The David Pakman Show - 1/15/24: City bans homosexuality, desperate Republican melts down over party's failure (CLASSIC EPISODE FROM 11/16/23)

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY / CLASSIC EPISODE FROM NOVEMBER 16, 2023 -- On the Show: -- Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, Professor at the University of California Berkeley, and Co-Founder of Inequality Media joins David to discuss President Joe Biden's record on labor, the 2024 election, the modern Republican Party and much more. Check out Robert's Substack: https://robertreich.substack.com/ -- The Tennessee city of Murfreesboro has effectively banned being gay in public and appears to be starting to enforce the law -- Desperate Republican Congressman Chip Roy melts down on the floor of the House over his fellow Republicans accomplishing nothing that they can run on in 2024 -- The right wing think tank Heritage Foundation is helping to build a veritable army of MAGA lunatics and loyalists in advance of the 2024 election -- 2024 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley tells Fox News propagandist Sean Hannity that she will sever ties or reduce funding to so-called "globalist" organizations like the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Health Organization, and more -- A leaked video of failed former President Donald Trump speaking recently at Mar-a-Lago shows him gushing over Chinese President Xi -- FBI Director Christopher Wray has to remind radical Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene that he is not part of the Department of Homeland Security -- Voicemail caller wants advice on how to deal with offshore customer service for American companies who often do not speak proficient English -- On the Bonus Show: New Hampshire sets January 23 as primary date against Biden's preference, accused Pelosi hammer attacker testifies in court, The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens are fighting, much more... 🌱 Ounce of Hope: Get a THC Seltzer for just $5 at https://ounceofhope.com 🧘 PHD Weight Loss: Call 864-644-1900 and mention Pakman for a free week! 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code PAKMAN for FREE blades at https://hensonshaving.com/pakman 💰 Oxygen: Sign up for a personal or business account at https://davidpakman.com/oxygen 💻 Stay protected! Try our sponsor Aura FREE for 2 weeks at https://aura.com/pakman 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Hey, this is David Pakman inviting you to enjoy a classic episode of The David Pakman Show today. We will return with new shows before you know it. You know, you really have to hand it to some of these Republicans. They are genius in their depravity. And this story that we start with today is really the epitome of that. A Tennessee city named Murfreesboro, which over the years has come up, you know, you wouldn't think that doing a show about national and international politics,

you would end up talking about Murfreesboro, Tennessee, too often. But in fact, if you go back into the archives, you find that it has come up time and again on the program because they have a problem. They have a sickness there where these extremist right wing ideologues, usually informed by absolutely unconstitutional fantasies for Christian nationalism, come up with ordinances or movements or ideas that appall and shock anybody who believes in separation of church and state, anybody who believes in just letting people do what they want to do if it's not harming anybody else. And here is where we are today. Murfreesboro,

Tennessee, effectively banned being gay in public. And as The New Republic reports, many people missed it and they are now starting to implement the law. Here's what's going on. Again, this is a New Republic article which we will link to. A city in Tennessee is using a recently passed ordinance essentially prohibiting homosexuality in public to try to ban library books that might violate the new rules. So here's how they build this up. Murfreesboro passed an ordinance in June banning, quote, indecent behavior. There's always layers to this. Oh, OK. You can't do indecent behavior in public. What exactly does that mean? Well, it includes, quote, indecent exposure, public indecency,

lewd behavior, nudity or sexual conduct. Now, journalist Aaron Reid first reported about this. It specifically refers to Section 21, 72 of the city code. The city code states sexual conduct includes flat out homosexuality. Anyone who violates the new ordinance is barred from hosting public events or selling goods and services at public events for two years. Anyone who violates the ordinance in the presence of minors is banned for five years. Now, what you what you essentially have here is carte blanche to say the fact that you were walking down the street holding hands as a man with another man or a woman kissing another woman by its very nature, that potentially gets you banned from doing business for two years in the city. This also is being used for all sorts of purposes for limiting what books are available.

There is, as the as the article says, an ACLU backed challenge has already been launched, but it hasn't stopped city officials from implementing the measure. The Rutherford County Steering Committee met to discuss removing all books that might potentially violate the ordinance from the public library. Murfreesboro city officials have already used the ordinance to ban four books that merely discuss LGBTQ themes. They also put in place a new library card system that categorizes books into age groups. Children and teenagers will only be allowed to check out books corresponding to their age group and will need a parent or guardian to check out so-called adult books. Now, this is part of a much larger, I guess we would call it an attack on all sorts of content that

we are seeing nationally that, quite frankly, is really not very controversial when you're talking about, you know, a 17 year old in high school reading about the fact that, oh, gay people exist. These are really not controversial things in 95 percent of the developed world and even in most of the United States. But when you look around the country, you see the usual suspects. And again, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, keeps coming up here. This is part of you know, when I interviewed Rosie O'Donnell several months ago and she really pays very we pay attention, but she is paying very close attention to the backslide that we started to see very acutely during the Trump era. And we are continuing to see at the local level,

even despite the fact that Joe Biden is now president. There is a very definitive backslide here in the fight for LGBTQ rights and equality. And every single one of these moves contradicts very basic values of inclusivity, acceptance, the free exchange of ideas, letting actual experts make decisions that are within their purview. Why is it that parents all of a sudden are the ones who want to impose? Hey, I know which books are OK at age 11 versus 12. Do you? You really don't. We actually have experts in education who can weigh in on those issues. And the broader context here is part of this national backsliding that we have been seeing. So fortunately, even though some of these ordinances passed by with relatively little finger pointing and

