The David Pakman Show - 2/15/23: Nikki Haley off to tough start, train derailment breaks brains

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Matthew Connelly, author of the book The Declassification Engine, joins David to discuss classification, declassification, the document scandals involving Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Mike Pence, and more. Get the book: https://amzn.to/40V75Wj -- 2024 Republican Presidential candidate Nikki Haley's first day of the campaign goes brutally wrong as videos resurface of her defending the Confederate flag and saying states have the right to secede from the United States -- Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, clearly scared to take a stand against Donald Trump, says he will vote for whoever the Republican nominee ends up being -- Right wingers lose their minds over the Ohio train derailment, blaming everything from wokeness to racism for the incident -- Failed Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake implodes when confronted by Piers Morgan about her 2022 election lies -- Donald Trump reportedly wants to bring back firing squads for the death penalty, and wants to televise elements of the executions -- California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein will indeed retire, clearing the path for a Democratic primary involving Katie Porter, Adam Schiff, and Barbara Lee -- Voicemail caller is shocked that he thinks David is moving to Florida -- On the Bonus Show: Remote work costing Manhattan $12 billion per year, CDC says teen girls caught in wave of sadness and violence, teacher salaries become a bipartisan cause, much more... 💪 MOSH protein bars: Code PAKMAN for 20% off + free shipping at https://moshlife.com/pakman 🍎 Little Spoon: Use code PAKMAN50OFF for 50% OFF at https://littlespoon.com 🌳 Use code PAKMAN for 20% off HoldOn plant-based bags at https://holdonbags.com 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 💻 Stay protected! Try Aura FREE for 2 weeks: https://aura.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Subscribe to Pakman Finance: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanfinance -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Speaker 1 Speaker 1 Well, Nikki Haley's 2024 presidential campaign is off to a very, very rocky start on day one of her presidential campaign. Videos from years ago were resurfaced in which she defends the state's right to secede from the United States and also praises the Confederate flag. This is going to be a wild primary. And we knew that. But this is what we call candidate vetting. The earlier you announce the earlier you get vetted, apparently, and this going bad very quickly for Nikki Haley. Now remember, when we talk about the Republican electorate, they may not care about this stuff.

So we'll talk about that in a moment. But let's go to the first video. Nikki Haley in 2010 was interviewed by a group called the Sons of Confederate Veterans, quite a group about her feelings about the Confederate flag. In this video, she says the flag is not racist and she would even support a Confederate Memorial Month. You've got Black History Month and Confederate Memorial Month. Why not? Right. Take a listen to this. We'd like to know what the position is on the flag. I feel like it's been resolved to the best of its ability. I mean, I wasn't here when they actually went through and did the negotiations. I understand that it was brutal, but I think that they came up with the best solution we're going to hope for.

You know, what people need to, what I tend to look at as the practical side of the matter is, you know, you had two-thirds, it takes two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate to change that. That's not going to happen. I think right now the Confederate flag, where it is, is where the legislature is comfortable with it. I think that there was a compromise among the state on where it should be, and so it's not something I see as a priority right now. I think right now we need to be focusing on jobs and our economy and our education. For those groups that come in and say they have issues with the Confederate flag, I will work to talk to them about it. I will work and talk to them about

the heritage and how this is not something that is racist. This is something that is a tradition that people feel proud of. Speaker 1 funny when they say the Civil War wasn't about slavery. It was about states rights. And there should be an ellipsis there. States rights to maintain legal slavery. It's about the tradition that included fighting to keep slavery legal and let them know that we want their business in the state and that the flag where it is was a compromise of all people that everybody should accept as part of South Carolina. Just for the Confederate history month. I mean, yes, it's part of the traditional, you know, it's part of tradition. And so when you look at that, if you have the same as you have Black History Month and

you have Confederate History Month, I satirically said that that's very at the start of the same. I satirically said, listen, why not Confederate History Month? You've got Black History Month. Why not Confederate History Month? Of course, that ignores the reality of what the Confederacy was. I'm actually stunned. I jokingly made that analogy. And she's seriously making the

analogy. All of those, as long as it's done where it is in a positive way, right, not in a negative way. And the positive aspects of the Confederacy, like, for example, they did feed their slaves after all doesn't go to harm anyone. And it goes back to where it focuses on the traditions of the people that are wanting to celebrate it. Then I think it's all night. Yeah. Confederate History Month. There is an idea.

Here's a bonus clip from the same interview with the Sons of Confederate Veterans, she played up the right of states to secede. Let's take a listen to this. This is not a good could this be the worst first day of any campaign for president? Do you believe that the states of the United States have the right to secede from the. I think that they do. I mean, the Constitution says that. The Constitution does not say that. If it became an issue where the state of South Carolina needed to secede from the union, would you support it? You know, I'm one of those people that doesn't think it's going to get to that point.

Let me tell you why. While we're seeing all this federal intrusion come into our states, the way I will handle it is I'm going to get a coalition of governors together that turns around. Let's take the health care situation, for example. I'm going to get a coalition of governors that turns around. All right. So now she's doing her political nonsense. So states don't have a right to secede it.

This is a subject of much legal controversy. Texas v. White from 1869 is one case that's pointed to where the Supreme Court ruled that unilateral secession isn't constitutional, meaning if a state alone says we want to secede and become our own country, that is not in the Constitution that you can do that. There is the idea that either. But there's the idea that through the consent of states, it could be agreed that some state would leave the United States. But Nikki Haley saying, listen, states can do it. States can secede. It also it's not accurate as much as it is kowtowing to what are really pretty horrible groups, in this case, sons of the of Confederate veterans.

