The David Pakman Show - 2/9/24: Taylor Swift GOP fears grow, Michelle Obama conspiracy debunked

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Taylor Swift is holding concerts in Florida around the time of the 2024 election, leaving some to wonder whether the state is in play for Joe Biden -- Karl Rove goes on Fox News with Stuart Varney and shuts down the right-wing conspiracy theory that Michelle Obama is going to replace Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee -- Caller inquires about David's fitness routine -- Caller tries to connect Trump's assassination of Qasem Soleimani to the war in Israel-Palestine -- Caller discusses the decommodification of housing -- Caller asks who Trump will choose for vice president -- Caller talks about immigration policy -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Special counsel chooses not to charge Biden, Tucker interviews Putin, and much more... 💻 Stay protected! Try our sponsor Aura FREE for 2 weeks at https://aura.com/pakman 👩‍❤️‍👨 Try the Paired App FREE for 7 days and get 25% OFF at https://paired.com/pakman 🖥️ UPLIFT Desk: Get 5% OFF with code PAKMAN5 at https://upliftdesk.com/pakman 👍 Use code PAKMAN for 10% off the Füm Journey Pack at https://tryfum.com/PAKMAN 🧻 Reel Paper: Code PAKMAN for 30% OFF + free shipping at https://reelpaper.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Well, it's been about a week, I guess, since we last talked about the potential political impact of Taylor Swift. And now the new Republican concerns are focusing in on the state of Florida state that at one point really was a swing state, purple state, but more recently has more consistently been a Republican state. There is a really interesting Politico article which asks, could Taylor Swift tilt Florida blue? It's Democrats wildest dream.

And the article points out that amidst a lot of Republican fears about the influence of Taylor Swift, if you want to look at this on a state by state level and of course, Taylor Swift, very prominently registering people to vote and previously endorsed Joe Biden and is being courted apparently by the Biden administration to do so again this time around. There are people who were looking more closely at what might happen in specific states. Now, the idea of Taylor Swift alone being able to turn Florida reliably blue or for Biden, which, by the way, based on the 2020 map, if Biden were able to win Florida, it would almost certainly mean it's over and Biden just gets reelected easily. Flipping Florida is a major goal.

It's not as mathematically crazy as it might sound. I mean, let's just like very much just spitballing some numbers. Imagine Taylor Swift does endorse Joe Biden and says register to vote, go out and vote. Imagine that that leads to about another. Imagine that leads to a 10 percent increase in turnout among the youngest voters. OK, that'd be like one hundred and eighteen thousand extra young voters turning out thanks to Taylor Swift. And you would imagine the vast majority, if you're participating because of Taylor Swift, you're probably voting for the person Taylor Swift is endorsing.

And then in addition to new young voters registering, maybe her endorsement of Biden convinces an additional 30,000. This is just in Florida, an additional 30,000 Floridians to vote. Biden will call it five percent of swing voters. So you've got your 120 new and 30 swing. So that's about 150,000 vote swing. Now, the problem is that the margin for Trump in 2020 was was actually bigger. But what Florida 2020 presidential results? I should have had it in front of me, but I don't. It was a margin of about four three hundred and something thousand. So just kind of like if she increases young registration by 10 percent and flips

five percent of swing voters, that's half the margin in Florida. You'd need pretty optimistic numbers to say that it's likely Taylor Swift could flip Florida. But the reason Republicans are so afraid is that the numbers may be even bigger. It may not be likely, but it's one of these more extreme scenarios where the downside is so catastrophic for Republicans that they have to take it seriously. And we know they're taking it seriously because right wing media just continues to flip out about Taylor Swift. If they didn't see this as a threat, they wouldn't be talking about it nonstop.

And we had that funny video about a week or two weeks ago of Tennessee Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn, who was directly targeted by Taylor Swift in the past, asked about Swift declining to say anything too negative about her. So if you need to know anything about how seriously they're taking this, it's that even people directly targeted by Swift are still being nice to her. So for as long as they're afraid, it's a good thing for the left. Even if Taylor Swift can't single handedly flip Florida for Biden, the fact that they're talking about it is also a good sign.

It's a sign they'll have to devote resources to keeping Florida, which maybe will take them away from some other state. All of this is very good. I don't care about Taylor Swift's music. I'm not super interested in her cultural cachet, but to the extent that she's registering voters, I'm interested. We've talked before about the debunked conspiracy theory that Michelle Obama will replace Joe Biden on the 2024 Democratic presidential ticket. When Vivek Ramaswamy brought this up, it was mentioned to him by me that Michelle has said she's not running. She's not interested.

And Vivek said, well, it may not even be up to her, which is a really weird thing to say. This is a fascinating clip. Fox News host Stuart Varney interviewed political strategist from the Republican side, Karl Rove, and Karl Rove immediately shot down the idea of Michelle Obama. Now, interestingly, in the clip we're about to watch, Karl Rove says, I do think Joe Biden won't be the nominee. It's just that the Michelle Obama piece is a baseless conspiracy theory. Check this out.

This is interesting. Well, can you deal with this quickly? I keep hearing that Michelle Obama will be shifted into the no, you're shaking. Yeah, it's not going to happen. No, look, look. She hates politics. You read her autobiography. She didn't want her husband to run for the state Senate.

She didn't want him to run for the president. She is not a political animal. And besides, look, Barack Obama was my charge at the White House. I dealt with him for three years. He's a smart guy. He would know that if Michelle Obama woke up tomorrow and said, you know what? I've decided after a life of hating politics, I want to be the vice presidential running mate or run for president. People would say, you know what? That's Barack trying to get a third term as president and they

wouldn't go for it. But the starting point is she hates politics. This is a weird obsession of the of a conspiratorial right. And it's just lunacy, pure lunacy. I had to deal with this in 2020. Folks, this is a Republican saying this. When this was running through the through the president Trump's reelection campaign, they thought somehow or another Biden was going to be pushed aside by Obama. Andrew Cuomo was going to be the democratic candidate and his running mate was going to be Michelle Obama. And you know, I, I, I told the, the, the, the Trump people, including the president himself, this is sheer utter lunacy. starting with the fact she hates politics, period.

