The David Pakman Show - 2/20/24: Tucker's grocery store propaganda, MAGA cultists gather

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Yanis Varoufakis, economist, former finance minister of Greece, and author of the new book "Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism" joins David to discuss technofeudalism, the future of technology's effect on the economy and inequality, and much more. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3I4mCuI -- Tucker Carlson's Russian grocery store propaganda is a classic, often replicated in Venezuela, North Korea, and other authoritarian regimes -- Neo-Nazis attempt to march in Nashville, Tennessee but quickly leave when confronted -- Alina Habba, Donald Trump's failed lawyer, gives an outrageous and borderline comical interview to Fox News propagandist Sean Hannity -- Republican Senator Mitt Romney says that he will not be voting for Donald Trump in November because, among other things, Romney doesn't vote for sexual assaulters -- Trump sycophants defend his promotion of shoes and other merchandise -- Failed former President Donald Trump is ranked as the worst US President, and it wildly triggers Fox News hosts, including Kayleigh McEnany and Jeanine Pirro -- Donald Trump's unhinged reaction to the apparent killing of Alexei Navalny makes absolutely no sense whatsoever -- MAGA cult members gather outside one of Donald Trump's golf courses and truly scare the world -- Voicemail caller asks David whether he will cry when Donald Trump wins in November of 2024 -- On the Bonus Show: What to know about Trump's $399 golden sneakers, Alabama Supreme Court rules frozen embryos are "children," Rashida Tlaib urges Michigan Democrats to vote "uncommitted" instead of Joe Biden in primary protest, much more... 🧦 Strideline: Use code DAVID for 15% off at https://strideline.com ☕ Trade Coffee: Code PAKMAN10 saves you $10 at https://drinktrade.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 🧘 Attend the PHD Weight Loss workshop for FREE on Feb 29: https://davidpakman.com/phd 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 💻 Stay protected! Try our sponsor Aura FREE for 2 weeks at 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 -- 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

Let's start today with former Fox News propagandist Tucker Carlson's propaganda Russian grocery store runs. So many of you have written to me about this. There are now all sorts of videos critiquing what Tucker Carlson did. And what I want to talk about today is how this move, this stunt pulled by Tucker Carlson during his trip to Moscow to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin is a classic. Just a click goes back decades. It's a classic propaganda propaganda technique for sort of showing the good side of authoritarian regimes. This has been done in both left and right wing authoritarian countries, and it has been done by both left and right wing authoritarians. As many of you know, there are authoritarians on the right

and there are also authoritarians on the political left. So let me set it up for you. Here is Tucker Carlson going to a Russian grocery store, showing how great the selection is and how inexpensive it is. You know, they say all these bad things about Putin, like he kills journalists and dissidents. But the grocery stores are really nice and very reasonably priced. I went from amused to legitimately angry. So we were guessing what this would cost. Everybody here is from the United States, buys groceries. And we didn't pay any attention to costs as we were just putting in the cart what we would actually eat over a week. And we all came in around 400 bucks, about 400 bucks.

It was $104 US here. And that's when you start to realize that ideology maybe doesn't matter as much as you thought. Corruption. If you take people's standard of living and you tank it through filth and crime and inflation, and they literally can't buy the groceries they want, at that point, maybe it matters less what you say or whether you're a good person or a bad person. You're wrecking people's lives in their country. And that's what our leaders have done to us. And coming to a Russian grocery store, the heart of evil and seeing what things cost and how people live, it will radicalize you against our leaders. That's how I feel anyway. Radicalized. There you go. Now, what Tucker doesn't mention is that his four hundred dollar Whole Foods grocery shop, which is only one hundred dollars in Russia, pales in comparison to the seven

hundred and ninety US dollars per month per month, which is the median Russian wage. So this grocery shop that's so affordable compared to the American grocery store in US dollars is completely out of reach for all but the one or 2% of Russia. So let's now talk about this technique because this is a classic propaganda technique. We've seen this done in North Korea. Similar stunts have been done in North Korea by the defenders of the Kim regime. Look at this beautiful grocery store. It's often done on the chaperoned propaganda trips where foreigners go to North Korea and

they're brought to a grocery store. It's essentially empty. There's 40 employees. It appears as though it's full of products. There's nobody shopping because nobody there can afford it. It's a stage piece. It's a set piece. We've seen this done in Venezuela.

Look at this. We have beautiful olive oils from all over the world. You can get whatever tinned fish you want. Right. But nobody there can afford it. Nobody there can afford it due to the hyperinflation and the extremely low wages. It's a stunt. So what these stunts ignore are the economic disparities inside of the countries that they do this in. This applies in Russia, North Korea and Venezuela. You can go to the nice grocery store. You find the variety of goods for what appears to be a reasonable price, but it's completely out of whack with the local income. It's accessible only to the one percent. One percent of the population can shop in these places.

