The David Pakman Show - 3/21/24: Biden crimes witness collapses, Haley donors switching to Biden

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Austin Frerick, antitrust and agriculture experts at Yale University and author of the book "Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food," joins David to discuss monopoly power in the food industry, the truth about food regulation, and much more. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3Psi85a -- Tony Bobulinski, the supposed bombshell "Biden crimes" witness, collapses under basic questioning from Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -- Republicans have finally found the proof that President Joe Biden has a bank account, and sometimes deposits checks -- Yet another psychiatrist, Dr. Lance Dodes, says that the evidence of Donald Trump's dementia is "overwhelming" -- Alina Habba, Donald Trump's on-again-off-again lawyer, won't deny on Fox News that Trump might ask Saudi Arabia or Russia for money for his bond -- Failed former President Donald Trump received a lower share of the Republican primary vote in Florida in 2024 than 2020, a number that could spell trouble for Trump in November -- Many prominent Nikki Haley donors are switching to President Joe Biden rather than Donald Trump -- The newest children's book by David is out, Think Like a Voter. Get the book at http://www.davidpakman.com/book -- Voicemail caller asks about reading physical books versus digital and e-books -- On the Bonus Show: North Dakota ballot question could be test case for political age limit, California voters narrowly approve Newson's mental health bond, Alabama Governor signs bill banning DEI programs, 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 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David 🌳 MyHeritage: Try it free for 14 days at https://davidpakman.com/myheritage -- 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

. Republicans did it. They held hearings about the supposed Biden crimes that completely backfired on them and only reinforced our existing belief that Joe Biden has committed no crimes, certainly no crimes that Republicans can identify. You have to see the video I have for you today. And we're really going to use this to get to what hopefully will be the end game of this endless circle of Biden crimes so we can move on to something more substantive.

And by we, I mean the Republican Party. Is the Republican Party going to be willing to say, all right, listen, it didn't work. Biden didn't commit any crimes, at least not that we can identify. And it is time to move on. Let's start with the first clip. Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was questioning Tony Bob Alinsky. Now if you recognize the name Tony Bob Alinsky, it may be because he was touted on Fox News and elsewhere about a year ago, maybe eight months, maybe 14 months, something like that. He was touted by

so many in the right wing media and Republicans in the House and Senate as the bombshell blockbuster witness to Biden's endless crimes. Well, he was given an opportunity to enumerate exactly those crimes and he was unable to. Now, I do also want to be upfront with you and tell you that the clip I'm about to play for you, which I see is the total collapse of Bob Alinsky. This should be the end of Bob Alinsky as any relevant witness to this entire thing. I see this as a disaster for Bob Alinsky. This very same clip. And this is all about, you know, the eye of the beholder.

This very same clip is being circulated in right wing media circles as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez collapsing and Tony Bob Alinsky proving what a great witness he is to the endless criminality of Joe Biden. I invite you go into it with an open mind and let's see what we make of it. Here we go. I have a quick question. Simple. Is it your testimony today that you personally witnessed President Joe Biden commit a crime? I believe the fact that he was sitting with me while I was putting together a business deal. Did you witness the president commit a crime?

Is it your testimony today? Yes. And what crime do you have you witnessed? How much time do I have to go through it? It is simple. You name the crime. Did you watch him steal something? Corruption statutes, RICO and conspiracy.

What is it? What is the crime, sir? Specifically. You asked me to answer the question. I answered the question. RICO, you're obviously not familiar with. Corruption statutes. Excuse me, sir.

Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, sir. RICO is not a crime. It is a category. What is the crime? It's a category of crimes that you're then charged you have charges along hundreds you have charges sir please name the exact statute under Rico yes well it's funny in this committee room everyone's not here there's over all right sir I reclaim my lawyers that I reclaim my time I reclaim my time you guys thank you sir I reclaim my lawyers. They're lost. I'll leave it up to you guys. Thank you, sir. I reclaim my time. Clearly, what we are seeing here today is a continuation of the 15 month saga of the

Republican majority lost in the desert. Impeachment 101. The majority party or whomever is raising impeachment must accuse the president of a high crime, a specific high crime or misdemeanor. I would like to submit to the record H. Res nine one eight, the House resolution to open this impeachment inquiry without objection to order. This resolution does not outline a high crime or misdemeanor. Now, let's go through this in pieces. Who's right? Is it Tony Bobulinski or is it AOC

who are right that Rico is a category and not a crime? AOC is correct. In fact, I recently got a very extensive primer on Rico reading Selwyn Rab's book, Five Families, about the origins or oranges of the Sicilian mafia in the United States and Rico as a category that was created and used in order to try to actually get some of the mob bosses who very often were not directly involved physically in the crimes, but were overseeing them. But Rico is a category and it stands for racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations act. It is not a crime in itself. It was a law enacted in 1970 for organized crime. Trump actually may have violated some laws under Rico statutes and the Rico framework. But there are you have to find the underlying crime. Trump actually may have violated some laws under RICO statutes and the RICO framework. But

there are you have to find the underlying crime. So under RICO, you can be charged with bribery. You can be charged with counterfeiting, gambling offenses, kidnapping, murder, robbery, trafficking, embezzlement, all of these different actual crimes. And so AOC is correct. And when Tony Bobulinski, he sat there for the crimes, he witnessed the crimes. He's sure there were crimes. What crimes? I don't know. Rico AOC is completely correct. Now, Bobulinski also tries to do this thing where he makes AOC tries to make AOC look unreasonable by saying, what, you want me to name a statute with the number? No, AOC is not asking him to say, well, under U.S. law, 54 subsection 1804. She's just saying, what's the crime? Is it bribery? Tell me, who did he bribe? Who bribed him? Is it extortion? What was the what was the extortion? Give me the details of it.

