The David Pakman Show - 2/22/24: Biden cancels more student debt, Biden crimes implode badly

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

-- On the Show: -- President Joe Biden cancels another $1.2 billion in student loan debt, extending his lead as the President to cancel the most student loan debt in history -- Republican Congressman Jim Jordan is in shambles as the supposed Biden crime "informant" is exposed as a liar connected to Russian intelligence -- A new study finds that Americans basically do not read books -- A leak reveals that Donald Trump is planning detention camps and mass militarized deportations if he becomes President again -- Donald Trump's abortion plan leaks, which includes a national ban on abortion at 16 weeks of pregnancy -- Fox News has an "undecided voter" focus group so absurd, it almost seems like satire -- MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell is ordered to pay Bob Zeidman $5 million after Zeidman debunked Pillow's election fraud claims -- The second part of Donald Trump's town hall on Fox News hosted by Laura Ingraham is an absurd disaster -- Former Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan attacks Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson as the absolute wrong direction for the Republican Party -- Voicemail caller calls David out for his supposed "corruption" over not covering Fani Willis' supposed corruption, even though David did cover it, and it's not clear there is any corruption by Fani Willis -- On the Bonus Show: Did John Oliver break the law by offering Clarence Thomas money to retire, West Virginia House passes bill allowing prosecution of librarians, US man sues lottery after being told $340 million win is an error, much more... 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 🧠 Try Brain.fm totally free for a month at https://brain.fm/pakman 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code PAKMAN for FREE blades at https://hensonshaving.com/pakman 💻 Stay protected! Try our sponsor Aura FREE for 2 weeks at https://aura.com/pakman 😮 DealDash: Use code PAKMAN for 100 free bids at https://dealdash.com/pakman 👍 Manscaped: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off & free shipping at https://manscaped.com -- 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

Speaker 1 Let's start today with some meaty policy. Here is yet another step towards the student loan forgiveness that I'll be honest, I'm even surprised Joe Biden is this interested in doing. The Biden administration is canceling student loans for more than one hundred and fifty thousand additional borrowers nearly six months ahead of schedule under a new plan. This is going to be about one point two billion dollars in student debt for about one hundred and fifty three thousand borrowers. These are borrowers who took out what are being described as relatively modest student loans and have been on track with repayment for a decade. You will be shocked to hear, by the way, that some of the folks who are getting a student loan debt

forgiveness under this plan have been making 10 10 years of repayments. Originally took out $12,000 or less and still haven't paid it off. If you want to understand how out of sync college costs are with what people are actually earning. Here is president Joe Biden making this announcement. And this is great news. Under my SAVE plan, we're cutting in half to 5% the undergraduate borrowers, what undergraduate borrowers have to pay after their living expenses are accounted for. That means no one with an undergraduate loan, whether it's a community college or a four-year college, will have to pay more than 5% of their discretionary income to repay those loans starting in July. And that's income after you pay for necessities like food and housing.

Already 7.5 million Americans have enrolled in this so-called SAVE plan, and there's more than 4 million of those borrowers had their monthly payments dropped to zero if they're living paycheck to paycheck below a certain level. This plan is the most generous repayment program ever and today we're doing it even faster and quicker than ever before. I'm proud to announce our SAVE plan. We are immediately canceling the debt loans for over 150,000 borrowers, nearly six months ahead of schedule.

Starting today, we're canceling student debt for borrowers who are enrolled in the safe plan and have been paying student loans for as little as 10 years. If they took less than if they borrow less than two thousand dollars, it's forgiven. They took twelve thousand dollars. Excuse me. It's the loan is forgiven. So listen, this now brings the total amount of student debt canceled by the Biden administration to nearly one hundred and thirty eight billion dollars for nearly three point

nine million borrowers. Now a couple of different things. Is Biden struggling to speak? Yes he is. Is he still doing way more than anyone anticipated when it comes to student loan debt cancellation? Yes, he has. Oh, but Joe Biden's not really the one doing this. It's someone in his administration. That's how it works. Yes, that very well may be the case. You may have figured out the way White House's work. The president doesn't literally do all of

the nitty gritty work on every single issue. They hire people who do a lot of the stuff. Now, there's lots of people who say, I don't really care about this issue or I don't think people deserve to have student loan debt forgiveness. If you took out the loan and you went to the college and whatever, it's responsibility. If you think about this issue fundamentally as an issue of justice and equity and responsibility, you have to see this as a major progressive win. No president has forgiven anywhere near this amount of student loan debt. And so this is a great thing. Joe Biden continues

to just quietly tick off these accomplishments. The question is, is this going to translate to votes in November? Yesterday, my guest, Cenk Uygur, doesn't believe it will. Cenk even said, I agree that the stuff you're listing, David, is good stuff. It's just a question of whether it is going to translate into a win in November. And we just don't know that yet. But if it doesn't, it will not be for shortage of accomplishments. It may be for shortage of messaging. It may be for optics reasons. It may be for all sorts of other reasons. But when we look at accomplishments and accomplishments alone, they keep racking up. Jim Jordan and other members of the House, Republican members of the House,

are in major trouble. They have been going on for years about how Joe and Hunter Biden committed crimes, bribery, corruption, money laundering. Sometimes they would throw in there. And now it has all fallen apart. It's really important not to misunderstand that it is all fallen apart. Their primary informant, who they claimed was the whistleblower bombshell exposing everything, has been caught lying about a lot of the allegations he made and has admitted this is 43 year old Alexander Smirnoff. He has admitted that he was being fed a bunch of this stuff by those in Russian intelligence. This now is going head on towards these Republicans. They don't care. They are pretending that this changes nothing. But this destroys their argument.

