The David Pakman Show - 5/30/23: DeSantis floats Trump pardon, debt ceiling goes toxic

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

-- On the Show: -- David explains why he hasn't covered the comings and goings of the most recent debt ceiling debate -- A deeper look at the issue of "men in women's sports," also known as transgender women in women's sports -- Newt Gingrich inadvertently admits the devastating reason that Donald Trump will win the 2024 Republican nomination -- 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis admits that he would consider pardoning Donald Trump if DeSantis became President -- Donald Trump's lawyers are reportedly warning him that he may be close to getting arrested, this time on federal charges -- A new editorial says that the anti-Trump MAGA movement is imploding -- Failed former President Donald Trump looks particularly sick during a recent golf course interview -- Streamer Steven Kenneth "Destiny" Bonnell II says that The Daily Wire is "center right" while David Pakman is "far left" -- Voicemail caller suggests maybe Ron DeSantis' disastrous tech glitches are caused by some kind of vaccine-inducted magnetization -- On the Bonus Show: Producer Pat runs a half marathon, collapses in heat stroke at the finish line, wakes up in an ice bath 🌱 Ounce of Hope: Get 25% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://www.ounceofhope.com/ ♨️ Bon Charge Sauna Blanket: Use code PAKMAN for 15% OFF at https://boncharge.com/pakman 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David 📖 Shortform: Try it for free and get 25% off at https://shortform.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

I hope everybody had a good Memorial Day weekend. If you live in the United States and you had a day off on Monday, you know, I received many emails over the weekend about the debt ceiling and the bill that may have been reached to avoid defaulting on U.S. debt. And many of you were saying, David, why haven't you been covering this? Why aren't you covering this? And it is true. Other than I believe it was just one story on the world famous award winning bonus show, I have not spoken about the debt ceiling debate, controversy, whatever you want to call it. And that has not been by accident.

It's been on purpose. And I want to explain to you why. And then I want to hear from you. Does this make sense or should I have been talking about it all along? Now as a reminder, the debt ceiling is the legal limit on how much the federal government can borrow to pay its bills. And importantly, it has nothing to do with new spending. When we talk about the debt ceiling, we're talking about borrowing to honor prior obligations already approved by Congress. So when people want to debate, well, we should allow the U.S. to default

because I'm against the Inflation Reduction Act or whatever the case may be. This is not about debating new spending. This is about meeting obligations for already approved spending. And there are four reasons that I have made the deliberate choice. And they all have to do with respect for you in the audience for reasons why I haven't been covering this. Now, first of all, the same thing happens every time. And this alone isn't a reason not to talk about something. Things in politics will happen more than once, or at least they'll happen almost identically more than once. But every time the debt ceiling is reached and that happens regularly because the government runs a deficit, you see Republicans threatening to block its

increase unless they get concessions from Democrats. They talk about writing checks. We can't cash. They talk about spending cuts. They talk about policy issues and it creates drama and uncertainty. But it is mostly a political stunt. And I'm being clear here from the point of view of Republicans talking about defaulting, Republicans know that the U.S. can't actually be allowed to default on its debt because it would be catastrophic to both the American economy and to the reputation of Republicans. Now, if they could get away with it, with somehow Democrats getting blamed, maybe they would go for it. But they also know it would be bad for many of their constituents to allow the U.S. to

default and that they would get at least some of the blame, if not all. So they eventually cave and they agree to raise the debt ceiling. Sometimes it's at the last minute after a temporary extension. It's the same routine time. And again, so it's happened many, many times and it is happening now. Secondly, it's all bad for the American people. And what I mean by that is not the defaulting that might happen, which would, of course, be bad. But the debt ceiling debate is bad for the American people as a narrative and a storyline. It's not only pointless, it's also harmful. It wastes time and resources that could be spent on actual important issues like new infrastructure programs or getting people health care, climate change.

It undermines the credibility and the stability of the United States as a borrower and a leader in the world. The more we publicize this absurd, antiquated retrograde system which gets us to these debt ceiling debates in the first place, the dumber we look on the global stage, it's unnecessary. It creates volatility and risk in the financial markets that hurts everybody, even people not in the markets, just straight up consumers. It increases the cost of borrowing for the government that adds to the debt burden even more in the long run. And according to some estimates, the debt ceiling crises of 2011 and 2013 actually pushed interest rates up somewhere between half a point and two points, costing

taxpayers billions of dollars. So I don't want to participate in worsening that situation. Number three, they eventually come to an agreement despite the theatrics and the grandstanding and the brinkmanship and the entire thing. Both parties know sooner or later you're going to have to raise the debt ceiling. And what they try to get in the meantime is screen time, which I'll get to or concessions, which may or may not actually make any sense. They can't afford to let the US default on its obligations, which could trigger a financial

meltdown, a potential recession. They also don't want to face backlash from voters at the end of the day and from businesses who would suffer in such a scenario. So they strike a deal. It involves some minor concessions or compromises. The concessions or compromises aren't significant enough to say that's why it was good that they were holding out. And it fundamentally changes nothing about the fiscal situation or the underlying situation in which we find ourselves. And lastly, it's an attempt for politicians to cynically get attention during negotiations. Look at how many stories there were about McCarthy's heading to the White House to meet

with Biden. And then they're sitting there. The debt ceiling debate is not actually about fiscal responsibility the way Republicans love to claim. It's not really about economic policy either, because the policies that get us to this situation every however many months also aren't being discussed in any serious way. It's about posturing and messaging. Can I get a meeting with the president? Can I, as a Republican, accuse Democrats of being fiscally irresponsible? Everybody's trying to score points with the base and attack their opponents and I guess get some leverage to maybe get some extra concessions or advance their agenda somewhere else.

