The David Pakman Show - 5/23/23: Fox gushes about Tim Scott as Trump sued for more defamation

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Tom Gabor, criminologist and author of five books on gun violence including "American Carnage: Shattering the Myths That Fuel Gun Violence," joins David to discuss gun violence, prevention, and more. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3qbMPla --Republican Senator Tim Scott's 2024 Republican presidential campaign starts off as cringeworthy as you might imagine in South Carolina -- Fox & Friends hosts are gushing about Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott, seemingly desperate for someone other than Donald Trump to be the nominee -- More than 100 former Donald Trump officials now back Ron DeSantis, but MAGA voters truly do not seem to care -- Tulsi Gabbard, who regularly uses fear to manipulate people, criticizes those who use fear to manipulate people -- Nursing PhD John Campbell criticizes a Phase I vaccine clinical trial despite the trial conforming to what Campbell himself has previously reported is completely typical for Phase I trials -- Donald Trump is sued even more by E. Jean Carroll for his allegedly defamatory statements about her during his recent CNN town hall -- Donald Trump can't stop playing the victim, including during a recent Real America's Voice interview, and non-stop on Truth Social -- Anti-drag Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend, Brian Glenn, has been "caught" in drag, but Greene simply laughs it off -- Voicemail caller attacks David as an "intellectual douche" -- On the Bonus Show: Nazi flag found in truck that crashed near White House, Ireland will require warnings on alcoholic beverages, DeSantis' police program lures officers with violent records, much more... 🦛 Happy Hippo: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off at https://happyhippo.com/pakman 👍 Use code PAKMAN for 10% off the Füm Journey Pack at https://tryfum.com/PAKMAN 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman ♨️ Bon Charge Sauna Blanket: Use code PAKMAN for 15% OFF at https://boncharge.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)-2DAVIDP

All right. Well, Tim Scott's Republican presidential candidacy off to an explosive start opening the event in North Charleston, South Carolina, with a dean scream. I'll explain in a moment, then plagued by audio issues. You all know I love it when these right wingers have audio issues that included the largest agricultural is worth of our farm product. Exactly right. And then just saying completely outrageous things. And his campaign does appear to be dead on arrival. So as I told you yesterday, Republican senator from South Carolina, Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate, has announced he is running for president

of the United States against Donald Trump. Why MAGA voters would switch from a candidate who regularly scapegoats black and brown people to a black guy? I don't know. It doesn't seem like that's going to appeal to them. But here is Tim Scott opening the event with the Dean's scream. And for people who don't remember the Dean's scream, this was the moment in 2014 that ended Howard Dean's presidential chances. And I'm not saying it was right.

I'm just saying it happened. And then we're going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House. Exactly. A moment that will live in infamy. Tim Scott in very melodramatic fashion. This is all so stupid, guys, in melodramatic fashion, building to the big announcement. And I guess you could say the crowd went wild. I don't know. You tell me. Not less. We cannot have innocent people at risk. Police officers getting ambushed and attacked and seniors locked in their homes from the time the sun goes down until the sun comes up.

Joe Biden and the radical left are attacking every single rung of the ladder that helped me climb. And that's why I'm announcing today that I'm running for president of the United States of America! Yeah. All right. So anyway, certainly a lot of energy there happening. And he also made the strange claim that he's the candidate the left is most scared of, which is interesting. I'm the candidate the far left fears the most. The far left is like, who are you again? You see, when I cut your taxes, they called me a prop. Uh-oh.

When I refunded the police, they called me a token. When I pushed back on President Biden, they even called me the N-word. The audience is like, hmm. I disrupt their narrative. I threaten their control. The truth of my life disrupts their lives. There you go. I don't know that the Republican audience is going to go for this. That's my sense, folks. And we'll look at the polling in a moment. I can't gloss over

the massive audio issues that they had. And I'm actually going to play for you. It feels like it goes on forever, but it doesn't. I love this stuff. America is not a nation. Oh, so the audio has now cut out. Someone starts signaling him. He's asking which microphone is causing the problem. He's tapping his microphone. He's wearing a lapel mic and holding one. He's switching it on and off. Now he steps forward. It's getting awkward. He's talking into it, but it's totally dead. He seemed to check his feet as if he had like stepped on a cable. And then now I guess someone is going to maybe bring him a different mic. OK, now he's been handed a third microphone. This one's wired and it's also not working. He's talking into multiple

mics now. And then he does. He's now he has the mic reversed, almost about to talk into the back end of the microphone and then tapping the lapel, holding two mics and wearing a third one. This is unbelievable. And now there's. And now he's back. They were able to survive the audio problems, that's for sure. But I think Eric did not like they lived up. I used to check it every week. Are they buying? Are they buying? OK, so how this is the dumbest Republican primary. How is Tim Scott doing? Not particularly well. He has opened up this race with an explosive one point eight percent support behind at half the level of support of Vivek Ramaswamy, well behind Nikki Haley and far behind

