The David Pakman Show - 2/14/23: Anti-trans hearing goes horribly wrong, Nikki Haley running for President

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Arkansas state Senator Matt McKee asks transgender pharmacist Gwendolyn Herzig whether she has a penis during a recent hearing about an anti-trans bill -- Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, recently exposed for lying about her Jewish heritage, says that calling her a liar is "anti-Hispanic" -- A crowd goes completely silent when radical and repugnant Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene brings up 9/11 to attack Joe Biden about the Chinese surveillance balloon -- The White House explains that the recent UFOs that were shot down are not likely to be aliens from another planet -- Banning books and ideas isn't a culture war, it's fascism -- Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley announces she is running for President in 2024 in the Republican primary against Donald Trump -- Failed former President Donald Trump throws a tantrum on Truth Social about Ron DeSantis -- Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis needs to figure out when and how to attack Donald Trump, if indeed DeSantis plans to run for President -- Donald Trump descends further into madness, reportedly believing all of his phones are tapped according to his spokeswoman Liz Harrington -- Taking a look at Bill Maher's decline -- Another voicemail caller seems to wrongly think that David is a socialist -- On the Bonus Show: Conservative pundits slam Rihanna's Super Bowl performance, US lawmakers take an interest in ChatGPT, Bernie Sanders introduces bill to boost Social Security benefits, much more... 🍷 Crunchy Red Fruit: Code PAKMAN saves you $20 at https://crunchyredfruit.com 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep: Get 20% OFF a mattress + 2 free pillows. Go to https://helixsleep.com/pakman 👍 Get 10% off the Füm Journey Pack with code PAKMAN at https://tryfum.com ✉️ StartMail: Get 50% OFF a year subscription at https://startmail.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 A new anti woke hero has surfaced for many on the anti trans right. His name is Senator Matt McKee. He is a state senator in Arkansas. He did the heroic thing where he asked a trans pharmacist whether she has a penis. And this makes you a hero among much of the anti trans right. Let me set this up for you before we play the clip. And the clip is quite stunning. Arkansas has been on this war path to do things that really aren't worth doing in order to virtue signal, like, for example, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signing a law banning critical race theory being taught in public schools, which, of course, it's not being taught in public schools, so it doesn't really

matter. OK, Arkansas also is on this path to criminalize gender affirming care, medical care we're talking about. And this is part of the battle against trans people. And there was an almost surreal moment during which Republican State Senator Matt McKee asked a trans pharmacist, Gwendolyn Herzog, whether she has a penis. Now, the bill that was being discussed eventually passed on Monday morning with only one Democrat at the meeting voting against it. This is Senate Bill 199 to open up doctors who provide gender affirming care to youth,

significant loopholes and additional malpractice liabilities and all sorts of different things in order to make it more difficult to provide that care. And so a pharmacist named Wendell and Herzog, who is a trans Arkansas, spoke against the bill, spoke against SB one ninety nine, shared her experience as a trans person and health care provider in the state of Arkansas. She did not receive much respect, but she was asked, do you have a penis? Take a listen to this. You said that you're a trans woman. I trans female. Yes, sir. Do you have a penis? That's horrible. You're the one you're the one that brought that into the discussion. Yeah, really on the vanguard of political philosophy and medical treatment, as you can see here, do you have a penis? I would turn it around on this guy and say, sir, I know you're

a dick, but do you have a penis? The obsession with other people's genitalia is really something the anti trans people consider that heroic. They think that's a massive anti-woke victory to really ask the questions that need asking. It's biology and truth or whatever it is, right? Globalist internationalist. Yeah, you know the stuff. I hate to say it, folks. I really do. I would get out of Arkansas. And the reason I hate to say it is most people can't just easily move to another state. It's just a reality, either for financial reasons, because you're established in a certain state, your job's not mobile, your family's not mobile. Everyone you know is in a particular place. So, you know, my instinct is always to say,

work within the system and figure out how to improve things and lobby and all these different things. Arkansas is becoming so backwards. We've looked at the health care numbers near the bottom. We've looked at the crime numbers near the worst in the country. We've looked at the education numbers. We've looked at the infrastructure numbers. Arkansas is not a great place to be. And I'm sure Little Rock has beautiful cafes and you can get a great cappuccino and maybe even a bagel. But it it's really going in a bad direction now under the stewardship, if you can call it that, of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, wasting resources and money and time on meaningless things, the openly anti-trans attacks that are going on. I don't know at this point that it's the sort of thing where, listen, if you don't,

if, if you don't have, if you're in the position to say, I can deal with a horrible place for 10 years because I want to make it better through activism. I'm with you. I'm with you. But for so many people at this point, it has become so disastrous in that state that it may be time to leave. And that's a really difficult thing to do in a lot of different ways. But it has gotten disastrously bad in Arkansas. Do you have a penis? The latest in the battle lines against the wokesters or whatever it is they call it. They see this as a victory. We see it as humiliating. A lying Republican now says that when you call out her lies, you're being anti-Hispanic. This is exactly the nonsense that the right accuses the left of doing. I will remind you

that there is this new Republican congresswoman, Anna Paulina Luna. She lied about being Jewish. We talked about it yesterday. She's not actually Jewish. She has since been called out for her lies. She says to Charlie Kirk during an appearance yesterday that when her lies are called out, it is anti Hispanic. That's an interesting perspective. Let's listen. And to say that I would make something like that up. Why would they say that? It's because they don't want young Hispanics to be reputable. And if you look at the slant of the entire article, they say that I'm not Hispanic enough, even though they cite where my grandparents immigrated from. But, you know, a lot of what they do is character assassination. And if you don't have spine for it, you can fold. But I think that we launched a full front frontal assault and we'll look forward to more retraction

