The David Pakman Show - 1/3/23: The Manosphere Scam, 2024 Contenders Are Scary

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

-- On the Show: -- A discussion of the scam that is the movement of Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, Liver King, and others -- Failed Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is in shambles as the actual winner, Katie Hobbs, becomes the Governor of Arizona -- Lying Republican Congressman-elect George Santos is now under criminal investigation in Brazil -- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Ginny Thomas, now says she regrets her completely insane text messages with Mark Meadows about the 2020 election -- The list of possible 2024 Republican contenders is a scary list of extremism and ignorance -- A full list of Donald Trump's foreign bank account is now available thanks to the release of his tax returns -- Donald Trump turns on his own supporters in a Truth Social post blaming Republican candidates who ran on a "no exceptions" abortion policy in 2022 -- Donald Trump appears visibly confused and disheveled at his own New Year's Eve event at Mar-a-Lago in Florida -- Voicemail caller blames David and COVID vaccines for the collapse of NFL player Damar Hamlin during a game -- On the Bonus Show: Kevin McCarthy commits to key concession in fight for speakership, bodies are piling up in China from COVID deaths, many state are raising their minimum wage in 2023, much more... 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code Pakman for FREE blades at https://hensonshaving.com/pakman 💻 Stay protected! Try Aura FREE for 2 weeks: https://aura.com/pakman 🛌 Get up to $350 OFF a Helix Sleep mattress + 2 free pillows at https://helixsleep.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

Speaker 1 welcome to 2023. Hope everybody had a good new year. We're going to start today by talking about the new heroes of many young men. I'm talking about people like, of course, Jordan Peterson, but more recently, Andrew Tate, this guy who goes by the name Liver King and some of the other folks in this universe. You know, many of you emailed me about Andrew Tate being arrested in Europe. I don't really have anything to say about his arrest. It's a law enforcement matter. I don't know if Greta Thunberg's tweet was part of what ultimately got him arrested because of a pizza box indicating where he was.

I don't know about any. I don't have any commentary about any of that. But I do think it's time that I talk a little bit more about the Andrew Tate's plural, right? These figures like Andrew Tate and some of the right wing political commentators are in that group in a particular way. Certainly Jordan Peterson, you know, I'm including liver King in this and some of the, uh, tick tock, uh, uh, uh, workout and supplement type influencers, because what they really are are scamming people, mostly young men. And it is very sad to see. And maybe we can talk about it a little bit and maybe break somebody out of it or at least get somebody to reconsider what they've fallen for.

So let's explain what's going on. These folks, Andrew Tate, Peterson, Liver King, et cetera, they're just a few examples of people who have become popular to make it really simple to simplify why they've become popular. They appeal to young men who feel victimized, sometimes underrepresented in mainstream culture and society, disadvantaged, certainly dissatisfied with either their level of success, their amount of muscle, their physique when it comes to like the liver kings, their job success, their success with women. Do some older men follow these guys? Yeah. Do some women follow these guys? Sure. But if you go to a Jordan Peterson event or you see who follows Andrew Tate or Liver King, it's mostly men and they're mostly

relatively young. Now, there's nothing wrong with that in principle. That's not the point I'm making. There's all sorts of different people whose followers are concentrated among some demographics and not others. That's not the problem. That's the context. These types like the Tate's and the Petersons, et cetera, they offer a message that is a freedom of liberty of men taking control of their lives and fighting back against a culture or society that is putting them down. Everything about culture and society is helping others. It's either helping women or it's helping people who are already wealthy or whatever. Right. But the thing about it is that when you look more closely at the message, you find that the disappointments they address, the grievances they

speak to. These are standard ones in the prototypical self-help discourse, just completely standard, nothing unique about it. And and specifically, many of them are actually tailored to young men. I've said before, Jordan Peterson's advice is almost completely universal. It's been done a thousand times. And that's OK. What Jordan Peterson does is he packages it in a particular way. The personality of Peterson, the demeanor, the stuff surrounding it is somewhat different and unique to a degree.

And so they take those obstacles or those problems. They combine it with their own delusions of grandeur and sense of how powerful they themselves are and also the victimhood framing. We're victims. So are you. I'll teach you to overcome this, this victimization that you're suffering from. Now, they're all a slightly different brand or category. With Jordan Peterson, it's more cultural and societal. I'm going to help you overcome the social and societal and cultural issues that are holding you down. With Andrew Tate, it's more overtly about how to get women and make money in business. And then with Liver King, it's how to

get muscular and live this ancestral primal lifestyle, which is completely absurd, by the way, but not the subject of this particular video. So it's versions of the exact same thing. The really funny thing, or maybe it's the sad thing, or maybe it's the ironic thing is the revolutionary self framing that these guys do. When you listen closely, it almost sounds like Marxist rhetoric, except it's the epitome of grifter capitalism. And I'll explain exactly what I mean by that. When you listen to Peterson or Tate or or Liver King and these others, they sort of talk like they are the Marxist leaders who are going to fire everybody up. They're going to red pill you and you're finally going to overthrow your oppressors,

