The David Pakman Show - 2/1/24: Zuckerberg testifies, Republican warns against targeting Taylor Swift

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg spars with Republican Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz during a congressional hearing -- Donald Trump spent $50 million of donor money on his legal expenses -- Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn thinks her party is making a mistake by targeting Taylor Swift -- Caller is upset with David and wrongfully believes he supports a military draft -- Caller compares people's finances with their perception of the economy -- Caller talks about the anti-semitism hearing in Congress that led to two the ousting of two university presidents -- Caller is a former Trump supporter who changed his mind after reading a book -- Caller asks what happens to Trump supporters once Trump is gone -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Ron DeSantis cringe compilation, and much more... 🌱 Ounce of Hope: Get a THC Seltzer for just $5 at https://ounceofhope.com 👩‍❤️‍👨 Try the Paired App FREE for 7 days and get 25% OFF at https://paired.com/pakman 💻 Stay protected! Try our sponsor Aura FREE for 2 weeks at https://aura.com/pakman 😮 DealDash: Use code PAKMAN for 100 free bids at https://dealdash.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

I want to start today with some explosive video from testimony given by the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, before a Senate panel. Now, we're going to look at exchanges between Mark Zuckerberg and two Republican senators, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. I am not playing these videos because I think Holly and Cruz have done anything particularly noble or interesting. In fact, I think that they're opportunists and I think that they just want to create confrontations to make them look big and strong and powerful.

But I think that there is a lot of interesting stuff here with regard to how Mark Zuckerberg handle handles a lot of these questions. Many of these questions were about families impacted by child sexual exploitation online. Facebook, in some cases, was a vessel for that. And this is an incredible moment at which Mark Zuckerberg actually stands up and addresses the families of the victims. Take a look at this and then we'll discuss it. So you mischaracterize 37 percent of teenage girls between 13 and 15 were exposed to unwanted nudity in a week on Instagram. You knew about it. Who did you fire? Senator, this is why we're building all. Who did you fire? Now obviously the answer here is we would never discuss H.R. and personal personnel

records in a setting like this. If you want to go private, maybe it's something we can talk about. I think eventually he gets to that. Senator, that's I don't think that that's who did you fire? I'm not going to answer that. That's because you didn't fire anybody, right? I'm not going to answer that. I mean, this is fire anybody, right? You didn't take any significant action. It's appropriate to talk about it. Like it's not appropriate decisions. Do you know who's sitting behind you? You've got families

from across the nation whose children are either severely harmed or gone. Now, of course, they're sitting there because of the theater that these Republicans have opted to concoct. So with all of these things, you've got the underprepared CEO, but you've also got political theater that doesn't actually fix anything. And you don't think it's appropriate to take a talk about steps that you took. The fact that you didn't fire a single person. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you you this have you compensated any of the victims

sorry have you compensated any of the victims these girls have you compensated them i don't believe so why not don't you think they deserve some compensation for what your platform has done help with counseling services help with dealing with the issues that your your platform has done? Help with counseling services, help with dealing with the issues that your service has caused? Our job is to make sure that we build tools to help keep people safe. Are you going to compensate them? Senator, our job and what we take seriously is making sure that we build industry leading tools to find harmful to make money, take it off the services to make money and to build tools that. Josh Hawley never prioritize making money.

Our parents. So you didn't take any action. You didn't take any action. You didn't fire anybody. You haven't compensated a single victim. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. There's families of victims here today.

Have you apologized to the victims? Would you like to do so now? Well, they're here. You're on national television. Would you like now to now for those who are just listening today and not watching Zuckerberg will now stand. It's sort of hard to hear what he says, but it is audible. Apologize to the victims who have been harmed by your product. Show them the pictures. Would you like to apologize for what you've done to these good people? So he's essentially saying he's sorry for what people have had to go through.

And this is why they take on industry leading efforts to make sure it doesn't happen again. You know, the the sad reality of this is that a lot of people will see this and they'll say, wow, Zuckerberg did really terribly or he did really well or Josh Hawley really got one over on him or Josh Hawley made himself out to be a fool. What I care about from my government is action. And this was not a hearing about resolution, constructive discussion solutions. This was theater. And you can simultaneously come away from something like

this, believing that Josh Hawley is an absolute disgrace, that Mark Zuckerberg was arguably underprepared, but that this is not even a format that hypothetically is going to get us any solutions when it comes to what's happening with exploitation online. Here's another opportunist, Ted Cruz, ramping up in the exact same way. Instagram also displayed the following warning screen to individuals who were searching for child abuse material. The these results may contain images of child sexual abuse. And then you gave users two choices. Get resources or see results anyway.

