The David Pakman Show - 12/9/22: The Herschel Walker Crisis, Romney Puts His Foot Down

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

-- On the Show: -- The scary part is that Herschel Walker even had a shot at winning his Georgia election -- Donald Trump's Jewish allies are reportedly begging him to condemn Kanye West, and Trump is refusing -- Republican Senator Mitt Romney clearly states that he would not vote for Donald Trump if Trump were the 2024 nominee, a stark contrast to William Barr and Mitch McConnell -- Caller asks if Republicans will be as conservative as they currently are years from now -- Caller discusses the JFK assassination files -- Caller asks if David would go on Tucker Carlson's show -- Caller asks about stopping disinformation -- Caller talks about Democratic messaging -- Caller asks about the possibility of America becoming a Christian nationalist country -- David responds to viewer emails -- On the Bonus Show: Putin admits Ukraine war taking longer than expected, Indiana AG targets abortion doctor, Republican congresswoman cries over same-sex marriage bill, and much more... 🥄 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off Magic Spoon at https://magicspoon.com/pakman 🧻 Reel Paper: Use code PAKMAN for 30% OFF + free shipping at https://reelpaper.com/lemur 🔊 Try Blinkist for FREE and get 25% off at http://www.blinkist.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Subscribe to Pakman Finance: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanfinance -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

. The scary part is that Herschel Walker had a chance and he almost won. I've been saying now for months that Herschel Walker never should have even had a shot in a country that made sense with voters, with some connection to reality. Someone like Herschel Walker never should have even won the Republican nomination in Georgia to be senator, never mind getting 49 percent of the vote roughly in the general election in Georgia, which is what happened in the runoff. And there's a couple of good articles and one that I want to highlight in particular that makes this case.

Jack Holmes wrote a couple of days ago in Esquire, Herschel Walker lost. But it's a very bad sign that he had any chance at all. There was a shark in the pool and nobody got bit. But why were so many people cheering for the shark in the pool and nobody got bit. But why were so many people cheering for the shark in the pool? And the article makes points that are not altogether surprising. But the point that we've been making and that Jack Holmes makes is that although it's a good thing that Herschel Walker lost, he barely did. And the fact that he almost became one of 100 senators in the United States is certainly emblematic and indicative of a much became one of 100 senators in the United States is certainly

emblematic and indicative of a much bigger and scarier problem in the United States. And in the article, Jack Holmes writes, it feels almost unnecessary at this point to run through Herschel Walker's record as a national political candidate. He's running in Georgia, but said in a campaign speech, he lives in Texas, et cetera, et cetera. But as you read down the article. It explains the answer for a lot of people to the question, why make Herschel Walker a senator? Seemed to be that if Walker wasn't elected, those people, Democrats, Marxists, you know who the hell knows, would control the Senate.

And by the time that the election came up on Tuesday, that was no longer the issue because we knew that at minimum, Democrats would have a 50 50 majority with Kamala Harris as the tie breaking vote. And so it became more about who gets power and who do Republicans vote for and what are the principles here and who are the backers of this guy? And when you zoom out and you think about what happened, you realize that this was really the worst of the worst of Republican politics at this point in time.

What do I mean by that? Well, it's basically at least three different things. Number one, for many Republican voters and for the GOP establishment, the RNC, at the end of the day, it's simply about is there a Democrat that we can prevent from winning somewhere? It doesn't matter who we put in place. So the no Democrats ever is a big part of this. And later on in this in this part of the show, we're actually going to look at a Republican who is saying it's not about no Democrats, no

matter what. It actually does depend who the Republican is. And Mitt Romney is that guy. We'll get to that a little bit later. So you've got the lesson. Warnock's a Democrat. We can't have that. That's number one. Number two, you have the Maga non Maga split. So it has to be acknowledged that the other factor here is that Herschel Walker is sort of a Maga cult type candidate. And as we know from following Trump in 2016 and 2020 and into 2022 midterms through his endorsements and now as a 2024 candidate, it is a cult. And one of the things about the cult is when the cult leader tells you this is the guy in this particular case, you accept that you accept that and you don't question it. And

Donald Trump said this is the guy and it failed, fortunately. But the MAGA cultists accepted it. So that's another layer to this. You've got better than a Democrat no matter what cult candidate. OK. And then you have the third part of this, which is the voters more broadly. And this goes beyond cult or not cult, but it's the general problem in the United States of how there really is no bar. There's no bar for the majority of the Republican electorate. Big picture. Now, that doesn't mean they'll literally vote for anyone in a primary. But Trump 2016 was instructive of that.

Why did Trump run as a Republican and not as a Democrat? He really was, at least loosely speaking, a Democrat, it seems, most of his life. But it was because there is some standard on the Democratic Party side. It's not anyone can get the nomination just if they come up with the right things to say, even if they completely contradict 68 years of their lives, as did Trump on issues of religion and abortion and other things. The Republican Party has no such bar. And so because of that, we saw that they were gullible enough to go for it in 2016.

And then it was sort of a path dependence that got them there in 2020 as well. Those are really the three things that this is about. And as it applies to Herschel Walker, we're all glad he lost Herschel Walker in the US Senate would be a humiliation to this country and it would be a humiliation in so many different ways. Great. We dodged the bullet and not by very much. I think it's important to say under one000 votes, if I'm recalling correctly. But he had a shot. And as we saw in 2016 with Trump, sometimes you don't dodge the bullet. And then in 20, we did dodge it. And so let's not take away.