soon. Yeah. Despite the claims of Republicans, it is actually Republicans who regularly play the victim card. This is another example of accusations or confessions. This is another example of projection. This is another example of the right developing a narrative about the left that applies more to them than it does to the left. Republicans often claim that the left always are victims. We're victims of racism, say the leftists. We're victims of xenophobia. We're victims of sexism. The left just they want to be victims. But when you actually look, you see that Republicans have been playing the victims for a long time now. The war on Christmas, the Christians were being victimized. The war on

religion. The claims aren't backed by evidence. They use them to rally their base. They use them to raise money. They use them to purport to be the victims of some liberal agenda. Oh, if you're straight, you're now being attacked just for being straight. Another example, they say we're victims of election fraud. There's no evidence to support that. And in fact, when individual perpetrators of so-called election fraud are found, they are almost always Republicans either trying to test the system or simply trying to vote multiple times. They say the left does it. They're the they're the ones getting caught doing it. OK, they said an the ones getting caught doing it. OK. They said an entire election was stolen from them.

Trump's new thing. Oh, no. Nobody's been treated more unfairly than my family. All my friends. Do you have friends, sir? All my friends tell me nobody's been treated as unfairly as you have. But the left, they're the ones who play the victim. And then, of course, they often claim to be the victims of discrimination or sometimes

they'd like to use the term reverse discrimination or reverse racism or whatever the case may be. And yet when you actually look at studies, you find that it is people of color, communities of color, marginalized groups who are more likely to actually be discriminated against. And so by claiming to be the victims of discrimination, they they deny the experiences of people who are actually the victims of discrimination. They distract from real issues. And of course, they become that which they criticize the left for being. And this is yet another example. They're going after me for being Hispanic. No, they're going after you for being a liar. That's what this is at the end of the day. And so I don't really know the best strategy for the left on this, because if

you're on the left and you identify an injustice, you've gone woke, you're playing the victim card, whatever. But then when they do it themselves and we call it out because the right doesn't care about hypocrisy anymore, if they ever did, and because the right has abandoned policy, their voters don't actually care. They fall for it. Yeah, they're going after Anna Paulina Luna because she's a proud conservative Hispanic woman. No, they're going after her because she's a liar and she deserves it. Quite simply, Marjorie Taylor Greene used the death count from the hijacked 9-11 flight 93 to minimize the risk of shooting down the Chinese spy balloon over land. And the crowd goes completely silent. You have to see this. This is stunning, stunning stuff.

Marjorie Taylor Greene and a bunch of right wingers initially went after Joe Biden by saying he's not going to have the testicular fortitude. That's my word, not theirs, to shoot down the Chinese surveillance balloon. As we know, Joe Biden eventually shot down the Chinese surveillance balloon. And so Republicans had to shift their tone, shift their message. Some of them shifted to who cares? Any president would have done it. But Marjorie Taylor Greene is shifting to he didn't need to wait for the balloon to go over water before shooting it down. That was a sissy move. He should have shot it down over land. And as proof as to how benign that is, think back to 9-11. Remember when there was that crash? I mean, even describing it as a crash when there was that

crash. Nobody I mean, yes, everybody on the plane died, but nobody on the ground died. It is so quiet as Marjorie Taylor Greene says these disgusting things in this room. The crowd was all jazzed up up until this point. It goes so quiet that if somebody dropped a pin, you would be able to hear it. Take a look at this. Finally leaves the coast and then, oh, they shot it down. The excuses that were given on this were pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. They told us it was too risky. Oh, it was too risky to shoot down the Chinese spy balloon.

Do you know what a bunch of bulls**t that is? Yeah. They said it's three school buses. Three school buses wide. Okay. Well, do you guys remember on 9-11 when an airplane crashed in Pennsylvania? A jetliner. Remember that? Oof. It didn't kill anybody on the ground. Killed everyone on board. But it didn't kill-

Silence. Instantly silence. But anyone on the ground. So they want to tell all of us that it was too risky to take down that Chinese five over rural Idaho or Montana or any of these other states or Alaska. Anyway, quite a bold analogy to be making. But in the service of attacking any decision made by Joe Biden, anything is fair game for people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, a disgusting person. Usually I say a disgusting

woman. And someone wrote to me and said, David, sir, might you be a misogynist? Because if a man does something disgusting, you say, what a disgusting person. But when Marjorie Taylor Greene does something disgusting, you say, what a disgusting woman. I don't know. Should I say disgusting person? She's definitely both. As far as we all know, she's a woman in the in the in the valiant battle against trans wokeists. Marjorie Taylor Green has drawn that line in the sand. She is a woman. Should I say she's a disgusting person or a disgusting woman? Let me know. But disgusting certainly fits the bill. Absolutely no tragedy. She is unwilling to use to her perceived advantage. We will have all of these clips on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the David Pakman show.

