The David Pakman Show - 3/15/24: TikTok debate goes wrong on Fox, Tulsi BEGS to be Trump's VP

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Republican Senator Rand Paul stuns Fox News host Brian Kilmeade during an interview about TikTok, with Paul accusing Kilmeade of "defaming" TikTok -- A pathetic former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is borderline begging to be Donald Trump's 2024 Vice Presidential running mate during an interview with Donald Trump Jr -- Caller compares filing taxes in America versus other countries -- Caller isn't voting for Joe Biden over Israel/Gaza -- Caller has three questions for David about Israel/Gaza -- Caller argues it doesn't make sense for progressives to vote third party in 2024 -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Trump Georgia prosecution can continue, Kristi Noem promotes a dentist, Candace Owens bets career on Macron's wife being trans, and much more... 🥂 ZBiotics: Use code PAKMAN for 15% OFF at https://sponsr.is/zbiotics_pakman_0324 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.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

Speaker 1 Welcome, everybody. The debate over banning TikTok or forcing its sale by ByteDance, its Chinese parent company, is generating some bizarre political bedfellows and also bizarre political opponents. None stranger, I think, than Republican Senator Rand Paul being interviewed by Fox News host Brian Kilmeade of Fox and Friends. During the interview, Rand Paul accuses Brian Kilmeade of defaming TikTok, an allegation that is so bizarre that Brian Kilmeade looks visibly confused. There is much to talk about. We've been talking on the bonus show

about the potential of a tick tock sale. Let's look at a little bit of this exchange and then talk about some of the most important questions that exist here. They've offered and actually have transferred most of their data to Texas, to an Oracle cloud, which they have review of the data by Oracle to make sure it's being controlled here. And to set this up, Rand Paul mostly defending tick tock. Brian Kilmeade, the one who is less thrilled with the defenses. There are not to what's called CFIUS. CFIUS is a procedure where foreign owned government countries are trying to work to have American

boards. They've also. This is this is the government. This is the fundamental. I know about the Texas project and I wish it was effective but it isn't we put a billion dollars into it or they did but they did he could not but that's your opinion that's your opinion nobody thinks nobody thinks let me finish nobody thinks the Texas project is up and

running and it's a fact you say the. The thing is, when you say nobody believes that it is. Let me just finish. They could not answer. The CEO would not assure that Beijing would not have access to personal information for 170 million Americans. I don't think that's true. And their news feed, which is number one with young people, it is true. But even if it were true, number one with young people it's now brian it's an allegation you are making allegations against a company owned by americans and you

have to prove it in court who owns that company who owns that company by chance by chance is owned yes by 60s no it's not see that's a lie and you're defaming the country you're defaming the company 60 percent of it is owned by international investors 20 is owned by the software developers who are chinese and 20 is owned by the employees 7 000 of whom are americans who controls the algorithm but it's not owned by the government profits who owns the algorithm the tick tock owns their own algorithm and it's actually not in china bite ByteDance by the Chinese government. No they don't.

So you've just told a lie. Brian, you can't say on TV something that's a lie about a company that is an out and out lie and it's proven what is a lie and you're they're not owned by the Chinese government. Tick tock is owned privately 60 percent by international investors, by one percent. The algorithm that's all that matters. You know, on this particular point, I lean towards what Brian Kilmeade really is saying in the sense that, you know, I think there's a good analogy here with Reddit. Reddit now is going public and Reddit has offered apparently it's 75000 people the opportunity to participate

in the IPO. I was offered that. I don't know what algorithm or because we have a large subreddit. I'm getting emails saying, David, you're one of the 75000 people who can invest in Reddit if you want. If I do that and a bunch of people do that, I don't know that it would mean that we own Reddit operationally if Reddit's algorithm is still what is controlling the content that is shown. I don't know that Rand Paul's argument that it's 60 percent owned by investors. Yeah, OK, shareholders. But I just

don't know that that really flies. But there's really a bigger thing here, I think. And call me crazy. This is not something I usually say on the show, but I am sort of partial to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's view on this, which is we really should, as a matter of policy, have rules with regard to information, privacy, sharing and storage that the United States has for anybody that wants to operate here. And they should apply to everybody. And that includes Tick Tock. I'm not big on saying ban Tick Tock, especially when, by the way.

It's possible I'm still thinking through this. It's possible that all of a sudden the reason so many Republicans are looking at banning Tick Tock is because they realize it may be a useful tool for organizing against Donald Trump and in favor of Joe Biden. Now I'm not convinced of that. And part of that is there's lots of anti Biden content on Tick Tock as well related to the Israeli Hamas war. So it's not even obvious to me that TikTok is a net benefit for Joe Biden.

It might be in the sense that lots of young people are on there. I don't know. But I am very skeptical of the motives of Republicans when it comes to this. And I think that the the Maxwell Frost AOC perspective on this is probably the one I'm most partial to. Now, here's another just short moment from this interview. Well, Fox News, I don't know, maybe you have some foreign owners. I don't know if everybody's an American citizen.

