The David Pakman Show - 9/19/23: Boebert could cost GOP the House, Giuliani sued by his own lawyer

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Mitchell Green, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut and author of the book "Know Thyself: The Value and Limits of Self-Knowledge," joins David to discuss what it means to "know," free will and our identities as people, how we mislead ourselves, sometimes willingly, and much more. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3Rr6oS8 -- Based on new 2024 House forecasts, Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert's public sex act could end up costing Republicans control of the House -- Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's former lawyer, gets news that his own lawyer is suing him for $1.4 million in unpaid legal fees -- Republican Congressman Tim Burchett admits that indeed Donald Trump could have stopped or even prevented the violence that took place during the January 6 Trump riots -- A new report alleges that Donald Trump treated classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home like scrap paper, often writing to-do lists on them -- Failed former President Donald Trump continues to admit to crimes on national television during interviews -- Right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro appears confused, or dishonest, about the sexual assault allegations against Russell Brand -- Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly shocks right wingers by saying that there appears to be significant evidence of sexual assault against Russell Brand -- Trump-supporting voicemail caller is upset that David won't praise Donald Trump -- On the Bonus Show: Hunter Biden sues IRS over tax disclosures, Danish artist ordered to repay a museum after delivering blank canvases, Senate ditches dress code as Senator John Fetterman and others choose casual clothes, much more... 🔊 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription at https://babbel.com/pakman 🛌 Go to https://helixsleep.com/pakman & use code HELIXPARTNER20 for 20% OFF + 2 free pillows 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 👍 Use code PAKMAN for 10% off the Füm Journey Pack at https://tryfum.com/PAKMAN 💻 Psono: Get the world’s best password manager for businesses at https://psono.com -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

. Well here's an interesting turn of events to start with today. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert's public sex act caught on video might end up costing Republicans control of the House of Representatives in 2024. And it really brings me great pleasure to tell you that. Now, this depends on so many different things. But let me give you the gist of the situation. The other day last week, Lauren Boebert, as I'm sure have heard by now, was kicked out of a theater performance of Beetlejuice. Initially, there were reports that she was vaping and causing a disturbance filming the performance which you're not allowed to do.

It later turned out that she was actually engaging in sex acts with her date, fondling his genitals in public. It's on video. It's all pretty wacky stuff. Even though Republican voters are known to be extraordinary hypocrites, where they will impose their morality on others and claim they are pro family, Christians, all of these different things. There is still a real question as to whether they will still vote for Lauren Boebert anyway, despite her not embodying that image which they espouse. But let's imagine for a second that at least a few hundred voters in Lauren Boebert's district

will choose not to vote for her or vote for her opponent, Adam Frisch, in November of 2024 because of this incident. I think that's reasonable. Remember, she won reelection by fewer than 600 votes. And there's a good Business Insider article that reminds us of the numbers and of all of this. If the margin was 550 something, something like that votes 570, call it 600. If 350 voters switch their votes from Boebert to Frisch next November because of this unsavory incident, as they might describe it. This incident alone

could make it so that Lauren Boebert doesn't get reelected. OK, but that's one race. What about costing Republicans the entire House? This is where it gets super interesting. Axios has a new piece looking at the new forecasts for the Senate and for the House of Representatives in twenty twenty four. And it turns out that while Republicans may regain control of the Senate in twenty twenty four in the twenty twenty four elections, which would become effective in January of twenty twenty five, of course, in the House of Representatives, things seem to be tilting the other way, the other way being Republicans

control the House today. But the polling seems to be favoring Democrats in the November 2024 election. Look at the thin margins by which this would be the case to win back control of the House. Democrats only need to flip a net five seats. A new House race analysis from inside elections rates 11 seats as toss ups, seven held by Republicans and four by Democrats. So here's the bottom line. Very often in these midterm elections or general elections, when it comes to the House, it's not likely to come down to one or two seats.

It's often listen, one party is plus 30 and there's 10 toss ups. Even if the party in power loses all 10 of the toss ups, there's still plus 20. So the scenario where one seat determines control is very unlikely with under a dozen of these toss ups and the toss ups roughly split between Democrats and Republicans and only a five seat margin for Republicans in the House right now. Control of the House quite literally could come down to Lauren Boebert seat. It's not going particularly well for her in terms of fundraising. Now she engaged in a public on camera sex act. It's chaos. It's hard to believe this is going to help her. And so indeed, Lauren Boebert genital fondling in

public might be what costs Republicans the House of Representatives in 2024. And if indeed that is the case, it would be absolutely hilarious and delightful in every single way, because it would be is it a you live by the sword, you die by the sword, you live by, hey, these are our moral values and Christians and anti abortion, except it's a 36 year old grandmother engaged in public fondling and then it costs them control. That would truly be a delight. And it couldn't happen to a nicer, nicer person, really. In all seriousness, we all must vote, including our friends in Lauren Boebert's district. Check out Adam for Colorado. That's Adam Frisch. He almost defeated her in 2022. Let's make it a reality in 2024. One more note about the Boebert incident in the media,

corporate media, et cetera. The incident is being referred to often as the vaping incident. The vaping was one of the least notable things about that incident. So let's not call it the vaping incident. Let's call it the public genital fondling by 36 year old pro life Christian grandmother, Lauren Bober. OK, that's what we should be referring to. It's sort of like we refer to Trump as the civilly liable rapist, twice impeached, four times indicted, failed former president. Right. That's really what he is. This is the way we need to refer to Lauren. But this is not the vaping incident. This is the public genital fondling incident. Rudy Giuliani has received some disastrous news. He owes his lawyers one point four million dollars and they want the money. What is it with

MAGA people not paying their lawyers, even MAGA lawyers not paying their lawyers? This is truly rough stuff for Rudy Giuliani. The New York Times reports Giuliani sued over unpaid legal fees by lawyer who led his defense. Robert Costello's law firm is seeking to recover more than one point three million, really one point four million dollars. He trained under Mr. Giuliani and was his loyal defender. Think about the fall from grace that you've experienced when you have a I guess we would call them protege's of sorts. They train under you. They learn the law under you.

