The David Pakman Show - 6/6/23: Bizarre Pence speech bores crowd as 2nd Trump arrest coming

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Dylan Burns, streamer and aspiring war journalist with a current emphasis on Ukraine, joins David just back from Ukraine to discuss the situation there with Vladimir Putin's invasion, Dylan's time with a de-mining crew, and much more -- A deep look at the American economy in June of 2023 reveals the sky is not falling, despite right-wing claims that the economy is a disaster -- Former Vice President and current 2024 Republican presidential candidate Mike Pence gives a bizarre speech that no one understood, nor cared about -- Another Donald Trump arrest appears imminent as Trump's lawyers meet with the Justice Department, reportedly to beg them not to indict Trump -- Donald Trump, apparently told that he's getting arrested again, melts down on Truth Social -- Fox News host Jesse Watters proposes the unhinged conspiracy theory that Joe Biden was installed as President by the FBI -- 2024 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley says that teen suicide is caused by trans kids in locker rooms -- The anti-woke movement continues to struggle as new polling reveals that support for gay marriage is at its highest in history -- Voicemail caller The Eggman suffers an antisemitic incident while shopping for a used car -- On the Bonus Show: Cornel West is running for President in 2024, YouTube changes policy on election misinformation, FBI spy Robert Hanssen found dead in prison cell, much more... 🌱 Ounce of Hope: Get 25% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://www.ounceofhope.com/ 📖 Shortform: Try it for free and get 25% off at https://shortform.com/pakman 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code PAKMAN for FREE blades at https://hensonshaving.com/pakman 👂 MDHearing: Just $149.99 each + free charging case. Use code PAKMAN at https://mdhearing.com 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 🛌 Helix Sleep: Get 20% OFF a mattress + 2 free pillows. Go to https://helixsleep.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

. Let's start today with a discussion about the economy. Is the economy a disaster? Well, many on the right say that it is. Now, we're going to look at the most important metrics for evaluating how the economy is doing. The reason I'm doing this is whether you're on the left or on the right. My suggestion is don't make this political. Many on the right who say the Biden economy is a disaster are making this political. And you know that while I have my political

opinions, I don't think we should have a death penalty. I think abortion should be legal and accessible and affordable in most cases. I believe in the decriminalization, if not legalization, of many drugs. These are opinions of mine. When it comes to things like gas prices, debt and deficit, the economy. My preference is to take an extremely sober, empirical approach, and we can always predict a recession is coming. The type of economic system we have, at least historically, has always eventually gotten to a recession or a depression. Could we enter into one tomorrow? Sure. Will we probably get into one at some point? Yeah, probably. But when people come to you, maybe with tears in their eyes and then they say the Biden economy is a disaster,

I would challenge you to say to them which underlying metric tells us that. Let's look at the most important ones. GDP growth the last few quarters, 3.2 percent growth, 2.6 percent growth, 1.3 percent growth. Very unremarkable, not mind blowly explosive the way we saw during the immediate covid recovery and not problematic. Right. I mean, you zoom out and you see GDP growth has been in this relatively tight range, big decline for covid, big recovery in that quarter after the big decline and then just fine GDP growth numbers. So we say is GDP indicative of an economic problem? No, it is not. We then go to the unemployment rate, one of the lowest unemployment rates we've had. The chart on the screen goes back before 1950. Looks like it starts

around 1948. And we see periods where unemployment has been down in the three percent range, a period in the early 50s, a period in the late 60s, touching the very high threes around the year 2000, the dotcom boom and then spiking right when COVID hit. And we are now down to three point six percent unemployment, one of the lowest unemployment rates in history. So we say, well, the picture painted by GDP and unemployment certainly is not indicative of an economic crisis as of today. We then look at the inflation rate. But David, sir, everything is so expensive because of the Biden inflation. Well, if you actually look, that inflationary period started well before Biden. It has been historically higher than we saw during the period starting in the mid 90s. But inflation has now declined, declined, declined to just below right around 5 percent, exactly where I predicted we would be towards the end of the summer. I said somewhere between

four and 5 percent. It seems like we will be there. This is not hugely shocking if you've been following the trend line and you see that while we still have higher inflation than we've had, you have to go back to, you know, around 2010, we had a little bit of a spike in inflation. And then you look at around 1990 and then certainly in the mid 70s, very high inflation, World War Two era. OK, inflation has been higher. It's coming down. So now we build the picture GDP unemployment inflation. It doesn't look like a crisis.

We then look at the Consumer Confidence Index. Now, this is an opinion based index, admittedly. And you do see that when we were in the thick of covid consumer confidence declined significantly. It is important. It is important to look at the Y axis here and see that it goes from ninety six to one oh two. This is a relatively tight range. It is absolutely true that right before the dotcom bust, consumer confidence was very high. And then in the midst of the 2008 2009 recession, consumer confidence was low. It got very low during covid and it is now recovered to a level that we saw around 2012 and to a level we saw during the recovery from 2008

and in the early 90s. So consumer confidence has been low, but it is climbing. Well, what about stock market performance, David? Let's look at that. S&P 500, 4 percent one year return. Not amazing, but certainly not a crisis year to date. 11 percent return from the S&P 500. The three year is now a 10 percent annualized return. Very, very healthy. You look at five year, nine percent return and 10 year, 10 percent return. The stock market is basically fine. Yes, we see these erratic erratic up and down days sporadically. That's something that's been part of the stock market. So we're not finding any red flags. Well, maybe unemployment is low and GDP is OK and consumer confidence is increasing and the stock market is doing fine. But what about wages? Well, we look at the

federal wage growth tracker and you see that wage growth sustained now starting about a year and a quarter ago has been at some of the highest levels that we've seen dating all the way back to 1980 wage growth. But these are crappy jobs. Well, wages are going up and you actually see very nice wage growth. So the fine we have many jobs, but they are crap. Wage growth seems to be doing OK. We then look at the balance of trade and you see that we still have a trade deficit. But after bottoming out a couple of years ago, the trade deficit has been reduced, reduced, reduced. It's really important to understand. If you look at this chart, you'll see that we've had trade deficits dating all the way back to the mid 70s.