the capitalists like that. But that's in Marxism, except they are actually the capitalists. They've simply adapted a rhetoric and it's actually working really, really well. Liver King, it's totally overt. The capitalist grift is overt. He's selling supplements., really well. Liver King, it's totally overt. The capitalist grift is overt. He's selling supplements. It's unclear. Liver King even takes his supplements. He previously claimed to eat insane amounts of raw animal organs every day. Some emails that leaked exposed that Liver King doesn't really eat much of those organs at all. It's all a capitalist grift to sell supplements. OK, with Jordan Peterson, it's he sells books and does personal appearances, speaking gigs at which he gets paid. And the language is more about take control of your life. Take control of it. Don't don't let

don't let the leftists oppress you. Don't let those who want to compel speech oppress you. Don't let big tech oppress you or whatever the case may be. And with Andrew Tate, it's you know, he's got his courses, his subscription program where he'll teach you to meet women and make money and this sort of thing. They are packaging almost Marxist revolutionary sounding rhetoric with this. I will give you the red pill. I can show you the reality of reality in this super capitalist grifter situation. Now, this phenomenon is not limited to these three guys by any means. A lot of the self-proclaimed gurus who offer quick fixes, easy solutions to complex problems. It's the same type of thing. They are preying on people who are sometimes desperate, often vulnerable, and they promise them whatever they

need to promise them. They don't really deliver much other than a false and sometimes temporary sense of empowerment. And yet they continue to do really well in our society and culture. People are drawn to them and drawn to the allure of the easy fix. Now, some of them have become more sophisticated. So they tell you, I'm not going to give you an easy fix that they've incorporated. This is there's an iterative process with this stuff where first it's overtly an easy fix. And then you have the second level charlatans who go, listen, I'm not here to offer you an easy fix. It's not a one stop shop, but it's still this sort of very prescribed methodology that is still the idea of the easy fix, which they tell you will

be difficult, but it's still here's the solution. Here's the solution. And at the end of the day, what you have is those who come to you and say, step outside of the bubble. I will tell you the real nature of reality and tell you how to take control of it. They are actually the ones suffering from you staying in a very in a similar bubble to the one they claim to be getting you out of. That's really the scam and the grift. And you can apply it to all of these guys and more, you know, to some degree, like Deepak, Deepak Chopra, although he's not as popular now, it's a slightly different version of it. Same type of thing. That's what's going on

with these guys. I would love to prevent people from falling for it in the first place. And if they do, it would be great to get them out. But that's fundamentally what it is that these folks are selling. And remember, they are selling you something. Carrie Lake is in shambles as her opponent, who one has been sworn in as governor. That's right. Lawsuits and fundraising and donations and going to Mar-a-Lago has done nothing to prevent Katie Hobbs from becoming the governor of Arizona. The lawsuits didn't work out. The Associated Press reports Democrat Katie Hobbs takes office as Arizona governor. And why wouldn't she? More people voted for her. And at least in theory, the way our elections work is when you get more votes, you get to win. Katie Hobbs took the oath of office

Monday to become Arizona's 24th governor, first Democrat to hold the office since 2009. She was sworn in during a private ceremony at the state capitol. She formally took over from Republican Doug Ducey. Hobbs was surrounded by her parents, husband and two children. She placed a hand on a family Bible and took the oath of office in the government in the lobby of the governor's office. In one of her first official actions, she signed an executive order setting in motion a process to update the state's policies barring discrimination in state employment and contracting. She's also adding she's adding new protections based on gender identity, political affiliation, military service or veteran status, marital status, culture and

other characteristics. She is the fifth woman to be governor of Arizona. The last Democratic governor of Arizona was Janet Napolitano, who resigned in 2009 to become Barack Obama's Homeland Security Secretary. We remember him. We remember him. So listen, the lawsuits didn't work out and they shouldn't. This is what happens when you get more votes. You win the election. Your opponent loses your you get to play the role to be the person who carries out the duties of the office that you ran for. Now, we have to understand, in a sense, Donald Trump has ruined elections in that losers still think they have a chance to win after someone else democratically wins. If they can file the right lawsuit, convince the right person, get the right slate of electors, whatever the case may be.

Now, Arizona didn't want Carrie Lake. More voters voted for Katie Hobbs. That should be where we move on. So we have to get really serious about the impact of people falsely claiming that elections they lost are rigged and actually should be turned over to them. And Carrie Lake gave a couple of interviews here and she's doing the entire Katie Hobbs didn't really campaign thing. It was like Biden and blah, blah, blah. Kerry has former President Donald Trump said anything about this. If so, what has he said? I've talked to him several times. He was really pleased with our case. He believes we have incredible evidence. He was disappointed with the judges. This this was like a couple of days before

Katie Hobbs was sworn in ruling. And he's happy to see that we're going to continue to appeal it. He's feeling that America has become very corrupt. And I agree with him. We're watching. He's the one who has corrupted it to a great degree. This is Twitter. As the Twitter files kind of unroll a rollout, I should say. And we're seeing how the FBI and other government agencies are controlling our speech, censoring us. The FBI didn't allow me to figure out the difference between Latino and Hispanic. They're patrolling our speech, controlling a narrative to push an agenda, how the FBI was working with social media to propel corrupt Joe Biden's campaign and stop the America First movement by censoring people who are trying to get pertinent information out that would have opened people's eyes to the corruption

of the Biden family. The FBI was behind that. Our own government is trying to control the outcome of an election that is criminal. Katie Hobbs, is she nervous? Is she worried? She should be. I mean, I know that Katie Hobbs knows she didn't win this. I know that Katie Hobbs knows she cheated. The whole state knows it. The whole state knows this is a racket. This is a joke. She's a joke of a candidate. And I don't know how she would even govern because the state is not behind her. And they are losing control of their narrative as more information gets out about how they ran these elections, how corrupt these elections are. She's a complete joke. You know, she's couldn't even articulate her policies.

