The David Pakman Show - 1/19/24: DeSantis confronted, Trump's lawyer goes demonic

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

-- On the Show: -- A voter in New Hampshire confronts Ron DeSantis over his book bans in Florida -- Trump attorney Alina Habba says that Trump's legal troubles are part of a "demonic" plan -- A pastor at a Trump rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire melts down and promises retribution -- Caller discusses Hunter Biden and whether House Republicans will impeach Joe Biden -- Caller confronts David over "click bait" YouTube titles -- Caller argues the economy isn't doing so well -- Caller is a Canadian Trump supporter -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Trump's awful second term agenda, Vivek Ramaswamy cringe compilation, and much more... 🛌 Use code HELIXPARTNER20 for 20% off + free bedroom set at https://helixsleep.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 😮 DealDash: Use code PAKMAN for 100 free bids at https://dealdash.com/pakman 💻 Stay protected! Try our sponsor Aura FREE for 2 weeks at https://aura.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Speaker 1 We're just days away from the second Republican primary, the New Hampshire primary Ron DeSantis, who is running a very distant third in New Hampshire and potentially will end his campaign if indeed he finishes third with only the 5 percent of the vote that he's currently polling. He took some heat from a town hall participant the other day at a town hall in New Hampshire, and he was confronted by a guy who said, hey, you know what? My librarian best friend in Florida, she's not going to vote for you because as a result of your book bans, a doctor's Seuss book has been banned. DeSantis doesn't like it. He says it's simply not true. I think there's a bigger overarching message here, but let's look at the clip first and then discuss it.

Well, that's not true. So what's happened is, you know, there's pornographic books that are in the schools and we've empowered parents to object to that and to and to have it removed because it's just not right that that's happening. And I've seen the books and no one will defend the books. And when you show them publicly, media will cut it off because it's too graphic. So but what's happened is there's activists out there that will say, oh, my gosh, the US Constitution, we got to take it off. Is that so they're doing that to try to create a reaction. For example, they said someone said that they had to take off to kill a mockingbird. Oh, the state is doing that, which is not true. Not only is it not true, that's on our Department of Education summer reading list.

So listen, DeSantis gets very defensive. He tells the voter essentially that he's lying, which I don't know if that's good political strategy or not. But for me, the overarching takeaway here is not only are these contrived issues like the book bans and the, you know, quote, men in women's sports, et cetera. Not only are these very pointless replacements, substitutes for real political issues, they do very much have a chance at backfiring. And we've seen this with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, where you say, hey, why are we so focused on abortion?

The country is more in favor of abortion being legal than at any time in the Roe v. Wade era. Why are we focusing on overturning Roe v. Wade? Well, I know we raise money on it. It fires people up. They do it and then they lose everything ever since. And we'll see what happens in November if there is a takeaway from this sort of confrontation. Is it about whether the Dr. Seuss book was really banned as a virtue of the intent of the law or by activists trying to prove a point or not at all? It

doesn't even really matter. The point is, it's tough to believe that these are going to be long term winning issues for these Republicans. Can they sneak out a win here or there the way Youngkin did in Virginia on this stuff? Yeah, they obviously can. But the potential for backfire is significant. We've seen it with abortion and we're increasingly seeing it in these confrontations, at least anecdotally. We need to have a little bit of a discussion about religion here. And I don't want to offend anyone, but also I have to be able to have a realistic conversation with you. We're going to look at clips of an interview with the Ark of Grace Church and Amanda Grace.

You're going to see Alina Haba, Donald Trump's lawyer, interviewed on this show, I guess. And you're going to see Eric Trump, Donald Trump's son interviewed on this show, I guess. And you're going to see Eric Trump, Donald Trump's son interviewed in this first clip. Alina Habba says that the indictments against Trump can be blamed on demons. Demons. Listen to this. I think that that there is a plan. There's God's plan. And then there's a demonic plan. And the demonic plan is very easily confused with real life. What they're there's an orchestrated thing going on here. Don't get it twisted. We have cases lined up intentionally during election time, intentionally trying to get negative attention right before an election. Iowa, as you said, so she says it's a demonic plan.

The way these trials are lining up, the way these indictments came in, all of it, demons are to blame on the exact same show. Eric Trump, with his wife, Lara Trump, sitting alongside him, says the election of Trump was divine intervention. I think he's created the greatest political movement in history. And I really do believe that someone something is looking down and guiding him every single day because there's no way the world could have been where he is today without the intervention of God.

And I'm not. I feel it. I know it. Hillary Clinton raised one point five billion. My father, who knew nothing about politics in 2016, raised three hundred million. So I actually don't believe Eric Trump or Alina Haba believe that stuff. I don't think Eric before Trump got into politics, there was no reason to believe that this was a religious family that had literal beliefs like God is guiding Trump almost like a puppeteer. I don't think Alina Haba actually believes demons are responsible for the indictments against Trump, But that almost makes it worse because they are willing to say these things because they've calculated that it's useful to them.

And the reason it's useful to them is that there are people in the Trump mega universe who believe this crap. Now, being as sensitive as possible to people's spirituality and whatever. It's very hard to say anything other than in a literal sense, those are delusional beliefs. If they were shrouded in anything other than religiosity, if they were the guy on the subway platform at Union Station screaming, we would say this is a delusional person, right? If instead of God, it's my great, great, great grandmother coming to me and guiding me like a puppeteer. Or if it was instead of demons, if it was a unicorn is responsible.