Now, we have huge problems here in the United States. People who can't afford an unexpected four hundred dollar expense without going into debt by putting it on a credit card. People who are struggling economically, vast inequality. We have major problems here in the United States. But a large portion of the population can go and afford to shop at all the Trader Joe's, even Whole Foods. You see people who shop at Whole Foods, at least for part of their shop when they have

an accessible Whole Foods, right? Food deserts, a major problem in this country. The percentage of people in the United States who can go to a reasonable grocery store is dramatically higher than in these other countries. And so the supermarkets and the grocery stores that are showcased in these stunts just aren't representative of what the average citizen has access to. Now, just for comparison, here's a more normal grocery store in Russia. As you can see, it's pretty damn dumpy. The products aren't very good. It's overwhelmingly what we would call UPF ultra processed food or a four on the one to four scale of food processing. What we're seeing right now

is more like low end furniture. But then they go over to the honestly, I can't tell whether this is pet food or what it is. Looks like maybe bunt cakes. This is much more representative of the experience and the guy, oh, now we're getting a commercial. The guy who, who tours through this, this is from the YouTube channel traveling with Russell, um, actually shows you the quality of a lot of this stuff. And it's like the absolute worst toilet paper. You can find a lot of surplus stuff and et cetera. Okay. So what's the point here? The point here isn't to say it's great or it's not great or whatever. The point here is Tucker's stunt is a classic stunt. We're familiar with of a grocery store shop at a hundred and something

dollars that is completely inaccessible to the large swath of the population. This is similar in my birth country of Argentina. You know, the city where I was born of Buenos Aires. Let me be accurate. Buenos Aires population. Well, the metro area is 15 million. I believe that the population of the heart of the city is around three million. There are large swaths of grocery stores and restaurants in Buenos Aires right now that are accessible to about 30 or 40,000 people that live in Buenos Aires. It's quite literally the one percent. And for foreigners who go back with our U.S. dollars, we go, this is unbelievable. I am at a world class steakhouse where with wine I get all of these courses for 50 bucks. This is a six hundred dollar

experience in the United States or Europe. Right. But that 50 bucks in Buenos Aires is a possibility for one meal for only one percent of the city's population, about 30 or 40000 people. So the reality here is that these stunts oversimplify socioeconomic and political issues. They don't take exchange rates into account. They don't take the local salaries into accounts. And we learn nothing other than a reminder of the craven desires of people like Tucker Carlson and authoritarians on the left to make us see people like Vladimir Putin in a much more positive light. Tucker even saying, you know, when you can get such a great deal on groceries, who cares

about corruption and whether Putin's a good or a bad guy or whether he kills journalists or whatever, because this is a great deal. It's a completely unaffordable deal for 98 or 99% of the Russian population. So what Tucker's stunt actually proves the opposite of what he's trying to prove. Neo Nazis tried marching in Nashville, a group called Blood Tribe. They were confronted and they very quickly bailed. NBC News reports neo Nazis march in Nashville leave after being challenged. The group left in a U-Haul box truck that was driven out of the county, according to police,

indicating that the demonstrators were outsiders. They were outsiders. Here is a video of these individuals being confronted. And if you can't tell what's happening, the neo-Nazis are shouting deport every Mexican, whereas the guy confronting them is saying, show your faces, you cowards. So listen, a couple of things here. Number one, these folks should be confronted when it can be done safely. They should be shown that they aren't welcome. And I do believe they aren't welcome in the vast majority of the places they might end up. Secondly, why don't they show their faces?

There are those antagonists of these people who say they don't show their faces because they're cowards. These folks, when asked why they aren't showing their faces, will usually say something like because of the woke mob, if I show my face, I'll lose my job and it'll all be so unfair. And my family will be harassed, kind of like they're harassing people because they look Hispanic. But of course, they will never admit that the reason they're not showing their faces is because they're cowards. It's because of the woke mob or whatever the case may be. And then a couple people wrote to me and said, David, why the box trucks? Why rather than showing up in their cars, why are they showing up in box

trucks rented from out of state? Well, a couple of different things. Number one, they don't want to be identified. So they rent a box truck out of state rather than showing up in 10 or 12 personal vehicles that could be identified people, you know, seeing their license plates and figuring out who some of these people are. And we've seen this before. There's an example from a couple of years ago when Patriot Front, which is another one of these right wing groups, they were they went to an Idaho pride event. They also showed up in a U-Haul box truck. And then in terms of being outsiders, this is, again, part of the thing where they don't want to be identified. So rather than marching wherever they're from, they will go somewhere else and march.

This is pathetic. And also, we shouldn't ignore the fact that for whatever number of these people who are willing to march publicly, there are some much larger number who believe this stuff in private and good for the confrontation guy. Do it safely. You don't want to get into a situation where you're in danger, but these people need to be shown they simply aren't welcome. And I don't think they are welcome in 98 percent of the United States. researching the most comfortable socks. And they really are. They present you with socks that are not only incredibly comfortable, but highly functional for an unparalleled experience for the sports enthusiasts in the audience. Stride line will keep your feet warm on game day

