The David Pakman Show - 2/28/23: Rupert Murdoch admits Fox lied, GOP civil war explodes

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Doctor Robert Waldinger, Direct of the Harvard Study of Adult Development and co-author of the new book The Good Life: Lessons From the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness joins David to discuss this comprehensive happiness study. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3IC1zzE -- Fox News' Rupert Murdoch admits under oath that Fox News hosts were knowingly spreading lies about the 2020 election that Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden -- The Republican civil war continues to heat up as Paul Ryan says he will not attend the 2024 RNC if Trump is the nominee -- Anti-drag Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Lee is confronted with pictures of himself dressed in drag -- New age guru Marianne Williamson will challenge President Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic Presidential nomination -- A confused-looking Donald Trump announces a dangerous and absurd trade war in his latest teleprompter tirade -- Radical Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene claims she was "attacked" at a restaurant -- Voicemail caller Eric from Mass is back, this time thinking that David will soon be fired and arrested -- On the Bonus Show: COVID origin report reignites lab leak theory, NPR becomes latest media outlet to cut jobs, the latest on John Fetterman, much more... 🍷 Crunchy Red Fruit: Code PAKMAN saves you $20 at https://crunchyredfruit.com ⚠️ Use code PAKMAN for a free supply of BlueChew at https://go.bluechew.com/david-pakman 💻 Stay protected! Try Aura FREE for 2 weeks: https://aura.com/pakman 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 🛌 Helix Sleep: Get 20% OFF a mattress + 2 free pillows. Go to https://helixsleep.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Subscribe to Pakman Finance: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanfinance -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Today, I'm starting with explosive and stunning revelations from the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News. We have learned in the last few hours that Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation admitted under oath that, yes, Fox News hosts were promoting election lies. Now, we all knew this, but it is a massive story of huge consequence. Yeah, Rupert Murdoch can afford to pay most likely whatever comes of this lawsuit. But this genuinely could could harm Fox News in a serious way. Let's get right to what we've learned. Media has a report Rupert Murdoch admitted under oath Fox News hosts promoted election lies on air, despite a raft of evidence revealing that many hosts privately knew that the claims made by then President Donald Trump and his surrogates

were false. Stunning new details emerged in more court documents released yesterday afternoon in the Dominion V voting system defamation lawsuit against Fox News as chairman of Fox News parent company of Fox Corporation. Murdoch is a central figure in the one point six billion dollar damages claim. According to the copy of the filing obtained by Mediaite, Murdoch admitted in a deposition last month that false election claims were promoted by top hosts at the cable news network. Quote, they endorsed. I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it. In hindsight, said Murdoch. Murdoch was asked if host Jeanine Pirro endorsed the claims. Murdoch said, I think

so. He said Lou Dobbs endorsed the claims, quote, a lot. And Sean Hannity did so a bit when asked if he could have told Fox to stop inviting Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani on the air. Murdoch replied, I could have, but I didn't. Arguably as big a revelation, Murdoch helped the Trump campaign by providing Biden television ads to Jared Kushner before they ran on Fox News. These are massive revelations. Keep in mind that Fox News hosted a presidential debate in 2020 as if they were some kind of neutral observer or arbiter. But behind the scenes, look at what was going on. Yahoo News via Bloomberg, also with an interesting article worth looking at.

Murdoch testified Fox commentators endorsed Trump's 2020 election lie. Fox News, Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch testified that Fox's popular commentators endorsed. That's the word he used, endorsed Trump's false claim that the 2020 election was rigged, even though Murdoch said he doubted it right away. He doubted it right away. There's an interesting transcript here where it says Murdoch testified that he doubted Trump's conspiracy theory right away. Is it is it it is fair to say you seriously doubted any claim of massive election fraud? Murdoch was asked by a lawyer. Oh, yeah, Murdoch said.

And you seriously doubted it from the beginning, he was asked. Yeah, Murdoch replied. I mean, we thought everything was on the up and up. I think that was shown when we announced Arizona, of course, referring to when Fox declared Biden the winner of Arizona. This is an incredible media story. And, you know, whatever you think of of the sort of gossip world, there was that very big Hulk Hogan case involving because I didn't follow it. I don't even know which tabloid it was. And he essentially put them out of business. And there was sort of like, do you care about Hulk Hogan? But then there was what does this mean more generally about the caution

that media outlets have to have? And this could be a significantly more consequential story. Now, there's a couple of different things that I think are important to mention. It would be really great. If this seriously damaged Fox News, as far as the broadcast side. Now, that's not because I want to suppress speech. It's not because I want to violate anyone's First Amendment rights. It's because actions should have consequences. And one of the things that I've said before is that the bigger your platform, the more seriously you should take your responsibility for what you put out on air and the more you should want to be accurate in what you say. And even as it applies to my program, now that the show is as big as it is, which is still

way smaller than these other platforms we're talking about, I am extra careful when it comes to making sure that I am getting as close to the truth always on the program when it comes to making sure that I'm getting as close to the truth always on the program when it comes to the facts that I'm presenting. Then I give my opinion. Sure. It's not that I didn't care about it when the show was smaller, but I sense the responsibility. And I know that the repercussions for getting even minor details wrong are greater the larger you are.