And then what if they say, well, Fox News is giving misinformation on the election. I love the what if that's exactly what Fox News is doing. But it's funny to hear it couched as a hypothetical. You have a foreign ownership. You have misinformation, according to the government. And all of a sudden they say, well, we're going to shut down Fox News or we're going to shut down Twitter. So the bill isn't just about to talk. It mentions Tick Tock by name, which is also a problem because laws are not allowed to target one company. But there is also a danger that it goes beyond

that. Yeah. So listen, I am not a Rand Paul fan. I actually am quite, quite the opposite. And so the right wing arguments against Tick Tock's ban are not super compelling to me. But the left wing arguments against the ban are certainly more interesting to me. And I say that as someone who has absolutely zero empathy or interest in any way in emulating, supporting or minimizing the downsides of the authoritarian rule that we have seen in China. I'm not a fan. Everybody here knows that. I don't think an outright ban is the path forward. And my hope is my hope is that an alternative solution will be found. Now, you might say, well, David, you published a tick tock. So you have an interest in this. OK. I mean, I think if tick tock just goes away and none of us

are publishing to it anymore, we'll publish somewhere else and people will move to I.G. reels and Facebook reels or whatever. There will be a realignment. Everybody will adjust. It's really not a factor, in my opinion. I want to hear from you. Are you in favor of a tick tock ban or not? Are you in favor of forced divestment by ByteDance or not? If you want to see what brazen self-centered pandering looks like, I have the video for you. It's not a video of Marjorie Taylor Greene, if that's what you were expecting. It's a video of former Democratic congresswoman and now explosive Trump suck up Tulsi Gabbard, begging, just begging Donald Trump Jr. that she really wants to be Trump's VP. It would be an honor or something like that. Remember when there were some people on the left who completely fell for Tulsi and said

this is the last real liberal. She's the only one who wants to get out of the endless wars. The only one nobody else wants to get us out of wars. Well, I'm glad I didn't fall for it. And I know many in my audience didn't either. Take a look at this pathetic pandering. It's all I'm almost getting the chills from how cringy this is. Now, listen, I think that's an interesting point. I think you're probably changing people's minds in real time. I'm just following the chat along. And a lot of people are saying, you know,

I really like her, but can I trust her again? And again, it's only because of the bifurcated nature of politics these days. I mean, my first political fundraiser ever was for Andrew Cuomo because I was a real estate developer from New York City. And the attorney general literally signs off on every offering plan that you do. If you're going to sell a building, the attorney general signs off on it. That's what he was running for. So. So by the way, this is this is already interesting. This is Don Jr. saying that his family's support of Democrats for like his dad's entire life was just political opportunism and and expediency, which may well be true to a degree. But it's certainly a convenient retrospective explanation that doesn't really explain like

you could support Andrew Cuomo because they approve building permits or whatever without Trump having to be pro choice for 68 years before he suddenly becomes anti choice to run for president. So it's a very interesting little story that Don Jr. has concocted. It's not a particularly believable one. But let's get to the main topic here, which is tool sees vice presidential aspirations. Did that. And I understand, you know, as a lifetime conservative, you can change those responses. But, you know, what's your response to that? If you get a call about vice president, something I've also seen a bunch here and and actually for the last few weeks, How are you responding to that call?

I'd be I'd be honored. I'd be honored to serve my country in that way. I'd be honored to actually be in a position to help President Trump execute his policies, bringing bringing the experience that I the last real liberal folks. She would be honored to help Trump execute his policies. She speaks at anti-vax. Did she speak at CPAC? She recently spoke at Mar-a-Lago. This this is really the left now. Give me a break. Have had of being on the front lines of many of these battles and actually understanding what we're up against. And so whether you're talking about securing the border, reducing inflation, improving our economy, stopping these Democrats and establishment Republicans, stopping these warmongers from continuing to push us closer and closer to war, not just in one country, but in multiple regions across the world.

These are things if I had the opportunity and privilege of being able to serve and support President Trump and actually executing these executing these policies, I'd be honored to do so painful, painful. And by the way, I noticed that Don Junior's eyes are almost completely, completely swollen shot during the entire interview. I'm going to reserve judgment and opinion about that. I know in the comments, a lot of people noticing that. Listen, I welcome. So we talk about deprogramming. OK, tool C followers were basically in a cult

back in whatever year that was. I've had six or seven people in my audience write to me and say, David, you know what? You were right. I fell for it. I got sucked into the cult of Tulsi. There's nothing progressive about her. She is an opportunist. She is a reactionary. God, I don't know what the hell she is. Some people saying I'm really glad that you didn't fall into it. I'm now out of it. I think that that's an incredibly mature and adult way to react. And so to those six or seven people, you're welcome back here any time. And you are part of the movement. You figured it out. OK, we've got to create an environment where people are willing to say, hey, I got duped. Not everybody has realized that. But boy, oh boy, hard to find folks that were duped more vigorously than the tool.

