The David Pakman Show - 12/24/24: Matt Gaetz report out, the MAGA culture war cash grab

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

-- On the Show: -- The Matt Gaetz ethics report is out and it concludes that Gaetz committed statutory rape and paid a teenager for sex -- Former Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz panics over the publication of his ethics report and sues to try to stop the release -- President Joe Biden commutes 37 federal death sentences, equivalent to more than 92% of all sentences -- Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continues to hone her political instincts and communication skills -- Growing confusion within MAGA about whether they are supposed to follow and support Donald Trump or Elon Musk's opinions on issues -- The Elon Musk plan to pay for his tax cut by cutting Social Security and Medicare -- A deep dive into the MAGA culture war cash grab -- An exploration of why red states struggle in every area compared to blue states, on average -- Before the holiday break, David dives into the voicemail line as a reminder of why he stopped taking live calls -- On the Bonus Show: Plans for The David Pakman Show in 2025 ⚠️ Ground News: Get 50% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com  🛏️ Eight Sleep: Get $350 OFF the Pod 4 Ultra at https://eightsleep.com/pakman 👩‍🎓 The 431 Exchange: Help us reach our goal by donating at https://431exchange.org/pakman 🥐 Wildgrain: Use code PAKMAN for $30 off & free baked goods at https://wildgrain.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- 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 to the show, everybody. It does seem that just in time to ruin Christmas for him, Matt Gaetz all of a sudden is suing to try to stop the release of the ethics report into the things he did, but it's too late. It has been released and it points to statutory rape. It points to paying underage girls for sex. It points to a guy who is all of a sudden going from the MAGA darling poised to be the attorney general of the United States and bring hell upon the political enemies of Donald Trump. And like that, he drops out from consideration because he wasn't going to get confirmed. And now the ethics report. Oh my goodness. Look at this. The house ethics committee

report has revealed that Matt Gates, former Republican congressman, paid numerous women, including a 17 year old girl for sex, bought and used illegal drugs, including in his office on Capitol Hill. You know, the drugs thing, it's less of a moral judgment, but it's again, the do as I say, not as I do, as he was a social conservative, a family man, pro values and all of this crap. And of course he was doing the legal drugs in his Capitol Hill office. The committee determined that there is substantial evidence that Gates violated house rules and other standards of conduct, which number one, prohibit prostitution,

prohibit statutory rape, prohibit illicit drug use, prohibit impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges and obstruction of Congress with regard to Gates trying to obstruct the very investigation into him that found this stuff. The committee said it also received testimony that at a particular party in 2017 Gates twice had sexual intercourse with victim a victim a was 17 years old at the time and just finished her junior year in high school. These are the people that tell us they know what's right. They know how kids should be raised. Meanwhile, he's allegedly having sex with legal minors. Victim A says she got 400 bucks cash from Gates, which was understood to be a payment for sex. She did not

inform Gates that she was under 18 at the time. And Gates certainly didn't ask. Now Gates has denied having sex with a minor before. That is the opposite of the conclusion from this report. Another element from this report reads, while all the women that the committee interviewed stated their sexual activity with Gates was consensual, at least one woman felt that the use of drugs at the parties and events they attended may have impaired their ability to really know what was going on or fully consent. One woman said, I think about it all the time. I still see him when I turn on the TV and there's nothing anyone can do.

It's frustrating to know I lived a reality that he denies. Now, you may remember that Matt Gaetz tried to get ahead of this recently with an excretion that he posted to X where he was sort of previewing. I did some stuff that maybe wasn't the best, but I didn't do anything really wrong. He posted a previously quote, the Biden Garland DOJ spent years reviewing allegations that I committed that various crimes. I was charged with nothing fully exonerated. As I've mentioned before, not being charged with a crime is very different than an exoneration. He continued, not even a campaign finance violation and the people investigating me

hated me. Then the very witnesses DOJ deemed not credible were assembled by house ethics to repeat their claims absent any cross examination or challenge from me or my attorneys. I've had no chance to ever confront any accusers. I've never been charged. I've never even been sued. Instead, house ethics will reportedly post a report online that I have no opportunity to debate or rebut as a former member of the body. In my single days, I often sent funds to women. I dated even some, I never dated, but who asked I dated several of these women for years.

I never had sexual contact with someone under 18. All of these claims appear to be false. Mind you, based on the report, any claim that I have would be destroyed in court, which is why no such claim was ever made in court. My thirties were an era of working very hard and playing hard too. It's embarrassing though, not criminal that I probably partied womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. Well, it appears that there were a number of crimes there. I live a different life now, he says, but at least I didn't vote for continuing resolutions that fuck over the country. Okay.