Fox News, as one of the three biggest cable news networks, and I know people say, David, it's not really news. I know. But we're colloquially we're talking about the three biggest cable news networks, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News. They not accidentally, but knowingly spent months promoting claims about the election that they knew to be lies, the result of which was, I don't want to say irreversibly corrosive to our democracy, but it has still damaged our democracy to this day as we continue to see these claims being made. Now, as far as the impact the lawsuit is likely to have on Fox News, even if they deserve for it to be very damaging. They will continue to lie. They will continue to

monetize by playing to the lowest common denominator of the American right wing, even if on a personal level, Hannity and Ingram and Tucker and Rupert Murdoch all know that they're saying things that aren't true and that they're inviting guests on to say things that aren't true as Tucker Carlson knew about Sidney Powell. The money part of it, you know, Rupert Murdoch can probably afford whatever comes of this is the reality. His goal now is to minimize the damage to the platform. And it remains to be seen where this goes. But an extraordinary revelation. And my guess is we are going to learn even more in the days to come. The Republican civil war is not letting up anytime soon. In fact, it's growing

Republican. You know, I don't I don't want to say insider, but establishment Republican Paul Ryan, a major figure in the last 10, 15 years of Republican politics, is now openly saying. We will lose if Trump is the nominee. I am anti Trump and I will not go to the Republican National Convention in 2024 if Donald Trump is indeed the nominee. Let's take a look at a couple of very interesting clips. Here is Paul Ryan speaking at the Tommy Thompson Center on Public Leadership. And he says, I'm not for Trump because I want to win. I'm a never again, Trump, because I want to win. We're going to lose with him. Look, the evidence is pretty clear. We lost the House in 18 because of Trump. We lost the presidency, obviously, in 20 because of Trump. We lost the Senate in 20 because of Trump. Then there are, by my count, five Senate seats this cycle in 22 we lost because of Trump.

And by most sort of smart people in our party, by most of their measurements, we lost about 12 to 15 seats in the House because of Trump. So Kevin McCarthy would have had a nice 20-some vote cushion, had an opera for Trump. So the point I'm making is we know we lose with him. And so we know we will lose with him again if we nominate this guy, especially in January six happened after the 20 election. So you think he became more popular with swing voters in the wild counties since January six? So does my point is we're going to lose with the guy. So let's now is Paul Ryan

correct about this? I actually don't know. I mean, listen, if you look at the latest polling, it doesn't look terrible for Trump, assuming he can win the Republican nomination. You look at a recent Emerson College poll released, released, I think, today, taken February 24th and 25th. There's an A minus rated pollster on Biden versus Trump. They have Trump plus three in the popular vote. It's February, almost March of 2023. So you could say this isn't really worth much, but it is not obvious that Trump can't win if he does become the nominee in 2024. Morning Consult, which is a B rated pollster, has Biden plus two against Trump. Um, an echelon insights poll has Biden plus three over Trump.

The point is, it's not a foregone conclusion that Donald Trump can't defeat Joe Biden if that's the rematch of 2020 and 2024. But Paul Ryan's opinion is that Trump can't win and he wants to win. Now, we have a couple of other clips. Here is Paul Ryan being interviewed by Fox 6 and he is continuing to pile on. I'm backing the person not named Donald Trump. So I don't really have a dog in the fight other than that. If we dominate Trump again, we're going to lose again. It's just that clear. We lost with him in 18, 20 and 22.

We know this. He will cost us another election. So I'm just excited about somebody not named. Yeah. And then just one more clip here of Paul Ryan saying he will not attend the Republican National Convention if Trump is the nominee for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Where will you be? It depends on who the nominee is. I'll be here if it's somebody not named Trump.

You won't show up if it's not. Yeah, I'm not interested in participating in that. No, even in Wisconsin, even Wisconsin. So listen, there's really let's there's two parts to this. There's the Republican Civil War aspect to it, and there's the can Trump win aspect, which we don't have a definitive answer to right now. The civil war part continues to be very interesting where you see people in the vein of Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, Adam Kinzinger and others who have the I hate to call it audacity. They just have the sort of honesty, I guess, to say what we know more Republicans than just them are thinking. They don't care if they are on the outs when it comes to being friendly with those who are in positions of power. If Trump wins and Trump's in power, we all know Paul Ryan

