The David Pakman Show - 4/25/23: Joe Biden is running 2024, Tucker Carlson fired

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

-- On the Show: -- President Joe Biden announces that he is running for re-election in 2024 -- Fox News propagandist Tucker Carlson has been fired by Fox News -- Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner announces the firing of Tucker Carlson and it feels like a funeral eulogy -- There are reports of "pure joy" among Fox News staffers over the firing of Tucker Carlson -- Tucker Carlson's replacement, Brian Kilmeade, is super awkward and mostly pretends Tucker doesn't exist -- A squinting, visibly uncomfortable Ron DeSantis gives Sean Hannity an interview on Fox News during his Asia trip -- Donald Trump gives one of his most confused interviews yet to Newsmax, weighing in on the firing of Tucker Carlson -- Republican Senator Lindsey Graham's propaganda bubble is popped during a recent appearance on CNN -- Donald Trump posts a vicious Ron DeSantis attack ad -- Voicemail caller says the show is "disgusting" -- On the Bonus Show: Don Lemon fired by CNN, Vegas to California bullet train gets bipartisan backing, Supreme Court will decide about public officials blocking critics on social media, much more... 🧠 Mindbloom: Use code PAKMAN for $100 off at https://mindbloom.com/pakman 🖼️ Aura Frames: Code PAKMAN for $30 off + free shipping at https://auraframes.com/pakman 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David 🌳 Use code PAKMAN for 20% off HoldOn plant-based bags at https://holdonbags.com/pakman 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDPApril 20, 2023

Speaker 1 It has been a wild 24 hours of news. We will talk about the Tucker Carlson firing the Don Lemon firing. We will look at new interviews from Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump showing what a very ugly 2024 Republican primary might look like. But the big news, Joe Biden announcing that he is indeed running for reelection in twenty twenty four. 2024, if he were to win, he would best his own record of the oldest age to start a presidential term. Remember that Joe Biden already the oldest president ever to start a presidential term at 78 when he was inaugurated in January of 2021.

Second would, of course, be Ronald Reagan at age 73. Joe Biden would be 82, I believe, if my math is right and my recollection and my facts at the start of a second term. But can he get there? Well, that is, of course, a different question. The New York Times headline today, Biden announces reelection bid defying Trump and history. While the president once pitched himself as a bridge to a new generation of Democratic leaders, he has decided that he is not ready to turn the torch over yet. There may be an event sometime later this week

with another announcement. But for now, this is the announcement. And there is all sorts of speculation that honestly I will mention, but I don't think is that useful to just really dwell on everything from Biden doesn't really plan to stay all the way to the election. This is a placeholder because it would hurt him to say now that he's not running for reelection, but he has to say something because Trump's running and DeSantis might soon be getting in and he can't just do nothing, but he's going to be a placeholder for the eventual nominee when Biden bows out. Well, we have no evidence that that's the plan. Of course, you can always assert that someone is lying and they have some real plan behind the scenes,

but we don't have evidence of that right now. Much of this is driven, I think, by two things, Joe Biden's age and again, the fact that he once did pitch himself as a bridge, as a transitional president who might only serve for one term. If any of those scenarios happen, we are going to have time to discuss and to analyze. But it doesn't seem very worthwhile to invest time in that right now. Now what I think is more interesting to look at is where are the polls today and do Democrats want Biden to run? Let's start with polling.

There is a plethora of polling, hypothetical polling, which says if it's Biden versus DeSantis or if it's Biden versus Trump, what are people saying right now? A new poll released today from Ipsos Reuters has Biden ahead of DeSantis by nine and Biden ahead of Trump by five. This poll is out of step with other polling in two ways. Number one, in most polling, Biden does better against Trump than DeSantis. In this poll, Biden does better against DeSantis. It's also different in that the numbers are, you know, if you look at most of these other polls, we're talking about tied all the way up to like plus four plus five and plus nine is not something that we are seeing. We similarly have another poll released two days ago from Morning Consult, which has Biden plus four over DeSantis and plus one over Trump and

then a number of other polling polls in which Biden does better against Trump than DeSantis. But the early numbers and they are worth a little bit, but not that much right now are that Joe Biden, for the most part, is polling ahead of the two most likely Republican challengers in 2024. This gets us to the third component of this discussion, which is are voters happy with the most likely choices, which are Biden and Trump. And the answer is no, not really. And we talked about this yesterday on the bonus show a little bit.

Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Sure. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Yeah, we made money yesterday on the bonus show talking about this. Majorities don't want Biden and Trump to run in 2024. A new NBC News poll found that 60 percent of Americans think Trump should not try to retake the Oval Office, including roughly a third of Republicans. At the same time, 70 percent of Americans think Biden shouldn't seek a second term, including 51 percent of Democrats.

A majority of Democrats don't believe Biden would seek a second term. Now, what we spoke about yesterday with producer Pat on the bonus show is. Just because you would rather a different choice doesn't mean if you're a Democrat, you're going to vote for Trump or if you're a Republican, you're going to vote for Biden. It doesn't mean that. And I do think that all of the data points us to if these are the choices, even if you'd rather someone else, if you're not a Trump person, you're not going to vote for Trump just because you'd rather someone other than Biden and vice versa. Now, I want to go one step further.

