The David Pakman Show - 7/18/23: DeSantis accused of staged events, Chris Christie 3rd place in NH

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

-- On the Show: -- John Kiriakou, former CIA officer who blew the whistle on post-9/11 CIA torture, discusses with David when Rudy Giuliani allegedly quoted him "$2 million" for a presidential pardon from Donald Trump -- MAGA is panicking over Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert's seat as her opponent, Adam Frisch, raised three times more money than she did -- Florida Governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis' recent campaign events raise questions about whether protesters and other speakers are staged -- Florida Governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis brags about having 30-40 people at his campaign events as his campaign crumbles -- Florida Governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis' campaign is collapsing, and has fired a dozen staffers -- Failed former President Donald Trump rants incoherently to a silent crowd and tells one of his infamous "sir" stories -- Former New Jersey Governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie surges to a soft third place in the New Hampshire Republican primary -- Fox hosts from Fox and Friends beg Donald Trump to participate in their Republican presidential primary debate, scheduled for August 23, 2023 -- Voicemail caller praises David for not calling the police on the thief who attempted to steal his umbrella -- On the Bonus Show: SCOTUS & Republicans to blame for lack of debt forgiveness per students, judge rules Oregon's new gun law is constitutional, teachers in England will have to tell parents if kids question their gender, much more... 🚲 Lectric eBikes! Shop for your new electric bike at https://lectricebikes.com 🧴 Thanks to our sponsor Geologie! Use code PAKMAN70 for 70% off at https://davidpakman.com/skin 🍜 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off immi ramen noodles at https://immieats.com/pakman 🛡️ The first 100 people to use code PAKMAN will get 60% off of Incogni at http://incogni.com/pakman 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.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

My favorite way to enjoy the nice summer weather is on my electric bike from our sponsor, Electric E-Bikes. It's super fun. You can go up to twenty eight miles an hour with tons of torque, fully foldable for easy storage, ships fully assembled and they have affordable financing. Go to L.E.C.T.R.I.C.E. Bikes dot com. The link is in the podcast notes. Some of you are no doubt familiar with Lauren Boebert.

She is the radical and repugnant retrograde reactionary Republican congresswoman. Did I say Republican twice? She's very much a Republican from Colorado who almost was knocked out of the House of Representatives by Democratic challenger Adam Frisch. Now if you recall, I see if I have it here. I do. If you recall, this was such a close race going to I believe it was a recount or certainly extended period of counting. And Lauren Boebert was able to secure her re-election by fewer than 600 votes. Looks like five hundred and forty seven or something along

those lines. Forty six. And what was extraordinary about this race was that immediately Adam Frisch announced he's going for it again in twenty twenty four. And there were speculations as to whether this was a good idea or a bad idea. Wouldn't the third congressional district of Colorado potentially be fatigued? You just donated to Adam Frisch and he lost and he's asking you for money again. It almost is Trumpian in a way. But of course, it's not. But that is very much not the case. And in fact, his fundraising has tripled Lauren Boebert's.

The truth is, and I'm joking with the Trumpian thing, the truth is that this is actually a bug of how our political system is organized because our members of Congress have two year terms and elections are long. As soon as you're sworn in, you're fundraising again for your next reelection. Now, that's bigger than we can deal with in this particular segment. But be that as it is or be that as it may, it is what what we're dealing with and incredible fundraising numbers for Adam Frisch, such that even right wing publications are now panicking. And we'll get to that in a moment. The Hill reports Boebert's Democratic challenger raises three times more than her. Adam Frisch, who came close to beating Lauren Boebert's Democratic challenger raises three times more than her. Adam Frisch, who came close to beating Lauren Boebert, raised three times more than the incumbent in second quarter fundraising.

Frisch's campaign reported bringing in two point six million dollars in Q2 of this year, which is more than triple Boebert's, roughly eight hundred and eighteen thousand, according to the Colorado Sun. It is the second quarter in a row that Frisch has outraised Boebert. He did one point seven million in the first quarter. Boebert reportedly did about seven hundred and sixty four thousand. This is getting the attention of the right.

There is a very interesting short piece in town hall this morning from Matt Vespa, and it asks, is Lauren Boebert facing political extinction come November? And it refers to Lauren Boebert as the feisty bomb thrower. I call her a disgusting reactionary. Yeah, it's certainly a matter of perspective. This is a right wing publication here. But the article points out that things are not going particularly well for Lauren Boebert. It references the fundraising numbers that I just

told you. So there's a couple of different things here that are important to understand. No one race is one likely to determine who has control of the House, although it could. It's close. And one of the questions for 2024 beyond, of course, the presidential race and what happens in the Senate, where one third of senators are up for reelection. One of the questions is, will Republicans retain control of the House or could Democrats end up controlling everything again for two years, at least after 2024? It's not likely to come down to just one race. And if it does, it's not necessarily going to be this particular

race. But the fact that there is this level of enthusiasm because understandably, many Democrats are upset that they fell just 500 and something votes shy of knocking Boebert out. They are energized and they are donating. And Lauren Boebert continues to put her foot in her mouth week after week. But there is something bigger than just the mathematical case. We have been asking this question and the question is framed as such. Trump won in 2016 was a disaster for MAGA and for Republicans rather in 2018 lost in 2020. There was going to be this big red wave in 2022.

