The David Pakman Show - 9/1/23: DeSantis threatens looters with shooting, Trump overstated net worth by $2+ billion

Episode Date: September 1, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Ron DeSantis threatens to shoot looters in the wake of Hurricane Idalia -- Donald Trump reportedly overstated his net worth by $2.2 billion according to the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James -- Post-debate polls show that Donald Trump skipping out on the first Republican primary debate had essentially no impact on his chances -- Caller asks why Donald Trump wanted to hold onto classified documents -- Caller wonders if many Americans aren't smart because of our poor education system -- Caller talks about the success of our critical thinking children's book "Think Like a Detective" -- Caller discusses some of the issues facing Florida -- Caller talks about improving Democrats' chance in red states -- Caller suspects Joe Biden isn't doing enough to get re-elected -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Proud Boys leaders sentenced in January 6th case, Rudy Giuliani liable for defaming Georgia election workers, Pope Francis criticizes American conservatives, and much more... 🔊 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription at https://babbel.com/pakman 🌱 Ounce of Hope: Get 25% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://www.ounceofhope.com/ 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 🥄 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off Magic Spoon at https://magicspoon.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Speaker 1 In the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia hitting Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis is issuing a warning and that warning is you loot, we shoot lots of people here have guns. You'd better be damn careful. I am going to tell you why this makes very little criminal, legal or ethical sense. But first, let's take a look at what Ron DeSantis had to say. All trying to loot down in Steenhatchee. And I've told all of our personnel at the state level, you know, you you protect people's property and and we are not

going to tolerate any looting in the aftermath of a natural disaster. I mean, it's just ridiculous that you would try to do something like that on the heels of an almost category four hurricane hitting this community. I'd also just remind potential looters that people, you never know what you're walking into. People have a right to defend their property. This part of Florida, you got a lot of advocates and some proponents of the Second Amendment. And I've seen signs in different people's yards in the past after these disasters. And I would say it's probably here. You loot, we shoot. You never know what's behind that door. If you go break into somebody's house and you're trying to loot, these are people that are going to be able to defend themselves and their families.

So so I would not do it. We are going to hold you accountable from a law enforcement perspective at a minimum. And it could even be worse than that, depending on what's behind that door. So let's all band together. All right. You get the picture. You loot, we shoot. So listen, I'm against looting. I've said it many times. I'm for peaceful protesting. I'm against vandalism, property crimes, destroying police cars, whatever. Everybody knows my position. This entire you loot, we shoot thing has a number of different problems. First and foremost, one of the principles of the law and of common sense is of proportionality. And often the law requires the use of force to be proportionate

to the threat. Now, laws in Florida are a little bit wacky and you have different places with a stand your ground, castle doctrine, all sorts of different things. And so I'm not pretending that this covers the nuances of the law in any particular state, but certainly from a conceptual standpoint, it doesn't seem proportional to me that if someone is, you know, taking a pair of shoes from a store or taking some bottled water from someone's house, that it's proportional to just start shooting. And this also relates to the way self-defense laws are written. It's certainly very dubious. The other issue with you loot, we shoot, of course, if you're the shooter. And again, this is why there are so many people who say you got to be really careful about having guns,

even for self-defense, because if you end up using them, you now need to be able to demonstrate that there was really a justifiable reason for you to start shooting a looter. You'd better be hopeful, I guess, that you can even demonstrate that looting is indeed what was taking place and not someone seeking help or whatever the case may be. And so you are also opening yourself up as Ron DeSantis cheerleads you. You loot, we shoot. You're opening yourself up even if you ultimately prevail legally to years of criminal problems. And you see what that's doing to Donald Trump.

It's leaving him on Truth Social, posting dozens of videos every single day. But from an ethical standpoint, from an ethical standpoint, there seem to be so many issues with this. There's a risk of mistaken identity in chaotic situations. Do you even really know that the person you're shooting at because you think they're looting? Are they actually looting? Is it someone you actually know? And this predisposition to blanket you loot, we shoot. What about a moral responsibility? Do you feel any moral responsibility to be more careful when dispensing deadly force in this way?

I think it's someone who was looting. I don't know. Either the unintended victims, you fire a gun. Maybe this person is looting, but you're not a great shot. And the person across the street surveying the damage from the hurricane ends up getting shot. This entire attitude is part of the broken nature of American gun culture. And Ron DeSantis perfectly embodies that broken nature.

Hopefully this doesn't lead to the horrible sorts of situations we can all imagine it leading to, particularly when you're talking about Florida. It turns out that Donald Trump overstated his net worth by two point two billion dollars, according to the New York attorney general. We've wondered for a while what's Trump's actual net worth. It doesn't seem like we're really aware of it from what he claims. And indeed, this may now lead to an even growing legal problem for Donald Trump. New report from CBS News, as repeated by Yahoo Finance, Trump overstated net worth by up to two point two billion dollars. Trump overstated his net worth by between eight hundred and twelve million and two point

two billion each year between 2011 and 2021. This is according to New York Attorney General Letitia James office in a filing made public two days ago. This was raised on August 4th in a filing seeking a partial summary judgment in the office's 2022 lawsuit, which accused members of Trump's family and Trump's organization of orchestrating an extensive fraudulent scheme related to valuations of property and Trump's personal financial statements. James office is seeking two hundred and fifty million dollars and sanctions that would halt the company's operations in the state and impair the ability of Trump, Eric Trump or Don Jr. to do business in New York. This is scheduled for

