The David Pakman Show - 7/25/23: The post-birth abortion lie, DeSantis loses 40% of his support

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Thom Hartmann, host of the Thom Hartmann Program and author of the new book "The Hidden History of American Democracy: Rediscovering Humanity's Ancient Way of Living," joins David to discuss democracy, happiness, forms of government, traditional societies, and much more. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3QhD93X -- Despite claims from Republicans to the contrary, not a single US state allows so-called "post-birth abortions" -- Florida Republican Governor and 2024 Republican presidential contender Ron DeSantis has lost 40% of his support in the Republican primary -- Nearly 1/3 of Republicans now see failed former President Donald Trump "unfavorably" -- 2024 Republican presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson becomes the first 2024 contender to call for Donald Trump to drop out of the race over his criminal charges -- Right wing podcaster Ben Shapiro claims that air conditioning is a solution to global warming and that decarbonization causes poverty -- Donald Trump gets another softball interview from Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, but he still can't hold it together -- Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, seems to no longer say Donald Trump's name during interviews -- The Eggman calls in to say that despite his best efforts, he cannot find a non-MAGA car mechanic to work on his cars -- On the Bonus Show: DOJ sues Texas and Greg Abbott, Elon Musk risks more damage to Twitter by changing its name to "X," Biden supporters exploit Republican's $1 donation cashback campaign, much more... 🌎 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription (rules & restrictions may apply): https://babbel.com/pakman 🌱 Ounce of Hope: Get 25% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://www.ounceofhope.com/ 🧴 Thanks to our sponsor Geologie! Use code PAKMAN70 for 70% off at https://davidpakman.com/skin 🛡️ The first 100 people to use code PAKMAN will get 60% off of Incogni at http://incogni.com/pakman 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 💪 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

. I want to deal head on today with a lie so corrosive and so ridiculous and yet somehow still making headway among the American right wing that we should look at it and take it head on. This is the lie that there are states that allow so-called post-birth abortions. Now, as a linguistic phenomenon, this doesn't make sense because post-birth and abortion are not compatible words. It's not a thing. But we, I think, understand what they mean when they say a post-birth abortion, saying that you can kill children after they've been born. I'm going to give you just one example of this. We did see this yesterday. This was the Ron DeSantis interview or no, we looked at this late last week.

The Ron DeSantis interview with Jake Tapper here, Ron DeSantis talks about so-called post birth abortions. Jake Tapper, I think, knows this is a lie, doesn't interfere with the lie. Here's a reminder. You recently signed a six week abortion ban in Florida. Yes or no. Would you support that as a nationwide ban? So I said I'm pro-life. I will be a pro-life president, and we will support pro-life policies.

At the same time, I look at what's going on in the Congress, and I don't see them making very much headway. I think the danger from Congress is if we lose the election, they're going to try to nationalize abortion up until the moment of birth. And in some liberal states, you actually have post-birth abortions. And I think that that's wrong. There you go. I think it's wrong to kill children. Well, well, what a brave and courageous position. So this is a lie. Now, I could give you dozens of other examples of this. Trump has said it. Others have said it. They love this talking point. Killing an infant after birth is infanticide. It's illegal in all 50 states. Even situations that result in a fetal death in the third trimester are extraordinarily rare, according to reproductive health experts. They usually involve emergencies, a fatal anomaly,

life threatening complications affecting the mother. But these are extraordinarily rare situations even in the third trimester. Women seeking abortions in the third trimester are extraordinarily rare. And we will talk about that in a moment. But what they are talking about doesn't exist. Now, you could have a life threatening situation where an expecting mother is induced into labor using Pitocin is typically the medication that's used. And you may have a situation where a newborn, because of these rare situations, has a very short life expectancy where it may be a question of this. This infant may live for hours.

And in those cases, a family might say, please provide palliative care, meaning care to address the comfort and symptoms of this essentially non viable infant and provide comfort because it's a matter of hours anyway. And again, those are extraordinarily rare situations. But you are not talking about killing an infant. Lois Shepherd, University of Virginia law and biomedical ethics professor, said, quote, No state allows post birth abortions. First, an abortion refers to terminating a pregnancy and a pregnancy does not continue after birth. But second, that would be killing a born human being who is a person entitled to the

equal protection of the laws, including prohibitions against murder. No state permits infanticide. I actually think that the post-birth abortion thing, as ridiculous as it is, is a distraction from another important reality about abortion. Abortion at month eight or nine is insanely rare. And it is even more rare that a woman at eight and a half months pregnant would show up at her obese office and say, you know, I changed my mind. I'd like an abortion. When we hear the testimony of OBGYNs, They explain that doesn't happen. And they almost universally say we have never had this happen and we don't know anyone who has had it happen.

And in if it were to happen, most OBGYNs would not even do it. Now, I know people will write to me and they'll go, well, doctor, so and so does does on demand abortions at nine months. OK, the testimony of the overwhelming number of OBGYN is essentially doesn't happen. Even if it did, we wouldn't do it in that situation unless we're talking about a non we discover some extraordinary anomaly of a non viable pregnancy. So post birth abortion, linguistically ridiculous, not a thing. Also not legal in any states, be they blue or red. Speaking of Ron DeSantis, his campaign has now lost 42 percent of its support.

