The David Pakman Show - 4/7/23: They admit they need to cheat, cult members resurface

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk appears to admit that Republicans are planning to cheat in 2024 -- Pro-Trump MAGA commentator Anna Perez says she would take a bullet for Donald Trump, and laughably believes Trump would take a bullet from her, in the latest display of cult thinking -- Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones melts down, turning on Donald Trump and his supporters over the absurd spectacle at Mar-a-Lago the evening of Trump's arrest -- Caller talks about how stricter gun laws won't stop every mass shooting -- Caller discusses the reputations of different religious groups -- Caller talks about cultural assimilation -- Caller discusses teaching media literacy and critical thinking in schools -- Caller wants to know how to discuss politics with their right-wing family -- Caller reflects on the PPP loans during the pandemic -- Caller wonders why the United States won't adopt the metric system -- Caller talks about Republican "solutions" to school shootings -- Caller discusses liberals in Wisconsin taking control of the Supreme Court -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Republicans want to indict Biden, Laura Ingraham struggles to defend Clarence Thomas, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. running for president, and much more... 👩‍❤️‍👨 Try the Paired App FREE for 7 days and get 25% OFF at https://paired.com/pakman 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

. All right. Let's start today by going through a few things about this week that I didn't have time for earlier in the week. There's this guy named Charlie Kirk. He's part of the right wing group Turning Point USA, and he had a really bad day on Tuesday. Not only was Donald Trump indicted, but we saw Brendan Johnson win the mayoral race in Chicago. We also saw this liberal Supreme Court, Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate win her race in Wisconsin, making Wisconsin

now have a left leaning Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years. And Charlie Kirk recognizes that result decreases their chances of being able to win the White House in twenty four. He won't say why, but obviously it's because they plan to cheat. They plan to go to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin to try to get the Wisconsin electoral votes in 2024, whether or not their candidate gets the most votes. Take a listen to this. Yesterday was not a good day for you. Not only was Trump arraigned, Wisconsin was a blowout.

And there goes the Wisconsin Supreme Court. And it decreases our chance to be able to win the White House in 2024. It's not impossible, but we tried to warn people. Turning point action is on the ground. We are knocking on doors trying to raise money. The RNC nowhere to be able to win the White House in 2024. It's not impossible, but we tried to warn people. Turning Point Action was on the ground. We were knocking on doors trying to raise money. The RNC, nowhere to be found. MIA, that's why we tried to do everything we could to get regime change done at the RNC. They wouldn't be bothered. They were too busy doing their things that they do, which is nothing but pay themselves and take care of their DC consultants. And then Chicago, not as if it was going in a hopeful direction, decided to elect an outright Marxist Marxist is going to become mayor of Chicago.

OK, he's not a Marxist, but let's focus in on the Supreme Court piece of this. The only way they can win is cheating and overturning the will of the voters. He's saying the quiet part out loud. He is saying now. Now, I'll give you him. I know he doesn't mean to be saying this, but what he is in practice saying is the way we were going to win in twenty twenty four was by filing motions that would hopefully get to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Wisconsin Supreme Court would decide to give

us the electoral votes. Now, if you ask Charlie about it, he'll say, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not saying we're going to cheat. What I mean is Democrats will try to cheat. And then we will have to go to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in order to get the rightful results, which are that Trump or whoever will be the winner. But who has a history of doing this stuff? Remember, you look at 2020. They spent the entire summer saying Democrats are going to try to cheat. And we know they actually tried to. We know that they had a number of these fraudulent elector scams going in different states. We know that they filed endless motions to try to circumvent

the actual will of the people. This is actually very good news for Wisconsin, where in Wisconsin you have women worried about losing control over their own medical care who now have a better shot at retaining it thanks to the change in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. And of course, the fact that Charlie Kirk's big concern is we were relying on that court in order to try to win in twenty twenty four tells you everything you need to know about who and what they care about. He's saying the quiet part out loud that Wisconsin result could end up being really important. Speaking of cults, right wing commentator Anna Perez says she'd be willing to take a bullet for Trump

and that Trump would be willing to take a bullet for her. This is interesting on a few different levels. Let's take a listen to it. Something that really kind of inspired me before I did this show was hearing Ryan, what Ryan said in the episode that he did today. Right before this, he said, I would take a bullet for President Trump. And when he said that, I first I was a little taken aback. I was like, all right, Ryan, that's a little that's a little much.

But then I thought about it for a split second and then I realized, no, it's not. You know why? Because President Trump would take a bullet for me. President Trump is taking a bullet for me. President Trump is prepared to take a bullet for all of us. And of course, that is not true. So let's talk about a couple of different things here. First of all, it's funny to me that these Trump supporters still think Trump cares about them. It's it's so abundantly apparent now, beyond any question, that Trump does not like his supporters. Trump has spent his entire life as a rich guy from New York City trying to stay away from folks that are like the vast majority of those who support him. That's first. Trump would not take a bullet for anyone.