She loves the life she's got. So we know exactly where you stand, Karl Rove. Thanks for sharing that with us. Emphatically, we like you, Stuart. Thanks, Carl. See you later. Yeah. Stuart, just super impressed with how emphatic there Karl Rove was. Listen, Michelle Obama said she's not running. There's no evidence she's running. There's no evidence that anyone can push Biden aside at this point in time. There is, of course, there is, of course, the question of when you have an 80 year old and a nearly 80 year old running, there is some reality about life expectancy. And that is not any different for Biden than it is for Trump. Trump just a little bit younger, but certainly far less healthy when it comes to his physical health. That's a real and legitimate story. There's a real and legitimate

story about when do when does the Democratic Party move on to what would be the next generation? And it's funny when people say we need to move to the next generation, which is Bernie, who's even older than Biden and Elizabeth Warren. It's like that's not the next generation. Next generation would mean younger people, 60 or younger. At least you would think that's a perfectly reasonable question. What would happen if for whatever reason, Joe Biden were unable to be on the ticket? Well, that's a that's a that's a reasonable question to ask. You always want a backup plan.

But the Michelle Obama thing, it really has to stop. And I will mention one other thing about the Michelle Obama component. Michelle Obama should be someone that Republicans would love. And what I mean by that is she embodies many of the values conservatives want. Now, I get it. She's on the left. She's pro choice and her views on there are certain issues on which she's not. But culturally, unless you believe that they're overt racists because she's black and there are some overt racists on the right, she understands and agrees with the importance of family and two parent households, the way in which she talks about raising kids and and her personal religion. A lot of this stuff should resonate with Republicans like Republicans should like

Michelle Obama. But of course, they don't, I guess, because you tell me why it is that they don't like her. It is as simple as she's a Democrat or is it something else? But to the extent Karl Rove is being direct here about these are right wing conspiracy theorists. Michelle Obama is not running. Good for him for saying it on Fox News. Whether the Fox News audience listens to Karl Rove, I don't know. Trump and others now call Karl Rove a rhino, a Republican in name only. But hey, listen, he's saying it on Fox News and that's a good thing. You may remember a few years ago, the show got hacked and several thousand dollars were

stolen. We never got it back. But now I have a lot more peace of mind because we use Aura. Our sponsor, Aura, is the all in one tool to protect your online and financial accounts. Thank you so much, David. Try to open up a bank account in your name. Take out credit in your name. Aura will also monitor your bank accounts, your home and auto titles, which can help to guard against fraud. And Aura even protects your phone by letting you block and screen spam calls and texts. Aura has parental controls for your kids devices to restrict apps, manage screen time, set focus time.

You can try Aura free for 14 days at aura.com slash Pacman. It only takes a few seconds to use the free trial to see if your username and passwords have been leaked online. That's a U R a.com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Sometimes it can be tough to maintain an emotional connection with your significant other. You might work in different places at different times. There might be a kid in the way. It can be hard to find time for date nights, especially because kids demand so much attention, which is why I love our sponsor paired, which is the app for couples. The app will prompt you with a

daily question or a game or a guided conversation, all designed by leading psychologists. And the point is to just have a deeper connection with your partner, boost intimacy, build a deeper knowledge of one another. My girlfriend and I will use the prompts on paired throughout the day to stay connected. For instance, we answered a prompt about what we remember most from the early days of the relationship. It really helps us learn new things. And there can be funny moments as well. An independent study found that couples using paired saw 36 percent increase in the quality

of their relationship. the David Pakman Show at David Pakman dot com slash Pacman for a free trial and 25 percent off. The link is in the podcast notes. The David Pakman show is, of course, primarily funded by our audience, people who become members at join Pacman dot com. We do what we can to provide some great member perks, including doing an extra show every single day called the bonus show. We also provide commercial free audio and video streams of the show, a members only soundboard invitations to members only town hall events and so many other things, including even more on the new website

launching very, very soon. Let's hear from some people in the audience. We do this on the Friday show via discord. You can find our discord at David Pakman dot com slash discord. We are going to start today with Harry from Chicago, Illinois. Harry, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? What can I do for you? Harry from Chicago. Welcome. Yes, I can. Thanks. Thanks for taking my call. Before we get into I wanted to ask you, are you still into fitness, weightlifting, that sort of jazz? Yeah. Yeah. I'm in the gym, you know, three, four days a week. Yeah, absolutely. Do you go to like a different gym or do you have workout equipment at home? Like what's what's the deal? No, I go to a real gym and, you know, there's people there and we we sometimes talk about politics if I get recognized.

That's awesome. That's all. Yeah, I think you should really get into, you know, natural bodybuilding, try to try to build out those biceps a little bit. You know, Speaker 2 I'm all natural, Harry. I know this may come as a shock to people in the audience, but I am completely natural. Yeah, I'm glad you're keeping away from the vitamin S, as we we like to call it. I wanted to ask you about. So I've called about the housing market before and like where it where it's at a lot of people like to talk about it in regards to like inflation and like things are really bad i i know that there is currently a bill that's you know being talked about in regards to banning wall

street from owning single uh family homes have you are you familiar with this i am okay so i i mean it's it's in the federal, you know, Congress. I think it's dead right now. I don't, I don't know that it's going to happen, but, um, what do you feel is, uh, the impact of wall street owning these single family homes? Uh, do you think, what do you think has a bigger impact the wall street, um, owning these homes or, you know, we, we don't talk about it as much, but landlords who own multiple homes, what effect do they have on the market? And lastly, one last thing before I let you talk. I know you consider healthcare to be something that,