So this is going to be a very tough primary and it's going to be tough, not just because it is Trump is a formidable challenger, not in terms of policy, but in terms of rhetoric with the nicknames and the attacks, et cetera. There is one aspect of challengers to Trump that is good for Trump and it is the following. And this is why there were some rumors that he wanted Nikki Haley to get in. And many people said, sir, why, why, why? When you look at head to head polling, Trump versus DeSantis in many head to head polls, DeSantis actually is ahead of Trump in twenty twenty four polling. When you do polling that includes Mike Pence and Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo and whoever else, the more candidates there are in the hypothetical 2024 polls, the worse that Ron DeSantis does and the better that Trump does in comparison. So that would be

a reason for Trump to want a crowded field. That being said, I am not particularly bullish. If I were a betting man, I don't know that I'm betting on Nikki Haley to be the next Republican nominee. So there it is quite quite a wild first day for Nikki Haley. If this is day one, imagine what week one is going to bring a Republican Senate minority leader. Mitch McConnell is scared. He's scared to disavow Donald Trump and to say it's time for the Republican Party to go in a different direction. We know it's what he thinks. Mitch McConnell made it very clear in that speech he gave on the floor of the Senate just days after the January 6th, 2021 Trump riots. We know that Mitch McConnell is not pleased with Trump. He is not pleased with Trump politically. He's not pleased with Trump ideologically. I can't imagine that he sees Trump positively

after Trump has made numerous racist comments and dog whistles about Mitch McConnell's own wife, Elaine Chao, based on her Asian heritage. There's no way in hell for all of the bad things we can say about Mitch McConnell. There's no way in hell for all of the bad things we can say about Mitch McConnell. There's no way in hell Mitch McConnell is a Trump guy. But Mitch McConnell also, in many cases, puts politics above his individual beliefs and above principle. And so Mitch McConnell isn't willing to say, I don't want Trump to be the next nominee and I don't want Trump to be the next president. Mitch McConnell is saying I will vote for whoever ultimately is the nominee. And in fact, yesterday he was asked by CNN's Manu Raju on the heels of Nikki Haley announcing that she, too,

is running for the Republican presidential nomination. He was asked, will you support Nikki Haley? And he sort of said, well, it's going to be very competitive. And then he said he will support whoever is ultimately the nominee. It might have been a decision to jump in to the race today. Do you think that it's time for the party to find a fresh face and move away from Donald Trump? Well, what I think we're going to have is a vigorous primary. Vigorous? With a number of candidates making their case and the American people, those who are registered Republicans

who are going to participate in these primaries are going to decide who they want to nominate. And I think it's going to be very, very competitive in these primaries, and we'll hope for the best. And obviously, I'm going to be very, very competitive in these primaries and we'll hope for the best. And obviously, I'm going to support whoever the nominee ultimately is. Obviously, obviously, there is no scenario in which Mitch McConnell would not support whoever is the eventual nominee.

Now, there are people who will write to me and say, David, that it's really not a big deal that Mitch McConnell is saying that he's a Republican. He's in Republican leadership. Of course, he's going to support whoever the candidate ultimately is. We know that. No, I get that. The problem is that it's a brazen partisanship where for the good of the country, I would like to see Mitch McConnell at least be open to the idea that if the nominee were truly horrible, he would think for himself. And even though I know he would never say it, it would be nice to hear from Mitch McConnell something along the lines of, listen, I am a Republican and I have faith that Republicans will select the best candidate to represent us. But I am not a blind follower and I am not a moral.

And while I disagree with Joe Biden, he is a good man and an honest man who wants what he believes is best for the country. And if indeed the Republican Party selected someone that I believe would be destructive to this country, I would cross party lines. He's never going to do it. Of course, never going to do it. He will always end up justifying the vote for the Republican. But I would like to see them at least pretend not to be overtly partisan hacks. They would be lying in a sense. So am I saying I would like to see them lie? Well, no, I would love for that to be the truth. It is not. And so Mitch McConnell is being honest.

Yeah. Trump said racist things about my wife. Yeah. Trump incited an insurrection. Yeah. I've said Trump is a problem in so many different ways, but I'm going to vote for whoever is the nominee, even if that is Donald Trump. And this is similar to the Bill Barr line.

When we saw these recent interviews by Bill William Barr, Trump's former attorney general, criticized Trump significantly and then say, well, I'm not going to vote for a Democrat, obviously not going to vote for a Democrat. They are telling the truth in that sense. And at least for once, they aren't lying. But Mitch McConnell making it very clear, whoever they put up there, he would vote for over a Democrat. We'll have these clips available for you on our YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. We also have the YouTube channel in Spanish now available, closing in on our first thousand subscribers on the Spanish YouTube channel, which you can find at YouTube. Actually, you know what? I'm going to set up a redirect.

