The David Pakman Show - 12/15/23: Republicans total hypocrites on impeachment, Vivek melts down

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Supposed IRS "whistleblower" Gary Shapley is asked whether there's any proof of the things he's claiming, and he has none -- Hypocritical Republicans who now support Joe Biden's impeachment previously said about Donald Trump's that there should not be a single party impeachment -- Vivek Ramaswamy loses control of a CNN town hall when he cites baseless conspiracy theories about the January 6 Trump riots -- Caller asks if David will teach his daughter about Santa -- Caller compares being a Trump supporter to an addiction -- Caller argues Democrats are not set up well in 2024 -- Caller makes the case that the economy is not in great shape -- Caller prefers Chris Christie over Joe Biden, but Joe Biden over Donald Trump -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Bud Lite boycott possibly ending, Pelosi agrees Jan 6 was inside job, and much more... 🔊 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription at https://babbel.com/pakman 🌱 Ounce of Hope: Get 20% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://www.ounceofhope.com/ 💻 Stay protected! Try our sponsor Aura FREE for 2 weeks at https://aura.com/pakman 🖥️ UPLIFT Desk: Get 5% OFF with code PAKMAN5 at https://upliftdesk.com/pakman 📰 Straight Arrow News: Download the FREE app at https://straightarrownews.com/pakman 🛌 Use code HELIXPARTNER20 for 20% off + free bedroom set at https://helixsleep.com/pakman 🖼️ Aura Frames: Use code PAKMAN for $30 off at https://auraframes.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 Welcome, everybody. Hope you're having a good Friday. You know, it's not a particularly great Friday for those in the Republican Party that now are burdened, seemingly in the runaway train of impeaching Joe Biden without any evidence. You know, those dreams you sometimes have or am I the only one where you wake up? I'm sorry. No. While you are dreaming, all of a sudden the dream starts and you've committed some

crime. You didn't mean to commit it. You somehow got wrapped up, but it's already been done. And now you've got to figure out, oh, my goodness, I never meant to get involved in this. How do I get out of this? I've got to I've got to go to the police or I've got to escape to Australia or something. Well, that's the situation. And then you wake up. And fortunately, it was all a dream for Republicans. They are in this situation determined to impeach Joe Biden, launching an impeachment inquiry, and they don't have the evidence. It's like the class you never finished in high school. And now you're dreaming. I got to go back and get this class done in order to get my diploma. I don't know if these dream analogies are good ones, but these are some of the ones I have. Here's an example. Supposed IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley went on Fox News yesterday. This was after Hunter

Biden said my dad had nothing to do with any of this stuff. This was after Republicans voted to formally launch the impeachment inquiry. And you're going to hear in this clip, Gary Shapley lay out all sorts of allegations. Joe Biden was peddling influence and all these other things. And he is asked the simplest of simple questions by the Fox News host. Can Republicans prove any of that? Is there any actual evidence of that? And you will hear a painful silence after which Gary Shapley says, I don't know, they're investigating.

You don't have to be financially connected to a business in order to be a part of that business. And what what President Biden was basically doing through Hunter Biden was allowing Hunter Biden to get these deals where there's no discernible actual product being produced. So it's really just a peddling of the influence. OK, Gary, given that answer, just a yes or no here. Can Republicans prove all that? Gary, it's up to their investigation.

Yeah, they have to conduct the investigation that they want to conduct. So you're not prove it. They prove it. So you're not sure about that question? That. Yeah. I mean, the Republicans, they're conducting investigation in Congress and they're. Can they prove any of that?

Well, they're investigating. The ones are going to be able to interview the individuals they want to interview, look at the evidence they want to look at. And ultimately they decide. I don't decide. There's ample evidence that shows that President Biden was involved in Hunter Biden's businesses in some way, shape or form. And yet we can't seem to surface any of that evidence. You know, the use of the term in a whistleblower doesn't even seem appropriate here. We've talked before about the difference between leakers and whistleblowers. The term leaker is not even an issue here. But when we're talking about a whistleblower, it's someone who exposes information that points to illegal or at least unethical behavior.

And it could be a violation of the law or it could be a violation of a corporation's rules, or it could be a violation of business regulations that aren't necessarily illegal or it could be some kind of threat to public trust. I don't even think you can call these so-called whistleblowers whistleblowers because they're not meeting any. All they have is allegations. And the problem is for many of these Republicans, the fact that there are allegations and the fact that there is an impeachment inquiry are being treated as evidence when in reality those are not forms of evidence. Now, let's talk about some of the disgusting hypocrites that we've uncovered

throughout this fiasco. As many of you know, we currently have a single party impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden going on. David, sir, what do you mean by that? What I mean is that no Democrats want to do the impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden. Look at how many Republicans four years ago, almost to the day this week. Look at how many Republicans previously said we shouldn't have single party impeachments. What was the difference four years ago? You know what it was. The impeached was the failed former President Trump. Now it's Biden.

