The David Pakman Show - 3/7/23: Adam Schiff tells all, DeSantis pushes dystopian law

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff joins David to discuss his 2024 Senate candidacy, his reaction to Donald Trump calling him watermelon head, the future of college education, and much more -- Exploring the possibility that CNN become the new Fox News in 2024 -- Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wants bloggers to have to "register" with the state, a horrifying and dystopian proposal -- After the blowback over his call to "eradicate" transgenderism, right wing extremist Michael Knowles pretends words have no meaning -- Failed Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is confronted by previous David Pakman Show guest Tim Miller, and she reacts by lying and making fun of his clothing -- Donald Trump obsessively attacks Ron DeSantis daily despite DeSantis not actually being a candidate against Trump at this time -- Republican Congressman Ronny Jackson, also Donald Trump's former doctor, uses Joe Biden's recent skin cancer to attack him -- Voicemail caller asks about the origins of "mayonnaise" brains -- On the Bonus Show: Bipartisan rail safety bill runs into Republican roadblock, Gavin Newsom says california won't do business with Walgreen's over abortion pill issue, Trump's threat of a third party run undercut by "sore loser" laws, much more... ⚠️ Use Ground News for FREE, or sign up for unlimited access: https://ground.news/pakman 👍 Get 10% off the Füm Journey Pack with code PAKMAN at https://tryfum.com 💻 Stay protected! Try Aura FREE for 2 weeks: https://aura.com/pakman 🧻 Reel Paper: Code PAKMAN for 30% OFF + free shipping at https://reelpaper.com/pakman 👕 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 Speaker 1 Will CNN become the new Fox News in 2024? Many of you have been emailing me about this failed former President Donald Trump has been actually suggesting to CNN, listen, if you want to pick up on what Fox News used to be, you should actually become the right wing network and people would flock and advertisers would flock and Trump would flock. So let's actually explore this. This is an interesting media story. The natural reaction you might be saying, Fox, CNN, CNN becoming Fox. It doesn't make sense. Isn't Fox News the conservative network that's been dominating for decades? Yes. But things are changing pretty quickly. And it is true that

politics can make some pretty strange bedfellows. So let's discuss what is going on. As you I'm sure know, Fox News has been the go to channel for the American right wing. And I'm using that that particular term as opposed to for Trump supporters or for fiscal conservatives or for Republicans or for whatever the case may be, because it's been the default cable outlet agenda setting power for the American right wing. And it's where the right got their news, even though much of it was actually opinion disguised at news disguised as news. They got their opinions. They got their talking points.

But then came Donald Trump. Initially, Trump was not favored by Fox News in the 2016 primary, which started in 2015. But Donald Trump energized a base of support that included lots of people who were not previously participating in politics. They were not really in anyone's audience. And to the degree that Fox News eventually came around and supported Donald Trump in 2016, Trump's followers also became Fox News viewers. Fine. Over time, after Trump's first term ended, Fox News and the MAGA crowd were increasingly at odds. Trump's sort of populist and confused populist nationalism increasingly was not completely in line with what Fox News was putting out there, although Tucker Carlson is someone

who was and continues to put out that populist rhetoric. And then the 2020 election big lie led to a bigger rift where eventually Fox News got away from the lies that Donald Trump was telling. We now have learned as a result of text messages released because of this defamation suit filed by Dominion against Fox News that even the Fox News hosts that early on were pretending as though they believe Trump's lies about the election. Privately, we know they didn't. This includes Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingram at minimum, at minimum. So we now have a situation where the Trump crowd, the Trump part of the American right and Trump

himself are, to put it lightly, disillusioned with Fox News. They for a while now have been looking for alternatives. This includes for some of them Newsmax. This includes for some of them OAN. Both are to the right of Fox News. And it also includes even wackier stuff, Real America's Voice and, you know, the Lindell TV and all of these other crazy things. But more recently, Donald Trump has been overtly going after Fox News and he even has suggested alternatives to Fox News during his recent CPAC speech. He sort of suggested, you know, Fox News might turn my speech off because of the things that I'm saying, et cetera. So over the last few months, a new option has been increasingly floated, including by Trump himself. What if CNN now under the leadership of Chris Licht, who is new president over at CNN, who seems primarily

concerned with whatever needs to be done in order to get ratings up and to get revenue up? What if CNN, which has been called fake news, which has been called failing CNN, liberal CNN for years? What if CNN became the new home for Trump supporters and maybe even for more of the American right wing above and beyond just Trump supporters? In a sense, it sounds crazy, but it is not as far fetched as it seems under new leadership, always interested in what is our next thing. And there have been a number of recent articles and op eds and sort of pleadings from Donald Trump as well that CNN could become the new Fox News or at least a version of it. The idea being if CNN framed itself as we are the place that are going that we are the network that will show you both sides, but they use both sides really to give voice specifically to MAGA Trump ism rather than just generically the Republican Party on Fox News.

It is true that the more establishment Republican Party, people like Mitch McConnell, for lack of a for lack of a better example, still have a very prominent role there. And to the extent that CNN now includes Republican voices, they are mostly establishment Republican voices. That is absolutely true. So the opportunity would be for CNN to make a slight shift, shift the Republican voices to be more Trumpy voices, play them up, maybe put in a little bit of right wing opinion. There were there were times when you had more right wing opinion in a more official capacity on CNN and then see what happens with the ratings.

