The David Pakman Show - 12/20/22: Trump Criminal Referrals Sent, Guns 1st in Child Deaths

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

-- On the Show: -- Bill Scher, contributor to the Washington Monthly, Politico, and RealClearPolitics, and host of the history podcast When America Worked, joins David to discuss the early stages of the 2024 Republican primary, the outlook for criminal referrals against Donald Trump, Joe Biden's prospects in the second half of his first term, and much more -- The House Committee investigating the January 6 Trump riots votes to send criminal referrals against Donald Trump and others to the Department of Justice -- Failed former President Donald Trump explodes on Truth Social after the House Committee investigating the January 6 Trump riots decides to send Trump criminal referrals to the Department of Justice -- The scam of American conservatism, including how the right manipulates voters -- Guns are now the leading cause of death in children in the United States -- Incoming Republican Congressman George Santos appears to have lied about his employment history, education, employee history, and possibly his residence -- Former Donald Trump adviser and propagandist Steve Bannon is desperate for Donald Trump to stop promoting his NFT trading cards -- Radical Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are suddenly embroiled in a civil war over whether or not Kevin McCarthy should become the Speaker of the House when Republicans take control of the House in January 2023 -- Voicemail caller asks whether the right genuinely misunderstands free speech, or does so deliberately -- On the Bonus Show: Elon Musk asks whether he should step down as Twitter CEO, Madison Cawthorn sued by his own lawyers, Alex Jones seeks $1.3 million salary in Infowars bankruptcy, much more... 👩‍❤️‍👨 Try the Paired App FREE for 7 days and get 25% OFF at https://paired.com/pakman 👍 Get 10% off the Füm Journey Pack with code PAKMAN at https://tryfum.com 🔊 Try Blinkist for FREE and get 25% off at http://www.blinkist.com/pakman 🌰 Munk Pack: Code PAKMAN saves you 20% at https://thld.co/munkpack_pakman_1222 -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Subscribe to Pakman Finance: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanfinance -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Speaker 1 Well, an historic day in American history yesterday, the January 6th committee of the House of Representatives investigating the Trump riots of 2021 has approved criminal referrals for a former president. No, it's not against Barack Obama. Obama. Come on, guys. It's against failed former President Donald Trump. NBC News reports January 6th committee approves criminal referrals against Trump for his role

in trying to overturn the 2020 election. The panel also issued a criminal referral to the DOJ for conservative attorney John Eastman. He's the genius who came up with the strategy. I don't even know what to call it. The idea for how former Vice President Mike Pence could prevent the certification of the 2020 election. We are going to now hear from one of the members of the committee, Jamie Raskin. Let's listen. The first criminal statute we invoke for referral, therefore, is Title 18, Section 1512 C, which makes it unlawful for anyone to corruptly obstruct,

influence, or impede any official proceeding of the United States government. We believe that the evidence described by my colleagues today and assembled throughout our Wow. were to obstruct, influence, and impede this official proceeding, the central moment for the lawful transfer of power in the United States. Second, we believe that there is more than sufficient evidence to refer former President Donald J. Trump, John Eastman, and others for violating Title 18, Section 371. This statute makes it a crime to conspire to defraud the United States. In other words, to make an agreement to impair, obstruct, or defeat the lawful functions of the United States government by deceitful or dishonest means.

Former President Trump did not engage in a plan to defraud the United States acting alone. He entered into agreements, formal and informal, with several other individuals who assisted him with his criminal objectives. I'll say. Our report describes in detail the actions of numerous co-conspirators who agreed with and participated in Trump's plan to impair, as our understanding of the role of many individuals may be incomplete even today because they refuse to answer our questions. We trust that the Department of Justice

will be able to form a far more complete picture through its own investigation. Third, we make a referral based on Title 18, Section 1001, which makes it unlawful to knowingly and willfully make materially false statements to the federal government. And then for just in the interest of time, this was a very long hearing. Fourth is inciting, assisting or aiding slash comforting an insurrection. So four different criminal referrals. How did Trump react? You could probably guess, but we're going to look at that a little later.

But let me address some of the emails that I've received about this. This is a long overdue step, but that's all it is. It is one small step. And there's a lot of doubt and cynicism in the emails that I've been receiving from many of you over the last 24 hours. And I get it. I do get it. We all want to see justice served against these individuals. But it is a process. And it's worth remembering that the DOJ has to build a case. There is an astounding amount of evidence. They have to piece that case together. And we all know colloquially and folks, everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. This show is not a court of law. This is a place where we just speak frankly. We all know as we read through the different statutes that Jamie Raskin

described there, we all know Trump did the stuff he's accused of. We all know that colloquially speaking, he did it. But the question starts to become, is there the possibility of finding guilt beyond a reasonable doubt here? We all know and we watched enough to know that colloquially speaking, of course, Donald Trump did the things for which he is being referred. And this includes all four of those items that Jamie Raskin mentioned. He was able to incite a mob to storm the Capitol on January 6th and attempt to disrupt the peaceful transition of power and put the lives of members of Congress and his own vice president at risk. All of it, all of it, all of it. There are some who will argue that the criminal referrals that we are seeing here are strictly a political move. These aren't

really law enforcement elements. This is just Democrats playing politics. and it may end up being that if it doesn't go any further. But this is a necessary step. In other words, the committee did what it had to do, and it determined we have the evidence for a criminal referral. It may stop there, but that's all that the House committee can actually do. Now it is a question of what is Merrick Garland willing to do, as we spoke about yesterday and we talked about the one word that is the reason why presidents have not been indicted in the United States, that word is tradition. And that's not a very strong reason not to indict a president who did things no other president has done. How could federal criminal charges affect

