The David Pakman Show - 3/23/23: Demands to tax the ultra-rich grow as DeSantis polling shrinks

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

-- On the Show: -- We discuss how to actually tax the ultra-rich tax dodgers as Democratic Senators urge President Joe Biden to take action -- Arkansas, under the leaderships of Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee-Sanders, restricts school bathroom use by transgender people -- Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is already falling in 2024 polling, potentially jeopardizing his not-yet-started 2024 campaign -- Many Republicans are now calling for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to block Donald Trump's potential extradition from Florida to New York, if he is arrested -- Piers Morgan interviews Ron DeSantis, and it exposes the true dangers of a potential DeSantis presidency -- Red states tend to have higher murder and gun crime rates than blue states do -- RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel admits she is quickly losing control of the 2024 Republican primary -- Donald Trump begs his followers for money in a new video riddled with conspiracy theories -- Donald Trump's followers donated $1.5 million to Trump in 3 days in response to Trump's arrest claims -- Voicemail caller is really angry with David, and has figured out that David is not "a Christian" -- On the Bonus Show: Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's alleged tied to George Soros, Disney World will host major summit on gay rights, Fed raises interest rates despite stress on banking system, much more... 💻 Stay protected! Try Aura FREE for 2 weeks: https://aura.com/pakman ⚠️ Use code PAKMAN for a free supply of BlueChew at https://go.bluechew.com/david-pakman 📺 Get Curiosity Stream for 25% OFF (code PAKMAN): https://curiositystream.thld.co/pakman_0323 👕 Leisure of NYC: Use code PAKMAN for 15% off at https://davidpakman.com/nyc -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Subscribe to Pakman Finance: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanfinance -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Speaker 1 Let's start today with some meaty policy analysis when it comes to taxing the rich. Please don't tune out. No, no, no. Don't click away. No, in all seriousness, this morning I watched a little bit of our friend Sam Cedar's appearance on The Patrick Bet David Show, a program I did a month or six weeks ago or so. And one of the topics that came up with them was about what should tax rates be and taxing the rich. And Sam says yes. And Patrick says no. And OK, I don't want in this

segment to delve into the should we or shouldn't we or the morals of the ethics? What I simply want to address here is if we wanted to tax the ultra wealthy more, how would we do it effectively? And what I mean by effectively is it's very easy to say, raise the top income tax rate. But then you realize, wait a second, a lot of the ultra wealthy aren't earning income in wages subject to that rate. So that's not really going to help. And in the background of all of this is the news that Democratic senators, as HuffPost reports, are urging the Biden administration to go after what they call ultra wealthy tax dodgers. Most of this is specifically related to using trusts

and other financial vehicles when it comes to inheritance, when it comes to inheritance and what we might call a state tax or some like to call it the death tax. So what I want to do in this segment, just to provide a little bit of food for thought, is give a bunch of different changes that could be made to the tax code that would help tax the ultra wealthy. Now, I know that many of you are going to write to me and you're going to say, but David, that method wouldn't work because of this reason. And this other method wouldn't work because of that other reason. This is very much like when we look at an issue like gun violence. No one policy would cover all mass shootings and prevent every single one.

When we talk about waiting periods, mandatory liability insurance, limiting certain firearms only to those over age 25, requiring relicensing and more extensive training. We have this list that I put together of 10 to 12 different items that could be put in place. No single one would prevent every mass shooting. And in a country of 330 million people, 340 million people, no matter what you do, there might still be some mass shootings. But the point is, what's the lowest hanging fruit? What can we do to in the case of the tax element, collect

more from the ultra wealthy? So here's the list and I'll tell you how they would work and their limits. And again, no, there's no silver bullet here. So, OK, should we raise the top marginal income tax rate? Yeah, we probably should. Saying that at I don't remember where it is right now, five hundred and fifty thousand or so dollars a year, you hit the top tax rate of thirty seven percent. And from there up, there's no more brackets and no higher marginal tax rates. That's probably too low. There should probably be some more brackets with some higher rates, but that won't get us all of that ultra rich tax revenue that we might be seeking because a lot of the ultra wealthy aren't earning money via wages. They're also able to reduce taxes

through deductions and tax credits, et cetera. OK, so one tool is you raise the top marginal tax rate. It's not going to do everything you want it to do. Secondly, you can look at imposing a wealth tax on certain assets. Now, that is going to it's quite difficult to implement. I'm honestly not even completely sure that it would pass all legal muster, but it's an idea that's been proposed. You impose a wealth tax to try to get a taxation of assets rather than just income. Now, what are the problems? Well, what do you do about illiquid assets? Do you tax the value of fine art? Who determines what the fine art is worth? You probably have to exclude an asset like fine art. And so what this leads to is that those who hold valuable assets can either move assets to countries with no wealth taxes, invest in assets that are difficult to value or would be exempted like artwork or rare collectibles.