Some Republicans have been trying to link the debt ceiling to blocking the infrastructure plan or reversing some Biden executive orders. So the reasons that I haven't covered it are because in order to cover it in the way that it is mostly being covered, I have to insult my audience by pretending that there is something different going on than the exact same thing that always goes on. And it becomes a distraction from more important, urgent matters that affect our lives and our future. Now, I won't deny if the U.S. did default on its debt and did not raise the debt ceiling, it would be not only globally chaotic, it would start to affect individuals who are waiting on certain government payments. And

in other situations, I don't deny that. But the point is, I don't believe that that's actually at risk of happening for any significant period of time, more than a few days. At the end of the day, what could I possibly add to the normal debate about the debt ceiling? This segment is the real analysis, which is it's an analysis of the way that the debt ceiling is discussed, the way that the debt ceiling debate is portrayed in media and used cynically by our elected officials. But there's really nothing for me to add to that.

This is the real analysis. Agree or disagree. I want to hear from you. And I haven't been covering it fundamentally out of respect for my audience. Let's talk about the truth about men in women's sports. Now, listen, the truth is what we're talking about here is trans women in athletics. That's the issue. The right has made this into an issue and they call it

boys in girls sports or men in women's sports. What we're talking about is trans women born biologically male in women's sports. Now, the reason I'm going to do this today is I want to have one clip to point to when people call in and call in and ask me about this. It's not a super interesting issue to me because I don't think it is even remotely a super important issue. But we will get to that. The right has been talking about this endlessly. Trump and others regularly get applause when they say we will ban men from women's sports and we will ban men. OK, here's just one example of Trump at CPAC. I could play a thousand of these clips of different Republicans talking about this, but this is the gist of how they discuss it. I will revoke every

Biden policy promoting the chemical castration and sexual mutilation. Mutilation. Of our youth. And ask Congress to send me a bill prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states. That should be easy. And we will keep men out of women's sports. Big, big, big applause line. All right. So what is the deal with so-called men in women's sports? Is it an issue? Sure. It's an issue. Think about it this way. And we're going to put up like a flow chart here. You've got all issues. And then you have specifically issues related to gender and sexuality, which are a fraction of that. And then within that, you know, LGBTQ, you've got trans issues within that. That's a slice. And then within trans issues, you know, you've got mental health component, you've got other health elements,

like, for example, you know, hormone therapy and gender affirmation, all the OK. And then you've got like discrimination related issues within trans issues, within gender and sexuality, within all issues. And then within discrimination related trans issues, we have sports issues. And then under sports issues, it's trans women in sports issues. And then within that, it's sports where muscle mass confers an advantage issue. So let's not pretend that the issue is bigger than it is. OK, so then they get to usually a discussion about fairness. Now, when they talk about fairness, remember, they don't care about trans men in men's sports. They also don't really care about trans women in women's leagues in chess or shooting or archery or curling. Curling has men's, women's and coed or

equestrian. Even in golf, I mean, driving distance is absolutely a factor in golf. But like even in golf, this isn't a big issue. Sailing, which is already coed darts, bowling. Right. So we're talking about some sports. We're talking about basketball, weightlifting, wrestling, rugby, track and field often comes up. Swimming is one that's gotten a lot of attention. There are three or four so-called solutions that are sometimes mentioned when we talk about trans women in women's sports. One view is ban trans women from women's sports. It raises the question of what do you do with the one percent of folks who are born intersex? OK, but you basically say we're not going to allow trans women to compete in women's leagues. All right. Second option, allow trans women in women's sports, period, or allow trans women in women's sports if they have

a doctor that signs off that they have, you know, achieved they've been on hormone treatments long enough that a doctor determines that there is no advantage or, you know, we have to find the right words. But the idea is a doctor signs off that this is an individual who should be allowed to compete in women's leagues. OK. Fourth thing that's mentioned is have a separate league or a separate division specifically for trans women. And that's the way you deal with it. So let's first agree that we don't need to worry about some sports, as I already mentioned. We're really just concerned with sports where this might be relevant. The first question is, do trans women actually have an advantage? If you're going to seriously discuss this, you first have to address the question,

do trans women actually have an advantage? Everyone assumes, of course, always in every single one of these sports. The real answer is sometimes. And the reality is that many trans women transition early in adulthood. Sometimes they don't undergo male puberty in the same way that cisgender males do and end up being indistinguishable from cis women by any casual observer. And there's not really a concern there. So with that group and again, we're subdividing, subdividing to really get to the core of this. I don't know that they should be excluded from women's sports league. So if these early transition trans women have no muscular advantage, they may not have undergone male puberty.