We have had trade deficits in the United States since 1976 because we have become a country that imports a ton of oil and consumer products. OK, the trade balance is not particularly shocking if you understand the American economy. And then lastly, well, what about interest rates? Yes, we are seeing an increase in interest rates. This is making mortgages more expensive. This is also making it so that you can get five percent in a high yield savings account, which is pretty damn attractive. I will tell you what you have to understand about interest rates.

And we have a chart up on the screen where you see extremely high interest rates in the early 80s and then you see extremely low interest rates, almost zero from about 2008 up until about 2016. Interest rates in the US reached their highest level in 1981. And you can see it on the chart because the Fed raised rates to combat soaring inflation and to try to stabilize the economy. That's the story of high interest rates in 81. Since then, we've seen interest rates basically decline for 40 years all the way down to essentially zero levels in 2010 after the global financial crisis. Again, in 2020,

they dropped back to zero after the covid pandemic. And now interest rates are going back up to a level that we saw in 2006, still below where we saw right before 9-11, well below what we had in the late 80s. So there is really no big dramatic story on interest rates as well. So I continue to recommend when these economy doom and gloomers come to you and they start telling you these stories about the Biden economy, the first thing to say is, listen, the less regulated the version of capitalism we have, the more endemic to the system booms and busts will be. There may well be a recession or a depression coming. But what current indicator is suggestive of that? Now, the one I didn't mention, which they might go to is labor participation rate. The population of the country

continues to go up. And so it is true that at most times there are more people than ever working and more people than ever not working. It is not a particular, particularly reliable indicator of economic health. And that's why I didn't even include it. Ask them for the facts. Show them the receipts. Mike Pence is running for president, one of the most electric and inspiring candidates. No, that's not true. That's actually very much untrue. Mike Pence. This is a weird 2024 Republican primary already. Mike Pence also spoke at the Iowa roast and ride. And it is actually stunning how Mike Pence is embroiled in a battle with Ron DeSantis for who could possibly be the least charismatic candidate so far.

Here is Pence in a speech no one understood nor cared about. It is great to be back at the roast and ride. I rode and I roasted on the ride. Wow. Just absolutely electric delivery, as you can see there. Pence seemingly out of ideas. He's sort of you know how on gun violence it's like we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas is very often what you hear from some on the right. Pence so far has really tried nothing to justify his candidacy. And he's just doing a little bit of the DeSantis stuff, talking about Bud Light and, you know, Target. I don't think that this is if DeSantis can't win with this stuff.

I don't know that Pence can win with the exact same stuff. You also have to stand up for American families. OK. You know, the truth of the matter is we stand here today. Yeah. The radical left has been assaulting our values and assaulting our families almost as never before. Well, talk to me about how that's going to get me a better paying job or more job security, Mike. All right. It won't. It's the same nonsense the Santas is peddling. But the great thing I've seen traveling across this country is that the American people, American people are on to it. Are they? Just ask Bud Light. Target. And by the way, a message to Major League Baseball. Religious bigotry has no place in America's pastime. You can tell he really means it because he's moving his hands.

All right. And Pence pointing to someone into the crowd and mouthing thank you. As you can see, this campaign does not exactly have victory written all over it. Here is Mike Pence interviewed either right before or right after this thing. He's wearing some kind of biker vest. It might be leather. It might be pleather and asked about his big announcement, which is scheduled for tomorrow. And if anybody was worried that Mike Pence's announcement might not be blessed by God, he has been praying about it. He notifies us. He has ride 50 miles into the state fairgrounds. If that doesn't say I'm running for president, I don't know what is. Are you ready to make it official?

Well, we're looking forward to be back in Iowa next Wednesday. Yeah. Karen and I spent a lot of time over the last two years reflecting and frankly praying about where we might. The same God that told George W. Bush to go into Iraq when he prayed is apparently advising the pences next serve our country after our years in Congress, our years as governor of Indiana and years as vice president. And if we come to a decision, I thought there'd be no better place to announce our decision than right here in the Hawkeye state. Well, let me ask you, right? Super, super exciting, as you can see. So listen, how how is Mike? What is Mike Pence doing? How is Mike Pence doing in this race? The latest polling has Mike Pence at an anemic three point eight percent. I'll be honest, I don't even know how Mike Pence has a

path to getting ahead of Ron DeSantis, never mind catching Donald Trump. I don't understand Mike Pence's argument for even being a candidate. If you didn't like the Trump administration, Pence was part of that administration. If didn't like the Trump administration, Pence was part of that administration. If you did like the Trump administration, Trump's running and you can vote for Trump. And if you didn't like Trump, but you want someone with a viable path to victory, you've got Ron DeSantis. If you want a woman representing the Republican Party, you've got Nikki Haley. If you want a black woman representing the Republican Party, you've got Nikki Haley. If you want a black guy representing the Republican Party, you've got Tim Scott. If you want a

guy who's good at debating representing the Republican Party, you've got Chris Christie. I don't know what path there is for this guy. And it makes me wonder why is he running at all? I haven't heard him justify it in any way that makes sense. Maybe somebody in the audience has a clue. Let me know. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the David Pakman show. That's a forward slash folks. Don't go in with those backslashes. Don't don't you dare. There. One of our sponsors today is Ounce of Hope, giving our listeners 20 percent off. Ounce of Hope is an aquaponic cannabis company and a small business that supports the David Pakman show. If you're not familiar with aquaponics, what they do is sustainably raise fish and they use