OK, but it might do something. And to be clear, I'm not necessarily advocating for every single one of these policies. I'm telling you what is on the what is in the toolbox, so to speak. Number three, there are tax loopholes that could be closed. One such loophole is the so-called carried interest loophole. However. There would be some ultra wealthy folks who will find ways to get around that, either moving the types of assets that would have previously benefit benefited from the carried interest loophole into non-taxable assets like municipal bonds, not totally realistic for the hedge fund managers that that would be targeted

at, admittedly looking at changing business structure, moving certain assets offshore, lobbying for a new, different loophole the next time there's a friendly administration. So is it a panacea? No. But is it a tool? Absolutely. Number four, increasing IRS funding to do more audits of the ultra wealthy. Now, there are some people in that income bracket that are doing everything right. It's not like with all of these folks, if they were audited, the government would find that they have underpaid their taxes. So for those who are legally and correctly avoiding taxes, auditing them isn't going to make a difference. But we know that there is significant underpayment in that group and having a more well-funded IRS,

not with agents with guns, just audit agents to do audits would certainly claw back some of that revenue that should have been paid a financial transaction tax. If you put in place a financial transaction tax, the ultra wealthy who might not earn any income and pay very little as far as income taxes go, but are involved in financial transactions, they would have to pay a tax on those transactions. And as with anything else, they could look at stopping the financial transactions in order to not generate those taxable events, moving assets offshore to countries that don't have such a tax or investing in assets not subjected to that tax certainly could do it. But it is another tool raising capital gains. If you are worried about not collecting tax revenue from the ultra wealthy

because they are earning money that is subject to capital gains rather than income tax, you could raise the tax on capital gains. It's not a silver bullet. You could avoid that tax as an ultra rich person by waiting to take any gains or through other mechanisms. An alternative minimum tax alternative minimum tax says, listen, if this is your income before deductions, no matter how many deductions you take, there is a minimum level of tax that you have to pay. You can't deduct and credit your way all the way down below some certain amount. That's a good idea. High earners might still be able to reduce their taxable income significantly through the tools that do remain available. But it's an it's a tool, the alternative minimum tax. You could look at

increasing corporate taxes. That is a great idea. That being said, you have to remember that that only applies to certain types of corporations, S corporations and LLCs and sole proprietorships. Those are what are called pass through type entities, and those are governed by the personal income tax rate, not by the corporate tax rate. But certainly it would make a difference. So these are all tools that are available. Every single one. Is at risk of being circumvented, at least partially, depending on what tax methods and strategies you use,

but taken together, much like doing 10 or 12 different things about gun safety, it would have a significant impact in its totality. Now, this is a separate issue from, as I discussed on the Patrick Bet David show, I'm not immediately looking to just raise all sorts of taxes. What I think is the really the lowest hanging fruit is, number one, what are we getting for the taxes we already pay? What are the taxes being used for? And secondly, getting actually closer to the tax rates that are in place simply by focusing on deductions, credits and loopholes. But that's a subject subject for a different day. Last item about this. Any time that there's a tax proposal and you hear, oh, this would raise 10 billion or whatever the case may be. It's really important to understand

whether that estimate of this would generate 10 billion dollars in tax revenue. Is it based on a dynamic scoring system? And what I mean by that is it's very easy to say based on the way people filed their taxes last year, if we put in place this new tax, it would generate 10 billion dollars. What needs to be taken into account is that last year, if this tax had been in place, people might have used a different tax strategy in response to the fact that that tax was put in place. So whenever we examine this type of proposal of any kind, when it comes to taxes, you want to dynamically score what it would do by accounting for how people's behavior might change. Send me your thoughts. Is this interesting to people? Let me know. The state of Arkansas continues to waste the time and

resources of the people in the state now by restricting school bathroom use by transgender people under the leadership, if you can call it that, of Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. They have banned CRT from schools, which wasn't being taught in schools, and they are generally wasting a ton of time. And now the news is, yes, indeed, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a new law prohibiting trans people at public schools from using the restroom of their choice. This would make Arkansas the fourth place to put such restrictions on public schools. And it requires that those that individuals use the bathroom that match. I believe the wording they're using is their birth sex. Alabama, Oklahoma and Tennessee have filed

similar restrictions, although lawsuits have been filed. And this is something that is growing and growing and growing. Here's where I want to focus today on this issue. It's really important to talk about the absurdity of the bathroom issue. There is simply no evidence that trans people in public bathrooms pose a threat to the safety of others, whether we're talking about kids, adults in schools, out at restaurants, in malls or whatever the case may be. One of the big arguments, really the biggest argument that the right makes is that

if anybody can just use whatever bathroom they want based on their alleged their stated gender identity. It opens the door to stalking and sexual assault and pedophilia and all sorts of different things. There is absolutely no evidence that that is the case. And in fact, when you look at the data, there are widespread studies about this. Studies have shown that trans people are way more likely to be the victims of violence and the victims of harassment in public restrooms than they are to be the perpetrators. There's a 2013 study from UCLA School of Law. It finds 70 percent of trans respondents were verbally harassed or assaulted or mistreated in public restrooms. A 2016 report by the Human Rights Campaign found that 59 percent of trans people avoided using public restrooms in

the preceding year because they were afraid of those negative experiences. And there's a 2018 study from the AAP, the American Academy of Pediatrics, which finds trans people and gender nonconforming youth are more likely to experience verbal and physical abuse in school restrooms. On the other side of this, there is absolutely no study that finds that when you look at incidents of harassment, sexual assault, et cetera, in public bathrooms that trans people are over represented relative to their population. There is just no data that can support that cause. And then there's the last aspect to this. If your concern is sexual assault or harassment or whatever the case may be, it is already illegal. It does. Your gender identity doesn't matter. Your genitalia