Trump's 2024 presidential run becomes another political question as we wait for answers to the legal questions in general, in like a normal world. Criminal charges against an individual while they're running for president would affect their reputation. It would affect their credibility. It would make it more difficult for them to actually win. But we've already experienced with Donald Trump in 2016 that seemingly nothing can actually damage him enough with the Republican base to torpedo his presidential campaign. 2024 could be different if Trump were to be convicted of a crime. Now we're facing many. We're taking many hypothetical steps into the future.

He could face prison time. Yeah, that would make it difficult to hold office. That would make it difficult to campaign. Even if he was not convicted or imprisoned, the fact that he would face criminal charges could be a liability in a presidential campaign to the extent that it becomes a distraction. It could raise questions about his judgment or fitness for office in a normal world. But this is the Republican electorate. This is the very same Republican electorate who chose him in 2016 and who gleefully welcomed him back in 2020 as their nominee. So any assumption that even criminal charges or a conviction would torpedo Trump's campaign are possible, but potentially premature until we actually see what happens. Let's now talk about Donald Trump's reaction to this.

Donald Trump imploded like a tantruming child pooping in the sandbox so nobody else can play in it over the criminal referrals approved by the House of Representatives Committee investigating the Trump riots of January 6th, 2021. Let's go right to the horse's mouth, for lack of a better term. Donald Trump starting with a statement. Let's get this right on the screen properly for you. A statement on the January 6th committee referral. These folks don't get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Americans know that I pushed for 20000 troops to prevent violence on January 6th.

That is a lie. First, Trump claimed he wanted 10,000 troops. Now he says it's 20. There's no evidence that he ever made that request and that I went on television and told everyone to go home. He did that hours into the riots and still said the rioters are justified for being there and being angry because the election was stolen, which it wasn't. Trump continuing. Think of it. The radical left Democrats, communists spied on my campaign. That's a lie. Lied to the FISA court. That's a lie. Lied to Congress. Many people have lied to Congress. It doesn't actually change the reality of this. And of course, when Trump's people lied to Congress, they all said lying to Congress is

no big deal. Allowed an invasion of our country on the southern border. Policy has not substantively changed since Trump under Biden on the border. Embarrassed us in Afghanistan. Biden did the same thing Trump said he was going to do. gave away our energy independence. We actually are more overproducing under Biden in terms of oil than we were under Trump, killed us on job losing regulations, meaningless and vague, wouldn't use the 10000 plus soldiers I recommended for January 6th. In his last troth, he said it was 20000. The number changes refused to look into election fraud. The reason for January 6th rigged and stole the 2020 election allowed ballot stuffing FBI, Facebook, Twitter and Biden crime.

That's just a mess. That's just a word salad. And he continues, continued from previous truth. And I'm the one that the corrupt and partisan unselect committee goes after a two tiered, quote, justice system. And by the way, whatever happened with the massive number of crimes committed by Joe and Hunter Biden, we're unaware of any such crimes as of right now. They're right there, documented and 100 percent certain. Also, where's the prosecutor from Delaware? What happened to him? Is he friends with the Ukrainian prosecutor who didn't prosecute after Biden held up the

billion dollar payment to Ukraine? I did nothing wrong in all caps. As you see, he's losing it. Then he starts retweeting various videos, propaganda videos, including one that refers to Adam Shifty Schiff, retweets a message from Elise Stefanik, posts a poll, a video of Alan Dershowitz, another video of Alan Dershowitz, promotes Troth Central, and then is just posting stuff on and on and on and then picks it back up again this morning with almost no delay. Files conclusively revealed that the FBI totally discredited damning. And by the way, he spells damning the way a beaver

does. You know, beavers are damning stuff. It's just beyond parody, damning factual information from Hunter Biden's laptop from hell. It's just on and on here. It's only even tangential. And then he goes full conspiracy. The so-called deep state, often referred to by many other names, including cheaters, insurrectionists, communists, and yes, even our good old rhinos have been working on sinister and evil plots for a long time, even well before I came to office. They are long seeded swamp creatures and are bad news for the USA. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He then goes after the committee that sent the referrals. I see where the unselect committee using the Democrats favorite weapon disinformation is trying to make the case that I didn't really believe I won the election.

