The David Pakman Show - 1/30/24: Fox & Trump triggered by ANOTHER stock market record under Biden

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Sam Harris, neuroscientist, philosopher, New York Times bestselling author, and host of the Making Sense Podcast, joins David to discuss debating conspiracy theorists, the collapse of the Intellectual Dark Web, wokeness, Trumpism, and much more -- Fox News and Donald Trump are wildly triggered by yet another stock market record -- Taylor Swift Derangement Syndrome hits the right-wing media -- The latest conspiracy is that the Super Bowl is rigged for the Kansas City Chiefs so that Taylor Swift will publicly endorse Joe Biden -- Republican Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar tries taking credit for money from a bill she voted against and CBS News Miami investigative reporter Jim DeFede doesn't allow her to do it -- Donald Trump could be about to lose all the cash he has -- A Trump supporter says he loves Trump because Trump hugged the flag once -- Voicemail caller asks David whether his views on abortion have changed since becoming a father -- On the Bonus Show: Ex-IRS contractor sentenced to 5 years in prison for leaking Trump's taxes, Alabama man shook violently during first-ever nitrogen gas execution, the first Neuralink brain implant in a human has taken place, much more... 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman ☕ Trade Coffee: Code PAKMAN10 saves you $10 at https://drinktrade.com/pakman 💻 Stay protected! Try our sponsor Aura FREE for 2 weeks at https://aura.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Speaker 1 It seems like another day, another stock market all time high. Of course, the stock market is not the economy. Of course, the economy is so much more for the average worker, including do you have a job? How much do things cost? And so many of the other metrics that we regularly look at. But the stock market is one metric. And Fox News and Donald Trump are despondent, trying to figure out how do we spin this? The way they've started to spin it is by saying, well, everything looks OK, but it's because of either

the things Trump did almost four years ago and or the expectation that Trump will win in November and or the things he will do once he becomes president next year. This is a very tough one to believe. It's like a funeral. Check out these. Here is one video from Larry Kudlow on Fox News and announcing this stuff more like it's a eulogy rather than a good thing. They have no choice because these are the numbers. Let me worry. The stock market hitting new highs today, the Dow and the S&P. And of course, we bring in the great Jerry Willis to report on it.

Isn't this so sad? Gary, if you don't report on it, it didn't happen. Love it. Love it. Yeah. Good day for stocks. Right. Stocks edging higher ahead of the. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good day for stock. Federal Reserve meeting this week and ahead of the big tech earnings coming out this week. The Dow is up by 224 points. The S&P higher by 36. The Nasdaq rising 172. Both the Dow and the S&P in record territory, as you can see right here. Their records yet again.

I mean, OK, come on. Tech companies, Microsoft and Meta, also hitting all time highs ahead of their earnings. Dow members Visa, Amgen and Merck all in record territory as well. Today, we are hitting the heart of the earnings season with Google, GM, UPS and Starbucks. They're all going to be reporting results tomorrow. Now this investor optimism on the rise, it's continuing. Investors are getting more optimistic. Okay, guys. Futures markets price in an 87% probability of a Fed rate cut in May and less than a 50 percent cut in March.

Those rate cuts, well, they make the markets happy. Larry. All right, Jerry. Well, thank you very, very much. We appreciate it. Now, House Republicans move forward with two articles of impeachment against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Isn't that a good contrast? All right. Yet

another record stock market under Biden, who was going to destroy the economy. By the way, Republicans are trying to impeach yet another guy who did nothing wrong. Trump getting into it with a truth social post where he said in all capital letters, this is the Trump stock market because my polls against Biden are so good that investors are projecting that I will win and that will drive the market up. There is no evidence of that whatsoever. Hard to imagine anybody believing that. Here is another report from Fox News.

I mean, you've got the Dow up now one hundred and six points, the S&P gaining as well. And all it needs is three points. And here we are, S&P up about twenty two points at the S&P gaining as well. And all it needs is three points. And here we are, S&P, up about 22 points at the moment. We are climbing and climbing, climbing and climbing. And how can we spin this so that it's bad for President Joe Biden? The stock market situation is not about pretending that when the stock market is up, Main Street is necessarily doing well. We know that stocks disproportionately help are owned by and stock rises disproportionately help only a fraction of Americans. But they do connect to many other economic circumstances, including optimism, including underlying strength of

industry and economies which do hire people. And so we look at many more metrics. Fox News and Trump no longer able to pretend that it's bad. So the new one is say that it's because of Trump. Say it's only because the Fed is going to start juicing the numbers or whatever they want. I don't think people are falling for it. Taylor Swift derangement syndrome has now hit Fox News. This is absolutely delightful to see Taylor Swift, who I could not have cared less about up until about a year ago when she started saying, hey, I'm going to register voters. Now she's dating. I don't even know the dude's name. It's one of the Kelsey's who plays for the Kansas City Chiefs.