you know, shouldn't be part of the marketplace. Cell phones, we can maybe let the market decide the cost of. But healthcare. You know, maybe we need to let a single player come in. How do you feel about housing? Is that something that you think it should be completely in the market or a little more regulated? Just just give me your thoughts. So a couple of different things here. First of all, when Wall Street owns single family homes, they make them more expensive. So it reduces affordability for people. They can destabilize local markets where the local market will become decoupled from the overarching economic and employment situation because Wall Street's buying up a bunch of properties without the market

actually being able to support it. It can make community preservation more difficult because when Wall Street comes in and buys up a lot of single family homes, they can start to dictate kind of the feel of neighborhoods through their large ownership shares in some of these neighborhoods. It can be monopolistic. So I think there's a lot of negatives to allowing Wall Street to own single family homes in the way that that they've been purchased up. You can also make the case that there are some good things, like, for example, they may see an opportunity in problematic neighborhoods. They could come in and afford they could afford to buy 200 houses and fix them all up. And all of a sudden you've got a better neighborhood. The problem is who can then afford to buy those houses? It's almost

certainly not going to be the people that were foreclosed on. Right. So so I think there's a lot of cons, some pros and in the pros, there are also some cons that that are hidden. Now, it's it seems that what you were talking about with the second question is you're essentially talking about decommodifying housing, right? You're saying what if instead of houses is something that you trade on the market based on what you can afford, you say we're just we're going to take it out of that sort of like I think health care should be done. Is that more or less the question?

I think I think the answer is yes. Do you think it's necessary for us to decommodify housing or do you think regulations that prevent people from owning multiple homes or, you know, landlords that own, you know, more than one home? And I'm talking about private people, not just talking about Wall Street. Right. I think that these people are having an outsized effect on the housing market because they own so many homes. They're at they have such a great position compared to people who are renting. And I feel like things are getting worse. Do you think, you know, the commodification needs to happen more so where the government's giving people money for housing? Or do you think more so of like a regulatory framework that prevents people from owning

multiple homes? So first of all, I can't imagine any legal basis where you're going to prevent private people from buying multiple homes. So I'm super practical. I don't even think that's worth going after. And it just doesn't make any sense to pursue that. Even our members of Congress, even though they mostly rent in D.C. and own a home somewhere else, some of them own a home in D.C. and elsewhere. And like it's just so obvious that if the proposition is ban owning more than one property, that's a that's a losing proposition. That's off the table. What about like a multi, you know, home ownership tax? Do you think that has any sort of that will ever have any weight or anything like that?

So that already exists to some degree in that there are dramatically fewer and sometimes no benefits to non-primary residences. It varies by city and state. It's probably not as as robust and rigorous as it could or should be. But here's my thought on this. I am not for the decommodification of housing completely. When you do that, there's a bunch of good studies on this and some of the things that are. But again, we haven't totally done it, so we don't know for sure. But what some studies believe would happen if you decommodified housing, you are creating a situation where the real estate industry is a huge part of many economies.

It just it just is a reality. It contributes to jobs and economic growth. It supports so many different industries. It seems that if you decommodify housing, you, number one, are removing a lot of the incentives for the improvement of housing, and you are therefore going to hurt so many of the industries and sub industries that rely on that. I believe that it would be difficult to establish a bureaucracy where we scale up government's direct involvement in housing in the way that the full decommodifiers want to see. I think there are

resource allocation challenges to decommodification. And we have to be honest that the profit motive is an important aspect of some of the good things about the way housing is organized in the United States and taken to an extreme. This is the social Democrat, northern European, a social Democrat in me taking taken to an extreme. It becomes a problem. But some of that profit motive of let me consider what will make my house worth more because this is for most households the main investment. So what I would like to see is I know a lot of people are not are going to cringe at what I'm going to say, but Section eight type housing affordability guidelines where you say, OK, here's the median in to approve a project.

Here's the median income in this city. You've got to sell at least half the units to people with that income. And we're going to subsidize the difference based on affordability. I actually think there's a lot to be done there now for homeless people. I think we should just house homeless people. I think the economic the economic benefits are clear. The moral incentive is clear. But for me, I'm not a decommodify housing guy. What I would like to see is more programs that are supporting and income limiting certain projects. You've given everybody a lot to think about.

And I think, you know, the easy stuff we can do. I think you just said that. I agree to that. You know, keep getting swole, David. Thanks for taking my call. I agree. All right. Thank you very much.

I appreciate it. There goes Harry. And we'll keep everybody posted on what's happening and what's happening in the gym. All right. Why don't we go next to Ty from Iowa? Ty from Iowa. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind? Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. OK, so I kind of like this is I'm obviously going to be voting for Biden in November. Now, obviously, there's some things that I don't agree with him on.

Okay. But like what? One thing I kind of just have been thinking, I know this happened a while ago. Yeah. But I have Trump kind of saying like that he's going to ban people who are communists or socialists, Marxists, fascists, which is funny because if he bans back. Speaker 1 Ty, you cut out right when you were saying if he bans fascists, what was your point about if he bans fascists? Speaker 4 Oh, it's just he's banning his own voter base if he does that.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously that that entire idea is crazy and it seems to be illegal. Speaker 2 It kind of reminds me a bit of like McCarthyism. I don't know if you remember that. Yeah, I do. Yeah. But it's just kind of making me think like he's becoming scarier and more authoritarian. It's just I really don't think it would just be a really bad thing if this guy gets elected again. Absolutely.