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the code Pacman 10 at checkout. That's drink trade dot com slash Pacman. Then use code Pacman 10 at checkout. That's Pacman one zero to get ten dollars off for Valentine's Day until February 14th. The info is in the podcast notes. After taking yet another humiliating legal loss, Donald Trump's apparently former attorney, Alina Haba, appeared on Fox News and was interviewed by Sean Hannity. And you really have to see this to believe it. It shows us the core rot that has taken place within Mago world. And I want to remind folks, when we wonder what's

at stake in November, there are so many different ways that we can continue to have this conversation. Remember, as you watch this, that there were people suggesting Alina Haba, if Trump wins, will have a prominent role in his administration. I feel insane saying this because how backwards is the world? It has been mentioned that she could potentially be the attorney general of the United States. OK, this is what is at stake in November. And tomorrow we'll be talking to Jenk Uyghur about what's at stake in November. Just remember, there are those floating Alina Haba for secretary of state. She I mean, listen, how do you even introduce this stuff? There is a point and I want to say something that I different than I normally do. We have the order now. I'm free to speak. And let me just say as somebody who sat there

in the trial, Sean, and I'm so happy you invited me on to say this, they will not get away with it. We will come at them. We will come hard and we will literally fight until the truth comes out. There was nothing wrong. President Trump has done nothing wrong. All he has done is won a campaign. And that is scaring them because they know when he goes back in November 2024, he is going to clean house. And that is truly the problem. they know when he goes back in November 2024, he is going to clean house. And that is truly the problem. It's not about Mara Lagas. Mara Lagas worth it's not worth 18 million.

It's worth probably 1.5 billion at the least. It is not worth Trump Tower 40 Wall Street. That's not what this is about. Sean, you know it and I know it. And she is insisting that her client did absolutely nothing wrong. She's almost acting like she won. This interview felt more like the sort of interview a lawyer would do after your client is vindicated.

She has cost Trump how much money now? I mean, it's absolutely wild. Sean Hannity says, all right, well, Alina, what's the strategy now going forward? And she spits out a word. So tell us what your strategy is going forward, Alina. Very simple. The left wing media, unfortunately, will report cases. I had another case that just went through in New York, the great state of New York, which has completely fallen apart. My strategy is to use the facts, to use the transcripts. We make a record, even when they try and gag us, even when they try and tell us, Alina, I'm going to put you in jail if you object to a PowerPoint slide that proves your case. It doesn't matter. By the way, that didn't happen.

We made a record and the record is clear because their orders are transparent. They show a completely biased transcript. They show that the hearings, the law is not on their side. So they get their headline during an election season. But that is not going to be how we win. I want you to remember that the question was, what's your strategy? The first 48 seconds she gave us a list of stuff which she now says that's not going to be how we win. So I'm guessing now she'll tell us what she will do here. We have to fight the fight for the long run. And that that truly is, Sean, my strategy. That's all of our strategy. We will use the transcript. We will use the evidence. We will use the witnesses,

the real facts, not the media. And it's no no disrespect to the media. But I was there. We did nothing wrong. There you go. Echoing Trump, we did nothing wrong. So if you're confused as to what her strategy is going to be now, I am just as confused. And it seems that this is all kind of alluding to appeal. Trump insists that he's going to win on appeal.

There is a reality here, which is that in order to get to an appeal, Donald Trump in each of these different cases, E.G. and Carol in the New York fraud case is going to have to put up at least some of that verdict money in order to be allowed to appeal. We'll maybe look at those details tomorrow. Alina Haba pointing out that Letitia James had her shoes off in court and that was really offensive to her. I don't even know if that's true, to be honest. Maybe it is. Maybe it is. We had Miss James had her shoes off in court. Let's not forget that.

I called it out in the closing argument. But it's true. She had a Starbucks coffee in her hand. She wasn't doing work. She wasn't sitting at the council table. She was in the back with her shoes off and a coffee. And at the end of the day, we're sitting there looking at this going, this is the state of our country. AGs are so comfortable in court that they know that they don't even have to do the job. They don't have to do the work. They're going to let their people do it. They're going to sit there and they're going to win. That's a problem. So we're going to go up to the next level. We're going to go to people that aren't running on a campaign, running to get Trump before they're even in office and we will win. That's how we have.

All right. So I'm still confused as to what she's going to do. And then lastly, she's continuing the routine of describing Trump's middle aged children as children. And they're actually older than she is. And she's essentially acting like these are just kids. We did nothing wrong. Those statements of financial condition, Sean, were under valued. We did absolutely nothing wrong. Imagine you're dragging children through this. That's the

desperation. We're at Allen Weisselberg, Jeff McConaughey, people that did their jobs and did nothing wrong. And that is how desperate they are because they're going to lose. We have a person who literally cannot walk up the stairs. The children, they're dragging children, by the way, the children are 40 and 46 years old and are executives of the company that was engaged in the fraud. This framing that they found an 11 year old and they're dragging the 11 year old through the mud. These are adult executives involved in multimillion, if not multi hundred million dollar decisions. And they're older than she is at the end of the day. But it's just kids stuff.

If this is the strategy for appeal, which, by the way, I don't even understand what the strategy is. These appeals are not going to go well. Republican Senator Mitt Romney is retiring. We've covered that. Mitt Romney is one of the few Republicans really willing to just call it like it is when it comes to MAGA. And I know that it's easy to say, well, when you're retiring, it's easy to do it. And to some degree, that's true.