There's people emailing me saying we made it. We made it the 2022 midterms. They weren't as bad as they could have been. Yes, they weren't as bad as they could have been, but they were almost so bad that they could be that bad or worse in twenty twenty four. We don't want to allow that to happen. Donald Trump's Jewish allies are begging him, begging him to condemn Kanye West. And Trump is reportedly refusing.

There's a very good article in Rolling Stone. Trump's Jewish allies are begging him to condemn Kanye. He's refusing. Prominent Jewish and human rights leaders are circulating a letter asking the former president to distance himself from Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. They were the people that had the dinner with Trump the other day. A Trump adviser responds. I've seen it and I do not care.

I encourage you to read the entire article. There's a couple of different things that are important to talk about here. Number one, it is appalling, appalling that Trump still has Jewish friends. That in and of itself doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Oh, but David, sir, the his his daughter converted to Judaism and his grandkids. None of that. This is not about that. It's not even really about Trump's personal beliefs about Jews, although. Sure.

I mean, I think we kind of have a sense of what they are, but it's about the factions that Trump gives credibility to by not denouncing or condemning. Now, to really understand a lot of the entire Jewish Republican thing, this is as good an opportunity as any to remind folks in the audience that support for Israel in the vague way that evangelical Christians, quote, support Israel and support for American Jews could not possibly be more dramatically different things. OK, right wing support for Israel is primarily based in evangelicals who believe for biblical reasons that Jews running Israel is a step towards the return of Jesus Christ. Now, I know some of you will say and I'm realizing I don't have my headphone on and I'm

going to need it for the next segment. I'm just going to put it on while we chat. There are people who will say, oh, but David, these folks love Israel. They just they love, love, love Israel. They love it not because of any concern for anti-Semitism or anti-Jewish discrimination or whatever the case may be. They love it because they see it as a path to bringing back Jesus. That's what it is. American Jews have a completely different beliefs and ideas, et cetera, et cetera. And just because you see a right winger, a Republican kowtowing to Israel in the protected particular

sense that evangelical Christians like it doesn't mean that they are supportive of American Jews or even understand, never mind, are going to fight against anti-Semitism. So that's number one. Unfortunately, some Republican Jews ignore that and they throw in support with Republican candidates. Fortunately, it's relatively few because American Jews are one of the most left wing voting blocs in the country. American Jews, black folks, two of the most left wing voting groups. Trump also has black allies. Right. So it's not completely incredible that he has Jewish allies as well, even though if even though it doesn't really make any sense based on policy. But the most important aspect of this to understand is Trump sees people as objects, tools or a means to an end. And we saw when those folks are no longer useful to

him, he dumps them, flushes them 10 to 15 times. And unfortunately, there are certain people that don't get this and they get tricked. And we're seeing it now once again with Jewish voters. But it seems this may be the end of the line for Trump's Jewish supporters. We'll see. There will always be some. Mitt Romney was asked the other day, will you vote for Trump if he's the 2024 Republican nominee? This is an interesting question because there are many Republicans who are starting to say things like I would rather a different nominee. I would prefer that we just nominate someone different and that it not be up to me to decide on Election Day.

Do I vote for Trump or not? Let's just pick a different nominee. Mitt Romney is speaking with a clarity that many Republicans are not speaking with. Now, this is not a look at how great Mitt Romney is story. This is a look at how low the bar is. Story. Mitt Romney is clearly saying I would not support Trump even if he were the nominee in twenty twenty four.

It's going to be hard to to knock him off as our nominee. If he became a nominee, I think he loses again. And do you support him if he's the nominee? Absolutely not. And I mean, I get asked that. I mean, look, I voted to remove him from office twice. So I knew what your answer is going to be, but I had to ask.

But the answer is and it's not just because he loses. I mean, that's that's my reason that I offer to other people who are big fans of his. But but it's also he's he's simply not a person who ought to have the reins of the government of the United States. OK, very, very clear. Romney says it's not just about I'd rather a different nominee. If he's the nominee, I'm not voting for him. Compare and contrast this with some of the more spineless people in the Republican Party. William Barr, William Barge, one of Trump's former attorney generals, attorneys general, said this guy was a threat to democracy. All these horrible, horrible

things. But I don't know. I mean, if it's a Democrat, I might still have to vote for him. Listen to this. Well, I certainly have made it clear I don't think he should be our nominee. And I'm going to, you know, support somebody else for the nominee. But if he is the nominee and you have your choices, Donald Trump or whoever's running on the Democratic side, would you vote for him? Because I believe that the greatest threat to the country is the progressive agenda being pushed by the Democratic Party. It's inconceivable to me that I wouldn't vote for the Republican nominee. Wow.

Wow. Threat to democracy. Dangerous. No business has no clue what's going on. But I mean, Savannah, please, a Democrat. I'm not going to vote for a Democrat. That would be even worse. And then Mitch McConnell, even who Trump has called his wife. I don't remember if Trump called his wife ugly, but he certainly called her different names, has attacked him as

a rhino, just up and down, slamming McConnell. Even McConnell. What was it? Ten days ago when he was asked, he played coy with it and didn't rule it out. In light of what you said, that there's no room in your party for anyone who harbors these anti-Semitic views. If Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, would you support him? Look, let me just say again, there is simply no room in the Republican Party for anti-Semitism or white supremacy. And that would apply to all of the leaders in the party who will be seeking offices.

