The David Pakman Show - 5/17/23: DeSantis collapse continues as Musk, Palin, Trump lose their minds

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' 2024 presidential campaign continues to collapse before it even starts, with his polling continuing to decline -- Elon Musk defends his tweets, calls himself "pro-Semite," and defends his conspiratorial claims about a recent mass shooting during a bizarre interview with CNBC's David Faber -- Failed former President Donald Trump, in a bad mood, is interviewed by fired Fox News hots Dan Bongino, where both Trump and Bongino lie badly about the recently released Durham report -- A desperate Donald Trump is interviewed on Newsmax and simply cannot, or will not, stop lying -- Caller talks about limiting presidential pardon power -- Caller discusses the disadvantage the left has on social media -- Former Republican Alaska Governor Sarah Palin appears on Newsmax to discuss immigration, and it's an absolute humiliation -- Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones wildly claims that Kari Lake is "really" the Governor of Arizona in a deranged statement -- Voicemail caller is absolutely stunned by the interview with urine-drinking Christopher Key -- On the Bonus Show: Major concerns about Dianne Feinstein in the Senate, Florida rejects Holocaust textbooks for wokeness, Florida teacher says she's under investigation for showing Disney moving with gay character, much more... 🌱 Ounce of Hope: Get 25% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://www.ounceofhope.com/ 🤢 Reliefband: Use code PAKMAN for 20% OFF + free shipping at https://reliefband.com ♨️ Bon Charge Sauna Blanket: Use code PAKMAN for 15% OFF at https://boncharge.com/pakman 👂 MDHearing: Just $149.99 each + free charging case. Use code PAKMAN at https://mdhearing.com 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 📖 Shortform: Try it for free and get 25% off at https://shortform.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

. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis still has not even announced that he is joining the Republican presidential primary and his candidacy continues to collapse. Well, hold on. If it hasn't started, how is it collapsing? The answer is recent polling. You have to see this. It's actually I don't know that we've ever seen anything like this. The green line on your screen pointing down is Ron DeSantis is polling. And I'll give you the numbers if you're just listening today. The purple line near the top is Donald Trump's, which continues to climb. Something happened right around March 28th, 29th, 30th, that has sent Donald Trump's Republican

polling up and Ron DeSantis is Republican polling down. And this just so happens to have been the moment where we learned Donald Trump would be indicted and arrested. Yes, I continue to believe that the arrest and indictment of Trump does nothing for him if he makes it to the general election in November of twenty twenty four. But it is undeniably clear that it is doing something for him in the Republican primary. Ron DeSantis now down barely to 20 percent on average in recent polling. He had reached as high as thirty two thirty three. And Donald Trump continues to climb, now 55 percent of the Republican primary ballot,

understanding also that a bunch of the support is among people who aren't even running at this point in time. Mike Pence has nearly six percent, but he's not running, at least not right now. Tim Scott has two percent, has not yet announced the candidacy. Larry Elder has a one point. Chris Christie has one point. Christie may run Hutchinson just shy of one point and Sununu seven tenths of a point. So what does this mean? Well, this means that unless Ron DeSantis can take support from people currently supporting the failed former President Donald Trump.

He has no path to the nomination. Even if Ron DeSantis scoops up every bit of the non Trump vote, that only gets him to 45 percent of the Republican primary ballot, not enough to win that nomination. So the question then becomes, how can DeSantis take voters that are already supporting Donald Trump? And the answer may be he can't, that it's really up to Trump to mess this thing up for himself. That's one perspective. The ways that it could get messed up for Trump, for lack of a better term, could include more arrests and indictments that definitively take him off of the campaign

trail. Some kind of misstep. But I mean, listen, he's been found liable of sexually assaulting and defaming a woman and his support just keeps climbing among Republican voters. So I actually don't know what there is that DeSantis could do. What I can tell you won't help. DeSantis is the wishy washy approach that he has taken, where he'll sort of criticize the failed former President Trump, but he really stands for nothing

and he won't seriously do it. This is just one example. We looked at this earlier this week. And of course, I apologize to those who have seen this. Here is DeSantis asked, do you acknowledge Trump really did lose in November of 2020? Do you acknowledge that the voter fraud that Trump claims took place didn't actually take place and DeSantis standing for nothing? Take a listen to this. Speaker 4 You said during an event in Iowa over the weekend that the GOP needs to reject a culture of losing.

Do you acknowledge that Trump lost and there wasn't all this fraud that he talks about? Speaker 1 Right. True. in 2020. Biden becomes president and has done a huge amount of damage, very unpopular in 2022. And we are supposed to have this big red wave in Florida and Iowa. I didn't see a red wave across this country. And so I think the party has developed a culture of losing. I think that there's not accountability. And I think in Florida we really showed what it takes. OK, I won't play the whole thing and torture you all with Ron DeSantis. This is not inspiring confidence that is not going to bring over the Trump people who want to hear him say Trump did win.

And this is not going to bring over the non Trump peopleump people who might want to hear him say, listen, we lost. I wish we would have won, but he lost. And I'm running so that we can actually win. It's not going to convince anyone. Also an unforced error for Ron DeSantis is he keeps going with this anti woke stuff, which might play OK among Florida Republicans. But when you poll the country, the country is not anti woke in the way that Ron DeSantis is acting as they are. Here is DeSantis yesterday talking about

banning gender studies. What this bill is saying is, you know, some of these niche subjects like critical. The word is niche, sir. Niche theory, other types of deep niche infused courses and majors. Florida's getting out of that game. If you want to do things like gender ideology, go to Berkeley, go to some of these other places. That's fine. It's fine. Yeah. And by the way, I understand that both both niche and niche are acceptable pronunciations in 2023 for that word that we people have. The country has been pulled. OK. And it's not at all all evident that just because Youngkin won in Virginia on this, you know, anti anti woke campaign platform and because DeSantis did well in Florida, it is not at all clear that that is going to win you a presidential election or even a Republican primary nationally, because