It seems they should be allowed to participate without any issue based on everything I've read. Then there's the issue that a viewer wrote to me about. Basketball players are selected for height. There are demographic groups that on average are shorter. They are already underrepresented, for example, in basketball. So what about trans women who are already smaller in stature due to their genetics? Are they really a threat to the integrity of so-called women's

sports? Maybe that's another group that should be allowed to participate without much controversy. So then we get to what about trans women who have undergone hormone therapy? The data suggests that after two years, we're talking about run. Let's talk about running as a sport, running after two years of hormone therapy. The average advantage for trans women in running is 12 percent. Now, that's a bell curve and it would overlap with the bell curve for biologically born women. Twelve percent on average means that many trans women after two years of hormone therapy have no advantage or actually have a disadvantage if you understand how a bell curve works.

And then, of course, there would be some trans women who after two years would have a bigger than 12 percent advantage. But the point here is 12 percent is less than the variability within the group of biologically born women. So that becomes a tough case to also say ban all of them. So the point here is it's really easy and simple and popular to the right and within the culture war to say ban wet men in women's sports. If you actually want to do the topic justice and talk about it like an adult and see the nuance and the complexity of the issue, there are some real questions to be figured out. The the zoom out. And again, this I feel like this

is the most important part. This is not the most important issue. Now, somebody will say, David, my 14 year old little girl has been training for softball for years and they brought in a trans 14 year old girl and that trans girl hit a thousand home runs and destroyed the league. OK, let's figure that out. Let's not pretend, though, that this is the foremost issue facing America right now that is worthy of the vitriol and the hatred that's coming from the right. And also, importantly, let's not even pretend that this is the biggest issue under the umbrella of trans issues. When we have attempts to block gender affirming care, we have groups openly discriminating. We've got the bathroom stuff. We've got all these

different things. I don't even believe for a second that trans women in women's sports is the biggest trans issue today. Never mind one of the biggest issues in the country. If my daughter in, you know, 15 years, imagine that Baruch Hashem, she ends up being really good at soccer. And all of a sudden, half of the other team is trans women. Am I going to what am I going to think about that? I don't know what I'm going to think about it. But what I do know is I'm not going to go around looking to insult people or deny anybody rights. That's for sure. And that's the starting point where we should all start from. And then we can figure out what it is that should be done. Let me know your thoughts. Of course, all of these discussions will be on our YouTube channel, which you can subscribe to at YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show.

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Even today, just email info at David Pakman dot com asking for the coupon code. We will get you the coupon code and it will be a beautiful thing to take advantage of this extraordinary discount. Newt Gingrich has admitted the devastating reason that Trump will win. It's not devastating to Trump. It's devastating to the Republican Party. Laura Ingraham, Fox News propagandist, interviewed Newt Gingrich about the entrance of Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis into the twenty twenty four presidential primary. And Newt Gingrich points out DeSantis is plenty smart, but he's not able to talk to people who might only have a third, fourth

or fifth grade education the way that Trump is. Now, the start of this clip is a clip of DeSantis talking about the financial system and the framing is, hey, great that DeSantis is talking about that. But does the average voter even understand this? It's a funny premise. And then Newt lays down the humiliating reality about the average Trump or Republican voter at this point in time. We will not be a free society if major financial institutions can do through the economy what people could not achieve through the ballot box.

Our rights will be restricted, will be the end result. And that's not healthy for a free country. Now, Newt, and it's a good point, but can people grab onto that and kind of understand, a la the contract with America, what is he getting at there? I mean, we, you and I know, but can the folks around the dinner table understand that who are not into politics? This may seem like an odd comment, but I think that he's very, very smart. He clearly did very well at Yale. He is clearly capable of thinking about

big ideas. But, you know, Ronald Reagan was probably equally smart, but he also understood that he had to communicate so that everyday folks understood it. One of Trump's great advantages is he talks at a level where third, fourth and fifth grade educations can say, oh, yeah, I get that. I understand it. And in fact, Trump has now made the Republican Party the party of working Americans in a way that probably hasn't been true for almost 100 years. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but the point here is still an interesting one.

So the challenge for DeSantis is take that interesting sentence and figure out how do you boil it down to a slogan and to a specific thing? I think it's fair to say and I know this from the polling data we do at the America's New Majority Project. The American people fear big business. OK, so the truth is that what Newt Gingrich is saying is maybe an inadvertent but completely devastating burn of Trump supporters. And it exposes the sad reality of the Republican Party today.

You can frame what Newt said there in two ways, and they're very different. Republican Party is now the party of the working class. And DeSantis simply needs to hone his Yale education to be more understandable and also align more with that working class that is now the bulk of the Republican Party or something. Or you can interpret that as the average Republican voter is so uninformed and so often ignorant that you need to dumb things down so that even an adult with a third grade education could understand it. One of those two interpretations has a much more negative connotation, and it's the second one. I believe that the truth is clear and this is not about Republicans are dumb.

