The David Pakman Show - 7/13/23: Fox News brutally sued again, FBI hearings implode

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Ruth Ben-Ghiat, internationally acclaimed historian, Professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University, and author of "Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present," joins David to discuss the authoritarian slide of the Republican Party, and much more. Get her book: https://amzn.to/3JW3aSq -- Republican FBI hearings, meant to make FBI Director Christopher Wray look bad, backfire spectacularly -- Fox News is hit with another major lawsuit, this time from Ray Epps, who has been a target of the right for some time now -- Daily Wire right-winger Michael Knowles declares that "science is mostly fake" and "condoms are gay" -- The 2024 election is increasingly chaotic as an RFK Jr. dinner devolves into flatulence, and Cornel West's campaign is rattling some Democrats -- Donald Trump again claims that President Joe Biden is using cocaine in a disgusting interview -- Donald Trump is massively triggered by Chris Christie's attacks on him, leading Trump to rant uncontrollably on Truth Social -- MyPillow Mike Lindell is so desperate to keep his company afloat that he's now trying to advertise on The David Pakman Show -- Voicemail caller suggests buying MyPillow Mike Lindell's sprinter van for Luke Beasley to have to drive to Trump rallies -- On the Bonus Show: Plastic surgeon banned from medicine after live-streaming surgeries, MSNBC host blames Biden's staff for setting him up to stumble and fall, upcoming interviews, the latest version of the book, much more... 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 🛡️ The first 100 people to use code PAKMAN will get 60% off of Incogni at http://incogni.com/pakman 💰 Public.com: Start getting a 5% yield on your cash at https://public.com/pakman 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code PAKMAN for FREE blades at https://hensonshaving.com/pakman 🥄 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off Magic Spoon at https://magicspoon.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

. Republicans held more hearings yesterday. These are hearings where Republicans are determined to show that the FBI has been weaponized by the left against the right. The first problem that Republicans had yesterday in making that case is that they had testimony from Christopher Wray. Christopher Wray is the director of the FBI. Christopher Wray is a Republican. Christopher Wray votes for Republicans Republicans, and Christopher Ray was the selection of Republican President Donald Trump to lead the FBI. And yet this did not stop Republicans from making fools of themselves with all sorts of allegations. You're defending Hunter Biden. You're covering for the Bidens. You're targeting Republicans, none of which are based in any actual evidence. We're going to look

at these clips. And the point that I really want to hit home here for you is that this is our money being spent. We talk about, you know, I pay taxes. I don't like my money being used for so many weapons. I don't like my money being used for wars. Fine. I agree. I also don't like my money used for political theater that goes nowhere, uncovers nothing. And it is this sort of thing. Now, our friend, Congressman Ted Lieu, a Democrat, he had a brilliant line of questioning. We're going to get to the Republican questioning in a moment, which was which was cuckoo. Ted Lieu had a brilliant line of questioning here that speaks for itself. Let's take a listen.

Trump adviser Roger Stone was convicted in a federal court, correct? That's my recollection. Trump donor Elliott Brady was convicted in a federal court, correct? Also my recollection. The attorney general at the time for those two convictions was Bill Barr. Which president nominated Bill Barr for attorney general? President Trump. Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was convicted on two separate occasions in a federal court, correct?

I believe that's correct. The attorney general at the time for Cohen's second conviction was Matthew Whitaker. Which president appointed Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general? President Trump. Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was convicted in a federal court, correct? Yes. Trump's former deputy campaign manager, Mr. Gates, was convicted in a federal court, correct? That's my recollection.

Trump's campaign foreign policy advisor, George Papadopoulos, was convicted in a federal court, correct? True. Yes, I think he pled guilty, yes. The attorney general at the time of those three cases was Jeff Sessions. Which president nominated Jeff Sessions for attorney general? President Trump. You were their FBI director for

all of those cases at the time. Which president nominated you? President Trump. Okay. What these facts show is we don't have a two-tiered system of justice. We have one department of justice that goes after criminals regardless of party ideology. All of these folks were convicted under the administrations of three separate Republican attorneys general. It is not the fault of the FBI that Donald Trump surrounded himself with criminals. This is, of course, such an obvious point that I can't believe needs to be made. But the vast majority of those who were convicted under this supposedly weaponized FBI were convicted under the leadership of a Republican FBI director and Republican attorneys general. Now this was like the best moment of this entire hearing.

We then get to some of the cartoonish moments. Here is Republican Congressman Chip Roy trying to make the case that the FBI has behaved in a tyrannical way. And FBI Director Ray struggling to get a word in edgewise, but managing to explain why that's not the case. Your job is to protect the American people from a tyrannical FBI storming the home of an American family. I could not disagree more with your description of the FBI as tyrannical. You don't believe it's tyrannical that FBI agents were a part of storming a father's home in suburban Philadelphia? I'm the gentleman. I wish they would let witnesses answer questions.

The time of the gentleman has expired. The witness may respond, and then we'll move to our next witness. Sir, respectfully, they did not storm his house. They came to his door. They knocked on his door and identified themselves. They asked him to exit. He did without incident. Whenever our agents, well, not at gunpoint, whenever our agents conduct an arrest, they are armed. Our agents are armed virtually all the time, as you may remember from your own experience as a prosecutor. What's so funny about these arguments that they make? These are the arguments that went on.

The left concern is expressed generally about, you know, sometimes when some of these warrants are served, do we really need so much firepower? And Republicans go, absolutely. It's dangerous out there for members of law enforcement. They must be armed at all time. This is just the way it is. Now, all of a sudden, armed agents, by which we mean like they carry handguns, as all of these individuals do, showed up and knocked on the door.