Mr. Zuckerberg, what the hell were you thinking? All right, Senator. The basic science behind that is that when people are searching for something that is problematic, it's often helpful to rather than just blocking it to help direct them towards something that that could be helpful for getting them to get help. In what I understand, get resources in what sane universe. Is there a link for C results anyway? Well, because we might be wrong. We, we try to trigger this, this, uh, warning or we tried to, um, when we think that there's any chance that there was, okay, you might be wrong. Let me ask you, how many times was this warning screen displayed? I don't know, but the,

but the, you don't know. Why don't you know? I, I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head. But you know what, Mr. Zuckerberg, it's interesting you say you don't know it off the top of your head because I asked it in June of twenty twenty three in an overlay oversight letter and your company refused to answer. So listen, does any of us think that Mark Zuckerberg is excelling here? I don't know. I didn't hear from any of us think that Mark Zuckerberg is excelling here? I don't know. I didn't hear from any of you who thought Mark Zuckerberg did really well. But does any one of us think that Ted Cruz's motivations here are anything short of auditioning

to get on Hannity last night rather than what he wants us to believe he's doing, which is expressing his concern for the kids or whatever the case may be. There are real issues here. But for me, when I watch these hearings, you know, some people watch these and they come away with primarily the failure of government. Sometimes they watch these hearings and they come away with primarily the failures of the CEOs and the private corporations. I come away thinking that there is a total failure here in terms of the structure of

how we even figure things out. And I know that many in the audience are desperate for different sorts of settings in which problems can be solved. Obviously, the issue of child, child sexual exploitation and exploitation in general online is a major issue. But these events are nothing more than grandstanding. If I were to give the most positive possible spin for these hearings, it would be even though nothing is accomplished at the hearings, people who

otherwise wouldn't know about these issues become aware of them and then maybe they go out and become activists in the real world for change. I don't know. Even I'm feeling like it's a pretty shaky premise. Let me know what you think. Donald Trump has reportedly spent 50 million dollars in the money donated to him for legal fees in 2023. This is absolutely stunning stuff. A Rolling Stone reports Trump spent 50 million in donor money on legal bills last year. The former president's PAC are operating as slush funds to help him fight off a mountain of civil and criminal cases. The obvious question is whether this is legal. Now, in terms of the amount of money we're talking about here, there's a report that says 10 cents from every dollar donated to Trump's campaign is going towards Save America. That's the pack. Last year,

Save America effectively was just paying for Trump's legal bills. So one could argue at least 10 percent of the money donated to Trump is becoming a legal slush fund. Now, the question of whether this is legal is a good one. The FEC was asked by Rolling Stone to comment on this and they declined to comment. But it is very unlikely that they're going to do anything about this. The FEC is led by six commissioners. There's three Republicans, three Democrats. Trump nominated all of those Republican commissioners. One of the Democratic commissioners appointed by Biden joined with the three Republican commissioners a few months ago to say that the personal ban on donations for legal funds doesn't apply to leadership PACs.

So that's a carve out. OK, understand what that means. Money donated directly to the camp to the candidate cannot be used to pay for legal bills. Money donated that ends up with the PACs can be used for legal bills. Now, this has naturally raised the question of is Trump just going to use donor money to pay for the eighty three point three million that he owes E. Jean Carroll. And the answer is he can do it. This is our with all of these things. It's like it's subject to legal opinion. The consensus legal opinion I've found is that if Trump specifically says donated money could be used to pay off this judgment against me, He can do it. The trick is he can

put that in the fine print. And much like in the aftermath of the 2020 election in the fine, Trump was saying, donate to help us flip the results. And in the fine print, it was, oh, and this will pay off campaign debt, 50 cents on every dollar to pay off campaign debt. Trump has to say funds may be used to pay off the judgment, but it can be said in the fine print. Should we even worry about this? Like, do we care if it's Trump supporters that are getting scammed? Is that even something we should be concerned with? Or do we just say a fool and their money, whatever that thing is? Let me know how worried we should be about Magas getting scammed.

Hey, one final Taylor Swift story. Marsha Blackburn is a Republican senator from Tennessee. Marsha Blackburn was on Newsmax and she was asked about Taylor Swift. She tread so lightly like she was walking on eggshells because she knows Taylor Swift is too popular to attack and she knows if she goes scorched earth on Taylor Swift, it hurts her. This is so funny to watch. I want to ask you about Taylor Swift. So she spends a whole lot of time in your home state of Tennessee, even though she was

born in Mississippi. Newsweek had a poll yesterday that found that 18 percent of voters would actually vote for whoever Taylor Swift told them to vote for. Right. In 2020, in a documentary, she said that you were Donald Trump in a wig. How do you respond to that? And what's your take on the impact she could have in November? Taylor Swift is really a popular, very talented young woman. She has built quite an empire. I am so, so thrilled that she has chosen to base that in Nashville. She is considered to be

an influencer. I think when it comes to elections, people look at the issues that are important to them and they make their decisions. Right now, we know that the border, the open border, the Biden border policy, that is something at the top of the list for so many people, certainly in Tennessee. The border is issue number one. So I got to ask, did it bother you or do her comments bother you at all when she said Trump in a wig? I just shake it off. That is someone who knows who is more popular in her home state. And it is not Marsha Blackburn.

I think this is the fascinating next layer, which is the right wing media types. They have no problem going after Taylor Swift because it doesn't matter. But Marsha Blackburn is in the heart of it. She's in Tennessee. And it's a it's a lose lose in the sense of she knows that if she attacks Taylor Swift, it's not good for her. And if she doesn't attack Taylor Swift, then maybe Tennesseans just listen to Taylor Swift and don't vote for Marsha Blackburn, which she already told them not to do last time. But the power of the Swift movement is palpable there. And I am, you know, a year ago, I didn't even think about Taylor Swift and the power that she has now secured by

getting herself involved in voter registration is fascinating. It's going to be a fascinating nine and a half months. Let's take a quick break. We're going to take some of your calls after this. So many people in our audience have become fans of our sponsor, Ounce of Hope. Ounce of Hope is a cannabis farm that ships CBD and psychoactive THC products to your door anywhere in the US. This is federally legal. THC, a THC, Delta eight and nine. They have edibles. And now you can check out the brand new drink from Ounce of Hope for

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So the party doesn't have to stop with just the podcast. You also get dedicated audio or video streams of the show, access to the members only sound board and so many other great things. the David Pakman show at David Pakman dot com. in our universe, which are the fans without you or the detractors. I guess we'll just say the audience without you. I'm a guy in a room with a microphone and it's all very, very sad. We take calls. We normally do it on the Friday show via discord. We're doing it a day early this week because I'm going to be away. So let's dove right in. You can find the discord once again at David Pakman dot com slash discord. And we are going to start today with this looks interesting. Let's start with Yash from Sri Lanka. I believe this is our first Sri Lankan call that we've had. Yash from Sri Lanka. Please unmute yourself.