That is not a typo. That is not a mistake. We are going to look at the numbers right now. You might remember this is a real clear politics average of polling in the twenty twenty four Republican presidential race. The Ron DeSantis polling line is the green line down the middle of the screen. And what you will notice is that Ron DeSantis is polling peaked just over 31 percent in mid-January. This was the peak of his polling. And over time, Ron DeSantis has lost support in the Republican primary. That led to him being in the high 20s in early March and then in the

mid 20s in early April and then down to around 20 in late May. And now at a new low, you have to go all the way back to July of last year, almost 13 months ago for a point at which DeSantis had lower polling support in this primary going from thirty one point three percent to 18. That is a loss of 42 percent of his support. Now, the predominant narrative about DeSantis is increasingly that his campaign is over. And if you say, hey, do you think the guy who lost almost half of his support is all of a sudden going to be poised to win this nomination? Most people would say the answer is obviously not, particularly as we see Vivek Ramaswamy surging a little bit and debates coming up and DeSantis making no headway. The counterpoint that we could make to play, I don't know if it's devil's advocate or what it would be, but if we wanted to make a counterpoint

about the DeSantis campaign pain being dead, the counterpoint would be fine. He's lost 42 percent support, but he's still the only guy actually running a strong second place in any of the relevant early states who is positioned to take a lead if something were to happen to Donald Trump. Now, by something were to happen, I don't mean a health issue necessarily. I mean, more likely a third, fourth, fifth, sixth indictment, the third of which may be coming this week, takes them off the campaign trail or whatever. At the same time, some people wrote to me yesterday and said, you know, David, even if Trump has so much support from the Republican electorate, that even if an additional indictment took him off the campaign trail, I don't know that even that would hurt him.

I think that there are voters who would vote for the guy if he was in prison. And I think that there is something to that. So is the DeSantis campaign likely dead after losing 42 percent support? Yeah, it's probably dead. Is that definitive? No. And this is an unprecedented primary, truly a twice indicted, twice and twice impeached former president who lost reelection running in what is now an open Republican primary. These are unique circumstances, very much unique circumstances. So I would not assume anything. But that's where the data is right now. Let's now talk briefly about the Republican Party's view of Donald Trump. Whatever the insiders are saying and feeling about Donald Trump and to some degree they

might be keeping it secret. One third of Republican voters now see Trump unfavorably. Now there are two interpretations of this number, and I'm going to give you both in a second. Business Insider reports Trump is becoming more unfavorable amongst Republicans and Republican leaning independents. Trump's unfavorable ratings rose from 24 percent in 2022 to 32 percent in 2023. His most recent July poll, most recent July poll.

This is a Pew Research poll. His rise in unfavorability comes after he was indicted twice and faces a third indictment. So there's a very interesting situation in likely voter polls within the Republican primary. Trump has not really been hurt by the indictments. But if you pull Republicans and Republican leaning independents about their opinion of Trump, he has fallen out of favor to a degree. But going from 24 to 32 is like saying one third more Republicans disapprove of Trump, view Trump unfavorably. So there's a few different stories here.

Number one, you might view Trump unfavorably, but still plan to vote for him. That's a reality. And in fact, there are Republicans who say, I don't really love the guy, but I mean, listen, no one else has a shot and I'm not voting for Joe Biden. So that's what it is. OK, well, that's certainly one perspective. The other perspective is something I've said before. The real stunning story isn't wow. We've now seen an eight point increase in the percent of Republicans that disapprove of Trump or view him unfavorably. The blockbuster shocking number is after everything that's happened, two thirds of Republicans still support a guy who incited a

riot at the nation's capital to try to take an election. He lost is already facing more than 70 felony counts and maybe many more as he is facing the third, fourth, fifth, possibly sixth indictment, was recently found civilly liable for raping a woman and then defaming her. And two thirds of the Republican Party still supports this guy. That's the story. And I would love for someone to explain to me what would it take to not back this guy anymore? If tomorrow we found out he was a serial killer, imagine that Trump was the Galego Beach or whatever, Gilgamesh Beach. You know, the guy I'm talking about, serial killer would then they say, OK, this is too much. Trump Trump Trump's the

the the Gilgo Beach killer. Now I'm not supporting him. Maybe there is no such thing. When Trump said I could shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any support, he wasn't kidding. And it also doesn't seem he was wrong. And to some degree, we on the left have to understand that some of these Republicans love him because of how bad he is. They see how much he is a humiliation to the left globally. They see how much other countries look at the US and go, what is wrong with these people? And they revel in it. We must understand that it is cult leader dynamics. And so the big story is that two thirds of the Republican Party still view Trump favorably.

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Now, remember that indictments are allegations. You haven't been found guilty of anything. And so there are understand understandably different views among people about whether one should have to do anything on the basis of an allegation absent actually being found guilty of anything. We'll get to that in a moment. Here is Asa Hutchinson yesterday on Fox News. The clip is courtesy of the accountable GOP Twitter account, which does some great work

tracking this stuff. Neil Cavuto interviewing Asa Hutchinson. And here is Asa Hutchinson making the case that Trump should step aside and explaining why. But he could seriously amass all the delegates necessary to be the Republican nominee going in to that trial if they can't push it back. What do you think of that, that he is the nominee? Well, first of all, it's a disastrous scenario for the Republican Party.