October trial. But James's office is acting for a judge to first rule against the Trumps in certain allegations related to fraud. Reuters also reporting New York says Trump should be found liable for fraud even before a trial. I want to remind everybody what this is all about, what Michael Cohen has long alleged and what we have found out is absolutely the case based on all the evidence that's come out since is that Donald Trump will inflate the values of his assets if it's beneficial and he will understate the values of his assets if that is beneficial. If Trump is trying to obtain a loan wherein the amount you are allowed to borrow

is limited by the value of the assets that you are using as collateral, it would be to his advantage to say this building that's really worth 500 million, this golf club or whatever, it's worth a billion bucks because if you can get a loan for 80 percent of the value saying it's worth a billion instead of 500 million means you can get 800 million in a loan instead of 400 million. In those cases, Trump overstates the value when it's for the purposes of his net worth. He has been caught saying, oh, my apartment's worth 120 million and it's not or whatever the case may be when it's for his ego or when it's for his finances. He says one thing about the values. But then the tax man or woman comes around and says,

oh, this building is worth a billion dollars. Well, then here's how we're assessing your property taxes. And Trump goes, no, no, no, no, no. This building. Look, I've got gaudy carpets and everything's covered in gold. And it's just, you know, there's documents up the wazoo stacked on my toilet. This thing's not worth a billion bucks. This thing's only worth 400 million. Oh, well, then your taxes, sir, are much lower. That's the gist of the scam. Trump may also use these favorable valuations, high or low, when it comes to repayment schedules, when it has come to bankruptcy filings, which he has done from a business standpoint multiple times. It's a form of fraud. And what Letitia James office is saying is fine.

We're going to wait until October before this goes to trial. But we want a summary judgment right away on the fraud. We will see if she gets it. But it is yet another legal problem for Donald Trump. And remember, we've suspected that he's been doing this for five years and oh, Michael Cohen can't be trusted. Oh, we don't really know. We don't really know. It's exactly what the evidence shows that he was doing. You know, the polling speaks for itself. And even though Donald Trump has suffered a little bit of a decline in polling since skipping that first Republican debate in the middle of last week. He basically is fine. We now have extensive post-debate polling, more than eight polls. And yes, it is true. Donald Trump lost a couple of points in the

polling support among Republicans. He's recovered part of it. And it seems that he is doing just fine. Now, before we go into the numbers, it does bear repeating that not everybody agrees the numbers as of today, September 1st, really tell the whole story. We interviewed political scientist Rachel Bitticoffer two weeks ago or last week, or maybe it was three years ago. I don't time is weird. No, it was last week, early last week. And she said the polls may accurately represent those who are paying attention today. But a lot of people don't start paying attention until certainly after Labor Day, which is Monday or November, December, even into January of the election year. So

let's look at these numbers with the caveat that they may not yet represent a broad enough portion of the electorate in some total. But we now have Donald Trump, little bit of a dip, but he's now recovered. Trump's still in control of the Republican primary with 54 percent of the vote. The other 46 percent is divided up among all of the other candidates. Let's take a look at some of the other storylines and how they relate to polling. DeSantis will turn it around at the debate because he will do so well. He didn't do well and he has not turned it around. In fact, just before the debate, DeSantis was polling 14.3. Now he's he's basically lost another point since the debate.

Second storyline from the debate, Vivek Ramaswamy is going to do so well that he's going to surge or the day after the debate. He did so well that he's going to that he is now surging. Vivek Ramaswamy did grow support all the way up to seven point five after the debate. It's now down to seven point three. And his polling in post-debate polls is pretty unremarkable. In the Reuters poll, Vivek is polling only five in the morning consult poll. He's up to 10, not a surge by any stretch of the imagination. The most interesting number to me is Nikki Haley. Nikki Haley had been polling two to three for months. She really went after Vivek Ramaswamy and had a couple of really good viral moments during the debate. And she's now at five. Does five get her to, I don't know, winning anything? No, it doesn't. But understand

that the difference now between third place for Vivek and a fourth place for Nikki Haley is about two and a half points under two and a half points. If Vivek keeps lying and lying and lying and get called getting called out for it and Nikki Haley plods along, making people look really stupid, as she did in that first debate, it is totally conceivable that six weeks from now, remember, this will be after the second debate. Nikki Haley could actually be in third place. And if Ron DeSantis keeps losing, you could have a situation where six weeks from now it's Nikki Haley eight and DeSantis 10. And then you have a very interesting situation on your hands. There are some Republicans who have said Nikki Haley, if she can get attention and traction,

is actually the biggest threat to Trump. It's not DeSantis and it's not Vivek, but it is Nikki Haley. It will be very interesting to see what happens. But for now, for now. Donald Trump's decision to skip the debate has not backfired on him. We'll see if he's at the next debate in late September, which, of course, we'll be covering. Why wouldn't we? We'll take a quick break and be back with the rest of the Friday show right after this. To the cannabis fans in the audience, did you know that you can have federally legal psychoactive THC shipped to your door anywhere in the United States legally. Our longtime sponsor, Ounce of Hope, is offering you 20 percent off all of their

cannabis products like CBD, Delta 8 THC, Delta 9 THC. When you go to Ounce of Hope dot com and use the code Pacman, They have everything from flour to soft gels, THC infused edibles, gummies, rice, crispy treats, honey, cookies, caramels, chocolate bars. Another thing that's cool about ounce of hope is that they sustainably raise fish on their aquaponic cannabis farm in Memphis, Tennessee. They use the fish poop to fertilize the cannabis plants, which is amazing. And again, this is 100 percent federally legal, compliant with the Farm Bill, even the THC products. So they can be shipped right to you via FedEx two day shipping anywhere in the United States.