Welcome to the program. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, I can. So I wanted to talk to you about the recent video you did about a military draft, right? You remember that? Yeah, like a couple of months ago, right? Yes. So, you know, when I watched the video, I was just shocked that you call yourself a progressive and yet you even entered you would even entertain an idea of a military draft. Do you realize it would be unconstitutional? Yes. You know that the segment was just a thought experiment, right?

I know I I neither favor nor ideologically support a draft. What I think maybe you thought of the segment too concretely. Sometimes on the show, we'll do thought experiments like, for example, hey, you know what? Republicans say X, but if they really meant it, then they should support this other thing. It's just abstract thinking. So the segment was not me entertaining a draft. I'm against a draft. I don't want to draft. I'm not arguing a draft would be constitutional. All I'm saying is here is a list of things which you could argue in a theoretical way could be positives about a draft. But that's it. I'm not it's I'm not entertaining a draft in any real way.

OK, but it's it would I think you're not being honest right now. We were talking about anything else. You would say anything negative about it. Like if you were talking about anything else, you would say anything negative about it. Like if you were talking about what I'd say that. Can you not hear me? Yeah, I mean, if I was talking about anything else, I would not say anything negative about it. I don't.

It was just a thought experiment, right? It was, hey, would if we had a draft and there were more progressives in the military and a higher percentage of the population had a stake in what the military was doing, would it actually be a moderating influence on the military? That that's all that it was. But you hear me saying I'm not an advocate of a draft. I'm not entertaining a draft. I'm not suggesting a draft. Speaker 4 Well, OK. OK, I get you. But, you know, it's just strange to me that I hear these American progressives. You guys generally don't have any issue with the draft like it exists right now.

And I don't hear any progressive rally against it. So it's just what draft where does the draft exist right now? You guys call it selective service, I think. Oh, yeah. But when's the last time someone was drafted? When was the last time slavery existed? You know, I think what it was 40 years. Yeah. You know, things can be in the past and progressives say this all the time, you know, just because slavery was 40 or 50 years ago. We still have ramifications for it. I'm not saying there aren't ramifications to slavery, but I'm just confused when you first said that I'm entertaining a draft.

When I told you I wasn't, you said, I just can't believe you progressives are entertaining a draft. I don't know who you're talking about. I don't support a draft. Yash, can I? Could I? Yeah, then I then I said that you progressives in general, you and people like you are generally not against a draft.

I don't see any people. No, I'm against the draft. I'm against the draft. Who which progressives are in favor of a draft? Yeah, it's just not a premier issue, just like a lot of other things you talk about, I think. Well, there's no draft, so it's sort of like I don't know why it has to be a premier issue because nobody's getting drafted.

Yeah, they still have to register for it, so there's still something active going on. OK, but it doesn't seem like there's any reason that it would be a premier issue when there's no active draft and we're not advocating for a draft. It's just a weird thing. I don't know why it would be a premier issue when there's no active draft and we're not advocating for a draft. It's just a weird thing. I don't know why it would. Let me tell you. I'll put it this way. If selective service registration became the premier issue on this program, I think I would lose my entire audience. Speaker 1 Speaker 4 Why? I mean, I think because it's not not as you know, where you go, they will go because they will say, David, why are you talking about this?

There's no draft. There is a registration that's still an issue. You guys, you guys talk about a lot of other issues that are not as severe. So I don't see like why you could bring why you keep bringing this up. All right, Yash. Well, thank you. Just I'm going to let you go. But just I'm going to say it one more time. I am not entertaining nor in favor of a draft. Is that clear? Yeah, it was nice talking to you. Likewise, there is Yash from Sri Lanka. Let's go next to.

Oh, I don't know. How about. Why don't we go to Ramiro from Indiana? I think it's been a while since we spoke. Ramiro, welcome back to the program. What's on your mind? Hey, yeah. Hey, Dave, question, so. Yes. I know that you've talked about some axiom polls and some other polls that have come out asking people how they feel about the economy. And I saw one in particular that they think – they asked and 71% of the people polled said they felt the economy was not good. Sixty percent, when they were asked about their personal financial situation, 60% said that it was pretty decent. And I know it's become more and more of an issue.

I know you've spoken a lot more about it because it's become more of a question as far as Joe Biden's electability. And, and I know that the Democrats have outperformed polls on average throughout the country, state, local, everything by about 10%. So do you think that the people will vote based on what they think their own personal financial situation is or the perception of the national economy when it's not actually as bad as they think it is? I think it's both depending on the circumstances of

the individual. I think folks whose situation personally isn't good will potentially vote against Biden because of that. And then there will be folks that are like sort of doing OK, but will blame Biden for their perception about the broader economy. So I think you're going to get a little bit of both. Yeah, that makes sense. I just I find it really interesting that they've been outperforming the polls by about 10 percent percentage points. And it's and I wonder how much of that has to do with that misconception of the actual state of the economy or not. I do think, Ramiro, I am optimistic.