Trying to distract, understand that some of the occurrences outlined in the ethics report took place in 2017 and in 2018, that's six, seven years ago. The idea that this was some kind of youthful indiscretion, oh, I was 12 and I got caught shoplifting a King size Twix. No, you are fundamentally the same person at, I don't even know how, what is he 40 now? Let's see Matt Gates. How old is this guy? He's 42. He wants us to believe it's sort of like what Dave Rubin wants us to believe. Dave Rubin wants us to believe that he was a progressive up until he was like 40. And then all of a sudden he's a supporter and it's just a

natural, you know, a realistic evolution rather than a grift. Gates wants us to believe that when he was 36, he was a completely different person than at 42. And while certainly transformations are possible and blah, blah, blah, uh, it's self-serving here and I just don't buy it. Don't forget they tried to hide this from you. MAGA did. And Trump wanted to make this guy the attorney general of the United States. That's how much Trump respects the people of this country. Not at all that he was willing to subject the country to Matt Gates, who really should be, uh, that he's willing to subject the country to Matt Gaetz, who really should be, uh, he's the guy committing the crimes and we're supposed to believe he's going to prosecute crime, pathetic stuff. And that's why Gaetz is now suing to try to stop this, but it's too late.

So listen, the report is out the ethics report. We, we know what's in it, uh, about Matt Gaetz. It's bad. Statutory rape, criminal drug use, paying underage girls for sex. But Matt Gaetz was panicked and he tried to stop it. Matt Gaetz filed a lawsuit. Moments report, moments before we got word of what was in this report. Fox 8 reports Matt Gaetz filed a lawsuit against the House Ethics Committee in a last minute attempt to block the panel from releasing its report on the Florida Republican. He filed the lawsuit as several outlets reported on leaked drafts, which CNN and CBS say found substantial evidence that he violated House rules or Florida state laws, which prohibit all the things I mentioned that he did prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, et cetera. Panel expected to publicly

release the report as early as Monday. The lawsuit asks a judge to issue an emergency order. Gates is fundamentally making the argument, uh, that because reporting on the ethics report would be instantaneous, that it should be blocked because he says it contains false information. Here's the lawsuit. Matthew L. Gates, the second against the United States House of Representatives Committee on Ethics. And Michael Guest as chairman of that committee. This is a panicked lawsuit. And for a guy who said he wasn't very worried, he posted to Twitter, listen, they're going to find that I had, you know, maybe a wild 30s, but they're not going to find criminality. Well, that's exactly what they found. They're not going to find anything beyond just, you know, I dated women and sometimes

sent them cash and sometimes smoked. Well, no, it found far worse than that. It found not only crimes, but also violations of house ethics rules. And among other things, Gates concern in this lawsuit is that there's no way to reverse it. There's no way to put the genie back in the bottle. And that's absolutely and completely correct. There is no way to do that because what the house ethics committee found made up of Republicans and Democrats, mind you, is that he did completely and totally horrible things. So we talked yesterday about Gates talking, where is he going to land? Is he going to try to run for Marco Rubio's soon to be vacated Senate seat? Or what about trying to fight the sanctimonious for, uh, this, uh, being Florida governor or whatever?

I don't really know that Florida Republicans are going to care about the statutory rape. It might just not be a big deal to them. But I don't know that Gates is political future is bolstered by this report. It may not hurt him dramatically just because of who Republicans are and have become. But I don't think that this is the sort of thing that that helps him. And of course, recall that were it not for the public outcry, were it not for even Republican senators saying this is a bridge too far. Bobby Kennedy Jr. to replace vaccines with raw milk that we can get behind. But Gates is a bit too much.

Were it not for those Republican senators, Trump and President Musk and, you know, whoever is making these decisions, they would have no problem whatsoever subjecting all of us to chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Matt Gaetz, despite the reality that he's much more of a prolific committer of crime than prosecutor of crime and defender of victims. He has victims in his wake. Uh, he's got to clean up his own mess before he could be the top law enforcement officer. So a not, not a good 48 hours for Matt Gates. We will see ultimately what the longer term consequences are of this.

But it seems like the Grinch is stealing Gaetz's Christmas. And of course, by the Grinch, we mean Gaetz himself by his own doing. We're going to take a quick break and be back with much more right after this. 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 sow election distrust and weaponize the courts. This story is almost exclusively being covered by right leaning news outlets, spinning the narrative to villainize the election workers. So the public probably has a skewed perspective on what's really happening.

That is, unless you use ground news, which lets you see every side to every story like this one. Ground news is an independent platform that exposes the biases of media outlets by showing Thank you, David. quick breakdown of the day's most critical stories from every angle. Go to ground dot news slash Pacman for 50 percent off their unlimited access vantage plan. It's their biggest sale of the year. And the link is in the description. You can't vapor smoke inside. You're tired of people seeing you put those little pouches in your lip. There is a nicotine alternative that people won't notice. Zippix nicotine toothpicks. Our sponsor Zippix makes the only nicotine toothpick on the planet that is FDA registered. You can use it anywhere, work, restaurants, airplanes, sporting events after a meal. The toothpicks stay in a convenient

