The David Pakman Show - 5/2/23: Bernie triggers GOP, Republicans reveals their horrifying priorities

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Senator Bernie Sanders proposes taxing all income above $999 million at 100% -- A new poll reveals Republican voters' priorities for 2024, and it's as horrifying as you imagine -- Tucker Carlson slams Fox Nation in newly leaked behind-the-scenes video -- Tucker Carlson's latest replacement, Lawrence Jones, attempts a "hardball" interview of 2024 Republican presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson, and it goes horribly wrong -- Donald Trump is increasingly obsessed with Ron DeSantis, posting uncontrollably about him on Truth Social -- CNN will be hosting a Donald Trump town hall event, raising a number of questions and concerns for a variety of reasons -- Noam Chomsky is asked about his encounters with Jeffrey Epstein and says it is "none of your business" -- Radical Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to ban Pornhub because of something related to Hunter Biden -- Voicemail caller attempts to call David out for a perceived double standard, but fails to do so effectively -- On the Bonus Show: First Republican Bank fails and is taken over by JPMorgan Chase, the weight bias against women in the workforce, the fight to replace Tucker Carlson at Fox News, much more... 🖼️ Aura Frames: Code PAKMAN for $30 off + free shipping at https://auraframes.com/pakman ✉️ StartMail: Get 50% OFF a year subscription at https://startmail.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep: Get 20% OFF a mattress + 2 free pillows. Go to https://helixsleep.com/pakman 📖 Shortform: Try it for free and get 25% off at https://shortform.com/pakman 🚲 Lectric eBikes! Shop for your new electric bike at https://lectricebikes.com -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDPApril 20, 2023

Speaker 1 Let's start today with the most exciting, titillating and electrifying topic for my audience. Tax policy, of course. Many of you sent me a clip that we're going to look at of Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont being interviewed by now CNN's Chris Wallace, formerly of Fox News. In this clip, Bernie Sanders effectively says says confiscate all income above nine hundred ninety nine million dollars per year. How many people in the United States does this even apply to? It's very few. I'll tell you roughly the number in a moment.

But what we're talking about here is a 100 percent effective tax rate on income at a billion dollars a year or more. But don't take my word for it. Here's Bernie explaining it himself. Sir, you're saying, sir, billionaires should not exist. So are you basically saying that once you get to nine hundred and ninety nine million dollars that the government should confiscate all the rest? I'm saying that we should go back to a very progressive tax policy like what we had under

Dwight D. Eisenhower. Which would mean that that after over a billion dollars, basically it all goes to the government. You may disagree with me, but I'm just asking. Fine. Yeah, I think people can make it on nine hundred, you know, ninety nine million dollars. Now, there is some it's not even debate. It's sort of a lack of clarity. Is Bernie talking about a 100 percent marginal tax rate on all income at a billion or more per year? Or is Bernie talking about a wealth tax? Such that you are always brought back down to a net worth of a billion dollars. It's not completely clear, but because he says the times of Dwight D. Eisenhower tax policy under Eisenhower was a very, very high marginal tax rate on income. So for the sake of today's discussion, let's assume Bernie is talking about income taxes rather than a wealth tax. So the first question is,

has this ever been done before? The answer is no. There is no historical precedent for a 100 percent marginal tax rate, essentially confiscating all income above a certain threshold. There are governments that have put in place very high tax rates on the wealthy at high levels that effectively is close to a 100 percent tax at an extremely high level. But we never had 100 percent. Now, just because you haven't done something doesn't mean it's a bad idea. It's just that it hasn't been done. So we don't have something to look to. But that's what really we're talking about here for the sake of argument, a 100 percent tax bracket that starts at a billion dollars on your first ten. I forget

exactly where the tax brackets are right now, but on your first ten grand, everybody pays zero federally, of course. And then on that next bit, you pay 10 percent, 15 percent. You get all the way up to 35, 37 percent at about half a million bucks. And then at a billion dollars, it's a 100 percent tax rate. The highest it ever got in the US, as Bernie mentions, is under Eisenhower in the mid 20th century with a roughly 90 percent marginal tax bracket. But again, that's on income above a certain threshold. There are European countries with very high tax rates on the wealthy, but it's not 100 percent. Now, what I want to talk, we're not going to have a 100 percent tax rate anytime soon. So what I think is more useful to talk about is how can we achieve

the goal that Bernie is espousing? And the goal here is to actually collect more in taxes from the very, very, very rich. And as we know, there are complexities and complexities and difficulties to actually enforcing this sort of thing for all of the different reasons that we've talked about. And I will talk to you again. Now, the question of how many people this applies to is an interesting one. In twenty twenty two, the Forbes billionaire list said there were seven hundred twenty four billionaires in the US. I believe now it's gone up a little bit to like seven hundred thirty five billionaires in the US. They don't all earn

a billion a year, but some of them do. So we're talking about a policy that would apply to a fraction of the 700 something billionaires in the United States. Now, one of the first issues, as I know many of you know, is that many of these billionaires don't actually earn income. They receive dividends and are subject to capital gains. So then it's well, it's not just about income over nine hundred ninety nine billion. It's other forms of proceeds as well that are not actually subject to income tax rates. The point here is, what are the mechanisms through which we might achieve a goal that is quite frankly, quite popular among the American people? When you survey the American people and you say, should taxation be used to collect more

money from the very rich in order to fund social programs? It's relatively uncontroversial. Most Americans say, yes, you should. Now I do a deep dove into this in my clip called How to Actually Tax the Rich. There is no one policy that would cover all situations, but some of the things that could or should be looked at is, OK, raise the top marginal income tax rate that will cover income, the earned income.