Did he traffic drugs? Did he obstruct justice? Did he launder money or commit securities fraud? All things which could be charged under the RICO framework. And Bobulinski can't do it because he doesn't know because there isn't actually evidence of a crime. This isn't the first time that this happened. Remember this viral video? We looked at this. What was this four or five months ago, December? This is Democratic Congressman Joe Neguse doing a very good job of asking Republican Congressman Guy Reschenthaler, what is the crime? And it actually was even worse. Remember this to the core? I think the question I'm asking you, OK, what what is the specific constitutional crime that you're investigating? Well, we're having an inquiry so we can do an investigation

and control the production of witnesses and documents. High crimes, misdemeanors, and bribes. What high crime and misdemeanor are you investigating? Look, once I get time, I will explain what we're looking at and I will make the equivalency of the last impeachment. Okay. So what I'm trying to say, Mr. Reschenthaler, and again, I say this because I served as a prosecutor during the last impeachment of former President Trump. There was a specific high crime that he was impeached for on a bipartisan basis.

13 Republicans agreed. During 2019, when President Trump was impeached, there were two very specific offenses that he was impeached for. And I can't get an answer. I don't think members of the Oversight Committee could get an answer or the Ways and Means Committee or the Judiciary Committee. I don't think there is an answer. There's not. And of course, it's unsurprising because according to even Fox News correspondents, House Republicans have been unable to make any kind of connection to a

constitutional high crime and misdemeanor and President Biden. So I don't I would say this to make the argument. That there is some similarity between and I don't know if this is what you're. All right. So you get it again, Guy Reschenthaler also can't identify a crime at a certain point, folks. If it looks like a duck and it talks like a duck and it sounds like a duck and it smells like a duck and it reproduces like a duck and it eats like a duck, maybe it's a duck. And here the duck is in the absence of any evidence of any single crime, even potentially committed by Joe Biden. Maybe it's because Joe Biden didn't commit any crimes. Now, if you thought

this looked bad for Republicans, just wait until I show you the next thing. Remember Lev Parnas? I interviewed Lev Parnas a couple of weeks ago. Lev was Trump's henchman in Ukraine. Lev is the guy that was sent over to do the quid pro quo. Lev told us everything. And members of the House also wanted to hear from Lev. And yesterday, Lev Parnas testified before the House committee and he made an incredible assertion that should be front page news everywhere. But you're not hearing about it on Fox News. That's for damn sure. Lev Parnas indicated we had Ron Johnson in the Senate. Now, let me explain this to you. What Lev Parnas alleges in the clip we're about to watch is that they were counting on. They knew that whatever sort of propaganda about Ukraine and Biden and whatever they could generate was going to be

repeated by Ron Johnson in the Senate. That was their guy. Here's Congressman Maxwell Frost, a Democrat, asking questions of Lev Parnas. And here is Lev Parnas explaining the whole thing. This is just unbelievable stuff. Or is it? Or is it actually perfectly believable based on what we've seen over the last eight years? Authors of the Republican Burisma report would be your, quote, guy in the Senate to push all the information, end quote. What did you mean by that?

Senator Ron Johnson was our guy in the Senate. He was told to me that when we push the information, he's going to push it in the halls of Congress. So when the media was getting skeptical about pushing disinformation after they've proven it wrong time and time again, the plan was to have a U.S. Senator, Ron Johnson, to push that disinformation even further. Correct, because we had Congressman Nunes already doing it. So Senator Ron Johnson jumped on board. This Congress, both Chairman Coomer and Chairman Jordan, have centered this entire sham impeachment hearing on an FBI tip sheet. This tip sheet made wild claims about bribery that didn't even come close to being backed up.

And in fact, it's all being proved to be one big lie. Mr. Parnas, is the allegation in the FBI tip sheet based on the same fabricated claims that Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani flew you to Ukraine to dig up? Yes. I also want to make it clear that the informant allegedly behind this tip sheet is facing criminal charges for lying about the Biden family and was a known fraud for years before that. So listen, Republicans in these grand hearings that were going to show just how criminal of a person Joe Biden is, had one of their main witnesses testifying from prison. They had testimony completely backfire as they continue to be unable to identify a single actual crime that Joe Biden even may be committed.

It's not even, oh, we don't have the proof. They don't even have a crime that they are able to cogently list. And then, by the way, Lev Parnas testifies that they had a Republican senator they could count on to spread Russian disinformation. This, by the way, is why Lev Parnas was not allowed to testify in that first impeachment hearing of Donald Trump. Think of how damaging this testimony would have been there. And so as Luke Beasley tweeted or put out on X, he put out an excretion on X. Luke said, you know, a sitting U.S. senator pushing Russian disinformation should be a bigger story than what shoes President Biden is wearing. And

yet what Luke is referring to is that yesterday after this hearing, you could turn on Fox News and see them talking about how in order to help Biden not fall down, he's been wearing sneakers sometimes. Wow. What hard hitting journalism as Lev Parnas says we were counting on Ron Johnson to spread Russian disinformation for us. This entire thing has collapsed. These are not serious people and they are people who should pack up their stuff and never be involved in government again. Unfortunately, there are tens of millions of Republicans around the country who love these folks. They want to elect them again. Ron Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, you name them.