You're putting the caucus voters and primary voters in a position of not knowing the outcome of a very serious criminal case when they're casting their ballot. Now that's a fair point, right? But that's their problem. In other words, if you choose to vote for Trump when he's facing 70 felonies or more, you might say, well, I don't know if this guy will be free or in prison, at least hypothetically. But that would be your choice to me. That's unfair for the whole process. And are we going to be talking about Trump's legal cases?

Are we talking about fundamental issues that they care about? South Carolinians and Iowans, they don't put Trump first. They put the economy first as to the number one issue. So that's the challenge. And that's where I've said anybody who put the country's first would actually step aside here. They have so much to deal with and it's not fair to our democratic system. Well, you know, Trump does not put the country first.

So like that ship has sailed. But there are two sides to this. Indictments really are just allegations. They're allegations that have been made after showing evidence to a grand jury and determining that there is at least enough evidence to say an indictment makes sense. But they are not proof of guilt. And if you believe in due process under the law and all of that, we have no choice but to say you're not guilty of anything just because there is an allegation. On the other hand, we have no choice but to say you're not guilty of anything just because there is an allegation. On the other hand, we're talking about political considerations.

We're talking about there are organizations, there are entities, there are legislative bodies who say, hey, you know what, even if you're not found guilty, if you're accused of certain types of crimes, at least temporarily, you have to step down or whatever. And then if you're acquitted, then we revisit or whatever the case may be. There are companies that have such policies. The practical question is how much of a distraction can the race tolerate? My view is I want Trump to stay in. I want Trump to stand for a number of different reasons.

If Trump stays in but ends up losing, it might encourage him to run third party, which would be great because it would be terrible for the Republican Party. The numbers of pertaining to that we looked at yesterday. I want Trump to stay in because it should be up to voters to decide. Do we want to take the risk that I don't know, maybe Trump will be in prison, as unlikely as that may seem. So I love that Trump is staying in. I love that there are there is at least now one Republican.

He's only polling zero point eight percent. Hutchinson is. But OK, it's he's still one of the Republicans running, calling for him to step aside. Hopefully others do, because much like Steve Bannon has ideas of how to generate chaos that would be bad for Democrats. This is the type of chaos that at best is very bad for Republicans. And at worst, it just doesn't really do anything one way or the other. But it'll generate an interesting distraction from the issues which Republicans are unwilling

to talk about anyway. We will see if any other Republicans call for Trump to step aside. Ben Shapiro is giving us an opportunity to debunk some very common false claims about climate change. As many of you know, it's been insanely hot lately. In fact, record global heat, multiple records being pounded into oblivion in July. Now, The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro, former guest on this program, and he's welcome to come back any time.

As I've said before, I'm not avoiding him. He has a solution to the heat and to global warming. He says the solution is air conditioning. There is so much nonsense in this clip that I am going to take it as an opportunity to give people some facts about different aspects to this. Let's listen. Can I point out that there are a lot of headlines right now about how hot it is outside? I know it's hot outside. You know what I can do about that? Zero things. Thank God we have this thing called air conditioning. It's awesome. You know, it's a great cure for being super duper hot outside being a first world country. Amazing. It works out tremendously well. OK. Air conditioning is not a solution to warming because of the second law of thermodynamics. I know that sounds weird, but let me explain this to you. Air conditioners require a lot of energy to operate. And much of that energy comes from the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and

natural gas to generate the electricity that powers the air conditioner. The burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas to generate the electricity that powers the air conditioner. The burning of those fuels releases greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, which contributes to the greenhouse effect and these erratic temperatures, including the record heat that we have. So your air conditioner might provide localized cooling, but the net effect is an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and it worsens the problem that we are having. The air conditioners are, in a sense, part of the problem waste heat because the cooling process transfers heat to the outside. And this can this is called the heat island effect, dependency and adaptation.

If you rely on air conditioners, there's a vicious cycle where we don't do the things required to actually deal with the rising temperatures because we have the air conditioning and it just makes it worse and worse and worse. And it takes attention away from other things that can be done, you know, natural ventilation and shading and green roofs and painting, painting streets and sidewalks white and all of these different things that we're looking at. So the air conditioning is not a solution. It's actually part of the problem. Let's continue. Because it turns out that if you have a really solid energy grid and you have the capacity to turn on that AC, you're living quite comfortably these days. You know, it sucks. Global poverty, you know, brings global poverty decarbonization. OK, that is also not true. So this is another talking point from the right

decarbonization, meaning the getting away from using fossil fuels and carbon in day to day lives makes global poverty worse. Now, this is wrong, as is often the case with these talking points. There's sometimes like a kernel of an idea of possible truth. It is true that in the short term, decarbonization transitioning to a low carbon economy might generate some costs in the immediate. But the long term argument of decarbonization, increasing poverty is very much wrong. If we transition to a low carbon economy, it will create jobs. It will create economic growth. It will unleash entire new industries, renewable energy industries, solar, wind, hydroelectric, electric. These are growing and they would grow even more and generate significant jobs to fossil

