The David Pakman Show - 5/19/23: DeSantis destroying Florida, MTG's latest conspiracy theory

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Ron DeSantis is turning Florida into a right-wing nightmare of a state -- Radical Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wrongly claims that "Antifa killed a cop" during a recent hearing -- Caller is a progressive member of the military -- Caller looks at the American culture war from an international perspective -- Caller wonders how the Republican presidnetial nominee will appeal to the general public -- Caller talks about the right's reaction to trans shooters -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Disney cancels plans for $1 billion campus in Florida, McCarthy compliments Biden on the border, self-checkout machines asking for tips, and much more.... ♨️ Bon Charge Sauna Blanket: Use code PAKMAN for 15% OFF at https://boncharge.com/pakman 🩺 Wild Health: Get 20% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://wildhealth.com/pakman 👩‍❤️‍👨 Try the Paired App FREE for 7 days and get 25% OFF at https://paired.com/pakman 🥄 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off Magic Spoon at https://magicspoon.com/pakman 💰 Public.com: Start getting a 5% yield on your cash at https://public.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

. I want to start today talking about Florida. And yeah, in a certain sense, this is a story about Ron DeSantis. But it is really a story about Ron DeSantis, but it is really a story about Ron DeSantis as governor, not Ron DeSantis as the maybe future failed Republican presidential primary candidate, Ron DeSantis, who still, as of this moment, has not announced that he is running against Donald Trump in that Republican primary. I want to show you the texture of the right wing hellscape that DeSantis is rapidly transforming Florida into.

Now, full disclosure, I know people will email me, but David, you say these things about Florida and then you go to Florida. OK, I also said things that are terrible about Donald Trump. And I lived in the United States when Trump was president. So, yes, there are parts of Florida that I think are great, even though they have infrastructure problems as a result of Ron DeSantis and right wing state policy. Those liberal parts of Florida with the good restaurants, as Alex Jones would say. Yeah, I frequently go there and I don't understand how that devalues in any way the criticism

of the policy that the Santas has put in place. So CNN recently had this list that they put up. Let's take a look at it. In recent times, Ron DeSantis has signed a six week abortion ban, ended concealed weapons permits. The requirement for such permits banned gender affirming care for trans youth, restricted drag shows, expanded the don't say gay law, blocked and an advanced placement African-American studies curriculum class and prohibited vaccine mandates.

First of all, I am going to make two arguments to you here. First argument. All of these bills and laws are terrible ideas. And number two, many of them also directly contradict the stated values of low government intervention, little government involvement, freedom and liberty that they claim to espouse. So let's go through some of these six week abortion ban. DeSantis signed that in a closed door ceremony. I believe it was last month. The bill prohibits physicians from performing abortions after six weeks into a pregnancy. In most cases, as I've explained before, many women don't even know they're pregnant until the six week mark, because when you've missed your

period, if you are pregnant, you're basically five weeks pregnant for five, depending on who you ask or the particulars of that. So it is completely unrealistic, absolutely unreasonable, and it is close to a full abortion ban. It also says that if you want an exception because you've been raped, you have to provide evidence of the rape. OK, if it's the result of incest or human trafficking, you need to provide evidence. And that only gets you an exception up to 15 weeks. This is if Roe v. Wade were still in place, it would blatantly violate Roe v. Wade. It's another attempt to

control women's bodies and limit choices. And it is insane government overreach. We have the bill that lets you concealed carry without a permit. OK, DeSantis signed this also last month. This allows gun owners to carry firearms in public without any additional permitting or training required. And it also ends the state requirement that when you leave your home with a concealed weapon, you must have special training, not even special, just training, I think is what we would call it. It's a gift to the gun lobby. It's a gift to the NRA. It's a gift to the more guns in more places. And it will make Florida less safe. It will make Florida more prone to gun violence and accidents. We then have this package of five bills that were passed and signed into law by Ron DeSantis.

And here we are talking about a lot of bills that relate directly to the rights of the LGBT community. And here we're talking about a ban on gender affirming care for trans youth. This will prevent doctors from providing hormone therapy or surgery to minors who identify as trans. You could argue that it is a form of denial of medical care, that you're just you're taking away medical freedom because what we're talking about here is saying, hey, here's people who may need certain services as determined by medical professionals. Instead, you have some Republican lawmakers saying you're not going to be allowed to do it. Restrictions on drag shows. This is a law that will prohibit any establishment that

serves alcohol from hosting performances by drag queens or drag kings. You can argue that this is discrimination against a form of artistic expression. You can argue this violates free speech because at the end of the day, we're not talking about grooming or pedophilia or sexual assault or any of the things that they love to say are inextricable from drag shows. It's a form of expression and it's a government banning that. We will see what happens. There's the expansion of don't say gay, don't say gay prohibits teachers from discussing sexual

orientation or gender identity, except does it. Are you allowed to say as a female teacher, oh, my male husband. Well, that is a discussion of gender identity, but that's not bad because we know what the real point of it is. It's to censor and silence LGBT voices, experiences and the reality that all sorts of different types of people exist in our society and culture. There's the bill. In addition to this, which we talked about before, that blocks the advanced placement African-American studies class from being offered in public schools. Remember, they framed it as they are forcing this indoctrination onto our children. It's an optional class.