That's a total lie. I never thought for even a moment that the presidential election of 2020 was not rigged and stolen. And my conviction became even stronger as time went by. Now, with all of the massive evidence that has come to light, including recently with the FBI suppression of election changing information, I was 100 percent right. Hours, hours on truth, social, central, spreading lies and being triggered. Now, at the end of the day, the next step is up to the Department of Justice. Is the Department of Justice, is Merrick Garland ready and willing to do what we all know is supported by the facts? And that is what that is to charge Donald Trump. Do I believe he will spend a day in prison? I still do not. But do I believe it would be the correct thing to charge him? I would,

because that's a decision you make based on the evidence. Let me know if you expect charges against Donald Trump. Friday, December 23rd, we are doing our final membership special of the year. Everyone's first month's payment will be donated by us to an organization that sends cash to people who really need it and it will be doubled. So hypothetical. OK, memberships are six bucks a month. Friday, we get you a coupon code, saves you 50 percent. You pay three bucks. We donate the three bucks. You still keep the membership and we double the three dollars with six. We match the first fifteen thousand dollars. We've never done this before. I want you to participate. I want you to be involved. All you have to do is get on my mailing list by signing up at David Pakman dot com. The box to

enter your email is at the top right of the website. More on Friday. Very exciting. Quick break. Be right back. Let's face it, the holiday season can be a stressful time for anyone, even a stressor on relationships, in-laws dividing time, mismatched expectations around gifts. Our sponsor, Paired, is the app that makes it easy to maintain a feeling of connection with your partner during this crazy time of year. You and your partner download the app, you pair together, and every day Paired gives the two of you questions or quizzes, games to have fun, stay emotionally connected, deepen your conversations. And all of the exercises were developed by academic psychologists

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responsibility, traditional values, freedom, not regulating businesses on and on and on. And there's two parts of this. The first part is that in theory, all of that sounds really appealing. It's sort of like, hey, doesn't paying no taxes sound appealing in some general sense? I mean, yeah, I'd love to keep every dollar that I gross and not pay any taxes in some general sense. That sounds pretty good. It sounds appealing in certain contexts. The ideas espoused by conservatism sound beneficial. But in practice, modern conservatism has become a scam that is used to manipulate and exploit people. And its values are just as quickly abandoned by those espousing them once they are no longer convenient or productive or helping their costs. Let's talk

about some examples. One way that modern conservatism is being used to manipulate the public is through propaganda and misinformation. Conservative media outlets and politicians will often spread misleading information based on their supposed principles in order to win elections. At the end of the day, all they care about is winning elections. And this includes conspiracy theories when it's convenient, cherry picking data, using completely loaded language to evoke an emotional response. We are pro-life. Wow. Everybody else must be against life. That sounds pretty bad.

We're for tax relief. Wow. Taxes must just simply be oppressive. Taxes must be like slavery, which is quite literally what some libertarians say. And by using this language and manipulating the public's understanding of the facts, conservatives shape public opinion and influence policy decisions and voters in their favor in ways that are completely misleading and don't actually benefit the people that end up voting for them. And that's a big part of the scam. And we're going to get back to that. Another way that the public is exploited by the scam of conservatism is through dog whistle politics. So this is when they use coded language that certain groups of people understand to have a specific meaning. Like, for example,

when they say family values, I mean, that sounds pretty good, right? Like families are good and values that support families. That all sounds good. But it's a signal to conservative voters. You're supposed to be opposed to same sex marriage. You're supposed to be opposed to abortion. More recently, you're supposed to be opposed to abortion. More recently, you're supposed to be opposed to even fundamental, just basic trans rights. They don't say it outright. And this allows the right wing politicians to appeal to certain groups of voters without alienating others. It allows them to avoid accountability and it allows something that Donald Trump actually did very well, which is you kind of

take every position on issues. And even if you don't overtly do it, you leave enough vagaries that anybody could sort of stumble across some version of a position that they agree with you, or at least don't overtly disagree. Modern conservatism also exploits the public through policy. And this is maybe the most important thing. Right wing, conservative, whatever word you want to use for it, policy disproportionately benefits the wealthy, the powerful and those with what we might call like standard or agent identities in American society. And conservatives will argue lower taxes are good for everybody.

Increases economic growth, increases prosperity, rising tide lifts all boats. They'll say it with regulation. Reducing regulation is good for everybody. Economic growth, prosperity. It's great. The truth is it's a scam. Those very policies, they they do, particularly in the short term, increase profits for corporations and the wealthy, but they externalize the burden of the pollution that is created or the low wages that are paid, which then we all have our taxes go to social welfare programs to support people who rightly need those programs because the corporations are paying low wages. They claim it's good for everybody. Their economic policy is good for everybody, but it leads to cuts in social

services or increased spending on social services, higher health care costs, lower wages for workers. We all pay for it. We are getting scammed by it. So modern conservatism is a scam that by scamming the public and exploiting the public through all of the things I mentioned disproportionately benefits the elites. They love to say Democrats are all about this elitist cabal. That's that's all they care about. It's actually conservatism that is doing that. A couple of modern examples. We can look at how right wingers sought to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. There was no evidence of widespread voter fraud that impacted the results. They scammed their supporters. They raised money. Trump did, claiming we're going to use the money to flip the election. He kept the money, used it to pay off campaign debt, total and complete scam. We've seen these conspiracies promoted by conservative media outlets and by politicians

by Trump himself. And that is the prototypical example of how conservatism is used to make the public think a certain thing and then get them to take an action, either going to the Capitol, donating money, whatever the case may be. We have also seen, by the way, this very same rhetoric used in order to get the public to support ideas that are seemingly completely antithetical to the values of the right. For example, free speech for all, including for businesses, until we no longer like the speech and moderation rules that are being applied on Twitter or Facebook or whatever. And all of a sudden, freedom, liberty and low regulation goes out the window.