There you go. So even Mitch McConnell not ruling it out. The bar is very low. And Mitt Romney has exceeded that bar. Make sure that you are subscribed to The David Pakman Show YouTube channel. It is free. Speaker 1 and I encourage you to do it. Let's get to two million. We'll take a quick break and be right back. Thank you. has zero grams of sugar under five net carbs and is packed with 13 grams of protein. So it'll work

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to sign up at join Pacman dot com. Let's go to our audience and hear from some of you. Such an important week, COVID recovery of mine, the Herschel Walker loss in Georgia and so many important things. I want to hear from you. We take calls via discord at David Pakman dot com slash discord. And we are going to start today with Chuck from Pennsylvania. Chuck, what is on your mind today? Can you hear me, David? I can loud and clear my friend. All right, cool.

Yeah, I just want to say, you know, I my faith in humanity or the US has been slightly restored with the Walker loss. Has it really, though? Because he almost won. You know what I mean? It's like I get I'm with you in the sense that if we imagine in America today with Senator-elect Herschel Walker and then we say, oh, we avoided that. Of course, that that's good. But the guy almost won like that's extraordinarily depressing.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like you said, it's, it's depressing at the same time. Cause I don't know how many, he got like, he got like 2 million votes and, and he only won by like, what was it? 48, 51% split or something like that. So, but anyway, so yeah, slightly, but still depressing. But no, it's sort of like a food for thought or just like something that I've thought about. Like, so, you know, like the right, um, they're, they're against all of the electric car, like any push for green energy, stuff like that. Yeah. They want to stick in their traditional ways. Um, so I've thought about like in, you know, 50, a hundred years, however many years, I

don't know, but do you see maybe like the Republican party becoming like the sort of like a small group, almost like the Amish where they're kind of just shunned because they're stuck in their ways and, uh, like total technological Luddites or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like just, they're still using their diesel trucks and using coal to burning coal for energy and their small little community and are stuck in their religious ways. Listen, it's not impossible because think about it. You know, they're against all sorts of medical research that certainly is going to lead to advancements. And it's totally plausible that they will sort of shun taking availing themselves of some of that. We're seeing it with vaccines already. Right. They're all we see this huge anti-vax movement. So they're already self-selecting, selecting out there.

They seem to love just burning gasoline in their vehicles for whatever reason. And they consider it manly and culturally relevant and whatever else. So maybe they will resist that as well. The way I think it might happen is at a certain point, it seems the direction things are going is that new vehicles sold will have to be electric. But like if you can keep an existing if you can keep an existing ice vehicle on the road, then you can keep driving it or something. So it almost it might become kind of like how in Cuba, because of the embargo, a lot of the cars are really, really old, the American cars, and they just have to keep maintaining them because that's what they have. It might end up being something sort of like that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, they may end up being forced with like the car thing because

once they get older, you know, there won't be parts for the old ICs and they'll all be electric or something like that. But I mean, even just as far as like what you were saying with like medicine and stuff, like I knew like the Amish communities now, like they don't go to regular dentists and stuff like some of them. So like they all end up like their teeth rot out and stuff. So I don't know. It was just something I kind of thought, uh, kind of like, uh, it's all, I see similarities sort of thing. Yeah, I absolutely do. And I don't think it would become, listen to become like the Amish. It's going to take a much, much, much longer time. Um, but,. But the idea of it, I completely understand. Yeah, that was all I had, though.

All right. Chuck from Pittsburgh. Thank you. Very powerful phone call. I appreciate it. Just as a reminder, if you want to get on to talk to me in the Discord, your nickname has to be your name and where you're calling from or where you're calling from and your name, all of the different nicknames that are in there. You are self-selecting out because it's just not

the right format. Very, very important to understand. Let's go to is it Lewis from New Brunswick or Lois? It's just cut off. I apologize. Something with an L.O. from new Brunswick. Oh, good afternoon, David. It's a Louie Louie. Welcome. What's on your mind today? Oh, I just want to thank you. I love your show. I've been listening for a long time. Pleasure. A couple of months ago, you had a piece with author Jefferson Morley. He's known for JFK research and stuff. My question for you is, do you think the government's response to the JFK case, which a lot of, I guess, polls show that a lot of people are a little skeptical on the official conclusions. Do you think that's fueled all of this recent, I don't know how to say it, destabilization with like conspiracy theories and just lack of like general consensus. You're saying is the lack of credibility of the government's position on the JFK assassination

fueling other modern conspiracy theorism. Yeah. Do you think it like it like later a groundwork that we haven't really reaped the full, you know, damage of until now? I don't think so. I don't think so. I mean, there's interesting stuff going on with JFK right now. In fact, I recorded a tick tock earlier this week, which we're going to publish. And Jefferson Morley wrote about recently how on December 15th, I believe it is, is the deadline imposed a year ago by the Biden administration to release a whole bunch of new documents. And we'll see about the JFK assassination

and we'll see if they are or aren't. And there are some who are saying this is going to be an incredible bombshell or something like that. I don't know. I don't think that. No, I don't think that the JFK assassination specifically has much to do with with modern conspiracism. I think it's lack of critical thinking, social media, echo chambers, people who don't know how to think for themselves and evaluate claims, lack of epistemological skills. I think it's all of that really. Oh, interesting. All right. Thanks a lot.

I appreciate the call. All right. Louie from New Brunswick. Thank you very, very much for the call. Let's go to grant from Ohio grant. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Hey, David, I was just wondering if you could give your thoughts, because I don't think you've talked about it yet about the Biden and his administration not siding with the railroad unions when I believe all they wanted was paid sick leave.