Here is MAGA Mike Johnson saying no, no, no, no. Impeachment processes were never created to be for single party impeachments. But that's what they're doing right now. The founding fathers, the founders of this country warned against single party impeachments, and they had a very specific reason for warning us against that. They said that it would be bitterly divisive, perhaps irreparably divisive for the country. And that's what's happened now. This is the first time in the history of this nation in two hundred forty three years that

a president has been treated in this manner when one party has has followed and pursued real predetermined political outcome. How about that? Now, they are not yet doing a single party impeachment. They're doing a single party impeachment. They're doing a single party impeachment inquiry. But the same analysis certainly applies. And you only have to go back to their own words. Here's more of Maga Mike Johnson from December 13th, 2019. This is four years and a day ago. And he says you don't get to remove a president because you don't like

him if you don't have any evidence to support impeachment. That's what they're committed to doing to Joe Biden. This is a president. This is a president who just yesterday called a teenager on the autism spectrum, a person with an anger management problem. Does that make it harder to defend him this vigorously? The president communicates in a unique way. He doesn't communicate the way I do and the way many of us would. But six, wait a minute, wait a minute,

let me answer. 63 million Americans voted to make him the president of the United States. He has an unorthodox style. But what we're talking about in here is removing a president because the Democrats don't like that style. They don't like him. They don't like his Twitter account. They don't like many of his staff members. They don't like what he does in the office. But that the way our system is designed, the way our constitution is written is the party in charge. Even if you have the majority in Congress, you don't get to remove a president because you don't like them. They did not produce a scintilla of evidence to support a charge of impeachment. And Republicans haven't yet either. So I don't know

why, but I'll be charitable to MAGA Mike. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. If they don't find a scintilla of evidence against Joe Biden, I'm sure they won't move forward to impeach. Right. Or something like that. Here's Congressman Matt Gaetz again, almost four years ago to the day. Matt Gaetz also used to be against single party impeachments before he was for them, which is in 2023. The reality is they failed to meet their burden. And so now with no bipartisanship, matter of fact, the only bipartisan vote will be a bipartisan vote against impeachment with no direct evidence, with no enhanced public support for impeachment, Democrats will continue to visit the opportunity costs for this division on our country.

As Republicans, we would like to work on infrastructure, on asylum reform, on policy changes that will actually impact the quality of life for our constituents. But for Democrats, impeachment is their drug, it is their obsession, it is their total focus, and it is deeply disappointing that they failed to meet the standard that they set for themselves. Democrats impeachment is their drug. It is their obsession. It is their total focus. And it is deeply disappointing that they failed to meet the standard that they set for themselves. You know, we know that hypocrisy doesn't matter on the right. Double standards don't matter on the right. So it's not like Republicans are going to be convinced by seeing this double standard in action.

But we shouldn't forget that these are not serious people. Vivek Ramaswamy tried going conspiracy during a recent CNN town hall rehashing the claim that January 6th riots were an inside job. Abby Phillip tried to fact check him. He didn't like it. It got very ugly. This I want you to see. This was in Des Moines, Iowa. But Vivek Ramaswamy first floated this in a really public setting at the last presidential debate. He said, we know that we now know January 6th was an inside job. He tried it again. He was confronted. Here is Abby Phillip trying to challenge those claims. Let me ask you about something that you said at the debate last week. You used the phrase inside job to describe what happened on January 6th. The next day,

Capitol rioter Alan Hostler highlighted your comments at his sentencing. He is going to prison for 11 years. Hostler threatened members of Congress. He brought a hatchet, knives, pepper spray, sun batons, tactical gear to the U.S. Capitol. Tourist. Are you concerned that a convicted felon like that is now promoting your comments in court? So here's my concern, Abby, and I want to tell you guys where I'm at. Yeah. If you had told me it's close to three years ago that January 6, 2021 happened. If you told me three years ago, back three years ago that January 6th, 2021 happened. If you had told me three years ago, back when I was a biotech CEO, not steeped in this world, I was just consuming passive media, but was focused on my world of developing medicines.

If you had told me that January 6th was in any way an inside job, the subject of government entrapment. Right. I would have told you that was crazy talk. Right. You would have been right. Fringe conspiracy theory nonsense. Yeah. I could tell you now, having gone somewhat deep in this, it's not. I mean, the reality is this. We do have a government, first of all, we have to acknowledge that has lied to us systematically over the last several years about the origin of COVID-19, about the Hunter Biden laptop that we were told was false. Oh, boy. By 51 CIA experts and otherwise before we now know that it was true. You can go straight down the list that Trump, Russia, disinformation, collusion, hoax, all of it. Now we come to January 6th. The reality is we know that there were

federal law enforcement agents in that field. We don't know how many. I think it's a shame. If I may finish this, Andrew, well, let me just I'm going to I'm going to go ahead and interrupt you here because because I know that there was no one doesn't approve of this. I know there were federal agents. You're saying this network doesn't approve of this message. Well, it's a nonsense message that there were federal. This is important. You are saying there were federal agents in the crowd on January 6th. There is no evidence that there were federal agents in the crowd on January 6th. So why before Congress, when pressed on what the number was, they didn't say there were none. They just couldn't say. You're saying that there's no that you have not seen any evidence. So we've seen multiple

and so we've seen multiple informants suggesting that they were. We know people. We know people were FBI informants who were asked. Is there any evidence? Let me clarify. It was very uncomfortable. I'm going to. It's uncomfortable for Abby. It should be uncomfortable for Vivek. Clarify my question because you- I know this is an uncomfortable issue for many people, but we have to do the truth here. I'm going to clarify my question because I want to make sure that you understand what I'm asking. I understand this deeply. And I told you, I was with you three years ago. I'm not there now. Where is the evidence? Yes. Where is the evidence that the government

had a plot, an inside job- But no, I'm going to tell you what an inside job is because I'm not going to- I'm not going to respect- Violence on January 6th. I'm not uncomfortable to see how he's defending insane stuff. You can you can push back on the evidence and you can push back on that. And let's do this fairly. Why did they suppress footage of now what's been released? 200 hours of footage of shooting rubber bullets into that crowd, shooting tear gas into that crowd. You didn't see that before.