She didn't show up to debate. She didn't even campaign. She's our own. We are our very own version of Joe Biden here in Arizona. And her name is Katie Hobbs. What I love about that is these right wingers who keep claiming, oh, Biden couldn't have won. He was in his basement. Katie Hobbs couldn't have won. She didn't even campaign or debate. They should really be turning their gaze inward to realize, wow, we keep losing to people who we don't believe are even campaigning. That's the humiliation. Voters still prefer their opponents to them,

even though they as far as their story is concerned, are campaigning while Katie Hobbs is and Joe Biden's in his basement. So bottom line, we got to get really serious about what these false claims of rigged elections do for us. They undermine public trust in the electoral process. They can serve to suppress turnout, which maybe is exactly what they want to do. When you claim an election was rigged without evidence, people start to distrust the process and it makes them less likely to vote, which maybe is exactly what they want. That's been a hallmark of Republican politics for a while. Sometimes we see these claims incite violence and civil unrest. You look at January 6th when you make baseless

allegations that the elections were rigged and you say Democrats took it from you and from you and they threw your vote in the trash. Some of those people get angry and they do violent things. That's what we saw on January 6th. It can damage relationships with foreign countries, not that Republicans care. But if a candidate or a political party says this was rigged and it wasn't, and then at some point they take power, foreign countries can look at that and say, we're not really feeling like we are actually equals here and that you wildly claim you lost elections, that you won elections, you lost. That's not a good basis for cooperation

with foreign countries. And lastly, it just creates division and polarization over lies. It's unfortunate, but understandable that if one person says abortion is murder and someone else says abortion should be legal in most cases, as most Americans do, that would be a possible source of tension. We would hopefully be able to talk through it. But that's a logical source of tension based on real policy differences. If you falsely claim elections were rigged and some people believe it, you're creating that division and polarization with baseless claims and we're polarized and divided enough. I don't think that's necessary. So these are all the risks and the problems and they need to be held accountable

for doing it. Early attempts to sanction Carrie Lake have gone OK, but we really have to do something about it and we probably need to do something about it soon. Next Wednesday, January 11th will be the first town hall of the year, 6 p.m. in the east, 3 p.m. in the west. We will be live and taking your questions about 2023, 2024, whatever. Everybody is welcome to call in. Members will get priority and you can sign up at join Pacman dot com. That'll be streaming live. Remember, Wednesday, January 11th. We'll take a quick break and be back after this. One of our sponsors today is Zippix nicotine toothpicks. Zippix brings you a convenient alternative to smoking and vaping and the vape clouds, the ashtrays, the thing in your lip that people can see. I've seen that around. This is an easier and less messy way to curb the cravings. And you can use Zypix just about anywhere.

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Sometimes I'll put it in a smoothie or shake. It's simple. It's something easy you can do going into the new year, staying properly nourished. Athletic Greens is giving my audience a free year's supply of vitamin D. I take that every day in winter. Plus, you'll get five free travel packs of AG1. Go to athleticgreens.com slash Pacman. That's athleticgreens.com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. We offer a commercial free audio and video stream for our members published hours earlier than the show is otherwise released. And when we do town halls like we're doing next Wednesday, January 11th, our members get a totally separate channel and priority access to talk to me. All of those things and more sign up at join Pacman dot com. You can use the coupon code. Twenty four starts now because it really does, even though I know it's just the start of 2023. This 2024 election is rapidly, rapidly getting underway.

We'll talk about that a little bit later. We don't yet know exactly what will happen today when it comes to the swearing in of lying Republican congressman elect George Santos. But it is now not only U.S. criminal investigation that Santos is under. Having now found out where he is, Brazil has restarted its criminal investigation of the very same George Santos. This is unbelievable. The new or not unbelievable, as we've learned about this guy. The New York Times reports Brazilian authorities will revive a fraud case against George Santos. A 2008 court case had been suspended because Brazilian law enforcement couldn't find Santos. When he takes a seat, he will do so under the shadow of active investigations

by federal and local prosecutors. But an older criminal case may be more pressing. This stems from a 2008 incident involving a stolen checkbook, just like a pedestrian alleged criminal is this guy. And the case had been suspended for the better part of a decade, writes The New York Times, because the police couldn't find him. Spokeswoman for the Rio prosecutor's office said that with Santos's whereabouts identified, a formal request will be made to

the DOJ to notify him of the charges, a necessary step step after which the case will proceed with or without him. The criminal case in Brazil was first disclosed to The New York Times in a New York Times investigation that uncovered broad discrepancies in his resume. I love that term. There were discrepancies. What is it he is accused of doing in Brazil? It's the following. A month before his 20th birthday, Santos entered a small clothing store in the Brazilian city of Niteroi outside of Rio. He spent nearly 700 bucks using a stolen checkbook and a false name. Court records show he admitted the fraud to the shop owner in 2009, writing on Orca, a popular social media website in Brazil, quote, I know I screwed up, but I want to pay. In 2010, he and his mother

told the police he used the stolen checkbook of a man his mother used to work for and made fraudulent purchases. So this this is just a horrible, horrible person. And we don't exactly know what's going to happen today, although he almost certainly will be seated. And you may even know about that by the time today's show goes live. But we now have a situation where the Brazilian government conveniently knows exactly where to find him. This is what Kevin McCarthy gets or whoever. Right. For refusing to expel this clown and say, you know what? Too much dishonesty, too concerning, too disturbing what he did.