And it's we must force Facebook to publish our covid disinformation. We must force Twitter to publish the pictures of Hunter Biden's genitalia. They abandoned those principles right away. And the voters at the end of the day are just getting scammed. They don't know up, down, left, right. They don't know what's going on. Last thing on this, when you wonder what is the end game with any of these supposedly conservative policy ideas, whether it's the immigration reform ideas, they have taxation, whatever the case may be, understand that the end goal is to reinforce and perpetuate the rich and corporations maintaining power and profitability. That is the big scam that they claim their entire movement is a set of policies that helps everyone. And it doesn't. And we've talked before about how that is that is not completely missing from the

Democratic Party, but the degree to which it exists in the modern right wing movement is completely stunning. It is a scam. Last week, we spoke about what it is about people who are victimized by scams that keeps them being victimized. And part of it is is the cult aspect. And part of it is psychological factors. We looked at the people being scammed. Now we've looked at what the scam is. And it would be great if people would figure this out and stop falling for it. But it actually is a party that depends on people continuing to fall for it. We now have reached a horrible milestone in the United States where guns are the leading cause of child deaths for those under 18. The New York Times had a very good piece on this a couple of days ago. And if you look at leading causes of death for children ages one through 18. If you're looking on the screen,

you see this green line, which is guns, which has now surpassed motor vehicle crashes at 19% of deaths for children age one to 18. It is guns followed by motor vehicle crashes, cancer, drug overdoses, which has increased and suffocation has decreased, putting it into fifth position into fifth position this century. OK, since the year 2000, as you can see on the screen, if you're looking, guns have risen as the cause of death from 10 percent of kids age one to 18 to 19 percent. Nearly five in 100000 die each year. Kids. These are stunning numbers. Most of the deaths are homicides.

Many of the victims are black and mostly boys. There are also suicides. The suicides are mostly white and mostly boys. There are relatively few of what would be called accidental deaths. We take issue with the term accidental. Typically, you're talking about negligence, actually, but very few are what are often called accidental deaths. We hear about, oh, a dad was cleaning his gun and shot his daughter dead. We do see those stories, but those are actually relatively few. This is a uniquely American problem. And in order to start thinking about solutions, we have to really understand the problem. This is not a global epidemic. If you look globally, the most common causes of death for children are infectious diseases, 45 percent disproportionately in the

developing world, 15 percent pneumonia and respiratory disease, 12 percent preterm birth and neonatal disorders, 10% diarrheal categorized disease, 9% congenital defects. Now, as a math issue, it is true. I know people are going to write to me and say this, so I will be very upfront with you. If you reduce one thing simply by comparison, another thing is going to go up. So in the US, we have certainly reduced some of these elements as causes of death, right? Diarrheal disease death in the United States and kids is a lot rarer than in other parts of the country. So if you drop that, then other stuff will go up like gun deaths. But even in the rest of the developed world where there isn't much diarrhea, real child death, you do not see gun death numbers like we see in the United States.

So what are the differences between the U.S. and other countries? Well, we have one of the highest rates of gun ownership. Is it that alone? No, but that's a factor. One of the highest rates of gun ownership. So there are guns around kids. We have a lack of strict gun control laws in most states. We have a culture that glorifies violence and exposes even kids. I mean, you know, we're talking 14, 15, 16, 17 year olds completely exposed and affected by that very culture that glorifies violence, sees guns as a way to solve problems, high rate of poverty, high rate of income inequality, both of which have been studied in connection to guns as a public health issue and lack of access to mental health resources.

Now, of course, I have no interest in ignoring any of these aspects. The right loves to say it's just mental health. Meanwhile, they don't want to fund mental health. Mental health is certainly a factor, but availability of guns, widespread nature of guns. That's a factor as well. There are clear steps we can take. I've outlined so many of them so many times before. No one step will solve this problem.

No one step will solve the problem. And we always hear after a shooting. Well, you know, your idea of limiting clip capacity wouldn't have prevented this particular shooting. I don't know anyone who claims any one thing when you have a problem that's based on six to eight things. There's no one thing that will solve that problem. But we have to work on all of these things. And quite frankly, the numbers speak for themselves. Unique to the United States. If you want to let me put it this way. If you want to find other countries with a gun violence problem affecting kids to the degree that we have in the United States, I'm not going to name the countries. You will find countries that none of these right wingers would say are in any way equivalent

to the United States. So take a look. We're going to link to the study in The New York Times. We're going to continue talking about all of it. But we have plenty of ideas, but we have a right wing that is unwilling to actually try any of them. Make sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the David Pakman show. Thank you so much, David. of 15 different books in an afternoon so I can quickly gather insights from all sorts of perspectives, make connections, have those kind of aha moments that don't happen so easily,

which is why I feel enriched when I use Blinkist. Blinkist also summarizes episodes of popular podcasts into 15 minute explainers. And with the Blinkist connect feature, my girlfriend and I can share one account, share books, podcasts with each other, talk about them on the go. And don't forget Blinkist makes the perfect holiday gift. My audience can try Blinkist free for seven days and get 25 percent off after that. Go to Blinkist dot com slash Pacman. That's B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. It's great to welcome back to the program today, Bill Scher, contributor to the Washington Monthly Politico and Real Clear Politics, also host of the History podcast, When America Worked. Bill, always great to have you on. And