Go support Ounce of Hope. They believe in what we do at The David Pakman Show. They're a mom and listener supported program. All of the things we do, including the children's book, the live calls, the daily podcast, all of it, it's all funded by memberships which people sign up for at join Pakman dot com. You can get a membership so cheap, folks. It is so cheap. The fake news won't tell you, but you can save even more by using the coupon code Tetra

Dyed or four years for indictments. Both of those coupon codes will do incredible things for you. All right. Let's now hear from the most important people in the David Pakman show universe, the viewers and the listeners without you. As I've said before, I'm a guy in a room with a microphone and a keyboard, and it's sad for everybody. We take calls on Fridays via discord. You can find our discord at David Pakman dot com slash discord. We are going to start today with Dave from D.C. Dave from D.C. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today?

What can I do for you? Oh, no, Dave from D.C., please fix your audio, you probably have. Speaker 1 There you go. I wanted to ask you about the and the documents case. Sure. A lot of the other indictments we can understand the motivation behind the crime. Right. What do you why do you think he wanted the documents? You know, it's been speculated that Trump kept the documents in order to sell them

to someone, to a foreign power or all these different things. I hesitate to assume that those explanations are correct, Dave, because Trump isn't very good at like foresight and forethought and planning. My thought is it's ego. He just wants to have documents around to do exactly what he did, hold them up and say, hey, you know, look at this thing I've got just to impress people. I think it might be that simple. That's pretty crazy. Right. I mean, it's a crazy thing to take such a legal risk for doing, you know. Yeah, I understood. Thanks. All right. Dave from D.C., thank you very much for the call. Let's go next to Christina from Denmark, one of my favorite places I've ever visited, Denmark. Christina, welcome to the program.

What's on your mind today? Speaker 4 Well, I've been listening about a year and a half. Speaker 1 Thank you, Christina. Tell me, I haven't been to Denmark for a few years. Is a random sandwich still twenty five dollars? Speaker 5 Yeah, I think so. Very good. All right.

Speaker 5 No, no, no. And it's a little less, I think. Speaker 1 At least. OK, fair enough. Speaker 5 I've been thinking. Are the schools in the states so bad that you get all these? People who are not. Who doesn't know anything? Speaker 1 You're saying by the time they're adults, Who doesn't know anything? You're saying by the time they're adults, they don't know anything?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't know anything. Well, here's the thing, Christina. Here's the thing. In the United States, there are some of the best schools in the world and there are some of the worst schools in the world. And this is really the story of the United States. You know, it's very simple to say, oh, health care is terrible in the United States.

Education is terrible in the United States. The real question is for whom and where? Because the truth is, for a certain group, those with the financial means you can get the best health care in the world and the best education in the world the best health care in the world and the best education in the world and the best neighborhoods in the world in the United States. And for others, you have some of the worst schools around and terrible access to health care such that you can see 20 year differences in life expectancy in neighboring neighborhoods. So it's it's more complicated than just does is education bad. It is absolutely the case that educational standards in much of the country are a disaster.

Students aren't being taught critical thinking. They're not learning basic math. They can barely read out loud. I just saw something. This is a little bit of a of an aside, Christina, but I saw somebody say that, you know, on dating profiles, people should put up a video of themselves reading out loud so that you don't have to waste your time with somebody who's so dim witted they can't even read out loud. I found it a little bit judgmental. But the point here is there is such a range of what the educational system will give you. Inequality is more the story for me in education than it is just it's terrible. Well, I'm glad I've been married for 27 years now.

Right. And why is that? And that how does that relate to the education piece? Then I don't need to go on Tinder or something. Speaker 1 Oh, I see. Speaker 4 On a dating profile. Speaker 1 You don't have to go on a dating profile and see if they know how to read out loud. Exactly. Yeah. Well, Christina, thank you. Things are well in Denmark overall.

Speaker 4 Everything is well. We have free health care, free schools, free everything. Right. So everything is great. I follow you. I follow a few American content creators who have moved to Denmark and they seem to be having a great time. Hey, last thing, Christina, when I was there, I had these there's sort of like open face toasts with different toppings like pickled herring and different things. What's the name of those toasts generically? It's called Smurrebrød. Right. It means butter, butter and bread. Butter on bread. Beautiful. All right. Well, listen, I hope to get back there very soon, OK? Yeah, we hope so, too. All right. Christina,

thank you very much. And I trust Denmark will be waiting for me with open arms for my triumphant return. It really is a great it really is a great country. I have to tell you, folks, I am not kidding around with that. Let's go next to Ford from Arizona. Ford, welcome to the David Pakman show. What's on your mind today? Hello, David, can you hear me? I can hear you. If you sound a little bit muddled like you're underwater, but that's OK. We're going to go with it, OK? All right, man, if you can't hear me, just tell this, say so. But I like to say that I'm like a very hardcore American, you know, you know, I like guns,

barbecue, military. I'm in the Marine Corps reserveserves, just to tell you. But what really irks me about the right wing and their love for and like their apologetic apologism towards Russia. I was talking to someone the other day on Twitter. And, you know, I told them about like how Russia has the lowest as the lowest birth rate, high divorce rate and high abortion rate. You can't even own guns legally there. And you know, they were going on the ass about like Ukrainian Nazis and. OK, let's say when you swear, we have to bleep it.

So it's better for us if you don't. Now let me ask you a question. When you say the lowest birth rate, I'm not seeing that Russia has the lowest birth rate at all. I see. It has as a very low birth rate along the Soviet post-Soviet countries. Oh, I see. That's why former USSR countries.