The polling does. It's happening slowly, but the polling on the economy is improving. And so I really think if the economy just stays flat the way it is right now, by November, I think polling will be solid and Biden will get reelected. And every time I say this, people go, David's desperate to convince people. But wouldn't it be really? First of all, the idea that I have some personal stake in this is absurd. I would be much better off if Trump won.

The show would do way better if Trump won. I would be much better off if Trump won. The show would do way better if Trump won. I would personally profit way more from Trump winning. So the idea that I'm trying to convince myself or others about by it's I'm just giving my opinion. It might be wrong or maybe things will change. I think that if the economy stays this way, Biden probably gets reelected and maybe I'm wrong and Trump becomes president. But I'm I'm not the main character here. You know, Ramiro, I'm just kind of calling it the way I see it. Yeah.

And that's why I haven't started to panic. I know a lot of people have, especially the Young Turks and some others. But I just I find it fascinating how the polling has been kind of off the last couple of election cycles a little bit. Yeah. So that's all I had. All right. I find it fascinating how the polling has been kind of off the last couple of election cycles a little bit. Yeah. So that's all I had. All right. Ramiro from Indiana. Great to hear from you. Let's go next to let's go to JP from Marjorie Taylor Green's district in Georgia. JP from Georgia. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Hey, David, how's it going today? Going well. All right. Fantastic. So I wanted to talk about it. I guess I have the C in front of my name

for a confrontation, but it's really just more of a helpful suggestion, something I haven't heard you talk about with the economy that helps put things more on Biden's side, I guess, and is because everybody talks about and I totally agree that everything is still way more expensive. And of course, we've got all the natural indicators that are, you know, looking really good record stock market, great unemployment, all those things. But lots of those high prices, and a lot of the inflationary stuff that we're still seeing is really going to corporate profits. And of course, corporate media isn't going to say that. But I feel like the independent media needs to say that more. Speaker 1

Yeah, I don't think you're wrong. But when you see very high wage growth, you at least are seeing some of that go to wages. I'm not denying that the richest and corporations are enriching themselves. You're absolutely correct. But also wage growth is quite healthy compared to times past. That's fair. That's fair. I just think that it needs to be pointed out a little more because I forgot where I saw it. But at one point it was up to about 60 percent of the cost of inflation was going towards those corporate profits at the worst time. So. All right. Fair point. And I appreciate you making it something to bring up JP from Georgia. So great to hear from you. Let's go next to I don't even know

what this person's name is. Sean, Sean from Massachusetts. Welcome to the program. What is on your mind today? Hi, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Yeah, I wanted to talk about the the college president issue with the. The comments around genocide and stuff, do you know what I'm referring to? Yeah, you're referring to the MIT, Harvard and UPenn college presidents who had the hearing in D.C. They were asked about calling for the genocide of Jews. They kind of fumbled. And I guess as of now, two of the three were fired. Speaker 3 Yeah. So maybe I misunderstand the situation and I want to be clear that, you know, I don't think that anyone should be genocide. I certainly disagree with any of those beliefs. But I guess when I sort of watched what when the president's answered, I thought that their answers were kind

of reasonable that, um, they were sort of, sort of asked a hypothetical, um, you know, if this is, uh, a statement that happens on your campus, is this bullying? And they sort of said, oh, it depends on the context. And I guess I just thought that was a reasonable answer, that there would be times that, yes, this is inappropriate for them to say, especially if it's connected with any acts of violence or anything like that. But if someone's just sort of saying it. Well, let's explore that a little bit, Sean. I want to I'm thinking about this with you.

Give me a context where calling for the genocide of Jews would be right. You said it depends on the context. Give me a context where it would be OK. Like what's the what's the paint the picture of the scenario where calling for the genocide of Jews on a college campus would be OK? Sure. So if like someone who is going to college in the USA, but their family lives in Israel and they have a sign up that says, you know, my entire family was killed on October 7th, I think the Palestinians should be genocide for what happened on October 7th. And it's just a sign. They're not, you know, calling for any acts of violence or anything like that. But hold on a second, Sean, you're not even giving me an example.

We're already the question was, is there are your your assertion was there could be some situations where calling for the genocide of Jews would be OK. And you just gave me an example of an Israeli student calling for the genocide of Palestinians. Let's go back to what you called in about. Give me the example of just to be consistent, not that calling for any genocide is OK. Give me an example of where calling is like from a you know, I don't agree with it. I don't think it's correct. I would, you know, certainly talk to this person and say there's better ways to express this opinion. But we have, at least in the US, the First Amendment.