You saw what the response was to that. Now you see footage coming out of actually rolling out the red carpet for Capitol. Speaker 1 So listen, you get the picture. He doesn't actually cite any evidence. And so many of you I mean, one point two million people watched my live stream on that day. We had we were right there the entire time. Right. We saw exactly how it built and developed. They think that saying there were FBI informants in the crowd, there were law enforcement in

the crowd, there were undercover in the crowd. They think that proves something. It doesn't. Any time there are large crowds expected in D.C., you have undercover law enforcement. You have the fact that even if the presence of those individuals was a fact, it doesn't actually prove anything. The presence even of FBI informants, there are all sorts of FBI informants that, you know, we later learn are FBI informants and they're basically allowed to just

live their lives. If they want to go to a rally, they go to a rally. And yes, in some way they are in touch with the FBI and providing information that doesn't prove that it was entrapment or that the government organized it or any of it. I think Vivek's desperate. Vivek's losing badly. He now is at a third of where Nikki Haley is. This is all he can come up with. It's a sad end to a campaign that was destined to fail. We all have someone on our shopping list who is tough to find a gift for. Here's an out of the box idea. Cannabis as a holiday gift.

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Let's go to the phones on the Friday show. I love hearing from people in the audience. We you can find the David Pacman show discord, which is how we do these calls at David Pakman dot com slash discord. We'll start today with Tally from Raleigh. Tally from Raleigh, North Carolina. Welcome to the program, Tally. I've invited you. What's going on? Hey, can you hear me? Yes, I can. OK, great. I actually have sort of a holiday themed question that I'm just curious about your take on, especially with some. Like viral trends have been seeing viral trends related to your book yeah um okay that's related to the holidays so i firstly related to your uh children's book how to think like a detective

um it reminded me of actually an idea i had some years ago where like kids could uh practice their critical thinking skills around the holidays when kids ask their parents if Santa is real and just like walk them through like looking at, well, do reindeer fly, you know, stuff like that and let them come to the conclusion on their own. I'm wondering now that you're a father and the trends I've seen is Christians have actually been freaking out on TikTok recently saying that they don't want to teach their kids about Santa because they're scared that it will open the door to like worshiping a false God or then when they find out Santa isn't real, they'll think Jesus isn't real, which is actually like similar to what I experienced. But I'm wondering now that you have a daughter and you value

critical thinking skills, how will you plan to go about Santa in your household? My daughter, you know, like that or we're Jewish. So my daughter is not going to believe in Santa. There's not going to be any. Now, I have spoken to some Jewish friends of mine with older kids about how do you deal with obviously in school they are presented with kids who believe in Santa. So what do you do about that? Do you tell them Santa's not real? Do you tell them don't go and ruin it for the other kids? You know, I don't have an answer for this,

but let me put it. I'm going to put it this way to you. I am never going to tell my daughter any untruths about Santa. Right now, I imagine saying something like, oh, that's a story that's part of this thing called Christianity. I guess we're not you know, we're not Christian. And if she says, is Santa real? I would go, no, Santa's not real. Now, I'm not going to go tell her, go ruin it for other kids. Imagine a scenario, though, where my daughter's teacher calls and goes, listen, she's been telling the other kids that Santa's not real. I would find it so hard to be upset about that because I think it's so damn funny. But I would probably have some kind of conversation with her and I would go, listen, there are kids that do think Santa's real and eventually they'll figure out Santa's not real.

But maybe let them figure it out on their own because they might get upset. You know, maybe I'll do something like I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But as far as my daughter is not going to believe Santa is real because we're we're not Christians. So, you know, I the answer might be different if we were, I guess. I don't know. Yeah, it's actually like pretty similar. The person who's I saw yesterday, I don't know if you know them. Their name is Jacqueline Glenn. They're kind of like an atheist. You just upload a video yesterday, kind of going through these like TikToks that Christians were talking about. And she kind of compared it to like, you know, what if your kid being Jewish, you know, at school was saying that Jesus isn't real?

You know, will parents be just as understanding, you know, because kids speak very bluntly, you know, and you have to actually teach them to respect other people's opinions and not, you know, be rude and stuff like that. So, yeah, I'm just like a curiosity thing. And, you know, you figure it out as you go, I guess. Speaker 1 That's my plan to figure it out as I go. Exactly. Now, Tally, it says that you're undecided. Is that true? Speaker 4 Yes, that is true. Speaker 1 And who might you vote for? Who are you considering? Speaker 1 I feel like I'm on the side around us just because we are like far out. I don't know exactly what's going to happen, like with the primary.

One of those few people who still have like hope that maybe Biden won't be the nominee specifically because of what's going on in New Hampshire right now. They're saying he's not even necessarily guaranteed to be on the ballot because of him trying to make South Carolina go first. But Mary Ann's on the ballot. of him trying to make South Carolina go first. But Marianne's on the ballot. You're undecided. Are you saying if it's Biden, Trump, you might vote Trump? No, if it's Biden, Trump, I might vote RFK, even though I don't like him just because

I'm like emotionally tired of the duopoly. And since he's polling high, I think there could be a chance that maybe, you know. Just just because it's polling's high, I feel like my vote wouldn't be as wasted on that and maybe could lead to bigger change, just like systematically rather than policy wise. But you're not telling me you think RFK might be the next president, are you? I'm not sure. I think, you know, I live in North Carolina, as it says, so I'm not I'll have actually like more information saying how other people vote in other states before me.

If he's getting if his the amount of votes he's getting is like tracking with his high polling, then I may be more inclined to join in on that bandwagon. I see has like more of a chance. But if not, then if it's seeming like that'll just be a waste of vote, then you'll probably unfortunately feel kind of forced to vote for Biden. All right. Well, let's work together to prevent a Trump presidency, OK? Yes, sir. All right. There goes Talley from Raleigh. Great to hear from you. Let's go next to Patrick. Patrick from North North where it's cut off. Patrick from North Idaho. Welcome to the program, Patrick. What's going on?