In my experience, it's not as though advanced placement classes are exactly super popular. I mean, they often fill. But what I mean is it's not like the entire school is even looking to take these classes. It's a whitewashing of history. It denies many of the struggles of black Americans. And we've talked about it before. And then lastly, a bill that bans any vaccine mandates by any entity in Florida. That includes businesses, schools and government agencies. Now, whatever your feelings are about a covid vaccine requirement. And I'm there with you. If indeed the covid vaccine doesn't prevent transmission, there is a case to say it shouldn't be required. The counter would be if it reduces the chance of hospitalization and death for military

readiness. It certainly seems like it could make a difference. But my point is, step back from the covid vaccine. Think about how reckless and irresponsible it is to say you can't have any vaccine requirements, that you can't have any vaccine mandates when we have so many vaccines that do prevent transmission and are quite literally public health godsends. There's probably some better word I could use that's less religiously oriented. These are bills that are harmful to Floridians, but they're also harmful to democracy. And many of them run

directly counter to the stated values that these Republicans claim to espouse, which is they say freedom, liberty, do whatever you want. Government only involved in absolutely necessary freedom of speech, freedom of expression, except, well, no drag shows and no doctors and patients deciding what's best for them and all these other things. The takeaway is their principles evaporate as soon as they conflict with the political reality that they are trying to fight. Radical and repugnant Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene now has come up with the wild claim that Antifa killed a police officer.

This is not true. This took place during a recent hearing. LGBTQ Nation says Marjorie Taylor Greene told Congress Antifa killed a cop. She was dead wrong. Police shot Manuel Teran 57 times. Green said their proof that leftists kill cops. Let's go to the hearing where Marjorie Taylor Greene is now wearing glasses, apparently an attempt to look more intelligent. I don't know. Speaker 4 You want to talk about human lives? Well, it seems to be that being a police officer is a target for Antifa because they actually murdered someone there. They actually murdered a police. Oh, you don't know. That's right, because you don't study left wing extremism from your nonpartisan so-called nonprofit. But let me tell you about it. There was a they a 26 year old activist was the manual to run, shot and killed Georgia

State Patrol trooper there. That was this year. You're right. Not last year. It was this year. So left wing extremism is definitely on the rise. And murder is a big part of it. OK, that is false and misleading.

The individual she's referring to and it's not manual like your VCR manual. It's Manuel. Manuel Teran was not a member of Antifa. He was an environmental activist who opposed the construction of a police training facility in Atlanta. He was killed by police officers who shot 57 times during a raid on the protest camp. No police officer was killed in the incident. They're just it's not what it's not even a question of who did the killing. No police officer was killed in the incident. There was a state trooper injured by a gunshot.

It might have come from a fellow officer and it might have come from the officer's own firearm. OK, that's a very different story to what Marjorie Taylor Greene told there. So is she a liar? Of course. Is she dishonest? Yeah. Is she ignorant?

Absolutely. Does she have no business in a position of legislative power in the United States? One hundred and ten percent. But it's also important to understand the dangerous nature of how they inspire violence. This is a form of stochastic terrorism where if you lie enough about the supposed acts of violence that are being committed by your political opponents when they are not committing such acts of violence, you in a way inspire, legitimize or approve of signal approval for your side, continuing to to commit the acts of violence that they are actually committing.

Remember the overwhelming political violence in the United States is right wing. And then and listen, we've talked about this before, that the numbers, no matter how you slice and dice them, are very clear. And listen, we've talked about this before, that the numbers, no matter how you slice and dice them, are very clear. And so this is not only all based on lies. I would argue it is a form of stochastic terrorism by Marjorie Taylor Greene. We will see whether these sorts of folks get another swing at the ball. I don't know what you want to call it. But in 2024, we may see

these sorts of folks made a more permanent part of American politics, or it may be the end of MAGA. My hope is that 2024 is the end of MAGA. I don't know that I will be correct. A Monday Memorial Day, we will have our one day membership special. I would really love for you to become a member on Memorial Day. You know, we've been doing the show for a long time. And as I've said before, we estimate that somewhere between zero point seven and zero point nine percent of our audience supports us financially. That's fine. We do the show quite literally for the ninety nine point three percent that don't contribute. And we're glad to do it. It also is true if we were able to get a full

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I want to go first to Ben from Florida. Things are insane in Florida. They're blocking Holocaust textbooks. They're allegedly investigating a teacher because she played a Disney movie for her class that had a gay character. I mean, it's crazy what's happening there, Ben. What's on your mind today? Ben, please. Yes, I can. All right. Hey, man. Thanks. So I wasn't going to call and talk about that. I'm actually currently in the Air Force, been in for 19 years now. And there's a trend that's kind of irritating. So, you know, the right has always talked about the woke military and so forth um my question is you know what are your thoughts on the fact that they're saying we're a woke military but like for an example when i go to the gym there's like six

screens in there in the cardio room three of which are all on fox news and so i've done like a little uh i guess social experiment where i've changed it to like MSNBC or CNN. Yep. You come back the next day. They're all back on Fox News. But now you said three of the six are on Fox. What are the other three on?

