough of a populist economic message as a generic criticism of the Harris campaign and democratic candidates, too much focus on pronouns, wokeness and DEI, a bad on the ground strategy when it just comes to the nuts and bolts of

how campaigns should be put together. Litmus tests that end up excluding people from what otherwise might be a bigger coalition on the left. Does any of this stuff ring true to you? I mean, look, one of the things I talked about in my piece on this was that we we should not have litmus tests like you should be able to. You know, we we I do not like the carping at that. I see in some places on the in the center at AOC. I think she is an important voice in the Democratic Party.

I never liked the carping we've seen against a lot of the really strong progressive politicians in the Democratic Party. They are bringing something important to the table. On the other hand, I don't think that we can say that people who have a more centrist approach to winning elections, we don't want them in the party. The fact is, what we need is a governing coalition. There will be plenty of time to hash out, you know, who gets what committee seat and whose office is bigger than who's on Capitol Hill. But unless there is, unless Democrats focus on retaking power, then you're not going to have any of that. So, so, you know, pointing fingers within the, the center left and left coalition to me is not productive. The second thing that you said that I have, that I've talked a lot about that I, that I do think is a fair critique is I think we need

to put on the table whether or not our tactics are working, you know, way. And in some respects, that's part of why I am so focused on independent media, because the fact is, I'm not sure that the whole debate about Joe Rogan is the right debate, right? The right debate is not why, you know, whether Kamala Harris should or should not have gone on one podcast. In some sense, it misses the point, right? It is a larger cultural question. And I'll give you a real life example from just the other day. Yeah. Joe Biden decided that he was going to write an op ed to sort of towards the end of his presidency to explain to explain, you know, an important reason why important points about his presidency. He placed it in The Washington Post. Now, I'm not here to attack Joe Biden and I'm not here to, like, dance on the grave of The Washington Post. Now, I'm not here to attack Joe Biden, and I'm not here to, like, dance on the grave of The Washington Post. But wherever the president of the United States posts something about his views, it's going to be picked up by the media.

So why on earth would you go to The Washington Post? I mean, forget about, like, whether you'd go to another independent media outlet. How about you just post it on the website of the White House, right? Every news outlet will cover it. Or post it on social media. Or post it on Medium. You know, or post it on Substack. Like, just, like, pick a neutral place. I mean, you know, if you're not willing to go to some, you know, a place like Democracy Dog, we'd always take it. Or come on David Pakman's show or his channels, I'm sure you would take it like just. But why why is your immediate reaction to go to The Washington Post? So I think that that the

tactics are not just whether door knocking is more important or less important, whether getting on, you know, whether buying more ads on on on on YouTube is more important than conventional television. To me, that is kind of still arguing around the margins. To me, the real question is, are we reaching people where they are? And the answer is we aren't because Democrats are too much avoiding the places where people actually go to consume content.

You know, it's funny. I'm going to tell an anecdote now that I haven't told before because it just transpired in the last week. A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to go with nine other online content creators to meet at the White House with senior administration officials and with the president himself. And I did that. And I've talked about that. My audience knows about that. And of course, I said what I've been saying for a while, which is, listen, starting to vet independent shows in October and still saying no to most of them and doing a couple interviews, but they don't really land because they're so structured and

there's so much concern. Meanwhile, Trump's hanging out for hours on all of these shows and creating this environment. This doesn't work. We need relationships. We should be having contacts with members of the house and Senate. environment. This doesn't work. We need relationships. We should be having contacts with members of the house and Senate. Okay. So we do that last week. I get a message on Instagram from a staffer for a sitting Senator. I won't, it doesn't matter what Senator I won't say. I don't want to, you know, kind of blow up their spot.

A Senator that we have tried to get on the show and we've never even gotten so much as a no thanks. Just quite literally they've never written back. And a staffer for this senator writes to me on Instagram and says, hey, we just put out this video. It's like a one minute, whatever. Doesn't even matter what the video is. We would love it if you would share it on behalf of the senator.