See, folks, she would be honored to be Trump's VP. Four years ago, you had people on the left saying this is the only true leftist here. Shocking stuff. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. start to get up there in the years like me. Check out our sponsor Z Biotics, which is a probiotic drink created by Ph.D. microbiologists. Z Biotics breaks down the byproduct of alcohol, which is responsible for some of those feelings the day after. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. This byproduct, not dehydration, is to blame for how you feel the next

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Let's hear from some folks in the audience. We do this on The Friday Show and we do it via discord. You can find our discord at David Pakman dot com slash discord. We will start with Alex from Baltimore. Alex, what's going on today? What's on your mind? Tell me. Alex from Baltimore, please accept my invitation. What's on your mind? Tell me. Alex from Baltimore, please accept my invitation. What's on your mind? What's going on? And last chance for Alex from Baltimore. All right. Let's go instead to Dylan. Dylan from Tijuana. It's been a while, but you're back. What's on your mind today? Thank you for taking my call. It's good to hear your voice again. Absolutely. Yes. You know, the last time that I waited in your lobby, I actually completed

my Mexican taxes. They're that easy. Is that right? Because the government tells you what you owe and you pay. It's really easy. And if you think there's a mistake, there is a there is a process for that. If you want to say, hey, you you're you're inaccurate. Now let me ask about that. If it's so streamlined, why would you owe anything in the sense of couldn't your withholdings

be tailored such that you pay the exact right amount and there's no owing or refund? Well, well, at least my particular situation with with us, the end, I am kind of in a self employment kind of got kind of deal officially. So I do have to declare. But it's pretty fair and pretty easy. I mean, I make money and I have to give a little bit to the government. It's an obligation of everybody. So my main question is I have to send about,

because I'm a dual national with Mexico and the U.S., I have to send about 200 pages electronically to the IRS and hire this service that specializes in these use cases. Why does the U.S. have to suffer with this incredible, incredibly complex system of of just stacks and stacks and stacks and stacks of paperwork? Well, there's a couple of different things. And so, first of all, in general, the U.S. makes it really hard to leave the country and to stop paying taxes. Now I know that that's not what you're trying to do. You're acknowledging I'm a dual citizen and so on and so forth.

But why is it so complicated? There's a couple of different things going on. Number one, there is in no particular order the movements that say we need a simpler tax system. We and often they are flat tax type systems. They are disproportionately good, usually for the wealthiest Americans. And so one of the reasons we have a more complicated system is that absent such a flat tax system, there are really complex mechanisms and loopholes that by being complex are primarily available to the super wealthy who are able, willing and interested in paying

massive amounts to have their taxes prepared. And so you can hide one way to make it great for the wealthy is to say, let's do away with a progressive tax system, put in place a flat tax period. Absent that, which they have not been able to do, you can do the opposite, which is insanely complicated. And then you can bury all sorts of ways that allow Warren Buffett to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary, famously so. But let me also tell you another aspect of this in general. The companies that offer tax prep services, so H&R Block, TurboTax, which does the software,

et cetera, they are incentivized to make tax filing as complicated as possible. And the big accounting firms as well, because the simpler it is to file your taxes, the less likely you are to hire them for one hundred and fifty or two hundred and fifty or for more complicated taxes in certain situations, thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. So part of keeping things complicated is tax preparers have long been lobbying for that. Yeah. And so.

As somebody who makes much, much, much, much less than one percent of what Warren Buffett does, would you be in favor of would you be in favor of a simplified tax portal like we have here in Mexico or in many, many other countries to to at least for the people who have just a simple W-2? I work for an employer, don't have any other income. Would you be would you be in favor of such a portal for somebody just to again? Well, not only am I in favor of it, it already exists and tons of people don't realize this. I forget what the income limit is, but if you make under I think at one point it was 60 something thousand dollars, which includes a huge percentage of the country.

You actually can file for free. And the tax prepare software also allows you to file for free through them. Now, your state may charge you no matter what. And there may be filing fees, but the federal filing is actually free under a certain dollar amount. It already exists. I would want to see it expanded. A lot of people don't even know that that's a thing.

Yeah. Yeah. And I remember famously into it, exited the IRS free file program this year. Well, there you go. All right. Dylan, I appreciate hearing from you. Thank you. I appreciate you taking my call.

Thanks a lot. All right. There he goes. Let's go next to Oliver from New York City, who I think is saying you, Oliver, you will not be voting for Biden. Is that right? Correct. OK, Oliver, you will not be voting for Biden. Is that right? Correct. OK, who are you going to vote for? I'm going to go third party. And I like Jill Stein. I briefly read her website and, you know, the things that she's proposing.

Just generally, I think I've just been too highly disappointed with the way politics seems, you know, and a bunch of other things. But I appreciate you taking my call. Just generally not pleased with the Democratic Party at large. I will admit that Biden has done great things. Obama has done great things. That's without stating. But there's great things that that's without stating. But there's just things that I just can't accept anymore. Now I'm curious, do you care about voting for someone?

And I don't mean this in the general sense. I mean, in the literal sense, do you care about voting for someone who even conceivably could become the president? And what I mean by that is, by my memory, the Green Party on which Jill Stein is running only even has ballot access in 16 states and literally could not win. Do you care about that or is it or is it just ideological and signaling for you? It's yeah, it's just it's just my principle. I absolutely know they cannot win. And that's actually related to part of my question. But I'm in New York, so they're not winning. Biden's winning. So Biden's going to win in New York. My vote will cancel out your vote. Think about it that way.

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not I'm not, you know, trying to say everyone needs to do it. But just personally, for my principles, like I just cannot do it anymore. And that actually leads to my part of my question. But just one thing, the way Biden handles Israel, that conflict is just not acceptable to me anymore. And what don't you like about it? I mean, I am not as well versed in politics as you are probably a lot of the people here, but I just can't seem to understand. There's always millions of taxpaying dollars that can go to, we'll say, you know, Caucasian countries. I don't know if you consider Israel, but, you know, they're white. Yeah. So, Oliver, I have to interrupt the idea that Jews are merely white people and thus. No, no, no.