Remember when Trump said he would have run into the building where there was a shooter? No, he would not. So so they are wrongly assessing that Trump cares about them. But this is a great reminder about cult like traits. You've got your leader who demands complete loyalty and obedience from their followers. Trump fits that description perfectly during the presidency since leaving office. He demands every follower must always remain loyal above all else. He'll use fear. He'll use intimidation to keep him in line. And when they go off script, Trump instantly

abandons them. Another sign of a cult is using propaganda techniques to manipulate your followers. And again, Trump does it. He lies all the time to his followers and says, don't believe what you're hearing and seeing. Simply believe what I tell you. And if anyone criticizes me, you know, they're lying and they're trying to deceive you and the followers buy it. And they go, wow, this person criticized Trump. Let's go and attack that person. It's blind cult behavior. Cults also do the us versus them thing. If you're not part of the group, you're part of the enemy. You're either with us or against us. And this is something that is super common with Trump supporters. If you disagree with them, you're demonized. You're fake news, news article adversarial to Trump, fake news, political view different

than Trump's un-American Marxist communist. And it's a sort of extreme tribalism, extreme tribalism. And it is very cult like. And then the other thing I think is important to mention is that cults often will require members require it'll just happen over time to kind of give up their own identities and to conform to the beliefs and the practices and sometimes even the physical appearance and the slang and the ideology, the physical, you know, the clothing, et cetera, of the cult. And Trump supporters have shown that as well. And it's not just literally the

red MAGA hats. It's the adopting these irrational beliefs, embracing conspiracy theories simply because this is what the group now believes, rejecting science, threatening violence in defense of their beliefs. So all of the warning signs are clear. This is a cult. Ana Perez embodies that blind loyalty, propaganda, us versus them, willingness to give up your own identity. And we need to simply call it out to prevent others from

falling in. I don't know that I can save Anna Perez. I really don't. But maybe we can prevent someone else from falling into this insanity. Alex Jones is turning on Trump and Trump supporters. And I have to tell you, this broken clocks, you know, the entire thing. Alex Jones analysis of Trump's Tuesday night rant at Mar-a-Lago actually is quite accurately assessing the reality of Trump and his own supporters. I'll just play it for you. Alex Jones is making a lot of sense here. OK, other than this noise, he's making a lot of sense. Thank you. That's not the sound I want to hear. But this is one of my big irritants with high level Trump supporters. They're in there drinking. It's a big carnival. They love being near the president.

They love the fancy, beautiful architecture. Yeah. And they just it's like a beauty pageant or something like they feel like they've arrived.'ve seen it i've been around it and there is just a delirium and the same thing happened as rallies oh we're invincible oh we can't be stopped it was just drove me crazy but sometimes there's two minutes of applause and and whooping and hollering and you just it's like they're having fun this is not not fun. I've just been around the Trump people and around Trump when there's people around and everybody's like, oh, hi. And I can't believe they're there. And oh, it's like they're in the cool kid club. And I've been saying that. For six years, but he never did it. All right, so I have to tell you, Alex Jones is completely

correct. There is a delirium in the room at these events like the one at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, the vibe at Mar-a-Lago. We were watching it for like an hour before Trump spoke. We could see what was going on. It was like you were there for something positive. And I know some of them are trying to spin it into the indictment is good because it means Trump is going to win. It might help him in the primary.

I don't think it helps him with even a single new vote in the general election if he makes it that far. But there is again, we just talked about cult like it's cult like and Alex Jones knows about cults. He's tried to build one. I mean, the Infowars audience is not exactly clear thinking, but he is completely correct that why is there a party atmosphere at Mar-a-Lago? He's been accused of 34 felonies. There are more allegations coming now. I know they just write it off. They say this is all just bogus, but there is a detachment from reality. A delirium really is the is the best word for it that Alex Jones accurately points out. And I I almost think Trump can get sentenced to prison and he would be turning himself over to start his sentence and they would have a party and cheer because somehow some cult leader would tell them this is actually a good thing. And I'll tell you why. It's bizarre to see. Let's hope that it leads to their own destruction electorally in 2024.

We've got a packed program today. Glad you're here. Quick break. And then it continues. One of our sponsors is paired the app for couples every day. Paired gives you and your partner questions, quizzes, games to have fun, to stay connected, to deepen your conversations and get to know each other better. What's great about it is you don't even have to be in the same room, especially with the baby right now. My girlfriend and I are quite busy

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membership. We don't get cable subscription fees like Fox News. We don't have huge oil conglomerates advertising with us. We actually depend on small dollar contributions from people who sign up at join Pacman dot com. You can, of course, sign up using the coupon code indicted. We know what that means. And you can also sign up using the coupon code indicated if you prefer. Either one works. And of course, we understand the meaning of each of these coupon codes very, very well. All right. Let's hear from some people in the audience. We take calls via discord at David Pakman dot com slash discord. It is an extraordinary situation this week, historic in many different

ways. And I do want to hear from people in the audience. Let's start today with Jackson from Sanford. Jackson from Sanford. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Jackson from Sanford, you're on once you select your correct audio device, we'll be able to hear you. And Jackson from Sanford is gone. Let's go to Dave from Northern California. Dave from Northern California. Welcome to the program.

Would love to hear what is on your mind today. Dave from Northern California. Please accept my invitation to join the discussion. Speaker 5 Hi, David. Hi. Speaker 1 How are you today? OK, I was going to talk about your plan to try to reduce gun violence. Sure. I agree with you in principle.

I share the same goals, but I come from the perspective of knowing that there are easily over a hundred million semi-automatic firearms. Most people have at least two magazines. I've met people who have a hundred magazines that are over the capacity limit that you've talked about in the past. I don't see how any law that could be passed would successfully rid the world or the country of those firearms. And I've got anecdotal cases for why I think any law would still be defeatable with current technology. Well, so how do you propose that would work? It's it's not really I mean, I've already addressed that in the formulation of my proposal, which is there is no one law that will solve the problem. But what we want to do,

given that there is a Second Amendment and given that there are hundreds of millions of guns out there, we want to see can we reduce can we reduce? And so you're absolutely right. I mean, listen, part of parts of the proposals are you require licensing. Maybe some of the people I'm sorry, you require insurance. Some of the people who have a whole bunch of firearms might say, hey, you know what? I don't want to pay as much in insurance, so I will choose to get rid of some of these weapons. You have a gun buyback program for certain firearms. That doesn't mean anyone's forced to give them back, but you give an off ramp to people. So I agree. I mean, I don't know that we disagree. I'm on the same page as you.