The growing ire with Taylor Swift is stunning to see. We were early on this story. OK, as soon as she started focusing on voter registration, I came to you and I said I couldn't care less about her music. But to the extent that she's telling people, young people, hey, you should vote. Voting is something you should be looking to do. Get registered. Figure out how to get involved in the political system. That's great. And apparently it's a systemic and structural danger to the American right wing. Check out some of these clips. They are now obsessed with Taylor Swift over at Fox News. So, you know, you can't turn on the TV, scroll through your phone, watch a football game. Oh, my gosh, there they are. Without seeing her,

Taylor Swift is only getting bigger. And now boyfriend Travis Kelsey has gone to the Super Bowl. It is reaching such a fever pitch that she is reportedly at the top of the Biden campaign's wish list for 2024 surrogates. And the idea was even tossed around to send the president to a stop on her era's tour. Let's bring in Outkick.com host Charlie Arnold. Charlie, thank you very much. You know, she has sent out tweets before supporting Joe Biden, so they're not necessarily barking up the wrong tree here.

That could happen. Yeah, she endorsed him in 2020. She definitely doesn't look wishy-washy, but actually it's funny, you and I, before we started this segment, we both said that we were cheering for the opposite team, the Ravens, to beat out the Chiefs, just because we have had enough of Taylor Swift for now.

They are sick of her. They are sick of her. But here's the facts. Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl and now there's an online plea circulating that is begging people to become Niners fans for the next two weeks. So it doesn't raise Travis Kelsey, a.k.a. Mr. Fizer's star power, along with, of course, Taylor Swift, Mr. F Pfizer, because Kelsey is vaccinated and has said, hey, I think the vaccine is a good thing. Mr. Pfizer. Because it is so scary. There was a recent poll. One fifth of Taylor Swift fans

said they would back whichever candidate that she endorsed. Wow. You know, let's be honest. A lot of her fan base are 15 year old girls who can't vote anyways. A lot of the others are already liberal women who would support the DNC no matter what liberal women. But there's a lot of other people who need to be careful because she doesn't do what she says. Like, for example, the other day yesterday, she flew private from New York City to Baltimore. Yet she constantly talks about climate change.

So just please don't believe everything Taylor Swift says. We're all begging you. Yeah. Speaker 1 00 00 00 Speaker 2 00 00 Speaker 3 There you go. Fox News calling out the hypocrisy of Taylor Swift. Fox News hasn't cared about hypocrisy for a very long time. Fox News calling out the private plane usage of Taylor Swift. They Trump owns a 757 and flies around to completely slurring sweaty rallies with it for no reason whatsoever

other than self aggrandizement. At least people are paying for the shows Taylor Swift is flying to. They did another segment attacking her. Let's actually listen. Let's make sure this is a different segment. We have had enough of Taylor Swift for now, but here's the facts. Chiefs are going to the super. OK, now, so this is part of the same segment. All right. And then the Fox News publishing an article also about her flying in a private jet called Touchdown. Taylor Swift lands in Baltimore ahead of AFC championship. Jet belches tons of CO2 emissions.

All of a sudden they care a lot about people flying private folks. They are terrified of Taylor Swift. Understand that if Taylor Swift didn't matter, if Taylor Swift didn't represent a potential challenge to the domination of MAGA Trump ism, because I'll be honest, she's registering voters in numbers that we aren't seeing anybody else do. If she did not represent the threat, they would not be giving her the time of day. And what this is extraordinarily a surprise. I guess it's not surprising what this is leading to is straight up Taylor Swift conspiracy theories. And that's what I

want to talk about briefly. Next, the MAGA right and right wing media are now arguing that there is a wide ranging conspiracy in which the Kansas City chiefs don't really deserve to be in the Super Bowl. The NFL has rigged the refereeing such that the non deserving chiefs will make it to the Super Bowl so that Travis Kelsey's girlfriend, Taylor Swift, will get some opportunity at the I guess in the immediate aftermath of the game when they are handing over the trophy. Taylor Swift will get a microphone stuck in front of her and she will endorse Joe Biden on the national stage. This is the conspiracy that they are alleging exists. Rolling Stone has an article explaining it all. Right wingers say Super Bowl is rigged so Taylor Swift

can endorse Biden. It's all really stupid, writes Nikki McCann Ramirez. The article is worth reading, but there's a bunch of these examples. Conspiracy theorist Jack Pizaviak says, thinking about when Taylor Swift called out the Soros family in 2019 for buying the rights to her music and then how she came out as a super liberal in 2020, that's suspicious. And then failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy says, I wonder who's going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there is a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here. But let's see how it ages over the next eight months. There are other examples here as well. D.C. Drano. Where is D.C. Drano? D.C. Drano says, Dear San Francisco, 40 is another right wing that

dear San Francisco 49ers, we've all been roasting your city for years, but I am offering a two week truce. No more jokes about poop on the streets and open air drug markets. No calling out the record levels of homelessness that magically disappear. I'm trying to get this on the screen the right way. It's not looking good. That magically disappeared for three days to welcome a communist dictator. None of that for two weeks. Ninety nine percent of America will be 49ers fans. But in turn, you must defeat the chiefs. More of these Mike Crispy saying the NFL is totally rigged for the Kansas City Chiefs, Taylor Swift and Mr. Pfizer, all to spread Democrat propaganda propaganda, calling it now. Kansas City wins, goes to Super Bowl. Swift comes out at the halftime show and endorses Joe Biden with