Like Home Shopping Network, ABC and ESPN. OK. Yeah. So it's like very biased. And so like I talk to other people, military and other veterans and so forth, and there are so many people that are so far right. And it's just mind boggling to me as a veteran who's been to Iraq multiple times. Yeah. I don't understand how they can continue to support these ideals like the Trumpists and all that kind of stuff. So I'm just kind of curious. Speaker 1 Do you ever ask them? I mean, it sounds like you have much more contact with, you know, I can't say that right now I'm regularly in touch with any right wing military person. What what do they say as to why they're supporting MAGA?

Speaker 5 Because Biden and the Democrats are always terrible for the military and the freaking socialists. And it's basically the same regurgitated BS that you hear from, like, if you were watching Tucker or, you know, anything like that. So I guess I just wanted to kind of get that out there, you know, that the narrative is the right that the right is putting out is it's a woke military. That is not the case. The military, unfortunately, is so far supportive of Trump and his ideals and that and all that kind of stuff. It's really kind of irritating to me and kind of scary. I'm like, dude, these are people I've gone to war with and they know what we go through, but they do not really support what our uniform is supposed to stand for. Speaker 1 Do you find that your branch, the Air Force,

is more or less MAGA than the rest of the military? Speaker 2 I can't really speak for a lot of the other branches, but I will say that it's more MAGA than you would really expect. No offense to other branches. I apologize for the truck going by. No offense for the other branches, but the Air Force typically is the one that you have to have the higher standards for as far as ASVABs. You'd think they'd be a little bit more educated, I guess you could say. But it's very much to the point where even if you point out, hey, look, Biden got us the highest

raise that we've had in the past 20 years. Right. Yeah. Well, that's really something that Trump put into place. How far off are you guys? Yeah, that's tough. That's tough. So are you this is your career. You're in the middle of you're a career military person. Correct. Do you see yourself shifting to something in the private sector at some point or you want to stick it out? So I've got a year left till I can retire. Oh, OK. Yeah, I'm going to ride it out. And, you know, I might do over 20. But to be honest with you, man, if if Trump somehow finds his way back to D.C. and maybe time to punch out before it gets even worse.

So well, but but by then you'll be able to retire, it sounds like, because it'll be more than a year before that happens. Right. But, you know, sometimes, you know, at once I thought about, man, maybe I'll do over 20, 22, 25 years. So I do love my job. Yeah. Same time.

It's getting harder and harder every year to stick it out. So, yep. No, I understand that. Listen, Ben from Florida. Fascinating insights. Thank you for your service. And I appreciate you calling in. All right, Dave, thanks. All right. There has been from Florida. Wow. I mean, downright scary stuff happening in the military. And we know it, right? I mean, we've covered extremism in the military, white supremacy in the military, etc. Let's go to another Ben. This time we'll go to Ben from France. Ben from France. I assume this is you're coming from the country of France. Is that correct? This is true. Well, hey, David, I'm yeah, I'm I'm actually American, but I've been living in France since about 2018. So it's been it's been good here. What are you over there having health care

without paying for it and stuff like that? You think you're better than us? Yeah. Yeah. Just for a quick anecdote, like I had a small fracture on my elbow a couple of years ago and without health insurance, I had just a basic Social Security. I paid like 50 euros for a couple of x-rays and medication, all that. So, yeah. All right. Well, that's it. And this are you in Paris or elsewhere? I'm going to be in Paris this upcoming couple of weeks, but I live in Brittany usually. Oh, I have never been, but I hear it's delightful. It is. Yeah, this is where actually my my my mom is from, so I'm going to have to get up there. All right. I get those buckwheat crepes, You know, I need those buckwheat crepes.

Yeah. Not quite the ones you have in the US. Right. Exactly. All right. Well, let me not not take up more of your time. Please go ahead. That's all right.

Yeah, I know. So I've been thinking, you know, the living here for a while and watching the US content for a while. And I notice it's really the culture wars is taking up more and more of the air, it seems like. And we don't quite of the air, it seems like. And we don't quite have the same thing here in Europe. We do have somewhat of it, but, you know, I still think like the workers issues and economic policy don't get quite the discussion that they should. I guess my question for you is, does this concern you at all? And like what economic policy do you think would you like to

focus more on if you had more of an opportunity to, um, for example, I've been writing for a while on universal basic income. Um, I think unions are great, but, uh, unless everyone has a union, it's unions can become also kind of classist in their own sense. Yeah, no, listen, I mean, there is a sickness here in the United States and I follow a lot of foreign foreign to the US content creators, certainly many in France, Italy and Spain, as well as in my birth country of Argentina and elsewhere. And what I what I hear many of them say, either publicly or sometimes in private communications that I have with some of these folks, is that much of the world is looking at the United States culture war and saying it

seems like very serious mental illness, quite frankly, or short of it. Like it's just the country has gone completely insane. And the stories around labor and workers rights and getting to, you know, we're at a point where we don't really we could eliminate poverty. We could certainly eliminate hunger. We could certainly get everybody access to health care. And we're arguing about, you know, like I said earlier, Florida's banning Holocaust textbooks because they're woke and someone showed a movie with a gay character. So now that's an investigation. It is a form of insanity. And when you step outside of the U.S. even briefly, like I did a couple of weeks ago when I went to London, you realize that, number one, this isn't going on in the rest of the world. And number two, we look insane here in the United States.