There, given the circumstances and where we are today, there is no one law that's going to solve the problem. But what I want to do is say, is there low hanging fruit that doesn't violate the Second Amendment that we can use to help and improve the problem? That's where I am. Speaker 4 Well, so the reason that I find that argument unconvincing is illustrated with an example from close to me last week. A gentleman was arrested in possession of methamphetamine for sale. He was a convicted fel15 that was one of these ghost guns.

Although that phrase is really mocked within the gun community. I think it's better to say a built at home gun from a kit. And this person was a convicted felon in a state like California that has restrictions against AR-15s. This wasn't compliant in any of the ways that the laws in California. And he made the gun himself at home. I've seen documentaries that claim over 150 million blanks have been sold for making these firearms. So I'm just extremely pessimistic that that strategy can work. Yeah. And like I said, you're you're sort

of proving my point, which is, of course, you are going to have stories like that. And you are right. It's possible that my 10 ideas wouldn't have prevented this guy in California from having built a gun. And I don't I don't purport to have a solution to that. So again, I don't think we're in disagreement. I think we're up against a real challenge here. But we can't say since it won't solve that problem you just identified, we should do nothing that I can't get behind. Yeah, and I understand that very much. I guess what I'm trying to do is direct the conversation towards solutions,

I think, have any chance whatsoever. And the political. Well, Dave, give me give me one such solution. I've got 40 people waiting, but give me one such solution we can think about and then I'm going to move on. OK, well, that that's the problem is I don't have one and I don't have completely what you're saying. It's time to move on. So thank you very much for taking my call. And congratulations on the birth of your child. All right. Dave from Northern California.

Great to hear from you. Let's go to Amos from Kansas. Amos from Kansas City. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Hi, David. I'm a longtime listener, longtime supporter of you, and I'm happy to be on here. First time I've ever gotten on. But first, I had a question, but I wanted to answer one of your questions that you asked a couple

of weeks ago. But Lauren Boebert loves to say those words, pleading the blood of Jesus. Yeah. I was born and raised apostolic Pentecostal, so I could tell you what that means. Please. What does it mean? It's kind of a legal term, but in the way that Jesus died for you, and that blood that he spilled was a covenant between God and man. And so when things go wrong, we plead the blood of the covenant. And who do you plead to? God himself, God the Father. Because the covenant is Jesus Christ's blood.

And he's that's and yeah, that's the best way I can explain it. But that's how it's explained to me growing up. And what are you pleading for? It depends on the situation. Like, I guess for a little bit, Lauren Boebert situation, it would be pleading the blood for, you know, making Trump president or something like that. So if I understand correctly, you would plead the blood of Jesus to God in order to achieve something that you want. Yes, pretty much. Got it. Okay.

All right. Very good. I understand that. That's just my explanation for it. But anyway, my question for you has to do with I'm a big follower of a guy named Hemant Mehta, and he did a poll and he's like you. He gets these A plus rated polls and stuff, and he did a poll, and he's like you. He gets these A-plus rated polls and stuff, but he did it on the religions of the world that are best seen most positively and most negatively. Okay. And I wanted to know your opinion on this because according to the poll, Mormons are the least positively viewed religion.

However, even though it doesn't seem like it based upon the I don't know, the loudness of the minorities. It Jews are the most positively seen, according to his polls. Yeah. So so let's let's be clear. The poll you're referring to is a Pew Research Center poll. So I think it's important when we say his poll. I follow him on Twitter. It's a Pew Research Center poll. So quite, quite, quite reputable.

So the this is only among Americans. I think it's important to mention that's one thing. These are not global views about these different religions. And you're absolutely right. Among Americans, Jews followed by. Let's see. Well, see, it's kind of complicated because of how this is ranked. Jews almost perfectly followed by Catholics, then mainline Protestants, then evangelical Christians, then atheists, Muslims and Mormons in that order are seen as most favorable to sort of like least favorable. The difficulty about that poll is it's all kind of low numbers, like the difference between the least favorable, which is Mormons and Jews, which is the most favorable, is only 20 points. It's 15 to 35. So I have a

couple of different thoughts on this. Number one, the U.S. has a different sort of perspective on a lot of these religions than the world. So like I think that Mormonism might be seen differently in other parts of the world where that like the population of Mormons is very different. It's a very interesting poll. I don't really know what to make of it. I do think that when it comes to Jews, some of the favorable is probably based in anti-Semitic tropes, like people who are like, oh, yeah, Jews control some great industries. So like I see them favorably in that way. But it doesn't necessarily mean that like you necessarily think Jews are good people or whatever. You know what I'm saying? Right. Right. But it is a very interesting poll.

Yeah, I you know, the other thing about it is the vast majority of respondents have no opinion about most of those religions, like 60 percent of the respondents said, I don't have any I don't know enough about Jews to say one way or the other. Well, if it's any consolation, I view all all Jews to be the you know, my my mother's side of the family is a lot of there's a lot of that is Jewish. Speaker 1 OK, but anyway, thank you very much. Speaker 1 All right. Yeah, very interesting, Paul.