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President Joe Biden has commuted the sentences of 37 federal death row prisoners converting their punishment to life imprisonment without parole. I'm going to repeat that in a moment, just so we have clarity. This is more than 92% of all prisoners currently on federal death row. There are three individuals convicted of hate motivated mass killings, Dylan roof, Robert Bowers and Jahar Zarna, who are remaining on death row. And I'm going to say it again right up front to avoid confusion. This doesn't release anybody from prison. It converts their sentence from death penalty to life in prison without the

possibility of parole. Now, this decision was made just weeks before Donald Trump's return to the presidency. And it's just a reminder that Biden as a Catholic is morally opposed to the death penalty. He has called it flawed. He has called it irredeemable. And I think both of those are accurate. And we could even go further. And I will in a moment. President Biden campaigned back in 2020 on ending the federal death penalty. Legislative efforts did not succeed. They depended on Congress and they didn't succeed. Instead, what Biden did was implement a moratorium on federal executions and it effectively stopped the practice. Trump revived it during his first term. And we saw 13 federal prisoners executed when Trump was president the first time around. And Biden has placed a moratorium on it.

Now, as you can see, this is a stark difference here. Trump's campaign promises are not only he's going to restart the federal executions. He wants to expand the death penalty. He's talked about, oh, we're going to give the death penalty after a very quick China style trial to drug dealers, to those involved in human trafficking. Trump wants more death penalty. Biden is morally opposed to it. I agree with Biden on this issue. Now, it's also important to mention not that the justice system is dictated just by the victims of crimes, but it's important to mention that many victims' families voiced support for commuting the death penalty to life in prison without parole. And it really challenges the idea that victims get closure when the state puts people to

death. There's a retired police officer whose partner was killed by one of the inmates whose life has now been spared and he will spend the rest of his life in prison with no possibility of parole. And that individual said it would not have brought me peace to see this individual executed. And this just again highlights the moral and the practical shortcomings of the death penalty. And Joe Biden is trying to address that. Now, as many of you know, I'm against the death penalty as well for so many different reasons. First of all, its implementation is filled with flaws. Since 1973, over 200 death row inmates have been exonerated. And that's a

reminder that the system often gets it wrong. There is no doubt that innocent people have been put to death erroneously with the death penalty and you can't reverse it. But even if you could execute the death penalty with perfect accuracy, I would still be against it because we know that the death penalty is also applied in a racially biased and unfair way based on class, based on skin color, even sometimes applied to individuals who lack the cognitive capacity to even know what is going on. Now, I know that there are people who are most concerned with what things cost. And many of these supporters of the death penalty love to say, and I take them at their word that they believe it. They say,

we're not going to spend endless money to keep someone housed and fed and with medical treatment in prison. Let's simply execute them. It's cheaper. But the problem with that is it happens not to be to go through the entire death penalty process, uh, with the appeals and the cost of death row, uh, is actually more expensive. Now, some of these right wingers will react to that and say, well, don't give them the appeals and don't put them on death row. There are innocent people on death row. How on earth do you justify eliminating the appeals process? We need a better appeals process. So even the financial aspect of it doesn't make sense. And no matter what your priority is, there are lots of different reasons that we should say no more death penalty. At the end of the day, the motivation often for the death penalty is revenge. Now, I know every time I talk about this, someone will write to me and they'll say, David,

you might feel differently about the death penalty if it was one of your loved ones who had been killed. And I agree with that. You're completely correct. If it were one of my loved ones, I probably would feel differently, but that's a reason not to have the death penalty because I might feel differently if it were my family member out of a desire for revenge. And revenge is not the point of the American justice system. If you think it should be, change the law, but that's not the point. So the fact that my view might be different in the heat of emotion and of a personal connection to this issue, that's evidence we shouldn't have the death penalty, not that we should. So I like that Biden did this. You can't have a system that is rooted in fairness, relying on a punitive and broken practice. And in this context,

what Joe Biden is doing is necessary. I would argue it's not nearly enough, but it at least sends a message. The state should not be in the business of killing its own citizens. Trump's going to expand it. He's, he loves archaic stuff. He's like, let's go back to the fifties, the 1950s, the 1850s. This is not just about sparing lives. It's saying this is a system that doesn't value justice. The death penalty doesn't value justice. It risks executing the innocent. It's not a business that the state should be in. The question now is, will Joe Biden stance keep going in the direction of change or is this just sort of a fleeting moment and Trump will come in

and say, let's start executing drug dealers. We don't know the answer to that yet. You know, one of the things I have always said to my audience is if my opinion changes about something, I will tell you and I will be upfront. And my opinion has changed significantly about democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over recent years. Now I know that many of you are now disgusted with AOC. I get emails from a slice of my audience that says AOC sold out. AOC no longer is fighting for this or fighting for that. And she's not what she once was. I would argue that that's for the better. I'll be honest. When she first started her political career, I didn't find her political instincts to be particularly well-tuned. I didn't think that she had the knowledge of economic issues