Jamie Raskin, you'll see in a few minutes. Jamie Raskin says the impeachment inquiry is effectively over. Republicans may not admit it, but it's over now that their main informant has been tied to Russian intelligence and found to be a liar. Here's Manu Raju interviewing Jim Jordan. Jim Jordan says this changes nothing at all. This changes a lot about the president's involvement in a bribery scheme now that Alexander Smirnoff has proven to have made it up and it was based on Russian intelligence. Doesn't change the four fundamental facts under Biden was on the put on the board of Burisma gets paid a million dollars a year. Fact number two, he's not qualified to be on the board. He said so himself in an

interview. I don't know with you or notice that even if these so-called facts are true, none of them are crimes. None of them connect to Joe Biden or some network. Fact number three, Zolotsevsky and Pazarsky, the two executives at Burisma specifically asked Hunter Biden, can you weigh in with D.C. and help us deal with the pressure we are facing from the prosecutor? Which is what you would ask anybody who is helping you to lobby. Fact number four, Joe Biden, then he gets called.

Hunter Biden calls his dad, according to Devin Archer, Hunter Biden's business partner. Fact number four, Joe Biden then goes to Ukraine three days later and conditions the release of the money, American tax money on the firing of the prosecutor who was applying the pressure to the company that Hunter Biden said on the board. Now remember all of that stuff. If you look at each one, Devin Archer said, I'm not aware that this even came up in that phone call. I have no reason to think anything Jim Jordan says is true. You go to the so-called witness and they will admit that Biden went then went and had Victor Shoken fired. That was the as vice president.

That was what the Obama administration wanted done in consultation with other allies. And even Ukrainian officials have admitted Shoken was corrupt. So the so-called facts that Jim Jordan says don't change as a result of this aren't facts also relate to other matters and also have been debunked. Jim Jordan then was interviewed on a no. He gave a press statement and he continues to insist everything is just absolute. Nothing changes as a result of the fact that the so-called informant made it up and is tied to Russian intelligence. I think you should ask that you should ask the FBI why they were so reluctant. They told

us if we don't when we wanted to see the 1020, they said this could jeopardize national security, the safety of this confidential human source. You can't know his name. They didn't want to show it to us. Then they finally did. I mean, this is a guy they paid, I think, since 2010. So 14 years they've been paying this guy and he's a trusted source. And now we find out. Plus, I think there's sort of the you know, when Christopher Steele lied to the FBI about President Trump, he gets paid more when Smirnoff lies to the FBI about President Biden. No, he gets indicted.

I mean, go figure. So that changed the fundamental fact. This guy has been doing this for years and they have nothing. And the nothing they had is now even less. And Jim Jordan is in so deep that he can't say anything other than this. He appeared with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News. And again, he insists it's all the stuff we've been telling you, despite that. So much of what he mentions here yesterday has already been long debunked.

Just detail for us what you believe is the most egregious here and what are the these the evidence that you feel that Joe Biden, in fact, did participate in all of this? I mean, it seems pretty obvious, but you still have the Democrats, including Democrats in Congress, your colleagues who say there's nothing here, particularly after the Smirnoff indictment. The Smirnoff indictment doesn't change four fundamental facts relative to Burisma. Hunter Biden gets put on the board, gets paid a lot. And here he goes again with the same nonsense. Money, million dollars a year. Fact two, Hunter Biden is not qualified to be on the board.

He said it himself when he was doing an interview, I think, with ABC News. Fact number three, the executives at Burisma asked Hunter Biden to weigh in because they're under pressure from the prosecutor. Fact number four, Joe Biden goes to keep and fires the prosecutor, and he does so by leveraging conditioning the release of our tax money on the firing of the prosecutor, applying the pressure to the company his son sat on the board of and made a million dollars a year from. If you're struggling to understand

that it's because it makes no sense. Jim Jordan's been peddling these untruths for years now. And what Maria Bartiromo was really asking is since your main supposed witness slash informant has been arrested for lying and tied to Russian intelligence. What evidence do you actually have? And this is the equivalent of when they go back and they say, well, we've got bank records. Oh, wow. Records that Joe Biden has a bank account and receives money for things. That doesn't sound like a crime. Well, we have conjecture and that's a form of evidence. This is going nowhere quick. And Jamie Raskin, who has been a guest on this program, he says this is over. Now, I don't know that Republicans are ready to say that this is over, but Raskin is saying it is dead. Hello, everyone. I wanted to

just start by restating the obvious, which is that the impeachment investigation essentially ended yesterday in substance, if not in form, with the explosive revelation that Mr. Smirnoff's allegations about Ukrainian Burisma payments to Joe Biden were concocted along with Russian intelligence agents. And it appears like the whole thing is not only obviously false and fraud fraudulent, but a product of Russian disinformation and propaganda. It's more Russia, Russia, Russia stuff, right? You will. You know what? This doesn't change. Joe Biden is elderly. They still have that. And maybe there is a crime there that they could put pin on Joe Biden. I don't know. As far as what Republicans will eventually do for now, Jim Jordan is pretending like this changes nothing. It doesn't damage their whole case at all. Eventually, my guess is at the