And the red wave led to Democrats growing their margin in the Senate, although losing the House by a small margin. Trump has essentially pushed the Republican Party into underperforming three elections in a row. Lauren Boebert is one of the most Trump associated or affiliated MAGA voices in the House. Madison Cawthorn was soundly defeated. That was one of the big three. Cawthorn Green Boebert. Marjorie Taylor Greene is in an extraordinarily red district and probably will get herself reelected if she wants to. But then we get to Lauren Boebert, which is a much more interesting case. And if after barely squeaking out a victory in twenty twenty two, she is defeated soundly or by a small margin

in twenty twenty four. It really will be a sign of the self-destructive nature of MAGA to the Republican Party. So a very interesting race. Even Republican publications are looking at these fundraising numbers and realizing this is not looking particularly good for MAGA and Lauren Boebert. We're going to watch it very closely. But great to see Adam Frisch. I mean, this is this is not a small margin by which he is crushing her in fundraising. Triple the numbers. And it is an incredible thing. Many of you wrote to me in the last 24 hours with video clips from Ron DeSantis events, and every single one of you wrote to me for the same reason. You feel that these protesters that are popping up at DeSantis events are staged,

that there's something about them that doesn't take place. And then I got a video of a woman saying that she's in tears. Why are they always crying in tears over how great DeSantis is, even though she was a Trump supporter for a while? We're going to look at these clips now. I want to be crystal clear. I am not alleging that I know these are staged protesters or staged people in the crowd. There is reason to wonder because, number one, these protesters always lead to DeSantis saying the same thing about we're going to protect kids and we're not going to let you do whatever to kids. The former Trump supporter person is weird

because the Trump supporters don't really care about DeSantis. DeSantis is dying. His campaign is crumbling. They fired a dozen staffers and we'll talk about it later. So the idea that all of these Trump supporters are just so overcome with emotion about how great DeSantis is that they feel the need to go in to tell him at his events how great he is. None of it seems super genuine. And it certainly could be staged and planted. And we know that campaigns sometime do this. Now, we're going to look at the clips. One other quick little thing. Yesterday, someone wrote me about Ron DeSantis. I don't know whether this was a typo or whether they were joking around. And this is their new nickname for Ron Ron wrong for Ron DeSantis.

They wrote Ron DeSantis. And when I saw it, I just started laughing. I have no idea whether it was just a typo or whether they want the guy to go by DeSantis. It seems maybe misogynistic. So I don't know that we're going to go with it. But I did have a little laugh to myself yesterday. All right. So let's go to the video. Here is another one of these solo protesters. DeSantis always yells at them with the same line about we're going to protect. We're going to

protect kids. You tell me whether this feels authentic. Remember, there is a there's an actor strike right now. So really, these should not be actors. I have something to say to him. Why don't you focus on spending more time with your granddaughter in Arkansas or at least acknowledge she. All right. So now the protester is standing up behind DeSantis. Security is rushing over. Yes. Yeah. Before you worry about our children. And they shouldn't be worrying about our children either. We don't want you indoctrinating our children. Leave our kids alone.

OK, so he yells at the protesters to leave their kids alone. This is very similar to the lone protester last month in South Carolina. And again, these it even DeSantis his reaction seems so forced and staged. So I get it. We don't know that that's what's going on. But it's interesting that so many of you felt that it was. We're not going to let you impose an agenda on our kids. We're going to stand up for our kids. Speaker 5 There you go. So whenever the lone protester stands up, DeSantis tells them, we're not going to let you get our kids. We're not going to let you ruin our kids.

Here's another video. This is from the event yesterday. And here is where a woman that she says she's been a hardcore Trump supporter. She stood up and said DeSantis is doing great. And she's she's almost she's almost in tears. Listen to this. Tell me if this is authentic. The love for President Trump comes from all the despair, all the things that he's been through as served as our president of the United States. And he did a good job. But all the things I'm thinking more with my heart and my sorrow and my love for him and for this country. But now I have this is the most important vote that we're going to have. And I have to think more with my mind and what's best for this country. And you did. She is overcome with emotion over her support for DeSantis. Despite having voted for Trump

with her heart, she's now using her mind to vote for the sanctimonious. Excellent job. Wow. Really powerful. I appreciate that. And I agree with you. I appreciate what President Trump did, how they treated him with things like Russia collusion was a disgrace. So unfairly. Right. All right. Anyway, Ron, OK, very good. I did everything right and they indicted me. They indicted me. I would love for some journalists

to follow up with some of these folks after the fact and actually figure out, like, what is their backstory? Are they real? Are they they're doing these stage different little things so everybody can judge it for for themselves. I don't really know what I think. Here's something that is important to keep in mind. For many of us, because of the way we engage in politics, many of us don't idolize these elected officials. They're just people. And I've met so many of them and sat around with them. They are really just people. And most of them are not insanely impressive. You know, people like Barack Obama are sort of different in that sense. You incredibly impressive from in person in a way that is different. Most of you just meet.

You're like, oh, wow, that's they're kind of kind of weird in a lot of ways. Anyway, for a lot of us, it's hard to imagine being overcome with emotion in this way just because you're like, oh, I voted for Trump. But DeSantis was so inspiring. We're like now it's just like, OK, are you is Biden better than Trump? OK, I'll vote for Biden and then I'll go on with my life and I don't idolize the guy. So we are at our nature less likely to find this sort of thing authentic. And so it feels staged. But let's be open to the possibility that for people who are much more cultist in nature, they really may be overcome with emotion in this way that and maybe it is legitimate. I don't know. I will

leave it for you to judge. We're going to take the quickest of quick breaks. We breached one point eight million subscribers on YouTube. We're pushing to one point nine to eventually burst through the door, the glass ceiling of two million. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube. We're going to take a quick break and then the show continues. When it comes to taking care of my skin and hair, I never really knew how to have a daily routine. I definitely don't buy into the bogus miracle creams and stuff that's out there. That's where our partner geology changed the game for me. Geology is a 23 time award winning skin, hair and body care company that just gives you simple, effective skin care and hair care routines customized to you with the basic ingredients that dermatologists recommend, because they're

the few ingredients that actually work from their affordable skin revitalizing serum with vitamin C and E and ferulic acid. Their awesome line of deodorant, body wash and shampoo for a healthy scalp, which I've been loving. Geology has you covered. Thank you so much, David Pakman dot com. Everybody loves a good bowl of instant ramen every once in a while. Hard to beat the convenience, usually not the healthiest option. The taste is often very so-so. But that's only because you haven't tried me, which is a different kind of ramen.

Our sponsor, Emmy, makes ramen noodles. You can actually feel good about low carb, only five net carbs, 18 grams of fiber for digestive and gut health, 22 grams of protein. So you're satisfied and fueled, which is not how you often feel after traditional instant ramen. The best part is it just tastes really great. The texture and the flavor are just like the ramen you're used to in the Japanese restaurants. It comes in six delicious flavors, all vegan, creamy chicken, spicy red miso, spicy beef. Emmy is an awesome alternative when you need a quick snack. It'll keep you from reaching for the junk food. It's as easy as any instant ramen.