Now, Republicans are going to have to deal with or stonewall and pretend it's not going on. What's going on with George Santos? And it is quite a humiliating cloud. Now, will they care? I don't know. But we're talking about someone with outstanding warrants in another country, essentially, and under criminal investigation in the United States. If we want to be conspiratorial and we never do, except sometimes we speculate, is it possible that Santos made a promise to McCarthy in McCarthy's fight for the speakership, which is as of this moment that I am recording today, not a guarantee. We will know more about that within hours. Is it possible Santos promised to back McCarthy if McCarthy promised not to try to get him kicked out of Congress? It's a question. It's not an assertion that I believe that happened,

but it is certainly a sensible question given the circumstances. We don't yet know whether Kevin McCarthy will have all the votes he needs to be speaker. And the question of loyalty between these two afterwards seems very, very uncertain. The other aspect to this is there are increasingly questions about the large amounts of money funneled through the Santos campaign that suggested that he maybe had a source of funds that was unclear. It didn't really line up with his fake claims about where he used to work. I don't know. But once we now know, although this is petty in a sense, he was 19 years old in Brazil talking about seven hundred dollars. He clearly is willing to get up to some hijinks. And if he was willing to do this at age 19, what is it he may have been willing to do

over the last year or two with regard to the seven hundred thousand dollars that now is a question mark in terms of the donation he made to his own campaign. A couple of people emailed me and said, what about extradition? Is it possible the US would extradite him to Brazil? I don't know. I wasn't able to talk to any lawyers about this. We do have a treaty on extradition that has been ratified by the US and Brazil, signed

in 1961, published in 1964. And I don't know how plausible it really is to think Santos might be extradited to Brazil. But this is the epitome of the Republican Party in 2023. Grifters, alleged criminals and people who are going to spend the next two years starting today trying to impeach Joe Biden, trying to investigate Hunter Biden. It starts today. And we we'd really better be ready to know how to deal with it. It's not clear to me that the Democratic Party is actually prepared. Ginny Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, now says that she regrets all of those texts about the 2020 election. We're going to look at her latest claims, but I think it's important to remind you, Ginny Thomas really is like

Q and on level out of her mind. I want to remind you of a text message that Ginny Thomas again, remember the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who had issues come before him related to the 2020 election. Ginny Thomas texted Mark Meadows once, quote, Biden crime family and ballot fraud co-conspirators, elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship managers, fake stream media reporters are being arrested and detained for ballot fraud right now and over the coming days. And we'll be living in barges off of Guantanamo Bay to face military tribunals for sedition. Folks, that's QAnon level insane. And with with this barges off of Gitmo

thing, I always go back to. If they're on a barge, why does it have to be off the coast of Gitmo? And if it's near Gitmo, why does it have to be on a barge? Why wouldn't they just be there? Of course, remember, this wasn't happening. Factually, it wasn't happening. There were no Biden crime family co-conspirators being arrested and detained. They didn't put him on a barge. They didn't put him on a cruise ship. They didn't put him on a dinghy. They I mean, maybe incidentally, some of them were on boats at some point in time. This quite literally didn't happen. This is just one example of how bonkers this woman is. OK, she now says she regrets it.

New report, Yahoo News, just a couple of days before New Year's. Ginny Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, told the January 6th committee she regretted the text messages and emails she sent in the aftermath of the 2020 election to Mark Meadows, Trump's former Trump's then chief of staff. According to a new newly released transcript of her September interview with the committee, Thomas said she regretted the fact that the messages became public. Now, that's very different. I apologize because what I said was wrong. I apologize if anyone was offended. Well, those are two very different things.

Thomas told congressional investigators, quote, I don't know how many of you would want your texts to become public on the front page of The Washington Post. Certainly, I didn't want my emotional texts to a friend released and made available. Remember that in the messages, Ginny Thomas urged Meadows to make sure Trump did not concede to Biden and parroted many of the falsehoods and conspiracy theories that were spreading. Among the more fringe claims pushed by Thomas was the baseless theory among QAnon that Trump watermarked mail-in ballots to track fraud and a claim circulated on right wing websites that in Thomas's retelling, as I told you,

the Biden crime family is being sent to barges off the coast of Gitmo. This is truly cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. And my concern is people are allowed to be crazy. That's not new. People are allowed to be unhinged conspiracy theorists. We have tens of millions of them in the United States. Many of them voted for Trump in 2020. The issue is the proximity to Clarence Thomas, who was involved in adjudicating elements related to that election. And I guess we're meant to believe that Ginny Thomas and Clarence Thomas never talked about this. She believed Biden crime family conspirators were on barges, but she just never mentions it to Clarence Thomas. That is very difficult to believe. And so, of course, the concern is really Clarence Thomas and what is one