Now, I have to tell you, Trump's instincts, I think, are correct that there is a desire from the MAGA Trumpists for something more mainstream. And by mainstream, I don't mean in terms of opinion. I mean, in terms of distribution, more widely available than Newsmax and OAN. So they don't have to feel like they're relegated to Channel 9000 on whatever cable network. There's there is a desire for that. And CNN, even though the right has derided it as being liberal fake news for a long time, CNN has taken an anti-Trump editorial approach on many of its programs, but is still primarily a corporatist news network.

So I don't think it's as crazy as some are making it out to be. The question is, is this something CNN is interested in pursuing? And maybe even more importantly, just because it makes sense from a business standpoint for CNN to go more right during the Republican primary and maybe during the general election. Once it's all said and done and we're beyond November of 2024, is it still a logical direction for CNN? And that's a real question mark to which I don't have the answer. Let me know what you think.

Is this something that CNN would benefit from doing? Do you expect that they would do it? Let me know your thoughts in a comment, in an email, in a tweet, and then we will follow up. There is a chilling dystopian proposal from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, wherein bloggers who write about DeSantis or Florida legislators would have to register with the state. You've got a blog. You write about the sanctus sometimes. Well, we need to put you on a list. And the ACLU is already saying this is unconstitutional. Newt Gingrich is even saying that this is a bad idea. So let's discuss NBC News reports. Florida bill would require bloggers who write about the governor and legislators to register with the state. The bill proposed by Republican state Senator Jason Brodeur

would also require bloggers who write about state officials to disclose who is paying them and how much. Hmm. Interesting. The bill is called information dissemination. If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives or will receive compensation for that post, the blogger must register with the appropriate office within five days of the post. What? It defines elected state officer as the governor, lieutenant governor, cabinet officer or any member of the legislature. If you fail to register, you would get a fine of twenty five dollars a day. The penalty would be capped at twenty five hundred dollars per post. The bill says the bloggers reports to the state must include the individual or entity that compensated

the blogger for the blog post and the amount of compensation received from the individual or entity. Of course, this could very quickly be expanded to include independent journalists, YouTubers and others. The bill defines a blog quote as a website or web page that hosts any blogger and is frequently updated with opinion, commentary or business content. But it says the term does not include the website of a newspaper or similar publication. DeSantis, his office said it was reviewing the bill. As usual, the governor will consider the merits of a final bill if and when it passes the

legislature. This is really scary stuff. Many of these posts also or many of these blogs are funded by advertising. And it's not that someone says, hey, I'll pay you 500 bucks to write the post. It's you write the post and then it starts generating ad revenue, some amount of ad revenue. The other question is about platforms like Substack. Substack allows bloggers to be compensated directly by their audience. Often they are paid some number of dollars a month.

So the compensation per post sort of depends on the average number of paid subscribers you have over the period that that post is live. Very difficult aside from the chilling effect that it has generally. Very difficult sometimes to determine the exact dollar amounts associated with this. The ACLU reports Business Insider believes that this is a violation of the First Amendment. If passed, writes Business Insider, SB 1316 would require all bloggers writing about DeSantis to register with the state. Two organizations told Insider this is a violation of the First Amendment. The bill is un-American to its core, a representative for ACLU's Florida chapter said. This is a clear violation of the First Amendment because it strongly discourages bloggers from speaking

on politics, one of the most critical types of speech for maintaining a democracy, says the ACLU rep. The ACLU rep added that the First Amendment, quote, protects our right to learn and read free from viewpoint based censorship. The U.S. Constitution demands we transcend such callous political agendas and instead promote the value of freedom of expression. Well, there's no doubt that this is not a bill that promotes speech. You can make the case. It won't limit it. It only enforces disclosure and registration. But of course, in practice, it absolutely will have that dampening effect on those who would like to write about Ron DeSantis and the state legislature. Newt Gingrich actually tweeted about this. And on this particular point, Newt Gingrich is correct. Former Speaker of the House Newt

Gingrich tweeting, quote, the idea that bloggers criticizing a politician should register with the government is insane. It is an embarrassment that it is a Republican state legislator in Florida who introduced the bill to that effect. He should withdraw it immediately. Now, the irony there, it's kind of a sad irony, is that while Newt Gingrich is absolutely correct, Newt Gingrich is also partially responsible for creating the world in which something like this is something Republicans are even willing to do. Now, I'm not blaming him for the bill, but you can't ignore the pivotal, the inflection point that happened in the United States with the Republican Party when Newt Gingrich became the speaker of the House

in 1994. And I've said more about that previously on the show. If it's interesting to you, check out my interview with Noam Chomsky where we discuss it. Let's hope it fails. But if it passes, I'm wondering, might this force the last true liberal Dave Rubin out of the state of Florida? Something to think about. We'll take a quick break and be back right after this. Speaker 1 One of our continued sponsors is Ground News, an app and website that aggregates local and international news sources to show you how breaking news is being reported around the world. It has become a go to resource for me right now. I'm looking at a story about residents in Ohio reporting medical symptoms after the

train derailment. Ground News shows the headline from The Washington Post owned by Jeff Bezos says East Palestine residents should look to Agent Orange victims. The headline from The Epoch Times, a radical right wing outlet, says federal officials enter 500 East Palestine homes after toxic train crash. I also like that you can sort things by factuality, location and bias. Check out ground news for free at ground dot news slash Pacman. If you find ground news as useful as I do, subscribe for unlimited access. That's ground dot news slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes.