Mike Pence, who isn't even a candidate. I think it's important to know. That being said, Tim Scott is ahead of Larry Elder. And I didn't even know Larry Elder was considering running or that anyone was thinking of Larry Elder as a candidate. But needless to say, one point eight percent. It is undeniable that Tim Scott's campaign is completely dead on arrival. But there's someone that seems to be gushing with excitement for Tim Scott. And that's the crew over at Fox and Friends on Fox News. Let's talk about that next. So Tim Scott announces he's running for president in the Republican primary. I don't think he has any shot at winning. He's polling one point eight percent. Donald Trump welcomed it. And we know that the reason Trump welcomes Scott running is

Trump does better in polling. The more candidates there are dividing up the non-Trump vote. So Trump's glad for it. The other people that seem to be glad about it are the Fox and Friends crew, Steve Ducey and Ainsley Earhart and Brian Kilmeade. Now, Ainsley Earhart is particularly excited about this. She's from South Carolina, and that may be a factor here, but they seem to just be gushing. And I think part of it is Ainsley Earhart herself is from South Carolina and so is Tim Scott. And then on the other hand, I think they're desperate for someone other than Trump. It really doesn't seem like DeSantis has what it takes. So maybe they're interested in Tim Scott.

And they say, don't underestimate him. He's starting at home. Yeah, he's a really nice guy. Loves South Carolina. And what's ironic, he's positive. He's mild-mannered. He's seeking to form a coalition of traditional conservatives and evangelical Christianity and moderate.

Sounds great, Ainsley. Please send it down. Republicans. Yeah. They're just screaming hello, what's going on, Centerwood? He is now a rock star in that area. No bitterness, this is how far Charleston has come. He's got $22 million. He's got a super PAC that's got $13 million. Wow. Anyone who dismisses Tim Scott, you will regret that. Right. I don't know why you'll regret it Scott is you will regret that. Well, right. I don't know why you'll regret it, but you will. And he's got twenty two million. It sounds it sounds like ninety eight point two percent of Republican voters are currently

dismissing Tim Scott was in his treasury. That according to the SEC is the most any presidential candidate has ever had at this point. Wow. You know, I almost I almost feel bad because I feel like almost Tim Scott's too good for politics. There you go. He's too good of a candidate. He's too good of a guy. Is this weird or is it just me? He's such a great guy to be a preacher. And he did put out an ad that is now running. And Elon Musk came out and said, yeah,

that is a great ad. There you go. That clip from decoding Fox News, which who continues to do great work on Twitter, the Elon Musk seal of approval. And we know we know everything Elon Musk touches turns to gold. Of course, Tesla stock down about 80 percent and Twitter in shambles. So Tim Scott, don't underestimate him as 98.2 percent of current Republican primary voters are doing. And we will see how Tim Scott does. In the meantime, let's talk a little bit about DeSantis Trump. More than 100 Trump officials, former Trump officials are now backing Ron DeSantis for president. But if you think it matters, MAGA does not care. Disclaimer, this is a Fox News report. It appears as though they are properly sourcing this. But it is a Fox News report, an interesting detail in its own right. The headline over 100 former Trump administration officials

back to Santas for president, quote, a proven winner. The officials have formed a coalition called the Eight Year Alliance, viewing DeSantis as a viable two term candidate. Exclusive Fox News has learned that more than 100 former Trump administration officials have formed a growing coalition backing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to be their nominee. According to multiple sources within the group, the eight year alliance says DeSantis is a proven winner, a contender with a depth of policy proven by what he's done at the state level and a leader who does what he says. All of those seem to be lies.

I don't think anything there is true. The primary motivation of the group, sources say, is to promote a candidate they feel would be a viable contender for two presidential terms, something they see in DeSantis. They also want to prevent former President Donald Trump, quote, immediately becoming a lame duck president should he win back the White House, considering the polarizing effect his persona has had on American politics. Now they're using the wrong word. They're using the wrong effect. It says the polarizing affect. I believe that that is incorrect, but we'll get into grammar more today in the in the voicemail segment. So what's fascinating about this is that MAGA voters do not care. And we've talked more about becoming a victim of the very monster you created. That's

something we've talked about before. The monster that is MAGA does not care that, you know, we don't know who's in this group. But, oh, John Bolton doesn't like Trump anymore. William Barr doesn't think Trump is the right person to lead the Republican Party. We don't care. Those were losers that Trump had to fire. And then when you say to them, well, why did Trump hire them in the first place? I thought he was great at hiring. Oh, forget about that. Forget about that. So, you know, again, we look at the polling, Trump continuing to climb last week. He breached fifty five percent support. He continues to climb. He is now beyond fifty six percent support. We mentioned last week that DeSantis dropped below 20 percent for the first time. And I don't even know how long a very, very long time.