will have no influence. Mitt Romney will have no influence and that they're OK with that for one reason or another. Fine. OK, that's no problem whatsoever. The question of listen. In 18, Republicans did poorly because of Trump. In 20, they lost the Senate and they lost the presidency. And then in 22, the red wave that was supposed to be actually saw them lose a seat in the Senate and take the slimmest of minorities in the House. Trump's been a disaster. Completely true. The reason I wouldn't count out Trump in 24 if he is indeed the nominee is when you are out of power and you are making the argument things are terrible and you've got to put me back in to fix it as transparent as that is, as you and I, of course, know, just like Trump made all these promises he didn't keep in 2016 and just like he wouldn't have kept the promises he made in 2020. he's not going to do any of the things he's going to do. He's not going to fix any

of the problems that he claims he's going to fix if he wins in 24. But being on the outside and being able to say everybody in power is ruining it, bring me in and I will fix it. That can actually motivate people who otherwise wouldn't vote at all to vote. And that may actually be what the 24 election hinges on. So I would not assume that Trump can't win. And I think that it would be a very big mistake to do what many did in 2016, which is to laugh off the idea of Trump. At least now we know he did once win and that should remind us he could win again. But the civil war aspect of this is going to become very interesting, particularly as more candidates announced that they are going to be running against Trump in that Republican primary race. So we're going to continue following

all of it. I do want to invite you to subscribe to the YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. We do desperately need your help in getting to that two million subscriber number. And I also want to remind you, we are now dubbing roughly two thirds of our daily content into the Spanish language elements of Spanish. You can find on the Spanish channel at David Pakman dot com slash Spanish. Let your friends, neighbors, parents, cousins, anybody who is looking for this type of content, but in Spanish rather than English, let them know David Pakman dot com slash Spanish. I like wine, but I know very little about it and I am completely clueless when I go to a wine shop. I just don't know what I'm looking for. I don't know what I'm looking at. I couldn't tell you

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I have absolutely brutal video for you. Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee is going hard anti-drag and anti-trans and was confronted with pictures of himself dressed in drag years ago. This is just unbelievable. Let's go right to the video first and then I will tell you all of the details. But this is oof. This, this is something. Take a look at this. Bills have gone through now. The transgender bill, children's transgender therapy, that's on your desk. A drag bill heads back to the center for a quick amendment before it hits your desk. Comfortable signing those types of legislation? Yeah, I expect to sign them. Josh? What a ridiculous,

ridiculous question that is. Conflating something like that to sexualized inter- Sex-ruelized. In front of children, which is a very serious subject. Andy, what you got? Do you remember? Is this you?

Andy. I was just wondering if you were aware of any specific cases or instances that this bill would stop. Are you aware of specifics in terms of the problem that this is supposed to stop? I think the concern is what's right there in that building, children, that are potentially exposed to sexualized entertainment to obscenity and we need obscenity. Come on, dude. To make sure that they're not, I think that's something that should happen in Tennessee and it will because of this bill. Would you be okay with drag queens coming to the school?

Cause this is you, this is you at a high school governor. you. This is you at a high school, governor. This right here is you at a high school. Is it only illegal when gay people do it? But have you talked to your sister about the bill? All right. So everything about this is just wacky. First and foremost, you know, the idea that there is some predatory nature to the drag queen story hours or we've already talked about it. We've we've looked at it extensively. There is a sort of mishmash happening, which really shouldn't between the drag queen stuff and the trans bathroom stuff. And these really are two separate issues.

We interviewed a drag performer a couple of weeks ago who explained like you might be trans and also be a drag performer. But there really are two separate things. Let's look at a couple of articles. Excuse me, a couple of articles. Excuse me. A couple articles here. The Daily Beast drag banning Tennessee governor shrug shrugs off old drag pic as a lighthearted tradition with Billy poised to sign a bill outlawing drag performances. Imagine that an apparent photo from his high school yearbook has surfaced. The other thing that was mentioned in all of this, by the way, is obscenity that they're concerned with.

Tennessee already has obscenity laws. So if the concern is obscenity or sexualization, that already is handled by Tennessee law. And so claiming you need this new law doesn't actually make any sense. A photo emerged, writes the Daily Beast on Reddit over the weekend from the Franklin High yearbook in 77, where Lee attended, purportedly showing Lee dressed as a woman, along with the caption hard luck, hard luck woman. But that's different. Lee's office told the Daily Beast, saying lighthearted school traditions shouldn't be conflated with what the state is banning. The bill specifically protects children

from obscene, sexualized entertainment. And any attempt to conflate the serious issue with lighthearted school traditions is dishonest and disrespectful to Tennessee families. When asked during the press conference if he remembered it, he didn't deny the photo was of him, but said it's a ridiculous question. NBC News reporting Tennessee governor appears to have dressed in drag, an art form he wants to restrict. There are sort of like three different things here. As is so often the case with these right wing clowns, there's the personal hypocrisy. Now, on the issue of drag, you wouldn't think like, how does this keep happening?