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And we also have a member only sound board where you get access to my sound board like the one I have here. Obama. Obama is on there. Yes. You can go to join Pacman dot com. Get yourself that membership quick and easy. Right wingers are completely losing their minds over this train derailment that took place

in Ohio. Now, one of the reasons I've not said much about it yet is that it is still really not clear what or who is to blame. And the right is very quick to blame woke and racism for the event that took place, which is a really strange thing to do and to blame. It's conceivable that what we have here is a problem in terms of lack of regulation. It it's really not clear yet. The NTSB report so far says that the the the cause here was a malfunction with a wheel bearing, which overheated. And it's not yet clear what caused the wheel bearing to overheat. Now, of course, there are concerns about chemicals in the area, both in the air and the impact on water quality. Mike DeWine said he would be he would stick with the bottled water for the time being. Aaron Brockovich is expressing concern about whether there are more harmful chemicals than

what is being revealed. We are still trying to learn a lot about it, but many on the right have figured out what this is all about. Here's Greg Gutfeld. He believes woke ism is to blame. Mayor Pete is busy. He's got some pretty big issues that he's dealing with. For example, did you see what he said about construction workers, that it's really a problem that their skin color doesn't match the diversity of the community? And that's really got upset people. I remember as a kid walking around and I was very upset

whenever I saw a mine like a minority construction worker. I said, oh, my God. Now, understand that these are two completely separate issues. And if indeed Mayor Pete weighed in about diversity of construction workers, it has nothing to do whatsoever with this incident. But Fox News doesn't care about that. They all have to look like me.

You know, I had that was a secondary. That was a primary concern that all the other things about safety and whether the product was that was just that was not as important. This is the problem with catering to the woke. They don't have time for real problems. So they chase these completely made up ones, train derails or a plane crashes. but they worry about the white construction worker offending somebody who doesn't exist. I don't believe a single person has ever expressed a problem about a construction worker's skin color, unless it was another skin, another construction worker. But this is the if you want to talk about a toxic spill, look at what look at wokeism and what what what politics is doing to every

part of life. I mean, OK, so Greg Gutfeld says woke ism and Pete Buttigieg being distracted by woke ism is the problem. Charlie Kirk goes even further in his. Do I even call it an analysis? Charlie Kirk says the Ohio train derailment is part of the war on white people. Remember, oh, the left is always victim. They're they're the victims. It is the right that is now regularly saying Christians are the victims and white people are the victims and conservatives are the victims. Here's Charlie Kirk's analysis of the situation. Not a single member of the Biden regime would dare to go.

To this portion of Ohio and breathe in the air because they know it's dangerous. They know that it is actively poisoning the citizens of Eastern Ohio. So why is it that they kind of shrug their shoulders and they say, yeah, OK, whatever? It's very simple. It's because the war on white people continues. Right. Why would you care for the white working class voters in eastern Ohio? You haven't cared about them and other reasons or other portions. And I will prove it to you. If this train derailment happened in downtown Atlanta, in the densely populated black neighborhoods. This would be the number one news story.

It would be Flint water crisis 2.0. There's be. Oh, well, that's interesting. We know how sincere Charlie Kirk is in saying he would be just as concerned, obviously, if the train derailment disproportionately affected black people because of the years that Charlie Kirk has spent talking about the Flint water crisis. Oh, wait, he hasn't spent years talking about the Flint water crisis. And so this is yet again, we are the victims. It is racist or it's reverse

racism, which is a delightful term that they like to talk about. But what they won't discuss is whether the train derailment might be the result of corporate greed and deregulation. Now, I'm not ready to say it is understand. I want to follow the facts. And based on the NTSB report so far, it isn't clear to me that the issue here is one of corporate greed and deregulation. But if we're speculating about what this is and we're going to speculate, well, it's because of woke or it's because of anti white racism or whatever the case may be. If we're speculating, let's include more reasonable speculation as well. Then we go to Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Marjorie Taylor Greene says the issue here is Pete Buttigieg. That's really the problem. That's the cause. But the real problem, Sean, is Pete Buttigieg. That's really the problem. That's the cause. But the real problem, Sean, is Pete Buttigieg. He's the secretary of transportation and he's more interested in equity and inclusion in his hiring practices and grant giving schemes and obviously probably chest feeding or something like that. Then he is rail safety. Now, chest feeding. This is something that Lauren Bobear started with Pete Buttigieg. It's just straight up homophobic. Pete Buttigieg

took paternity leave. That's the story. And they talk about maybe he was home chest feeding. And of course, this is what they are saying because Pete Buttigieg is gay. This this is a homophobic attack on Pete Buttigieg. If this were, you know, I don't know. I don't know if I was going to say George Santos, but Santos is gay. The point here is they're talking about Pete Buttigieg's chest feeding because of the stereotypes about gay men being feminine. So the homophobia continues. But more importantly here, Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying, oh, there's a Democrat who is secretary

of transportation. Let's blame him for what took place in Ohio rather than all of the Ohio infrastructure and political establishment, which is overwhelmingly run by Republicans. No, no, no, no. It's the fault of Pete Buttigieg in Washington, D.C. And that's where we have real danger in our country. You see, Pete Buttigieg was never qualified for the job. And sort of like she's not qualified for her job. I believe we need to haul him in and our committees and start questioning him over what's actually happening in his department, because train derailment is happening every single day. And now thousands of people, birds, animals, they're all sick. And we don't know the consequences

of this horrible accident in East Palestine. Yeah. You know, she throws in train derailments are happening every single day. That's one of those statements that's true and is completely misleading. When you look at what that means, there's about a thousand incidents a year that are called train derailment incidents. So it is like three a day. Understand that the overwhelming majority of these are minor incidents with absolutely no injuries, never mind deaths, often involving city rail transit like subways and commuter rails and this sort of thing. Often they're weather related. They are derailments of, you know, a part of one car.