But many of these folks don't earn wages and they're able to reduce actual taxation in a lot of different ways, including by receiving income in other ways. So then you could look at, well, we could impose a wealth tax. The problem with the wealth tax would be that these folks would move assets to countries with no wealth tax or invest in assets that are difficult to value, like artwork or rare collectibles. OK, but again, remember, it's like with gun violence, no one policy would cover every situation. But the idea is to get some of the low hanging fruit. You can close tax loopholes like the carried interest loophole.

The counter to that is you can move assets offshore. You can change business structure. You can lobby for a different loophole. You can shift investments to tax exempt assets like municipal bonds. And it's not realistic for most hedge funds, certainly. But that's another possibility. You can better fund the IRS to do more audits. Some of the people that we're talking about are doing everything legally and correctly and paying every dollar that they should be paying in taxes. So audits wouldn't recover any money from them. But there are some that that are not. And so increasing IRS resources is an idea. A financial transaction tax with the ultra wealthy engaging in certain types of transactions that average income people do not engage in a financial transaction tax is a

possibility. Of course, the way to avoid that would be weight. Just wait. Move assets to countries that don't have such a tax, et cetera. You could require country by country income reporting for companies. One of the ways that companies can avoid corporate taxes now we're talking about companies rather than individuals is shifting income to other countries that is no longer subject to American taxation. You could pass a law that says, no, that has to be reported and there has to be some kind of corporate minimum tax that is paid. You can also look at raising the tax rate on capital gains. And so that would get around this issue of a lot of these very rich folks aren't earning income subject to income taxes. So you can raise the tax on capital gains. The way around

that would be you just wait to realize the gains or look at other mechanisms. And you can raise the tax on capital gains. The way around that would be you just wait to realize the gains or look at other mechanisms. And you can also expand the alternative minimum tax. We already know that with a minimum tax, high earners can still reduce their taxable income through deductions, tax credits and other strategies. But increasing that minimum tax is another approach. So those are ideas to achieve what is the underlying principle that Bernie is espousing here. I don't expect a 100 percent tax bracket anytime soon in the United States. I never say never, but certainly not in at least the next five years. There is new polling that reveals the priorities of Republican voters in 2024, and it is utterly and fundamentally cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. The modern American conservative movement is focused on some really wild stuff. CBS News poll on how 2024 Republican presidential primary race

could be Trump versus Trump fatigue. This is this is super interesting at this early stage of the primary to the CBS News article reads to the extent the Republican primary is a contest at all right now. It looks like it's one between Trump and a sentiment one might call Trump fatigue. And Trump is winning that matchup easily. Here's why. Maga sounding ideas are widely held in the Republican electorate, an environment that plays heavily to Trump's advantage. There's big demand for a candidate who says Trump won in 2020, who challenges woke ideas,

who doesn't criticize Trump and for good measure makes liberals angry. Trump leads in all of those areas. Meanwhile, there are some Republicans who say they're exhausted by Trump and he's too controversial, but they are greatly outnumbered today. Check this out. Top answers from likely Republican primary voters. These are folks who, based on their answers,

have been categorized as likely to vote in the primary primary. Remember, that's a critically important detail. Twenty twenty four Republican nomination can likely Republican primary voters Eighty five percent challenges woke ideas. Oh, boy. Sixty six percent opposes any gun restrictions. Sixty one percent say Trump won the 2020 election and 57 percent makes liberals angry. Now there are two layers within which this is interesting. The first layer is Republicans for so long have been insisting we care about issues of importance to all Americans, economic issues, jobs, inflation, something like that. We're supposed to believe that's what they care about.

When you look at the polls, the likely Republican primary voters care about very different things. The most interesting part of this is that. These interests are likely to lead to a Republican candidate that is out of step with the country as a whole. Let me explain what I mean by that. When Trump was arrested and his approval went up among Republican primary voters, one of the things we saw, we surmised, we noticed is that while it is likely to help Trump in the primary by energizing his base because he's been treated so unfairly, you know, the whole thing, it's not likely to get him any new votes in the

general election. And similarly, when we looked at Ron DeSantis potentially running an anti woke campaign, while that plays relatively well with Republican primary voters. When you survey the country as a whole, wokeness, for lack of a better term, is actually the more popular position. And similarly, when you look at some of these things, if 85 percent of likely Republican primary voters want a candidate that challenges woke ideas, but roughly 57 to 60 percent of the country sides with wokeness on trans issues and on so many other issues.