There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions or tens of millions in some cases of people who say this is what I want representing me in Congress, in the Senate, in civil civil government. So as Jamie Raskin has now numerous times declared, this is the end of the entire impeachment thing, right? Right. Well, it should be, but it doesn't appear to be. They seem determined to continue after the break. I will show you how all of this was wrapped up in a pathetic little box with a bow on Fox News. It probably won't shock you. Quick break right back after this. you still feel it the next day and it can slow you down, especially when you start to get up there in the years like me. Check out our sponsor Z Biotics, which is a probiotic drink created by PhD microbiologists. Z Biotics breaks down the byproduct of alcohol, which is responsible for

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com slash Pacman. You'll get 60 percent off with the code Pacman. That's I.N.C. O.G.N.I. dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman for 60 percent off. The link is in the podcast notes. mainstream and corporate media programs. It is too bad, but it's not some vague thing we can do nothing about. You can support us. You can sign up at join Pacman dot com. We include a bunch of great perks and extras for our members. And you can use the coupon code Save Democracy 24 to get a discount off of the cost of a membership on today's bonus show. So many interesting stories, including a North Dakota ballot question that could really test whether it would be legal to have an age limit for elected officials and much more. All on today's bonus show. Well, Republicans have finally found it.

They've got the proof. Joe Biden has a bank account and sometimes he deposits checks into the bank account. Now, you might be saying, David, is that a crime? And of course it's not. But that's really all they've been able to prove so far. Maria Bartiromo on Fox News. Bless her heart. She continues to ask people like Jim Jordan and others, what exactly do you have proof of when it comes to what Joe Biden has done? And in the aftermath of yesterday's disastrous hearings on Capitol Hill, she asked Jim Jordan, how much money have you identified that went directly to Joe Biden?

They start the segment with a screenshot of a sort of a scan of a check written to Joe Biden on the screen. And again, remember, they say this is their evidence. We've got the checks. We've got the bank records, the movement of money. All this proves is James Biden gave Joe Biden some money reportedly to pay a repay loan that Biden gave his brother. That's all this proves. And they seem to have determined that, yes, indeed, Joe Biden has a bank account. But look at how

vapid Jim Jordan's explanation is. How much money have you been able to identify that has gone directly to Joe Biden? Because I know your colleagues, James Comer, the chairman of Oversight, has told me that you've identified 30 million dollars from foreign characters all over the world. Hilariously, Joe Biden's reportedly worth between eight and 10 million. But just in bribes, he's received 30 million. Pretty compelling stuff, right? And I've sent money to the Biden clan. And I'm trying to understand how much Joe Biden actually got of that.

If he got any of it. Well, there's there's the loan payments. There's the two hundred thousand. There's the four forty thousand dollars that that we can show. They say it's a loan payment, even though there's no documents for it. This this is all stuff that the oversight committee has uncovered. I mean, this is part of the whole strategy here, moving money around all these different companies. Right. And of course, I mean, I at a certain point, we just have to say, hey, you guys are morons. You guys really are morons. I know it's not politically correct. And we have to be polite and say, oh, well, we don't we're concerned that there might be a lack of credible. These at some point are moronic imbeciles. There's no other way to say it. They say $30 million is moving around here

and Biden's getting tens of millions. And what have they identified? They've identified that Biden gave his brother 200,000 and then they've identified that his brother gave him back 40,000 and they say, you know, they claim it's for a loan, but there's no record and there's no contract for that loan. It may be a bad idea. You know, they say don't do business with friends and family. It may be a bad idea, but it's really common that when family members loan each other money, they don't necessarily write up a loan contract. It's if you talk to lawyers, they will say this can get sticky. You probably should have something in writing just so if if it becomes a problem, you can say, hey, look, here's what we agreed to.

OK, here are the terms. But so many family members don't do that. And all they have supposedly there's dozens of crimes and tens of millions of dollars. All they have is a couple hundred thousand bucks moving between Biden and family members. And the red flag, the smoking gun is that if it's a loan, they didn't put together a loan document within their family. They have nothing. They have nothing. Again, this is all damage control because yesterday went so terribly in these House hearings meant to show and prove all of the crimes Biden committed.

Here's another one. Here's Republican Congressman Jason Smith on Fox News saying we actually can't name a single thing that Biden supposedly did for foreign governments in exchange for the money. Listen to this. Kazakhstan is or if it is the Kazakhstan, I apologize. Or the Ukrainians. Listen to this. been very specific about Ukraine. And when you talk about Burisma, you have President Biden, when he was vice president, said that they were going to withhold over a billion dollars unless this prosecutor that was investing investigating Burisma, which is a company that Hunter Biden's paid millions of dollars. So as you can see, he's just going into the

debunked Burisma talking points. The question from Bill Hemmer was a very reasonable question. What exactly did Biden do and for who? Because there's two sides to this, right? There's Biden got money. To create favorable policy for foreign governments or foreign companies. First of all, a lot of these allegations center around a time at which Joe Biden was neither the vice president nor the president. So the timing doesn't even pass the sniff test to a great degree.

Then you have the money side of it, which is Biden was given money by these foreign governments and companies. Do they have proof of that? No. Whenever we ask, they say, well, we need more bank records, we need more stuff. But we do see a couple hundred thousand bucks moving between Joe and Joe and Jim Biden. OK, so on the money side, they have no proof. But then there's the other side. There's the money he supposedly got, which they can't prove was in exchange for what what what policy did Biden change? They also have no answers to that. Jason Smith reverting to,

well, Hunter Biden and Burisma, that stuff's all long been debunked. So they don't really have anything. And maybe the most honest guy right now, this is crazy. Maybe the most honest guy is Newsmax host Rob Finnerty, who said to Jim Jordan, you kind of seem to be chasing your tail. It really doesn't seem like this is going anywhere. And I have to tell you, folks, Rob Finnerty is correct. But Jim Jordan doesn't want to hear his impeachment. The next step. Are you going to hold a vote on the House floor? I know it's up to Mike Johnson, but the margins, Congressman, you lost Kevin McCarthy.