we're welcoming your dog today as well. Yes. If you can see in the corner here, Nova is chewing on some plastic. Yes. Hopefully, they'll hopefully they'll keep her occupied. Let's hope so. So let's let's just start with the outlook for the next two years. I mean, interesting Wall Street Journal op ed yesterday about Republicans being too dimwitted to really wield the power that they're going to have and how they're fighting over McCarthy. And it's just kind of becoming a mess. Of course, Republicans will narrowly control the House. They will not control the Senate. It looked like the Senate would be 51 to 49. And it sort of is, although Kyrsten Sinema now says she's going to be an

independent, but seemingly will not dramatically change how she plans to vote. I think maybe, although I'm not completely sure about that. So like what is anything going to happen in the next two years legislatively that is significant? I mean, you know me, David, I'm a fairly optimistic person, but, you know, you know, I'm saying my expectations are very, very low for this Congress. I mean, if they can keep the lights on and avoid a debt default, you know, congratulations. Yeah, this system still works. If there is a utility for 24 for each party from what does or doesn't happen over the next two years, it seems clear that Republicans are going to want

to make the case in 24 that that Democrats didn't get anything done in this two year period and that things got worse. That may be by their own doing, of course, as often is in politics. Is that the type of thing that is likely to swing a presidential election like the one we would see in 24, a sort of referendum on what Democrats got done when they held one of two houses and had Joe Biden in the White House? Or is that just not likely to be a very impactful argument two years, 23 months from now? Well, generally speaking, you know, assuming Biden runs and Biden is the nominee. Yes. You would assume that 2024 will be a referendum on him. That's typically how reelections go. And something that I talked about over the course of the past year, midterms are not really referendums on the president. That's a bit of a misnomer.

Yep. And I think that has been borne out in this past year because Biden's approval was not good. But midterms, I mean, this is not a settled argument, but there is an argument that I've embraced that they're about balance. And an electorate trying to balance things out from the past election and kind of keep things roughly in the middle, which is why the opposition probably tends to do well, irrespective of presidential approval. And that didn't happen this time, I would argue, because the balancing choice was the Democrats, because Republicans put up candidates who were essentially imbalanced and were doing disruptive things, and's have a modicum of cooperation. I hate shutdowns. Shutdowns always make us look bad. Let's do the bare minimum. Let's do the infrastructure. Let's do the semiconductor investments to compete with China. Let's partner on Ukraine. And we can fight Democrats on a bunch of other things where we think they're going too far to the left. And the Trump forces didn't

subscribe to that. They were mad at McConnell for being as cooperative as he was. They put up a slate of Senate candidates who were totally out to lunch, who were caught up on election denial and other culture war type things. And that gave room for the Democrats to say, look, we're trying to keep things on the straight and narrow here. And these people want to break all the China. So now you're going into a Congress where, again, Mitch McConnell can't dictate what the party strategy is because you have this narrowly controlled House. Although I should caveat here, we don't even know who the speaker is going to be. Correct. So, you know, if it's McCarthy, Kevin McCarthy, and if Kevin McCarthy is beholden to the far right, then you have this open question, can you keep the lights on? Can you avoid a government shutdown? Can you raise the debt limit to avoid a global economic destroying debt default? That becomes a big unknown. If the anti-McCarthy faction makes it impossible for McCarthy to get the 218 he needs, there's this threat from the moderate splinter faction of the Republican Party,

led by Don Bacon, at least Don Bacon's been the one who's been most vocal about this, saying if these guys push us too far, we'll partner with Democrats and put up a bipartisan speaker, be a Republican, but someone who's not beholden to the far, far right. And if that's the case, then maybe we're open for business, then maybe we actually can pass a few things. And maybe McConnell would be willing to do some bare minimum stuff again. So Republicans don't seem like they're insane. the Kyrsten Sinema situation. There's basically every analysis under under the sun. This was done and timed in a way just to upset Democrats, which doesn't seem to I mean, it seems strategically like it leaves a little something

to be desired in terms of an explanation. There's the Arizona explanation, which is Sinema was facing a challenge from a progressive Democrat by becoming an independent. She's able to short circuit that possibility and maybe turn it into a three way race in which the incumbent independent easily wins reelection in Arizona. That's another possibility. Three is she just really wants attention. And when it's fifty one to forty nine, the way to get attention back is to at least threaten

that maybe it's actually 50 50 again. What's your best assessment of the timing and the decision? You know, I'm someone who has defended Sinema over the course of the past years. She's arguably the most effective legislature the Democrats have had. I know the counterargument is, well, she, you, she kneecapped their dream agenda. So don't give her credit for passing something smaller. But part of that argument was that it was impossible to get the 60 on things. McConnell wouldn't let you get the 60 on infrastructure or gun safety or the Electoral Count Act or what have you. And that proved not to be true. Sinema was the person

doing those deals, actually doing the negotiations and finding the common ground. So I think she deserves credit for that. And I think she has taken away the wrong lesson from that experience. She was able to do what she did because she could bank on 50 Democrats for whatever compromise she hashed out because there was an intrinsic, you know, parties tend to be favorable to their incumbents, assuming they're going to be the nominees, that Arizona is a closely divided state. You can't, a Democrat can't guarantee to win a statewide election there. If she is your best bet, you will go along with her on her deals in hopes that she keeps that seat for Democrats.