You have a scenario in which the person that Republicans are most likely to select to represent them in November of 2024 is not actually the person most likely to win that general election. Now this isn't news to us. When you look at polling that does primary and then does hypothetical general election matchup, you see Trump does really well in the primary, but loses to Biden, generally speaking, on average, loses to Biden in the November election. So there's a few layers where this is interesting. One, it confirms that the not just Republicans in general, because you could be a Republican who plans to vote in November of twenty four, but you're not engaged enough to vote in the

primary. So this really is likely primary voters. The likely primary electorate of the Republican Party is very much out of step with the way that the country as a whole is going. That's number one. And then number two, we've said for a while now, Republican elected officials, Republican candidates, better said, have abandoned policy in part because they're losing the country on policy. So instead, they talk about this sort

of stuff. Let's do nothing on guns. Let's fight wokeness. Let's ban books. Let's stop drag shows, whatever else the case may be. That is in itself also not apparently a winning ideology or a winning platform. They've lost on policy, so they've abandoned it and they've moved on to cultural issues. But they're also not winning the cultural issues naturally nationally. And yesterday we looked at how they're losing on abortion and in other areas. So what are they to do? The answer is obvious. It's what they've been doing. You try to win elections by saying you won, even if you lost. And that should really scare all of us because it means they will almost certainly try it again in 2024. If you're looking for the perfect Mother's Day gift, our sponsor or a frames creates

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of the show for you. We make the show available hours earlier every day to our members and you can get a discount. I mean, listen, the prices are so reasonable. But if you'd like a 50 percent discount, you can use the coupon code indicted to save off of the cost of a membership at join Pacman dot com. Something super interesting is going on in the wake of Fox News firing Tucker Carlson as Fox struggles to find a suitable replacement, which we'll talk about more a little bit later on in the show as Fox continues to try to beat off other lawsuits, current and potentially future related to Tucker Carlson's programing and what's going on behind what went on behind the scenes at his show. We have additional leaks that reveal Tucker's displeasure, to put it very light, likely lightly with elements of Fox News. This is a media matters report. Fox leaks.

Tucker Carlson slammed Fox Nation and behind the scenes video. This article is by former David Pakman show guest Matt Gertz, not Matt Gates, often confused. This is by Matt Gertz. And it says Tucker Carlson headlined Fox News is Fox Nation streaming service in the years leading up to a sudden firing. But a behind the scenes video obtained by Media Matters shows him lashing out at Fox for the service's unbelievable failings, apparently while doing some image rehab for misogynistic social media influencer Andrew Tate. Now I have to tell you, we're going to look at the clip here of what Tucker had to say

about Fox Nation. It's a pretty damn accurate criticism of Fox Nation. Fox Nation is the streaming little brother or sister of Fox News, the network channel. And let's listen to what Tucker had to say. It's very, very interesting. I don't want to be a slave to Fox Nation, which I don't think that would be watch anyway. We're going to because I, you know, I'm like a representative of the American media now, right?

Speaking to an exile in Romania and welcoming him back into the brotherhood of journalists. Yeah, it would help us out if you were a sweater, though, because we asked him not to wear a suit like he was panicking about it. So you don't have to talk to me looking casual. OK, so first of all, this is just endlessly funny. he was panicking about it. So you don't have to talk to me looking casual. OK, so first of all, this is just endlessly funny. Apparently what they're talking about is, you know, the guy Andrew Tate, who was arrested for a while. And I don't even know what's going on with him. I don't follow Andrew Tate. Andrew Tate, I guess, normally wear suits on interviews. And it seems as though they're trying to convince Tucker for this Fox Nation thing

to wear a sweater so that he is equally casual to what they're expecting Andrew Tate to wear. I think that's what I'm understanding here. And Tucker's just getting annoyed. Is that okay? I mean, this is airing on the nighttime show, and I want it to look official. I don't want it to be like bro talk. And I, you know what I mean? Yeah, but the majority of it, like if we go like 45 minutes, it's going to be for Fox Nation. But nobody's going to watch it on Fox Nation. Nobody watches Fox Nation because the site sucks. Speaker 1

00 00 00 Speaker 3 00 00 This is just the best that, you know, I actually I do not sympathize with Tucker on almost anything, but I've been in situations where, like, you know, I'll have a direct affiliation with some entity and then that entity has some other affiliation and they end up making requests for things they want me to do, like at a conference. And I know that my contacts are really just being bugged by these other folks who I don't really want to have anything to do with. And they make these requests. And the the frustration with Tucker about they're trying to make me do stuff that's

really not good for me and it's not good for anybody and nobody's going to watch it anyway. I really empathize with that specifically. Beyond that, you all know my feelings about Tucker. So I'd really like to just put the dump the whole thing on YouTube. But anyway, that's just my view um uh i'm just frustrated with uh in it's hard to use that site i don't know why they're not fixing it it's driving me insane and they're like making like lifetime movies but they don't they don't work on the infrastructure of the site like what it's crazy and it drives me crazy because it's like we're doing all this extra work and no one

can find it it's unbelievable actually i don't know who runs that site we're gonna play a sizable trunk on the show tomorrow night that's the plan and then what it's going to do is drive a lot of people to watch this on fox nation it's gonna be a great help to what we're doing over there on tc today i know but we're doing our part we're like working like animals to produce all this content and the people in charge of it, whoever that guy is, whatever his name is, like they're ignoring the fact that the site doesn't work. And it's I think it's like a betrayal of our efforts.