This is about understanding realities. The Republican Party has become a party. How can I say this? That appeals to the lowest common denominator, panders to ignorance and fear and rejects facts and science. They also often dismiss any nuanced thought as left wing nonsense. And the party at the same time doesn't want to invest in public education and hasn't done so in many red states. They don't want to promote critical thinking among its base, especially in red states where we know that the educational outcomes are worse than in blue states. So as a result, the party, the Republican Party, has alienated many of these moderate, independent,

educated voters who are increasingly voting for Democrats rather than Republicans. Those are folks who value reason and competence over rhetoric and charisma. And DeSantis doesn't have charisma either. By the way, the data are not blurry or unclear or gray. It's crystal clear as far as education and red versus blue states. You look at the top 10 states with the best school systems. They were all blue states or are swing states that voted Biden in 2020, reliably blue or swing, but voted Biden 2020.

You look at the 10 states with the worst school systems and worst education. They were all red states that voted Trump in 2020. So this is a reality. And whether you put a positive spin on it, like Ingrid does about the party of the working people is now the Republican Party, or you say this is an electorate that has been dramatically dumbed down by virtue of the policies they support. Either way, you have to recognize that Democrats do have an edge over Republicans when it comes

to educational attainment among American adults. When you look at bachelor's degree or higher, 41 percent of Democrats have a bachelor's degree or higher. Only 31 percent of Republicans do. bachelor's degree or higher. Only 31 percent of Republicans do. That's a massive difference. If you look at high school, only high school diploma or less, about a third of Republicans have not gone beyond high school diploma and some have even a lesser education than that compared to only 28 percent of Democrats whose educational attainment is that low.

And this is a gap that continues to widen and it's widening among white voters as well. Education influences political preferences and behavior. DeSantis is trying to position himself as a viable alternative to Trump in 2024. And he talks about his record handling covid and he talks about we were worst hit, but we did really well. And he's endorsing the culture war agenda of woke goes to die in Florida. And he's restricting voting rights. He's restricting what teachers are allowed to teach. He's planning critical race theory and trans athletes and allowing permitless gun carry like he's doing all of that stuff. But Newt Gingrich is getting to a devastating reality, which is that DeSantis, at least so far, and I get it, it's only been a few days, but he's been sort of campaigning much longer than he's been an official candidate.

DeSantis has not articulated a clear and compelling message that distinguishes him from Trump in a way that will resonate with the broader Republican electorate. And Gingrich accurately points out the Santas has to find some way to make the case for himself. It could be too late. And I know it's like he hasn't even been running for a week. How is it too late? DeSantis may have already alienated many voters with what happened between the time that Trump announced and the time that DeSantis announced. And now you've got Tim Scott and Nikki Haley and all these folks taking just little percentages of the electorate. DeSantis needs a path to more than 50 percent. It's either by taking everyone else's support, including some of Trump's or growing the base by so much that he brings in people

who were who are not as of today, likely Republican primary voters. If he can find people who today are saying, I probably won't vote in the primary and get them to say, oh, now I'm interested in voting in the primary. That's another path forward. I don't really see his ability to do it. And he's already talking about pardoning Trump, which I don't know that's going to help him very much. All right. So let's talk about that on the Clay and Buck show newly minted after his disastrous Twitter announcement. Twenty twenty four Republican

presidential candidate Ron DeSantis was on the Clay and Buck show, and he wanted to address the issue of pardons. And he says no pardon is off the table up to and including Donald Trump. This is a couple minutes long. Let's get into it. A lot of interesting stuff here. Abandon a big part of being president is pardon powers. Do you think the January 6th defendants deserve to have their cases examined by a Republican president? And if Trump, let's say, gets charged with federal offenses and you are the president of the United States, would you look at potentially pardoning Trump himself based on the evidence that might emerge of those charges? The DOJ and FBI have been weaponized. We see that. We see it in a variety of contexts. Some of what you mentioned, some of it is the FBI going after

parents going to school board meetings. Some of it's how they treat a pro-life demonstrator, how they don't go after people that are attacking pro-lifers. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to do on day one, I will have folks that will get together and look at all these cases who people are victims of weaponization or political targeting, and we will be aggressive at issuing pardons. people who did the same thing, but just in a context like BLM and they don't get prosecuted at all. That is uneven application of justice. And so understand the framing here and then he'll get to the Trump part. The framing here is we need law and order, but we can't allow people of different political stripes one to be prosecuted and the other not.

Like if you go after a January 6th rider, but not a BLM person, if they did the same thing, they should both be prosecuted. I agree. The thing is, they're pretending like there's many examples of that when in reality there are not. We're going to find ways where that did not happen and then we will use the pardon power. And I will do that at the front end. You know, a lot of people wait until the end of the administration to issue pardons. We're going to find examples where government's been weaponized

against disfavored groups, and we will apply relief as appropriate. But it will be done on a case-by-case basis, because I think you've got to make sure that, because there's a whole bunch of cases that don't necessarily get headlines. But if people are being treated just because they don't get on TV or something, they're being treated disfavorably. They need to have a fair hearing as well. And that could be from a grandma who got arrested and prosecuted too much all the way up to potentially Trump himself. Is that fair to say when you analyze what the charges might have been brought on a federal level?