I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. Well, you said you're. Hold on a second, Oliver. You said you're sick of money going to white countries and you consider Israel a white country, right? Right, but that's not that's not the reason why I have an issue with it. But that's I.

But we deal in fact here and I have to deal with that. That has become in vogue on the sort of litmus test left that Jews are white and therefore anti-Semitism. Maybe it's bad, but it's not as bad as other types of racism or maybe it's not racism at all. It's one. Hold on, Oliver. Hold on, Oliver.

I get to speak to I get to speak to. I'm taking this as an opportunity to let my audience know that the entire Jews are white trope is deeply rooted in anti-Semitism and it should really be expunged from the progressive left. That's now that I've given my opinion, Oliver, you can you can continue. I apologize for cutting you off, but yeah, I don't mean I do have Jewish family, so I'm not by any means saying that. And again, having Jewish family or not doesn't change the reality of whether Jews are white by what we mean. And yeah. Oh, well, OK, then I'll have to look up because I it seems like when we say white or Caucasian, it seems like they would fit in that category.

I will further look into why that doesn't apply to them. But that's not even the biggest point. It's just, you know, there's millions of dollars that go to Ukraine and Israel, even though Israel is committing insane atrocities against the Palestinian people. But then you have issues in South America, you have issues in Haiti, where we don't seem to be as hell-bent on helping those people. So there is a huge delineation. Okay, you may say that Jewish people don't cleanly fit into the white category, but it's a huge delineation between the people who are in South America, Africa, Central America and so forth. It's completely different. What's different? The color of the skin? Is this this is you're talking what are you talking about here? Skin color? I mean, OK, for the most part, Oliver, I don't I don't want to it's not a trick question. I'm just talking about are you talking about skin color as the difference in how you feel in terms of

aid going to different countries? Culturally, we I think a lot of people would combine Ukrainian people, Eastern European people and people from Israel. They would, I think, categorize them as being white. If that's not correct, that's fine. Yeah. Well, it's also another reason why it's just kind of a crazy thing to say is that if you consider that Israel has a huge Arab population, they're certainly not white. Israel has. Hold on a second, Oliver. Oliver, please, please. Israel has a huge Arab population. I don't think that we would consider Arab Israelis white, especially if you saw pictures. I mean, it's so silly, but a lot of this is what how people present. Even the Jewish population in Israel is hugely made up of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews who

I can't imagine you would say those are folks who look white. So Oliver, I think I appreciate your perspective. I hear you're voting for Jill Stein. I think that the the confusion and misunderstandings you have about a lot of the basics of what's going on are part of why I'm so concerned about folks who are so confident in saying I'm voting for Jill Stein, lacking a ton of just basic information about things falling into all sorts of different tropes that are repeated ad nauseum. I'm concerned, Oliver, but I'm glad at least that you're voting in New York and Biden will

win easily. Well, I just have a question of my question, but I do I do take your point. And maybe I should not say that they are white or whatever. I kind of just mean they seem to fit in more of a like more subscribe to the Western ideology. That's it. Maybe I need to explore that more. And I'm. Yeah, I mean, what's interesting is that's what we have right now is a situation where there's a wing of the progressive left that loves to say we don't need to worry as much about anti-Semitism because many Jews are white passing and they share our culture and blah, blah, blah.

Whereas the anti-Semitism on the right is based on no, no, no. Jews are very much something else, but they can trick us into thinking that they are white people. So you have these conflicting stories that both lead to these tropes. Anyway, I got to move on. I've got a lot of people waiting, but some very, very concerning stuff happening there. Let's go next to Rodney from St. Louis. Rodney from St. Louis. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Rodney from St. Louis, please accept my invitation to join the program. Rodney from St. Louis, last chance here. Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes.

OK. Yeah, I was calling about Lex Friedman. OK. I was wondering, you're I've watched your interview with him. I don't know, was that last summer? I think it was, yeah. Okay. Lex is a great, smart guy, and I love how he's trying to put more love and peace and stuff out there. When you were talking with him, do you get that he's purposely avoiding trying to criticize the right more because of the group that he might that Joe Rogan kind of crowd he's in?

Or do you know he hasn't learned as much yet? The impression I got about Lex Friedman politically. So you have to remember when that when he interviewed me, it was before he seemed to become friendly with Jared Kushner and Ivanka and like go to basketball games and Christmas dinner or whatever with them. This was before that. So at the time that he interviewed me, he really didn't seem overtly political in the partisan sense. That was the impression that I got.