Thanks for bringing it up. I do appreciate that. Let's go next to Dean from Dallas. Dean from Dallas. Welcome to The David Pakman Show. What's on your mind today? Hey, David. I've called in a couple of times.

I don't know if you remember me, but I wanted to ask a couple of questions. You know, there are these buzzwords which are often associated with like a political party, like when you hear patriot or freedom, you think of the right wing or MAGA. Why doesn't the left attempt to take the positive ones back? Why do we concede those terms that can obviously apply to the party in big ways? We've talked about this before. I think it's actually a great idea. Like when we talk about what it means to be patriotic, there's a very cartoonish version on the right.

And for me, you know, patriotism would be, hey, you know what? I take pride in my country making sure no one is starving, that no one is homeless. It's like that would be a new form of patriotism that I think would be much more interesting and inspiring and positive. I can't answer the question. Why have Democrats or the left not taken back these terms? There's a bunch of writing about this. George Lakoff has talked about Republicans winning the framing war. You know, I I'm unfortunately, Dean, I can't tell you why

Democrats or the left haven't done it. But you're absolutely right in diagnosing that a lot of these terms have been kind of perverted and certainly used exclusively by the right to have narrow meanings. And the left should try to take them back. But I don't really know what the first step would be. Yeah. And then I had a second question, if you don't mind. Sure. Do you have any thoughts on cultural assimilation?

Do you think it's more positive or negative or does it make us stronger as a country or what are your opinions on it? Well, I think that when people talk about cultural assimilation, usually it's often used to draw a very specific political perspective out of people. And my view on cultural assimilation is I think one of the things that makes the United States great is that you do have all of these different cultures that when things are going well can can sort of coexist. And I think it's actually a great thing. And also, I recognize that there are difficulties that surface if you have different types of division, like when people talk about, hey, this is America, we speak English here. Yeah, listen, I mean, in a practical sense,

in order to best communicate, it's good to have a shared language. So I agree with the idea that if someone comes to the United States and lives in the United States for 30 years and speaks no English, that's going to be an impediment both for them and for the rest of society to relate. I also think it's a great thing to understand and respect and embrace different cultures. And that includes different languages and bilingualism and all of these different things. So the problem, you know, to say is cultural assimilation good or bad? To some degree, if we're all going to live together, we need to have some shared touch points and language, respect for different religions, respect for different countries

of origins. All of these different things are really important. But to objectively just say cultural assimilation is good or bad gets us into the kind of black and white thinking that often gets us nowhere. Yeah, it kind of seems like our country as a whole is just it's a constant battle since we're so split of like what the new American dream or the American way of living is. Like it used to be like own a house, you know, have kids, marry, marry, get a good job, go to college. And all those things, it's kind of shifting. People like right-wing conservative players are saying college is where you go to get woke. Don't go to college or whatever. And where people are making more social protests, it's like during like the

Pledge of Allegiance or, you know, the singing of the Star Spangled Banner or people not standing, you know, it's kind of. Yeah. And to be clear for me, the Pledge of Allegiance is just so silly. I don't even consider it when I think about an issue like cultural assimilation. It's just nonsense to me. OK. All right.

Dean from Dallas. Appreciate the call. Great questions. Thank OK. All right. Dean from Dallas. Appreciate the call. Great questions. Thank you. All right. There goes Dean from Dallas. Very, very powerful topics, I must say. Let's go to Dan from Illinois. Dan from Illinois. Welcome to The David Pakman Show. What's on your mind today? Speaker 4 Hi, David, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Oh, I'm so glad you picked me. Before I get to my question, I wanted to congratulate you on having such an excellent show. I've been a viewer for a couple of years now, and I think the reason why I've become a daily viewer of yours is because the quality of what you do

and the degree to which you think through and present things is so above and beyond what is out there. Wow. Well, I appreciate that. Yes. And specifically, if I could say, I think the thing that's most valuable to me is when you do very specific breakdowns that delve into issues very deeply. A lot of what's out there in the media, especially corporate media, it doesn't really help people understand complex issues, and I love what you do. Well, I appreciate that very much, Dan. Thank you. Absolutely encourage you to continue on that. And so that being said, the question that I have is about something that you and I agree on that you've talked about, but I haven't heard you go more in depth. And so you've

talked about the importance of media literacy. Yes. And I would love to hear your thoughts on, I guess, both ways. Like if you could wave a magic wand, how would you approach media literacy, but also maybe like what would fit into reality? Because I mean, I could speak to them where I'll let you answer. Well, as I've said before, I think that really you really want to be teaching media literacy as young as people start consuming media. Now how do you teach a two year old who watches cartoons, media literacy as young as people start consuming media. Now, how do you teach a two year old who watches cartoons, media literacy? Well, you know, you start to distinguish commercials from the programing, I think. Right. I mean, you start very simple. But as a matter of school

curriculum, certainly by sixth grade, there should be just it should be standard that we're teaching media literacy, understanding the difference between news and opinion, understanding the impact of, you know, advertisers, product placement, just because you saw something on TV or on the Internet, does it mean it's true? What's the difference? All of this basic stuff, the earlier you arm people with tools needed, the less that they're ever going to fall for Fox News or Newsmax. And it's sort of like it's sort of like a vaccine against disinformation. So I would like to see it just be a standard part of school curriculum starting probably I used to say seventh grade. Now I'm probably more like sixth grade, maybe even fifth.