that I would like to see from those fighting for economic justice. I didn't think that she was particularly pragmatic. Well, listen, you can say for better or for worse, the reality is that once you start to see the system from the inside, you start to adjust your perspective into one that says, oh, given that this is how the system works, here's how I am going to work within that system, both to achieve outcomes that are good and also to change the system. It's not an accelerationist point of view. It's a far more incrementalist point of view, something I agree with as well and have an entire chapter about in my forthcoming book. And one of the things that I think AOC is doing so well right now is she is trying different ways to communicate with people. And although this is not, you know,

you're not going to generate, you won't achieve world peace by doing Twitch streams and answering questions on TikTok. OK, not pretending that that's what you're going to do. But when the Democratic Party is struggling to connect with voters and when misinformation runs rampant and there's no way to reel it in and we're saying there's a lack of genuineness that plagued Kamala Harris, as we talked about yesterday, that Donald Trump seems to have figured out. One of the things I think AOC is doing really well is she's communicating directly with people in a way that is genuine here.

I'm going to just play three TikTok videos. She did. She opened it up to questions and a bunch of people asked her questions. And one of them was, do you really have this multi, multimillion dollar net worth that a lot of Republicans claim you have? And you can't, you can't go to the source any better than this. And these are short clips. This is not groundbreaking stuff, but there's something here that as a communicator, I think she's excellent. Take a listen to this. No, this is not true at all. This is like a complete Republican

fabrication. It is December 2024. Members of Congress have to file financial disclosures. And you can see from my legal disclosures that I remain one of the lowest net worth members of Congress. I do not trade individual stock. I have no outside income. I live off of my congressional salary. And that's just what it is. I don't believe in members of Congress trading individual stock. I think it's wrong.

And I don't believe in members of Congress trading individual stock. I think it's wrong and I don't do it, even though technically you legally can. I choose not to because I think it's messed up. And so Republicans love to just like straight up lie about this and they'll just put it in comment sections until people believe it and repeat it. But this is like very easily able to look up and it's a fabrication. What's very good about this is that she is not only correcting a falsehood. She is also saying you can independently confirm this. And she is also using it as an opportunity to connect her personal actions to what her values are, which is even though legally I could trade stock,

I don't believe we should. And so I'm not doing it. That's very different than some elected officials who will pay lip service to you. Yeah, the stock act and the, but I'm going to keep trading stocks and I'm going to teeter on the line between what is insider information and what is not a privileged information. I think this is really good political communication. Now, is there a is there a broader campaign strategy in here for the next presidential candidate? I don't know. That's four years away.

AOC was asked during this Q&A, and this might have been on Instagram live and then reposted to TikTok. I don't know. It's one of these vertical short form context contact formats. Is Elon Musk the shadow president? And again, I think that she's answering these questions. Well, Elon Musk, I, I believe does create problems for Trump. And I've been seeing over the course of the last week that by the way, that's her dog snoring.

I think when Elon tweets something and when Trump tweets something, Republicans don't know. I've said this earlier. Republicans don't know who their daddy is, like they don't know which one they need to be listening to first. Which by the way, in the next segment, we're going to deal with this. When Elon posts, MAGA gets confused. And that's actually, we'll dig into that a little more.

And it's scrambling them. But it's not a joke that I think Elon poses real political problems for Trump and arguably may have at least rival his power and influence. And that's going to be a problem for Trump. I don't like they're both bad, but there you go. Yeah. And then finally asked in this situation where so many of us are demoralized, where so many of us are saying, what, where so many of us are saying, what else can we do? They want everything.

How do you fight back? And addressing that as well. I think there's going to be a lot of people that have answers and takes on this question, understandably so. I'm not going to be here to tell you here's the definitive answer, but because I think that the time that we are about to enter is going to be highly experimental. I do not think to this other question that it is for Democrats as a political party to save the country. I don't believe that the structure that doesn't mean that you don't vote for them, but I believe that building independent power of people's movements, union, labor, other protest movements, et cetera, is where media as well, I think is important.

I think this is so good because we, I have said before, and you might be saying, oh David, you think this is great because it happens to align with what you believe. Well, yes, right. Yes. I have things that I think are the direction that the left should go. And AOC, in contrast to four years ago, is now mirroring some of that, I think, as a result of her experience. That's great. I've I've changed my views about AOC. AOC has changed some of her views about what's going on. As I've said before, political parties may offer policy that you like and political parties

may offer a platform and candidates that overlap with you more or less. But when it really comes to achieving change and so on and so forth, To a degree, political parties exist like corporations do to sustain themselves. And in the same way that a corporation will offer a good product or service, if that's what will help it to sustain itself, not because it's an, it's an end unto itself, but because it's the means through which they can exist and earn profit. The democratic national committee, the D the DNC, the RNC, these are essentially corporations that exist to justify their existence. And AOC pointing out, listen, I don't think that the, the vote for them when you agree with their candidate more than the other candidate, but we need independent systems here, independent

scaffolding. Now I'm sure that there are some who would say the independent scaffolding we need is the Democratic Socialists of America. Well, good for you. I'm not a socialist. I don't believe that that's what we need. I would focus more, for example, on the lacking media ecosystem. Look at what Turning Point USA did over the weekend. We covered some of it yesterday.