I would say any example of disfavored treatment based on politics or weaponization would would be included in that review, no matter how small or how. Yeah, so that's up to and including Trump. Think about the argument and the case DeSantis is making. He wants to be president. He wants to be chosen over Donald Trump to be president. Trump incited an insurrectionist ride on January 6th. And rather than coming out and saying the Republican Party needs to go in a different

direction, I condemn what Donald Trump did in citing his followers on January 6. But instead, he says, I'd consider pardoning him. I'd consider pardoning him. Now, let's put aside the political calculation. The political calculation I've told you before is he want he being DeSantis wants to find some path to appeal to the people currently supporting Trump so that they might vote for him. And his calculation is if I condemn Trump's role in the riots and the attempted coup, I'm getting rid of all the MAGA, the potential MAGA support. So DeSantis has made the calculation that he's not going to do that. But let's step back from the political. This is a very dangerous and irresponsible thing for Ron DeSantis

to say. He is undermining the rule of law and undermining the accountability of public officials or excusing public officials from accountability. Trump is facing multiple investigations, including for his role in citing the January 6th riot, his business dealings, classified information handling, pardoning Trump would send the message that he's above the law and his actions don't have consequences. And it will only embolden the extremist elements of the base who participated in the riots or who supported them or thought that they were a good thing. DeSantis said he would also consider pardoning rioters, rioters themselves, saying, well, some of them were.

It was a technical violation of the law. We call those violations of the law. And when you say, well, it was a technical violation, but it deserves a pardon. You're either saying they were justified actions or that they were trivial actions. And all that will do is encourage more violence and encourage the potential for another insurrection. And it will also, by the way, just deepen the polarization and the division in the country. DeSantis talks about, oh, I would become a uniter or whatever. He's saying I will use pardon power to favor what he sees as disfavored groups who were the victims of political targeting. It's the same victim mentality again and again and again. And when the world sees this, they look at it and they say this United States, what are they doing over there?

What are they doing? And DeSantis is echoing another mistake from American history. When President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal, that was a mistake that eroded public trust in government. It weakened our moral authority because it said, OK, yeah, law and order, except for some vague unification of the country, we're going to pardon Nixon. I think it was a mistake. I think it is a mistake to be talking already about pardoning Donald Trump. Now, in the meantime, Joe Biden was asked about pardoning Trump. He just laughed it off. I heard you. But don't get your food dirty, man. All right.

Did you see that? Rhonda said that if he became president, he would pardon Trump. Where are you on the idea of President pardoning Trump? Biden laughs and waves it off. And this is absolutely the right answer. And by the way, I think this is better than Biden even saying I will not pardon Trump, because if Biden says I will not pardon Trump, that will be politicized. Biden has been handling this perfectly, which is to say anytime he's asked, I am not getting involved in any of that. I'm just not getting involved. And even the

question, would you consider pardoning Trump? You say, yes, I would. Well, obviously he wouldn't say yes. You say, no, I wouldn't. People say, well, what if the evidence showed it was politically. Walking away, laughing and waving it off is the right answer. Biden should have nothing to do with the prosecution of Trump. And I love that he is staying out of it. One of the best ways to support this show is by supporting our sponsors today. One of those sponsors is sheath underwear. It is spring. Temperatures are rising.

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podcast notes. We appear to be approaching potentially two more arrests of failed former President Donald Trump, first and foremost, is that Fannie Willis in Georgia is stepping up security and precautions for this next season, so to speak, of announcing indictments that will start in July and run through September. There is the belief that Trump is getting indicted there. But separately, there is a Rolling Stone article. Trump's lawyers warn him. Get ready to be indicted by the feds. The former president has angrily complained in response to predictions that if the Justice Department is going to charge him, then what about Joe Biden? What about Joe Biden? And the article says some of Trump's lawyers and advisers have

given the former president an unwelcome, if not unexpected message in recent weeks. You should expect to get indicted this year. Now, we've talked before about the seemingly underailable train that is Trump speeding towards the Republican nomination. And in those hypotheticals, the question about what could derail it has mostly gone to if Trump gets arrested and is so bogged down by criminal cases that he quite literally can't get out on the campaign trail in any substantive way. It starts to affect the Republican electorate and people who currently say they would be voting for Trump in the primary were it today. Move on to someone else, maybe DeSantis or maybe someone else.