And we will also have these clips in Spanish now on the Spanish YouTube channel, youtube.com slash at symbol David Pakman. Espanol. I know it's like, isn't it Espanol? But you can't in a URL have the thing over the end. So it's David Pakman Espanol for the Spanish channel. It's crazy. I know. But check it out. I like wine, but I know very little about it and I am completely clueless when I go to a wine shop. I just don't know what I'm looking for. I don't know what I'm looking at. I couldn't tell you anything about varietals or if there's hints of persimmon or any of it. And so if you're like me wishing you had a seasoned expert by your side when you're choosing wine? Crunchy red fruit is the answer. Crunchy red fruit delivers choice, handcrafted, small production wines right to your door. Every bottle is handpicked by owner and master sommelier Jackson Rohrbaugh in Seattle and comes

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purchase or sign up for their bi-monthly club and email circle at crunchy red fruit dot com for twenty dollars off. The info is in the podcast notes. Did you know that half of Americans are deficient in vitamin A, vitamin C and magnesium? Most Americans are deficient in vitamin D. I take vitamin D during the winter. It is sometimes difficult to eat exactly the right amount of each food to get exactly what you need. I just make my life simpler with AG1 by Athletic Greens. In the morning, one scoop of AG1, I get the entire day's worth of 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, and whole food sourced ingredients. It's what I want. It's no more. It's no less. It's not making any outlandish claims. It's just an easy, sustainable routine. I've tried different ways of taking vitamins. AG1 is cheaper. It's quicker. It's tastier. I'm not fumbling around with different capsules. It tastes great to drink straight with water.

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benefits, including the world famous award winning bonus show. We give the awards, but still it's like we did win some awards for the bonus show. You can use the coupon code 24 starts now to get a discount. And boy, does 24 start now. Trump has a challenger, Nikki Haley. But we'll get to that a little bit later. Let's follow up first about the UFOs. The United States has now officially said we do not believe that the recent surveillance balloons slash devices tentatively believed to be from

China are evidence of intelligent aliens from another planet, solar system or galaxy even visiting us on Earth. Joe Biden's press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, making that statement during a press briefing yesterday. We addressed this from the White House. I know there have been questions and concerns about this, but there is no again, no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns. Again, there is no indication of aliens or terrestrial activity. It's funny because the press corps laughs. But just look online. There are endless gobs of people convinced that this is a cover up of extraterrestrial encounters with these recent takedowns. Wanted to make sure that the American people knew that all of you knew that. And it was important for us to say that from here because we sure, Karine, that's just what you would say if you wanted to cover it up. Hearing a lot about it. I'm not. I'm just, you know, I loved E.T., the movie, but I'm just going to leave it there.

All right. Then National Security Council's John Kirby also reiterated this and said this. These are not aliens. It's not aliens, folks. The top officials of the Pentagon when asked explicitly if they were ruling out any kind of extraterrestrial presence, that they weren't ruling anything out. And yet at the beginning of today's briefing, albeit with her usual winning smile, Ms. Jean-Pierre seemed to rule out any extraterrestrial activity. I don't think the American people need to worry about aliens with respect to these craft, period. I don't think there's any. Now, you heard what he said, right? I don't think the American people need to worry about aliens with respect to these craft. And there are those who believe

that Kirby is very narrowly answering this question and saying these are not extraterrestrial aliens, but that doesn't mean that there aren't others. Now, let's talk a little bit about aliens. This is this is a very interesting topic. I want to expand on what I said during my recent appearance with Anthony Pompliano when I was down in Florida. One of the appearances I did was with Anthony Pompliano and he asked me about aliens. It is really important to understand the sheer vastness of the universe. You've got our galaxy, the Milky Way, hundreds of billions of stars and then all of the accompanying planets and so on and so forth. So I do have a very general view that based on what we know about the vastness of the universe, statistically,

I think the likelihood of extraterrestrial life of some kind could be bacterial, could be intelligence. I don't know. I think the odds are high. The probability of that intelligent life having already visited Earth, I believe, is extraordinarily low. And the sort of math of it is as follows. You look at the number of stars in the universe, it's astronomical, 100 billion in our own Milky Way alone. With that number of stars, it is likely that at least some planets would be capable of supporting life. So the conditions, at least theoretically for life, are probably not that rare. If you look

at all of the planets that there are, you then say, OK, well, on some fraction of those that could support life, it doesn't seem super unlikely, even if it's a small percentage that life would develop. And so I do think that when you consider all of that and the age of the universe, 13.8 billion years old, that's a lot of time for life to have evolved on other planets as well. So I think it is likely, given the laws of physics and chemistry, which appear to be universal and all these different things, it's likely that there is life on other planets. Do I think it has reached Earth in the form of a balloon or a cylinder or, you know, humanoid four foot tall aliens with obsessed with anal probes. It must be proctology must be big on other planets. I don't know that I don't have any evidence for. And then when you look at, you know, the numerous so-called

UFO sightings over the years, we have a lack of concrete evidence. We see that the stories that are told match the images of supposed aliens from movies and from popular culture. And many are specifically debunked as aircraft or weather balloon or birds or whatever. So, you know, there's that there's the lack of physical evidence and all of these different things. So really funny coda to this, which is Mark Esper, Trump's former secretary of defense, who says, you know, if aliens were to come here, I don't think this is exactly what they would do. Careful.

I'm confident in saying that I doubt that the aliens would travel across the universe and all of a sudden decide to conduct surveillance over Lake Huron in a balloon moving 20 miles per hour. That's the plan that I think we're in good shape and we now know we can shoot them down. But I don't think that's true at all. Look, my hunch is that that these are weather balloons or scientific experiments put aloft by another country, another company or some nonprofit. We'll learn that in due course. Yeah. You know, I it makes sense. Esper is not a guy that I found super interesting as an elected official or whatever. But I do think this is a good point. And it's similar to, you know, if if the aliens

really were making contact, I don't know that their priority would necessarily be anal probes. And so it's sort of weird that that's a big part of a lot of the stories that are told. I think Esper is right, but maybe that's just what the aliens want us to think. It's not us because we would never just go 20 miles an hour over one of the Great Lakes. Let me know what you think. I agree with Karine Jean-Pierre and Kirby and Esper. I do not believe this is evidence of alien contact. Really good piece in The Guardian by our friend and former guest on this program, Jason Stanley, about the so-called culture war that seeks to ban ideas and ban books and remove entire subject matter from an advanced placement black history course in Florida and say these