Right. So I guess, well, which which it's it's true. But then at the end of the day, you have to be like, OK, what what what kind of things should we focus on if we had if ideally we could and not, you know, the cultural world wasn't sucking up so much air? Speaker 1 Well, certainly we should be focusing on economics, inequality, workers rights. As I mentioned, we should be coming together to say, hey, here's what we're going to do about climate change. And we're going to find the balance between people getting to live the lives they want and also not destroying the planet. Here's how we're going to manage emerging technology and we're going to have logical conversations about emerging technology.

Here's a forward looking energy plan that's going to get us increasingly on renewables. I mean, there's there's no shortage of things that we could and should be focusing on. But to a degree, you know, you can't ignore all of the cultural stuff the right is doing, because if you do and they simply win on all of it, it hurts our ability to deal with all of those other things I just mentioned. So it's a very tough situation. It is, yes. And I hope you get the opportunity to do a little bit more.

I mean, I don't watch your every single video or email, but I do hope that you are able to, you know, kind of kind of cover a little bit more than focus more about that in the future. Again, universal based can come into something that I've been thinking about for a while. It's an interesting solution to me, but obviously that's a very big conversation. And I think it would be nice to see different ideas and and kind of like taking a little bit more from ideas that are happening elsewhere in the world. Not so much France. Speaker 1 Absolutely. Absolutely. Ben, are you at some kind of carnival or carousel? There's a strange it's almost like a ding dong truck in the background.

Speaker 5 Yeah. You know, actually, I was I was kind of trying to like look at that. I thought I thought it was coming from this server because I don't know where it's coming from. I closed out all my browsers and everything. I don't know where this is coming from, but there's not an ice cream truck outside of your window or anything. Speaker 1 Now we don't have those here. And we just have yeah, no, no ice cream trucks, unfortunately. But but I'm OK with the lower cost of health care. Speaker 1 That's very good. It seems like a fair trade.

Ben from France. Thank you very much. No problem. All right. There goes Ben. Let's go next to Moe from West Virginia. Moe from West Virginia. Welcome.

What's on your mind today, sir? Hi, David. I just wanted to ask you might be a two part question. Sure. One is that I see on mostly left-wing media, corporate media does this too, where they say that Trump and DeSantis are too far to the right when it comes to policies and positions to gain traction with independents. They're turning off independents. Well, as we all have seen in the past before, the primaries come first. So obviously they're going to go for the right wingers to win their primaries. But after the primaries, there's a lot of shift in their policies and positions

to gain back some momentum with independence. Do you see like anyone in the media actually like paying attention to that? Is that a thing that could happen with the Santas or Trump? Speaker 1 I think it'll happen to a degree with both of them if they win the primary. But we'll all realize it's not genuine. And also, I think right now the environment is such that they all know they need to play to this extreme MAGA right that, remember, doesn't really even care about policy. They care about culture issues, fighting wokeness, owning the libs and some very vague, you know, I'll build a wall or whatever. I actually think there's more risk

right now to the Republican candidate of playing to the middle in the general that they will they will turn off some of those extreme voters. So I think to some degree, whoever wins the Republican primary will make a slight play to the middle. I think it won't be as much as we often see because it's really risky. And I think it will be transparently disingenuous. Where's the risk, though, because once they win the primary, they're the Republican guys. So they've got the risk. You have to remember right now MAGA is made up of the traditional Republican electorate, plus people who only ever started following politics because of Trump.

Many of those people, if they become disaffected with whoever it is, Trump, DeSantis, whatever, they will stay home and then it'll really hurt your ability to win. That's the risk that they will just say, this wasn't what I thought I was getting. I'm staying home. Screw them. They are willing to do that because they are not traditional historical voters that vote every election. And so those folks are much more open to simply not voting at all. Speaker 3 I guess that's true, but that's mostly I see that as a bigger risk with DeSantis than Trump, because Trump Trump

has that voter base. Like I feel like even DeSantis voters, if Trump becomes the winner of the primary, they'll still vote for Trump just because he's the Republican. They're not going to vote Democrat in any situation. They know they will in votes. You're right. They mostly will. But this is a very unusual situation where at this point, Trump pretending to pander

to the middle a little bit is not going to really win him any votes because it'll be so obviously disingenuous and it has the risk of turning off some of his supporters. I think the most likely outcome is Trump just doesn't do it and he doesn't play to the middle at all. Trump doesn't. Yes, that's my guess. That's my prediction. Do you see any specific policies that you think he would be more likely to flip on or

positions he takes right now that you would be willing to give up? I really don't. And remember, he barely takes any policy positions. I mean, he's running a social issues anti woke. I won in 2020. They treated me unfairly. Biden's a Marxist type of campaign. It's already pretty devoid of policy.