And it's like, well, I would defend your right to say it as long as you know, the moment that it becomes violent, the moment they even physically touch someone and it becomes physically violent, then I have a problem with it. But if it's just making statements, then, yeah, they have a right to say it. Would and would you apply the same thing to if there were students on campus calling for the genocide of trans people or black people or women? Again, I guess I'm having a little trouble with your definition of OK, so I wouldn't agree with it. I would say that you would say that it should be allowed. It should be

the colleges should allow that. Yes. Yes. That it's, you know, it's their First Amendment right to say these things. There's a man near my home who he holds up a sign near a traffic sort of thing. He's not blocking traffic or anything like that. And it says abortion is a sin. And I am aggressively pro choice. So I vehemently disagree with him, but he has every right to hold up that sign. Now, you understand, Sean, that there is a difference between a sign in a public place saying abortion is a sin versus calling for the genocide of groups of people based on immutable characteristics on college campuses where they have rules

that they can establish. Right. Like, I'm not saying one is right or wrong, but you're agreeing that these are two different things. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. I think the problem really was I think the problem really was that we all know that if

you had replaced genocide of Jews with trans gay women, black students, their answers would have been different. And we know that based on the way that schools have actually behaved in those scenarios, even with with falling way short of calling for genocide. But, you know, I don't really have a horse in the race. I thought they fumbled in terms of their performance badly. They lost the confidence of faculty and alumni, et cetera. And so two of them ended up having to resign. It's just, you know, that that's what the stakeholders ultimately wanted. All right.

Well, thank you so much for your time. I just that's what I wanted to talk about. All right, Sean, thank you so much. We're going to just that's what I wanted to talk about. All right, Sean, thank you so much. We're going to take a quick break and go right back to the phones in a moment. So if you're holding on to talk to me, just hang on a moment longer. You may remember a few years ago, the show got hacked and several thousand dollars were stolen. We never got it back.

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And Aura even protects your phone by letting you block and screen spam calls and texts. Aura has parental controls for your kids devices to restrict apps, manage screen time, set focus time. Thank you so much for joining us today. have been leaked online. That's a you are a dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. they send it to deal dash for cheap. So deal dash can sell it to you for pennies on the dollar. And we're only talking about brand new items, nothing used at all. You buy bids up front to auction on the items, for example, 30 bucks for 400 bids. Every auction starts at zero dollars. There is no minimum. Each bid increases the price by a penny. If no one bids only 10 seconds after you bid, you win. And the important part is if you don't win, you can still choose to buy the item for the listed price and get your bids back and use them for something else. That's why a lot of people really like the deal system. Right now, I'm bidding on this nice casserole dish.

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more people. Right. I mean, this is it's dialogue. It's a fantastic thing. Let's go to Paul from Florida. Paul, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Hi. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah. So last time we spoke, I was leaning more towards Trump, but I changed my mind since. And actually, I want to do a favor to all the left thinking people. If anyone in the audience is still thinking about voting for Trump and if they can find spare time, they should read a book. It's called The Cult of Trump by Stephen Hassan.

And ever since I read that book, I put everything in perspective. I realized that it was about Trump. It was about my negative feelings. And Trump knows how to push those buttons. And I think a lot of his supporters are like that. Wow. That's an incredible insight into your own prior support of Trump. That's an amazing thing, Paul.

I'm so glad to hear you. You essentially deprogrammed yourself in a way. Well, I believe so. Yes. Incredible. And do you see are there people around you that you are maybe also able to deprogram? Speaker 3 To be honest, it's hard to help them. I don't think they're ready for that.

That's a good question. What got you to the point where you were ready to be deprogrammed from the call? Speaker 4 Well, actually, my breaking point was recently when Trump keeps like complaining about the open border, but now the Biden was willing to do something about it. He just opposed it. He tells Republicans, don't vote for it. Speaker 1 Don't make the deal.

Speaker 4 Yeah, because he's only there for himself. I don't think he believes in anything. He's just about himself. That's all he cares about. Speaker 1 Yep. And that's the way many cult leaders are, Paul, to be totally honest. Speaker 4 Yes. Speaker 1 I'm curious, Paul, what's the music playing in the background? Where are you?

Speaker 4 I'm at home. Speaker 1 Oh, and you're just playing music while we chat? Speaker 4 No, it's your lobby music. I don't know. Speaker 1 That's my music. Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1 That's my music. Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1 Wow. That's interesting. Speaker 1 Yes. All right. Speaker 1 Very quickly about the project. Project 2025. You did the video on it. But I still don't understand

it. I looked at the document. It's very long. It flies over my head. Like, could you explain to me very simply? Speaker 1 Here's the gist of Project 2025. It's a very simply? Here's the gist of Project 2025. It's a good question. Here's the gist of it. Project 25, 2025 wants to when Trump or whatever Republican becomes president, install complete and total loyalists in all positions of government, including positions currently held not by political figures, but just bureaucrats like career bureaucrats do what they call taking apart the administrative state, which includes eliminating entire departments altogether and pushing the country towards an authoritarian autocracy.

That's the best way I can say it. Sounds horrible. I don't want it's bad. It's not a good thing. Yeah, It's not a good thing. Yeah, it's not a good thing. Yeah. All right, Paul. Well, listen, thank you so much for the call. I appreciate it. And congratulations on getting out of the cult. Thank you. Thank you. All right. There goes Paul from Florida. Congratulations. Right. I mean, really, really remarkable stuff. Let's go next to let's talk to Ryan from Berkeley, California, who says he's a Republican.

Ryan, are you the rare Berkeley Republican? Well, can you hear me, David? All right. Yes, I can. Yeah, I would call myself like a Romney. So in this I originally had to be there because I would consider myself a Biden voter. But Biden Trump debate, I'm on the Biden side. You're a Romney Republican.