That's how I feel. So I, of course, I think I've had this exact phone call with people like this is the funniest thing that this it resonates so much with me. Now, of course, what Tucker wants to be disseminating instead of that is absolutely horrible stuff. The the real story here is not Tucker's frustrations per se. It's that it appears as though this stuff was leaked from people associated with Fox News directly to Media Matters. And it is such a stunning turn of events when Fox people, Fox affiliated people are leaking things to the to the left wing. Media Matters.

And we're going to see what ultimately happens with the forthcoming with the existing and forthcoming lawsuits against Fox News and the role that Tucker Carlson has to play there. I actually had I just filmed a podcast episode with Lex Friedman. Very long episode, like almost four hours long, pretty wide as well, probably three hours wide, if you can believe it. And it's going to be released soon. And we talk about the claimed reasons that Fox fired Tucker, which have to do with politics, which are false, and the real reasons that Fox fired Tucker, which have everything to do with legal liability and the fact that he's become a real problem. This, to me, is just funny. And Tucker's criticisms of Fox Nation are absolutely spot on. I've even been invited

on Fox Nation and they go, yeah, listen, we Fox producer here. We'd like to have you on. Oh, like which show? Well, it's like the Fox Nation after the show, like the bonus show equivalent. But it's like not award winning the way ours is. And also there's like a guest host this week. I'm sorry, guys. I'm just too busy. I'm just too busy. I've got a, you know, a baby running around in diapers everywhere. It's great. I can't do it. I'm sorry. I can't do it. So that I very much identify with. All right. Now let's move to. How is the search for Tucker Carlson's replacement going?

I told you yesterday on the show that the Tucker Carlson hour on Fox News lost about half of its audience in the week after Tucker Carlson's firing. Not hugely surprising. People are tuning in for Tucker, right? I mean, when I go on vacation, we lose about 50 percent of our audience as well. The funny thing is that every guest host that they seem to try over there seems to just go worse and worse and worse. This one is really funny. Yesterday, the latest attempt at Tucker's replacement is a guy named Lawrence Jones,

who's worked at Fox News for some period of time. He arguably did the worst job of anybody so far. He interviewed Asa Hutchinson. Asa Hutchinson is a Republican candidate. He's a former Republican governor, Republican candidate for president for the Republican nomination. His campaign is totally dead on arrival, but they interviewed him anyway. Fine. The interview lasted eight and a half minutes. The interviewer, Lawrence Jones, spoke about half of that time. More than four of the

eight and a half minutes. Lawrence Jones was speaking, often yelling over Asa Hutchinson, and he tried the why are you running sort of gotcha. And when he saw I mean, listen, I think the policies are stupid and they're bad policies. But Asa Hutchinson is naming the things he did as governor, which Republicans generally do like. And Jones tries to short circuit it by saying every Republican does that stuff. And it's sort of like, well, what do you want me to say? I did the things Republicans like. Listen to this humiliating attempt at an interview. This is fair that that is spin. The Republicans have said what their position is. I understand that you are for free speech and all these other issues. And like I said, respectfully,

sir, I understand that you're for economic freedom and all that. Those are the typical Republican positions. And that would work back in 2008 or even 2006. But there's a different Republican Party now. And when I ask you the question, why are you running? It seems like you're opposed to all of the things that the modern day Republican Party stands for. What do you say to that? Well, I disagree with that. I lowered taxes in Arkansas. That's a Republican position. Again created surpluses. No, no, no. Lawrence Lawrence Lawrence.

You've got to listen to me as well. You've got to listen as well. We balance the budget. That's what Republicans do. We lead in this country. Yeah. But did you make fun of a disabled reporter? Do you pretend do you pretend weight lift to attack trans people during your rallies? That's what the party wants now. Conservative principles. And whenever you're looking at our values, I stand second to none in terms of fighting for pro-life values and conservative values. Look at my record, Lawrence. Governor, I just I just went through your record here and as I said, and I gave you credit for the normal Republican positions, you're

right in line. But this is a new Republican Party. Thank you so much for your time, sir. All right. Not exactly a conversation. I believe that the search continues for a replacement for Tucker Carlson on Fox News. If you're curious, you can check out that that entire interview. The good news for Lawrence Jones is almost no one is watching Fox in that time slot anymore. So not that many people saw him humiliate himself. It's hard to determine who's less ready for prime time, Lawrence Jones or or Ron DeSantis. And what he did is he wanted to impress, I

guess, his bosses. So he came out ready to fight because fight is good. But when you just talk over your guest and you speak for half the interview when you're supposed to be hearing the ideas of the other person, it just doesn't really work very well. And I expect we'll see what the numbers look like by the end of this week. I expect that this week's Tucker ratings, the formerly Tucker ratings, will be even worse than last week. So Fox News certainly has some problems on its hands. I'm not too worried about helping them solve those problems. And if you're curious what this interview looked like, we'll have the clip on our Instagram, which you can find by searching Instagram for David Pakman show. We're going to take a quick break. So much more to discuss with

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increasingly unhealthy obsession with Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis seems to be getting worse and worse and worse. Trump completely out of control, obsessed with Ron DeSantis, posting endlessly to Truth Social about him, sometimes multiple times per hour. Now, I pulled a bunch of troughs from a 24 hour period. Since then, Trump has continued posting. So like I could give you 10 more of these, but I'm not going to do that to you. But just to give you a sense of how obsessed Trump is with a guy who, as of right now, isn't even running against him and who, by all reasonable assessments, can't even beat Trump. I mean, Trump's already over 50 percent in most Republican primary polls. DeSantis is in the low 20s with a campaign that seems to be slowing down. Big donors

abandoning DeSantis before he even announced. OK, so it's like not even really clear. DeSantis is a major threat to Trump. Regardless, look at this. Trump going after DeSantis for covid death numbers, by the way, pretty unfair because you really should go by rates. Trump just posting a chart of covid deaths. But it's like Florida has a huge population, so it would make more sense to look at covid death rates regardless. He says so explain why did Ron DeSantis do a good job? Highly overrated. New York had fewer covid cases. Now New York is better than Florida.