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Dot com code Pacman saves you 10 percent on the journey pack. The info is in the podcast notes. The David Pakman show is funded primarily by our viewers and our listeners through the membership program. I invite you to sign up at join Pacman dot com. We deliver a commercial free version of the show, whether you want an audio version or a video version. I know. I know. Alex Jones doesn't like it, but I do. You can sign up at join Pacman dot com. It's cheap, it's quick and it really does help us out. Michael Knowles, formerly a sort of third stringer for The Daily Wire, who has rocketed to stardom on the back of anti-transgenderism, is now pretending

that words have no meaning and that we don't have video of the things that he said. Let me back up and explain it to you. The right has started to really be titillated by anti-trans rhetoric. And the wilder that the rhetoric is, the more the right wing cheers and stands and loves it. And we've seen this at CPAC over the last few years. The biggest applause lines at CPAC are anti-trans stuff. When Ted Cruz said my pronouns are kiss my ass, the crowd went nuts last year. And similarly, when Michael Knowles recently called for the eradication of transgenderism, the crowd loved it. The problem is that when you talk about the eradication of transgenderism, it's natural to wonder, well, what the hell happens to the transgender people?

Are you calling for genocide or what exactly are you calling for? And the blowback has been severe against Michael Knowles. So he is now pretending that words have no meaning. He went on the Tucker Carlson program last night. Of course, he got the hero's welcome for most of right wing media. And again, this is why they do this stuff. Matt Walsh, another right winger, has done incredibly well with the anti-trans stuff. So Michael Knowles got jealous. He wanted to jump on the bandwagon and it's sort of working. But here he is claiming, oh, the left is putting words in my mouth. I've been called all sorts of nasty things by the liberal press.

It's been nasty, nasty. So I, I tend to expect everything, but I have to admit being accused of genocide did take me by surprise. That seemed extreme even for the fake news media. And I think it surprised a lot of lawyers as well. The Daily Beast and the Huffington Post and Rolling Stone and a number of other outlets all spread this lie about me. They just put words into my mouth.

They did? I never said, you heard exactly what I said. I said that for the good of these people in particular, so presumably I don't want to murder them. And I talked about an ideology in particular. I'm not talking about eradicating any human beings. Talking about an ideology here. They said that I wanted to commit genocide.

And I said, this is libel. This is actionable libel. You know, the libel laws in the United States have quite a high threshold to actually sue. This meets that threshold. It does not. He is not going to collect a single dollar that I can assure you. I think that unless the news editors at The Daily Beast and Rolling Stone and Huffington Post and all the rest, unless they're completely illiterate, they lied intentionally.

And I think their lawyers called them and said, change the headline or you can get sued into oblivion. Right. Well, the problem is we have the video. We have the video from his podcast and we have the video from CPAC. And he says we must eradicate transgenderism. Now, I'm. Oh, but David, he's not saying kill trans people. No, I understand. I understand. Let's listen to what he said first. There can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism. It is all or nothing. If transgenderism is true, if men really can become women,

then it's true for everybody of all ages. If transgenderism is false, as it is, if men really can't become women, as they cannot, then it's false for everybody too. And if it's false, then we should not indulge it, especially since that indulgence requires taking away the rights and customs of so many people. If it is false, then for the good of society and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, Transgenderism must be eradicated from public

life entirely. Eradicate transgenderism from public life. And then here he is on his podcast a couple of days before CPAC. That I called to ban transgenderism entirely. I made the point that if you want, if you want women to have their own bathrooms, if you think women ought to be able to have their own locker rooms and not have to look at gigantic, gross men while little girls are getting changed, if you want any of those things. You have to ban transgenderism entirely. It's not enough to say, well, you have to wait until you're 12 or whatever. All right. So ban it eradicated.

Fine. So let's go through this piece by piece. This is a way of getting attention and it's working and he's getting it. He's getting the hero's welcome from the right wing. He's being treated like a martyr, like a victim, getting tons of interviews and on and on succeeded. No problem. What you have to understand if we want to be reasonable people is that there really is no way to separate eradicating transgenderism from an attack on transgender people. Now, I am not making the argument that he is saying kill trans people. I'm not saying he's saying that. But what you have to understand is there's no practical separation, because if you ban the thing that makes a trans person trans,

which means being able to exist in the world with the gender identity that they have determined is right for them, you are eliminating trans people in terms of what their identity is. And so you don't literally have to kill them to eradicate them. And of course, these are the types of postmodern semantic linguistic games that the right loves to say the left plays, but they themselves are better at playing them than anybody else. And again, like I said yesterday, would anybody accept this explanation if someone had said we must eradicate Judaism? No, no, no, no, no. I don't want anything to happen to the Jews. Just completely eradicate Judaism. We would all be reacting the same way most of us are reacting to the trans thing, with the exception of some of these loons on the right. So it's working.