doesn't matter. It is already illegal to engage in sexual assault or harassment or stalking or photography or whatever the case may be in public restrooms. Doesn't matter which bathroom you're in. The gender identity of the individuals involved also doesn't matter. And the law is applied equally whether you are cisgender or transgender. The law is already there and there is no evidence that trans people are more likely to commit sexual assault or harassment than cisgender people. So the entire framework here is a moral panic and fear framework, as is often the case with right wingers. They don't have the facts on their side because the facts aren't on their side. And so it's based on fear. And the idea, quite frankly, the idea that they want to tell you is that Hulk Hogan

is going to put on a wig, go into a public bathroom and harass little girls. That's the idea, the image that these folks want you to believe. It's not happening. There is no data that backs this up as an actual danger. And Sarah Huckabee Sanders just continues wasting time on this complete and utter nonsense. Speaker 1 Speaker 2 Imagine for a second that you try logging into your email account only to find that your password was changed an hour ago and then you get notifications of activity from your bank and then your credit cards. That is what identity theft is like. And it's a horrible feeling. And we dealt with it at the show not that long ago.

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polls, even though he hasn't even announced that he's running for president in twenty twenty four. And he may not. Ron DeSantis over the last several weeks has seen a pretty significant decline in the polls, which we're going to look at in a moment. Why is this going on? Well, there's an interesting article in The Week by Rafi Schwartz, and it looks like it looks at a couple of different aspects to this. And one of the things that this article mentions quotes political consultant and commentator Simon Rosenberg, who says that the successes

that DeSantis has had in Florida are actually alienating him from voters in background battleground states still stinging from Republican losses by the candidates who embraced the right most reaches of the political spectrum. Schwartz writes, it's into this dynamic that DeSantis has, quote, decided to become even more Maga super Maga. The end result is that for Republicans hoping DeSantis would be a reasonable and capable alternative to Trump. This has been a very bad week.

That is one perspective that actually he is. He is going beyond MAGA. It's too much MAGA for MAGA. And the voters in battleground states, aside from whatever Floridian Republicans say about DeSantis, aren't super thrilled. I think that that's one part of it. Secondly, the idea of DeSantis was very appealing as an alternative to Trump six to eight months ago. But increasingly, as DeSantis is more publicly visible, he just was interviewed by Piers

Morgan. We're going to look at clips from that. His lack of charisma and his complete we'll leave it there. His lack of charisma is starting to become apparent to voters who are sort of being deflated by that. They were excited about the Santantis. Now they've seen what DeSantis is really like. And they're like, I don't know, this isn't really that great. The Hill reports DeSantis sees lowest level of support since December. A new poll

trails Trump by 28 points. And in fact, there are a number of polls that are really not looking good for DeSantis. There is a B.C. rated premise poll which has Trump up 24 with registered voters. There is a you gov poll that has Trump up 15. There is a Monmouth poll in that has Trump up 52. Certainly a difficult one to believe, I have to say, but that's what it says. A morning consult poll has Trump up 28. That's the one that was referenced. It's really not looking good here for Ron DeSantis. So the question we were previously asking with Donald Trump was, can Trump make it to the primary insofar as indictments could derail him or whatever else

might be the case with DeSantis? The question is less about can he make it to the primaries? It's can he even make it into the race? Now, I've previously talked about what some of you have suggested, which is DeSantis is really young. Yeah, I did. Why not just wait? Why not just wait until 2028? He doesn't have to run right now. Trump won't be a factor no matter what happens in 2028. Maybe 48 or 49 year old DeSantis should look at running in 2028. A month ago, my view was he's not going to be able to look at the polling numbers and get away because he would be saying to himself, I might not have this opportunity in 28 as the numbers

decline for DeSantis. Maybe 28 starts to look more attractive. Now, what one other thing I would love to say that DeSantis is dangerous. Authoritarian tendencies are the reason why he's failing in the polls. But Trump has all of those same authoritarian tendencies. So that's not actually what it is. I do think that there is something to the idea of DeSantis is becoming the reality of DeSantis. And a lot of people don't really like it. So Trump aside, DeSantis is dangerous. DeSantis is doing better against Biden than

Trump is doing. So in a sense, it's probably good for the left, for DeSantis not to do well in the primary. On the other hand, DeSantis bailing. Might make Trump's path easier, which has its own downsides in that he may end up in the general election less weakened and sort of more ready to go, but that a lot of things are going to happen between now and when the general election starts. So shrinkage for Ron DeSantis. Let's now talk about a story that is bringing together Trump and DeSantis, which is very, very interesting. Republicans are increasingly demanding, suggesting that Ron DeSantis block the extradition of Donald Trump from Florida to New York. If indeed Donald Trump is indicted and arrested in the state of New York, as many of us believe

he might be, I guess, although it was supposed to happen Tuesday and then Wednesday and then it didn't happen. Put that aside for a moment. More and more Republicans are making the request that DeSantis block the extradition of Trump to New York. Can DeSantis even do this? Well, that's a good question. We'll get to that in a moment. First, here is Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz making the case. If I were governor of Florida, I would not allow any Floridian to be hauled before some Soros backed prosecutor in some blue city over politics. And I wouldn't make an exception to not protect the president of the United States. Ron DeSantis should be standing in the breach to stop any sort