Oh, my goodness, that's oppressive use of force. It's militarized. Where were you guys were for a decade? We've been talking about the militarization of police forces, for example, pathetic hypocrites. Then we go to Harriet Hageman. She accused Christopher Wray of discriminating against Republicans. And he explains I'm a Republican and just none of this makes any sense. Mr. Wray from the Twitter files, Missouri versus Biden disclosures, the Durham investigation and report and exposure and collapse of the Russian Russian collusion hoax. The American people fully understand that there is a two tiered justice system that has been weaponized to persecute people based on their political beliefs.

Of course, most people don't believe that. And there's no evidence of that. And that you have personally worked to weaponize the FBI against conservatives. I asked Mr. Durham about this, to which he answered, I don't think that things can go too much further with the view that law enforcement, particularly the FBI or Department of Justice, runs a two-tiered system of justice. The nation can't stand under those circumstances. Director Ray, what are you prepared to do to reform federal law enforcement in a manner which earns back the trust of the American people? Well, first off, I would disagree with your characterization of the FBI and certainly your description of my own approach. The idea that I'm biased against

conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background as to how we are approaching our work of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution. It starts with me having emphasized to all of our folks over and over and over again in everything we do that we need to do the right thing in the right way. And that means following the facts wherever they lead, no matter who likes it. This is your money being wasted. The money that is being wasted on this hearing could go to almost anything and it would be a better investment than this. Then we go to Matt Gates, congressman from Florida. Matt Gates tries to make the case that the FBI is just simply not trusted right now. And Christopher Wray says so many people,

even from your state, Congressman Gates, are desperate to work for us. People trusted the FBI more when J. Edgar Hoover was running the place than when you are. And the reason is because you don't give straight answers. You give answers that that later a court deems aren't true. And then at the end of the day, you won't criticize an obvious shakedown when it's directly in front of us. And it appears as though you're whitewashing the conduct of corrupt people. Respectfully, Congressman, in your home state of Florida, the number of people applying to come work for us and devote their lives working for us is over up over 100 percent. We're deeply proud. And then Gates tries to pin protecting the Bidens on Christopher Wray, of which there

is, of course, no evidence. Speaker 4 I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father. Sounds like a shakedown, doesn't it, Director? I'm not going to get into commenting on that. You seem deeply uncurious about it, don't you? Almost suspiciously uncurious. Are you

protecting the Bidens? Absolutely not. The FBI does not, has no interest in protecting anyone. You won't answer the question about whether or not that's a shakedown. And everybody knows why you won't answer it, because to to the millions of people who will see this, they know it is. And your inability to acknowledge that is deeply revealing about you. But let's go. Now, the truth is, it would be completely inappropriate for Christopher Wray in a setting like this to just weigh in on the meaning of alleged quotes about it. It's completely outside of the scope of what the FBI director can and should be doing. But what we have to remember is that to me and to most of you, we see this and we go, this is nothing. This is like when you pour water on cotton candy and it just evaporates into

nothing. It's not literal evaporation. OK, it crumbles into nothing. But the MAGA people will see this and they'll go, Ray is suspicious. It is suspicious that he won't weigh in on these things just out of the blue that Matt Gaetz brings up a waste of my taxpayer money, a waste of your taxpayer money. But to some degree, it is accomplishing its goal, which is to weaponize the hearings against federal law enforcement. More bad news for Fox News. Fox News has been hit with a brutal lawsuit from Ray Epps. Ray Epps is the sort of, you know, ill-advised dude who has been accused by many on the right

of being some kind of FBI operative of fomenting the January 6th riots. The argument that many on the right have made is that it was an inside job. And this guy, Ray Epps, was there to entrap and encourage individuals to riot on January 6th. We now have a lawsuit. We expected this lawsuit. I told you about this months ago. Arizona man cited in conspiracy theories, sues Fox News for defamation. New York Times reports Ray Epps, a two time Trump voter, says Tucker Carlson reportedly sorry, repeatedly and falsely named him as a covert government agent who incited the January 6th attacks. Tucker Carlson is gone from Fox. And one of the things I told you when Tucker Carlson was fired was that it may be to a degree a preemptive measure with the expectation that Ray Epps is going to sue for defamation and that as part of their defense, Fox News wants to be

able to say we got rid of him already. This complaint was filed in Superior Court in Delaware. That is the same place where Fox was recently handed that seven hundred and eighty seven million dollar judgment against them from Dominion Voting Systems. Fox News was asked for comment about this lawsuit. They did not give one. This is a major, major problem for Fox News. Here is a reminder of some of the things Tucker has said about Ray Epps. What exactly was the role of Ray Epps in the chaos of January 6th?

We ask because Ray Epps is on video on both January 5th and January 6th, encouraging people to enter the Capitol building, which is to say to break federal law. And as he says this in this video, you'll notice people in the crowd immediately identify him as a quote Fed. Watch. We need to go in to the Capitol. Let's go. I'm going to put it out there.

I'm probably going to go in to the capital let's go I'm going to put it out there I'm probably going to go to jail tomorrow we need to go into the capital into the capital what peaceful

fed fed fed fed fed fed fed fed peaceful So there's more of this type of stuff. And Tucker Carlson egging on the idea that this is an FBI agent of some kind. Now, there is no question that as a two time Trump voter who went to D.C. on January 5th, 2021, Ray Epps is the epitome of the dimwitted Maga that that's the truth. OK, however, there is no evidence whatsoever that we are dealing with an FBI agent here. And Tucker Carlson did this on multiple occasions.

