The David Pakman Show - 1/9/23: Trump Riots Hit Brazil, Record Number Employed in US

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

-- On the Show: -- The Brazilian version of the Trump riots hit Brazil as supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro riot in demand of his reinstatement, as mass arrests take place -- Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is hanging out in Florida, visiting KFC and Publix, as his supporters riot in demand of his reinstatement in Brazil -- Donald Trump's cronies' fingerprints are all over the pro-Bolsonaro insurrection in Brazil, and a review of the things said by Steve Bannon, Mike Lindell, and others serve as a stark reminder -- A record number of Americans are employed under Joe Biden as his approval rating continues to climb -- The disastrous and humiliating aftermath of the House Speaker fiasco which ultimately led to the election of Republican Congressman Kevin McCarthy as speaker -- A confused Donald Trump claims that Joe Biden convinced Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, among other absurdities, during a recent speech at Mar-a-Lago -- Radical Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene appears to abandon Q-Anon as she tries to rebrand herself now that Republicans control the House of Representatives -- MAGA and conspiracy theorists turn on Marjorie Taylor Greene as she appears to be distancing herself from the radical elements of MAGA that she has been a part of until now -- Voicemail caller named Karen is upset that her dogs are triggered by David bumping his microphone during the show -- On the Bonus Show: David talks about his upcoming appearances, and much more... 👍 Get 10% off the Füm Journey Pack with code PAKMAN at https://tryfum.com 🥄 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off Magic Spoon at https://magicspoon.com/pakman ⚠️ Use code PAKMAN for a free supply of BlueChew at https://go.bluechew.com/david-pakman 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 🧻 Reel Paper: Code PAKMAN for 30% OFF + free shipping at https://reelpaper.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 Speaker 1 Well, the Trump riots have hit Brazil as insurrectionists are committing very similar sorts of acts is what we saw on January 6, 2021 in the United States, demanding the return of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is in Florida having chicken at KFC and walking around a Publix supermarket. I know, I know we are going to get to all of it. But when we say the actions of Trump and his cronies following the 2020 election, in part due to the lack of consequences that they suffered, will encourage and will normalize the same type of behavior in other places. And that is exactly what we are now seeing in Brazil. The Associated

Press reports pro Bolsonaro rioters storm Brazil's top government offices. We have incredible video of all sorts. And it looks like January 6th. It is a version of January 6th, which we will get to AP reporting supporters of former Brazilian President Bolsonaro, who refused to accept his election defeat, stormed Congress. You could just replace Trump and Trump supporters there. The Supreme Court and the presidential palace on Sunday, a week after the inauguration of his leftist rival, President Lula, thousands of demonstrators bypassed security barricades, climbed on roofs, smashed windows and invaded all three buildings, which were believed to be largely vacant on the

weekend. Some of the demonstrators called for a military intervention. Wow. Where we have. Have we heard that before to either restore the far right Bolsonaro to power or oust Lula from the presidency? Hours went by before control of the buildings on Brasilia's vast three powers square was reestablished with hundreds of the participants arrested. And we're going to talk about that as well. In a news conference from Sao Paulo, Lula accused Bolsonaro of encouraging the uprising by those he termed fascist fanatics. And he read a freshly signed decree for the federal government to take control of security in the federal district, saying, quote,

there is no precedent for what they did. And these people need to be punished. Let's take a look at some of the stunning, stunning video. Here is one in which you will see. And let's see if I can get the volume right. We'll keep the volume lower in this one. You see folks who have gotten through the police barricade. You quite literally see the fencing there down on the ground, invaded the Congress ramp. They threatened to occupy the chamber and the Senate, which they subsequently did. They subsequently did these videos, different setting, different weather, that's for sure. But looking very, very much like January 6th here in the United States in another video continuing to look just like what we saw on January 6th, the Bolsonaristas invaded the floor of the federal Senate and they're wearing different clothes.

You don't see the QAnon shaman, but you see a very, very similar looking event as to what we saw on January 6th in the House of Representatives. Yeah, the imagery as we continue looking here is more imagery where you will see. And I'm trying to get the audio mix just right so you can hear me. This looks like January 6th. They have flags. They approach police. They knock down the barriers. In this case, police take out some kind of an irritant spray, it appears. But the riders overwhelm the police in the sense that they break the barrier and they continue moving on into the buildings. Where have we seen this before? I mean, it is just another example of the same thing again. Now, it is really important to understand not only how can I say

this in a general sense, we know where they got this idea. We know where they got this idea because we saw it here on January 6, 2021. It's been two years and three days since that took place. But it's also important to understand that Bannon, Steve Bannon and other Trump aides were advising Jair Bolsonaro in November about how to proceed. This is an article I have on the screen from the Washington Post. The date is November 23rd, and we're going to deal with this in more detail a little bit later. Trump aids Bannon Miller advising the Bolsonaros on next steps. Next steps. What do you mean? Well, you know, instigate a riot, an insurrection. Some allies and advisers, writes the article, want the Brazilian president to contest his election loss to Lula. Others want a global fight over free speech. And you can read this

and we're going to look at it a little bit more later. So I won't delve into it that much right now. But this is the playbook. They helped them develop the playbook. And we should not be surprised when the same inputs give you very similar outputs. Now, what is necessary here is for the military to say that they unconditionally support Lula as the legally elected president. And you all know, I absolutely despise Bolsonaro and I'm not a big fan of Lula. I've told you my issues with Lula before. I think Lula is better than Bolsonaro. But that's a separate question from who is the legally elected president and the legally elected president is Lula. So the military and maybe by the time we go to air with this, it will have

happened. I don't know if it has. As of right now, it hasn't happened, which is why I'm saying it. The military should say Lula is the legal president. Don't come to us for any sort of ideas about a coup or help with the insurrection. Lula is the president, period. Now, unfortunately, there are many in the Brazilian military who are very much anti Lula. And when you know that that's the case, until you hear that unconditional statement of support, you wonder whether it's actually coming.