Good to be with you, David. How are you doing? Well, excellent. Happy Hanukkah. Thank you. I love it. You know, being up here, I got a command tally for the. You know, the critical thinking stuff when it comes to the mega Republican Party.

As far as a confrontation, I would commend Luke Beasley doing a great job on the man on the street deal. And when you're, when you're talking about the, uh, flip a friend, you know, flip a family member, get that blue wave and, and get those percentages up to make an overwhelming statement of we don't accept fascism in America. Right. I would definitely lean towards the gentle side and, you know, realizing that mega is an addiction. I think we touched on this a little bit a few weeks back that you were asking in one of the videos that Luke did when the younger college gentleman just walked away. It's one of the only ones that just has that flight syndrome and not the fight syndrome that most addicts go through. You know, denial first, fight or flight, anger, aggression, stories, fanciful stories, delusions of grandeur. Just looking at the overall scope of how to deal with these good people, these friends and family members of ours during the last Christmas, the last Hanukkah that we have before the next election.

Yeah. What would you did you have a question, Patrick? What what would your approach be to trying to flip a friend to trying to flip a family member that is ready to listen right now that just needs the information and just, you know, needs a needs some guidance. Well, it depends what their beliefs are that need to be corrected. I don't think that there's any one specific thing I would say. It depends on what their beliefs are. You know, in general, I want to use a Socratic method of questioning to first figure out, do they even know why they believe the things that they believe? There are some people who will be open to exploring those questions, some some people

that won't. But there's really no one approach. What I can tell you, Patrick, and I'm going to let you go so we can keep the momentum going. What I can tell you is, in general, to change the mind of an individual who is heavily invested personally in certain beliefs, it's not short. It takes a long time. And that's why the retail approach of going voter by vote by voter is so difficult because

it is so time consuming and I've not found any real shortcut to it so far. I'll leave it there. Why don't we go next to Drew from Chicago, Illinois? Drew, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Oh, David. So I'm originally from Australia, right?

My dad's American. I've been living here in Chicago for about a year now. Okay. So I'm a moderate. I can lean either way. But let me ask you a question. Being that you're also in such a major city, Los Angeles, I think it is. No, I'm in New York.

You said you think I'm in LA? Oh, sorry. You're in New York. I wasn't exactly sure. Oh. What reasons would you give me to keep supporting Democrats in a city that isn't safe nor good. Now, I was walking along East 47th the other day in the school and the school was getting

robbed when I was walking along. Democrats have felt a monopoly of power for decades here in Chicago. And I think, you know, that and the city hasn't got any better. Like, why should I not support something new? Well, I you know, there's a bunch of stuff there. I don't know which statistics you're referring to in Chicago. And I also don't know whether things have been, quote, getting better or or worse. I think we'd have to dig into that in detail even to start the conversation productively.

You would you would concede, Drew, that any city with millions of people is going to have some robbery, right? Like you're not saying the standard would be zero robbery or are in a city of many millions or is that the standard you're applying? Well, I'm originally, you know, I'm from Sydney, a city with millions of people also, and I wouldn't see robberies considering I was in one of the worst neighborhoods in Sydney. I didn't see as many robberies as I sometimes do. What's your about? Listen, Chicago. But so you mentioned seeing one robbery in Chicago. You're saying you regularly see robbery.

No, I said I see it, you know, on the news and I hear, you know, he's saying whatever it is. And I saw one recently. I got it. You saw one robbery in Chicago. Yeah. Listen, I don't know that there's really any kind of trick here. You know, the question is, you're saying, why shouldn't you vote for something new since, as you characterize it,

voting for Democrats isn't working as you've defined it? Fine. Perfectly reasonable. The question I would ask you is what is being proposed by the Republicans running in Chicago that you think would be an improvement by the metrics running in Chicago that you think would be an improvement by the metrics you're using to evaluate how the city is doing? In other words, which Republican candidate in Chicago has offered you what policies that you think would be better? I'm like, is there and there isn't another mayoral election for another four years? You know, considering that most Chicago, Illinois Republicans are pretty moderate, you know, considering that most Chicago, Illinois Republicans are pretty

moderate, you know, maybe some type of platform, you know, Lee's out and trying to reduce crime would be a good policy platform to, you know, go to a policy platform to reduce crime. But what policies would do that that Republicans have proposed? I mean, if you're asking me what I would like to see or what I would want to see. What you would like or want, I mean, if you're asking me what I would like to see or what I would want to see. What you would like or want, I think, is the same thing, isn't it? I mean, it's like, you know, I can I can want this by like this platform over here. I kind of like it. And it's close enough.

But the question I'm trying to get to here, Drew, is. If the Democratic policies on crime aren't working, which are the policies that would work? All these are work, I think, you know, investing in public education, I mean, public education, Chicago shop, we know that's not very good. OK, I was I was lucky enough to be able to graduate before I came here to Chicago. Good. Let's focus on that one for starters.

In general, Republicans don't want to invest in public education and Democrats do. Republicans often want to actually hurt public education through voucher schemes and generating chaos for educators at public schools. So if you want to invest more in public education, why would you go from Democrats to Republicans when Republicans usually want to take away money from public education? It doesn't seem to make sense. For me, it's about school vouchers. I do support school vouchers, but when I knock on private schools, you know, public school

school vouchers. But would you agree that would you agree that a school voucher program is not an investment in public education? I mean, it's an investment in what school the you know, the parents will like to tell the go to. It's you know, crazy for more generation. Let's say you have this over here. You have this school, a school for better statistics.