Kelsey at midfield. It's been an op since day one. And this is a favorite word. They they think that if they come up with terms like psyop, that it makes it more believable. And honestly, it probably does to a lot of their followers. The end wokeness Twitter account says what's happening with Taylor Swift is not organic and natural. It's an op. We all feel it. We all know it. This is Taylor Swift derangement syndrome. It's messed up their brains. And maybe the Kansas City chiefs will win and maybe Taylor Swift will endorse Joe Biden and they will be convinced it is a so-called psyop. How do you cure these people? Let me know in a comment. I don't have the answer. Data brokers are constantly collecting huge amounts of information about what you do online, your address, phone number, email, financial info, even your political affiliation.

And they sell that information to other companies. The FBI will sometimes even buy data in bulk to get information about Americans without a warrant. Your ex-girlfriend, your boss, anyone out there can use the publicly available data on search sites to find information about you. It's super easy. And worst of all, these data broker systems get hacked all the time, which really puts your data at risk, which is why you can end up getting scam calls and emails and the whole thing. The solution to all of this is our sponsor Incogni. Incogni sends data removal requests to all major data brokers who are required by law to remove the information upon request. If any of the

information stays online, Incogni will follow up about removal and Incogni keeps you updated with details every step. So you know what's going on and when the info is removed. What Incogni can accomplish is amazing. I use it myself. Go to Incogni dot com slash Pacman and you'll get 60 percent off with the code Pacman. This is my favorite clip this week. We've talked before about how Republicans will vote against the bill and say, I'm against wasteful spending. The bill passes and then they take credit in their state, in their district for the things that are funded by that bill. Well, Jim DeFede, DeFede, I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly in one of these iterations. He's an investigative

reporter for CBS News Miami. He absolutely humiliated Republican Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar. Salazar voted against she voted against the Chips and Science Act, a great piece of legislation. And then she goes to her district and she presents checks with money that comes from that very bill. Jim DeFede called her out. Total humiliation. She implodes, doesn't know what to say. This is beautiful journalism. Last month, you were at FIU and you presented a check for six hundred fifty thousand dollars to help small businesses at FIU. But you voted against the bill that gave the money that you then signed a check for and handed and had a photo op. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. Right. You voted against that bill.

I right now you have to give me more details, but I do know that every time I have an opportunity to. I just don't remember, Jim. Did I vote again? It's not I don't know. What are the details of that? Bring money to my constituents. I do so. I remember I just did four hundred thousand dollars. But look, you voted against it. You voted against the Chips and Science Act, right? Listen, I right now I need to. I need to. That's a pretty straightforward question. She's not answering.

Ask my staff. But what do you know? Forty million dollars that I have brought to this community. Aren't you proud of me? Aren't you proud of the 40 million dollars? But how are you proud that I wrote the Dignity Act? Haven't I? Let's talk about the Americas. Wait, wait, wait. Let me one second. Tell me the money that you

talk about, the $40 million that you bring back to the district. Sometimes that money comes from bills that you voted against. You voted against the CHIPS Act, and yet you praise the fact that the South Florida Climate Resilience Tech Hub is going to be started in Miami. Yeah, it's called being a brazen, opportunistic hypocrite. That's what it's called. Right. You voted against the infrastructure bill and you talk about all the money that comes back to the airport. So at the same time that you're taking credit for the money that you bring back to the district in Washington, you're voting against these projects on party line votes. Listen, I that was, I think, last cycle. I can. Dude, my hypocritical vote was before. Now I'm doing something. Now I'm taking advantage of this.

Jim, what what's wrong with what I'm doing? Please. This is very these are nasty questions, Jim. I really remember right now, but just look, let's look at the America's Act, which is what I'm going to. So you don, right now, and I'm not trying to be a politician. There's so many bills that I've introduced that I know that I understand. And but it's OK. Sometimes I vote and sometimes I don't. But let's look at the positive. Let's look at the 40 million dollars that abroad. And let's look at the if it was a positive thing to bring that money to her district, why didn't she vote in favor of it? And this is not the only example of this.

We've got a bunch of Republicans doing this. They want credit for being fiscal conservatives and opposing government spending. And then they want credit and they want to get reelected by saying, hey, look at this money that I brought into the district. You voted against bringing the money to the district. Really great work there by Jim DeFede. I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly. He did such a good job. If I if it's DeFede, DeFede, DeFede, Jim, absolutely fantastic stuff. I'm sure I will get the correct name pronunciation very soon. One thing that Donald Trump doesn't like is a room full of people laughing at him.