This is in part what happens when the people who tried this here weren't seriously punished. And by that, I mean the instigators and the agitators. I know QAnon shaman and the agitators. I know QAnon shaman got four years or whatever. I get it. But big picture all the way up to Trump, the people who created this environment and stimulated exactly what went down, they have not been punished. So this is what happens. One difference, arguably, that we're already seeing is that the mass arrests have started in Brazil. Now, are they fully capturing all the lawbreakers yet? We don't know. But scores have already been arrested

after they showed up and they did the things that I showed you doing on showed them doing on video. And while they're worse, of course, eventually hundreds of arrests here in the United States, at the immediate time, there was not that show of we're arresting all of you and throwing you all on a bus. And quite literally, that's what's been happening with a lot of these rioters who, quite frankly, are terrorists in Brazil. And so that's a difference. We'll see if we get a statement from the military and we'll see where this ultimately shakes out. Now, in the midst of all this, you might be wondering, David, where is Jair Bolsonaro? Well, he's in Florida eating chicken at KFC and looking around at a Publix. And that is exactly what I want to talk about next. You might be saying, well, Jair Bolsonaro must be right in

there, right? He must be right in there with the insurrectionists and the terrorists and the rioters saying, I support you and we're going to get this thing back. But that is absolutely not the case. Bolsonaro, and we're quoting The New York Times here, has been holed up thousands of miles away in the U.S. state of Florida. Before departing Brazil, the former president urged his supporters to avoid violence. Jack Nickus wrote this article for The Times. It was updated just a few hours ago when his supporters stormed Brazil's Congress and presidential offices on Sunday to protest what they falsely claim was a stolen election. Jair Bolsonaro was believed to be thousands of miles away, facing various investigations from his time in office.

Bolsonaro flew to Florida in late December with plans to stay for at least a month. He's been in Orlando, living in a rented house owned by a professional mixed martial arts fighter a few miles from Disney World. Bolsonaro has long questioned the reliability of Brazil's election systems without evidence, and he refused to concede unequivocally when he lost in October to President Lula, who took office on January 1. Yet before departing for Florida in the final days of his presidency, Bolsonaro called on his supporters to avoid violence and suggested that they move on. We live in a democracy or we don't, he said. No one wants an adventure. Sunday evening, he criticized the protests, saying on Twitter, peaceful demonstrations are part of democracy,

but destructions and invasions of public buildings like what occurred today were not. He also repudiated President Lula's comments that Bolsonaro bore some responsibility for the riots, saying that those accusations were without proof. There is some really, really wild video of Bolsonaro in Florida. It just it's Kafkaesque. I know it's for the first time in 2023. I'm pulling the term out. It is sort of Kafkaesque. Here is video of Bolsonaro in a Publix just kind of like looking around. checking out the register. And it kind of looks like security is checking out for him, which is interesting. I mean, that seems like an interesting grocery store experience. You're just like, I'd like this. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Right in the cart. And then they

handle it. So so Bolsonaro can just look around. Just kind of pacing aimlessly in a Publix. Waves to the person filming. Yeah, you know. Wow. Did did you know these granola bars have four grams of fiber preserving? This is stuff we don't have these in Brazil, just bizarre. And of course, the bigger questions here are about his legal status in the country. I'm not going to pretend to know the details of Bolsonaro's legal status in the country. There's a few different things that are possibilities. And I don't know that we necessarily know. Commenters in Brazil are saying Bolsonaro is in the U.S. on a diplomatic visa. Now, of course, the diplomatic visa is no longer valid in the sense that he entered on the diplomatic visa in December when he was still president. He's not currently president. Now, the question

starts to be, is he overstaying the visa in a sense, because he was on the diplomatic visa. He's no longer a diplomat. Does that make him an overstayer? It's doubtful that that's classified as an overstaying visa. Visas are usually valid for a certain period of time. And once that time elapses, it starts to become an overstay. If the person hasn't left or renewed the visa or obtained a new visa or immigrated in some different way. We don't actually know how long Bolsonaro is really planning to stay. Now, there are people talking about criminal charges and what happens if Bolsonaro is criminally charged for something. And it's conceivable that that would happen. In that case, I would suggest a package deal, extradite him with George Santos right back to Brazil.