books shouldn't be here, that those books shouldn't be there. And Jason very eloquently explains in this article titled Banning Ideas and Authors is Not a Culture War. It's fascism. A lot of the important elements of this. And he says it much more eloquently than I could. So I encourage you to read the article, which we're going to link to in the description to the YouTube video for this story. But I want to build on this in some way and tell you some of the ways in which this sort of ideology has gone very poorly in the past and agree with Jason that we really can't when we say this is part of the culture war. Some people want to ban books and some don't. This is part of the culture war. Some people want to remove the teaching of certain lessons from school curricula and some want to. It's just a

culture war, just a disagreement. It is critical that we see it as a form of fascism. And when you look at history, when you look at regimes that have tried or did ban or burn books, silence dissenting voices. It has frequently ended in tragedy or led to absolutely horrible circumstances. You have to look at Nazi Germany. The burning of books was a tactic used to suppress opposition and impose. I guess we would call it like ideological conformity. You will conform. The Nazis knew books could be powerful tools for challenging their world worldview. So

they set out to destroy those books and materials that didn't fit with their narrative. The Soviet Union, where the government maintained really strict control over what people could read and write. Descending voices were silenced. Anyone who spoke out could be labeled a traitor or punished extraordinarily severely. In the United States, we've seen attempts to ban books. We've seen attempts to censor ideas throughout history. You go to the McCarthy era. We have these more recent attempts around critical race theory. The efforts are always about maintaining power, controlling the narrative and suppressing dissenting ideas and voices. Now, this is a really important distinction when we talk about Orwellian versus Huxleyan.

OK, often things are called Orwellian in modern society when really modern American culture is more Huxley and this book banning is actually more Orwellian. So let me explain this a little bit. And if this is interesting to you, it's been widely written about and explored. When we talk about Huxley and we're talking about Aldous Huxley's book, Brave New World, we're talking about a society that is kind of kept passive and under control, not through force and oppression and the banning of books, but through pleasure and distraction and entertainment. And that is mostly what we have

when we look. I mean, Fox News is the perfect example of Huxley and Fox News mixes opinion and news. So you can't tell which it is. They it's the fire hood, a fire hose of falsehood. There's just tons of stuff being pumped out. So you don't even know what's real and what's not. Fox News and right wing media match real news reporting with disinformation to the point where the average person sometimes is unclear which is the news and which is the made up stuff. And it encourages people to be apathetic, to be superficial in their understanding of what's going on in the world and to value entertainment. If the news doesn't entertain me, then I'm probably not watching. That's not Orwellian. Most of what

we have in modern American culture is actually Huxley and it's you don't need to do the Orwellian. Most of what we have in modern American culture is actually Huxley. And it's you don't need to do the Orwellian stuff because people are just going to pay attention to what's entertaining. They can't really tell the difference. They're apathetic anyway. OK. When we talk about the book banning, we are actually talking about something that is more Orwellian, where society is controlled through oppression and surveillance and control. And in a Huxley in society, information and ideas are controlled and manipulated through culture and entertainment. And you can push ideas out or replace them with things that are more titillating or whatever the case may be. The book banning efforts are much more Orwellian because they are a direct attempt to suppress

ideas and information. It's using government censorship. In the case of Florida, it's the idea of the state government wanting to change or control what is in the curriculum for that black history course. Oftentimes it's powerful interest groups that are controlling or whatever the case may be. It's a much more direct form of control. Orwellian. Most of American society is Huxley.

And the book banning efforts should be seen as forms of fascism. And they actually are Orwellian. We'll have more about this discussion on our Instagram. So make sure you are following us there. You can search David Pakman show on Instagram. One of our sponsors is Helix Sleep. I have been sleeping on a Helix mattress at home for years now. I couldn't be more happy with it. I recommend it to everybody. The other day, even though she's not allowed in the big bed, I put my baby daughter on the mattress and even she loved it.

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The info is in the podcast notes. Well, Donald Trump has his first serious challenger, I guess, serious in the twenty twenty four Republican primary. That challenger is former South Carolina governor and Trump's own former ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley. Nikki Haley was expected to announce any day. Eventually it became clear that she was going to announce on February 14th, which is, of course, what is it? Is it like National Tea Day or something?

Valentine's Day. Nikki Haley announcing she is indeed running for president, releasing a three minute video, which I have to tell you, I don't really understand the case she's making for her own candidacy, highlighting elements of her biography, but appearing to say I'm more or less like Trump, but younger. See if you can figure out what is the case she's making here. And then we're going to talk about the outlook. We've got new polling and we'll tell you where Nikki Haley is. It's all getting very interesting. Take a look at this. The railroad tracks divided the town by race. I was the proud

daughter of Indian immigrants. OK, so playing up racial diversity, starting off with that, not black, not white. I was different. It's enlightened centrism. She wasn't black or white. She was Indian. That's an interesting approach. But my mom would always say your job is not to focus on the differences, but the similarities. And my parents reminded me and my siblings every day how blessed we were to live in America. Some look at our past as evidence that America's founding principles are bad. They say the promise of freedom is just made up.

Some think our ideas are not just wrong, but racist and evil. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have seen evil. In China, they commit genocide. In Iran, they murder their own people for challenging the government. And when a woman tells you about watching soldiers throw her baby into a fire, it puts things in perspective. Even on our worst day, we are blessed to live in America.