Now, maybe she won't be the Democratic nominee. Maybe Democrats can put up a nominee that can be competitive in a three-way race. And so it puts Democrats in an awkward position with her. And so her deals, I mean, the challenge her before was convincing 10 Republicans, this is in your interest. You know, it is better for you to do this infrastructure deal or do this gun safety deal than it is not. I know we're going to fight on election day, but you'll be in a worse position if you fight me on this, which is hard enough. But she did that. Now she has to fight a two front war to pass any kind of deal. And again, mind you, we don't even know what kind of situation the House is going to be in, if it's going to be hospitable to deals. Her political value is I'm the person that gets

things done. If she's no longer that person, then she has a harder argument to make. And so if I was advising her a month ago, I'd say, you know what? Why don't you wait and see what happens with the speaker's race? Why don't you wait and see if you can get a couple more deals under your belt for election day? Why don't you do a little outreach to the Democrats in Arizona and say, hey, look, this is where my thinking's at. I mean, there are other Democrats that break ranks from time to time and you have nearly as much upset with the base as Simmons in Arizona because she hasn't done that outreach. And so I hate to play, you know, armchair psychologist with this stuff. But you look at the recent reporting that the Washington Post did on this, which suggested this was sort of in the making for a long time. And I kind of come down to I just think she I don't like the attention argument because she doesn't do a lot of media.

I think she does a lot of things that don't attract attention. But I do think she likes being a party of one. She likes following her own compass. She doesn't like having to play the footsie with the elements in the base. I don't get what she's doing. And so she made a decision that's comfortable for her. But I don't necessarily think is the right strategy, both legislatively and politically. I am no cinema fan by any means, but I do find interesting that for a while now there have been a lot of people saying cinema shouldn't be in the Democratic Party because she's not really a Democrat.

You hear sometimes the same the same thing about Joe Manchin. The people who didn't want her to be a Democrat have sort of won in the sense that now she isn't a Democrat, but now they're still mad. And there's some there's like something interesting about that. But as I've said before, you know, when people talk about you got a primary Joe Manchin with a progressive, if a progressive defeats Joe Manchin in a primary in West Virginia, I don't see any way that that progressive wins. I think that that seat becomes a Republican seat. Arizona's dynamics are different than West Virginia. And an actual bona fide three way race is a very different

situation than Manchin being primaried by a progressive. But there is some state level strategy here that is at least a little more connected to reality than the West Virginia Manchin thing, it seems to me. Well, I. Yes, yes and no. I mean, obviously, Arizona is not as red as West Virginia is. Yeah. Now, progressives have challenged Manchin in primaries. Manchin stomps them. Yes. Goes on to win. Look, Arizona, if it's blue, it is just barely blue. Even this past election, look, Democrats managed to win governor and Senate, but not House. The House popular vote was Republican. And even if you make some estimates, because there are a couple of uncontested races, even if you use some estimates there, Republicans would still have an edge in the popular vote.

Republicans put up truly insane candidates for a swing state and got burned. If they learned their lesson and put up center-right candidates, you can't count on any old Democrat holding onto any seat in Arizona. So the notion that, I mean, yes, Sinema's numbers are bad. And I think she did things that, I think her issue set is perfectly fine for Arizona. I think her legislative success is excellent for Arizona. I think the optics she's chosen to do along with that have been terrible and somewhat self-sabotaging. And so it puts her in a precarious position. But if you get Ruben Gallego or Greg Stanton and that person can get, you know, third. I mean, a three race is just such a jump ball. Yeah. Because you have no idea. First, you have no idea. Are you going to carry

a Laker or Doug Ducey type on the Republican side? That's a huge difference. And we really don't know. You can't look at a poll today and really know how much the cinema pull from the Republican, the center right and the center left? I mean, I wouldn't be optimistic about it, to be honest, because you look at the races where independents have won, typically speaking, one party's candidate just tanks. Right. Making it easier for the independent to pick up the lion's share of one party's votes.

There are a couple of ones I'm aware of where an independent won with credible Republican Democratic candidates. One is Angus King in Maine when he ran, and he won that governor's race by a hair. And then when he ran for Senate, it was much easier for him. But you're talking getting in the upper 30s to win that kind of race. The other one is Jesse Ventura, governor of minnesota when i know a little bit more about the fascinating about the jesse ventura race is the main reason why he won was same day registration right 70 percent of his vote was same day registrants and who were they 20 something white male wrestling

fans like it's not a it's not a typical kind of race that you can muddle anything else after. So, you know, Sinema is an idiosyncratic case because she's an incumbent. And I'm not saying she can't pull it off, but it's a real roll of the dice. And I would say, I think you could do better mending some fences with your Democratic base so you can

win that primary. It's very unusual to lose a primary if you're a Senate incumbent. So I think with a little elbow grease, she could have done that and made her life easier. But obviously, she made her choices. Well, I don't really make predictions, but I will predict that Sinema's fate will not be to be in Baja, California, off the grid, surfing and doing conspiracy theories like Jesse Ventura ended up after his gubernatorial run. Bill Scher, contributor to Washington Monthly Politico, Real Clear Politics and also host of the History podcast when America worked. Bill, always a pleasure having you on.