Law and auto law and order. Call it what you will. Ultimately, you get yourself into trouble because at the end of the day, Maga means making attorneys get attorneys. You hire one of your disciples and you don't pay them. And next thing you know, your protege is suing you for over a million dollars. It is really something else. The New York Times reports Rudolph Giuliani already under criminal indictment and at risk of losing his law license.

I did everything right and they indicted me. Right. Is now being sued by his own license. I did everything right and they indicted me. Right. Is now being sued by his own lawyer. The lawyer, Robert Costello, signed on to the lawsuit brought by his firm Monday to recover more than one point three million dollars in unpaid legal fees. The development deals a stunning blow to Mr. Giuliani as he nears a financial breaking point. Giuliani owes nearly $3 million to various law firms, including the one where Costello is a partner. Giuliani had repeatedly sought a financial lifeline from his client, Mr. Trump, who had offered vague promises to pay up but had largely refused to do so.

Much of what Giuliani owes arose from his work for Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Isn't that sad? Really a demise of his own doing. Giuliani racked up legal bills while battling an array of criminal and congressional investigations, private lawsuits and disciplinary proceedings that cast a harsh light on his bid to keep Trump in office despite losing. So this really is a new low. Of course, Mago will see this as a betrayal. This is disloyalty. How could Giuliani's own protege now sue him for seven figures of unpaid legal fees?

Well, listen, Giuliani is not without allies on Newsmax. They continue to promote the Rudy, Julie, the Rudy Giuliani Legal Defense Fund is what they're calling it. Nice little media matters write up, which explains Newsmax has promoted its Rudy Giuliani Legal Defense Fund 50 times. Newsmax host Sebastian Gorka said, quote, God bless Newsmax for initiating this drive because he is fearless and he loves America. We have created this website. I would wonder, of course, if God is in charge and Giuliani is God like, why didn't God prevent

Giuliani from making these harebrained decisions to get involved in this nonsense in the first place. Newsmax is trying to help. It's unclear how much money is being raised just for kicks. Let's take a look at the website on which they are raising money for Rudy Giuliani. Oh, no. The website is the website down. Well, that adds insult to injury. The website appears

down. I'm unable to pull up the website for Rudy Giuliani's legal defense fund. All right. Well, listen, Newsmax is doing its part. This is very bad news for Rudy Giuliani. And again, I just am an empathetic person by nature. My empathy instinct is kicking in. I don't know why I feel a little bit bad for what's happening to Rudy Giuliani, even though it truly is of his own doing. It really is. But I feel a little bit bad for the guy. It's just I I don't know why. Maybe people can write in and comment and tell why do I feel a little bit bad for Rudy Giuliani when he's just as guilty of putting himself in these positions as Trump and everybody else? Let me know what you think. We're going to take a quick break and then we will have some stunning admissions, stunning admissions from some of our favorite

heroic and principled election elected officials after this extraordinarily short break. If you've been thinking about getting a new mattress, Helix Sleep is where I would start. I've been sleeping on Helix mattresses for years now. I recommend Helix to everyone, which is why I wanted them as a sponsor. If you don't want to take my word for it, Helix has been awarded number one mattress by both GQ and Wired magazine. And one of the things that makes Helix unique is their sleep quiz.

I didn't really know what kind of mattress would be best for me. But you do this short sleep quiz. You answer questions about your body type and your preferences, what position you like to sleep in. And Helix will match you with the perfect mattress for you. So, you know, you're actually getting something tailored to your needs instead of going in blind like most people do. I got my Helix mattress designed to stay cool at night since I hate getting hot while I sleep. Shipping is always free. You get 100 nights to decide whether you like it. My audience gets a huge 20 percent discount off of all orders, plus two free Thank you so much, David. The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. of AG one a day. You get 75 high quality vitamins and probiotics from whole food sources. You're covered for the day. Half of Americans are deficient in vitamins A and C and magnesium. Not everybody has time to perfectly plan every meal. And I don't know that any of us want to

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Speaker 26 Speaker 27 Speaker 28 Speaker 30 Speaker 31 to fund themselves is bad. Then consider signing up at join Pacman dot com. You'll get the daily show stripped of all commercials, whether you want audio or video. Both are available to our members. You'll also get the daily bonus show and so many other great things, including access to the website members only soundboard, which contains most but not all the clips I have on my soundboard. And we will ban men. That one is definitely on the soundboard. Join Pacman dot com is the place to do it. Appreciate so much flattered, truly about all of the people that have been signing up. Check it out. All right. A Republican has now admitted, yes, Donald Trump could have told the rioters to go home much earlier than he did.