For a while, Florida was better than New York. No new tricks, just the per capita confusion that we've always been seeing. Trump continuing to sanctimonious had nothing to do with Israel or the moving of the US embassy to Jerusalem. Never so much as mentioned it to me. It was the last thing on his mind to sank. This wasn't even governor yet. It was December of twenty seventeen and I barely knew him.

He has turned out to be a total flame out. This is the kind of disinformation I thought only the Democrats would put out. No wonder the sanctus is dropping like a rock in the polls. Terrible. Trump continuing. And remember, this guy's not running yet and he's also doing terribly in the polls. But Trump is just obsessed, collapsing at home. DeSantis travels to Israel and proclaims he moved U.S. embassy

to Jerusalem, not Trump. But it doesn't stop there. Again, guys, this is like all within a few hours. DeSanctimonious had a failed campaign when he was running for governor. He was ready to drop out, was way behind. Then I capital E endorsed him. It wasn't a lowercase e endorsement. It was a capital E endorsement. And he went big league, but artificially up. The real dissent. This, however, is the guy we are all watching crash a burn, a really bad politician. Enjoy the trip, Ron. Trump then retrowthing a guy named John Rich saying, quote, I don't understand the logic

of DeSantis running. Let's just say he beat Trump in the primary, which won't happen. But let's hypothesize if he won, there wouldn't be one true Trump supporter left that would vote for him and he would be destroyed in a general election. This is a losing proposition no matter how you look at it. So why on earth would he voluntarily run head on into the wood chipper? Now, this one is interesting for two different reasons. Trump and failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Carrie Lake have both been pushing this idea.

If DeSantis somehow won the primary, no Republicans would vote for him in the general. This is starting to be an odor of maybe boycott the general if Trump doesn't win the nomination, which I absolutely love. The best scenario for Democrats would be for Trump to lose the primary and then for Republicans to either stay home in protest or to write Trump in or even better for Trump to run third party and take 10, 15 percent of that vote. Those would be absolutely dream scenario. So that's an interesting thing that Trump is now starting to signal boost the idea of Republicans wouldn't vote for DeSantis in the general. They wouldn't. Carrie Lake is starting to signal boost that idea. That's number one. Number two,

that's interesting about this is the idea of really seeming to try to push DeSantis not to even run. It seemed at one point that Trump was maybe looking forward to the idea of a contested and heated primary. But now that Trump's talking about I might not even debate now that Trump's talking about maybe DeSantis shouldn't even run. It seems that the tide has turned a little bit. And the idea here is to prevent DeSantis even from announcing. OK, Trump continuing on truth, weirdly going after Kayleigh McEnany, his own former press secretary, saying, quote, I guess Kayleigh is no longer speaking so favorably about the sanctimonious now that his capital P polls are shot.

And he said that after Kayleigh posted strong foreign policy interview from Trump on Tucker Carlson, Trump excels when he talks policy. Yeah, right. Emphasizes his experience and reminds Americans how safe our country was on his watch. This is just showing you how sort of petty Trump is, even though this post from his former press secretary is praising Trump. I guess at some point she praised the Santas and Trump really didn't like that. So he's still going after her. Then Trump continuing and I could keep going all day, but this will be the last one Trump posting. I couldn't care less if Ron DeSantis

runs. But the problem is the capital B bill he is about to sign, which allows him to run without resigning from being governor, totally weakens capital E election capital I integrity in Florida instead of getting tough and doing what the people want. Same day voting voter ID, proof of citizenship, paper ballots, hand count. This bill guts everything. So this is endless. This all these messages I just showed you are all from a few hour period. Trump is obsessed with the Santas.

It seems to be becoming an unhealthy obsession. But the strategic question here, of course, is if DeSantis doesn't announce, is it only going to get worse for him in the sense that Trump is starting actual campaign stuff? He's doing events and he even is going to do a town hall with CNN. Let's talk about that next. So many of you emailing me this morning, The general message has been, David, sir, did you see that CNN is doing a Trump town hall? Have they not learned anything from all of the free publicity they gave him in 2016? Is this because of Chris Licht taking over CNN? And

number three, is CNN going to pretend that Trump's just a normal candidate, not a guy who incited an insurrectionist riot and has been arrested? Are they really going to pretend that he's a normal candidate? All absolutely great questions. So let's dove into it. First and foremost, here is Jim Schuto announcing on CNN that, yes, Donald Trump will be doing a town hall next week. Let's listen.

And just into CNN, former President Donald Trump will participate in a CNN presidential town hall next week. The former president will take questions from New Hampshire Republicans and undeclared voters who do plan to vote in the 2024 GOP presidential primary. CNN This Morning anchor Caitlin Collins will moderate the May 10th town hall at St. Anselm College. Wow. At 9 p.m. Eastern Time. Stay with CNN News Central.