But this school seems better off. Let's say this kid went to this school here. Speaker 1 But hold on a second. Hold on a second, because you're jumping around now. Let's keep it super. Let's be super clear. When I said in order to reduce crime, what are the policies you would like to see? You said, well, greater investment in. Hold on a second. You said investment in public education.

I said, well, that's something Democrats want to do and Republicans don't. And you said, well, I like voucher programs, but voucher programs quite literally take money from public education and put it into private schools. So now it's fine if what you actually meant was you don't want to invest in public education, but you realize that that's the opposite of what you said you wanted. I think you didn't exactly. So I said I said I support school vouchers when they're not going towards private schools. So if it's going towards public schools. But why would you need a voucher for a public school? They're already they're already paid for through taxation and free at the point of attendance. Why would you need a voucher for public school?

I mean, if you want to go, sometimes there was an issue, at least if you want to go out of the district or go somewhere else that isn't exactly in that district. There's always going to be maybe there are some school of choice thing. Listen, Drew, I think I got a lot of other people to get to. Here's what I would say. Your first question, why would I keep supporting the people who aren't fixing the problems? Great question. Fantastic. When we're getting into, well, what is it about Republicans and policies and what you'd like to see? It's all a little bit confused. So I would just devote a little more time to thinking some of this stuff through.

OK. All right. Thank you, David. All right. There goes Drew from Chicago. Let's take a very quick break and then we'll be back with more right after this. If you sit all day long while you work and you've never tried a desk that can transition between sitting and standing, it really is a game changer.

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That's UPL IFT desk dot com slash Pacman. Then use code Pacman five for five percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. One of our sponsors today is Straight Arrow News, an independent news website and app really focused on unbiased, fact based journalism. The top two independent media bias rating services have recognized their reporting as having a center or middle bias, no spin bias or filter to get the news. You can download their free app at essay and dot com slash Pacman or go directly to Apple

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Make sure to set up your straight arrow news app to watch it. These clips are only on straight arrow news. Straight arrow news is about unbiased, straight facts reporting. Go to S.A.N. dot com slash Pacman to learn more and get their free app. That's S.A.N. dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. All right, let's hear from a few more people in the discord and see what is on the minds of individuals who want to chat today. Why don't we start with in this section with Rob from Mississippi? Rob from Mississippi, welcome to the program.

What's on your mind today? What what what did you want to talk about? Rob from Mississippi, I've invited you to join me, please accept. And last call for Rob from Mississippi. And Rob from Mississippi is gone. Isn't that a sad thing? All right. Let's go next to George from Virginia. George from Virginia.

Welcome to the program. Let's hope you're there. Hi, David. Hey, yes, I can. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to, I guess, confront you on the whole economy thing because i think that's like a super important issue uh issue going into 2024 and i think democrats need to figure out their messaging on it okay um so there's three things i wanted to bring up because i heard this uh podcast where these people were explaining like the disconnect between why we're seeing these good metrics in the like broader economic side, but people in polls are still saying that the economy sucks. Okay. And there's three metrics I want to kind of challenge you to take a look at maybe later. I'm going to make a note of them right now go ahead

okay so the first one is real wages okay yep so real wages kind of measures the buying power that people have um so it takes in all all kinds of considerations like inflation and all that so like how much how far your dollar actually goes. Right. So that's kind of what that metric does. So if you look at the the data, all in the first year, he had actually good approval numbers. Once we hit 2021, the real wages started dropping again. OK, so what's the next metric? The next metric is the average house price. So if you look at, so the chart I have around 2020, right? Yep. The house price was kind of steady from, I would say about 2019 or 2017 to about 2020. Then when Biden got into office, it blew up over a hundred thousand dollars was, was increased.

Yep. And then what's the next, next metric. And then the final metric is the vehicle price, the average vehicle price. So if you look, uh, at around 2020, uh, so the price, uh price I'm not going to like sugarcoating the price has been going up steadily. Right. Yep. But once you hit about 2021, it it jumped significantly. So and this is just new car prices or you're saying new and used. So this one I'm looking at is new, but I believe it's also with used as well. I think car prices in general have just gone up, you know, gone up a lot. Yep. So I think if you take these three things and you look at the charts and you say, wow, this all happened around 2021 when Biden was in office, you can kind of see why people are upset. You know what I mean?

So let's deal with these. This is this is absolutely fantastic. And, you know, we should be we should be looking at this. So you talked about three different things. You talked about real wages in the United States. Real wages mean adjusted for inflation. You are absolutely correct that although real wages. So so first of all, it's important to know that in the past there have been periods where inflation adjusted wages do go down and it tends to be when there is an economic calamity. So, for example, if you look at the period from about 2009 down into I mean, really all the way up to 2015, there was a six year period where real wages were flat or declining. And part of it was Fed policy to try to get the economy to recover from the 2008 crisis. Fair. We agree

on the data that that six year period we saw a similar environment of flat or reduction in real wages. Yes. OK, so we are indeed seeing that again. And this is being driven, of course, by inflation, which has been a global phenomenon. So if we look just at wages, wages have been climbing nicely by historical standards. If we look at real wages because of the inclusion of inflation, you are absolutely correct. The numbers are far less exciting. The inflation is now under control. So we are starting to see that turn around.