And it's really not representative of any kind of particularly major problem. And of course, it happens whether the secretary of transportation is a Democrat or a Republican under Elaine Chao, a secretary of transportation. You also had about a thousand derailments of different kinds of years. So it's all dishonest. It's all nonsense, but they don't care. They just want to find someone to blame. One more clip here real quick. This is Jesse Waters saying this is the the racist black EPA administrator trying to hurt white people. So where's the EPA? If they say my plastic straw is destroying this country, then they must be all over a cancer causing gas bomb in the Ohio River Valley, right? Or the random toxic ash that's

raining down in Illinois. By the way, it's funny how now suddenly conservatives care about pollution in the environment. Actually, the EPA administrator, Michael Reagan, no relation to Ron, is too zoned in on electric school buses to care about poison drinking water. He just announced a pledge to support electric school buses nationwide. You have cancer, here's an electric bus. Does this guy Reagan even know anything about the environment? Well, we looked into him and the only reason he was nominated to run the EPA was because he promised to fight off environmental racism. Is this his idea of fighting environmental racism,

spilling toxic chemicals on poor white people in Ohio? Why do you make everything about race? They say to the left, why? Why do you see race in every issue? Well, it seems like these right wingers are very much seeing race in this issue. Unhinged brain worms is what they're suffering from. But people hear it and they fall for it. Kerry Lake was confronted by Piers Morgan in the interview I've been waiting for for a long time. You know, I I'm not a particularly big fan of Piers Morgan. And in fact, his producers have been extraordinarily unprofessional in their dealings with me and just their lack of organization and discussions we've had about me appearing with them. But this is just fantastic.

I hold no grudge and I blame him not at all for that. He does a fantastic job here in confronting failed Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Carrie Lake. And he straight up says, sir, there's no evidence that you really won. She insists I won. She insists there were irregularities. My opponent cheated. We've got lawsuits, all this different stuff.

Take a look at this and look at how flustered she gets. Really nicely done by peers. There's been no independent corroboration that there was anything fraudulent about this election. In fact, it's pretty clear that you lost to Katie Hobbs, your rival, 50.3% to 49.6%. And as with Donald Trump, when I said to him, where's the hard evidence? He went down all sorts of rabbit holes, but he couldn't produce hard evidence. There's a ton of, Pierce, Pierce, there's a mountain of hard evidence. And when we presented it in our trial, the other side didn't even dispute the evidence.

Now that's such a lie. It's so deceptive when she says that. The other side didn't even dispute the evidence. Now, that's such a lie. It's it's it's so deceptive when she says that the other side didn't dispute the evidence, she says. They didn't need to because the so-called evidence was nothing. It was so faulty and bogus that a judge said, I don't even have anything here to potentially move forward on. Remember that they made 10 complaints to a court. Eight of the 10 complaints, they simply had no grounds for whatsoever. The other two complaints, the judge heard and said, OK, what do you have? And the judge said, there's nothing here. It's like if I go into court and I say bananas are actually electric vehicles and the judge says

that's nonsense. We can't move forward with that. And then I go, the other side never disputed it. I said that bananas are electric. They never. Well, no, it's the judge said it's so absurd. We're not even moving forward. And Carrie likes it. But they didn't dispute it. She is such a liar. They had. But not the election result was results with zero chain of custody. Yes. Well, we can't continue to run elections this way. And we know that we won and we're going to continue to fight this in a court of law. And it's really rich that you're sitting across the pond, acting like, you know, you can't possibly know whether I won peers. If you're in London happened on election day, I did not see your smiling face. We had lots of international media here covering election. It would have made no difference.

Her opponent got more votes today in Arizona. Yours is one face. I didn't see it. I see it. You could have had my smiling face carried with Arizona. I would have loved to have seen you. We had more media covering our election than I've ever seen cover any story here. Wow. And despite the record media coverage, they still got away with cheating. That's stunning, Kerry. Arizona. And as I said, I covered Arizona for nearly 30 years. So it's OK that you are not comfortable with me fighting this election and fighting for election integrity. No, I don't mind. I don't mind. Let me clarify. I No, I don't mind you. I don't mind the fighting. Let me clarify. I don't mind your fighting spirit.

I don't mind in Donald Trump. I've known him a long time. Well, I have every right to fight this election. No one's arguing it isn't her right. It's just baseless. And she's grifting. Absolutely right. But there does come a point.

And I'm doing this for the people of Arizona. There does come a point when both for you and- And I'm doing this for the people of Arizona. There does come a point when, for the future of democracy, you and Donald Trump have to accept at some point you lost an election. Otherwise, the entire system collapses. If your simple response to losing is always, we didn't lose, we won, then democracy dies. Pierce, I grew up in a family of nine. I'm the youngest. My father.

Oh, well, that changes everything then. There was a history and government teacher and a football coach. And he taught us that if we lose and we lose fair and square, we congratulate the winner. We walk away. And that's exactly what I would do if that was a fair and square election. I'm fighting for the people of Arizona. I go. I mean, guys, her dad coached football. Obviously she wouldn't lie over this country. I've been probably to six states since the election in Arizona. I can't walk 10 feet without an Arizona and saying, I voted for you. Everybody I know voted for you. Our ballot was

rejected on election day. Please keep fighting for us. I'm fighting for the people of Arizona. Every 10 feet, people are saying it was stolen. That's stunning stuff. And I don't mean any offense to you, but I frankly don't give a damn what you think about it. I'm fighting for the people of Arizona. I truly am. No offense taken whatsoever. Let me ask you this, Pierce. Let me ask you a question. Do you think it's right that you show up on election day? That's the big day. On election day and 60% of voting locations in the primarily Republican locations have ballots that are printed out wrong. All I know is that all I know from my all I know from my lofty place here in London, I wasn't in Arizona. He's too far to know what happened, guys. London's very there's water in between.