And that's what's happening at every single Nikki Haley event. Now, Nikki Haley has taken the gloves off. It's too little too late, but that's OK because it's still wildly triggering Donald Trump. She is going after Trump for the cognitive decline. She's going after Trump for the childish, petulant behavior. Here is Nikki Haley speaking to a crowd in Malden, South Carolina, her home state. This is Trump's worst nightmare for his ego, for his narcissism. The entire crowd just laughs. And what happened after that was a sight to see because on election night, we were super excited. We had moved 25 points in the three weeks leading up to the election. And Donald Trump was totally unhinged. Unhinged. He was a bit sensitive. And I think that it and I think his feelings were hurt. But he threw a temper tantrum out on stage, seriously, threw a total temper tantrum and was talking about revenge. So after he talked about revenge and had a little something to say about me, that's fine.

We raised a million dollars online right after he did that. This is not good for Trump's ego. Then the next day, unhinged again, says for anybody that supports Nikki Haley, you will be barred from MAGA. So we had a little fun with that. We started selling t-shirts that said barred permanently. We sold 10,000 T-shirts. Trump does not like being the butt of a joke. And this is why Trump is absolutely losing his mind.

Now, my interest in this is preventing either of these people from becoming the next president of the United States, meaning Nikki Haley or Donald Trump. My interest is that and the longer Nikki Haley stays in this thing, the more chaotic the Republican Party appears to be, the more moderates that she can dissuade from voting Trump in November because at the end of the day, this is about hurting Republicans from our perspective. If she can anger her Republican donors over Trump saying you'll be banned if you donate to Nikki, that helps Joe Biden directly. That's a voter who votes Nikki and then may either stay home or vote for Joe Biden. And that is a very, very good thing. You love to see it. It's too little, too late. She's not going to win, but she may be hurting Donald Trump. And we love to see that.

Sam Harris joins me after the break. I'm very particular about my coffee and our sponsor, Trade Coffee, helps you do more in 2024. If you're like me, coffee might be part of your routine, maybe a factor in your productivity. Check out trade as your destination for better coffee at home. Subscribe to trade and start the year with amazing coffee. You'll discover new favorites. You'll support more than 55 local roasters across the country and you will upgrade your morning. And the best part is you can personalize all of it from the type of coffee you get, how often you get it delivered...... . .

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The link is in the podcast notes. It's great to welcome back to the program today, Sam Harris, who's a neuroscientist, philosopher, New York Times bestselling author, host of the Making Sense podcast and also creator of the Waking Up course. Sam, I don't know exactly when you were last on. I think it's been a year and a half, quite frankly, and at least. And so many things have happened since then, including things you weighed in on. Yes, it's been a quite, quite a while. Yes, it's amazing. Just to start somewhere. I've mentioned to my audience before when they ask me about confronting this person or that person about X or Y issue, you're sort of small fires framework that you've used on your

program about the complexities of even if we have actors who be they bad faith or deliberately dishonest or uninformed, the ease with which one can confront them with the facts in the overarching 30,000 foot perspective. And they can very easily set a number of small fires by bringing up the Singapore study that maybe exists, maybe it doesn't. Maybe you've heard of it, maybe you haven't. Or what about that thing from Peru that happened or this sort of thing? And if I understand correctly, this is part of the framework for which you have been disinclined to engage in some of those arguably worthy discussions on a number of different issues. Is this still your perspective? Is there

more you can add to it? How do you see the discourse with those types of debates right now? Well, I think we have a responsibility to to make any audience alert to this problem, right? This is a kind of a problem of asymmetric information warfare, where it's just, it's much easier to make a mess than it is to clean it up, right? And this is just, this is just a principle of any debate and, you know, whether you're formal or otherwise, and audiences don't tend to, they certainly go to, even if they're aware of it, they go to sleep to it, right? Because it's just, in each case, it's a bit of a conjuring trick, right? It's like, if you go to a magic show, you know it's not actual magic, right? You know it's based on misdirection, and at some point, the guy puts the rabbit in the hat, right?

And you're not meant to see that. But the illusion works more or less all the time, unless you're, presumably, unless you're a professional magician and you really can spot the trick. There's something analogous to that in many debates on, you know, topics of, you know, great interest and, you know, polarization. I mean, so you're alluding to some of the COVID debates or the vaccine debates that I'm not inclined to have. Yeah, but the other problem is that it's rarely a matter of total falsehood or conscious lying on the part of the person you're talking to. There are half-truths or truths amplified in the wrong way or in the wrong context that are genuinely misleading. And

there's something more pernicious about the kernel of truth that is doing some mad work in an otherwise spurious argument. So it is in fact true that vaccine injury is a thing, right? There's some people who have terrible responses to vaccines and not just COVID vaccines, any vaccine, however well tested and wise to take. As a general matter, there are people who just can't take vaccines for a variety of reasons and discover that sometimes by having gotten a vaccine and had a terrible response to it. So if you focus on the, if you try to deny the reality of vaccine injury, many people know that that can't possibly be true because they know someone who knows someone who had some terrible response. Right. So and yet it's it's very easy to use the reality of vaccine injury in any conversation about covid vaccines or any vaccine, you know, the way someone like RFK Jr. would to to stoke fear that is in the aggregate quite irrational.