And let's make sure that the legal legal system does does what it's supposed to do. But regardless, there's a lot of speculation as to the legal status and the immigration status. I assure you, the State Department is very much aware of Jair Bolsonaro being in Florida, how he got here and how long he can stay. And I am sure it will all ultimately shake out. But the imagery and I don't even know whether at KFC he was doing crispy strips of the or the bucket of chicken or what that is reporting. I would certainly like to learn more about and whether he thought that the coleslaw had mayo, which apparently it doesn't. Apparently the coleslaw at KFC is completely

vegan, much to the surprise of many. No answers to those questions. But you're sort of hanging around while his supporters are rioting in support of him in in Brazil. So bizarre and wild stuff. And we are going to talk after the break about the fingerprints that are all over this insurrection. And you might not be surprised to hear that many of those fingerprints are the fingerprints of people who worked in and around the Donald Trump White House. So that'll be after the break. Wednesday, January 11th, two days from now is the first David Pakman show town hall of 2023. Everyone is invited. Everyone can participate and talk to me. We will be handling the, uh, the, the platform we will use for you to talk to me is discord. You can find our discord at davidpakman.com

slash discord. If you are a website member, you will get priority access, meaning I'll take more calls from website members than non-members, but everyone is welcome and we're going to take calls from everybody. It will be. And I really want to be clear because people said, what's the date? What's the time? I'm telling you right now, OK, write this down Wednesday, January 11th at 6 p.m. Eastern time, 3 p.m. Pacific time. The event will stream and to call you go to David Pakman dot com slash discord. We will take a quick break and continue with so much of the news from the weekend. diffusive device that uses plants and behavioral science to trade out your negative habit for a positive one. Fume is not a vape. It's a non-electronic device designed to transform your negative habits instead of pods filled with potentially harmful chemicals like a vape.

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are just all over the Brazilian insurrection attempt that is going on. We spoke earlier in the show of the imagery from Brazil over the last 48 hours, which looks just like the imagery from January 6th, 2021 in the United States and Washington, D.C., protesters with flags, different flags. Yes, breaking down police barriers and overwhelming police to get into legislative buildings. In the US, it was mostly the House of Representatives. In Brazil, they were in the Senate, the federal Senate. Extraordinary similarities. And it's important to go back and really understand how this all came to be something that people thought of doing in this particular way at this particular time. When it happened here in the United States,

the organizers, the insiders, the inspirers were not punished in any real way. Oh, I know. QAnon shaman and the people who, you know, broke a window, they were punished. But the people who were fomenting the insurrection at the top level, at least for now, have not been held accountable. We'll see what happens. The January 6th committee, which is now disbanded, has submitted its report. We'll see what Merrick Garland decides about charges. But it's not just, oh, look, they did it in the US. That's something we could do. As I told you in the earlier part of the show, Trump aides Steve Bannon and Jason Miller. Was it Jason Miller or Stephen Miller? That's actually a good question. Jason, it is Jason Miller. OK, Trump aides Stephen Bannon and Jason Miller were advising

the Bolsonaros on what are the next steps. This is an article from November of 2022 in The Washington Post. While tens of thousands of supporters of Bolsonaro camp outside military facilities across Brazil to protest his election loss, members of Bolsonaro's inner circle are meeting with advisers to former President Donald Trump to discuss next steps. Brazilian Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, the president's son, has visited Florida since the October 30th vote, meeting Trump at Mar-a-Lago, strategizing with other political allies by phone. Look at this. He spoke with former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon, who was in Arizona helping Carrie Lake about the power of the pro Bolsonaro protests and potential challenges to

the Brazilian election. Bannon said election results. Bannon said sounds pretty similar. He lunched in South Florida with former Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller, now CEO of the social media company Getter, and discussed online censorship and free speech. Neither Trump nor Eduardo Bolsonaro responded to requests for comment. And then, of course, we have all sorts of interesting videos that we can look at. First, we look at Donald Trump's address to the people of Brazil. This was right before the vote starting to talk with the same language.

It would really be bad for your country if you let Bolsonaro lose. And I just have to say that I'm very proud of your last vote and will be even more proud of your current vote. October 30th. Right. Because you have a chance to elect one of the great people in all of politics and in all of leadership of countries. He's respected by everybody.

Other leaders, I can tell you, including myself, respect him at the highest level. President Bolsonaro, he is doing a fantastic job for your country. He's bringing it back like nobody could. And I just say he has my complete and total endorsement. He's a great man. He loves his country and let him do his job. Brazil is taking a whole new place in the world. You're being respected all over the world because of your president. Now, understand that's the same incorrect

stuff that he would say about himself. The playbook is identical. The world finally respects the United States under me, Donald Trump. No, you look at Gallup polling and other than Russia and Turkey, I believe it was the world respects the U S less than ever under Donald Trump. And similarly, the world has mostly been horrified, had mostly been horrified when President Bolsonaro was indeed president. Don't we? Oh, we lost the video. All right.

Quite a glitch. All right. Well, no problem. You get the gist of it. We then go to November 2nd, November 2nd, when Mike Lindell, also known as Mike Pillow, the CEO and founder of MyPillow, says, hey, I'm actually friends with Eduardo Bolsonaro and my cyber guys have been watching it and it was all rigged. It's the same language here. It's all the same inputs. So you end up with the same output.

Remember, we were watching the Brazil election. Oh, yeah. Cyber guys were watching and they took that. We know that we know of was five point one million votes and through the machines. Remember, everybody over there is Brandon looks for that in Brazil. I'm friends with their president's son, Eduardo Barcinero. He's also Barcinero, by the way. It's the same stuff, right? The machines, my cyber guys, five million votes. It's all wacky. Friend of the station.