Ken Buck left last week. George Santos was ousted. Unless you get Democratic votes, this is going to be real tough. So it kind of seems like you're chasing your tail at this point because this is not going to go anywhere. Now, Rob Finnerty is saying it's because you don't have Democrats willing to support you. It won't go anywhere. Of course, the reality is there's no evidence. That's why it won't go anywhere. But the question is still a good one. It's not going anywhere. No fair question. And we got to you know, we got a small majority.

Everyone understands that not just on this issue, but on a host of issues. Our job is under the Constitution is to do oversight of the executive branch. We are doing that. We're going to continue to do that. There's no time limit in the Constitution on how long you can do it. And that's probably the key. There's no time limit. It's not going anywhere. We're not going to impeach because we don't have any evidence.

There's going to be no prosecution because there is no evidence. There won't be criminal referrals because we have no crime, but there's no time limit. We can just keep on doing this for as long as we think it'll be advantageous to us. And certainly that means up to and through the election, I would assume. So Rob Finnerty, he's he's taking a strange path to the right conclusion. This is going absolutely nowhere. Yet another psychiatrist says that the evidence of Trump's dementia is, quote, overwhelming. Remember, we spoke to Dr. John Gartner a few weeks ago who says there is a neurological smoking gun here. And now we have yet

another medical expert who says the same thing. This is from Newsweek. There is, quote, overwhelming evidence that Donald Trump is suffering from dementia. A leading psychiatrist claims Dr. Lance Dodes, a supervising analyst, emeritus of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and retired Harvard Medical School professor was among those recently quoted by duty to warm with duty to warn, quote, unlike normal aging characterized by forgetting names or words, Trump repeatedly shows something very different confusion about reality. And this reference is Trump confusing Obama with Joe

Biden. And he goes on. If he were to become president, he would have to immediately be removed from office via the 25th Amendment as dangerously unable to fulfill the responsibilities of office, writes Dodes, who's also a distinguished fellow of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry. In another statement put out at the same time, New York psychologist Suzanne Lockman said Trump would quote seemingly forget how the sentence began and invent something in the middle, resulting in an incomprehensible word salad frequently seen in patients who have dementia. The article also quotes John Gartner, again, who I spoke to a few weeks ago, who says that Trump is showing, quote, unmistakable signs,

strongly suggesting dementia. Jason Miller, senior advisor to the Trump campaign, says it is Biden who's having the problem, saying Joe Biden is clearly suffering from cognitive decline and couldn't answer the first five questions of a cognitive test or any test for that matter. You know, I am not going to weigh in beyond telling you what it is that the medical experts are seeing because they are the medical experts and I am not. But one of the things that I would be bracing for is the narcissistic collapse, for lack of a better term, that is imminent if and when it is determined. Trump just can't afford the bond. He just can't afford it.

He's not going to be able to pay the bond that he may have to mortgage his properties for or they might be seized. It truly seems as though the guy is on the brink of snapping. And one of the things we've been observing casually, colloquially as nonmedical experts is that the decline seems to be happening more and more and more quickly. The frequency, it used to be once a rally and then twice a rally, and then all of a sudden, eight, 10, 12 times a rally. Trump disoriented, saying Biden beat Obama or Nikki Haley was responsible for security on January 6th.

If Monday pans out the way that it might, either with the final determination that Trump can't make bond, possibly with Letitia James starting to seize Trump's properties, I assume that the decline is going to be even faster. And he has months of campaigning to do on top of all this. How is this even remotely viable? How is this even possibly going to work? I don't know. But when you ask the Magapatamians about it, the Magadonians, they say everything's fine. And Biden doesn't know what day it is. You make of it what you will. Alina Haba, Trump's on again,

off again, lawyer refused to deny that in a desperate moment, Trump wouldn't go to Saudi Arabia or to Russia for the money he needs to secure the bond in the civil fraud trial with a deadline, at least of now for now of Monday. Here is Alina Haba. What role does she now have with Trump? She used to be his lawyer. Is she a legal spokesperson? Is she legally representing him anywhere? Is she merely a TV lawyer at this point? God, I don't know. But here is Martha McCallum on Fox News saying, is Trump looking at Saudi Arabia or Russia to get the money he needs? And Alina Haba, rather than saying no, she says, well, I can't speak to strategy right now.

Speaker 1 Is there any effort on the part of your team to secure this money through another country, Saudi Arabia or Russia, as Joy Behar seems to think? Speaker 4 Well, there's rules and regulations that are public. I can't speak about strategy that requires certain things, and we have to follow those rules. Like I said, this is manifest injustice. It is impossible. It's an impossibility. I believe they knew that. I think that's why, mid-trial, frankly, they changed their ask from $250 million to the ridiculous amount of money that they've asked for. I think everything is done intentionally. I do not doubt that the witch hunt, that the election interference goal is what was.

If you're waiting for a no, you're not going to find it in this answer. Ringing steady and loudly and true throughout all these trials, frankly, and we're seeing it. It's the demise of our country, not the demise of Trump. So we'll we'll handle it as we always have and keep our heads up and keep working hard. There you go. Trump potentially going to the Saudis or the Russians for money to pay the bond after defrauding the state of New York endlessly.

That doesn't say anything about Trump, according to Haba. That says more about the demise of the country. Now, the answer that in a normal world we would hear is, of course, Trump is not going to Saudi Arabia or Russia to get the money he needs to make this bond and to keep the appeal going. But we didn't hear that. We heard something very, very different. Here's one more clip in which Alina Haba seems to think or see Trump as some kind of gift, God's gift to architecture and the New York skyline, acting like he is some kind of genius for what he did to the New York skyline.