fuel based energy sources, pollute the air and water, which have health implications. If you shift to cleaner energy sources, you can reduce the health care costs associated with the carbon economy. There will be workers with better health able to work in many parts of the world, which generates economic growth. Third, the effects of climate change disproportionately are already impacting the poor. So the idea that the climate change is impacting the poor, but dealing with climate change is also going to hurt the poor should make us wonder about that. It actually would be a good thing for global poverty. And then, of course, we already have circumstances where many impoverished communities don't have access to affordable energy. They don't even have reliable electricity. Always, if we decarbonize and in some ways decentralize the generation of energy,

this can include geothermal, solar, wind, et cetera. You actually will bring energy and more reliable energy to parts of the world that don't have it. This will allow them to develop industry and to raise themselves out of poverty. So so this is just it's all of these things are very much incorrect. Let's watch the last few seconds of this. Let me also point out that the media always do this routine when it's very, very hot outside. They never, ever cover it when it's cold. So it's funny. The media will say, well, you know, it's not global warming. It's not climate change. And the reason they changed the term from global warming to climate change is because the the climate in many cases is colder during the winters than it was before. So it's OK. So and again, nothing has changed. They love

making this argument. You guys changed what you were calling it because you needed to. No, no, no, no, no. If you actually look at climate change models dating back 30 years, you see that it is not just about global warming. It's about more erratic weather, more severe weather, record highs, record lows, all of these things. And for Ben Shapiro to say, oh, you know, the left only talks about this when it's hot. How many times have we seen Fox News hosts and Republicans say, hey, it's winter and it's cold. So clearly there is no climate issue. They are just as guilty of that, if not more. And almost everything that Ben Shapiro says in this segment is wrong. The other really important thing to keep in mind with all of these arguments is that they love to say this hasn't been studied when it has or they love to say not every study agrees.

And of course, it's normal that not every study agrees when you're talking about science. But the consensus is important. Could consensus be wrong? Sure. But the whole point of the scientific process is that it encourages proving wrong what is an existing consensus. And when it comes to this issue, other than these extraneous outliers that when you look closely, they have methodological flaws or conflicts of interest or whatever the case may be. The consensus has really zoned in in one direction, and it is very inconvenient for people like

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Pacman for 20 percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. It's great to welcome back to the program today. Tom Hartman, of course, host of the Tom Hartman program and author of the Hidden History series. The latest edition of this book, the latest in the series, is the Hidden History of American Democracy, Rediscovering Humanity's Ancient Way of Living. You know, Tom, as I was preparing for the interview, I I recently read Jared Diamond's book about traditional societies, the world until yesterday. And I couldn't help relate the two books, you talking about the history of American democracy and what works best in terms of how we organize government and society to produce ideally peace, ideally

happening, happiness, prosperity, et cetera, and couldn't help but think of the similarities in terms of some of the things that Diamond discusses in his book about the pros and cons of modern democracies versus more traditional societies like he studied in New Guinea, etc. Maybe we'll get to some of those overlaps, but maybe just to start, you argue that elements of how the United States is organized today, important elements are actually the best way to organize societies. Can you talk a little bit about your research, your process and the alternatives and why they are not so good?

Yeah, well, it's not just humanity, it turns out. And this was one of the more fascinating findings back a little more than a decade ago. Conrad and Roper, two scientists in the UK, postulated that our understanding of decision making in animals is all wrong. That, you know, we've got this superimposition of ancient European kingdoms on the animal kingdom. In fact, we call it a kingdom, you know, with the assumption that alpha animals make all the decisions. And they suggested that, you know, along with the lines, along the lines of Darwin's theory of natural selection, the alpha animal would have first choice of sexual partner to pass along the strongest genes,

but that would be it. And the decision making would be made democratically by majority rule, essentially. And they published this in Nature and James Randerson and a few other scientists decided to test it. They started out with a herd of red deer in the forest near the university, Essex University, and found that, sure enough, the deer made decisions democratically when they had to decide what time and when and which watering hole to go to. They would start pointing their body toward one particular watering hole. And when they hit a 51 percent threshold, the whole herd would just assemble itself and go to that watering hole.

When they put a predator or what the deer thought might be a predator was a stuffed wolf near one of the watering holes. It actually lifted the threshold from 51% to 66%, which is, by the way, something we built into the Constitution for really serious stuff like amending the Constitution itself. So, you know, I called Kenny Conrad and I said, you know, what happened when you published this? And he said, we heard from all these different disciplines, you know, the bug guy said that, you know, a ball of gnats in the summertime, you know, in the air, and there'll be just kind of hanging out there. And then the whole ball of gnats will move, you know, two feet to the left. He said, what's going on? You do the slow motion photography and you find that they're all voting

with each wing beat. And when 51% of the, of the gnats move, move their bodies three degrees to the right, the whole ball of gnats moves three degrees to the right. The whole ball in Atzma was three degrees to the right. A fish guy said, we see the same thing with schooling behavior in fish. A bird guy, this is how bird flocks decide. Literally every wing bead is a vote and the votes are constantly being measured, monitored, and counted by everybody in the flock. So it turns out that democracy is the default state of humanity. If that's the case, then you would expect that in societies that have spent thousands, tens of thousands of years fine tuning and experimenting with how to live successfully, that you would find a lot of democracy.

