The David Pakman Show - 7/20/23: Whistleblower hearing goes wrong, DeSantis living in 2020

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Matt Lewis, Senior Columnist for The Daily Beast and author of the new book "Filthy Rich Politicians: The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals, and Ruling-Class Elites Cashing in on America," joins David to discuss the book and more. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3rsZa5c -- The Republican "IRS whistleblower" hearings go horribly wrong, backfiring terribly -- 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis continues slamming non-existent vaccine mandates as his campaign crumbles -- Donald Trump melts down badly as his third arrest looms -- Fox News host suggests that Donald Trump is getting arrested so much, it may no longer matter -- Judge clarifies that indeed Donald Trump was found liable for rape, despite his claims that he was not -- Voicemail caller wrongly thinks David claimed gas prices were down to $1.50 per gallon -- On the Bonus Show: David going to Chicago, upcoming interviews, the next book, and much more... ♨️ Bon Charge Sauna Blanket: Use code PAKMAN for 15% OFF at https://boncharge.com/pakman 🛡️ The first 100 people to use code PAKMAN will get 60% off of Incogni at http://incogni.com/pakman 🍜 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off immi ramen noodles at https://immieats.com/pakman 🛌 Go to https://helixsleep.com/pakman & use code HELIXPARTNER20 for 20% OFF + 2 free pillows 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Speaker 1 House Republicans are again wasting my money and your money with another hearing that is meant only to placate the conspiracy theorists and the extremist partisans and the liars who are committed to making the case that every element of government has been weaponized against them, that Joe and Hunter Biden and the so-called Biden crime family, if you can imagine such a term, are being given special treatment and certainly should have been arrested long ago. And they have done it so many times before. You know, they said the DOJ has been weaponized and they did a hearing and the hearing didn't prove that. But my taxpayer money and your taxpayer money went down the toilet. They said social media has been weaponized against right wingers or whatever. And they did those hearings. And it turns out it wasn't true. And more of my taxpayer money and your

taxpayer money was flushed down the toilet. They said, we're going to do a series of hearings about crime and, quote, Democrat cities. They did one in New York. They said there would be more. The New York one backfired spectacularly, and we haven't heard another word about it for months. And now it's the IRS whistleblower hearings. CNN second IRS whistleblower goes public at House oversight hearing about the Hunter Biden probe. There are two whistleblowers, alleged whistleblowers, whose testimony alleging that the Hunter Biden criminal probe was mishandled has ignited a firestorm among House Republicans. One of the two whistleblowers speaking for the first time publicly, Joseph Ziegler, a 13 year IRS special agent with the Criminal Investigation Division. So listen, this guy

showed up and he said, it appeared to me, based on what I experienced, that the U.S. attorney in Delaware in our investigation into Hunter Biden was constantly hamstrung, limited and marginalized by DOJ officials, as well as other U.S. attorneys. All right. I mean, listen, this is the guy's opinion and he deserves to be heard. Whether we need these massive hearings at huge taxpayer expense where they make essentially no headway in proving a damn bit of wrongdoing by anybody are really a waste of time. Now, I'm going to start with something. Let me explain what I'm going to show you first. Marjorie Taylor Greene, to try to get attention and to try to score some political point, what point it is, I don't know, actually held up censored versions of the Hunter Biden penis pictures. Now, I'm going to play a

clip. I'm going to tell you in advance that the pictures have big black boxes over the sensitive elements. That being said, you could argue they are still graphic. They're completely compliant with any broadcast standards. So everybody relax. But they aren't fully blurred. OK, here we go. Marjorie Taylor Greene putting up these large blow ups of Hunter Biden's sex pictures. This is what the big thing they wanted published on Twitter was that Twitter wouldn't publish. And Jamie Raskin says, should we be displaying this stuff? Chairman, Mr. Of Hunter Biden making sex, excuse me, this is my time, making pornography. Should we be displaying this, Mr. Chairman? Get a lady's times expired and went two and a half

minutes over. Mr. Mifune wants two and a half minutes, he can have it if he wants to yield some to Mr. Ocasio-Cortez. When she goes, she can have it. OK, so really the height of, you know, maturity and relevance, as you can imagine, this was basically the signal for how this entire hearing was going to go. And we're going to go through some other elements of this. It seems really that the big bombshell is that Hunter Biden isn't good at taxes and Hunter Biden has negotiated a plea deal and it's being adjudicated. So why that's newsworthy or worthy of hearings? I don't know. Here is our friend Jamie Raskin indicating you're not going to hear evidence of wrongdoing in these hearings.

At today's hearing, we're going to hear about wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, who's pleading guilty on two tax charges and a gun charge next week. We'll hear about the back and forth among investigators, prosecutors and a Trumpointed U.S. attorney. Over a dozen people who spent four years investigating the president's son. We'll hear about how they disagreed on investigative steps and what criminal charges to bring. All normal stuff in government investigations that doesn't usually lead to a congressional hearing. But one thing you will not hear today is any evidence of wrongdoing by President Joe Biden or his administration. Like every other try by our colleagues to concoct a scandal about President Biden, this one is a complete and total bust.