for the most part, the country by roughly a 60 40 margin is on the woke side of things. So to get back to our question, you look at the numbers, you see the DeSantis collapse. What can turn it around? DeSantis may believe that simply announcing a run is going to turn this around. He may be right that announcing that he is running might push him from 20 to 25 in the Republican primary. It might push him from 20 to 28, maybe even to 30 in the Republican primary. But you don't win with that. And it is not at all clear that he has a path to denying Trump the roughly 50 plus percent that he needs. So things not going well for Ron DeSantis, things going very well for Donald Trump in the Republican primary rumor has it DeSantis,

if he is going to announce maybe doing so in the next seven to 10 days, we will watch it. I will, of course, let you know. Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter and the majority owner of Tesla. I mean, at this point, he's I don't even really know. He didn't create Tesla. I don't know what the right word is for what we describe as Elon Musk being with regard to Tesla. That guy, Elon Musk, delivered a bizarre interview to CNBC reporter David Faber, a guy who I used to really like. And this interview is a little shaky for Faber, but we'll talk about that. Elon Musk was asked, what are some pretty reasonable questions about? Listen, of course, you can believe what you want to believe about anything. But does it really

make sense to be making these political statements that are turning off huge swaths of the population? Because don't you want everybody to be buying Tesla? Don't you want everybody to be on Twitter? Isn't this what you need? And Elon Musk taking the approach of I don't really care if it costs me any money. Let's listen to the first clip. This is really just weird. And I think it is important for us to say Elon Musk has said he is autistic. And I think we need to be respectful. We we don't want to just say the strange things Elon Musk, the strange things that are coming out of Elon Musk's mouth are merely because he's autistic. I don't think that that's accurate and I don't think that makes sense. It also is not often discussed that he said he's autistic and maybe to some degree that does

impact the way that he relates to interviewers during these interviews. I don't know. It's a question that I guess should be should be asked. David Faber asks Elon Musk about, you know, you're tweeting about George Soros, you're getting into conspiracy stuff, even anti-Semitic stuff, arguably. And Elon Musk says he is pro Semite or pro Semite, maybe, as Trump might say. OK, let's listen properly. But I mean, you know what you wrote, but you basically reminds me of my vetoes is like, you know, calm down, people. This is not like me. I could put a piece out of it. You also you said he wants to erode the very fabric of civilization and source hates humanity. Like, when you do something like that, do you think about...

Yeah, I think that's true. That's my opinion. Okay, but why share it? Why share it? Especially because, I mean, why share it when people who buy Teslas may not agree with you? Advertisers on Twitter may not agree with you. Why not just say, hey, I think this. You can tell me. We can talk about it over there.

You can tell your friends. can talk about it over there. You can tell your friends. But why share it widely? I mean, this is freedom of speech. I'm allowed to say what I want to say. You absolutely are. But I'm trying to understand why you do because you have to know it's got to – it puts you in the middle of the partisan divide in the country. It makes you a lightning rod for criticism. I mean, do you like that?

You know, people today are saying he's an anti-Semite. I don't think you are. No, I'm definitely not. I'm like, I'm like a pro-Semite, if anything. I believe that probably is the case. Why would you even introduce the idea that that would be the case? I mean, we don't make this a George Soros interview. No. Well, nobody forced him to talk about George Soros either. So this has a little bit of a ring to like the whole I love the Jews. They're great business people thing that we once heard from Donald Trump in front of some Republican Jewish group. So I don't know. I mean, it's kind of kind of a weird thing. David Faber, who's the interviewer, happens to be Jewish. And he says he believes that Elon Musk is pro Semite, which is an interesting thing to say.

I think that I am less interested in the particulars of what Elon Musk believes versus what he says to get a rise out of people than I am about the real questions as to what impact this all, in particular, the Twitter ownership is going to have on the discourse and dialogue in the United States. Musk also doubled down during the interview about his claim that there was no evidence that the Allen, Texas shooter was a white supremacist. Of course, the guy had swastikas tattooed on his body. But Elon Musk, I guess, defends having spread that conspiracy theory. But I mean, when you when you when you link to somebody who's talking about the guy who killed children in a mall in Allen, Texas, and you say something like it might be a bad psyop, I'm not quite sure what you meant. Oh, in that particular case, there was a somehow that that's not not that the people were killed, but the it was, I think, incorrectly ascribed to be a white supremacist action. Which it seems to have been. And the evidence for that was some obscure Russian website that no one's ever heard of

that had no followers. And the company that found this is Bellingcat. Right. And you know what Bellingcat does? PsyOps. Right. I couldn't really even follow exactly what it was you were trying to express there. So nobody could. Yeah. Part why I was curious, but I'm saying that I thought the

ascribing it to white supremacy was OK. And and that the information for. All right. So anyway, we've since learned, you know, the shooter had Nazi tattoo swastikas all over his body. So let me address one other thing related to Elon Musk. People wrote to me after my Lex Friedman interview and said, David, why are you so soft on Elon Musk? Is it because you own Tesla stock? Is it because you drive a Tesla? We have addressed this so many times. First of all, on the facts, I've sold 95 percent of my Tesla stock and I've sold it a while ago now. And I said that. And even when I had the stock, it did not influence the things I said about Elon Musk. Number two, I'm I'm sort of done with Tesla.

In fact, when my current lease is up, I think we're going to be moving on to something very different. But but all of that being said, I think my my thing with Elon Musk is there are lots of people falling into the cult of personality debate with Elon Musk, whether he's this incredible savior or the greatest right wing evil in the world. Yes, he's saying wild, dangerous right wing things. I don't deny that. I think where I kind of stop short with Elon Musk is I don't think he knows what the hell he's talking about. And I think he's basically been captured by the people he's been hanging around in Texas, you know, Greg Abbott and whoever else. I just don't know that it's worth putting that much stock into the importance of Elon Musk in this particular way.