He his dad is the president there that day and he they tried to get paper put in where at least the machines would hit a button and it would print out a paper copy so that you could do an audit. That got voted down by the corrupt judges. So the judges over there voted that down. We don't want a paper trail. So they have peer machines, everybody. When I say peer machine, there's no paper. It's just a tap. Boom, boom, boom, boom. So whatever that tells you, whatever programs inside, here's who won. Yep. So it's the exact same stuff that he's been saying here. It's the same playbook, guys. It's all the same. Bannon said the same stuff. Pillow said the same stuff. Trump said the same stuff. It's all the same stuff. We go now from November 2nd to November 20th. At that point, Pillow was ready

to make even bolder claims, which were Brazil's Supreme Court actually rigged the election. He was ready to be more more bold in his claims. These back off on getting paper. So they they they rather than blackmail, corrupt, corrupt threatened whatever they did. Are these convinced some of them, let's say convinced I don't know how they convinced them to. Yeah. And then we got to November 23rd, at which point Stephen Bannon was straight up trying to instigate a coup in Brazil. Look in the streets of Brazil. Look at the great patriots in Brazil that had a lot of danger to themselves have come

forward in the streets of Brazil. And quite frankly, as much as I love the Bolsonaros and Edward, I think is going to speak tomorrow. And there's no better man on this globe than Edward of Bolson father. In Brazil, it's gone beyond the Bolsonaros. This is the people saying, no, you didn't follow the constitution. You use these machines, use the judiciary to shut us down in the media, and we're not going to tolerate it. It's going to be very interesting to see how that plays out. Same in the United States. You know, the people like Kerry Lake are not going to give up. And I use as a warning in the great fight that you guys have in front of you, both for the cultural issues, for the political issues and the economic

issues. Once they start taking and digitizing the elections, once they start going to machines where you can't get paper ballot, you don't have proof of ID, you take it away from the precincts and they start to centralize it in collection centers. That's all done for one reason. That's to consistently steal elections. So it's the same the same bullet points, same talking points. This is the it's fascistic rhetoric. And, you know, that was November 23rd. And listen to Bannon saying it was interesting. Carrie Lake's not going to give up. Carrie Lake's not going to give up. Carrie Lake's not going to give up. And indeed, she has kept going and going and going and going despite the fact that she lost. And that's the idea.

You don't allow the election results to get in the way of you taking power because that's all that matters at the end of the day. It's extraordinarily dangerous. So we're going to move on from the topic of Brazil for today and we'll continue to track what happens. But I think it's important to say that we need to watch very closely. How or if this is handled differently in Brazil than it was in the United States, and we saw the buses, busloads of people getting arrested right away. And that's good. We'll see if the military makes a broader statement about there's nothing here. Lula is the legal president. That's it. We're behind Lula. We're going to track all

of it. We'll see where the differences are. And subsequently, we'll be able to say what the different outcomes are and the impact on the country in the US. We're ripe for another one of these because the instigators have not been punished. We'll see if Brazil handles it in a different way. Hey, guys, I don't know how Joe Biden did this, but there are more people working in the United States today than at any previous time in the history of the country, if you can believe that. Now, this is, of course, very tongue in cheek, but it is also true. If you're new to this show, I really want you to pay special attention to this segment because this is actually I really want to do this the right way. OK, we started seeing headlines late

last week like this one. Record number of Americans employed in December. One hundred fifty nine million two hundred forty four thousand record number of Americans employed in December. Now, this is one of my favorite political footballs. Depending on whether you want to argue the economy is good or the economy is bad for politically partisan reasons, you can very often use phrases like there are more Americans than ever currently working or there are more Americans than ever currently working or there are more Americans than ever currently not working. Or you can go away from the number and talk about the percentage. You can say the labor participation rate is higher than ever or the rate is lower than ever. OK, this is all basically B.S. in a vacuum. So let's really break down what's going on here

in the United States. The population continues to increase. And so if over time there is an average labor participation rate, let's just call it 60 percent. OK, one of the things that will be true is that the number of people working and the number of people not working will both be at record highs. Think through the numbers. It's very simple. In a country of 100 million people with a 60 percent labor participation rate, you would have 60 million people working and 40 million people not working. Great. Time goes by. You get to 200 million people in the population. That 60 percent labor participation right now means, wow, we have 120 million people working. We have a record number

of people working, but we also have 80 million people not working. We have a record number of people not working. Is the economy good or is the economy bad? I don't know. Depends who what what point you want to make or what you want to justify. So it's not actually a great indicator of how the economy is doing. But what's ironic, what's funny, what's interesting is that Republicans love to take either the number of people working or the labor participation rate out of context to make the case that the economy is good or bad. Now, let me show you a couple of different things here. This is a chart of the labor participation rate. As you can see, this goes back before 1950. I'll describe it to you. It's not as high as it's ever been. Right now, the labor participation rate is between 62 and 63 percent in the late 90s, early 2000s.

The labor participation rate was 67 percent. So right now, if you are one of the politically partisan people that wants to say the economy is bad, you go. We are a full five points lower in terms of the labor participation rate than we were 20 years ago. It's terrible right now. OK, that's one perspective. However, if instead of looking at the rate, we look at the number of people working, which is what that headline I showed you says, you would accurately be able to say there are more people than ever working right now. That being said, you would also have to figure out if there are more people than ever not working right now because of the growth of the population. So let me be very real with you. OK, in order to figure out how the economy is doing, you have to look at many factors

and you should be looking at the employment rate. You should be looking at job creation. It's useful to look at stock market performance to a degree, consumer confidence, look at inflation, look at wages, look at export import balance at trade balance. There's a bunch of different things that we would look at. One of the problems with the labor participation rate or the number of people working is how it is composed. So a lot of times right wingers love to say the unemployment rate isn't accurate because if you stop looking for work, you no longer count as unemployed. That's true. But that's always been the case. That was the case when Reagan was president.