signaling, now it's getting more attention. The ACLU is involved and hopefully this can be undone. I have some amazing video for you here of Republican Congressman Chip Roy melting down yesterday on the floor of the House of Representatives because his fellow Republicans have accomplished nothing. And he is realizing and you'll see it in this video I'm going to play for you. Chip Roy is realizing we are all up for reelection in a year. Can you give me anything I can run on? Is there anything we can actually accomplish that I might be able to run on? And Chip Roy is right to be afraid. Chip Roy is right to be afraid because since MAGA Trumpism has become the the status quo of the Republican Party

and Trump won in 2016, barely lost the popular vote, won the presidency. Twenty eighteen wasn't good for Republicans. Twenty twenty wasn't good for Republicans. Twenty twenty two wasn't good for Republicans. And to the elections of a week ago were not good for Republicans. So Chip Roy sees the writing on the wall. He sees what is potentially going to happen a year from now. And here is his rant, desperate talking to his Republican colleagues. One thing. I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing, one that I can go campaign on and say we did right. One. Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down

to the floor and come explain to me one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done. Besides, well, I guess it's not as bad as the Democrats. He is completely accurate and brutal, right? I mean, realistically brutal, appropriately brutal about his assessment of Republicans. He agrees with me. This is what I've been saying certainly since 2017, 2018, 100 percent since the 2020 election, 110 percent into the 2022 election. And yet. The things Chip Roy would do if Republicans would get it together are despicable and deplorable things that should be politically radioactive. But in the modern Republican Party, they're sort of accepted. If he could get things done, he would do terrible things. Why do I say that? Well, just look at his record. Chip Roy, who is pointing out we're doing nothing. You're

not giving me anything I can run on. You're not giving me anything here. Roy voted against the covid-19 relief bill, calling it welfare at a time when it was obviously necessary based on what was going on. Not super controversial. He was one of three House Republicans, Chip Roy, to vote present on the resolution condemning Donald Trump's actions, withdrawing forces from Syria. Just one of three, one of only three House members to vote against the Emmett Till anti lynching act, which fortunately passed the hundred and 117th United States Congress. Roy was one of only three to say, no, I'm against that and made comments publicly that some believe were implicitly defenses of lynching. He is a staunch critic of any attempt to increase

gun safety. He is endorsed by the NRA. And I could go on and give you the full list of credentials. So we on the left are actually way better off as a country. We talk about. If Republicans were more like Mitt Romney and John McCain and Arnold Schwarzenegger, if they were more like that, we might as left wingers, with the help of Democrats, plus some of these Republicans, we actually might be able to accomplish some more things. And that would be good. There's no doubt about that. At the same time, the fact that people like Chip Roy can't get anything done because of

the incompetence and inability and unwillingness to do anything other than focus on contrived social and cultural issues and litter boxes and these sorts of things. We we are probably way better off because the things he would do if he was able to do them are absolutely horrible. So his assessment is correct. Let's hope it continues being the case and that Republicans don't wise up because if they actually start trying to do things, people like Chip Roy will do horrible things. So many people in our audience have become fans of our sponsor, Ounce of Hope.

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Pakman show to get a week of the program totally free. Again, you can learn more at my Ph.D. weight loss dot com. Then call 864-644-1900 for a consultation and mention my show to get a week for free. The info is in the podcast notes. It happens, unfortunately, too often that there is something horrible, something dangerous, something disturbing, kind of building behind the scenes and we don't pay attention or voters don't pay attention. And then it sneaks up on us and it's a disaster. One of the good things that's going on right now, as horrible as Project 2025 and Agenda 47 are, one of the good things that's going on is so many of you are aware of this and you're writing to me about it and you're saying, David, we need to keep talking about this. This is not something that we want to ignore.

And that is exactly where we are going to start today. For the last several months, I have been telling you about this movement, Heritage Foundation funded Project 2025, combined with Agenda 47. Agenda 47 is sort of the Trumpian version of Project 2025, which has an overtly stated goal of putting in place the absolute worst mega loyalists. These are the wannabe dictators, the authoritarian wannabes, etc. They are going to be ready to go. If Trump is president, it will be bad. And if it's someone else, Project 2025 is going to be ready to go. If Trump is president, it will be bad. And if it's someone else, Project 2025 is going to be ready to go to that person, whether it's the sanctus or whoever, and say, here's the list of people to hire.

Here's how we're going to, quote, dismantle the administrative state. That's a phrase they love. Steve Bannon loves it. Others love it. We'll talk about what it means in a moment. And so I'm glad that this is on the radars of so many of you. And I'm also glad that there is continued reporting about it. Here is a piece from MSNBC, NBC slash MSNBC. If Trump wins in 2024, he has a dangerous tool for wrecking the government.

There is no exaggeration here that Trump at nearly 80 years old in his second and final term would have nothing to lose. He would be completely unrestrained by any codes of conduct or expectations, checks and balances. And he would be quite literally at the same time fighting for his political life in the sense of trying to avoid ending up in prison based on the four criminal trials that he is fighting. And so the more we read about what is being built up behind the scenes and how well funded it is, we should be scared and we should understand what the stakes are. As this article explains, Heritage's initiative or let's actually start earlier.