So I'm going to give you both sides of this because I have to say this is a brilliant move of strategically by CNN and it couldn't possibly come with better timing. So I'm going to explain that in a moment. First, let's talk about the kind of societal implication and the problem with this. Trump is unique in many senses, and this election is unique. It's a former president who lost reelection but is running again, but also tried to steal the election he lost and has since been arrested and indicted. And it's going to likely be a rematch with the guy he lost to in 2020.

Totally unique, unprecedented situation in American history. So the problem with just, hey, we're doing a town hall is the normalization of Trump as just another candidate when he is arguably one of the most dangerous departures from how we expect the presidency and democracy to work in the United States. Our friend Brian Tyler Cohen found the moment from a Kara Swisher's interview with CNN's current chief, Chris Licht, where he says we're not going to turn into Trump 24 seven. Here he is saying this was just in November. You ended up talking about him for eight hours a day. And we're not going to do that. We're going to be very clear and take everything on a case by case basis about what level of coverage it should be.

So meaning that it will not be quite hand. We are not going to be a 24 seven Trump news network. OK, now a lot of things have changed since November 17th of 2022 when that podcast episode was filmed. And there are so many absolutely accurate criticisms of what CNN is doing. Our friend Aaron Ruppar tweeted, quote, It shouldn't have to be said, but it's irresponsible for any media outlet to treat a guy who attempted a coup after the last presidential election like a normal presidential candidate. Are they going to treat him like a normal presidential candidate next week on the town hall? I don't know.

So that is all extraordinarily disturbing and concerning. We're going to have to see how they treat him. Now, let's get to the genius of what CNN is doing. And again, it's really important. I'm not praising CNN in terms of how they're going to handle this. I don't know how they're going to handle it, but I'm extraordinarily concerned. The genius of what CNN is doing is that we now have and this was probably planned before Tucker was fired by Fox News. We now have a situation where there are certainly millions of people in the United States, at minimum, who are furious with Fox News. They wrongly believe Tucker Carlson's firing was for political reasons. They agree with Trump's attacks on Fox News, which have been going on now for months.

You have a group of people who are looking for any reason to find something other than Fox News to now become what they watch. Trump going on CNN is now giving all of those people the opportunity to say, you know what, CNN maybe is fake news or maybe it was back when Trump was president. But Fox now is a disaster. I'm abandoning Fox. Fox is now the enemy. And look, CNN is at least giving my guy the time of day. They're going to give him a town hall and the timing is actually

quite perfect for CNN from a business standpoint. And I am so curious to see whether the attitude towards CNN changes dramatically from Trump supporters. I'll tell you, all it will take is Trump during the town hall praising CNN for having him and attacking Fox and then after the fact, posting some truths about it and others on the right saying, hey, you know what? We've been critical of CNN. Fox is the problem. At least CNN is giving, you know, my dad, Don Jr., can say at the time of day or whatever else the case may be. And all of a sudden. It's not CNN becoming Trumpian, but it totally changes the media picture now as far as the substance, if CNN treats Trump the way he should be treated, I've talked about responsible platforming so many times before. Responsible platforming means you don't rule someone in or out just on the basis of who they are for an interview. I've interviewed white supremacists. I've interviewed homophobes. I've interviewed all these different

things. You've got to platform them responsibly. And if CNN were to do that and if there is subject matter holding Trump to account for the riotous insurrection that that he incited in terms of the arrest, all these things, I am completely fine with it. Do I expect that that's what they're going to do? It is not what I expect that they're going to do. And who knows what may have been even pre-negotiated with regard to some of those things. I will be watching with great interest as a media analyst and media critic, but I'm going to withhold judgment about whether CNN handles this correctly or incorrectly until

I see it. That'll be next week. But that is the big news. Trump, CNN, Town Hall. And this also gets to DeSantis by not announcing. And remember, he can't announce unless he resigns in Florida. Those are the rules from the governorship unless he changes the law, which he's working on doing. So he's got a little bit of a problem. He actually can't announce right now if he wants to remain governor.

But the other problem for DeSantis is as he's sort of crumbling in the polls, he doesn't get any of these opportunities unless he's actually a candidate. A maybe candidate is not going to get a CNN town hall. This is a growing problem for Ron DeSantis that he's going to have to figure out. One of our sponsors is electric e-bikes. I've been watching e-bike reviews on YouTube for a while because I've been thinking of getting one. And I continually come across electric as the brand to go with if your budget is between eight hundred and thirteen hundred dollars.

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is in the podcast notes. The news that Noam Chomsky hung out with the late Jeffrey Epstein has really sent many people for quite a loop. Chomsky was asked about this and said none of your business when The Wall Street Journal inquired about it, which is striking at least some people in my audience as a very strange response. It's the entire thing is not incredibly newsworthy, but I think what is setting some people off is what they perceive to be a really like the worst possible response from Noam Chomsky. Now of course, Jeffrey Epstein, who is now deceased, now understood to be an extraordinary predator involving young girls.