Right. If you take away the sort of get out of jail free card of couching these as religious beliefs, we say, obviously, this is mental illness. And so for me, the interesting part is less about whether Alina Haba or Eric Trump literally believe these things that they're saying. I don't think they do. It's about the fact that saying these things is useful when you are part of a particular political movement that I believe is completely detached from reality.

I want to hear from you about that. And on that note, I want to give you an example of how this sort of religiosity is weaponized. A couple of days ago, there was a rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We heard from the failed former President Donald Trump. We heard from some of his supporters. But I had this leftover clip that I wanted to save for this discussion more about the impact that religion and specifically it's sort of like a evangelical Protestantism that and the role it's having in the MAGA party right now. I'm going to play video of a pastor who was interviewed before Trump's rally.

And I don't even know how to introduce this. This is this is weaponized religion. And it's if you abstract this from a religious context, we would consider this a manic mental breakdown. There's really no other way to interpret it until you say this is his faith. Listen to this at when Donald Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States, there will be retribution on all those who have promoted evil in this country. I said that this is a spiritual battle.

And I quoted Ephesians chapter 6 and Romans chapter 13, verse 1 through 4. And they like to spin it their own way. Retribution does not mean civil war. It means just punishment. And that's what we subscribe to here is we subscribe to a legal system that we believe in fair punishment for those who perpetrate evil in this country there are just two genders in this country what we see being waged upon the education system is insane and those dark demonic ideologies the communist ideology of karl marx and his communist manifesto one of the first principles of Karl Marx's communist ideology was to take

away the distinguishment of the sexes. And that's why we see that implemented in China. As soon as communism was implemented, the women all chopped their hair off to have the same exact haircuts as men. And if you go to Shanghai or even Beijing today, it's very much still the same. Think about how serious this is. OK, put aside for a moment that this blending of political philosophy, economic philosophy, superstitious beliefs about a beliefs about angels and demons is all mixed up in a witch's brew of sorts. Think about I mean, education won't fix this guy.

If you bring this guy information, it's not going to fix this problem. I dare say I don't know that medication will fix this guy. These sorts of beliefs, they can be resistant to medication as well. How do you fix this? How do you fix it? I'm looking for a solution here. He also, by the way, said he prayed with Trump not long ago. His faith really is absolutely important. I think the president sees that I had the opportunity to pray with him personally in Cedar Rapids with 11 other faith leaders. He understands the power of prayer. I understand President Donald Trump to truly be a born again Christian leader in this race. I know him to be so.

And I met with Dr. Ben Carson and he feels the same. The other aspect to this is that Trump has bamboozled these people. Trump is so obviously not religious. He didn't go to church until all of a sudden he decided that he's running for president. He didn't ever say that the Bible is his favorite book alongside the book he wrote until he decided to run for president. And so there is a complicity. There is a willingness when Trump is so obviously not religious. He couldn't care less about these people except that they're useful to him. Who is the con man?

This guy certainly seems like a con man, conning his followers about the religiosity of Trump. But has he not also been conned to some degree by Trump into believing that Trump is a religious person when he obviously is not? And at the end of the day, you kind of sit back. And what is really our understanding of what is going on here? Is it that all of these people for their own self aggrandizement choose to ignore obvious realities? Trump ignoring that these people are essentially crazy people.

This guy and his followers ignoring that Donald Trump is obviously not religious. Everybody suspends disbelief and we pretend like this is a movement of God for God and alongside God. Or what is it? Is it a grift? Is it? I want to understand how it is that we got to this point where the obviously not religious guy convinces these people that he's religious.

And then these folks are able to convince so many others that angels, demons, born again Christians are all tied in with communism, Marxism and that Trump was sent by God. Who is the con man and who is the mark in this entire thing? I kind of end up at there's a lot of it to go around. Let me know what you think. We'll take a quick break. Big show coming up after this. I love my Helix sleep mattress. I've been sleeping on Helix mattresses for years now, which is why I asked them to be a sponsor. You actually take their famous sleep quiz takes just a few minutes to answer questions about your sleep preferences, body type, sleep position, whether you have back pain and Helix will match you with a mattress that's perfect for you, which is really unique and helpful because a lot of people don't know

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The link is in the podcast notes. The David Pakman show is an audience supported program. We have so many great perks for people who sign up on my website. Join Pacman dot com, show. the members only soundboard and so many other great things. I invite you to sign up at join pacman.com. Let's hear from the very most important people, the audience members without you. I'm a guy in a room by myself with a microphone and it's all very, very sad. We take calls on the Friday show via discord. You can find the discord at David Pakman dot com slash discord. Let's see what is on the minds of folks in the audience today. Oh, I don't know. Why don't we start with how about maybe Jeff from Minnesota? Jeff from Minnesota. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind? Hey, David, thanks for bringing me back in. It's good to be back.