And those very same Republicans talked about how great the unemployment rate was. That's always the case. That's a limitation of the of the measurement. The problem with the labor participation rate is sometimes when people aren't working, it's because the economy is good. I'm going to give you some examples. OK, if you are a high school junior or senior or in college, meaning you're like between 16 and 22 years old. OK, if you're in college full time in these numbers, you show up as someone who's not working. You show up as you're in the not working part. But the reason you might be able to afford to go to college full time is because the

economy is good and your parents work and they don't need you to work to help feed the family. You could also look at the inverse. You could have a higher labor participation because all of these people who could be in college have to work because the economy is so bad, their household with their parents needs more income. I'll give you another example. Stay at home parents lower the labor participation rate. But if the economy were really bad, a lot of those stay at home

parents would have to go out and get a job. So stay at home parents make this number look worse. But it's a sign that the economy is better. I'll give you another example. When people retire, they exit the labor force. They show up on that not working side. If the economy is good, more people can afford to retire. If the economy is bad, more of those people who would like to retire can't. They keep working. You've got a higher labor participation, but not because the economy is good because it's bad. So you get the picture. It's a very deceptive number by itself. Republicans love using it. What's the truth of the matter? The truth of the matter is the economy is pretty good right now. The stock market is sort of stabilizing.

Inflation is coming down. Job creation numbers are better than expected. Unemployment is low. Is it a perfect economy? Of course not. Is there suffering? Is there poverty? Is there hunger?

Of course, there's all of those things. But by the metrics we normally use, the economy is doing pretty well. Now, one last thing on this. Joe Biden's approval rating does seem to be responding to a lot of different things, but it's basically been an increasing approval rating since late July for Joe Biden. So late July, Biden's approval bottomed out. It then spiked by early September, and it's been just like a slow burn increase to close to 44 percent. Is 44 percent an amazing approval rating? No. In the modern era of hyper partisanship, is it a typical approval rating for a president who's doing the job well enough? Yeah. It's sad that our standards are that low, but it is it's certainly no disaster. And it will be interesting to see

how that impacts the coming two years. So more people than ever working. Is it the be all end all of judging the economy? It is not. But I hope you all give me credit. I don't play the partisan games with the labor force participation rate. And they're giving my audience an entire month supply for free. So if you think you could benefit from an extra boost of confidence, all you have to do is take a short quiz on their website. A licensed doctor approves your prescription. The medication comes straight to your home within days in a discreet package. No driving around to the doctor's office or the pharmacy. No waiting around.

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a free year supply of vitamin D. I take that every day in winter. Plus, you'll get five free travel of a G one, go to athletic greens.com slash Pacman that's athletic G R E E N S.com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. We are now ready to talk about the disastrous and humiliating aftermath of the house speaker fiasco. Now, I don't know how many of you followed it closely over the weekend. I did not. After a vote number seven, I guess, on Friday or whatever day it was, I just checked out and said, I'm sure by Monday we will have figured out what happened. And indeed, we have. Kevin McCarthy was indeed elected speaker of the House eventually on the 15th round of

voting. And it all became a farce. It all became a joke. There was a physical altercation on the House floor in which Republican members were grabbing each other. It's completely surreal that this is what happened. Marjorie Taylor Greene now, as a result, is like abandoning QAnon. And then the QAnon people are furious with Marjorie Taylor Greene. It's there's four or five or six different layers of absurdity that now are following what happened on the floor of the House of Representatives. But they have a speaker. OK, and it's Kevin McCarthy. And one of the things we have to recognize and I mean, ideally, they would recognize it in the Republican Party. I'm not

sure they do, is that they have weakened the speakership to its weakest point, certainly in decades, in the decades that many of us have been following politics, people who are roughly my age. This is now a speakership that is more of a joke than it has ever been before. This is a speakership that is weaker in terms of its ability and power at coalescing consensus between even their own party. And you don't need to look very far to see how quickly this entire thing became a joke. Shortly after the big win for Kevin McCarthy, he announced the very first thing that they would be doing and listen to what it was. I know the night is late, but when we come back, our very first bill will appeal the funding for eighty seven thousand. And there's Marjorie Taylor Greene clapping.

Yeah, very like just painfully stupid. Now, I've already debunked the whole thing about the IRS agents. It's I'm not going to do it now because it's not the point. But we have so many different and important issues in this country that we could be working towards fixing. And the idea that the American people would even remotely benefit from that as opposed to anything else is laughable. One other funny moment when it was announced that Donald Trump got one vote during one of the votes for speaker, I believe it was Matt Gaetz. The entire room just laughs. The Honorable Donald J. Trump of the state of Florida has received one. Yeah, it really is a joke.