of extradition of President Trump from the state of Florida. And the fact that he's not doing so puts every Floridian at risk who could be the subject of a false allegation. I know Ron DeSantis well, he's a friend, but he hasn't been the target of false and persistent allegations like President Trump has. And so I don't think he really understands the nature of this fight right now. I think that it was a bit uncouth for him to take a jab at the former president. And there's a role for the governor of Florida here, I think, to stand up for our state, for the rule of law and to push back against the sorosization

of the criminal justice system. So is it actually something that Ron DeSantis can do? I will tell you in a moment, Charlie Kirk making the exact same case about this extradition and everybody is on message with the sorrow stuff. You will notice. Why doesn't Ron DeSantis create a sanctuary state for a former president under political persecution? If the left is able to create sanctuary states for rapists and murderers, thugs and criminals,

I don't think it's too big of an ass for Ron DeSantis, Curtis, to create a sanctuary state for a former president who's being persecuted. By a Soros funded D.A.. Yeah. So it's an interesting legal question. Can a governor block the extradition of an indicted person from their state to the state in which they are indicted? Can a governor do that?

Governors do have the power to block extradition of a person who is wanted in another state, but in very limited circumstances, a governor may block the extradition of a person if the governor determines that the person's rights would be violated in the extradition or if the governor believes that the request for extradition is politically motivated or improper. Now that just happens to be exactly what these right wingers are claiming. They are saying that the the prosecution of Trump, if it happens, is politically motivated, would be politically motivated.

However, it is not that the governor just says, yep, it's politically motivated. So there's no extradition. If a governor asserts that they are blocking extradition from their state to another for that reason, it can be challenged in court. And ultimately, it's up to courts to determine whether extradition should be allowed. From everything I've read right now, there is every indication that if DeSantis tried to block Trump's extradition from Florida to New York on these grounds, courts would say you can't do it. Also worth noting, governors cannot block extradition to another country that falls

under federal jurisdiction. So it's a nice little pipe dream that Charlie Kirk and Matt Gaetz have. But it is very unlikely to be what keeps Trump out of the state of New York. And by the way, Trump's lawyers have already said he would surrender. Will it happen? Will the arrest happen? That's a different question. I've been telling you for a while.

Ron DeSantis is dangerous. And part of what makes him dangerous is that he has a lot of the same terrible authoritarian instincts of Donald Trump, but he is more able to potentially get things done and less cartoonishly unhinged. Piers Morgan interviewed Ron DeSantis. And remember that Ron DeSantis is experiencing significant shrinkage in the polls. He hasn't actually announced that he's running yet. So this is all very speculative and very hypothetical. But one of the interesting questions that was asked by Piers Morgan during this interview was what are the actual differences between you and Trump?

Other Republican candidates and potential candidates have said there really are no differences other than identity. Nikki Haley said, well, I'm younger and a woman and Indian. Tim Scott said, I don't know that I have any policy differences. But here is Ron DeSantis his answer to that question. What do you think of the differences? Well, I mean, I think there's a few things. I mean, obviously, you know, the approach to covid was different.

I mean, you know, I would have fired somebody like Fauci. I think that he got way too big for his britches and I think he did a lot of damage. I also think just in terms of my approach to leadership, you know, I get personnel in the government who have the agenda of the people and share our agenda. You bring your own agenda in, you're gone. We're just not going to have that. So the way we run the government, I think, is no daily drama, focus on the big picture and put points on the board.

And I think that that's something that's very important. So DeSantis is essentially saying the differences are style and I would have fired Fauci. Not exactly a big gap between him and Donald Trump. Interestingly enough, Piers Morgan did ask Ron DeSantis his views on the nicknames that Trump has come up for him. Is your favorite nickname that Trump's given you so far is it wrong? Rhonda sanctimonious or meatball? Well, I can't even he went off meatball. I can't I don't know how to spell the sanctimonious. I don't really know what it means, but I kind of like it's long.

It's got a lot of value. I mean, so we go with that. That's fine. Speaker 1 Isn't this fun, guys? Speaker 4 You call me, you call me whatever you want. I mean, just as long as you also call me a winner. Right, right. DeSantis is the winner. Asked whether he believes if he were to run. Oh, sorry. No, I want to do Putin next. The topic of Vladimir Putin came up and this is very interesting. What's your view of Putin?

Look, I think he's got grand ambitions. I think he's hostile to the United States. But I think the thing that we've seen is he doesn't have the conventional capability to realize his ambitions. And so he's basically a gas station with a bunch of nuclear weapons. And so for us, one of the things we could be doing better is utilizing our own energy resources in the United States. We could be permitting natural gas pipelines from Marcellus doing a lot in Alaska. That's where he gets all his power. And obviously, he's influenced Europe by having so much energy. So the way to hit Putin is to hit him with energy. But I do think you look back, all the defense analysts and me in the past, we overestimated his conventional capability. This has been a huge blunder for him, huge costs. And we'll see what ends up happening with his longevity and power.