It's getting him the attention. The question is, what's the end game? And quite frankly, I don't know. But for now, he's getting the hero's welcome on Tucker and elsewhere. And that's exactly what this was intended to do. Hey, this is really, really good. Our friend Tim Miller, a moderate Republican who we've interviewed on the program before, confronted Kerry Lake. OK, and this is super, super interesting. This is from Tim's show on Showtime. He confronted Kerry Lake and he said something that many moderate Republicans believe, which is we should get away from this cartoonish MAGA Trumpism, which includes people like Kerry Lake, and we should be going back to moderate Republicanism if we want to win.

How did Kerry Lake respond? Well, she responded by telling lies and by making fun of the way Tim was dressed. That's that's what she did. Let's take a look. Take a listen. Nice job here by Tim. Haley and Pompeo in there saying that we've lost three straight elections, that it's time to change the strategy.

Maybe appeal out to more moderate voters. You just lost an election. What say you to that? Well, they like to say we lost elections. We're having corrupt stolen elections. OK, that's a lie. She lost. It's very simple. She lost. So she's already lying. We're having corrupt stolen elections. President Trump won that election in 2020. Donald Trump did not win in 2020. It did. There was corruption. I know you don't believe it and you don't want to look at it. And they sold the election for me and you guys. She did not have the election stolen. Her opponent received more votes, meaning her opponent becomes the governor. I really lost the election because you didn't

reach out to the McCain voters. I did. But you told the McCain voters to get out of the room. No, I didn't. You know, when you campaigned hard, Maga, that's fake news. I went to your She did campaign hard MAGA. It was all these guys. It was hard MAGA. You weren't appealing to my people. You weren't appealing to moderate Republicans. Maybe you would have won if you would have done that. May I have a word? Do you want me to interview you? No, please. That's what I'm asking you. Because you seem to be doing all the talking. No, that's the question. It was a year before the election when I had a financial nuclear bomb

dropped on me by a McCain Republican. A bomb. 30 million dollars in a massive dump. Attack ads. We were joking around. I said, are we have McCain Republicans or American First Republicans in here? And I brought the establishment together. Let me finish. I brought the establishment together. Unfortunately, a few of them didn't come over and they. She did not bring the establishment together. She ran an insanely divisive campaign. I know you don't believe in you refuse to look at you refuse to look at the evidence. OK, I do look to the evidence. I wasn't at your campaign around three days. Well, actually, you don't have McCain's there. You're not the Jews. They were welcome there. I

actually were trying. I reached out to do see and I reached out to all of those people. They didn't want to come around. I can't help it. But what I do have are independents and Democrats. How old are you? I'm 41. You're 41 and you dress like a 13 year old. Oh, Carrie, come on. We shouldn't end on that. All right. So that's from the circus on Showtime, which I encourage you to check out. So this is interesting because there's two aspects to this. Layer one is she continues telling the same lies that have been debunked endlessly. She just keeps telling him Trump actually won. I actually won. I reached out across the aisle, all these different things. All of those are lies. But then it's going to add homonyms when you have no other choice,

because Tim Miller is, of course, completely correct. Now, the practical and strategic question going into 2024 becomes, does that dynamic remain and which, of course, will damage the Republican Party and their chances? Or do they realize that this MAGA Trumpism has actually been quite damaging? It lost them the House in 2018. It lost them everything in 2018. It lost them the presidency. It lost them the Senate. It prevented a red wave from being what it could have been. All those different things. And do they change or do they stick with it? That's the question. Adam Schiff joins me after this short break.

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com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman. That's R.E.E.L. paper dot com slash Pacman coupon code Pacman for 30 percent off and free shipping. The link is in the podcast notes. Today, it's great to be joined by Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, who is a progressive leader in Congress representing California's 30th district. He is running for Senate, hoping to build an economy that works for everyone and safeguard our democracy, protect the planet, things which really should not be controversial at this point in time, Congressman. Great to have you on. Listen, let me start with what I know is on the forefront of many of my viewers minds, which is, is anybody getting indicted at any point? You

know, we've been going through this thing for years and we've been talking about the former president and associates and others. Where are you on this issue at this point of what you expect to see? Yeah. You know, I have been fairly conservative in my expectations, maybe because I don't want to get my hopes up, but also because the Justice Department has been so slow to move for so long. They moved with alacrity when it came to the people breaking into the Capitol on January 6th and assaulting police officers. But it took them a very long time to investigate the multiple efforts, multiple lines of effort to overturn the election. The president's call with Georgia's secretary of state, for example, but also his role in the incitement of very unusual for Congress, as cumbersome as it is to be ahead of the Justice Department.