I gotcha. Yes, but, you know. And it's very far. It's far from a conservative paradise. Well, I don't know about that. I mean, Russia in a lot culturally, Russia is quite conservative. They've had a sort of authoritarian strongman in power for a very long time, pushing a much, much of that conservatism into the community, into the society.

I don't know that. I mean, Russia is pretty conservative as far as I understand. But as far from it, when you look at the demographics and some of the walls there, yeah, you know, it has a very as a high divorce rate, very high abortion rate, even though the government wants to clamp down on it. There's still women getting a lot of abortions. Okay. So did you have a question for me today? Yeah, it's like, why?

So like, eight to 10 years ago, you had the right, you know, they were. Very staunch supporters of like intervention, global intervention, whereas the left, you know, they were a bit more antiwar. And then now all of a sudden the tables have turned. Like, how did that happen? To be honest, I don't know that it really has turned. I think what you're talking about is that the rights adoption of populist sounding rhetoric has worked. So for example, when Trump ran on Hillary will bring us into multiple wars and I won't or something like that, superficially it sounded like a change. As you're pointing out, it used to be that the right wingers wanted to intervene globally

and the left wingers did not. The truth is, of course, much more complicated. And Trump was using the populist rhetoric, totally divorced from actual foreign policy. Because remember, when Trump got in, he was like, maybe we could bomb Europe. Should we invade Mexico? What about doing something to Iran? Let's get out of the Iran deal. The the actual ideas he wanted to carry out when he became president were extremely hawkish and reports are that people around him talked him out of it. But what's happened is there's been a change in the rhetoric where right wingers have started

saying we're against interventions and what whatever. But they're against interventions that they don't like and therefore the ones that they do. I don't think there's been a real change on policy. Speaker 4 socialism, you know, government shouldn't, you know, shouldn't spend money on its own citizens. No citizens should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. And then all of a sudden, Ukraine happens. They keep going up about blowing smoke up people's behinds about, oh, you need to spend money on our own citizens. What about Maui? You know, it is weird. Speaker 1 Of course, they were saying it's socialism. They were saying it's socialism. But now you you actually care about putting money towards citizens.

Yeah. What? These are understandable frustrations with the right. Listen, Ford, I have to ask you say you're a hardcore American and military and all this stuff. I'm curious, are you from the United States originally? Oh, I'm from Central Asia. It's very interesting. How does a guy from Central Asia become like a hardcore military American right winger?

That doesn't seem like a typical path. Oh, you know, you know who the Turkic peoples are? Yes. Yes. Right. We are you know, we conquered a whole bunch of people. Yeah. You know, we view the Mongols as our blood brothers.

And when I look at the United States and its huge military and industrial complex, provided there are a lot of problems, like that woman from Denmark said, I'm not blind, I'm not a doofus. I can not sorry. I'm not blind. I'm not the doofus. I can understand problems. Yeah. Yeah. I see America has a lot more in common with the old nomad warlords of old. You may find it you may find it weird, but step in my shoes and you'll see. All right. Fair enough. Well, listen, Ford, I appreciate the call, OK? I'm sorry for swearing. That's my bad.

That's OK. We'll bleep it. It'll be like it never happened. All right. Ford, great to hear from you. Ford from Arizona. Let's go. Wow.

A lot is happening here, folks. Why don't we go next to our great friend Aubrey from Wisconsin? Aubrey, welcome to The David Pakman Show. What's on your mind today? Aubrey, welcome to The David Pakman Show. Please accept my invitation. And last chance for Aubrey. If you unmute, we'll be able to hear you. All right. Aubrey just insisting on being muted.

Let's go next to JP. JP Mandel. Right. Let's go to JP from Switzerland.P., welcome to The David Pakman Show. What's going on? Hello. Hello. How are you? I'm doing well. Sorry. I know you hate that question, but there you go. So so I'll get straight to the point. This this may be a question from some time ago, I think. What was it? So I want to link two things that are somewhat relevant. So if we remember Prigozhin,

when he had his attempted coup into Moscow, a lot of the population or a lot of the populace, when he went through Rostov-on-Don and everything, a lot of the people seemed, the general people, right? So like people working the regular jobs and everything seemed pretty like nonchalant about the tanks and everything riding through the cities and ostensibly paramilitary. And so we all looked, oh, what was that in relation with Putin's power. And I want to draw a sort of parallel between that and how people reacted when, if I forget what was it, because it was a while ago, when the FBI stormed Mar-a-Lago. And then there was like a sort ofprotest by people. And then at some point there was more media than actual protesters or, I should say, people in support of Donald Trump, right?

Where there was a whole organization of people. There was a whole group of people trying to organize to show support for Donald Trump, but that never materialized. And instead, what we got was a whole group of media looking for any sort of support that never showed up. Right. If does that seem more or less factual? JP, I'm not sure I know what on earth you're talking about. Mm hmm.