Here he was during an interview on November 1st, 2021 with Elijah Schaefer, a name you may notice because of more recent news doesn't matter here. Listen to this. So why were they so intent on shutting down your reporting and the reporting, the honest reporting of others? So you were happen to be standing very close to a man called Ray Epps, who is a leader of what we're told is a right-wing extremist group. He has not been indicted. Based on what you saw personally, did Ray Epps seem to be encouraging people to break the law that day? 100%. I did not see any violence occurring. I don't think anybody that was at the front lines went with the intent to do anything other than to protest peacefully. There were barriers, but there was one individual who was whispering in people's ears, the very people that instigated the attacks, the ones who pushed the barrier, who are being prosecuted for injuring a Capitol

officer, a female who wasn't wearing a helmet, who still has head injuries to this day. I found out. All right. So the point is, it was all Ray Epps. Ray Epps did the whole thing. It turned out that none of those claims were true. There's no evidence for any of those claims. And this has genuinely destroyed the life of Ray Epps as he is now the target of so many of these right wing nuts. So he is now suing Fox News. I'm not a defender of Ray Epps. I think Ray Epps voted the wrong way when he voted for Trump twice. I think Ray Epps is a MAGA tool, but there is not evidence that he's an FBI agent. And indeed, if he can show my life was demonstrably damaged by people like Tucker Carlson going

after me and saying these things, he would be entitled under the law to damages. Another problem for Fox News. We're going to follow it. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube. We're going to take a quick break and come back with plenty more for you. People in my audience trying to quit smoking or vaping, this is for you. You can't vape or smoke inside. You're tired of people seeing you put those little pouches in your lip. There is a nicotine alternative that people won't notice to help you quit. Zipix nicotine toothpicks are sponsor.

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Use code Pacman for 60 percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. Science is mostly fake and condoms are kind of gay is the latest analysis, if I can call it that, from The Daily Wire's great thinker, Michael Knowles. You might remember this guy because I've been on his show a couple of times. I stopped doing it because the number of of horrible threats and anti-Semitic comments I would get when I appeared relative to the upside, which was essentially nothing, got to the point where I just started turning down the invitations and they

stopped inviting me. But that's the Michael Knowles I'm talking about. I'm going to play two clips for you here. These clips are important because this is more than just, I don't know, you know, Tucker Carlson's immigrants make the country dirty. This actually goes to the attack on some of the foundations that allow us to create a factual undergirding for discussions. When you put forward such a distorted and dishonest view of the world, there's very little that we can actually talk about or sort out because we have no shared basis. In fact, I'm going to play these clips. Then we're going to talk about them. Here's the first one about science on the cultural front. a man like this should be ashamed to present

himself in this way in public. We used to have standards and norms that discouraged perverted men like this from presenting themselves in these perverted ways with the pink hair and the psycho affect openly talking about chopping up little kids. Men should be terrified to do that sort of thing. And if they have any of these absolutely perverted and sadistic desires, they should keep them to themselves and they should work on themselves and try to cast those demons out of their bodies. That's the cultural level of this, of course. But then there is the even deeper level that I haven't heard a lot of people acknowledge, which is this is yet another reminder that science is mostly fake. Not that scientism or the politicization of science or whatever other squishy language the more centrist kind of people

want to grant. But the whole endeavor, the whole endeavor of the scientific revolution, the premise of which is that reality is fundamentally physical, that is flawed. It's not true. The modern scientific culture has given us certain nice things, but it's given us a lot of

bad things as well. All right. It's mostly fake, he says. And then he goes on to say that condoms are kind of gay. Why did Gallup show a seven point drop in support for same sex relations of any kind? Because people are beginning to pull on the thread of transing the kids and realizing that because ideas have consequences, bad consequences come from bad ideas. And so they're going all the way back, and forget redefining marriage or whatever, you go all the way back to the beginning

of the sexual revolution. And you go all the way back to contraception. There were two cases, Eisenstadt and Griswold. First was Griswold in 1965, then Eisenstadt comes around in 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade. And Griswold finds First was Griswold in 1965. Then Eisenstadt comes around in 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade. And Griswold finds a right to condoms within a marriage. Where is that in the Constitution? I have no idea, but some libs on the court discovered that magically in 1965. But they said, but there is no right to condoms outside of marriage.

Then seven years later, the court discovers, oh, actually, there was more invisible ink in the Constitution. And actually, there is a right to condoms outside of marriage. OK, maybe you like condoms. Maybe you don't like condoms. I don't know where you're going to find that in the Constitution. I think a lot of people are beginning to notice that the contraceptive mentality is the beginning of the pride mentality. By the way, if you're wondering what this guy's talking about, he's completely out of his mind. The question is, is it is it a character he's playing or does he believe this stuff? But it doesn't matter. Let's listen to the last few seconds. Because the contraceptive mentality divorces sex from the consequences of sex. It introduces a sterile sexual ethic.

Which is exactly what gave us the pride movement. There is no distinction here. If you can't read between the lines, the conclusion that one draws is that condoms are kind of gay. OK, so this is a very unserious person, like extraordinarily unserious. Let's focus in on science is mostly fake rather than condoms are kind of gay because both of these things are stupid. But science is mostly fake, has particular implications that I want to discuss. Science is not a collection of facts that are real or fake.