But there are lots of Republicans who have retired or been on their way out and have not spoken as freely as Mitt Romney has. Now, I'm not glorifying Mitt Romney. I didn't vote for him in 2012. I preferred Barack Obama. But if the Republican Party were made up of Mitt Romney's, the country and the world would be far better off than we are. Here's Mitt Romney, plain and simple. When asked, will you vote Trump in November? Ultimately, he will probably be the nominee.

Mitt Romney essentially saying, if you're a rapist, you're disqualified. As far as I'm concerned, I will not be voting for former President Trump. And I mean, I must admit that I find sexual assault to be a line I will not cross and the people I select to be my president. But I also disagree with a number of the character issues that the president has demonstrated. So there you go. Once you are found civilly liable of sexual assault, which the judge in that case said met the definition of rape, Mitt Romney is not going to vote for you. Now, I know we can go back and look at this and say, OK, fine. So he said that. But binders full of women and his comments about abortion and his comments about so many different things that show that he is not the

women's rights advocate that he makes himself out to be fine. He's a Republican and I would have significant disagree with disagreements with him on policy. But I would much rather be dealing with a Republican Party that says, hey, you know what? We're starting from at least a more similar view on reality. His view on taxes and mine would be different. His view on public education and mine would be different. His view on health care and mine would be different. But we would least be operating in the real world as opposed to this farcical fantasy in which MAGA exists. So to the extent that I would rather deal with a Republican Party that is more like Mitt Romney than it is like Donald Trump, we have to recognize that there is a breath of fresh air in just

hearing Republicans say what's actually on their minds as opposed to, well, how is the orange guy going to react if I say this or if I say that Mitt Romney, uber wealthy and retiring, he has no reason to hold back whatsoever. Most Republicans obviously are not in that position, but we'd be better off if the people we were fighting were Mitt Romney's rather than Donald Trump's. We've talked before about cults and the ways in which the American Democratic Party and its voters, for the most part, don't see elected officials in this pseudo deity cultish way that MAGA is seen by Republican voters. And I'm going to play a couple of examples of this for you. Here is Tommy, Tommy, Lauren, Tommy, Lauren, Tommy, Lauren on Fox news reacting to Donald

Trump's $400 gold colored sneakers saying, Hey, you know what? Biden can't sell merch. Trump sells merch. Therefore, Trump obviously is more popular with the country. I can see those, but nobody merchandises like Donald Trump does. There is nobody who can move merch like Donald Trump. I've never seen any Joe Biden merchandise anywhere. Nikki Haley has tried it.

She has failed. Donald Trump knows what he's doing. And if we want to talk about connecting with young people, maybe not the worst idea in the world. Right. So listen, this continues to come up and it really is worthy of some examination. And if we want to talk about connecting with young people, maybe not the worst idea in the world. Right. So listen, this continues to come up and it really is worthy of some examination. Trump supporters buy gold sneakers.

They do boat parades with comically large flags that look almost satirical. They have the bumper stickers. They have the T-shirts. They have whatever it out the hell it is that they have. They go to the rallies and at the rallies they stand for hours in the sun buying chicken tenders and standing in line for fetted sani cans. And the Biden supporters don't do that. So there's no possible way Joe Biden actually won in 2020. This is the argument they make. You really have to understand cult dynamics to understand what's going on here.

On our side. We live our lives. An election comes up. We look at the candidates and we say, who would be best for me? Who would be best for America? We go and we vote for that person and then we get back to our jobs. We get back to raising kids. We get back to improving our local communities or playing pickleball or reading or biking or whatever.

And then when it comes time to vote again, we look and we say in this particular case, wow, look at how much stuff Joe Biden has accomplished. I could spend an hour rattling off the list. And so they would say, hey, you know what? On Election Day, I'm going to take a break from the rest of my life and I'm going to go vote because I approve of the job Joe Biden has done. I'm not buying a T-shirt. I'm not buying an NFT. I'm not buying a Biden sneaker or a hat or a visor or a thong or whatever it is, right, that Trump is selling. And that's it, because we're not in a cult. And for them, the absence of merch is a sign that clearly Joe Biden can't actually be doing anything with resonates, which resonates with the American people.

I believe that it's because these right wingers are embroiled in the cultishness of seeing Trump as a pseudo deity at whose altar they pray. And what we have to hope and we have a part to play in it is that it completely backfires on them in November. By the way, here is one more bonus clip. Here's Kayleigh McEnany, Trump's former press secretary, also talking about how creative it is that Trump is selling sneakers.

I love them. They're very smart. Look, the website says this is not political. It's nothing to do with any political campaign. That being said, what a contrast, you know, Trump's out there being creative and nimble and Biden's what in the basement or in Delaware, by the way, if Biden's really in the basement, speaking of which Biden's made so many trips to different states over the last month. It's wild. If Trump loses again to a guy running from his basement, that'll be pretty humiliating. So the reason we don't care about Biden sneakers and wouldn't buy them is because we aren't in a cult.