If debates of the sort that you're opting not to do aren't an effective way of disabusing people of some of these notions, what are the what is the framework or what are the tools that can be used if we agreed that we would be better off as a society if fewer people believe some of this stuff? Well, I'm not saying categorically that debates are never the right thing. And so, for instance, I wouldn't say that absolutely no one should debate a person like RFK Jr. I just don't think I'm the person to do it. And I think the format would really have to be thought out well in advance. And it's because it does require, again, because it's so asymmetric, because someone can just

hit you with a blizzard of detail, which is, you know, in its main points, a proper conspiracy theory or fairly delusional and yet will contain lots of misleading facts, you need to fact check all that in advance. If you're going to just have 90 minutes of audio or video to showcase this conversation, you need to have agreed upon, let's say, the sources that would be cited in advance, right? And so you need to have kind of pre-bunked those sources. You need to know what's wrong with the study that RFK Jr. referenced last time, right?

And you need to do all that work. And for me, it's just, it's not, you know, I'm not an epidemiologist or a virologist or an immunologist. I mean, I'm not a relevant specialist in any of those areas. And I think it would take someone whose full-time job is to chase down all of those bad references to do that adequately. And that said, I think there are some people who you probably shouldn't quote platform because to platform them is to dignify their side of the argument with much more credence than it should be. So the reason why I wouldn't tend to debate creationists in a Christian context. I've done that before, but a little of that goes a very long way. And to give people the idea that really debating the veracity of evolution at this point is a good use of time

is in and of itself misleading about the nature of what we know about the universe. So I think you have to pick your battles here. And I think it's it's it entails much more than just flipping on the microphones on a popular podcast and letting things roll. I've been trying to think about how to open this next door that I want to go through with you. And I'll do it without naming anyone. And we can continue without naming anyone. Or if you decide there are people you want to talk about, that's fine.

But I won't name anyone. Generally, what I'm curious in getting your thoughts on is over the last several years, one could argue that there has been a breakdown of the so-called intellectual dark web. One could argue that there has been a role reversal of sorts in places where we maybe used to be able to find sanity and rationality where we no longer can. And some of us that are on the left, but not blindly accepting everything that comes out of the left, have to find new enclaves or places to look for that sanity or reason. How would you characterize the change that we've seen in the landscape that you inhabit over the last several years?

And do you think that this is part of some bigger shift in the public discourse? Well, I think I should just acknowledge the kernels of truth that are there that are that are actually deranging that many of the people we're not now naming and the kernel of truth, which is just in plain view for everyone to see, is that something has happened in the last, let's call it 10 years, but most noticeably in the last six or so, to the left politically. Mostly, not only in the United States, but it's certainly most salient in the United States. And the most recent symptom of this were those congressional hearings with the college presidents who couldn't figure out how to say that calling for genocide against the Jews was a violation of their terms of service, while we all know that even acknowledging that there are two sexes biologically was a violation just mere moments before that, right? Or being uncertain about whether academics should sign DEI pledges as a requirement for their employment. That was also a cancelable offense at our universities, right? So it's, the hypocrisy there was galling to many of us,

and it's unsustainable, right? It's just, it's a symptom of moral confusion and ideological capture in our mainstream institutions. It goes by the name of, you know, it went by the name of political correctness, you know, in the before times, but now it's wokeness or, you know, a social justice hysteria or an identitarian moral panic, or I've referred to it by many of those terms. There's a problem with all of this, and the question is what to do about it. Now, what many of these people in the IDW have thought to do about it is to focus on it to the exclusion of everything else, right? And to not acknowledge the monstrosity of Trumpism that stands at their backs, right? That the populist lunacy on the right that is certainly by some measures quite a bit more dangerous than anything

we're seeing on the left. Now, I tend to keep both of these grotesque objects in view all of the time, and I'm by turns more or less concerned or more or less animated by one of them, right? So I have spent a lot of time focused on the problems of the left, and I've spent a lot of time focused on the problems of the right, and I've spent a lot of time focused on the problems of the right, that the real failure, the moral and political failure of many of these people who I used to consider friends and colleagues, and with whom I've fallen out to one or another degree, you know, professionally and even socially, is that they, for whatever reason, have decided that they can't chew gum and walk at the same time. They can't acknowledge the obvious pathology of having a sitting president who won't commit to a peaceful transfer of power

and who pretends that an election is being stolen from him even while trying actually to steal the election. They can't acknowledge any of that because they're so concerned about the ideological capture that has occurred on the left. They're so concerned about the derangement of the New York Times and the 1619 Project, say, and how ahistorical that was. Pick your example. And I just think that's a fallacy and it is in itself dangerous and deranging of our public conversation. is really inscrutable. In others, it's probably, there's an obvious business model there. I mean, there's this phenomenon of audience capture where people begin to cater to a signal they detect in their audience. Viewers go up, subscriptions go up,

something goes up and they say, okay, my audience clearly wants more of that. And they become radicalized by their own audience. They notice that their audience is filled with vaccine skeptics or Trump loyalists, or people who just want to talk about the trans issue in sports all the time. And they begin to cater to that and pander to that. And then that is the very nature of what it is to sell out. Right. And so there's some of that too.