Yeah. I do think the appointment of a special counsel was a positive sign because he seems to be, you know, not not cautious like the attorney general and leaning into that investigation finally. I also am very impressed with what we see out of Fulton County, Georgia. In many respects, I'm more optimistic about the prosecutor of Fulton County than I am about the Justice Department. But I think prudently, we should expect that there's no prosecutor who will rescue the country from this danger that we may just very well have to defeat it at the polls again. But I will be happily proven wrong by either either prosecutor or the Manhattan D.A., which

I think is probably the least likely candidate to move forward. But nonetheless, more exposure of the president. So over the weekend at a particularly deranged edition of CPAC, Donald Trump held sort of like an impromptu press conference and was asked some version of the question, if you are indicted, however many times, will that interfere with your presidential run? And he said no. And the entire atmosphere at CPAC, I don't know how much you saw, but one of the trends is that the biggest applause lines are either homophobic or more recently transphobic stuff. This really seems

to get the modern right excited. Maybe part of it is because there's a sort of lack of policy outside of this sort of rhetoric. How concerned are you about the degree to which the transgender community now seems to be the primary target of the MAGA movement? I'm deeply concerned about it. I'm a vice chair of the Equality Caucus, so this is an issue I've been very focused on on behalf of my constituents. And you're right.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Donald Trump did a video from Mar-a-Lago, the whole purpose of which was to demonize the trans community, basically to, I guess, show his GOP Trump MAGA base that he's even worse on those issues than Ron DeSantis. And this is the kind of primary that's going on in the GOP, which is who can most dehumanize one of the most vulnerable populations in the country, one that has a very high tragic and very high suicide rate, as well as being the victim of a lot of violence directed at the community by others. So I'm deeply concerned about it. This is what autocrats and would-be autocrats do. They look to the most vulnerable and try to dehumanize them. And it also, I think, is a signal of, you know, other rights they want to take away from Americans. They've taken away or tried to

reproductive freedom through this multi-decade effort at the Supreme Court. And they may target other rights and freedoms of other Americans, particularly vulnerable ones. You know, Senator Bernie Sanders recently in an interview, I don't remember which one had a sort of very interesting, candid moment where he said, listen, you know, based on how long he's been doing this and his age, am I going to get Medicare for all past? No. But am I maybe going to continue doing things that get more people health care? Am I

going to make incremental steps sort of in a in a sense channeling the idea of Ted Kennedy of incrementalism and taking steps forward as as you now are running for Senate? And it's an interesting race, which we will talk about. How do you balance the idea of what you would do if it were simply up to you and the reality of partisan gridlock, needing 60 votes in the Senate to accomplish so many different things. The reality that the moneyed right is still extraordinarily effective at using fundraising and lobbying to prevent progress from being made. How do you balance what you would do if it was just up to you and the reality of what

can be accomplished in a six year term? Well, I also support Medicare for all, but I'm a big believer that you make progress where you can make progress. And, you know, at the end of the day, you can't be progressive if you're not willing to make progress. I'm enormously proud of what we did in the Affordable Care Act, which brought health care to tens of millions of people that didn't have it. Otherwise, I do think, and I was a vocal advocate at the time, it was a huge missed opportunity not to pass a public option when we passed the Affordable Care Act. That would have been, I think, the most substantial downward driver of cost of anything we were doing at the time and would have forced not only more reasonable costs for health care, but

it would have given us a model, a Medicare for all model to build on. So that was a terrible missed opportunity nonetheless. But I have not passed the Affordable Care Act because we didn't do that. No, I'm glad I supported the final product, even if it wasn't exactly what I wanted, because it has done so much good. And I think we are moving inexorably towards universal care. We just need to keep the fire lit, keep pushing to get there quicker. And I'm still hopeful we will do it in Bernie Sanders' lifetime, a little on my own.

But I don't think we let the enemy be the, or the good be the enemy of the or the good be the enemy of the perfect, be the enemy of the good. Excuse me. When it comes to speaking of age, there's this interesting dynamic that's developed over in the Republican presidential primary where Nikki Haley announced that she's running. And when she's been asked numerous times, why would someone vote for you instead of Trump? Sometimes she's visibly confused.

And when she's able to put together an answer, it's usually about identity. Despite claiming to be against identity politics, she's put together. Well, I'm younger. I'm a woman and I'm of a minority background of Indian background in your Senate race. The retiring the outgoing Senator Dianne Feinstein is around 90 years old. The you're running early 60s. Katie Porter's 49. Barbara is around 90 years old. You're running early 60s. Katie Porter's 49. Barbara Lee, 76 years old. How important to you do you think this idea of Democrats needing a new generation in power? How important do you think that is?

You know, I think it really depends entirely on the person. You know, so many young people are enthusiastic supporters of Bernie Sanders, not because of his age, but because a lot of his ideas are new and his ideas appeal to young people. That, to me, I think is more important than what the age of the person is. That is, what are they advocating? What's their ability to get things done? And so people often make that synonymous with age, but it's not always the case.

And I think, you know, Joe Biden has been able to achieve great things for the country, including one of the most aggressive attacks on climate change in our history. You might not expect that from a president of his age, but nonetheless, you know, he has been, I think, very effective and very progressive at the same time. Voters are going to consider these factors. Voters are going to look at age. They're going to look at gender. They're going to look at race. They should look at all these things. They're also going to look at who can deliver for California, who's going to get things done, who's going to improve the quality of my life, who's going to help make sure I can

live in a good neighborhood with good public schools that my kids will be able to afford higher education, will be saddled with that? Who is going to make sure we can drink the water and breathe the air? At the end of the day, they're looking for people who will deliver for California. And I think they will look for that regardless of age. I think they will look at who's got the track record of getting things done. When it comes to something like tax policy, to pick something extremely both substantive and concrete, there's the very general idea of the rich should pay more on the right. You have ideas from flat taxes to cutting taxes for the rich, all sorts of different ideas. Right now, we have

a system where the highest tax bracket federally, 37 percent, around half a million dollars in income. I know that's not exact. I don't remember if it's 460 or 520 this year or exactly where it is in your ideal tax program. How much higher than 37 do you go, if at all? And where would those higher tax brackets start? And one of the things I find is whenever I ask elected officials this, rarely do I get numbers as answers. Yeah, well, and I don't want to disappoint you. I don't have a target number either.