And, you know, the details are so beyond the scope of what I can sort of illuminate here. But this has been an ongoing story for a very, very long time. And he is an extraordinarily horrifying predator. And so every time it turns out someone met with them, this happened to Bill Gates. Trump and Clinton knew Epstein. It always sort of generates a little bit of a story. But Alan Dershowitz is another one who visited Jeffrey Epstein's private island, I believe it was. But Chomsky is surprising some.

So there's a Business Insider story. Renowned academic Noam Chomsky told The Wall Street Journal that his meetings with Jeffrey Epstein are, quote, none of your business, none of your business. The Wall Street Journal reports that Chomsky held multiple meetings with Jeffrey Epstein. Chomsky's meetings with Epstein took place long after the disgraced financier had registered as a sex offender. So the idea of this was long before anybody knew anything not valid. It was it was known when the journal asked Chomsky about the meetings, the linguist had some choice words. And the article is it's a short article. Let's look at it because it's interestingly written. When asked about their connections with Jeffrey Epstein,

many business leaders and bureaucrats offer tight lipped regrets and apologies, not Noam Chomsky. The Wall Street Journal in an exclusive published Sunday said it obtained Epstein's private calendar. It outlined numerous meetings with high profile people, including Chomsky, the famed academic and political activist. When the Journal reached out to Chomsky, he had choice words, quote. First response is that it is none of your business or anyone's. Second is that I knew him and we met occasionally.

Chomsky 94 told the Journal in an email. Epstein, the disgraced financier accused of sex trafficking, underage girls died by suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan jail as he awaited trial. In addition to Chomsky, the Journal noted meetings with a current CIA director, William Burns, as well as Catherine Rimmler, a top lawyer at Goldman Sachs and former White House counsel under Obama. Epstein's meetings with Chomsky appeared to have taken place in 2015 and 16. Epstein was first charged with procuring minors for prostitution and registered as a sex offender in 2008. In March of 2015, Epstein scheduled meetings with Chomsky and a Harvard University professor.

Chomsky confirmed that there were several meetings where they discussed various topics. The Journal reported that months later, Epstein scheduled a flight with Chomsky and his wife for a planned dinner with movie director Woody Allen and his wife, Suni Previn, who is also the adopted daughter of his ex partner, Mia Farrow. Chomsky said, and this one is a little weird. If there was a flight, which I doubt it would have been from Boston to New York, 30 minutes. See, I would remember whether I flew with Jeffrey Epstein that I that's strange. But he says, I'm unaware of the principle that requires that I inform you about an evening spent with a great

artist. Chomsky said what was known about Epstein was he had been convicted of a crime and had served a sentence, according to U.S. laws and norms that yields a clean slate. So listen, I agree that the responses are a little bit odd. I also have no reason whatsoever to believe that Chomsky did anything inappropriate as it relates to the things that Epstein was accused and previously convicted of. On the one hand, it would be really easy for Chomsky to say, listen, Epstein contacted me to do seminars for rich people because they were interested in hearing my perspective. The thing is, if that's not true, why would Chomsky make that up and lie if that's not actually what took place? And so I understand that Chomsky is responding in what is sort of,

you know, I you could say it's a strange response, but it also doesn't really suggest to me that Chomsky did anything wrong. I don't know that there's too much more to say about it. And quite frankly, it's not ultra surprising to me. And listen, if you had said, hey, David, you know, knowing that Epstein met with Clinton, Trump and Dershowitz, who else would you guess he might have hung out with? My mind doesn't immediately go to Chomsky, but I do think it's important to just kind of generally consider and understand that it ends up being a small world in a lot of

ways. And so when you say Chomsky knew Epstein, it's not like a mind blowing shock to me at the same time. If there's any evidence at any point that comes forward that Chomsky did anything wrong, we'll discuss it. At this point, there is not radical and repugnant Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, I guess, wants to ban the pornography site Pornhub because of something related to Hunter Biden. This one's really difficult to understand. Daily Beast has a piece on it. Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to ban porn hub because of Hunter Biden. Marjorie Taylor Greene is disgusted that websites like Pornhub exist

and even more horrified that Hunter Biden may have used them. Ross Story reports that Greene shared her newfound knowledge of the adult film landscape in a keynote address to the Putnam County, Ohio, Lincoln Reagan dinner. Let's listen to what she had to say about Pornhub and Hunter Biden. This is really weird. United States doesn't want to acknowledge this biological grandchild won't even acknowledge it. And so Hunter Biden's hiding out in the White House.

Here's what I found out this week. There is a website you may or may not have heard about it called Pornhub. It is a disgusting porn website. As a matter of fact, it should be illegal. I can't even I don't even know why it exists. Right. They're against business regulation. But ban the website. The Hunter Biden used to have multiple accounts on this porn hub, pornography, sex website. And these are accounts where he could go watch pornography. These are accounts where he posted his sex videos. Oh, like the ones that are on the Hunter Biden laptop. This week, I found out you want to know what he still has an account on Pornhub. Whoa. Now, I would also wonder, does he have Gmail and should Gmail be banned? Does he have a New York Times subscription? Should we ban the New York Times? This is so stupid. But the crowd is just

enraptured by Marjorie Taylor Greene telling the story where his videos are posted. It is still live and active. This is the son of the president of the United States. Fraudulent. Did someone just say fraudulent? I want to go back and hear that again. This is the son of the president of the United States. Fraudulent. Yeah, what's fraudulent?