And that would have prevented a lot of the violence on January 6th, 2021. That horrible, horrible day of the Trump riots. This is an important admission, not because it is news to us. Obviously, Trump could have stopped the riots sooner. He could have prevented them in the first place, by the way, by not starting to say, hey, let's go march on the Capitol and take what's mine or whatever the case may be. But it is still a notable admission because not many Republicans have been willing to say it. Here is Congressman Tim Burchett

or Burchett, who admits Trump could have stopped the violence. He's being interviewed in this clip by CNN's Jim Acosta. There's a bunch of crosstalk at the beginning, but eventually Burchett says he could have told him to go home. Absolutely. There's a lot at fault there. A lot of people were at fault. But none of that would have happened. But none of that would have happened if Trump had just accepted that he lost the election. If Trump had, well, if he had just accepted that he lost the election. Like your Democratic opponent in Tennessee

when he won re-election. That person, they said, you know what, Tim Burchett won the election. I'm going to go on my way and move on with my life. Donald Trump didn't do that. Well, I'm still lying about it being real. I'm still waiting on their call. Okay, well, let's put that to the side for a minute. You understand my point. Listen, if President if President Trump had gone on the news and said, you all cool it, it would have stopped. You're right there. Absolutely. One hundred percent.

It put people's lives at risk. And I thought it would have been a great opportunity for him to make press. But he didn't. Nobody else did either. And and just it just went on and it went and it went from bad to worse. You know, it's not true that nobody else did either. There were plenty of us on the left, as well as police officers, as well as all sorts of others in Washington, D.C., saying, hey, it's go home.

It's time to go home. Get out of here. You don't need to be here. Just go home. It's just that the rioters only were listening to Trump. And we have proof that Trump could have prevented the violence because when he eventually did say go home, what was it? Three, four hours in, I think the day the entire day is like a blur. But I think the violence started between noon and one. I think sometime between four and five thirty, Trump issued his video

saying, all right, it's time to go home. And then they went home. So we know they would have gone home because they did go home when Trump finally said it. Now, Burchett is not Burchett is not the biggest hero in the world. He also has wacky views on different things. I think he thinks there's been a UFO cover up by the U.S. government for 60 or 70 years or something along those lines. We don't say this is now our hero, but he is something that is the obvious consensus consensus among those willing to think about it honestly. And so then it only raises the specter of this question. To what degree is Trump responsible for the fact that the riots happened in the first place to begin with? And the answer is, well, to some degree, we may find out in a

court of law ultimately where that will go in terms of holding Trump accountable. We all know that we don't yet know. But good for Burchett for at least saying this. He seems to be saying nobody was was out there calling for them to go. That's a lie. And we know Trump could have prevented this far earlier. But this is nothing as far as a revelation compared to what we learned yesterday about classified documents. Let's talk about that next. Donald Trump reportedly treated classified documents at his home in Mar-a-Lago like scrap paper, regularly writing to do lists on them for staffers.

This is stunning, stunning stuff. ABC News has the exclusive. Trump wrote to do lists for assistant on White House documents marked classified. Molly Michael told investigators about the documents, according to sources. Look at this. One of former President Donald Trump's longtime assistants told federal investigators that Trump repeatedly wrote to do lists for her on documents from the White House that were marked classified, according to sources familiar with her statements.

As described to ABC News, Molly Michael told investigators that more than once she received requests or taskings from Trump that were written on the back of note cards. And she later recognized the note cards as sensitive White House materials with visible classification markings used to brief Trump while he was still in office about phone calls with foreign leaders or other international related matters. Respect for documents. Remember how his entire 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton was predicated on how she couldn't be trusted in a lot of different ways. She couldn't be trusted because she would start World Wars three, four and five. And she couldn't be trusted because of her handling of sensitive information, classified documents and secret information.

And then we find out everything we found out about Trump and now the detail that he was. I'm going to stop short of saying he treated classified documents like toilet paper. OK, we don't know that he did. He did store many of the documents next to his toilet, but he wasn't, as far as we know, using them like toilet paper, but he was using them like scrap paper that we absolutely have learned here. Now, a notable element from this reporting. This is so funny. The article reads, let's put this up on the screen. A Trump spokesperson said that what ABC News was told through what the person called illegal leaks lacks proper context and relevant information and that President Trump did nothing wrong, has always insisted on truth and transparency and acted in a proper manner according to the law.

We've talked about this before. When you don't like the content of the leaks, when you don't like the fact that they've leaked accurate information about you, you act indignant and insulted about the fact that there are leaks to begin with. And that is exactly what is happening here. This is the reaction of someone who knows the allegation is true. Yes, Trump was using classified information, classified documents and note cards of scrap paper. We don't like that. We're just going to go ahead and attack the fact that we know this in the in the first

place. And this is a classic, classic move. Remember, there are two parts to all of these stories. There is the part of how much of this stuff is against the law. And we are in the process of figuring that out. And then there is all of the allegations about what Hillary, Obama, Biden, all of the allegations about what the left was doing, had done or would do were actually confessions. And the obsessive focus relentless on Hillary Clinton can't be trusted with these documents. Those documents are the other documents. It was Trump who couldn't be trusted. It was Trump who stored the classified documents in boxes next to his toilet. And it was Trump allegedly using the documents as scrap paper.

That's where we are. And by the way, the theme continues to be Trump won't stop confessing to crimes on national television. And that's where we're going to go next. Yesterday's segment about Donald Trump's interview with NBC's Kristen Welker really got me thinking this guy just keeps confessing to crimes. He would be better off if he did not speak rather than saying anything. And it is indeed the case that Donald Trump continues to confess to many of the crimes

for which he has been charged. Now this isn't new in the sense that after indictment number now I'm struggling. I believe it was after indictment number two, but it might have been after number one or it might have been after number three. I think it was after number two. Trump went to again, I think it was Bedminster, and he essentially confessed to the crimes for which he had been accused, saying I had a right to have all that stuff, Presidential Records Act, et cetera. And we realized, oh, his actions actually are not governed by the Presidential Records Act. He was a former president at the time. He's essentially

making a defense that is not a legal defense and confessing to the crime. Well, there's a whole bunch of different examples of this. And I'm going to remind you yesterday. Here is Trump. We played this yesterday with Kristen Welker saying the entire plot to overturn the 2020 election, everything that was done, strong arming public officials trying to set up fake slates of or slates of fake electors. He was directing all of it. He admitted it. This was yesterday from Sunday. The election was rigged. There are books. You call it shots, though. In fact, Molly Hemingway wrote a great book. Were you going to read shots? Ultimately, Molly Hemingway was highly respected and great. She wrote a book, a best selling book called Rigged.