Speaker 3 I couldn't agree more. I think that this is actually a core of what is causing many, many issues because it's so easy for anyone to say anything. Yes. And just understanding sort of the psychology of media, how it affects people. There's a lot of people using it in nefarious ways, self-serving ways. And from my vantage point, I'm sort of feeling like I'm watching things. We're sort of sliding off of a cliff without that sense of how are we going to come back from this? choices or books or resources that you've looked to in terms of people who are kind of have expertise in that that has informed your sense of like how that could actually be done or how we could actually look to do that. Not from a policy standpoint.

You know, on my book recommendation list on my website, I have tons of books about thinking that I recommend, but none of them are policy oriented in that way. But I'll look around and see if there are any. Speaker 1 Speaker 2 Speaker 3 Speaker 4 Speaker 1 Speaker 2 Speaker 1 Speaker 3 Speaker 4 Speaker 1 Speaker 2 Speaker 3 Speaker 1 Speaker 3 Speaker 4

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22 Speaker 23 holding on to talk to me, don't hang up because we're going right back to the phones. As I've mentioned before, I supplement my diet with vitamins every day. I've tried different methods. None have been simpler or more cost effective than just a daily scoop of AG1 from our sponsor, Athletic Greens. With the one scoop, I get the 75 high quality vitamins and minerals from whole food sources that I want. I'm covered for the day. I'm not messing around with different vitamin capsules. And then some have 200 and some have 180. So they run out at different times. And it's a mess. It's a mess. This is simple. The taste is good. You can put it in water, juice or shakes. Each serving is under three bucks a day. Compare that to what all of the individual supplements would cost you. And it just makes sense. Simplify your life by starting the day with a scoop of 75 high quality

nutrients. When you go to athletic greens dot com slash Pacman. You'll get a free year supply of vitamin D. I've talked about vitamin D before and five free travel packs of AG one. That's athletic greens dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Let's continue speaking to people from the audience. We take calls on the Friday show via discord at David Pakman dot com slash discord. I want to go next to Freddie from Monterey. Freddie from Monterey. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? What can I do for you? Freddie from Monterey. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Hey, thanks for taking my call. It's a question.

I'm here in California and I am going in two weeks to Wisconsin to a family wedding. And I know a very important election just happened. I believe that was today. So earlier this week in Tuesday on Tuesday, there was a liberal Supreme Court justice elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. And this makes the court a liberal court for the first time in 15 years. Major implications for abortion rights, gerrymandering, maybe even the 2024 election. Speaker 5 Right.

Which is great. Yeah, I was looking at that the whole gerrymandering thing and um absolutely insane how the republicans can do that um but i was just wondering you know i'm going there and i'm realizing that a lot of the family uh in-laws family that i'm going to be around probably don't have the same views as me. And somebody had made a joke about us coming from California and they were going to let us know this and this and this. So I was just, I know you like, you have a little pointers on how I should go about what I say, you know, and like trying not to get any arguments,

you know, it's like my wife's family and stuff. I don't. Well, here are my suggestions. I actually wrote a guide about this. And if you go to David Pakman dot com slash guide, some people call it a white paper. Some call it a guide. This is free.

It's like 10 pages. It's called Building Arguments Without Burning Bridges. And it'll give you a lot of ideas. And fundamentally, the decision you have to make is what sort of relationship do you want to have with the folks you're visiting? And that will kind of inform how confrontational or adversarial you want to be. But yeah, free guide available on that topic. David Pakman dot com slash guide.

Oh, great. That's cool. OK. Yeah. Just I mean, I'm pretty excited about, you know, the results that happened over there. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm going to Wisconsin. This is great. But then I'm like, oh, should I show how excited I am? You know, it's like I got to just play it by ear, I guess. I think that's the smartest thing. All right. Cool. Well, that's about it. All right. Thanks, Freddie. Freddie's got a lot going on there and headed to Wisconsin very soon, which I'm sure will be a very, very powerful trip. Let's go to Bert from New Jersey. Bert from New Jersey. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Speaker 2

Hey, David, hear me? OK. Yeah. OK, awesome. Call in a lot about economic issues. I promise I'll call about other things, but a couple more to get off my chest. Sure. You hear a on a lot about economic issues. I promise I'll call on about other things, but a couple more to get off my chest. Sure. You hear a compromise a lot from the right about Trump where they'll say like, you know, I don't like him as a person, but I don't disagree with his policies, right? Right. I think a lot of that comes from people on the left tend to criticize him a little too much. I think that filters out the criticism. It doesn't make its way to his policies enough, Right. And I'll give you an example of one that I think you agree with me on. For example, like the PPP loan policy. Right. Yes. We can now look back at that and we can say

that was just an abysmal, terrible policy. You could say it's the greatest form of socialism ever implemented. We're just shoveling money at people like crazy. Well, hold on a second. So let's let's see if we can break that down a little bit, Bert. So when you say we were shoveling, are you talking specifically about the business PPP aspect or are you talking about the covid stimulus more broadly where money was just sent to people? That's a good question. I'm talking about the business side of things. OK, the problem for me for the PPP program was not that you were just giving businesses money. The problem for me was that there wasn't enough oversight. There was tons of fraud and it ended up being a horrible slush fund. That was my problem with it.