The entire thing has turned into a joke. And obviously it was also political drama of the highest order. It got clicks, it got ratings. But the entire speaker fiasco really at the end of the day is an exercise in extreme irony. And one of our sub Reddit users wrong, wrong, sir, wrong, pointed out a lot of the ways in which this was extraordinarily ironic. So I'm going to use their post as a jumping off point here to talk more about this. The 20 House members who initially defected, for lack of a better term, in a way, they are the ones standing by their principles in the sense that they are some of

the most insane and extreme members of the House. Kevin McCarthy was very much willing to trade votes for power or influence, and he did it based on what we've been told with committee assignments and with other things. Those 20, to the extent that they stuck it out, they weren't willing to trade assignments or whatever for votes because they thought that Kevin McCarthy was a terrible candidate. Now, the reason they thought that is because McCarthy isn't nearly as extreme as they are. Right. So we have to understand that's really bonkers. But they at least had some principle principle where so many of these other people have absolutely no principles whatsoever. That's been a theme of the last many years. These Republicans sort of claim to have values, but they really don't. It's whatever values are

convenient to them at the time. And as soon as those values are inconvenient or inconsistent with getting what they need in terms of power, they abandon the values. We saw this 180 that Marjorie Taylor Greene did. Marjorie Taylor Greene, after years of portraying herself as I'm anti establishment, I'm not a sellout. I'm against rhinos, all of this stuff. She does a 180 and she supports Kevin McCarthy, who is the Republican establishment, because it seems as though McCarthy promised her a sliver of influence if he wins and she's going to get back on some committee assignments and whatever else the case may be. That's extraordinarily ironic. And another example of how they don't really have principles. Marjorie Taylor Greene's principles are really the creation of a character that she believes will be a character that can gain power

and influence. Also, Marjorie Taylor Greene has been criticizing, defecting Republicans for not playing ball and wanting attention. But that's exactly what Marjorie Taylor Greene did to get herself to where she is now. She has been the epitome of the attention seeker. And now she's criticizing others for trying to get attention. We're going to look at an interview later in which Marjorie Taylor Green actually says, you know, all these holdouts were just trying to get attention. Well, everything you've done has been to get attention. And now all of a sudden you're getting attention because you say that they are doing the wrong thing and you're doing the right thing. And then Kevin McCarthy, of course, by appeasing Marjorie Taylor Greene,

now creates a generation of Marjorie Taylor Greene wannabes in Congress who will make a show out of obstructing as much as possible and then eventually coming to the table, getting something, some crumbs in the negotiations and subsequently getting power. First, you yell, you yell, you yell to get attention. Then you say, well, you're going to want to make me go away. Give me some power. And so now that's going to encourage more and more people to do that. And then lastly, as again, as pointed out, by this user on our subreddit, wrong, sir, wrong. For years and years, McCarthy groveled to Trump. He wanted Trump to endorse him for the speakership, groveling, groveling. Trump did the endorsement sort of halfheartedly at the end of the day,

if we're honest. But Trump did the endorsement. But it turns out that that endorsement didn't even get McCarthy the speakership. Trump did the endorsement on, I think it was Wednesday night and many, many, many more votes in which McCarthy lost. Eventually, it was a different sort of negotiation that got McCarthy the speakership. So it's another sign of how through his endorsement, we actually noticed that Trump is even more weakened than we previously thought. And it's irony all the way down. Quite frankly, this is a very inauspicious start for the next two years. And we know they're going to go after Joe Biden. We know they're going to go after Hunter Biden. We know they're going to obstruct everything they can. And so now Democrats are going to have to think long and hard to use Donald Trump's phrase

about what is the best way to get the most possible out of the next two years and to mitigate damage to the extent that they can. Donald Trump, seemingly extraordinarily impaired and confused, gave a speech to guests at Mar-a-Lago and seems so disconnected from reality that it's hard to know what is going on in his brain. If anything, it may be a sort of situation where, you know, the wheel is spinning, but the hamsters have long died and flown off of the wheel. I don't know. Here is Donald Trump claiming that Joe Biden convinced Vladimir Putin, the president of

Russia, to invade the nation of Ukraine. What? When did that conversation even reportedly take place? Listen to Trump. And I apologize. The audio is not exactly perfect. Front of everyone's mind. The power is so destructive that we won't talk about it.

I brought in professors during the debate. I brought in professors. I want to talk about nuclear in case it should be, and I brought them in from MIT. I said, how would you respond when we start talking about nuclear? They said, sir, do the best you can to not talk about it. It's something you really can't talk about.

It's so destructive. It's so powerful. The world will be gone. And now I hear this, and we have a man who has no mind left, and his mind in prime time wasn't any good. He has no mind left. And this is the guy negotiating for us. We have a man that convinced Putin to go into Ukraine. Because if you look at the psychology that he used, it's the exact opposite. Putin would have never, ever gone. And he knew the ramifications. Do you remember when

Biden said, well, they might take some small parts of Ukraine? That was that's what Putin wanted to hear. There'll be no problem if you take some parts of Ukraine. Delusional, but dangerously so. And I also I don't really know what goes on at Mar-a-Lago. I'm going to be down there in a couple of weeks. Maybe I'll drive over and see if I can figure out what the hell is going on at Mar-a-Lago. But in all seriousness, I don't even know if the guests are always expecting to hear this type of insanity from Trump. Sometimes it seems like he's just supposed to be congratulating someone on a wedding or something like that.