But this has been a loss for them. There is a move now to hold him accountable for war crimes, bombing maternity hospitals and genocidal activity in parts of Ukraine, wiping out whole cities, Maribor and others. Would you support that? I mean, I think he is a war criminal. This ICC, we have not done that in the United States because we're concerned about our soldiers or people being brought under it. But I do think that he should be held accountable. So sort of sounds like tough talk, but a lot of the same caveats that many of the soft Putin defenders will kind of reflexively go to, including he's not nearly as dangerous

as some claim him to be. So sort of interesting, not incredibly notable. Then appears Morgan does ask DeSantis, if you did run, do you think you can beat Trump? I think you could be. But I think so. I'm sorry. Do you think you can beat Biden if you did run? I think you could be.

But I think so. So you're running. No, I didn't say that. I just said, I think I could. I mean, I think that that's I mean, if you look at Florida I think you could be Biden. I think so. So you're running. No, I didn't say that. I just said I think I could. I mean, I think that that's I mean, if you look at Florida, it would be harder to be Biden or Donald Trump. We're I don't know. Those are two. OK, so that is very interesting, because if you really do believe that in an election against the sitting president of the United States, you would win. It seems very difficult to imagine getting away from getting involved in that race,

no matter what the primary polling says. So that's going to remain remain to be seen. Piers Morgan did ask Ron DeSantis about allegations that he backed the force feeding of prisoners while serving at Guantanamo Bay. DeSantis says it's not true, but he gets a little mushy mouthed about it. One of the things they said was that you authorize the use of force feeding. That's some of the. Yeah, that's not true. Yeah. Any of the stuff that people just finished force feeding the detainees who were on hunger strike. Was that true? So I was I was a junior officer. I didn't have authority to authorize anything. There may have been a commander that would have done feeding

if someone was going to die. But that was not something that I would have even had authority to do. So that's that's wrong. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. OK. And by the way, DeSantis is saying it's it's a raw it's wrong to claim he did it, not that it's wrong to do the force feeding. And then lastly, asked about Tick Tock and I'll just play this one for you here. Would you ban Tick Tock? I would. I think so.

Would you? I think so. I mean, I think from everybody in America, I think I think it's a security risk. I think they are harvesting so much data on our citizens. There's a whole bunch of other apps and stuff that are out there. And honestly, Pierce, I got young kids. I don't want our kids on some of this stuff. OK, so he would indeed ban Tick Tock.

Listen, the danger with DeSantis is he although he's incredibly low energy and low charisma, he very casually will present ideas as though, yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so you always sort of come away like, well, he doesn't seem very ideological because it sounds like he's sort of like softly in this camp, but he could easily be pulled over here. This is really the trick of DeSantis, where then when you look at his actual record, it's this wacky anti woke delusion fighting the culture wars and extraordinarily authoritarian, as we've covered before. So a very interesting interview because it shows us the DeSantis that he would present

to the world if he were to run. And it's this very down to earth. Yeah, I'm a reasonable guy. Yeah, yeah, I would do that. I probably would. Yeah, so it makes sense. Sure. Yeah.

Now Putin's bad, but yeah, you know, he's not really that bad. And he's not doesn't really have that much that much power. And then the actions with DeSantis are really the scary thing. So a very interesting interview to see. I'm sure there will be more. find and watch documentaries on politics, history, science, technology, nature, you name it, they have it. CuriosityStream has a deeper collection of documentaries than any other streaming service. They add new titles every week, including exclusive award winning films and shows. You can't watch anywhere else. I just watched ancient engineering, fascinating insights into how stuff was built before modern technology and

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That's FACET dot com slash Pacman. a investment, legal or tax advice. A number of you sent me a clip of Congresswoman Cori Bush claiming that red states have higher rates of murder and higher rates of gun deaths. And that is absolutely true. And I'm going to go over some of the data with you. Now, this is relevant because the story that the right loves to tell is how red states are safer and red cities are safer. And blue states and blue cities run by Democrats are just riddled with crime and they're dangerous. And that's really where all of the violence is. Let's first listen to what Cori Bush said.

Then we're going to look at some of this data in 2020 per capita. Murder rates were 40 percent higher in states won by Donald Trump than those won by Joe Biden. Nine of the 10 states with the highest gun mortality rates, including my state of Missouri, are red states. Mr. Wilcox, first of all, thank you for your strong, well-informed advocacy. I want to build on Mr. Nadler's question. Can you explain how the Iron Pipeline and weak Republican laws, gun laws, disproportionately harm black and brown communities? Yes, Ranking Member, and thank you for the question. As you stated, what we see pretty clearly from examining gun laws and looking at rates of gun violence is states with stronger gun laws see less gun violence. Why is that? It's because it's

too easy for guns to be illegally diverted from legal commerce, responsible law abiding citizens into gun trafficking channels. What are the ways that that happens? No background check gun sales, straw purchasing. OK, so now they go into a number of the ways in which we could strengthen gun laws. But so is this the truth? You know, anecdotally, we keep hearing frequently now when Republicans talk about New York City, the accurate statement that the violence rate, the violent crime rate is higher in Oklahoma City than it is in New York City, Oklahoma City, a red city in a red state compared to New York City, a blue city in a blue state. But this is actually a bigger trend. So let's look at a couple of different things.