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Glenn Greenwald appears to have made up essentially his entire backstory of his life. This is quite a story. Business Insider reports incoming Republican Congressman George Santos reportedly lied about his employment history, where he went to college, losing four employees at the Pulse nightclub shooting, and possibly even his residence. An incoming Republican congressman from Long Island has several gaps in his resume, according to a New York Times report. He appears to have lied about all of the things that I just mentioned and claimed to have lost four employees in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting. Oh, boy. The investigation

found the following. First, his description of his employment doesn't add up. His biography says he worked at Goldman Sachs, but spokeswoman Abby Collins says there's no record that he ever worked there. He said he was an associate asset manager at Citigroup, but spokeswoman there said it can't confirm he ever worked there and that they haven't had an asset management operations division since 2005, which is five years before he claims to have graduated college. The Times found no IRS record of a charity he says he owns, Friends of Pets United. And the beneficiary of a 2017 fundraiser by the group says they never got any of the money that he supposedly raised for them.

Oh, boy. Secondly, he's reportedly faced numerous evictions, claimed to be a landlord and may not actually live at his current address. He claimed to be a landlord last year, but didn't list any properties. He was evicted in 2017 from a residence after owing more than $10,000 in unpaid rent. Then we get to his educational history. Man, I should just make up a much more interesting background. It just seems you could just make it up. His higher education history appears to be a lie. He said he graduated with a degree in econ and finance from Baruch College in New York City in 2010. Representatives from the school said they have no record he was

ever enrolled there despite searching variations of his name. A biography on the National RNC Republican Campaign Committee website says he went to NYU. A spokesman there says they have no record he ever went there either. Fourth, there is a mystery as to where his money comes from. And fifth, he claimed to have lost four employees in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting. A review was done. None of the forty nine victims seem to have any association with any of the organizations that he even claims to be associated with. Glenn Greenwald posted in mid-November, meet George Santos, the first ever Brazilian-American and first ever openly gay Republican elected to Congress in U.S. history, the son of working class immigrant

parents who left Brazil for the U.S. He was born and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens. Looks like that didn't work particularly well. You know, I've wondered before when people just like make up a backstory, they make up where they went to school or whatever. Why are they doing it, given that it is it seems so likely you will eventually get caught, particularly in a high profile and public circumstance such as this one. Sometimes it's this is a way to advance my career or to gain social status. I can claim to be more qualified. I can claim to be more accomplished. I'll be more likely to be hired for a job or promoted or accepted socially or maybe more likely to win an election. Sometimes people will lie about their credentials out of desperation. It's a desperate situation. They feel I'm genuinely not qualified for anything. I need

this opportunity. So I'm going to lie to get ahead. Interestingly, some individuals are just dishonest by nature. They're just willing to lie no matter what, regardless of the consequences. This is what we sometimes colloquially call pathological lies. And I've known people like this, people who just lie all the time for no obvious reason. They just lie. They always lie. And we don't know which of these applies to George Santos, but it is not going particularly well. By the way, I mentioned he's openly gay. There are some who are reacting to this with homophobia. Where it's it's the right wingers who are saying, you know, we shouldn't have gone with a gay guy. This is the problem when you go with a gay guy. I'm not aware of any evidence that links gay people to dishonesty. He just

seems to be a dishonest clown. Will there be any repercussions? Probably not, quite frankly. Former Donald Trump propagandist Stephen Bannon is desperate, desperate for Trump to stop with the NFT digital trading cards. And there are actually slightly more and more voices that are saying some of this stuff is not going going particularly well. Here is some kind of roundtable. I think this was at America Fest. And Steve Bannon is just not happy with the Trump NFT grift. And I understand that it's really it's really cringy. I have a my pillow. It's the best. All right. That's right. Let me ask you here. I have the travel pillow. I have the slippers. It's all washable.

It's the most amazing thing. Don't give her a promo code. There's other promo codes out there, ladies and gentlemen. I'm just saying. Mr. Lundell and I, I don't need a promo code. I tell everyone about it. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you.

If we give the president a promo code, can he stop with the NFTs? I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Whoa, whoa. The NFTs that sold out in 12 hours, he's just jealous over here. Yeah. Yeah. I know that's a free and fair market. Just. Yeah. I mean, listen, Bannon knows the entire Trump NFT thing is a complete and total grift and scam. And you can just tell he can't get away from the humiliation of that. We played a clip yesterday of him saying whoever came up with this idea should be fired. And it is very interesting in the sense that some of the most reliable, historically reliable and stalwart Trump supporters, the confidants, the loyalists, they are now mocking Trump pretty regularly.

And part of this maybe is the polling that they're seeing. Maybe to some degree, the writing is on the wall. Here's of this maybe is the polling that they're seeing. Maybe to some degree, the writing is on the wall. Here's another example, by the way. Here's a clip of Matt Gaetz. I believe it's the exact same event saying that on the issue of who should be speaker, Donald Trump is wrong. And Gaetz is not the type of guy who would typically distance himself or draw distinctions with Trump. A couple of unpleasant facts. Let's get him on the table. Number one, President Trump has said the other day, the New York Times broke that he was whipping votes for Kevin McCarthy. And then President Trump gave the great Matt Boyle at

Breitbart an exclusive interview. And he said, hey, I think Kevin's earned it. President Trump, President Trump is both whipped votes here. And he's come out and told Breitbart and Matt Boyle that he's actually supporting Kevin McCarthy. I adore President Trump. What about this is the Trump posse right here. I can't wait to vote for Donald Trump in the 2024 election. But if Donald Trump believes that Kevin McCarthy should be speaker of the House, then Donald Trump is wrong. And Donald Trump has not always nailed it on the H.R. front. I remember having to fight against Jeff Sessions and Mattis and Rex Tillerson.