My pleasure. So we're kind of in the middle of this dog and pony show with Republicans trying to impeach Joe Biden for, I don't know, stuff. Yes. And you and I could talk for literally an hour about how hypocritical they're being with their compare and contrast with how they reacted to Trump's indictment. But my question for you is, could this work to our advantage or could it be our disadvantage? Because I see it going one of two ways. Either A, it gets swooped up in the media cycle of, oh, well, they're just they're both dealing with their legal issues. So maybe they're both just awful. Or it could show that they have no integrity. They do not understand rules for the but not for me is not the American

value. I don't know. What do you think? Here's my view on this. We have looked now on the show at a dozen 1520 instances of Republicans who make claims about Joe Biden's criminality and corruption and all of it asked very directly, what evidence do you have? And they never cite any evidence because they don't have any. I don't think that Republicans are at the end of the day going to move forward with impeaching Joe Biden without finding evidence because they will make the calculated guess that it risks hurting them more than it helps. You're right. Part of their idea would be, well, if voters are choosing between two candidates and both candidates have been indicted, then it kind of levels the playing field. I'm sorry, not indicted, impeached, impeached. But I don't I think that if there's

no evidence, the American people are going to punish Republicans for doing it to Joe Biden. And I expect that this is all assuming they don't find any evidence, which they haven't so far. I think the entire Biden impeachment thing is just going to dwindle. They'll never officially say anything one way or the other, but they're not going to impeach him if they don't find evidence. And and they just they just won't talk about it. That's my prediction. Yeah. And that's, of course, the practical sense. And I'm someone who's kind of like engulfed in the right media equal ecosystem because those are the people who I respond to on Twitter. I refuse to call it X. I'm reposting their stuff with quotes about fact checks, that sort of thing.

And take, for example, when they brought in Hunter Biden, or rather he volunteered to come in. He was in there for like eight minutes and then left promptly when Marjorie Taylor Greene was given the opportunity to speak. They lit him up on Twitter for that. They were saying he's an absolute coward. He's above the law, that sort of thing. And nowhere in any of those clips did I see anyone pointing out the fact that they said, let's bring him up to testify. Who wants to hear him right now? Show of hands. I don't know what the official procedure is. Yeah, I don't know about the official procedure, but we know that Republicans want to do it

in private because they say that he'll grandstand in public, et cetera. I think they don't want to do it in public because it'll very quickly show that he's telling the truth, that there's no connection to any Joe Biden criminality and it'll be bad for them. That's my belief. Oh, Jeff, Minnesota. Thank you so much for the call. I'm going to move on. But that's my expectation as to the way that it's going to go down. I may be right. I may be wrong. We'll we'll find out eventually. Let's go to Trevor from Salt Lake City. Trevor from Salt Lake City. Welcome to the program. What's going on? Hey, David. So I've got kind of a quick little question, I guess, something that I've

been struggling to reconcile in my mind, I guess. And so I guess when I was in college, I took this class and we were learning about, you know, Federalist Paper 10 and how James Madison argued that the tyranny of the majority is a terrible thing and that we need to have rights in order to check the majority. Right. And then I look at like, for example, you know, the way we're doing zoning and housing, you know, basically the majority of people in a city, they're typically like homeowners who vote against any like increase in housing supply, for example. So, you know, to me, it seems like in America, we had these rights that we established to check

majorities. Right. But it's like super painful. And we actually rely on the majority voting against their self-interest to establish any sort of new kind of right. So I kind of just don't have a ton of faith, like in American democracy generally, because I feel like we're just unable to like establish these new rights and, you know, grapple with these really difficult problems. So I guess like, what do you think when I say that? I think you're, you're absolutely right that in many of these areas, you do have a de facto, it's not necessarily a tyranny of, it's not always the majority, but it's of the most powerful, certainly. And we have a lot of good studies. I mean, the zoning one is an interesting one, right? If depending on who is most engaged, the the existing homeowners can decide we're not

going to do this. We're going to we're not going to do that. Things that may be good for renters or first time homebuyers or whatever the case may be. It's a very good example. I think as a general principle, we don't even we don't have enough engagement with the political system to even argue that everybody is being represented. And part of this is by choice. Right. Even in a really great presidential election, I think turnout of 60 percent is considered absolutely extraordinary. So I'm with you that many of the systems are status quo reinforcing systems where those who are either, you know, the majority getting to decide isn't a bad thing in many areas, but we don't want to put rights up to a majority vote.

And in the case you're describing of zoning and housing, the majority, by definition, may be those who are already entrenched and powerful and they're already. So I don't I think the takeaway is all of these systems have to be looked at individually. And unless like I go ahead, unless we get voter turnout up, I do believe that if you had 80 or 90 percent of people voting in local elections to determine who's the city councilor and the mayor, state senator, state rep, like if we had a voter turnout of 80, 85, 90 percent, I think a lot of this stuff would very quickly repair itself by having elected officials that actually represent the will of the voters, not just the portion of the voters who choose to vote. Gotcha. I guess the way it pushes me is more towards federalism. And I guess the American Revolution is an example of a minority that chose to separate based on their perceived abuses from the majority.

So I guess part of me – and then there was a speech that Malcolm X gave at Berkeley University in the 60s where he talked about the African-American know african-american population being a minority and what he saw as the solution and when is in his view when you know the majority is unable to like come to you know we're unable to establish some sort of right that would like allow the minority to live in the way that they would need to he believed in like a separation i guess so i guess i i would hope that there's some argument against atomizing further and separating more and having more federalism, I would hope for some pathway to unity. But I don't see that unless there's some way that we can establish rights for these disabused or disaffected minorities.