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Use code Pacman at checkout for 20 percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. One of our sponsors is short form. Short form makes the world's best guides to nonfiction books. And not only does short form summarize each nonfiction book itself into key points that you can cover in just a few minutes, they have all sorts of interactive exercises to help you apply the ideas to what you've read to retain more. The guide to each book also includes intellectual insights, comparing and contrasting

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is giving my audience a free trial plus 25 percent off a subscription, which is a 50 dollar value. So for the price of a book per month, you get access to thousands. Go to short form dot com slash Pacman. You can find the link in the podcast notes. My friends once arrested and twice impeached, failed former President Donald Trump is about to get arrested again, and this time it appears federal charges are coming. Trump's lawyers meeting with the Justice Department yesterday reportedly begging them, please, please, with tears in their eyes, don't charge Donald Trump. CBS News reports Trump attorneys meet with special counsel at Justice Department amid documents investigation. Great report by Robert Costa and others. Attorneys representing

Trump met with special counsel Jack Smith and prosecutors at the Justice Department 10 a.m. yesterday, according to two people familiar with the matter. This took place weeks after Trump's lawyers requested a meeting with top federal law enforcement officials. The attorneys for Trump spent just under two hours inside the main justice building and declined to comment as they left. CBS News cameras captured Trump's legal team walking in. The former president's lawyers did not speak as they entered. A person familiar with the meeting between the three attorneys and the department said Merrick Garland was not there. Two people familiar with the probe say Trump's legal team is frustrated with how the Justice Department

has handled attorney client matters in recent months and would likely raise concerns during the meeting, in particular, prosecutors discussions of related issues in front of the grand jury. Additional reporting from The Washington Post. Trump lawyers ask Justice Department not to charge Trump in the classified documents case. We now have reporting here about the reason for the visit. Quote, Attorneys for Donald Trump went to the Justice Department Monday to make their case. The government should not charge the former president in connection with his possession of classified documents after leaving office, as reported already in the other article. They were there for two hours.

Merrick Garland wasn't there. Justice Department has not commented. This is an interesting paragraph. While it is not uncommon in high profile cases for defense lawyers to get such a meeting with Justice Department officials towards the end of an investigation, current and former officials say such presentations rarely change prosecutors minds to Trump. Advisors briefed on Monday's meeting say they continue to believe Smith will finalize a charging decision in coming weeks. The advisers say they are preparing for a potential indictment

of the former president. The meeting did not change their expectations. Donald Trump, by all reasonable reports, is about to get arrested again, indicted again, this time on federal charges. These aren't even the only federal charges Trump might be charged for. Remember that there is a federal investigation into Trump's mishandling of classified documents, which we now know took place not only at Mar-a-Lago, but also at Bedminster. We now know Trump knew they were classified based on an audio recording of Trump saying, I have a document here, but I can't show it to you because it's classified, which confirms Trump knew he had not actually declassified the documents. That's one slate of federal charges that could be coming. In addition, there are the potential charges referred to the Justice Department by the

former House committee investigating the insurrectionist Trump riots of January 6th, 2021. That could lead to charges. And in addition to that, Fannie Willis in Georgia will be making a charging decision on state level charges against Trump sometime between July and September when the next grand jury is reconvened and those decisions are going to be made. We could see one, two or even three additional arrests of the once arrested, twice impeached former president just over the summer. The question we are all now asking is whether this will impact Trump, Trump's campaign for the Republican candidacy and who of the other people running for the

Republican candidacy or the Republican nomination stand to benefit the most. It seems it's DeSantis because he's the only one in double digits at this point in terms of the polling. But we'll look at that a little more deeply, probably Thursday, if not Friday. In the meantime, Trump's reaction to news that he will likely be arrested completely and totally unhinged. It appears as though Donald Trump was notified by his lawyers yesterday after their meeting with the Justice Department that he will almost certainly be getting arrested and charged federally.

Donald Trump immediately took to his social media platform Truth Social, Truth Central, where he ranted about how other presidents Obama haven't been arrested or indicted, I guess, for the crimes Trump may have committed. You've got to see this mostly with caps lock engaged Donald Trump posting after his lawyers gave him the bad news. Quote, How can DOJ possibly charge me who did nothing wrong when no other presidents were charged? There's an apostrophe on presidents. We don't know why it's a myth. That's a totally woke apostrophe. We're not going to do the woke grammar in Florida, where if you do the apostrophe when

you actually don't mean possessive, you mean plural. We're just not going to do it. Teachers won't be allowed. We'll we'll fire him right away. OK. When no other presidents were charged, when Joe Biden won't be charged for anything, including the fact that he has eight hundred and fifty boxes, much of it classified and some dating back to his Senate day when even Democrat senators are shocked. Also, President Clinton had documents

and won in court. Crooked Hillary deleted thirty three thousand emails, many classified and wasn't even close to being charged. Only Trump, the greatest witch hunt of all time. So Trump, furious that other presidents haven't been charged. For the crimes Trump committed, OK, this morning, getting even more bonkers on truth, trothing out a lot of agit trash, including, quote, the Marxists and fascists in the DOJ and FBI are going after me at a level and speed never seen before in our capital C country. And I did nothing wrong. First question Can we identify a single FBI Marxist after years of talking about it?