Not at this particular event. Donald Trump also attempted to rewrite history in this very strange speech, trying to rewrite history about Ashley Babbitt, the woman who was who was killed at the January 6th insurrection. Listen to this. It's what's happening to our country. Ashley Babbitt's mother was arrested yesterday because she was protesting the death of her daughter being shot by a lunatic who's got a record of not so good. And then they try and protect him and they do things with what they've done to that family. But they shot her. There was no reason. And then they arrested because

the mother was in a group and they arrested yesterday the mother of Ashley Babbitt. So she loses her daughter. Then on top of it, she gets arrested and we can let this go on. Now, the shot by a lunatic, Ashley Babbitt did nothing wrong. I want to remind all of you, Ashley Babbitt was the 35 year old Air Force veteran who was fatally shot while she was participating in the insurrection on January 6th, 2021 in Washington, D.C. She was part of a group of Trump supporters who breached the Capitol building during that attempt at certifying the 2020 election results. She was shot by Capitol police when she was trying to climb through a broken window.

That shooting was investigated. Now, in every other case, these Republicans say was investigated. Police did nothing wrong. They were cleared. We support the police here. They aren't satisfied with the investigation. Oh, what a surprise here. They say, despite the investigation, clearing the police officer, she certainly was doing nothing wrong. The shooting was investigated. The officer was cleared of any wrongdoing. I thought they supported the police. I thought

they always agreed with the exonerations of police officers. No, it's yet another one of these principles. That's not a principle. It's a principle. If the outcome is the outcome they want and if it's not, then it's very, very bad. We're going to take a very quick break and be back with more right after this. There is something you use at home every day that is significantly harming the planet, and it is your toilet paper.

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first order. Plus free shipping. That's our E.L. paper dot com slash Pacman coupon code Pacman for 30 percent off and free shipping. Radical Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, I've got to give her credit. She's trying to do something clever. She's trying to it. It's totally dishonest. It's completely disgusting. It's also totally predictable. But it is clever, which is she is trying to very casually abandon the completely extreme and delusional elements that she previously associated with or still did still does, as far as we know, including the QAnon stuff and the most extreme elements of MAGA and

just sort of say, you know, I kind of got sucked stuff and the most extreme elements of MAGA and just sort of say, ah, you know, I kind of got sucked into stuff, but like I voted for Kevin McCarthy. Now I'm in, I'm part of the Republican establishment and I'm going to be on committees and it's all going to be great. And the reason she is doing this is exactly what I just said. She doesn't want to be the extreme cartoon anymore. She wants to be taken seriously as a committee member in good standing right up there with Kevin McCarthy, with the speaker of the House and adjacent to power. Part of this rewriting of history started in an interview on Fox News over the weekend, where when Howard Kurtz asked her about some of her previous associations, affiliations, et cetera, she basically just writes

it off and says, oh, you know, I got sucked into some stuff on the Internet. Yeah. And just to deal with one bit of history, the Democrats stripped you of your community assignments after you were elected. That was raw politics. But in fairness, didn't you also say around that period that you had been a follower of QAnon conspiracy theories and you had rethought this and you were no longer influenced by the group? Well, like a lot of people today, I had easily gotten sucked into some things I'd seen on the internet, but that was dealt with quickly early on. I never campaigned on those things. That was not something I believed in. That's not what I ran for Congress on. So those are so far in the past. You tweeted. This is a bold faced attempt or a bald face attempt. I go with both. I like both

to try to excuse and eliminate and remove her record, which includes she said crazy anti-Semitic things. She was arguing that the Trump riders from January 6 should just be released, that they're political prisoners, that they are they're martyrs of some kind. She taunted a kid who was traumatized by gun violence. She went to an event organized by and at which white supremacist Nick Fuentes spoke and then said, I don't know anything about it. She accused Nancy Pelosi of treason, Jewish space lasers on and on and on and on. And now she wants to go. I saw some stuff on the Internet. A lot of people. It happens to a lot of people. But I didn't run on that stuff. I didn't run on that stuff. The reason she's doing it is

that now that they're in power, she needs a different image. Support the speaker, get onto committees, be taken seriously as a stateswoman of some kind. The problem is you shouldn't be able to and hopefully she won't be able to just write off entire swaths of her history. Another clip I'm going to play for you. Howard Kurtz says, you know, a lot of the people backing McCarthy didn't want to certify the election. Is that still important to the base? And she goes, absolutely. Election denialism, she says, is now mainstream Republican Party. Speaker 3 When things got heated, you said this about Congressman Chip Roy of Texas. He refused to object on January six. That's not what our base wanted. So a lot of the

people who were backing Kevin McCarthy also didn't vote to certify the electoral college results for Joe Biden. Do you think that's an important thing to the base even today? Oh, it's very important. What I was pointing out is the same people that conservatives were holding up in high esteem don't necessarily have those voting records while they're at the same time criticizing Kevin McCarthy, who does. Kevin McCarthy did object on January 6th, and he's been a top target of the Democrats and the January 6th committee. So do you believe that Joe Biden is a legitimately elected president? Of course Joe Biden's the president. That's always a silly question.

