The David Pakman Show - 12/23/24: "President Musk" is triggering Trump, deportations in doubt

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

-- On the Show: -- The "President Musk" meme is working as Donald Trump is increasingly triggered and terrified -- Donald Trump starts to turn on Elon Musk during his speech at Turning Points USA's America Fest -- MAGA on MAGA conflict grows as Laura Loomer and Milo Yiannopoulos get into a wild argument at America Fest -- A demoralized and pathetic Matt Gaetz resurfaces and self-humiliates -- A deep dive into why Donald Trump won and Kamala Harris lost -- As Republicans increasingly question supporting Donald Trump's ideas, his mass deportation plan is increasingly in doubt -- Republican Congresswoman Kay Granger reportedly resurfaces in a dementia care facility after being gone from Congress for six months -- Republican Governor of Arkansas Sarah Huckabee Sanders wildly claims that Arkansas is the best state in the country to move to, a claim not supported by any set of facts -- On the Bonus Show: President Biden signs stopgap funding bill into law to avoid shutdown, Trump says he'll take control of Panama Canal if "rip off" continues, Lara Trump withdraws from consideration to replace Senator Marco Rubio, much more... -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership 👩‍🎓 The 431 Exchange: Help us reach our goal by donating at https://431exchange.org/pakman 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep: Get 25% OFF and 2 free pillows at https://helixsleep.com/pakman ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman  🛏️ Eight Sleep: Get $350 OFF the Pod 4 Ultra at https://eightsleep.com/pakman -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- Pakman Discord: https://davidpakman.com/discord -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave a Voicemail: (219)-2DAVIDP

Welcome, everybody. It is working. The President Musk, Vice President Trump thing is getting under Donald Trump's skin. He spoke about it multiple times over the weekend. Elon Musk is now jumping in, recognizing that if he takes too much attention away from Donald Trump, he will soon be asked to leave Mar-a-Lago. And this is quickly becoming one of the biggest growing internal divisions in the Republican Party. We're going to actually delve further into the split that is taking place probably on tomorrow's show. But check this out. Elon Musk

is now trying to kill the entire story of President Elon Musk because he realizes it would be very bad from a self-preservation standpoint for him. And others are starting to say, hey, this whole President Musk thing, it's another psyop carried out by the left. Let's discuss it. First of all, check out the New Republic article. Elon, Elon tries to kill President Musk allegations after total disaster. the name Lulu Missouri had a whole thread about how we on the left are trying to do X, Y, Z with regard to the president Musk thing saying, quote, for awareness, note the language here. It's a very intentional strategy. The goal is to weaken Trump and Elon by fomenting tensions between them. Well, yeah. By jabbing Trump about not being the alpha,

the idea is to provoke him to sideline Elon and to fray the relationship. Of course, that's the goal. And it only works because Trump is so trigly, triggerable. What's the right word? Is it trigly? It only works because Trump is so easily triggered by any suggestion that he's not really the one in charge or that someone else may be making decisions or pulling the strings, especially an African-American immigrant like Elon Musk. Trump can't be allowed to cede control to someone like that. So Elon Musk agrees with this. And he retweeted this Lulu Missouri thread, adding, quote, That is exactly the goal. The political and legacy media puppets all got their new instructions yesterday and are now parroting the same message to drive

a wedge between Trump and me. They will fail. Except number one, it seems to be working. And number two, it does seem as though Elon Musk's interests are not necessarily aligned with those of Trump. For example, we're going to talk about later today or tomorrow how one of Elon Musk's ideas is to pay for the tax cut he wants by taking from other people's social security and other people's Medicare. And it's not that this is never something Trump would consider, but what Trump cares about is what makes him look good. And if Trump understood, damn, cutting social security and Medicare wouldn't make me look good with a huge swath of my voters. He wouldn't be interested,

but Elon is interested. In other words, it is objectively true that the interests of Musk and Trump are not really aligned beyond self-aggrandizement and throwing bouquets at each other's egos. Uh, Seth Abramson on blue sky, uh, posted CNN confirmed on air just now that top Trump aides are furiously calling journalists to insist that Elon Musk has been following the orders of Trump rather than the other way around as predicted. Trump is horrified and enraged at the idea that Musk is now seen as the president of the United Shays. So listen, you're not going to disable a presidency with this over the weekend. Saw some folks that I know that follow politics sort of casually, and they, they may be wrongly thought that playing up this whole president

Musk thing might completely disable the presidency of Trump. It wouldn't because once it really starts to get in the way, Trump will jettison Elon never to be heard from again, never to have the crappy shrimp cocktail and well done steaks of Mar-a-Lago again, at least not on Trump's dime. But what you can do is you can cause some serious chaos by getting at one of the things that makes Donald Trump the most insecure, which is the idea that he's taking orders from someone else, that he's not really in charge, that someone is the bigger and more powerful alpha male. And if it just so happens that that someone this time is even richer than Donald Trump, that it only makes it more likely that it will succeed at really sending Trump for a loop. And that's really the goal here. Now, forget about everything