This may even be when was DeSantis DeSas was last below 20 in October and DeSantis is again below 20. And by the end of the week, he may be below 19. The MAGA voters do not care about what Republican officials who once worked for Trump have to say they are for Trump. We are going to actually this Friday in the Friday feedback or the feedback segment, as it may be called, we're going to see cultists who straight up say I will not vote for anyone else. It's Trump or nothing. That is it. So this is not likely to be a group of former Trump officials that has much, if any, impact on the primary. Just look at the polling. It is a blowout for Trump. He it's his to lose is where I would leave it. Hey, quick

reminder, Monday, Memorial Day, there will be no show. We are taking off the federal holiday, but there will be a one day membership special, the likes of which you have never seen before. There are not many such examples that I can tell you. Get on my newsletter at David Pakman dot com. And then Monday morning, you'll get a beautiful email telling you how to avail yourself of this historic membership discount. Quick break. Much, much more today. in a species, OSA, which is an herbal leaf from Southeast Asia at low doses. Kratom is known for its sort of energizing, uplifting effect, comparable to coffee at higher doses. Kratom can create a calm, soothing feeling, which some people take for aches and pains,

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You can try Happy Hippo products totally free. They'll even ship to you for free. Go to Happy Hippo dot com slash Pakman. Click the pink button at the bottom of the page that says free Kratom. You can also get 20 percent off all of their products with code Pacman. That's happy hippo dot com slash Pacman. Click the free Kratom button to receive some product completely free with free shipping. After that, use the code Pacman for 20 percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. One of our sponsors today is fume. Not everything in a bad habit is wrong. So instead of a drastic, uncomfortable change, why not just remove the bad part from your habit? Fume is an innovative, award winning device that does exactly

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fume success story. Head on over to try fume dot com and use the code Pacman to save 10 percent when you get the journey pack, which comes with the device and three flavors. That's try FUM dot com code Pacman saves you 10 percent on the journey pack. The info is in the podcast notes. Let's talk a little bit about conspiracy theories and fear mongering and using fear as a tool to influence. We're going to look at one of the usual suspects, tool C. Gabbard. But we're also going to look at a guy named I this I hesitate, Dr. John Campbell, not a medical doctor and relevantly not a medical doctor in a second segment. This may surprise some of you, but we will get to that.

Let's start with and the theme here is using fear and, you know, irritating and scaring people, agitating and scaring people. Tulsi Gabbard was on Fox News is the five yesterday and Tulsi. I know that the word is now in the in the the lexicon sanctimoniously bemoaned the use of fear to manipulate people. And of course, Tulsi herself is one of the people who has used fear to manipulate people, particularly since coming out against the Democratic Party and becoming an anti vaccine, anti trans spokesperson of sorts. So

let's start as it makes sense to do, listening to what Gabbard herself said, and then we'll talk about why it's particularly rich that she make this claim. Does anybody ever get held for any wrongdoing? It's it's frightening that the answer to that is probably no. At this point, they can continue to lie. One of the things that I took away from the statement that Gorshitz wrote was Gorshitz here that he used COVID as the example. But really what we know throughout history, going back to the Cold War and the post 9-11, now this new Cold War is that when we have people in positions of power fomenting fear, it makes it easier for them to take away our freedoms. And so the big warning signal, kind of the red alert for everyone

is as soon as you start to see people in power over hyping a situation or a threat fomenting fear, we have to go back and remember Benjamin Franklin's famous quote, right? That those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety and security deserve neither security nor liberty. Well said poignant words from Tulsi Gabbard. Now, of course, Tulsi has done a campaign for a while now portraying herself as the victim of the fear mongering by the Democratic establishment, where people said, oh, Tulsi is a wolf in sheep's clothing or blah, blah, blah, blah. Tulsi is one of the great practitioners of fear mongering to influence and manipulate herself. And she uses the fear mongering as a tool to advance her interests and her ambitions.

She wants to be seen. And unfortunately, some fell for it and saw her as this principled anti-war activist who will always expose the lies of the fear mongers and the warmongers. But in in reality, she has turned out to be and I want to be accurate, a pro authoritarian conspiratorial fear monger who actually has fomented the very fear and division among Americans that she pretends to go after when she has called Democratic leaders warmongers who will get us into whether it's World War four or five or nuclear arm, arm, Armageddon. That was fearmongering that made no sense and was not factually based in any way. Check out her appearance on the Joe Rogan program. Rather than ever addressing the substantive criticisms of her foreign policy views or explain why did you meet with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2017? She simply uses fear to portray herself as this persecuted, almost whistleblower who was exposing the corruption

of the establishment. And if people ask too many questions about why she met with that dictator, then next thing you know, it'll be 1984. She has said that whistleblowers and dissenters were being silenced by the government and that therefore we all need to worry about eroding democracy and freedom with no real substantive criticism of the way that the Trump administration single handedly made a free press the enemy of the people, which actually is something that we should be afraid of. And of course, it's always without specifics about who is it exactly that's doing any of this stuff. And there's so many examples. In October of 2022,

she posted a video on Instagram which accused the Democratic Party of stoking anti-white racism and undermining law enforcement when the reality is that police have not been defunded and that the so-called divisive agenda of Democrats on race. It's mostly a reaction to the outrageous anti woke stuff from the right. But that's not what she tells you. She just makes you afraid of the Democrats and the things that they're going to do. And we could go on. You know, when she spoke at CPAC, she fear mongered about how the Biden vaccine mandates and so-called lockdowns were attacks on civil liberties and personal freedoms, the likes of which we will never recover from. And it will be a slippery slope into Waukestan or whatever, ignoring the public health benefits, ignoring scientific