Let's focus more on Twitter policy, for example, than the things that Elon Musk says. I find them deplorable. There's no doubt about it. I also think he's done an incredible thing in how he's pushed forward electric vehicle and battery technology. Both can be true. There's no secret. There's no there's no reason I'm discussing Musk the way I do. It's not because of the fact that I had Tesla stock for a while or that I have a little while left on a Tesla lease. So you could you can stop emailing me with that stuff. But a bizarre interview and investors, I can only imagine not exactly rejoicing after this extremely strange exchange on CNBC. of hope, giving our listeners 20 percent off. Ounce of Hope is an aquaponic cannabis company and a small business that supports the David Pakman show. If you're not familiar with aquaponics, what they do is sustainably raise fish and they use the nutrient rich water. Folks, we're talking

about fish poop here to feed the cannabis plants. It's really a cool concept. It's organic. It's symbiotic. And what ounce of hope offers you is a wide range of high quality cannabis products. They have CBD. They have more recreational products made with Delta eight and Delta nine THC. Their products with THC are psychoactive, producing the type of buzz associated with marijuana. But their THC products are 100 percent federally legal because they are derived from hemp. So they can be shipped anywhere in the United States.

Ounce of Hope grows, extracts and formulates everything in-house. You can trust the safety and quality of everything that arrives at your door. So whether you're looking for help sleeping at night, something for aches or pains, a recreational way to unwind on the weekend, ounce of hope can help. Ounce of hope is giving David Pakman show listeners 20 percent off everything they offer. When you go to ounce of hope dot com and use code Pacman, that's O-U-N-C-E of hope dot com. Use code Pacman at checkout for 20 percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. One of our sponsors today is Relief Band. Relief Band is the number one FDA cleared anti-nausea wristband clinically proven to effectively prevent nausea and vomiting.

Relief band is a type of therapy called transdermal neuromodulation, acustimulation. And in really simple terms, it's just a band you wear on your wrist that sends a gentle pulse to the part of your nervous system that regulates nausea. And there's been growing research showing that relief band can help with nausea from motion sickness, from pregnancy and from all sorts of other situations. And a number of studies suggest relief band can help with nausea after surgery in conjunction with medication. Many people use relief band for nausea from anxiety or migraines when you feel sick on a car or plane or a boat. It's simple, it's safe, it's drug free, and there are no side effects. Relief Band has an A plus rating from the

Better Business Bureau with over 100000 satisfied customers online. It's just a brand you can trust. You can go and read the reviews. Let Relief Band help you make nausea a thing of the past. You'll get 20 percent off plus free shipping when you go to Relief Band dot com and use the code Pacman at checkout. That's Relief B.A.N.D. dot com. Then use code Pacman to get 20 percent off and free shipping. The link is in the podcast notes. All right. Remember that the David Pakman show depends on your support through the membership program

to do what we do and produce five shows a week and five bonus shows a week. You can sign up at join Pacman dot com. And remember that Monday, Memorial Day, we will be doing a one day membership blowout. This is going to be such a discount that the lawyers are going to be banging down my door. Of course, I won't be home because it'll be Memorial Day, which is why I've planned it this way. The lawyers and accountants won't be able to find me and you'll get that big discount. Sign up for our membership at David Pacman dot com. I'm sorry for our newsletter at David Pacman dot com. And then sorry for our newsletter at David Pakman dot com. And then Monday, Memorial Day, you'll get an email telling yourself telling you how

to avail yourself of this great membership discount. All right. Let's look at. So the Durham report, this much anticipated Durham report, which was going to blow the roof off of all of the wrongdoing that was committed against Donald Trump when he was being investigated. Total nothing burger. And we're going to look at this through an interview.

This is actually really interesting. Donald Trump was interviewed by fired Fox News host Dan Bongino yesterday, and Trump told 20, 30 lies about the content of the Durham report. This goes bad quick. Let's take a listen. I'm always excited to welcome back to the show. A man who hopefully will be the next president, United States, a good friend to the show, a good friend to me personally, President Donald J. Trump.

Mr. President, thanks for joining us. Right. Hello, Dan. OK, so it's off. Hello, Dan. Trump in a bad mood. Bad mood. Trump is never good during interviews. This has been written about extensively when Trump has that bad mood. He is a difficult, difficult guy. So it gets off to a notably bad start. They go right into the Durham report

and the lies pouring out of Trump's mouth. Mr. President, we got the report yesterday. Everything you said was correct. This is one of those hashtag Donald Trump was right again moments. Is it? Sir, you you were framed. You were framed. They had no evidence of any of this from. There is no reason to believe Trump was framed. Star, your thoughts on that? They thought they were going to lose and we were indeed framed. And it really pertained more because they missed the date. And amazingly, the report wasn't picked up until just after the election. Remember, I think it was BuzzFeed, which is now essentially out of business, I understand,

which is a very good thing for the for the country. It's great when media outlets go out of business per Trump. It was done sometime after the campaign. It actually affected if you look at it and really study it, it really affected 2020 much more because we went through years of nonsense with Russia, Russia, Russia. I didn't even know what they were talking about. People would come up to me, sir. You know, I think about Russia.

If you are not understanding this word salad, do not adjust your television or mobile phone or computer screen. Nobody can understand what he's talking about here. And after a while, I'd say, what's going on with Russia? It was a frame up. And these are bad people. This is Schiff and Clinton and all. These are bad people. But it was much more than them. Mark Elias. You take a look at what they did. And this really affected 2020 more than it affected. It was meant for 2016, but they couldn't get it off. You know, they they had this fake dossier written by Steele and who was offered millions

in order to try and get it confirmed. Stick with it. I'm going to go through all of this with you in a moment. You can get it confirmed. He couldn't get anybody to confirm it because it was all fake. It was like you write a fiction book. And but this really affected the 2020. Another thing in the 2020 election, which was totally rigged, by the way,