All the official fact checking entities that have looked into all the claims do not conclude that. We know about the fact checkers. Come on, Pierce. Pierce, did you just fall off the turnip truck? We know about the fact checkers and we've seen them. This has all been guys. Despite record media coverage of the race, the media didn't notice the cheating by Katie Hobbs because the media is complicit and the fact checkers didn't notice the cheating by Haiti. Katie Hobbs, because the fact checkers are just left wing loons and the courts didn't

recognize Carrie Lake's evidence because the judges are left wing loons, even the courts didn't recognize Carrie Lake's evidence because the judges are left wing loons, even though many of them are Republicans. Revealed half of them are leftists working for. There it is. Let's be real. OK, let me ask you one final point. They know what they know. Let me ask you, Carrie, at what point would you accept that you've lost? Never. Well, do you think that we have a right to move this through the court system? He already said it's not a question of whether you have a right, Kerry. I think we do. I know that we do.

We have the right. You certainly have a legal right to do it. Anyway, you see the direction this is going. She sort of has to do this because at a certain point, if she just goes, hey, you know what? I was wrong. I just lost. She can never run again. And she's thinking about running for Senate and she wants to have a political career. So really, really nice job there by Piers Morgan. Carrie Lake is a liar and a grifter. And I know she doesn't really think she won. She knows she lost, but she has to do this. Plastic it's everywhere we look and not enough is being done about it.

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Pacman 10 at checkout. Just remember, you must be 21 or older to order. That's ZIPPIXtoothpicks.com. Use promo code Pacman 10 at checkout for 10 percent off. That's Pacman 1 0. The info is in the podcast notes. Today, we welcome to the program Matthew Connolly, who's a Columbia history professor and also author of the book The Declassification Engine. What history reveals about America's top secrets? A really great having you on today. I appreciate your time. Great to be with you, David.

So you know, we've been talking about these recent classified document. I guess it's it's fine to call them scandals or news stories involving Donald Trump and several hundred documents. And then Joe Biden and Mike Pence reportedly with a small number of documents that they didn't appear to be deliberately keeping at their homes or offices, which is certainly a difference to what we know so far about the Trump story. But there's sort of like a zooming out that we can do more generally to think about what sort of documents are classified. Are we classifying the right number of documents? Are there things that are over classified and actually reducing

transparency? So maybe to start with, what is the history of this concept of these sorts of classifications that that have been created? Speaker 2 Yeah, well, you might think, you know, that this is something that governments do. You could think of it like death and taxes, right, that government officials would like to operate under the cloak of secrecy. But the fact is the United States, compared to other countries anyway, was really an outlier. For the first 150 years, the U.S. was quite remarkable. I think a lot of people probably know we'd never had a central intelligence agency. We also, unlike other countries,

we didn't have what they used to call black chambers where they would intercept and decode communications. I mean, almost every other country the size of the U.S. had, you know, the means and actually the motivation to track subversives. They would intercept their mail and so on. In the United States, that was a felony. So, you know, both on the one hand, it was a matter of the U.S. government not really creating a lot of secrets. And then on the other hand, people had a very high expectation as to their own personal privacy. So what we now take for

granted, you know, what some people call the national secrecy complex and what I call the dark state. It's really an invention of the last 80 years or so. It really only started after the Second World War. And when we talk about what types of things are classified secret, top secret, et cetera, all these different designations, I think the assumption is always that these are extremely sensitive pieces of information, often related to probably more foreign policy than domestic policy. I think that's the assumption. But there's relatively mundane things that are also designated in these ways.

Oh, sure. You know, so it's interesting. There's a kind of, you know, dual dialogue going on about secrecy where, you know, when you bring out people who have their security clearances and spent years in the intelligence community or what have you, they'll tell you about all these rules and how elaborate they are and how careful people, you know, have to be. But the reality is, you know, if you actually study this history and you look at what people do every day, they'll tell you, yeah, you know, I had to meet a colleague for coffee and I classified that email as top secret because,

you know, at some point in that long email chain, by the time we finally figure out, you know, which Starbucks you're going to, I may have said something about some program, you know, that could be classified. So better safe than sorry. And this is how you end up with what is now a completely unmanageable situation. The State Department generates some 2 billion email a year. So just think of the volume of these coffee emails that end up being top secret, where for decades, nobody's ever going to see them unless somebody reviews that stuff page by page to decide the rest of us are allowed to read it. So it seems that the sort of most obvious concern one would have about over classification would be it reduces transparency.

There are documents here that, you know, maybe we don't post everything, but at least through FOIA requests should be available if someone wanted them. And you reduce transparency if you over classify. Is it that simple or what other concerns are there with over classification? Well, you know, for me as a historian, I care a lot about what a lot of other people, too, would say is the court of history, you know, because, you know, if and it's true, we have 18 different intelligence agencies. We have an $800 billion defense department, we have this vast apparatus that's carrying out covert operations, you know, targeted assassinations, you know, wouldn't you like to think that at some point, you know, someone is going to be able to look at all the evidence,

right, to even if it's only the court of history, to hold our leaders to account. But I could tell you that's just not going to happen. Because even before the era of electronic records, this age of big data, the National Archives could only keep about 1% to 3% of the original documentary record. And if it's the case, and it's true, we now have, just to take another example, we have one intelligence agency that's producing a petabyte of classified data every single year. If those were paper records and they were lined up in file cabinets and file folders, it would circle the equator. And even the government says it would take 2 million archivists just to go through that to decide what the rest of us are allowed to know. So, yeah, that's important. I think it matters because if you think, you know, history matters and ultimately, you know, holding our leaders to account, that matters quite a lot.