evidence and all these things. She wants to sanctimoniously go after those who use fear when it's hard to imagine someone who has used fear more than tool. See herself. So there's that. Let's now go to another sort of example of this. Dr. John Campbell. All right. So listen, some of you know who John Campbell is. Some of you don't. John Campbell is a Ph.D. in nursing who has a YouTube channel that blew up during the covid pandemic, and he would provide a mix of sensible information and analysis. But he would also dabble in anti-vax and some sort of stranger stuff that he would flirt with. And people would write to me and they would say, David, Dr. John Campbell is a doctor who knows about all this stuff. Why? Why aren't you in lockstep with him? And, you know, when when we

talk about Dr. Jill Biden, she has a Ph.D. in education. There is no possibility that anybody thinks Jill Biden's a medical doctor, but not a medical doctor, Ph.D. in education. The difficulty with Dr. John Campbell is that he is talking about medicine. He's talking about medications and vaccines and treatments and pandemics. He has a Ph.D. in nursing, specializing in online teaching. OK, now, this doesn't mean that everything John Campbell says is wrong, but so many people see someone called Dr. John Campbell talking about medicine and they assume you're talking about a medical doctor. It's not that a Ph.D. in nursing is worthless. It's just that he's not a medical doctor. And during the pandemic,

people would email me, email me, email me, saying, listen to this doctor and what he's saying. OK, he now is feigning outrage that a new MRNA flu vaccine. Is doing phase one trials with only 50 people, except that's what phase one trials are. And he has even said that without feigning outrage in the past. So this is another example, creating fear, generating uncertainty, firing people up. Let's listen here. He is talking about the clinical trials of the MRNA flu vaccine. The number involved up to 50 healthy volunteers, 18 through to 49 years of age. So this is direct from their website. This is not me.

This is not me having a joke here. They're not a joke, guys. They really have only 50 people claiming the National Institutes of Health in the United States are claiming. claiming that by testing 50 volunteers healthy 18 through to 49, they can assess the safety of this vaccine. OK. How how dare they? Now, if you do any research, you find that phase one clinical trials start with 20 to 80 people and you only need to look at his own prior statements about phase one clinical trials to realize that the feigned outrage is fake. Here is Dr. John Campbell in February of 2020. This is great video compiled by the bad stats Twitter channel. They do a really good job where he says this is typical vaccine and the

China vaccine are now being tested for safety in animals. Now, the next stage after this in early spring will be phase one human trials. Now, in phase one clinical trials, the drug or the vaccine in this case is given to a relatively small amount of healthy volunteers. Totally normal. In phase one clinical trials, it's given to a small number of healthy volunteers. August of 2022, same thing. Now, that's the molecule there, apparently, right? Phase one trial has been done on healthy volunteers already. So this is in way and it's way next few months report from 42 patients. And if that's a good quality trial now. No, no problem there. OK, so listen, this is not about to be honest, I haven't seen any of John Campbell's content for a long time now. It's not about going after him as a bad person or whatever. What I can tell you is the

following. There's no reason to now start stoking skepticism about the MRNA flu vaccine because the phase one trial has 50 people. That's normal. John Campbell has on numerous occasions told us phase one trials have a small number of people. Here's one with 42 people, no, totally nonreactive. And now he feigns outrage that this is it's not a joke, folks. They're really assessing this based on 50 people. That's how a phase one trial works. So you know, again, just understand what your sources are. Google simple things. It would

take one second to say how many people are normally in a phase one clinical trial. There is nothing to be outraged about. I very much look forward to the data about this mRNA flu vaccine. Maybe we will get ourselves a flu vaccine that is more effective than the ones that have sometimes floated around over the last few years, which sometimes are only 20 to 40 percent effective. Sometimes it's more, but sometimes it's only 20 to 40 percent. I would love a more effective flu vaccine. That should be the focus. OK, this is just so funny. It's sort of like it's not even really adding insult to injury. It's adding injury to injury. The day after Trump was found liable for sexual assault and defamation of E. Jean Carroll in order to pay her five million dollars, he went on his CNN town hall and he made

more disparaging comments about E. Jean Carroll. And many of us said sounds like potentially more defamation. CNBC reports Trump faces a 10 million dollar defamation claim by E. Jean Carroll after his CNN town hall remarks. He might end up owing more money because of that nonsense that he said about her. E. Jean Carroll filed court papers seeking very substantial monetary damages of no less than $10 million from Trump in light of recent scathing remarks he made about her at a CNN town hall. Trump's comments occurred a day after that jury awarded Carol five million in damages for being sexually abused and defamed by Trump. She said Trump raped her in the mid 90s in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan. It is continuing. It is continuing. The lawsuit says Trump's defamatory

statements post verdict show the depth of his malice toward Carroll, since it is hard to imagine defamatory conduct that could possibly be more motivated by hatred, ill will or spite. They go on to say Trump falsely stated that he did not sexually abuse Carroll, that he has no idea who Carroll was and that Carroll's now proven accusation was fake and made up by a whack job. Trump also insulted Carol's character, downplayed his sexual abuse of her by asking what kind of woman meets someone and then within minutes plays hanky panky in a dressing room. It's happening again. And you really without spending too much time on this, you really have to be a very special kind of person. You could say delusional, you could say narcissist, whatever to do a town hall the day after you lose a defamation suit in court are ordered to pay five million bucks and then within twenty four, twenty six, twenty eight

hours go on CNN and make more of the exact kinds of defamatory statements that you just lost a case over. So at this point, will E. Jean Carroll be able to collect these millions? I don't actually know the answer to that. Legal experts who have weighed in say probably, but it could take a while. And now you may be adding even more onto it. Is Trump doing this because he genuinely thinks he's never going to pay? Is it because he doesn't care about the money, which would be very much unlike Trump? Or is he just confused about what defamation even is?