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about capitalism we had last time you were on. Maybe just to introduce this idea to the audience. What defines the transition from capitalism to techno-feudalism in your mind? Well, David, thank you. It's great to be back. Look, this is a very weird hypothesis of mine. It's very controversial. It all depends on, of course, on what do you mean by capitalism, okay? But to answer your question directly, what I think has happened over the last eight, nine, ten years is that capital has become so triumphant that it dominated so powerfully

that it actually mutated like a toxic virus that mutates and becomes far more toxic. And it mutated into what I call cloud capital, the kind of capital that lives inside your smartphone, on your laptop, on the internet, in the cloud. That's cloud capital. And this capital became so toxic that it killed its host, capitalism, and replaced it with something that I call techno-finalism. Let me be very specific by what I mean. This is not airy- any fairy stuff. I hope it's not. The idea here is this. Capitalism is predicated on two major

islands, if you want, foundations. One is markets. Unlike previous societies, everything that matters economically under capitalism was channeled through markets, labor markets, real estate markets, capital

markets. And then the second pylon, the second foundation is profit. Capitalism was fueled, the machine, the engine of capitalism was fueled by profit. Unlike previous societies, Fidelism which was founded on land and on rent, capitalism is founded on markets and on rent. Capitalism is founded on markets and on profit. My view is that cloud capital has replaced both markets and profit. It has replaced markets with digital platforms, you may call them, like Amazon.com, which looks like a market, but it don't make any mistake here. It is not a market. And profit has been replaced by rent, a form of rent. It's not ground rent. It's not like the rent that few of the lords used to collect

from the peasants and from the vassals. But it's cloud rent. Every time you buy something off Amazon.com, you pay, or Alibaba, or that doesn't matter what it is, Uber, you pay a substantial amount of whatever it is that you pay the actual provider of the good or the service to Jeff Bezos or to the owner of crowd capital. And that is no longer capitalism. So you're talking about the role, if I understand correctly, not just of the tech giants, but the fact that with a lot of these, sure, there are stakeholders and employees and shareholders, but there is a specific person, whether it's Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos, that are almost like in some sense, the medieval lords and kings?

Is that the analogy to some degree? Yes, I call them cloud analysts, or you can call them techno feudal lords if you want. They are the owners of cloud capital. They are the ones who, because they own vast quantities of this cloud capital, they have a capacity to make us do a number of things that capitalists of yesteryear couldn't do. Their cloud capital can arrest

our attention, input into our hearts and minds, desires that we didn't think we have or had. I mean, advertisers used to do this but now it's capital that does it machines algorithms that do it not don't vapor from you know madmen the third thing that they do is once they've created these desires in our mind and in our hearts they actually satiate them they sell us the stuff by bypassing every market

so the same machine that makes you want a particular pair of binoculars sells it to you outside the market. In addition, as if that were not enough, every time you're on your phone and you're posting a video or liking something or tweeting or

whatever, you're adding to that crowd capital. You are actually producing capital for these people for free. That was never the case. You know, Henry Ford was a monopoly capitalist, extremely powerful man, not a very nice man. But nevertheless, he never had the capacity to make members of the public out there produce capital for him. The only people who would produce capital were the workers who worked in the factories creating the machines that he would then employ to build the Model T. But, you know, Zuckerberg, every time you post something

on Facebook or on Instagram, you are, without being paid, creating and producing his cloud capital. That is unique. That has never happened before. This is why I think we need a new word. And capitalism is no longer a good descriptor of the system we live in. It's not even the entire capitalism. It's not even surveillance capitalism. It's simply not capitalism. That's why I came up with this very ugly word, techno-fudelism.

I'm curious your thoughts on the way in which artificial intelligence may become a layer on top of this analysis. I've been reading all sorts of different opinions about the way in which some of these new AI tools may manifest. And it seems to be directly related to some of what you're talking about. On the one hand, there are those who believe that AI will be in some sense an equalizing force against some of what you describe. It sounds like canes all over again. We're going to have so much leisure time because AI is going to give us so much more productivity. It's all going to be great. We will get so much more done. On the other hand, more realistically, in my opinion, there are opinions that for certain sorts of workers, the AI revolution may be a very useful and good thing, but that for a lot

of the employed population, it won't be so good and it will only reinforce a lot of what you talk about in the book and the inequality that already exists. My guess is that you lean more on the latter rather than the former. I would be shocked if your view that you're going to tell me now is you think AI will be a great equalizing force. But I'm curious how you see that in the context of your analysis. I think we are probably on the same page by what you just said. Let me let me make three points. First, AI is not something that will happen to us. It's already happened to us. What I refer to as cloud capital is already

AI-driven. So machine learning, reinforcement learning, that GPT-4 has come out because, you know, you and I have indirect experience of it by playing around with GPT-4. But AI has been around for yonks. It's not a new thing. And the capacity of the algorithms of Google, of Facebook, of Amazon and so on, Uber, Airbnb, Spotify, has been around for a very long time. And this is why we have techno-futurism already. It's not something we will have.