Maybe we'll talk about some of it today. So on the details, we may not agree on every policy. I'm sure we don't agree, but I am very much seeing AOC as a political force due to this change that some of you are furious about. I see this as setting her up to have way more power rather than what some say, which is she's given up the power by, by moderating or becoming more pragmatic. No, no, no, no. That was going to be an obstacle to power. And I think now she is really readier than ever to seize it. So let me know what you think.

After the break, I am going to get into this kind of like, who's their daddy thing. Is it Elon or is it Trump? I think it's an important question. preferences and even elevate your head. If you snore, I run hot. I hate getting hot when I sleep. That's why I set my eight sleep pod to keep my mattress at a cool 60 degrees at night. You can set it anywhere from 55 to 110 degrees. You can set each side of the bed independently to a different temperature, depending on your preferences versus your partners. Or you can set your pod to detect your body's sleep cycles and automatically adjust temperature for optimal sleep. The pod can also detect when you're snoring and automatically adjust the position of the bed to reduce or even stop the snoring. This can be a huge factor in how rested you will feel the next day. And your

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double your impact. Maybe even give a donation in someone else's name as a holiday gift. That's four three one exchange dot org slash Pacman help make educational equality possible one student at a time. The link is in the podcast notes. All right, let's talk about it. Who's their daddy? When Elon Musk posts and Trump maybe hasn't clarified his position or maybe he has and

it's different. Macca gets very confused. Trump maybe hasn't clarified his position or maybe he has and it's different. Macca gets very confused. For years, Donald Trump has been the undisputed leader of the Maga cult. When he says jump, they say how high he gets banned from Twitter and they treat his troth on troth central. Wait, where is it? Oh my goodness.

Right. Uh, they treat the tr truth like their next sacred text. That's the level of loyalty that we're talking about. But now in comes Elon Musk, billionaire tech bro, self-styled free speech hero and owner of Twitter, which he insists that we call X now. And Musk is not just dipping his toes into MAGA world. He's sort of cannonballing right into the deep end. He's got his followers fired up and some of them overlap with Trump's base. But there's the thing that makes it complicated, which is that when Musk and Trump don't align, MAGA is left completely confused about who they're supposed to follow. Now,

case in point, we've got the recent fight over Speaker Mike Johnson's budget deal. Musk was all over it, calling out Republicans who backed the deal, threatening to primary them. And his fans were ready to storm the gates while we initially had complete and total silence from Donald Trump until he eventually came out against the deal as well. But let's be real. He didn't come away looking like the leader here. He looked like he was playing catch up to Musk. Musk was tweeting about policy and Trump was, you know, playing YMCA at Mar-a-Lago from his iPad. And this is a dynamic that we have never seen before in Magaland. And here's where it starts to get wild. And I think that to a degree, this is what AOC in the video clips we looked at earlier when she said that Elon poses problems

for Trump beyond just the short term. We know that in general, when you have two big personalities like Trump and Musk competing for the same audience. It's like a cult with two leaders and it doesn't really work. Historically, that doesn't end well. Cults thrive on absolute loyalty to a single voice. When there's more than one leader, the followers get confused, not only because sometimes they get two messages, but because they often see the leader as the ultimate source of truth. I've said before on this show, I tell you, I'll give you my opinion. Fact check me when it's factual, seek other opinions when it's a value judgment or a moral

judgment. But one of the things that Trump has done for nearly a decade, I alone can fix it. I understand X better than anybody. And when you have two people with the claim to ultimate truth, it becomes a real problem. And it also makes the cult followers question, how much can this guy really be the ultimate source of truth? If he's not even sure and is changing his mind when Elon Musk says a, B or C. So the risk is they end up splitting into factions, which is how cults sometimes fall apart. Some stay loyal to the old, usually a guy to the old guy. Others gravitate to the newer, shinier option. In this case, it's Elon Musk. Trump built this

movement by being the guy, the one and only leader. And Musk is sort of muscling in and it's working and it even has made Trump by on yesterday's show we played the clips of Trump at the, uh, turning point USA event saying, no, no, no, he's not going to be president. I'm the president. Uh, Elon Musk's brand is probably better for the younger right wingers who spend their lives online than his Trump's. Trump's is like, okay, but Elon's is probably better. He's the tech guru. He's the free speech warrior. He understands tech better than Trump. He talks about woke culture. He flies around in his private jet.