You're not wrong. When you look at real wages, you don't go. The last three years have been a party. So I'm with you. That's a metric that isn't. This is the best economy ever. The other metrics you're talking about, average sales price for a home and average price of a new car and then also average price for a used car. They're all up significantly. But we know that already inflation has been high

and the price of transportation and homes is part of what we say when we say inflation is up. So when you say, hey, inflation's coming down, but homes got really expensive over the last few years and cars got really expensive over the last few years. We know that. But we also know that dating back to the third quarter of 2022, home prices have started to come down and they've gone from I have it in front of me, 552 down to 500. That's that's almost a 10 percent decline. That's very significant. But again, we see that in the inflation numbers, the inflation numbers have come down and housing prices are coming down. Used cars have started to come down quite significantly since October of 2021, and new cars have flattened and started to come down a little bit.

So I mean, listen, you're not wrong about any of these things. I just think that you've basically come to me and said, here are the three metrics I've found that seem the worst. And I'm kind of like, those aren't great. They're not the worst, but they're also not great. In addition to that, we can look at GDP. We can look at employment. We can look at stock market labor force participation. Here's a whole bunch of other metrics that look pretty good. So you giving me this additional data is completely accurate. It doesn't change the big picture that historically the economy is pretty solid right now. Overall, it's not perfect, but it's pretty solid. Oh, yeah. So don't get me wrong. I don't disagree with your like macro picture. OK, I'm more talking about like when Democrats are

out there. Right. Instead of saying the economy is strong, they should be saying, hey, we're going to work to get housing prices under control. We're going to work to get cars more affordable because we know you have to drive to work. Right. We're going to work to make the dollar go further. Yep. I'm with you 100 percent on that. If the critique here is the messaging's been no good. I'm with you, George. You're completely correct. Yeah. So I just I feel like because because, you know, when voters go in to vote, they're thinking about like crap, you know, I can't afford this house. I just looked at last week. I mean, something's going wrong. And right. I don't want to be just a bearer of bad news. I

do want to bring one solution idea that maybe some people can look into. OK, for housing, and that would be vacancy taxes. Ah, so if places are vacant, either on the sales market or on the rental market for longer than a period of time, the owner starts to incur a fee which would incentivize them to lower the price to get someone in there. Exactly. And I just learned about it. But Canada does it to stop foreign investors from hoarding housing as an investment vehicle.

Right. Now, I've read about that. That's interesting. I'm going to investigate that more, George. foreign investors from hoarding housing as an investment vehicle. Right now, I've read about that. That's interesting. I'm going to investigate that more, George. I really appreciate the points you made and making them very eloquently. OK, thanks, David. Have a good day. All right. There goes George. Great call. I have to tell you, great call. Love dealing with the with the specifics of a lot of these statistics. Why not? Right. All right. Why don't we go next to Nashville, Tennessee, to David from Nashville, David from Nashville. I'm inviting you to chat with me. Please accept the invitation. David. David, you're on the air. I can only imagine your audio device is having a problem. All right.

Well, that's too bad. Let's go instead to Connor from New Jersey. Connor from New Jersey. Welcome to The David Pakman Show. Hey, David. Hey, rats on two million subscribers, by the way. Thank you very much. So I just wanted to call in and say congrats on that. And I wanted to ask you something. So I've been looking around at candidates in the Republican Party, and honestly,

I'm thinking about voting for Christie in the primary. Okay. Came down to it where Trump still beat him. You know, Biden's kind of earned my respect recently with Israel, Palestine. But hold on. Are you fundamentally a right wing voter? No, not not really. I call myself conservative in like a Jersey sense, maybe. But, you know, I do hear out Democrats on the stuff that they say. Okay. And what I agree with, I agree with. And where I don't, I don't.

But I think, um, there are common sense, right? Leaning people are looking at Trump and going, this is a scary situation. We don't want this. So right now I think Christie or someone like Nikki would be our best shot on the right because they'll at least listen to people on the left and go, OK, I got to give these people a chance. They're Americans, too. You know? Yeah, I agree with you more on Chris Christie than on Nikki Haley, I would say.

I don't know that Nikki Haley is as interested in listening to left wing voices, but Chris Christie at least seems somewhat. Yeah. So if I understand correctly, your plan is you're going to vote Christie in the primary. But if it comes down to Biden versus Trump, you're going to vote Biden. Of course, New Jersey is going to go at least the geopolitical issues better. New Jersey, of course, will be very heavily in favor of Biden. So the argument might be your vote in the primary may matter much more to some in some sense. I'd hope so. I honestly I would love if Christie got more attention because he seems to be the only

one speaking sense to me. You know, he's the only sane person, it seems to me, to be totally frank. You know, it's odd because in high school, I, you know, I really didn't like him because of what he was doing with the teachers unions. I come from a family of teachers. All the women on my mom's side, they're all teachers. So I wasn't a big fan of that. And you know, of course, when I think it was a

Republican shutdown, he was on the beach. So we were all making fun of him for that at the time. But, you know, it's crazy. You know, people who really didn't like Christie at one point are now, you know, giving him a fair shot and going, you know, this guy's making more sense than most of these people. Not that many people, though, because he's polling two percent. So it's great that you're seeing some people give him a shot. But he's he can't seem to get past two percent in this Republican primary. Unfortunately, amongst Republicans, but amongst Democrats, I've noticed, you know, if Republicans really want a shot at getting a person in there, you know, Democrats want to listen

to Christie more than any of the others. So, right. He might be the only shot that they have. But I agree with when it comes down to it. It's for the people. So whoever gets elected, I hope it's in everybody's best interest and it's not someone like Trump or anything. Project 2025 related. But good to talk to you, David. Speaker 1 All right. Conor from Jersey. Great to hear from you. Very much appreciate it. Why don't we talk to oh, it's so tough to say

because there's so many interesting people that want to get on. But how about Henio from Maryland? I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Henio, welcome to the program. What's on your mind? Yes, I love you. Hear me? Yes, I can. It's very echoey, but I can hear you. Oh, apologies. My best. I'll try to make it short. So my question is, why are popular, well-known progressives such as yourself and TYT, etc., like not coordinating or communicating on hosting their own presidential debates when it's obvious that the DNC and the like are not really, you know, willing to do so? They've already made their choices in a sense, which seems kind of, you know, anti Democratic. Henio, are you saying why aren't we hosting a Democratic primary debate? It doesn't have to be Democratic, just your own, you know, debate.