And it was just it just wasn't his thing to do the overt partisan politics in that way. So I can't speak to what's going on now. I mean, it does seem as though he is running a little more in right wing circles politically. I know that he's friendly with with Kushner and Ivanka, even though honestly, like growing up before Trump became a Republican and all this stuff, my understanding is Kushner and Ivanka and their families also weren't right wingers. So it's all really weird. But I wouldn't be able to say too much because at the time that he interviewed me, he just genuinely seemed curious about my politics. He didn't seem to

have an agenda at that point. Speaker 4 Yeah, it just seems like from not just with your interview, it's just like I saw Richard Wolf on there and lots of different people don't watch them on every time, but occasionally I'll watch him on stuff. Right. And I appreciate how he tries to take logic into the arguments and stuff. Yeah, but it's so I can tell it's the way that he asked questions about, say, a progressive compared to how he would completely ignore something a hundred times worse from something that it's just I don't know if you paid attention to it. I don't watch enough of the content to be able to what you're saying may be accurate

or maybe I would disagree. I just don't watch enough of the content to say. But he really when he interviewed me, I didn't feel like there was an agenda there. Essentially, like if you get the chance to maybe interview him or, you know, come on your show or whatever, I would like somebody to put like ask him some pointed questions yeah what are his politics i think that'd be interesting yeah yeah and kind of because i think there's a massive false equivalence that he kind of he kind of falls into um when he talks about marxism back in the day and stuff it's just the direction that he takes it and it's like he's right on the cusp. And if given the push or the eye opening, maybe

he might be able to open his audience up to. All right. Well, if I have the opportunity to talk with him about it, I will. OK, thank you. All right. Thanks so much for the call. There's Rodney in St. Louis. Let's take the quickest break and then come back and hear from a few more folks. So if you're holding on, just hold on a little bit longer. I'll be right back. Did you know there are hundreds of commercial databases and people search sites that hold your personal information and the number is growing every year? Anyone in the world, the boss and X can use these people search sites to see your online activity, to find your home address, phone number, email address, license plate number, family members, financial info, even your

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Haman from Boston. Welcome to The David Pakman Show. What's going on? I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. You are. Thank you for taking my call, David. Can you hear me OK? Yes, I can.

All right. Thank you so much. So I just had a few questions for you about the Israeli Gaza war, and I wanted to get more clarification on that because I haven't heard you address this on your program. So I'll ask I'll have three questions for you. So first, the first one is, what is your plan or what plan would you think would be the best for getting more aid into Gaza? Since I've heard on the news that there's been a lot of problems with like getting enough

food and a lot of people are like hungry and insecure there because of the war. And then my second question, let's take them one at a time. Can we take them one at a time? Absolutely. So I would say three things on aid. I would say, number one, continued and more pressure on the Netanyahu administration to allow aid in. Number two, look at the possibility of working with Egypt, which has a border with Gaza but

has its own reasons for not wanting to get involved. And number three, look at bringing it in directly from the water on the coast, which the U.S. is now doing. Those would be my three ideas. I see. And then I guess kind of relating to that, would you support like a permanent ceasefire in Gaza right now? I would absolutely support a permanent ceasefire if both sides were willing to do it, as I've said before. And as Bernie has said and Hamas has said, they will continue trying to do the attacks like on October 7th.

So practically, I don't know how you do such a ceasefire, but I would completely support an end to hostilities if both sides were willing and stuck to it. Yes. Gotcha. And my final question was, I'm assuming your answer will be no. So I'm assuming that you don't support a ground invasion of Rafa. Is that correct? No, I don't. OK, gotcha. Thank you so much for answering my questions and taking a little. All right. Haman from Boston, thank you for the call. Let's go next to. Oh, I don't know. How about Kenji from Iowa?

Kenji from Iowa. Welcome to the program. What are you thinking about today? What's on your mind? I had a silly question, but. What do you think would happen if and I'm not even sure if this is just an SEC rule or if it's a law that protects investors? Well, what do you think would happen if they changed the priority of protection to protect

the consumer first? You're saying if which law are you are you talking about the fiduciary responsibility of publicly traded companies? Exactly. So, oh, what do you think would happen if they changed it so that they would instead protect consumers first? So I think it would be very easy. So I guess, first of all, I don't even know what the

legal basis would be for such a change. It sounds really tough to me. But I think the bigger the one the change that's discussed more often is a responsibility to all stakeholders. And when you say all stakeholders, you include not only shareholders, but also customers, citizens of the planet who would be affected by pollution employees. So I like the stakeholders idea, even though on a legal basis, I don't know how we change any of this stuff. I am not convinced it would necessarily be the way it sounds like, because I think what you would end up with is a lot of companies continuing to prioritize the returns of shareholders, but now getting involved in all sorts of subterfuge and and distortions to explain why what they're

doing is actually great for the consumer, even if it's not. So I I love the idea. I wonder whether it really would actually like would it just open up a black hole of litigation where people argue about what actually is best for the consumer and companies saying, no, this is what's best for the consumer when in reality it's best for the shareholder. I don't know. OK, yeah, I guess I thought about like employees as well, you know, and how the companies are incentivized to, let's say, move up to China. Yeah, because they're looking out for the shareholders.

Right. about planted china yeah because they're looking out for the you know the shareholders right and then and then as a result it's hurting you know consumers yep um or it's hurting the employees as well as hurting people that live in this country and you know so on and so forth well but thank you that's a really good answer and i wanted to ask you one other quick question. Why isn't it like the standard to ask in like town halls and things like that to ask hypothetical hypothetical questions? Because I feel that, you know, those are the questions. I feel like they matter a lot. Speaker 1 It's a cop out. Elected officials and candidates, they don't want to answer hypothetical questions because it's often just downside. You risk turning people off or causing a problem for yourself in the future.