incredibly how they didn't want to talk about that, Dan. They didn't want to talk or rig. But all you have to do is take a look at the 51 Intelligence Agency. That's rigged. Take a look at Truth to Vote. These are great patriots, Catherine Engelbrecht. And these are great patriots. Went around for for a year, took all of the tapes out. She sold all of these stuffing the ballot boxes that took hundreds of thousands of votes, stuffing the ballot boxes that took place. And just you take a look at just Twitter and the FBI. OK, it goes on and on and on. But let's add a little bit of reality to this. Donald Trump and Dan Bongino and others would have you believe that the Durham report exposed, quite frankly,

that the real crime was even investigating Donald Trump and that Trump is vindicated in all these different things. I don't know how many of you have actually looked at the Durham report, the Durham report in which they put all of their eggs in that basket for years. The Durham report found no evidence of any deep state plot against Donald Trump the way he claims it does not accuse the FBI or DOJ of acting out of political bias. It doesn't accuse the FBI or DOJ of acting out of malice. It doesn't allege any criminal wrongdoing by anybody that was involved in the Mueller probe, except for one low level lawyer who pled guilty to altering an email in 2020

of no consequence. Big picture to the investigation. The report did say some some aspects of how the FBI handled the investigation, like they opened the investigation on a tip from an Australian diplomat. They relied on some uncorroborated information. They ignored elements of potentially exculpatory evidence. Yeah, there were procedural errors that the Durham report found. It is not indicative of any intentional misconduct, political bias, a deep state plot, a conspiracy against Trump, a frame up, a frame job framing or any of it. And none of that affected the validity of the outcome of the

investigation. This is in the Durham report. And Trump and Bongino want to want you to pretend it's something different. The report repeated some debunked conspiracy theories that were pushed by Trump. For example, it wrongly claimed the Steele dossier triggered the investigation. That is not true. That dossier didn't even get to the FBI until September of 2016. That was month three of the investigation already. So if you actually look at the Durham report, you find that all of the stuff Trump is saying simply isn't true. Let's listen to just a little bit more of this interview.

We're skipping ahead a little bit here. I call up the special persecutor, not prosecutor, persecutor because persecutor is worse. But Jack Smith and he continues to go after Trump with the phony boxes hoax. And if you take a look at Biden, Biden's got boxes all over the place. He had no right to declassify. I do. And but you just take a look, Jack Smith. This is a continuation of the same hoax. It's all a big hoax. They're all friends. They're in there. They're embedded.

And it's really a question. It's right. And it's Democrats, radical left Democrats. I love the way you start your show with the radical left. You fight the radical left. All right. So there has been no wrongdoing by the special prosecutor that anybody has actually been able to point to the idea that any Republican that actually wants to look into what happened is merely a rhino,

a Republican in name only is an old, tired grievance from Donald Trump. And the problem is you look at the post. If you look at this on on Truth Central, where Trump posted it, people see this drivel and then they pose. Wow. Great show. Great show. Trump was right, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. They have fallen for it. And Bongino is one of the henchmen that pushes this nonsense on people. Look at the Durham report and you'll see Trump is lying. One other Trump interview I want to look at before we move on from yesterday. And this is really interesting.

Trump was interviewed by Rob Schmidt on Newsmax. Rob Schmidt is one of the people that went after me about a month and a half ago when I pointed out prayer doesn't prevent mass shootings. Rob Schmidt jumped on the bandwagon. This is just fascinating. Trump claims during this interview that he got rid of Roe v. Wade. This this is very interesting and consequential. Listen to this. Your response to his allegation on this. And I want to ask also, do you think that six weeks is going too far? Is that going to doom Republicans

with the moderates in this country when it comes to twenty twenty four? Rob, first of all, I'm the one that got rid of Roe v. Wade. And everybody said that was an impossible thing to do. I put on three Supreme Court justices. Very few people have had that privilege or honor. And they are terrific people. And they happen to believe that Roe v. Wade should not be there. It's been now brought back to the states. And what I've done is I've given the pro-life people who are wonderful people and loving people, I've given them the power of negotiation because now they're able to negotiate something that's going to be very important. So Trump saying he really got rid of Roe v. Wade by virtue of having appointed the Supreme Court justices he appointed. I would agree. I actually

Trump shockingly not lying, at least metaphorically about that. The midterm voters noticed and they voted the way they did in part because of that. This should be a Democratic campaign ad paid for by Joe Biden. Right. I'm Joe Biden and I approve this message. Trump saying I'm the one that got rid of Roe v. Wade. If indeed Trump is the Republican nominee. Then Trump went back to the lies, including laughably claiming that the Durham report is the biggest story in the history of the United States. This is the biggest story of maybe in the history of our country. the crime of the century. Look at what they report on on other people.

I won't mention names. Other people were there. They're caught cold. They're criminals and they don't even report. They refuse to. You know, you can't have a scandal if you don't have publicity. To be honest, you cannot have a scandal. Now of course, I already told you about the truth of the Durham report.

It is not exposing the crime of the century. In fact, the report even says we're not aware of any crimes at all committed by anyone in the investigation of Donald Trump through the Mueller investigation. That's in the Mueller report. That's in the Durham report, rather. And Trump continues to lie and lie and lie. And by the way, we still haven't figured out what Obamagate is. Trump told us Obamagate biggest political crime of the century. I don't know which century. And we still don't even know what Obamagate is. And then lastly, Trump lamenting that they want to fire the head of CNN after that big, beautiful town hall that Trump did or doing before what they do seven, eight, nine months to a birth or a child, the life of a child.

Those are the radical people, not the pro-life people. Those are the radical people. And I think I explained it very well the other night on on CNN, you know, so well that they want to fire the head of CNN. They want to fire Lick. He got the highest ratings that they had in many years and they want to go out and they want to fire Lick. So, you know, you explain that when the whole world is topsy turvy.

And what I say about. Yeah, it's a topsy turvy world out there. Now, the truth is CNN's ratings for the Trump town hall weren't actually that great. It was about three million, which actually is quite good for CNN in the sense that CNN ratings are in the toilet. And actually, this is insane. But Newsmax had higher viewership than CNN during some primetime hour late last week or earlier this week, which which is genuinely stunning stuff. I mean, it shows you the lack of interest in what CNN is offering.