Tell me a little bit about where you are in this process, because in terms of the appeals happening or the appeals court deciding the appellate division deciding that perhaps they're going to make some modifications to this judgment. Right. Well, our argument in front of the appellate division is that forcing him to sell prized properties such as Trump Tower, iconic properties like 40 Wall Street, to pursue his appeal is manifest injustice. And it deprives him of that due process that we are all entitled to. So imagine you can't reverse selling off Trump Tower on a fire sale at a discounted price. We can't fix that if we win on an appeal. So it's complete injustice. And only

a handful of sureties, as we stated, are approved by the United States Department of Treasury to even underwrite bonds of this size. So of those, even those very limited handful amounts, they're limited to policies with even single bonds up to maybe 100 million. None of them accept hard assets. They require cash or cash, cash equivalents such as. And why do you think that's the case? Marketable securities. The ask of Judge in Gorin is completely ridiculous.

He knew that. Or if he didn't know that, then he should have educated himself on it. But it is intentionally to interfere in the election, to hurt President Trump, to try and ruin his company and ruin a person and a family whose private company, not public company, has made the skyline of New York changed forever and made so many jobs, created jobs. There you go. It's just iconic what Trump was able to do to the New York skyline. By the way, some of the buildings she's talking about, like 40 Wall Street, Trump didn't build

those buildings. Right. Trump is the landlord at this point, but he didn't build those buildings. Listen, this is very quickly going to get very ugly. And of course, it's all woe is me. It's also unfair. Trump's perfect. He's been treated so unfairly.

But the bottom line here is that he simply doesn't have the cash. All of this stuff about there aren't that many companies that are authorized to provide bonds of this size. If Trump simply had the money, if he's really worth six billion and all of the stuff he claims, if he really had the money, if he wasn't already over leveraged on his properties to begin with, he wouldn't need to go and seek a bond in this way. He would simply have the money. He doesn't. And that's what's at the core here. We've already seen so many data breaches in the news just this year. Roku, GitHub, Fujitsu, Nissan, many others. Cyber criminals have more tools at their fingertips than ever before. And one of the easiest, cheapest ways you can secure yourself and your family is using

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you do online. Get private Internet access for 83 percent off, which comes out to just two or three a month, plus four extra months for free. Go to PIA VPN dot com slash David. The link is in the podcast notes. Today we're going to be speaking with Austin Frerich, who's an antitrust and agriculture expert at Yale University and also author of the book Barron's Money, Power and the Corruption of America's Food. This is a super interesting

topic. And I think there's lots of people in my audience, Austin, who have a sense of this, at least as related to a particular industry or maybe generally when it comes to the advent of ultra processed food and how it allows the extraction of more profit from a crop like, for example, corn, where if it's just corn, you very quickly get to the limit of what you can make from corn. You can either grow it more densely or charge more. But an ear of corn is an ear of corn. So you separate it into 40 different products included. So I think people have a sense of that. But in the book, by looking at some of the big agriculture barons, you look at maybe some particular food industries that are less familiar to people. So I'll let you pick where we start. Is there a particular baron and industry

that you think is the least known? The story behind it is the least known to the average food consumer, which is all of us. My favorite little one that shocks people the most is Driscoll's. They're my very baron in the book. So they sell one in three berries, but they don't actually grow a single berry. They contract out production. And this model of agricultural production goes back to sharecropping. It was first used in chicken, then went to pork, and then Driscoll supplied it to berry production. That's interesting. So let's talk that one through. My baby daughter loves berries. And so no matter where we go, you know, we landed in California for a wedding and I have to stop and make sure I've got blueberries, blackberries and raspberries.

And it's the exact same Driscoll's brand that we get in New York. And so I'm wondering, oh, are these grown in one place and shipped everywhere? How does it work? It's actually just the name. And these are berries that could be grown in all sorts of different places. They are subcontracted in a sense. Is that the way it works? Exactly. So in my book, Walmart's like the king baron. And Driscoll's was really smart, but it realized the coming of Walmart.

So I realized you need to do four berries a year round for 4000 stores. So the production regions change around the world. So Driscoll's actually grows berries in every single continent in the world, except Antarctica. And part of each baron is it's not just Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. I wanted to tell these bigger structural stories with each barren. So for me, Driscoll's is really about not only farm labor, the exploitations because of this production model, but also the offshore and the produce system in America where anything that's labor intensive has basically moved offshore. I had a crazy situation when I was recently in Aruba where, you know, one of the great things about Aruba is for Americans, the grocery stores are what we would call fantastic. You go to the grocery store. I can get the same oranges I'm used to getting.

I can get all the same stuff. It's comfortable. It's great. You know, you can pack your lunch at the beach and all this stuff. And quite literally, a bunch of the produce that is available in Aruba comes from the United States, or at least it's branded with the same brands as what we see in the United States. And I had this conversation with a customs agent because they have preclearance there where you like go through American customs in Aruba with some of my daughter's food. And we had like a cut of banana and orange and different things. And he said, oh, no, you can't bring that stuff to the United States. You can't you can't bring it. And I said, what's so funny is it came to Aruba from the United States. At least some of these products did. And this is talk a little bit about that

globalization of a lot of the produce and food that we now have. Yeah. I mean, let me start with the notion and we saw this in covid is the supply chains, these really long ones. First of all, they're bad for the climate, but also they're incredibly fragile. So we used to have used to have much more regional production supply chain, especially for produce. And as these things get global or, you know, there's certain times that you're most of your berries are either coming from Argentina. When they break, they break and they break hard. I mean, that to me is like why you see this big pivot under the Biden administration to more localize these supply chains. For food production,