In fact, the ongoing case that the majority invites us to interfere with today is actually a striking illustration of the success of the American system of independent prosecutors operating under the rule of law and outside the realm of the kind of political influence my colleagues are trying to exercise today. Jamie Raskin is spot on. Let me simplify what he is saying. He's saying two things. He's saying, number one, we have all these hearings. You're not going to hear any evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden or his administration. You're going to hear about Hunter Biden. You will hear who is not involved with the government. Remember, Jared Kushner was involved with the government. Ivanka

was involved with the government. Hunter Biden's not involved with the government, the administration. You'll hear about him. And it's going to be no wrongdoing by Joe Biden and number two, if anything, we have evidence that the separation of powers worked because we have the DOJ under Joe Biden successfully prosecuting the president's son. This is evidence of success, not a failure. This is evidence of impartiality, not bias. But they don't care and they want to keep wasting and wasting and wasting your money and my money. Going back to Jamie Raskin, continuing to really get to Republicans at the heart of what this is and saying, listen,

if you're this worried about the IRS not doing its job, then go along with the additional funding we want for the IRS, which, of course, Republicans are against. If my GOP colleagues think that the treatment of millions of tax scoff laws or even the handful who face criminal prosecution like Hunter Biden, is too lenient. I invite them to join us Democrats in supporting the $80 billion in funding for the IRS that we passed in the Inflation Reduction Act last year. This money will enable the IRS to make long overdue improvements in customer service, but will also enable the agency to restore loss capabilities and enforcement to identify and prosecute tax cheats.

But the very first thing House Republicans did this Congress was vote to rescind that funding while disparaging these future IRS employees who will do the same kind of work today's witnesses do. Senator Cruz called them Biden's shadow army. Senator Grassley said they will be going around. All right. You get the point. The point is, if you're really that worried that the IRS isn't doing its job, that it's underpowered, that it's under resourced,

that it's not going after people in the way that it should. Why are you against increased funding to the IRS, which is something Democrats have been asking for for a while? A very good point. Now let's go to some of the cartoonish moments from these hearings. And remember, this is your taxpayer money. They're not doing a hearing on how to end hunger, which we could do. They're not doing a hearing on how to get health care to everybody, which we could do. They're not doing a hearing on how to end homelessness, which we could do. They are wasting your money and my money to argue that Hunter Biden isn't good at paying his taxes and presenting not a shred of evidence that Joe Biden or his administration did a damn thing wrong. Here is James Comer saying that the Biden family and businesses and associates and their companies

have received $10 million from foreign nationals and related companies. One aspect is that's a lot of entities and only ten million dollars. And number two, you won't hear any actual evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden or his administration for Biden family associates and suspicious activity reports generated by the Bidens and their associates. High dollar or foreign business transactions. What these records reveal is astonishing. Is it? The Bidens created over 20 shell companies, most of which were created when Joe Biden was vice president. Bank records so far show the Biden family, their business associates and their companies received over $10 million

from foreign nationals and related companies. A lot of this money poured in while Joe Biden was vice president. Despite creating many companies after vice president took office, the Biden family used associates companies to receive millions of dollars from foreign companies in China, Ukraine, and Romania. After foreign companies sent money to business associates companies, the Bidens then received incremental payments over time to various different bank accounts. OK, now some of what he says is not true as far as there is any evidence for now. Is it possible they just haven't found the evidence yet? Sure. But how many years are they going to investigate the exact same thing? Secondly, when you cast

such a wide net and say that business associates of the family of Joe Biden have received money, it's not exactly damning. And of course, he has not even asserted evidence of any criminality by anybody, never mind the Biden administration or Joe Biden himself. Is there cronyism and nepotism and handshake deals? Of course, Jared and Ivanka were at the heart of it as part of Trump's administration. Does whatever they did excuse potential wrongdoing by anybody associated with Joe Biden? Of course not. But it is getting embarrassing how long they've been investigating the same thing and how

slippery they are. James Comer's little rant there, if you're not paying attention, might sound like sounds like something wrong was done, but he is not actually asserting any criminality or wrongdoing. Often when they do assert it, they do it without evidence. In this case, he's not even actually asserting criminality. At another moment during this hearing, IRS so-called whistleblower Gary Shapley says he's been painted by a partisan brush in his motivations here and that that's not good. Then he calls Chuck Grassley the patron saint of whistleblowers, which sounds pretty partisan to me.

Speaker 4 25 years, including five years with the Department of Justice Tax Division. I'm also grateful for Empower Oversight, a nonprofit whistleblower group whose president, Tristan Levitt, was previously nominated by President Biden to the Merit Systems Protection Board and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate. While some have tried to paint me with a partisan brush because this charitable organization employs some former staffers to GOP members on Capitol Hill. That's not the only reason why he's been painted with a partisan brush, of course. It's also that he has been working directly and exclusively with Republicans to try to frame the Biden administration as having committed some kind of obstructive or illegal act absent any evidence that that took place. Their expertise developed

working for the patron saint and whistleblower Senator Chuck Grassley has been invaluable. Meanwhile, the Biden family attorneys appear to be representing Hunter Biden, President Biden and the Department of Justice, and they are not working for free. There's been reported in public sources that there is a large fund paying for legal fees for Biden family attorneys. Yeah. The the patron saint of whistleblowers, Chuck Grassley. Hard to imagine why this guy's been painted with a partisan brush. Then we go to a friend of the show, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthy, who makes the point that a whole bunch of the alleged alley. I'm struggling to even find the right language to discuss this. It's the alleged allegations against Joe Biden because they're not even really allegations.