You just pop it in the microwave. Go to me. It's dot com slash Pacman and use code Pacman for five dollars off. That's I am M.I. Eats dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman for five dollars off. The info is in the podcast notes. You know, as much as I get messages from haters that, oh, you must

be funded by George Soros or whatever the case may be, we actually aren't. And many right wing media outlets like The David Pakman Show are funded by millionaire and hundred millionaire and even billionaire right wingers. We don't have that. The left is in a different situation. We actually depend directly on your support. We try to make that support an appealing thing. So we do an extra show every day for our paid members. We offer a commercial free audio and video stream of the show. We have a sound board like the one I have here. We're doing a class action lawsuit against all machines. We have a sound class action lawsuit against all machines. We have a sound board available on the member website for our members and so many other great

things. I invite you to sign up and support the work we do, especially as we're really entering an election period that is going to be particularly fraught. And I would argue the most important in a very long time. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. It really is the most direct, explosive and exciting way to support what we do. And you know what? If you don't like this show that much, but there's other left wing shows you like support them. The point is, let's understand the way the right funds independent media and the way that the left doesn't fund it. And that explains why we depend on support from people like you. So we really do everything we can to make membership as easy and as great an experience as possible. And join Pacman dot com is the place to sign up.

Ron DeSantis his campaign is crumbling. We will talk in a moment about the firing of 12 staffers. But first of all, honestly, I don't know if he doesn't realize how pathetic he seems and looks when he does interviews. But I'm going to play a clip for you in which Ron DeSantis brags that sometimes 30 people go to his events. It's if if I told you that he was doing this, you would say, David, that's so why on earth would you brag about that? Any normal person would know 30 people is nothing to brag about.

I can't explain it. I can't. Maybe he's just really bad at this. I don't know. But here is Ron DeSantis talking about how sometimes 30 people are going to hear him speak. Oh, the governor doesn't do retail campaigning. He's not going to be able to go to Iowa.

And then yesterday I'm out there doing events. You know, we have 30, 40 people at some of these things shaking hands, answering questions, doing all that. They're like, oh, well, he can do it. So these are predetermined narratives that they have. Yeah, there are literally a couple dozen people flocking to hear what Ron DeSantis has to say. What is going on in this guy's head that he thinks that that makes it look like he's doing something impressive or exciting or inspiring or in any way of needle moving? And we'll look at the polling in a moment, by the way. You'll realize there's

not much of a needle move that is taking place now. He was also interviewed, Ron DeSantis, on Fox News by Howard Kurtz. And he finally seems willing to go after Trump a little more directly, except before we get all up in arms about how what what great strength this is telegraphing, he's willing to criticize Trump now on the same material and with the same lines that Chris Christie started criticizing Trump. Here he is talking about how Trump didn't really build that much of the border wall. This is quite literally out of the Chris Christie playbook from the day before. More in here.

Chris Christie, who was on this program a couple of weeks ago, says he's the only one who goes directly at Trump. Insult for insult, calling him a coward and so forth. And then the rest of you just dance around for fear of offending him or his supporters. Does he have a point? I don't do insults, so that is true. I think just getting in this insult game turns voters off.

It's not something I want to do substantively. We've been very frank at our differences with respect to the former president. I mean, for example, he promised to drain the swamp. Right. Got worse. He did not drain the swamp. He promised. So it's like that line Maria Bartiromo used on Sunday. OK, they'll have Mexico pay for a border wall. They did like 50 miles of wall. There's and that criticism is straight from Chris Christie. He's only willing to say the things others on the right are already saying a real profile in courage. Massive expansive still there. He said he was going to eliminate the national debt. They added almost eight8 trillion to the debt

true in four years. And of course, in 2020, he turned the country over to Dr. Fauci and those lockdowns and the borrowing and printing really sent us on a bad course. I've been very, very frank at that, but I have no interest in attacking Donald Trump or any of these other candidates personally. I think we've got to rise above that and let's focus on the issue. All right. Well, at least he's picking three issues there, at least generally speaking, on which he's attacking Trump. But it is not doing much for him. If we take a look at the polling, as you will see, it's one of these things where you look at the numbers and they move slowly. They really do. The green line on your screen

is DeSantis. What you see, though, is that what was 31 in late January before he even announced has declined to the high 20s and then the mid 20s and then the low 20s and is now settling right at 20. It's not that he is necessarily falling into third, fourth, fifth, sixth place, but it's that we are now a month before the first debate. We're getting to be, what, five months before the first primaries or six months before the first primaries. And he's not making any progress.

That's really the issue. If we put pull up Iowa and you look at actually we don't even have Iowa numbers. We're going to look at New Hampshire in a little bit. But you look at New Hampshire. DeSantis is indeed in second place. But in some polls, Chris Christie is now nipping at his heels. The question starts to become, how do you make progress? How do you get into a position where you could actually win this nomination? It seems that the Santa's donors aren't buying it.

And to some degree, DeSantis isn't buying it because he's starting to fire people. I want to talk about that next. The Ron DeSantis for president campaign has fired about a dozen different staffers now, as is always the case when campaigns do this. They say, no, no, no, no, no. It's not that we fired them because we're shrinking the campaign, because we're failing and we're not raising money and we have no path to the nomination, all of which are true, by the way.