It's not really true, though, that the CNN town hall ratings were that great. What happened was Trump's behavior on the town hall was so outrageous that after the fact. The reality of CNN doing the town hall is what made news and the disaster of Caitlin Collins's attempts to kind of hold Trump accountable and the lie a second that Trump told. That's what got attention. Trump likes to think, oh, CNN Live got a huge ratings boost because of me. The truth is, Trump's behavior was so deplorable during the town hall that after the fact, anybody who pays attention to what's going on in the 2024 race certainly commented on it. So the lies just spewing out of Trump's mouth.

But he's clearly doing something that's impressing the Republican primary voters because he keeps building his lead over to Santis in the primary polls, as we talked about at the top of the show. Let's take a quick break. All of these clips I played are going to be on our Instagram, on our YouTube channel, on our tick tock. Check them out there and we'll be right back. Speaker 1 of our sponsors today is Bon Charge. I have always enjoyed dry saunas. You get in there, your heart rate is up, dilates the blood vessels, can soothe achy joints and muscles. It's relaxing. It's just a great way to remove a little stress. Bon Charge is the creator of the infrared sauna

blanket, which you can enjoy from home. Super easy to set up. Heats up fast. You don't have to have your head inside like at a traditional sauna at the gym. Nice for meditating or reading, getting work done, relaxing. I have found it to be a great way to unwind at the end of a long day. Easy to clean, sleek, lightweight design, easy to store and comes with a 12 month warranty. And of course, if you don't love it, returns are super easy. But I think you will love it and you'll get 15 percent off when you go to bond charge dot com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman. That's B.O.N.C.H.A.R.G.E.

Dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman for 15 percent off. The link is in the podcast notes. If you or one of your parents is starting to lose your hearing, you're not alone. About 48 million Americans have hearing loss and only one in five people who would benefit from using a hearing aid are actually using one. Our sponsors, MD Hearing, create FDA registered rechargeable hearing aids that cost a fraction of what you typically pay. For example, MD Hearings new neo model costs less than 10 percent of what those marked up hearing aids are being sold for at most hearing clinics.

And the neo is MD Hear, smallest hearing aid ever. No one will even know that it's there. I have a close family friend who uses MD hearing and loves it. She said it performs better than any hearing aid that she's used and it's far less noticeable. MD hearing even offers a 45 day risk free trial with a 100 percent money back guarantee. So you can buy with confidence and they have a special deal for my audience. When you buy a pair of hearing aids, you'll get them for just one forty nine ninety nine each. Plus, they'll include a free extra charging case.

Go to M.D. Hearing dot com and use the code Pacman. You can find the link in the podcast notes. Well, it happens every once in a while at the last minute. An interview goes wrong. And I don't mean wrong in the sense that yesterday's urine injector interview went wrong. I mean, like the interview just doesn't happen because of a problem. So we're going to take a few calls. Let's hear from a few people in the audience.

Rare that we're able to do this on a Wednesday, but let's see what we get. OK, why don't we start first with Jay from Ontario? Jay from Ontario, welcome to the program. Hello. Yes, you're on the air. I was just curious with the whole the news about Trump and whatever the other guy's name is, Giuliani, rather selling pardons for two million. I wonder if it's in the best interest of Democrats to try to pass a bunch of laws not allowing

presidents to have so much power. And I know that that could be a wide range of things. But I wanted to know your thoughts on that. If the Democrats should try to do that. Well, I mean, sure. The problem is that presidential pardon power is not a likely thing to be changed. And so then the question becomes, what exactly are you trying to take away as far as powers go?

Now, here's here's what I will say, Jay. One of the realities that the Trump presidency exposed is that our safeguards and checks and balances aren't as robust and impenetrable as maybe the framers of the Constitution believe them to be. And in the defense of the framers, they probably reasonably never believed someone as willing to flout all of those checks and balances as Trump would come to power. Now you could say, well, they should have foreseen that. OK, but they didn't. So then the question becomes, what exactly is it that you would want to change? I don't know if you have

something in mind. No, I don't. And I think that's the big problem is that the Trump presidency exposed that there's probably a lot of things that we do need to worry about that we never thought that we would have to. Absolutely. And when it comes to pardon, you know, the crazy thing, as we talked about earlier in the week, it's not explicit. It appears not to be explicitly illegal for the president to sell pardons, except if it counts as a bribe or as a fraudulent or obstructive act.

And you know, to be totally honest, I don't think this selling pardons for two million thing is going to go very far. I hope to be wrong and I hope to eat my hat on it, even though I don't wear hats. But I actually don't think it's going to go very far. Yeah, I guess I agree. You calling from Ontario, Canada? Yes. Beautiful. How is it there? No complaints. Weather's pretty good, I guess. That's good. All right, Jay. Thank you for the call.

Yeah. Thanks for having me on, David. Take care. All right. There goes Jay from Ontario calling in very strongly. Let's go to Liam from Austin, Texas. Liam, are you thrilled to have Elon Musk in Austin these days or what? I'm sorry, David, could you repeat that

question, please? No, I was joking whether you were glad that Elon Musk is in your neck of the woods. Oh, yeah, not particularly. I'm coming to Austin. Yeah, I'm in Austin for college. So it's really weird. You know, campus is not the same as the city where it feels a lot more like San Francisco. Right. Well, what's on your mind today? David, this is more of a broad question, but it's addressed towards you specifically. So of many of the political pundits that I follow, you come across to me as one of the most eloquent, well-spoken, articulated. And I just, I wanted to ask you, I know I think you majored in communications. If I did my research right. I just want to know, how did you get to that point? Because, you know, I really want to be a good public speaker, but I feel like I'm just not,

you know. So a couple of different things. First of all, you could have even included a little more praise, really, Liam. I don't like that you cut it off so early we could have done with more of it. No, I'm kidding. No. So here's the thing. There's a lot of different things. I do think that there is some predisposition to people who are more or less comfortable talking.