Yeah. And there's also something else I wanted to bring up. This is something that happened in Pennsylvania. I don't know if you heard about this. It was like a QAnon thing. No, what happened? All right. It's very disturbing, but there was. Wait a second. Hold on. Let me explain it. Let me see if I know. Are you talking about the guy who who gruesomely murdered his own father on a live stream? Speaker 4 Well, it wasn't on a it wasn't on a live stream, but basically it was like he like shot him and then he decapitated him and he posted a video video. He posted a video, right?

Yeah. Yeah, I did hear. Yeah, he was like, oh, yeah. And I was like, what? Speaker 1 Crazy. Speaker 4 Yeah, I thought it was insane. Yes. Yeah. Just, you know, crazy. All right, Ty. Thank you, Ty, from Iowa. Great to hear from you. Let's go next to Chris from Phoenix, Arizona. Chris from Phoenix. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today, sir?

And Chris, you've self muted, just unmute yourself and then we'll be able to hear you. Chris, you got to unmute yourself, my friend, you have muted yourself. And last chance for Chris, welcome to the program. Well, that's too bad. Let's go next to who is this? Let's go to Brendan in New York. Brendan, welcome to the program. What can I do for you today? Hey, David, I had a question about, I guess, Kaseem Soleimani with the recent, I guess,

news in the Middle East, different things going on. I find it surprising that the assassination of Qasim Soleimani doesn't come up more as either, I don't know, something playing into the events going on, or if it doesn't play into the events going on, is that not itself kind of a significant thing? And so I guess my question is, do you think that you agree? Is it underrepresented in the media today? What do you think? Looking back now, I think it's like four years later. Yeah. All happened. And how do you sort of think about your own coverage at the time in comparison to where it sits now? Well, listen, I I'm open to the idea that the assassination of Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani during

the Trump presidency is affecting what's happening in the Middle East today. I'm just not exactly sure what you have in mind. I mean, in some general role, you know, solips in some general sense, Soleimani had a role in expanding Iran's influence. And to the extent that Iran supports Hamas and probably helped fund and plan the October 7th terrorist attacks. There's a connection. But the assassination of Soleimani, I'm just not I'm just not really sure.

I mean, what do you have in mind specifically as to how the two would be related? I mean, the hypothetical, I don't know, but I guess I'm surprised that I don't see more in the discussion like you crying just made the line connection to Hamas and stuff. I'm surprised that in a lot of these debates, you don't hear more about that or, you know, in. Well, I guess in order to make let me say this, Brendan, in order to make the connection, you'd have to argue that his death either slowed down Iran's influence in the area or created some acceleration. Like which what's the argument you would make if you made such an argument? Sure. So let's say that I'm an anti-Trump person and

I support the Palestinian cause somewhat. And I'm debating some kind of like Trumpy type person on Patrick Bet-David show or whatever. And I go, oh, well, you know, you're saying that Trump wants to avoid all war. You know, he killed Qasem Soleimani and possibly launched us into the conflict we're now in or that Israel is now in. Maybe that wouldn't have happened if not for those types of actions. I'm surprised that I haven't seen many folks either say things like that or or play into the conversation. I think the other way. I mean, hold on, hold on on that one, Brendan. Hold on. Let me say on that one. I don't really buy that one, to be totally honest. I don't think that's I have not seen any evidence of that. Yeah, but I see many bad arguments online all the time, so I'm surprised that I don't see that one.

Like I hear you like it's not necessarily that's not an argument I agree time. So I'm surprised that I don't see that one. Like I, I hear you, like, it's not necessarily, that's not an argument I agree with, but I'm surprised that I don't see it. That's the point. Fair. And then what was the other one? Um, oh, I'm sorry. So if you were, if you're going the other way, you know, it's, uh, you could almost make an interesting argument of, uh, you know, at the time people might've thought that this was an outlandish action from Trump. But if we look at the current scenario, you know, folks are saying this is the first step to war with Iran. We're not at war with Iran.

And so, you know, maybe the argument they make is that it was an effective action. That's interesting. You know, I think the reason we're not hearing either argument is for exactly the reason you mentioned. These are not super strong arguments. I think it's a couple layers removed. I don't think anybody would take the argument super seriously. And that's probably probably why we're not hearing them. Fair enough. All right, Brendan from New York, thank you so much for the call. I appreciate it. Let's go to Darceel from where is Darcyl from? From Austin, Texas. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Darcyl, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today?

Darcyl, welcome to The David Pakman Show. Please accept my invitation and then we'll all be able to hear you. Hey, hear me? Yes. Hey, how are you doing? Doing well. Yeah. So I was curious, have you ever there's this article that I don't know if you've been aware of on Politico about this guy who interviewed a Trump supporter at a bar by doing some speaking, talking points. Have you ever heard about the article and do you think you'll be making your opinion about it? I haven't heard of it. What's the name of the guy who interviews the Trump supporters? Speaker 5 It doesn't say on the article, it just it was just some veteran from Iowa.

Speaker 1 OK, no, I haven't heard about it. But was there a question you had about it in some way? Speaker 6 I watched a video of it recently. Speaker 1 Yeah, I haven't seen about it. But was there a question you had about it in some way? Watched a video of it recently. Yeah, I haven't seen it, Darcy. Did you have some particular question about it? Yeah, I just maybe kind of think of like how these Trump supporters are like, especially when it comes to veteran Trump supporters, they do. It seems like a lot of them are. Just seems like they they're frustrated with the government all the time. And it just it just kind of makes me think

of like. Like you're saying military veterans, Darcyel? Yeah, like like military veterans from the Cold War days. OK. And the Cold War days. Mm hmm. And most of them are on Trump's side because they feel like that they're not being benefited enough as heroes. And I think that's like one of the main reasons, like they've fallen into this Trump cult. Yeah, I haven't seen that, to be totally honest. I have not seen that narrative

from from veterans in general. I know a lot of veterans are very happy with the VA and the care that they receive. Not everybody, but many of them are quite happy with it, which is interesting because it is essentially a government health care program. But I'll look into the article you're talking about. All right. Yeah. And also, I was also hearing about the about the guy earlier talking about the property stuff.