Carrie Lake, I get very dangerous drag queens. Carrie Lake organized, if I recall correctly, a drag performance and at minimum attended it. Bill Lee were banning drag because it's sexualized and obscene and this and that. Oh, he dressed in drag. And actually, the law already bans obscenity. OK, so the one part is the hypocrisy. The second part is, as I started to mention, the actual thing they say is the problem with drag isn't really the problem. But if it were meaning the obscenity or whatever, a lot of these states

already have so-called anti obscenity laws on the books, so you wouldn't actually need these bills. And then number three is what the reporter asked, which is, is there a single specific example you can cite of what it is that this bill would stop? And you know, we went through this with the trans bathroom stuff, which is OK. So it's going to stop men who say I'm a woman in order to go into the women's room and spy on young girls and take pictures. And we already have laws against that. And there are no examples of that happening from states that are more progressive when it comes to the trans

bathroom stuff. So it's, again, a solution in search of a problem to virtue signal. If you want to learn more about virtue signaling, we have a clip on the YouTube channel that I did last week. So nonsense all around. Great to see Bill Lee confronted. These people are clowns. These people are virtue signaling. They're playing into these culture wars and they're doing it in a horrifyingly authoritarian way. All right, listen, I know people in my audience, some people in my audience are going to get mad at me because there are people in my audience who love Marianne Williamson and they say Marianne is willing to make criticisms of the status quo that many candidates won't make. But I'm sorry, guys, I can't take the new age self-help gurus seriously. And I am going to

tell you what I think. And I know some of you will be mad and you're going to email me. And that's OK. It's great that Marianne Williamson is willing to say things like both parties are widely controlled by corporations. That's great. She says it. It's not the type of thing you hear Joe Biden say. But that notwithstanding, I am not super excited about Marianne Williamson announcing that she will be challenging President Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination. I'm just not excited. I don't believe that she is someone who could seriously do the job. And it is very difficult for me to take her seriously based on her basically being a version of Deepak Chopra. That's that's the way I know. Perfectly nice individual.

I've had her on the program. I love her whole thing about we need more love and all that. I love all of it. But this is not something that I'm going to get excited about. And I'll talk a little bit about it. And I know there are people in my audience who like this. The fact that Marianne Williamson makes criticisms that many Democrats aren't willing to make doesn't to me mean that she should be president. There's lots of people that make criticisms that I find to be real good criticisms that I wouldn't go and say, well, make them president. She was able to gain a big Reddit and Twitter following. She capitalized on some meme culture. She's interesting. I get it. She holds some reasonable left wing views that I perfectly

well agree with. She's for Medicare for all. I think she's for DACA granting some kind of permanent status for those who were brought to the US undocumented before they were adults. I think she's for the Green New Deal. She seems very serious about climate change. That's all great. Is there any evidence that she can or would actually be able to do anything about it? But more importantly, I just can't take people seriously when they have a history of touting all sorts of woo woo pseudoscience, including sort of flirting with anti-vax stuff, although she's kind of backed off of it a little when some of the repercussions weren't so good. She's promoted this prosperity gospel stuff that

you often hear from the Christian preachers. You can look at her 2012 book for examples of that. She sounds like Deepak Chopra half the time with these unintelligible quotes that are sort of like meant to sound profound, but they don't really mean anything. Just one example is when she said everyone feels on some level like an alien in this world because we are we come from another realm of consciousness and long for home. Oh, wow. That just as easily could be a Deepak Chopra quote. Another example, Yin is feminine. Earth Yang is masculine sky. When God is seen as he the soul is seen as she just archetypes spirit impregnates soul. It's just not for me. It's not for me. One other one. God is big. Swine flu is small. See every cell of your body filled with divine

light. Poor God's love on our immune systems. Truth protects. It's just not for me, guys. OK, so. Totally fine that she's running. Good for her. I have no problem with her running. She should run if she wants to. It's just not for me. And hopefully people in my audience understand that. Now, one argument that I saw, three people emailed me about this and all three said the same thing. Marianne Williamson is going to push Biden to the left. I don't see how. And what I mean by that is if Biden runs for reelection, there's not going to be like a real primary. And Marianne Williamson isn't going to get on the debate stage with Joe Biden. Now, you could say, well, she should. She should be fine. She's not going to push Biden left because if Biden runs,

she's not going to get on the debate stage. No one will pay attention. And I do think it's also important to mention that if she somehow managed to become the nominee and somehow managed to become president, she would get nothing done. She would literally get nothing done. She doesn't know how to get bills passed. She has no idea about any of that stuff. And I have no confidence if the completely impossible were to happen, if someone paid attention and she won the nomination and she became president, I don't think she would be able to get anything done. I don't believe that it is serious. I think it's perfectly fine and interesting. I completely support her right to run, but it is not for me. Email me insults. I'm ready, folks. We'll have all of today's clips on our Instagram, which you can find by