And in fact, that's true. Not all Aboriginal and indigenous societies around the world are organized in a democratic fashion, but the majority are. And you go back to Peter Farb's book in 1968, Man's Rise to Civilization, his recounting first contact with 34 different Native American tribes in the 1600s. The majority of them were democratic. You look at how the Iroquois Confederacy influenced our experience and Ben Franklin's famous statement that if five nations of ignorant savages have been able to forge a bond that has lasted in peace for a thousand years, it should be a surprise if 13 states of educated Englishmen can't do the same. Democracy, it turns out, is our default mode as humans. And, you know, there's always going to be people rising up and trying to violate that, typically out of greed or out of fear, and, you know, accumulate great wealth.

But that's how it works. In fact, there was a piece in Nature just last week about some archaeologists working in Central America, where they're finding all these ancient cities buried under the, you know, under the jungle and whatnot, now that they're using x-ray mapping from the air. And as they excavate them, they're discovering repeatedly no evidence of great wealth, no evidence of great poverty, and no evidence of a ruling class, that these were apparently democratically run societies. And the point that they made in this Nature article was that when you compare the democratic societies from small towns

to fairly large communities of hundreds of thousands in Mesoamerica to their neighbors that were run dictatorially, the democratic societies were the most resilient. They were the most likely to survive for a long period of time through things like famine, extreme weather and even invasion by other tribes. So you know, I'm not I haven't read that book by Diamond. I've read two of his previous books, but you know, so I can't speak to it. But that's what I know about democracy and and and why the Democratic experiment in America has lasted as long as it has. So if we think about democracy in two categories,

direct and representative, one of the really interesting things is that if you read sociology, anthropology, psychology, there seems to be this convergence of the idea that at a human level, once you get beyond groups of about 150 people, representative democracy of some kind, specialization and delegation, some kind of central organizing structure, representatives of sorts are ideal all the way to necessary, depending on what you're what you're reading. The idea that it becomes practically difficult to direct to to to employ direct democracy and involve everyone in every decision after about one hundred and fifty people. Can you talk a little bit about that and maybe how there are some

modern political ideologies, some versions of libertarianism, for example, that seem to run directly counter to what the sociology, anthropology and psychology have to say about that idea. Yeah, it was. I want to say Malcolm Dowell. That's not his last name, though. He popularized this back about 15, 20 years ago. Um, anyway, do you mean Malcolm Gladwell? Yes. Oh, okay. Okay. Um, you know, he popularized this, this notion that, that our brain structures are, we're physically, our brain is organized in such a way that we can basically manage up to 150 friends, acquaintances, neighbors, community members in our tribe. And then once you exceed that number, anonymity becomes possible. Below that number, anonymity is not possible. And with anonymity comes the ability to violate social norms with little consequence.

And that's when you hit the point where you can't have, you know, pure democracy. It's one of the one of the arguments about why the Greek democracy failed. You know, it was not a representative democracy. It was a direct democracy, more or less. I mean, it required six thousand one people to show up to vote on anything. And and your showing up was a matter of being chosen by lottery. Basically, it was like jury duty. And in fact, the people who didn't show up were referred to as the idiot, which is where our word idiot comes from.

So and, you know, as the as as the Greeks expanded this out of the, you know, out of a out of a single city state, it reached those limits that you're talking about, David. And, um, you know, and, uh, I mean, it didn't have, it wasn't helped by Aristotle and by the, you know, the, the, uh, the revolution of the 300 and then the revolution of the 30, uh, which was basically rich people saying, okay, enough already with this experiment, we want to be in charge. Um, but, uh, and that's, you that's one of the reasons why I think the founders thought that representative democracy was going to be the way to go. So yeah, absolutely. Excellent point. In the book, you, to some degree, I would say pretty, pretty effectively dispel the

idea of the US as a supposedly Christian nation. And over the last five, seven, eight, 10 years, we've seen more brazen and not even really veiled statements from people like your Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert types where rather than saying it subtly or with coded language, being much more upfront about their belief that actually Christianity should directly bear on civil government and law, et cetera. And you usually get folks who, you know, they'll get a talking point or two from something tank and they'll say all of the founding fathers were deists and their intention was ABC. And they'll pull some letter and point to one line or something along these lines and

say all of you people talking about separation of church and state are simply wrong. The founding fathers did want the US to be a Christian nation. Of course, you view that as incorrect and you dispel that myth in the book. What is the best for for my audience who may be confronted with people at Thanksgiving who put forward such a belief or whatever audience who may be confronted with people at Thanksgiving who put forward such a belief or whatever the case may be? What is the best empirical case to shut down that argument that we're increasingly hearing from some?

Well, an easy one is the treaty that George Washington negotiated with the Barbary. They were referred to as pirates, but the Barbary States, it's called the Treaty of Tripoli that was ultimately signed by John Adams and ratified by a majority of members of the United States Senate in 1790, whatever the year was, I forget. And that treaty says explicitly, I mean, you know, Article 11 of the treaty says, as America was in no way founded based on the Christian religion. I mean, that's verbatim, that's literally the words. Therefore, there should be no enmity between the United States and Mohammedan nations, Muslim nations. You know, that was the consensus.