end of the day, they try to blame it all on James Comer and they say Comer was the guy steering the ship. Comer was the guy perpetuating this humiliation. And maybe they can get away with pinning it on him. All right. I have something really depressing to talk to you about. And no, it has nothing to do with my sweaters this week, which I saw the comments. I saw the comments. Fifty four percent of Americans read a book in 2023. Just one, one or more. OK, so what this

means is that 46 percent of Americans, that's almost half of Americans in 2023 did not read a single book. This is a cultural issue. This is an educational issue. This is, I believe, a political issue. I believe this is an economic issue in many ways. Let's look at the data first and foremost. If you take a look at this, 46% of Americans overall said they read no books at all. No books at all. Obviously, I don't think it will surprise you. If you didn't go to college, you're even less likely to have read a book. If you did go to college, you're more likely. But the general numbers are 46% of Americans read no books. That includes listening. Okay. This includes audio books. Um, you then have, uh, a bunch of people like 25% read one to five books, 10% read six to 10 books, about 8% read 11 to 20 books and about 10% read more than 20 books.

This is a real cultural failing in the United States right now. Okay. Now I don't know where my audience falls on this. I know that there are some readers in my audience, but this is both a cultural failing and a failing at the individual level, I think. So on the individual level, if you regularly read, you have more knowledge because you have access to books on all sorts of different subjects. And by the way, you don't have to buy books. You can borrow books for free at public libraries. Tons of books are now out of the I

guess it'd be out of the copyright phase. I don't know if I'm using the right term, but the books are essentially open source. You can you can download them for free e-books of all kinds, enhances imagination and hypothetical thinking, boosts brain function, reduces stress, improves empathy. So at the individual level, it's hard to find a better act, you know, walking and reading, right? Walking and reading at the sociocultural level. Having a culture in which reading is more common and encouraged, promotes literacy in general, which is crucial for societal progress, fosters community through book clubs, literary discussions, et cetera, preserves culture because we learn about so much of culture past and present through books

can encourage social change by getting people to think critically. This is, by the way, both fiction and nonfiction boosts economic growth. The more literate a society is and the more that reading is a common activity that people turn to improves innovation. Economic development makes people better equipped for all sorts of jobs. And so I know I've mentioned before my list of six or seven low hanging fruit, you know, walk eight thousand steps a day. And I've talked about to get one hundred and fifty minutes a week of at least moderate intensity exercise, reduce processed foods, get 30 grams a day of fiber. Reading is right up there. OK, even if it's two

pages a day instead of zero, you will get through books and be in the 10 percent of Americans that are reading that amount. And if you can read two pages a day, I mean, it takes about a minute a page. It's two minutes. OK, two pages a day. Well, maybe you can read five pages a day. Maybe you could read seven. So for a lot of people, it's about, it's way easier to pull out a phone and to scroll tick talks or snap chats or Instagrams. And I get that. Uh, but you've got to make it a habit. And the best way to make it a habit is to have interesting books lying around. If I know that in the next room I have four books I'm in the middle of, all of which are interesting in different ways, I'm much more likely to make that a habit rather than pulling the phone out. And so if you don't know what to read for nonfiction recommendations,

go to David Pakman dot com slash recommendations. I've got books on economics, personal finance, narrative, nonfiction, science, all sorts of different things. There's got to be something for you in there. OK, David Pakman dot com slash recommendations for fiction. I mean, there's so much with fiction and so many sub genres. And I've talked about many fiction books right now for fiction. I'm reading I'm committed to doing it. I'm reading some Proust or do people say Proust now in search for lost time? It is dense, but I am reading it and and enjoying it in part because of something I'll tell you in a moment. I also this is like a fun read. I recently finished watching the Bosch TV series.

So I got curious about the books by Michael Connelly. I picked up the first one, which is from 1992, the first Bosch novel. Super, you know, it's a page turner. Enjoyable in many ways. Nonfiction. I'm reading a book about how to read Proust, and I'm finding it is super useful in getting more out of the actual in search for lost time. I'm reading for nonfiction Selwyn Rab's book. It's huge, huge book. I've been reading

it for a while about the oranges of the Italian mafia in New York. Really good book. I grabbed Jared Dillon's new personal finance book. A bunch of people said they had read it. It's not bad. And I also am almost done with David Brooks's book, The Second Mountain, which I find interesting as well. So there's always interesting things to read. Think of any scenario where you won't benefit from reading 12, 15, 20 books a year socially. If you're regularly reading interesting stuff and other people aren't, who's going to be a better conversationalist? Who's going to be able to relate to other people on more topics? The person who's reading at work, if you're reading and becoming more informed about

different things and your coworkers aren't, not only can it help you be more engaged and competent with the work, it makes you more enjoyable to be around. If you're parenting and you're reading 12, 24, 36 books a year, you will be more equipped to parent more creative, more empathetic, more imaginative, more able to answer the endless why questions that kids start to ask. So the numbers are horrifying. Almost half of Americans read zero books last year. Just read three books and you'll already be ahead of what? Sixty, sixty five percent of what Americans are reading. If people in the audience are against book reading like Andrew Taint, who said he doesn't read books, let me know. I would love to know why. Taking care of your health isn't always