Do we know of a single Marxist in the DOJ? Trump continuing Joe Biden kept keeps thousands of documents in many locations, some illegally taken from skiffs while he was a senator, a big portion of which were classified. He didn't want to give them back and still doesn't. Nothing happens to him with same reasonable prosecutor who correctly exonerated Mike Pence. I have a much different prosecutor, a Trump hater, then Trump going in the direction of saying it's all about impacting Trump's 24 run, saying, quote, It's all about election interference. They don't want to run against me. I ran twice. I did much better the second time, getting millions and

millions more votes than the first a record for a sitting president and I'm leading Biden in the polls by a lot. They are the capital party of capital D disinformation. They are using the DOJ and FBI against me to capital R double G rig. That's a doozy. Capital R double G rig. The 2024 election. They'll hit Hunter with something small to make their strike on me look fair. Nothing about these capital F fascists is fair or honest fight. These things are almost impossible to read. And then lastly. As of an hour ago, although he probably has posted more, quote, they are also going after me as retribution for the Republicans in Congress going after them. The difference is they have created major crimes. I have created none. Now,

for many of you wondering, did we get to the bottom of Obamagate, the biggest political crime of the century, as Trump once said? No, we still don't know what Obamagate is. And so the questions about why Clinton or Obama or Hunter or whoever haven't been charged, it appears as though at this time there is not evidence of criminality. Period. That would be the reason Trump melting down on truth central. We can only hope that justice is done. Did people hear that?

Notice how I'm not saying I hope Trump is thrown in prison and they throw away the key. Blah, blah, blah, blah. What I'm saying is I hope that if the evidence points to criminality. Justice is done. That's called law and order, OK? Not lock this person up despite no evidence of criminality, not lock that person up or kill people, execute people, even absent a guilty verdict. No, it is. I hope that there if there is evidence, nobody is above the law. All of these posts from Troth will be on our Instagram. They will be on TikTok and they will certainly be on Facebook that I promise you. You have to meet our sponsor, Henson Shaving. Henson actually manufactures parts for the International Space Station and the Mars Rover, and they are bringing that exact same precision

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In total, about a year now. I came over first in late April of last year. I spent most of that year or at least half of that year over in Ukraine before heading back over for the holidays and spend time with family. And I've been over here again since March to film with the mining crews, interview soldiers who have fought in Bakhmut and in bed with people on the front line who have been delivering aid to civilians in need. So one of the claims that different folks are making is that the death toll in Ukraine is not being accurately represented. I mean, there's people on the political left that have said this. Donald Trump has said this. Do you have any insight into that?

I guess just generally. So a lot of the estimates that people go off of are the official U.N. estimates. And I'm going to be honest, I've only seen the UN once since I've been here on the ground. The UN are not very visible when it comes to frontline communities in the areas that are most seen death and destruction. And the UN also does not have access to a lot of communities that have seen the worst of the violence this war has brought to Ukraine. They don't have ready and available access to locations like Mariupol or, for example, Bakhmut in cities that have seen high amounts of civilian casualties, Mariupol especially. And the Russians have done a lot of work to cover up their tracks.

People saw as they evacuated Kiev how the soldiers were trying to burn bodies in order to cover up exactly what happened in the torture and the summary executions that were going on in their quote-unquote cleansing operation that's the word they used uh in private communications to describe what they were doing in the kiev oblast not the word i used so i do think that the uh death toll is horribly underestimated by how much i don't know but most estimates that I've seen that are more serious seems to have the civilian death toll much, much higher than the eight to ten to fifteen thousand that the U.N. is estimating at this point. We're talking more in the like hundreds of thousands or at least over one hundred thousand. OK, so that's that's dramatically different and dramatically more

tragic. The demining estimations vary, of course. Of course. Of course. The demining. Talk a little bit about what this is. What are these mines and where what what are the origins of those mines and what is the demining operation? So recently I spent a month embedded with the miners in the Harkiv Oblast and operate in liberated territory. Mostly I was with them as they tried to remove mines that were, you know, anti-personnel mines, PMF ones, which are butterfly mines, which the Soviets use heavily in Afghanistan, anti-tank mines. The PMF ones are notorious in the way that they don't really look like a normal mine. They actually look kind of like a toy. And so in Afghanistan, Afghan children used to be known to pick them up

thinking they were a toy before losing their entire arm, losing their leg. And they're scattered over a lot of civilian areas in this war. And they have been scattered both in Russian-occupied territory and in territory that's controlled by the Ukrainian government. And in the time that i spent with those d miners in the hark of oblast um not only did the miners in our area die but also civilians died in our area from these mines and it was only around one specific small city in the hark of oblast and this is happening all over territories that were occupied by the russians anywhere that is

liberated has to be meticulously cleared by the miners afterwards. But the amount of explosives that we're working with, we're talking about 70 to 100 years of demining work postwar. The 70 year estimate, by the way, I was told four months ago if the war stopped immediately. Wow. So it's probably worse than current estimates. Once this is all over, it'll probably be much worse. And are these mines are they are they more in rural areas where they can be hidden or in what sorts of places are they? They're in all types of locations.

They're in a lot of farms and farm fields. They place a lot of anti-tank mines there because the Russians were scared that there would be a counteroffensive that could punch through those fields. There's a lot of anti-personnel mines in the forest that I've been in. Again, I was filming near power lines that needed to be restored so they could bring power to local communities. And I saw MON-50 mines, which are basically like American claymores. I saw PMF-1s in densely populated communities. And as we were driving by with these deminers through these villages and doing work, on many occasions, civilians would run out to the demining crews and almost beg them to come to their homes and remove the mines that are literally in their backyard. And we're talking

anti-personnel, anti-tank, many of which are booby trapped. So civilians and D miners have a much harder time removing them. What is the process for removing such a mine? It depends on the mine. If it's an anti-personnel mine like a Mon 50, I did record much of the process and actually uploaded it on Twitter if people wanted to go check it out. Usually you have to, for example, a MON-50, every mine's different. You have to identify where the tripwire is. You need to cut the tripwire before going to the detonator and removing the detonator.