Hunter Biden is the most disgusting, vile embarrassment piece of trash. And that is what is a reflection on our country. Jeez. Then in that case, how does Marjorie Taylor Greene reflect on our country? That's scary stuff. And they attacked President Trump and his family. I don't care how people vote Republican, Democrat, independent, nonpolitical, whatever. That fact right there should be so offensive to every single American that we do something

about it. This political cycle has gotten so stupid, so, so stupid. So there's a couple different things. Number one, the idea that a low regulation stay out of business is way, etc. Republican would want a website banned, made illegal. And of course, when she says that, it's like, should it be illegal to run the website? Should it be illegal to visit the website? They're never really clear. You know, the website should be illegal because Hunter Biden has an account on the website is some of the most specious reasoning that I can imagine. And again, to what other platforms? I mean, I don't. Does Hunter Biden have a Twitter account? Should Twitter be illegal because Hunter Biden, in theory, could post videos to Twitter and he has an account there

and Twitter hasn't even closed it? I don't know the answer to that. And it's, again, another reminder. They have their stated principles, which matter not at all to them when it's inconvenient. And then all of a sudden it's banned this ban that the other thing. the other thing I want to mention is I continue to get emails about why am I not talking about Hunter Biden? What do you want me to say about Hunter Biden? The images that were not allowed on Twitter around the time of the 2020 election were images, sexually explicit images that were being published without Hunter Biden's consent. That's illegal in most states and against Twitter's terms of service. Now, if you want to make the argument that were those images not part of the articles that were being posted, the articles should have been allowed.

I'm with you. And in fact, as I mentioned earlier, I just finished recording an episode with Lex Friedman for his podcast and the topic of Hunter Biden came up and we talked about it a little bit. You know, at this point, it's like, do you still not have the evidence to charge Hunter Biden for all of the crimes he supposedly committed? If he's committed crimes, go ahead and charge him. I don't know anyone on the left who would say, no, he must be protected or whatever else the case may be.

The fact that it has been this long and Rudy Giuliani had the hard drive, Tucker had the hard drive and got lost in the mail and the blind computer guy had the hard drive, all these different things. And there's still no evidence of any criminality of any substance. Maybe he didn't really commit crimes. I don't know. But I have no issue whatsoever with Hunter Biden being investigated, charged, prosecuted, whatever, to the fullest extent of the law.

But there's nothing else for me to say about it at this point in time, given the fact that there doesn't seem to be evidence that he committed any crimes. And certainly he has no involvement in the Biden administration. So that's where I am on the Hunter Biden stuff. We'll do a deeper conversation on it on the Lex Friedman podcast because because Lex brought it up. All right. So that'll be released in the next few days. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two David P. Here's a caller who at least seems to think that he caught me in a double standard. Let's listen. This is interesting.

Something else that I truly don't understand. All right. You are in favor of allowing women to decide what to do with their body. True abortion. have a child etc right guilty perfect sounds reasonable to me right good yet on the other hand you criticize perhaps make fun of people who want to dictate how they want to treat their particular illness or infectious disease. You can't have it both ways, man. Explain. You can't. I'm going to exaggerate and say something stupid, but on purpose. If I want to treat covid or some other illness or infectious disease with bleach, with cockroach

killer with sawdust. OK. You should let me do it. Don't criticize it. There's two different things here. You should let me do it versus you shouldn't criticize it. And I'm sorry, my friend, there is no double standard here. OK, I have never advocated that it should be illegal for an individual who's confused, right, to go to the hardware store to buy bleach or Drano or whatever, and to apply it to the body, interior, exterior, whatever,

because they think that it'll treat covid. I have never said it should be illegal. I have never said when you go and you grab bleach, they should ask you, are you going to use this for covid? And if you say yes, they call the cops. I have never said it should be illegal. What I have said is it's stupid. What I have said is there's no medical science that says injecting bleach is good for covid. There is no double standard. I don't think abortion should be against the law. It should be up to individuals to decide for themselves whether that's something they want to do. Abortion is an extraordinarily safe medical procedure. In most cases, it's not even a procedure. It's a it's a medication. We know all about it and it should nobody should be forced to have an abortion,

but it should be available. People should decide. Similarly, I am fine with people deciding, oh, I'm going to I have covid and I really don't feel well, having trouble breathing. I'm going to check myself into the hospital or I'm going to go and get bleach. Both should be legal options. The evidence is that the bleach not only doesn't work, but it could really hurt you. And so, again, in going with the medical science, doctors shouldn't prescribe bleach. OK, there's no double standard here, but interesting, interesting perspective. We've got a great bonus show for you today. First Republic Bank has failed

and it has been taken over by J.P. Morgan Chase. What is this doing to the economy? We will discuss. We're going to talk about weight bias in the workforce, bias against heavy people, overweight people, obese people. And it is actually worse for women than men based on the data we have. Very interesting story. We're also going to delve a little bit deeper into the search for a replacement for Tucker Carlson. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Get instant access to the bonus show by signing up at Join Pakman dot com. That is a frickin predator right there. The bonus show is not predatory. It's open and available for you if you want it. Simply sign up at Join Pakman dot com. Otherwise, I'll be back here tomorrow.