But anyway, that's all I have to say. I agree with you on a lot of that. Trevor from Salt Lake City, thank you so much for the call. Let's go next to Jessica from Indiana. Jessica, welcome back to the program. What's on your mind today? Hello. Well, thanks for having me back. I was currently writing this up so that I didn't have to say it on the fly, but you got me halfway through it. So apologies. Something that I've been noticing while watching political YouTube for a while on both conservative YouTube and leftist YouTube is the titling.

You see titles from, let's say, Midas Tucked, like Trump's creepy lawyer told to shut up by federal judge at trial, or appeals court judge. You get my point or videos like yours, for example. Let's pull them up. Sorry. In other words, people are using provocative YouTube titles, myself included, sounds to be the basis of your question, right? Yeah. And I've I noticed that I've been hate watching conservative YouTube for longer than I've been watching left? Yeah. And I've I noticed that I've been hate watching conservative YouTube for longer than I've been watching leftist YouTube and the conservatives do the exact same thing. Right. This is this is kind of confrontational to just leftist YouTube in general. But why are we doing the same thing as them? Well, people who make videos want to increase the number of people that watch the videos, right?

If it if I make a video and you say to me, David, would you rather a million or one hundred thousand people see it? I would say, well, if I'm going through the work of producing the video, I'd rather a million people see it, see it rather than one hundred thousand. One of the ways that this is done is by following the trends of titling and thumbnails and different things such that you will garner interest from people. I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with it up until the point at which your titles don't reflect what's in the content of the video. Right. So if I were to have a video of Trump saying, you know, we we won in 2020 and I titled the video Trump kills of Trump kills a Vivek supporter on

stage. Right. That would just be straight up completely wrong and dishonest, et cetera. To the extent that we're playing up the emotion of events or using provocative language. I mean, it just sort of is what it is. We don't do it with our podcast episodes because the way you succeed on podcasting is different. But, you know, that it's sort of the way these platforms work and and it kind of is what it is. Is it regrettable to a degree? Yeah, maybe, maybe.

I get that completely. I'm just more coming from like you can probably get some people that don't know exactly who you are with a more center, quote unquote, title. We'll see. The reason I think that's a problem is the content of the video is not centrist. So in a sense, it's deceptive, I think, to title the videos as if they are completely neutral when they aren't. I don't know. I mean, it's an interesting it's an interesting question. Is it deceptive when CNN posts a YouTube clip that just talks about like the basic concept of the story and then goes into their more left leaning political views? I you know, you're making an assertion. I don't watch CNN clips, so I'd have to look at I'd have to look at specific clips and see, well, what is the content?

Is it deceptive? Is CNN purports to be news where I am overtly opinion? I don't know the answer to that question necessarily. It's an interesting one. Fair enough. And I just said CNN. It could have been MSNBC or Fox News for all I care. I'm right. Yeah. OK, well, that was it. Thank you so much for having me on. Speaker 1 All right. Jessica from Indianapolis. Great to hear from you. Let's go next to. Oh, I don't know.

How about Patrick? Let's go next to Patrick from North. Where is it? North something. Something with an eye. Patrick from North Idaho. Welcome to the show. Speaker 4 Great to be with you, David.

How are you? Speaker 1 I'm doing well. Excellent. You know, Trevor and Jessica hit on some really good points here. Tying into, you know. We have half the country that can't agree on what is the truth, right? We've got media outlets literally brainwashing people, we have to use those negative words in our thumbnails to drive the algorithm. becomes the de facto argument against all of this defamation and all of this hate that is being spewed into the media. I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Well, Europe and Australia,

for instance, the defamation lawsuits, you can't just go around lying about people. You know, are we ever going to get to the point where we can hold people accountable like Mr. Trump that literally lies on the air 50 times a day? Well, so I think there's a couple different things, Patrick. Defamation and lying are two different things. And then also it's a very different situation. Defamation includes you. Defamation includes that this is having an impact on the person you're saying it about. So like Patrick, if you were to say a lie about Trump on my show, Trump wouldn't be able to show that you damaged him in any way.

Whereas on the other hand, when Trump says things that aren't true about E. Jean Carroll, if E. Jean Carroll is able to demonstrate that because of who she is and because of who Trump is, that she was damaged by it. Now you're talking about defamation. But so that's one aspect of this. The other aspect is, is that lying on TV isn't defamatory. And so I don't know that we're you know, one of the things about some of the indictments of Trump is that they say Trump is allowed to lie. It's other things that are against the law. Are you suggesting the law should be changed on lying?

You know, just in the. In the depth, in the definition of defamation. Perhaps there could be a little higher standard. The ethics is the hard part about it. You know, how do we hold our media companies ethically responsible, right? To actually tell the truth like, like it used to be, you know, that everybody can agree. I just think that without really doing something that probably would not be constitutional to the with regard to to what you're trying to do

with the First Amendment. I just it seems very difficult to me. I don't think there's an appetite for that is my instinct. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it just is. Speaker 1 I can see that that appetite not being there. Yeah. And with the Federalist Society and Project 2025 and everything like that, that is finally coming out in the open. You know, I just say we got to push back and get the numbers as high as we can and make this an absolute blue flush. Right. All right, Patrick from North Idaho.