But short of that, Trump seems to have an unobstructed path to the nomination. And yet we now seem to be potentially within months of Trump getting arrested two more times. The article also says several legal and political counselors to Trump have bluntly informed him. They expect the Justice Department to charge him in the criminal investigation into his hoarding of highly classified documents following the end of his presidency. Two sources familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone. This, of course, comes on the heels of Trump's indictment by local prosecutors in Manhattan

in April for falsifying business records. Later this summer, officials in Fulton County, Georgia, are expected to make a decision about whether or not to indict Trump. Trump's attorneys and confidants told Trump that though they view the federal investigation as B.S., they would be surprised at this point if he wasn't charged, particularly for alleged obstruction of justice, and have urged Trump to prepare for yet another historic fight. Looks like they're going for it. One of the sources says people close to the former president have discussed with him what

we think is going to happen soon and how he and everyone else needs to be ready for it. It would be crazy not to. So there's two things going on here. One, there are very real political implications. We are quickly getting into the heat of a very hotly contested Republican primary. It will be an unprecedented situation where the current president will be running for reelection. That's Joe Biden against a former president who was already defeated by Biden and then

will be running again against him. Unprecedented. And you throw into the middle of that already one, maybe two, maybe a third arrest, and it is going to be complete and total chaos. If we go beyond the political implications, progress is slow, but we are seeing some progress. Now, I still don't believe that we are going to see Trump do a day of prison or jail. I don't think we're going to see it in any of these cases. However, if you look at the degree to which this has gone from this stuff should be investigated to there are investigations to we're talking to a grand jury to it's looking like the grand jury wants

to convict you. Trump has been arrested once and maybe may end up arrested three times. That is major progress in seeking to find justice for the alleged wrongs of the Trump presidency. So we will be following the forthcoming possibility of more arrests very closely. It is important to also understand that while Trump seems to have an unobstructed path to the nomination, unless multiple arrests take him off the campaign trail, the so-called anti-Trump Republican movement seems to be imploding. Let's talk about that next. There's a super interesting piece in Politico magazine. This piece is by Jonathan Martin, and it is called Are the Anti-Trump GOP Forces, meaning Republican forces, starting to implode? A mission control breakdown for

DeSantis and smooth launch for Tim Scott bed ill for those hoping to thwart the former president. This entire article is worth reading, but I want to focus on a couple of different aspects to this. The article asks Jonathan Martin asks, Will this go down as the week that the grand plan to deny Donald Trump the nomination fell apart? For months, high level Republican lawmakers, donors and strategists eager to block Trump have described in separate conversations with me an endgame to the presidential primary. When it becomes clear in the early state and national polling who is consolidating support, the most influential figures with ties to the lagging candidates will stage a sort of

political intervention and tell them it's time to quit and rally to the strongest alternative to Trump. Such a plot always struck me as a bit far fetched, for starters, because politicians aren't known for putting party ahead of self. Interestingly, it's exactly what Democrats did in the primary in 2020. Back to Jonathan Martin. Yet the appetite among elite Republicans to move past Trump was and is so immense. I thought there could at least be a do the right thing effort. Yet, as spring turns to summer, traditionally the period where presidential hopefuls consider whether they're gaining traction. This vision seems more fantasy than reality than strategy.

In fact, if Trump does emerge as the GOP standard bearer next year, we'll look back. We will look back on this week to grasp why, just like in 2016, he was able to take advantage of a divided opposition. Now understand the strategy that is being laid out. This is a possible strategy. The idea would be, OK, the Florida primary comes close and imagine that it's Trump 55 and DeSantis 35 because it's his home state and the other 20 percent or 10 percent is divided among other candidates.

The idea would be everyone other than DeSantis gets out and says support DeSantis. And maybe that gets DeS this enough to beat Trump in Florida in New Hampshire. Maybe Nikki Haley is doing better other than Trump. And so even though Trump is winning in New Hampshire, everybody but Nikki Haley gets out and says vote for Nikki Haley or whatever. It's not super realistic. The timing of it needs to be just so. And it's not clear that Republicans are willing to do that. But what is being argued in this just so. And it's not clear that Republicans are willing to do that. But what is being argued in this article is it's it's not going to happen for other reasons. And it goes on to say the reasons are the Sandus is muffed launch the fitting sad trombone conclusion

to a pre-announcement period in which his stock sagged. Announcing his candidacy Monday in the gym of his alma mater, John Charleston Southern University, Tim Scott matched DeSantis as Elon Musk with John Thune and Larry Ellison. He also doesn't seem destined for victory. And then there's Nikki Haley, whose campaign is totally dead on arrival, et cetera. The problem with the anti-Trump Republican movement right now is that they're all failing very hard. Nikki Haley was never inspiring from the beginning, running basically an identity campaign. Vivek Ramaswamy was never really going anywhere. Tim Scott. I mean, again, as I said before, it's not all about identity, but Republicans have to have for now for two elections in a row,

presidential elections in a row, selected the guy who was openly hostile to black and brown people in his rhetoric, if not policy. They're going to say, oh, let's vote for a black guy instead to represent us. It seems unlikely at the most base of base levels. And then now the DeSantis launch where DeSantis is trying to figure out a way, how can I kind of be there to pick up the MAGA voters? But I don't really want to attack Trump to explain to the MAGA voters why they should support me instead. It's not a winning proposition. The launch was a disaster. The only good news for anybody other than Trump is this chart that we're putting up on the screen right now. The purple line at the top of your screen is Trump's polling, which, as you can see, is down from 56 to 53 since DeSantis announced. And on the other hand, DeSantis is up from 19 to 22. So we have seen a three point swing in polling in the direction of DeSantis and away from