And I I just think it's an open question to the degree to which one can kind of like learn to be comfortable talking. But I think it's a bunch of different things. First of all, I learned English as a second language. It's a native language in the sense that I started learning it when I was five. But I do think that the process of translating what you know in one language to a new language probably helps language development to some degree. I read a ton since I was a kid, and I think reading is probably the best way to build vocabulary and to experience different sorts of sentence structure and this sort of thing. I think that working in sales was hugely helpful.

I've told my circuit city war stories, you know, being 16 and being put in a position of selling three thousand dollar laptops to, you know, 45 year olds bringing their kid to college or whatever. It kind of forces you to either sink or swim and develop a rapport and comfort thinking on your feet and that sort of thing. And then I think just by like doing a show. So I don't know that there's really an answer in there, but I think all of those things, you know, I've attended, I've been invited to attend sometimes like toast masters is

a public speaking group where people take turns speaking and stuff like that. I don't know to what degree stuff like that is useful, but maybe it is. But those are a few things that come to mind. Yeah, that's very helpful. Now, do you think this is a quick follow up? Do you think that you were kind of always since you were you can remember naturally predisposed towards speaking publicly, you're very comfortable with yourself like that? Because I've always felt kind of like an anxious person.

No, I mean, to be honest, when I do in-person stuff, it's like, you know, we get one and a half million views a day on YouTube and 30, 40,000 podcast downloads a day. And it's just second nature at this point because I'm so used to it. However, if I'm speaking to a room in person of 50 people, I still get sort of nervous. So I don't I don't think that goes away. And I've spoken to people who speak to really large groups in person. They all have said to me, if you don't get a little anxious before that, then then something actually might be wrong. That's actually a good thing as a normal thing. Obviously, if it becomes disabling, it's a problem. Right. Well, David, sir, I greatly have tears in my eyes.

I just so much appreciate your time today. Speaker 1 Well, Liam, I'm sorry I made you cry, but I do appreciate the call. Speaker 5 All right. Thank you. Speaker 1 There is Liam from Austin. Let's go next to Jane from Hollywood. Jane from Hollywood. Welcome to the program.

What's on your mind today? Speaker 6 Hi, David. I've actually tried to talk to you a couple of times. I'm an organizer in Orange County, California. This is where the GOP comes to fundraise. Speaker 1 Right. Yes. Speaker 4 One of the hottest political spot. We have four congressional districts that are always up for grabs and they go both ways. I've tried to contact you a few times, but like your technology is kind of complicated. I'll be real with you.

Tell me what you mean by that, Jane. What's complicated about it? The waiting room is silent. And so I just got into a different room and discord. Look, I'm a little bit older, OK? OK, I'm 40. I don't get all this stuff and it's a little bit complicated. Well, James, since you've been trying to get a hold of me for so long and we are you now

did, let's waste no more time and get right into your question. OK, well, my name's not Hollywood, Jane. My name's Jenna. OK, that's my screen name. Speaker 1 00 00 00 00 00 Speaker 2 00 00 00 00 Speaker 1 And I only see what you type in. So that's why I called you that. Speaker 4 00 00 00 00 00 Speaker 2 I got you. I got you. I was a team lead for Unite Here Local 11. OK, OK. I was walking in the field. I helped get Uto Soto Martinez elected in L.A. I worked on several campaigns. Currently, they are.

I don't know how it went because I couldn't find the link yesterday because there was supposed to be a vote in Anaheim yesterday on a measure they were walking in Anaheim to raise the minimum wage for the hotel and concierge staff in Anaheim to be $25 an hour right the people that they walked that walked that measure that had the persuasive conversations were paid $20 an hour. And they were considered temporary employees. And they did not have written job descriptions. They did not have safety protocols. And while I was a team lead on that campaign, I was bit by an attack dog and I'm now permanently disabled. And so when we talk about like, how are Democrats going to win 2024? They're not going to do it

through hypocrisy. You know what I'm saying? I will never walk the same again. And I was training up these kids to go into these doors, knock on them and have the conversations necessary to convince people to put measures on the ballot that would help workers. You know what I'm saying? And so when we talk about like, how do we advance Democrats in a situation where there's fascism against us? We can't be hypocrites about it. We can't constantly be like, we're going to use temporary employment loopholes to exploit other workers to advance the rights

of the workers who are paying our union dues. Well, I agree with you completely. It's an important point and one that's well said. The organizing can't be as problematic as the labor situation that the organizers are trying to fix. I know nothing about the specifics you've cited, Hollywood, Jane, but I will look into it and I really appreciate you calling in and letting me know about that. We will investigate and we will follow up. Let's go next to Felix from Torrance. Felix from Torrance. Welcome to the David Pakman show. What's on your mind today? How are you doing, David? I got a question. I got a question, please. I see more and more of these GOP. What they've done and what we all know

is they they they have tackled and they have they have taken social media by storm basically compared to any Democratic representative. Do you think this this at least one Democrat that will start, you know, going on Twitter? I know they feel them do, but they they don't do it as aggressive as the GOP does. Feel like I don't know that I know what you're talking about. Who who on the right are you? So let's let's see if I can ask just ask a few questions. Are you talking about Twitter specifically right now?

Yeah, mostly Twitter. Correct. OK, because the margin of the greens and all these and like Matt Gates. I mean, when we when we see these these YouTube channels, all they do is show their Twitter accounts. They only shows what they wrote and what they said. Right. When do you think that there will ever be like a Democratic superstar that just starts?