OK, but, you know, a big part of why I'm running is to make the economy work for everyone in a way that it's just not working right now. And a big chunk of that is the tax code. When I was a kid, my father was a salesman. He made $18,000 a year. He bought a house for our family. He and my mother, that cost $18,000. You can't do that now. And not all of it is, you know, as my Republican colleagues would like to believe, the product of some kind of impersonal market forces or Adam Smith's invisible hand. A lot of the reason why the economy isn't working is the product of a very visible hand of a very powerful lobbyist or a very powerful corporate interest. In terms of the tax code, when we more

than doubled, for example, the child tax credit, that lifted 40% of the kids out of poverty. And when that was allowed to lapse, millions fell back into poverty. That was a policy choice we made, and it's a terrible policy choice. So I would begin, in terms of reforming the tax code, more than doubling the child tax credit. I would begin by providing very generous tax subsidies for people trying to afford child care. So we have accessible, affordable child care. So more women in particular, but men too, can enter the job force because they can afford quality child care. I would do away with how we treat the carried interest of hedge fund managers who get a enormous tax break. They're some of the wealthiest people in the country. I get that break, not because it makes sense. It doesn't. But because they have very

powerful interest lobbying for them. So a lot of these changes would make the tax code far more progressive. In addition to our we treat the top top line rate payers. Would you like to see a top rate that is higher than 37 percent? I'm certainly open to that so that we have a tax code that is more progressive. I just don't know if I can give you the the ideal number. Yeah. But I think and going beyond the tax code, there are innumerable ways that we can make the economy work better for people, where we can incentivize the construction of more housing that's affordable, where we can ease the, you know,

the debt that students are forced to live under, all of which I would put under the category of making the economy work for people again. Let's talk about the cost of college a little bit since you mentioned that. So I'm trying to figure out. So my daughter is eight months old. I started the five twenty nine. Right. I'm pretending as though the world is normal and it's going to be the same in 18 years

when it comes time for her to have the opportunity to go to college. But I'm also doing the math. And I know that for her to go to the same school that I or my girlfriend went to, if costs keep going up at the same rate that they have been over the last 20 years, it'll be about two hundred and five thousand dollars per year for tuition when she is 18. It sounds like that can't possibly happen, like that something has to break in the next 17 and a half years or or or not. Right. I mean, if if student lending continues to stay the way it is and people can just get low, I mean, the numbers don't seem to make any sense. They don't make any sense. And and it's a tragedy the way we funded higher education, essentially on the back of students. I can relate a bit. When I graduated from graduate school, my loans were at 9, 12 and 14 percent interest.

And my my loan payments were higher than my rent for about the next 10 years. Right. But into the law where I could afford to pay them off, which most people don't have that luxury. And it obviously circumscribes what they can do with their careers, where they can follow their passion. It's just a terrible way to fund education. And I do think we need a complete restructuring so that we don't put on the backs of students the obligation to pay for higher education this way. It is unsustainable. And sadly, this should have been done years ago so that the people that have the debt now didn't have to incur it.

And we cannot have a situation where your kids are going to have to pay $200K a year. That's just going to mean higher ed is only available to the wealthiest Americans. So we need to change how we fund it. We need to change the whole structure of it. We ought to, I think, begin by forgiving student debt. And we certainly shouldn't be forcing students to pay the government interest on their student loans. We shouldn't be the federal government shouldn't be earning any kind of revenue or profit from that. Couple other things in the in the limited time we have from a political strategy perspective. I'm curious, you

know, there's this discussion now about the Republican primary for 24 and what it will mean in a trickle down sense, including for races like yours and in the House of Representatives and others. There is one feeling that if someone like Ron DeSantis were to run that he would be, if he became the president, significantly more dangerous than Donald Trump and that he is more committed, less distractible and potentially more effective at doing really dangerous authoritarian things. And so in some sense, the country would be better off with Donald Trump as the nominee because it would he would not only be more beatable if he was president, he would accomplish fewer dangerous things. And when it comes to races like yours, his presence on the ticket may inspire more turnout and help

progressives and Democrats across the country. Do you have a view on the strategic aspect of what happens in that Republican primary? I do. And I would put myself squarely, I guess, in the opposite camp. I know many Democrats feel like they would like even aside from who became president, they would like Trump as the nominee because they believe he'd be easier to beat. Yes. He might be easier to beat than Ron DeSantis. But the danger of his presidency, of a second president, to me, is such a horrible prospect that I don't even endure the possibility. Now, not that I have any say in who becomes a Republican nominee, but I would rather have the tougher person to be than the even the prospect that Donald Trump could be successful in general election.