But the problem is that's supposed to be the official process. That's how you're supposed to do it. But many of these mines are booby trapped so that when you go through this official process, if you don't notice the other tripwires or the other mines that are attached to it, it can go off and kill the demining crew. When I was in the Harkiv Oblast, we actually lost some SESU workers, emergency service workers, to anti-tank mines that were booby trapped. There was one anti-tank mine, but under it, there were four other anti-tank mines creating an incredible explosion that killed some of our guys over there. What's the radius at which these

things are dangerous? It depends on the mine. If we're talking like a butterfly mine, it's only going to be like maybe like 10, 15 feet. But if we're talking anti-tank mines, it's going to be much greater distance, which can injure and maim and kill a lot more people. And how many mines are put together? Right. Because if again, it was five anti tank mine, so that can kill a lot of people. There are social media videos that are released, and I don't know what point people are trying to make with some of these videos, but I've just seen the videos and the videos are of

almost like idyllic coffee shop scenes in different parts of Ukraine. And I don't know if the argument that's trying to be made is lots of people are ignoring what's going on and just going about their lives or certain parts of the country are completely safe. And this is only affecting part of the country. Can you talk a little bit about whether this dichotomy does exist and whether there are parts where it is just business as usual, hipster coffee shops and flat whites? Sure. So most of these videos originate in Kiev. I've seen a lot of them where it's like, oh, here is like a coffee shop in Kiev or a club in Kiev. Yeah. And if you were to compare what

it's like to be in Kiev, for example, Bakhmut, obviously, the living standards are going to be much different. It's not on directly to frontline, they cannot be shelled directly by Russian artillery, which was a major contributor to a lot of civilian casualties in Kharkiv. When the Russian artillery guns were in front of Kharkiv, they constantly shelled the city. In my opinion, I think it was a deliberate act of revenge due to the fact that they couldn't take the city. And it took a lot of casualties trying to take the city. In my opinion, I think it was a deliberate act of revenge due to the fact that they couldn't take the city, and it took a lot of casualties trying to take the city. And so when those artillery guns are pushed back, that does save a lot of civilian lives. But most, if not all of Ukraine is in range of Russian cruise missiles, the S-300 missiles that they kind of

retrofit to be used as just like rockets to like lob them at the city. They're not terribly accurate, but the point isn't to be accurate. The point is to whittle down Ukraine's air defense. The point, in my opinion, is to terrorize the civilian population. And even though I'm in the supposedly tranquil Kiev, in fact, I'm even in a more tranquil part of Kiev because I'm not in the city itself. I'm in the countryside. But last week, live on stream, a missile passed a few hundred feet over our home and it was caught on stream. I had to end stream because of it. So every part of Ukraine could be hypothetically bombed by the Russians at any time. And that's why I think air defense is so important to protect civilian lives. And I can tell you, since the Patriot air defense has been here in the Kiev Oblast, it has been busy.

Speaker 1.: Hmm. Can you talk about you? You had a situation where a Russian drone spotted you. Can you talk about that? Speaker 3.: Sure. During my last trip while I was here, my first front line in bed, I was going to hang out with the Zaporozhye territorial defense as they went to the forward operating position. That means the last position until the Russians. It was about one to maybe one and a half mile from the Russians to the forward operating position that means the last position until the russians it was about one to maybe one and a half mile from the russians the forward operating

position we were going to um i was going there in what was the equivalent of a soccer mom van painted green that was constantly breaking down but um that's of course due to the fact this territorial defense their local defenders and they don't have a lot of time the best equipment as much as you always see like the tanks and everything in the foreign media, much of that equipment has still yet to arrive in Ukraine. And much of that equipment is being used by, is being stored in there and they're waiting to use it in the counter offensive. And so not everybody has the best equipment and the situation has improved since I've been with them. And I did this as well. But on the way to the frontline, we were told that the position was getting shelled.

So we had to get out of the van and we just kind of hanged out on the side of the road. And then I heard this like weird buzzing sound, like 30 minutes and just kind of waiting on the side of the road, like your phone vibrates or maybe like a small swarm of bees. And I looked at my friend and colleague, Patrick Kilsman, and I asked him like, what do you hear that? And he says, I don't hear it i'm like okay whatever then five seconds later somebody else drone we all have to run into the forest hide there for like three to four minutes nobody knows if it's a suicide drone nobody knows if it has like a grenade attached to it which is going to drop on us we or if it's a spotter drone that's spotting for artillery right so then the

decision is made that we have to run for it we run into the soccer mom van get in drive a few miles uh away before parking back into the force to try to rethink a plan on where to go next um after 15 minutes my friend patrick kilsman is adamant that the artillery we heard in the distance was our former position getting shelled well i never confirmed it but he's adamant that that's what he, that's what happened. Once we were, we decided that, you know, it's too dangerous to be in this area. We get into the soccer mom van again. They try to start it. It breaks down.

So we're there for another five minutes, just hoping to get the soccer mom van, you know, back and ready again. We jump in. It finally, you know, gets running and we go off to SPG nine practice. I'm happy the soccer mom van started. Yeah. To say to say the least, Dylan, have you needed medical attention? I don't mean from injuries sustained while doing this stuff, but I just mean like you've

been there a year. Have you needed to avail yourself of any kind of doctors or the medical system there? And if so, what was that like? No, I've I've thankfully I've never had to get medical attention. There's been a few times where we've been near somebody when they got hurt and we had to apply first aid to them when we were in the Donbass, specifically Kramatorsk, which is a major location the Russians have been bombing and trying to capture. We were with an elderly woman at a dog shelter, I think actually the only functioning dog shelter in the city, which has since been bombed since we were there. There was somebody who needed medical attention, but I've never needed it.