If you listen to them, much of what is being described allegedly as an allegation is stuff that happened when Joe Biden was not even president of the United States. If you committed a crime, it doesn't matter what the status was, but they want to talk about the appearance of impropriety in some of these cases. They are off script. You're talking about how the election cycle is delaying decisions by the prosecution. And it turns out that the delay in the election cycle was happening at a time when Joe Biden was not the president. I'm sorry, sir. That's in Special Agent Ziegler's transcript. That's why I couldn't find it. So, Mr. Ziegler and you shared concerns about delays related to the election cycle. But at that time, Joe Biden was not the president. I believe at that time he was the nominee for president. Now why is that so important?

They want to argue that the IRS and other investigative agencies under Biden were obstructing and slow walking and delaying investigations. And what Raja Krishnamoorthi is pointing out is that for much of the time being described, Biden was not the president of the United States. He Biden was not the president of the United States. He wasn't the vice president of the United States. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for president. This two minutes that I'm playing for you right now is the epitome of why this entire thing is a ridiculous waste of your taxpayer money and my taxpayer money. But while he was not the president, was he?

I just a simple question, sir. Can you rephrase the what? What time Joe Biden was not the president in the presidential primaries in 2020? Correct. That is correct. Sir. Finally, Mr. Shapley, you said that warrants were ready as soon as April 2020 to begin searching for records, but actions weren't taken with regard to those warrants.

Again, Joe Biden was not the president in April 2020, was he? That has to do with it. So I'm confused by your line of questioning. We're talking about an election to which now President Biden was a part of. So he didn't have to be the president to have election meddling. No, but the question is this. Was he the are they this dumb or are they pretending? Honestly, what do you think? Do they realize that they have no argument if they are arguing about actions taken by the DOJ and IRS, etc. when Donald Trump was president. Are they stupid or are they pretending president at that time in April 2020? It's been asked and answered. And what's the

answer, sir? The elect the answer is yes or no. Is no. Thank you. Thank you. I wheeled back. Mr. Chairman, may I finish? Please, you may answer the question. So, you know, it's clear that he was not the president, but an election is for the purpose of electing a president. And Joe Biden at the time was a nominee for president of the United States. Therefore, the election clauses with DOJ policy took place. And so all of Trump's people. We're working to help Hunter Biden be shielded from prosecution. Why? Because they were turning on Trump or what? It doesn't make any sense. And my money is being flushed down the toilet. And so is yours when they could be dealing with real issues. Here's one last clip.

Just a reminder, this is James Comer. Now, this is the same Burisma stuff just recycled for a different audience. During our investigation, our committee became aware through whistleblower disclosures provided the Senator Chuck Grassley that the FBI had an unclassified record that details an extortion and bribery scheme involving then Vice President Biden and a Burisma executive. OK, I'm not even going to play more. That is the same story for which they claim to have a whistleblower who they couldn't find for three years, for which they claim to have tapes that they couldn't get their hands on, nor could

they guarantee their authenticity, for which they assert criminality, but can cite no laws that were broken, nor evidence for that. Those laws were broken. This is the same thing. Just recycle. That's all this is. And our money is being flushed when we could be dealing with poverty. We could be dealing with climate. We could be dealing with any of the things that would be more important. We should be furious. We should vote them out. Remember to subscribe to the YouTube channel. I appreciate that. blood vessels dilate, your heart rate goes up. It can soothe muscles and more. Now you can enjoy the same effects from the comfort of your home without a bunch of strangers walking around, which I personally am not big on. Our sponsor, Bon Charge, makes the world's safest and most

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to follow as we have been the leading two candidates in the twenty twenty four Republican presidential primary. Those are Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. Let's start with DeSantis today. Ron DeSantis gave a speech in Columbia, South Carolina, two days ago. In this speech, Ron DeSantis really reminded us why his campaign is failing to launch, why his campaign is going nowhere, why his campaign is failing to launch, why his campaign is going nowhere, why his campaign is laying off a dozen people. DeSantis is still talking about vaccines and vaccine mandates. And he is also lying and trying to rewrite history when it comes to dealing with covid casting or creating a contrast that is completely legendary only in his own mind

when it comes to him versus Trump on covid. Listen to this clip. You might think that it were twenty twenty one listening to DeSantis here. That mandate was wrong. That mandate was not based on scientific data. Oh, military personnel who meet standards were probably at close to zero risk of significant COVID to begin with. Many of them had already had COVID and had natural immunity. But the M RNA shots, it's just nuts that he's still talking about this as if this is going to

win him a nomination or shown not to prevent the infection and transmission of COVID. Right. So you have individuals that had already had it. They didn't want to take the shot. And then they're being forced to take something that they don't want to take or perhaps potentially lose their career. So so that was wrong. That was an example of civilians and political people bowing to the hysteria in society at the time about COVID and trying to jam that down the throats of our military service members. We are going to acknowledge that the military made a mistake. We are going to offer service members who were separated their jobs back, including with back pay. There you go. So as you can imagine, not part of this story is that DeSantis declared a state of emergency in March of 2020 earlier than many other states authorized what is being called a lockdown

on April 1st of 2020. And it could have been later, shorter or longer, early, whatever his whether it was right or wrong, by the way, he's trying to rewrite history on this thing. Now he did then reopen in what is arguably an irresponsible way. The point is rewriting covid history to try to win a Republican primary against Donald Trump, who's got more than twice the support you have in what? Almost August of 2023 is a losing battle. And even Newsmax seems to have had enough of DeSantis.