Earlier this year, we learned that the Heritage Foundation is spearheading a project to staff a future Trump administration with tens of thousands of pre-vetted appointees who would be tasked with dismantling the administrative administrative state from day one. Tens of thousands. I thought the cabinet only had a couple dozen. What do you what do you mean? Tens of thousands. This is because they plan to replace career bureaucrats, essentially, who work nonpolitically at the State Department, Department of Education, et cetera. They plan to replace them with suck ups, political actors to actually try to do the things they tell us for so long that they want to do essentially destroy many of these departments. Heritage's initiative called Project 2025 has a reported budget of 20 million dollars

and it is designed to help Trump transform the federal government overnight if he wins the 2024 election. You might recall during his first term, Trump was routinely hamstrung into executing policies and abusing power because he either failed to fill key bureaucratic positions or was foiled by resistant appointees. The whole point of this plan is to prevent Trump from being failed to to be foiled or to fail because there are people in those positions who say, hey, I'm a right winger as much as anybody else. But what you're asking for is illegal.

What you're asking for is unconstitutional. What you're asking for goes against the primary directive of this department or this agency or whatever the case may be. They are aware that that happened in Trump's first term and they are building this up to prevent it from happening again. Now, what do they mean by dismantling the administrative state? This is a phrase that they use often. It's used in right wing political discourse. Propagandists like Steve Bannon use it. People like Vivek Ramaswamy will use it. What do they mean when they say dismantling the administrative state and the managerial

class and this entire thing? They're talking about significantly reducing the size and influence of government, specifically certain bureaucratic elements. The phrase suggests, oh, we're going to restructure in different ways and make more efficient or whatever. But what they are talking about is the wholesale destruction of important pieces of what the government does. This dismantling of the administrative state would be a threat to so many essential services. It's really popular, particularly among Republican circles, to say there's too much bloat in government.

Government is too much power. It's doing too many things. But we aren't talking about extravagances or luxuries. We're talking about basics, right? delivering essential public services like health care to veterans education, the EPA, environmental protection, social welfare programs. When they say dismantle the administrative state, they are talking about eroding those critical services on which tens of millions of Americans, maybe even hundreds of millions of Americans rely to different degrees and in many ways, many affecting the most vulnerable areas of society. This is by design. They have figured out a way to make this phrase sound like a consulting speak for we're going to make things more efficient.

We're going to dismantle the administrative state. They are talking about generating risks to public safety and health government regulations. They love to say we're going to get rid of regulations. Government regulations are there to protect public health and safety. Does this mean that sometimes there might be a particular regulation that is incomplete or misguided or unnecessary? Sure. And we need to deal with that. But they are talking about getting rid of environmental regulations that prevent pollution, food safety regulations that make it so that the food supply is safe to consume. And they are directly going to put at risk public

health and safety if they get to do what they want to do. But it's not only that when they talk about dismantling the administrative state, it's also a disregard for the democratic process, because many of these agencies and regulations in the so-called administrative state are the result of the elected officials we chose deliberating and putting in place what, at least in theory, the people want. Now, can you argue that sometimes our elected officials don't reflect the will of the people? Yes, you can. The way in which our elected officials don't reflect the will of the people is that our elected officials are way to the right of the elected public, even though the vast majority of the country supports some level of health care for everybody, no matter whether you can pay or not, supports abortion being legal in most cases, supports gay marriage, supports using

higher taxes on the very rich to shrink the deficit and to help fund people's social services, even though the vast majority of the country supports that. It is not reflected in our elected officials. So to the extent to the extent that our elected officials don't reflect our desires, it's because we are well to the left of our elected officials. And when they say we're going to get rid of all this stuff with no due process, they will undermine the democratic principles of the country. And lastly, it is really popular. What one of the one of the ways that the right has gotten around dealing with serious issues is when something is very simple, they wrongly say it's very complicated. And when something is very complicated, they wrongly say it's very simple. And the reality with many of

the issues facing modern society is that they actually are complicated. If you think about something like climate change or health care, all of these areas touch on labor. They touch on environmental protection. They touch on FDA, Department of Transportation. But all of these issues are so big that you need coordinated government action. Now, they will tell you government's inefficient. Let's bring in some company to solve this. It's been proven to be a disaster when it's been tried. So understand that when they talk about dismantling the administrative state, they pretend there are no complex issues for which we need multiple agencies working. These problems are far bigger than any structure Republicans seem to be OK with in order to try to solve. So it's an extraordinarily dangerous aspect of Project 2025, aside from the fact that it also includes with

Agenda 47 prosecuting political enemies, whether they've done something wrong or not, going after media outlets, the entire thing. We will keep talking about Project 2025. But to go back to what I said at the start of this segment, it's actually a good thing that so many of you are aware of this and that this isn't going to catch us off guard. Nikki Haley appeared on propagandist Sean Hannity's program on Fox News last night, and she is now going anti-globalist. Now, you know, anytime we talk about globalism, this question comes up of by globalists, do they just mean Jews? Is it just a code word for anti-Semitism? Sometimes it is in this particular clip that I'm going to play for you. That's not where I want to focus. I don't believe that in

this instance, Nikki Haley means Jews by globalists. That's not what this is about. This is about the danger of the international institutions that Nikki Haley wants to defund. And this just builds directly on the last story, which is that so many of these right wingers fundamentally are delusionally isolationist, not understanding or not willing to concede that so many of the issues that homo sapiens on planet Earth is now dealing with are issues that not only need multiple multiple agencies, they need multiple countries working together. So take a listen to this. That is how corrupt that organization is. So my final lead up question is this. Should America once and for all cut ties with all of these globalist organizations?