And there was an interesting interview. I think Jake Topper did a pretty good interview with Pete Buttigieg a couple of days, grilling him on it. But I just find it kind of hypocritical because Biden says he's the most pro-union and labor president in our lifetime, but yet he's not signing with the railroad workers when all they want is paid sick leave. So listen, a lot of that was happening as I was sort of falling into my covid period. And so I did not follow the story as closely as I would have liked. But my understanding of the Biden position on this was, listen, they're not getting everything, but they're getting a bunch of stuff they want. And it's really important to prevent the strike. Now, you can take the position

that the Biden administration should not be forcefully working in any way to prevent a strike, particularly if they claim to support both unions and workers rights to strike. And I am very sympathetic to that idea. But it seems that the argument that the Biden administration is making is if this strike were to happen, here are all of the ways in which it would be a disaster for different aspects of the American people because of the reliance that is that is taking place on railroads. And a lot of their demands were met. And so we think that they should not strike. But I think it's perfectly legitimate to say that it's a government overreach to actually prevent the strike.

I agree with that, too. And it's also frustrating when these CEOs and like the leaders of these railroads are making record profits, too. And yeah, I just think it's frustrating. It is absolutely frustrating. There's no doubt about that. All right. Well, that was think it's frustrating. It is absolutely frustrating. There's no doubt about that. All right. Well, that was all. Thank you. All right.

Thanks, Grant. There is grant. We will next go to Samir from Metro Detroit. Welcome to the program. Am I can ask pronouncing that correctly? Samer. Samer. OK, apologies.

What's on your mind today? So I had a basic question. So I know you've been on, uh, Fox news before. Would you ever go back on and debate Tucker Carlson? Sure. I mean, here's the thing. When people ask me, would you debate X, Y, or Z person? It's like, yeah, but about what, you know what I mean? The thing about these debates is and in particularly on the Tucker show, like I would do the Tucker thing just for the publicity because it would be great publicity, but they set you up to fail. They give you an absurdly limited amount of time in general and then limit the amount of time that you're able to speak. You're given,

they can talk overview because of over you because of how the microphones are configured. You're set up with extremely narrow and unfairly framed questions like it's very difficult to show up and come off looking like you really achieved anything, you know. But for the publicity and for the story, I assure I would do it. But but the other question is about what, you know, like, for example, what should U.S. policy be on Ukraine, Russia? I'm not an expert in that issue.

You know, I follow the story and try to be as informed as possible. But it's it's also about like, what are we going to talk about? You know, the Twitter files might be a more interesting story. You know, we do much more media type stories. And the Twitter files is a big media story where it was billed as this bombshell and it flopped. And so, so would I debate him? Sure. But it would have to be a topic that makes sense. Yeah, that, that sounds about, that's pretty, uh, yeah, it makes sense. Um, one other question. Uh, so you, I know you drive a Tesla right now. And you said you're not going to get another one when you return your lease. That's right. What are you looking at in as your next vehicle?

I'm not really looking yet. I mean, I'm going to stick with electric, but I think it'll be based on what's available at the time. And depending on when I get out of the lease, you know, if an opportunity appears to get out of the lease without having to pay 4,500 bucks, which is what I'd have to pay right now, um, I would do it sooner, but I know that in 23, there's new vehicles coming with longer ranges. And so I'll just have to evaluate what's available at the time. I just know that lead times are pretty, uh, I work in automotive. So I know that it's really difficult to get a vehicle right now. That is also true. If I wait, if I wait, they might say, well, it's going to be nine months or longer before we can even get you the car. So I don't honestly, I don't know yet.

Okay. Well, that's all. Thanks for answering the questions. All right. Samer, thank you very, very much for the call. We're going to go next to JD, right? JP Mandel, JD from Little Rock. You're on the call. We're going to go next to J.D. Wright, J.P. Mandel, J.D. from Little Rock. You're on the air. Hey, David, can you hear me? I can. You're a little low, but I'll try to pump you up. I can speak up a little bit. Hey, I just wanted to call in. I work for a power power utility in Little Rock and we just got some interesting information regarding the North Carolina substation sabotage. Okay.

We just got a bulletin from the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center. Apparently, on December 3rd, there were three ballistic attacks in North Carolina that occurred at two substations. The attacks were targeting specific aspects of the substation that would lead this authority to believe that they were targeted specifically to do that, to take these substations down. The attacks were all with the same kind of caliber of weapons, and they stand out because they're different than what some of the past attacks we've seen. Apparently six different substations have been attacked this year in the United States. They kind of indicate that those were more seeming to be lone wolf and just kind of general vandalism, while these attacks in North Carolina seem more orchestrated.

OK, well, we will we will look into it. I have not been following the story closely, but let me investigate. All right. Sure. Just just real quick. The states that they have low confidence that the motivations were motivated by a mix of ideologies and extremist content. And the links that they provide provide past articles about links to neo-Nazi terrorism and white supremacist terrorist plots targeting power grids. Okay. All right, JD, thank you very much for the call. No problem. Okay. So there's an update, a very, very important update. Let's go next to Lucas from Massachusetts. Lucas, welcome to the program. Hey, David, I hope you're feeling better. I'm feeling a lot better. Yeah. Glad to hear it. OK, so here's what I was going to talk about. Please. The treadmill yesterday had a treadmill thought. I know that this disinformation is a