OK. Yeah, but I basically what I'm I'm sorry, I just don't know that I have any idea what you're talking about. Yeah. So basically what I'm trying to say is we see Donald Trump having a strong hold on the Republican Party and we see other authoritarian leaders seemingly having a strong hold on their party. Does that actually will that actually translate to real support in terms of in the streets or in the elections,

for example? Yes, exactly. Yeah. I mean, I think there's there's not one answer. Thank you for clarifying. I don't think there's one answer. I mean, listen, for all of the support that Donald Trump has online and at polls and at rallies, when he's been getting arrested, you know, the first one got some attention from his supporters and barely anyone is showing up in support of the guy. And now there's a real question as to whether he's going to maintain his lead in the Republican primary. I don't think there is one answer. The authoritarian strongman type. So go ahead. Oh, because his family hasn't even like Don Jr. showed up at the at the first Republican

and tried to at the first Republican debate and tried to get into what is it called the bullpen or something? Well, here's the thing for that. The spin room. Here's the thing with that. Ivanka and Jared have decided they're exiting the political sphere and they're going to have no involvement with Trump's campaign. Tiffany has never been

involved. Barron, I think, is still technically a kid. So then there's Don Jr. and Eric. They deputized Don Jr. to go to the to the debate. And, you know, they didn't let him in. But I don't I wouldn't read too much into that. We kind of know the reasons for that. Listen, here's the here's the bottom line. When the rubber meets the road, as a phrase we like to use here in the US, it's not obvious that the supporters of the authoritarian strongmen will stand beside them. We're going to have to wait and see. All right. That's all I had for today.

Thank you for taking my call. All right. JP from Switzerland, thank you so much for the call. Let's hear from more people after this very short break. Stand by. One of our sponsors is Zippix nicotine toothpicks. Don't you think it's time you stopped putting smoke and vape oils in your lungs? Zippix toothpicks are a convenient way to curb the nicotine cravings.

Zippix toothpicks are a convenient way to curb the nicotine cravings. Zippix 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, Zypix also offers caffeine and B12 infused toothpicks. Zypix has already helped tens of thousands of customers ditch the cigarettes, ditch the vapes. They might be able to help you, too. If you're a smoker or a vapor, give Zypix toothpicks a try. Your lungs 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 ZIPPX toothpicks dot com. Use promo code Pacman 10 at checkout for 10 percent off. That's Pacman one zero. The info is in the podcast notes. Let's go back to discord and hear from more people. You can find our discord at David Pacman dot com slash discord. It's free. Let's go to Alexander from Ohio. Welcome to the program. David, sir, how's my audio? Audio is good. Speaker 5 Awesome. So I have an anecdote and then a question on the H3 podcast the other day.

One of the workers got a Lego set, the Pac-Man Lego set, and they shouted you out. Really? Speaker 4 They were like, yeah, they were mentioning, oh, I got a Pac-Man Lego set. David Pacman. It was all in good fun, but it was cool to see you shout it out again. Sounds interesting. I'll investigate. Yeah.

And then I had a question about your book sales. I bought two of them, one for me and then one for my coworker who has a five-year-old. Love it. So I hope that's going to go great. And I wanted to ask, when you went to talk to Amazon recently about your numbers, did you say, I need 11000 books? Give me a break. You know, when I confronted them, they said, sir, you've only sold 20 books.

And I said, I need 11000 books. Give me a break. And then now all of a sudden I just check the number for you because I value the fact that you bought two so much. Eleven thousand five hundred forty four. We are getting so close to the number of votes Trump was looking for in Georgia. We're only about two hundred and thirty six away. And I believe that will be an incredible number when we reach that. Speaker 4 I thought it was hilarious when you said eleven thousand on your on the show the other day. I knew

that was what I was going to mention when I called in. You know, it went totally over my head, but I'm glad that you brought it up. But I really appreciate you buying the book and the sequel will be out in a couple of months. Well, I'm very excited. I'm certainly going to get it. Thank you, David. Appreciate it. All right.

There goes Alexander from Ohio. You can learn more about the book at David Pakman dot com slash book, a kid's book for critical thinking. Also, the digital book is available on Barnes and Noble. We're still waiting for approval on the physical book. Many people requesting Barnes and Noble. We are making it happen. That is an incredible thing. All right. Let's try once more with Aubrey from Wisconsin, who seems just desperate to get on today. Aubrey, here's the thing. You have to unmute yourself for me to be able to hear you. You are still muted even 20 minutes later. Now you are unmuted, but clearly with the wrong audio device selected.

Oh, boy, Aubrey, this may be it for us. I don't know that we're ever going to hear from you again the way this is derailing the show. Yeah, there she goes. Just audio disaster. Well, let's try somebody else. Let's go to Jean from Long Island. Jean from Long Island. Welcome to the David Pakman show. What's on your mind today? Hi, David. I called a couple of weeks ago to discuss reproductive rights. Yes, I remember. And yes, I found a really great way and I wanted to see if you've heard of it. Postcards to voters. No. It's a grassroots project.

They campaign sign on to postcard the voters and send out like Democratic and independent voter addresses. OK. And there are specific things from the campaign you write on the postcards and you mail them to the voters in that district. And it's just amazing. It's actually impacted some of the elections. Most recently, the Ohio issue one vote, which, you know, the voters declined that one. So it was just something I wanted to discuss. It seems super interesting. I mean, I'm looking it up. It's basically these are just handwritten reminders to vote and they're targeted based on who you're writing to, what's the age of the person you're writing to, etc.

And from what I'm seeing online, postcards to voters dot org, you sign up, you write a practice postcard just so I guess they can look at your, I don't know, handwriting and how it all is put together. Yeah. Once you're approved, you just start getting addresses and you write postcards to them just saying, hey, remember to vote. I mean, it's you know, with all of these things, is any one of these initiatives going to make a difference? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. It depends how close any particular state is. But if we really get involved in a serious way

in all of these initiatives, we actually could make a difference. Yeah, it's been really cool writing. You can ask for up to 50 addresses and then request more once you mail them out. But I found it's like a really great way to channel, you know, my energy into into this stuff. So 100 percent, just something I wanted to mention to you. Love and your listener postcards to voters. Yes. Thank you. All right.