I do think that he is, although he's not as bright as DeSantis, he is a uniquely talented grifter. Yes. Uniquely dangerous and shrewd divider of peoples. And so I think he would just tear the country apart. DeSantis would be a different kind of a horror show. But to me, Trump learned from the first four years. And, you know, he started out with a couple of people of stature, like Secretary Mattis, and consecutively got rid of anyone who had any

independent gravitas to stand up to him, and put in place increasingly sycophantic people, he would start out with the worst of the worst if he got another term. And one thing we did see with him is that each abuse of presidential power was followed by an even worse one, culminating in insurrection. So to me, anything is preferable to that. When he started saying your head is like a watermelon, were you hoping he would pick a different fruit or vegetable? Although watermelon is a great it's delicious.

But what's your reaction to that? Well, my reaction was, you know, he went from calling me a pencil neck to a watermelon head. And let me just say a watermelon head on a pencil neck is a pretty tough balance. Yes, it is. But my my predominant thought on the on the various nicknames was, you know, I thought he was better at it than that. The whole, you know, cardinal rule of nicknames is you pick one and you stick to it. Yes. And he's had about eight of them for me over the years. And and so I don't think they've been as effective as they could be if he just stuck to one. It is interesting that he always puts a caveat when he mentions you, that you're a bright

guy. I don't. Do you have any insight as to why he kind of mentions that every single time? You know, it is it is interesting. When I met him in the Oval Office during the whole Devin Nunes midnight run thing. Yeah, he came out from behind the Resolute Desk where I have to say he looked it looked like the cover of Mad Magazine to me. He definitely did not belong in that picture. He comes out from behind the desk. The first thing he does when he shakes my hand and says, you know, you do a really good job. Presumably he means on TV. That I understood because that's what he that's what impresses him, how you do on TV. But I tell you, it was pretty awkward because when somebody says something like that to you, you know, you do a really good job. The first human impulse is to want to say, well, so do you. But there was no way I could bring myself to saying that. So it was quite an awkward pause after that comment.

That's a thank you, sir, moment, as in it would become one of his, sir, anecdotes that he's known for. Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff is running in California for the Senate seat, being vacated by longtime Senator Dianne Feinstein. I know you're busy. I really appreciate your time and your insights today. Great to be with you. Thanks for having me on. One of our sponsors today is 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

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Trump is starting to use regarding social security and Medicare because he's effectively attacking Ron DeSantis from the left while attacking many other Republicans from the right. And of course, it's a reminder that none of this is about the facts. None of this is about reality. This is all about what can I come up with to insult my opponents? If Trump perceives that it's to his advantage to say you're not to the right enough, he calls you a rhino. If Trump finds that he actually benefits from attacking you from the left, he'll do what he's doing with Ron DeSantis. And let's take a look at that. And remember, Trump is posting every single day to Truth Social about Ron DeSantis. Truth Central Trump posting, quote, Ron DeSantis voted three times to cut and destroy Social

Security and increase the age requirement to at least 70. Likewise, he voted to radically cut Medicare. He is a disciple of Rhino Paul Ryan. What do you expect? This is so funny because calling Paul Ryan a rhino is a suggestion that Ryan isn't right enough. But the cutting of Social Security and Medicare being opposed is almost like opposing something from the left. It's it's a mishmash, unintelligible criticism. But the most important thing is it's really not super accurate. And as I mentioned last week, Ron DeSantis voted three times for a Republican study committee budget resolution. This was in 2013 and 2014 and 2015. Now, those resolutions failed. If they had passed, they were non-binding resolutions to look at pushing the retirement age of Social Security to 70. To be crystal clear with you. I'm against that. Ron DeSantis seemed interested in doing it,

and it would be a fair criticism. But to say DeSantis voted to cut Social Security is a bit of an exaggeration. Doesn't matter. It's interesting that this is the line of attack that Trump is taking. Whether it's a vote for a cut kind of depends on what you consider a vote and what you consider a cut. But Trump's not stopping there. Trump also now attacking Ron DeSantis by saying, yeah, Florida is great, but it has nothing to do with you posting a troth in all capital letters. Quote, Florida was doing great for many years long before Ron DeSantis got there. The sunshine and ocean are wonderful things to have. And then continuing to attack DeSantis, who, again, remember, he's not running yet with a post that says, quote, polls show me doing substantially better against hopeless Joe Biden

than DeSantis would do. An early forerunner again would be the 2020 election, where I did much better than in 2016, getting more votes than any sitting president in history. That election, however, was massively rigged. They used the China virus, the FBI, Twitter and Facebook and ballot stuffing in order to cheat. Good Republicans won't let that happen again. Get ready for a year and a half of this stuff. And then Trump even more with the polls saying, quote, the most recent New Hampshire poll has me substantially leading both Ron DeSantis and Rhino Governor Chris Sununu, who the voters in New Hampshire are getting very tired of. And unlike his father, does nothing to help the Republican Party. Ron's cutting of Social Security and Medicare would devastate New Hampshire. No way they'd vote for him. Now,

what is the truth of the polling stuff? You know, the truth is that it really varies. It is true that Trump is polling better than DeSantis in most polls. But the degree to which he's polling better than DeSantis really varies in one poll. It's twenty five and another poll. It's twenty one. But in some polls, it's Trump plus eight. There is a poll that has DeSantis ahead. There is a poll that has Trump ahead by only two. So it really does vary pretty dramatically. That being said, Trump clearly has identified DeSantis as his number one contender. The polling certainly coincides with that. So do the CPAC straw poll results, which we'll look at in a little bit more detail tomorrow. But Trump is obsessed. And this is what we can expect for the next 18 months.