So there's not that much policy he even could flip on. Right. There's nothing like he doesn't give out specifics. No, like, I mean, I guess he said could flip on. Right. There's nothing like he doesn't give out specifics. I mean, I guess he said he would. He was going to build tent cities and force homeless people in. Right. Maybe he'll cancel that plan. I don't know. Right. But like his position on Ukraine, where he was asked in the town hall, like, would you stop supporting Ukraine? Who do you want to win the war? He's he's not taking a side. He kind of just

made an appeal to emotion, saying he just wanted people to stop dying. Exactly right. Do you see him leaning one way or another more? Just I'm really not sure. You know, it's it's it's it's just it's a fool's errand to try to predict exactly which way Trump will lean on these issues. It'll be whatever he thinks will benefit him at the time based on what's being said on Fox News and what people around him are saying. It's it's not even worth taking a guess. I just have no idea. So you'll think he'll stick to whatever people around him are saying more. Yeah. Even if they're not like he really is like advisers on helping him win the election, per se. That's what he said historically.

OK, yeah. All right, my friend, I appreciate Moe from West Virginia. Great to hear from you. Let's take a very quick break and then we'll take more calls. So hang on if you're waiting to talk to me. Sometimes it can be tough to maintain an emotional connection with your significant other. You might work in different places at different times. There might be a kid in the way. It can be hard to find time for date nights, especially because kids demand so much attention, which is why I love our sponsor paired, which is the app for couples. The app will prompt you with

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Magic Spoon will refund all of your money. No questions asked. Go to Magic Spoon dot com slash Pacman. Create a custom bundle. Use the code Pacman for five dollars off. That's Magic Spoon dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Let's go back to the phones. They're not really phones. It's discord at David Pacman dot com slash discord and hear from a few people in the audience. Let's go to Tony from New Jersey. Tony from New Jersey. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Tony from Jersey, welcome, please unmute yourself. And Tony, one last opportunity to unmute yourself if you'd like to chat. All right, Tony from Jersey, a no go.

Let's try Ty from Iowa. Ty from Iowa, welcome to the program. Hello, David, Can you hear me? Yes, I can. OK, so I just wanted to bring this up because there's just something I've kind of noticed. So I mean, this is kind of a while ago, but I always kind of notice whenever there's a shooting, they just say, like, well, there's nothing we can really do about it because there's you're never going to stop a shooting by doing this.

You're still going to happen. Right. But there was a shooting done by a person that was trans. I mean, that happened a while ago. And I've never seen people on the right talk about shootings as much as they did until this came up. Yes. And I was like, do you realize how many people have done shootings that were like neo-Nzis and right-wing extremists and all this other stuff yeah i mean i don't know it just doesn't really make a lot of sense to me it kind of feels like they need to say this side that i don't like is the one doing it that's when i can

actually care about this issue and actually acknowledge that it's an actual issue but i won't focus on the fact that i don know, like maybe people did this because they're propagated and all this other stuff. They people might listen to what I say and then I go out and commit violence or the there really isn't the gun restrictions on the United States really aren't strong enough. People keep getting all these guns. The United States is the only one with this problem. And I'm like, just one happens and it's just kind of they go nuts.

And I was just kind of, I don't know. I guess what do you make of that? Yeah. And I mean, to focus in on what you said, a lot of different things, many of them, most all of them valid. One of the particulars that you mentioned is this idea of, well, there's no way to prevent every mass shooting. Like if someone's really determined, blah, blah, blah. You know, we've heard that before. And it's it's a very silly argument because aren't we still better off if we dramatically reduce the number of mass shootings or we reduce the number of people killed in each mass shooting? Like these are still all worthy goals. And it's sort of like, hey, you know, seatbelt laws aren't

going to save people if the car ends up at the bottom of a lake. OK, right. But in some scenarios, the seatbelts will save people. So we should still do it. And then let's figure out what to do about the drowning. Maybe we need better guardrails on bridges and things like this. It's a similar sort of idea. And it's it's it doesn't even remotely pass the I seriously want to fix this test when people start with you're never going to prevent every mass shooting or there's no way to stop a truly determined person. Well, a lot of people are aren't maybe as determined and they would be dissuaded by any of the 10 or 12 different initiatives I've proposed.

So it's not a serious argument when people start with that. That's it's defeatist and it's unrealistic in terms of finding improvements that we can make. And there's many improvements we can make. Yeah, I mean, it applies to a lot of other things. I just think that was probably the one that sickened me the most because it just kind of felt like they were just using the lives of people that were killed and all this other stuff just to to be transphobic.

And it just absolutely was kind of disgusting. All of a sudden they have 10 ideas of how we would prevent shootings by trans people. And they all involve denying people gender affirming care and not not using their preferred pronouns. It's crazy. It's a crazy situation. Yeah, it's unfortunate. Yeah.

All right. Ty from Iowa, thanks for the call. Thank you for taking my call, David. All right. There goes Ty. Let's go next to Jessica from Indiana. Ty from Iowa. Thanks for the call. Thank you for taking my call, David. All right. There goes Ty. Let's go next to Jessica from Indiana. Jessica from Indiana.

Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Hello. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Perfect. Perfect.