Speaker 3 So what D.I. is telling people to do is to elevate our differences, elevate different ethnicities, gender, race, you name it, and balkanize people and put them into different groups. That's not good for society, but it's definitely not good for the government. Speaker 1 You're listening to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaking live right now, presidential contender for 2024 and looking for the Republican nomination. Speaker 1 All right. So Newsmax has basically had enough.

Here's one more clip from this just electric speech from Ron DeSantis, literally winning him tens of votes, I'm sure to be yet another institution in American life that gets infected with the woke mind virus. Oh, boy. This is changing the character of the military. It's changing the culture of our services and it's creating a situation in which great warriors have been driven away and recruiting is at an all time low post abolition of the draft in the Vietnam conflict. In reality, there are record numbers of people wanting to join the military from DeSantis, his own state of Florida.

And as was pointed out by CNN anchor Jake Tapper during the recent interview with the Santis, even those who are in the age that they might join the military rank wokeness as ninth on the list of concerns about the military. And that's once you have eliminated from that list the obvious concerns about being far from your family, getting injured, getting maimed or getting killed. You've got to eliminate all of that. And then wokeness is the ninth largest concern for potential members of the military. He's making it all up and it is not helping him. He continues to struggle to stay above 20 percent while Trump is actually gaining

support. Trump was at forty five in late March and then around low 50s and just slightly climbing into the mid 50s. DeSantis is failing and there is a real question as to whether this guy even has a path to the first primary. We'll watch it. We'll follow it. We'll see where it goes. For his own part, Donald Trump melted down badly, very, very badly about this potentially forthcoming third indictment. I did everything right and they indicted me.

Hard to believe Donald Trump posting almost apoplectically to his social media platform, Truth Social, the following messages, many in all capital letters reminding us that no matter how much this guy tells us, he's not worried about these indictments. He's very worried about these indictments. Trump saying, quote, These lunatics and thugs are destroying our vote, our border, our democracy and our country. Election interference at a level never seen before. Make America great again. Almost none of these statements are true, by the way. There is no evidence that what's happening with Trump and the charges against him and the

investigations in any of it is election interference. There have been both Democrats and Republicans involved in these investigations. Although Trump says every time he gets arrested, there's police officers crying, shedding tears everywhere. There's no evidence of that even. But Trump continues to make these claims. Trump continuing these vicious communists, Marxists, fascists and radical left Democrats have attacked my lawyers at a level never seen before. And yet I keep on winning. Any attorney that represents me is either a fool or a great American patriot that history will love and cherish.

I am unaware of any communists, Marxists or fascists involved in the investigations of Trump or even in government. And as far as radical left Democrats, radical left Democrats sort of in the eye of the beholder, Trump continuing, quote, For the first time in the history of the USA, lawyers and the legal system itself are under siege, all a gift from crooked Joe Biden, Merrick Garland and deranged prosecutor Jack Smith deranged. Jack Smith is ad hominem, but there is no evidence that Joe Biden has directed these prosecutions. And of course, Merrick Garland is at the head of the DOJ. There is no evidence of wrongdoing.

If anything, Garland was too hesitant to actually move forward with charges against Trump. And then lastly, Trump trothing to troth central, quote, The Democrat prosecutors waited years to bring charges so that they could interfere with the twenty twenty four presidential election. They are getting, however, big blowback, certainly at least with some of these investigations. That is a lie because some of these investigations relate to things that happened far more recently, particularly when it comes to Trump and documents and attempts to hide or fraudulently deceive the government about what he has and where he has it. These are other than some names that Trump gets correct. Incidentally, in these posts, these are all lies and he is not planning to tell the truth anytime

soon. Let's take a very quick break. We're going to speak to tell the truth any time soon. Let's take a very quick break. We're going to speak to Matt Lewis after the break, which I think will be super interesting. 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

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since I hate getting hot while I sleep. Shipping is always free. You get 100 nights to decide whether you like it. My audience gets a huge 20 percent discount off of all orders, plus two free pillows. Go to Helix sleep dot com slash Pacman. That's H.E.L.I.X. sleep dot com slash Pacman for 20 percent off and two free pillows. The link is in the podcast notes. Today, I welcome Matt Lewis to the program. Matt is a senior columnist for The Daily Beast and also author of the brand new book, Filthy Rich Politicians, The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals and Ruling Class Elites Cashing In

on America. In all honesty, did you come up with the title or did your literary agent or publisher do that one? Oh, they came up with that. Yeah, I but and this is the same way with most of my columns that I write as well. I just I'm not good at headlines, but thank goodness for people who are because I really think the filthy rich politicians title is great, even though I had nothing to do with it other than green lighting it. Well, it's what I think is interesting about the book. And for context, I hope I'm accurate in that.