Were you calling the shots, though, Mr. President, ultimately, as to whether or not I believed it was rigged? Oh, sure. It was my decision. But I listened to some people. Some people said that like guys like Bill Barr, he was a stiff, but he wasn't there at the time. But he he didn't do his job because he was afraid. You know what he was afraid of? He was afraid of being impeached. He was petrified to be impeached. And he's all right. It was my decision. It was my decision. It was my decision. Now, whether that's the facts talking or Trump's ego, he seems to be confessing that it was all done at his direction. Here's another example from last week with Megyn Kelly's interview with Trump.

And in this one, the topic was classified documents. And again, Trump insisting I'm allowed to have the documents. We have a deranged guy named Jack Smith who's been overturned at the Supreme Court a number of times and he gets overturned. You know why he gets overturned? Because he goes too far. They don't even mention the Presidential Records Act. This is all about the Presidential Records Act. I'm allowed to have these documents. I'm allowed to take these documents, classified or not classified. And frankly, when I have them, they become unclassified. People think you have to go through a ritual. You don't, at least in my opinion. Well, Trump's opinion, unfortunately, is not the law. And again, this is a confession

of Trump having documents that had not been declassified because we know that telepathic declassification is not a thing. And more seriously, we've heard from legal experts that the president taking a document does not declassify it. And we also know that Donald Trump is on an audio recording months after leaving the White House, showing documents to people in his home saying this is secret stuff, this is classified stuff. So he knew that he hadn't telepathically declassified the documents. So if, as I've said before, he keeps confessing to crimes. But if Trump's lawyers try these explanations as legal defenses, it is not going to go well

with Donald Trump for Donald Trump. When the special prosecutor and prosecutors in general present their cases to juries, they are going to explain to juries what the law is about classified documents. And when the judge gives the jury instructions, if it gets to that phase, we don't of course, we don't know that that's going to happen. But if we get to a jury verdict phase, the jury will be instructed about what the law is and nowhere in the law does it say, never mind that a president or former president can telepathically declassified documents. It is also not part of the law that by simply absconding with documents, a president has

de facto or automatically declassified them. I don't think that Trump, when he does these things on TV and just admits to crimes, I don't think Trump's necessarily oblivious to the fact that he is saying he did the things he's being accused of. It seems to me that this is a combination of Trump counting on becoming president again, acting as a pseudo dictator, pardoning himself for the vague idea that by becoming president again, Trump simply won't have to deal with this or deal with the consequences of it. In addition to he always thinks he's the smartest person in the room. And this is why Trump's instincts are sure.

I'll testify under oath. Sure I'll sit down with Mueller or whoever. And then his lawyers panic and try to convince him not to do it so far successfully because Trump thinks he's the smartest one in the room and he can convince whoever of his perspective. And so to some degree, Trump may understand he sort of is confessing to the crimes here. But he and his lawyers are so smart and so slick that once they get in front of a jury, they're going to convince the jury that what he did wasn't against the law. The hope obviously is that that is not the way it is going to go.

He knows also to some degree that his fans like that he's a criminal in their minds. In his mind, these aren't real crimes. These are political attacks from the left. And he put the mugshot on a T-shirt and the entire thing. But unfortunately, that doesn't matter in an actual court of law. So we'll see. I don't expect Trump to stop confessing to crimes in public between now and the start of his criminal trials. But at some point, there will hopefully be some kind of awakening about the fact that in a jury with a judge, they're reading what the actual law is to members of the jury.

Things go way differently than when you're trying to push around Kristen Welker or Megyn Kelly or whoever on NBC or Sirius XM radio or wherever the case may be. Thank you, David. It satiates that hand to mouth fixation that if you're trying to break a bad habit can be very useful. It's also fun to fidget with, which is important, too. It has an adjustable airflow dial, a magnetic end cap. It gives your fingers something to do, even if it's in your pocket. Check out the reviews online. You'll see so many people have been skeptical at first about fume.

They try it and they are very pleasantly surprised. Go to try fume dot com and use the code Pacman to save 10 percent when you get the journey pack, which comes with the device and several flavors to try. That's try F.U.M. dot com. Then use code Pacman for 10 percent off the journey pack. The info is in the podcast notes. Today, we're going to be speaking with Mitchell Green, who's a professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut and also author of the book Know Thyself, The Value and Limits of Self-Knowledge. I really appreciate having you on today. Looking forward to this.

Thanks very much for having me. So you know, when it comes to self-knowledge, we've talked before and as as often happens in political circles, invariably the concept of Dunning Kruger comes up, the idea that sometimes we lack the cognitive ability to notice when we are not fully equipped to understand or explain something that some of the self-knowledge you talk about in the book is less about maybe factual shortcomings we may have, but more about the idea of really knowing ourselves in a societal context, in the context of, well, I know what I'm like in social situations.