of the most radical right Supreme Courts and arguably one of the most partisan Supreme Courts. Oh, I know they're nonpartisan. They simply look at the law and they relate that to the facts and they render a completely unbiased political opinion, a legal opinion. Obviously, we know that doesn't that's not the case. That's really the concern. And that appears to be beyond the purview of what was the January 6th committee, which, remember, is done because a new Congress is sworn in today. Scary that she's that nuts, but also scary that she is that close to one of the most powerful nine justices in the United States who heard cases related to that very election. We'll have more on these text messages on our Instagram, which you can find at David

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devices. You can restrict apps or manage screen time, set focus time, make sure they're doing homework instead of binging on YouTube. You can try Aura free for 14 days at aura.com slash Pacman. Use the free trial to see if your email password are already out there, you may be surprised. That's a URA dot com slash Pacman to try or a free for 14 days. The link is in the podcast notes. I want to talk about 2024 and 2024 is possible Republican contenders. I'm not talking about Donald Trump here. Donald Trump is running, at least for now, unless he drops out. I'm talking about the other possible contenders and I'm not talking about Donald Trump here. Donald Trump is running, at least for now, unless he drops out. I'm talking about the other possible contenders and Fox Business and actually

Fox News in general has regularly been putting up images like the one we're putting up now. This one is called possible Republican candidates in twenty twenty four. And indeed, Donald Trump isn't on that list because Trump is not a possible candidate. He is a candidate. The folks listed include former Vice President Mike Pence, current Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, Larry Hogan, Asa Hutchinson, Senator Tim Scott, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley and Chris Christie. And what's really interesting about this list is that it's a really scary list. And I thought, let's just talk a little bit about the people that

are sort of considered contenders to be Republican presidential nominee, at least hypothetically, and think through how extreme the party has gotten at the end of the segment. I'll tell you who would be my choice if I wanted to to to limit damage to the country? And I'll tell you in a moment. You've got Mike Pence, Mike Pence, wildly against abortion, skeptical about climate change, has a history of opposing LGBT rights, wants to build that wall with Mexico, has been against Obamacare, never mind stronger health care programs than Obamacare, seems very interested in religion, more and more officially playing a role in civil government and also just on a personal level is kind of a kind of a moron in the sense that even though Trump supporters were calling for him to be hanged, he still doesn't totally denounce Trump, although he kind of has.

And he said, I think we'll have better candidates or whatever. It's just a guy who is both spineless and has some of the worst political views. That's one alternative to Trump for the Republican Party. OK, it's pretty bad. Then you've got Ron DeSantis. Ron DeSantis, whose record as Florida governor, is one of regularly signing into law bills that restrict abortion in Florida, loves restricting abortion, regularly weakens gun laws in Florida at every opportunity, supported repealing the Affordable Care Act, has a horrible environmental record in Florida,

loves fossil fuels, opportunities to use more fossil fuels and make it easier to use fossil fuels. DeSantis loves it. And in addition to that, DeSantis is arguably more competent than Trump and as a result could be extraordinarily more dangerous if he became the president of the United States. Then you've got arguably one of the slightly less extreme people on the list, Larry Hogan. But you look at his record and it's horrifying against abortion, as most of these people are against the Affordable Care Act, tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, supports the oil and gas industry backwards, just totally backwards. And we're supposed to see him as less extreme to pick a senator, Tim Scott from South Carolina.

Tim Scott, against abortion, wants to restrict access to abortion, is against any gun safety regulations, supports every tax cut that's proposed, skeptical about climate science, even though he doesn't actually know anything about it. So I could go on and on and on. It's an insane list of people. Now, if I look at the list and you said to me, David, and this is something that probably would bring tears to your eyes if you came to me and said, David, it's going to be one of the people on this list. Tears. If you knew. It was going to be one of these people who defeat the Democrat.

Who would you choose? To me, it seems clear that it's Chris Christie. And I'm glad to hear from other people and see your opinions. But when I look at this list, Pence, DeSantis, Youngkin, Hogan, Hutchinson, Scott Pompeo, Haley Christie, and then Trump, who has already declared to me, it's Chris Christie. Chris Christie is a smart guy in a way that a lot of these other people aren't maybe DeSantis. But but, you know, like Pence and Young, Christie is a smart guy, former prosecutor, more moderate socially to some degree because of his experience as governor. And a northeastern governor understands compromise and working across the aisle in a way that

some of these other people do. Now, I know people will write to me and say, David Christie's insane. What are you talking about? Remember, it's if one of these people was going to be the next president. I think I'm choosing Chris Christie and I'm interested to hear from others. But it's shaping up to be a pretty scary list now, fortunately or unfortunately, I don't know, you know, names like Don Jr. are sometimes thrown around. They're not showing up on this list, at least not yet. And I think we should probably be happy about that. I now have the list of Donald Trump's foreign bank accounts, thanks to the release of his taxes. These are at least bank accounts we know he held during the years of the

tax returns being released. Newsweek has published an article about this and it talks about more specifics. But let's start with the list itself. And here it is. In 2016 and 2017, Donald Trump had a bank account in China. We'll talk about that in 2016 and 2017. Donald Trump had a bank account in China. We'll talk about that in 2016 and 2017. Donald Trump had a bank account in Ireland, a typical place for reducing reducing corporate tax liability utilized by many companies, including Alphabet, the parent company of Google in 2016, 17, 18 and 2020. Donald Trump had a bank account in the United Kingdom. And in 2016, Donald Trump had an account in the Caribbean nation of St. Martin, a popular but not the most popular place for offshoring money for the purposes of tax avoidance. Now, you might say, David, sir, he's a businessman.