I was born and raised in South Carolina, so I have seen the very best of our country. People here threw out the old, tired political establishment and demanded accountability for their tax dollars. Industry reports called us the beast of the Southeast, which I love. People came by the thousands for fresh starts. Moms and dads held their heads up high. Children learned that it was always... It's a great day in South Carolina. It's a great day.

It's a great day. A great day. A great day in South Carolina. It's a great day. It's a great day. A great day. A great day in South Carolina. We were strong. We were proud. And when evil did come. Police in South Carolina are looking for a gunman following a shooting at a church. Yeah, they when when evil came, they did nothing about gun safety. The victims, we don't know the severity. We turned away from fear toward God and values. That's true. They did nothing about the guns and they said we need prayer.

Make our country the freest and greatest in the world. We must turn in that direction again. Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections. That has to change. Yeah, well, maybe better candidates and better policies would help. Biden's record is abysmal, but that shouldn't come as a surprise. The Washington establishment has failed us over and over and over again. It's time for a new generation of leadership. Yeah. So it seems to be basically she's Trump, but a new generation, meaning younger. To rediscover fiscal responsibility, secure our border and strengthen our country, our pride and our purpose. Some people look at America and see vulnerability. The socialist

left sees an opportunity to rewrite history. By the way, the socialists on the screen are Nancy Pelosi, who is known for stock trading. Joe Biden, a center left Democrat, Kamala Harris, very much not a socialist. And Bernie, who, while describing himself as a Democratic socialist, actually really runs as a social Democrat. The this is the best they can do when it comes to socialists. China and Russia are on the march. They all think we can be bullied, kicked around. You should know this about me. I don't put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you're wearing heels. I'm Nikki Haley and I'm running for president. Speaker 1 Yeah.

So Nikki Haley is running her for president, if I understand correctly. It is the standard, completely generic, boring, old right wing talking points combined with she's younger and she's Indian. I mean, that's quite frankly, that's my understanding of what she's saying here. Now, it will be interesting to see Trump's reaction as of this moment. Trump has not responded to her challenge of Trump's Republican primary and looking on truth social here. I don't see that Donald Trump has posted anything.

So we'll see the direction that this goes. There is a new morning consult poll out from this week. It has Nikki Haley polling three percent. Of course, this poll was taken before she announced her candidacy. We'll see if maybe she could get to four percent or five percent based on this announcement. Right now, that tracker has Trump at forty seven, DeSantis at at 31, Pence at seven. And Nikki Haley tied for a heavily contested fourth place with both Liz Cheney and Ted Cruz. So very, very exciting numbers for now for Nikki Haley. The primary is truly starting earlier than ever. I mean, it is February. We already

have multiple candidates, by the way, February, not of 24, but of 2023. One of the practical questions that comes up is do these candidates even really start campaigning yet? Donald Trump really hasn't other than that one very low energy event, by the way, in South Carolina and putting out some really strange policy proposals that are not really policy. They're kind of more just complaints. We'll see if Nikki Haley starts campaigning regularly. This is, you know, if we think of July of next year or even August, probably July as as the end of the primary. We are talking here about a 17 to 18 month stretch of primary. We already have two candidates. It seems implausible that they're just going to be aggressively campaigning starting now. But maybe the fact that it's not

just Trump running anymore is going to force some of that to get going. So Nikki Haley, if you wanted, if you're on the Republican side and you don't like Trump, you now have someone who is actually running, actually running, losing very badly to Ron DeSantis, who hasn't even announced. But it is it is at least an official candidate. Let me know whether you think Haley will make any sort of impact here. Donald Trump is also now reacting not yet to Nikki Haley saying she's running, but reacting to Ron DeSantis and Ron DeSantis doing better than Trump in some recent polls and Trump throwing an absolute and complete tantrum on his platform. Truth, social, central Donald Trump reacting to a report that he's obsessed with DeSantis and spends time trying

to come up with nicknames for DeSantis, including allegedly Meatball Ron. I think that's because of DeSantis' physical appearance, although I'm not totally sure. Donald Trump posting some triggered messages to Troth Central, starting with, quote, all of the fake news is reporting that I spend large amounts of my time coming up with a good nickname for Ron DeSanctimonious, who is obviously going to give the presidential thing a shot. They are all 100 percent wrong. I don't even think about it. A very unimportant subject to me. This is the evidence that Trump is obsessed with Ron DeSantis. Trump saying I never think about Ron DeSantis or his nicknames to me means he thinks about Ron DeSantis. Trump saying I never think about Ron DeSantis or his nicknames to me means he thinks

about Ron DeSantis absolutely all the time. And then weighing in about the polling, some of which really has Trump doing very poorly compared to Ron DeSantis. Trump saying, quote, doing great in poll numbers, leading all Republicans by a lot, also leading Biden by a very wide margin, which means that our weaponized in Justice Department, local D.A.'s and attorney generals. Oh, come on. It's attorneys general attorney generals. Trump writes, we'll step up their illegal and unprecedented attacks in order to disparage me with false bull and statements in the hope that I will be damaged enough to allow a rhino or Biden to, quote, slip through the cracks.