Well, but who's going to come to it if if our own debate, if you're talking about a general election debate, the Commission on Presidential Debates does those the candidates don't participate in non sanctioned debates. Hold on. Let me finish the answer. Let me finish the answer, though. Hold on. General election debates are governed by the Commission on Presidential Debates. They're not going to have David Pakman and TYT host a debate. Republicans are not going to have TYT and David Pakman host a debate because, first of all, we're a debate. Republicans are not going to have T.Y.T. and David Pakman host a debate because, first of all, we're too small. They're not going to do it. And also they're not going to have left wingers host the debate. And then as far as Democrats, Biden wouldn't show up

and he's the presumptive nominee. So is it really worth the trouble to have Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips debate each other when Joe Biden has 70 percent of the vote? I just don't know. Would they even do it? I don't even know. I'm not sure. Speaker 4 I mean, it's providing an avenue, of course,

not to be like an official, obviously, but it's going to be on a platform that either you or the young turks can like host. Speaker 1 Yeah, I got you. Speaker 4 You have an audience. I mean, it's basically a I want to say like a foot in the door, a starting point in a sense where. Listen, let me do this, honey. I'm going to make the following declaration.

If the following individuals would like to join me for a cross party debate. I am willing to welcome Marianne Williamson, Dean Phillips, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West to a conversation, a platform conversation, a debate, whatever you want to call it. I'm glad to host it if they want to do it. All right. Fair enough. All right. Henio from Maryland. Great to hear from you. Let's go to a short break. I'm so sorry if I wasn't able to get to you this week, but I will continue trying next week.

Wait, next week or my next. Yes. Next week is. Yes. Then we will be off on vacation. But next week I will try to get to you. Thank you. Quick break. Back after this. I love try to get to you. Thank you. Quick for joining us. built in Glaciotek layer to keep you cool at night. An extra layer of foam for pressure relief

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These frames sell out quickly. Get yours before they're gone. That's a you are a frames dot com slash Pacman. Use the code Pacman for 30 dollars off. The info is in the podcast notes. All right, let's get to Friday feedback on Fridays. We review emails that have come in YouTube comments that have been left, Reddit posts that have been made just to get a general sense of what's on the minds of people in the audience. There will sometimes be praise.

There will sometimes be substantive critiques. There will sometimes be non-substantive critiques. There will sometimes be vicious attacks against me as an individual, and it's all part and parcel of doing what I do. So let's jump right into it. Many people commenting about induction stoves, some people in favor, some people not in favor. And we are going to start. We are going to start with that. Eddie wrote in and said, don't let this video distract you from the fact that Kamala posted happy Thanksgiving from her kitchen that has a gas stove rules for the not for me. Well, remember that Joe Biden didn't try to ban gas stoves. Joe Biden doesn't have the authority to ban gas stoves.

Joe Biden's administration, recognizing that burning fossil fuels isn't the best and that cooking with gas at home isn't great for air quality, was wondering how can we incentivize people to get induction cooktops and getting away from gas stoves? The fact that Kamala Harris hasn't yet switched over from a gas stove, I don't think is evidence of any particular hypocrisy, particularly since the entire context of this thing was based on the false claim that they want to ban the gas stoves. Now, I admit I got rid of my gas stove. I had been thinking about it for a while. I temporarily lived in one place that came with an induction cooktop. It was fantastic. And so,

yeah, I got rid of my gas stove a few months ago and got a got an induction and never looking back. Now, not everybody is so furious about this. Fink wrote in and said just installed a new induction stovetop. This is fantastic. Boils water very fast. Heat control is amazing and fast. It does take a little time to adjust to how fast it is, but easy cleanup cools down fast, cooks like any other stove. Just a better heat source. Yeah. You take the pot off of the burner, which is not really a burner. You take it off. It's cool to the touch right away when there's splash from when you're flying, frying Hanukkah latkes, right? You don't have to start digging in and taking a brush and cleaning those metal grates. And then you need to get a different wire brush for inside where the gas flame comes. Now you just wipe the thing down and then you're

done. It really is great. I understand that the prices are going to have to come down for it to be affordable for everybody, but it is great technology. We are the people that are furious about this. You know, as I said before, at one point in order to cook and in order to have heat indoors, we burned wood in our houses and it was a huge fire risk, smoke inhalation, terrible in every way. And eventually we made progress to some fossil fuels. The progress is continuing. There's no reason to be angry about going from a gas range to induction unless you think it was logical to be angry when we stopped burning wood in our houses to cook. I wasn't I wasn't around, but I wouldn't have been angry about that. So come on, guys, give me a break. Scott Cantrell wrote in and said,

I still want to know how much the DNC is paying you. So three responses to this. Number one, they are paying me zero. Number two, why would they even pay me? I'm not even a Democrat and I've never donated to any Democrat nor to the Democratic Party. And number three, I would love it. I would love it if any one of the hundreds of people, at least maybe thousands, but hundreds of people for sure who claim the DNC pays me. Can anybody present even a shred of evidence? Is anybody willing to present any evidence that I've received a single dollar from the DNC or Soros or whoever you claim I'm funded by?