The closest I've needed it is when watching like Tucker talk about it, you know, like maybe an aspirin or something. Speaker 1.: OK, got it. Got what? talk about it, you know, like maybe an aspirin or something. OK, got it. What's the plan for how long to stay there and and when to come home? So I don't know exactly. For me, I kind of I want to keep filming until I feel like I've I've gotten enough. I know I want to be home for Christmas, but I'm probably going to be here again next year as well. I want to keep covering this war until all major hostilities have ceased.

I think that it deserves the coverage. There is a million different stories to tell. And I want to make sure that people can't lie about the type of disgusting that's going on here. Wow. Dylan Burns in Ukraine streaming. Oh, by the way, the streams, are they at 6 p.m. Eastern? But you're there. So like, are you streaming in the middle of the night? Ukraine time? Is that what's going on? Speaker 3 I'm streaming.

I'm streaming from 1 a.m. to late late late late streams. And why that's bad. I'm at I want to concentrate on making sure that this message gets to an American audience because as much as I do have Ukrainian viewers and my Ukrainian audience has certainly grown since I've been covering here. Yeah. The main I don't need to tell Ukrainians that their country is being torn apart. I don't need to tell Ukrainians or explain to them the importance of air defense. They understand it.

They understand it more better than anybody else in the world. Sure. If there's any audience that needs this message, it's the American public who are constantly being lied to about either the, oh, the war is not as serious as they say, or the war crimes aren't as bad as it is, or, oh, you know, it's not really that important. Or, you know, or for example, Tucker Carlson lied about the seven to one numbers for every one Ukrainian, for every one Russian that died, seven Ukrainians in the military died. That's the audience I want to aim at because that's the audience that is being lied to because the Russians want to undercut American support in America for for Ukraine so they can trample across the country, loot, pillage and conquer it.

Speaker 1 Speaker 2 Dylan, really appreciate the work you're doing and stay safe. And let's talk again. Thank you very much. You can get everything you need, but half of Americans don't. And it can really impact how you feel. Our sponsor, Athletic Greens, makes it super easy. I mix one scoop of AG1 from Athletic Greens into water. It tastes great. I get all of the high quality vitamins and minerals I need from whole food sourced ingredients. I don't have to fumble around with bottles, capsules, individual vitamins and things like that. I just don't have the time. You should see what's going on at my house. AG1 simplifies everything. I'm covering my nutritional bases for the entire day. Super easy, easy to stick to as well and dramatically more cost effective than

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That's H.E.L.I.X. Sleep dot com slash Pacman for 20 percent off and two free pillows. The link is in the podcast notes. So Fox News host Jesse Waters has really outdone even the low standards he set for himself with a new baseless conspiracy theory and just wild allegation against Joe Biden in his latest unhinged rant on Fox News. Waters is now claiming that the FBI installed Joe Biden as president as a, quote, intelligence operation after blackmailing Biden for a decade with a fabric, I guess, with a fabricated allegation of bribery. Now, this is this is crazy for a Fox host to say, you know, we see this stuff on other

platforms, Real America's Voice, Newsmax, those types of places. We sometimes see this level of unhinged and baseless conspiracy theory on Fox News presented by a guest. And the host will usually kind of play objective reporter. But from a Fox host, this is actually pretty wacky stuff. So let's take a listen to this and where this why Jesse Waters is doing this, where it's surface. I don't know. Maybe it's a response to some kind of hunger from the Fox News audience for some new red meat conspiracy about Joe Biden. I don't know. But let's listen to it. And once you cover politics for a while, you realize the presidents aren't the powerful ones. It's the people who put the presidents in the White House. They're the powerful ones

that we've always known politicians are puppets. Joe Biden confessed it to a group of kids. I heard you had to get back to the Oval Office. And by the way, the one thing I thought when I got to be president, I get to give orders. But I take more orders than I ever did. And you're right, by the way, like as if that's a smoking gun, that to me just as easily could mean I work for the people who voted for me. Right. I take orders from the voters, which sounds to me very much like something Biden would say or simply joking about the number of demands and people that make demands of a president. Like the idea of that as a smoking gun for this wild conspiracy is laughable.

But let's continue. People installed Biden so that he can take orders, not give them. Joe Biden's been groomed his whole career to take orders. And now that he's literally slept his way to the top, they won't let him go anywhere. What the FBI put their guy in the White House. You think we're just going to let voters decide if he should serve four more years? We can't afford to take that risk. Joe Biden's been an intelligence op since he was vice president. One of the FBI's top informants, a guy with impeccable credentials, a great track record,

reported an allegation that Joe Biden took a $ million dollar bribe right under Barack Obama's nose from a foreign national in exchange for a policy decision. That is not true. They've been blackmailing. Well, you know, I think I should be more accurate. There's no evidence at this time that that's true. You know, it's sort of like when people said, oh, hydroxychloroquine, it's not at initially, at least it wasn't.

It doesn't work for covid. It's right now. There's no evidence it doesn't work for covid. It's right now there's no evidence it doesn't work for covid. Maybe in the future there will be such evidence. There wasn't, by the way, Biden with this for a decade. Well, until a whistleblower came forward and now James Comer wants a document released to Congress and the FBI is caught in a cover up. Yeah, that's the whistleblower. We can't find we don't know where the where the whistleblower is.