I just said. You might say, oh, Elon tweeting about it and CNN acknowledging it and Lulu Missurvy putting out an excretion on X about it. I don't care about any of that stuff. I want to know whether this is an issue Trump addresses. Well, if that's where you are, then let's talk about what happened at turning point USA's event over the weekend. Donald Trump has started to publicly turn on Elon Musk, stunning the audience at AmFest turning point action event in Phoenix, Arizona. You know, it's funny. Someone texted me on Friday and said, hey, David, are you going to be at AmFest? Because I'd love to meet up. And I said they would not invite me to that. And a couple of people pointed out and said, look, they invited Cenk Uygur from the Young Turks. That's true.

I was not invited to AmFest, nor did I consider going. I spent the weekend cooking and unpacking boxes. OK, which, by the way, I think was a much better experience than going to AmFest. So listen, if the whole President Musk thing were not bothering Donald Trump. He wouldn't have brought it up twice at AmFest to clarify. I'm in charge, not Elon. I'm really the one in charge. Here is the first time Trump brought it up saying people are talking about me ceding the presidency to Elon. No, no, no, that's not happening. What does this mean? It means Trump is furious and terrified. Listen to this. And we will create the new Department of Government Efficiency headed by Elon Musk. Oh, is this cheer a little too loud? And no, he's not taking the presidency. I like having smart people. You know, they're on a new kick. Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, all the different hoaxes.

The new one is President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon Musk. No, no, that's not happening. You know, the the audience reaction is not exactly convincing me that the audience buys it. And Trump bringing this issue up again. Remember, he's not bothered by it. He doesn't care about this. It's not getting to him, except again, he brings it up and says, hey, guys, Elon can't be president. He wasn't born here. And he got over 2000 units. It's a lot. And they flooded it with Starlink. And it was so good. It saved a lot of lives. So we want to thank him. But no, he's not going to be president that I can tell you. And I'm safe. You know why he can't be, he wasn't born in this country.

Trump is so thin skinned that he just can't let this go and consider, has there ever been any other president elect in history who has had to clarify during the period between the election and the inauguration, this other person that you're hearing is really in charge. They're not, I'm really the one in charge. No other president elect has ever had to clarify this. Trump is scared. Trump is furious. And the fact that he's even talking about this shows how much

President Musk is bothering Donald Trump. Now, a few other moments from this AmFest fiasco of a speech which started with WWE style pyrotechnics for Donald Trump. Trump has come up with a brilliant idea for dealing with the drug problem in the United States. I hope you're sitting down because this is so mind-blowingly innovative that you won't believe it. Trump's idea is he's going to explain to people drugs are bad, man. Drugs are bad.

We spend a lot of money, but it'll be a very small amount of money relatively. We're going to advertise how bad drugs are for you, how bad they are. They ruin your look. They ruin your face. They ruin your skin and ruin your teeth. If you want to have horrible teeth, take a lot of fentanyl. If you want to have skin that looks so terrible, take fentanyl. We're going to show what these drugs are doing to you.

Nobody's done that before, and we're going to do it. And that is what these drugs are doing to you. Nobody's done that before. And we're going to do it. And that is it's going to be like running a political campaign. Hey, guys, drugs are bad. OK, problem solved. No one has ever thought of it before. Of course, other than the DARE program and sort of like everyone everywhere that you could ever imagine trying to convince someone to drop an addictive substance. Hey, this is bad for you. Let's see what kind of mileage Donald

Trump gets from that. Not shying away during this disastrous speech from the whole vaccine autism thing, which has really been reinvigorated by the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. By the way, honestly, I kind of feel bad, but in a sense, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a sign that drugs are bad, right? I mean, anyway, that's a topic for another day. Um, anyway, vaccines and autism playing a role during this speech. And to be our next secretary of health and Human Services, I decided, look, something's going on here. When you look at, like, autism from 25 years ago, and you look at it now, something's going on. And I nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Think of it. Think of this. Twenty five years ago, autism, one in ten thousand children.

Today, it's one in thirty six children. Is something wrong. I think so. Anyway, we've debunked this stuff so many times. I'm not even going to do it again. It's a holiday week. You know, we have Christmas and Hanukkah coming up. I don't want to. I don't want to do it again. But what I will tell you is the the mere premise that we're going to do something good about

this by putting Robert F. Kennedy in charge of anything is completely laughable. And then finally, from Trump's speech, he made a very important policy announcement. Take a listen. Under the Trump administration, it will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female. Cool. So that's going to be the policy.