You all know. I've not been a Biden cheerleader. I don't find Biden electrifying or exciting or any of it, but I try to evaluate presidencies as objectively as possible. And I'm going to have a deeper dive on this for you soon. When I look on paper, as the kids say, it's hard to argue that the Biden presidency is anything but one of the most successful presidential terms in a very long time. I know, I know Biden is not as left as I would like. And Biden was not the guy I supported in the primary and all these different things. But when you actually look at accomplishments, particularly in the context in which Joe Biden is serving this first of potentially two terms, it is really

difficult to say that this is not a very successful presidential term. It's crazy to think about. I will lay it out for you as a non Biden cheerleader, just looking to be as objective as possible. Maybe we'll do that tomorrow or Thursday. Maybe we'll give it a little more time and look at that next week. But Joe Biden running for reelection. We are going to be watching this election very closely. We really are. You know, we have this coupon code.

Twenty four starts now on our website. We really are in the midst of the 2024 election as quickly. It feels like we're still seeing Trump at 2 a.m. the day after the 2020 election saying, I guess I won. Feels like it was just yesterday. But we really are ramping up here in the 2024 election and we're going to be covering all of it for you. Fox News propagandist Tucker Carlson has been fired by Fox News. What was initially reported as they have parted ways is very clearly a firing. As far as we know, as of Tucker's last show on Friday, he expected to be back on the air last night. We have four different potential reasons that may have played a role in what

took place. And I will tell you about all of them. But do not be confused. This is a firing. We have a report from The Washington Post. Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News after Dominion lawsuit disclosures. This is potentially one element of the firing, which is that the discovery from the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News, which led to a settlement of seven hundred and eighty seven point five million dollars in favor of Dominion, included the release of text messages from Tucker Carlson, some of which contain Tucker saying he hates Trump passionately, which is interesting, but also text messages in which Tucker Carlson was criticizing Fox management. That's not a great thing if you are Fox News and now you've got to deal with this guy. We also have this lawsuit that is forthcoming related to harassment taking place

within the walls of the Tucker Carlson production apparatus, I guess we would call it. A woman has filed a lawsuit and makes all sorts of very, very tough allegations. And that is a mess for Fox News as well. In addition to this, we have potentially a forthcoming lawsuit from Ray Epps. Ray Epps is this guy who was in Washington, D.C. on January 5th, 2021. And many people, including Tucker Carlson, have made Ray Epps's life a living hell. Signal boosting conspiracy theories that Ray Epps is some kind of agent provocateur or FBI informant or whatever the case may be, who was trying to entrap rioters by encouraging them to go and riot when they had no plan to do so. There's no evidence of any of that. And there was a 60 Minutes piece on Sunday just two days ago

in which Ray Epps specifically points to Tucker Carlson and saying essentially he's made my life a living hell. That is also a lawsuit concern. So when you step back and you think about it, Tucker Carlson, responsible to some degree for giving voice to those conspiracies that led to the seven hundred eighty seven million dollar settlement for Dominion. In addition to that, that very lawsuit releasing text messages from Tucker Carlson that make it a little awkward to have him working for you. You've got one lawsuit already with another lawsuit potentially forthcoming. As good as his ratings were, this guy is really a headache for you. And we have video. This was the end of Tucker.

What ended up being Tucker Carlson's final episode on Friday. He says, I'll be back Monday. And there is every indication that he believed he would be back on the air yesterday. We just saw what a great way to end the week. Yeah, truly. That was a great segment. And I'm just grateful that you came on. And I'm especially grateful for the pie.

Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Employee of the week. We're going to, we're just make it of the year. Tyler Morrell of Coco's Pizza. That's it for us for the week. We'll be back. By the way, the entire episode of Let Them Eat Bugs, not quite as good as pizza. Streaming now on Fox station.

Use the promo code originals for 30 days free. And we'll be back on Monday. In the meantime, have the best weekend with the ones that you love. There it is. We'll be back on Monday. So the meantime, have the best weekend with the ones that you love. There it is. We'll be back on Monday. So every indication that he would be back. So listen, let's think through the larger implications here. Will Tucker ultimately be replaced with someone worse?

It's possible. Last night, Brian Kilmeade from Fox and Friends filled in for Tucker. And we'll have a few seconds of that. It was pretty awkward a little bit later in the show. Imagine the bigger picture, though. Tucker Carlson was reportedly fired by Fox, at least in part for the things he said about Fox management, as revealed in the Dominion lawsuit. So in some incredible way, Trump's harebrained election lies, which led to the attacks on Dominion, which led to the lawsuit, led to Tucker's firing. In a sense, Tucker's firing came from the big lie about the 2020 election in terms of whether it's good for the

country to have Tucker off the air, what will likely be temporarily because Tucker is going to find something else. Of course, Tucker broke the brains of millions of people. He was seen by many on the right as a real thinker, which is hilarious. And so in some sense, the country is better off with Tucker not spouting propaganda. On the other hand, he'll find some other place to do it. It just won't be Fox. Additionally, Don Lemon was fired from CNN yesterday. That relates to what happened with Tucker in some ways. We'll delve into that in more detail on the bonus show later today. So let's take a quick break. Make sure you're subscribed on the YouTube channel. If you're just listening today, you can watch. I know it's crazy to think there's a video component to this insane show that

we do every day, but there is. You can watch at YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. We're going to take a quick break, let emotions simmer on set, and then we'll be back with much more in a moment. If you deal with anxiety or depression, you may have tried meditation, exercise, diet changes, therapy, all of which are important things to try. There is also a new treatment that we've been talking about on the program for years, which for many people has been a game changer, and that is ketamine therapy. The research around ketamine therapy for anxiety and depression looks very promising, which is why I'm thrilled about our new sponsor, Mindbloom. Mindbloom is the leader in at home ketamine therapy, having safely helped thousands of people with anxiety and depression. It's