I mean, I love how you say the grocery store because when my husband and I travel, that's one of the first things I do is I love going to grocery stores just to kind of see what else is out there. But it also kind of sterilizes the grocery store a little bit. Like, yeah, the thing that blew my mind was I went to Thailand after I graduated college and there's so much more fruit out there than we realize. And that to me was like one of the funnest things of like buying random things. I had no clue what they were, but just trying it. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, you said the way in which the actual harvesting takes advantage of workers and labor isn't particularly good to workers. I think many of us have seen videos where the conditions often are you're in direct sun for hour after hour,

sometimes in uncomfortable positions, not always with ready access to bathrooms and hand washing. But is there more to it than just that? When we talk about the way that the food industry deals with labor, it's even worse. I would compare it to most like a modern day plantation system. So very production. A lot of it shifted to Baja, California, to a region that gets as much rain as Death Valley, three inches a year. So the first, this area was, the aquifers were drained for berry production,

and then Driscoll's built a desolization plant in the ocean for it. This area was sparsely populated for indigenous workers who then brought in. These are very kind of, you rarely see stories come out, these labor stories, but when they do, they're nasty. First of all, it's really hard to report on this. This is dangerous. There has been reporting Reuters how Mexican gains have gotten into avocado production. But LA Times did a great series called Made in Mexico,

maybe five, 10 years ago at this point, but they're reporting how you have 12-year-olds working in these berry patches. And so honestly, to me, it reminds me of the apparel industry. When that stuff moved to Southeast Asia, it almost became a norm for the industry to have these massive disasters every few years. And you get kind of numb to it. That to me is like the big concern here. And then also I should also note it undermines people doing it right here. So all the progress, you know, farm worker unions made in America and California is undermined by

this production model because they're not playing on a fair field. When it comes to you, I think that oftentimes there are those who focus on an animal rights perspective when it comes to food. And so you hear a lot about meat and you hear a lot about dairy. You hear about conditions, environmental impact, et cetera. And I think that's completely legitimate. I think it's less of a well-known story. For example, the amount of water that avocados and almonds require, and then the number of salamanders and frogs and small animals whose habitats are destroyed by the amount of water that is required for some of these other crops. Is there a cut and dry

list of foods where you can say these are completely morally fine, however you slice and dice it? Or are these all pretty complicated at this point? Two things. One, I just think what we eat should depend differ where we are in the country. You're going to eat more fish in England than pork in Iowa. We need to bring back that regionalization of the food system, kind of like what you see in Europe, where it's both beautiful and kind of scary

that upper northern Maine, I can get the same food as Palm Springs. That said, me and dairy is really dark. I mean, besides animal stuff, to me, I think it actually contributed to a lot of this. It's contributing to this right wing extremism you see in American politics. Take Iowa, where I'm from.

You had the death of the hog family farm in my lifetime. My hog baron does 5 million hogs a year. What used to be family farms are now low-age workers carrying out dead pig bodies in these facilities. I view Iowa as almost an extraction colony and like the canary in the coal mine of what could happen if we don't deal with these very greedy men. I mean, that is, my coffee baron's really about that. There's kind of this forgotten history in monopoly stuff where it's monopolists who usually finance fascists. And we saw the most extreme case is Hitler. His largest donor was IG Farb in a chemical monopoly.

And so I kind of tell that story in that chapter. That to me is like the really dark undercurrent to this is especially the meat and dairy production, because it's also these are living animals and it's not done well. I mean, there's so much labor, environmental, you name it. It's an issue in that field. So how can the average person. I mean, I don't even know how to formulate this question, right? Because it's like, OK, so the berries are a problem. The coffee is a problem. Meat and dairy are a problem. Avocados are a problem. I would argue soy is a problem in regard to the kind of monoculture impact it has on the land over which it's grown is I know.

I guess we can kind of rank the degree to which these these foods are problematic. And I'm guessing that there are some where the environmental concern is lower, but the labor rights concern is higher, for example, or the shipping footprint or whatever does just buy local kind of solve all of it? And is that even really feasible or like what? What does the average consumer do here? It's both. So just step back. A big point of my goal, my book was I really want to spend a lot of time at the end of where do we go from here? Because I think right now in this moment, politically in America, people want hope. Like there is no positive vision, especially for rural America. And so the what you could you can critique the system but where do we go from here post-neoliberal

and i think people actually find that inspiring and like for me especially in the food production system ethanol is going to collapse i think that's one of the best things to happen and the electric vehicles is going to do that put animals back on the land that is such a good way to take the temperature down in the midwest these areas. It makes better food. It's a jobs program. You name it. But from a structural thing is both at the local level, what you can do individually is help your local farmer get... First of all, there are a lot of people doing it right. It's just you have a few greedy men holding us back. Get local procurement contracts at your school, at your college for the people doing it right. Because any farmer will tell you they don't really like doing the farmer's market.

They get rained out. It's not consistent income. That contract with the college for carrots every week, that stabilizes their business. It rewards doing the right thing. At the same time, too, we got to do bigger structural things. I'm at the point now of just junking the farm bill. It's designed to overproduce grains at the expense of everything else. Because to me, the core thing here is everything you eat is subsidized. There is no free market in the food system. The question is to what degree. Right now we are subsidizing

highly processed foods at the expense of produce. So that to me is like you got to do both high and low at the same time. Can you go back and explain what you mean by electric vehicles will cause ethanol to collapse and then that will be a good thing? Explain that, because I don't know that that's I'm not even sure I know what you mean. So the Biden administration has been really aggressive about transitioning the American car fleet to electric vehicles, hybrids, what have you. Yep. At the same time, the single largest use of corn out in America is ethanol. No one is talking about that transition of the car is going to happen pretty fast. Therefore, that ethanol market will collapse. And so what are you going to do with half the corn acreage that you don't need

anymore? I mean, industry is starting to freak out. They're trying to put ethanol in planes, but it's just a farce. I mean, the conversation over ethanol is done. It's over. And so that to me is the hope is this land is going to be idle soon. How do we how do we get rid of this industrial model of animals and then basically go back to what we used to do and put the animals back on the land? And the idea is that the electric vehicles may accelerate that by forcing those who own those ethanol fields to figure out what else are we going to do with them? Because that is because the system right now push people in ethanol because there's so much subsidies in it that if you do the right kind of thing, oh, people be like, oh, it's

economical to put animals back on my land now. That's fascinating. That's fascinating. That's fascinating. The book is Barron's Money, Power and the Corruption of America's Food. There is the book. We've been speaking with the book's author, Austin Farrakh. Really, really appreciate it. The book is super interesting and I appreciate you being on today. Yeah, thanks for having me on, David. I have been tracking my genealogy for years and the service I've always used to put my family tree together is my heritage, which is why I asked them to be a sponsor.