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D3 and K2 plus five free AG1 travel packs with your first purchase exclusively at drink AG1 dot I would try Spotify or YouTube. on the show or doing stuff on my computer, staying focused and getting in the zone is super important. It's not always easy. I would try Spotify or YouTube playlists. I'd end up actually more distracted than focused. And then someone told me about Brain FM's Focus Music, which is actually made by scientists working with musicians specifically to help you focus. I tried it and it worked really well for me which is why I asked them to be a sponsor with brain FM I just feel more productive and focused easier to start on difficult work easier to stay focused without getting distracted and do that really important deep work that

I love to talk about the team team behind Brain.fm actually won a National Science Foundation grant related to ADHD. And the app includes a special mode just for ADHD if you need it. They even have amazing sleep sounds that I've started using at night. You can try Brain.fm totally free for an entire month. Just go to brain.fm slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Continuing today to talk about policy, two different policy ideas, if you can call them that from what would be Donald Trump's second term have leaked. Each is more horrifying than the last. Let's start with immigration. Trump and allies are

planning militarized mass deportations and detention camps. This should not be swept under the rug. I know we're all desensitized from the last insane seven years of this nonsense. The guy who was part of the movement that said Obama was going to do FEMA camps and Obama was going to do this and that. It is Trump who is looking to militarize deportations and create detention camps. And remember, he's told us that he wants homeless camps, camps of all kinds. Washington Post reports as president, Trump sought to use military planes and bases for deportation. Now he and his allies are talking about a new effort that current and former officials warn could be impractical and dangerous.

Aids in a spit official spoke privately about detaining migrants on military bases and flying them out of the country on military planes. Ideas that the Pentagon headed off. This was back in 2018 and 2019. Trump was, quote, obsessed with having the military involved, said a former senior administration official speaking on the condition of anonymity. Trump is again planning to do this if he becomes president. Quote, Americans can expect that immediately upon Trump's return to the Oval Office, he will restore all of his prior policies, implement brand new crackdowns that will send

shockwaves to all the world's criminal smugglers and marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation in American history. His aides and the people around him are admitting he is planning to militarize that and going to do mass deportations, the likes of which we have never seen before. This is all real. And we know it's real because Trump has talked about this stuff before. Here's just one example. Trump talking about the homeless camps.

He said this sort of thing dozens of times. Urban camping wherever possible. Violators of these bans will be arrested, but they will be given the option to accept treatment and services if they're willing to be rehabilitated. Many of them don't want that. We'll give them the option. We will then open up large parcels of inexpensive land, bring in doctors, psychiatrists, social workers,

and drug rehab specialists and create tent cities where the homeless can be relocated and their problems identified. But we'll open up our cities again, make them livable and make them beautiful. Tent cities for the homeless, putting migrants in military facilities, mass deportations. We really actually I don't even know that mass deportation is the is the representative term for this. This is a military invasion of democratically run states by the federal government, because when Trump talks about sanctuary cities or sanctuary cities, as he has mislabeled them before, what we're talking about is cities run by Democratic mayors,

states run by Democratic governors. And Trump saying states rights, flush states rights down the toilet. I'm sending in the feds. I'm sending in the military. By the way, I know who kept it law and order, right? Who cares about the rule of law anymore? But there are important legal opinions and significant legal scholarship arguing that that idea is actually against the law because you are deploying the military to do law enforcement, particularly at a state level. Obviously, if a state governor asks for the state National Guard to help in restoring peace or patrolling streets or whatever, the legal scholarship seems united that that's absolutely legal. A president deploying the military to states to do what should be the tasks

of local law enforcement. It's not at all clear that that is actually legal. Here is CNN reporting on this extreme proposal. I knew this morning, President Donald Trump, the former president, floating an extreme proposal on how to deal with the migrant surge if he is reelected. And it includes militarized mass deportations and migrant detention camps. That's according to The Washington Post, who broke the story. A former Trump administration official says the former president is, quote, obsessed with getting the military involved. His campaign says Trump wants to pull off the biggest deportation operation ever in American history. Speaker 1 Now, it is obviously the case that if someone is in the United States illegally,

they are subject to deportation. That is not what is at issue. What remains at issue is that rather than dealing with the problem at its core, which is why do people want to come here in the first place? What about those who came here as minors? What about visa overstays and the way in which that is not at all a priority? What about the companies hiring the undocumented immigrants and the way in which that is not a priority?

What about the fact that for many of these right wingers, immigrants in general, rather than legal versus illegal, are actually the problem for they don't want to deal with any of that. They want to start kicking doors down. And that's literally what it will take. I mean, when in order to do what is being proposed here, you need to start raiding businesses, kicking doors down proverbially and in many cases literally. And that's how this should be framed. It won't solve anything. Understand that doing this won't actually solve the problem and the reason that we're in the situation we're in. But it will, again, militarize law enforcement and put forth this reactionary, in many ways, egocentric policy, which is all about I'm deporting people and I'm a big,

strong boy and it will actually solve nothing. And if you think Trump's plan on immigration is crazy, let me tell you what leaked with regard to abortion. Trump has recognized that what has happened with abortion to the Republican Party since Roe v. Wade was overturned has not been good. Trump knows because he's admitted it publicly. It hasn't gone so well for Republicans since Roe v. Wade was overturned. It was all rah, rah, rah, ginger snaps and waterfalls while it was let's raise money to overturn Roe v. Wade. Elect me so I can put Supreme Court justices in who will overturn Roe v. Wade. Sure, take my money. But now that it's happened, turns out most people actually think abortion should be legal in most cases. And Republicans have lost everything. They've lost ballot referenda. That's the plural.