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notes. All right. Let's review some of the coverage, I guess we would call it, including on Fox News of the firing of Tucker Carlson. Some of this stuff is really funny. Some of it's kind of sad. Some of it's, you know, a little bit of both or somewhere in between. I'm going to start with a clip of Harris Faulkner. Harris Faulkner has increasingly been one of the more notable kind of partisan hacks on Fox News, I think is the term that I would use in a lot of different ways. She devoted 35 seconds to telling us that Tucker Carlson is no longer going to be at Fox News. She falsely said that Tucker and Fox agreed to go their separate ways. What's funny about that term is like, in a sense, anytime someone's fired, the parties have agreed that they won't work there anymore in the sense that the person who's fired doesn't really have a choice. Like they leave and

they don't show back up. So in that sense, they've agreed. But the suggestion that this was mutual is, of course, wrong. The funniest part of this clip, though, is the delivery. It's almost like it's a eulogy at a funeral, but kind of even even weirder. She's really struggling through this. Let's take a look. We have some news from within our Fox family. Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have mutually agreed to part ways.

Yeah. And again, it's not really mutual in so far as when you're fired, you kind of have to accept it. Tucker's last show was this past Friday. Wow. And starting tonight, Fox News Tonight will air live at 8 p.m. Eastern. It will be an interim show with rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named. We want to thank Tucker Carlson for his service to the network. She's acting like this is going to be the naming of a new pope. You know, I mean, and but you know, I'm not Catholic, so it's not like I even really glorify the naming of a new pope. But when you consider the pomp and circumstance around it, she's acting like at some point or the you know, the next the next Dalai Lama is going to be selected as a host and prior to that as a long

term contributor. Wow. So really only 31 seconds and then four seconds of silence there. The funniest part is when she said that it was mutual for sure. There was really nothing mutual about it. Then we go to Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk, one of the most I mean, I would say prominent and powerful right wing voices when it comes to indoctrinating college and recently college aged people, I think is a fair praise of sorts of Charlie Kirk. He is talking about Tucker as if Tucker died almost. It's like he just got fired. He'll do his propaganda elsewhere. But Charlie Kirk also sounds like he's eulogizing Tucker Carlson here. Some tech issues here to Tucker Carlson remade the right.

That is one thing I will agree with the view on. He was more powerful than anybody else since the death of Rush Limbaugh in reshaping the rights, in moving the Overton window, in pushing forward positive narratives, in challenging Operation Mockingbird. I can say this as somebody who knows Tucker very well. He did not care about the backlash. Right. And he is still alive. I know you might think, wow, so Tucker died, I guess. Tucker is alive. He's just been fired. And he will. I am sure I am certain I'm confident he will continue doing all of those things that Charlie talked about just on a different network.

And then the third reaction to this and this I love this is a message I can really get behind. The third reaction has been stop watching Fox News. We need listen. They fired Bongino. Now they fired Tucker and Jesse Waters is on paternity leave, which I guess when Pete Buttigieg took paternity leave, it was bad. But Jesse Waters can take paternity leave.

It's all very strange. But the message that they've been coming up with is it's time to not watch Fox News anymore. That is a message I can get behind. Here's propaganda. Steve Bannon suggesting that approach, which I've said, hey, the reason to watch Fox, you got Maria in the morning. You've got you've got Jesse, right? He's getting there. But Tucker is really the reason to watch Fox with this.

I don't know anybody needs to watch anything on the Murdoch empire because Tucker was the mainstay of the the populist voice over Fox. And it's just like blockbuster news. Tucker's announced he's leaving and not just that. The last show was for Tucker didn't really announce that he's leaving. Like even that. That's also not true. Tucker hasn't.

And Tucker on Friday thought he would be back yesterday. Tucker was fired. He's announced that he's leaving tonight. So tonight they're going to replace it with, I don't know, Fox News tonight or something. But no, Tucker Carlson at Fox News. It looks like no Tucker Carlson at Fox News. It looks like no Tucker Carlson at Fox Nation, the streaming service. We'll get more details of that.

Yeah, he's been fired. OK, so he's he announced that he's leaving. Listen, the not watching Fox. I mean, that Steve Bannon is known for. Political maneuvering that includes the use of so-called chaos agents. In fact, there's now a report. And I'm not saying that this is actually completely accurate. It's a report and I haven't looked at it yet, but there's a report that Bannon has been encouraging Bobby Kennedy Jr. to run against Biden, not because Bannon likes Bobby Kennedy Jr., but as a, quote, chaos agent, a really great chaos agent

type move would be for the right to come out with a campaign against Fox News. That would be an absolute and total delight. So I'm behind that. Stop watching Fox News the way Steve Bannon says that was the reaction from some on air people. Let's now look at the reaction at Fox News to Tucker's firing from staffers. Pure joy. Pure joy is the way that Rolling Stone describes the emotional circumstances among staffers at Fox News over the firing of propagandist Tucker Carlson. This is just delightful to see Fox News and Tucker Carlson have parted ways. He's been fired. The rest of the network seems thrilled, writes this Rolling Stone article. Quote, pure joy. One Fox reporter told Rolling Stone of their reaction to the split. No one is untouchable. It's a great

day for America and for the real journalists who work hard every day to deliver the news at Fox. OK, I don't know how many of them there are. A producer added, quote, It was a good move to part ways with Tucker. He knowingly spread lies throughout his time at Fox. But I fear management will replace him with someone who is just like him. So there probably won't be any real change, as I suggested earlier in the show. A network correspondent said, quote, Good riddance for a while there. It seemed like he was running the network. This clearly is a message that he's not in the interim.