So I do want to go ahead and say I am from Indiana. I do want to go ahead and apologize for Mike Pence. Apology accepted. Yeah. So I am a brand new voter. I just recently with my first local election, was it being speculated that Ronnie is going to be running for the Republican nomination like next week, Trump having even more accusations of corruption, sexual harassment and so on? How do you see the near future of American politics being especially for a young person

in a very, very red state like Indiana. I hate to say this, but I think until the 2024 election is resolved, I don't think we are going to see any serious adult policy conversations about materially improving the lives of young people in red states. I do believe that Joe Biden has done a lot of little things that are good, little things on health care, little things on student loans, et cetera. And I think to the extent that he's able to act unilaterally, he will. But this election is shaping up to be such a mess that I just don't think there's going to be the bandwidth for serious national conversations about substantive policy that will move us more in the direction of where we want to go.

So my message to young people in red states where things aren't going well, this is a sad message and it's not a realistic one for many people. But it's if you want to immediately improve your circumstances, you may want to consider moving to a state where things are already better if you don't think you can wait it out at least until 2025. I hate that that's what's going on. But I will say one more thing that's a little less negative, which is that there are still opportunities to make other types of improvements if you get involved locally. And that might mean

city council in Indianapolis or whatever the case may be. I don't want to say that there's no opportunities to make progress, but from the federal discussion, it's going to be a mess until the next at least until the next president is inaugurated. Yeah, I will say Indianapolis is relatively good. I mean, we just had we just elected a Democratic socialist to city council here in Indianapolis. So that's pretty cool. There you go. And one one final question. So myself and my family do have to drive out of state, typically to Misson, Michigan, to enjoy ourselves. So marriage, Juana, some married Zayn, if you will. When do you think that weed is going to be legalized in all 50 states? I honestly have no idea.

I genuinely don't know. Could it be five years? Could it be 10? I'm not sure. I think that there will be some red state holdouts for a very long time. Mm hmm. Well, fair enough. Thank you so much.

All right. Jessica from Indiana, thank you very much for the call. Why don't we go next to Dev from Syracuse? Dev from Syracuse, New York. Welcome to the program. Hello again, David. How are you? I'm doing well. I have a question for you today that's not related to politics. Well, everything is loosely, but I hope that excites you. Something that's very important to me is the live event music space. I've been going to concerts since my early 20s regularly all year, every year.

And something that I've been seeing that's very concerning is a lot of acts or festivals basically not able to continue in the way that they envisioned their event to take place because of the stranglehold from Live Nation and Ticketmaster, which are one and the same now. There's some estimates that Live Nation, Ticketmaster own over 70% of all live event space at this point, the United States. Yeah. So I think there's a big problem when the artists aren't able to, you know, make the event the way that they plan on it. I mean, music itself is an art. It should be expressed in from an artist's perspective, in my opinion, at least not so corporatized. I'm curious if you yourself attend live music with any frequency and what's

your take on this corporate takeover of something that I truly love? So the corporate takeover of the ticket sales I have been speaking about for more than a decade. It's outrageous between the consolidation as well as the fees, unmitigated disaster. And I've been crystal clear about that. As far as me attending live music, I used to attend music very regularly. When the pandemic started, I stopped attending live music events and I haven't gone back. And I'll tell you why. It's a couple of different things. My tolerance for the crowds and the parking and the security line and the traffic on the way out, the bumper to bumper in the parking lot and all of this stuff. I've lost my patience for it, Deb. I really have.

Maybe I've just gotten too old for it. And then number two, you know, let's be honest, the body odor and the ten dollar waters and the entire thing. I just like I did it for decades. I've been to endless shows. I love music. I'll listen to live albums all the time. But it has not piqued my interest to get back to live music events since since the pandemic. Fair enough. I mean, to each their own. I still revel in the body odor. And while I don't like the ten dollar waters, I love the crowds and the excitement, the

activity, meeting new people. Yeah. One of my favorite things about it besides the music itself. Well, this is the great thing about America. You can go and I don't have to. And everybody's better for it. I just wanted to give a shout out to Summer Camp Music Festival. I'll be attending that next week. Unfortunately, it's another one that is going to go on an unknown term hiatus due to difficulties with logistical challenges.

They didn't spell it out in plain English, but I have my suspicion that it has a lot to do with this corporatization of live band. Where is that event held? That's in Illinois. Oh, OK. You know, I'll be driving 12 hours. This is so insane. This was one of my my worst live concert experience was I went to this insane

right wing nuttery thing called Country Thunder. Now, I know people will say, David, not everybody's a right wing nut who goes to Country Thunder. OK, the environment was total right wing nuttery in like Wisconsin. This was like 15 years ago or a long time ago. I got roped into it by people who like country music, which I don't like. And it was an absolutely fetid environment. I mean, it just just it was a never again moment for me. Speaker 1 A goof. I'm sorry that you had to go through that. But hey, I appreciate your time, David.

All right. There is Deb from Syracuse going to have at it at the live music events. Exciting, exciting stuff. All right, everybody. That's where we're getting to today. We will take a break. I will take calls again that unless they silence me. Which they're trying to do, by the way, who is they?

I don't know. Unless they silence me, we will take calls again and we will also be right back after this extremely short break. If you've been getting crushed in the markets lately, like many people have, you were probably happy to hear that Treasury yields have been surging right now. You can get a five percent yield on Treasury bills, which is higher than most high yield savings accounts I've seen. And unlike a high yield savings account, Treasury bills are a fixed rate asset. So you know what you're getting at the time of purchase.