This this is particularly absurd and irresponsible. Now, I know many of you are probably saying, David, you know, they do those circus revival things on the weekends and they say stuff like this all the time. You go on to these conspiracy YouTube channels and they say stuff like this on the time they do. This is Fox News and this is a different level of crazy. It's a different level of irresponsible. It's also dangerous and incredibly divisive because underlying this, if I give you the conspiracy theory that the earth is flat, OK, I'm not undermining the legitimacy of our democracy. You could say, well, if you think it should be taught in school or just saying, I think the earth is flat or, you know, there were

two people involved in the killing of JFK instead of one or some. It's not directly undermining our democracy and how presidents are elected and the rule of law. But when you say the FBI put Biden in as an intelligence operation, it had nothing to do with the way people voted. You're fuel fueling paranoia and anger. And we know that Trump supporters already had enough paranoia and anger to do what they did on January 6th based on being unable or unwilling to accept the reality of the defeat of Donald Trump. They also distract from real issues like whatever. Right. I mean, quite literally any issue would be more important than the conspiracy theory that the FBI operated, did an operation in which they put Biden in

the White House. And really, it wasn't Biden who won. It might have been Trump, but it didn't matter because the FBI set it all up. Could be climate change, could be the economy, could be anything. Quite literally anything would be more important than this. And of course, if you say, does Waters have evidence to back this up? He doesn't. What he's referring to is the same anonymous sources that

Trump and others regularly attack and say we shouldn't be listening to dubious documents that don't even say the things they claim. They say maybe his imagination, maybe his desire for something like this to be true or his desire for ratings or I don't know. And of course, nowhere in there is the fact that the numbers with which Joe Biden won, you know, more than seven million votes, obviously, at the electoral level, it depended on a far smaller number of votes, just like Trump's victory depended in 2016, an election which at each individual state was certified. And despite more than 60 cases and the other thing, you would think that in that investigation, the auditing and the forensics

and looking for barbecue sauce on ballots and fibers and all these different things. If this was actually an FBI op, there would be some evidence of that. There would be. And in fact, there is not. So I don't have to tell you that Waters is not a journalist. He actually you know, I'm super clear on my show. I'm not a journalist. I actually you know, I'm super clear on my show. I'm not a journalist. I do commentary, opinion and analysis this year. I'm not doing original reporting.

We look at reporting and we discuss it. We analyze and I give my opinion. That's what this is. Take it or leave it. OK, I'm not doing what your local news reporter does on Fox News. They deliberately blur these lines. And even though Waters sort of presents himself like he's reporting news to you, he's not a journalist and he's not a reporter. He's a propagandist and he regularly tells lies, promulgates disinformation all in service of the right wing agenda that Fox News has made their money on. He's not interested in truth. He's not interested in truth. He's not interested in facts. He's interested in ratings and creating fear and scapegoating, which is the way that Fox News works to serve their pockets, not to serve the public interest and maybe to serve his ego as well. I would probably say that's a factor, too.

I want to look at one more clip of Nikki Haley's recent CNN town hall. I already played for you yesterday on the Monday show, a clip of Nikki Haley who's running for president and for the Republican nomination for president dead on arrival, has no shot, maybe running for vice president more than she's running for president. I already played a clip for you of Nikki Haley sort of going anti transtrans. I have another clip I want to look at in more detail because it's so dishonest and incorrect and dangerous and harmful. As the Daily Beast reports, Nikki Haley blamed teen suicides on trans kids in locker rooms, trans kids in locker rooms. And this all came during the segment about how do you define woke? I'm going to play this clip for

you and see if you can find anything that's true here. Take a listen. Want to start with biological boys playing in girls sports. That's one thing. The fact that we have gender pronoun classes in the military now. I mean, all of these things that are pushing what a small minority want on the majority of Americans. It's too much. It's too much. I mean, the idea that we have biological boys playing in girls' sports, it is the women's issue of our time.

What? My daughter ran track in high school. I don't even know how I would have that conversation with her. How are we supposed to get our girls used to the fact that biological boys are in their locker rooms? What? And then we wonder why a third of our teenage girls seriously contemplated suicide last

year. We should be growing strong girls, confident guys. We shouldn't be surprised about the level of suicidal ideation and attempts among teen girls when we see biological boys in the locker rooms. Now, it's hard to find a more dishonest, incorrect and harmful thing to be said. Now, before we even delve into the suicidal ideation component of this, someone wrote to me the other day with a really good point. And this isn't this isn't about stereotyping trans people. This is just sort of like a reality. There are very few trans people first and foremost. And then you say, OK, when we go further, how many trans youth are there playing sports?

Obviously there are, but it is a very small percentage of trans youth, which is a very small percentage of trans people, which is a very small percentage of the population. It doesn't mean this doesn't exist. It doesn't mean we don't need to deal with it with empathy and empiricism and all of the things I advocate for. But the idea that this is the issue of our time is just laughable. Now, let's go on to the data. There is no evidence that trans girls in locker rooms or in sports in general is causing suicidal ideation in teenage girls. There is no evidence of that. In fact, studies show that LGBT students have higher rates of reported suicide attempts themselves compared to heterosexual and cis gendered students.