I gotcha. That's right. Actually, I have one very quick thing to say about what Sean was talking about on the issue of speech on campus, which is that and tell me if you sort of agree with this. I think the original video, I do think you seem to misunderstand, in my opinion, when it turns into conduct framing, because that sounded crazy from the, you know, from the executives or the leaders of the universities. Right.

I think the point they were leaning on was that the harassment itself is the offense, not the language, which I think is fair enough, even if it's hypocritical in other areas. Do you agree with that part or do you still think I guess what I struggle with is the practicality of what is the context in which one could make a call for genocide where their behavior is no problem? Right, right. I mean, I guess it's just let's imagine that we grant they're not trying to genocide anyone. They aren't holding physical weapons, but they're on campus holding a bunch of signs that say all Jews should be killed, all trans people should be killed, whatever. Isn't isn't that already a bullying, hostile act? The fact that you're on campus holding this sign up to students who meet whatever immutable characteristic you've decided

like that. That would be it seems to me that that already would be a form of bullying, wouldn't it? Yeah, I agree with that. And I just think that's the conduct. So the question would be, does that cross into the realm of that is harassment conduct. But I don't think calling, quote unquote, for the genocide of Jews itself can necessarily violate if you just. How would you call it without it being part of what you're doing? Is it like if you make a Facebook post, but then on campus you don't do or say anything? Or you just say it in an anger, right? Like to your friend, the cafeteria. I don't know. You're just angry or you're in a class where you're talking about. Should we respond to things? I mean, I think you should be allowed to say things that are bad. So then if you are, I agree

that signs themselves to me are the conduct because you've basically it's just like a public display of intimidation. I guess what we have to imagine is that there would be some way to super calmly go, listen, I mean, this is no threat to any Jewish person here, but I do believe that all Jews should be killed. I'm I'm saying it perfectly calm, like how it's it's it's almost like silly. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's fair enough. I just wanted to sort of draw the through line there, but it's not that important from

my perspective because I mostly agree with what you're saying. And I ask that maybe more important question I wanted to get to, which is, so this is like a strategic thing on how I think we, I guess, including myself, you know, with the Biden camp should handle a certain political strategic challenge, which is that it seems to me there's like a challenge, particularly with maybe the border, but it applies to other issues when it comes to handling Trump. It seems that he finds a way over the years to take positions that are so extreme and really less taking a position, but more just saying something in such an extreme way that the response has to be,

that's crazy, that's way too far, that's outlandish, but in doing so, appearing weak. But the obvious example is the border, which is so important right now. Trump says, this will be the biggest deportation of our lifetimes when I'm in office. We'll build this giant wall and all this sorts of stuff. No one will come in. And the realities of that being impractical, arguably unethical, whatever, don't really matter because it's less about the specifics of what he's doing. It's that he's

communicating sort of strength. He's communicating that it matters to him a lot. Right. And then anything else is like a walk back from that. And I just feel like this pins Democrats sometimes and obviously pinned everyone in the primary in 2016 because everyone else appeared sort of relatively weak on the Republican side. Maybe it will apply to Iran, too. I don't know. And I guess my question is just what do you think the Biden campaign can do to not sort of play that game and instead, you know, have that unbalanced policy debate, but do something different to avoid that? You know, I'm going to be completely honest, Ryan, the way that the dynamics of this general election are shaping up, I don't know that it's going to come down to the Biden campaign figuring out how

to counterpoint these outlandish statements from Trump. Anyway, I just I don't think that that is going to be the dynamic of this campaign in a normal campaign. Trump would say this outlandish thing and then it would put the other candidate, Biden, in a position to have to respond substantively, but figure out what sort of policy can I stake out here that is going to be. I just this there is no indication to me that that is at all going to be the way that this campaign goes down. And so I don't even think it's a

concern, to be totally frank. Speaker 4 Yeah, that's that's a take. Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, it may not be satisfying in the way that maybe you were hoping for, but I just don't think it's going to matter. It's this is such a different sort of presidential election. It's kind of like when you laugh at people who are undecided, right? It's like it does feel like everything's not playing on the policy realm. A hundred percent. How could you possibly be undecided? It's insane. OK, well, thank you, David. I appreciate it. Thanks very much. Great to hear from you. There's Ryan Republican from Berkeley, California.

Fascinating stuff. Let's go next to. Oh, I don't know. How about a santo from Louisiana who's also a website member at join Pacman dot com, which I very much appreciate. Welcome Santa. What's on your mind today? Hello.

How you doing? Doing well. Been a while. Okay. So I know that we already talked about this in the past, not you and I, but on the channel. So if Donald Trump loses, do you think that a lot of people that came into politics on both sides, because whenever he came in, a lot of people came in and the anti-Trump and then a lot of people came in and the pro-Trump column after. So so in a post-Trump ecosystem, do you think that a lot of those people are going to stay involved? Like, do you think it was like a wake up call to them? Really good question. Enough. I think it's going to be a mix, but I think there are a ton of Trump supporters who just barely even care about this stuff. They really are just in the Trump cult. I think they

go away. If I'm honest, Santo, I don't think they stay involved in politics when Trump is out, unless there is a sort of anointed replacement for Trump in the cult. I think a ton of these people, they were never involved in politics before Trump, and they will get bored and exit once Trump isn't involved anymore either. That's my prediction. All right. Sounds good. I have one other silly thing, if you'll allow it. Sure. OK, so I was watching your live coverage of the New Hampshire primary election. And so after Trump was declared the winner, he went up on stage and they had a bunch of people speak and they had Vivek speak. Yep. And right after Vivek got done speaking, they went to go hand the mic back over to Trump. And in the transition, they played the Imperial March from Star Wars.