But be careful. The American people get it and don't like what they are seeing. MAGA. So this is a very interesting time for Trump. He knows that DeSantis's numbers are very good for a guy who hasn't announced anything. But if he spends his time attacking a guy who isn't even running, it looks very weak. Trump wants to be alpha and his followers believe him to be alpha to some degree, as funny as that is. But Trump must realize if he does spend a lot of time going after a guy who isn't even actually running against Trump, it is kind of pathetic. It is weakening. It is disgusting and kind of kind of lame in a way. So he's going to have to figure out what to do. Just as interestingly is that if DeSantis is going to run against Trump, DeSantis has to figure out when and how to attack

Donald Trump. And I want to talk about that next. This is fascinating. Last week, when Ron DeSantis responded to Trump's attack on him by saying, I don't spend my time attacking other Republicans. DeSantis took the high road, as we discussed. I told you this isn't going to work for DeSantis. And I've expressed concerns previously that in a national campaign, DeSantis, who lacks all charisma, I mean, just completely uncharismatic. I don't know how DeSantis faces off against Trump and the nicknames and the attacks in a national campaign. I'm not the only one saying this. This is really interesting.

There's a New York Times article published two days ago called DeSantis's Challenge. When and how to counterattack Trump. The article is by Michael Bender and Maggie Haberman. And in this article, they actually address this issue. He's trying to take the high road, but that is not likely to work. And there's a paragraph that says some deep pocketed Republican donors have privately expressed concern about how DeSantis will perform when forced to directly engage with an opponent as combative and unbothered by traditional rules of decorum.

As Mr. Trump, Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist, said no Republican has ever emerged from an exchange with Donald Trump looking stronger. So the natural tendency is to deflect the tax and avoid confrontation. That's easy to do. Maybe wise when Trump's barbs are confined to truth social. The question is what happens when DeSantis finds himself on a debate stage opposite Trump and Republicans vote? Republican voters want to see whether they are getting what they were promised. I think this article is exactly right. And I think that the Republicans who are bringing this up are 100 percent justified in being concerned with this.

And the article mentions all of these different attacks that Trump launched against challengers in 2016, insinuating that Ted Cruz's father was linked to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, calling Ben Carson pathological, making fun of the appearance of Ted Cruz's wife and of Rand Paul and so on and so forth. This is exactly right. And so while I believe that, at least in theory right now, Ron DeSantis is well positioned for a run against Trump if he announces and if he takes the campaign seriously and he'll he has a shot, there's no doubt. But if they emerge as the front runners, Trump and DeSantis, and if they end up on stage against each other and DeSantis does this high road stuff while Trump brutally attacks DeSantis and he will, it doesn't look good for DeSantis.

I don't actually believe that Republican voters are going to be swayed by a guy who takes the high road. I think they want to see who here brings the sort of like, you know, what they what they wrongly believe to be alpha energy and whatever else. And I don't think the Santa's taking the high road will work. And DeSantis does need to figure out how do I attack Trump? When do I attack Trump? Or the chance that he has at this thing is going to very quickly evaporate. Let me know your thoughts.

What should DeSantis his approach be? And we will certainly have time to discuss this further. Trump has started to go after DeSantis in casual conversations, they say, describing him as all sorts of different strange things based on his physical appearance. So Trump seems to be winding it up. And even though Trump says he's not thinking about it, all of the indications are that he is Trump's going to be ready. This is, you know, Trump's not going to be ready with that health care plan that we were going to get in August of 2020. I'm not holding my breath waiting

for that health care plan. Trump is going to be ready for how to attack Ron DeSantis and DeSantis has to figure out what to do. collect your data every time you open an email from them. It's a huge mess. All of this information gets sold around. They can piece together where you've been, who you know, what you like, and it's out there forever. That's why I recommend start mail. Start mail never collects data from your emails. It blocks the trackers embedded in the emails that you receive. Start Mail lets you encrypt any email you send, even if the recipient doesn't use encryption, keeping your messages safe from prying eyes. Start Mail never shows you ads. And unlike other services, when you delete an email, it's gone forever. And I love this part. You can create unlimited email aliases so you don't have to give companies your real email

address, which can really cut down on spam. You can seamlessly migrate your emails and contacts from Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo and others. It's really easy. Start taking your privacy seriously by signing up for start mail. You'll get 50 percent off your first year subscription. Go to start mail dot com slash Pacman. That's S.T.A.R.T.M.A.I.L. Dot com slash Pacman for 50 percent off. The link is in the podcast notes. We are seeing an increasingly isolated and desperate failed former President Donald Trump descend into a new form of madness.

We heard in an interview yesterday with his official spokesperson, Liz Harrington, that at this point, Donald Trump believes all of his phones are, quote, tapped and he is operating as if that is the case. We are going to look at this clip and understand that it sort of starts. I didn't cut this clip. It starts in this way. But what Liz Harrington is talking about is he just believes that all of the phones are tapped. Let's listen to it and then discuss. He's probably had every phone call ever. And he just assumes so. Right. He assumes that's the case that people are listening in. But this man has been spied on. He's been looked at and they have nothing.

They've never had anything because he is so clean. I mean, he's not. That's why they had such a problem with him. And that's why they still to this day have such a problem with them, because they're used to being able to have some sort of leverage over everybody in Washington. It doesn't matter who they are. There's going to be something. They'll find it. They'll use it against you. They can't do that against President Donald J. Trump. That's why they have to make it up. However. Even though there's nothing, judges signed off on search warrants, grand juries have been impaneled, multiple criminal investigations, but they have less on Trump than on search warrants. Grand juries have been impaneled multiple criminal investigations,

but they have less on Trump than on any other president. He's an open book. And that's what they must be so frustrated because I was reading this this sham New York Times article right about Jack Smith, the war prosecutor. Right. They try to make it serious, like, oh, this is the type of guy they need to come after President Trump. And he's hired the same like cast of characters who've gone after Roger Stone, gone after Steve Bannon, these left wing hacks. They must be so frustrated because they've spent their lives on this and yet they still have really nothing. Yeah, they really have nothing. Can anybody prove all of Trump's phones aren't tapped? Now let's talk about this in parts. If Trump's phones are tapped, the first thing is, let's imagine that that's true.