When I tell the audience, if people aren't familiar with you, you're you're a right wing guy, but I don't think you're a right wing nut. And certainly under Trump, you have maybe been more critical of it in the past of the direction of the party. Is that fair for context? Well, look, I think I mean, I'd like to think that I've always been a center right conservative who was introspective and willing to criticize my team. Yeah. team when need be. But I think that Trump, when Trump came along, and I'm very proud that I have immediately opposed Trump and have opposed him every step of the way. But I do think that that had this weird psychological effect on

all of us, which in a way was freeing to really re-examine things even more than we might have, even if we thought we were being open-minded. So one, there's a lot of bad things that came from Trump. One of the good things that came from him is that it really shook people like me from any sort of, I don't know, intellectual commitment to sticking with our team based on team spirit as opposed to philosophy or the facts. So with that kind of as a jumping off point, one of the things I find interesting about your book is you sort of seem to be making a point I've made about the narrow range of sources from which we get our top level politicians in the United States. Now, your criticism is not exactly what mine is.

Your solutions are not exactly what mine are necessarily. But that is a point you're making, right, that we have this very narrow path into top level elected official dumb in the United States. Yeah, I think that, you know, hopefully if you're an open minded person, you you're changing all the time, right? No, I don't think you should be flip flopping all the time over like deeply held convictions. Yeah, but you should be. And so, like, I really had not thought that much about money and politics, believe it or not.

I mean, my wife's a Republican political fundraiser. I've been writing about politics for decades. But this book, writing this book and researching it, Filthy Rich Politicians, made me start to think things through. And one of the kind of epiphanies I had was that I could not get elected to Congress, and not just because I wouldn't fit in with the Trumpy zeitgeist, but because I probably wouldn't have the money to do it. And that was a realization that hit home. I mean, again, I'm somebody who I know about politics. I've got a lot of friends and contacts in politics. And yet I don't I don't have that Ivy League pedigree and I don't have the bank account that I mean, even the so this forced me to kind of reckon with that. And, you know, the ball has started rolling. Who knows? Maybe I'll end up where you are someday. Well, I don't know that you're right, that you couldn't get elected to the House. I mean, listen, George Santos got elected. Now, yes, he got elected with a bunch of lies,

but he was I don't I think if we actually figured out the amount of money he really has, it's it's not really that much. I think a lot of it would be if you picked the right district to run in and you've got connections that your local electrician wouldn't have. You know, I think I still think you would have a better shot than many. But I do think this idea of, you know, the Ivy League, OK, I mean, yes, Harvard and Yale are certainly overrepresented in the halls of Congress. I think that that's true. The ability to raise money, maybe in addition to whether you're coming in with money, is certainly a factor. But talk to me about latte liberals. Like what exactly is is a latte liberal like a limousine liberal?

Yes, pretty much. First, let me just give you a quick my spiel because I just want to put it in context of sort of why I wrote the book. So like one of the things that I learned in writing it is that the average member of Congress is about 12 times richer than the average American household. So I'm kind of looking at why the rich get elected, but also how the elected get rich. So once they get an office, there's, you know, the insider trading, that kind of thing. So that's kind of the big picture of the book. But there are, you know, 10 chapters and one of them, well, one of them looks at what I call Ivy League populace, right? That's like the Josh Hollies and the Ted Cruz's and the J.D JD Vance's. But I have one on

latte liberals, too. So this could be this could be like I would I would say like Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders, John Kerry, AOC. And basically what I'm looking at here is hypocrisy. OK, so for example, to give you like one example of many AOC showing up at the Met Gala wearing that tax the rich dress, I felt like was, you know, somebody who's like dressing up in a designer dress going to a not only a posh, you know, sort of cosmopolitan affair, but also a very expensive one. And yet she gets to also play the populist, you know, at the same time, it's really a win-win for her. And I found that, you know, kind of disingenuous. And I think that it's the kind of thing that turns off a lot of working class folk out there. And, you know, I also think that most of the book looks at money specifically, like politicians who are cashing in.

Yeah. But I think in this case it was it had more to do with like the attention economy. I think it's also corrosive, but just in a slightly different way. I think there are two different groups there. When I hear you say Pelosi and John Kerry, OK, I mean, a bunch of Pelosi and Kerry's wealth is actually from their spouses, but still. OK, so that's one category.