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That's Pacman 1 0. The info is in the podcast notes. Today, we're going to be speaking with Dr. Robert Waldinger, who's the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development and also co-author of the new book, The Good Life Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. Really great to have you on. I appreciate your time. Well, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

So one of the really interesting things about this study, which started in 1938, is many studies on happiness are of different groups of people, sometimes from different countries across different time periods. And it can become very difficult to really compare apples to apples for for lack of a better term. And one of the interesting things about this study that now has gone on more than eight decades is it followed the same individuals and families. It's very extensive, asked a ton of questions, hundreds of measurements, includes blood work, brain scans. I mean, you're really approaching this from a sort of cover every aspect perspective. Can you tell us just a little bit about how this study started, the number of people that were originally part of it and the number that that are still with us today? Sure. It started as two studies that didn't know about each other. It started on different

parts of the Harvard University campus. One was a study begun at Harvard Health Service, the student health service, with sophomores from Harvard College. And the other was a study of delinquency, a6 inner city boys, and all of them were studied as a way to understand thriving, how kids moved from childhood into adulthood on good developmental paths, including the kids who were born with so many strikes against them, you know, into such disadvantaged circumstances. So it was radical for its time to be doing these studies of human thriving. And then eventually my predecessor put the two studies together and started looking at them as contrasting groups.

When we look at the popular literature on happiness, there are all these often repeated ideas or rules of thumb or whatever the case may be. One of them is once you make seventy five thousand dollars a year, it's equivalent. When you get beyond that, you're not really anymore. Sometimes the term is satisfied with your life. Sometimes the term happy is used. Another one that you often hear is later in life, having spent more time in the office rarely correlates to more happiness, whereas having spent more time with family and having more close relationships does. And, you

know, then five years go by and there's another study that comes out and it has a slightly different different result on some of those sort of like lowest hanging fruit things that are often discussed. What has this study determined? Well, we determined that the inner city group was no less happy than the privileged Harvard group. And that's more consistent with other studies that say, basically, once you get your basic economic needs met, then making more and more money doesn't do it, doesn't increase your happiness. And that seems to be a pretty robust findings across a lot of groups of people. Is there something to that $75,000 number that you found?

No, not $75,000 number that you found? No, not 75,000 per se. And of course, it varies depending on whether you live in, you know, the middle of New York City or live in rural Iowa. Right. It's really the question of when when you have your basic needs met, once you've gotten to that point in terms of income, then more money doesn't do it for you. Then you can make millions more. And on average, people aren't happier. There's this phrase, nobody is on their deathbed wishing they spent more time at the office. Right. You hear that very often. Yeah. What does the study have to say about that dynamic? Well, we ask people when our first generation folks were in their 80s, we asked them to look back on their lives. And we asked, what are you proudest of? And what do you regret the most? And what they regretted the most, particularly the men, because this was the World War Two generation, they regretted the most spending too much time at work, and not spending enough time with the people they cared about. What they were proudest of was to a person something to do with their relationships.

So, you know, they didn't say, I made a ton of money or I won all these awards, you know, or I was famous. And we had people who were all of those things. They said I was a good boss. I was a good spouse. I was a good friend, a good parent. Right. So when they were looking back on what was most meaningful, it wasn't about achievement. It was about connections. Is it true that John F. Kennedy was one of the original participants? It is true. And the only reason I can tell you that is because he was outed by another journalist about 15 years ago. Otherwise, we are bound to keep in confidence the identities of all of the people in our study. So, you know, in fact, the book has stories of real people woven all through the book, but the names and the superficial details are disguised to make sure that we protect their privacy. So it sounds like money beyond a certain level, not a big contributor to happiness, fame, not a big contributor to happiness, having spent a lot of time at the office, not not necessarily a contributor, relationships of different kinds.

Yes. Family, friendships, et cetera. What else are the kind of positively correlated stories that that you find taking care of your health matters a lot? You know, it's it's like our grandmothers could have told us that. But what we find and lots of studies find is that, you know, getting regular health care, not smoking, not abusing alcohol and drugs, regular exercise, not becoming obese, all of those things make huge differences in years of life lived and also in years of healthy life. So it really matters a lot to take care of your health. The surprising thing for us was the

finding about relationships being so important because at first we thought, well, how could relationships actually get into your body and change your physiology? And now for the last 10 years, we've been studying that many other groups have, too. And we're understanding that this is a very powerful, robust connection between relationships and physical health. What about religion? Because there's religion can be a tough one where it can be hard to separate the effect of being part of a community and the social aspects versus the religiosity itself. And there's many, many studies on this. Did you find anything that would be sort of clear in the data about religious participation? Well, we ask people, do you have a religious practice? do you have a religious practice

do you have a spiritual practice and there were people who did and there were people who did not and when we compared those two groups neither group was on average happier so didn't make a difference in your happiness whether you were spiritual or religious or not But many of the religious and spiritual people said that during times of difficulty, their spiritual practices were helpful to them. So that's more, I guess, qualitative than quantitative. Yeah. But quantitatively, when you compare the two groups, no one group isn't happier. What about travel? Because one of the things that's often written about travel is because when you travel, you're not in your routine.