There were some fanatical Christians at the founding of the Republic, probably the most famous is Patrick Henry, Mr. Give me liberty or give me death. He was the richest man in Virginia, or one of them. He was the largest slaveholder in Virginia. He held over 360 humans in bondage, and one of the cruelest slave masters, apparently. And he was a fanatical born-again Christian who used his Christianity to justify his slavery, his enslavement of people. He also opposed the Constitution. Virginia ratifying convention that caused James Madison to modify the Second Amendment for the security of a free nation to the for the security of a free state to satisfy Patrick Henry's fear that a president might use Article One, Section Eight to mobilize the Virginia

National Guard and move it out of state because the Virginia National Guard was also the Virginia Slave Patrol. And he saw his own slaves rising up against him if that happened. But, you know, setting aside Patrick Henry, George Washington was a deist. He didn't, you know, he referenced Christianity in a couple of speeches, but barely. Thomas Jefferson was a deist and openly spoke against Christianity. His Bible, the Jefferson Bible, is still in print. He took basically a razor blade to the four Gospels and cut out all of Jesus's miracles. He presents Jesus as a philosopher, basically. There were some Christians among the founders, enthusiastic Christians. James Madison, Jefferson's protege, was a church-going Christian. And his big fear was that, and he and

Jefferson had a 20-year running debate about this, Jefferson was afraid that if a priest, his word, you know, it was a kind of a generic term back then for minister or pastor, was that if a priest ever became president, it would be the end of the republic. Madison wasn't so worried about that. He was worried about what would happen if the government tried to regulate religion or even tried to help religion. In fact, in 1809, when Madison became president, his first veto was to veto legislation. George Washington had set up a poorhouse in Washington, D.C. that was paid for with federal money to house, clothe, provide medical care and feed indigent people. And there was a minor religious revival in America in the early 1800s. And so in 1809, Congress renewed the funding for George Washington's poor house, his first

attempt at American socialism. And but they mandated that the money be routed through a church in DC and Madison vetoed that saying that this would be destructive. Not only would it not only be contradictory to the principles of the constitution, but it would be destructive to the church. The churches should not take money from the government. It's a corrupting and corrosive thing. And, um, uh, you know, so it turns out that both he and Jefferson were right. So John Adams, you know, another one, John Adams and his correspondence with Thomas Jefferson later in life. And I reprint some of it in the book.

John Adams was a fervent Christian. He went he would sometimes go to three different church services on a Sunday. He took notes is, you know, that survived his death, you know, notes from all of the sermons that he heard. I mean, he was really into it. And he was equally emphatic that our government was not Christian. It was not based in Christianity. It should not be based in Christianity. I mean, if you look at the Ten Commandments, there's only two of them that have any parallel in law. You know, don't murder and don't steal. You know, there's no law that says that you have to be stoned to death if you speak back to your parents, although it says that

in Deuteronomy. There's no law that says that you have to be stoned to death if you worship a god other than the, you know, the third century bronze sage sky god, you know, of the Hebrews. It's just this idea that America is a Christian nation. It's had two major revivals, well, really, arguably three major revivals, one in the 1830s, one in the 1950s, which is when, you know, in 54 and 56 was when in God we trust went on our currency, and one nation under God was added to the Pledge of Allegiance. But that kind of faded out with the 60s. And now we've got another one of these revivals going on. Both both the one in the 50s and the one today are being driven largely by people who claim to be, you know,

pastors of God who are really seeking political power and wealth. And many of them are getting a lot of both. Pat Robertson died a billionaire last month. Yeah, that is something something we discussed extensively at the time. The book is The Hidden History of American Democracy, Rediscovering Humanity's Ancient Way of Living. We've been speaking with the book's author, Tom Hartman. You can also learn more about Tom's program at Tom Hartman dot com. Tom, always great having you on. Really appreciate your time. Thanks so much for inviting me, David. It's always great talking with you. One of our sponsors is Zippix nicotine toothpicks. Don't you think it's time you stopped putting

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I don't know how many of you remember that last week I brought you some moments from an interview that Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, a historical Trump suck up, gave Trump. There apparently is either a second part to that interview or there was a second interview done. It's not completely clear, but I'm going to play a couple of interesting clips because they really they attempt to relate to policy. And Trump just looks confused and sounds confused, doesn't answer anything. And it's all just a disaster. Here is Maria Bartiromo asking Donald Trump a specific policy question.