If anybody can get me evidence, I will bring it to you. I will bring it to you. Tony Morse says that I think they're talking about me here. Yeah, that lefty is wrong about the food in rural northern Indiana. Those evangelical churches have the best potlucks. Sorry, dude, you obviously don't know what you were missing. Maybe you should go to church and learn something or some things. You can have your hipster coffee shop. Listen, when I went to rural northern Indiana, the restaurants weren't great. And I went to one of those evangelical church potlucks.

It wasn't great. I'm sorry. You know, it's it's just my opinion. You're entitled to your opinion. If you think the pinnacle of food is not, you know, Sixth Street in Manhattan, the Indian and Bangladeshi restaurants. Right. If that to you, that's bad. And what's good to you are rural evangelical church potlucks in northern Indiana. That's fine. I'm not trying to take it away from anybody. I just told my experience, culinarily rural northern Indiana and some of the other red areas I've been to weren't great.

Even parts of California, which everybody thinks is so liberal, you get away from the coasts and the major coastal cities. It's not so good. And I have experiences there. That's a blue state. OK. It's just my opinion. No need to be offended.

You're entitled to your evangelical potluck if that's what you like. I'm entitled to my hipster coffee shop if that's what I like. Joe Perry said Texas barbecue. Let me guess. You want tofu and soy milk. So this is again in that conversation where I said there is good food in red states. When I went to Texas. Sure, it was Austin. It was the blue part of Texas. I had great barbecue. This person said I must have wanted tofu and soy milk at a barbecue place. That's really stupid. I'm an advocate of the Mediterranean diet, which limits the consumption of processed meats and meat in general. And when I went down to Austin, I did go to a really great barbecue spot. I had the brisket. I don't eat like pork. I have charcuterie, but I don't really eat like

pork. So I didn't have any pork ribs or anything like that. I had beautiful smoked chicken. I had brisket. It was fantastic. I didn't see tofu on the menu. I don't drink soy milk. It's a processed food product I try to avoid. So, you know, sorry to burst your your conservative bubble as far as that goes. OK, Vanessa Doherty says about January 6th and the rioters, they were FBI and uncover police in that crowd. Let me interpret this. This is a very simple sentence, but it's still mangled. I think what Vanessa Doherty is trying to say is there were FBI and undercover police in that crowd. This is not the blockbuster that many on the right believe it is, even if it's true that there were FBI and undercover police in that crowd. That's really common when there are huge events in Washington, D.C.

If there were FBI informants or even agents peripherally in the crowd that day at Trump's rally later around the Capitol or undercover police, that's logical. That's what you would expect, because that's what they do at these mass rallies and events. So it's not really the gotcha that they think it is. All right. Criticisms of the of my pronunciation of the state where Las Vegas is. Justin Bowman says, David, sir, with tears in my eyes. I beg you to pronounce my home state of Nevada, Nevada correctly. And then Howie says, love your stuff. But it's pronounced Nevada, not Nevada. I can't seem to get it right. And part of the problem is that this is a word that's in Spanish, which means a snowstorm, Nevada, Nevada. And what's tough for me is how to correctly slash incorrectly anglicize the word. OK, as a Spanish speaker, that's the difficulty

that I'm having with this word. So I'll do the best I can. I don't know really whether I can promise it'll be perfect. Nigel commented on Facebook and said, in my humble opinion and politically naive understanding of American politics, I think Mitt Romney would make a wise and sensible presidential candidate, to which Julie said as an outsider watching from Australia, I think you have a point. Yeah, I want to say it again. I don't romanticize Mitt Romney as God's gift to progressivism, but what I've said before is I would rather the people I disagree with disagree with me about what should the top tax rate be? How involved should we be in certain global initiatives, etc.? How should education be funded? I would rather those be the disagreements than have the people that I disagree with have

no respect for democracy or the rule of law, want to install a dictator as long as it's a dictator that'll do what they want. Right. The scope of the disagreements with Mitt Romney would be sensible in a way that the disagreements with the MAGA cult is very not sensible. It's not about Mitt Romney's great. It's about Mitt Romney is sort of sane. And we've lost that in this country with the Republican Party. On Reddit, user Radage said, help me understand this. Both men report to be six three, but one clearly towers next to the same individual. So here's what's going on. On the left, we have a picture of California Governor Gavin Newsom with President Xi. On the right, we have a picture of Donald Trump with President Xi. Both Newsom and Trump say that they are 6-3. As you can tell, if you're

looking at the picture, Gavin Newsom on the left looks notably taller than Xi, whereas Trump on the right looks barely taller than Xi. Trump is suspected to wear internal lifts in his shoes, which is why he stands so strangely. Newsom, as far as I know, is not suspected to wear internal lifts in his shoes, which is why he stands so strangely. Newsom, as far as I know, is not suspected to do it. This is just another example of what we've suspected for a long time. Trump's not six three and he doesn't weigh two fifty nor two thirty nine nor two fifteen. OK, Trump's probably six feet or six foot one and weighs much closer to 300 pounds. You can like it. You can dislike it. You can like or dislike Trump's trade six feet or six foot one and weighs much closer to 300 pounds. You can like it. You can dislike it.

You can like or dislike Trump's trade policy or Newsom's trades policy while recognizing Trump lies about everything, including his height and weight. And this is yet another example. You can look at Trump next to Obama and Tom Brady and then Obama next to Tom Brady. You get the same picture. OK, not the most important thing in the world, but Trump lies about a lot of different things. All right. If you have something you want to say to me, hopefully politely, email info at David Pakman dot com. We've got a great

bonus show coming up for you today. We'll be back next week. And it really is all happening.