OK, science is a process of investigation, discovery and revision. The revision part is a big component to this. If you go and talk to whoever his pastor is or whatever, and you say, hey, I want to talk about revising a bunch of the stuff that you preach, you're going to be looked at like you have two heads. OK, because the revision aspect is actually a big part of what makes science such an effective process. Science is real, but sometimes it doesn't have the answers or the answers change over time or it takes a while before we get our first provisional answers. And in a sense, everything in science is provisional to the extent that even when we have a theory, which is the empirically

based accepted explanation for a phenomenon, it can still be subject to revision. Substituting some religious text or ethic or morality for science is not a valid and respectable alternative, which is what underlies much of what people who say science is mostly fake actually want. Science is a human endeavor, and that means it's subject to the limitations and sometimes biases of the people doing it. But the whole point of the scientific process is to limit and restrict the impact of those biases. There is a real you could call it a crisis in science today, which is the replication crisis that refers to the difficulty of sometimes reproducing the results of many scientific

studies. There are a bunch of meta studies that say, here's 100 studies. We tried to replicate the results. We were only able to do it in half of them. So are half of the other studies actually legitimate or bogus or what? What's the issue? This affects many fields. This affects medicine, economics, sociology. It's not just what you would think of as science. And there are many possible causes for the replication crisis. And this could include issues with statistical methods or publication bias that favors positive or novel results or the pressure to publish in academia in order to continue getting grant money or lack of transparency and openness and sharing data or issues with peer review or whatever the case may be. So science isn't perfect in terms of always giving us

the completely right answer immediately, but it certainly isn't fake. And unlike the religious texts that some of these people worship, science doesn't claim to be a final answer or a dogma. Science claims to be a process that, if done correctly over time, narrows and points us towards what we would consider, yes, a material or physical reality, which Michael Knowles denies is a thing. So saying that science is mostly fake is exactly the type of simplistic black and white thinking that these MAGA people want, love and often build the justification for their own movement on. And Michael Knowles, you know, listen, I don't think he's stupid. I actually wonder whether this is a character he's playing and he doesn't mean any of this stuff because it's profitable.

He used to be an actor and that didn't go well. Is this just another version of acting? And I don't say this to give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm just saying whether he believes this stuff or not, it's equally damaging. But given his background, I find it possible that this is just a character he's playing and he doesn't mean any of this stuff. I don't know. Be interesting to know more about. We have growing chaos aside from the Republican primary that's going on. We have growing chaos on the left. And this is within the Democratic primary, but also on the left outside of it. Let's talk a little bit about Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West.

Couple interesting articles. Let's start with Cornel West. There's an article in The Hill by Hannah Trudeau, which says Democratic jitters grow over Cornel West's third party bid. And the article writes, Cornel West's third party presidential campaign is stirring up unpleasant flashbacks to 2016 for members of the Democratic Party, some of whom are growing anxious about the effect it could have on Biden's reelection. West, a philosopher, Ivy League academic and leftist, recently announced

he is newly registered with the Green Party as he seeks to challenge Biden and the eventual Republican nominee for the White House. Now, some prominent figures supporting Biden from the head of the DNC to veteran campaign hands are already sounding the alarm about his quixotic White House run. Quote, This is not the time in order to experiment, said DNC Chairman Jamie Harrison. This is not the time to play around on the margins. Seven years ago, when Hillary lost to Trump, many blamed Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee, as a factor that contributed to her defeat. Heading into 24, Democrats worry West could emerge a similar spoiler by earning just enough votes to fracture the coalition Biden needs to win. I believe that that is a mathematically reasonable thing to worry

about. I think the case for Cornel West is really weak, like really, really weak. And in practice, all he can really do is help Donald Trump. Now, I know all of the theoretical philosophizing about, well, we need this and we need that in order to obtain valid access and then funding and all these different things. I'm with it. I want multiple strong parties in the United States. I don't love the Green Party for reasons I've said before, but that's not what this is about. We have to understand. Guys, do you remember 2016? Do you remember 2016 when I and many others were saying, folks, we can't play around the margins as Jamie Harrison is saying here. We can't play around the margins. If Trump wins, he will get

one, two, three Supreme Court picks and we may have a right wing Supreme Court for a generation. They'll go after abortion rights. They'll go after voting rights. Oh, David, sir, I'm not going to cry because what you're saying is overblown. It's not going to happen. It happened. It happened.

It is not about blame. It's about math. And so right now, are we really going to risk doing the same thing again? Are we really going to do that again and potentially see a Trump or DeSantis presidency, which in the next segment, we're going to talk to Ruth Ben-Ghiat about the authoritarian dystopia that that would be. Is that really what we're going to do? OK, so that's Cornel West. Meanwhile, we have the Bobby Kennedy campaign. There is a whacked out article in page six about how he had a sort of ritzy Upper East Side dinner and it devolved into farting. I'm not exaggerating here. It devolved into farting. A guy named hold on. What was his name? Former gossip

columnist Doug Deckert became. here's a picture of the guy. He became enraged when the topic of climate change came up during this Bobby Kennedy fundraising dinner. He called it a hoax and then he let rip a loud, prolonged fart while yelling as if to underscore his point. I'm farting at that point. The room, including former congressman and guest of this program, Dennis Kucinich, seemed stunned and unsure about whether

Deckert was farting directed at someone else or in general at global warming. All right. It's a wacky, wacky, wacky article and a crazy thing. But the point here is there is a lot happening within the Democratic primary and on the margins of it that seemingly can only help Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis become the next president of the United States. All I want, I support everything everybody does. I love everything and I love everyone. I just want us to really keep in mind that all of this nonsense might get Trump or DeSantis elected. And that would be really bad for the United States and for the world. OK, make sure you're subscribed on YouTube. Make sure you're following me on threads.