Time seems to go by slower, which often one of the things we read is that over time, you know, years go by very, very quickly. And part of this seems to be that there's no cognitive difference day to day when you're kind of in your in your normal day to day thing. So that travel is an interesting way. And when one might think there might be some correlation to happiness as well there. Is there anything? We did not study that specifically, but what you're saying makes a lot of sense. And, and what we do find is that more cognitive stimulation keeps us sharper over time. And that includes being connected with other people. So one of the, the effects we think of relationships on keeping our brains healthy is that it stimulates us. People are always unpredictable. They're moving targets.

What you're going to say to me next is something I don't know, right? And that keeps my brain clicking on all cylinders. That's a good thing for the brain. And I think what you're pointing out is that travel can do the same thing. That's why time seems to go more slowly during travel, because we're like on alert. Like, what am I going to see now? How do I find my way here? It's it's all of those challenges that we think keeps us healthy cognitively as we get older. One of the things that is it's not unique to the United States, but it's certainly been

written about a lot in the United States, is the trend that people move relatively frequently in modern American society, much more commonly than in other parts of the world, don't live near their families nor where they grew up. I was recently reading Jared Diamond's book about traditional societies, and he said a big difference there, aside from all sorts of other differences, is that in more traditional societies, people tend to live near where they grew up and near their family most of their lives. In the United States, it's increasingly uncommon. Was there something garnered from the study related to that about those who kind of stay what we might call close

to home versus those that don't? What we found was a difference in the inner city group from the Harvard group. And that made a whole lot of sense because the Harvard group was gathered from all over the country. Harvard College brings in undergrads from everywhere in the U.S. and sometimes abroad, unlike the inner city group where they were chosen because they lived in Boston, their families lived in Boston. And what we found then in the next generation was that, of course, more of the inner city group lived in this area, stayed near their families. Now, what we have not done is an analysis that compares are those second generation people in the inner city group happier than more widely dispersed Harvard people?

I expect that research exists. We just haven't done it. Interesting. In terms of the relationships, lots of studies on friendship that look at number of friends, but also quality of relationship. And what you see frequently repeated in popular publications is it's not about having many friends as one ages. It's about having a few very strong or rewarding relationships that really seems to correlate not only with happiness, but sometimes even like a health claim will be made. What about that distinction? Well, what we find is that, you know, as with so many things, when you follow thousands of lives, one size never fits all. So

we're all on a spectrum temperamentally from introversion, shyness to extroversion. And most of us are somewhere in the middle, but there are extremes. And what we find is that shy people find lots of people around them to be stressful. So actually having a lot of connections in your life could be more stressful if you're temperamentally introverted. On the other hand, extroverted people get their energy from people, so they may need a lot of people. So what we find is that it's a highly individual matter and that each of us can really discern for ourselves what's the amount of connection that works for me in my life and how can I work to have the amount that feels right to me? That's interesting.

I mean, holding all else equal, do you know whether introverts or extroverts seem to be happier? I don't know that. I do know that, for example, Susan Cain, some of her work, that there are people who work on this and I don't believe people have found that introverts or extroverts are happier than the opposite extreme at all. I think one of the complicating factors is that our culture glorifies extroversion. You know, being a party animal, right? You know, that's like an iconic character in films and literature on social

media, right? And so that bias toward extroversion can make introverted people feel like there may be something wrong with them. What we know is there isn't anything wrong with them at all. It's perfectly normal, adaptive. Some of the most wonderful, most brilliant, most talented people are shy. Not a problem. The book is called The Good Life Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. We've been speaking with the book's co-author, Dr. Robert Waldinger. Really appreciate your time and insights today. Thank you for having me.

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20 percent off and two free pillows. The link is in the podcast notes. A very confused and swollen looking failed former President Donald Trump is promising a global trade war that would be disastrous for the American economy in his latest teleprompter tirade. Remember, Barack Obama was bad for using a teleprompter, but Trump is, I guess, good for using a teleprompter. I don't know. This is Trump's new series of, quote, policy statements where he's laying out supposed policy that he will enact if he becomes president of the United States. I can see why Republicans are running away from talking about policy because every idea is a complete and total disaster. Will let's just jump into this thing in the middle. Here is Trump announcing truly just a whacked global trade war that would not be good for

the American economy. Take a look at this. We will phase in a system of universal baseline tariffs on most foreign products. On top of this, higher tariffs will increase incrementally depending on how much individual foreign countries devalue their currency. They devalue their currency to take advantage of the United States as tariffs are. Did you notice that jump cut there? Foreign producers go up. Taxes on American producers will go down and go down very substantially. And that means a lot of jobs coming in. Not only will this system end our gaping trade deficits, and they are massive right

now. Gaping. And bring back millions of American jobs. It will also bring trillions and trillions of dollars pouring into the United States Treasury from foreign countries that allow us to invest that money in American workers. I will implement a bold series of reforms to completely eliminate dependence on China in all critical areas. We will revoke China's most favored nation trade status and adopt a four-year plan to phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods, everything from electronics to steel to pharmaceuticals.