But I'll tell you the other reason it matters, and this is also not trivial, when they can't decide what's actually secret, they can't protect the stuff that really could kill people. And we've just seen one after another. You know, these really are scandals like NSA, CIA hacking tools, you know, getting stolen. We've seen, you know, the Chinese government apparently taking tens of millions of personnel records with which they could use to blackmail people who do have top secret security clearances. So that, too, is a real danger. And it's a it's a danger here and now. I mentioned the Trump Biden Pence controversies. We could include in that Hillary Clinton in a sense. I mean, it was looked at by the FBI. It related more to an email server. How do you assess these types of controversies in terms of how they compare to one another and kind of the big picture significance as to how common more generally it is.

I said the other day, I wouldn't be shocked if secretaries of state had a few documents lying around and it's just not a high priority to look. I just don't know. Yeah. And, you know, to me, I actually do look at, you know, whether it's about, you know, Hillary Clinton in her email or, you know, Biden, Pence, Trump, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe we'll learn even more names soon enough. I also go back to the way in which during the George W. Bush administration, they used to write their email using Republican National Committee email servers. have in common is that these are public officials doing the people's business, and they treat the

record of those actions, their decisions, as if it were their private property, where they have no obligation to share that information with the National Archives. Why does that matter? Because, you know, it's our history. You know, wouldn't we like to think, you know, that as citizens, you know, we could file Freedom of Information Act requests, right? Maybe we'd like to know what the George W. Bush administration is doing. Maybe we'd like to know what Secretary Clinton was doing. You know, but if they'd gotten away with it, and to be honest, to a large extent they did. Yeah.

You know, a lot of those records would never be recoverable and none of us would ever have the ability to see them. And so, you know, that's why I say, like, as an historian, I take the longer view. records would never be recoverable and none of us would ever have the ability to see them. And so, you know, that's why I say, like, as an historian, I take the longer view, you know, and I'm sorry to say, but, you know, even if some of these cases, you know, the most egregious of all, of course, is Donald Trump, even if some of these cases are worse than others, I think we've all of us got to wake up and see, you know, that whether it's Democrats doing it or Republicans do it, we we have to recognize that this is something all of us should care about. When it comes to the Trump thing, like as an example, it's hard to imagine that the things he would want to have down at his house are email chains about which Starbucks people are meeting at.

But without something more more tangible, maybe it's not totally clear. Like what, what kinds of things could they be? What does the, what are the sorts of categories of things that he might have down there that one would want to have? Yeah. Well, you know, we know apparently, you know, that some of these documents, uh, related to, uh, president Macron of France, um, you know, I don't know, but I, I think, I think it's typically the case that, you know, presidents before they have international meetings, they'll get briefing books, right? We know, like from what Edward Snowden revealed, that the NSA, you know, did try to target, you know, foreign heads of state, some of them allies, right, that they intercepted their communications. It's entirely possible, you know, that in those records, we have, you know, examples of how it is the NSA intercepted communications.

Maybe some of them are incriminating. And that's why we're going to talk about them endlessly, because there's something intrinsically fascinating about something that's secret. And psychologists have studied this. Like, you could take random pieces of paper, you stamp them top secret. And in controlled experiments, people always think that those are the pieces of paper that are more important. Those are the things they have to pay attention to. You know, so yes, it could be a big deal.

And, you know, the fact that those documents were unsecured and could have been stolen. I mean, we know that there were foreign operatives who were active, you know, trying to penetrate Mar-a-Lago. There was one guy, you know, I think he was a Chinese national who went in with many, you know, USB sticks. Right. You don't usually take like eight or 10 USB sticks to the pool. So, yes, we should be concerned about that. But again, I think it's part of a much bigger story. The protocol around a lot of these documents, at least as far as members of the House and Senate have said, is depending on their classification, there would be particular rooms where the documents are kept, where when you go in, you have to leave your phone outside. You know, the idea is prevent anybody from even photographing the documents. You're not allowed to take notes. You basically look at it. And I guess the idea is you're sort of committing to memory, whatever about it is relevant or interesting or you want to look into. Is that a process

that makes sense at this point in time, given the sort of digital age that we're in? Yeah. Well, you know, those are the rules that the executive branch imposes on the legislative branch and Congress has to abide by them or they don't get to see anything. But on the other hand, it's a well-known fact that when, for example, say staffers of the National Security Council, let's say they go into a meeting to decide what's the U.S. going to do if China tries to take Taiwan. They may be handling lots of classified records, right? And they know that they have to be careful with those records. But when they take notes, do you think that they

always classify them, even if they're talking about the same information? It's a well known fact that oftentimes those notes go home with them. And sometimes when they leave, you know, the National Security Council, those notes end up in their homes, right? And staying there. One reason for that, you know, of course, like people want to do work. Sometimes people work long hours, they want to be able to work at home. But another reason is a lot of people want to go on and write their memoirs, right? And look, like when you see all of the books that come out, right, both during but especially after administrations, and when you know who those people are and how it is that