They love to say we're reorganizing, we're redeploying resources, we're focusing in a different way. All right. Well, needless to say, NBC News reports Ron DeSantis fires roughly a dozen staffers in a campaign shakeup. The Florida governor has struggled to break into Trump's lead. His campaign has been burning through money. A source familiar with the firings described those who were let go as mid-level staffers

across several departments whose departures were related to cutting costs. The exits come after the departures of David Abrams and Tucker Obenshain, veterans of DeSantis's political orbit, first reported by Politico. Sources involved with the DeSantis campaign say there is an internal assessment among some that they hired too many staffers too early, despite having brought in 20 million in the first six weeks. They need to bring costs down. Some in DeSantis's political orbit lay the early blame at the feet of the campaign manager, Jennera Peck, who led DeSantis's 2022 midterm reelection bid. A DeSantis donor said she should be she should be the one who is in the hot

seat at this point in time. A donor said DeSantis's stock isn't rising. 20 percent isn't what people signed up for. We then go to the next element of this, which is that it is not just a couple of donors, but it is a number of DeSantis biggest donors who are now kind of saying what is going on? DeSantis was at 30. He announced Trump got arrested and DeSantis went down in support from 30 to 20. That is a loss of a third of your support in the Republican primary. And we're donating that money to this to this guy. And indeed, we have another NBC News report. Confidential DeSantis campaign memo looks to reassure donors amid stumbles in the strategy memo obtained by NBC News.

DeSantis campaign says it will stay focused on the early states and not yet make investments in Super Tuesday battlegrounds. Remember that for our new viewers and listeners who are not yet veterans of the way these primaries go, there is this thing called Super Tuesday. Super Tuesday is a Tuesday in March on which there are a whole bunch of primaries. Large numbers of delegates are available. But there's always this strategy question. Do I go for Super Tuesday so that I can get a bunch of delegates on that day? Or do I focus on the early states like Iowa and New Hampshire? And I believe South Carolina, although now I don't remember

if South Carolina is only early for Democrats. I know it's the first for Democrats this time around. In any case, at some point when campaigns start not doing well, they come out and they say we're going to focus on the early states. So sure, we might be getting crushed in New Hampshire and Connecticut and Massachusetts and California to all the states that are part of Super Tuesday. I'm going by memory. I don't know if those are. We're not going to worry about that. We're just going to worry about how are we doing in the early states. And so, for example,

DeSantis can say, hey, we're in second place in New Hampshire and we potentially could be poised to tie Trump or something along those lines. I don't know. It's usually a sign that things aren't going particularly well. And indeed, things aren't going particularly well for Ron DeSantis. So we'll continue to follow those numbers. Donald Trump spoke, I guess, at one of his resorts yesterday to a dead silent crowd. It wasn't even clear there were live people left in the room. Everybody might have died from how quiet it was. And Trump actually tells one of these stories. He's still telling the stories. Does anybody believe

these stories at this point? Listen to this. This is what you're going to win. He said, I don't think so. I said, yeah, you're going to win. And he ends up winning. And then what happens is three or four years go by and the media says to him governor are you gonna run against the president and he said i have no comment that means he's gonna run to me right you know with smart people Tim when they say i have no comment that's not a good i said did he say i have no comment so i started hitting him very hard because a lot of the stuff he says is not true about his achievements. Actually, a lot of the governors in Florida because

you have the ocean and you have the sun, right? And that's two good combinations. But I started hitting him on this institution. You shouldn't hit him that hard. He's a Republican. I said, I don't give a damn what he is. And now he's, you know, he's hurting. Let's put it that way. As you can see, the crowd absolutely titillated into silence. I did hear some utensils clanking in the background. So at least someone was converting food into energy while Trump spoke at a very interesting process that the human body is able to do, but not not a huge level of excitement in that process, as you can imagine.

Trump then actually at this same very strange pronouncement telling the crowd that America is not great right now. Now, you know, among Republicans, one of the things that used to be an absolute element of orthodoxy is no matter who's president, you always say the country is the best under MAGA. This has changed where now it is acceptable to say when a Democrat is president, the country isn't great. As soon as I get in, though, it's going to be great again. But then now Biden's president. So it's no longer great. You used to get crushed for this if you said this sort of thing. Keep America great.

Actually, I guess I got it. But, you know, that's a keep America great. Right. And I was going to use that. But then when they took over, you could never use it because they let America go down the tubes. America is not great. Whoa.

We're not respected anymore. We're not respected. We are not respected by the world. And there you go. So anyway, I'm going to go back to the show. I'm going to go back to the show. I'm going to go back to the show. I'm going to go back to the show. I'm going to go back to the show. I'm going to go back to We're not respected. We are not respected by the world. And there you go.

So anyway, that used to get you in trouble in the past, but it is really a change in the Republican Party. It's no longer about the United States being. By the way, I find this entire it's great. It's not great stuff. Really dumb, extraordinarily dumb. But we have to analyze the level at which they are discussing politics. I find the whole thing dumb. It used to be that you always say this is the greatest

country, period. OK, we don't like the guy in the Oval Office, but this is the greatest. Now, MAGA in its self-serving in its self-serving delusions of grandeur will now. OK, they're fine now saying the country isn't great when a Democrat is in the White House. It's a change and it's connected to very much of how to to a lot of aspects of how MAGA operates. And there it is. We will have these clips. If you're wondering what it looks like for Trump to speak to a crowd so silent that it might be a morgue, we'll have these clips on our Instagram. We will have these clips on our tick tock. And of course, will we have we will have them on YouTube as well.

There's something really disturbing we've been seeing in the news lately. The FBI is now gathering huge amounts of data on everything people do on phones and computers. And here is how data brokers collect information about what you look at online, where you go, your political views. The FBI then buys that data to keep track of you. It is a legal gray area that the government will happily take advantage of. They don't need a court order. They just do it.

But it's not just the government, because criminals can end up accessing that data and use it to target you for phishing or identity theft. Big tech companies, political campaigns can buy the data to try to influence you. But here is the solution. Our sponsor, Incogni, automatically sends data removal requests to the major data brokers who are required by law to remove your information upon request. of the Speaker 1 Speaker 2 Speaker 3 Speaker 4 Speaker 5 Speaker 6 Speaker 7 Speaker 8

Speaker 9 Speaker 10 Speaker 11 Speaker 12 Speaker 13 Speaker 14 Speaker 15 Speaker 16

Speaker 17 Speaker 18 Speaker 21 Speaker 22 Speaker 23 Speaker 24 Speaker 25 Speaker 26 Speaker 27 Speaker 28 Speaker 30 Speaker 31 Speaker 32 It is a fantastic service that I use and my audience gets 60 percent off.