No, I played that. I it's not that you played. That was me playing that. Yeah. Oh, OK. I thought I that went over my head. I didn't even realize that it was you. That was me.

OK, that makes it less funny. OK, it's definitely less funny. Yeah, I thought that they were just so. Okay. That makes it less funny. Okay. It's definitely less funny. Well, I thought that they were just so, yeah, I thought that they were just so like ignorant that they just thought that that was just a cool song. No, no, no, no, no. That was me. That was all me. Okay. Okay. All right, Santa. Thank you so much for the call. Very much appreciate it. Let's go next to miles from Colorado miles. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Hi, David, how are you doing? Doing well. All right. So I did a little prepared question statement. So let me just read it off. So let me pretext the partial steaming question to say that

I fully grasped the danger of another possible Trump presidency and that we really do whatever it takes to keep him out of office. And I'm aware the Biden administration has had a lot of successful and beneficial bills passed, you know, i.e. the CHIPS Act, Inflation Reduction Act, infrastructure bill, capping insulin, et cetera. But my question is, if we take a step back, like intellectually honest step back, like, do you really or do we really think that Biden is the best candidate that could have come out of the left for this? Because I don't know. I mean, I could never have fathomed that we would have had another Trump Biden running. And that's really what it's looking like at this point. And I just I feel very shocked

about it. I mean, Biden is just, you know, he's he's old, you know, he's very old. I mean, he he's not he has gaps like everyone has gaps, but it's concerning to me. And my biggest question here is, what do you think about the fact that some states essentially canceled the Democratic primary? So so you asked me three different things there. The canceling of the Democratic primary parties never run a real primary when they have an incumbent. So there's nothing special going on on the Democratic side or never run a real primary when they have an incumbent. So there's nothing special going on on the Democratic side or on the Republican side. Part of what's happening on the Democratic side is that the timing of New Hampshire versus South Carolina was moved around

and then this generated this thing where Biden was a right in in New Hampshire. Honestly, I think it's totally irrelevant when Republicans have an incumbent. They don't run a primary, but there are still people who say I'm running and then it's like there's no primary when Democrats have an incumbent, they don't run a primary. But there are still people who say I'm running. And then it's like there's no primary when Democrats have an incumbent. They do the same thing. I think it's a nonissue. I don't even think it's worth talking about. On your question of do I think Biden is the best person to represent the Democratic Party or progressives?

There's two different questions here, Miles. The first question is, if Biden weren't the president right now, would he be my top choice? If you said, David, who are the Democratic rising stars? Who do you want to run? I wouldn't list Biden. I wouldn't. There are so many people I think are more are more interesting. Pete Buttigieg, Stacey Abrams, Gavin Newsom, Jamie Raskin.

You know, I could give you a list of 20 people. That's the question. That's part one of the question. The second part is, given that he is president and the economy is good and he has a long list of accomplishments. Is the logical strategic decision to stick with him? I think the answer is probably yes. So you see how there's these are two different questions, right? Yeah, of course.

Yeah, that's my take. Speaker 1 OK, and I did have one more question about that. And if Trump, you know, inevitably, I mean, it seems obvious he's going to be the primary pick. I don't know what's going to happen with his criminal cases. I mean, 91 felony indictments, for whatever reason, it seems the Republican Party, the constituents love to see these things. They cheer for it.

I don't know why. Yeah. But do you think that when Biden and Trump come across each other, do you think it's going to end up the same way, in your opinion, as 2020? What do you mean the same way with Biden winning? Yeah. As in like a seven million more votes for Biden? Like, do you think it'll end up that way? Do you think that anything might affect that where Trump has a chance of winning? I think Trump has a chance of winning. But I believe that if the economy remains solid, Biden will win. OK, yeah, that was pretty much my question.

Thank you for calling. All right. Thank you for answering me. Thanks, Miles. Miles from Colorado. Great to hear from you. That will do it for calls for today. We will take calls again next week.

I'm so sorry I can't get to everybody, but I try. I really do. And the hundred or so folks who didn't get on next time, let's take a quick break and we'll be back right after this. Did you know there are hundreds of commercial databases and people search sites that hold your personal information. And the number is growing every year. Anyone in the world, boss and X can use these people search sites to see your online activity, to find your home address, phone number, email address, license plate number, family members, financial info, even your political beliefs. Europe has certain laws that protect people against this. But it is a big problem in the United States. The FBI is even buying this data

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posted to the subreddit. Why do you feel entitled to the votes of leftist slash progressives when leftists or progressives say they wouldn't be voting or would be voting for a third party instead of voting Biden because Biden does not align with their values regarding certain topics like maybe taxes or Palestine or whatever. Democrats and people here, meaning, I guess, on my subreddit, see over why they should be voting for Biden and how it will be all their fault if Biden loses to Trump and blah, blah, blah. However, if a person that is center right or further right says they won't be voting for Biden and will be voting for Trump instead because Biden doesn't align with their values, I don't think anyone here would be screaming at them as to how they should be

voting Biden or crying about how they would be the reason Biden loses. So my question is, why do you feel entitled to the votes of people that are to the left of you, but not to the right of you? If you want the votes of progressives so badly, shouldn't you at least make an effort to gain the votes of leftists by taking into account their values instead of just yelling at them? This is a perfectly fine question. No one is entitled to anybody's votes. OK, the difference in these scenarios is the following. There are lots of these people on the left who are way closer to Biden than they are to Trump.