Okay. I wasn't trying to be silly. I was trying to- Well, she didn't answer the question. The question was, is he a legitimately elected president? And she says, of course, he's the president. So even though she is trying really hard to distance from Q and on and distance from the conspiracy theories and whatever, when it came down to it right there, she answered about Biden being a legitimate president the way they love doing it, which is by saying he is the president, which is a total cop out. And she insists that now election denialism is part of the base of the Republican Party. Is it a big enough base for them to win in 24? We don't know. OK, one more clip from this

completely deranged interview. She says that a lot of the holdouts from the speaker vote just wanted attention, which when I think of Congress, people who want attention, my mind first goes to Marjorie Taylor Greene. But now she says others wanted attention. Most important thing that every single member has is their voting card. There's only 222 Republicans and we need 218 to pass anything. That's where the magic happens. And so the big fight that happened this week, I think that a lot of it was really unnecessary and just a bunch of fanfare that helps popularity on the Internet but doesn't produce results.

Now we have a speaker that we can produce results with, and we have to do that by coming together to get 218. That's where our power lies. And so with this rules package, let's be very real. We've got a Biden White House. We have a Democrat controlled Senate. And we got to get to 218 to accomplish anything. Right. Ultimately, Washington, it's about the math. They just wanted attention. It was because they wanted to get popular on the Internet, which is the epitome of Marjorie Taylor Greene. So let's go back to the beginning. It's dishonest, it's absurd, it's pathetic what she's doing, but it just might work. She really might be able to rewrite and remake her image now that they are in control. And that's a very scary thing to think about. The extreme MAGA QAnon conspiracy lunatics are turning on Marjorie Taylor

Greene. Why? Marjorie Taylor Greene voted for Speaker Kevin McCarthy. She also said that the QAnon stuff was just something she fell for on the Internet. So now the real hardcore bonkers people are furious. Here are a couple callers to the the Infowars conspiracy show with which Alex Jones is involved. This was a segment of calls hosted by Owen Schroer. And people are angry with Marjorie Taylor Greene. Now take a look at this. They are turning on her. Tom in California. Tom, you're on the air. Go ahead. Go, Tom. Oh, let me get you off. You know, I had you on speaker. I got to work on the permanent underclass. They're important. Oh, you, let me get y'all. You know why I had you on speaker? I got to work. Unlike the permanent underclass, they're importing. Oh, you have a job? That's right.

So, well, you shouldn't have a job, you bigot. You know what? Klaus Schwab is going to make sure that you own nothing. Hey, I pay taxes. So I got a message from Marjorie Taylor Greene. She has a great voting record. but guess what? It doesn't matter when she knows that the policies aren't going to get through. Okay. So here's the only vote that counts. And that is she needs to change her vote today or she's a fraud. OK. And she doesn't deserve to come on Infowars if she doesn't change her vote today. Yep. They are turning on her, folks. The vote for McCarthy. That is it. Here's another caller who is all also furious with McCarthy with Marjorie Taylor Greene for voting for McCarthy. Josh in Arizona. Josh, you're on The Alex Jones Show. Go ahead. Here we go.

Hey, man, I just want to echo Jones Show. Go ahead. Here we go. Hey, man. I just want to echo what that last guy said. The one that had to make a quick statement because he was going to work. I really think that you should ask Marjorie Taylor Greene if she's compromised, if they've got something on her because of her incoming divorce. Or something's going on with that. Because, you know, it just kind of seemed like there was a major flip-flop with her. It was really weird, you know, it just kind of seemed like there was a major flip flop with her. It was really weird.

You know, like she's all this gung ho and then she's behind Kevin McCarthy all of a sudden and he's on the W.E.F. Homepage as like the speaker majority. I something's going on and I just was wondering if you could do me a favor and actually ask her point blank. Like, do they have something on her? Speaker 1 Extreme suspicion now of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon people, the InfoWars people, the frogs are gay people that follow Alex Jones are now turning on Marjorie Taylor Greene. How quickly the tide can turn. But listen, obviously, if you're Marjorie Taylor Greene, you're going to

get more power by being friends with the speaker than friends with the listeners of Alex Jones show. That's an absolute unquestionable reality. So that is what's happening. And it's funny and sad and scary all at the same time. We have a voicemail number, which is two one nine two David P. Karen called in upset that I'm triggering her dogs. Now, I don't use the term Karen generically. A viewer named Karen, I want to be clear, people might write in and say, David, I thought you said you didn't use that term because it's a racialized term. That's completely correct. The caller's name is literally Karen.

Take a listen. Hi, David. This is Karen from Texas. And we love to watch the show, me and my husband. But would you please stop bumping your microphone? It sets my dogs into a frenzy. Thank you. Yeah. I sometimes become so agitated in my gesticulation that I will hit the microphone and I don't do it on purpose. I know that particularly for people listening with certain headphones, it very, very much is a problem. So I apologize, Karen. On today's bonus

show, I am going to give you the rundown of my upcoming appearances, including with Lex Friedman, Patrick Bet David and Anthony Pompliano, all coming up between now and the end of the month, technically February 1st, I guess. Pat, producer Pat actually had a complete breakdown of his Internet connection. And today's show is being produced in a coffee shop. Producer Pat just ordering double espresso after double espresso to be allowed to stay. It's crazy what's going on. I'll tell you about it on the bonus show as well as about my upcoming appearances. Get instant access to the bonus show by signing up at join Pacman dot com.

Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Yep. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Yeah. Money is being made on the bonus show. That's exactly right, Alex. Thank you. We will see you on the bonus show. We'll be back tomorrow. It's a great week of programming. And of course, the town hall is Wednesday at 6 p.m. Eastern. And make sure you've slammed that subscribe button on YouTube, pushing us ever closer to two million YouTube subscribers.