Right. But I think the policy around it was garbage. And here's why. I don't know if you took PPP loans for your business or not. I'm a, I'm a head of finance for a technology startup. And it was my job to go out and you took PPP loans for your business or not. I'm a finance technology startup and it was my job to go out and administer that PPP loan. Yeah. So I had to find the paperwork and all the things. I was shocked at how little there was to qualify. All you had to do is check a box that says, yes, my business has been negatively affected by COVID. Unless you're in the business of selling toilet paper or making coffee filters, who's who's not going to check that box? Right. Yeah. And listen, I decided not to take the money. I later learned that there were other

people in my cohort who who did take some of that money. It is true that the IRS is heavily focusing on now auditing people who fraudulently took money. I feel fine. I mean, yeah, listen, I get it. There was government money out there for the taking. I don't regret not taking it. I mean, we everybody was home watching shows. We had a really great year that year. Like it would have just been wrong for me to take it. But your point is absolutely correct. It was too easy to get that money. Right. And and, you know, Tom Brady got a million dollar loan. Like, why does why does government avail Tom Brady's company out? Right. That's just one example. In my circle, the common talk about was, hey, this is free money. Go out and get it. Right. And you need to prove you needed it. So my question is, now that we can

look back at this, why is it sounds like I'm criticizing the right and actually more criticizing the left? Like, why isn't this being talked about? This is a terrible policy that, you know, cause inflation. I can go to all the things that happen here. Why isn't this being brought up? Well, I think the left has to criticize both Trump policy and Trump sort of like tone and the non-policy stuff. I think for a lot of people, the reality is, Bert, because of attention spans and so many other different factors, it's much easier to remind people about, you know, Trump believed everything Putin told them and he believed everything Kim Jong Un told them. And he drew on a marker with a show he drew with a marker on the hurricane map and he

wasn't sure why we couldn't nuke Europe. And a lot of that stuff is much easier to communicate quickly than the policy stuff. But I agree with you completely. I think the other aspect on Trump and policy is he also didn't do that much because so many of the things he said he was going to do obviously weren't going to happen. So, for example, the big criticism on Trump on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is he promised to solve it within a year and they didn't. And the one thing he did, moving the air, the embassy to Jerusalem was actually

counterproductive. Right. But on a lot of these things, Trump didn't actually do anything. Speaker 3 Right. Right. No, absolutely. The other thing I think about, too, is like, what if the roles reversed here? What if this was Obama? Right. What would the right be saying about this? This would be like Benghazi, Benghazi 2.0. There'd be committees and investigations. Why would you let this much taxpayer money to go to fraud? Right. None of that seems to be happening. Oh, they'd be demanding that Obama be put in prison if he had overseen PPP.

There's no doubt about that. Burt, good points and well made. I appreciate it. Thank you, David. All right. Burt from New Jersey. Excellent, excellent stuff. Let's go next.

Why don't we go to Peter from Allentown? Peter from Allentown. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? I have just kind of a quick question. Yes. Do you think the United States will ever fully adopt the metric system? You know, the best reason I read about why the US will not adopt the metric system is a combination of having to reeducate everyone and the cost of all the signs, having to make all new signs that it would just that that it's sort of like it's a path dependent monopoly sort of situation that we're on, where we're so far in that it's always like, well, it really doesn't make sense to do it. And then you're further in and then you can say like, well, it really doesn't make sense to do it.

And then you're further in and then you can say, well, now it really doesn't make sense to do it. So now I don't know. I would love for the US to adopt the metric system. I really don't see it happening. I mean, I mean, there was a push. I remember back when I was in elementary school, the seventies, there was this big push. They had little, little cartoons, little songs, kind of like schoolhouse rock, but with the

metric system and there was a real, real, you know, honest push. But it just, there's some, I don't know what it is about the American psyche or culture that there's such a resistance to it that they probably think it's kind of like, you know, like 50 European garbage. Those sissy Europeans with everything based on tens, obviously we're going to have, you know, a five thousand two hundred and eighty foot mile and a 12 inch foot. I mean, it's it is crazy. No, I agree. I think there is that is a factor. Yeah. Those six Europeans with their metric system. Of course, it's like almost the entire planet. All right. Well, thanks, David. That's all I wanted. All right. Peter from Allentown. Thank you very much. Appreciate the call. Why don't we go next to. Oh, I don't know.

It's just it's the phone lines are just packed, folks, packed. Let's go to Eric from Philly. Eric from Philly. Welcome to the program. What's going on? And you got to unmute yourself. There you go. I'm sorry about that. Thank you very much. I knew you were going to pick me as soon as I went through the drive through. OK, quick question for you, please. Do you think Republicans are going with the arming teachers argument because they think it's a go nowhere issue? Because I really don't believe society is going to be OK with arming. Speaker 2 I actually I don't know. I mean, I think that there are private schools that there might even be some private schools that have done it and maybe some that will. But I do think you're

right that as a matter of public schools, teachers aren't going to be armed anytime soon. And part of what Republicans need is anytime somebody like me proposes, you know, 10 different things we could do about gun safety, they say no to all of them. And some of those Republicans and right wingers and gun people would like to at least be able to pretend that they're offering something as opposed to just saying no. And so I think part of what you're suspecting is correct, which is they go, well, let's arm teachers and let's lock the doors or whatever, just so they can say we're not saying do nothing. Here's what we want to do. And of course, they're never really going to have to legislate it because public schools at I would never say never, Eric, because never is a long time. But at any time soon, we are not going to see teachers

armed at public schools. All right. Thanks for answering my question. I appreciate it. All right, Eric, from Philly, thank you very much. Great to hear from you. Why don't we go next to Cesar from Florida? Cesar from Florida, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Cesar, please. Cesar, I'm guessing you have the wrong audio device selected. No, boy. That's really too bad. Let's try Josiah from North Carolina.