So President Trump is the leader of our movement. He sets the vision. But Donald Trump has not moved a single vote when it comes to the people considering how to cast their lot in the speaker's race. Wow. So not only think about that, not only is Gates saying he disagrees with Trump about who should be speaker of the House when Republicans take over in January, he's saying Trump isn't even influencing even a single person in the House of Representatives to reconsider or change how they are going to

vote. That's a pretty serious attack from a guy who has been a Trump brown noser for years at this point in time. And of course, we'll eventually know the answer. But the hypothetical is the supposition. The question is, this a sign that the tide is turning? The polling is sort of suggesting that and hearing from people like Bannon and Gates suggests that that also may be the way it is. We'll know more, I believe, by something like April 1st.

I think it will be pretty clear. Another really interesting thing that's going on is an intramargin civil war. Let's talk about that next. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are now at war and it is getting delightfully ugly. And we should all cheer this on because the more fractured that MAGA Trump ism is the worse it is for the Republican Party. HuffPost reporting Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert get personal in a very public spat. The extremist congresswoman from Georgia accused her Colorado counterpart of, quote, high school drama, writes Josephine Harvey for HuffPost.

What is this all about? This started because Boebert criticized Green at the America Fest event for backing House minority leader Kevin McCarthy for speaker. This, I believe, is the moment that started this hilarious fight. Someone who we all respect, Marjorie Taylor Greene, says Kevin McCarthy is going to be a great speaker. I guess you'll have to ask Marjorie about that. I'm a fan of hers. I'm an admirer, but it's not something we see the same, Lauren. Well, you know, I've been aligned with Marjorie and accused of believing a lot of the things that she believes in.

I don't believe in this, just like I don't believe in Russian space. Speaker 1 Are you are you a hard no space lasers and all of this? No, I'm just saying we need to actually have an inside conversation and and make sure that these promises are there. Wow. So subsequent to this, Marjorie Taylor Greene took to Twitter to respond, where she put out a three tweet screed, starting with, quote, I've supported and donated to Lauren Boebert. President Trump has supported and donated to Lauren Boebert. Kevin McCarthy has supported

and donated to Lauren Boebert. She just barely came through by 500 votes. So the argument there is despite all of our powerful support, she barely won. Second quote, she gladly takes our money. But when she's been asked, Lauren refuses to endorse President Trump. She refuses to support Kevin McCarthy. And she childishly threw me under the bus for a cheap soundbite. Marjorie Taylor Greene continuing, quote, The country is facing extremely difficult times. Americans expect conservative fighters like us to work together to save America. And that is the only mission I'm 100 percent devoted to, not high school drama and media soundbites.

Save America. Defeat the Democrats. This is super interesting because we've known about the wings of the Republican Party, the pro Trump and the anti Trump wing. We know about how Mitt Romney and Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney are in a different wing of the Republican Party than the Maga people. These are all Maga people. This is now a subsequent division within Maga Trump ism, where you have the pro Kevin McCarthy

people and the anti Kevin McCarthy people. There are a bunch of different reasons for this. One of those reasons has been McCarthy's less than total enthusiasm for some of the tactics that Trump wanted used to try to steal an election he didn't win in 2020. So this is a division we should absolutely be encouraging. This can only be bad for Trump and for Republicans as the 2024 primary gets going. Green and Boebert, two of the most visible, prominent, newish Trumpist figures, and for them to be going at it is extraordinarily interesting and potentially beneficial to the left. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. This caller has a really interesting question.

Do these mega people genuinely not understand what free speech means or are they only pretending? Good question. Why does the right seem to always complain about free speech when they're talking about private companies? Are they intentionally saying that because they know that their audience doesn't really know what free speech actually is? Right. Or they themselves don't know what it means. Yeah, it could be either one. This is a really great question. So often these right wingers will say this is an issue of the First Amendment, even if it did you see that thing pop up?

I don't know if that was just on screen. A little clip related to one of my cables just literally popped up like like a like a like a jumping bean of some kind. I wonder if the video caught that. We'll have to review the footage later. Two different parts here. One, they often say there's a First Amendment issue when it has nothing to do with the government, the government and the First Amendment related Twitter doing something not related to the First Amendment. Secondly, do they know the difference between free speech or moderation? It's not clear that they do. I genuinely don't know the answer. There are some slightly more informed right wingers who understand the difference between free speech and First Amendment and just moderation. But they will say platforms like Twitter and Facebook have become so large that they are essentially like a town square and they should be regulated as if they were government entities. Interestingly, that's pretty heavy handed from the regulation

perspective. So at the end of the day, I don't know what right wingers do and don't know. Are they ignorant? Are they arguing in bad faith? Is it some combination of the two? You beat the judge. We have a great bonus show for you today. We will talk about the Elon Musk Twitter CEO situation.

We're going to talk about Madison Cawthorn being sued by his own lawyers for not paying them. Seems like that's going around in Trumpism. And we will talk about Alex Jones salary request as part of his bankruptcy proceedings. Wild, wacky request. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. Get instant access to the world famous and award winning bonus show.