Now what does that do and what does that even mean? That's a different question to which I don't have the answer at exactly this moment. So the themes of Donald Trump's speech to AmFest in a way, a notable speech because Donald Trump has been relatively missing as far as these longer campaign style speeches, which by the way, you do see there, the teleprompter mirrors, uh, teleprompter glass, better said to, to both Trump's left and right, um, uh, to give this speech, he still needs a teleprompter, which is a whole topic of discussion in and of itself. But the themes are the new material in this speech is Trump talking about how, no, no,

no. Elon Musk's not in charge. I'm in charge. That's the new material. And then beyond that, it's going back to the same old stuff. Vaccines and autism, which Trump briefly broached in 2016 during Republican presidential debates. Um, how great it is to say things you understand very little about with regard to medical stuff, uh, anti-trans stuff, which, which still is playing very, very well. That is a we're going to talk later about the division within the Republican Party.

But one of the areas where they are very united is when Trump does anti-trans stuff, they cheer and they scream and they love it. So if you're wondering how we got here, it's a great question. The first third of my forthcoming book, the echo machine is exactly about how we got here. So consider pre-ordering it, pre-ordering it. If you're not the reading type, we've got an audio book. If you're not the physical book type, we've got a Kindle and ebook. You can check it out at davidpacman.com slash book. We will take this. We're really going to keep this break short.

And then there's so much more to back to who encouraged you along the way. That's what the 431 exchange is for for so many adult learners. Our sponsor, the 431 exchange is a nonprofit that provides scholarships to adults 18 to 75 who were working to transform their lives and support families. The four 31 exchange fills a vital need in Louisiana, which ranks 40th in K through 12 education. We've talked about that and that means opportunities are limited from an early age. One scholar studying agricultural engineering says over the past four years, I've felt so

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different holidays, the best, um, join pacman.com is the place to do it. You can use the coupon code not again for a sizable, but demure discount off of the cost of a membership. All right. One of the stories we're going to focus on sort of in depth is in the wake of what happened with the voting around the debt ceiling bill. We have seen the cracks in the foundation of MAGA. not the best materials have been used to build this foundation such that it is now cracking. And before we get into that broader topic, I do want to give you a couple of anecdotes that I think are relevant about what's happening within the Republican Party. You know, we've talked before about MAGA versus non MAGA within the Republican Party.

You've got your MAGA Republicans and you've got your anti-Trump Republicans. They've had conflict for a long time. Trump versus Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Mitt Romney, half of Trump's former cabinet, et cetera, et cetera. So we know about MAGA versus non MAGA. But what I want to show you here is that there is a growing MAGA versus MAGA violence of sorts. This is video from the after party, I guess. Doesn't seem like a very fun party. The after party at AmFest, which is the Turning Point USA event in Phoenix, Arizona. We looked at clips of Trump speaking there. We'll look at some

clips of Matt Gates speaking there in a moment at this after party, two horrible people, Laura Loomer and Milo Yiannopoulos got into an argument that reportedly went nearly 10 minutes and had to be broken up. Remember, this is all MAGA. This is, this is not Maga. It's not, oh, uh, Adam Kinzinger got in and Laura Loomer, who, who's such a horrible person. She accused Milo of being paid by Marjorie Taylor Greene. I guess at one point Milo was interning for Marjorie Taylor Greene. And then she says for Milo to stop saying things about her behind her back. But Milo says, oh, I'm willing to say any of it in public. Hey, at least she's still calling it Twitter. She's refusing to call it X. Say it right now.

I think that you are a very dangerous person. Oh, yeah? You're unstable. Unstable. I think you are bad to yourself. Unstable. Because I want to call you out because you are a liar and you're a drug addict. And you judge people.

And you lie about people. And you're just. If it's true that he's a drug addict, I don't know. I mean, that's a, that's a medical problem. I don't know why you would throw that in his face. Okay. So in Milo tells Laura, she needs medication, which is probably true, but anyway, it's not his place to say because his expertise is not pharmacology. OK, so this apparently got very ugly and eventually someone else came over as it continued or potentially had moved to a different location and kind of it went on and on. And someone else said, you're going to have to leave if this I don't feel any compassion for you. Hey guys, hey guys, hey guys. James doesn't want to be here.

He does not want any problems. James sent me a note. No, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. If you could deal with the guest's problems, what are their problems? No, no, no, listen, listen, listen. Since you're making our host feel uncomfortable, maybe you could leave.

Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. It's either we all get along, and we we have a good night or nobody can be here. There's there. She that's me. I understand. I understand. But this rule. All right.

Anyway, I think you get the point. What's what's the takeaway here? The takeaway is that these people in general are fundamentally unfit to govern or run anything. Now you might say, well, Laura Loomer isn't running anything. Milo's not running anything. Milo isn't running anything, but Laura Loomer is increasingly close to Donald Trump. And although she may not be running anything, this is the type of person who's just going around saying you're mentally ill.