Trump flies around his private jet, too. But now he's running the plays and it makes Trump look a little slow to the draw. And ultimately, Trump's ego is not going to be OK with that. These are two people on a collision course, no matter how much they smile and shake hands for now, because there is not room for two kings in the MAGA castle. Kara Swisher, who I think is great. She said it really well. She said there can only be one. And when the showdown happens, is it going to be the African-American immigrant from South Africa or is it going to be the actual president of the United States? It seems to me that MAGA is going

to have to pick a side and it can really only be Trump. I picture a scenario like this one. Musk tells his followers ditch a candidate that Trump has endorsed. What's Trump going to do? Well, he's going to tell his base that Musk is a loser. And what happens then? Do the MAGA voters rally around the guy who's been their leader for nearly a decade or side with the billionaire that runs the social media platform. I don't know for sure, but I think the ones that are more politically connected and involved are going to choose Trump. This is not just about politics. This is about identity as is typically the case with these cults. MAGA is not built for nuance. It's built for loyalty and slogans and blind obedience and supplication. So when Trump and Musk inevitably crash, it's going to throw their followers into chaos. And the unity that MAGA relies on

could just shatter into a million pieces. So the next time Elon posts something that contradicts Trump, ask yourself, who's their daddy and do they know it? Because the answer to that question is what could really determine the future of Maga and whether this is a movement that can survive with two massive egos under the same roof. Now, speaking of Elon Musk and his self-serving ideas, Elon would love to take your social security money and your Medicare money to pay for his tax cuts. I've been warning you about this for weeks now. Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, they're shiny new department of grifty edge Lords Doge.

It's not about fixing stuff. It's about dismantling whatever they can to justify the policies they want that would benefit them. And it could be dismantling Social Security, Medicare and other things that working families rely on so that the ultra wealthy can cash in again. Here's what's happening. Musk and Ramaswamy are now the Republican go to guys for slashing, slashing programs, slashing spending that millions of Americans depend on. They're assigning a word that sounds great. They're saying, oh,

this is efficiency, but it's important not to be fooled. This is about cutting 2.5 trillion when the totality of discretionary spending is 2.5 trillion. If you believe they will cut anything close to that, they won't get it from discretionary spending. They will have to get it from mandatory spending, which includes programs like social security and Medicare. And the reason they would want to do that is to pay for tax cuts for billionaires and for giant corporations. It's just very simple arithmetic. You can't cut 2.5 trillion without going after these programs because you can't cut the discretionary budget to zero. This is not a new idea.

It's just Elon and Vivek running it is new. Back in the 1980s, it was Reagan's grace commission. They made thousands of recommendations. Now, almost none were implemented, but it would have been cut stuff to get goodies for us. Trump then brought in Carl Icahn during his first term who resigned after using his position to benefit his own oil refinery. And now it's Vivek and Elon Musk, two unelected, you know, a billionaire and a half billionaire who are going to get to decide how much pain can Americans endure to pad Elon Musk's bank account? Maybe we cut a hundred bucks a month from some seniors and their social security benefits. And don't forget that Musk, who's the guy that rails against the inefficiency of government

has personally benefited from billions in government subsidies for his various businesses. So their so-called efficiency plans are a cover, a mask, if you will, for slashing social security benefits, raising the retirement age, cutting down the cost of living adjustments. And meanwhile, massive tax breaks for Elon and his buddies paid for by teachers over here and nurses over there, maybe a firefighter or two. That's what this is about. If Doge really cared about government efficiency, they'd start by rolling back Trump's tax cuts for the rich or fully funding the IRS to track down and crack down

on the billionaire tax cheats. But that's not the point. They don't want to do that. That might be bad for them. What they want to do is starve essential programs while handing even more money to the ultra wealthy. Now, here's the good news. If there is any Americans are seeing right through it. We've looked at polling for Doge. It's underwater already. They haven't even started. They're not even in office yet. It's underwater already. They haven't even started. They're not even in office yet. It's already underwater. People seem to know we could have the best schools, hospitals and infrastructure in the

world if we actually funded them properly. Four in five Americans support raising taxes on the rich. But instead of listening, Republicans are just doubling down on their preexisting strategy. What can we take from working families? What can we give to the rich and big corporations? It's not about efficiency. Efficiency is the word they came up with. That sounds not so bad. This is about Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy using influence to destroy programs that millions rely on. And when it blows up and it will, they're going to walk away. They will cash their checks and somebody else is going to have to clean up the mess. I told you that this was coming

and we've got to fight back now or they will get what they want. Reduced Medicare, hampered social security, a diminished safety net and tax handouts to themselves. We have to try not to let them get away with it. And then of course there are the grifters who see it as a cash grab from a media standpoint. We'll talk about them after this short break. Winter is the perfect time to cozy up at home with some freshly baked treats like flaky pastries, hearty breads, comforting pastas, and you can do it without any effort. Our sponsor, Wild Grain, is the first bake from frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, pastries, and pastas. Wild Grain simply takes the hassle out of baking. Everything bakes from frozen in 25 minutes or

less. No mess or cleanup. Your family will be amazed thinking you've become a master bread baker all of a sudden. My favorite is the croissants. You throw them in the oven, 25 minutes. Wow. If you're ready to bring all your favorite breads, pastas and pastries right to your doorstep, check out Wild Grain. You can build your box of artisanal pastries, breads and everything right now. And for a limited time, Wild Grain will give my audience $30 off your first box plus free croissants in every box. When you go to wildgrain.com slash Pacman to start your subscription. Free croissants in every box and $30 off your first box. Go to wildgrain.com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. All right, as we are, you know, in the middle of the holiday spirit here, I want to talk a little

bit about the MAGA culture war cash grab. When you hear the endless stream of outrage from MAGA leaders about culture wars, whether it's drag Queens, critical race theory, some supposed attack on Christmas, it is worth asking whether these people are really fighting for your values or whether these are even really their values or are they really fighting for your wallet? Because the issues at play are various combinations of grift and immorality couched as having the moral, uh, majority and taking the high road with just looking for cash. I'm talking about critical race theory, trans issues, especially trans sports, drag shows, supposedly woke corporations, gas stoves and light bulbs, attacks on free speech and the war on