My heritage is the number one family history service because of how easy they make it to discover your origins and relatives with over 19 billion records. You don't need to know anything about genealogy. Just let my heritage do the work. I'm David Pakman, the director of the American Academy of Sciences. with their info and photos. I found all kinds of amazing, unexpected things. We found this incredible photo here of an immigration record from the U.S.-Canada border crossing for a relative born in 1895. I had no idea about this. It is super interesting. I'm showing some more of my discoveries here. It just connects you to your roots, where you come from. It's also given me a lot of quality time with my family, showing them these discoveries. You can try my heritage totally free for 14 days. Go to

David Pakman dot com slash my heritage. During that two week free trial, there are a ton of amazing things you can find out about your family and where you come from. Go to David Pakman dot com slash MyHeritage. The link is in the podcast notes. There are signs of trouble in one particular number out of Florida for what's forthcoming in November for the failed former President Donald Trump. And it is the fact that Donald Trump didn't even match his 2020 numbers in the Florida Republican primary. Now, I know many people will say, but sir, this year it was a contested primary in 2020. It was an uncontested primary. Was it really contested this year?

Because everybody dropped out weeks ago. So let me kind of tee it up for you. We spoke yesterday about Nikki Haley getting more than one hundred and fifty thousand votes in the Florida Republican primary, despite the fact that she ended her campaign weeks ago and in total about two hundred thousand of the people that voted in the Republican primary in Florida went out despite the fact that Trump was running unopposed and voted for someone other than Trump. About one hundred and fifty thousand for Nikki Haley. I think it was like 30, 40 thousand for Ron DeSantis, about ten, 15000 for various other

candidates. And that shows at least to some degree a motivation, a significant motivation, we can say, for some Florida Republicans to show I don't approve of Donald Trump as the nominee. The Washington Post has an interesting article which points out that despite Donald Trump capturing an overwhelming percentage of the Florida Republican vote, he didn't even match his own numbers from 2020. And in fact, that's true. On Tuesday night in Florida, Trump received 81 percent of the Republican primary vote. But in 2020, he had received 93 percent of the vote. Now, again, you can make the case. It's not a fair comparison because in 2020, officially there was no primary. And

in 2024, there was a primary, but everybody dropped out. And so it's kind of contested, kind of not. And it makes sense. That's all fine. But the point that should not be ignored and Trump ignores it at his peril when he says, I don't really think I need Nikki Haley supporters to support me. Well, we'll see, especially because many of them are choosing to now donate to Joe Biden instead of Donald Trump. We'll get to that in a moment. If you look at the totality of this, 200000 Florida Republicans in an uncontested primary

going out to vote for someone other than Trump, Trump not matching his 2020 support in 2024. As I mentioned, Taylor Swift getting young voters in Florida activated, presumably with the forthcoming endorsement of Joe Biden. All of these different little elements, it all could add up to significant trouble for Donald Trump in Florida. But as I mentioned yesterday, it doesn't even really matter because Joe Biden doesn't need Florida. All Joe Biden needs is to carry the states he won in 2020 and he wins with a very healthy electoral vote margin. So this is not me making any kind of prediction. It'll likely come down to under half a million votes in five to

six states, as I've said before. But the point here is this is a difficult situation for Donald Trump. He lost 2020. There are signs in states he won in 2020 that don't look so good like these numbers in Florida. And yet we are supposed to believe that he's going to have an easy time defeating Joe Biden because he's leading in some of the national polls. I would be very hesitant to believe that. But regardless, it could happen. We all have to vote in every state, no matter what we expect the margin to be. But that one number not looking good for Trump. And then look at what we've now learned about Nikki Haley donors.

This is incredible. There are prominent Nikki Haley donors who now in Nikki Haley's absence as she has dropped out from the Republican primary, they are not going and supporting Donald Trump, the presumptive and all but official Republican presidential nominee. Some of them are switching over to Joe Biden. Newsweek has an article about this and it reads donors who supported Nikki Haley in her Republican primary are set to switch their allegiance to Joe Biden.

Trump was confirmed as the Republican nominee. He's going to face off against Biden. Haley dropped out of the race. Media mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg called Harry Sloan, who previously helped bring in at least five hundred and fifty thousand dollars for Haley, and asked him donate to Biden instead. He has also donated to Democrats in the past and gave one hundred thousand dollars to a pro Biden PAC. Sloan said he agreed to help raise money for Biden. People I know who are generally business Republicans, they're going to hear from me about helping Biden. Biden's campaign finance chair, Rufus Gifford, also told the outlet that

he's in a WhatsApp group called Haley supporters for Biden, and they are seeking to recruit more Haley donors to the cause. And the point that is made here is that a bunch of different Haley donors are saying, I'm not going for Trump. I'm going for Biden. Now, I can tell you that personally, I'm seeing this as well. You know, I have a lot of New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Republican friends and New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts Republican friends and New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts Republicans are very different than people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and every single one of them. Now, obviously, there's self-selection bias here, right?