Thank you so much for the call. Let's take a very quick break. If you're holding on to chat with me, just hold on a little bit longer because we're going right back to discord and we'll hear from a few more people in a moment. One of our sponsors today is DealDash. DealDash is an auction website. It's been around 14 years. You might have seen their ads on TV. DealDash only auctions brand new items. You can get incredible deals. A Nintendo switch sold for twenty two dollars recently. DealDash auctions anything from iPads to clothing, autograph memorabilia, you name it. And here's how it works. You buy bids up front, for example,

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few more people via discord. You can, of course, find our discord at David Pakman dot com slash discord. We are going to go to Aaron from Michigan. Aaron from Michigan. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Speaker 3 Hey, David, thanks for having me on. My pleasure. So I want to kind of build on what the last guy was talking about when we talk about the lies being told in the media or by Trump. So, first of all, I want to start with, I think I disagree with you somewhat on the economy being an issue. I know you're saying, hey, when I look at these economic factors, I see the economy is doing well. And I agree with you to some extent that a lot of the traditional factors we look at when we think about how the economy is doing, we say these are good under Biden.

I think one factor that's kind of been a consistent and is becoming an increasing problem for Americans is the income inequality issue. Right. Right. And I don't think that's that's changing. Right. So I think it is the economy still. Right. James Carville, it's the economy. Stupid. I think it is the economy still. Right. James Carville. It's the economy. Stupid. I think it is the economy still. Yeah. But I think the root cause of the Trump issue. Right. We still see 50 percent of people voting for it. It looks like, you know, all the latest polls I've seen in the battleground states, Trump is winning. If the election were to occur today, the best data we have says Trump is the winner. And I think this is an education problem, right? And I think you've

correctly identified that with the children's books you wrote. I think that was a great step. But I guess I wonder why there isn't more emphasis and rhetoric around education. I understand it's not sexy, but I think that is what is going to wake us up from this collective nightmare. And I think the solution is likely generations away, but it will not start until we start getting more serious about the education, right? The populace needs to be educated enough to critically think for themselves and come to the conclusions themselves and understand the difference between truth and lie, right? And I just see over the years, the rhetoric around, hey, Trump is bad. I don't think we've

successfully deprogrammed anyone from this cult. And again, I think that's due to the education. So why don't we see more rhetoric around that? I completely agree with you. And I think that it's certainly possible that mainstream Democratic talking points about this aren't going to say this is a cult that must be deprogrammed and we should do it through education because the right already says that education is merely left wing indoctrination. So if a mainstream Democrat starts saying these people are in a cult and we got to fix it through through educating them out of it, the right wingers will go. This is why we need private schools. This is why we need parents involved in it. It would in a very deceptive, bad faith way. It would, quote, prove the point that they are trying to make. Obviously, you are correct.

We prevent people from even getting sucked into cults like MAGA with better education, critical thinking, epistemology, philosophy, media literacy. Of course, it's undeniably true. And also Republicans would seize on that if it started to become a mainstream Democratic talking point because they already are insisting that education is nothing but liberal indoctrination. So you see the conundrum, right? No, 100 percent. I agree with that. And actually, if I may offer this criticism to you in your critical thinking book, you kind of took a shot at Trump in there. And I thought to myself, boy, this would be a great book for every child to have. But this just gives more fuel to the indoctrination fire. Yeah, it's just a joke. It's just a joke in the book. We you know,

the second book doesn't have anything like that. And, you know, we could do a version of the first book where the kid doesn't look like a child version of Trump. We could do it. you know, we could do a version of the first book where the kid doesn't look like a child version of Trump. We could do it. You know, I don't think that that's the pinnacle of determining whether we're going to solve this problem, but it's a fair criticism. No, I agree with you 100 percent on that. But thank you for taking my call, David.

I appreciate it. My pleasure. There is Aaron from Michigan. Let's go next to. Oh, I don't know. How about Ryan from Auburn, who is also a website member? I appreciate that, Ryan. Welcome. Hey, David, sorry, I'm a little under the weather, but yeah, I'm actually glad to be a member now listening to the bonus show. Love it. Good. Thank you you i actually wanted to follow up on a conversation we had last

time um so last time we talked about ai and since our conversation you had posted a video where someone took your video and made a made an ai voice version with tucker carl. I wanted to know what thoughts you had since then on it and and sort of the direction of A.I. since now, it sort of happened to you. Yeah, I mean, the one video where someone took my video and turned my voice into Tucker Carlson, it hasn't changed my overall view about A.I. I mean, listen, one of the things I believe about AI is we're not going to stop the development of it. The people who are saying just stop everything. I didn't believe it was going to happen two months ago, and I still don't believe that that's going to happen. I still believe that there are lots of great things that will come from it.

And there are also potentially scary things that we need to deal with. I you know, I am becoming more focused on what are the ways to tip the balance so that we get as much of the good with as little of the bad. But my view on AI hasn't changed because of the one time someone took my voice and tweaked it to make me sound like Tucker. Speaker 4 Oh, yeah. No. Well, I guess what I meant was, um, if you had any other thoughts on, on that video, um, since then, but, but I guess, um, just to continue a little bit, um, you know, I, it's interesting. I thought it was going to be harder to do something like that. But once I heard that video, I said, you know what, if, if some random person on the internet can figure that out, I could do it, too.