Let's imagine Trump assumes correctly that the phones are tapped, even though there's no actually there's no actual evidence to suggest that that were if your phones are tapped. You should be really worried because you can't just tap people's phones will willy nilly. Law enforcement agencies need to get a warrant to tap someone's phone by presenting evidence of probable cause to a judge. And that involves filing a written application with the court, justifying the reasons for why you want to do the phone surveillance. And if the judge determines that the evidence justifies a wiretap, they will issue a court

order authorizing a wiretap. So the idea of Trump is squeaky clean, but they've tapped everything really doesn't make sense because there's at least the existence of probable cause that you're not squeaky clean. If your phone is getting tapped at all. Going further, the idea of Trump is squeaky clean in general is silly. Multiple criminal investigations, grand juries, subpoenas, multiple impeachments going all the way back to the Mueller probe that was not able to clear Donald Trump of obstruction on and on and on and on and on. But the most interesting part of this goes back to what we talked about at the beginning of the show. The right is obsessed with saying the left is all about saying that they are victims,

making themselves into victims, false claims of victimhood and on and on and on. And yet all the right can do increasingly is say that they are the victims. And look at all of the things that Donald Trump has claimed to be the victim of, including through his spokesperson, Liz Harrington, a victim of the Russia hoax, a victim of impeachment. Number one, a victim of impeachment. Number one, a victim of impeachment. Number two, a victim of judges that won't let him just do whatever the hell he wants when it comes to policy treated unfairly when it came to adjudicating the 2020 election. It was stolen from him. He was victimized there. He was re-victimized by 63 court decisions found

against him because those were also politically biased. His family has been victimized, even though the reason this family is being made fun of is Don and Eric particularly are just pathetic jokes in terms of the public statement that they but he's the greatest victim. They know no bottom to this. And it's going to continue being a theme in the greatest victim. They know no bottom to this. And it's going to continue being a theme in the 2024 campaign. And if he ends up dropping out before the primaries, which is increasingly a topic of discussion, it will be because he's the victim of something. It's not going to be, hey, you know what?

The electorate decided they're going a different direction. They don't want me. And I respect that. What? Trump would never say that it will be the fake news media conspiring with rhinos and the Republican establishment and the judicial system which has been weaponized. They all made me a victim and they pushed me out of the campaign or whatever. That's the way it's going to be as Trump descends further into madness. What exactly happened to Bill Maher is a question that many of you have been writing

to me and asking because he has made some increasingly strange comments lately that don't really seem to fit with the perception of Bill Maher. But I actually am going to show you today a transcript from an interview I remember watching that Bill Maher did 18 years ago. And I am going to argue that Bill Maher hasn't really changed. He's just sort of shifted his focus and shifted what he talks about. But it's the same Bill Maher today that it was in the past. So first and foremost, Bill Maher recently appeared with Fran Lebowitz on his podcast. It was an interesting conversation. But I disagree with a lot of things that Bill Maher is saying increasingly doesn't mean I disagree with

him on everything, but increasingly he's saying things that don't really make a lot of sense. Here he was sort of glamorizing Ron DeSantis. Take a listen to this. I mean, compared to Trump, he doesn't have a giant ass. He has hair. You know, he's got. I mean, compared to Trump, he has policies which Trump doesn't have. And the policies are really horrible.

Well, he does a lot of performative art. Yes. Some of it is a reaction to policies that were insane to begin with. Like the don't say gay. Sure. Ron DeSantis does some performative stuff, but it's because the left forced him to. Bill, first of all, it doesn't say that in it. It doesn't say don't say gay.

Parents were not. Look, he does a lot of stupid things. I agree. He campaigned for election deniers. That's a big red flag with me. But parents were not unreasonably concerned that schools had become a place where kids were being exposed to ideas about gender and race that were completely inappropriate for someone three years old. You're making my case for me. They may have been. However, I don't think, I think he does these things to distract from his real policies,

which are, let's stop Social Security, cut Medicare. You know, those are the real things. And especially in Florida, where 90% of the people are already on Social security. Right. You're saying he's for maybe maybe the party is. He is, too. I mean, he is, too. I mean, I'm less worried about him than. So, you know, kind of glamorizing Ron DeSantis. And sure, he does some crazy stuff, but a lot of it is because he's been forced into doing it by the woke left or whatever the case may be. And then he goes into the topic of covid and covid rules all turned out to be stupid. Maybe this maybe this makes people understand why some of us who called out a lot

of the nonsense with how we handled covid were so skeptical because we've done stupid health theater for a long time. It's not new. We've handled almost every health crisis, barely not all of them. And, you know, I found it just arrogant to have such a bad record in the past with health matters. Now, some of what Bill Maher is saying here isn't wrong. The U.S. has a bad record of handling health emergencies. There was a lot of uncertainty and communication problems and all of these different emergencies. There was a lot of uncertainty and communication problems and all of these different things. The problem is that Bill Maher presents it all in a way that opens the door to the science deniers and the anti-vaxxers and all of it. And he is

being used in that way. Just tell me, just do what we say. When have we ever been wrong? And then it's like, oh, okay, we're washing the mail. And they told us, you know, like, wear any kind of mask. They're all good. Just some bandana, put a diaper on your head. Doesn't matter. Everything's fine. And I remember Don't Touch Your Face was a big hit song for about a year. Don't Touch Your Face. I'm not up on which COVID rules you were opposed to. They all turned out to be stupid. Not all. Which ones? It was not on the mail. No. Oh, no, that I know. They just found, they just did a study, the masks, unless they were N95 and maybe not even them, useless. That I'm unaware of. You know, I stopped wearing a mask