And I don't, you know, I haven't diagnosed it in each case, but it's all, you know, it's something that I can't really interact with now in a comfortable way because in certain cases it's just starkly unethical, right? I view several of these people as having lost their integrity, and that matters. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm curious if we would be able to sum up for the audience who may not listen to your podcast, how you might relate the relative significance of these different elements. I'll give my view maybe, and then you tell me where you are relative to that.

I see the motivations for DEI, what is called wokeness and social justice as worthy motivations, which have been taken to extremes that have perverted these movements. And I don't lose sight of the fact that there is also this gargantuan monster next to it, which is that the modern Republican Party would be glad to destroy and end democracy altogether. And I want to keep that relationship in mind as I choose to what degree do I talk about these different issues? Where are you relative to that? Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree with that. The one piece I would add, which accounts for why I

have spoken about the pathology on the left so much is that there really is an asymmetry with respect to the cultural capture of this ideology. So I mean, Trumpism is incredibly dangerous. It is, you know, the first time in my lifetime, I've really worried about the fate of American democracy, right? It really seems like it's possible, it's conceivable that we could lose it under the shadow of this thing. So it's a huge problem, right? But it is, in some strange way, still a fringe problem culturally, or at least culturally with respect to status institutions in our society, the best universities, the best media properties, the Fortune 500 companies, what is it that people in Silicon Valley or in Hollywood, the people who make culture, for the most part, what do they believe? It's not Trumpism. It's not that the election was stolen. It's not that, you know,

QAnon might be right about something, right? It's for the most part, this far left, you know, again, I would agree with you, at bottom well-intentioned or originally well-intentioned overreaction, and I would call it a moral panic around issues of inequality, racial inequality in particular, but it's gender, it's sexuality, it's in some cases religious, right? I mean, the way in which we have seen this explosion of anti-Semitism correlate very strangely with far left, disproportionately well-educated people and their beliefs about race. of African Americans over the last 70 years onto the world and wrapped up Islamist goons and theocrats into that same blanket of tolerance and concern, right? So the jihadists of the world are the African Americans who we need to worry about locally, right, for all of our wealth inequality and the disparities of educational attainment

and health security and everything else, these same people who are focused on that somehow see what's happening with Hamas as analogous to that, right? So there's just a profound moral confusion about the global civilization that has occurred domestically in America. And it's actually been exported to much of the West, right? So this is also happening in London, right? So it's a mad tangle of, again, I would agree, in many cases, well-intentioned

moral intuitions, but it's destabilizing and gaslighting and ultimately insane is specifically when you're talking about things like, you know, taking the side of Hamas in the current conflict in the Middle East. What do you make of the reaction from those on the left who say it's not that we're taking the side of Hamas. It's that there is no consideration given to the 20, 30 year situation and circumstances in which Palestinians have lived. And we have to separate Hamas from Palestinians and whatever Hamas did, whether I condemn it or not, it doesn't matter because Benjamin Netanyahu is going to press forward and do X, Y, Z, that sort of package of responses, which is almost like, you know, it's a it's a series of boxes that are checked off.

And when when speaking to some of these folks, do you find that that reaction is based in a good faith concern for the perceived oppressed? Or do you think that that's based in something different altogether? Well, it is. It's based on a confusion or a or a disinclination to look at the the the reality on the ground in not just in Gaza, but in Muslim societies, you know, the world over, right? And the radical core of Islam that is producing so much of this conflict, I mean, I would call it jihadism in its most pernicious form. And at bottom, it's something that doesn't have much to do or anything in principle to do with Israel, right? I mean, Israel is in a war against jihadists.

I mean, Hamas is a jihadist organization, and Hezbollah is a jihadist organization, and Iran is effectively run by a jihadist government, whatever the actual sympathies of most Iranians at this moment, many of whom are certainly tired of living under theocrats. But the generic problem is jihadism, specific ideology around religious conflict and holy war and martyrdom. And it is just much bigger than Israel, and it's much bigger than American foreign policy. And this is something I've banged on about in fits and starts for the last 20 years,

ever since September 11th. And it's a problem that's not going away, right? It can seem to go away. We can certainly lose sight of it. There are we, you know, there are bright, shiny objects that capture our attention and we forget about it. Like in something like Trumpism, right? It's like Trump is, it takes up all of our oxygen and we don't notice jihad, the problem of jihadism until some, a dozen people get murdered in the streets of Paris, say, right. And, and, you know, to shouts of Allahu Akbar, but it's a problem that has not gone away, will not go away until two billion Muslims decide that they can't support it in any form, right? And they have to anathematize it and really treat it like the pathology that it is. And it just, you know, one of the things to notice is that