And remember, DeSantis hasn't even announced yet. If and when DeSantis announces it is going to be insane. Ronny Jackson, Donald Trump's former doctor, who is now a congressman, is using Joe Biden's recent skin cancer to attack him. This is really disgusting. These people know no limits. And we knew that. I mean, Donald Trump made fun of a disabled reporter right early in 2016, and And we knew that. I mean, Donald Trump made fun of a disabled reporter right early in 2016. And then we knew it was going to get pretty ugly. Here is Ronny Jackson appearing on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo using Biden's cancerous legion lesion to attack Joe Biden. Take a look. Biden had a cancerous lesion removed from the president's chest last month.

The doctor said that this is a common form. The lesion tested positive for carcinoma, but he's OK. But I wonder about the conversation about his capacity. You have been talking about the president's cognitive abilities being a national security risk. Tell us more. Well, look, I'll start by saying that Biden is the cancer. You know, he's what needs to be removed, not the not the lesion they found. But this is just another effort from his physician and from his medical team to distract. They're going to invite in. This is ugly. This is ugly, ugly stuff. This guy's a doctor.

First of all, I know he had skin cancer, but what about his cognitive abilities? Biden really is the cancer. There is nothing too low for these people. And, you know, I criticize the electorate regularly. Let's put it that way. I think this is even too low for most of the electorate. I know that there are some MAGA people who will love this and they'll say there's nothing wrong, nothing inappropriate. There's nothing disturbing or offensive about it. I know that there is that group. But the reality is that for a lot of Americans, even many Republicans, they're not going to go for this. This is this is truly not for them. And Ronnie Jackson does this stuff at his own peril. That's my view.

If you disagree with me, let me know in the comments. We have a voicemail number and that number is two one nine two. David P. Take a listen to this voicemail about Mayo brains. David, Jeremy and Oregon here. I love your analogy to these people's brains and mayonnaise, because for one, mayonnaise is gross. And so I actually I actually like Mayo. I think Mayo is great. Yeah. I love the pronunciation. And I didn't have another example of why. But yes, gross. And that's a good example. Yeah, I didn't come up. I mean, to be honest, I know some people think that I call people mayo brained because I think mayonnaise is gross. I actually love mayonnaise and I didn't come up with it. Mayo brained is just a known term. You can check it out on Urban

Dictionary. You can check it out elsewhere. I wish I could take credit for that. I really do. But I genuinely cannot. We have such a great bonus show for you today that I think even Alex Jones is going to go for this one. Thank your lucky stars every day. You're not Dave Packman. Well, OK, but you can still listen to the bonus show. We are going to talk about we had this train derailment, even though train derailments have actually been declining over the last several decades. We still have too many. We want to reduce the number. Great.

So let's put together a bill to reduce train derailments. There is a bipartisan rail safety bill that has been proposed and it has hit a roadblock. What is the roadblock? Is it Bernie Sanders? No, the roadblock is Is it Bernie Sanders? No, the roadblock is Republicans, which you probably could have guessed. We will talk about what's in the bill. We will talk about why Republicans are now getting in the bill's way. Secondly, Gavin Newsom has decided that California is not going to do business with Walgreens over an abortion pill issue. What is the issue? Is Gavin Newsom still thinking of running for president?

Or would he only do that if Joe Biden doesn't run? We're going to talk about all of it on today's bonus show. And additionally, there is a lot of discussion about, you know, if Trump doesn't win the Republican nomination, he'll run as an independent. And I think it would be great if he did that. And I think he could destroy the Republican Party if he did. However, there are what are colloquially referred to as sore loser laws in a handful of important states that would not allow Trump to run third party if he actually stays in the Republican primary to the end and loses it. What is a sore loser law? We know Trump's a sore loser that we that we don't need to explore. But what is a sore loser law? How does it work? How could it affect Donald Trump's ability to run third party? All of those stories will be on today's bonus show. You can sign up at join Pacman dot com. We have a coupon code. That code is 24 starts now. You can also use the leftover from the weekend code CPAC trash. If you thought like I did, that CPAC was absolute trash. You can use the code

CPAC trash to get a discount. Also want to remind you, we are continuing to scale up the Spanish channel. If you know of people who would prefer to consume political content in Spanish rather than English, direct them with total peace and love and generosity to David Pakman dot com slash Spanish. We have surpassed our first couple of thousand subscribers on that channel. I believe we just have made some additional improvements to the channel, which are really great. Make sure you are aware of that. And then lastly, remember the best things you can do to support our program are all free. Make sure you're subscribed to our podcast on any podcasting platform you like Stitcher, Pandora, Spotify, iTunes, Google, whatever. Make sure you're subscribed to the

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