And if you ever became president, would you do that? If I become president, we will get out of the Human Rights Council. We would certainly not get back into the Paris Climate Agreement. Would we get out of the U.N.? We would get out of the World Health Organization. The U.N., the only thing is we would defund the U.N. as much as possible. The only reason, Sean, you don't get out of the U.N. is we're one country of five that has a veto. And the number of things we were able to stop China, Russia and Iran from doing with that veto

matters. And so you keep bad things from happening. But we don't have to pay at the level that we're paying and we don't have to be in any of those other organizations. So the first reaction is since Nikki Haley wants to do all these things and she's not going to be president, thankfully, we don't have to worry about it. But it's actually not that simple. You know, in reality, I do think Nikki Haley is the only Republican candidate that could beat Trump. As unlikely as it is, I think she's the only one who really has a shot.

The Sanctus is down. Nobody else has a shot. Nikki Haley is the one who's actually been surging. But put that aside for a second. This is a very disturbing race to the bottom. Who can cancel the most departments? Who can sever the largest number of possible international ties? And this is a counterproductive isolationist view where Republicans now are actually campaigning on who can undermine international cooperation the most and who can undermine the United States role in addressing global challenges the most. And you can think through each of these organizations that Nikki Haley names, the United Nations Human Rights Council. It's not a perfect organization. There's no

nobody saying these organizations are perfect, but the solution isn't to bail. It's to improve the organizations. United Nations Human Rights Council plays a crucial role in addressing human rights abuses worldwide. Was it insane when Saudi Arabia, one of the worst human rights abusers in the world, got a say on that council? Of course, that's ridiculous. But if we leave, we only make it worse. If you believe that in general, the United States influence in these areas is positive. We make it worse by leaving, exiting the Paris climate agreement. As many of you know, Paris climate agreement is sort of a global effort to agree to combat climate change. It's, I think, one of the most important

priorities for progressives. If you care about environmental sustainability, if you care about addressing the climate crisis, if you care about the future of markets and economies, we need to deal with that. Even if you believe that the Paris climate agreement isn't exactly well calibrated or whatever the case may be, when we withdraw, we are saying we reject the global effort to solve this problem. We'll either do something ourselves or we won't. Nobody else will have a say. We won't coordinate. Pollution doesn't respect lines drawn on a map. This is a global issue. And by the way, if anything, the real criticism of the Paris climate agreement is it doesn't actually go far enough and it's not specifically tailored enough to actually fix the problems we

know we have. OK, so Paris climate agreement, World Health Organization. Did they get everything right on covid? No. But did anybody Sam Harris had a good kind of postmortem on covid, for lack of a better term, where he explained a lot of these agencies were doing the best they could with the information we had. And sometimes when you know you're lacking certain information, you you have to make certain decisions that in retrospect may not have been the perfect decisions, but morally you have to make certain decisions that in retrospect may not have been the perfect decisions, but morally you have to make them at the time. W.H.O. is not perfect, but it plays a vital role in global health in pandemic response, which we've learned we were woefully unprepared for, starting with the covid-19 pandemic.

Global problems require global solutions is the point. And this isolationist disengagement from international organizations is the exact wrong direction. Let's be involved. Let's improve the organizations. That's a much better approach. And even if they have their faults, these organizations are necessary. So to say, well, Nikki Haley won't be president, so it's not going to matter. Trump has a lot of the same instincts when it comes to many of these organizations. So it's a new. Challenge, it's it's yet another one of these disastrous perspectives from the modern pseudo populist right, and it's yet another reason why we have to prevent any of these people from becoming president of the United States.

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Today we are going to be speaking with Robert Reich, who served as secretary of labor in the Bill Clinton administration. He's professor of the Graduate School at University of California, Berkeley, and co-founder of Inequality Media, also writing a very interesting sub stack these days. It's so great to have you on. I really appreciate this. Well, thank you for asking me, David. So at a very top level, I like what I'm seeing from President Joe Biden when it

comes to labor. I know that it made very significant headlines when he became the first president to join striking workers on a picket line. But when it comes to the NLRB, when it comes to indirectly Amtrak and other union represented entities. It seems to me that what we observed with Biden through decades of public service is being reflected in his presidency in terms of his support of labor. Am I overstating the case? Do you see the same thing? In fact, if anything, David, you're understating it.