What AI will do is it will reinforce it. It will turbocharge it. So if you think of, take Alexa, Amazon's Alexa. It's a machine sitting on your desk, your kitchen, wherever you have it, if you have it, and you're training it, you are training it to train you to train it, to train you to train it, to know you so well that it gives you good advice and then helpful advice. And then at some point it can actually say, you know, maybe you want to buy that. And then you buy it just because you've trusted the machine because it has given you such great advice that has been happening

now for years it's on you imagine when it starts you know with gpt5 coming out when you can actually talk to gpt and you know an ai bot uh turbocharges the capacity of a to discuss things with you. To discuss things with you. And then its power to generate desires into your mind that are functional to the interests of Jeff Bezos, you know, goes to the power of N. But that is already happening, just that it's going to be turbocharged. That's point number one. Point number two is that look, like with every technology, every technology that's ever been devised by human beings has had its positive and its negative effects.

Yes. It has liberated and it has enslaved us. So that is nothing new there. They take the automobile, you know, it destroyed many jobs and then it created many jobs. Now, the fear is that with GPT-5, the number of jobs that will be created will be many, many more than the ones that will be created.

But that's something to be established. I think it's probably true. But in any case, you see, my book is not about what AI will do to us. It is what it has already done to us. Right. And that's something that I believe that it needs to be emphasized. Because, you see, I love AI, personally. You know, I'm a techno enthusiast. The idea that there is a program, a computer program out there which can actually design antibiotics that save

human lives. That's remarkable. That should be celebrated. This is an achievement of the human spirit. But at the same time, AI is enslaving us because it's actually putting desires into our heads that we never should have or would have had otherwise or needed.

It drives proletarian labor in Amazon warehouses, on factory floors, amongst delivery people. It effectively kills their soul and often their bodies. And fundamentally and very profoundly, profoundly by shifting a lot of value produced from workers and even from capitalists to the bank accounts of the jib raises think of all these all these billions and trillions they're being siphoned off the circular flow of income that causes a general drop in aggregate demand around our macroeconomics in the United States, in the European Union, in Japan, and so on. And that means that investment falls because people don't have enough money, capitalists do not invest, and we are falling behind not only in terms of economic activity, but also in our capacity to invest in the green technology necessary to save the planet from a climate catastrophe.

And then you have central banks, which are then forced to print more money in order to replenish the losses of aggregate demand. But that is at a time when you have inflation, and they are damned if they print, they are damned if they don't print, and they have caught up in a conundrum that they are. So the system we live in, which used to be, in my view, capitalism, which was always an unstable system to produce a crisis, the crisis that techno-fiddleism is producing

are much deeper and much worse and much more catastrophic. We're going to go to a break on the podcast with Yanis Varoufakis, but the conversation will continue and we'll post the entire discussion to YouTube. every day. It's just one scoop mixed with water once a day. And it gives me the foundational nutritional elements I want for the whole day. Each serving of AG1 gives me what I want in terms of vitamins, minerals and more. It's just a simple habit. I know that with AG1, I'm getting high quality nutrition. The ingredients are sourced for nutrient density and absorption. If you want to take ownership of your health, start with AG1. Try AG1 and get a free one year supply of vitamin D3 and K2 plus five free AG one travel packs with your first purchase exclusively at drink AG one dot com

slash Pacman. That's drink a G the number one dot com slash Pacman for free vitamin D3 and K2 and five free travel packs of AG one. The link is in the podcast notes. the Thank you so much, David. This is a production of the David Pakman Show. or as free trial. So you can change your passwords if you need to. That's a u r a dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Donald Trump ranked last in some, to be totally honest, relatively meaningless presidential rankings. I wasn't even going to talk about them until I saw how our friends over at Fox News were reacting to their dear, dear leader ranking so poorly in these rankings. And so we're going to look at it a little bit. Newsweek reports Donald Trump places last in new presidential greatness rankings. The purpose of the survey previously conducted in 2015 and 2018 was to create a ranking of presidential greatness going from Washington

to Biden. This is done by the Presidential greatness project at the university of Houston, blah, blah, blah. Okay. These are really basically meaningless. Okay. I mean, okay. So some, some historians have ranked presidents and as we know, it's always so difficult to have an accurate view on some of these things until more time has gone by. But then sometimes you start to see that which happened a long time ago as not so good or important because the context has changed. So it's really difficult to, quote, accurately rank presidents over several hundred years. But what's fascinating is how it just infuriated the Fox News people. Here is Kayleigh McEnany saying it's infuriating that they ranked Trump so low.

A new ranking. And I'm going to add, in my view, a highly questionable ranking of presidents is turning heads after Biden came in higher than both Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan. Well, yeah. And his wildest dreams. The survey was done by the Presidential Greatness Project, who claim to be the foremost organization of social science experts in presidential politics. They may be the foremost example of the disconnect between ivory tower academia and real people. That aside, Abe Lincoln ranked first. OK, fair.

Then comes Obama at seventh and Biden came in 14th, actually beating Ronald Reagan. Now I am I don't just as an example of why I think this is so fraught. I think there's a good case to make that Biden has been as good of a president as Barack Obama or maybe even better. So the point here is this is a really difficult and fraught thing to do. But Trump being at the end really bothers them. Who came in 16th and Trump dead last. Look, Lisa, where to begin? This is infuriating in so many ways.