He has accounts. What's the big deal? There's a lot of a lot of question marks around some of these things. Now, generally, when a president has bank accounts in another country, there are a number of questions that we would ask. Now, this is for a normal person. When you have someone as corrupt and poorly intentioned to Trump, there's other factors which we will get to. But in general, president with foreign bank accounts, conflicts of interest. OK, U.S. president has bank accounts in other countries. There may be financial interests that conflict with the interests of the United States. Just obvious. You know, all these anti-Semitic right wingers want to talk about, oh, conflict. You might have dual citizenship with Israel, not me, but like some American Jews maybe

have dual citizenship with Israel. But they don't want to talk about this conflict of interest money in other countries. This could affect decision making. It could lead to actions that are not necessarily in the best interest of the country to we've talked about it before with Trump vulnerability to foreign influence. U.S. president has foreign bank accounts. They could be vulnerable to influence or coercion from other countries, and it could put the president in a position where they might make a decision based on the interests of foreign entities or of Trump's interest in those other countries

than what's in the best interest of the United States. Three, lack of transparency, because remember, Trump worked for years to hide this information. U.S. president foreign bank accounts can be difficult for the public and for Congress to know what are their financial interests. And that can lead to suspicion and mistrust and subterfuge legal issues. U.S. president having bank accounts in other countries, questions as to are they complying with tax law? Are they complying with disclosure requirements, et cetera? And then, of course, there's perception. However, for Trump, that's not a big deal because the people considering or in the universe of those who would vote for him don't really seem to care what he does.

Now, a few things to remember about the China bank account specifically, the Ivanka Trump brand. Yeah, they got a bunch of trademarks approved very quickly in China while Trump was president. Does that have any connection to the China bank account? We don't know. Again, it's speculative, but these are the sorts of questions that come up when we find out Trump has a bank account in China. Trump's media group received funding from a Chinese firm called DWAC. That's a Chinese firm that lists Chinese companies on American stock markets. They are a target of SEC investigations. They have offices in Wuhan. I'm not conspiratorial, but if you want to start asking questions about Trump in China rather than Fauci in China, we certainly have a lot of fodder

for that that is only bolstered by Trump having a bank account there. Trump owes money to the Chinese government controlled Bank of China. There's all these different things. So does this definitively prove any crime or wrongdoing? No, I guess not. But it continues to be exactly the type of information that Trump sought to hide, worked really hard, exhausted every option to try to hide the fact that he had tried to hide his taxes, period. And of course, contained within that is all of this information that we're learning. And we don't really have answers to any of the questions that we're asking. So is it a surprise that Trump had these accounts? It is not. Could it be? Well, you know,

UK bank account, he has business in the UK. Sure. Could be. But every single one of these really should be investigated. And when you talk one, I think back to Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter's family had that peanut farm in Georgia. And he I don't remember if it was that he sold his steak or exactly what Jimmy Carter did. But even to avoid the possible appearance of some kind of bias, Jimmy Carter took steps on that. Think about how many decades and orders of magnitude we are removed from that type of accountability and desire to maintain credibility. It's it's truly horrifying. We'll continue to learn more as a result of the tax returns that were released. Of course, there are only some elements of them are are redacted as

well. So there's even more to learn. But the more we do learn, the worse and worse it looks. One of our sponsors is Helix Sleep. I have been sleeping on a Helix mattress for years, and I always recommend it to friends. You'd simply take this Helix sleep quiz. It asks you about your body type, your sleep position, whether you have back pain, and then Helix will match you up with the mattress that is personalized to your needs and they ship it to you for free. Another reason I went with Helix is that unlike a lot of mattress companies out there, every single Helix mattress is made in the USA by a skilled production team, which means when you buy a Helix mattress, you are supporting great jobs. I'm not the only one who loves Helix. Helix was recently awarded number one mattress by both GQ and Wired magazine.

Every Helix mattress comes with a 10 or 15 year warranty. You can try it 100 nights and send it back for a full refund if you need to support the David Pakman show by getting your next mattress from Helix sleep and you'll get up to three hundred and fifty dollars off any mattress plus two free pillows when you go to Helix Sleep dot com slash Pacman. That's H.E.L.I.X. S.L.E.P. dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Donald Trump appears to turn on his own anti abortion supporters in a truth central post troth central or truth social or however you want to call it. Truth central. Yeah, that thing. The thing that's failing where he is now blaming Republicans for taking too extreme a position on the issue of abortion.