Trump since it became known that DeSantis would be announcing. If you look at the very bottom, everyone else is failing. OK, you look at Pence is down from six to three. And Haley at one point was at six. She's down to four. Everybody else is just peanuts, peanuts, peanuts. Whereas DeSantis and Trump are the only ones really embroiled in anything here. So if there is a path right now for anyone other than Trump, I don't see it as being

anybody but DeSantis. But it's not even June of the year before the election yet. There is time if there is a big newsmaking event. And in my mind, the only possible event would be Trump gets indicted and arrested multiple times and is simply unable to run. Can anything else change this Republican primary? Let me know in the comments. When there's a nonfiction book, I just don't have the time to read. Having a summary of the book is really valuable. Several different platforms out there will summarize books. I've tried them all. Short form is by far the most impressive one, and it goes way beyond what other platforms do. Our sponsor, Short Form, not only will summarize the book covering all of the key ideas,

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totally free and get 25 percent off a subscription at short form dot com slash Pacman. That's S.H.O.R.T.F.O.R.M. dot com slash Pacman for a free trial and 25 sick. David, something is clearly wrong with Trump. He's pale. He's low energy. His everything about him, just his face is sagging and all these different things. I'm going to look at the clips. Let's see what we have. He also is, I guess, addressing some issues about Ron DeSantis.

If you were on a debate stage with Ron DeSantis, what would you say to him? What would be your interactions with him? Well, I watched him with Jolie Chris and he got very badly beaten with Charlie Chris. Adam Putnam beat him. I don't I don't know. But they say he's not a very good debater, but maybe he is. We'll find out. Maybe we'll find out because unless it gets close, why would anybody debate? All right. So Trump, they're suggesting he might not even debate DeSantis unless DeSantis gets close in polling. Yeah, I mean, listen, Trump doesn't look good. I think what's going on here and I'm

not trying to be funny or disrespectful or anything is when Trump doesn't have the you know, the the dyed hair perfectly coiffed and perfectly for Trump is an open to interpretation. the spray tan, the suit, the entire thing. Trump's an obese older guy. And so this is just what he looks like. I think I think it's that simple. I don't know that Trump is sick necessarily. Here's another clip. And Trump does seem worse in this one where he goes after DeSantis for being disloyal.

Are you angry, Mr. President, that Ron DeSantis entered the race? No, I think he's a very disloyal person because he was dead. He was looking for jobs, and I endorsed him. And he won up many points. He was 30 points down, at least, maybe more than that. He was dead. So I think he's very disloyal, but I don't care. Look, Paul just came out in Iowa. You saw the one that just came out a little couple of minutes ago. I'm leading by 30 or 40 points. I don't mind that at all. But no, I think he's very disloyal, but he's got no personality. If you don't have personality politics, it's a very hard thing.

So hey, listen, I actually agree with this analysis. DeSantis his personality is just so the opposite of what anybody would ever want to see at a dinner party or in the in the Oval Office that I it's obviously it's not just that he's also a dangerous authoritarian wannabe. I think Trump is actually right about that. Trump doesn't look good. He looks exhausted. He looks pale. You know, the eyes are almost swollen. Shut. I agree. I think it's more of his energy seems to be suffering. Does he have what it takes for this campaign, particularly if he's trying to beat off one or one indictment, two indictments, potentially three indictments? I think there are some real questions there, but not a great interview for the failed former president.

I have recently been called far left by the polyamorous Cuban-American streamer Stephen Kenneth Destiny Bunnell Goranson, the second in all seriousness, polyamorous Cuban-American. These are jokes. Destiny is a friend of mine. But a bunch of people sent me a clip during which the streamer Destiny is, I guess, talking about the space. Now for those who aren't aware of how streaming content works, most of what's on the screen is a video game of some kind. I can't tell if this is Grand Theft Auto or Tetris or what it is.

And then in the bottom right corner, that's the guy who we're going to hear from. Destiny talking. Here's what he had to say. Let's listen and then we will discuss. No, everybody, everybody, everybody, everybody, my check. He's saying like the Young Turks and David Pakman. But these guys are like progressives. They're like the logical spectrum. I would say that like Stephen Crowder is is pretty far right. But the Daily Wire, Stephen Carter's further to the right than the Delaware Wire, but the Daily Wire represents a solid center-right conservative mouthpiece. Center-right conservative establishment, not establishment, I'm sorry. Center-right conservative alternative media is

the Daily Wire. There is nothing, like the closest thing that would be center-left, my guess would be based on a little bit of like Pod Save America or something. But like an otherwise like alternative left media space, like everybody else is way too left. The Young Turks is not center-. They are far left. David Pakman is barely center left, but more far left. You can't say the Young Turks are center left. Whoa. So, all right. There's some interesting stuff here. Now, the real story here and this goes back to Mike. Why am I talking about this? I'm talking about it because it's funny, but also I'm talking about it because I had this conversation when I was on Lex Friedman a few weeks ago. I guess it's been almost a month. It's crazy. We had this conversation about where is the left on the political spectrum and the differences like

I'm to Joe Biden's left. And but, you know, I'm certainly to the right of socialists the way socialists are normally placed on the political spectrum, although I might take issue with that. The real story in hearing Stephen Kenneth Destiny Bunnell the second say this is that destiny and I agree on almost everything. So it's hard to imagine an analysis in which I'm far left and destiny is not far left, far left. Call it what you want. Like either neither of us is far left or we're both far left.