You need this medication. You need that, this, that, the other. She is very close to Trump and has Trump's ear. This is emblematic of everything that's going on. Michael Flynn is now in the ecosystem. What was the guy's name? The football player, Herschel Walker is getting an ambassadorship. It's a complete and total debasement of just what does it even mean to be generically qualified to do a damn thing that runs the country? And one of the things that I can tell you with certainty when I was at the White House

last week, you don't have to agree with every policy decision of the Biden administration. I got a firsthand look. The equivalent folks who are just kind of like they're doing their their job are highly competent people from just like a basic organization, management, organizing your time, follow through all this stuff. By comparison, the people that are being ushered in almost like the doors, it's like the running of the bulls where they open the thing and all of a sudden everybody's stampeding out the people stampeding in to be part of this forthcoming administration. It's not just that they have bad ideas. They are fundamentally incompetent at just

doing anything. And so we'll deal a little bit later, maybe tomorrow with the cracks that are developing within MAGA. This is MAGA versus MAGA stuff. It's going to be very difficult to govern with any of this kind of crap kind of in your ecosystem. Matt Gaetz, after failing his nomination to be attorney general of the United States, because it was just a little too much for Republican senators to go with the guy accused of statutory rape and serial sex trafficking across state lines of minors. After that didn't work out, Gates kind of disappeared. He, you know, he said, I'll do cameos. He went on cameo, but he otherwise kind of disappeared. He has resurfaced and he resurfaced in Phoenix, Arizona over the weekend at AmFest,

the event put on by Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA. And he seems completely self-humiliated and he throws out some maybes about what he might next get himself involved in it all. I don't feel bad for the guy, but it is notable just how pathetic he is. Listen to this. Many have asked which perch I will be fighting from next. Yes, everybody's waiting with bated breath to know what is Matt Gaetz going to do next. And some of you throughout this conference have even given me a few suggestions. My fellow Floridians have asked me to eye the governor's mansion in Tallahassee. I'm sure they're desperate for you to do that, Matt. Maybe special counsel to go after the insider trading for my former colleagues in Congress. It seems I may not have had enough support in

the United States Senate. Maybe I'll just run for Marco Rubio's vacant seat in the United States Senate and join some of those folks. And my friend Steve Bannon and others have suggested that I return to the House of Representatives on January 3rd. But I would remind Steve when he got out of prison, he didn't punch a guard on the way out. For the moment, I'll enjoy being one of you. It was James Madison who said that the most powerful position in America would not be Congressman or Senator or even president, but that of citizen, because we put such an obligation on the citizenry to ignite the patriotism that the country needs. What a guy, huh? Just exactly who we need in a position of power.

I will admit to me, the funniest idea is just to show up on January 3rd. Now, there is there's a technicality which some people have mentioned, which is that he resigned. So he won reelection in November. And then when he was nominated to AG, he resigned. So there are people who are saying he resigned from the current congressional class, but he still won and could show up and just pledge the oath for the next congressional session on January 3rd.

I don't know whether he could or couldn't do that, that there may be something to that, but it reminds me of the, the Larry David story, which once made it into a Seinfeld where Larry David had some job where he threw a tantrum and said, I quit and just, you know, left thinking better of it that night. David had some job where he threw a tantrum and said, I quit and just, you know, left thinking better of it that night. He said, damn it. I wish I hadn't had done that. And the, uh, ultimate thing that he did was show up the next day, pretending that it was

all a joke, just show up to work. And when they say, didn't you quit yesterday without that? No, no, no. Of course I still work here. It's essentially what some are suggesting that Matt Gates do. I don't think he's going to do it. He said he is not going to show up on January 3rd and take the oath. That, no, no, no. Of course I still work here. It's essentially what some are suggesting that Matt Gaetz do. I don't think he's going to do it. He said he is not going to show up on January 3rd and take the oath.

The funniest thing to me is not only how he has completely humiliated himself, but also the fact that he thinks everybody is really eager to see what he does next. What I hope he does next is absolutely nothing because the better the country is better off, the further he is from any kind of decision making power. Stick to cameo, which, by the way, doesn't seem like it's going particularly well. Let's take a quick break. Make sure that you are subscribed to the YouTube channel approaching three million subscribers. YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. After the break, many of you have been asking for this. David, give us the list. Why did Kamala Harris lose? I believe we are ready to present that list after this short break. Thank you, David. laws that offer some protection. But in the US, the data is widely accessible. Even the FBI will buy this information from companies to spy on people without a search warrant. Our sponsor,