And it's sort of like we have no relationship. My audience would obviously excoriate me for just reposting this one minute fluff piece from a senator who's never been on the show. This is not how we build an ecosystem just starting. And I'm sure they launched that same request to 50 other influencers. Right. It represented such a fundamental 180 from the way that the right handled independent media for this last campaign. And I'm kind of like, we need such a turnaround here, Mark. I just don't know.

Right. But it is essential if we are going to build a new opposition. And this is why I keep, you know, presenting it in the way I do, David, as you can tell, and your audience can probably figure out, I am, you know, a pretty institutionalist Democrat. Now, a whole bunch of people are going to no doubt give you terrible comments for having me on. Right. I have represented Hillary Clinton. I have represented Barack Obama. I have represented John Kerry. I represented Kamala Harris. Right. I represented I lawyer. I litigated 60 cases for Joe Biden in the post election. So, you know, that's, that, that's who I am. But, but still I am here to say the single most important thing we can do other than not be pointing fingers within the coalition at each

other is to build an independent media ecosystem is because it isn't serving anyone. It's not serving people on the on the far left. It's not serving people in the center left. It's not serving Democrats. It's not serving progressives. It's not serving the pro-democracy community. It's not serving the pro-environmental community. It is literally starving us while, as you say, the other side has fully embraced their their their, you know, terrible equivalent. We've been speaking with Mark Elias. Check out Democracy Docket. Mark, always appreciate your insights. And, you know, a few more days and then it indeed will be opposition time.

And I look forward to continuing the conversation with you. Me, too. Anytime you'll have me, I'll be here. Once again, Donald Trump's cabinet picks are all about loyalty over expertise, election denier, Carrie Lake to lead voice of America. The government funded broadcaster meant to report unbiased news. Ground News found hundreds of articles covering this story, which is an app I've trusted for years to help me critically analyze the news I consume. Our sponsor, Ground News, doesn't tell you what to think.

They show you each news outlet's biases, credibility, financial incentives, so you know who's benefiting from the spin they put on each story. You can even filter out certain sources you don't want, so you can stay informed without getting buried in the noise. Trump is shaping our future in ways that will last decades. And if we're not paying attention, we will allow history to repeat itself. So stay engaged with ground news who is fixing what is breaking right in front of us. The trust and transparency in the media ground news is giving my audience 50% off the same

vantage plan that I use. All right. We have the full audio of Donald Trump's statement at his sentencing for New York's criminal court last week. And it is so funny to me because the right Sean Hannity and all of these others, they are portraying Donald Trump's six minute unhinged rant in court, um, as some kind of heroic performance and really sticking it to the man. Of course, Trump is the man. There's no, uh, a greater, uh, sort of representation of establishment power and crony capitalism and just inheriting wealth than Donald Trump.

But put that aside for a moment. We have the audio now and Fox News played it. Trump's sentencing statement is so absurd. It's sort of like a sir. This is a Wendy's kind of moment. Let's listen to some of it. And it is wild, wild that MAGA thinks this is heroic. Yes. Thank you, Your Honor. This has been a very terrible experience. I think it's been a tremendous setback for New York and the New

York court system. Uh, this is a case that Alvin Bragg did not want to bring. He thought it was, from what I read and from what I hear, inappropriately handled before he got there. Your Honor, I've heard things. A gentleman from a law firm came in and acted as a district attorney. And that gentleman, from what I heard, was a criminal or almost criminal in what he did. It was very inappropriate. It was a somebody involved with my political opponent. Part of the records that we're talking about, they're saying I just noticed where he said I was falsifying business records. Well, the falsification of, it's funny how Trump goes, you know, I just saw that they're

saying I was falsifying business records. Dude, you've been convicted on 34 counts months ago. And Trump's like, I, I'm hearing that they're saying I falsified business records, but I like, I really didn't, you know, I just, it's just not something I did. His records, as they say, it was calling a legal expense in the books where everybody could see them, a legal expense. In other words, that legal fees or legal expense were put down as legal expense by accountants. They weren't put down by me. They were put down by accountants. I didn't call them construction, concrete work. I didn't call them electrical work. I didn't call them. They called a legal fee or a legal expense, a legal expense. And for this, I got indicted.