lot like the covid virus and that will never eradicate it. We can take measures to bring it under control and we should. But doing zero info like zero covid isn't sustainable. If that makes any sense, I'd love to hear what you think. Yeah. I mean, listen, nobody's doing zero info like zero covid isn't sustainable, if that makes any sense. And then here you think. Yeah, I mean, listen, but nobody's doing zero covid anymore. I don't know. I mean, like, sure, I'm friends with it for a while. Yes, right. But when I look on Facebook, I still see a few people I'm friends with who seem to be saying we should be doing something close to zero covid and everybody wear masks forever,

everywhere and all this different stuff. It's just not going to happen. You know, and I try to focus my conversations on harm reduction, minimize issues, et cetera. And I do think that we just have to be sort of realistic. But yeah, you can only do I mean, listen, way more Republicans died. We now know because way fewer Republicans got the vaccine. What, were we going to force them to get vaccinated? No, but it's like you provide the information, you do what you can. Yeah. But like with disinformation, I know you support media literacy courses and I agree. Yeah. I just think it's very important because you're not suppressing all the possible disinformation, like not cut a shot at the internet would not be worth it.

But media literacy would really work almost like a vaccine. Yeah, no, you're you're hopefully inoculating people from falling for fake news. Yeah. And like. Never got a media literacy course in school because I'm out of high school now and right college. But yeah, that's just what I wanted to say. And like I said, glad you're feeling better and I enjoy the show. Lucas

powerfully said, I appreciate the call. All right. Take care. All right. You too. We're going to take a quick break, but we're still taking calls. So if you're holding on to talk to me, don't hang up and then we'll get right back to the phones in a moment. Our sponsor, Real Paper makes toilet paper 100 percent from bamboo, never from trees, meaning no deforestation, sustainability and climate change can be a tricky topic for people of all ages. It can be particularly challenging to talk about with kids. And Real Paper recently launched the Little Lemurs box, a 24 pack of their bamboo toilet paper

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Pacman gives you 30 percent off and free shipping. The info is in the podcast notes. Let's go back to the phones, by which I mean discord. We take calls on Fridays at David Pakman dot com slash discord. We are going to go next to Julian in New York City. Julian, what's going on? Hey, David, I just well, a couple of weeks ago, I heard your interview with Anand Girdhar Das and The Persuaders book, which I Anand on it. Yeah, I guess the emphasis is at the beginning. Yeah, I got beginning. I got it too off the air with him. Anand Anand Anand. Yes. Anand. Wonderful. Well, I mean, fantastic, fantastic interview. Thank you.

Really, I thought, you know, one of your best in the past year. But I read his book, The Persuaders. And one of my favorite sections was Democratic messaging or about democratic messaging with the recent wins in the Senate, you know, the expanding the majority, all that. Yep. What do we how do we keep pushing Democrats and I guess larger progressive communities to to keep because, you know, the messaging is an issue. It's still an issue. We won, but we we still have this huge problem that is sort of like a I don't know, it's like a virus that doesn't seem to, you know, I guess my question is, where is going to how do we build this incentive to keep pushing our community in the right direction? Well, listen, when you say the messaging, are you

talking about messaging from elected Democrats or from people ancillary to the Democratic Party like progressive activists or who? What messaging exactly are you referring to? I think it starts at the top and then works its way down. I mean, it could start, you know, anywhere from Bernie and then and then kind of flows down. It's this it's this framing things, conceding these crazy made up points that Republicans say about either the border or whatever. Well, give me an example of that. So like whether it's Bernie or whatever, what's what's a point that the left has conceded on the border? Like Republicans will say, OK, there are so many illegal immigrants are crossing the border and then Democrats will say we're going to be just as strong on the not, they're conceding that they're that they

too, we too want to be strong at the border. And I guess that's just one example, because there's an opera. So there's two different issues here. It's the reason why it's really hard to say, here's the way to frame this. And I'm not a framing guy, you need to the truth is you need to figure out what would actually be effective here. There's like three different issues at the border that are from a rhetoric standpoint and a propaganda standpoint. One is the story that the day Trump left and Biden took over something dramatically changed that the border that now allows a free flow of undocumented immigrants over the border that that didn't happen. Right. So that like that's one issue that you have to deal with. Number two is the issue of it is because of

Republicans getting in the way that significant immigration reform hasn't been done. A lot of low hanging fruit could have been dealt with. DACA could have been dealt with with a path to citizenship for those who came here when they weren't even adults. They were just brought here by parents. It's Republicans who have gotten in the way of that to some degree because they see, oh, we don't want to give Democrats that victory or whatever the case may be. So there's that issue as well. And then number three, there's the Republican. I don't know what to call it, but it's oh, there's an election coming up. Well, then we should talk about caravans. And then all of a sudden, the day after the election,

we don't mention caravans anymore. And there's an election coming up. We got to talk about violent crime by undocumented immigrants. The day after the election, they don't talk about it anymore. So there's that brazen hypocrisy when it comes to when they even claim to care. It's a lot to deal with. I don't have the right messaging on it. I don't know. Yes. Yeah. And I guess to sort of surmise what I'm what I'm trying to say is it feels like we're always playing catch up with the messaging. They say something, they state something. It could be blatantly false. And then we don't even, you know, disprove it. We just go with it. And yes. And rather than really putting our foot down. And so with the recent wins that I just I just want to make sure that we keep a pressure on.

I agree with you. I just don't know who it is that is well positioned. Like maybe it's on. And I don't know. To give some advice about what should the language be around some of these issues to fight the Republican framing, which is so dishonest and inaccurate. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, thanks very much, David. My pleasure, man. All right. Great to great to hear from Julian in New York City. Why don't we go next to. Oh, I don't know. How about Rose calling from the United States? God bless the United Shays. Rose, welcome to the program. Hey, David. I owe you an apology for last time. That sounds great. Let's start there. What did you do wrong? I interrupted you, but while you're talking, I have ADHD and sometimes I do that.