So many elected officials have come up with this. I don't answer hypothetical questions. And it's like you really should. You know, it's some of the most important what some of the best way to figure out what you believe is to answer hypothetical questions. But it's a talking point that they've all fallen into and that is considered acceptable, sadly. Yeah. OK, well, I appreciate you taking my call. All right. Kenji from Iowa.

Great to hear from you. Let's go to Janelle in San Antonio. Janelle in San Antonio. Welcome to the program. What's going on with you? What's on your mind? Hi, David. I'm so glad that you called me. Well, there's a couple of things if if you have a minute. Speaker 1 Well, let's start with the first one and see where we get.

Speaker 5 The first thing that I wanted to say, I hear a lot of the I'm I'm 48, so I'm older, but I hear a lot of the Gen Z younger people saying that they're going to vote third party because of their real upset about what's going on with Israel. And I'm so glad, I'm so happy that the younger generation is thinking globally and that they care about other people. It's beautiful. I love it. But I would really like to plead to them and beg to them. Right now, we're choosing between an authoritarian takeover or keeping democracy.

I'm sorry, but the third-party candidate that you're going to vote for is not going to win. So basically you're wasting your votes. And I'm pleased you all to just go ahead and vote blue and get rid of this authoritarian crap. And then after that, you know, get motivated, get organized and save the Middle East, save the world. That's what I really want. Yeah. And by the way, Janelle, if you care about others and your vote is driven by empathy, consider all of the, you know, seniors whose Social Security and Medicare might be cut

if Trump were to get his way. Now that he's talking about entitlements, women whose autonomy and rights could be taken away, children whose educations will be further eroded if Donald Trump. Right. Think babies who are not going to get the care that if you care about other people, think about the impact that making of taking an action that helps Trump will have on so many people right here in the United States as well. And it's not about just, oh, we only care about people within our borders rather than outside of them. It's listen, I can speak for myself. I care about Palestinians and I care about the Yazidi and I care about those

victimized by the Syrian civil war. And I care about the Rohingya and the Uyghurs and what's happening in Ethiopia. I care about all of it relatively equally. And when I vote for the president of the United States, I'm primarily thinking of, oh, right, those other places have leaders. I'm voting for the president of the United States. What are my options here? What's going to happen here? That's the way I think about it. Speaker 1 Exactly. I couldn't have said it better, David. You are you always have the right words. All right, Janelle, thank you. I appreciate you making the point. OK, so that with that said, I just wanted to let you know, David,

I had talked about how women are going to get together and fight back and everything before well i can tell you for a fact that we are getting together we're banding together we're organizing hundreds i've got hundreds of women with uh in my movement and and it's growing every day. Yeah. And we're all voting blue. OK. All right. Janelle from San Antonio. It's an important statement. I'm glad you made it.

I'm going to move on so I can try to squeeze in a couple more folks here. Why don't we go next to. Oh, I don't know. How about Max Red State voting from Chicago? I'm trying to understand what's going on here. But Max from Chicago, right? Max Chicago. Yeah, you're on the air.

David, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Beautiful. Thank you, David. I've been a longtime listener. I listen to every episode of your show after work for years now, but thank you. My question. So I think, you know, I live in a blue state of Chicago. It goes blue for Biden every year. Illinois. Great. I vote for

Illinois, Chicago, Illinois. Yes. Not as dangerous as everyone says it is on the news. But, you know, I think my question is, how do we help the the red states, especially the swing ones, to go for Biden or blue from our blue states that I think are pretty much locked up in the current environment? It's donating, phone banking and door knocking. If you can get to the state, those are the three things that come to mind and talking to people in those states. If you know people in those states. Gotcha.

Interesting. OK. All right. I think that was my main question, David. I appreciate it very much, sir. All right. Max from Chicago. Glad to have provided a bit of guidance there.

Why don't we go next to Doxie, who's a website member at David Pakman dot com from Seattle, Washington. Doxie, welcome to the program. Hello, David. Thanks for taking my call. Pleasure. I was wondering. So my wife and I have been sucking away a little bit of dough. We got twelve hundred dollars, which is a lot of money for us to give to the Democrats for their success. I was wondering if I could get your coaching on how best to spend that. Do I give it all to Joe or maybe select a couple of Senate races? What's your coaching?

Oh, boy, I am really hesitant to tell people how to spend their money now. This twelve hundred dollars. It's specifically allocated for political donations. It's not money you need or might need for other stuff. Like, do you have a thousand dollar emergency fund? Do you have four to six months of expenses stored away? Are you contributing towards retirement? All that we're good, OK? No, this is God. So this is not twelve. This is twelve hundred bucks. You definitely don't need for anything else. Well, exactly right. Thank you.

Got it. Got it. OK, here's I would be as tactical as possible. The reality is that right now Biden's got about one hundred million dollars more than Trump. So just to be like I'm not saying don't people shouldn't donate to Biden. Obviously, if everybody stopped, then Biden would have no money. And unfortunately, a lot of these elections depend on money right now.