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Today we're going to be speaking with Thomas Gabor, who's a criminologist and author of five books on gun violence, including American Carnage, Shattering the Myths That Fuel Gun Violence. Tom, really appreciate your time today. Thanks for joining me. My pleasure to be with you, David. So, I mean, let's just start with a very simple premise and see if there's anything to it. Some of those in the United States who don't want to see any additional gun safety regulations or laws put in place say they wouldn't do anything to reduce shootings anyway.

Is that a claim that we can actually debunk with with data? Do gun safety regulations reduce shootings? Certain ones do. And, you know, I just came across another report today that showed, for example, that red states, states that are run mostly by a governor who's a Republican or a Republican legislature, which tend to have weaker gun laws, have much higher gun mortality rates. So there's a lot of evidence that, first of all, there's a correlation between gun ownership and gun mortality. There's a tendency as gun

ownership levels go up in the States, and there's huge variations there. There tends to be an increase in gun mortality or gun deaths and gun homicides as well. So and as well, we see when we rate states in terms of the weakness or strength of the gun laws, the stronger the gun laws, the lower gun mortality tends to be. What can you give a couple of examples of the types of regulations that are effective and then maybe a couple of examples of the ones that maybe aren't so much? OK, well, good question. First of all, I've studied gun licensing around the world, and that requires a much thorough,

more thorough background check than we do here in the United States, where you have interviews with law enforcement. You have reference checks and so forth. thorough background check than we do here in the United States, where you have interviews with law enforcement, you have reference checks and so forth. And those countries tend to do a whole lot better than we do. And we see some states that have some kind of owner licensing, such as Connecticut, that have done better than other states, and they've seen gun homicides go down. Another one is storage. Safe storage seems to make an enormous difference, or what we also call child access prevention laws.

So when we have consequences for people not securely storing their guns in terms of legal consequences, that seems to make a difference. Because, for example, we've seen many school shooters, these young men, who've either often obtained the guns, not always, but often from the home or the home of a relative, and these guns were not secured. Now, as far as what doesn't work, because, you know, it's only in the last few years that the federal government has been able to conduct research because there's been an attempt by allies of the gun lobby to stop all research in this area. We hear a lot about universal background checks. I'd like to make a clarification there, because what that means is that, and this is what people are seeking, that every individual buys a gun has to have a background check. So today we have this, you might call it a loophole,

where if you buy on the private market, you buy through the Internet or from gun stores, you don't need to undergo a background check if you've not bought from a licensed dealer. So I'm all for that. However, the background check system also, in my view, is broken. But if all we do is expand background checks to all sales. It's not sufficient because there are enormous problems with the system itself. It's a two-minute check of three FBI databases. And so we've had people like the Parkland shooter who showed all kinds of disturbing signs. because he didn't have a criminal felony record, he was able to buy his AR-15 legally from a gun store. So we need, the analogy I use is,

you know, we pretty well have universal checks when we get on a plane. Everybody gets checked. But the second question is, not just does everybody get checked, but how good is that detection? Right. Let's threw a lot of guns and explosives. Then you can check everybody.

But it's not sufficient. So what I'm saying here is the background, the quality of the background check system itself has to be improved. I don't believe to just expanding background checks is sufficient. What about ideas like restricting the ability to purchase certain firearms to individuals of a certain age? So maybe if you're under 25, certain firearms would not be legally purchasable. I mean, with all these things, you can always say, well, then that person will figure out how to get that firearm illegally. But it's like maybe they won't.

Some of them won't. Right. And, you know, that argument that, you know, criminals will always be criminals and it's such a gross oversimplification. Yeah. You know, and therefore we can't stop somebody who's determined to get a gun. Well, first of all, a lot of gun violence isn't committed, isn't premeditated. It's spontaneous.

So if you happen to be carrying around the gun and you get into a fight or road rage incident, you're more likely to pull that gun. But the other thing is that if we use that logic, we get rid of all laws because you can't stop all molestation or rape or homicide and so forth. But some people are deterred and you make it more difficult because what's easier than allowing somebody who's shown some disturbing behavior to simply because they don't have a criminal record on file, especially a felony record, to just walk in and purchase a gun in two minutes. Right.