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Before I dive in, I think it's important to mention that there is really no single reason that Harris lost. A lot of discussions about this look for the one reason, and that framing is just completely wrong. In a country of 340 million people, you're off base if you're looking for one tidy little reason that Kamala Harris lost. Elections are messy, multilayered, shaped by a complex web of events. Some of them are public. Some are hidden behind the scenes. Think back to Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she lost. There was this borderline obsession with the one reason that Hillary lost. Was it just that she didn't visit the so-called blue wall States in the final

stretch? Was it James Comey's last minute second press conference about the investigation into her emails? Was it all due to Russian disinformation efforts or the pendulum effect of politics swinging back and forth in the U S or the Clinton campaigns, messaging misfires, not individually. It was sort of a mix of all of it. Every minor miscalculation, every external factor piling up until the loss felt inevitable in retrospect, especially when the election comes down to just a few hundred thousand votes in three to five States and Kamala Harris is 2024 defeat is really no different. But the fact that there is no single reason doesn't mean that there aren't reasons and cause and effect

here. So let's dive right in, in no particular order. Number one, Democrats flunked on the economy, immigration and crime. Again, you would think that Democrats would have learned by now you've got to meet voters where they are. And poll after poll showed that the economy and immigration mattered most. And voters didn't believe that the economy was great, even if the most important six to eight economic indicators look pretty good. And then when you add to that, that Kamala Harris's pitch felt sort of stale and corporate and never really addressed voters gut level concerns, uh, that didn't help. Then on immigration, she really let Trump define the conversation and just sort of tagged along saying she'll do some of what Trump says need to be done on the border,

but other parts are mean and inhumane, which of course they are, but it didn't really put together a proactive vision. And then on crime, there was not the feeling that the Harris campaign was taking voter concerns about crime seriously enough. Of course, we all know that the crime narrative is riddled with xenophobia and racism and lying about crime data. We know that, but Trump defined the issue. Harris did not rise to the occasion. So economy, immigration and crime messaging failed. Didn't cut it. Number two, there has been global anti incumbentincumbent mood since the pandemic. There was an anti-establishment wave that hit governments globally after COVID people were fed up. They wanted something or anything really new. Harris got swept away in that global trend. Biden won

in 2020, despite this barely because of the bungling of COVID by Trump. But now without Trump in power, the anti-incumbent mood did not help Kamala Harris. Now, to be clear, I don't believe Trump was destined to win. Trump's win was not inevitable. The race was winnable. A different candidate, a different strategy could have overcome this, but it certainly didn't help Kamala Harris. Number three, democratic voters stopped feeling urgency. Turnout went down. That tiny percentage arguably was the difference with Trump out of the white house. Democratic voters got complacent. They thought the crisis was over. They stayed home and Trump's base turned out hungry for the, the revenge that Trump was promising. Now, again, the Harris campaign did try to make this seem insanely urgent. I believe it was very urgent,

but voters didn't buy it. And ultimately that's what matters. And also on policy, there wasn't really a serious vision. I mean, if I ask you, what was Kamala Harris's signature policy? Some tax credits for first time homebuyers or the $50,000 tax deduction for startups, which most people will never take advantage of. If you asked 10 democratic voters, would even two of them answer that question the same way? What was Kamala Harris's defining policy or couple of policies? Democrats should study the 2008 Obama campaign when they made big, inspiring promises, many of which were not fully realized, as is the case with any campaign. Harris didn't have those sort of vision policy ideas. She highlighted the threat of Trump, which is important.

She offered incremental reforms that most people either didn't understand or care about, and it just didn't land. Number four, we do have a sort of pendulum that swings in American politics. History repeats. Democrats win a cycle. Republicans win a cycle. Sometimes there's a couple in a row and the naive belief that one victory secures a permanent majority may have led Democrats to think we've got this locked down. We looked at this in detail actually

last week in or two weeks ago in my segment about winners think they will never lose again. And yet they always do. Number five, personality trumped policy. Again, Kamala Harris's platform on paper arguably was more popular, but voters to a great degree chose the vibe of the campaign over a bullet point plan. And for all of his flaws and he's got many of them, Donald Trump came off as more authentic to some as absurd as that is. Harris did seem too scripted and too cautious. The Kamala Harris that I met before the last state of the union in DC is not the same Kamala Harris that was there in the speeches, which seemed cautious and rehearsed and it did

not land. Trump's economic messaging really hit home. Trump knows how to simplify. Part of it is he probably thinks simply. Part of it is he doesn't really have the language to do anything but speak simply. And he painted himself as the guy who gets it, who feels your pain. And on the other hand, Kamala Harris had this kind of careful, moderated approach and it didn't resonate. Now, the irony is the Democrats still manage the economy better by the numbers. You all know the data. We've looked at it. But that message was essentially nowhere.