I mean, AOC is probably as close as I've seen. Yeah, AOC is good on social media. I mean, Felix, one of the things that you're kind of getting to is this is a structural disadvantage for the left. And it's the following disadvantage. The right's overly simplistic ideas lend themselves to social media and short form communication significantly more than the left's ideas. And think about, you know, if you're on the right, you can say taxes are theft. It's my money. Let us keep it right. The left doesn't have an equivalent because we on the left believe, listen, we would all like to pay less. But if we're going to have an

organized and well-functioning society, we do need to centralize some aspects through government. And the way we do that is through taxation. Which one of those two ideas, Felix, lends itself better to Twitter? It's obvious it's the shorter one, right? Right. So I think that this is something that has been a challenge for the left for a very long time. I don't think it's an insurmountable problem. I think we on the left need to be better at that sort of pithy short form communication. But I don't think you're wrong. I do think for now the right certainly is. It's a near monopoly in some of these formats. Speaker 4 Thank you very much, Dave. My

Speaker 1 Yeah. Take care. All right. Felix from Torrance. Great to hear from you. Let's take a quick break and the show will continue right after this. oils in your lungs. Zippix toothpicks are a convenient way to curb the nicotine cravings. Zippix toothpicks are super discreet. You can use them anytime, anywhere. Smoking and vaping aren't allowed, including flights, sporting events in restaurants. They're available in six different flavors with options of two and three milligrams of nicotine. If you're not a nicotine user, Zypix also offers caffeine and B12 infused toothpicks. Zypix has already helped tens of thousands of customers ditch the cigarettes, ditch the vapes. They might be able to help you, too. If you're a smoker or a vapor, give Zypix toothpicks a try. Your lungs will thank you. Go to ZipX toothpicks dot com today. Save 10 percent with the code Pacman 10 at checkout.

Just remember, you must be 21 or older to order. That's ZIPPIX toothpicks dot com. Use promo code Pacman 10 at checkout for 10 percent off. That's Pacman 1 0. The info is in the podcast notes. I often have a much longer list of nonfiction books that I'd like to read than I actually have the time for. And that's when summaries of books can be really useful. Our sponsor, Shortform, is the platform that goes way beyond what other book summary platforms do, because short form provides a clear and concise overview of the book that you can read or listen to in one sitting. But you also get a ton of other crucial context about how the book fits into the broader topic.

Like, for example, I went through the short form guide for an American sickness. It's a book by Elizabeth Rosenthal about the financial incentives that plague the U.S. health care system, many of which we've talked about. Short form perfectly sums up the book's key points. But then it goes further. It looks at the background on how Rosenthal's perspective fits into the larger debate on American health care. And this just gives you a more complete and balanced

understanding of the book. And that's what I love about short form. Short form has every nonfiction genre imaginable and they publish new book guides every single week. My audience can try short form totally free and get 25 percent off a subscription if you'd like at short form dot com slash Pacman. That's S.H.O.R.T. F.O.R.M. dot com slash Pacman for a free trial and 25 percent off. The link is in the podcast notes. At this point, it should be abundantly clear to anybody paying even the slightest bit of attention to the U.S. Mexico border that the border is not open. The border is it's just not open. There's there's no nothing you can point to. There's no statistic. There's no policy you can point to to prove the case that the border is open under Joe Biden. And so what did former

Republican governor of Alaska, former Republican vice presidential candidate, former congressional candidate, failed, by the way, Sarah Palin say when she went on Newsmax, she said the border is open. We're going to check this out. This is another one of these examples of Sarah Palin in her echoey room, visibly struggling to use language to communicate anything of meaning. In this particular case, speaking to Newsmax's Eric Bowling about the topic of immigration. And this is an important issue because the lies that the right is telling about immigration are sticking with some voters. Let's listen. Then we'll discuss a country that puts the needs and priorities of invaders over those who fought for it.

Well, that sounds to me like Joe Biden's America. New York is booting homeless veterans, removing them from New York hotels in order to put illegal migrants into those hotels. And why? Because these sanctuary cities can't handle what they decided to take on. Let's bring in former Alaska governor, Sarah Palin, to weigh in. An expert on immigration. Let's bring in Sarah Palin. They asked for it. They begged for it. We give it to them and they want to push back now. And they're going to move out veterans who are having a tough time in favor of illegal aliens coming in. Your thoughts? Right. I mean, the whole open borders issue is bad enough. And I sit on the

cake now, though, is that our veterans, again, are being kicked to the curb. OK, we're going to go back to it. But let's pause it there. The open border thing is bad enough. Can anyone tell me in what way the border is open? And I really want to know. I'm I looked and I said, OK, let's look at all changes at the border from Trump to Biden. And I can't find any way in which that border is open. The Biden administration has repeatedly said the border is closed, just like Trump did. They have said people should not attempt to cross illegally, just like Trump did. They have said people should not attempt to cross illegally, just like Trump did. The administration sent troops to the border, increased surveillance, increased technology at the border, worked with Mexico to deter migration to the United States. And importantly, since Title 42 expired, the number of people encountered trying to cross has

decreased despite the fear mongering by Republicans. I was unable to find a single way in which the border is open. It is true that the Biden administration is respecting the process when people come to the border and ask for asylum. That is the law. That is the law. And it is not a change in policy. It's possible that the Trump administration was ignoring the law, but I can't find any way in which the border is open. So if somebody knows, please tell me. Let's continue here with Sarah Palin. Literally as illegal aliens are being given precedent over this. Now there are two issues.

One is the veterans issue. And it just makes me sick to my stomach. It makes me sick to know that our leaders in government are not giving our vets their due. We're not providing them the benefits, the promises. And that affects every aspect of most every veteran's life. This is particularly disgusting because this is the same Sarah Palin who in 2008, when she was running alongside the late Senator John McCain to be president, for him to be president and for her to be vice president of the United States. She defended the Bush decision to go into Iraq, which, of course,

led to thousands of American troop deaths and subsequently tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of injuries and psychological trauma, which then these very same Republicans were not interested in properly funding the VA and benefits for veterans. And now she has the audacity to say, oh, Biden doesn't care about veterans. Oh, OK. But also, though, the open borders, you know, in school, in civics, in U.S. history class, we all learn in school the definition of treason. And if it's if this isn't treason, when you consider what our leaders are doing in their aiding and abetting illegal aliens

and they're they're putting our safety, the security of our nation, ultimately our sovereignty at risk, we are being destroyed by the left's open borders policies. All right. I think we've probably had enough. Find me some way in which the border is open and I will report it tomorrow. If anybody can let me know. All right. We now have our latest tears in my eyes story from Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. And I want to play a couple of different things for you. One, this is very short, but it's just to set the stage of where Alex Jones currently is in his sort of public discourse and dialog.