He is the most pro labor president in recent American history. I mean, if you look at, for example, Carter or Clinton, and I was Clinton's labor secretary, or Obama, you don't get a president that comes close to Biden in terms of his support for labor unions. And it's not just the symbolic support, you know, like being on the lines and walking on the picket lines. But it is also a National Labor Relations Board that is very, very, the most pro-union National Labor Relations Board. And he goes out of his way again and again to do what the unions and particularly organized labor and workers need. I mean, this is a worker centered economic policy and it's it's extraordinary. You wrote this Newsweek op ed, which is very interesting, and you use the

term adult in the room about Joe Biden. And to me, that's interesting because there's a lot there about governance and leadership style, particularly in comparison to other political figures. Right now, on the American right, we see, you know, everything from Joe Biden is so cognitively gone. He doesn't know what day it is, but also to less outrageous criticisms about his unwillingness or indifference to work with, quote, the other side. And the value of working with the other side, to me, depends on who's on that other side. And the value of working with the other side, to me, depends on who's on that other side. And I'm glad for you to address that if you want. When it comes to style in 2023, given both the corporate governance environment that we have,

and if you want to go beyond that into foreign policy or elsewhere, do you think that Biden's style is well suited to what is currently taking place? David, I do. And I'll tell you why. When I talk about Biden as being the adult in the room, I mean, relative to almost every other political actor and business actor, I mean, look at Elon Musk, for example. I mean, you have in Biden somebody who is mature, who is reasonable, who is steady, somebody who is not easily rattled and is saying what is very, very sensible. Now, he gets drowned out by people like Donald Trump. I mean, Donald Trump is getting angrier and and kind of more and more unhinged day by day. And a lot of voters and potential voters are very attracted to Trump's,

just his craziness. I mean, just the notion that you have somebody who's willing to say crazy things and be so anti-establishment, even though Trump, you know, and I know he is the most pro-establishment president we've had. But Biden is steady. I am very confident. Now, I hope I don't eat my words, but I'm very confident that that kind of steadiness, that kind of adult in the room quality is going to get him reelected. I want to address a criticism that I see

made of you and made of me and made of some others. And the gist of it is you guys all sound super progressive and, you know, health care, labor unions, it's all fine. But why is it that you are so big on Joe Biden when there are at least on paper more progressive alternatives for president? Cornel West is running. Jill Stein has decided to enter the fray. For me, it's a very practical question of will my vote further help or will it restrain the possibility of someone like Trump getting another four years? It's very practical as a question for me. I'm curious, as as someone with progressive credentials like yourself, why not support someone that is at least ostensibly to the left of Joe Biden for president?

Because in our winner take all system and it is a winner take all system between two major parties, if you support somebody else and you know that somebody else, particularly somebody else who's going to draw votes potentially away from Biden, you are supporting, in effect, Donald Trump. And that is the reality we find ourselves in. I mean, in 2016, I was a big supporter in the primaries of Bernie Sanders. As was I. Still, you know, I think Bernie would have made a great president. I am still very, very much in his corner. But when it came to actually what you do between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, there was no question in my mind. I mean, Donald Trump would have been and was, and I said at the time in 2016 and debated a lot of

progressives about this, a total calamity for the nation. And if he gets a second term, he's going to be a worse calamity because now he's going to surround himself with people who will have no constraints. No restraints will actually let him do exactly what he wants to do. And he will not even be constrained by the possibility of another election. So I just don't think as a practical matter, there's no issue here. You have to vote for Joe Biden. I would be curious if you have any ideas of how to best communicate this at a broader level. You know, people will call in over the last week. I've had people call in and say, you know, David, I was going to vote Biden, but what he's doing on Israel and Gaza, I just can't get behind. And I'll ask some specific questions. What do you mean? What exactly is he doing? Sometimes people

don't even really know. Sometimes they do. Doesn't matter. I will then say, you know, if your concern is that Biden is not doing enough for Gazans, why would you take an action that risks putting into power a guy who would do literally zero for that group, which would be Donald Trump? And I feel like I have the right motivation, but I may be not making the argument in the most effective way. Is there a better way to reach folks who have that instinct? Well, I think the people who do have that, as you put it, that instinct, what they say and they say to me, they probably say to you is, you know, I'm tired.

Excuse me. I'm simply tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. Yes. I want to vote for who I want to vote for. That's what democracy is all about. Right. And I understand that point. I'm sympathetic to that point. But it is totally unrealistic, given that we are facing two parties, one of which is headed by and is about to nominate a fascist. And this is not just a matter of degree. This really is a contest between democracy and neo-fascism. And anybody who is not going to vote for Joe Biden because, well, I don't want to vote for that. I'm tired of voting for the lesser of two evils is really, in effect, voting for the evil of all evils. I want to talk a little more practically, maybe going back to your time as secretary of labor

and just in general about the way that change happens in the United States or in countries that are organized like the United States. I could imagine that if we thought what are the biggest ideas that maybe as as a as a left leaning progressive secretary of labor, one might want to put in place. Well, what about the separation of health care and employment? So many of us would like to see health care and employment separated, not only for the obvious reason that it's arbitrary to connect them, but also because people will be freer to work in areas where they will actually be most passionate and effective rather than having to keep a job only to be able to keep health care, et cetera.

But that's arguably not something that can be done in a four year term. It's not something that can be done just because the secretary of labor wants that to happen. What was your approach? If you agree with my perspective on this, that that's that's maybe bigger than is possible in four years. What was your approach for figuring out what do I want to work on? Where can I actually make change in the time that I have and and segmenting the different goals that you might have? Well, it's a very, very good question. I when I was secretary of labor, I asked myself this question all the time. There are two schools of thought. And when I went into the job, I thought incrementally, well, what is at the edge of the possible?

What can I work on that makes the edge of the possible actually possible? Right. The kind of overturned window as it's kind of conventionally talked about. But as I got deeper and deeper into the office, I realized that there are a lot of things out there that look impossible, but actually the public is very, very strongly behind them. Let me give you an example, David. When the Republicans took over both houses of Congress in 1996, at that time, I thought, well, wait a minute, the minimum wage has not been raised for years. And I think the public is behind it. It turned out that 86% of the public on most polls were behind increasing the minimum wage.