So I go online and realize, oh, my gosh, this takes anybody with an average computer skill like five minutes to do right. Like. I'm guessing what you would do is you would go to a voice. Here's how I would do it if I wanted to do the Tucker thing. Right. I would go to a voice cloning site and then I would upload two minutes of of the actual Tucker speaking. And then I would feed it my video and I would say, please clone the voice to the Tucker voice, but keep the cadence and the speech the same. And I guess I, my guess is in 60 seconds,

it spits it out. That's basically it. Yeah. It's basically that easy. Um, and I was also going to mention there's sort of a babble fish version too, where I didn't test this out because it does cost a little, like you have to pay for a membership. It's like 20 bucks a month. I just didn't feel like trying it. Yeah. But you could theoretically do your own voice and switch it to Spanish and you could post a Spanish video that way. Yeah. People have said the people who make some of that technology have actually sent me samples. And it's so funny because the Spanish, you know, I'm Argentinian and the Spanish, they sent it to me with like an actual Spain Spanish accent. And it was very

surreal hearing myself speak in Spain Spanish. But yeah, I have seen that. It's very interesting. Yeah, yeah, no, I was that's it is interesting. But yeah, yeah, that was just a thought I had. But but hey, I appreciate appreciate you chatting with me again. And that was really all I had for today. All right. Ryan from Auburn. Great to hear from you. Let's hear from Johnny from Canada, I think is what it says, who says that he is a Trump supporter. I don't know what that means. If you're Canadian, if you vote in the US, what's going on, Johnny? Yes. I'm out of the air. I'm sorry. What was that? Yes. You're on the air.S. What's going on, Johnny? Yes. Hi. Am I on the air? I'm sorry. What was that? Yes. You're on the air right now. Awesome. Yeah. No, I'm actually from Canada, but I just live north of the border of the States. And I just enjoy following the politics from time to time.

I mean, I find it's a lot more entertaining than what we have over here as far as Trudeau and everybody else. But yeah, no, it's my first calling and i uh i guess i was going to talk about stuff revolving trump and specifically i was thinking um i saw the whole situation with ewak i don't know if you followed it sorry what you said the situation with what the situation with what with ewak their stock ewak ewak like donA.C. It's Trump's company for true social. Oh, yeah. I haven't been following that at all. What's what's going on? We actually went up about 50 percent in the last two days because of the Iowa caucus. Oh, I got you. Hey, listen, in what sense are you a Trump supporter?

Like obviously you don't vote in the US. Speaker 5 No, I don't. But I just I enjoy the like, you know, living in Canada, I really have enjoyed living under the Trudeau rhetoric for the last decade. And there are things that resonate with me a lot more when I look at the stuff that Trump would say. Speaker 1 Like what? resonate with me a lot more when i look at the stuff that trump would say um like what but well i mean i guess for one uh we like i'm from uh from quebec and we had to deal with like the

covid lockdowns during that time and i know trump is more federal you know well obviously he's federal but like just the rules that we have to deal with with the vaccine passports, but also the gun laws, the speech laws, just that kind of stuff. I mean, I know it might sound silly, but I think it resonates with a lot of people in general that are conservative leaning in this country. Speaker 1 You say conservative. What is a conservative principle you hold that you see reflected in Trump? Well, I mean, you know, like I said, as crazy as it might, as silly as it might sound, the rhetoric that he speaks, I find it's more authentic. Like what? Authenticity doesn't mean conservatism, right?

No, of course not. But just the way that he's even if it was someone, you know, like like an RFK that was in power, if he came in just the way that he speaks, you know, it's not I wouldn't say robotic, but even like it's like I find Trudeau is very much like Vivek in the sense of like the fakeness. Speaker 1 Well, let's see if we can drill down because you're mentioning Vivek Trudeau, RFK Jr. and Trump. One of the things you said was because as a conservative, you are drawn to Trump. And my question was, what conservative value that is important to you?

Does Trump espouse? Speaker 5 Well, for example, his take on migration, you know, like the whole aspect of wanting more vetted migration. That's one gun laws. I do respect that, that he does allow, you know, Americans to have their their rights for firearms. I mean, here, for example, I've had my second Johnny. What is Trump done to allow people to have their firearms? It's not so much what he has done, but rather what he hasn't done. And when I say that, I mean, compared more to, for example, with Tr all that, basically we lost our rights to be able to buy a handgun, which, you know, we were not allowed to have that here. Meanwhile, there are

states in your country where people are walking around for self-defense with that. I'm not saying I would take it that far and actually carry a handgun, but it's just, you know, to go to the range and practice. You know, I'll be honest, I don't know Canadian gun laws and what is at the province, city or federal level. So I'm just taking your word about what Canada has done. I'm not acknowledging that what you're saying is true. I just don't know one way or the other. But I am I do find what you're saying very, very interesting when it comes to migration.