You know, and they could be also very aggravated, angry about something. So I think, though, the age issue that you mentioned would be helpful because we do have quite a few people are committing gun violence. After that, it becomes much more difficult legally because a person can argue in court that, well, I'm you know, I'm old enough to go fight for the country. I'm old enough to vote. You know, so, you know, you don't have the right to kind of abridge my rights. And Tom, we lost we lost your five. We lost your audio just for a second where I think what you were saying was it's easier

to restrict based on based on age before people are 18. Was that the argument you were making? But that these in-between ages can be tough legally. Yeah. Though, you know, 18 to 21. I mean, that's passed in a number of states and it passed in Florida as well before the legislature tried to repeal that. Yeah. So 18 to 21, I say is probably as high as you can go. Got it. And there are people challenging that as well, saying that they can vote, they could serve the country at 18 and so

forth. So they should be able to purchase a gun. But leaving the legal arguments alone, I think 18 to 21, certainly those are some of the most active years for people who commit gun violence. So raising that age can be helpful. I want to talk about the issue of mental health. And there are so many aspects to this. You know, on the one hand, colloquially speaking, without diagnosing anyone, when I think about a mass shooting, it seems that we would say anyone who gets to a point where this is something they would go and do, they're probably, quote, mentally ill in some way because no, quote, sane person would do that.

This is a very simplistic thing to say, but in some sense, many of us would say no sane person who's emotionally regulated and whatever, whatever, commit such an act. So in a sense, certainly mental health is a component. But what do we really mean when we say that? Are we talking about somebody who has anxiety and sees a therapist? What is it exactly that we're trying to get at when we talk about mental health? How do you believe the mental health layer should be applied to the gun safety regulations layer? Well, we call it the mental illness dodge. There's a world of difference between saying that somebody has a severe mental illness like schizophrenia, bipolar disease, psychosis or something like that. And only 4% of people who commit violent crimes in the country have a severe mental illness. Now, what you're talking about is often individuals who are

agitated. In fact, one of the frightening statistics in this country is that over 20 million individuals have serious anger issues. They're people who have a short trigger, if you wish, and are quick to anger, have impulsive anger issues and also own guns. This is a much bigger problem. So, yes, I mean, when you're talking about somebody who commits a mass shooting or even a shooting of one individual, that they're agitated, they're angry, but we all get angry at times. And so there's a world of difference between somebody suffering from major mental illness, and they're usually more of a danger to themselves in terms of suicides, and they're more likely to be victims of crime. We see that with the homeless, some of the homeless mentally ill who are victimized in different cities, but they're much less of a concern unless they also had, in addition to a serious mental illness, a history of violence. I'd be more concerned

with people who are ready at a moment's notice to deploy guns against intruders or people who may be an intruder. You know, these recent incidents where somebody took a turn in the wrong driveway and was shot at and somebody else who knocked on the wrong door. I'm more concerned about all these people now because they've been sold the gun lobbies narrative that you're safer with a gun in the home. concerned about all these people now because they've been sold the gun lobbies narrative that you're safer with a gun in the home. And, you know, the gun lobby has done a lot to stoke people's fears and they're ready. They have 40 percent now of people have guns in the home,

have the guns loaded and accessible. That's what I'm worried about. And if they also have a short trigger and they're also afraid, very, very afraid because this fear has been stoked for decades now. I'm more concerned about those individuals because the guns are at the ready and they're primed to commit an act of violence. Yeah. You're getting to now going beyond mental illness into a cultural component. And one of the things that is different in the United States than in many other countries where I've spent time is that there is a gun culture which I describe it as it sees firearms

as a more valid way to resolve interpersonal issues, frustrations, political issues, etc., which access aside and of course, we have to talk about access, access aside. I don't see in a lot of the other countries where I've spent time. Is this intangible cultural difference a reality in the United States? Well, you know, this is what we take on. One of the myths we take on in our book, American Carnage. Because in reality, first of all, there is no all-encompassing gun culture in the United States. We have entire regions like New England where you have gun ownership levels in certain areas of only 15 to 20 percent.

Right. Only a third of American adults are gun owners. Now, if you're talking about a minority of individuals who you might say have a gun fetish and stock a large arsenal of guns, we're talking about maybe what we call the super owners who are six percent of the American population and they own two thirds of all the guns. Wow. That doesn't make them all dangerous at all. But these are the people who have more of a gun fetish, if you want to call it that. And some of them are just collectors. But the vast majority of the population isn't like that. But let me tell you what's changed. In 1977, the National Rifle Association got taken over by a very extremist group of people,

and they have now spent over 40 years trying to convince Americans that if you arm yourself in the home and carry guns, you're going to be a lot more safe. The other thing they did is because with the decline of hunting and the end of the draft and the military draft was where many people were introduced to guns and the increasing urbanization of the country, there was a real crunch on the gun industry. So they started pushing this narrative of self-protection. So this is only about 40 years old, this narrative that we should all have guns, we're safer with guns in the home, carrying guns. In fact, in the 1800s, most of the states banned the carrying of concealed firearms. So we actually in the United States have a history

going back to the revolutionary period of regulating firearms, even having citizens forming a militia and asking them once a year to show up at the town square to show what guns you have. And those guns could be seized by the militia if there was an attack on the country or some revolution to put down. So we've had a history, actually, the Old West, you had gun ordinances. But it's more recently, the last 40 years, that we've departed from that history. And what you call a gun culture is really an attempt by extremists and a gun lobby to promote the idea of the armed citizenry being safer.