I went to the Republican leadership and Democratic were behind increasing the minimum wage. I went to the Republican leadership and Democratic leadership, gave them the polls and said, if you don't respond to this, we are going to make a major issue out of your lack of response. And lo and behold, we raised the minimum wage in a Republican Congress, Republican Senate, Republican House. It's that kind of thing you're talking about right now with health care, Republican Senate, Republican House. It's that kind of thing. You're talking about right now with health care, you know, Medicare for all, for example. It is very popular. People want it. Bernie Sanders made it very popular, but it was also it was popular even before Bernie. I think that if if some leaders would just would be to say would say to Congress here, we're introducing Medicare for all.

What are you going to do about it? I think that would be a very important thing to do, and it might actually pass. Do you think that in general, when I guess let me put it a different way, there was a period of time during the Obama administration after the Sandy Hook shooting where similarly there was 88 percent support for what we would call a universal background check for all firearms purchases. The highest point, I believe, in history where there was support for that among voters. And yet only a much smaller portion of the elected officials at the time supported that policy. And it did not become the law, even though you would have thought

that circumstances would have been the ideal circumstances to make that law. So there's some kind of a disconnect here where at least to some degree. Well, let me ask you, what is the disconnect? Is it as simple as our elected officials don't represent the will of the voters? Is it systemic? It is both. It's systemic. And our elected officials often don't represent the will of voters because of money, because of big money. And whether that big money is coming from the makers of automatic weapons, automated guns, or the big money is coming from big corporations in Wall Street, it is there. It is part of our system. But that doesn't mean that it has to be. I mean, I look at the advent of Donald Trump

as ironically a kind of a distorted populism. And remember, it wasn't that long ago that we had Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the same year challenging both of their parties. I think if Bernie Sanders had been the nominee in 2016, he might have actually won because there is so much of an anti-establishment populist streak in America right now. And I think that part of that comes from the public's anger at all of the money in politics. And, you know, again, ironically, I mean, Donald Trump is, you know, he puts on a good show. Yes. Being kind of a a a populist in terms of, you know, I'm going I am your I am your mouthpiece. I am your I am I am your vehicle. But can you imagine a Democrat, a real populist, a real lefty making that same sort of pitch as Bernie Sanders did in 2016? I think would be enormously effective.

So let me ask you a question about that. I'm curious. I have a concern about the populist rhetoric, which I don't see populism as a series of policies. I see it as a rhetoric which can be used to justify good policies or really bad policies. My concern about the populist rhetoric being successful since Trump and Bernie, et cetera, is that people can be lulled in by the rhetoric. But then if the wrong person, if the wrong type of populist gets in power, the solutions

are a disaster. So in the same way that Bernie's populism would lead him to policies on immigration and labor that I would agree with, Tucker Carlson's populism leads him to say the problem is, and I quote, brown people who are making the country dirtier. That is a concern to me about the rise of the populist rhetoric that I wonder if you share. Well, I see I don't think it's rhetoric that is the essence of populism. I think it's it's who you choose as your as your

enemy. In other words, who you are saying to the public is the reason why wages are are flat and have been suppressed for years, why the country is is not responding to the popular will and various other things. And what a true left wing populist would say is it's because of big corporations, Wall Street and billionaires who are corrupting the system. It's the oligarchy. And our real choice here is either democracy or oligarchy disguised as kind of neo-fascism, which is what we are getting through Donald Trump. So populism itself is not rhetorical.

It's the popular and appropriate form of populism, it seems to me, ought to be. And if I were advising Joe Biden, I'd say it's not just the picket line. Joe, Mr. President, go further than this. Criticize what Wall Street is doing to this country, what the private equity people are doing, what the hedge fund people are doing. Look at the corporations, the C-suites, the ratio of CEO pay to the average workers pay. Look at what's happening to inequality in this country in terms of average workers still not getting very much of an increase. They are getting more of an increase than they did before. But relative to the top one tenth of one percent, very, very little.

Look at the money that is overwhelming our politics coming from the billionaires and from corporations and from Wall Street. You see, that is it seems to me what people want to hear. That is true. It is not it is not Trumpian. It is a populist. And it's not just rhetoric. It is it is it is truth. It's about power in this country. Last thing I want to ask you about as a general sense, do you have any prediction for 2024 in terms of questions, obviously about the eventual general election?

But will Trump going from criminal courthouse to courthouse have any impact on the Republican electorate's willingness to make him the nominee? Will it impact general election voters more than Republican primary voters? Or does this entire thing not even really matter to those who will vote for him now? Well, I look at the there are there are 30 percent of Americans or 35 percent who are in Trump's pocket. And it doesn't matter what Trump does, what he says, what happens to him. If anything, all of the litigation, the lawsuits, the criminal, you know, they are making him into a martyr for them. But I think that when it comes to the general election, so he's got he is going to get the nomination. I agree. He didn't. But when it comes to the

general election, I think Americans will are better than that. I don't I look at that Times Sienna poll that freaked everybody out two weeks ago. It's it's it's too early to get freaked out. And those polls mean nothing. I think Joe Biden is going to be reelected and America's kind of come to his senses. Yeah, I happen to agree with you. I think that the very the very fact that this has energized his base is almost evidence that certainly among Democrats, most of which would not vote for Trump anyway, but certainly also among independents, about half of whom did vote Trump in 2020. I think it will ultimately hurt Donald Trump in the long run.