We will also adopt new rules to stop U.S. companies from pouring investments into China and to stop China from buying up America, allowing all of those investments that clearly serve American interests. We're not going to allow bad things to happen to our country anymore. It's bad. All right. So listen, this guy is clueless about trade now on. There's there's there's so much here. Genuinely, the first thing about this is the entire framing of this trade and tariff story is that there's

no cost to doing this stuff. Of course, bring the supply chains home, hire American, buy American, build American. These are completely reasonable economic nationalist ideas that I could get behind. And they're not bad ideas in some theoretical sense. But people like Trump and many and all Republicans and many Democrats as well, they pretend that there's no other side to this thing. And also they pretend like this will obviously create American jobs. Now, first and foremost, the tariffs that Trump did with Chinese products while he was president, a recent study found that the totality of that trade policy cost the U.S. about 250 million jobs. OK, you can find that study. You can read about it. It's

sort of a technical paper. Maybe there's a summary of it, but it didn't actually create jobs. It cost the United States jobs. That's number one. It's not the silver bullet on jobs that Trump believes it to be. But what Trump and others never tell you is, by the way, if we do this, things will be insanely more expensive. On the one hand, they complain about inflation and how much eggs cost and how much everything costs that to find complaint. You can if things are too expensive, it's perfectly reasonable to complain. one hand, they complain about inflation and how much eggs cost and how much everything costs

that to find complaint. You can if things are too expensive, it's perfectly reasonable to complain. But then out of the other side of their mouths, they say we're going to produce everything here. But they don't mention how expensive everything's going to be. The United States, through a series of cumulative decisions over the last 40 to 50 years, has decided. And when I mean we've decided it's not Reagan decided or Clinton decided, it's the totality of our policy has been based on the idea that we prefer cheap stuff rather than paying more, but making it all here in the United States. If all of these things Trump is talking about were manufactured here in the United States, at least he's saying it's a 40 year plan because it'll take 40 years to actually make all of that

happen and completely restructure all of these supply chains, at least he's being honest. But it will become insanely more expensive and people already can't afford the inflation we've seen while still being heavily dependent on China for cheap stuff, which we prefer. And when I say we prefer, what I mean is our economy is built on that. So the global trade war that Trump is talking about will never happen. And if it did, it would be insane what it would do to prices in this teleprompter, deranged teleprompter speech. Trump also, of course, attacked Joe Biden. Here's the beginning of it. We'll just look at a little more. Joe Biden claims to support American manufacturing, but in reality, he's pushing the same pro- pro China globalist agenda

that ripped the industrial heart out of our country. He's really not. It ripped us apart. Biden and the globalists support raising. Remember, globalists. Does Trump even know what that means? No. Is it often just a way to say Jews? Yes, it's it's meaningless, guys. Axis on American production. They support more crippling regulations killing American jobs. They support skyrocketing domestic energy costs and they support massive anti-American multinational agreements that send our wealth and factories overseas. It's just a word salad. And remember here, Trump bemoans regulations. The Trump administration eliminated some Obama era regulations on rail, which could be a

factor in the East Palestine train derailment. So on the one hand, he bemoans regulations. On the other hand, his supposed reduction of regulations was actually very, very destructive. It's very dangerous stuff. And tomorrow we're going to get a quote from Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who's been a guest on the program where she says that whether it's Trump or DeSantis, the authoritarian direction that this stuff is going in is extraordinarily dangerous. Radical and repugnant Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene says she was attacked at a restaurant. She tweeted, quote, I was attacked in a restaurant tonight by an insane woman and screamed at by her adult son.

They had no respect for the restaurant or the staff or the other people dining or people like me who simply have different political views. They are self-righteous, insane and completely out of control. I was sitting at my table working with my staff and never even noticed these people until they turned into demons. People used to respect others even if they had different views. But not anymore. Our country is gone. Now, there's a couple of things here that I think are important to say. First of all, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a horrible hypocrite. Here is video of her harassing David Hogg about his activism out on the street.