Interestingly, I'm surprised not that many people have talked about. There's these low income housing apartments that I actually currently live in right now. And it's a really nice place, nice view of the city and everything. But I have like I've realized that the media like doesn't really ever talk about it at all very much. And and Darceel, how does it work? Is it basically based on a percentage of your income? Yeah, pretty much. And mostly it also depends on what the requirements of the apartment are. So that's just like if I was like a single person, single individual, I will be able to get like an apartment like this where I only pay is like rent and all the utilities are included. Just the only thing except it would just be like I have to pay for like my laundry stuff downstairs or, you know, stuff, but they also like, um, residence management, which they can

be able to help you out with a lot of things. And it's a really awesome place. Um, of course, the waiting list was so long. It took me about like two or three years to get, but where would you be living if that wasn't available? If that wasn't available to you, where would you be living? Well, currently before, I don't know if you remember this because we talked before. I lived in a group home during that time. So this is like dramatically better situation for you. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's fantastic.

Well, listen, Darceel, great to hear from you again. All right, my friend. Great to hear from you, too. You take care. All right. There goes Darceel from Austin. We will take a quick break and be back with more of your calls. So if you're holding on to talk to me, just hold on a little bit longer.

When I'm doing any kind of my work, prepping for the show, whatever it might be, I love a standing desk, an adjustable desk that can go up or down for sitting or standing. It gets the creative juices going. It's good for your health. There's really no substitute. And the one I've been using for years is the one from a company called Uplift Desk. I love it so much. We asked them to become a sponsor. I've tried multiple standing desks from different companies. Uplift Desk is the only one that I really feel is sturdy and solid when it goes up and

down. You can try to shake it, put weight on it. It just doesn't wobble. Lots of other things set Uplift Des desk apart as well. When you shop for a standing desk, everything is customizable. The material, the size, the color, the wheels. I have the huge one with no wheels, for example, wire management accessories. They really offer everything. Uplift desk has been chosen as the New York Times best standing desk for the last four years. They have four point nine stars on Google. I've been a longtime customer. You will love it. I am

sitting at one of these right now. I use it to record the show every day. My audience will get five percent off at uplift desk dot com slash Pacman. Use the code Pacman five. That's U.P.L.I.F.T. Desk dot com slash Pacman. Then use the code Pacman five to get five percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. Breaking a deeply ingrained habit is one of the toughest things to do. Our sponsor fume can make it easier. Not everything in a bad Speaker 1 and Speaker 2. Speaker 3 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4.

Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4.

Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1 and Speaker 4. Speaker 1. There's no nicotine, no electronics. It's just delicious flavored air delivered by the cylindrical fume device that fits in

the palm of your hand. It comes in tasty, refillable flavors like raspberry, lemon, orange, vanilla, grapefruit, crisp mint. The fume device goes in your pocket. You can carry it around. It has movable parts and magnets. So if you're fidgeting or want to, it's great for that. And it's just a useful thing to break bad habits. And it provides that perfectly satisfying hand to mouth mechanic that many people love. Don't

judge fume until you've tried it. They have helped countless people make positive changes and you could be next. Head over to try fume dot com and use code Pacman to save 10 percent when you get the journey pack, which comes with the device and several flavors to try. That's try f u m dot com slash Pacman. Use the code Pacman for 10 percent off the journey pack. The info is in the podcast notes. All right, let's go back to discord and hear from a few more people. You can find our discord at David Pacman dot com slash discord. We'll go next to Boris from Denver, Colorado. Boris, welcome to the program.

What's going on with you? Hey, David, I wanted to ask, I don't know if you've done a segment on this or put out any opinions on who you think Trump is going to pick for his VP nominee. I you know, here's the reason it's so hard to know. At one point, Trump said that he was going to pick a woman. A few weeks ago, Trump said he had already made his selection. Last week, Trump was asked, might you pick Tim Scott? And he said, he's certainly someone I would consider, which is a very different answer

than I've actually already made the choice. So I have no idea whatsoever. There was a rumor that he was considering Ben Carson, although it's not obvious to me what Ben Carson, although it's not obvious to me what Ben Carson brings. If he were still, you know, into this idea of picking a woman, the names that were floated were, you know, Carrie Lake. But she's running for Senate now, so I don't think she would do it. Maybe it's Kristi Noem. Honestly, at this point, nothing would surprise me because the guy is so erratic. It kind of gives me the sense that if it comes to Decision Day, he'll decide based on the

last person to whisper an idea in his ear before he makes the announcement. It's very unpredictable. Speaker 4 Yeah, I'm super curious. I think yesterday or this morning, Tulsi Gabbard was on one of the Fox News shows and someone asked her if she would do if she would take it. And she said she would certainly be open to that conversation which i thought was interesting but um one of the things that i'm really curious about is once he has a vp nominee if the media does its job they need to ask whoever the nominee is like if they were mike pence on january 6 2021 what would they have done

oh yeah or if if that comes up and like they win and they become the president next time, what will they do? And I'm wondering, like what and how they're going to try to answer that question. You know, someone like Tim Scott, who I think like a lot of people used to think were like a more respectable Republican who is going to have to toe the line to Trump in order to be his VP nominee. How would they answer that question? It's a very good question, because on the one hand, in order to even sort of qualify

to be Trump's VP, you, I guess, need to be someone who believes Trump won and whatever. I mean, it's a it's a very tough situation because if you then say the wrong thing and you say, no, I mean, listen, Joe Biden won and that's it. I think what they would most likely end up doing is coming up with some way not to answer, which is to say, listen, I wasn't in that position. What I can tell you is Biden's been a disastrous president and we've got to replace him with Trump right away. And nine out of 10 times they'll get away with that. And then maybe they'll get pressed one out of 10 times and they'll have to come up with something more. Yeah, no, they definitely shouldn't be allowed to get away with that because I agree, you

know, it's going to be like the most consequential thing about who we pick. So the media needs to do its job. But yeah, OK, we'll see. All right, Boris, thank you so much for the call. Thank you. All right. There goes Boris. Let's for the call. Thank you. All right. There goes Boris. Let's go next to Tony from New York, who's also a website member.