If you look at the 2020 homicide rate and if you're looking, there's a graph here where you have states with the highest homicide rates at the top right and lower homicide rates. As you go down to the bottom left, you see that the states with the highest homicide rates are Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, Illinois, New Mexico, Georgia. You have this gradient wherein the homicide rates are notably higher in red states. You then go to firearms mortality and you see a very similar story.

The highest death rate from firearms is Mississippi, Louisiana, Wyoming, Missouri, Alabama, Alaska, blue state of New Mexico, followed by Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Montana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada, Kansas, finally getting to Arizona. OK, so there is no doubt whatsoever that that is the truth. It doesn't matter how you slice and dice the state numbers. Now, how would the right react to this? Well, one of the things that the right says when presented with this information, one of the things they say is the numbers aren't true. It's fake news. We can't believe it. It's all nonsense. You made that up. OK,

if you can get them to acknowledge these numbers, they will often say, well, but the crimes are mostly in the cities within those states which are blue. Now, that's not actually true. It is true as a general rule that people on the left in the United States are more likely to live in urban areas and people on the right are more likely to choose to live rurally and suburban. It's sort of a mix depending on the states that you're in. That is absolutely true. But in general, rates of crime can follow where people are closer together. But by looking at rates, we actually account for that. And there have been studies done that say, OK, fine, you can look at these cities if you want. And there are very high numbers of crimes because of the

number of people. But you can chart these very large rural areas that cross many states on a map. And as far as rates of crimes go, they are still very high in those rural areas. It's just that the absolute numbers are lower because there are fewer people. But the truth is, if we want to be more serious about this, there is no one answer to this. Is it true that red states, on average, having more relaxed gun laws increases gun deaths? Yes, it is true. And also it is true that if you live in Chicago, which is a blue city in a blue state, which has strict gun laws, you can very easily drive 40 minutes over into Indiana or what is it like 55, 60 minutes into Wisconsin, potentially states with more relaxed gun laws. So it it's everything is shades of gray. The gun accessibility

is a factor, but it also impacts blue states that are in proximity to red states. Poverty is a major factor. Poverty is higher in red states. Education is a factor. Education is worse in red states. Cultural attitudes towards using guns to solve problems. I don't have data on what the differences are between blue and red states on that. But it is a factor in a if you had states where culturally it's considered more appropriate to fight, to use physical violence or to use guns to resolve interpersonal problems. Well, that's going to be a factor for sure. Infrastructure and economic opportunity, which we know is lower in red states, GDP per capita, lower in red states. All of these elements are factors, and many of them actually are sort of a feedback loop where some cause others. And in turn, the worsening of those others comes back and worsens the initial

causes. Proximate and ultimate causes are definitely something that needs to be considered. But the numbers really don't lie. It really is the case that gun mortality rates. Remember, rate accounts for population. The rates of gun mortality on average higher in red states, the murder rate on average higher in red states. They don't like to admit it when they do. They find some other way to blame the left. But this is the reality in which we live. This is a super interesting short clip I want to play for you. Ronna McDaniel, the head of the RNC, the Republican National Committee. She appeared on Fox News earlier today and Fox host Stuart Varney was asking her about the potential management by

the RNC of the Trump DeSantis primary that might be coming, but it might not. We don't know. And Ronna DeSantis, Ronna McDaniel, Ronna DeSantis, Ronna McDaniel straight up admits that she has no control over that primary. And one of the things I've talked about is how damaging to the eventual Republican nominee will a really ugly primary be. I think to some degree, a really ugly primary will hurt whoever comes out on top and faces the Democratic nominee. Ronna McDaniel admits this is beyond her to control it. And then she does a little whataboutism. How are you going to manage this clash between Trump and DeSantis? Stewart, I would be lying if I said I'm going to be able to manage this.

There's going to be sharp elbows. There'll be a heated primary process. What I will say is we have to keep our eyes on the prize. We need to remember that 70,000 people just died of overdoses. Our border is open. Crime is up. We of course, the border is not open. Crime overall is down and it's significantly higher,

as we just talked about in red states and red cities. Our energy is up. Inflation is killing middle income families. Gas prices have come down significantly. Inflation is at its lowest point since twenty twenty one. And this is coming under the Biden administration. So we can have a heated primary. But at the end of the day, we have to come together if we're going to beat Biden. And that's where I'm going to be as RNC chair, always focusing on the end game, which is winning the White House. And that's really the question. She is right about that.

At the end of the day, the question is, how does the Republican Party defeat Joe Biden or whoever is the Democratic nominee? Remember, officially, we still don't know who the Democratic nominee will be. That's the fundamental question at the end of the day. And my question is, if DeSantis got out of the way, it would become obvious Trump will be the nominee. Does that help the Republican primary by allowing Trump to start campaigning now in some way? I don't know.