Imagine a number line that goes from one to ten. Five is perfect moderates. One is the left. Ten is the right. If we say Biden is a four and Trump's a nine. Right. And you're a three. You're to Biden's left. You're one away from Biden and six away from Trump. And so the frustration that some on the left have with those folks saying I'm going to vote third party or stay home is that you've got someone that's a four and you're a three. You're right there. But you're going to take an action that makes it more likely that the nine becomes president. I'm not entitled to anything. Biden's not entitled to anything, whatever. Now, the caller, the writer says, what about centrists?

Right. Imagine that you're, you know, between four and nine. Imagine you're a six and a half. So you're two and a half from Biden and you're two and a half from Trump. Why don't you blame then them for Biden losing? So you're two and a half from Biden and you're two and a half from Trump. Why don't you blame then them for Biden losing? Well, at least their politics are somewhere between Biden and Trump. So it's not as obviously a self inflicted, damaging move to stay home or vote third,

third party or whatever. So that's why it's different. Nobody's entitled to any vote. I don't see any entitlement in many of these people saying, you know, you might end your actions might end up with you being even more dissatisfied, assuming you're telling the truth about being to Joe Biden's left. But nobody's entitled to any vote. Everybody gets to do what they want. Every politician has to earn every vote. All right. Robert Richardson wrote in about crime. He just doesn't believe in the statistics. Robert says crime is not down. That's a ridiculous understatement. Laws have changed so that crime isn't labeled the same theft laws in California

and why gangs of criminals are ransacked stores across the nation. People are having their cars broken into windows, smashed, legalizing drug use, I guess, does lower crime rates, but also destroys the country's soul. This is very stupid because when we look at the data on violent crime and property crime, drug use is nowhere in there. So the argument is they've changed the laws. You legalize drugs. All of a sudden crime is down wrong.

When you look at violent crime and property crime, drug use crimes are not in there. It there's very little. It's hard to say anything more than that. Tell us, wrote in and says the moment Trump wins this November, I am going both feet all in on the stock market because Trump will take it through the roof again. Trump 2024. You know, it's funny if this guy has been sitting on the sidelines of the stock market since Joe Biden became president, waiting for Trump to win to then put his money into the stock market.

You've lost a lot of money, my friend. You've lost a lot of gains that you could have had during this record run up record run up under Joe Biden. But to each his own. You're talking about timing the market. I don't recommend doing that. I just keep investing no matter who's president. It's worked out pretty well.

A user who goes by the name Sex Bomb and you see his profile picture here as well, wrote to us on Tik Tok and says, you are a dumb ass for thinking that way. I am a veteran of the will back him as long as you try to put him away. What he is the best president we've had in years. To each their own. And you can I guess what this person saying is for as long as there are indictments against Trump, sex bomb 1950 is going to be trying to make Trump president again. All right. Well, you're absolutely entitled to do that on Instagram. A user who goes by the handle be unapologetically patriotic.

So this is a very patriotic individual. He wrote in and said, Hey, Davey, when are you going to start talking about the DNC pulling Joe Biden and replacing him with Michelle Big Mike Obami before the election? Laughing, crying emoji. I have one answer, OK? Because remember, by the way, transphobic comment, disgusting in every way. We're going to skip over that for the time being. When will I start talking about Michelle Obama replacing Joe Biden this year on the ticket? I will start talking about that as soon as there is even a shred of evidence that it's

going to happen. And you can count on that, my friend. You can count on that. Symptom of the universe commented on Trump criticizing Nikki Haley for acting like she won the New Hampshire primary. And symptom says he has a lot of nerve saying Nikki acts like she won. He's been doing it for three years. It's a fair point, right? Trump's been acting. Forget about Nikki Haley coming out positive after losing New Hampshire. Trump's been pretending that he's the winner of the 2020 presidential election for three years. Anthony Cassinelli says, are we nervous, David? Are we nervous, David? Nothing will stop Trump from being president in November. No riot, no war, no terror attack and definitely no pathogen X

and no indictment either. Bye bye, David. Enjoy your freedom while you can. You know, it's funny. All these people want to act like Trump's not going to be a dictator. Trump's not going to be an authoritarian. He he's not going to be like Kim or Putin or Duterte or Erdogan. And then he says, if Trump wins, I will lose my freedom. It sounds like he's going to be an authoritarian dictator. If you're telling me my freedom will expire when Donald Trump becomes president again. These aren't serious people, by the way. These are not serious people. And lastly, Evan Sheehan wrote in and says, you're a waste man. Now, of course, it's the wrong you're. I don't even know if it's relevant to point that out anymore. It's almost always the wrong you're with these people. OK, you're a waste man, only waffling because you're a Democrat for though Trump clapping

Sleep Joe in the election. English, please try it. Isn't that what they say to the you know, immigrants are endangering our country because they refuse to speak English. Evan Sheehan is refusing to speak English and says it's the immigrants that we need to worry about. Give me a break, dude. I don't know what you're talking about. All right, folks, send in your thoughts. Info at David Pakman dot com. Reddit. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, tick tock, the whole thing. It's the Friday feedback one day early because I'm off tomorrow. We have a fantastic bonus show for you today. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. It'll give you access like that. And you can, of course, use the coupon code SAVEDEMOCRACY24.