It's a morale boost for sure. So a lot of people at Fox happy with this, this decision. And I think it's important to, again, insert into this discussion. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that Tucker Carlson was fired because his on air message became incompatible with the ideology of Fox News. Everything we know is that these are all really sort of like personnel and legal issues. Tucker Carlson fomented the storylines that got Fox News sued by Dominion and paying out almost 800 million dollars and currently under lawsuit by Smartmatic,

potentially paying out even more money. Tucker was part of that. Tucker was attacking Fox management in text messages, which we learned about because of that lawsuit. Tucker and alleged harassment taking place in his staff among his staff environment. It has now led to a lawsuit by a woman and the targeting of Ray Epps may lead to another lawsuit against Tucker Carlson and his program. So he became a legal problem. He became a headache. He became a problem employee, essentially. But it is not because Fox News decided, oh, we really shouldn't have that ideology. Needless to say, the fact that Fox staffers are so thrilled about this is fascinating. Another article from The L.A. Times writes Tucker Carlson producers discrimination claims

go beyond Dominion scandal. This is and I just lost the article. I don't know where it went. Abby Grossberg sued Fox, Fox News, Tucker and several producers late yesterday, alleging the network is rife with sexist, misogynistic and abusive behavior. There are people already saying that none of these allegations are true. And there are people saying, obviously, they are. We have a lawsuit. It's going to be adjudicated. OK, but the lawsuit is another problem. A Grossberg lawsuit alleges discrimination based on gender, religion and disability.

She alleges that, quote, constant bullying and gaslighting caused her, quote, so much stress and anxiety that her stomach ulcers flared up and she was in excruciating pain. So that is going to be investigated. That is going to be looked at. And then, of course, we have the potentially forthcoming lawsuit from Ray Epps. Not good for Fox News. It was not mutual. Tucker was fired. But if anybody is happy here, other than millions of Americans who rightly assess that Tucker was damaging the country. It is Fox News staffers themselves. Pure joy. The exact quote from Rolling Stone. All right. So what was on the air last night when you would have expected to see Tucker Carlson had he not been fired by Fox News earlier

in the day? Well, it was Brian Kilmeade. Now, I admit I was a little confused. I get Brian Kilmeade and Greg Gutfeld mixed up. I know that officially Gutfeld is a comedian and Kilmeade is a news guy. But you know how it is on Fox. It's very hard to tell what's what. So I was expecting to see Gutfeld hosting last night. But Kilmeade is the guy from Fox and Friends. He acknowledges that Tucker is gone, but they're still friends. And then it is never mentioned again. Take a look at this. This is the intro from last night's show. Fox News. Hi, everybody, and welcome to Fox News tonight. I am Brian Kilmeade. As you probably have heard, Fox News and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. I wish Tucker the best. I'm great friends with Tucker and always will be. But right now it's

time for Fox News tonight. So let's get started. Let's get started. That clip from decoding Fox News, who does a great job on Twitter. If you're still on Twitter, you could follow decoding Fox News. So, you know, it's sort of like a Tucker's great, great friend of mine. Let's never speak of him again. Now, I am going to admit to you, this is not unique to Fox News. I've been involved at affiliate stations where I didn't directly work there. They carried the show. And as you know, radio is a completely toxic industry where there's no loyalty. And any day someone could just come on, come in off the street and replace you, quite frankly. But I've sort of been tangentially involved in situations where

someone has just moved off of the schedule or fired. Sometimes it's like a national show that's dropped and then you get a call and it's just sort of like, hey, listen, we are going in a different direction. We've gotten rid of your friend. Whoever. Are you OK with us rerunning your show and now running it twice a day? Sure. Whatever. You know, it's like the situation kill me. This isn't the totality of everything. Fox News staffers happy about this and lawsuits coming in and Tucker's text messages being part of this and Tucker's coverage leading in part to the lawsuit that led to the 800 million dollar settlement. All of that stuff is crazy. The micro of like, listen, my boss has told me to be here and I kind of have to host this

thing now, but it doesn't mean I hate Tucker. That actually is awkward and it is not Brian Kilmeade's fault. So it's more just like the final note on this. But I don't blame Kilmeade for anything. I guess his alternative is like to turn this down. But nobody's going to turn down an opportunity like this, even if you're friends with Tucker. And I am sure that if you ask Tucker, Tucker would say, no, I don't hold it against Brian, that a boss called him and said, hey, do you want to host more stuff? It's totally typical and normal. The awkwardness and the let's never speak of it again and move on to an interview with Vivek Ramaswamy, which is what ultimately there was. It's a funny visual, but this is the way that it always happens. All right. All of these clips will be on our Instagram. You can search Instagram for David Pakman show. They will be on our YouTube

channel, youtube.com slash the David Pakman show. They will be on our tick tock. And yes, even on Snapchat, we are now on Snapchat. Very interesting platform, actually, which I'll have more to say about at some point in the future. We're going to take a quick break. We'll look at the DeSantis and Trump interviews after the break and so many other things. We've talked on the show about how Internet service providers have been logging everything their customers do online and selling that data. Tech companies use trackers in websites