Thanks, Jean. Jean from Long Island. Always great to hear from her. Why don't we go next to Roberto from Paris? Roberto from Paris. Welcome to The David Pakman Show. Oh, hello. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Oh, awesome. Actually, I'm going to go straight to my question. I'm from France, but I lived in Florida for 16 years. And that's where my husband's family is. They're all still there. And last year, we finally, we couldn't deal with the Santas anymore.

So we moved to France. And my question is, why is it that the media in the US, and I found that when I lived there, they never cover any of the, like, they don't cover that they cannot find teachers because the pay is too low, like, there's no books in the libraries in the schools anymore, the infrastructure is falling apart,

like, there's a whole problem with the border, people can't find home insurance, and... You're saying, why is it not being covered? Correct. Correct. Like the first person who actually mentioned it in a long time was the person who replaced you when you were on vacation. Well, listen, we've been so Farron lives in Florida. So I know that a lot of this stuff is very much on his radar. We've talked about a lot

of those things. I think the issue is that's the type of reporting that really should be done by local media, local media. That's exactly what they need to be focusing on. You know, I see these examples of local media is covering some non-binding resolution that a city council took that they're going to like not buy Israeli products or something. It's like, guys, hold on a second. And I'm just picking that randomly. It could be anything else or, you know, they're going to be doing repainting the crosswalks in the pride flag colors. All of that stuff is fine. But local media really need to be focusing on exactly what you're talking about. And I can talk about it to some degree, but we're a national, if not global show. Only a tiny fraction of our audience is in

Florida. And so I you know, we talked about the home insurance problem in Florida and companies pulling out. We talked about all these things, but it can't be my whole show. This really needs to be something local media in Florida is just relentlessly covering. And to be fair, maybe some Florida local media is covering this stuff relentlessly. I just don't read local Florida media. Speaker 1 No, no, no. Actually, I was shocked that even he he covered it because if they don't talk about it, they'll talk about an alligator that escaped on the street. Right. But on a golf course, Speaker 3 they won't talk. Correct. But they won't talk about like that. You cannot

find my sister works for the Department of Education of Florida. Yeah. And they can't find teachers because between all his stupid laws and then the fact that the pay is so low, it's just terrible. But I'm with you. Listen, Roberto, quick question for you. I have to ask. I apologize if this question is inappropriate. I know you said you're from France. Are you a Spanish speaker? Yes, yes, yes. My mom's from Venezuela. Ah, just from your accent. It didn't sound like a French accent. It sounded from Spanish. I'm glad I asked. Yes, yes, yes. My mom was from Venezuela and my dad was French. So I'm I'm a mutt. I love it. I love it. All right. And things are good in Paris. I can only imagine. I think I might be there in November, hopefully. Oh, yeah. And November is the best time to be.

No, no. Things are perfect. Is it really? November is a good time to go now. Oh, yeah, because the weather's nice and there's not too many tourists. No, no. It's a perfect November is a good month. November is a good month. Beautiful. Yeah. We actually put your show on the hotel lobby with my spot where my husband works sometimes. No way.

Do you really love it? Yeah. We tourists like it sometimes. Oh, that's the best. If you ever get a picture of tourists at a Paris hotel watching the show, please send it to me. All right. We'll do. OK, very good. All right. We'll do. Okay. Very good.

All right. Roberto. Thank you. My pleasure. Bye. Roberto from Paris, France, whose mom is from Venezuela. Hard to beat that. What a call. Let's go to Chris from Delaware. Chris from Delaware. Welcome to The David Pakman Show. Chris. Chris from Delaware. Sir. All right. Well, no, Chris from Delaware. Let's try Jack from Minnesota. Jack from Minnesota. Welcome to the David Pakman show. Oh, boy. I heard you, but you sound totally digitalized, like modulated, like a robot. Is this. Oh, that's so much better. Better.

Yes, yes, yes. Oh, my God. Thank you. OK, so I just have a short question that I've been like thinking about, like so it like in the past two decades there have been I so it like in the past two decades, there have been I wrote this down in the past two decades, there have been a lot more instances of Democratic senators in red states than there are today. I'm from the Midwest. And I know in this region alone, there have been Democratic senators from Iowa, North Dakota, Indiana, and Missouri, and even South Dakota. I also know right now there

are Democratic senators in Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia. So many people on our side say that these red states are like too far gone. But with all the evidence pointed to the contrary, I just have to disagree. So do you think there can be more Democratic senators in red states in this era? And if so, what can Democrats and the left do to make these races in twenty twenty four like North Dakota, Indiana and Missouri like more competitive? So the history of Democratic senators in red states is a little more complex than you're suggesting, but you're completely right. So in order to understand it, you kind of need to think about the gradual party realignment

that took place during the civil rights movement, historical party affiliations, incumbency advantages, the often more conservative views of Democratic senators in red states on local issues while still maintaining a sort of more traditional Democratic left wing perspective nationally. There's a whole bunch of different things that are going on here. Oh, go ahead. I'm I'm saying in the past two decades. So so I'm not like saying the past 100 years, I'm saying in like the past two decades, there have been all these senators from red states that are Democrat. Yes. And so I agree with you completely.

What can be done to better have a shot at some of those races? Two things come to mind. Number one, there is a timing aspect to this where depending on you know, there's 100 senators with six year terms. So a third of them are up for reelection every two years. A critical aspect to when Democratic Senate candidates in red states have a shot. It's connected to is there a high turnout Democratic presidential candidate that same year when the elections of these Democratic would be senators in red states align with, hey, we've got to get a Republican president out of power or we've got a reelected Democratic president.