Josiah, welcome to the program. What's going on, Deepak? How are you doing well? So obviously, big news from Wisconsin. Yes, you heard that Republicans in Wisconsin are already, at least a few of them, talking about impeaching Justice Protasewicz? I did not hear that. For what reason? Well, I mean, right now they're just kind of forecasting it. They would come up with grounds that she's not going to abide by her oath. She's not going to support Wisconsin law. Right. And the idea is just, you know, throw anything at her that sticks. Would you be surprised if they do that, if they actually impeach her or if they try to try to? Oh, no,

it would not surprise me. But, you know, oftentimes it's sort of like Marjorie Taylor Greene has tried to impeach Joe Biden, but it doesn't even get started. So, you know, oftentimes it's sort of like Marjorie Taylor Greene has tried to impeach Joe Biden, but it doesn't even like get started. So, you know, the word try is doing a lot of heavy work there. You know what I mean? Speaker 3 The the bulk of my question concerns actually my state, North Carolina. I don't know if you heard this, but one of our state representatives, her name is Trisha Cotham. Just this morning, she formally announced that she was switching from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, even though she ran as a Democrat in November and was just sworn in in January. The first my first question is, do you consider this fraudulent or ethical? So I think the problem with fraudulent or unethical is can you prove that this was her

intent at the time? Obviously, you're allowed to switch party. But if there was a I think in order to demonstrate that it's fraudulent, you would have to demonstrate that this was part of a plan all the way from the beginning. I don't know whether you can demonstrate that or not. If you could, I think it would certainly be fraudulent. Speaker 1 That's fair. That's right. And certainly I agree to like a legal scrutiny. I would not I would not make the case that there's a compelling case to be made that you could prove it to a legal satisfaction. But I guess she ran as a progressive Democrat in Mecklenburg County, which is a really blue district of North Carolina. It's just right outside. It's part of Charlotte. And it seems to me pretty sketched that in three months she's switching parties, switching platforms, and there's no runoff or recall like provision there.

Would you support in the event that a politician switches parties and switches platforms and things like that, that it triggers some sort of recall or runoff provision? That's really tough. I would I'm open to voters deciding whether they want a recall. I don't know about automatically doing it. And here's the difficulty. People do change positions during the time that they're in office. So then you would have to say, well, if you change positions enough or if you change party, my view is you the voters should be able to gather signatures if they want to recall someone. But it ultimately has to be up to the voters. I'm not going to say any time you change party, you should be immediately there should be

a recall election. That seems like too much. But you should be subject to a recall. Yeah, I guess it's it's kind of it's the reason I'm so salty about it is because her doing so has given Republicans in North Carolina a veto proof majority. We were one seat away from it. And Governor Cooper was kind of, you know, he's a Democrat. He was getting by by the skin of his teeth. And now that she switched parties, it's a it's a veto proof majority. It's ugly. It's ugly.

No doubt. I understand that. And I mean, listen, the voters can consider that in determining whether they would want to have a recall election. No, yeah, I agree. As far as I know, I don't think that it even allows like a recall election. No, yeah, I agree. As far as I know, I don't think that it even allows like a recall election. I agree that you're probably right that an auto recall is probably too cumbersome, but there at least should be a provision that if enough of her constituents like I think in the

event of George Santos, right, the guy, the serial liar out of North Carolina, 80% of New York, New York, New York. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I'm North Carolina brand at the moment. But yeah, New York, 80 percent of his constituents want him to resign. Right. And as far as I know, there's no recall provision there. Like even if enough of his constituents demand his resignation, he's he's allowed to serve the remainder of his term. Yeah. Not every place has recall provisions, but very, very interesting situation there in North Carolina. I appreciate you telling us about it.

I appreciate that, David. Have a good one. All right. There goes Josiah. And that'll do it for calls today. We'll take a quick break and then get to your emails and your tweets and your comments and the entire thing. Don't forget that the best way to support The David Pakman Show is by becoming a member, and it's plenty of other awesome membership perks. Go to join Pacman dot com. Join Pacman dot

com. OK, let's do Friday feedback. And it's I know you wrote to me and said, David, what is Friday feedback going to be like this week after what happened last week and going through the hate mob that came after you? Well, I'm not going to make this all negative. There were tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of disgusting hate messages, including many anti-Semitic. But what I do want to tell you is that there is a movement that is insisting there were no such hate messages. There were no anti-Semitic messages or anything. And you can sometimes see them quite literally next to anti-Semitic messages. For example, user Shane used the anti-Semitic meme six million, which, of course, relates to the six million Jews

killed in the Holocaust. And they love to reference like should have been more or whatever. Six million. So this is another one of these anti-Semitic messages next to a message that says there's not a hate mob after you. There are just thousands of individual people that heard your comments and found them disgusting. Really? And why does that then necessitate making horrible comments about the Holocaust? It's sort of difficult to understand. But many other fascinating messages on the substance of preventing mass shootings and reducing gun violence.

We got a great comment on YouTube, which reads, David, as a veteran of law enforcement myself and gun owning individual, while also being a Christian father of two. Don't let Republicans drag you down the rabbit hole. They intend you to do so when engaging you. Your list of 10 is quite honestly very good. These are 10 policies to reduce gun violence. I laid out what I would add is specifically a sliding scale fee and structure that low income Americans do not get financially discriminated against when following the list of 10. Ah, so this might be the training scales for the cost of training and licensing scales for income. I think I get the idea and a very interesting idea for sure. Henman left the

message and says, David, I'm a rock solid centrist with not much of an appreciation for left or right. But you are one of the very few leftist commentators I watch consistently because of your balanced, calm, collected demeanor when tackling subjects. Hold fast against the fascist hordes of Republicans and their extended members. We're behind you all the way to defend your free speech, not right wing defined free speech. I mean, freedom of speech in the traditional sense of the word before it was hijacked by the right. All the best with much love for the UK. Thank you.