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online without private Internet access is like leaving your phone unattended in a crowded room. Anyone can just take a glance. My audience gets 83 percent off. That's just two Oh three a month. Go to P I a VPN.com slash David. The link is in the podcast notes, plastic it's everywhere we look and not enough is being done about it. 100 billion plastic bags are used and thrown away every year. Here's something super simple you can do to reduce plastic and help the planet a little bit. Our sponsor, Hold On Bags, is the company making plastic free trash bags and zip seal kitchen bags. They're just as strong and high quality as the plastic bags you're used to.

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the two men who, if they both run, are the likely front runners in the 2024 Republican primary. We're going to start with Ron DeSantis and then look at Donald Trump. Ron DeSantis is on what, according to many, is a very ill-advised trip to Asia right now. Flo flooding and gas lines in Florida, all sorts of problems that are self-inflicted, quite frankly, by Ron DeSantis. And he was in Japan yesterday and I believe now in Korea, really a profile and courage in South Korea that as you might imagine. And during the Hannity hour last night on Fox News, which I guess coincides conveniently with the time difference with where Ron DeSantis is, Ron DeSantis was interviewed. Now, there's a logistical problem and then there's a substance problem. The logistical problem, as you will notice, is that somehow they set DeSantis up.

Facing the sun and he's squinting the entire interview. He looks visibly uncomfortable. Now, DeSantis often looks visibly uncomfortable even in a well-lit, cool room. But here he looks extra uncomfortable. So I don't know. You know, this was a scheduled interview. Why they have him staring into the sun. I don't really know. Maybe it's because Trump stared at the eclipse that time and they wanted to do the same thing. Unclear. But DeSantis generally is just not really understanding how to properly answer basic questions. In this clip, Hannity asks DeSantis, what happened to your relationship with Donald Trump? Here's his answer. The last time I interviewed President Trump, I was there in 2018 and I always saw the two of you as friends.

And I said to him, you guys were friends. It's a very simple question. I asked him, I said, what happened? And I think it's only fair to ask you the same question. What do you think happened? You know, I enjoyed supporting him when he was president. We worked really hard for his reelection in Florida and I always had a good relationship with him. And then once the midterm election happened, he started taking shots at me. I didn't really do anything to do it except do a good job. But that's fine. I mean, Sean, you know, when you're making things happen, you take incoming from a variety of targets. So that's just the nature of the business. And I'm happy to I'm happy to stand strong and do what's right. All right, guys, I don't think the Santas can do it.

This is such a weak answer by the standards of what Republican voters want. Think of it now. DeSantis isn't wrong. Listen, DeSantis is accurately pointing out. He used to like me. Then he stopped liking me when it became clear that DeSantis wasn't backing down from challenging Trump in 2024. This is how it all started.

Remember that what happened was DeSantis was asked, would you consider running in 2024 and would you commit to only doing it if Trump isn't running? And DeSantis didn't rule out. Now I might run even if Trump Trump runs, I might challenge Trump. This was seen as disloyal by Trump. And that's why all of this started. So DeSantis, his assessment is 100 percent correct. Trump just started going after me and I'm not going to get involved in it. This is so pathetic and weak looking from the standards of these Republican voters. He's basically saying, I don't know, he just went after me and I'm doing nothing. Now, you and I might say you need someone taking the high road. In fact, it would be better to have

someone who's not even involved in this nonsense, someone like a Mitt Romney or Liz Cheney or whatever else the case may be. I'm with you on a personal level, but this is weak stuff. This is not going to if you think Trump's got 52 percent right now, DeSantis has 24. And in order to win, DeSantis has to figure out some way to get up to and beyond 50 percent. This isn't going to help him. Just he started it. He sounds whiny. He sounds pathetic. And the interview continued. And it really isn't great for DeSantis here. Asked again about the the attacks. And he says, I'm just going to do what's right. That's fine. I mean, Sean, you know,

when you're making things happen, you take incoming from a variety of targets. So that's just the nature of the business. And I'm happy to I'm happy to stand strong and do what's right. All right, Governor, have a great trip. We appreciate you joining us. OK, and I thought we actually had new stuff there, but it seems sort of like a retread of a lot of the same stuff. So this is not a guy who you see and you say, wow, projecting strength, projecting confidence, projecting an inspiring and electric alternative vision to what Trump gives us. Hey, you know what? I was a Trump person. Maybe I'll go for DeSantis instead. It's maybe good enough to kind of clean up the hangers on and the dregs of the

opposition to Trump that is already there. But it's not going to coalesce people around you and restructure the dynamic of this primary in a way that's going to let you win it. It's just not going to do any of that. So now the question for DeSantis is, does he even announce, does he try to wait till 2024? Does he forget about the presidency altogether? Does he risk possibly humiliation? Quite frankly, I mean, it is it is totally he really doesn't seem to have what it takes. And if he enters this race with Trump at 52 and DeSantis at 24 and doesn't have some way to strongly gain support, he could end up truly humiliated. And it would be an entertaining watch from a political strategy standpoint, be sort of a strange thing. So that's the DeSantis interview