154. She's infuriated because she was the press secretary for the worst president. That's why she's upset respondents. They are the ivory tower elites who in no way represent the view of the American people. No, but it also goes to show you though how history can be written and some of it can be built off a lie as well. But no, this list is bogus. Everyone knows that, you know, Obama's not that high. He was a terrible president. But I think that this president, sorry.

So they are very much unhappy with it. Uh, judge Jeanine Piro, who was a judge at one point, she also thinks it's terrible and you don't need to listen to people in academia and all of that. And what a bunch of historical malarkey. A group of self-proclaimed experts on the presidency just ranked Joe Biden as the 14th best president in history while giving Trump last place. She doesn't like it either. I actually think there is not that much value in this.

And circumstances in the United States have changed so much over the last several hundred years. The context in which these individuals were presidents were so dramatically different. But by any stretch of the imagination, Trump was a disastrously bad president. So that I do agree with. We finally have gotten, by the way, Donald Trump's reaction to the should we call it suspicious death? Are we ready to call it a killing, an assassination of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. Trump has finally reacted. There was a funny headline from the New Republic.

Trump has finally spoken on Navalny's death. You'll wish he hadn't. And it is really, really, really bad. Here is what Donald Trump posted to his platform, truth, social, central about the death of Navalny quote, the sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our country. Oh, this is already weird. It is a slow, steady progression with crooked, radical left politicians, prosecutors and judges leading us down a path to destruction.

Open borders, rigged elections and grossly unfair courtroom decisions are destroying America. We are a nation in decline, a failing nation. MAGA 2024. How does Trump turn the death of Navalny apparently at the direction of Vladimir Putin into he's the victim and you need to vote Trump in 2024? What a flaccid, weak, self victim victimizing screed. And you know, we have to remember the context of Luke Beasley's

interviews with Maggots last week that we played for you. And when Luke Beasley interviewed some of these people and showed them, look at what Trump said, Trump posted, you might have to suspend the Constitution and they go, no, no, no, that's clearly fake. Even though Trump posted it to truth social, it's still there. You could find these 70 something million people who voted for Trump and you could show them this thing that he wrote on truth social where Putin's name isn't even mentioned. And they would either say, I don't care, or they would say Trump didn't really write it. Or he would say they would say it's misunderstood or you don't understand the context. You can't find statements from Trump that when they are presented with them would actually

get the vast majority of these Trump is to say, oh, no, that's too far and that's too crazy. Uh, they would not have, uh, uh, they would have you believe that Trump would never say this stuff. And if he did, it was taken out of context. And if it wasn't taken out of context, it's incomplete or being misreported on. It's sort of the, sort of the Jordan Peterson, uh, thing where if you criticize anything, Jordan Peterson says, you're told you're either not smart enough to understand what he really meant or you're misstating it or it's taken out of context or whatever. And then Trump followed up this statement with even further all caps and insanity, where

he said, quote, All political prosecutions of your favorite president, me, must stop immediately. We are in the middle of an election, perhaps the most important election in the history of our country. And these radical left lunatic prosecutors and judges are not allowed to be doing this. Why didn't they start three years ago? Because they wanted to interfere with the presidential election of 2024. That's why Trump then goes on to cite Justice Department's manual and essentially says it's communism to go after Trump in this way and that we will not stand for it. Trump's understanding his working understanding of communism, socialism, Marxism and other political ideologies and economic systems is very, very weak.

And at the bottom line, what this is about is, oh, they killed Navalny. They should stop prosecuting me and they should vote for me in November. Oh, they've prosecuted me. They've they've clearly weaponized the justice system against me. Charges should be dropped and I should be made president in November. And one of the sort of bottom line realities here is that Trump can say whatever he wants. And I've made this analogy before. If the sycophants stop being sycophants, if the cultists are deprogrammed and if the Republican Party wakes up and says no more of this, this has gone too far. We are self-humiliating. We're done with Trump. If they were to do that, it's really just screaming

into the void. It's like the guy on the subway platform screaming about aliens or whatever it is, and it just gets ignored and it has no impact. But for as long as the Republican Party is going to bow at the altar of Trump and I'll show you what that looks like in a moment, this sort of stuff is going to continue. And at least until we see otherwise in November of 2024, MAGA may be coming back full force and that should scare all of us. If you're not scared yet, look at what I'm about to show you. Apparently, in a show of support over Trump being fined three hundred and sixty four million dollars for committing fraud in New York, MAGA cultists flooded to one of Donald Trump's golf courses yesterday.