All right. We're talking about space. So here's my Like, I've been feeling more and more that we are hurtling towards a future that most of us aren't even prepared for, let alone dreaming, dreaming about. So are you aware about, like, the general risk profile around nuclear proliferation? Yeah. In fact, I recently read the book Precipice by Toby Ord, wherein he talks about existential risks to homo sapiens and devotes quite a bit of time to to sort of a nuclear. I don't know what you would even call it, a nuclear holocaust, for lack of a better term. Yes. So to some degree, I've read about it. Yes. So there's been back in the 1960s, there was this project called the Ennett's Country Project, where they gave two grad students, one of them left. And so it was in three, three grad students in total, recently graduated, almost no experience, a library and access to basic technical help and basic calculations.

This was 1960, so that meant computer time. And asked them to come up with a working schematics for an implosion style device. This was like the bomb used in Nagasaki, the Fat Boy. It's like a sphere of plutonium, and there's explosive lenses around it, and the explosion goes off in precise nanosecond timing, and it compresses the sphere into a tiny ball and causes fission, and then boom.

They managed to create a working model from scratch in two and a half years. They created a working schematic from two and a half years. It was meant to see how long would it take a nation state to do this, the nth country. At a time, only the US and the USSR could do it. Most of the information needed to build a weapon like this has always been open source. It's like eight-year-old technology. But the constraint has always been the materials. But now it feels like it's getting easier and easier and easier to do it.

I was playing with chat GPT. Yes. managed to get it to do certain things, including automatically generate certain things related to this technology, one might say, that it would have ordinarily taken me weeks of research to do. And I'm not sure I know what you're saying. And I'm not sure if there's a question. Are you saying that you were in a conversation with this chat bot chat GPT, you were able to get information from it, which presumably it sourced from available information about how to build a nuclear device? Is that what you're saying? It's synthesized it. It took what would have been like weeks of synthesis and did it in 10 seconds.

Understood. And then it kind of like spat out information about how such a device might be built. Yeah. Dimensions of different parts and so on, like how to calculate the dimensions and code for it and how to simulate it. I feel like a lot of the conversation that I've had with conservatives and so on and then the future that they imagine, it is really disconnected with the future that we have and the future that I'm seeing coming. Like when I saw that, it actually really shocked me. So I had this moment of future shock, you know, like that was my moment. I get it.

Rose, did you have a question today? Yes. What do you feel about this? Is there a way to bridge that disconnect? Is this is there a which disconnect are you referring to between most people in the future that is coming and just trying to convey to them that, hey, the stuff we're fighting over, it's it's it's not exactly the most prosaic of issues. No, I don't I don't have any insights as to how one might do that. I mean, we all there's I've talked before this idea where, you know, if we made first contact with an

intelligent alien species, all of a sudden we would all realize that our earthly problems are really quite meaningless in the grand scheme of things and finding other intelligent life and war would end. And then, you know, I've spoken to enough scientists who say, yeah, that wouldn't really happen. It would sort of maybe temporarily do that. And then things would go back to the exact same debates and disagreements that we have. And people can't sort of more permanently be in that mindset. So I don't have any great insights as to as to how to connect people with the potential future we're hurtling towards.

I wish I did. Thank you so much. And I shall read the book. Thank you. All right. There is Rose. Very, very important message and making a lot of different claims, I would say. Let's go next to Manuel from Florida. Welcome to the program, my friend. Hello, David. Hello. It has been a long time, but it's nice to speak to you again. Let's see. I've been thinking about sort of the direction of what is like popular sentiment in America. And it feels like the next generation is overwhelmingly more liberal, more progressive. I can't I can't cite that right now.

I don't have it off the top of my head. You are right. Generally speaking, each successively younger generation is more progressive than the previous. For now, that continues to hold true. Yeah. And but there's also like a lot of the things that the conservative side of the spectrum, like hold on to are really old, like traditions, right? And they go back a long time. Yes. So you'll always have that, that in some capacity, you know, whether it's

small or big on that side of the spectrum. But do you think they would ever be? I don't like I don't see it ever going away. But do you think it'll come back? Like, do you think, for example, Christian nationalism, that it'll truly grow to be popular? Or will it always stay kind of this small niche? I don't think any prediction I could make about that would be worth a penny. I mean, really, humans are so terrible at making these types of predictions. And this is why when Trump was using the line during his 2020, I think it was in 2020, he would say we will never be a socialist country. Maybe we will. I don't know. I mean, it doesn't seem to be going in that direction right now.

But how can we say the U.S. will never be a socialist country? Five hundred years, a thousand years if the U.S. is still around. Maybe it will be a socialist country. That being said, right now, there's no socialists in power, so it's not going to happen anytime soon. So I would be very hesitant to make any maybe Christian nationalism. Well, maybe we will be a fully legal Christian theocracy at some point in time. I don't know. I would hesitate to make any of these never contradictions. Yeah, no, I feel that. I mean, this is, you know, kind of a whataboutism. But I was just thinking about it because you see a lot of people say that Christian nationalism is a threat.