from yesterday. Let's now look at the Trump interview. Within hours of the firing of Tucker Carlson, failed former President Donald Trump was interviewed on Newsmax. This is an interview as confused as I have ever seen Donald Trump. One of the first things he was asked about was his opinion on the firing of Tucker. And what's, of course, very funny about this is that we now know Tucker hates Trump. Tucker's text messages revealed in the discovery process of that Dominion lawsuit, which ultimately led to a nearly 800 million dollar settlement. There was this text message where Tucker said, I hate Trump passionately and I can't wait until we can stop talking about him. So Trump, of course, knows that. But I think Trump still realizes that at least in some sense, he may need an ally in Tucker Carlson

for his primary and for his eventual general election campaign if he gets there. So here is Trump reacting to the departure, a.k.a. firing of Tucker from Fox. So Tucker Carlson was sitting here two weeks ago interviewing you. He's gone. What do you make of that? Well, I'm shocked. I'm surprised. He's a very good person, a very good man and very talented, as you know, and he had very high ratings. So we're just learning about it almost as we speak. Now a couple of people wrote to me and there's more to this which we'll look at saying, you know, David. If you read the expression on Trump's face, this little smirk. Trump is saying one thing, but projecting another one with the smirk. And that's Trump's reaction, which is Tucker got what was coming to him because he said

bad things about me in those text messages. It's an interpretation. I don't know. You make of it what you will. You know, I just said, wow, that was something that's a big one. I don't know if it was voluntary or was it somebody fired, but I think Tucker's been terrific. He's been, especially over the last year or so, he's been terrific to me.

There's a lot of turmoil over there, Fox. I mean, 787 they just paid. Why would they get rid of a guy who's performing? Why would somebody do that to their business? Because they're losing money right now. Their stock has gone down. Well, I was surprised that they made a settlement on that case. I thought that was a case that should easily be won. And they made a settlement. Look, you'll have to ask them. I'm not

I'm not representing them at all by any way, by any means. But the Tucker situation again, you don't know if it's a firing. Maybe he left because he wasn't being given his free reign. He wants free reign, maybe. But now, of course, we know that Tucker was indeed fired and we know that there were many problems. Tucker's coverage partially responsible for the lawsuit that led to the settlement. Tucker saying horrible things about Fox management in text messages released as part of that lawsuit. Tucker currently sued for having a discriminatory, misogynistic, sexist, racist production apparatus and potentially another lawsuit coming from Ray App. So Fox News realized, at least to some degree, that Tucker became a problem for them.

Continuing on this very confusing Newsmax interview, we saw DeSantis asked by Hannity about Trump. Now we see Trump asked by Greg Kelly about DeSantis and Trump takes a different approach than DeSantis did. Want to get to Nixon in a moment, by the way, Ron DeSantis, do you think he could be a good president someday in like eight years, 16 years? I mean, you endorsed him once. He's got some talent. You're kind of crushing him right now. Someday, could he be president? Well, I endorsed him once and he was losing badly. And because of the endorsement, he wanted to landslide the following, literally the following day.

Look, right now I'm very down on him. I'm a believer in loyalty and I'm a believer in other things. And he has obviously not run a very good campaign because he's getting he's getting crushed. So I understand that there is no campaign yet. That's the most interesting thing about this. Trump is acting as though DeSantis is running a campaign. Now you could argue, well, he sort of is, but he hasn't announced because he's feeling it out. OK, it's not actually a campaign.

And there's a question as to if and how the dynamics will change. I really don't know. I don't know. You know, I don't know him that well. I agreed to endorse him. He came over to see me. He was one of 100 people that fought a little bit on the impeachment hoax. Number one impeachment hoax.

Number two, there were hoaxes. They were just hoaxes. And based on that, I did it because I didn't know the people he was running. He was running against a man that was way up in the polls, leading by a massive amount. That election was over. When I endorsed him, the election was over in Ron's favor. I mean, it was Ron was getting ready to quit. So I don't know. I'm very disappointed in him because I'm a loyal person.

Maybe that's really what this is all about. He could have just skipped to that to a fault. I'm a loyal person. And somebody gets you into office and then you're telling people, well, I don't know if I'll run against the president. You know, I mean, life shouldn't have to work that way. And there it is. The anecdote I regularly refer to, which is theSantis was asked, would you rule out running

against Trump? And he didn't rule it out. Trump remembers Trump bringing up that anecdote. He has not forgotten about that. The topic of the January 6 riots came up, as it often does. And listen to what Trump had to say. This this is really wild stuff. They're weaponizing law enforcement at a level that nobody's ever seen before. And it's very dangerous to the country. And our country is not going to stand for it. You know, we have very strong people in this country and they've been sitting back and watching. They've been watching. They've watched that whole situation at the Capitol. They didn't walk in with guns.