Is that really me or is there is there something else? Talk a little bit about this concept and what might be some of the limiting factors on our ability to really know ourselves. I guess there are a couple of things that come to mind here that might be helpful. One of which is we have something like an immune system, but an immune system that is at the more psychological level than the biological, in the sense that there's a lot of mental effort that goes into protecting our images of ourselves, the narratives we tell about our lives and how we fit in the social context, the sort of stories that we tell about who we are and why we are the way we are, are difficult to punctuate, difficult to find evidence that contradicts or undermines them,

because sometimes that contradiction or undermining can be painful and so we've got a strong I guess I'd say vested interest that's difficult to recognize in keeping the story we tell about ourselves consistent coherent and so forth however sometimes when we're interested in finding more about ourselves we've got to be ready to accept some difficult truths about, for example, why we do the things that we do. So, for example, someone who goes to a social situation like a party and finds themselves not wanting very much to socialize with others and explains that by saying that they're shy. In my experience, that might be a reason, but there might be other reasons,

at least behind the apparent shyness, that help account for why the person behaves the way they do, such as that they've got a certain self-image that they don't want to risk being challenged by very different picture of myself than the one that I tend to carry around. And then that their reflection of it might be a challenging experience for me, in which case I might have an interest without consciously acknowledging that fact, an interest in keeping to myself in some sense and only superficially interacting with others. So putting yourself in a social way out there makes you a little bit vulnerable. One way in which it makes you vulnerable is that it might allow other people to, so to speak, punctuate your self-image, which is a difficult thing to accept, difficult thing to hear, difficult in the process. So I would say many of us have an interest in avoiding those types of potentially challenging situations. That would be one way in which we, I would say, have difficulty getting a good, clear, dry-eyed view of who we are and why we behave the way that we do.

That's just an example. I think it's not enough of a bit more interested in learning about themselves, achieving some kind of self-knowledge or self-understanding than was in the past. But I think many don't have the terminology for understanding and talking about the sorts of concepts and phenomena that we're after. And that's what a large part of the book is about, to try to equip readers with some of those concepts, some of those terms, to help them make progress in their journey.

It seems that in society, there are all sorts of places where we get ideas about who we might be. And obviously, capitalism and a system of consumption that relates to products and services and how we identify with those and what they mean about us if we drive a certain car or whatever the case may be. That certainly seems to be a big part of this in the political space. There's a lot of usage of you. You're you're pro family.

Right. And what that what what do they mean by that? What do we think it says about us to say, yes, yes, I'm pro family or not. You know, with this Lauren Boebert situation over the last week, what it means to be pro family has certainly kind of been upended. It seems as though. Is it fair to say that all of these different sources can interfere with figuring out who we, quote, truly are or is who we truly are quite literally sort of guided by

these external sources to some degree? Yeah, it's a good question. I would go for the first option for the most part, with a little bit of room for some factoring into the second option as well. I say the second option, that is who we are can sometimes be guided by what choices we make, because there's, in my view, at least no one fixed essence that is at the bottom of each person that maintains constancy throughout a lifetime. There's a certain amount of plasticity in our personalities. And so if you start doing something new, because for example, you got convinced to try a new product or a new lifestyle involving product

that you hadn't tried before, you might surprise yourself and really love it. And that might change what you were doing. I was just, for example, on a bike ride this morning here in the beautiful fall weather here in New England. And I was noticing that it was about 15 years ago since I started riding fairly seriously, a road bike. And I'm so happy that I found it. I wouldn't have expected before I did so, before 2008, that I would enjoy it as much as I ended up doing. So sometimes buying a good product, like a nice road bike and so forth, can make a big difference to your life and help shape the person you are. However, there are other ways in which capitalism can convince us that we should be a certain way, and in so doing, make things more difficult and perhaps get us off course.

So another example, sort of sporting goods is a difficult experience for me is to go to a sporting goods store and say, I think I want to be the kind of person who can do technical rock climbing as depicted in this wonderful wall at REI or something like that, and be tempted to get all the products. The problem is, as a matter of fact, I'm not enough of a risk taker to want to do any serious kind of technical climbing. And so I could spend huge amounts of money on such a thing and then let it all sit in my garage and collect dust for years. When it comes to...

Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. Without that, I might be able to admit that the thing I chose that I wanted to do was something that doesn't square with my personality and what things that i like and dislike and so on so i think there's a kind of a kind of balance between on the one hand one extreme is only doing things that you know are sure you that you like or avoiding things that you know you sure you don't like and just staying within a kind of group. Sometimes trying something that's a bit outside of your comfort zone and so forth

can help modify our personality, and in so doing, help us learn more about ourselves. So I'm often telling my students when I teach this course and myself that one good way to find out who you are is to try things that are novel, that are unexpected, that are outside of your normal range of experience, and see what happens, see what your reactions are. And it might be that in some cases, in many cases, you don't find those activities all that satisfying or enjoyable, but all you need is a couple that you fall in love with, and you can make a huge difference in your life over the long term. So I guess I'd say there's a certain amount of balance, but I would also say, particularly in a capitalist economy,

there's a constant danger of being convinced by marketing, for example, that what you really need in order to achieve happiness is X. Let X be that fancy car or that super lovely vacation or a bigger house than you already have or doing both things. And we can often be let off course in the journey of sort of finding out who we are by such temptation. Speaker 1 I'm very interested in getting your thoughts on I guess this sort of relates to dualism, but it's really kind of like a bodily continuity sort of question. You know, in in science fiction for a very long time now, there has been the idea of humans continuing to live by transferring their consciousness to some kind of technical element and then either existing in a computer or in