And good for her. Most of the questions that she asks are just opportunities for self aggrandizement and allow Trump to paint the picture of himself as a genius that's being treated so unfairly by everybody. But this is an actual policy question to Maria Bartiromo's credit. And the question is, would you stop giving money to Ukraine at this point? The reason this is a good question is that Trump and so many others on the Republican Party in the Republican Party have been saying Joe Biden is wrong to help Ukraine. That's a waste of money. We shouldn't be doing any of this stuff. OK, so specific policy question. She asks it. Here's how Trump answers. Would you stop the money to Ukraine at this point? I get the war settled. The money is number one. I tell Europe you got to you're about 100 billion dollars plus

short. OK. You got to pay because Europe is smiling all the way to the bank. We're giving all of these this. Europe is doing very little compared to the United States and it affects them more. Look no matter how you look at it they're right there.'re an ocean apart why are we at 150 billion and they're at 20. they have to and you know their economy's almost exactly our size if you add it all up you add up the countries of europe and we have a very similar economy to they have a very similar to the united they should be at the same number that we're at if not more. And they get away with murder. And they did with NATO, too. You know what I did with NATO? They weren't paying and I made them pay rights and took in hundreds of billions of dollars. Speaker 1 Now, remember, the U.S. did not take

any hunt. It take in any hundreds of billions of dollars because of what Trump did with NATO. That's a lie. But the most important aspect to this is that Trump doesn't answer the question. And I'll be honest with you. We know the answer to the question. If indeed Donald Trump becomes president and takes office in January of twenty twenty five and the Russian invasion of Ukraine is still going on, Trump is not going to cut the money to Ukraine. That is my prediction. He may want to. He may not want to. He's not really being clear. He doesn't really even have a coherent sort of doctrine about this. It's all what is good for me. If I were in power, I would end it all in 24 hours. And when he was asked how he said, well, I would just call up Zelensky and I would go, got to settle. And then I would call

Putin. I would say, got to settle. He would not actually stop the money to Ukraine. He doesn't have an answer. He doesn't understand anything. And of course, a direct question from Maria Bartiromo that he doesn't or can't answer. Can any of these Republicans answer a question? Pence, a CNN interview we talked about it. No answers. DeSantis interviewed by Jake Tapper. No actual answers. Here is Maria Bartiromo. Again, I think she's a disastrous Trump brown noser, but she is at least trying to answer to ask some questions. She asks Trump, what is the most important issue for you in terms of policy? And I'll just play the play this for you. And with this, what is the most important issue about your

policy and your leadership that you want independence to understand? OK, ready? Security for our nation, number one. And that's a very important issue for independence and for women. And we're doing very well. You look at the polls. We're way up on independence. He can't do it. He can't. He cannot stay focused. He's now talking about women and polling. We're way up on women. They want security. They want safety.

We're going to close the border. We're going to get rid of all of the criminals that have been allowed to come into our country that are causing us tremendous problems and terrorists that are going to cause us problems for many years to come. We are going to create the greatest economy. We're going to become in energy independent. Energy We are going to create the greatest economy. We're going to become energy independent. Energy prices are going to go way down. That's going to take inflation down.

OK, the important takeaway from this is that when pressed, Trump is running on the same platform that he won with in 2016 but failed to achieve any of those promises. The same platform that Trump ran on in 2020 saying, I need a few more years to finish doing these things, which he lost on. And he is running on the exact same platform in 2024. Now, is that a winning thing or is that a losing thing to run on the exact same platform that you failed to accomplish once lost on the second time? I don't know. I don't know the answer. Maybe this time around it will win him the election, but I wouldn't count

on it. Mike Pence appears to be refusing to say Donald Trump's name at this point in time. I noticed this in an interview we played yesterday where DeSantis I'm sorry, Pence referred to Trump as my former running mate. And I thought, I don't know if there's something to that. I don't know if something's going on. We now have another example of this. And I think it's quite an interesting strategy move to the extent that it is that. So as a reminder, here's a clip we played yesterday. Dana bashed Mike Pence talking about Trump's rhetoric.

And Pence refers to Trump as my former running mate talking about the potential for violence. Donald Trump said this week talked about how his supporters might react if he is charged and faces potential jail time. I think it's a very dangerous thing to even talk about because we do have a tremendously passionate group of voters, much more passion than they had in 2020 and much more passion than they had in 2016. I think it would be very dangerous. Does that kind of rhetoric worry you?

Well, it doesn't worry me because I have more confidence in the American people and in the people in our movement. Look, it was one of the things that infuriated me on January 6th with what I saw, people ransacking the Capitol and engaging in violence against law enforcement officers, Dan. I just think that the, I would say not just the majority, but virtually everyone in our movement are the kind of Americans who love this country, are patriotic, are law and order people who would never have done anything like that there or anywhere else. So I don't, no, I have more confidence in the American people than that.

I hear I hear my former running mates frustration in his. All right. So I hear my former running mates frustration. So was that a one time thing or is this the new way that Pence is referring to Trump? It appears to be the way that Pence is now referring to Trump. Here's another clip from an interview that Mike Pence did this week with Hugh Hewitt, the right wing radio host. I heard my former running mate is announced over the weekend that he's willing to promise that Ukraine will never be in. Look, in my opinion, the only thing Putin. All right. My former running mate. What is the point

of doing this? Why does Mike Pence seem unwilling to utter the name? Keep my name out of your mouth. Why won't he say Trump's name? You know, could be just like a subtle thing of distance himself from Trump and Trump's actions on January 6th, etc. The reason that it's hard to believe that that's the point is that he's kind of been defending Trump about January 6th and saying, I don't think his actions were criminal. Sure, he was reckless, but I don't think he was criminal. And I'm not worried about him again fomenting violence in this way. So that doesn't seem to be the reason. Maybe Pence is trying to appeal to a broader base of Republicans who are divided on Trump, but they're not yet against Trump. And Pence is making the calculation that I'm just not even going to mention the guy by name and maybe that'll help maybe. But it also doesn't