They shot Ashley Babbitt, that officer. Bad things should happen to him. He shot her and she was totally defenseless. She was like an American patriot. You look at her. She was a patriot. Listen, that's been investigated. And it's interesting to continue to hear the people who say we support the police, we defend

the police, et cetera, et cetera, all of a sudden say, hey, even though there was an extensive investigation into the death of Ashley Babbitt and the officer was found not at fault, they insist that the officer did something wrong. Why is that? It's because that principle of we support the police only when it's convenient. Online, the flag and the whole thing. She was an American patriot. They shot her and nothing happened to him. If that were the other way around, there would have been held to pay. But the people of this country just aren't going

to take it anymore. Well, I don't know exactly what Trump means by that. Is he alluding to violence? Is he alluding to how people will vote? We never know. Last clip, Donald Trump asked about his former attorney general, William Barr. Gets a little dicey. And most of my people were smart and tough. I had some bad ones. I mean, I wish I had a better attorney general, somebody that was tougher, that wasn't afraid to fight. He should have been fighting instead of being afraid to be impeached. He was petrified of being impeached, just petrified. It made him, there's a couple of words I could use. I would never use the word impotent, of course, but it made him absolutely useless when it came to election fraud and so many other things.

And now he sits back and he pontificates with, you know, some some of these various shows that are on. I wish I had a better attorney general. Well, remember, Trump ran on I will hire the absolute best people. And so by his own standards, if there is anybody to blame for William Barr, it is Trump himself. So this is what I expect to continue in terms of DeSantis versus Trump, whether or not. Listen, even if DeSantis doesn't announce until the point at which DeSantis says I'm not running, if that is what is coming, this is what we're going to see.

We are going to see Trump continuing to attack DeSas for disloyalty and DeSantis playing the I'm too good for this. I'm too classy for this. I'm above it thing, which only makes him look weak to the average Republican voter. We will have more. We're going to take a quick break. Lindsey Graham had his bubble popped on CNN yesterday and many other things to discuss with you. One scoop of AG1 gives me the entire day's worth of 75 high quality vitamins and minerals

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I've talked about vitamin D before. That's athletic greens dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has become very comfortable in the right wing propaganda bubble where you're just allowed to kind of say really whatever you want and it's not really challenged in any way. And he was very triggered when he appeared on CNN and Dana Bash, quite honestly, very gently pushed back against like one little tiny corner of what he was saying about abortion. And he didn't like it one bit. He didn't like being questioned in any way and attacked her saying you're covering for

these people. There's actually some really interesting data underlying what they're talking about, about abortion. So let's listen to it. Let's look at it. Then I'll talk to you more. I think the Republican Party will be in good standing to oppose late-term abortion like most of the civilized world. Just for the record, Roe went up to viability, but I just want to button this up.

No, no, no, quit covering for these guys. What? No, no, no. Your media, you keep covering for these guys. They introduced legislation that allowed abortion on demand with taxpayer funded. Well, you paying for it, the taxpayer up to the moment of birth. That was their position in Washington. That's the law they want to pass. And nobody in your business will talk about it. It's barbaric. Senator, I'm not covering for anybody. And you know that. And when I have

Democrats on and I've had Democrats, I've asked for the fact I have asked many all of them about their position on where where they believe this issue should be. Speaker 1 OK, the temper tantrum by Lindsey Graham accusing Dan a bash of covering for them just because she inserted one little measly fact into the discussion. That is a result of the propaganda bubble that the Republican Party is so used to. It's really important to understand two parts of this. First of all, Dana Bash is correct. The Supreme Court decision in 1973 in Roe v. Wade established that a woman has a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy up to the point of fetal viability, which is generally around 24 weeks of gestation.

Since Roe v. Wade, with medical advances, there have been very limited instances where a fetus was able to survive a week or two earlier than that. Insanely rare, insanely risky. But what we are talking about here, indeed, with Roe v. Wade, which is gone now. OK, but Dana Bash is correct. This isn't controversial. Roe v. Wade dealt with the point of viability generally considered 24 weeks. But there's another really important thing to understand. Abortions in general, after 21 weeks, forget about 24 after 21 weeks are really rare. Difficult to get costly, time intensive and only even performed by some providers. Now, it doesn't matter what you think is right or wrong. The point is something that barely happens gets almost all of the

attention and the vast majority of abortions get almost no attention. There's a very good graphic from the CDC, which we're going to put up on the screen, which shows that more than a third of abortions are before six weeks. Remember, it usually takes five weeks to even know you're pregnant. Thirty four percent of abortions are before six weeks. A full 52 percent of abortions are before seven weeks. And then you stack up the numbers. Ninety nine percent of abortions are before 19 weeks. And when you look out at this graph and you look all the way out to twenty nine weeks, zero point zero one percent of abortions are happening at that point. And if you go beyond 19, beyond 29 weeks, it is statistically zero. So Lindsay is upset that Dana Bash said, oh, Roe v. Wade dealt with up until the point

of viability. What she should have said is, Lindsay, 91 percent of abortions happened before 13 weeks. Ninety nine percent of abortions happened before 19 weeks or some formulation of that based on the CDC data. But they don't care. They don't want to talk about that. And instead they want to talk about two days before the due date, a week after the due date and all of these different things.