But we see that it's nothing, you know, it's so far from the truth. And what we're seeing is the opposite, more mass shooting, more gun deaths. Children now, the number one cause of death of Americans up to 19 is gunfire and so forth. So things have really moved in the opposite direction from what they're claiming. The book is American Carnage, Shattering the Myths that Fuel Gun Violence. We've been speaking with Thomas Gabor, criminologist. Really appreciate your time and insights today. Thank you, David. It's been a pleasure. One of our sponsors is Electric E-B David. It's been a pleasure. have to agree from experience. I've had my electric e-bike for a little while now. I've almost ditched my car and regularly bike at this point for errands and things around my neighborhood. It's awesome cardio because I'm still pedaling. I get there faster. I can see

more. I'm reducing my carbon footprint. The e-bike came to my doorstep fully assembled. It has a bright LCD screen, seven speed gearing, five levels of pedal assist, a powerful battery We'll be right back. Go to electric e-bikes dot com to learn more. Explore all of the incredible e-bike models they offer. That's L.E.C.T.R.I.C. e-bikes dot com. The link is in the podcast notes. So failed former President Donald Trump is continuing to build up the story that he's the victim. Everyone's treating him so unfairly. The E.G.

and Carol verdict was unfair. The 2020 treating him so unfairly. The E. Jean Carroll verdict was unfair. The 2020 election results were unfair. The impeachments were unfair. The Mueller probe, it was all completely and totally unfair. Fox News is treating him very unfairly. And I'm going to show you a couple of examples of this from the last 24 hours. And remember that the Trump family may be the most thin skinned public folks that we have seen in a very, very long time. Donald Trump appeared yesterday on. I so I always am confused by what these shows are. I believe the channel is real America's voice, which I still don't know what that is. Is it a YouTube thing? Does it stream? I don't know. The name of the program is apparently just the news. No noise.

They interviewed Trump by phone. Trump plagued by more audio issues echoing to high heaven and says that he has been violated as badly as anyone. There is no greater victim than Donald Trump. Certainly, I think I've been violated as badly as anybody is that's ever walked. There's never been any violation like this. I've been violated beyond belief. He's been more violated than the woman he was found liable for violating in a Bergdorf

Goodman department store in the 90s. Certainly he's a bigger victim than she is, according to him. There's a political it's really a political persecution. Everybody knows it. And there's never been anything like it. And frankly, if I didn't fire James Comey, I probably because that was a coup. That was a whole coup attempt. It was not a coup and we beat it. But we beat it with we beat some bad, bad guys. Unfortunately, there haven't been repercussions because people haven't taken it up. You need, you know, that's exactly how I feel about much of the Trump administration. They tried a coup. There were some really bad guys. And unfortunately, there haven't

been many repercussions. That's exactly how I would assess the Trump presidency. But he is continuing on this. I'm a victim parade and then continuing it over on Truth Social Central, where he said, quote, I don't know, Eugene Carroll. I never met her or touched her except on a celebrity line with her African-American husband, who she disgustingly called the ape. I wouldn't want to know or touch her. I never abused her or raped her or took her to a dressing room 25 years ago in a crowded department store where the doors are locked. She has no idea when or did anything else to her except deny her capital F fake made up

story that she wrote in a book. It never happened is a total scam, unfair trial. Trump engaging caps lock for the last part of that and then just continuing. Truth sent your page to the Carroll case is part of the Democrats playbook to tarnish my name in person, much like the now fully debunked Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, the 51 intelligence agents, FBI, Twitter files and so much more. It is being funded and tried by Democrat operatives, although this was denied by them. And when they got caught in the lie, the Clinton appointed judge would not let us use it in trial.

Time will prove him to be highly partisan and very unfair. Where's the dress? She said she had? And then Trump continuing to send you shifting his ire towards Laura Ingraham of Fox News, where he said, quote, Laura Ingraham on Fox News just did a hit piece on me. There go her ratings showing some polls which indicate that Ron DeSanctimonious may do better against Biden than I would when actually polls show that I do much better against Biden than Rob. The poll you're looking at now wrong your which has me doing far better against Crooked

Joe was just put out by Fox. I am sure unhappily I'm also leading the scientists by over 40 points in primary voting. Watch Greg Kelly on Newsmax at 10 p.m. Just endless, endless. Meanwhile, Barack Obama met with a bunch of future entrepreneurs and folks working for nonprofits, discussed the importance of service and also explored the coming AI trend. You know, like you couldn't have a bigger contrast between what these former presidents are up to. And Trump is not stopping, but he is still winning. The message continues to be ABCDEFG. That makes no sense that Trump did. And yet MAGA continues to support him and they will almost certainly make him the Republican

nominee unless something changes. You know, when we talk about Republicans claiming to have principles and then completely ignoring those principles, it often is when it comes to things like economics. Oh, the debt and deficit. We really only care about that when the president's a Democrat. All right. I gotcha. Or, you know, business regulation. We don't want to regulate business until it becomes inconvenient. Then we want to regulate business. But even with these so-called culture war social issues, these are the absolute biggest hypocrites. It turns out that

anti drag everything she's against drag shows, drag queens, drag kings, everything. Marjorie Taylor Greene has a boyfriend. He's the guy from Right Side Broadcasting Network. I know. And it turns out he is dressed in drag. And of course, she's defending him. So here's the video that has now been unearthed. Here is Brian Glenn in drag saying he kind of likes wearing his pantyhose. Take a look at this. Speaker 4 I could tell you, I don't think I think a lot of people up now. They're all hashtag I am, of course. Come and check it out here.