But because Biden has such a money premium over Trump, I think a better way to get involved with the Biden campaign is phone banking and door knocking and and looking at that. I would be waiting a little bit until all of the Senate races kind of shake themselves out and we know exactly what are the elections likely to be the closest on which control of the Senate could hinge. Or you could apply the same thing to the House. And then over the summer, I would strategically donate to those. Now, how you split it up is up to you. But Biden's money lead is so

big that it's conceivable if it were me and I don't I don't make political donations. I've said this many times. My activism is the show. I have way more reach with what I do on the show than what I would by throwing some bucks at candidates. The way I would be thinking about it is what are the close races likely to make a difference that I could get involved in and could be Senate, could be House. I would think about it that way. Good, good info. Thank you, David. All right. Doxy from Seattle, Washington. Great to hear from you. And let's go to C.K. from California. C.K. from California. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today?

And you've self muted. You must unmute yourself. Speaker 4 Hi, David. Can you hear me? Speaker 1 Yes, I can. Speaker 4 Hi. So, yeah, I've been just thinking about, you know, the tendency of Trump to capitalize random letters and words in his famous tweets.

And yes, true. And i was just thinking sorry excuse me i was thinking about uh how he does that and uh in my history class we were looking at some old documents like um the colonial times like uh the declaration of independence etc and so forth and you know we we see in those kind of documents from the 17th, 18th centuries, where people capitalize, you know, just random letters sort of to give value to certain words in those documents. I was thinking if maybe, you know, Trump, does he have some sort of thought process that maybe he's right, representing or, you know, imitating such figures. As a known student of literature, Trump may be mimicking a practice from years ago.

Yeah. No, let me listen. I think you may be right that he's just trying to give emphasis. I don't think he's really done too much reading of the literature you're referring to, but maybe it's as simple as he wants to emphasize words by randomly capitalizing on. That could be it. Yeah, I mean, it's just it's such a funny, you know, thing that we've noticed with particularly Trump's post whenever he posts on Pro Central. Listen, it's as good of an assessment as anything else. Yeah. No.

All right, CK, CK from California, I'll continue looking into that and maybe we'll someday get an answer. Appreciate everybody who called in. Let's take a very quick break and then we will be back with oh so much more on The Friday Show. Taking care of your health isn't always easy, but it really should be simple, simple. That's why for years now I've been drinking AG1 every day. It's just one scoop mixed with water once a day, and it gives me the foundational nutritional elements I want for the whole day. Each serving of AG1 gives me what I want in terms of vitamins, minerals and more. It's just a simple habit. I know that with AG1, I'm getting high quality nutrition. The ingredients are sourced David Pakman dot com slash Pacman. That's drink a G the number one dot com slash Pacman for free vitamin D3 and K2 and five

free travel packs of a G1. The link is in the podcast notes. Let's get to Friday feedback, also known as the Friday feed bag. You can have your emails featured if they're worthy of featuring by emailing info at David Pakman dot com. Sometimes we'll include a YouTube comment or Twitter reply. Who knows? We start today with a YouTube comment.

Indeed. And E-Money Izarasen says, I think Pacman is really underestimating how unhappy people truly are with Biden. I live in a liberal bubble of Michigan and the backlash from the war in Gaza cannot be understated. It's not just a temporary state of dissatisfaction. A lot of lifelong Democrats, university professors, for example, have vowed not to vote for Biden. It'll be interesting to see if it stays this way, but there needs to be a real discussion around what the uncommitted votes could foreshadow come November. Yeah, listen, I'm taking this seriously. I know the White House is taking it seriously because I was there last

week. This is one of the things I talked to the vice president, Kamala Harris, about everybody's taking it seriously. There are a couple points to this, but at the end of the day, people are entitled to be upset about whatever they're upset about. Everyone gets to decide to vote or not to vote for or against whomever they want for whatever reason matters to them. This is this is democracy. OK. I am going to tell you my moral compass. I'm not going to take any action that makes it more likely Trump gets four more years and then creates these migrant deportation camps that he's promised and tries to shut down media outlets he doesn't like. And according to what Victor Orban says,

he told him doesn't give another penny to Ukraine. And he's told us what he's going to do. I couldn't live with myself acting in a way that helps Trump that could be staying home, that could be voting third party, that could be voting for Trump. I'm not going to do any of those things. I think Joe Biden overall has been a good president. And so I'm going to vote for Biden because that's the best possible outcome in November. If you're comfortable helping Trump win and having Trump come in and say to Israel, destroy Gaza. I don't care. Right. If you're comfortable with that, if you can live with yourself, then go ahead and stay home or toy around with third party candidates. Do whatever you want. OK, I'm not going to do it because I have such moral

clarity that I couldn't live with myself. Annoyed Dragon wrote in and said the decline of births might be due to the cost of having children, everything from the medical cost of pregnancy to feeding, clothing, paying for daycare, putting them through school, then college. I would have had five kids instead of one if it weren't so costly and we didn't have to work full time to essentially live paycheck to paycheck. Yet, you know, this it is obviously true that there are individuals who would have more kids were it not for the cost.