Those candidates tend to do better than when that is not the case. That is a timing thing. You can't really control that very much. So then it gets to what can you control? I don't think there's anything special about what needs to be done. Number one, run the campaign. That's the right campaign for the electorate in your state. You know, if you're running in Montana versus if you're running in New York as a Democrat who wants to be senator, you're going to have to adopt a different sort of approach, tone and probably policy positions if you want to have

a shot. That's number one. Number two, you have to have the strong ground game. There's a false notion over the last 10 years or so that you can basically centralize these campaigns. And so, hey, we've got a Democrat running in South Dakota and we've got a Democrat running in California. We'll run all of these campaigns from D.C. Doesn't work. You've got to run the campaigns locally. You've got to have the ground game. And it relates to running the right campaign for the state. And then number three, unfortunately, we're still in an era of fundraising and fundraising, determining so much of who has a shot. And I think it has to be made really clear to donors. Hey, listen, you might not really be thinking about South Dakota, but there's 100 senators. Every single one is worth the same when it comes to the balance of the Senate. So even if you're in North Carolina,

you should really consider donating to this race in South Dakota. OK, thank you. That That's informative. Thank you. Speaker 1 All right. Jack from Minnesota, thank you so much for the call. And then let's go to Hadley from Rochester. Hadley from Rochester. Welcome to The David Pakman Show. Speaker 4 Can you hear me?

Yes, I can. Speaker 5 Great. Thank you, sir. Pleasure. So my question goes to the Biden administration, and I've kind of noticed that they've been missing talking about the housing and rent crisis within the country. Do you think this is something they should bring up a lot more? And what solutions do you think they should propose?

I don't think they've been missing a class. I've heard discussions of housing and rent costs straight through. I mean, I think maybe Biden himself hasn't spoken about it as much as maybe you would like. But I actually surprisingly, I hear the administration and I get also, you know, I'm on every mailing list. I see it as a topic regularly in terms of what can and should be done. We need to build more housing. That's like number one. Aside from do we give housing to homeless people? Do we? But that's secondary. We need more housing. And for a number of different reasons, including zoning laws in different places, this is so nitty gritty. But parking requirements and parking zoning

prevent so much housing from being built. There's entire books on this topic. Parking Paradise is a good one that I can recommend. And in addition to that, interest rates, all of these things together are limiting the housing stock. We need to dramatically expand the housing stock. That's like at the top of the list. Everything else then is secondary to that. are limiting the housing stock. We need to dramatically expand the housing stock. That's like at the top of the list. Everything else then is secondary to that. Do you think private equity is an issue with? Yeah, I mean, you know, you see private equity by large swaths of apartment buildings, sometimes subsidized and then basically renovate them, turn them into luxury condos, and then it

makes it even more affordable. I think it is a problem for sure. Speaker 4 OK, thank you for your answer. Speaker 1 All right. Hadley from Rochester. Great substantive and meaty subject matter to end with today. Thank you for calling. I know I didn't get to everybody. I never do, but we'll try it again next week. Quick break and back after this. check out our sponsor magic spoon. Magic spoon is the breakfast cereal with the crunchy sweet goodness you love, but with zero grams of sugar, more protein and only four to five net carbs. So it's perfect if you're doing low carb, if you're doing keto, if you're like me and you just don't want to eat a bunch of sugar, magic spoon has delicious flavors to choose from. Cocoa, The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. bowl of cereal. When the mood strikes, go for something with plenty of protein without all the

sugar. If you don't love magic spoon as much as I do and our team does, magic spoon will refund all of your money. No questions asked. Go to magic spoon dot com slash Pacman. Create a custom bundle. Use the code Pacman for five dollars off. That's magic spoon dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. It is time for Friday feedback when we go through just a very small choice selection of messages and questions and comments that came in. Sometimes they're selected from YouTube, could be emails, could be, you know, replies on threads or something on tick tock or whatever the case may be. Let's start in a very important place. Anthony Owen asked on YouTube who arrest their political opponents, Stalin, Moe, as in like to mow the lawn. I guess they meant now Stalin, Mo, Hitler and Biden.

I would be the first to destroy Joe Biden if a single shred of evidence is presented that he ordered his political opponents arrested. I have looked and I have found not a single shred of evidence that Joe Biden has ordered the arrest of his political opponents. In fact, Joe Biden has been criticized for being too uninvolved. There was this very long period during which some on the left were saying Merrick Garland's not going to have what it takes to do this. And Joe Biden should really go to him and say, Merrick, it's time to act. And I said, no, he shouldn't. Joe Biden should stay away completely. He should have no involvement. If you have evidence, Anthony, that Joe Biden was involved in the arrest of his political opponents, I want to hear from you and I will be the first to say

Biden must be impeached if that's what he did. I have not found any evidence that that's what he did. Vegas Wood says, please cite your sources on the vaccines and autism was debunked. I've done it many times. People don't care. People don't want to see it. So I will tell you once again, there are two general claims that are made about vaccines and autism. The first is specifically the MMR vaccine causing autism. This was a claim that started circulating thanks to a former doctor named Andrew Wakefield. Andrew Wakefield claimed to have a study that was published by The Lancet saying, I have determined that the MMR vaccine causes autism. It turns out, number one, that the methodology of the study was absurd. It involved

like 12 kids. It was not solid methodology. In addition, after the study was retracted, it was revealed that Andrew Wakefield had a financial interest in a measles only alternative vaccine to the MMR vaccine. He stood to gain personally, financially from parents saying no MMR for me. I'll get this other measles only vaccine. He has lost his medical license. The study has been pulled and retracted. Separate from that, there is the general claim that 100 studies link vaccines in general to autism. Bobby Kennedy Jr. has claimed that, et cetera.