They've lost actual candidate elections when the candidate runs radically against abortion. And Trump has played it coy by saying, well, you know, I don't know. We don't want to go crazy. And Ron DeSantis has gone crazy on abortion. But we have now learned, thanks to reporting from The New York Times, that Trump is privately expressing support for a 16 week abortion ban, with some exceptions. And the way The New York Times is characterizing it is in supporting a 16 week ban with exceptions. Trump appears to be trying to satisfy social conservatives who want to further restrict abortion access and voters who want more modest limits. But understand that we are talking about a federal ban on abortion. That's the extremity of this.

These are the states rights conservatives who say, well, overturning Roe v. Wade puts it back to being a state issue. And then, you know, which conservative hasn't vomited out the nauseating line? What's right for South Carolina may not be what's right for California. Right. Remember bobblehead Ron talking about that. But then now they're saying, actually, let's make it a federal issue.

Let's do a federal ban on abortion. Now there's a couple of different aspects to this. First of all, is the practical aspect. As I've said so many times, we have the data from the CDC. When is it that women are getting abortions? 34 percent are by week six. The reason it's not higher is tons of women who don't want to be pregnant don't know they're pregnant until after week six. Week six is basically your period is 10 days late. That's it. Week six pregnant that it's basically, oh yeah, it's been like days seven, eight, nine

haven't gotten my period. Oh, I'm pregnant. So when people talk about a six week limit, absolutely insane. You then see another 18% of the abort 18, 19% of the abortions. And this is kind of hard to see. Let's see if we can zoom it in. Another 18% are at week seven. Another 13% are at week eight. What you get to is that already you have 34, 52, 65, 74, 80, 85, 89, like 92, 95% of abortions are already happening by week 16.

So then what's the big deal, David? Why is it that you're so opposed to this federal ban? Well, the problem is these federal bans get in the way of women and doctors simply deciding based on what is medically and psychologically and otherwise right for people. And when you look at the thin tail of this and you look at the essentially zero percent that's happening after week twenty nine and the point oh one and point oh two and point oh three that's happening there. These are complicated situations. And the last thing we need by their own by their own statements about states rights, the last thing we need is the federal government placing more

limitations on women when it comes to this procedure. Now, beyond that, this is probably bad policy in terms of winning Americans today more than ever since Roe v. Wade, think abortion should be legal in most cases. And so this is both as Rolling Stone reports, this leak is inflaming Trump's campaign and energizing Democrats. And yes, Democrats need to run on this nonstop. Trump wants a federal abortion ban. Oh, but exceptions. OK, he wants a federal abortion ban for something that he and other maggots and Republicans have been insisting should be left to the states. An even better headline, by the way, accurate, civilly liable rapist Donald Trump wants a

federal abortion ban at 16 weeks. That is not the sort of headline that is going to help these Republicans win in November. And it's exactly the accurate sort of headline that should be pushed. So we say, what about policy from Trump? We're not getting much policy. Well, here's two policies, militarized deportations and camps and a 16 week federal abortion ban. That's the policy we're getting from him. And I guess building the stupid wall that he wasn't able to build last time while he'll why he'll be able to build it this time. I don't know. Let's talk about the policy. The policy is an absolute, absolute and total disaster. I've had such trouble finding a great razor where

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or maybe you're just not paying attention. I don't know how anyone could be undecided at this point. Undecided between what? Undecided between who? It doesn't make any sense. But let's pretend that there are actually undecided voters here. OK, there are. So we then see questions asked of them in South Carolina.

What are the most important issues to you? We'll pick up the town hall there and then discuss immigration, immigration, the border and immigration. Why, Jason? You are a pastor. Why are you concerned about this issue? Just the amount of fentanyl and the drugs that are coming over. I've been to way too many over the funerals of people who overdosed on fentanyl and the

resources that are being used to house migrants could be used to help the homeless here. OK, let's talk about that. First, I continue to struggle to believe that people in South Carolina really think that this is the main issue, right? I mean, I know migrants can get to any state, but they're not taking their jobs. They're committing fewer crimes than natural born citizens. It's sort of like a give me a break thing, but OK. Two problems with the argument that this guy is making about, listen, the money we're spending on the migrants, we could be spending on the homeless. The hotels that are given to

the migrants could be given to the homeless. Two things. Number one, government doesn't work that way. Republicans also don't want to use money in that way. But we'll get to that in a moment. The way federal government budgets work and are allocated, they are allocated through departments and programs through a complicated legislative process. It involves appropriations bills, budget resolutions, funding mandates. And when you fund, uh, when you designate funds to house migrants, that's coming from budgets for immigration services, border enforcement, department of Homeland security, health and human services. The stream of funding is completely different than the stream of funding allocated to homelessness, which might be through

housing and urban development or another department. So, number one, they love to say this whenever they don't like the way money is being spent. They go, here's a different way the money could be spent. Right. But that would require completely different legislative priorities. It would require at the top level for Republicans to be interested in devoting money to ending homelessness or getting all of our veterans health care and getting them off the streets or whatever the case may be. And they also don't want to do that.