really seem that logical. So I don't know that that's the reason. Maybe someone is simply giving Pence this advice. Maybe someone came to Pence tears in their eyes and said, sir, don't say Trump anymore. We just want to take the word Trump out of this. Refer to him as your former running mate. Maybe some consultant or strategist or adviser went to Pence and said, that's what you should say. Maybe that's it. Whether it's a good idea or not, whether they know what they're talking about or not, I just don't know. Only Mike Pence really knows. Maybe it's a goof that Pence finds it funny, sort of like I say, tool C. Gabbard and Pence is finding it entertaining during these interviews.

Just to say my former running mate, I don't really know. But what I can tell you is that it doesn't really seem to be helping Mike Pence make any headway in this primary. Just a reminder of where Pence is right now. He is tied for third with Vivek Ramaswamy, Ramaswamy surging and Pence declining slightly. So if the current trend lines continue, I would expect Mike Pence to be back in fourth place by next week in terms of individual polling. Pence is polling as high as seven and as low as three during the month of July and does not exactly have winner written all over him.

We have a voicemail number that you can call if you have some message you'd like to communicate to me. The number is two one nine two David P. Here's a really interesting voicemail. Here's the egg man talking about how he tries not to do business with right wing nuts, but he's finding it difficult when he when it comes to car mechanics in rural upstate New York. Take a listen to this. Dave, I have a question. I try to vote with my money when I buy stuff. Sure. And I would And I buy and sell cars. I like to buy cars from really right-wing people. I see the F Biden stickers.

I skip past those vehicles and stuff, okay? I don't want to go to a business that's a right-wing business. But Dave, here's my question, okay? I cannot find a mechanic to work on my vehicles that isn't an insane right-wing conspiracy guy. I've ended friendships and business relationships because people think the jab ruined their lives, okay?

I currently have a mechanic who thinks his wife has neurological disorders from a vaccine she was forced to get two years ago. I am taking my car to this guy because he's the only one that can fix this car. I can't find a mechanic that's not an insane right-wing conspiracy nut. Dave, is there any business or anything that you would compromise your political values and still go there? Because I have half a dozen cars.

They all need repairs right now. And the only people that can do it are these insane right-wing people. So I give them my money. I feel bad about it, but I have to do it. It's a pickle. Shalom, brother. All right. Shalom to the egg man. So here's the deal. There is not one right answer to this. OK, you have to balance how important in different areas is it to financially support businesses you agree with politically versus how much money are we talking about versus how much time do you want to take out of your day? Obviously, if the the the Eggman can't find a non maga mechanic within some radius, obviously, if you expand the radius, you will eventually find a non MAGA mechanic.

The question is, how far is it worth driving? Maybe the egg man doesn't want to go more than five miles. Maybe he's willing to go 10 or 20. The other aspect to this is you might say to yourself, I am not going to patronize MAGA owned businesses. If this if this is important to you when it comes to transactions above a certain dollar amount, as you may go, listen, when it comes to I need a bottled water, I don't care whether the convenience store is owned by a MAGA nut or not. I'm just buying the water because it's a dollar. But when it comes to car stuff or a dentist or whatever the case may be, then I'm going

to set some kind of line for myself. There is not a single answer. I have friends. I have a non MAGA plumber, for example, very strongly non MAGA. I have friends who told me, listen, we just hired a plumber, a not not super far away guy showed up wearing a Trump shirt and had a gun in his waistband really puts a new new spin on plumbers crack. That's for sure. And I didn't kick him out because we had an emergency. But I'm never going back to that plumber. Can you give me your plumbers information since you have a non MAGA plumber when it comes to my dentist, for example? I know my dentist's political views and it's not a MAGA dentist. And to be honest, I probably wouldn't go to a MAGA dentist. Now, if I lived in Arkansas and maybe I need to go 100 miles for a non MAGA dentist, how much is it worth to me

in terms of money and time to do that? So there is no one answer. This is the great thing we talk about. Oh, boycott is right or wrong or whatever. Do whatever makes sense for you based on what's going on in your life at the time. If you've got to get these repairs done and it doesn't make sense to drive however many miles it is to get to the closest non-MAGA mechanic, then maybe you say I'm better off having a more functioning business by getting these cars fixed quickly and nearby. And I'm going to vote with my dollars in other areas. OK, I don't have the answer for everybody. You have to decide for yourself. Eggman, I know you'll be able to do it because you're a smart guy. We have such a good bonus show for you today. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. The DOJ is now suing Texas and Governor

Greg Abbott. Why? We will discuss it on the bonus show. Elon Musk has renamed Twitter X X. I don't think this is a good idea. We will discuss the business strategy behind it if there is any. And we are. This is so amazing. Biden supporters are exploiting Doug Burgum's cashback campaign pledge to actually generate proceeds for Joe Biden. It's amazing what is happening. It's absolutely hilarious. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. Speaker 1