Richard K. Morgan's book, Altered Carbon, which was turned into a miniseries or a series on Netflix. The idea is your consciousness is contained in a device that goes in your spine and you can simply move that to another body and then your consciousness continues. So one of the things I've thought about is even if the technology existed to upload our entire consciousness and memory as of the moment you do it to some technical device and put it in another body or exist in the cloud to other people. It might seem like it is your consciousness continuing uninterrupted from that day. But to the person who's having it done, doesn't it split at that point? And from the moment that the upload takes place,

you and that upload diverge and start having different experiences. Like, I don't think I would live forever if that happened. I think others might see what they remember my consciousness being continuing, but I don't think I would experience that. Right. Right. Good question. So this is a topic known as the metaphysics of uploading, and it's gained a lot of philosophical interest in the last 10, 15, 20 years. I guess I would say it's one thing to upload a lot of information that is stored in your central nervous system onto a server. Maybe that's something a person would be tempted to do before they pass away, as far as they've been found. They've discovered they've got a life-threatening disease.

They want to, in some sense, preserve themselves. Yeah. I would say it's an open question that I think no one knows how to answer whether or not,

even if they could successfully upload all the information in the central nervous system, whether the new thing would, in any sense, preserve a consciousness that was there before.

And so, getting into your question, it seems likely that if we could do, if we get the technology right, and some Mitchell Green, whose mental, whose neural information is loaded up into, into a server somewhere, and then downloaded with the help of a 3D flesh printer or something like that, you know, a body, and then imported into that body, that person would go around saying hi i'm mitch right and would behave as if he's the same person as was existing up until 2023 for example

you're also right to say there's a problem with deciding whether that's true from a subjective or first personal point of view but i would just say that if, as I go into a special booth, for example, to have my brain information uploaded and then my body presumably destroyed to avoid confusions about who the real Mitch Green is, I might be knocked unconscious before this process starts. So there wouldn't be any experience of any moment, which I'm experiencing the end of me, so to speak. I would just become unconscious. And then the new person, Mitch Green Prime or Mitch Green Star, who goes around calling himself Mitch Green, would say that, oh yeah, that's me. Yeah, I remember that interview that

I had with David Pakman and so forth. That was great fun, et cetera, et cetera. But there's a further question whether or not that person, even though they seem to remember experiencing that thing that they did, whether or not they in fact remember. So blasters. Right. Would the you that was in your body experience a continuity? And it doesn't seem like the answer is yes. Well, what's subtle here, what's fussy is that they would probably if in fact the uploading

downloading went well, they would be, if in fact the uploading and downloading went well, they would be able to say there, let's suppose that things get frozen for a year just to make sure things are clear. So in 2024, September, 2024, this thing, this information that was up in the server gets downloaded to a body and that person starts walking around saying, hi, Mitch, I'm back and so forth.

Notice that they would say, I remember that interview I did with David Backman. I remember the bike ride I went on that morning and so forth. And so one of the most famous theories of personal identity over time that's due to John Locke, the philosopher John Locke, is based on these ideas of memory loss. And what's challenging about that theory, even though it's very attractive, is that it's difficult to tell the difference between genuine memories, in which there's a causal connection,

a direct causal connection, in which the person is preserved, and so-called apparent memories, or sometimes philosophers will call them quasi-memories. And you can think of cases like this. Suppose that there was something that you did as a kid. Maybe you dropped something and made a mess when you were three years old or something. You don't actually have a direct recollection of it, but your siblings and parents have told you that story so many times that it's just you convince yourself that you remember that experience. Well, this reminds me of the stuff I've read about solipsism, which is today. I remember what I did yesterday. I can't be sure I did it. All I know is today I have the memory of it and how that memory came to be in my

mind could be a number of different ways. It could be because I really did the thing or because someone put the memory there. Yeah, right. Yeah. That's not quite the same as sculpts. Solstice, I would say solstice is a view about the existence of other minds than my own. So if I'm a solipsist, I'm going to say I've got doubts about whether there's any other consciousness and consciousness that in here is in Mitchell Green. The kind of skepticism that you're thinking about is what

you might call memorial skepticism, that my memories are genuinely, genuinely reflect something that happened before. Richard Russell, for example, famously considered the possibility that as I wake up one morning at 7am, maybe all the what seemed like memories that are in my mind are just were just put there by some deceiving demon or something like that. I'll be sure that that's not the case. That's a slightly different issue, I would say. But it does raise the question whether or not, even if we're sure, I feel pretty sure I'm not I'm not subject to doubt about whether or not. In fact, I went for a bike ride this morning. I'm not subject to doubt as to whether or not I woke up at the time that I did this morning, but we can have doubts about whether the future so-called Mitch Green, after that uploading and downloading, is actually the same person or just thinks that

he is. And it's very difficult to say. However, here's another way of thinking about the thought experiment that you considered that I think then some support to your perspective on it. Namely, suppose that you were given the option of going into this machine that would first read all your brain information, then cause your body to be destroyed, save all the brain information, download it to a body. Now, here's when we're asking you the question, which is one that I often ask my students, would you be willing to go into that machine? Many of us, I think I would say, well, I think that would be called dying. That is, well, I guess the question is, what do you mean by you? You don't mean put my physical body into the machine, right? So in a sense, what is it that it means? What does it mean to go into the machine? I mean, go into the machine. I mean, put your physical body in the machine. Here's the

thought experiment is I'm going to go bodily into the machine and then there will be a device that will you know a future super mri type of thing that scans my substance nervous system collects all the information from it all the synaptic connections so forth which presumably underlie my memories and my thoughts and my beliefs and so forth and then upload it to a server and now in order to avoid confusion i've got to this body has to be destroyed okay and what i'm suggesting now is even if i was confident that there would be a future individual called mitch green who'd walk around who'd say i remember that interview with david beckham etc that would be not me that would be someone who's just very, very similar to me. And what's my evidence for that? My evidence for that is that intuitively from a first person point of view, most of us

would say, I think most of us would say that if based on the prospect of going into that machine in the conditions I described, I'm going to have my brain uploaded, brain intervention uploaded, and then my body is going to be destroyed. That is my death. I agree with that. And insofar as you agree with that, what you're saying is that uploading does not preserve personal identity, or some people would say, as you put it, uploading does not preserve consciousness. There might be good reasons to do it. I mean, if, for example, I've got a fatal disease, I don't want there to be some record of who I am, who I was, the sort of life I lived. I might not mind having there be a representative. Right.