Christmas. These are mostly issues with which right wing influencers and MAGA influencers want to generate clicks and therefore revenue. I don't even really believe they genuinely care about these issues in most cases. Let's go through a few of them. You've got your critical race theory. Uh, they love to frame it as a threat to education. It's barely taught anywhere in K through 12 schools, even as an, as an implied framework, trans rights, targeting trans athletes, bathroom policies, gender affirming care, exaggerated attacks on women's rights or grooming. These are not real issues. I hate to break it to you, but they generate a lot of clicks. The way I said to Dave Rubin and Ben Ferguson last time I

was on the Piers Morgan show, the drag show stuff and drag show story hour at libraries falsely claiming that drag queen story hours are in any way harming children. They're not woke corporations, boycotts of Disney target Bud Light because of their woke policies. And then, you know, you see Kid Rock just drinking Bud Light after making a big public show of, oh, it's all bad now. The gas stove and light bulb thing, completely manufactured outrage over regulations that they claim are government overreach into everyday life. Claims of cancel culture, silencing right wingers, often while attempting to suppress opposing views, completely contrived and fabricated. The war on Christmas seems to always eventually come back

recycled claims that when you say happy holidays, you're attacking Christianity. So those are often issues that are used. Let's look at some of the grifters that are using these issues and how they've turned this fake moral outrage into cash. And it's critical to understand that the MAGA movement thrives on manufactured crises, whether it's the drag queens at libraries or whatever. These so-called moral battles, they always present it as an existential threat to American democracy. The real threat is the people saying we don't really respect American democracy.

That's who I would argue is the real threat. But they say the real threats are, you know, transports or whatever. Behind the scenes, these are all crafted for one purpose. Make money, either political fundraising or for media people, the tweets and the podcasts and the insider events. It's all meant to stir up outrage and direct supporters to an open wallet. That's the business model. Now there's a bunch of different key players here.

In some way, my pillow founder and CEO, Mike Lindell, known eponymously as pillow. He has transformed his company, which is a pillow company at the end of the day, really into a fundraising arm for MAGA. And he talks about election fraud. He talks about trans this and conspiracy theories and that. And it has become a complete and total grift. Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA, they thrive on donations and sponsorships tied to outrage over these culture war issues. It's not about tax policy and economics.

It's did a college ban awoke, did a woke college ban a conservative speaker or did some book get included in a curriculum that they say is woke. They thrive on keeping the outrage alive for fundraising purposes. Candace Owens, who has built her platform on controversial takes, targeting race, targeting gender issues, targeting Jews recently. Another example, book deals, speaking fees, being a provocateur can be very lucrative, Even if you're not really committed to the issues you talk about Steve Bannon's, we build the wall campaign. It was supposed to fund a border wall. He was charged with fraud for misusing donations, his podcast, the speaking engagements. It's all

about leveraging fear of immigrants, woke culture for financial gain. Michael Flynn turned his downfall as Trump's national security advisor to a very lucrative career on the MAGA circuit. YouTuber Tim pool profits from culture war topics like trans athletes or liberal cancel culture, fear-based content drives views and ad dollars. And, uh, that's really what it's about. He will promote election conspiracy theories or, uh, sell merchandise or whatever. It's all premised on the same underlying grift. The common thread is that many of these people don't even live by the values they preach. They talk about family values, but they're engaged in unethical behavior. They promote law and order while they're committing crimes. They claim to

be fighting for free speech, except they don't like it when it's other people's speech that they disagree with. And the reality is that these people thrive on division at the end of the day. If you resolve some of these issues to the betterment of the average American, your cash flow goes way down. They don't really want solutions. They want outrage. And meanwhile, their supporters are left with empty wallets. Their wallets are full. The supporters have empty wallets and the real problems like health care and access to health care, quality health care, jobs, wages, education. It gets ignored. It doesn't generate the clicks.

It's harder to sell merch around a bunch of those issues. So remember that the cash grab is a major underlying reason for this. And if you understand, we talked about Arkansas yesterday. If you understand the motivation of the cash grab, you will understand what I want to talk about next, which are some of the real reasons that red States are a complete and total disaster. We've talked before about specific red state problems, failing healthcare systems, persistent poverty, dismal educational outcomes, but I kind of want to put it together today. I want to break down in clear categories why red states are failing across the board, why blue states outperform them in almost every measurable way and why this red

state fantasy of seceding into our own country. It's not just impractical, it's economically impossible. Now we've talked before about some of the most obvious issues in red States, broken healthcare systems, higher poverty rates, underfunded schools, failing infrastructure, obsession with culture wars, and an exodus of skilled and educated workers. Let's take a more holistic look at why red States consistently underperform. First of all, economic output, GDP per capita, blue States dominate. Poverty is higher in red States. Educate educational attainment is lower. Wages are lower federal subsidies. Ironically, many red States survive on federal dollars generated by blue state taxpayers.