And the half hearted claims, the economic jargon when Trump was just like, I got this, I understand that I'm going to do it, even though Trump, of course, is completely disconnected from the economic problems of the average person in a way that Kamala Harris personally at least used to know much more. But the messaging didn't make that clear. We should mention as one of the causes of Harris's loss and Trump's win is the right wing dominance in alternative media. This is not the whole if she had done Rogan, she would have won thing. It's just the reality that between podcasts and streaming platforms and social media spaces, Republicans did much better. They're hard to argue it any other way. And a lot of Democrats continue to chase the old school media.

We've talked about kind of our run ins with that. And Trump is speaking directly to voters in their sort of digital backyards. He's hanging out for hours in what are clearly unscripted moments. And it came off way better. The borders are trap probably helped Harris a little bit. Biden tied Kamala Harris to the border issue. And there was really no clear win there. And it ended up being sort of a political suicide. There were voters who saw her as failing at a key challenge, even if the job description

of borders are doesn't ever really match the assumptions. And that did hurt her. Biden staying in the race was a catastrophe. Biden was supposed to pass the torch. He didn't. He forced Kamala Harris to inherit the baggage. She was tethered to his record. She in many interviews said, I wouldn't really not. I'm not really going to say what I would

do differently because that would look bad. That made her a target. And then one disastrous Biden debate with Trump later, the entire Democratic establishment looked shaky and she inherited it. Now, a couple of kind of BS explanations that I don't think are valid. One is that Biden's unpopularity sealed Harris's fate. Listen, Biden didn't help, but a better run campaign could certainly have emphasized new ideas and an independence from Biden. She chose not to do that. She calculated it was better not to do that. I think it was the wrong calculation. Number two, she should have gone after RFK Jr. the way Trump did. Chasing a conspiracy laden endorsement was not going to save her. It would have probably alienated Democratic voters who would have said, this is nuts. I want nothing to do with RFK. I'm staying home.

And then I also read some people saying she focused too much on abortion. Abortion rights were not the problem. They did matter hugely to voters. The problem was there was no balance. As I said, the missing economic rhetoric, the missing immigration and missing crime stuff, as far as voters were concerned, made it so that the abortion stuff kind of got buried. So listen, the bottom line is that there's no single smoking gun that took Kamala Harris down in 2024. It's the sum of a bunch of missteps. It's a complacent base to a degree complacent because Trump is out of power to a degree complacent because they weren't super excited by Kamala Harris. We have the global anti-incumbent kind of fever. We have a media landscape that Democrats just have not figured out. So this election wasn't

just lost by Kamala Harris. It was lost by Harris and a party that just is not grasping what voters need to hear and where they need to hear it. When I was in D.C. last week and we met with a bunch of communications people that work for Biden and with the president himself, I think everybody in the room was very clear about these missteps that the, the creators that were there understood it and spoke about it directly. At least the people around Biden also understood Biden didn't address that specifically, but certainly talk about the importance of, of independent media. The real question is, okay, now all those people I met with last week, they're all going to be out of jobs because Trump's coming in and Biden's leaving. Will Democrats learn and wake up before the November 2026 midterms before the 2028

election? Or is it going to be the same old thing where we chase one Democratic candidate for four months to either be granted no interview or a crappy 12 minute thing where there's no ability to really get to know them as people. Is it going to be the same thing all over again? Or are we going to actually try to fix this problem? I don't know. I don't know. But, uh, I can't say I'm super optimistic, but the fact that the conversations even happened last week in D.C. is better than anything I'm aware of in prior administrations. So if there is a cause for optimism, I would say that it is that. Let me know what you think of my list of causes for what took place in November. Which ones am I missing? Any are there any I included that you disagree with?

Let me know what you think. Info at David Pakman dot com. As Trump's inauguration approaches, we're already seeing what the next four years are going to look like. A Trump campaign official said Pennsylvania election workers will face jail time for counting mail in ballots with technical errors like missing dates. Part of the right's attempt to so election distrust and weaponize the courts. This story is almost exclusively being covered by right leaning news outlets, spinning the

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Let's talk a little bit about what's going on. We are still a month or so from Donald Trump's inauguration and we're already seeing major cracks in the foundation of this party. Cracks that could completely upend Donald Trump's entire agenda. Now, Donald Trump, of course, asked House Republicans to suspend the debt ceiling, essentially giving him a blank check for future spending. But a group of Republicans said, hold on a second. We are not comfortable with that.

Adding to the debt is just not something that they want to do. And they joined forces with Democrats to shut it down. And this became a huge statement from Donald Trump's own party. They are simply not afraid of Donald Trump. Now, if you recall, Donald Trump campaigned on these massive, very expensive promises, including the largest deportation program in US history with no price tag, a price tag on it, a tax cuts for rich and corporations galore. You name it, he promised it. But all of that stuff costs money.