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have one thing you don't have to think about. Go to public dot com slash Pacman to start getting that five percent yield on your cash. That's public dot com slash Pacman to start getting that five percent yield on your cash. That's public dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. All right, let's get to some of your emails, tweets, Reddit posts, smoke signals and telegrams that have come in over the last week or so. You can always email info at David Pacman dot com if you have feedback for us. And let's just get right into it.

Melvin Peachy came. I don't know why I find that name funny. Melvin Peachy says, dude, you need Jesus. How can you mock people and their faith? There is T.H.E.R.E., which is the wrong there. Listen, Jesus is not.H.E.R.E., which is the wrong there. Listen, Jesus is not for me mocking people and their faith. Listen, this is not about mocking anything that brings meaning to individuals. When we get to a point in society where beliefs that make no sense literally are being imposed on civil government to make law, then I have a problem.

And yes, I may on some level mock those beliefs there when it comes to private religious views, if you want to privately believe in Noah's Ark or the Zeus or Thor or that, you know, a Jewish carpenter was the son of God, born to a virgin, died, then came back to life and walked on water or whatever. If you want to privately believe that and not impose it in any way on civil governance and the way that this country runs. OK, go ahead and do it. Right. I mean, I don't think it's accurate, but go ahead and do it. But the second that these right wing extremists introduce religious justifications for telling

women what they are allowed to do with their bodies and consultation with doctors, as well as I guess your your sacred texts now are part of the consultation. No. And at that point, we're going to say this doesn't make any sense. And I don't believe that the left should apologize for that. Believe whatever you want to believe, but don't not only don't impose it on others, don't use it as a justification for civil government to run in any particular way. And that is absolutely my position. Craikson says about the mass shootings that we continue to have in the United States. We've become numb to all this horror. That in itself is an indictment of American culture and government policy. I could not agree more. And this is something I was recently I was recently interviewed for a forthcoming

written profile, which I'll share with you when it's published. And the topic of sort of becoming desensitized to insanity came up. And I do everything I can as someone who covers a lot of these sorts of things on a daily basis. I do everything I can not to become desensitized. And, you know, during Trump, by the thousandth time, thousandth time that he does something bonkers like using a Sharpie to draw on a hurricane map or sending a reporter out of the room like they're being sent to the principal's office. It's important to fight normalization and hyper normalization of crazy things. And I try to remind myself of that.

But I admit. It can be tough not to become desensitized to some degree. And the mass shootings, I mean, on any day of the week, you can go to gun violence archive and look at the last 72 hours and you'll see individual gun homicides and mass shootings every single day. And sometimes they don't even really make the news. It's an absolutely terrifying reality. But it is where we are right now and we have to find a way to do something about it. Posted to the David Pakman show subreddit by Lucknar asking opinion on Tulsi

Gabbard as Trump's VP pick writing. I think Tulsi might be an option for Trump's VP pick as she would fulfill the requirement of being a woman as well as being a Russia Putin apologist. I think her not being white could easily be spun into a positive for racist right wingers. She's proven to have no limit when it comes to debasing herself for her own personal gain and might pick up some low information voters that still think she has some credibility or integrity. The whole being disillusioned with and leaving the Democratic Party could be turned into a strength. Most of all, I think she fits Trump's image requirement that he wants someone that looks like they're from central casting. I'm not trying to be sexist myself, writes Lochner.

But looking at the situation from Trump's perspective and how image obsessed he is, I don't think he'd go for someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene for that reason. Nikki Haley, I guess, would be the most obvious choice. But I really think the possibility exists for Tulsi to get picked. I'd probably put her before Carrie Lake anyway, with her just basically being a sore loser. Anybody else think this is possible? Yeah, I mean, so I have two thoughts on this one. I don't believe Tulsi Gabbard is going to be Trump's VP pick, but I agree with all of the reasoning that Lochner lays out for why Tulsi would actually fit check a lot of the boxes. She would be a I'm reading the late David Graeber's book,

B.S. Jobs. And he talks about one category of B.S. B.S. Jobs is box checkers, so to speak. And Tulsi checks a lot of the boxes. She's not tough on Putin, which works well for Trump. She has even though the right now says they're against identity politics. She actually checks some identity boxes that would allow those on the right to say, see, we're not sexist. We're not racist. It's a nonwhite woman. I mean, I guess I guess Tulsi Gabbard's not white. It's not totally clear. She's half she's native Hawaiian, I think, or native Native American. I'm not actually sure. I don't do the identity thing, so I'm actually not sure what the deal is with that. She left the left, which is super popular. You know, Dave Rubin made a bunch of

money by leaving the left. And so she has that. I agree 100 percent for a bunch of reasons. Tool C would be a great pick for Trump. I don't think she is who Trump is going to go for. From the YouTube channel, dynamic photography says about gun violence. There was an insane amount of murders by stabbings and vehicular impact over the weekend as well. Are we going to discuss banning knives, knives and vehicles as well? Newsflash. We need to get to the bottom of our mental health epidemic ASAP. It's way deeper than the tool that's used. Well, again, we need to do both. I am with everybody on the right who says we need to deal with the mental health crisis in this country. It would be nice if some of the right wing are saying that we're willing to actually put some money towards funding

dealing with the mental health crisis. Many of them are not willing to do that. But I will go further. If we have mentally ill people, some of whom are prone to violence, as the right loves to say, and they might have access to knives, vehicles and guns, wouldn't we want to restrict their access to guns? Like do we want mentally ill people predisposed to violence to have AR 15s? Now you could say, well, they also shouldn't have a knife. They're going to be able to kill way more people in a short period of time with an AR 15 than they are with a knife. And then, you know, often they go to this vehicle thing. Yeah, you can use vehicles as a weapon, but vehicles primarily have a completely different purpose. That is not to shoot people.