The show is on TikTok. We're everywhere. Follow us. It's all free. The show is on tick tock. We're everywhere. Follow us. It's all free. It's all really helpful to us. If you've been getting crushed in the markets lately, like many people have, you were probably happy to hear that Treasury yields have been surging right now. You can get a five percent yield on Treasury bills, which is higher than most high yield savings accounts I've seen. And unlike a high yield savings account, treasury bills are a fixed rate asset. So you know what you're getting at the time of purchase. But buying U.S. treasuries can be very complicated, or at least it was because our sponsor, public dot com lets you buy Treasury bills in seconds

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it once. And it's awesome. Go to Henson shaving dot com slash Pacman. Add a razor and a hundred pack of blades to your cart. Then enter the code Pacman to get the hundred blades for free. That is a three year supply. That's H.E.N. S.O.N. Shaving dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. It's great to welcome back to the program today, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who's an internationally acclaimed historian, speaker, political commentator. She's a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University and also author of the book Strongman Mussolini to the Press at present. Ruth, so great to have you back on. I appreciate it.

It's nice to be back again. So last time we had you on, it was after the 2020 election, but before the January 6th attempt at a person who didn't win becoming president of the United States, which is quite an authoritarian thing to do. You know, one of the things that I've been thinking about as the 2024 campaign gets going is that both Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are putting forth significantly authoritarian ideas that many of their followers seem to support, although I don't know that many of their followers would actually identify as authoritarians. I'll give you a couple of examples. Of course, Trump trying to steal an election he didn't win and stay in power would be high on that list. But

also the idea that the government could tell Twitter you have to publish COVID misinformation rather than letting Twitter decide what they do or don't want to publish the the rhetoric related to NATO that we've heard from Donald Trump. Six week abortion bans in Florida telling women what they can or can't do in consultation with their doctors, instead politicians telling them what to do. The book bans punishing Disney because they said that we have a position about the bill that you passed. All of this is extraordinarily authoritarian. But I don't know that the identity of many of their supporters is to their belief authoritarian. What do you make of that? Excuse me.

That is a great question, because one of the things that the Republican Party has been, and not just the party, the whole Republican media ecosystem has been very successful at, is presenting unfreedom as freedom. So Ron DeSantis says, Florida is the place for freedom. I'm a freedom defender. Donald Trump and his cronies have actually managed, with the help of former Fox host Tucker Carlson and others,

to turn January 6th, which I see as a violent coup attempt, into a patriotic act so that the thugs who, you know, bashed in the heads of Capitol police officers are now in jail. They are now quote political prisoners, people who are unjustly being, you know, punished by a tyrannical government. So that's that discourse, which unfortunately is bad news because Mussolini was the first to say that fascism is freedom and democracy is tyranny. And Putin says it and Orban says it. And now, of course, the GOP is connected to these trends and parties. It says it too. So you're right that

the people who are approving of this brutish, you know, attempt to they still there's no remorse about January 6th. They approve of, you know, DeSantis clear authoritarian moves on business, on gay rights, everything else they think they're defending freedom. What do you make of the idea that Donald Trump has put out a bunch of times now about executing drug dealers? There was this incredible moment during his interview with Brett Baier where Trump actually talked about, I believe it was Alice Johnson, a particular individual whose sentence he

commuted or pardoned as if that was a great thing. And Brett Baier pointed out, well, under your new idea, she would have been killed. And Trump was like visibly confused because it was like, oh, yeah, that kind of is true. What what do you make of this idea? This is right out of the authoritarian playbook. The person I mean, many authoritarians have executed drug dealers, but Trump has also praised the Chinese criminal justice system because it can have swift executions of drug dealers and others. was Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who was a total thug, who embraced his lawlessness in ways, he marketed himself as lawless in ways that have a parallel with Trump. And he became famous for, you know, executing drug dealers and having kind of the police kind of blend together

with militias, a lot of like kind of paramilitary activity. And so when you get to a point where you're celebrating this mixing between official law enforcement and making some of those like we have our Customs and Border Patrol part of the there's a lot of radicalized people there. And when drug dealer when you have this line that you should execute drug dealers and in the states, it's connected to this like crisis on the southern border discourse that DeSantis is now using an Abbott that is highly authoritarian. But it's one of the oldest things. Again, these people are not original. They are taking from an established playbook. What do you make of the role that the resurgence in anti LGBT and anti trans rhetoric plays in all of this? I we spoke to Rosie O'Donnell earlier this week and she talked about how it's not a small step backwards that she thinks we've seen over the last six years.

It's a a small step backwards that she thinks we've seen over the last six years. It's a big one. I noticed that if you look at video from CPAC and all of these other events, often the lines that get the most applause and they get a standing ovation are things being said about pronouns, things being said about sports, men and women's sports, et cetera. And it it seems that this is not just a result of the fact that economic policy isn't being talked about by Republicans. So they're filling it with this. I think that's part of it. But there's something else to this as well, isn't there? Yes, it's I'm glad you mentioned this. This is the discourse about civilization. All of these right-wing movements from fascism onward couch themselves as saving civilization. It's actually white Christian civilization, white Christian straight civilization.