I'm going to play a couple of interviews for you. And as I said yesterday, when looking at some video clips, this could be very disturbing to children. Some of these people may be under the influence of alcohol. I'm not totally sure. They are definitely all suffering from MAGA brain worms, also known as the real Trump derangement syndrome. And I am going to play for you evidence of what happens when you are in a cult. And here's what I need you to be thinking of as we look at this. What's easier, convincing one of these cultists not to vote Trump or finding 10 people already

on the left and just encouraging them to get out and vote? That's the that's the question. Listen to this. We the people support our our great president, President Trump and President's Day, the year 2024. And I got this is the year where I got President Trump, and President's Day, the year 2024. And this is the year where President Trump is going to be elected again for the third time. And we people had enough of Joe and the Democrats. So this is the most important election in our nation's history. It's either freedom or socialism. We're here to support our freedom over socialism.

So President Trump is our last hope. And he is he is our savior for our nation, for our freedom. He is our last hope. He is our savior for our nation and our freedom. And this is not a cult we are supposed to believe. Next, they spoke to Ronnie. Ronnie says he used to love watching sports and hanging out. Then Trump entered the political scene and now he just watches Fox News. Well, basically, four years ago, I started watching Real America's Voice. I'm a big sports guy, but I stopped watching sports completely because when sports went woke, I dropped them. And I was I used to watch Fox News up until about four years ago. And I dropped Fox when Fox News couldn't say that Florida won for Trump.

And they. Oh, I gotcha. He started watching Fox when Trump came on the scene. But now Fox isn't right wing enough. And they said Arizona was Biden or whatever they did when they messed all that up. I knew that wasn't my channel. And I left for news back then and I found Steve Bannon on War Room and I was searching for answers and I've been watching him. He was searching for answers. Can you imagine since Raheem was on back then and a couple of the other them, a couple of the other guys.

But I don't I've been religiously watching Real America's Voice, especially Steve Bannon. I try to get all four hours in and if I can't watch all four, I videotape it and watch it when I can. Four hours a day. By the way, Steve Bannon has a four. I didn't even know Steve Bannon had a four hour show. That sounds clinically insane. This guy's watching four hours a day of Steve Bannon, four hours a day. I'd love to know this guy's view on Taylor Swift, by the way, I'm sure. And on vaccines, I think he probably would have some fascinating stuff to say. Here is a woman who says she loves Trump because he has done so much for black people.

So what brings you here today? Hi, my name is Susan and I am here to support President Trump, our true president, Joy. And I'm here to also support Trump and save our country. So do you guys come to these events often? I know it's 100% grassroots organized. Yes, I come out every Thursday. We have a bunch of patriots that meet somewhere between West Palm and Boynton Beach to support our president and wave our flags proudly.

How about you? I actually, this is only like the second event I've been to. But I was at Mar-a-Lago last weekend. How was that? At the Trumpettes event, as was Susan. It was so fabulous. And we were so happy to be there. Well, Trump is our people's president.

And he has America behind him. And that is what is killing the deep state. They don't like it. They know they're going down. He's really the one that's done more for the black American, the Asian, the Hispanic community than any other president, as well as the common man. So listen, how do you deprogram cult members? Not that this is how we're going to win elections. We're not going to win by deprogramming these people. We're going to win by out turning out them, out turn outing them. I don't know the right way to say it. To deprogram people like this,

you have to assess how deep they are in the cult and their connection to it. You have to build trust with them. You have to create an environment in which they would be comfortable considering or reconsidering their support for the cult leader. You would have to be able to provide them information, but in a way that isn't beating them over the head with it. You would have to inspire them to self-reflect. You would have to provide emotional support and give them a path to credible reintegration to society outside of the cult. And then you would have to monitor and support them on an ongoing basis to make sure they don't get sucked back in. That's a lot of work. And I'm not saying that if this is your aunt or uncle or your brother or sister or your mom and

dad, that that's not a worthy cause to get them out of the cult. It is. But we're not going to win elections by deprogramming these people in the next eight and a half months. That's just the reality. And so the the light bulb moment needs to be, oh, I can cancel out each one of these votes by voting myself. If I vote, I cancel out the woman on the left's vote. And if you vote, you cancel out the woman on the right's vote. That has to be the approach. I hope we do it. We have a voicemail number.

That number is two one nine two. David P. Here's a caller who still is misunderstanding me, is asking if I will cry when Trump wins in November. David Pinocchio hack man, what are you going to do when Trump wins this election? You know, he's crying. Are you going to be peeing in your depends sitting in your safe space, right? Crime. I'm sure you are because that's how you do 24 seven. So pathetic.

I hate to have a life like yours. That on a whim, just to try to report on another false misinformation, there's such a piece of miso formation. These people don't get it. You know, if Trump wins, I'll be fine because I live in a blue state and more than likely the show will explode. That's the reality. I've said it before.

I think Trump's bad for the country, but he's great for shows like this. If Trump wins, we will probably have an insanely good four years from a business perspective, but I still don't want it. I'd rather have the business not do as well, but not have an authoritarian lunatic as president of the United States. So will I cry? I mean, no, I'll be fine and the show will do great, but it will be upsetting because so many others are going to suffer. Imagine I care about what the impact will be on the country and on other people. If it were about me and me alone, sir, I would cheer if Trump were to win, but it would be so bad for so many people. We have a fantastic bonus show for you today. I won't even tell you what's on it, but it's a good one. Sign

up at join pacacman.com. Get instant access. I'll see you then.