And lots of Brits, by the way, weighing in recently, which I very, very much appreciate. Sherry L said by going after you, they move the target off of them for doing absolutely nothing to stop this horrible epidemic that only happens in our country. Bless you, David. I'm so sorry you're having to go through this. Yeah. You know, there must not be anything we can do to stop the scourge of gun violence. Say people in the only country where this is regularly happening. Are we really that willing to give up without trying almost anything? It's really pathetic on the issue of thoughts and prayers. Very interesting comment. The congressional this is Riley. The congressional chaplain said it was time for more than thoughts and prayers.

Does he get threatened? You're in the right, David. Yeah. And in fact, you know, what's been really interesting since the blow up last week is that all sorts of other the prayers aren't enough. Did they not pray correctly or hard enough sort of stuff? Dozens at least of relatively prominent people made similar statements. There was one in the Boston Globe and others. None of them generated any controversy, any controversy. OK, then we're moving on to some other issues. Jason commented on Facebook, David Underwear Pacman. I don't even know what that means. Instead of reviewing polls,

maybe you should look at the actual statistics of illegal immigrants crossing the border. Why do they always put the wrong border border like a boarding house rather than the U.S.-Mexico border? Jason says it's in the millions and the highest ever because of Biden's policies. How can you even try to defend this topic? There is no border again, wrong border B.O.A.R. D.E.R. but merely a fading line in the sand. Remember a couple of things on that. Number one, they are stopping people from coming in. Oh, the border is clearly open because of all the people that Border Patrol is stopping. Wait, so it must be closed then because they're stopping people. That's number one. Number two, we know a lot about the surge of

attempts under Joe Biden. It started to increase under Trump as covid waned, mobility resumed and people started again trying to come over the border in greater numbers. They act like we don't know that there are simple explanations for most of these things. Let's now go to the subreddit. L. Deuce T. Wrote Marjorie Taylor Greene says we need more good guys with guns. I think she's right. But how do you become a good guy with a gun? Introducing the good guy with a gun certificate past the mental assessment, past the background check, past the gun safety course. Congratulations. You're now a certified good guy with a gun. Now, of course, I would go further. You get yourself the required liability insurance that should be required. Congratulations. You're now a certified good guy with a gun. Now, of course, I would go further.

You get yourself the required liability insurance that should be required in order to have firearms. You are regularly retested and undergo regular psych evals. You are limited in terms of high capacity magazines based on your age. It's quite an extensive list, but certainly we are nowhere near that at this point in time. Continuing to talk about firearms. This is this is an interesting message. Question from a non-American. Why are Americans so obsessed with guns? Why do you need them? And why are some of you against restrictions? Some people don't even acknowledge the problem. I mean, what do you expect? There

have been more mass shootings than days in 2023. So what can be done? Armed teachers, as was proposed, blame things that have nothing to do with it. Trans people, video games, porn, etc. Or ban on some kind of weapons like assault weapons. Yeah, this you know, this person got downvoted down into a hole in the ground, but they're absolutely right. And it's it's interesting. There are right wing pro gun people who bristle at the idea that sissy Europeans might tell us what to do with guns. Well, we should look at it a different way. We should say people from countries that don't have this epidemic of gun violence are shocked and horrified by what's happening in the United States. Maybe we should consider

whether they have something to offer. And this is part of the problem, you know, is when I was on the PBD program, Patrick Bet David's podcast, and I explained under Trump, global opinion of the U.S. and of the presidency was in the toilet. And the response when they can no longer deny the facts is to say, why do we care what other countries think of us? If other countries don't like us, if other countries are scared of us, that means we're doing the best possible thing we can for Americans. And of course, that's obviously not the case insofar as we live in a globalized world. We're not this isolated country. We're not an island economically and literally we're not an island. We actually

do depend on other countries for so many things. And so this idea of what do we care what they think? It's predominantly an idea on the right and it's extraordinarily shortsighted. And unfortunately, that's the issue, right? Oh, my God. Look, someone someone from a country that has no gun violence has the audacity to say, what the hell is wrong with you people in the US? Yeah, that should really make you think, oh, wow, you mean this is optional? It doesn't have to be like this. Give me a break, guys. All right. And then more superficially, there was a poll done on our subreddit. What's your favorite nickname for Ron DeSantis? The options were Ron DeSanctimonious, Tiny D, Meatball Ron, Gay Ron, which I don't even understand, Deep State Ron or something else. Overwhelmingly, our Reddit audience prefers

Meatball Ron as the name for Ron DeSantis. I have to tell you, I don't really love it. I don't really love it. And I know that Ron DeSantis is a problem because many Republicans wouldn't know how to spell sanctimonious nor what it means. So that one's problematic. I still like wrong death Santas, wrong death Santas. But it's a little tough to say, uh, open to ideas. This guy may not even end up running. So let's wait and see before we subject him to a permanent nickname. All right. Keep those messages coming. You can email info at David Pakman dot com. You might post to the subreddit and it could end up on Friday feedback. You might make a comment on YouTube or send a tweet or God forbid, make a Facebook comment.

Any of these things could end up with you in Friday feedback. We have a tremendous bonus show for you today. I will be away the next few days and be back with you next Friday. We will have a mix of guest hosts, including producer Pat and others. I think people will like it. If you hate all of the guest hosts, you'll be furious. If you like one of the guest hosts, hopefully there will be a little something for everyone next week. All right, everybody. So I'll see you then.

On to the bonus show. Onward and upward.