most victims of jihadism are Muslim, right? I mean, there's just, there are, it's a continuous problem throughout the world in dozens of countries, and you know, many of which are in Africa, where you just have jihadists killing their co-religionists over sectarian reasons, and again, murdering apostates and making life generally miserable for everybody. And we just don't pay attention to it. We don't think about it. I mean, Boko Haram in Nigeria is using child soldiers as suicide bombers, right? Who cares, right? We just don't pay attention to it. It doesn't affect us. And yet just to take five minutes to explore the details there. And it is an unimaginable type of violence, right? I mean, the suicide bombing

itself should be unimaginable when you actually think of the details psychologically. But turning children into bombs, right? I mean, what planet are we on, right? What planet are we on? And there's only one culture that does this, right? And it's the extreme variant of fundamentalism, to use a somewhat inappropriate term, but an American one, within the of of traditional Islamic societies. There is I don't know how much you wade into this or want to, but there is a growing voice in is it the Democratic Party, is it the left, is there whatever those two overlap that Joe Biden will be punished in November because of his kind of fill in the blanks

support for what Netanyahu is doing, providing funding to Israel. Displeasure with Biden's role is the point I think that is being made. I as someone who can understand why different folks might prefer less American involvement in the region struggle to understand why one would stay home or vote for Trump in order to punish Joe Biden when it seems that the alternative is so much worse. In other words, I see that Trump has essentially taken the position of just kind of destroy Gaza. You know, who cares? I don't.

It I struggle to to really believe that there's a significant contingent of this left that is going to take an action in November, whether it's not voting or voting for Trump. I don't know why they would do that. That would actually make the very problem they've identified worse by their own evaluation. Do you have a sense of whether this slice of the left as it currently stands really might do that in November in an election? Well, I don't. I mean, I would share your astonishment if if they thought Trump were better on this

particular issue, if this is their hobby horse, right, if support for Israel is the thing they they want to erode, well, I mean, Trump, granted he is an isolationist, but, you know, his support for Israel has been fairly reflexive. And, you know, despite a few hiccups he's had with Netanyahu, you know, he's been much less critical of Netanyahu than Biden has been or than any Democrat has been. So, yeah, I wouldn't know what to expect of Trump in a second administration around Israel. I mean, I would assume he would support it. But again, the isolationist noises are, you know, at cross purposes with that. I mean, I just I view, as a moral lunatic who

really thinks only of himself. So it's, it's, it's hard to predict exactly what he would do. But it's a, I mean, I'm much more worried, frankly, that Biden will suffer an erosion of support for the op, you know, for, for other reasons on it, reasons on the opposite side of the political continuum among independents and others who are worried about the southern border, for instance. And you only need to see a few videos coming from the southern border and a few arguably uncharitable framings of those videos by propagandists from the other side. I mean, someone like Tucker Carlson claiming that, look, this is Biden's policy. And then he'll show you people by the thousands coming across the border without any sign that we know who they are, we can do anything about it.

That I think a lot of people really care about, especially in the aftermath of October 7th. The idea that we have a border that we just can't police, that we're not inclined to police, and millions of people are coming to the country. We have no idea who they are, but we know at this point that they're not just Latin Americans looking for work. They're people from all over the world coming to here for who knows what purpose, you spin that up into a conspiracy theory or just an unconstrained fear for the future, that's the issue I think he has to get a handle on more than signaling that it's daylight between him and Netanyahu, where I think there I mean, there should be daylight between him and Netanyahu because I think that Netanyahu is a fairly Trumpian and self serving character at this point.

You know, I say he's he is somebody who is at least in part culpable for the problem Israel finds itself in. The full conversation with Sam Harris will be available on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the David Pakman show, where we talk about artificial intelligence and so many more things. We'll go to a quick break on the podcast, youtube.com slash the David Pakman show for the full interview. You may remember a few years ago, the show got hacked and several thousand dollars were

stolen. We never got it back. But now I have a lot more peace of mind because we use aura. Our sponsor aura is the all in one tool to protect your online and financial accounts. Aura alerts you any time your personal info is found on the dark web or in data breaches could be social security number logins, financial accounts. You will get very fast alerts. If a criminal does something like try to open up a bank account in your name, take out credit in your name,

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We know that Trump is a billionaire. Probably. We know Trump doesn't have four or five, $6 billion in net worth. It's lower, but whatever his net worth is, we know that a bunch of that is tied up in properties. It's tied up in licensing. It's tied up in the value of his brand. How much