If Trump were to be indicted four times and drop out and it becomes clear DeSantis is the leader, or at least that there's going to be a contested primary not involving Trump. Is that a better Republican primary for the purposes of Republicans ultimately winning in November of twenty twenty four? My instinct is that a very ugly Republican primary will dissuade some Republican voters from coming out in November of 24. But I don't know how big that impact will be. So my question to you is, let me know in a comment, send an email, send a tweet, however you want to get in touch. Does the Republican nominee, whoever it will be, benefit more from an easy and smooth primary

win or an ugly and extended and contested primary win. Let me know what you think. We'll do a follow up soon based on people's reaction. We'll take a very quick break and be back with much more. leisure of NYC offering ultra comfortable fair trade men's clothing at fair prices. Guys know it can be very tough to find good boxers and T-shirts. The search is over because all boxer briefs by leisure of NYC are made with amazingly soft moisture, wicking viscose from bamboo, super lightweight like air, but it doesn't bunch up. And it's also great for the planet. Leisure of NYC also makes really great Supima cotton crew neck t-shirts. Less than 1% of men's basics today are made with Supima cotton. It is the best out there. It feels like silk. Quite frankly, you can walk around in

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Well, we'll get to that. This is an unbelievable video, unbelievable video called Dismantle the Deep State and Reclaim Our Democracy. We'll remind you what the deep state is, but this is open conspiracy stuff from the failed former president. It is scary. It is dystopian. And it is where we are in 2023. Shockingly so. Take a listen to this from Agenda 47. Here's my plan to dismantle the deep state and reclaim our democracy from Washington corruption. Remember, he's a former president. The idea now of, oh, I'm I'm an outsider. Dude, you were the president of the United States. How are you an outsider of any kind? Once and for all and corruption, it is first.

I will immediately reissue my 2020 executive order restoring the president's authority to remove rogue bureaucrats. And I will wield that power very aggressively. Remember what that is, is about being able to fire government employees who are outside the immediate political realm, like secretary of state. Right. New president comes in, you replace the secretary of state. But what Trump wants, because he believes that every random employee of the State Department or at least I'm sorry, of the federal government, including the State Department and others, is against him. He wants to be able to come in and just say fire tens of thousands of people.

Insanity in terms of the disjointed interruption that it would be to the way so many government departments function. Second, we will clean out all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus. What he means by that is intelligence agencies don't seem to agree with Trump's unhinged lies. And so he wants to get them out of there. And there are plenty of them. The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled so that faceless bureaucrats will never again be able to target and persecute conservatives, which

they weren't doing or the left's political enemies, which they're doing now at a level that nobody can believe even possible. Third, we will totally reform FISA courts, which are so corrupt that the judges seemingly do not care when they are lied to in warrant applications. This is a personal grievance of Trump. This is grievance politics. Trump doesn't like that there was enough evidence against some of the people in his 2016 campaign such that Pfizer warrants were signed by judges that he's like, just change the process.

So many judges have seen so many applications that they know were wrong, or at least they must have known they do nothing about it. They're lied to. Forth to expose the hoaxes and abuses of power that have been tearing our country apart. We will establish a truth and reconciliation commission to declassify and publish all documents on deep state spying, censorship and corruption. Now, this this talking point we looked at on a different day, which Trump is now repeating, truly Orwellian. Very often people say Orwellian and it's not Orwellian. This is Orwellian.

And there are plenty of them. Fifth, we will launch a major crackdown on government leakers who collude with the fake news to deliberately weave false narratives and to subvert our government and our democracy. And as I told you yesterday, extraordinarily chilling in terms of what it means for journalism. And then we get to the begging for money. One hundred thousand government positions could be moved out. And I mean immediately, of Washington to places filled with patriots who love America, and they really do love America. Ninth, I will work to ban federal bureaucrats from taking jobs at the companies they deal with

and that they regulate. So they deal with these companies and they regulate these companies, and then they want to take jobs from these companies. Doesn't work that way. Such a public display cannot go on. And it's taking place all the time, like with big pharma. Finally, I will push a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress. This is how I will shatter the deep state and restore government that is controlled by the people and for the people. Really crazy 10 point plan. Thank you very much. Yeah. So this was sent out in a fundraising email and we're going to get to the fundraising aspect

in a moment. Let's actually discuss the deep state thing just for a moment. For those who aren't familiar with it, the deep state conspiracy theory is, again, one of these elitist cabal type conspiracy theories. The idea is government officials, elites, rich people, transnational elites of different kinds. They're operating behind the scenes to manipulate and control world events. It often implies that these individuals are doing so against the interests of the general public and that they are responsible for many of the world's problems. Now, there's very little evidence to support the existence of a deep state speculation,

conjecture, misinterpreting, isolated incidents or events. What is true is that as a general concept, rich people and corporations wield lots of power in Western societies. That's true. They go way further into this puppeteer like conspiracy, unified, coordinated group of individuals. And the truth, of course, is that there are agendas and there are competing interests in government, out of government in the US, in Europe, in different parts of the world. Oftentimes, deep state conspiracy overlaps with globalist conspiracy, one world government, new world order, and all of it is dripping in anti-Semitism

that Trump is now regularly and openly claiming he's going to fight the deep state, which has it in forum is really wacky when it comes to remembering that this is a former president. But here's the crazy part. It's working to get people to give him money. Trump's fans sent him a million and a half dollars in three days after he falsely claimed he'd get arrested Tuesday and that Soros and the deep state had it in for him. Let's talk about that next. In 2023, if you still support Donald Trump, you deserve to have every penny drained from your bank account if you're giving him money, if that's what happens to you or what you decide to do. Donald Trump's fans sent him a million and a half dollars in three days after he falsely predicted he would be arrested on Tuesday.