Oh, but guns can be used for target practice. OK, yeah. But the primary function of the history of a firearm was as a tool of war and as a tool, tool of killing, not as a tool of target practice. Primary function of a vehicle is transportation. And so they get all mixed up about it. It's kind of sad to see, but we've got to keep rebutting it because they keep saying it. Matt White's posted to our Facebook page. Conservatives time after time come around only when it happens to them. They are binary zero sum immediate gratification thinkers without the capacity for empathy until it lands on their lap. I am afraid that the majority of gun fetishizers and Second Amendment contortionists will keep at it until the accumulative corrosive effects on society force their hands. By then, it may be too late for civil America. Yeah, I mean, we've seen

many anti-gay Republicans who all of a sudden their nephew comes out or their daughter and they change their view. And unfortunately, that's going to take too long. And it's impractical when it comes to waiting around for that to happen with gun violence. It just doesn't make sense. And it would be an insane amount of death and destruction. So I think I think the comment is correct. Personally facing gun violence might change the views of some of these Republicans. Some would not change their minds, but that we can't rely on that as a way to fix the problem. Frederick Simon said on Facebook, I'm sorry to say it, but I think a lot of American people are willing to destroy the country because they think Biden will not make it through the entire

next presidential term if he wins and the vice president would take over. This is the only reason I can think of, because if Trump wins, we know where the country would be headed, a dictatorship. Yeah, listen, I I'm not 100 percent sure I understand this one, but I wanted to include it because there there is something really important here. Would Trump turn the US into a dictatorship if he could? I think it's plausible that he would. You know, when George W. Bush said this would be a lot easier if it was a dictatorship or whatever the case may be. I don't think Bush would turn the country into a dictatorship given the opportunity. I do believe that Trump actually would, but I don't believe he's going to really get that opportunity.

And I know every time I say this, people write to me, they say, David, that's dangerous for you to say that because you're minimizing that. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not minimizing the threat. I've been crystal clear about the dangers presented by Trump. I do not believe that if Trump got four more years, he would turn the U.S. into a dictatorship, even if that would be his preference. If you disagree with me, let me know. Michael wrote in with a podcast question as, hey, David, Mike, your longtime viewer, first time emailer. I saw you on Lex Friedman's podcast,

which is great. I've been watching both of you forever. It made me wonder when someone like you does a podcast such as his, is there payment involved? For that matter, do any podcast guests get compensated or do people view it as an opportunity to get their name out there? Thanks in advance. OK, we have never paid any of the thousand plus guests who we have interviewed and I have never been paid to be on any podcast either. That being said, we have been asked for payment a couple of times by guests. I won't tell you who they were. They actually weren't really big names.

It's interesting. The really big names seem to understand you either do it or you don't. It's either worth doing or you don't. You either have time for it or you don't. But you don't you don't ask for money. Mid high level guests. Are the ones who have asked for money in the past, is this a paid appearance? We would do a pay. And the answer is always no. And I believe this is basically always the case. Now, the exception to this would be if you get invited like right now, for example, I'm in the middle of talking with a it's not a podcast. It's a show

that films in a different part of the country. And. There they do offer compensation. It's not a podcast appearance. It's sort of a program that is being cast and there's an there's a fee and they pay travel. It's sort of a different thing. But as far as podcasts like ours, we have never paid anyone. I have never been paid and I have never heard of anyone being paid. OK. Richard Harris commented on YouTube.

I find it incredible that so many Americans could even contemplate voting for Republican candidates after what we've seen of Republican policies, particularly with regard to abortion and other health care issues. Is stupidity or ignorance mostly to blame? Well, stupidity and ignorance are kind of the same thing. I think the better question is, are is is it stupidity? Is it selfishness or is it a complete disregard for other people that is to blame? And I think the answer is it's a combination of all of those things. And I've spoken about this extensively before. And unless we deal with all three of those aspects, I worry we're not going to be able to get out of this sort of doom stupidity cycle in which we find ourselves today. Let me know what you think. Stupidity,

stupidity, selfishness or lack of lack of concern for others, which is more to blame and what proportions send in your emails info at David Pakman dot com. Remember that Monday Memorial Day will be doing a one day membership special. It's going to be explosive like nothing you've ever seen before. You've been thinking maybe I'll sign up. I don't know. It sounds kind of interesting. Monday Memorial Day is a great day to do it.

All you need to do in order to be notified about the Monday membership special is to get on our newsletter at David Pakman dot com. We'll see you on the bonus show. We'll see you back on Monday.