So it's both naive and deceptive to say the money for the migrants could go to the homeless. Well, Republicans insist they don't want to give more money to the homeless. And number two, it's just not the way that government works. See, you also very concerned about the border and what to do about the 10 million people who've come into the country under Biden. That's what I'm worried about, the logistics of finding these people and sending them back home. Now, Nikki Haley said E-Verify is what she would use, and that's great. But criminals aren't looking for jobs, and E-Verify won't affect them. So I'd like to know how we can get them before they commit a crime.

Dakota is a student here in South Carolina. You're concerned about the border, why? You would think students wouldn't be concerned about this. I'm honestly really concerned because at school I study criminology and my colleagues are just talking about it all the time about the fentanyl epidemic. It would be great. I would take the people talking about fentanyl more seriously if they stopped calling it fentanyl. And I think they got that from Trump. But let me tell you some truths about fentanyl and the connection to the U.S.-Mexico border. It is true that a bunch of fentanyl does come over from Mexico in the way that they are talking about. A bunch of what we catch comes in that way,

but it is not representative of the total. A whole bunch of fentanyl is coming in. It's obviously it's illegal to bring it. But what I mean by legally is it's coming through a port of entry. It's just being smuggled in through a legal port of entry. So the wall and the stuff they're talking about really wouldn't do anything about that. Secondly, fentanyl and often precursors are shipped directly to the United States from China and through other countries just through the mail. OK, FedEx is delivering fentanyl and precursors. UPS is delivering it. DHL. That is

significant, especially for the precursors, which are then just used in the U.S. to make the fentanyl. There are a bunch of ways it's coming here and they want to pretend that a wall is going to fix that coming from the border and how it's just ravaging even our campus. And Matt, your big concern. Well, you know, the wall has not been completed. We've got to get that done. But I've also never met an American who would open the door and let someone in their house if you don't know who's coming in or who's on your front doorstep. Quite, quite remarkable, huh?

Eric, I know this is another burning issue for you. You were very impassioned about it earlier. Yes, human trafficking for me. The part of that destroying our America as far as the thought of children being molested, it just sickens me. Rips you off. Yeah, me too. Laura, I know you have a question for the panel. This bobblehead is just ridiculous. And did you notice who it is? And now we all of a sudden there's an ad on this YouTube video. Let's get let's get past it and go to to Laura Ingram's question here. Here we go. Well, I'd like to know what everyone thinks about the

additional request for 60 billion dollars more for Ukraine. Oh, I'm sure everybody here has really good thoughts on that. Trump tried to get five billion for a wall and that was summarily rejected during his time in office. So that it put us up to about 160 billion for Ukraine. And they're now obviously at a stalemate there. Yeah. OK, who supports more funding for Ukraine? Oh, I got one in the back. Matt's doing this.

Why? I'm all about, you know, defending Ukraine from Russia. But I would at least like to know where the money is going to. There's got to be some sense of accountability. Yeah. And of course, this is another classic, the so-called money for Ukraine. We send them buckets of cash and we don't know where it goes. Understand that what's happening here is we are sending Ukraine military equipment and

then the money goes to American companies to buy newer equipment to replace the stuff that we're sending to Ukraine. That's what's going on here. Now you can be for or against the military industrial complex, but let's be honest about what this actually is. Let's skip ahead a little bit and just listen to a little bit more of this insanity of them energy when we were making it under the Trump administration, and now those docs are not being used because Biden cut it all down.

And we need to go back to it. He's on pipeline. Go. Yeah. And what do you make of Nikki Haley's contention there that Donald Trump's going to spend the rest of the campaign in a trial, in a courthouse? Does that concern you? You have to look at just the charges in general,

and you can actually see how bogus they are. Bogus or not, he will be in court. And it is a little bit of a concern. I do think they're bogus, but it might be concerning. Eric, very quickly. So far, all of these cases have actually helped Trump in the polls. Yeah, he's grown. He's grown, so it doesn't seem to be hurting him. No, no, no. You wanted to ask something else. Dakota. Yeah. Dakota, the issue of gun control that they like to call gun safety is something that

the left thinks will really get suburban women out there and and other young people. By the way, that's not even the premise isn't even true. For the most part, it seems to me Democratic voters in general realize that running on gun safety legislation in a country that's this disgustingly obsessed with firearms probably isn't going to be particularly useful. So the entire framing of this focus group is just kind of bizarre. But the really crazy thing to me is all of this discussion because they're undecided and trying to sort through and figure out, I just don't know how can anyone who's paying any

attention still be undecided at this point? So these are the sorts of folks that went to the town hall. We'll look at more moments from the town hall a little bit later. My pillow CEO and founder, Mike Lindell, must pay Bob Zideman the five million bucks. Now, if you're saying, David, this sort of sounds familiar. It's because we interviewed this guy on the show. So here's the headline from the Daily Beast. Mike Lindell must pay the man who debunked his election claims, according to a judge. The CEO of MyPillow, Mike Lindell, promised five million dollars to anyone who could debunk his claims that foreign actors interfered in the 2020 election. A guy named Bob Zeidman did exactly that. You might remember we interviewed Bob Zeidman on the show about nine months ago. And at the time I said, do you expect to collect this money? And he said, I probably, but it could take a while.