A fool and their money are soon parted. Does that apply here? Business Insider reports Trump wasn't arrested, but he got a big fundraising boost, raising one point five million dollars in the three days after saying he'd be arrested. That's nearly double the daily average he got in the weeks before and after launching his 2024 bid. The campaign confirmed the sum to Fox News. The money was said to be raised from grassroots donations. Raising about 500000 a day is about double what Trump was previously averaging.

The Trump campaign brought in eleven point eight million in the six weeks before the announcement, which averages out to about two hundred and eighty thousand a day. In the six weeks after Trump's announcement, he raised about two hundred and twenty six thousand a day. But then he wrote, they're going to arrest me. We need to protest, take the nation back. Soros, deep state conspiracy and on and on and on. And then he started including videos like the one we just looked at talking about how he will dismantle the deep state. He started including those videos inside of fundraising emails. And he said, we need your support. Donate so we can do this. If you're not doing well, don't send any money. But if you can, if you can afford it,

please send me some money. It is. Is it pejorative to say that you would have to be moronic to fall for this at this point in time? Now, you might be saying what on earth motivates an individual to give money to a billionaire because they claim they're about to be arrested and argue that they are going to dismantle the so-called deep state. What on earth would motivate someone to give that individual money? And you have to remember that this is a cult. It is a cult where some in the cult believe that Donald Trump was sent by God to save the United States of America from a cabal of Democratic pedophiles. If you believe that. It's not a very far stretch to say you're going to send a little bit of money, and that is a big part of understanding what is going on here. And like I said, at this point, if you are still a Trump

supporter in 2023, it's really buyer beware. And the downside, of course, is I don't want to see people hurt. And for a lot of these folks donating money, it's probably their Social Security money that's going to Trump based on the average, you know, the disproportionately advanced age of Trump supporters and the financial reality of many of these folks. The other aspect to this, of course, is that there's a long history. I mean, go back to the Tea Party. You can go back longer, but at least in the modern era, go back to the Tea Party and you will remember people who will never benefit from lowering taxes on the rich voting in favor of candidates who want to lower taxes on the rich. Why? It doesn't make sense. It's the same thing with

Trump supporting a guy who isn't going to do anything that's going to help you. Jonathan Haidt has really done a lot of very good research into this. It is not about voting for what I think is best for me. It's about voting for what I have been convinced or tricked into believing. This is now my editorializing of it. What I have, if I can be tricked into believing that what's based best for my entire group is to support someone like Trump or a candidate that will lower taxes on the rich, I will vote that way for group cohesion, even if most of the members

of that group won't actually benefit for the thing that they are voting in favor of. You have to understand that to understand why someone at this point would say, I'll donate to Trump and I'll vote for Trump, even though he's supposedly a billionaire and his policies won't actually do anything for me. Read Jonathan Haidt's work on that and it'll be very illuminating. Trump capitalizing on the arrest claim. Will he pay his lawyers? I don't know. Will he actually get arrested next week? I don't know.

I'm waiting to see just as much as you are. We have a voicemail number which you can call any time. That number is two one nine two. David P. Here is a caller who is called in after he figured out I am not a Christian and he has some choice words for me. I will tell you that. Hey, David. Yeah. When I'm just watching your mouth on this TV here and you saying that them proof testers, the proof testers, yes, were outside of the Donald Punk building when they were

outside of the courthouse. You don't even. Well there were different videos and some they were in one place and some they were in the other. Well, you know what I've done, figured out because you admitted yourself you're not a Christian. That's true. And you know what that makes me so

happy to hear because there is a god there is a jesus there is a holy spirit and satan is going to be coming here satan real soon pretending to be jesus and little wastes firms like you are going to follow. I hope so. I want you to follow that piece of shit all the way to the lake of fire, right along with Donald Trump. OK, well, very, very powerful declaration. And be aware, Satan will come back pretending to be Jesus very, very soon. Certainly something to be scared of on the bonus show today. We are going to talk about the truth of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's alleged ties

to billionaire George Soros. What are the ties? Do they exist? Are they what Republicans claim them to be? We will explore. Secondly, Disney World, after everything that happened in Florida with Ron DeSantis, they don't say gay bill taking away Disney's rights there in that neighborhood district that they have after all of it is said and done. Disney is hosting a major summit on gay rights. They seem really intimidated by DeSantis guys. We'll talk about that. And lastly, the Fed again raised interest rates yesterday, this time by twenty five basis points, despite the stress hitting the banking system. But in a context where we are being led to believe that the Fed's work is seemingly close

to done in this cycle of interest rate increases, where are we? What do we expect? What is the impact of raising versus lowering the federal funds rate? We're going to go over all of it, my friends, on today's bonus show. Sign up for membership at join Pacman dot com. You will get instant access to the bonus show. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Alex Jones despises the bonus show, but actual members love it. You can sign up at join Pacman dot com. You can use the coupon code indict to save yourself significantly off of the cost of

membership. We will see you then. And then we'll be back tomorrow with the Friday show.