Who would be able to do the things, you know, teach my classes and write the things I hope to publish in the next 20 years and still hang out with my friends and so forth. That would be a representative or a proxy for me would not be me. That's the idea. That's my idea as well. So let's we will end our conversation on that note. And of course, this is my view, subject to revision. Always, I like to say that we've been speaking with a professor of philosophy,

Mitchell Green. The book is Know Thyself, the value and limits of self-knowledge. I really appreciate your time and insights today. Thanks very much. It's a pleasure speaking. I run a business and I know how important it is to keep passwords safe. Our website has been hacked in the past. I've talked about it. There's videos on YouTube about it. Your business may have dozens or hundreds of passwords, multiple team members who have to use them. Some companies will use a spreadsheet or post-it notes to keep track of it. It could be copied, photographed. It's not secure. There's no audit trail. It can really be a mess if it's not properly managed and it can quickly become a major liability. The solution is so now the password manager for businesses. So no generates unique,

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Russell Brand. I don't know. I'm not exactly sure how to delineate the political movement, the covid skeptical, the conspiratorial Russell. I don't know. OK, Russell Brand. He has been accused by multiple victims of sexual assault up to and including rape, as well as all sorts of other horrible things. The reaction predictably from many who are now politically aligned with him is that the timing is all too convenient. This is meant to hurt him politically. This is for this reason, that reason, the other reason. But it certainly

cannot be believed. That is for damn sure. Well, let's look at a couple of examples here. Ben Shapiro of The Daily Wire, right wing commentator, seems confused about the allegations, allegations arguing that where it took place, Brand as a 30 year old with a 16 year old is not against the law by virtue of her age. Except, of course, the problem is that the then 16 year old is alleging sexual assault, nonconsensual contact. But Ben Shapiro is a little bit confused and running interference as best he can. Take a listen. Alice, whose name we have changed to protect her identity, now realizes she wasn't fine during a relationship that lasted for about three months

when Brand was a BBC radio presenter. She says he referred to her as the child and alleges he became increasingly controlling and then emotionally and sexually abusive. So at this time, Brand was 30 and she was apparently 16. Okay, now in the United States, crime. In the UK, not crime. The age of consent in the UK is 16. And apparently Brand ascertained that she was 16 by asking her and checking, which means scuzzy, scumbaggy behavior, sure. Criminal behavior, no. If you're, again, in the UK and the age of consent changes from states, I would prefer the age of consent be 18. But if you're not going to in the UK and the age of consent changes from states out for the age of consent, be 18. But if you're not going to have that, then that's what it is.

OK, so Ben's argument seems to be this is legal in other countries. So therefore, it's not an issue. The only problem with this argument is she's not alleging that he violated the age of consent. She's alleging that he sexually assaulted her. The crime is sexual assault. And this is very, very Trumpian. I had a right to say whatever I wanted to say about the election and they're coming after me. Right. And that's in the indictment. But you don't have a right to do whatever you want, like setting up slates of fake electors or pressuring officials to change the results.

Then you are conspiring to disenfranchise voters. That's the crime, not saying I believe I won. And similarly, she specifically alleges this alleged victim of Russell Brands alleges an incident of assault so severe. And so terrorizing that she had to punch him in the stomach to try to get brand off of her. That crime is not based on her age, could be guilty or could not be guilty. But let's not obfuscate in this way.

The sexual assault is the problem. And the theme, the trend is they always just try to find a way to justify the behavior or suggest that the allegations are overblown or that they're not trustworthy, which is a classic that they've been doing over the last 48 hours. Now, to her credit, there is one right wing woman who has actually said there is a lot of evidence here and we're going to talk about that next. Megyn Kelly. Broken clocks are sometimes right, is sending a message to right wingers about the allegations against Russell Brand and the message she's sending is there is a bunch of evidence that makes him look guilty as hell. Those are my words. Those aren't

her words, but we're going to look at what her words actually are. But here is Megyn Kelly saying, you know, the reflexive knee jerk reaction that these are all clearly lies. Have you looked at the actual statements? This is Megyn Kelly actually making some sense here. Take a listen to this. Speaker 1 You guys, I realize that the knee jerk instinct now by so many is Russell Brand is wrongly accused. These women are all liars. I'm sorry, this is extremely detailed. And in the case of the other woman, there's an actual set of medical records after she went to a rape crisis center the day of the alleged encounter, plus apologetic begging for forgiveness text from Russell Brand. Could you please for a second stay open minded to the possibility that the women are telling

the truth? Could you consider for a moment that false reporting of sexual assault is actually really rare? And that maybe there is some truth to the allegations doesn't mean that it's guilt beyond any doubt in a in a criminal court such that we imprison brand there. Maybe there will be criminal charges. Maybe not.