And indeed, a judge has found you made the offer and you're going to have to pay up. Now, Pillow says, of course, we're going to appeal it. This guy doesn't have a dime coming. And I have to assume at this point that these appeals are going to go absolutely nowhere. You may recall, not only did Zeidman discover that the data provided by Lindell failed to prove that the 2020 election was rigged, he found that the bombshell digital information Lindell touted didn't contain any information related to the 2020 election, nor did it contain the so-called packet capture data that was promised. This is kind of an instance of F around and find out. Mike Pillow put out bogus. I don't even know whether we can

call it data. He put out bogus files saying this proves the election was stolen by foreign powers. Bob Ziedman Ziedman proved that it didn't. Mike Pillow offered five million bucks and he was told you're going to have to pay him the five million bucks. He appealed it. And a court has said, no, you owe him the five million bucks. And Pillow is now saying that he is going to appeal it again. The best outcome here for truth, reality, fairness and empiricism is that Bob Seidman should get his five million bucks and it should come directly from Mike Pillow. Does Mike Pillow still have five million bucks? I think he does. We've covered his failing business, increasingly failing business a number of times. But I do think he still has five million bucks. And my prediction is that Bob Zeidman

ultimately gets a significant portion of that. Let me know what you expect. sells them to you for cheap and you can get some really great deals. For example, bidders have gotten PlayStation fives for just thirty eight ninety four. Here's how it works. You buy a pack of bids, let's say 30 bucks for 400 bids and you bid on the items. Every auction starts at zero. There's no minimum. Each bid increases the price by a penny. If no one bids only 10 seconds after you bid, you win the auction. And this is the part that makes deal dash interesting and great. If you don't win the auction, you can still choose to buy the item for the listed price and get your bids back and use them on something else. Right now on deal dash, I'm bidding on this nice wintertime beanie that I'm planning to give my girlfriend as a gift. I think she'll love it.

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Ingram willingly debases and humiliates herself. Some of these are tough to watch. Let's start with the first one. Let me give you the real question, and then I'm going to play for you how Laura Ingram carefully tiptoes around it. The real question to Trump about Melania is she's been MIA for years and seems to want nothing to do with you. Never mind the campaign. What's going on? Instead, Laura Ingraham says, you know, so many people love Melania. Might we see her? It's the biggest cop out question when we all know what the real question is here. I hear a lot this question I'm asked a lot that Jill Biden is everywhere. She's campaigning.

Yeah, other people want to know the answer to this. Not me, of course. Everywhere for Joe Biden and she did in 2020. Will we see more of your secret weapon? For those of us who know your wife, Melania, will we see more of her this time around? I'm given her ability to speak so many languages, her ability. He was so wonderful with children and everyone. And I think a lot of by the way, she speaks many languages and she's good with children. Honestly, I don't even know how that helps win the Republican

vote. I don't I genuinely don't even understand that people here want to see more of her. They love it. So you know, she's a very brilliant person. She speaks many languages, the whole thing, the whole thing she does. She speaks all the languages. Laura Ingraham is terrified to ask the real question, which is why hasn't Melania been at a single campaign event? Why are you photographed with other women every other night at Mar-a-Lago? Why does she seem to want nothing to do with you and reportedly renegotiated a prenup in order to even stay with you was one report. Anyway, Laura Ingram, just completely and totally pathetic. At another moment in part two of the town hall, Trump promises to bring very powerful

crime to Washington, D.C. And, you know, there's there's two possibilities, right? He's really promising to bring crime to D.C., which I don't think is what he's actually saying, or he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. No, we're going to take over Washington, D.C. We're going to federalize. We're going to have very powerful crime and you're going to be proud of it again. We are going to be so proud of the powerful crime that Trump is going to bring to Washington, D.C.

Laura Ingraham at another moment asks Donald Trump, do you pray regularly? Trump pauses and then says, I pray. Let me interpret this one for you in a moment. You pray regularly. I pray. I mean, if you don't mind me asking, because I know this is a very faith filled audience here and I know there are people across the globe pray for you. Every question Laura has to justify because she knows Trump hates these questions. She knows Trump hates where the F is Melania. So instead she goes, you know, people are

they love her so much because she speaks so many languages and she's so good with kids. People are just wondering, you know, I ask about prayer only because we're in South Carolina and it's the people that she's scared on every one of these questions because Trump hates these questions and your safety. They're worried about your safety. Yeah. Now, after Laura Ingraham brings up that people are worried about Trump, Trump says he's worried about the people of South Carolina and listen to the proverbial bomb that he drops here about bombs. What's what's I mean, if you don't mind me asking, because I know this is a very faith filled audience here and I know there are people across the globe pray for you and your safety. They're worried about your safety. Do you feel the power of that? I do. But can I be honest?

I worry about their safety to these people. Everybody in this room is in great danger right now. We have a nuclear weapon that if you hit New York, South Carolina is going to be gone, too. What? What is so there's two possibilities. OK, New York City to there in Greenville, South Carolina, New York City to Greenville, South Carolina, 740 miles or so. There is no weapon that is public that would have a 700

mile blast radius. And remember, if if the radius goes south 700 miles to South Carolina. It also goes north 700 miles. So the implied size of this thing is a radius 1400 miles wide. That's what Trump is talking about. There is no known weapon like that. So either Trump is lying again. He's confused or cognitively struggling, or he just revealed some kind of classified information on public television. I mean, it's it's it's one of it's one of these three possibilities and I don't know which it is. And then lastly, the final suck up question of the night, Laura Ingraham says to Trump, you're so funny. You're just you're so funny. What about using comedy more so people will like you? Extremely funny. I mean, you have a fantastic sense of

humor. People who don't know you personally don't see that because you're facing very serious challenges and a very serious election. Right. How might you showcase your sense of humor during this campaign for those people who might not be all that into politics. Yeah, I don't think I want to be a comedian with respect to extreme. Trump did not like a lot of these questions and the answers are pathetic. We're not even going to get into the question and answer period with the audience, quite frankly, because I don't think I can tolerate it. It's so nauseating. I don't think I could tolerate it.