Go to Incogni dot com slash Pacman. Use the code Pacman. That's I N C O G N I dot com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman for 60 percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. Staying properly nourished is just so important to feeling your best every day. Our sponsor, AG1, makes it so simple. Just a single scoop of AG1 a day. You get 75 high quality vitamins and probiotics from whole food sources. You're covered for the day. Half of Americans are deficient in vitamins A and C and magnesium.

Not everybody has time to perfectly plan every meal. And I don't know that any of us want to be spending a whole bunch of money on endless different vitamins and supplements. AG1 just simplifies it and it's more cost effective. I take a single scoop of AG one in the morning before my coffee tastes great with water, but you can mix it quite frankly into anything you want with that one scoop. I'm covered for the day getting everything I want. It's easy and it's a simple routine that works. Go to drink AG one dot com slash Pacman to get five free travel packs of AG one plus a free Today, we welcome to the program John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer turned whistleblower who has some very interesting things to say about pardons that may or may not have been offered by a former lawyer to a former president. But but we will get to that. John,

really great having you on. I appreciate your time. Oh, thanks so much for the invitation. Happy to do it. So to give the audience some context to start with. You were a CIA officer in 2007, six years after 9-11. You blew the whistle on what was effectively torture that was being used by the CIA. You were, I believe, the first federal government employee to do so. You were not ultimately prosecuted for disclosing that. But I'll give you the opportunity to weigh in. Maybe for political reasons, you were not prosecuted for that. But ultimately, I believe you say as retaliation, you were prosecuted. Talk to us about what you knew, your involvement, why you decided to blow the whistle to start

with. It's actually quite a long story that I'm going to make very, very short. I was I was a senior CIA counterterrorism officer after 9 11. I was the chief of CIA counterterrorism operations in Pakistan. I led a series of raids there that resulted in the capture of Abu Zubaydah, who we believed at the time was the number three. Abu Zubaydah was also the first person captured by the CIA who had been ranked internally as a high value target. And because he was the first, he was also the first to undergo torture, what the CIA at the time was calling enhanced

interrogation techniques. I objected to that. I thought it was torture. I thought it was illegal. I still think it's illegal, besides being immoral and unethical. And my objections were overridden and ignored. I left the CIA in 2004. I formally resigned in 2005 and waited for somebody to come out and say something about this program. It was just so patently illegal to me. I thought certainly somebody will come out and say something. Nobody did. And so then in December of 2007, in response to a request from Brian Ross at ABC News, I said something. I went on a nationally televised show, and I said that the CIA was torturing its prisoners. I said that torture was official U.S. government policy, and I said that the policy had been personally approved by

the president himself. As you might imagine, the CIA reported me to the FBI for leaking classified information, and the FBI investigated me from the very next day, December of 2007, until December of 2008. After that year-long investigation, the FBI sent my attorneys what's called a declination letter, declining to prosecute me. They said that the information was not classified, that it was already out there. It had been published by Human

Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the International Committee of the Red Cross, and they dropped the case. I did not know that three weeks later, when Barack Obama became president and John Brennan, an old nemesis of mine, became the deputy national security advisor, that Brennan asked the Justice Department to secretly reopen the case against me. And so they investigated me for another three years. And then in January of 2012, I was arrested and charged with five felonies coming out of that ABC News interview, three counts of espionage, one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, and one count of making a false statement. We were never really clear as to what the false

statement was supposed to have been. That charge was dropped. I absolutely did not commit espionage and those charges were dropped, but they got me on a technicality. I had confirmed the surname of a former colleague of mine to a journalist who wanted to interview him for a book. And that was the crime that they got me on. That name was never made public. And other senior CIA officers who had done the same thing, like David Petraeus, for example, who revealed the names of 10 covert operatives to his adulterous girlfriend was never prosecuted. But, you know, I always maintain that I was prosecuted for political reasons. And I'm a big boy. I know how Washington works. And that was that was a calculation that John Brennan and the Justice Department made to

silence someone who had opposed the torture program. They didn't silence me. They actually empowered me. And here we are now, all these years later. So so many different things to ask about with regard to the techniques that were being used that you blew the whistle on. You talked about there were apparently discussions about the legality and ethics and whether these techniques, the use of the techniques is policy. Was there ever a discussion about their effectiveness and whether, listen, if we do this stuff, they are in most cases, he are just going to tell us what what he thinks he needs to say in order to get us

to stop. Was that ever described? Right. That's a great question. And the answer is no, not not in any meaningful depth. You know, in the immediate aftermath of of 9-11, I think this is something that most people don't have a full appreciation for. There was at least as much a desire for revenge as there was for information

to to disrupt future attacks. So, you know, those those very senior officers, those CIA leaders who had conceived of the torture program, had implemented the torture program and then briefed it to the oversight committees on Capitol Hill. They didn't care if the prisoner was going to tell us what he thought we wanted to hear. They figured we would collect everything that the prisoner said and then turn it over to the analysts and let the analysts sort through it. So is there going to be actionable intelligence in there? Sure there is.

Is there going to be garbage? There's going to be a lot more garbage than there is actionable intelligence. But you're able then to seek that desire for revenge and collect intelligence at the same time. So it wasn't that it wasn't that it wasn't discussed because people didn't necessarily believe we might get nonsense from doing this. It was just that it didn't matter. And we'll kind of sort through it in the aftermath.

Yeah, that's exactly it. When it comes to the locations where some of these things were taking place, colloquially sometimes known as these black sites. To the extent you can talk about it, the CIA employees that are involved in servicing these sites either directly participating in the in the torture or not. Right. Because these are locations that presumably need ancillary services of different kinds. Are they typically in these countries, their entire presence in the countries?

Is it illegal? Is it under diplomatic cover or do they have some nominal other job while there? That's that's a tough one to answer without getting in trouble there. The CIA uses a multitude of covers, both official and unofficial. This would have been official cover. In most cases, it was done with the acquiescence of the host government. And it wasn't deep cover. It wasn't backstopped in any way.