Google that it is extensively debunked. You look at the 100 studies. Some of them aren't even about vaccines causing autism. Others are merely theoretical. They say, hey, if we wanted explanations for increased rates of autism diagnosis, we could consider ABCDEFG. One of those is vaccines. It's not a study. It's not evidence. It's not anything. And then some of those supposed 100 studies are just methodologically flawed. So it's been extensively debunked. You may not accept it, but it has been debunked essentially as extensively as anything. One other comment on Bobby Kennedy Jr. Michael Z said until David interviews him, I'm on the side of RFK. That's very stupid.

Why? Why is your support or opposition to Bobby Kennedy Jr. based on me interviewing him, me interviewing Bobby Kennedy Jr., if he would even be willing to appear, which I question, has nothing to do with whether vaccines cause autism or we're to blame for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It's just a very strange thing. And it's sort of like a burden of proof thing. But at the same time, it's just kind of like confusing. I don't know. User Andy Duke posted to the subreddit. What is going on in the past few days? We've only seen David three times and we see this other person doing the talk show. Who is the new guy and where is David? Well, as is often the case, when I go on vacation, even when I announce the vacation multiple times and tell folks we're going to have guest hosts, people get best case scenario confused. Worst case scenario, they get furious. People get really angry with me

when I take vacation. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I'm supposed to be here every day. It's not really clear to me. But as I've said before, I think vacation is important. Producer Pat was just on vacation. Our colleague John is now on vacation. Noah will soon be going on vacation. The vacations will continue. And. That's it. I mean, I was just on vacation, but I'm back. I'm back and that's the good news. OK, one other interesting post dazzling ad posted to the subreddit about David Pakman being a leftist and says, when you take into account what David Pakman has ever said, you cannot truly say he is a leftist. He considers himself a social Democrat that is under normal

conditions, a centrist view. There is no need for tears in your eyes if you are a leftist. The problem is the perspective. The right in the U.S. has shifted so far to the right that they are so far away from the center. I think they can't see it anymore from their point of view. For them, anybody that is not far right is a leftist. You shouldn't let these people dictate the narrative. Listen, social democracy is the predominant view of countries like Denmark and Sweden and others to say that that is centrist makes the left extremely small. And so I would say to this person, I don't really care about labeling myself or anybody

else if your new argument now is that, OK, I am a social Democrat, but social democracy is centrist rather than leftist. Who are the true leftists? Is it only socialists and anarchists and communists and Marxists? Or who are the real leftists if social democracy is now conservative? I don't know what to tell you. All right. But good luck with that.

Daxwear said on YouTube, why don't some of these people like Cornel West run for the House or Senate instead of wasting their time running for president? I think it's an interesting question. Cornel West is running under the Green Party umbrella. They don't even have ballot access. And I think it's I think it's under 20 states in which they have ballot access. He can't win. He might help Trump win, but he's not going to be the president. What about Cornell West running for the House? I don't know. You'd have to ask him. It seems to me that someone with Cornell West's name recognition could actually win a House seat.

Now, where does he actually live and what seat would he run for? And is there a Democratic incumbent or not? I don't know. I don't know any of that, but it is absolutely a fair question. Sacco posted to Reddit about grifter, the term grifter, and says my theory on the whole grifter thing. Some are incredibly petty, weak minded people who can't take criticism from their own side and want to spite them by going in the other

direction. A few are engaging in the horseshoe theory to try and get the right on board with leftist economic policies. The rest have zero principles and are doing it strictly for the easy right wing money. So this is we have been wondering when when leftists have a political awakening and they become right wing, why are they doing it? Is what is what is the reason? And what Sacco says is some are just really petty. Some are doing like horseshoe theory, go super far to the other side to appeal to your side doesn't seem to be effective, and some have zero principles and do it for the money. I would focus on that last category. I think a lot of the supposedly reawakened, enlightened right wingers that used to be on the

left, I think they have zero principles and are doing it for the right wing money. It was offered to me. I've told the story many times. I turned it down. You will be proud to know. Or maybe you won't be proud to know because it's what most people would do. But I it exists. You can make money by saying I've abandoned the left and now I'm on the right. Not my approach. Lastly, here is Mark Ridgeway on Facebook about Trump skipping the presidential debate and says Trump has never debated anything in his life. He lambasts, insults, bullies and shouts down his opponents. That is not sensible debate where you put forward an argument, listen to your opponent's opposing arguments and then give your counter argument. Trump is cognitively incapable of doing any such thing. I agree. We all know Trump can't actually in-depth debate any issue

he has in his mind, whatever occurs to him in the moment, whatever someone whispered to him before he went on stage five minutes earlier. And that is the extent of Trump's ability to really discuss these issues in depth. Now, there is still a question as to whether Trump does more harm than good by skipping the debate. The immediate polling aftermath of skipping the first debate on Fox News last week is that Trump has lost a few points in polling, as many as seven or eight in some polls, but on average, two to three points. Is this going to continue? Will Trump lose two to three points after each debate that he skips? I think not. But if he did, his president's presidential candidacy would soon be over. Was it a mistake for Trump to skip

or was it the right move, given that his. Debating presence with eight other people ganging up on him would likely not be super strong. I don't know the answer, but we're going to follow the polling and we're going to figure it out. We have such a great bonus show for you today. I hope that you remember and that you will get access to the bonus show. We're off Monday for Labor Day. Hope everybody has a good day off. If you have a day off and then we will be back so strongly. You all know that.