Now, let's divide that up into two parts just so we're being thorough. The after birth abortions, I still am not totally sure where that comes from. It's it's not anywhere. There was a rumor from New York that they started. It was untrue. There was a rumor from Virginia. They started. It was untrue. So after birth abortion, it's not even worthy of our discussion. The day before the due date abortion. Really precise statements about this were made in some abortion hearings. I want to say it was about a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago, and OBGYNs and other medical practitioners testified under oath about this. And they said, listen, just because it might be legal somewhere to have an abortion in the third trimester doesn't mean

that obese are just going to do it and that it doesn't mean that people are coming to us asking for that. And multiple OBGYN said it's never even come up in my practice. This scenario of your 37 weeks pregnant and you say, hey, you know what? I think I just don't want a baby. Oh, sure. We'll perform an abortion. Most obese have said it's not even come up. The rare cases where that happens, you're talking about the mother's life being at risk and that it is just not a thing the way that Republicans pretend that it is. So anyway, Lindsay's all triggered because one little fact was interjected. I wish Dana Bash had actually said more and said, why do you and your ilk insist on focusing on a part of the curve that is below zero point zero one percent of all abortions, which has been widely discussed by obese? And we now understand

the truth of it. Why do you pretend like that's what abortion is? But she didn't do that. And fine, she didn't think it was her place to. But Lindsay, Lindsay's got to settle down and get out of that propaganda bubble a little more often. OK, we recently told you about a pro DeSantis super PAC which released its first anti Trump ad. We now have Donald Trump posting a hardcore Ron DeSantis attack ad to Truth Social Central. And what's interesting is that some of the claims that it makes, it's a very aggressive, very vicious attack ad. But the claims it makes aren't exactly bulletproof, which might not come as a shock to you. Let's take a listen. Was struggling big time in his primary race for governor of Florida. Polls revealed DeSantis was failing so bad he was losing by a staggering 17 points.

Then DeSantis was saved by the endorsement of President Trump. Trump's support was so powerful. Just two days after the endorsement, DeSantis took a commanding lead and it propelled him to being elected governor. I'd like to thank our president for standing by me when it wasn't necessarily the smart thing to do. You're welcome, Ron. Unfortunately, instead of being grateful, DeSantis is now attacking the very man who saved his career. Is that time DeSantis remembers how he got to where he is. Make America great again. Big League. So good. Build the wall. Then Mr. Trump said you're fired. I love that part. Truth is, there's only one person who can make America

great again. Yeah. So, you know, this entire thing about how the day at two days after the endorsement, DeSantis just shot up. I encourage you to go back and look at the polls. Real clear politics has like a polling historical polling trend line on that race. And it is true that eventually DeSantis surged as the election got close. But it wasn't over the summer when Trump claims that his endorsement in 48 hours turned the race around. It was months later. Now you can debate whether it was thanks to Trump's endorsement months earlier. I'm not even trying to have that debate with you. The story that's being told, DeSantis was dead. And then I endorsed him.

And 48 hours later, he was absolutely crushing in the polls. It's just not what the polling data shows when you look at it retrospectively. So I do think that, you know, Trump's in a position where there's the real reason he's angry with DeSas. And then there's what stuff can he use to criticize the Santas? There's a little bit of a dissonance between the two. The real reason Trump's furious at the Santas is that the Santas not ruling out running is seen by Trump as totally disloyal. The problem is Trump's going after the Santas for like, for example, saying Trump's sorry, Trump says theSantis is covid

numbers are terrible. They're mediocre. They're not terrible. They're not good. Florida is very mediocre in most metrics. So when Trump used to praise DeSantis on covid, now he attacks him on covid. The truth is, it was was both sort of like it's not great in Florida, but they benefit from the warm weather and people being outdoors.

And so, like, the numbers aren't as bad as they could be. He wants to cut and gut Social Security. He voted for a study group proposal that was nonbinding, which would erase the retirement age. Is that a sort of cut? Yes. Did he really vote for the cut? Well, everybody knew it wasn't going anywhere.

It was just a study group proposal. Is that a really strong critique, particularly when Trump has also said I would look at entitlements? Not really. And so Trump, if this really gets going, is going to have to find something a little more solid, I guess I would say, with which he can go after Ron DeSantis. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. We've been playing a lot of nice, positive voicemails lately. Here's just an old fashioned person who doesn't like the show. You guys show is disgusting and I see how I see why David Pakman has such a big mouth. That's how I got his last name. Pac-Man. Right. Have a good day.

Is that a Pac-Man video game joke or something like that? I don't know. Not exactly electrifying us in terms of the delivery, but. All right. I guess I appreciate the voicemail. OK, bonus show today. It's going to be fantastic. Producer Pat will join me. Don Lemon says he was fired by CNN. Don Lemon says CNN didn't even try to communicate with him directly. They told him through his agent.

CNN says we actually did try to meet with him. What's going on and how does this relate to the Tucker Carlson firing and what else is going to happen? Secondly, the Vegas to California bullet train, which we've talked about before very strongly now has bipartisan support. Will it happen? Will people say it's a waste of money? Well, of course they will. And lastly, the Supreme Court is going to decide, can public officials block people who criticize them on social media or is it in some sense a violation of the First Amendment? It's an interesting case with far reaching implications. All of those stories and more will be on today's bonus show.

David Pakman does not have a soul. He doesn't have a soul. OK, but it will be on the bonus show that I can tell you. You can sign up at join Pakman dot com. You can use the coupon code indicted for a discount and you can use the coupon code indicated for an even larger discount. We have a fantastic week of shows for you today. Remember, subscribe free at youtube.com slash the David Pakman show.

I will see you on the bonus show for tomorrow.