Now what's really, really interesting about this is that number one, it's enraging many Trump supporters. Number two, there's a kernel of truth to it. But number three, it misses the really big picture of why a lot of these Republicans lost, which is that they were absolutely terrible, terrible candidates. So let's talk about it. Newsweek reporting Donald Trump turns on his own supporters over abortion. Donald Trump has blamed the Republican Party's disappointing

midterm performances on the abortion issue rather than the failure of his endorsed candidates. So the truth central post is as follows, quote, This is a beautiful New Year's message from Trump. Quote, It wasn't my fault that the Republicans didn't live up to expectations in the midterms. I was two thirty three and twenty. That's his endorsement record. It was the abortion issue poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on no exceptions, even in the case of capital R rape, capital I incest or capital L life of the mother that lost large numbers of capital V voters. Also, the people that push so hard, hard for decades against abortion,

got their wish from the U.S. Supreme Court and just plain disappeared, not to be seen again. Plus Mitch stupid dollars. I think that's something about Mitch McConnell deploying money in what Trump considers to be a stupid way. So there's a couple of interesting things here. First of all, I just want to remind you, when Trump touts that endorsement record of two thirty three and twenty, remember, many of us could have that endorsement record. And what I mean by that is Trump mostly endorsed incumbents, including some who were running essentially unopposed in heavy red districts. He endorsed the primary winners in red districts. It's not difficult to rack up a lot of wins. The important thing is that the critical races that would have made a difference, the contested

races, Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and Mastriano and Tudor Dixon, Trump failed on those. And those are actually the ones that really mattered. But more importantly, Trump says the problem here was the abortion issue. So there's a couple of things here. First of all, is it true that running against abortion with no exceptions is a bad strategy for Republicans? Yes, that is absolutely true. There's limited appeal because it's increasingly an unpopular opinion.

More Americans than at any point in the Roe v. Wade era believe that abortion should be usually legal in most circumstances. So taking a position of no abortion, no exceptions, even in the cases Trump mentions, it is a bad idea. It's an inflexible position because you can't end up compromising unless you want to look like someone who's just putting their finger to the wind when you say just no abortion, no exceptions. You're starting from a point of lack of flexibility. It doesn't match public opinion. Sometimes focusing too much on a single

issue can hurt you because people see you as, oh, that's the abortion guy or gal. You're not really going to deal with this thing that's important to me or that other issue or education or health care or whatever the case may be. So it is accurate that a no exceptions position on abortion is increasingly out of step with public opinion, and it doesn't make sense. But but but this is also part of Trump never taking responsibility for anything and being the victim. It wasn't my fault. He starts his troth central post by saying they took these positions. Well, you endorsed them, didn't you? And the reality is they picked terrible candidates. Look at some of the people they selected. Carrie Lake, a conspiracy theorist

who doesn't know anything about anything. And she almost won, by the way. Blake Masters for Senate in Arizona, maybe one of the worst candidates in the last 20 years. Mehmet Oz, a quack TV doctor who it's not even clear really lived in Pennsylvania to fight against John Fetterman. Doug Mastriano, almost literally a January 6th rioter to run against Josh Shapiro, uncontroversial, good candidate, the right opinions on so many so many issues. Tudor Dixon, Herschel Walker, who can barely even speak. So was it the abortion issue or was it really an issue of poor candidates? And I think we know the truth. Abortion is important. But the decision by the Supreme Court was a little too early to affect the 2022 races as much as maybe some of us on the

left hoped. And some of the Republicans, with that no exceptions view on abortion, did win. It was the terrible candidates that lost. Now, in terms of the impact on Trump supporters of Trump saying this, the super pro lifers are not happy. And it's sort of beyond the scope of this segment to talk in more detail about that. But they there are some extreme the people for whom abortion is the most important issue and they hate it and want no exceptions are very, very unhappy with what Donald Trump is saying. We'll see if it affects his 2024 candidacy, which is not exactly off to a brilliant start.

Let's now take a quick look at this humiliating event that Donald Trump did on New Year's Eve. Donald Trump had a New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago on New Year's Eve. He announced that he would be available to the media. Barely any media showed up and Trump dodged questions and generally seemed extremely confused. We're going to look at a couple of clips just to ring in the new year together. Trump was asked a question about a national abortion ban. He ignores it, calls on a different reporter. Trump looks disoriented. Melania looks miserable.

It's all just crazy. So he's asked, would you support a national abortion ban? He doesn't like the question. He just calls on someone else. Let's let's watch it again. Mr. President, the DOJ and FBI have weaponized against you. Will you commit to going after them in your second term? This is a question he likes. I think it's a disgrace what's happened with the FBI and with the weaponization of justice. There's never been anything like this. And this is great. And thank you for that question. That question he appreciates. At another moment, he's asked about Ron DeSantis and then he talks about the border of Ukraine and Russia. It doesn't make any sense what he's

saying. It's just totally confused, garbled speech. I do apologize also because the audio isn't great on this segment, but I think we'll be able to hear it. He's just ignore the few questions he's getting half of them. He doesn't like So this is a section from before. The DOJ and FBI have weaponized against you. Will you commit to going after them in your second term? I think it's a disgrace what's happened with the FBI and with the weaponization of justice. There's never been anything like this and it is disgraceful. And thank you for that question. All right.