actual cash does this guy have? Well, we're very soon going to be up against that because it seems he may soon have none. This is exactly what we suspected. Bloomberg reports Trump cash stockpile at risk from four hundred and fifty million dollar dual verdicts. And the article explains all of Trump's cash may soon be gone. Trump Friday was ordered by a jury to pay 83.3 million to Eugene Carroll. On top of that, we expect a verdict this week in New York civil fraud trial that seeks the return of $370 million in quote illegal profits that Trump allegedly made by lying to banks about his wealth in order to get better terms on loans. In a deposition last year, Trump said he has substantially in excess of 400 million dollars.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index says his liquid assets are about 600 million. But liquid can mean not just cash in a savings account. It can mean other things that are slightly less liquid than that. The prospect of being hit with damages totaling 450 million points to a potential for a cash problem here. Obviously, the timing would be a disaster as well. So there's a couple of different things going on here. First of all, we've been talking about what is the collectability of the eighty three point three million? How long can Trump delay having to pay out anything by appealing? That's a fair question and one question we don't have an answer to yet. With the fraud trial, the mechanisms are different question we don't have an answer to yet with the fraud trial, the mechanisms

are different and we don't yet know exactly how long Donald Trump may be able to delay paying anything out there. But if you look at the sum total of Donald Trump's statements and what's known about his businesses and personal finances, he may soon have a debt in terms of these payments that could be anywhere from 80 to 100 percent of all the cash that he has. Now you know, Trump and I know Trump and we know one of the things he would love to do is use other people's money to solve this problem and other people's money. When you're running a presidential campaign means campaign donations. We are already starting to see authorities move to try to prevent Donald Trump from being able to use campaign donations to pay off these debts, if indeed it's what he's going

to try to do. So it is early in this story. We need to find out what that total will be from the fraud trial. But we could be talking close to half a billion dollars here that Donald Trump will soon. Oh, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy, could it? We have some disturbing new video from a focus group done with MAGA people, Trump supporters. It was done by ABC's Martha Raddatz. And I don't want to you know, the it is so demoralizing to see these videos that I don't want to play 10 minutes of video for you. I'm just going to play one. And the special thing about this one video is that it really sums up MAGA.

It really sums up the entirety of what we are up against right now. Here is a Trump supporter saying Trump hug the flag. That's it. Trump hug the flag. And as a result, this Trump supporter unconditionally supports Donald Trump. Listen and weep. Watch and cry. So here's this guy coming down the escalator, a rich guy married three times, pretty foul mouth. What was it and what is it about him? Has he made mistakes? Oh, my goodness. Yes. But I do believe that his heart's in the right place for me. How many how many presidents, how many politicians have come out on stage and hug the American flag? That really means something to me. You know, we sometimes see these brazen acts of political cynicism, Trump hugging a flag.

Trump claiming to be religious when we know he's never been religious, Trump claiming to be vehemently against abortion when we know he's been pro-choice his entire life. And we meaning how however you define we we look at this and we say, who could fall for this? Are there really people out there whose brains are so filled with mayonnaise that they could see a guy who's so obviously not religious and believe he's religious because he says I'm religious or a guy who's so obviously not against abortion and say he's such a strong defender of culture of life or who's so obviously not patriotic, but he hugged the flag. Nobody would fall for this stuff, would they?

And then we see this guy right here. And we're reminded of the fact that the reason Republicans do this stuff, the reason Trump did this stuff is because it does work civilly liable of rape. Ninety one felonies regularly makes fun of everyone, mocks disabled people. He's a fraud businessman, but he hugged the flag and I can just tell his heart's in the right place. We have a totally different world out there where something obviously, um, patronizing in a sense.

I mean, it's at the end of the day, it's, it's patron. It should be seen as patronizing when Trump does this stuff. But they see it as endearing. They see it as honest. They see it as genuine. This is truly terrifying stuff. And the only way we get out of this, it's not by convincing people like this guy. It's by making sure enough of us vote that this guy's vote doesn't make a difference. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. Speaking of abortion, here's an interesting question for me about abortion. Hey, David, just curious.

Has your stance on abortion rights changed since you had your daughter? I'm not really sure what they were before, but do you feel like men should have a say so in a woman's decision to have an abortion and if they want to wait later in life to have their children? Just curious. Love your show. Thank you. Bye. Speaker 1 My view on abortion has not really changed at all since having a baby daughter.

I remain steadfast in my belief that abortion should be legal. And I mean, I don't know that I even need to say this. Obviously, no one should be forced to have an abortion. I don't think it should be legal so that I or anyone else should get to go around telling people what to do. If your religion says no abortion, then don't get one. If your moral compass says no abortion, then don't get one. But that view shouldn't be imposed on anybody else.

And no, I remain steadfast. My view hasn't changed in terms of who should get to decide. Ultimately, ultimately, it's the mother's body. And and that is where the ultimate bodily autonomy rests. But as a practical matter, I think it's great for mothers to decide with whoever's opinion they value. If it's a significant other parents, relatives, if it's whoever it is, doctors, et cetera. But no, I have only become more steadfast in my support of women's choice. We have a fantastic bonus show for you today. We'll talk about the first human to get a Neuralink brain implant successful, supposedly. What does that even mean? We will see. We will talk about an ex IRS contractor sentenced to five years in prison for leaking Trump's taxes and so much more

when I'm joined by producer Pat on today's bonus show. Get access to the bonus show by signing up at join Pacman dot com coupon code available. Save democracy 24. I'll see you then. I'll be back with a new show tomorrow.