And I have the same expectation as you do. The question then becomes, do you expect the exact same two year circus about a stolen election to ensue after November of twenty four the way we saw a few years ago? Oh, absolutely. I don't think there's any question about it. I mean, Donald Trump is going to you know, he has latched on to this this notion of the stolen election. A lot of his followers have latched onto it.

And now you have social media. You know, Facebook is allowing back on messages about the election being stolen. So, yes, you are going to get this feedback loop of of crazy Trumpists who are going to continue to have the same theme right beyond 2024. Well, something I guess to look forward to, maybe maybe more to be prepared for than to look forward to is the better way to say it. We've been speaking with former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. We will link to his stuff stack.

Really appreciate your time and insights today. Well, thank you, David. You might remember that a few years ago the show got hacked and a bunch of money was stolen and we never got it back. But I now have more peace of mind because I'm using Aura. Our sponsor, Aura, is your all in one tool for protecting your online and financial accounts. Aura alerts you any time your personal information is found on the dark web or data breaches like social security number, login credentials, financial accounts, and you get super fast alerts.

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reviews, fast shipping, world class customer service. And she is the perfect gift for any We have some leaked video from Mar-a-Lago. The failed former president was speaking and once again, he got caught just gushing, gushing about authoritarian Chinese leader Xi. This is he he can't seem to control himself. And the context is often Biden is weak and dumb, whereas Xi or or Bon or Kim Jong Un or Putin or Erdogan, they are strong and they are smart. Now we're going to play the video. Then I'm going to talk to you about why this sort of thing is so appealing to people like Trump. Here is the leaked video from Mar-a-Lago. The world is going to explode. We have nuclear weapons, the most powerful weapons in history, and we have a man that can't put two

sentences together. We have a guy who sees President Xi of China. He's like a piece of steel. Strong, smart. There's nobody in Hollywood could play the role. And other people like him. The leaders, they're all at the top of their game. They're tough and they're smart. And we have a guy that can't speak.

And it's very dangerous for our country And it's very dangerous for our country. It's very dangerous for our country. We have to turn it around. What are the reasons that explain why people like Trump just seem to love these authoritarians? There's there's a handful of different reasons. They're all horrifying. Number one, there is just an appeal to people like Trump of these authoritarians. Trump and his followers are just attracted. They see these strong men and they see them as decisive. They

see them as in control. They see them as nationalistic and they just love it. They love it and they don't like diplomacy. They don't like those who prioritize the democratic process. It's just what do you want? You take it. That's it. Second reason, ideologically, Trump is actually far more aligned with Erdogan, Xi and others than he is with people like Macron or Trudeau or whoever else it might be from traditional Western Democratic alliances. There's this perception that, in fact, the intolerance of dissent and the clampdown on what should be taught and where I mean, all of these things are ideologically aligned

with people like Donald Trump. They are against so-called globalism, which in many cases is just anti-Semitic. In other cases, it's about isolation and it's about we're going to do for ourselves what's best for us, et cetera. That's another aspect to it. There's the personal benefit. I believe Trump actually sees it's better for me if people like that are in power because I'm going to be able to better deal with them than I am going to be able to deal with the leaders of countries like Germany and France and the UK, et cetera. Now, whether that's true or not, sort of an open question. But these are some of the reasons why Trump is just enamored with these

sorts of figures. And to the extent that he is able to, he is going to continue criticizing and attacking the foundation of liberal democracies in direct ways, but also in less direct ways, such as the praise of horrible authoritarian. So not a shock leaked video of Trump saying this, but he's also said it publicly. So it's not really a big surprise. It is disturbing, but it's not a huge surprise. Marjorie Taylor Greene got a little bit of an explanation yesterday as to sort of like how government works. When FBI Director Christopher Wray explained to her, I'm not part of the Department of Homeland Security. These are really gong show hearings. And what I mean by that is Republicans want nothing else at these hearings other than

to get attention from themselves and to try to get viral gotcha moments on camera. Unfortunately for Marjorie Taylor Greene, she got a viral moment on camera, but it's a moment where she is being schooled. Here she is holding up her tweets to Christopher Wray, to which he says, I'm not I'm not on Twitter. I don't follow you on Twitter. And then explains to her the FBI is just not part of the Department of Homeland Security. It's humiliating for Marjorie Taylor Greene. I doubt she even really understands it on the Southern Poverty Law Center and the way in which they relied on. Well, you relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center, but I would have you know,