Tony, thank you so much for being a website member. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Hey, can you hear me? Yeah, I can. Great. Appreciate you taking the call. I wanted to get you.

I want to get your thoughts on the Electoral College. Haven't heard you speak about this, but I'm curious if you think it should just not be a thing. I don't think it should be a thing. Yep. I don't think it should be a thing. You know, really the reasons that it was originally created, I don't find to be relevant anymore in the age of jet travel and high speed communications, you essentially end up with just a different number of important centers rather than, oh, the big cities are where the candidates pay attention.

And its impact has been anti-democratic in the sense that many times Republican candidates have lost the popular vote, won the Electoral College and become president. Now you could say, well, David, if it helped Democrats, then you would be in favor of it. I mean, listen, maybe. But this seems pretty cut and dry. There's no good reason why the majority shouldn't decide right now. I there's just no good reason.

And so if I were against the if I were for the Electoral College, if it helped Democrats, but against it because it hurts Democrats, I would be a hypocrite. But it's simply an anti-democratic force at this point. So I'm against that. I want a national popular vote. Yeah, I mean, I agree. And I do think it would also probably increase the amount of people that do vote like you think. Yes, I think it would be in New York, for instance. They think what do you say to someone like me who's in New York and says, well, my vote

doesn't really count. So do I even bother voting? Do you think? Yeah, I completely agree. I think it would increase voter turnout. I think that's yet another great thing about it. Yeah, I'm against it. And I think the most direct path to it is something called the

national popular vote interstate compact, which I encourage folks to look up if they're not familiar with it. Well, I'll check that out. I appreciate you. All right, Tony, from New York. Great to hear from you. Appreciate it. Why don't we go next to. Oh, I don't know. How about Rick from Ocean? What is this? Ocean Island, Ocean Isle Beach. Rick, welcome. Hey, Ocean Island Beach. Ocean Island Beach. OK, great. Well, welcome. And, you know, I talked to a lot of people. This is a ruby red. Brunswick County District. I think we voted about 33 percent for Biden in the last election. OK, very red area. So I like to talk to people, but politics is difficult to talk about here.

Yeah. When I talk to some of my progressive friends, they frequently comment that the borders are a real issue. OK. OK. And when they say it's an issue, what is the issue? Well, that's my and that's my retort to them is why would you know what's happening to you?

And they don't have a response. Interesting. The same response I don't get from mega people. Right. And I wonder, you know, from your standpoint, is the border a crisis? I mean, here's my view on the border. OK, so listen, we have laws. The laws should be followed. OK, so we have a process for coming to the United States. There's visa lottery. There's different types of visas. There is the possibility of marrying someone in the United States. You can request asylum at the border. And when you do, your presence in the country is no longer illegal. OK, there's all

these different things. We also have very dire economic circumstances in a lot of different places which lead people to come over undocumented. And to the extent that they are, you know, they're eligible for deportation. I can't. There's no way in which I as someone on the left can say, oh, we should just ignore that. And deportation should be canceled forever because it's just mean or whatever. Right. I mean, like, listen, countries have borders. They have laws. They're allowed to enforce them. Now, let's take it a step further when it comes to the impact of immigrants documented and undocumented in the United States. It is overwhelmingly positive. So I can both recognize that. Listen, ICE can deport people. Right. I mean, that's the law.

At the same time, documented and undocumented immigrants are hugely economically stimulative in the United States. They become members of our community. The idea that they are criminals is not borne out by the facts. Both legal and illegal immigrants commit crime at lower rates than natural born citizens. And it seems obvious that they would, because if you know you're undocumented or you know that this is your not birth country, but one that has adopted you, it would make sense that you would be more cautious about criminality because you don't you don't want trouble. Right. So all of these different things to me signal to the problem really is we have laws that

aren't being enforced when it comes to the corporations that hire undocumented immigrants. We probably if you now this is where it gets interesting. If you believe that the United States should grow economically and you recognize that the way countries grow is by having more people to both work and buy stuff, the birth rate in the United States continues to decline. And soon, like during that, by the end of this century, our population will be declining. Now, for environmental reasons, you might say that's a good thing. But if you want salaries to keep growing, standard of living to keep growing, economic growth to continue, we're going to have the opposite problem.

We're not going to have enough people because once the population starts to decline and the average age is older, where is the money that is necessary to both grow the economy and support older folks going to come from? So there are increasingly academic papers that are saying, Rick, the U.S. needs to triple legal immigration into the country ASAP if they want to deal with the forthcoming population and economic decline. So I'm not saying I necessarily buy into this forever growth thing. Like at a certain point, we hit a limit.

But these people who claim we're in crisis, I think there's a stronger argument that the crisis is the population will start to decline. We won't have enough workers and it'll hurt the economy. I'm 100 percent in agreement with you. Really? We're stronger when we're we welcome people. We're even stronger when we welcome people in need because as a Christian country, that's what we're called to do.