Your country under Trudeau, if I understand correctly, has much stricter immigration laws than the United States had under Trump. Isn't that true? So it's confusing to me that you look to Trump on the immigration issue. So I mean, it's pretty damn hard to move to Canada. My sister lives in Canada and no, I know. But like, OK, I would say say to that for example um one one perfect example is we had something called the roxham road border which was essentially uh an unpaved

road that went from upper new york into uh the southern province of quebec and what was happening was a lot of these migrants that are getting shipped from the southern border to new york i mean we've all heard about that. And New York is getting very upset about that now. But what was happening was the New York governor, or I believe it was the governor, he was sending up these migrants that they didn't want by bus, sending them through the Roxham Road border,

where essentially they would cross through and RCMP would welcome them with open arms and allow them to come in. And a lot of them set up in towns like Cornwall and Granby. Speaker 1 I got you. I got you. But here's the here's why I'm confused by what you're telling me. The first principle you said you admire about Trump over Trudeau. You said it comes to migrants and immigration along every single line. Canada's immigration system remains dramatically stricter than the US immigration system, even under compared to what it was under Trump. It may seem like that on paper, but you know, when I look in my backyard, sort of speak

and I see what's going on, you know, on on on the media that that doesn't necessarily report on the issues, you know, these alternative sources and podcasts and stuff like that. I gotcha. So, Johnny, what you're saying, if I understand correctly, is despite what all of the laws are, you believe there is a story that you personally are witnessing that is not reflected in the law, nor is it covered by the media? Is that am I hearing you correctly? Speaker 4 That's a pretty good way of putting it. Yes. Speaker 1 OK. Well, unfortunately, it's very hard to evaluate that because you're saying it's completely invisible and there's no way to see it. But I think your commentary is it'd be invisible

to me. I could not. Yeah. Speaker 4 What's that? Speaker 4 Yeah, it's it's it's hard for me to engage with it because you're saying ignore everything that's in the law about immigration policy. Here's what's really going on in Canada. And I just there's no way for me to know that you do is if you have the chance to look, look at the story of the Roxham Road border. I will see those videos of people lined up these these immigrants that pass through

the New York that came from the southern border line up and the RCP holds their hands as they as they cross this unpaved road. And that one, I'll check it out during COVID, but then they reopened it when COVID blockade went away. Speaker 1 All right. But you do acknowledge that on paper, the Canadian system is dramatically stricter than the U.S. Speaker 2 I will say on paper, the Canadian system is dramatically stricter than the U.S. I will say on paper, there are many things that I enjoy about this country over the states. Yeah. You know, like I will say to a certain extent, I will feel a little bit more safer in this country because I feel I feel like the mentality of many Americans, as much as I love

Americans, there's certain hostilities towards each towards each other. There's a lot more division. I find that there isn't so much that division over here. Is that division in the US partially because of Trump? I mean, I find this something that's been going on before before Trump, you know, just something that came into office and, you know, woke up out of bed and everybody started hitting each other. All right, Johnny. Well, I appreciate the call and let's keep an eye on everything, OK? Speaker 4 Sounds good. Thanks a lot, David. Speaker 1 All right.

There is Johnny from Canada, the Trump supporter, although a little difficult to understand exactly why. Let's go to a break. We will take calls again. Just not today. We'll see you very soon and we'll continue the show right after this. Many of you have heard me talk about the hacking that I've dealt with in the past. Look up the statistics.

If it hasn't happened to you, it still could at some point. Our sponsor, Aura, is the all in one solution that I use to keep all of our accounts safe. Thank you so much, David. the David Pakman show at David Pakman dot com. slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. All right. It is the favorite time of the week for some people, the least favorite time of the week for some others. It's time for Friday feedback. You can email info at David Pacman dot com if you have some kind of question or comment you'd like featured here. Sometimes we will also feature YouTube comments, Facebook comments, excretions on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, etc. We start today with an email Kenneth wrote in and something insane is happening with

my hair and I do apologize. It's really windy in the studio today. Kenneth says, please, David, just once. OK, I finally subscribed. Now please mention the UFO topic even once. Biden has commented on it. It's crazy in the House and Senate. It's not just tinfoil hat weirdos anymore.

It's a progressive issue regarding transparency, government oversight and national defense. Listen, I haven't been hiding my view about extraterrestrial aliens, alien intelligence, et cetera. If I look at the vastness of the universe and our galaxy and how the Milky Way contains hundreds of billions of stars and each of those has planets, the likelihood of extraterrestrial life existing somewhere is high. But the probability of intelligent life having reached Earth specifically in the ways and with the details that are often told in UFO contact stories is extremely low. Let's talk about it. On the one hand, when you look at the number of stars in the universe, 100 billion stars in our own galaxy. It's likely that some planets are

capable of supporting life. And it's likely that the conditions for what we might call intelligent life aren't the strangest thing in the world. You look at exoplanets in the habitable zone and then we go through and consider the age of the universe, 13.8 billion years, certainly enough time for life to have developed. The laws of chemistry and physics seem to be universal, at least in the universe, as we understand it, which means there's a really good chance that different forms of life have developed in different places at different times. However, however, there are some real problems with the UFO sighting stories, the so-called whistleblowers, numerous UFO sightings over the years, no concrete evidence supporting the claim that it is intelligent life from somewhere other than earth. Most of the evidence is easily explained misidentifications of natural phenomena, human made objects, UFO sightings debunked as aircraft web,

weather balloons, even birds in not every case is it fully explained, but we continue. There's also a lack of physical evidence. Well, the evidence has been covered up. It's at Area 51. This person covered it up. That person covered it up. If aliens really visited Earth, do we think that world governments are so competent and coordinated that they have been able to hide all of the physical evidence by now? If this was as frequent as we thought we would have some tangible proof debris from a spacecraft, biological samples.