And after what just happened with the debt ceiling, it's difficult to see how Trump is going to convince Republicans to foot the bill for tens of thousands of detention centers and infrastructure for nonstop deportations and all of it. And even some typical Trump loyalists are raising eyebrows. Take Eric Burleson from Missouri, for example. He said, I love Donald Trump, but he didn't vote me into office. My district did. And that's really the core issue here. These Republicans might like Trump or at least they pretend to, but they don't want to lose their seats if their voters turn turn on them over runaway spending or Trump's pet

projects that do nothing for their districts. And of course, with Trump, an instant lame, the day he gets sworn in, unless he can come up with something else to hold over their heads, they're not going to be scared of him. Now there's this idea that this Trump term is going to be sort of a setup term to re a sort of reset government in the maggot image such that maybe it's JD and Don jr run in 28 or whatever. Okay. If that all happens perfectly, what Trump can hold over their heads is my people are still going to be in charge after 2028, but short of that, or unless they can get fellow Republicans

to believe that in 2025, uh, they are not the other Republicans are not going to be incentivized to just go with whatever Trump wants the way they may have been in the past. This is not only about the so-called fiscal Hawks because the Republican party also has a razor thin majority in the house and that is going to give small factions of the Republican party a ton of power. If just 38 Republicans can torpedo Trump's debt ceiling plan, imagine the uphill battle he's going to face with some of these other very expensive big ticket promises. Now, for those saying, I thought Republicans were about reducing the size of government and reducing the

budget. Oh, Trump blew up the deficit when he was president the first time, and he'll probably do it again. Trump is coming in with the expectation that there will be complete and total loyalty from everybody. He thinks he can wave his hand and everybody's going to jump. But this early vote on the debt ceiling is showing that the opposite is happening. Trump's own party is ready to push back whenever they feel like it. And this is trouble for the more extreme ideas like deporting a million people a year or creating massive new government programs at the drop of a hat. We're talking about a guy who wants no price tag on his

pet projects, but he can't even get Republicans to agree to raise the debt ceiling for him. Something that he needs before the real spending can actually get going in earnest. And if Trump is not able to rally his party around this, he is going to struggle like hell on these legislative minefields that are forthcoming. So the takeaway here is Trump's presidency has not even started. And many of his ideas are already imperiled as evidenced by this debt ceiling vote. And we are going to witness a Republican party that is going to still have its faction that rolls over for him. Yes, sir. How high, sir? Of course, sir. But it's not going to happen on everything and it's not going to happen with

everybody. If he wants a real chance of pushing through his agenda, he's going to have to do something he's never been big on, which is compromise. And it is yet another reminder that despite all the fact about a unified government behind Trump with a mandate and all this stuff, we already took apart the idea that there's a mandate. They don't seem unified behind him. And most importantly, for everybody who thinks there's no sense in building an opposition here. Oh, there is, because it's all going to come down to just a few votes

for Trump, the way it's looking. And that is an opportunity that is ripe for jumping into and saying not on this. No, no, no. We're not going to allow it to go. So I've been the optimistic thing is more and more people have been writing to me over the last week saying, I am now getting it, David. I'm now understanding how this is actually a situation, especially with the cracks within the party. It is a situation where Trump may be able to be completely derailed. And that's a great thing. A Republican congresswoman has been missing from public life for six months. And we've we've now learned that she's living in a dementia care facility. Oh dear God. Now I want to be clear. This is not a story about making fun

of cognitive decline. It's not a story meant to mock people for dealing with illness. The point here is there's a very important conversation to be had. Our political system has a serious problem and it's called the gerontocracy, a system dominated by people who are in many cases no longer capable of serving effectively. Before you get defensive, this is not ageist. It's not about how old someone is on paper. It's about their ability to govern, to represent their constituents, to function in the job they were elected to do. Here we are talking about Congresswoman Kay Granger, who's been representing Texas since 1997. In July, she disappeared, just gone. And now, after a bunch of investigation, it turns out that she is in a dementia care facility.

No one has been commenting. And that is, at this point, the best information that we have. This is not partisan for me. I spoke before about how Dianne Feinstein, a Democratic senator, did not seem cognitively fit to continue in the job. It is not about party. Here is Kay Granger earlier this year. She seemed confused reading a speech. She seemed very confused. And we avoided a massive, ominous measure. In total, we increased defense funding and made target cuts. We also made maintain our legacy under my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to remove. Overall, this bill honors our commitment to our veterans, strengthens our energy security,

hold agencies accountable, support our farmers and ranchers and makes our transportation system safer. I urge my colleagues to support this bill and I reserve the balance of my time. So listen, Bernie Sanders is 83. He's obviously fine, regularly does in-depth interviews, his attendance record, just watching the guy. Bernie's fine. The reality here is that when elected officials become incapacitated, like being in a dementia care facility for six months and just being gone, whether it's dementia, whether it's a different health issue, whether you're just checked out, what happens? What happens is that staffers and lobbyists and unelected power players