And one of the things when you write a book that goes over 100 years, Strongman is the first book to put Trump in the context of 100 years of authoritarian history. You see these patterns. And guess what the through line of authoritarian history is? It's homophobia. There were even, I even found leaders like Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, who when he first came in, he did a ton to help women. He wanted women to be have economic equality, he educated them. Then he became, of course, a tyrant against everybody took everybody's rights away. But the one thing that every right left wing tyrant does is go after

gays. So so that there's that historical precedent. And gays become, as per the Kremlin playbook, a lot of this discourse in the GOP today is taken from Russia, sometimes via Hungary, where then trans people, which is more a 21st century phenomenon in terms of the political discourse, become symbols of everything falling apart, of everything mixing in these kind of primitive fears that go back to fascism, that, you know, men have to be men, women have to be women. And if not, the whole, quote, civilization falls apart. So that's how that's how I see this. And the other part, which is that as more Latinos and even black and brown people actually go toward the GOP, there's a big surge of Latino men voting for the GOP. Race is still extremely prominent. It is the main factor for many in the GOP. But trans people are, quote, easy enemy. And authoritarians know that everybody

loves to have an enemy and they play on people's some people's desire to hate. So that's it's it's a convenient and easy way to get people outraged. And so that's partly why it's it's attained such prominence. I'm curious your thoughts now going from the LGBT and trans stuff to anti-Semitism. I'm curious about some of your views here. You know, when Trump was president, there was a narrative from some that, listen, Trump's son in law is Jewish and he seems to like him and his daughter converted and his grandkids are Jewish and bubba bubba bubba bubba with Saudi Arabia. You sometimes hear, hey, listen, even the Saudi royal family now is doing business with

Israel and Jews and whatever. But underlying all of this stuff, there's often this thing of they very often still harbor the exact same views that have been floating around for a long time. But it's almost like part of the anti-Semitism is they see Jews as clever to be in business with. And there's a line of anti-Semitism in that. Can you talk a little bit about the panorama on anti-Semitism within these authoritarian

movements? Yeah, that's great. First of all, it's good you brought up this this B.S. about, you know, Trump can't possibly be anti-Semitic because, you know, his daughter married an Orthodox Jew and converted. So men like Trump and Putin and all these people, they're completely transactional, meaning they they will be whatever each group they want to please needs them to be. So in the world of authoritarianism, it's not uncommon for for you to have in your private life an Orthodox Jewish son in law and also, saying that neo-Nazis are very fine people and to have your son-in-law stay in the government as he did and cash out majorly, um, because these people are not about principles or they can have a private faith

maybe, uh, but they're, they're about power and money. And that's all that matters. And so the other thing that I shake my head at is that in my book, there are two leaders ones who made the biggest deals with religious institutions. So Mussolini had been a socialist in his youth, and he was a total atheist. He hated the church. He was the one who made the deal with the Vatican. And so the priests of the Vatican gave him moral legitimacy for his violent dictatorship, said he was a man of destiny. So here we have Trump, like almost 100 years later, these are the patterns in my book, who, as we know, is not the most pious person. And yet, he ended up having both evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews say that he was sent by God to be in office, that his place as president was the will of God.

And to pull that off, you have to have a very transactional view of religion. So that part of anti-Semitism has been allowed to keep going. And it's very sad to me that Orthodox Jews still support him, even though all of the right wing extremists, all of the hate crimes, neo-Nazis parading around in Florida, nothing seems to break this deal that they have and this love they have for Trump. On that contradiction aspect or the two sided thing that that transactional nature. What is it about the followers of these authoritarians that gets them to accept the contradictions were for the rule of

law, except don't ever try Trump or even investigate him or were for business freedom, except when we want to tell businesses exactly what they should do. What is the process by which they are OK with that? Yeah, it's such a good question. I have a line in my book that they believe him because they believe in him. And the thing about these leaders and it's all the more striking when you when it happens in democracy, what Trump pulled off in a pluralistic society, a democracy with an open media environment, is extraordinary. He's a cult leader. And I was intimating that in my book. And now, you know, the years since it's been published, it's very clear to me. January 6th, for example, was a cult leader rescue operation.

He called the faithful. he was in distress, and they came and they did violence on his behalf. And Bolsonaro had the same thing. So in fact, today, the new thing is that if you can't get the military to play your game, but you are a cult leader, you can have a civilian army. And that's what Bolsonaro tried to do his January 7th insurrection. But the nature of the bonds of the followers to people like Trump are not the same as even the most adoring people who might, even back when, let's say JFK or other kinds of democratic presidents, democratic with a small d. Trump, from the very beginning, if you recall,

one of his first things he did was when he started having his rallies, he had his followers do a loyalty oath. And so loyalty and believing whatever he says is in their interest. That's how he started off. And even today, he's got this thing where he's a victim. And it makes all of them. Mussolini was a victim. Hitler said he was a victim. And what this does is that, so they're not just the defender of the nation, the savior.

They're the victim. And it makes the followers feel very protective of them. So you get people, you have quotes from people who are, you know, Trump rallies, and they'll say, he's been through so much. We have to be here for him. And they don't, they don't know, or eventually they'll figure it out, because they always do in history that he's just using them. But it's very hard to break those bonds. And January six did not succeed. Even Republicans who often are very pro police, even that didn't really break the bond, which is very interesting and sad. It's it's a remarkable and scary situation. We've been speaking with

Ruth Ben-Ghiat. The book is Strongman Mussolini to the present, which we will we will link to. Ruth Spoon is the breakfast cereal with the crunchy, sweet goodness you love, but with zero grams of sugar, more protein and only four to five net carbs. So it's perfect if you're doing low carb, if you're doing keto, if you're like me and you just don't want to eat a bunch of sugar. Magic Spoon has delicious flavors to choose from. Cocoa, fruity, frosted peanut butter, honey nut, cinnamon roll, birthday cake. My favorite is maple waffle. And right now they have limited edition spring flavors, strawberry milkshake and peaches and cream. Sometimes you just feel like sitting down with a bowl of cereal when the mood strikes, go for something with plenty of protein without all the sugar. If you don't love magic spoon as much as I do and our team does,

magic spoon will refund all of your money. No questions asked. Go to magic spoon dot com slash Pacman. Create a custom bundle. Use the code Pacman for five dollars off. That's magic spoon dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. So the Trump Biden cocaine story is sadly being repeated and actually growing. I told you not long ago that Donald Trump kind of alluded to Joe Biden maybe being on cocaine. He's now talking about it as if it's fact. And he did this during a recent interview with this guy, Wayne Allen Root. Wayne Allen Root is a guy who I've interviewed several times years ago. He would ask to come on the show regularly and I would have him.