And I don't know if destiny is being provocative or, you know, whatever the case may be. I'm a progressive social Democrat advocating for some way to get everybody health care, although I'm flexible on exactly how we do it. A living wage campaign finance reform. We need environmental protections. We need to use progressive taxation to reduce inequality and fund social program. These are not number one. These aren't radical or fringe ideas.

These are mainstream ideas popular among most Americans if they are fairly polled and the default sort of northern European social democracy. So to say that that's far left doesn't seem super accurate. It is also true that as opposed to some on the so-called far left, I'm not a dogmatic ideologue where I blindly follow a party line or get involved in tribal identity. And that makes me like destiny. I think he also doesn't do that. I've been critical of the Democratic Party. I've been critical of the progressive movement. I've been critical of the Democratic Party. I've been critical of the progressive movement. I've been critical of corporate media when it is appropriate, like destiny.

I also regularly engage with people from different parts of the political spectrum, different backgrounds. I've done the Joe Rogan show twice, did Lex Friedman. I was on the Patrick David podcast, the Trump supporter, etc.. What you also have to understand is that there's a movement in the US, the right wing that calls what I just described far left. I think that they're wrong. There is a movement in the US and globally socialists that call my views center left. I put myself between center left and far left because we're sort of forced into this political spectrum.

But the most important the funniest thing about all of this is that destiny's views and my views line up almost exactly on most issues. As far as I know, he supports many of the same policies I do. He once praised me as a left wing commentator who's reasonable and intellectually honest. So if I'm far left, I think destiny is also far left. Now, I will say one other thing, and this is speculation. OK, and I'll talk to destiny any time he can't, I guess, go on my Twitch streams because he's banned on Twitch and it's a whole mess. But I'd love to talk about this. Destiny might label me as far left because he may be going through a period of distancing himself from the progressive wing of the left, and he may want to appeal to a more centrist audience.

I don't know if that's the case. I'm speculating. I also think that there's a false equivalence between even comparing The Daily Wire to The David Pakman Show, because The Daily Wire is a right wing propaganda outlet. That is out there to spread disinformation and to fear monger on a daily basis, and they are funded by millionaire donors who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and undermining democracy. The David Pakman Show is actually an independent media platform without any of these millionaire donors. Certainly we have people who have a membership who happen to be millionaires, but we don't have millionaire donors funding us in the way that The Daily Wire does.

And there's really no way to even talk about The Daily Wire and The David Pakman show in the same sentence or on the same spectrum, although he may just have been talking about political alignment rather than what the media outlets represent. So to sum this up, you know, if if I'm far left, destiny's far left. It's either both of us or neither of us. And I thought it was thought it was an interesting comment. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. Here's someone calling in with some suspicions about what might have caused all of those technical problems during the Ron DeSantis Twitter spaces launch. Hi, David.

This is Courtney from Cleveland. I'm just calling because I think I know why Ron DeSantis is having all of these technical difficulties. He must have gotten the COVID vaccine. And so now that he's magnetized, none of his tech works. Right. Sort of like a be kind, rewind situation for anyone who saw that movie. But no, anyways, I wanted to let you know that your Ron DeSantis is spot on. I love listening to it. You do a lot of impressions, but you do a really good meatball. So keep up the good work and and can't wait to hear the next show.

I actually think that my Ron DeSantis impression is bad. I don't think I think what I thought what was funny about it was that it's bad. What I do is I basically try to move the discussion back to my throat. I moved and I just try to sound whiny. Florida's were woke, goes to die. We're not going to allow these people to come here and tell us that adverbs and pronouns and proper nouns are going to be. We're just not going to do it.

And that's why me. That's why I launched on Twitter spaces alongside Elon Musk, because he's for free speech and I'm banning books. And so it's just the natural. I don't think it's a good impression. I'm banning books. And so it's just the natural. I don't think it's a good impression. I thought what was funny was how bad it was. But at least at least one person likes it. All right, folks, this is serious on the bonus show today. Over the weekend, producer Pat ran a half marathon. OK, producer Pat collapsed at the finish line, not metaphorically.

Usually, oh, Trump collapsed. People say, oh, you don't literally mean that. Pat collapsed at the at the on the bonus show. Pat collapsed at the finish line. Heat stroked, blacked out. Next thing he remembers is he woke up in an ice bath and subsequently at the hospital. This happened to CNN's John Berman when he ran a full marathon a little while ago. Producer Pat has been medically cleared to be back on the bonus show. He will join us on the bonus show and we will talk about it. He says there's funny thing. He said it was serious for a little bit, but that's some funny things also happened. So we're going to discuss that on the bonus show and more. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. Folks, don't miss the bonus show, the bonus show where

you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. And if you miss the Memorial Day discount code email info at David Pakman dot com asking for it. We will get you that the president.