So I wonder, like, is it a threat insofar as it could become popular or is it just a threat insofar as this small group of people can be very dangerous? I think it depends on who you ask and exactly where and what year it is. But I think it's fair to say that Christian nationalism is a threat in the sense that it threatens the America that the founding fathers created. That's it's a threat in that sense. And then is it a practical and imminent threat? Well, there is a group that if they took power would make Christian theocracy a reality. Right now, they thankfully don't have that power, but they are certainly a threat in that they want more power.

So it's just about better defining what we mean by threat, if that makes sense. Speaker 4 No, yeah, that does make sense. Yeah, I just want to hear what your thoughts were on on that. So I appreciate it again. Well, I appreciate the call very much. Things are okay in Florida. Oh, things are great. I mean, the weather's epic right now.

We're looking at like 70 degree weather. Good. It's like I'm in California. So yeah. Well, I'm hoping to get down soon and reschedule this appearance with Patrick Bet-David that I was supposed to do. And yeah, before you know it, I might be back in Florida. OK, awesome. Yeah, I have a Cuban sandwich while you're here. Have a what? A Cuban sandwich. Cuban. Oh, all right. Yeah, well, we'll talk about that. Let's

talk about the pork later. All right. OK, Manuel, thank you very much for the call. Appreciate it. That does it for today. We're done for the day with live calls. Appreciate everyone I was able to speak to. And we will take live calls again. I love reading. I read every day, no matter how I arrange my schedule. I never have enough time to read all the books that I want, which is why Blinkist has been such an important part of my life for years now. Our sponsor Blinkist is the Thank you, David. of 15 different books in an afternoon so I can quickly gather insights from all sorts of perspectives, make connections, have those kind of aha moments that don't happen so easily, which is why I feel enriched when I use Blinkist. Blinkist also summarizes episodes of popular podcasts into 15 minute explainers. And with the Blinkist connect feature, my girlfriend and I can share

one account, share books, podcasts with each other, talk about them on the go. And don't forget Blinkist makes the perfect holiday gift. My audience can try Blinkist free for seven days and get 25 percent off after that. Go to Blinkist dot com slash Pacman. That's B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. All right, let's get to the email mailbag for the week. If you have something to say and you feel like it's worth me checking it out, you can email info at David Pacman dot com. Sometimes we will grab a YouTube comment here or there or a Twitter reply or a Facebook post or whatever the case may be.

But not this week. This week, it is all bona fide emails. The first coming from Chris. In fact, I received a number of beautiful messages and some trolling about my covid illness, which spread through the house like a virus, which it is. Last week, Chris said, sorry to hear about your COVID illness. I hope you get better soon and have no long COVID effects. I got it back in August for the first time. And luckily, my sickness wasn't too bad other than

a headache for a day. Thanks for everything you do. And I wish you the best for you and your family. Yes, I had it worse than a headache for a day. In fact, there was about a 28 hour period where I was as sick as I can remember being. And I got all sorts of different messages. There was someone who wrote to me and said that they put hydrogen peroxide in their troat. Now, why am I saying it that way? Because that's the way they wrote it. You can see that message on my Twitter and Instagram. They said they put it in their troat. And then something about lemon juice. I didn't do that. I didn't introduce light and heat inside the body. I didn't use bleach or any of that stuff. And fortunately, fortunately, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. It was pretty bad,

but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. And I appreciate all of the messages from everybody. Sharon wrote in about what is a very contentious topic and about which I have made a decision. And I'm going to ask you to respect that decision. You don't have to like it, but I am going to need you to respect it. Sharon wrote in about interruptions and Sharon said, hi, I enjoy watching your show. Often Christo Ivalos has a YouTube show. And when he shows a political clip, we see only the clip on the screen. You don't see my mug and he does not share the screen or interrupt. Have you ever gone to see a movie with someone and they talk or try to get your attention during the movie? They ruin the movie. I lose the joy of the moment when there are constant interruptions. It's nerve wracking. And I generally end it before

the show is over. I so wish you would not interrupt your clips or other featured program. Thanks, Sharon. So listen, I get it. There's two views on this. One is David, shut up, just play the clip and don't say anything. Start to finish. The other view is I can get the clip elsewhere. The reason I'm watching you, David, is for your commentary. And so manage it the way you want to manage it. I have made the decision because no matter what I do, people complain. If we just play clips, long clips, and I don't say anything, a lot of people say it's not even it's like not even really your show anymore. You're just playing a clip. I've made the decision, much like during live streams where we watch a debate or a rally, I will opine. I'm trying to offer something in addition to just

being a repeater of clips. And so I completely respect people who don't want to see me or hear from me during clips. There are lots of clipping services and Twitter users who will just post clips and no commentary. I've made the decision for the show, for what the show is, that I will use my discretion. And sometimes you'll see my face during a clip and sometimes you will hear me say things and I will try to strike the right balance as always with peace and love. You know, I will try to strike the right balance and do everything that everybody wants me to do the best possible way. But there are going to be interruptions because that's the format of the show. And maybe Christo Ivalos has decided on a different format. And

that's a beautiful thing. We can all have our formats. And we love you, Sharon. That's the important thing. We receive the commentary with absolute peace and love. Jason wrote in and said, I think the left is in trouble writing with the absolute disaster. The Republican Party has become more and more people in my social circle are voting Democrat. Do you believe that as more people move over to the left, that the left as a whole is in danger of becoming more centrist? Thanks for taking the time to read the question and for producing amazing content. No, I don't actually I just don't believe that's happening because there's two things that are taking place here. There are people who vote for Democrats.