Am I really going to have friends that are lunatic, hardcore magas? Those are probably not the types of folks that will end up in my circles, but just sort of like socially liberal. I like low taxes type Republicans, the sorts of folks who prefer folks like Romney, McCain, Haley over lunatics like Trump. I have some of them in my social circles and every single one said to me, I'm supporting Nikki. I voted Biden in 2020. And if it's Trump versus Biden, I'm going to be supporting Joe Biden. So anecdotally, I can tell you this is absolutely happening. Now, I do want to address one talking point that has surfaced related to this. There are some on the litmus test left who are saying, see, David, I told you so. Biden is a right winger. The reason that Haley

people are switching to Biden rather than Trump is because Biden is right wing. And this is the proof. And I hate to burst your bubble, but that is absolute, absolutely not the case. What this is when Nikki Haley supporters say Trump's too crazy, I've got to vote Biden. It's that they are going beyond party. They are doing what's best for the country rather than what's best for their party. They are doing what's best for the country rather than what's best for their party. They are supporting the basics of our democracy. And that is something that increasingly is only being seen from the nominees on the Democratic side. If you value upholding the basic framework and tenets of our democracy, your only viable choice in 2024 is Joe Biden. Remember, Trump said, I don't need nor

want Haley voters. He may not want them, but he may well need them. And we'll figure that out in November. So it's not that Biden is so right wing that he's appealing to Haley supporters. It's that if you care about democracy and the United States just sticking to the things we've promised we would do globally. Your only choice in 2024 is Joe Biden. And there are some Republicans who are willing to put that over party and say, I can't vote Trump. Biden's really the choice. They should be welcome.

They shouldn't be shunned. They should be welcomed for saying, I disagree with so much of what Joe Biden does. But at least he supports the basics that the country is is founded on. I say bring them in. Let's get Joe Biden in another four years. And then we have four years to disagree on policy. That's the right way to do it. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. Here is a voicemail about the physical versus e-book debate. Listen to this. Hey, David, this is only from Dallas, Texas. A couple of months ago, I raised the question in terms of your opinion regarding audio books

versus traditional books. But now I have a new question. Do you prefer do you think that reading physical books is better than reading books on Kindle or on your iPad? Or do you think that there's not really much of a difference? All right. This is a very good question. There is probably a difference between reading physical books and reading e-books. There are a bunch of studies that have come to conclusions like, for example, you absorb more from physical books. Physical

books are easier on the eyes. Physical books are better for sleep and sleep hygiene. So you're not on a device in bed at night. I am not super concerned with those studies, although I do think that they are interesting. But for me, it's the bigger picture of there is a physical experience of reading a paper book that you simply don't get when you go from Facebook to your Kindle app on your phone. And with so much now happening on screens, I want to preserve activities that are not taking place on screens. In fact, Cal Newport, who was on the show recently, recently spoke about this when he talks about physical notebooks and the experience of writing on a physical notebook on a recent podcast episode of his. So I do prefer physical books. At one point, I almost switched to ebook. And then I said, you know what? I do enough on screens. I want the

experience of the physical book. There's something about, you know, on a plane reading the physical book in bed at night, reading the physical book. In addition to this, if you store all your books on a device, then you lose the physical library in the home and the physical library in the home is known to be tied to better educational outcomes for kids. The physical library in the home is known to generate ideas. When you look over and you see the physical library and the books that you've read, there's something that it does for creativity. There's something that it does psychologically. I think that that's all yet another reason to stick to physical books. But one other thing I will say is that any reading is better than none. We recently talked about a study that found that half, roughly half of Americans did not read a single book last year, not a single book.

So if it's the difference between reading or not reading at all, go with the ebook by all means, have at it. If I'm honest, I prefer the physical books. I think there's a lot of good reasons to go with the physical book. And speaking of physical books, let me tell you about something else that is going on. It's an election year. There are so many kids that don't understand how our elections work. They don't know why voting is so important. They don't know about the president and the Senate and the House of Representatives. It's a real problem. When we identified a crisis in critical thinking, I wrote a children's book about critical thinking. When we identified a problem in understanding the scientific method, I wrote a book about the scientific method for kids think like a scientist. And I now announce to you today with peace, love and humility, the launch of the third

book in the Adventures in Thinking series. This is think like a voter. Think like a voter. And I think that there is no better time to release such a book than an election year. This is a book that whether you're talking about a six year old, an eight year old, a 12 year old, honestly, there's 14 year olds who don't have any idea what's going on with our election system. Maybe reading with parent, guardian or teacher or maybe on your own.

This is a really important time and a really important book for this particular time. So I invite you go to David Pakman dot com slash book. We're showing elements of the book on the screen to people who are watching. Grab the book. And if you have local libraries in your area, most libraries have a process where you can ask them to get the book. It costs you nothing. Often it's submit a form online. Get this book for the library and the library will go out and get it. Gift a bunch of copies to your kids class.

This is not a political book. There's no political jokes in it. It is just down the line. Here's why voting matters. Here's how we vote. We have registration. There's ballot initiatives. It's the basics of what we do and what we will be doing in November and what

we've been doing in the primaries. I can't think of a more important time for this. So please grab a copy. Please review the book. OK, the reviews determine how successful will the book be. If we ship out just a few hundred copies in the first 24 hours, that this will be the number one children, new children's book on Amazon. And that is just absolutely massive. So the book is think like a voter. David Pakman dot com slash book. We do also make it available as an e-book. OK, but something about the paperback, I think, is fantastic. Check it out. Grab a copy. Let me know what you think. Leave a review. We've got a great bonus show for you today. Sign up at joinpacman.com. I'll see you then. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom style humor, Moms and

Mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for Moms and Mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heists to whodunits. We're your go-to podcast for mysteries with a motherly touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.