So I saw him Saturday. I'm kicking these shoes off. I may keep the pantyhose on. It does feel kind of good. Actually, I'm not going to pee in them. I promise. Speaker 1 He might might keep his pantyhose on. This feels kind of good. Actually, I'm not going to pee in them. I promise. He might might keep his panty hose on. So that's Brian Glenn in drag. So, of course, Marjorie Taylor Greene would denounce this, right, because she's against this. She says this is

grooming and this is dangerous and it's obscene. No, she defends it. Marjorie Taylor Greene taking to Twitter where she posted, quote, I'm literally L.O.L. in Brian Glenn dressed in drag for morning news in Dallas years ago, reporting on an upcoming local theater production. And the morons over at Patriot takes think this is an attack. Brian loves the throwback and is reposting laughing, crying emoji. The left is so stupid. Oh, OK. OK. We know that they are hypocrites on the big issues, debt deficit, business regulation, et cetera. But it seems like they are truly hypocrites about everything, even the social issues, even the culture war issues, all of it. Does it matter why you dress in drag now? Before it was, oh, no, no. When men dress in drag,

it's predatory and it's bad and it's grooming and it's dangerous and all of these different things. Now it's well, no, hold on. If you're dressing in drag to promote a theater production, then it's OK. If you dress in drag to, I guess, read stories to kids. That's what's bad. It's not the drag. It's the fact that they're doing it around children or whatever the case may be. These people are completely and totally vapid. There is nothing there. And they are hypocrites on every single one of these issues. Marjorie Taylor Greene at the absolute top of the list. I know people keep writing to me saying, David, you should really cover this relationship with Brian Glenn because Marjorie Taylor Greene claims

to be a Christian and sanctity of marriage and all these different things. It seems almost like it's certain that she was with this Brian Glenn guy having an affair even when she was still married before she was separated and getting guys, I don't care. Yeah. Like, obviously, I'm sure she's a hypocrite. Lauren Boebert's now getting divorced, even though she said Christian people aren't supposed to get divorced. They stay together. You work through all these different things. They're hypocrites. They're all hypocrites. I really don't care about her personal life other than the hypocrisy. But even like the affair, all these people who preach the Bible are having affairs, many of them, not all of them.

I want to be careful. It's not new, but she is the same type of pathetic hypocrite that we've been following for a long time. So there it is. Anti-drag Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend in drag. In this particular case, it's fine. We have a voicemail number and that number is two one nine two. David P. I don't remember when it was yesterday, the day before I pointed out that when someone said less, it's actually

fewer and now I'm getting attacked as an intellectual douche. Listen to this. Speaker 5 Hey, David, I was just listening to your show today and you like made fun of someone for saying lesser instead of fewer or less instead of fewer. And I just thought that kind of below you, you know, there's a lot of really intelligent people out there who don't know that that's how you're supposed to use the word myself included. I'm, I am a very smart, educated, high IQ person. I believe you didn't know that. So I just think it's kind of a silly thing to make someone make fun of someone for.

And it just makes you seem like you're being a little bit of an intellectual douche. OK, so listen, this is actually something that there's a back story to this. I used to get very confused with less and fewer. And just a few years ago, I was getting crushed for it in the comments. And then now it's sort of like a joke that I pointed out when other people do it, not being an intellectual douche, not being condescending, very smart people mix that up all the time. I speak English as a second language. It had to be explained to me in explicit detail. Let's not take everything personally. And it really sounds like this guy saying saying I see myself as incredibly smart,

like my IQ is really, really high. And I didn't know that. So therefore, it must not be important. You must be making fun of people. Let's all relax, OK? It's fine. It's fine. If you were less than OK, not a big deal. We have a great bonus show for you today. A truck crashed near the White House and a Nazi flag was reportedly found outside of the truck, which was in the truck. And it is again raising questions about what is going on here. Secondly, Ireland is going to start requiring cancer warnings and calorie counts on alcoholic alcoholic beverages. This is something many in the U.S. have been advocating for, saying, listen, we put a lot of this stuff on cigarettes. We should put it on alcohol as well. We do have Surgeon General's warnings on alcohol about pregnant women, but some people want to

see more. And Ireland is doing more. We will discuss. And lastly, Ron DeSantis has created a police program to lure officers to work as police in Florida who have violent records in their pasts. Why is this being done? Does it make any sense? Is it a good idea? We will deal with all of those questions and more when producer Pat joins me on today's bonus show. Get instant access to the bonus show by signing up at join Pacman dot com.