You've got to look at statutes of limitations, etc. But maybe what's being alleged could be true. Is that is that even possible? Asks Megyn Kelly to her right wing audience. We don't need to so overcorrect from the Me Too movement that every woman gets completely disregarded and called a liar when she finds the guts to come forward and make an allegation. They may be telling the truth. It's worth investigating. We don't need to knee jerk condemn him and we don't need to knee jerk condemn them. I'm just pissed because what I've seen is like a rash of guys coming out to be like, it's bull.

You don't know whether it's bulls**t or not. Did you read the report of this woman? Did you read the rape, the alleged rape details? Did you read the text message that she has from Russell Brand begging for forgiveness? There's at least enough for us to want more facts. Right now, as with all of these cases. It's very easy to fall into sort of black holes into the weeds. I don't even know what the right metaphor and analogy would be.

We have allegations. OK, allegations should be, number one, examined by the police to see are these credible allegations? Is there evidence? And is there a possible crime here? That's number one. Number two, of course, everyone is presumed innocent until being found guilty from a criminal standpoint. And also, as humans who exist in society, we have every right to examine this in a court of public opinion as well, understanding that we're not going to jail anybody on the basis of a verdict rendered in the court of public opinion, as is always the case. I am completely comfortable saying when there are false allegations of sexual assault, that is a crime, at least in most of the United States. Again,

there's issues jurisdictionally here of the UK, but I'm not even getting into that. But as I've said before, false allegations of sexual assault are extraordinarily rare and should be punished seriously. They should they should be taken seriously and prosecuted. In this case, we are left to wonder why would a bunch of different women be convinced and who would convince them to make up stories, stories that involve rape crisis centers and paperwork that go back years, along with corroborating apologetic apologetic texts from Russell Brand. We start to get into the world of conspiracy by alleging that this was something that was fabricated.

Broken clocks can briefly be correct. Megyn Kelly on this is right. The men she's addressing, you know, the dudes she refers to. I don't know that they're really going to listen to a word that she's saying. I don't think that they want to hear it. She might reach some folks on the right that are stubbornly defending Russell Brand and attacking the women is obviously lying and saying this is concocted because of Russell Brand's huge political influence now and people want to take him down. Of course,

much like with the Biden bribery allegations, as of right now, we don't have any evidence. And so the question at some point becomes, OK, we have a visit to a rape crisis center. We have medical records. We have apologetic text messages from Russell Brand. Do we have any evidence for the conspiracy that this was all concocted to bring down Russell Brand because of his outsized and ever growing political influence and covid skepticism and skepticism about supporting Ukraine's defense against Russia's invasion.

At some point, they're going to have to present some evidence. But often what they get to is no, no, no, no. They've done a really good job covering up the evidence. That's why we don't have any evidence and we're not going to have it. Good for Megyn Kelly to the extent that she's willing to probably be criticized pretty harshly by many of those dudes she refers to that follow her. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. Here is a hardcore Trump lady who called in and she's very upset with me, as Trump ladies are often want to do. What world are you living in where the economy is great under Biden?

Take gas prices, for example. There's a gas station over by my house that closed down during the Trump administration and the size will have the gas prices to like it's like 250 for gas there. Now looking at gas stations now, it goes all the way up to 399 here in Texas or like four dollars, even got to five dollars at one point one day. That was horrible. Right. And you even said yourself the economy was great under the Trump administration. Look at all the great stuff that Trump did for us, too. OK, so a couple of different things I have said. I mean, listen, I don't have any problem admitting it's weird to even say admitting I'm recognizing

that many economic indicators were strong during much of the Trump administration and many economic indicators remain strong today under Biden and that it all has essentially been a continuation of quite a strong economy under Barack Obama. The questions that are important to ask are what did any particular president do to either deserve credit or blame for a good versus bad economic indicator? And as I said before, when it comes to gas prices, it has very little to do with presidents. There are very few ways in which presidents can impact gas prices, release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,

which has a modest and short term impact. Only a tax, a gas tax holiday can be done invading a country with a bunch of oil and taking their oil. What presidents can do is relatively limited. And so much like I didn't assign credit or blame to gas prices during Trump's era to Trump, and I'm not assigning credit or blame to Biden for gas prices under Biden. The economic indicators that I've talked about are not being mentioned by this caller. And as is the case with every single one of these callers ago, what do you mean the economy is doing OK? No way, dude. She doesn't cite any actual economic indicators that relate to the president even remotely. Talk about GDP.

Talk about unemployment. Talk about labor participation rate. Jobs created inflation coming down on and on and on and on. The the economy is not perfect. There are many gaps. There are many problems. They're not unique to Joe Biden. But every time I hear this stuff, I wonder to myself, do they at any point sit back and

say, wait a second, what the hell am I talking about? What on earth am I talking about? Maybe I will get informed to some degree. I think the answer is no. I think the answer is no. We have a fantastic bonus show for you today. Hunter Biden, after being reindicted, is now suing the IRS. Why? We will discuss it. A Danish artist has been ordered to repay a museum after delivering blank canvases, which some are saying is proof of the debasement of modern, contemporary and avant garde art. But others are saying, well, no, the blank canvases, the choice of shape and texture and

size. It is art in a sense. We will discuss it. A favorite topic among the audience, I know. And lastly, many are furious that the Senate is ditching its dress code, that Senator John Fetterman is showing up in hoodies. If you can imagine he wore shorts one day. Some people like it. Some people don't. Of course, the moral majority is very much against it because it just looks bad and it's not good. And what will our children think if they see a hoodie in the Senate? All right. We will discuss that and so much more when producer Pat joins me on today's the show.