Mr. Wray, that this one right here, this person involved in the global intifada group that illegally, they broke the law, came in and occupied the Cannon office house building, interrupted Congress, interrupted hearings. Right here, Katrina Bleakley is the lead attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center. Were you aware of this? Congresswoman, as I said, I haven't seen the photos that you're holding up before. Maybe, well, I posted them on my Twitter account. It's public. You know, maybe you guys are- I don't spend a lot of time on Twitter well you know you you show i'm sure you do because the department of homeland security and organized with other offices has

censored many americans including myself i'm not part of the department of homeland security right mr ray you should you should be you should be interested in investigating terrorism and this right here is proof that we had terrorists in our own office building. Global Intifada. And you rely on the Southern Poverty Law Centers. Katrina Bleakley is one of the organizers. I'll send this over to your office so maybe perhaps you can stop targeting innocent grandmothers and veterans who walked through the Capitol on January 6th and might actually go after people tied to Hamas, tied to Hezbollah, and likely Iran. Mr. Wray, are you interested in members of Congress that are organized and participating

in a Facebook group that has ties to Hamas? We're not investigating people for participating in a Facebook group. a Facebook group that is tied to Hamas. We have multiple investigations into individuals affiliated with Hamas and their active investigations. This really you know, this is not someone who's pretending. Marjorie Taylor Greene is not pretending here. She's genuinely this clueless. Now let me focus in on one aspect of

this, because I do think it's important. This entire investigating innocent grandmothers and people who walk through the Capitol, the whole Capitol thing, there's nothing to even say about that. If there's evidence you committed a crime on January 6th, 2021, you've hopefully been investigated. Your case is being adjudicated by the justice system. The entire innocent grandmother's thing is part of the now debunked claims about the targeting of certain people by the FBI. The first thing that's important to understand, law enforcement agencies get things wrong. This is not a show where we just reflexively defend anything any law enforcement agency does. But the FBI conducts investigations based on

evidence and suspicion of criminal activity. They don't go, let's go look at the grandmothers or let's ignore the grandmothers. Certainly, you you can consider life characteristics, including age or gender, whatever. I mean, most most lawbreakers happen to be men who are not 75. Right. OK, so that's but the FBI goes by evidence. But importantly, they've trumped up this entire thing about the FBI targeting innocent grandmothers as part of a larger narrative about the FBI's focus and its actions, especially as it relates to school board protests and other politically sensitive areas that became politically sensitive during covid.

And the broader allegation is the FBI is overreaching. They're politicizing. They are investigating what is simply the speech of people, including sometimes people's speech who is being limited incorrectly by government agencies in violation of the First Amendment. And they are targeting individuals based on the political beliefs. They're going after grandmothers at school board meetings who are against mask mandates rather than in favor of. Most of this goes back to a much misunderstood or lied about memo regarding those school board meetings. And of course, there is no evidence whatsoever

that absent evidence of criminality, the FBI is targeting innocent grandmothers. It's all part of this broader plot where they claim to be the defenders of the police, but also criticize the FBI, criticize other federal law enforcement, criticize Capitol Police when they perceive their actions to be politically inconvenient to what they're doing. Last thought. I don't believe Marjorie Taylor Greene is pretending with any of this stuff. I think she's really this clueless. She's really this ignorant and she's really this dangerous. We have a voicemail number. You can call that number anytime you want to one nine to David P. Here is a really practical question. How do you deal with those offshore customer

service reps? I like this question. Hey, David, Joel in Florida. Yeah, I wanted your advice on how to deal with inept customer service, mostly on the phone, a lot of it offshore, not always, but a lot of times offshore where you spend 20 to 40 minutes having them rephrase the same question and not really accomplishing anything. I use your line, I say after 10 minutes of going in circles with love and peace, can you transfer me to somebody that could help me?

And all they want to do is check their resources and send an email and hold on and hold on. And inevitably, you've got a supervisor that could handle the problem and solve it in three minutes. Yeah. Or you hang up in frustration, call and get somebody back. Could be offshore, could not be offshore. And they seem to solve the problem. Yep. So listen, here's my advice. My advice is it's different for every company. I'll give you some examples with some companies you call. And by the way, none of this is about the people who don't speak English are bad people. It's just a lot of times their English level isn't good enough to help you with a customer

service issue that it's not an insult. If I were to be put on the phone with somebody who speaks Russian and said, hey, help them figure out a customer service issue, I wouldn't be able to do it, not because I'm a bad person, but because I don't speak Russian. So it's not about that. One tactic is you get the person on the phone, you identify they don't even have the language skills to even really help you. You say, can you transfer me to a U.S. based supervisor or a U.S. based customer service agent? Some can do it. So if you sometimes that's a good

start, if they say, oh, we're not able to do that, you then have to think about other ways. A supervisor is a good idea. Sometimes the supervisor speak better English and are empowered to do better. One other line, assuming that the language isn't a barrier, one line that is often useful is to say, you know what? I'm really frustrated, but it sounds like you just don't have the power to help me. For a lot of people, when they are told that they all of a sudden say, I'm not powerless, I'm going to prove I have power. That has sometimes worked for me where you actually all of a sudden your problem gets solved and you say, I'm really frustrated, but I know it's not

your fault. You just don't have the power to help me here. And all of a sudden they make something happen. Another thing that can be useful is with any company like a cell phone company or an Internet service provider. and I've had issues with them once my bill went up 60 percent and they slowed my Internet down and I was getting nowhere with the offshore 800 number. You Google FCC ISP complaint or FCC mobile phone complaint. There will be a form you fill out. If you fill out this form within a couple of days, you will get a call from. Hi, this is the office of the CEO at AT&T or whatever. I want to help you solve your issue. Having these open complaints with the FCC is bad for these companies. So for ISPs and mobile phones,

use the FCC complaint form. You will get the problem solved quick. So anyway, these aren't this isn't all inclusive, but there are tactics to try to get your problem solved quick. So anyway, these aren't this isn't all inclusive, but there are tactics to try to get your problem solved. It's just a matter of finding the right one. We've got a great bonus show for you today. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. I'll speak to you.