OK, so it's the opposite of what Nikki Haley is saying. The real causes of teen suicide and suicidal ideation seem to be a combination of gun violence, concerns about the world, lack of connection in many ways, you know, violence, hate, bullying. And yes, unrestricted what Cal Newport calls unrestricted access to social media seems to be really, really damaging to teens in general and to teen girls in particular. And so this is a real issue. Suicide amongst teens is a real issue. Nikki Haley is using a transphobic trope to appeal to a conservative base to undermine the dignity of trans people, ignoring the scientific consensus, ignoring reality, ignoring a lot of the empirical

research we have on this issue. So she should be ashamed of herself. She's overtly spreading falsehoods out of desperation to get attention. And it's all because her campaign is failing and failing very quickly. I think it's important to understand here that if Nikki Haley's campaign was doing really well, my guess is she wouldn't all of a sudden be focusing on woke and on trans. If we look at the latest data, Nikki Haley's polling four point four zero path even to catching up to DeSantis, never mind to actually catching up to Donald Trump. So that's what this is all about. It is a desperate and very, very troubling search for relevance. And meanwhile, we continue receiving more and more data that anti woke may be a really

silly tactic for these Republican elected officials. We've been covering the anti woke movement being in shambles. And we have another data point in this that I want to show you right now. A new Gallup study finds that same sex marriage support is at an all time high, 71 percent in the United States. The highlights here are this figure matches the highest recorded one in history, which was last year. Support is lowest among Republicans and weekly churchgoers. If you're a Republican, only a 49 percent chance you support gay marriage. If you go to church weekly, only a 41 percent. Young adults and Democrats are the group's most supportive of gay marriage. If you

look at the historical chart, this goes back to 1996. You see that in 1996 there was 27 percent support for gay marriage. And in other words, the belief that same sex couples should be recognized under the law, just like opposite sex couples that has climbed and climbed and climbed all the way up to 71 percent, 71 percent. If you look at different groups, you find that in terms of church attendance, the more you go to church, the less likely you are to support gay marriage. Women slightly more than men support gay marriage, but the numbers are very, very, very close. And then basically from 50 years of age and up, you're less likely to support gay marriage. The group most likely to support gay marriage is

those 18 to 29. If you went to college, you're more likely to support gay marriage. The group most likely to support gay marriage is those 18 to 29. If you went to college, you're more likely to support gay marriage than if you didn't. Obviously, Democrats more likely than independents and Republicans to support it. Regionally, we see that the South has the lowest support for gay marriage. So what does this tell us? This tells us tells us a number of different things. Number one, it tells us that the so-called culture war that the right loves to say they're prevailing in when it comes to so-called boys and girls, sports and woke ideology and drag and all of these things. The right is losing. You can't find any empirical data that the right is winning.

You ask about abortion support for abortion being legal in most situations is higher than ever during the Roe v. Wade era. Today, today, support for gay marriage higher than ever. You ask people, do you think we've done enough? Not enough or the right amount when it comes to making trans people feel welcome in society. The majority says we have either done the right amount or not enough. That's the and that's not the anti woke position. I hate to break it to these folks. So that's why the right is trying to steal elections rather than win them, they will likely ramp up their fascistic rhetoric.

And it is in the data. You need only look at all of this data we have to understand why for DeSantis and Nikki Haley and Pence now seems to be doing it. The anti woke agenda is not going to win them the presidency. That's for sure. They need to first figure out how to defeat Donald Trump. I am very interested to see more as a curiosity than anything else. Whether Chris Christie, once he enters the race, runs on anti woke. My instinct is that he will not but remains to be seen. And we're going to watch it very closely. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two.

David P. Our friend the Eggman called in the Eggman, as you may know, is a Jewish gentleman from a rural New York state. He is reporting an anti-Semitic incident as he was considering buying a used car. Let's listen to the Eggman story. Hi, Dave. I test drove a car that I was going to buy with a private seller. During the test drive, the guy made anti-Semitic comments and anti-LGBTQ comments. Really disgusting. When we finished the test drive, I told him in the Wegmans parking lot to his face

that things he said were vile and disgusting and I would never buy a car from him. He just stared at me, said nothing. I drove away. He pulled up next to me at the traffic light, spit in my face in the window, cursed me out, anti-Semitic stuff, anti-LGBTQ, yelled at me, a bunch of shit, spit in my window. I kind of chased him down, but the dude was very scared. He drove over, curved, evaded me. That was definitely a hate crime, right? Dave, should I call the police and report it? I do have his actual name from right? Dave, should I call the police and report it? I do have his actual name from Facebook marketplace. Or should I just blow it off?

Because that's how things are in western New York. Shalom. Well, shalom to the egg man. So here's my thought on this. I am not a lawyer nor a police officer. The I see two possible crimes here spitting, I guess, through that was one hell of a loogie spitting through out his window and into the Eggman's window. That's that's a lot.

But that seems like that would be a crime. And then I don't know if this is the guy driving over the curb in an erratic attempt to get away from the Eggman. That maybe is a crime. I don't know if the Eggman was chasing this guy in his car. It's possible the Eggman committed some crime. I don't I don't know about that. So listen, I'm going to leave this one to the audience. Should the Eggman report this to the police and let them handle it or not? I want to hear from you. Leave a comment on YouTube. Maybe make a post on the subreddit.

People can have a discussion. That is a hell of a situation. Hell of a situation. I've been in a lot of anti-Semitic situations, but none, none quite like that. But glad that the egg man is safe on today's bonus show. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Cornel West has announced that he is running for president under the People's Party umbrella, a party that is not on the ballot. They have no ballot access in any state. Will be very interesting discussion on the bonus show. I'm sure YouTube has altered its policy to allow false claims about past U.S. presidential elections. What does this mean? And do they really mean it? And lastly, Robert Hansen, arguably the most damaging FBI spy in

history, has been found dead in his prison cell. I know quite a bit about Robert Hansen. We actually interviewed on this program the FBI agent who was tasked with catching Robert Hansen, played by Ryan Phillippe eventually in the movie adaptation of that story. A very interesting situation, an incredible story. And we will discuss it on today's bonus show. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. It's very cheap, folks, and it's our number one source of funding. I hope to see you on the bonus show in a few minutes.