And then we're strong, even strongest when we value people. Now, what do you mean we're a Christian country? Well, I mean, there's a lot of Christians in our country. OK, but you're not saying that officially in any kind of way that ties into civil government or a Christian. OK, got it. Got it. State and church separate church separate. I'm a Christian. I believe, I pray all those good things for myself. And I think that's a good thing to follow. Religion is man's attempt to understand what he can't possibly understand. All right. But it sounds like you're clear that it shouldn't have any role in civil government, then I'm with you. Absolutely. But, you know, you hear people and they're you know, they they preach the Christian mantra and then they want to shut down the border. Right. That drives me crazy. Right. Yeah. It doesn't seem economically like

the right thing. It doesn't seem morally like the right thing. If you're if you're a supposed Christian, it doesn't sound like it follows the doctrine either. I mean, you're making a lot of good points here. One last question. And this drives me crazy, too. They always associate immigration with fentanyl. Oh, yeah. Any any correlation there? Is this just just just their way to. It is not untrue that there have been fentanyl laced drugs that have come across the border. But that's not about immigration. That's about drug smuggling. And a big part of that is the drug war and the circumstances it has created. So, yeah, I mean, I don't want people I don't want people accidentally dying from fentanyl. But the

problem is that you're not going to solve it by stopping immigration. Speaker 1 Agreed. Speaker 2 Yeah. All right, Rick, thank you so much for the call. Speaker 1 Thank you. Speaker 2 All right. There is Rick from Ocean Island Beach. We will go to a break. I'm so sorry if I wasn't able to get to you, but we will try it again next week. Real's paper is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, meaning they are responsibly harvesting bamboo grass that's used for their paper. And bamboo toilet paper is softer and stronger than regular toilet paper. It's a win for everybody, including the planet. And while regular toilet paper is wrapped in plastic as well, Real papers packaging is fully plastic free and compostable. Real paper partners

with one tree planted with every box of real that you buy. They are funding reforestation efforts around the country. So unlike the other toilet paper that cuts down trees, real paper doesn't use trees and is helping to actively plant trees. I have real toilet paper on a subscription, so I don't run out. The subscription gives you an extra discount as well. Go to real paper dot com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman for 30 percent off your first order and free shipping. That's R.E.L. paper dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman for 30 percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. Let's get into Friday feedback.

Actually, on Friday this week, a lot of really aggressively weaponized stuff. I do want to warn you, you can always email info at David Pacman dot com. Sometimes we'll feature a Facebook comment or a Twitter reply, YouTube comment, something on the tick tocks or whatever. We start today with a bonkers email from Adam. And I think the most important reminder here is anecdotes and data are two different things. They can be related where you can have anecdotes that support or appear to contradict data. And then we have to understand why might anecdotes not be representative of the data. Okay. The topic is crime. Adam says, dude, you're either lying or living in an effing bubble to say that crime, be it violent crime that is drug induced or

not, is down, quote, according to the data. Well, so first of all, I'm not lying. It's down according to the data. And whether I'm living in a bubble, I don't think changes whether that's what the data says. Now, Adam goes on and this is where you really have to understand the broken nature of these people's brains. Adam says, I just heard on my local news channel that according to the mayor's office,

violent crime is down from 10 years ago in Oakland. It's not true. I live out here. If you sat in your car at any business on Hagenberger Boulevard, one of many areas plagued with armed robberies, burglaries, theft and assaults. You can literally see violent crimes being committed on a daily basis. Having grown up in the Bay Area and been a bit of a knucklehead when I was younger, it's never been this bad. It's not just Oakland either. I'm not sure where you're getting your crime stats from, but the only thing I can think of is that either the

data is flat out wrong or cherry pick to spin it a positive way, which is just as bad. Pamela Price openly stated she's not charging black and brown people for crimes due to increased pressure to decrease the state prison population. If you're not charging people with crimes, I guess it's sure. I guess that sure the F might look like crime is going down. But you're again, this is all the wrong. You're being dishonest and you're wrong. You're a smug little prick about it.

You're like the left wing Charlie Kirk. So listen, if you want to make the argument that we're measuring crime the wrong way, make the argument and support that argument with something. If you want to make the argument that, you know, the data are wrong. You've got to provide something other than I could sit in my car and see crimes on Hagenberger Boulevard. That's just not data. Now, in a country of 330 million people, you could have many anecdotes of violent crimes and still see significant year over year reductions in violent crime rates. And I kind of don't really know how to deal with people like this because they're just not going to

believe it. It's sort of like we say, hey, inflation's down. No. Have you seen the price of eggs? Well, we're not in deflation. Inflation is down and wage growth is now exceeding inflation. No, but have you seen the price of eggs? OK, I mean, you know, at a certain point, it's like I guess I'm not going to be able to convince you, but really a sad thing. Very, very sad situation. OK, here's an interesting post from the subreddit debt. The Trellis off says Trump is threatened by women.

Something stood out to me the other day, how Trump lashes out at women he feels targeted by from Hillary to judges. Now Nikki Haley, women seem to become a priority target when they push back on him. I would think this probably goes back to personality traits of having to be the big man in charge of stuff and ties in with the rape stuff as well. But it stood out for a different reason. A few years ago, this is a viewer. A few years ago, a friend of mine got diagnosed with schizophrenia, which he kept secret for

a while. But something he took to do doing was aggressively attacking verbally women around him that displayed any kind of authority, no matter how small he would target women for not much apparent reason. I saw the same with my father when dealing with mental illness and not trusting my mom at the time, a mistrust and aggression towards women with the very apparent mental decline of Trump. I think this could be a slightly overlooked symptom of his failing mental capacity.

This is purely anecdotal. And as I just said, we don't do broad conclusions from anecdotes. But my grandmother also became extremely suspicious and paranoid. Now, grandmother, she was a woman of other women around her. And I don't have to go into anecdotes, but it's it's a similar anecdote as to what the Trellioff is saying now, as far as if and how it applies to Trump. We really just don't know. OK, soot.