I don't know that AOC has really cashed in. The dress was borrowed. I mean, yes, I agree. By the way, I agree that when I found out about the dress, I was like very much the wrong move. But it's not her dress. She borrowed the dress. Sometimes people borrow jewelry for Rolling Stone shoots or whatever. Bernie, I think he's got a couple million bucks, but he's been making six figures

for 40 years and he's in his 80s. Unless you're terrible with money, you're going to have that amount. I understand that it's not average, but it's also not. I mean, a couple million bucks, including property, one property that was left to him from someone who died or to his wife when you're in your 80s. It's actually nowhere near the top couple percent. So I think there's a couple categories here. But I think you are getting at the tension between what happens up until the point at which you get into these positions of power and the promises one makes, then the opportunities that present themselves, either because you seek them out or because it's the way the system works once you're in power and then whether it creates a tension

with how you choose to legislate. I think that's what ties the four people you mentioned together. Yes. And I would agree that, I mean, if people are changing the way that they vote based on money, that is a really bad type of corruption. And I'm not, you know, generally not leveling those charges in this book. I do think like the average member of Congress now is a millionaire. More than 50% are millionaires, but it's only about 7% ofpack. Obviously, I think there's something, the irony of him being a social Democrat that's tied to this. And in the case of Bernie Sanders, you know, I have a little section in the book about book deals, how politicians cash in on book deals. Bernie Sanders literally said, you know, I wrote a bestselling book. You could be

a millionaire if you wrote a bestselling book. Right. Which I'm like, fair point, Bernie. I hope I hope I do. I hope it works out for me. But that was a great line. The other thing that comes up with Bernie is his wife, Jane. Yep. Who he has throughout many decades found ways to pay her, including making her his media buyer. You know, typically this is actually a profession. There are people who like that is what they do. They're media buyers on campaign. They take the campaign money, they buy TV ads and they get a percentage of it. It's a pretty good life. Bernie made Jane his media buyer, even though she had never had zero experience doing that. It certainly smells swampy. Yep.

And so but I will concede this section on latte liberals and the one on Ivy League populists are both different from the rest of the book because by and large, these are younger politicians who have not yet kind of cashed in and gotten to that Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry level. Yeah, I didn't know about Bernie hiring his wife in that capacity. It reminds me of, you know, Trump hiring Laura Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle and that sort of thing. So to some degree, I mean, OK, so on the one hand, there's the it is more difficult for large swaths of people to even make it into elected office.

To what degree do you think the self-selection bias plays a role in that lots of the people like, for example, I think Neil deGrasse Tyson would be a super interesting person to be, you know, maybe a senator. I don't know. And people would say, well, he has no political experience. He can think in a way that I think the Senate would benefit from at the least, I think is something we could say. And yes, he happens to be on the left from everything I've heard. And we could say, well, maybe a different scientist or something like that. But a lot of people like that aren't interested in going into politics, in part because of some of the very things that you point out in the book. So to what degree do

you think the self-selection bias is a factor and what really could be done to change that? Well, that's a good question. I definitely I'm a big believer in incentives and I don't think we want a scenario where people are like running for office to get famous and to get rich. And sadly, that kind of is what it is today. And I actually think the fame thing is on the rise, the attention economy. But so I think we just have to think about incentives. I call for lots of reforms in the book. I don't believe any of them are going to solve the problem of corruption, but to mitigate the downside.

Right. So banning stock trading. So if you get in there, you're there, but you can't cash in. Term limits, that would limit the ability to sort of make generational wealth based off of your tenure. The one thing that, the one sort of, I guess, counterintuitive thing I would do is actually pay them more. I would actually raise the salary because I'm going to cut off their ways to make a lot of extracurricular money. We might as well pay them a little bit better salary so they can focus on their actual job. Like how much better? Oh, I don't know. So right now, the average member of Congress is making like one hundred and seventy four thousand dollars a year. Right. Like on one hand, that sounds like a lot. I think the average

salary in America is like fifty six thousand. So this is a lot more. However, you know, members of Congress, sometimes they they might have a residence back in the district and also have to rent or own a place in Washington, D.C. I would be cutting off their ability to make money from book deals. I would be cutting off their ability to bet on the stock market. Yeah. So I don't know. I would probably raise it to, say, two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars a year, which is not a crazy difference in the grand scheme when you're talking about the limits that you're imposing. Yeah, no, I mean, I could probably be, you know, talked into three hundred or something if someone persuaded me it was right. I mean, another thing I would do is to and this

actually is not in the book, but while we're talking about it, I would also uncap the House. Like, right, there's been 435 members for 100 years or something. Yeah. I would like to have four or five times as many House members. I think that would bring down the average net worth of your average congressperson, it would, I think, get rid of the sense that they're more elite and special than us. They would probably be more responsive to us. And then I think that two hundred twenty five thousand dollars salary would be

pretty appealing. What's interesting about that is I don't have the number in front of me, but I know a couple of MPs in Canada and I was shocked when they told me that based on Canada's population and the number of them, they represent a fraction of the number of people that an American member of the House represents. I think right now it's about seven hundred and fifty thousand in the US. And I don't want to say what the number is in Canada. I don't remember. I what the number is in Canada. I don't remember. I think it's a lot less. What you're proposing is that AOC or Marjorie Taylor Greene, instead of

representing three quarters of a million people, they might only represent one hundred and twenty five thousand people. You think that not only by by opening up more seats, it would kind of widen out the types of folks that serve. Would would individuals, would constituents be better represented as well by default because they have there are fewer of them represented by each member? Oh, definitely. I think it would a lot of the problems of gerrymandering would go away and also a lot of the problems of feeling like you're not represented or that your member of Congress is out of touch with you. That was one of the things that I found in writing Filthy Rich