So if if somebody if you're sitting next to somebody on a plane, they say, what do you do for a living? You say, I work for the Department of Commerce. I work for the State Department. Oh, what do you do with the State Department? I'm involved in international trade. You know, that's so boring that nine times out of 10, nobody's going to ask you a follow up question. Right. But now if they call the State Department and ask, can you know, can I talk to John Kiriakou? There is no John Kiriakou there that's going to answer the phone so that it's not backstopped in that way where people at headquarters covering for you. Now, with that said, I've said this publicly in the past and we know it's true thanks to the Senate torture report. There were many cases in many of these various countries where black sites existed, where the president or the prime minister of those countries had no idea that these torture chambers were there in their territory. These were handshake deals between George Tenet, the head of the CIA, and the head of whatever that host intelligence service was. That's how secret this was. And you said something also that I think bears repeating because it's true. Very few, very, very few CIA officers were actually physically involved in the torture program. Right. But there were large support staffs, you know, everybody from secretaries to analysts to

doctors and nurses to communications professionals. They were all there to support the actual torturers. Is there sometimes in fictionalized accounts of these situations, there's a tension portrayed between the torturers and the doctors where the doctors say you're you're you're going too far and the torturers say, you know, the bomb is ticking. We've got it. And it's portrayed in this kind of dramatic way. Is is that in any way an accurate representation of how these things go? Yes, actually. You know, I remember in in the very, very earliest days after the CIA started torturing

of Zubeda, like the first week or the first two weeks, there were there were cables coming back being written by the doctors saying, hey, wait a minute. I didn't sign up for this. This is a violation of the Hippocratic oath. I want to come home. That's called a curtailment cable where you want to curtail your current assignment and come home. That's usually a career ending decision. You're never going to get promoted again if you curtail. But you've got this ethical dilemma. You put your hand in the air and you swore to first do no harm. And now your job is to allow these guys to torture a prisoner to within an inch of his life. And then if they go too far and his heart stops, your job is to bring him back to life so he can be tortured more. One of the great disappointments for me in those early days was that even though doctors objected, most of them didn't do anything about it. They didn't come home. They didn't file lawsuits. They didn't go to the inspector general and file a complaint. They just maintain their silence.

Did this stuff literally make it difficult to sleep at night? Yes. And not just for me, but for a lot of people. You know, I remember people coming back from the secret sites and crying. Uh, they, they suffered from PTSD. They had to take time off work. People went on anti-anxiety medication. This was just an all around bad idea.

Now, with that said, the CIA is full of sociopaths and psychopaths who slept just fine at night. So let's talk about the pardon. You served your sentence. You were not going to be entitled to your CIA retirement benefits as a result of the prosecution in the sentence. And you tell the story of a meeting with Rudy Giuliani with the possibility of paying two million dollars for Trump to pardon you. Are those the top line details as we understand them?

Yes, indeed. How did this for now? Just to put up front, even financially, if you were willing to do it, the two million didn't make sense because it seems like the retirement benefits were worth about 700 K. Is that right? OK, that's right. So the math didn't make sense. How did this first come to your attention that this was maybe something that could happen? I I had worked hard to try to get myself in front of Donald Trump to ask him directly to pardon me. My pitch was Barack Obama ruined my life. And you're the only person that can give it back to me.

An appeal to his ego. Exactly. Yeah. OK. So I had a supporter in in Tucker Carlson and Tucker invited me on the show a dozen times over the course of the Trump presidency and a dozen times I went on. And listen, you know, I'm a third generation Democrat. I'm decidedly left of center, but I hate Barack Obama. And that is what that's what Tucker Carlson wanted to hear. And I was perfectly happy to say it. So Trump saw me on on Tucker's show one one night and told Jared Kushner to get in touch with me. So his lawyer called my lawyer and we met briefly at his lawyer's office.

And to make a long story short, he was not helpful, not helpful at all and not even nice about it. So I mentioned to a friend of mine, I need to get to Trump. And this Kushner thing didn't work. What should I do? And he said, you need to get to Rudy Giuliani. I said, actually, I know a guy who knows a guy who can get me in front of Rudy. So I called my friend. I said, hey, can you put me in front of Rudy Giuliani? He said, sure, I'll make a call. So I talked to Giuliani's assistant or deputy or major domo or whatever it was that he was calling himself. And he said, actually, we're going to be in Washington next week. Why don't we meet at the Trump Hotel? I said, great. Naturally.

Yeah. That's the only place you would ever meet with people. So I went to the Trump Hotel. And, you know, the funny thing is that I normally work from I have a live radio show from 12 to 2. So I said, well, how about any time after two o'clock? He said, no, Rudy likes to, you know, enjoy the day. And usually by two o'clock? He said, no, Rudy likes to, you know, enjoy the day. And usually by two o'clock, he's not able to do business. I just have to do this. It's like in a court for people only listening. John did the drinky, drinky hand gesture when he said that we just need to for what it is. That's what he did. So I said, OK, that's fine. We met at 11 o'clock. And we're all sitting there just making small talk, just meaningless chitchat.

Yeah. And finally, I said, so, Mr. Mayor, there's this issue of a pardon I wanted to raise with you. And he said, anybody know where the pisser is? And he got up and just walked away. And I said to his assistant, what the heck just happened? He wants you to go in there, right? I was happy to follow him there if that's what he wanted. But his his assistant said, you don't talk to Rudy directly about a part. Oh, to me. And I talked

to Rudy. I said, OK, whatever. And he says, Rudy's going to want two million for the pardon. And I laughed and I said, listen, I isn't going to work. Thank you for your time. Giuliani was walking back. I said, Mr. Mayor, thank you for your time. I walked out. I happened to go to a book event that night. A buddy of mine had just come out with a book and there was this big launch party. And I ran into another friend, another whistleblower. He said to me very innocently, how was your day today? And I said, Oh, listen to this. And I told him the story that I just told you. He was so enraged that on his own volition, he called the FBI and told them that Giuliani had solicited $2 million to sell me a pardon. I didn't know that, but the FBI never called me. And my friend was then so outraged that the FBI never called that he called the New York Times and leaked it to the New York Times.