And the conversations were sort of like, OK, he's a friend of Trump's. And listen to this. Trump just casually says we can't have a president who's on cocaine. And way way now and Root goes right as if this is now just casually says we can't have a president who's on cocaine. And we'll wait. Now, in route goes right. As if this is now just a foregone conclusion, you guys may say, wait, is there any evidence that Joe Biden's on cocaine? No.

In fact, they always talk about how low energy he is. Cocaine would not make you seem low energy. But now they're just casually mentioning this like it's fact. And we can't have a president that's on cocaine when you're dealing with nuclear weapons and everything else. You know, right. We do. And you've heard me say right. Presidency, all these guys, these are at the top of their game. These are smart, whether you like them or their country. More praise of authoritarian leaders. You are there at the expense of our democratically elected president. Their policies, you know, which are pretty tough policies. But these people are at the top of the game mentally. And we have a guy who in his best years

wasn't at the top of the game. And we. All right. So now it's just, hey, we can't have the president on cocaine. Right. No, no, no. We absolutely can't. In general, this interview on Real America's Voice was a combination of cluelessness, virtue signaling and throwing red meat out there and seemingly unable to resist this topic. Donald Trump again bringing up the rigged election and actually putting forth this is so narcissistic and so egocentric that it's actually stunning. Trump says if the election hadn't been rigged and I had become the president, nobody would have died in Ukraine as a result of Russia's invasion. What? What? Listen, if if the election weren't rigged, all of those dead people from Ukraine

and from Russia and from everywhere, all of those people would be alive today. All of those dead people from Ukraine and from Russia and from everywhere. Yeah. All of those people would be alive today. All of those cities would be standing. They were beautiful. You could never rebuild them. This is the height or the bottom, depending on your perspective, of narcissistic egocentrism. And I don't know where this goes next because it's getting as bad as it has ever been, really weaponized narcissism.

And people like Wayne Allen Root, they just lay down and allow Trump to walk all over them and go, right. Yeah, we can have a president, Doc. OK, and that's very, very bad. I the question about Trump debating, I increasingly don't know how Trump debates because the the way that he comports himself, even among other Republicans, seems like it would be self-inflicted damage. And by the way, we just learned that Chris Christie has secured enough one time donors to make the debate stage on August 23. Yet another reason that it seems Trump would hesitate to

debate. Let's actually talk now about the continued triggering of Trump by Chris Christie several times now, two, three times. I've played clips for you of Chris Christie, 24, 2024 Republican presidential candidate appearing on CNN or on Fox News and really going after Trump, really pounding Trump in a way that we know because Trump is so thin skinned and triggerable is really firing up Donald Trump after the latest one, which was yesterday. Again, Chris Christie going on TV and saying this guy's a danger. This guy's a loser. This guy's a disaster. Trump was extraordinarily massively triggered and started posting to his platform about Chris Christie on Truth Central. I will quote directly, as usual, Trump referring to him as sloppy Chris Christie. Trump saying sloppy Chris Christie,

who is polling at one percent. Not true. We will get to that polling at one percent and left his state, New Jersey, with an approval rating of nine percent, the worst number in state history, was interviewed on Fox News, of course, and stated that I only built 47 miles of border wall, knowing that the actual number is four hundred and sixty three miles, as reported by the Department of Homeland Security. This does not include the many capital and miles that we fixed or renovated or areas that I got Mexico to secure best border ever. He also lied about Russia and many other subjects. Trump

continuing with a page two on truth social saying, quote, Sloppy Chris Christie is thrashing about doing and saying anything to stay relevant. He desperately wanted to join the Trump administration. But I said no. In 2016, he spent most of his time away from New Jersey in order to campaign for president, much like Ron DeSantamonious is now do is doing now in Florida to Florida. Chris ended up getting run out of New Hampshire, where he had almost no vote or popularity. They knew him well. Chris Christie is a total loser. And while he's at it, Donald Trump also attacking Joe Biden, adding, quote, Crooked Joe Biden's targeted weaponized DOJ and FBI are a grave threat to our democracy. They are doing crooked, dirty work and attacking and persecuting Trump.

Remember, crooked now refers to Joe Biden. It used to be Hillary. Now it's Joe Biden and only doing so because I am crushing to sanctimonious and Biden in the polls. This is planned election interference of the highest magnitude and used to only happen in third world countries. Now, sadly and terribly, it is happening right here in America and must be stopped if our capital C country is to survive. Make America great again. Now, I have the we've talked about this sort of thing many times. The question I am finding myself landing on is why is Trump so

obsessed with Chris Christie, given that he's crushing Chris Christie in the polls? OK, here's the latest polling data. Trump is still in the low 50s, 53 as of this morning. Chris Christie has reached an all time campaign high of two point six percent. Chris Christie started at one percent. He then got to two point four percent, two point five percent, two point six percent. That's all probably the same thing when you're talking about such small numbers. I don't know that there's really a mathematical significance to two point six versus two point five or two point four. Christie is really nothing as far as this campaign goes right now. He's the only sane guy running. I understand that. But MAGA doesn't want him. So why is Trump so focused

on Christie? Obviously, Christie's focused on Trump because Chris Christie sees this as the way to win. Chris Christie is not doing the Ron DeSantis, the Ron DeSantis thing of waiting around to see if Trump fails. Chris Christie is actually trying to go after Trump. Doesn't seem to be working particularly well. But Trump doesn't have to respond, except he feels driven to respond because he is so narcissistic and so thin skinned and so triggerable. As I said earlier, Chris Christie with a new high of two point six percent and he is becoming the primary target, for lack of a better term, of Donald Trump. There could be some wild times ahead if Trump does debate. And that is a big, big if my pillow on the verge of failing is now trying to advertise on The David Pakman Show.