Yeah. David, why are you supporting the red flag laws? If there had been if Scott Peterson, the resource officer at Parkland had done his job, then Nicholas Cruz would have killed anybody in your high school or at least protected them. Why are you supporting red flag gun laws that attack our Second Amendment rights? Speaker 1 Right. So remember, oh, someone harassed me out in public, which I've also done to people. Why are you using kids to get as a barrier? Do you not know how to defend your stance? Look, I'm an American citizen. I'm a gun owner. I have a concealed carry permit. I carry a gun for protection for myself. And you are using your

lobby and the money behind it and the kids to try to take away my second amendment rights. You don't have anything to say for yourself. All right. You get the picture. So she's a complete hypocrite. Nobody is allowed to confront her, but she's allowed to confront other people. And it's the same thing as always. I do think there is like a serious discussion about the entire confronting people in public thing. Now, this has happened to me. Many of you will remember about what was it, about a year and a half ago, I was confronted at a restaurant at an outdoor seating terrace, I guess you would call it patio at a restaurant where a young woman saw me and I could kind of tell from across the room that that she recognized me. And then as I was leaving,

I get onto the sidewalk. And at that point, she yells, David Pakman, you Zionist Jew bastard. And I ignored it and just walked away. I mean, I'm aware of it, obviously, because I told the story, but I didn't engage with it in any way. Now, had she done it while I was still dining and having my beautiful fish and chips, which I had at that restaurant, what would I have done? I probably still would have ignored her. But I do think that if you're at a restaurant and you're actively harassing a patron, it would be completely reasonable for the restaurant to say you can't behave that way or you've got to leave. Right. So in this situation where Marjorie Taylor Greene was harassed, she says attacked, but doesn't make any indication that there was anything physical that happened. But she was harassed is what we could say. It would be perfectly reasonable for the restaurant to say,

hey, you can't yell in here and you can't harass people. So you either you either got to shut up or you've got to leave. Totally, perfectly reasonable when it comes to the difficulty. Every time we talk about this is when it comes to elected officials who earn salaries paid by the taxpayers and who choose to evade accountability of a certain type, right, you can get to a point where in your head you say the only way to confront some of these people might be by doing something like this. Now, again, I'm not saying I like this approach or that I am necessarily against it. I think it's a difficult and complicated thing. It's come up when we talk about protesting outside the homes of senators or Supreme Court justices. And there's sort of like the legal question, but there's also the moral and ethical thing. And I

am just not completely sure. I think there is some gray area. But specifically when we're talking about elected officials whose salaries are paid by taxpayers, I understand that if they make the decision that they are going to hide from any kind of public accountability, you can end up in a situation where you say there's no way to even get my point across to this elected official whose salary I pay with my taxes other than going up to them in public. Now, going up to them in public and screaming insults, if that's what happened, not particularly productive or effective. So let me know your thoughts about this.

But the term attacked that Marjorie Taylor Greene is using, at least by everything I've read, appears to be a bit of an exaggeration. We have a voicemail number. That number is 219 to David P. We haven't heard from him for a while. But Eric from Mass, Eric from Massachusetts, who has been insisting for years, I'm about to get sued. I'm about to get arrested. I'm about to get imprisoned because I, quote, promoted the vaccines, by which he means I reported the scientific information about them. He now it it's really going to happen now. I'm really about to get arrested now. Speaker 4 Hey, David, it's Eric from Mass. Get ready. The Brunson case from the Supreme Court is about to come through. And all your buddies, your government ones you knob on every day are going to be all

replaced and fired and probably arrested. What they did was illegal. And what did they what did they and I do? You're on record saying you want to go by the Constitution. And well, you probably know all this. You just hide it from your own people because the Democrat Party is burning down just like authoritarianism, Republicans authoritarianists decide this is authoritarian when you let people go to work, not wear masks, not have to get vaccinated. Speaker 1 Yeah, this guy is obsessed, huh? Speaker 2 Man, you have a backwards, backwards outlook on life. You destroyed people's lives.

Democrats destroyed the country. I'm not even a Democrat and I had no no influence whatsoever on policy, so I don't know how I destroyed anyone's life. Speaker 1 Destroyed people's lives. All over a common cold. I mean, you know, you talk about critical thinking, how can you possibly critically think that some guy on TV tells you to get a shot? You're okay.

I'm going to get that shot. Oh, a booster. Oh, you can get either a Moderna or a Pfizer and mix and match them. You can't mix and match drums. Well, wait, wait, wait, wait. Someone on the TV said you could. So Eric from Mass still fully on and very, very dangerous stuff going on over there. But I am standing by for when they take me away in handcuffs.

Let's see if and when it happens. I'm sure it will be much to Eric's delight if it does. We've got a great bonus show for you today. We will talk about this new low confidence report from the Department of Energy about the oranges of covid. We will talk about the NPR layoffs and what is going on in media with the layoffs. And we will give you the latest on Senator John Fetterman and his path to recovery. All of those stories and more on the bonus show.

Get the bonus show, folks. Get the bonus show. Sign up at join pacman dot com. You can use the coupon code. Please no more Trump. That's the code. All one word. No spaces.

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