they go around to publishers and they get their big advances, is it always because they are so gifted, right, at telling a good story? No, it's typically because they say, you know, or at least imply that they are going to reveal these secrets, right, these things that they knew during their time in the Trump White House. So in that way, they are monetizing, you know, information that's supposed to belong to all of us. So to me, again, that is really to me even more so than, say, national security. That's the bigger story here. On the issue of the books, you know, you will often read articles that say, well, a former secretary of state wrote a book and the Pentagon looked at the book to evaluate whether there was

anything being revealed that you sort of know the drill. What about that process in terms of is is someone at the Pentagon really so involved that they would say this name you mentioned on page 120, you need to change that and say it's a source you can't name or like at what level are they presiding over the books that are published? They will deny it, but there are different rules for different people. Right. So if you're Mike Pompeo, right, and you have amazing things to say, you know, about the CIA, right, and how awesome it is and how they protect our people all the time in ways they can't quite reveal, then you're going to get one kind of reading and you're going to get different kinds of redactions or maybe none at all.

Right. If you're another kind of person, right, like even John Bolton, say, and let's say like when you conclude your time in the Trump White House and you want to tell all and you want to say really critical things, you know, about the president, the former president now, you know, then you're going to get a very different reading. They're going to give you a much harder time. It's even harder, you know, for people who do not have the kind of name recognition, can't hire the kind of lawyers, you know, that somebody like Bolton can, and instead like have to wait sometimes months, sometimes years, right, to get that reading. And God forbid, this is

somebody who really wants to tell you what's really happening, you know, whether it's at the NSA or the CIA. Those people go through a real ordeal. Right. And if they make mistakes, they get prosecuted. Yeah, that seems to be an area where the over classification, I mean, people writing their memoirs is not of the utmost importance when we think about the grand scheme of things. But it seems that that's directly affected by this over classification that you're talking about, where many, many government hours end up going into reviewing the books and redacting them because of the very over classification that is in place. Yeah, I mean, they do. And they've been doing it for decades now. I mean, there are some civil

liberties lawyers who are trying to challenge this process because what they would point out is like, for example, after the end of the Trump administration, wouldn't we like to know everything we possibly can about what happened in those years? Like, wouldn't we like to know as much as we can about January 6th? Well, if it's the case that currently serving government officials are the ones to decide what we're allowed to know, then basically that information is being censored. And so we're only going to know what the government allows us to know all in the name of national security. Hey, last thing, I know that your expertise is in history, not grammar, but I heard you say during this interview, an historian. And then

you also said a historian. This is actually my audience writes in about this is either correct in your mind. I really say a historian. I thought, well, maybe I misheard it. Yeah, that's possible. I usually say at a story. Me, too. Yeah. I don't know if there's a rule. Yeah, it's not really clear to me. It's just my quirk. Well, we'll look into it. We'll look into it. All right. We got to get Matthew Connolly, Columbia history professor. We're linking to his book, The Declassification Engine, What History Reveals About America's Top Secrets. Really appreciate your time and insights today. Thank you, David. Imagine for a second that you try logging into your email account only to find that your

password was changed an hour ago, and then you get notifications of activity from your bank and then your credit cards. That is what identity theft is like. And it's a horrible feeling. And we dealt with it at the show not that long ago. But now I have an app called Aura, which gives me much more peace of mind. Our sponsor, Aura, is the all in one solution for keeping your online account safe because Aura will scan the dark web for your personal info, password, social security number, and you get fast alerts when they find something. You also get fast alerts about credit inquiries. Aura protects all of your devices from malware. the David Pakman Show at to Aura dot com slash Pacman to try it free for seven days. Your login credentials might already be floating around out there and Aura will tell

you instantly for free. That's Aura dot com slash Pacman to try Aura for free. The link is in the podcast notes. Failed former President Donald Trump, who again wants to be president starting in January of 2025, is reportedly planning to bring back firing squads for the execution of death penalty sentences and wants to televise elements of those executions, maybe not the most gruesome part, but at least elements of it. This is all part of Trump's, I guess, new look 2024 campaign in which he's talking about executing drug dealers who he falsely claims are responsible for 500 deaths each. A line he has often repeated at rallies. There is a wild, wild Rolling Stone article by Asawin Subsang and Patrick Rice.

Trump plans to bring back firing squads group executions if he retakes the White House. And the article explains how Donald Trump has been asking more and more associates about this idea. Trump is committed to expanding the use of the death penalty. The article writes, and he wants to bring back some banned methods of execution. He is even one source says mused about televising footage of executions, including showing condemned prisoners in the final moments of their lives. This is very deranged. It is extraordinarily authoritarian and we should all be genuinely scared about it. The article continues. Trump has talked about bringing back death by firing squad,

by hanging. And according to two of the sources, possibly even by guillotine, he has also discussed group executions and he floated these ideas while discussing planned campaign rhetoric and policy desires, as well as his disdain for Biden's approach to crime. Here's another wild element to this. In at least one instance late last year, Trump privately mused about possibly creating a flashy government backed video ad campaign, which would accompany a federal revival of these execution methods in the vision that Trump has. The videos would have footage from the new executions, if not from the exact moments of death. The source told Rolling Stone the former president believes this would help put the fear of God into violent criminals.