start pulling the strings. And so it's also fundamentally anti-democratic because constituents voted for someone. Their voice was used to vote for someone. And you end up with unelected staffers running the show. It's undemocratic. It's not a good thing. And so what do we need? We need some kind of mechanism in place to address situations where someone can't serve. It's not to shame people. It's to preserve the integrity of the legislative bodies and of these offices because people need to be represented by someone they voted for. And if we don't address it, the government is going to be run by proxy and it's not going to be represented by someone they voted for. And if we don't address it, the government is going to be run by proxy and it's not going to be directed by you that I can assure you.

Uh, so Kay Granger, apparently six months in a dementia care facility after disappearing from Congress in July, not good, not good. What else can we say? Sad state, sad state of affairs. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the repulsive governor of Arkansas who has spent much of her, uh, tenure, um, talking about woke and gender and stuff that really she just shouldn't even be dealing with rather than making the state function better economically. She now put out a video saying that Arkansas is officially the place that everybody wants to move to. It's the best place to move to this year. This is very odd. Very, very odd. Check it out. It's official. Arkansas is the top state to move to in 2024.

I missed that. That really shouldn't be a surprise. We have one of the lowest costs of living in America. And why is that? Our administration has cut taxes three times. We're investing in our schools. We're cracking down on crime. And we're standing strong against the crazy left-wing policies that are ruining states like New York and California. If you're fleeing a blue state to come to Arkansas, we're excited to welcome you. Just don't forget why you're welcome. Okay, so now it cuts to, I guess, like a river. I don't know. So listen, I'm sure people from Arkansas are great. Okay. I'm just talking about data. And this is really a weird video to put out when Arkansas consistently ranks among the worst

States on just about every metric. Okay. On healthcare, it's 48th in access and 47th in outcomes. It's not a good place to need care. It's 42nd in K through 12 education, according to Education Week, not really setting your kids up for success in Arkansas. And if you're raising kids in Arkansas, I'm sorry. I mean, if you know, parenting goes a long way, so I'm sure they can be fine, but the system is not going to be super helpful. She's right that the cost of living is low. There's a reason for that. Number one, wages are insanely low. Arkansas has one of the lowest median household incomes in the United States.

But part of the reason cost of living is low is number one, no one actually wants to move there. And number two, there's no demand or competition for housing. I housing costs are a real problem. And what's happening in California is a major problem. But the reason that the cost of housing in California has been bid up partially, it's because of zoning. And that's a problem nationally, but partially it's because lots of people want to go to California. There are so many people that want to move to Los Angeles that if the prices for housing were cut, there would be too many people going there. And it's the very same Republicans who say they understand supply and demand. Forget about it when it comes

to the cost of living in some blue states. So that's part of what's going on economically. Her government has been focused on culture wars instead of practical issues. She signs laws rolling back workers' rights, banning books, attacks on LGBTQ rights and reproductive health care, some of the strictest abortion bans in the country. If you assume that at least it's like kind of small town safety in Arkansas, you'd be wrong. Fourth highest violent crime rate in the United States, plagued by gang violence, plagued by drug problems, underfunded police departments,

property crime isn't any better. It's the sixth highest property crime of 50 states. The infrastructure is a disaster. The roads are a mess. Rural broadband, forget about it. Infrastructure spending is perpetually underfunded. They're right in the middle of tornado alley. So on top of having the poor infrastructure, you can have severe storms and flooding and power outages, which then they are unprepared to deal with properly. So this isn't about saying the people of Arkansas are bad. Someone's got to be 47th, right? If you've got 50 states, someone's going to be 47. It doesn't mean that the people are bad. These are simply the facts. And it's particularly ironic or depressing, depending on your perspective,

uh, that she, after spending her term, making the state worse in so many ways, spending their, the taxpayer money on this stupid lectern, which I don't even know where it landed and whether she reimbursed the state or what. After all of that, she makes a video going, Hey, this is officially the best place to move to in the country. Well, why aren't people moving there then governor? That's the question I would ask. Okay. Couple things upcoming. First of all, fantastic bonus show for you today. You should consider signing up if the bonus show sounds interesting. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. So here's the

schedule through the holidays. All right. We're here today and tomorrow and then off on Christmas and then back Thursday, Friday, next week, we will be off on January 1st, but otherwise it'll be a normal week. Then we've got a couple normal weeks. Inauguration day is on MLK day. We will be off that day, but I will be live streaming the inauguration. And then it's just sort of like kind of normal. Okay. so today, tomorrow, off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, same thing next week. I'll see you on the bonus show and then hopefully I will see you here tomorrow as well.