Bill Austin says my 20 something kids are so disgusted with Joe Biden that they came right out and told me they are sitting out voting. They voted Biden 2020 as a vote against Trump. But after not doing anything to protect women's right, the unconditional support of Israel and no progressive policies they have had, they have just had enough. This is frightening. And frankly, Joe should have stepped aside a long time ago and let others run in twenty twenty four. You know, I don't have any emotional attachment to the Biden presidency, but the truth is, if I just say let's look at the list of things Biden has

done. I don't know that I remember a more progressive presidency than Joe Biden's. Then maybe FDR and even FDR, there were criticisms of the New Deal as being too supportive of corporations. Certainly Joe Biden is on paper by his actions, the most progressive president of my lifetime. And I've done the list before on changes to Obamacare and drug prices, student loan debt forgiveness, requesting the rescheduling of cannabis to be no longer schedule one chips and science act, inflation reduction act, infrastructure bill. You know, I can't do this every time, right? Like I've given the list so many times we'll do another big segment on it in the next few months. But I just don't get when people say stuff like this because I don't know that in my lifetime for sure we've seen a more progressive president

based on actions than Joe Biden. Doesn't mean you have to vote for him, but don't vote for him for a reason that is based in fact, rather than these recycled talking points that go nowhere. Playing life on easy, says Trump spoke at a non union shop while the workers were on strike down the road. Biden stood in line with the union members. Yeah, I didn't even mention this just moments ago. Biden's the most pro union president I can from all the research we've done that we've ever had ever.

He has a long track record of supporting unions. No president has ever stood in an active picket line with striking workers. And Trump hates unions. It's the opposite. So appreciate the reminder. The difference could not be more stark. Stopping to look, says Nikki is only 10 points behind. This is only the second second state referring to New Hampshire. She'll stay in until 45 trial ends. So she'll be available if and when forty five is convicted. You know, I understand the instinct to assume that Nikki Haley's play is to stick around. If Trump whatever. Right. It's a fill in the blank.

If Trump's not alive, if Trump is in prison, if Trump is convicted and voters don't want to vote for him, I understand the instinct. At the same time, we are not going to have verdicts for many of Trump trials for at least months. I don't think that unless she starts really winning a bunch of primaries, I don't think she's going to raise any money once it becomes clear that she's not winning. And I don't think she can stick it out till what the

convention unless she starts winning. So I don't I don't think I agree there. Mr. Flexington on Tick Tock says, sir, with tears in my eyes, if Mr. Trump wins in November, will you be relocating to produce your show since Mr. Trump will be targeting left wing media outlets? You know, couple of things on this. I understand the question. Number one, I think my show is far too small to be targeted by Trump, although anecdotally we have reason to believe that someone relatively close to Trump in his circle watches the show. We now have a bunch of instances where we have reason to believe that. I think this is just too small potatoes for Trump to target me. In addition, a lot of the stuff Trump wants to do, I think in blue states, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, California,

I think we're protected to some degree in a lot of those states. So, no, if Trump wins, I do not have plans to move. Now, speaking of Trump winning or Biden winning, here's a post from Sinker on the subreddit who says we're all crazy. And Biden has no shot. Here's what he says. There is absolutely no way Joe Biden wins this election. Are you out of your minds? When does David address this? Listen, hit me all you want. Joe Biden has zero zero paths to victory. This is a guy who won by 40000 votes in the swing states he's losing massively.

Since the win, he's lost historic levels of black and brown support. He's now managed to lose on youth voters to Trump youth by four. He was polling roughly 15 points higher and not losing in one major poll when he squeaked out that win. Are we still doing it's too early or the polls are wrong? Because not only do I not see how he wins, I'm borderline starting to wonder if he holds the popular vote. This is a suicide mission. I'm not a huge jank guy, but he's 100 percent right. Joe Biden is handing our country, our democracy and our sanity to Donald Trump. The cowardice of those allowing it, allowing it to happen is stunning, like it's stunning

to watch. But the complicity of people, particularly on the progressive side, to continue to pretend like the iceberg isn't straight ahead is depressing. David, if you're checking the boards, what is the timetable for full on panic? Because I've been panicking for six months, but you've seemed to be pretty cavalier about it. So when is the date when we finally say we're in enormous trouble? Winning in the midterms or in November wasn't because of Biden. It was in spite of him. Joe Biden is a selfish, selfish man. He's not a good man. He's not empathetic. He simply wants to stay in power. Disgusting. You know, one of the things that seems very inaccurate about Biden is that he is

thirsty for power and desperate to stay in power. I think Joe Biden believes, given where we are now, given the incumbency that he has, given the state of the economy, I believe Joe Biden believes he's the best shot for Democrats to win. Do I think that it might have been better to have someone else from the start? Sure. I wouldn't choose if you say, David, let's pick someone to represent the Democratic Party for the next eight years. I don't go with the guy, David, let's pick someone to represent the Democratic Party for the next eight years. I don't go with the guy who's nearly 80 at the time.

Right. But given the record, which is good, I don't care what you saw at this. You know, on the corner, what we look at is the data. The economy is good. Biden has, quite frankly, a stunning number of accomplishments. And I just see it differently. If we think about it a different way, look at what Trump had in 2020 and look at all of the hits he's taken since. I don't see how Trump wins in a sane country.

Now, this isn't the same country. So I'm not saying Trump can't win. But again, I don't see the reason for this level of panic right now. A bog holder asked me, David, when will you be appearing on Patrick Bet David's podcast again? His audience needs to see you see more of you debating him. I am. They kind of left it open and said, David, if you're in South Florida, come by. I was in South Florida a month ago, but I had things to do, family stuff going on. It was a vacation, so I didn't go. But I'm interested in going back on. I think it was a fun conversation, if not the most productive

conversation necessarily. And I would love to do it again. Get your comments in info at David Pakman dot com. We'll do more of these next week. Bonus show is coming up. Make sure you're subscribed at join Pacman dot com. Otherwise, we'll see you next week.