If you're in Mississippi or Kentucky or West Virginia, you would implode without the cash infusion subsidized by the blue states. It's affirmative action of a sort. It's not self-reliance. By their definition, it's freeloading. Number two, health outcomes, maternal mortality and preventable disease. Red states are worse off. Medicaid expansion. Many red states refuse to do the Medicaid expansion as part of Obamacare. It left millions of red staters uninsured.

Culture over care, fighting mask mandates at hospitals, refusing basic public health measures. It's not freedom. It's a way to keep diabetes rates high and health outcomes grim. Education. The red states systematically underfund public education. What do you get? Well, they fall near the bottom in terms of rankings, in terms of college attainment,

in terms of test scores, in terms of all of it. Book bans rather than real investment. They could strengthen schools, but instead they're busy banning books, gutting diversity programs. And in blue States, you've got investment in teachers and infrastructure, the whole nine yards, labor rights and wages, right to work laws in red states, anti-union policies in red states. These don't help people. It's not a coincidence that when you have a state that's hostile to organized labor,

you have more poverty and lower wages. That's the whole point of organized labor, to get people out of poverty and to raise wages. And this also connects to the brain drain, skilled workers who want fair pay and decent protections move to States that value organized labor infrastructure. Red state infrastructure often has a 1950s feel chronic underfunding of roads and bridges leads to crumbling systems. You'll sometimes have catastrophic failures like what happened in Texas with the power grid collapse a couple times now.

And this also, if we zoom out, the economic diversity of blue States is important to consider economies that are based on many industries are more resilient. In blue states, you have many states where it's tech and finance and entertainment and manufacturing and biomedical. It's all of these things. In a lot of red states, you have one industry, oil. That's it. So now you are tied to oil inextricably.. That's that's it. Your entire state depends on agriculture. That's a recipe for disaster when market conditions shift. So this is not some kind of bullying of red states by blue states or by the federal government that has led to this. The policy choices of red States led to this ideological

distractions in red States, instead of tackling real issues like poverty and healthcare, they, they ban books and target drag shows and whatever else federal dependency. They say we're against big government, but they couldn't survive without the subsidies from us in the blue states. So that gets us to the secession. What happens if red states decide we've had enough, we're going to form our own country? The answer is economic collapse. No more federal subsidies means no money for roads, schools, healthcare, skilled workers are going to keep leaving. The budget implosion will be irreparable if the blue states aren't subsidizing the red states. I'm not saying things are perfect in blue states.

Far from it. But if you look at the averages, if you look at the data, the red state policies are predictably keeping people poorer, sicker and less educated in these red states. And of course, those failed policies affect everybody because we in the blue states now have to subsidize them. Finally, I know a lot of people will listen to this and they'll say, but David, you know what the red states have? Cost of living is way lower. And you're right. It is when wages are lower and there is no competition for housing and infrastructure is so disastrous. Of course, it's cheaper to live there because fewer people are trying to. And so this is not

a glitch in the data. This is the reality. And I don't understand. And maybe it's because there isn't anything. I don't understand how anyone could be convinced that what Trump is offering is going to help these red states. I don't see how it will. And I don't predict that it could. Let me know what you think. OK, before the holiday, I thought we would dip in a little bit to the voicemail because we've kind of gotten away from live calls and voicemails because as I've said, they're mostly very low quality. The audience didn't really like them. We'll do a little Hanukkah Christmas voicemail reminder of what was in there. He here's two voicemails I found

from the last couple of days. Here's the first one. Hey David, I have a question. Have you always looked like you have Down syndrome? And, you know, David, I think you're the type of guy that when you eat a Snicker bar, you like to eat it upside down so you can feel the zany part on your tongue. There you go. I guess that's, guess that's what it's making fun of people with disabilities, homophobia. Okay. And then here is one other. This is a reminder of why we don't do this anymore.

Hi, David. I like your story about growing up in school and there were some kids with something like off about them. You couldn't quite tell what it was, but in hindsight, you know that those kids had autism and you were one of those kids. There you go. So a beautiful Christmas greeting from many of our friends here, I guess. And just a reminder of why, uh, most people seem to agree. It was the right decision to move on from the voicemails. We've got a great bonus show for you today. I'll tell you what I will be up to for Hanukkah. Producer Pat will tell us what he will be up to for Christmas.

And we will both discuss, of course, Festivus, critically important holiday. All of that and more on today's bonus show. Sign up at joinpacman.com. Remember that we are off tomorrow and I'll be back with a new show on Thursday.