So the New York Times did call. And I decided, you know what? This was an illegal act. It was a felony that Giuliani had committed. And so I'm going to I'm going to tell the New York Times what happened. And I did. As it turned out, Giuliani had done this with several people. But again, the FBI wasn't interested. I've never spoken to the FBI. They've never called me. They've never questioned me. It wasn't until Giuliani

was the subject of a of a civil suit recently. Yeah. That this came up where the plaintiff is alleging that in the course of pillow talk, I suppose he told her that he was soliciting two million dollars for pardons and he was splitting the money with Donald Trump. I have no idea if that's true. Let me ask you a super practical, like logistical question. If you had wanted to go forward with this, do you have an assumption about how the money would be transferred? Is it like you bring physical cash that you get from somewhere? How would they even do it? Speaker 3 You know, I can't imagine that any legitimate bank would even let you have to. Even if I had two million dollars in my checking account. Yeah, they they banks normally don't even keep more than ten thousand dollars on hand at any given time.

You have to actually order it from the Federal Reserve. Right. And they and they truck it over. Plus, there are money laundering laws where you have to report to the IRS any transaction over ten thousand dollars. Right. So my guess is that it would have to be electronic, in which case it would have raised red flags, in which case it would have probably initiated an investigation and they just couldn't have gotten away with something like that. Yeah, that I mean, of course, it raises the question how many other people were offered this deal, how many took it? And I guess we don't know. But you would think that there would be some trail if that's right, if this was being done regularly in some way. Obviously,

we don't know the answer. You know, I'll add one thing and I apologize because I know we're running short on time, but in a completely unrelated case, my attorney and I went to see an FBI agent over over a case of fraud that I just sort of stumbled over. And I I felt it was my duty to report this this fraud. So I took a thumb drive with me with thousands of pages of supporting documents. And we went to the Washington field office to speak to the FBI. I'm five minutes into my explanation of what we're doing there. And this FBI agent puts up his hands and he says, buddy, if this doesn't have the word terrorism associated with it, we're not interested.

And I think that's what happened with Giuliani. Interesting. Yeah. And that rings true to all of my friends who are in some way involved in federal law enforcement have expressed there is a compartmentalization of focus. And if something isn't within your immediate purview, very similar attitudes have been seen, I guess, is the point. So that rings that rings very, very true.

Yeah, I think that's it. We have been speaking with John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you. This was fun. Summer is in full swing. No better time to get out and explore my favorite ways on my electric bike.

It's just great exercise like a regular bike, but you can go further. You can see more. Thank you so much, David. hydraulic brakes, five level pedal assist, providing intuitive and smooth acceleration and a twist grip throttle for pure power at the tip of your fingers. All of their e-bikes are packed with advanced features. The LCD display is super bright, seven speed gearing, a removable battery that you can charge indoors. That'll go up to 65 miles on one charge. Every model folds up so I can put it in my car, the garage electric e-bikes costs way less than the competition with financing as low as 73 bucks a month. So your outdoor fun won't cost you a fortune. Every bike ships free and fully assembled. So what are you waiting for? Start your journey at electric e-bikes dot com. That's L.E.C.

T.R.I.C. e-bikes dot com. The link is in the podcast notes. Many of you have asked me to talk about Chris Christie's explosive arrival in New Hampshire, where he has now entered third place. And I feel a little bit silly talking about it in these terms, because while it is true that Chris Christie is in third place in most polls, it's a very distant third place. And we're going to get to that in a moment. But to kind of get us thinking about this, there's a Politico article from yesterday which is called Chris Christie's New Hampshire Gambit. And what it says is Chris Christie planned to run a New Hampshire centric campaign to pursue the nomination. He announced this bid there. He pledged to do even more listening

than in the hundred town halls he did there as a candidate in 2016. Yet the only time he's come face to face with a Granite state voter over the last three weeks is through a TV screen. And the article goes on to say what explains his absence from the key early state that offers him his best and perhaps only chance to advance. Christie's campaign has run headlong into the realities of making the debate stage in 2023. The article goes on to explain that in order to make the Fox News debate stage on August 23rd, Chris Christie needs to clear every candidate, including Chris Christie, needs

to clear the 40000 donor threshold. And small states like New Hampshire aren't where you find that money. So instead, Chris Christie's been on TV. He's been on the radio, whereas other candidates who have already qualified Trump to Santas are have been in the state a little bit more. Now let's talk about how explosive Chris Christie's rise in New Hampshire is. This poll, we're putting it up on the screen from American Pulse, has been floating around. And this poll says that in New Hampshire, yes, Trump is still leading forty seven and a half percent and that Ron DeSantis is at ten and a half percent. But that Chris Christie is

right there with DeSantis at 10 percent. And when you see Chris Christie half a point behind DeSantis, that could actually mean it's a tie. That could mean Chris Christie slightly ahead. It could certainly mean that by the time that primary takes place, Chris Christie could be in second place. It's all very exciting if you like Chris Christie. But the truth is that that's not a particularly good pollster American pulse. And if you look more generally at recent polling in New Hampshire, the most recent polls in New Hampshire have Christie with seven Christie with six and Christie with seven from last month. And then it was really before he announced. So is Chris Christie in second

in third place rather in New Hampshire? Yeah, he probably is. But he only seems to be ahead of Nikki Haley by a tiny little smidge, by a fleck. And DeSantis appears to be well ahead. Is it an accurate assessment of the situation that New Hampshire is Chris Christie's best shot at this thing. Absolutely. It doesn't mean listen, I've said before, you know, people keep writing in going, David, you loser. Your boy Christie's not going to win. He's not my boy. As I've said before, if I were voting in the Republican primary, the obviously sanest candidate is Chris Christie. He stood behind Trump like a like a potted plant for four years. He made a fool out of himself in so many different ways. He's now saying things that are true, but he's not he's not my boy. I'm just it's almost like people if I were to say to you, I don't know if I were to say to you,

this is this is so silly just because I recognize that red meat has more fiber than Cocoa Puffs doesn't mean I like red meat better than Cocoa Puffs. Maybe I just like Cocoa Puffs better. And I'm just observing a fact just because I observe a fact about Chris Christie doesn't mean he's my boy. So you're not hurting me personally by saying Chris Christie is not going to win. I know he's not going to win. That's the whole point. The point is, if the party were saying the Republican Party, Chris Christie would win. Anyway, New Hampshire seems to be his only shot. He is in third place, but barely. And the one