Because. They love the Democratic platform And there are people who vote for Democrats because they find it to be the better of the two options that have a shot at winning. But the truth is that the Democratic electorate is actually far more to the left of where the elected officials are. So it's already a very centrist represented party. And because of a combination of different factors, including the way districts are drawn and so many different things, what I'm actually seeing is a Democratic Party that at least on paper has continued to move to the left. Now whether the elected officials move to the left sort of remains to be seen still. But I don't think that that's

the case. I also think that this is a sort of temporary aspect where disheartened Republicans who don't like MAGA either don't vote or vote Democrat. I think eventually the Democratic Party is going to figure it out and they're going to get away from MAGA and go back to something else. So I don't believe that that's going to be an issue. I think Democrats should take victories while they can. Sam wrote in about foreign pronunciations and really is not happy with me. Sam said on the November 29th show, you pronounce the word Uruguay in what I assume to be a Spanish pronunciation accompanied with the phrase Uruguay, please, folks. Isn't my audience the best? This makes me wonder, when you were talking to your Argentinian friends about American or English people, do you expect your Argentinian

friends to pause their native accents and pronounce American names, terms, phrases in an American accent and British names, terms and phrases in a British accent? That's kind of weird. But or is this just an expectation you wield towards native English speakers? For example, if your Argentinian friend was to say to you, I think Donald Trump is even worse than Boris Johnson in Spanish. Would you expect them to use American and British accents for the names? Right. Shopping socket. Donald Trump is sound pay or de que Boris Johnson.

No, I would not expect them to do that. Listen, folks, I'm doing hours and hours of content and I will interject flavor. And part of the flavor is Americans pronounce Uruguay in what seem like absurd ways. You're a gay. I mean, it's come on. So I'm just it's just a reminder of the way that it's pronounced Uruguay. That's all. It's not to be offensive. It's not to criticize anyone. It's not because I expect Argentinian people to do something when they say a British name. It's just a podcast and a YouTube channel, Sam. All right. Let's all take it easy. It's just a little joke. It's sort of like when I will say my birth city of Buenos Aires, I could pronounce it in these

mangled American ways. Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires. It sounds almost like a disease. And it is very much not a disease, my friends. Buenos Aires. We're just having a good time. All right. Let's not take ourselves too, too seriously. Peter wrote in and Peter asks an important question and says, subscribe is free.

Yes, David, to subscribe is free. Is that correct? A membership costs, but to subscribe costs nothing. If that is so, then tell people that this is reads like a haiku. It costs you nothing to click on subscribe. It only indicates you affirm the show. If it costs nothing and you say that over and over and over, you'll reach three million in no time. Subscribe also tells YouTube something positive. Is that also true? Let people know that as well.

If I've got it right, let me know. Peter, you have it 100% correct. When you hit that subscribe button on YouTube, it is free. You are affirming the show and it does tell YouTube something positive, which is recommend this chaps videos to more people. So I say to you today, hit that subscribe button, my friends. It's a very, very important thing. Steven wrote in and says, Hey, David, longtime listener here. Just something I thought about the other day. Isn't Trump announcing another run kind of like him admitting but not admitting that he lost in

2020? The whole system is rigged, but also vote for me. If he truly believed that it was rigged, why would he try to run again? Thanks for the time. So this is so great because they have answers to all these questions. And it's sort of like a if you stupid answers to stupid questions sort of thing. You and I might say. If you won in 2020, you can't run again because you can't you can only you can only do it twice. You can't do it three times. They say, well, we were the rightful winners based on the will of the people, but they made Biden president. So we I still get to run. I get to do two terms. They figure that one out. Next one. If it's rigged, why would people vote if people voted in 2020 for you, but they gave it to Biden? Wouldn't it just happen again? Why even bother to run? And then they say we just

need to win by enough that they can't rig it. Ah, they have an answer. You know, whenever you think you've got them in a logic pretzel, they always have an answer. Ryan wrote in about gift memberships, one of my favorite topics and says, Hey, David and team, I'm wondering if it's possible to gift memberships to specific people. I thought you mentioned it was a feature when gift memberships were rolled out, but I could be mistaken. Yes. Here. Oh, and a cheers and hope your daughter is feeling healthier this week. Yeah. She had the easiest run of the COVID. It lasted like 24 hours. It was crazy actually how quickly, uh, she, she was doing better, faster than everybody. Okay. How to gift a membership to a specific person. You go to join pacman.com. You sign up. You check that this is a gift button.

When you complete the process, there's a pop up and it'll say, who do you want to send the gift to? You type in their name. You type in their email. Bing, bang, boom. It is that simple. My friends. Very, very easy.

Josh wrote in about the white paper. David, sir. Great job on the building arguments without burning bridges. White paper, despite being an inherently racist document, that's a joke. The paper provides valuable insights and suggestions for engaging in good faith conversations about difficult topics. I look forward to referencing this document to improve my arguments and methods. Folks, the white paper is available to you for free.

You go to David Pakman dot com go to David Pakman dot com slash guide David Pakman dot com slash guide. It is free. You type in your email address. We send you the white paper, eight or 10 page document. I should figure out how many pages it is, which contains a treasure trove. This is an original document that we put together on how to have conversations with people with wacky political views, get them to reconsider their beliefs without ruining the relationships. Check it out. We have a great bonus show for you today. You can get instant access to the bonus show by signing up at join Pacman dot com. Thank your lucky stars every day. You're not Dave Pacman. Yeah. Thank you.

And you can use the coupon code 24 starts now to get yourself a discount. We'll see you then or otherwise back here on Monday.