But what this caller with this person is referring to is my comments about the declining birth rate. The phenomenon of a declining birth rate mirrors itself as countries develop all over the world as infant mortality goes down, as longevity goes up, as countries develop, their birth rate goes down. So it is absolutely the case that individuals are making decisions to forego additional children because of cost. But we're seeing this everywhere. We're starting to see it in Africa. We've seen it in Asian countries as they have developed. It's happening in the United States, Western Europe. This is it's been long written about. And and the reality is that when countries develop and GDP goes up, the birth rate goes down and it is about much more than it's just expensive to have more

kids can be a factor for individuals, however. Let's see here. Mr. Hipster on Reddit said, David, sir, I have a question for you regarding your last video of Luke interviewing the Trump sheeple. Why don't you have Luke ask someone like the first woman interviewed? How much do you make a year and what's your total net worth as soon as they start getting belligerent? I believe that's the only way to startle them out of their frenzy and will start to plant the seed of what politics is really about in their small, defective brains. Imagine this lady in her NPC monologue about the media and dictator Trump just being asked, how much do you make a year and why do you think the Republican Party has the interests of your income bracket in mind?

And in her confusion, just asking, are you someone who lives paycheck to paycheck and will rely on Social Security and Medicaid and old age? Or do you own millions of dollars worth of assets that will float you through a cushy life? Food for thought. I pass this along to Luke because I think it's a fascinating idea. Now, not everybody likes being asked about how much money they make or how much money they have. But I think if for no other reason than to see who has been bamboozled into supporting this wealthy guy who couldn't care less about them, who had what what incomes do these folks have? I think it would be an interesting question to Luke. And if safe to ask, it would be a great thing to see him do. C.O.S. Joel Truckee says you absolutely think like a lawyer in a positive way, and that should maybe be your next children's book, possibly best geared towards preteens.

It's actually pretty rare to be able to break down the pros and cons of several nuanced, contradicting perspectives. I've noticed my 31 year old son has a difficult time doing it and gets stuck with what I call a lack of intellectual empathy. OK, so that is a great idea for a book. It is not going to be the next book. The next book is going to be think like a voter because it's an election year. I thought the logical next iteration of the kids critical thinking series would be think

like a voter where we will lay out the basics of what it means to vote, how elections work. It's a sort of children's book version of that. Oh, when I was a bill up on Capitol Hill song, you know, that song, the cartoon. Anyway, the new book will be out soon. I think it'll be great. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you more about it. Sylvia says, why aren't the people speaking at CPAC considered homegrown terrorists like Steve Bannon? They are openly discussing overthrowing your government. I don't get it. Yeah. Different standards. You know, there was insurrection talk at CPAC. There were people saying we really got to end democracy.

That guy, Jack Posaviak and others. But it just doesn't get the coverage that it should. These folks are directly hostile to the foundations of democracy that this country was built on. They want to see them taken away as long as it's convenient for them. But they love to say that it is the other side that is destroying our country. And it's brown people from Mexico and Marxists and communists and fascists, despite them not having any idea what any of those terms mean. It is a version of homegrown terrorism. It's certainly stochastic terrorism, that's for sure. We got some surprising messages

about people who are against books. The other day I did a segment based on how almost more than half of Americans don't read at all and how we lack a culture of reading, which I think would be good. And I figured this was like the least controversial thing I could say. Dozens of people wrote in saying, David, books are bad. I don't like books. You're an elitist for talking about reading books. Here's an example. Brand Joe's now or Brand Joe Snow commented on YouTube. Any book aside from nonfiction is just a manipulation by the author to sell the book. There's no other reason. Sorry, dude. There's no subject an author can bring up that hasn't already been said or can be stated succinctly in a few sentences.

The only text worth reading is factual nonfiction. Everything else is just to make you feel better. It's fluff. I will not and have never bought or read a fictional book in my 50 years. I don't need 300 pages to explain something that could be delivered in one sentence of ethical or moral value. Books are irrelevant, but reading is very important and you don't need someone else's view of life to determine your own. If it didn't factually happen, I really don't want to know. You know, unfortunately for Brand Joe, we have so much data about that, how those who read fiction are more creative, more empathetic, better able to make connections between unrelated subject matter in a complex way. They are able to think hypothetically in a way that those who don't read are not.

This is. This is so, so damn sad to see some. They are proud that they haven't read a fiction book in their 50 years on this planet. I don't even know what to say. Really a sad commentary about the state of thinking in this country. I mean, it's just that's one of the most depressing messages I have ever gotten. And I know I get messages about you Jew bastard and anti-Semitic stuff proudly saying reading is worthless, reading, not reading fiction is worthless. Dear God, we are really screwed as a country that that really bums me out.

Horrible, horrible stuff. Ashram wrote in and said, to be honest, the dementia is the least of my problems with Trump. Like if Trump was 40, I still wouldn't vote for him because of his extreme narcissism. It's ridiculous to have a guy like him lead a country which involves doing good things for other people. Yeah, you're completely right, which is it seems as though Trump's brain is melting. But also, even if it weren't, there are so many other reasons not to

vote for the guy. I hope that people understand that when they go out to vote in November. And lastly, dead OC Mike says Biden's accomplishments. L.O.L. Yeah. You know, the people who insist Biden has accomplished nothing, never actually react to the list of dozens of accomplishments I've given. They don't show up and go, actually, the Chips and Science Act and Inflation Reduction Act and the insulin price cap and paying off student loan for giving student loans. Right. I give the list of 30 things. They never address it.

They just go, oh, Biden's accomplishments. L.O.L. Your comment has about as much thought in it as I need to put into responding to you. So I'll just leave it there. Info at David Pakman dot com. Make sure you're signed up at join Pakman dot com so that you'll get instant access to today's bonus show, which will be a good one.