and you don't have to wear it anymore. And you all remember, it's all it's all degrees and it's well, no, the masks are increasingly less effective, the lower quality they are. And we have studies and we know that. But it's exactly this type of black and white thinking, offhanded, flippant, black and white thinking that opens the door to people who believe anything to say, oh, I was right. I was right. But but that's just but I the vaccines. I'm glad there were vaccines. Yes. I'm glad there were vaccines. I don't don't please. You know what? If that's your choice. Great. There are some vaccines I would love to have and might need and would fight you for. But if I don't but I should be able to make my own

medical decisions. Well, you are not a nurse. Okay. You're not in the hospital. You know, I think it depends who you are, you know? Well, you're saying they would have to get the vaccine. Well, I mean, okay, but here's something stupid we did that other countries didn't do. Countries, I think you would respect. By the way, countries you're going to, I'm going to do your plugs. What a great segue. But like Europe, much more recognized natural immunity. If you're a nurse and you had it naturally at the beginning, which a lot of nurses did, then it was stupid and pointless. Yeah. You know, it wasn't really stupid and pointless because if you had it at the beginning, by the time that the vaccines were out, we started to see an evolution to different variants. And as

we know, four or five months after that, the vaccine's effectiveness when it came to preventing infection was dramatically lower. So your immunity 15 months later to a variant that is not even actually the variant that's out there anymore isn't going to be particularly useful. So anyway, the point here is I don't I'm not saying Bill Maher is a bad guy and I'm not saying he's wrong about everything, but he has had this streak, particularly on medical stuff for a very long time. Let me present to you an exhibit. OK, I remember watching this interview and I went and searched for a clip. I couldn't find a clip, but I found a transcript 18 years ago in 2005. Bill Maher was

interviewed by Larry King, and he claims that the flu shot makes Alzheimer's more likely and says aspirin is bad. Now, you might say, David, that's just Bill Maher would never say that. Let's put up the transcript on the screen. Bill Maher says, well, I hate to tell you, Larry, but if you have a flu shot for more than five years in a row, there's 10 times the likelihood that you'll get Alzheimer's disease. I would stop getting your and King says, what did you say? And Mar says that went better than in rehearsal, but it was still good. Absolutely. No, the defense against this against disease is to have a strong immune system. A flu shot compromises your immune system. Now, this has been studied. The flu shot reduces the risk for Alzheimer's among those age 65 plus. This has been

studied. It's not even something Bill Maher brought up that hadn't been studying. So it has been studied. We know that that is not true. OK, this was Bill Maher 18 years ago. And then Larry King says, so you don't take any Western medicine. Don't take an aspirin. And Bill Maher says never an aspirin. No. Thousands of people die from aspirin every year. And King says, how do you treat illness? And Bill Maher says never an aspirin. No. Thousands of people die from aspirin every year. And King says, how do you treat illness? And Bill Maher says, I promise you, if you get a headache, the reason for the headache is not aspirin deficiency, which I remember being 20 and watching this and saying, Bill Maher can't be this stupid, right? Imagine applying that idea. Listen, the reason you have cancer

is not a chemo deficiency. So why would you give someone chemo? Well, because that's not how medication works. Medication is not about giving you something you are deficient in. Medications work in a lot of different ways from monoclonal antibodies to antibiotics. So it's it's it's not about I lack aspirin. My headache is caused by a lack of aspirin. So I will cure the headache by taking aspirin. The idea that that's Bill Maher's train of thought is very disturbing because it's so stupid. And then Bill Maher, Larry King says, no, of course not. Bill Maher says, right. So you're taking and King says something to take the pain away. Why is that bad? And Bill Maher says, no, of course not. Bill Maher says, right. So you're taking and King says something to take the pain away. Why is that bad? And Bill Maher says, but why don't you find out the real root of that pain? And Larry King says, well, while you're finding, take the aspirin, which is

actually a pretty funny line from Larry King. So the point here is Bill Maher's had this streak for a very long time. It's not actually new. COVID made it more of a focus for him. And I think that's where we are today. I have a voicemail number you can call any time to one nine to David P. Here is a caller who is again confused about whether or not I am a socialist. Listen to this. Did you just misspeak? I thought I just heard you say that you are a social Democrat, right?

Don't you mean to say you are apeak? I thought I just heard you say that you are a social Democrat, right? Don't you mean to say you are a Democratic socialist? No. Would that be more accurate? No, no, I didn't misspeak, sir. I am not a Democratic socialist. Democratic socialism is a form of socialism. I am a social Democrat, which is a well-regulated form of capitalism.

I did not misspeak. I am not a socialist. Some on the right and even some on the left think I am a socialist, but I'm not. I'm not criticizing socialism in this segment. I'm just saying I'm not socialist. It's sort of like if you say, David, didn't you say you were black? And I would go, no, I didn't say I was black. I'm not black. Oh, so you don't like black people? No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying I happen not to be black.

That's all I'm saying. OK, I'm not a socialist, please. OK, we have a great bonus show for you today. We are going to talk about the apoplectic reaction to Rihanna's Super Bowl performance. We are going to talk about lawmakers or as Donald Trump once called them, lawmakers focusing in on chat GPT in the in this growing popularity for the tool. And we are going to talk about a bill from Bernie Sanders to boost Social Security benefits, not cut, but rather boost. All of those stories and more are on the bonus show.

Thank your lucky stars every day. You're not Dave Pakman. Well, I get to host the bonus show, Alex. So that's an exciting thing. Sign up at join Pakman dot com. I will see you then.