But we have no such evidence. There have been searches and investigations. And then lastly, as I've said before, the idea of aliens visiting Earth, leaving without a trace, making contact and continuing to crash crafts in the way that they supposedly do seems really unlikely, really unlikely. If intelligent aliens existed and came from so far in the universe that we're not able to perceive it from earth, we would expect that they would have a level of technology that number one, wouldn't constantly lead to these supposed crashes. And number two, they would have no reason to hide their presence so completely

if indeed their technology was so advanced. Now to every one of these claims, there's a counterpoint. Well, if we are like ants to the aliens, it might be like, why haven't we tried to communicate with ants? They might not be trying to communicate with us. But every single one of these claims requires some kind of special pleading or explanation. So I have no reason to believe intelligent aliens have already visited Earth. I have no reason to doubt that there is life out there somewhere. So that's my view on the on the UFO issue. Kenneth, I hope that that is enough. And I don't know that I'm going to have anything new to say about it anytime soon.

Wesley wrote in about the now modified new introduction to the show. Wesley says a tremendous improvement over the recent new intro. It wasn't horrible, but the squelch at the beginning was off putting. I like the new one that goes straight into the energetic, upbeat riff. Yeah, we so we have the new intro and then we made a small tweak and now we have the new new intro and people people seem to like it. Everett writes in and says it would be interesting, perhaps frightening, depending on the results, to see just how many people would want Trump to be dictator for life.

Well, I mentioned this on the Tuesday show after the Iowa caucus. We are now seeing more and more interviews with Trump ists who when when you say to them, would you want another four years of a democratically elected Joe Biden or do you want a dictatorship from Trump? Many of them are now saying the Biden presidency is so bad, the dictatorship maybe is actually the better option. So sadly, a lot of these people, a lot of these people want a dictatorship as long as it's their dictator. Craig says about, I think, Rudy Giuliani, the amount of hypocrisy from a guy smoking cigars and drinking while complaining about medical side effects is astounding. I think Craig's talking about Rudy, who smokes cigars and drinks on his show while maybe complaining about the covid vaccine. Although I don't actually remember. But yes, yes, the people chain smoking

worried about there might be chemicals in the vaccine. I hate to tell you what's in the cigarettes, my friend. Drea wrote in and said it all adds up. The cognitive testing at times thinking Obama is president, repeating his stories, forgetting words, becoming more vulnerable to conspiracy theories, getting confused about where he's supposed to go, the hygiene issues, the way he stands. I've dealt with this with a loved one. Many people, you know, a dozen, 15, 20 wrote to me and they said, I recognize things about Trump that. I experienced when a loved one had dementia. That is not any kind of diagnosis. I'm just reporting to you what people writing to me have been saying. David Rosario wrote in and said Trump 2024, dude, why? Gasolina was so expensive, dude. During Trump

administration, gas was less than two dollars per gallon. What a joke, dude. Go to school. So you learn about economy. Well, I did. I got an undergraduate degree in economics and I liked it so much that then I got an MBA with a concentration also in economics. So I bring it up as people who watch the show. No, I essentially never bring up my education. This guy is specifically suggesting I get an education about the economy. So I guess it's worth mentioning that I did. Keith says Trump has been the only Republican candidate for the presidency since 2014. He has not won the popular vote ever. He remains their candidate.

Something fundamental has changed in the political process. There is no precedent for such longevity of dominance. Rational argument is ineffectual. It's actually incredible when you think about it that way. It's been 10 years. Actually, this isn't even true. It's really 2012 because 2014 was the midterm. So in 2012, Romney was the nominee. In 2016, it was Trump. He lost the popular vote. In 2020, it was Trump. He lost the popular vote and the Electoral College.

In 2024, every indication it will be Trump. It has been 12 years since the Republican Party has had a different political candidate as their nominee, and he hasn't won a single popular vote and it looks like they are going to do it again. Is that the definition of insanity or what? Lastly, here is Shaz Max, who commented on Facebook, Lauren Boebert is a brave woman standing up for her rights. She is a patriot and a real time American hero. Thank you, Lauren, for everything you do. And then Larry came in and responded to Shaz and said she gave a guy a rub in a movie theater

hero. Yeah. The people who are still excited by what Lauren Boebert brings to the political theater. I don't know what your standards are. I don't know what makes an elected official a good elected official at this point in time. But it is a very strange thing to hear people talk about family values and protecting our children and so on and so forth. And meanwhile, defend Lauren Boebert. I can't say I get it.

I can't say I get it. But of course, as we all know, these supposed principles from the right go into the toilet as soon as the principles are inconvenient to them. And that's exactly what's happened with Lauren Boebert and Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene and all of them. We have a great bonus show coming up for you today. If you are not yet signed up, if you've not yet had the pleasure of hearing the bonus show, sign up at join Pacman dot com. Access will be granted instantly when you subscribe. And I think that one of the best deals going is our normal membership rates. But if you would like a discount, you can use the coupon code.

Save democracy 24, save democracy 24, which will save you 60 percent. I'll see you then. And we'll be back Monday with a new show.