But we have to remember, you win elections by meeting voters where they are, not where you would like them to be. A lot of this is where South Carolina voters are. And let's put it this way. I don't think South Carolina is looking great for Joe Biden. I think that's the bottom line on this one. Paul Ryan was a member of the United States House of Representatives. He was also Speaker of the House. He is a guy who I never agreed with on essentially anything when he was in power. But he has found one area where he's making a lot of sense. Paul Ryan believes that not only is Trump bad for the right wing movement, he believes Tucker Carlson is also bad for that movement because of the pro Russia, pro Putin line that connects them. Interesting. Here is Paul Ryan

speaking on a Washington Post live live stream. What worries me more and not just talk about that's a symptom of all this is that they're curating sympathy in America. And they're helping nurture and develop an isolationist wing in my party and in our country, which I think is very, very dangerous. They're developing, you know, people who want to see NATO reduced or NATO not adhered to. Obviously, former President Trump is pushing this line as well. So what I very much worry about is they're helping curate a line of thought, a school of thought that is isolationist, that is pro Putin, pro Russia, pro tyranny at the end of the day.

And that is extremely dangerous for all democracy, but for us as ourselves, democracy. I think it's really important to point out because a lot of people will hear Paul Ryan say he's against isolationism because for him he wants to invade all these countries and spread democracy or whatever. Maybe he does. OK, he is certainly more of a neocon in the George W. Bush style in that way. But you can be against cozying up to authoritarian dictators like Putin and be against isolationism, not because you want to go and invade countries and start wars, which obviously I don't. And I don't think anybody who's a social Democrat like I am wants to do.

But because we recognize that there are so many global problems at this point and that we are so interconnected that the idea that we're going to imagine that we have a border that's a thousand miles high around our country, also with a roof that prevents pollution and other things from getting it's it's so naive to think that we can just do it alone at this point, that isolationism is bad, but for very different reasons than a neocon who wants to start wars thinks it's bad. But Paul Ryan is right in at least identifying the problem. The pro Putin, pro tyranny, pro authoritarian playing.

It's not even playing coy. It's cozying up to these authoritarians. It's an extremely disturbing path for Republicans to go on the starting wars everywhere to spread democracy and to benefit the military industrial complex and to take resources like oil. That was a disaster. And Paul Ryan was a part of that. And this new MAGA thing where they pretend to be anti-war on the merits, but it's actually about letting authoritarians get away with whatever they want and so many other things. It's an absolute disaster in its own ways.

We fight both of them either way. Either way, we're fighting it. But the fight is a different fight when the Republican Party looks the way it does today rather than when the Republican Party looked the way it looked under Paul Ryan. We actually reached out to him. I would be very interested in delving in more detail into these issues with Paul Ryan. We have not, as of this moment, heard back. We have a voicemail number. That number is 2192 David P. Here is a caller calling me out for my corruption over Fannie Willis's corruption. Let's see if we can figure it out. David, the delusional Pac-Man.

What's up, bud? Hey, to no surprise of anybody that knows you, you didn't touch the Fannie Willis corruption with a 20 foot ladder. What? Wow. I'm so surprised. I'm being sarcastic if you can't tell. And I just want to know, man, are you considered

a reporter? Are you just considered a Trump hater? What are you? A progressive? I get it. You're progressive, right? But you have to touch I'm not trying to tell you how to run your channel, man. You kind of are. But in order to establish credibility with everybody, you have to touch on these kind of stories. I mean, you go, you will literally, it looks like you scavenge the internet

to find any little minute detail that you can post about Trump every single day, all day. But a major allegation comes out and a motion to remove Fannie Willis, district attorney of Fulton County, because she was sleeping with the special counsel that she appointed, had a long lasting relationship, gave him the highest payment. And he's never worked at a district attorney's office before and then went on nine vacations with the guy. So of course, much of what this caller is saying isn't true.

We of course did talk about the fact that there are these allegations against Fannie Willis after reviewing the facts and looking at everything. It seems like a desperate attempt by those who realize the charges against Trump are really strong at trying to get the case thrown out over an interpersonal relationship. Now I will be the first to tell you, as we discussed already, um, the appearance of the relationship in passing does raise concerns when you look at the details and the fact that there really is no conflict of interest, that the relationship started after the appointment of that prosecutor investigator was made. And you look at all the details. It's certainly no reason to throw out the case.

That's for damn sure. And it is a desperate, desperate attempt to try to get Trump out of the very serious trouble that he's facing. So we talked about it. I don't think it's the blockbuster story this caller thinks it is. And I encourage everyone in the audience to fact check me and figure out for yourself. Is this a blockbuster story or isn't it? We have a fantastic bonus show for you today.

So many things to talk about that I won't even preview it. I won't even preview it, mostly because I'm out of time. I'll see you on the show.