poll that's been floating around, at least at this point, is an outlier. We may get new polling. That's better. We may get new polling. That's that's more accurate and shows Chris Christie actually in second place more strongly. I don't know. We're going to watch it and we will see. Fox News hosts are almost begging the twice indicted, twice arrested, twice impeached, failed former President Donald Trump to appear on the debate stage on August 23rd. Now, I think this is mostly because of what's good for the network. If after all this work to secure the first presidential or Republican primary presidential debate, Fox News does the debate and Trump doesn't

show Trump's the biggest draw. It's bad for their ratings. It's just not going to attract as much attention. And it's a profit making event at the end of the day. So this is a great little compilation from this morning. This is from Decoding Fox News. Decoding Fox News put this together. Here are the Fox and Friends hosts. This is yesterday morning, actually. I apologize. Making the case that Trump should really be there. They're almost begging the guy to show up. Rewards out outweigh the risks, I believe. I think this is his wheelhouse. The debate's his wheelhouse. I think he risked letting someone else gain momentum. I heard earlier a guest on Fox and Friends first who made a great point who said,

don't take the voter for granted. The voters want to hear from him. So why wouldn't he, especially because he's such a good debater? I understand. I think too, that for Donald Trump to be there, if he's thinking he's going to get the nomination, the best thing to do is to go into training. The best thing you have advantage over a current president, they don't debate. And remember how bad Obama did in his first one and George Bush 43 did in his first one going for reelection? Because you're not used to the debate. You're used to governing. And if he could keep himself sharp going into the maybe two or three that he has with Joe Biden, it would only help him.

So I would take the reps as much as possible. Well, if he doesn't show up, then you are going to hear a constant, you know, people are going to say, what was he afraid of? Why didn't he show up? Yeah, he's sitting on the lead, but we're trying to figure out who exactly should be the next president. Yeah. I think those points that you just made on behalf of Donald Trump, it would be great to see Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis and Chris Christie just duke it out.

It would be great for the ratings, certainly, I think is what he means. That's why they call it a debate. And then, so many people have said, well, Donald Trump and so you record it a while ago. He's done so well in debates in the past. All right. Show up, debate and shine. There you go.

There you go. Just show up and do it. They really want him there. And in fact, I would argue they really need him there, because let's be honest, Trump is the guy who has more than half of the support. Trump's got fifty five ish percent of the Republican electorate support right now. The other however many candidates are sharing the other forty five percent. And there's a lot of I don't know yet in there.

Here's one more clip also put together by decoding Fox News. They are just desperate. Surprisingly, has got a lot of small donors for a Republican is Chris Christie. He raised $1.6 million in the last quarter, and a third of that came from small donors, which does suggest that he's got broad appeal. He's been on all the channels, and he's obviously resonating. Will he be able to debate? He's in. Christie's in. He is. He's got plenty of unique donors. And he has been brandier point has been essentially shaming the former president who says, look,

I'm way ahead in the polls, so I don't have to do it. At least that's what he said yesterday with Maria. Of course, this morning we're wondering, will he show up or won't he show up? All right. So listen, I Trump, it is true that Fox News's primary concern is ratings. It is also true that it's not a very serious debate if the leader isn't there. And so I understand that Trump may accurately have assessed that it can only be bad for him. If it goes well, he's already winning. How much he already has enough support to be the nominee.

If it goes poorly, it might really hurt him. And maybe he wants to kind of stick it to Fox News because as he sees it, they haven't been treating him well lately. I hope he shows up. I hope he shows up because that's really the appropriate thing to do. I don't know if he will. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. I told a story on yesterday's bonus show about an attempted theft of my umbrella and I ran up to the woman and I ripped the umbrella from her. But I did not call the police. And we spoke about this on the bonus show. If you're not a member, you really have to get the bonus show so you can see what I talked about. Here is a caller who says it was the right move not to call the police. Let's listen. Hey, I'm listening to the award winning bonus show, and I do want to give you

a kudos for not calling the cops on that lady. Cops, as you know, don't have a great history of dealing with people either in mental distress or drug induced distress. So not adding a person with a gun to the situation was definitely a great call. Thanks. Well, the show. Well, there you go. Most people who reacted to my story, this was an apparently drug induced theft attempt.

People almost universally saying, David, sir, you were right not to call the police. And really, I'm going to call the police over, you know, a four hundred dollar umbrella. You got to be kidding me now. It's it was like a twenty dollar umbrella. In fact, I think I got it in. Where did I where was I when I got this umbrella? I don't remember, maybe Florida and it rained and I had to get an umbrella. Anyway, I didn't call the police. We'll publish the umbrella story on its own over the weekend so people can check it out. We have a great bonus show for you today. First and foremost, the Supreme Court and Republicans are being blamed by the public for the lack of student loan debt forgiveness. This is good. What I mean is Joe Biden has tried to do student loan debt forgiveness.

He has also done more student loan debt forgiveness than any prior president. But some of the things Joe Biden has tried to do have been stopped. One of the concerns we always have is, well, will the voting public know that it wasn't Joe Biden's fault? And it seems that the voting public does know that the voting public is mostly blaming the Supreme Court and Republicans for the lack of student loan debt forgiveness. That's not good for them. It's good for Joe Biden. A federal judge has ruled that Oregon's new very tough gun laws kind of tough are indeed

constitutional. There were gun rights advocates, the more guns in more places, people insisting the law is unconstitutional. A court finds that it is not. We will see whether that is appealed and what happens next. And lastly, teachers in England will have to tell parents if their children are questioning their gender. How will this be enforced? How will this be dealt with? We will discuss in detail on today's bonus show. I really would love for you to sign up and get access to today's bonus show. You can do that at join Pacman dot com. I did everything right and they indicted me. Don't worry. No indictments coming on the bonus show. Coupon code indicted again will save you about 50 percent. I hope to see you then.

If not, we'll be back here tomorrow.