Notice that this is the same argument Trump's been making for years and like we're way beyond it already. It's incredible, actually. Now if you look, my attorney alluded to it. The top legal scholars and legal pundits in this country, the ones that are quoted all the time on television. Yeah, like my friends on Fox News is what I mean. Making their views felt and highly respected people have said everyone, virtually everyone

that I know, I haven't seen any to the contrary, not one. And none of these people are not exactly friends of mine, to put it mildly. But they all said this is a case that should have never been brought. It's an injustice of justice. Very respected Jonathan Turley, Andy McCarthy, Judge David Rifkin, a wonderful man who just passed away, by the way. Totally unbiased, objective people. Greg Jarrett, Ellie Honig from CNN of all places.

CNN said that. Paul Ingrassian, Alan Dershowitz. They all said this is not a case that should be brought. It's not. Think about it. Legal expenses are think about legal expenses are down as legal expenses and and I get indicted for business records. Everybody should be so accurate. It's been a political witch hunt. It was done.

By the way, for large swaths of this, Trump's Trump appeared remotely in the court and his video just is totally frozen. And it just adds to the sort of Kafkaesque aspects of this. You damaged my reputation so that I'd lose the election. And obviously that didn't work. And the people of our country got to see this firsthand because they watched the case in your courtroom. They got to see this firsthand and then they voted and I won and got the largest number of votes by far of any Republican candidate in history. And one, as you know, all seven swing states, one conclusively, all seven swing states. Of course, the margin in Michigan has very little bearing on whether Trump committed 34

criminal acts in New York. But I know in Trump's mind they are related. And you know what? In a way, they're related in the real world because Trump knew winning the election was a proxy to getting out of jail free. And that's exactly what happened. So can we say he's wrong that winning Michigan does relate to this case? I mean, it ended up relating and won the popularity, the popular vote by millions and millions of votes. And they've been watching your trial. So they understood it. I wasn't allowed to use the lawyer client privilege or the reliance on counsel. I had a lawyer that made this deal and he admitted that. And he was also a totally discredited person.

We weren't allowed to use the information from the Southern District that totally discredited him. It wasn't allowed to be put in. And that was terrible, unbelievable. And this is a man who's got no standing. He's been disbarred on other matters, unrelated unrelated and he was allowed to talk as though he were George Washington, but he's not George Washington. He shouldn't have been allowed. The Southern District did a book of approximately 28 pages where they I've never seen anything like it. They excoriated if you wouldn't let it be put into evidence.

So he was able to testify as a witness. Anyway, listen, there's two, I'm not going to subject you to two additional minutes. It's the same me, me, me. I've been treated so unfairly when in reality it's Trump that has gotten so many benefits and the, the sort of cherry on top of these special benefits, naturally, we all realize is that now his sentence is an unconditional dismissal without any jail time, probation or anything like it. Buckle up, because this is the sort of, you know, the most privileged and specially treated snowflakes are getting ready to argue for the next four years

that they are actually the biggest victims and no one's been treated more unfairly. And if you expect that to be bad, I hate to tell you that what we're going to see from the first lady's office is probably even worse. Fox News build a completely worthless interview with incoming first lady Melania Trump as an important blockbuster interview. And all we learned from that interview is that an accidental grammatical error. They are going to continue pretending was the deliberate name of a program. I'll explain that in a moment and that Melania Trump will accomplish just as little her second time as the first lady as she did the first.