Alex Jones said yesterday that Carrie Lake is really the governor of Arizona. Now, this is not something that there is debate. You know, when I was on with Lex Friedman a couple of weeks ago, he said this thing about how, you know, isn't everything sort of an opinion at this point? And I said, no, it's really not. It is not up for debate whether Carrie Lake is the governor of Arizona. Katie Hobbs received more votes in November of 2022. In that race, Katie Hobbs was inaugurated as the governor of Arizona. And Katie Hobbs is the governor of Arizona. It's not a matter of opinion. But listen to Alex Jones. You can always trust him to tell you the truth, right? We have to continue to expose what's happening. We have to get integrity in elections. There's total fraud. Arizona is the perfect example. Kerry Lake's an incredible

champion of freedom there. She's obviously really the governor. The person that ran the election, I believe, stole the election from. She's obviously really the governor. There is no way in which Kerry Lake is really the governor. And what I think is really important about these sorts of clips is when people write to me and they say, you know, Alex Jones was right about this. Alex Jones was right about that. He's the only one you can really trust. These exact sorts of declarations, they say them so confidently with the total. Sometimes it's it's arrogance and sometimes it's condescension. Kerry Lake is obviously really the governor. How do you not know that, you moron? There is no way in which Kerry Lake is the governor.

Now, let's move on to the tears in my eyes story. Alex Jones now says when he goes to liberal areas in Austin, Texas, which he admits it's where the good restaurants are. And listen, that's true. That's true. The good restaurants in Austin are absolutely in the liberal areas. He says everybody comes up to him now and says we were wrong. You were right about everything. This is sort of like they came up to me with tears in their eyes and said, sir,

you've been treated so unfairly. Here's Alex Jones version of that story. With the pain of being prominent, not having privacy, you actually get a real gauge. I go to the most liberal areas of Austin now that I i avoided for years had some of the best restaurants without even security now wow and literally i go in a restaurant and almost everyone comes over and says we're sorry we were wrong we know the government's evil we know the country's been hijacked i just took my wife out to dinner with some friends last thursday almost everybody in the restaurant came over an italian restaurant black black, white, Hispanic, old, young. Then I walked to the parking garage, ran into three groups of people, and black, white, and Hispanic. Every group said,

we love you, we're sorry. They all shed it. You should think you were bad. So what that shows me is in the most leftist areas, they're even converting and there is a real global awakening. There is a great awakening happening as the counter to the great race. What's really funny is you can't find evidence of this anywhere. Like think for a second what it would mean if all of a sudden the entirety of liberal, progressive woke Austin, Texas, was so overcome with the undeniable truth of the things Alex Jones has been saying that they now go up to him and say, you've converted me. We were wrong. In fact, think about what Alex Jones wants you to believe before he needed security in liberal areas

because people would come up to him and I guess threaten him or maybe accost him or, you know, whatever. Now, the progressive left has become so overcome and enamored with Alex Jones for telling the truth about the evil government that he no longer needs security. The liberals who used to pose a physical threat to him requiring him to have security. Now they come up and say, you were right about everything. Does anyone believe these stories? Does anyone believe these stories? I certainly don't. If you do, then please leave a comment. Send an email. I want to hear from you. We have a voicemail number. That number is 219 to David P. Yesterday, I interviewed Christopher Key, who for a long time has said he drinks and injects urine to for health and something about the covid vaccine. The interview was completely off the wall insanity. Many of you.

I don't know that we've gotten this many emails and comments and voicemails about any interview for a very, very long time. Here is just one such voicemail I received. Hey, David, I was just listening to your most recent episode with Christopher Key. Oh, my God, that guy's a nutball. Yeah, I think he drank too much of his own urine and urine's gone to his brain, sir. And this dude's a Christian and he's an embarrassing example of one. I'm a Christian and he just makes us all look silly, along with a whole bunch of Trumpers. Anyways, thanks for all you do. All right.

I want to say one particular thing about the Christopher Key interview. A number of people wrote to me and said, David, why did you have this guy on? Why did you do this? Some people said it wasn't worth my time. Others said it was sort of mean because he's clearly out of his mind or just incapable of carrying on a conversation. I want people to understand he demanded to be on because we talked about him on the show. And that seemed fair. And I'll remind you, we have covered covid disinformation for years and the covid disinformation has come from Michael Flynn. It's come from Trump. It's come from Sherry Tenpenny. And we've covered the covid disinformation that was being spread by Christopher Key.

He saw our coverage, wrote to me and said, have me on so I can tell you why you're wrong about all this stuff you're saying. It seems as though if I spoke about someone and they say I want to defend myself, that I should grant them that possibility. So we didn't go out looking to interview Christopher Key. It's obvious that, you know, the wheel might be spinning, but the hamsters dead or whatever other analogy or metaphor you want to use. But he asked to be on and I had spoken about him.

So that's why we accommodated it. OK, please understand that we have a fantastic bonus show for you today. There is some really sad stuff going on with Senator Dianne Feinstein, which we're going to discuss. And it's not fun, but it's we need to talk about it. Florida has rejected some Holocaust textbooks for being too woke. A Florida teacher says she's under investigation for showing the class a Disney movie that has a gay character in it. All of those stories will be on today's bonus show. You can sign up at join Pacman dot com and get instant access to the bonus show. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money.

Right. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Please help us make money on the bonus show. And if you've been saying to yourself, you know, maybe I'll get myself one of those memberships someday once the price is low enough. Monday Memorial Day, we're doing a one day membership special. It's going to be out of this world. Be notified of that by getting on my newsletter at David Pakman dot com. We'll see everyone on the bonus show or otherwise. See you tomorrow.