Politicians is this Pew Research survey where 75 percent, a little about three quarters of Americans felt like their member of Congress was more focused on their own interests than on we the people. And they I think was 72 percent of American survey described their member of Congress as, quote, selfish. I just feel like if you were representing a smaller group of folks, they would have more access to you. And I think also it would broaden the type of people who get elected around the country. Give us a little bit. Give us some vignettes, Matt, if you can, of the type of character you

would like to see as a member of the House. You know what we've talked before about scientists. I've talked before about what about like a school principal, for example, or something like that? All of this is very dependent on personality and interest and all of these different things. But who are the sorts of folks you would like to see representing Americans in the House of Representatives? Oh, that's an interesting question. I have not thought about this, partly because, you know, we get stuck into this thing where we can't imagine anything different because it's almost unthinkable. But I like where you're going with this. I mean, I think Bill was Bill Clinton who said that he wanted an administration that looked like America. And I think he was probably thinking like identity politics, like race or something like that. But but

why couldn't we have if we had, you know, 2000 members of the House of Representatives, you could imagine right away the diversity you would have. And but let's really think it through. Teacher. Yes. No. Electrician. Yes. No. I mean, you know, let's let's like. No, but actually, that's an interesting point. And one of the things I learned when I was writing the book is that as recently and this is a this was I'm citing the Washington Post here, but as recently as 19 as the 1970s, there was like a plumber in Congress. There was a pipe fitter. I think there's a woman who just got elected in Washington state, a Democrat who is like a mechanic or something like that. I think that's good, actually. And maybe we'll maybe we would get back to that.

Last thing I want to ask you about, because you're not going to give me a list of professions that are OK, looking at the Republican primary right now, is it obvious that Chris Christie is the most honest and sane actor currently running? Yes. Oh, interesting. OK, that's my opinion. That's right. You're right.

Yeah. Who would be second after him? I'd say Tim Scott. OK. All right. Tim Scott. I like Tim Scott a lot. What disqualified him from winning is that he he's pandering. He has to pander too much. Yes. He's not as honest. I don't think he's an evil or dishonest person, but he doesn't have the luxury of being able to call it the way he sees it, the way Chris Christie can. I think that that's fair, fair on both accounts.

We've been speaking with Matt Lewis, senior columnist for The Daily Beast. The new book is Filthy Rich Politicians, the Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals and Ruling Class Elites Cashing in on America. We'll link to the book. Matt, really appreciate your time and your thoughts today. Thank you for having me. to curb the nicotine cravings. Zypex toothpicks are super discreet. You can use them anytime, anywhere. Smoking and vaping aren't allowed, including flights, sporting events in restaurants. They're available in six different flavors with options of two and three milligrams of nicotine.

If you're not a nicotine user, Zypex also offers caffeine and B12 infused toothpicks. Speaker 1 Speaker 2 Speaker 3 will thank you. Go to Zipix toothpicks dot com today. Save 10 percent with the code Pacman 10 at checkout. Just remember, you must be 21 or older to order. That's ZIPPIX toothpicks dot com. Use promo code Pacman 10 at checkout for 10 percent off. That's Pacman 1 0. The info is in the podcast notes. I want to play something for you. That's funny and it's scary and it's stunning and it's unprecedented. As we've been talking about for the last couple of days, it appears as though the failed, twice indicted, twice arrested, twice impeached former president Donald Trump is now rapidly barreling towards a third arrest. This, of course, is a completely unprecedented scenario. No president has so openly flouted laws and norms while president and in the aftermath

of being president, as has Donald Trump. And these indictments serve as at least the potential hypothetical theoretical consequence for what Donald Trump allegedly did. It is momentous that a former president has been arrested not once but twice and possibly a third, fourth, fifth, even maybe a sixth time on Fox News. Fox News anchor John Roberts made the statement, you know, you got to wonder whether this is sort of going to become old news, whether it's happening so much, whether a former president is being arrested so much that voters become accustomed to it and it doesn't really matter anymore. What is wild about that is that it is both almost inconceivable if we had said five years

ago, you know, this guy is going to get arrested so many times voters will become bored by it. That's outrageous. But also the fact that it's not completely untrue. And Trump voters in particular have written off all of these arrests as just political grandstanding and weaponized DOJ. And it really doesn't matter to them. Is it two, three, four, five or six times that Trump gets arrested?

Listen to this incredible clip. Keep on going. I mean, the rest of this primary election is going to be in reference to Trump. It's going to be about lawsuits. It's going to be about legal fees. It's going to be about lawsuits. It's going to be about legal fees. It's going to be about judges. And it's just going to continue to be a further and further distraction. We can't keep dealing with this drama. We can't keep dealing with the negativity. She obviously wants to get to the issue. She

doesn't want this all to be about the Trump indictments. But I mean, you got to wonder at some point voters become inured to all of this. It's like how many indictments can a former president and a current presidential candidate face before people say, you know what? Maybe it doesn't matter. Right. Yeah. I think there are really two sides of this. And this is where this election is going to be played out on the GOP primary side. And that is the people who say, you know what? I really like to trump policies, but I just don't like the chaos. I don't like the baggage. And that's what Nikki Haley is trying to tap into. You're likely going to see Ron Santis and Mike Pence and others tap into that. But then there's another side that says, listen, why are they going after him so hard? Why are they doing this? You know, as if this is just a choice, could it maybe have to do with the