Anyway, as you can see, almost no media showed up. You see a microphone from away and there and just really, really failing. And then inside the party, Donald Trump offered the following inspirational and uplifting message going into the new year. We're watching a war raging. We're watching nuclear weapons talked about all the time. We're watching inflation going through the roof. All of these things that we're watching and so unnecessary and so sad to see.

Now we have airports where people can't fly. The only good thing is, frankly, from this standpoint, we needed some seats. So we lost about 50. We sold about 200 extra. So but it's sad when people can't come from New York to Florida. We're like a third world country. There you go. An inspirational message of peace and love. We are like a third world country and people can't fly anymore. So listen, it's going we're sort of poking fun at this because it's ridiculous and hilarious and pathetic. But I have no idea what to expect for 2023. If you came to me and you said, sir, by the end of 2023, will Trump even still be a candidate for the Republican nomination?

I don't know where I would bet on an even money bet. I don't know if I take the bet that Trump will still be a candidate by the end of this year or that he will not. Very difficult to say. Things are odd. Things are strange. And we're just getting started. I want to play a voicemail for you today. Remember, we have a voicemail number

two one nine two David P. That will show you how quickly bad information spreads. Yesterday, during an NFL football game, an NFL player named DeMar Hamlin collapsed after taking a hit. He was on defense, seemed to take a hit sort of to the left chest and stood up and then collapsed. The game was called off. The latest news that I have as of this particular moment, and I should make sure that it's accurate as of right now, he is in critical condition and we don't know exactly what his prognosis is. DeMar Hamlin, we're hoping for the best. Immediately, there's speculation on Twitter that he collapsed and died because of the covid vaccine.

And I didn't think this would reach our audience. But Eric from Mass right away called in about it. Take a listen to this. Hey, David, you believe yet? It's Eric from Mass. Guy just died on the field for the vaccine. Now, he didn't die. He's alive and we're hoping he will survive. He did not die, but it was not from the vaccine. Rest in peace. Guy just died on the field for the vaccine and then it's all again. Never happened before. Has never happened.

You look like a ghost since you've been sick. Speaker 1 Yeah, actually, what's funny is we had an issue with our white balance last week. I did look like a ghost, but it had nothing to do with COVID. We fixed the issue. Speaker 2 I've never seen somebody so white my life. And you did this. You told people to get it, and you'll be held accountable for that.

I mean, I don't know if it'll be through the law, but morally, you're going to have to live with the fact that you told people to get poisoned. I mean, but it probably don't matter to you, so whatever. But I'm just thinking I'd let you know. Tamar Hamlin, dead that at 24 Monday night football collapse and died on the field from the vaccine. Rest in peace. Yeah.

So again, he's he's alive. You know, the sad thing about this is we have so much information. So first of all, we don't know DeMar Hamlin's vaccination status, first of all. So even the assumption that he's vaccinated is one that is not based in fact. But of course, this is the new thing. Conspiracies tend to shift over time. And the new thing now is this the phrase they're using is suddenly died. And the story that's being told is young people suddenly dying from the covid vaccine, even though there is not actually evidence of that. And for a lot of people, they don't care that there's no evidence of it. And I think Eric from Mass falls under that category. Now,

there's going to be a lot of time to figure out exactly what happened with the Mar Hamlin. But the best explanations that are speculative, of course, that I've seen so far are that when you get hit, I forget the name of the condition, but when you get hit hard in the left chest, blunt force to the left chest, if that hit happens coinciding with the particular moment in the heart rhythm. It can cause exactly this and it can be very serious. We don't yet know. The number one concern right now is Damar Hamlin's health. But when we have better explanations, when people go to vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, even in the absence of evidence that Hamlin was vaccinated, I hope that nobody in my audience is going to fall for that type of thing. And we saw

some of it on Twitter. So I saw some tweets sent to me. And here's a voicemail from Eric from Mass. This is what happened is really scary. But the speed with which baseless disinformation spreads is also really, really scary when all you have is a hammer. In this case, the hammer is vaccines are bad. Everything looks like a nail. My my camera white balance problem last week was because I got a covid vaccine rather than my camera was doing something weird. Football player collapses. That was the vaccine. Do we even know he was vaccinated? Well, we don't. But it must have been the vaccine. Don't fall for this stuff. We've got a great bonus show for you today. We're going to talk about the fight for the speakership among Republicans and votes coming

soon. We will know who the speaker will be very soon. We are going to try to figure out what is happening in China with covid. There are reports of bodies piling up, crematoria overwhelmed. It's crazy what's going on. And we're going to talk about states raising their minimum wages in 2023. Where can workers expect higher pay? Where are the wages going even higher in 2024? We have the list. We will talk about it. We will tell you all of those stories and more when I am joined by producer Pat from Florida on the bonus show. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money, sir. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad, sir. Yes, sir. All of that and more on the bonus show. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. And remember that next Wednesday, January 11th at six Eastern, we are doing the next David Pakman show town hall. It will be streaming live. So anyone who wants to watch it can watch it. Anyone who wants to

participate can participate via discord and our members get priority access via discord. So sign up at join pacman.com coupon code 24 starts now. It's 2023 and it is great to be back.