He wanted to do some of these things when he was in office. But for whatever reasons, he didn't have the chance. For whatever reason, Trump wasn't able to bring back death by guillotine and then televise the executions. And we don't we don't know why he just wasn't able to do it. So this is really, really scary and crazy. And we are all right to see this and to cringe and to say, what the hell is this about? This guy is sick. But there's another more practical question I'm wondering about. Is this going to get out the vote? Is there a desire from your average Republican voter

to have new and more not new to revive the more brutal forms of carrying out execution and death sentences like the guillotine and firing squads. What about group executions? You know, the the sort of funny there's very little that's funny about this. Very, very little. It's genuinely horrifying. The one part that is funny is that there's a little detail in there that shows Trump's lack of understanding of how anything works. When Trump talks about group executions, we all know it takes so long to carry out a death sentence between appeals and backlogs and all of these different processes that take place. The idea that it would even be logistically possible

to coordinate multiple federal executions on the same day and do it as a group. Forget about the morality of it. Forget about what it means for the country. Forget about all the idea that it would even be logistically possible to carry that out. Just shows Trump's complete and total lack of understanding of how anything works and a complete lack of a connection to reality. But he wants to do it. My question is, is there really an appetite for this, even from Republican voters who were willing to vote Trump? Do they want this? I have a hard time believing that they do. Well, ladies and gentlemen, California Senator Dianne Feinstein at 89 years old will not seek reelection in 2024. This clears the path for a hotly contested Democratic primary in that state

involving Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee, as well as others who have already declared that they are indeed running. We have been wondering for some time, is Dianne Feinstein going to retire? Now, there are sort of two stories here. First, there is the story, as CNBC writes, about Feinstein being the oldest sitting U.S. senator and the longest serving senator and a growing appetite among Democrats in various parts of the country for the next generation of leaders. Now, what's interesting is the next generation after Dianne Feinstein is still people who are in their 60s. So like two generations later, maybe, you know, you understand what I'm saying. So there's the general desire there. The second part, and we want to be respectful when we talk about this,

is specifically about Dianne Feinstein and her cognitive state. As for years now, there have been growing concerns about what is happening with Dianne Feinstein as she is close to 90 years old, pretty widespread reports of her very quickly forgetting that she has met people when she's going through her normal course of being a senator. We have seen a sort of confused Dianne Feinstein during Senate hearings, during which she will read a question off of a piece of paper that she doesn't fully seem to understand. And then she will immediately read the same question again, not realizing that she already asked that one.

So it's not something we laugh at. It's it's a sad situation more than anything. But it has also raised concerns among some Democrats that because of the power of incumbency, that if she did choose to run again, it could get very messy and complicated. But none of that is going to happen because 89 year old Dianne Feinstein says this is going to be it for her. Now, when you look at the names of folks that are currently running here, there are a lot of different names.

Some we recognize, for example, Katie Porter, Adam Schiff, Barbara Lee. Actually, Barbara Lee is not on this list. I thought hold on a second. Barbara Lee, Senate race. Lee is planning to launch, but has not yet announced. OK, there is also a guy named Barack Obama Mandela who's running. This is not in the Democratic side. Remember that in California it is. I believe they call it a jungle primary where everybody's on the same ballot and the top two vote getters make it to the final election in November of twenty twenty four. So this is a large list of folks here because of the political dynamics in California, a

very blue state. The Senate election in practical terms is the primary. And it becomes clear from the primary who is ultimately going to be the senator. And Katie Porter versus Adam Schiff is going to be very interesting if indeed Barbara Lee announces that she is running and she's expected to in a few days. This is going to be a primary with numerous Democratic heavy hitters. And I am not taking a position on it at this time. I genuinely don't know what to expect from such a primary. Adam Schiff, Barbara Lee and Katie Porter, all three relatively well known shift, probably the best known, although Katie

Porter's social media presence is significant. A lot of viral moments. She's very, very good in hearings. So that's going to be an interesting primary for sure. It is a good thing. It is a good thing that Dianne Feinstein has said, I've had a great run and she has longest serving senator, oldest senator. And it will be very interesting to see the direction that California voters want to see their representation go. So we will be certainly covering that race. We have a voicemail number and that number is two one nine two. David P. Here is a caller. Calling in about whether I will be fleeing the northeast to Florida. Speaker 4 David, it's Alan from Jersey. I just heard you say that you are, in fact, moving to Florida.

You are going to move into the village with Pat and some of the dolphins and ride around a golf cart and yell out white power. I can't believe that you will be a snowbird because you're missing the best part of the East Coast. Winter is the best season. Yeah. Listen, I am not moving to Florida as of this time. If I did move to Florida on a part or full time basis, I would not live at the villages. I would not shout white power and I

probably would not swim with the dolphins. But no, in all seriousness, I know winter, spring, summer, the changes, the snow, the folio, the entire I get it. I've done it for decades and I can still get winter if I'm in Florida, January and February. Right. We still have winter in December and to some degree March. OK, so I am thinking about for the purposes of spending time outdoors and beach and all these different things, mental health. Should I become a snowbird many decades sooner than many people do? But no decisions have been made as of this time. We have a great bonus show on the bonus show. We will talk about remote work costing Manhattan more than 12 billion dollars a year. We will talk about the CDC reporting that teen girls are in an extreme wave of sadness and violence. What is

causing it? What can and should be done? And we will also talk about teacher salaries increasingly becoming a bipartisan cause. Low pay is being agreed upon as a major crisis in education. All of those stories and more today, not tomorrow, not some other day in the future. Today on the bonus show, sign up at join Pacman dot com. I look forward to seeing you there.