fact that there are gobs of evidence of potentially more than 100 different crimes that Trump has committed or more by the time it's all said and done? Maybe it shouldn't matter is not the takeaway I would have gone for here to this former president who we liked his policies. We had some problems with him personally, maybe. But why are they doing it? Because maybe this is their thinking. He's shaking things up and bringing down the swamp. And right. And there you go. The reason that they're indicting Trump is because he's really shaking things up and bringing down the swamp. Now, Brett Baier is playing devil's advocate, but it's a very dumb

devil's advocate. It's a devil's advocate that makes it's a very dumb devil's advocate. It's a devil's advocate that makes no sense. Now, one person wrote to me and said, David, this is Fox News preparing the battlefield. They are proactively trying to muffle the impact of the next indictment. Maybe at this point, it's really not clear whether Fox News is a right wing channel or a mega channel or an anti mega channel. I don't even pretend to know. We've seen instances of all of it on Fox News. But what you have to understand is that there is a significant percentage of

Trumpists who would be happy to vote for Trump if Trump's in prison and to allow Trump to be president from prison. I mean, nothing matters to them more than keeping the guy that they've attached their buggy to in power and, quote, owning the libs, angering the left, et cetera. That is what they care about. I have a big follow up on a story from about a month ago. Remember when Trump was found liable for sexual assault and defamation against E. Jean Carroll, who says that Trump assaulted her and said Trump raped her in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the 90s in Manhattan. One of the big defenses we heard from right wingers was listen, liable for defamation, liable for sexual assault, but not liable for rape.

Now, remember, we use the term liable because it was not a criminal case. It was a civil case. Important just to remember that the judge has now clarified this distinction about no rape. No, no, no, no, no. That's actually not the case at all. The Washington Post reports. Judge clarifies. Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll. Trump is civilly a rapist. It is not criminal liability. We all know that we're not pretending. Trump has been found civilly liable of rape.

The article from Aaron Blake says after Trump was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll, his legal team and defenders lodged a frequent talking point. Despite Carroll's claims that Trump had raped her, they noted the jury stopped short of saying he committed that particular offense. Instead, jurors opted for a second option, sexual abuse. This was a rape claim. This was a rape case all along, and the jury rejected that and made other findings. That's a quote from Trump's lawyer, Joe Takapina. A judge has now clarified this is basically a legal distinction without a real world difference. He says what the jury found Trump did was, in fact, rape as commonly understood. This is a big deal.

The filing from Judge Lewis Kaplan came as Trump's attorneys sought a new trial and have argued that the jury's five million dollar verdict against Trump in the civil suit was excessive. The reason they argue is sexual abuse could be as limited as just groping a victim's breasts, just groping a victim's breast. Kaplan roundly rejected Trump's motion Tuesday, calling it entirely unpersuasive, saying, quote, The finding that Miss Carol failed to prove that she was raped within the meaning of the New York penal law does not mean that she failed to prove that Trump raped her. As many people commonly understand the word rape, he added, indeed, as the

evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump, in fact, did exactly that. Kaplan said New York's legal definition of rape is far narrower than it is understood to mean in common modern parlance, requiring forcible, unc arrested, civilly liable rapist, easily running away with the Republican nomination for president for 2024. You know, I remember after this jury verdict came in, there were some MAGA people saying this made me want to vote for him even more, which is really quite a sick thing. And of course, the behavior Trump was found civilly liable for is very much in line with everything we know about Trump.

We remember the stories about Trump saying he used to like to walk into girls dressing rooms at his pageants because he knew, you know, they couldn't stop him. He could get in there because he ran the pageant or whatever the case may be. Sky's sick. We know that. And this is not just a question of wild allegations the way they make about Joe and Hunter Biden, civil liability, evidence, indictments, et cetera, et cetera. And the judge now clarifying Trump was found liable for rape in every realistic sense of what these words mean. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. One of the things that really bothers me about this show is when I get criticized for saying things I did not say. And this voicemail is an example of that. It relates to gas prices. Take a listen. Yes. Excuse the previous.

Well, I'm struggling here, Mr. Pacman. All right. Anyway, I want to make a comment about you said that gasoline was down to a dollar fifty when you had your piece yesterday on inflation. There's nowhere in the country where it's about 50 a gallon. OK, listen, I said gas was down by a dollar fifty by a dollar fifty. Gas reached a high of just over five bucks a gallon some time ago. It's now at 350 a gallon. Five bucks to 350 is a decline of a dollar fifty per gallon. I never said gas was down to a dollar fifty. It was down by a dollar fifty. Please, I'm begging you. Criticize me for things that I say, I'm doing everything right that I can. I did everything right and they indicted me and I I'm somehow still being attacked for

things I didn't really say. OK, it might have just been a misunderstanding, but no gas is not a buck. Fifty gas is down by a buck. Fifty. Very exciting stuff. All right. We have a fantastic bonus show for you today. Sign up at join pacman dot com.

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