Here is incoming first lady Melania Trump explaining on Fox News they are going back to be best, be best. Take a look. I will continue with the best and also I will expand the best. Okay. I need to, this is Melania Trump. I get that English is not her first language. Okay. I really need people to understand this. When people hear B, what do you mean be best? Do you mean be the best? No, they, they mean be best. It's almost beyond belief. They accidentally got the grammar wrong. At some point, Melania must have said, let's call it be best. Apparently, no one

had the courage to say. It's be the best, be the best. And so they went with this grammatical atrocity and they're just sticking with it because it's like when you get in too deep, no one wants to go. Listen, by the way, this thing we've been talking about, be best now for seven years. It's a grammatical farce. It's be the best. So nobody tells her and they just continue. Yeah, yes, yes, Madam First Lady. Be best. Of course, I started the first in the first administration. I didn't have much support from anyone.

I invited all of the streaming platforms to the White House. I had the roundtable and I didn't have much support from them. And imagine no one supported me in what we could do in those years if they will rally behind me and teach the children and do protect them about the social media and their mental health. I will continue with. OK, so anyway, more of like I'm just the biggest victim. I was doing such great stuff with Be Best and nobody supported me. The media didn't support me. It was like the whole project was unintelligible. That's why she didn't get the support she claims she wanted. One other interesting moment. There's this propaganda documentary

about Melania that I think is being co-released with Amazon. There was a 40 million dollar licensing fee for it. I don't know how much of that went to Melania Trump, but it was a 40 million dollar deal. And she was asked, why did you decide to make a documentary about your life? Which is like an unintentionally hilarious question. It's like, oh, there's a documentary about my life. Why? That's not the way in which Ainsley Earhart meant it. But but it is funny. Here is Melania's explanation as to why that happened.

And it's it's if there's anything Melania has learned from Trump, it's this casual self aggrandizement where she's a legend in her own mind. Well, the book was such a success and I'm very proud and I get so many messages and letters how they enjoy the book and they would love my fans and people would love to hear more from me. So I had an idea to, it turned out everyone thinks I'm awesome and they were just like, we need to hear more from Melania. So I decided to make a propaganda film. To make a movie, to make a film about my life. My life is incredible. It's incredibly busy. And I told my agent, you know, I have this idea. So please, you know, go out and make a deal for me. We started the production in November and we are shooting right now.

Imagine being Ainsley Earhart. I think that's who this is. And having to smile and pretend this is interesting. It's just it's so wacky. So it's a day to day life. What I'm doing, what kind of responsibilities I have, people they don't really know and they will see it. It's day to day from transition team to moving to the White House, packing, establishing my team. Having her decide which sweaters of barons go to the White House is just, it'll change your life irreversibly.

For the worse, obviously. First lady office, moving into the White House, what it takes to. Do you realize what it takes to have a team move you from your Manhattan penthouse to the white house? It just, you would not believe the amount of work it is for everybody else to move her there, which by the way, reports are, she's not moving to the white house. The reporting is she's going to live in New York, make the residents your home to hire the people that you need. So it's a snapshot

of what it takes to move back into the White House. I don't think a first lady has ever done this. Yeah, no, because it's so stupid. I love that. I'm not aware of any first lady ever creating a propaganda film about her completely privileged and coddled life. It's a very, it's a very interesting PR move. Uh, Mrs. Trump, so fascinating. So this is the sort of stuff that we are going to expect. Ego mania at the center of all of it. Uh, inauguration is Monday.

That's where we are on the bonus show today. Us officials say that a Gaza ceasefire deal is now in sight. Who will take credit for it? You know who the orange guy is going to try. Secondly, Democrats are going right after a maneuver to throw out 60,000 ballots in the North Carolina Supreme Court race. What a surprise. Republicans want to throw ballots out. And then finally, as we are now days from a potential Tic Tac ban, users are flocking to a new Chinese social media app. I have not downloaded the app. We will talk about it on the bonus show.

Remember, you have until the 25th of this month, January to submit for your free stuff for pre-ordering my book, pre-order the book at David Pakman.com slash book, and then submit for the free stuff at David Pakman.com slash free book stuff. Okay. Super simple. You pre-order, you submit. I'll see you on the bonus show.