Can you believe this? This is a nice little story. So as a reminder, we talked a few days ago about how my pillow, according to Mike Lindell, has supposedly suffered a decline of one hundred million dollars in revenue thanks to a massive cancellation is what pillow is calling it. Pillow said that the box stores think it means big box stores. The box stores sounds almost like stores that sell boxes. The box stores canceled him. And so now he is auctioning off equipment. And this includes box trucks and sprinter vans and all sorts of different equipment. Recently, MSNBC had an unintentionally funny segment about this for the low, low price of five American dollars, this thing could be yours. It is an industrial pillow roller.

It rolls pillows. Right. But it's not just any industrial pillow roller. It's a MyPillow pillow roller from the MyPillow pillow factory. MyPillow is auctioning off more than 850 pieces of equipment from sewing machines to forklifts. The company is even subletting part of its manufacturing space. Right. Why? Because my pillow is not everyone's pillow or even a lot of people's pillow. All right. You get the point. We covered this. So all of this is going on. And yesterday

I go to my computer and we work with a lot of agencies that will bring us advertisers. And I get the following message. Potential advertiser, you have received an invite to a campaign for my pillow for the show, The David Pakman Show YouTube. My pillow is potentially interested in advertising on your show. Would you accept an order from them if it came through? And then it links to my pillow dot com and I can tell them with a single click. Yes. Count me in or no, I will pass. Now, in a moment, I'll tell you what I did. I posted about this to my Twitter, into my threads, into my Instagram. I was stunned at the number of people who first of all thought we might actually advertise my pillow.

We've had Mike Lindell on. I think he's just horrible in every way. I of course would not advertise my pillow. We advertise other pillows. We're not doing it. OK. There were a bunch of people who wrote back to me, mostly on Twitter, who said, David, it's a great brand.

You should really do it. That's really an honor. And I was like, these people have to be joking. I looked. They were not joking. They were very serious. So that was really weird. The second thing is, I heard from many people in our audience who said, David, you're not really going to do this, are you? I will cancel my subscription if you advertise my pillow. Folks, everybody can relax. We are not advertising my pillow. We're not advertising my pillow. And I'm going to be super honest with

you. I believe that what happened here is not that my pillow is desperate to specifically advertise on The David Pakman Show. I think as a sort of last ditch to try new things, my pillow hired a new ad agency, one of the ones we work with, and said, get us on tons of shows we've never advertised on before. We've got to do something to stem the bleeding. And so this was probably sent out to dozens, if not hundreds of shows. If Mike Mike Lindell knows me, if he doesn't, if he hasn't forgotten that he knows me, he can contact us directly and just say, hey, do you want to advertise my pillow? It would not come through an advertiser, I think, if it was actually them saying we really want the David Pakman show. So everybody relax.

We're not going to be advertising the pillows. We're not advertising my pillow. But a very, very interesting moment. We have a voicemail number. Speaking of pillows, 2192 David P. Here's an idea of what we might be able to do if we were to buy one of these deep discount items that Michael and Dell is auctioning off. Listen to this. I kind of like this idea. David, this call is in regards to Mike Pelosi's auction. Yeah.

I was wondering if you would consider getting the Sprinter van for Luke Beasley while he's out and about interviewing Trump and whatnot. Yeah. So I know you already have your Tesla Model X. Oh, God. And you're probably going to sell it and get the lucid air dream luxury electric vehicle. Oh, God. No sponsor.

But I was wondering if you would consider that sprinter van for Luke Beasley. I like this idea. We could get one of the pillow sprinter van for this. I like this idea. We could get one of the pillow sprinter vans that's being auctioned off. Last I checked, it was like twenty five hundred bucks. We get the sprinter van. We give it to Luke Beasley. We stuff it full of the children's book. And when Luke Beasley goes to rallies, he'd have to drive instead of fly, which will take

a lot longer. But then Luke can actually just hand out copies of the children's book on critical thinking to adult Trump ists who very much need the book out of the sprinter van. We could also wrap the sprinter van in something interesting. I don't know what it would be. I like the idea. I don't know. We're going to discuss internally and then follow up. We have a great bonus show for you today. We're going to talk about the plastic surgeon banned from medicine after streaming surgeries that she performed. It's bonkers.

MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski is saying that Joe Biden staff is failing him because they're putting him in situations where he could fall or stumble and it's making him look bad. Is Biden staff to blame? We will also talk about some of this week's interviews, some of what's upcoming, the new version of the book. So many different things. Real, real quick. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel. Get a membership at join Pacman dot com.

Get the children's book at David Pacman dot com slash book. Remember to leave a review for the book if you've purchased it already. We are at over 5000 copies sold and only 200 reviews. Let's get a thousand reviews up there. You can find all of it at David Pakman dot com slash book. And I'll talk to you on the boat.