The David Pakman Show - 9/20/22: Ron DeSantis Stunt Goes Criminal, Trump Tosses Word Salad

Episode Date: September 20, 2022

-- On the Show: -- Benjamin Dixon, host of the Benjamin Dixon Show, joins David to discuss his fight against Christian nationalism in the United States -- A criminal investigation has been opened in Bexar County, Texas, into Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' Martha's Vineyard immigrant stunt -- British Prime Minister Liz Truss is hilariously misidentified as a "minor royal" by Australian media during Queen Elizabeth II's funeral -- Donald Trump's new interview on Newsmax shows how depraved and deranged he has become -- Donald Trump tosses an unintelligible word salad during a strange interview with right wing actor Jon Voight -- Donald Trump's approval plunges to its lowest point in a year, but it's still much too high for sanity -- Charlie Kirk is now "interviewing" conspiracy theorist Alex Jones during his Turning Point USA events -- Fellow progressive media host Jesse Dollemore announces that he has cancer -- Voicemail caller the Eggman jokingly suggests that Mike Lindell's lawyers are scamming him -- On the Bonus Show: California becomes the first with a law to protect children's online privacy, Adnan Syed has been released from prison, Illinois' plan to end cash bail, much more... 🌿 Sunset Lake CBD: Get 20% OFF using code PAKMAN at https://sunsetlakecbd.com ⚠️ Use code PAKMAN for a free supply of BlueChew at https://go.bluechew.com/david-pakman 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 🥣 Try Splendid Spoon! Get $120 OFF at https://splendidspoon.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to the Pakman Live YouTube Channel: https://www.davidpakman.com/pakmanlive -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Speaker 1 Well, a criminal investigation has been opened into Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is stunt, wherein he paid to fly 50 migrants from Texas to the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard. And wow, how quickly this has all developed. Think back to the beginning when we first found out that Ron DeSantis remember Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, paid millions of dollars in taxpayer money to fly migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard, we thought, well, it's a very stupid and brazen and tasteless political stunt. But that's as far as it goes, at least potentially. We then learned, oh, you know, the migrants were lied to. They were promised things. They were promised that they were being

taken to Boston for expedited something or other and help getting jobs and whatever else the case may be. That's not true. You know, that's sort of like fraudulent human trafficking. Maybe there's something criminal there. And yesterday on the show, I had three or four different commentaries from lawyers saying, yeah, this actually does seem like it's a crime. These were folks that were trafficked illegally by Ron DeSantis and those deputized by Ron DeSantis for this stunt. So where we left it yesterday was what next? Is there an investigation?

What happens next? And now, indeed, there is a criminal investigation that has been opened. The Miami Herald reporting Texas sheriff will investigate Florida flying Venezuelan migrants to Martha's Vineyard. We have video, in fact, of Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, who explained what his investigation is going to be. And remember. DeSantis is in Florida, but he decided to get involved with Texas, and that's why the sheriff is from Texas, the location, the source where these migrants came from.

We are opening up a case with an investigation with regard to the suspected activities involving the 48 migrants from Venezuela that, as we understand it at this point, the facts of the case at this point are that on Wednesday, September 14th, here in Bexar County in the city of San Antonio. Our understanding is that a Venezuelan migrant was paid what we would call a bird dog fee to recruit approximately 50 migrants from the area around a migrant resource center on San Pedro here in San Antonio. You know, they talk about Democrats as the criminals. This is this is just straight up criminality if it's as alleged. As we understand it, 48 migrants were lured. I will use the word lured under false pretenses

into into staying at a hotel for a couple of days. They were taken by airplane. At a certain point, they were shuttled to an airplane where they were flown to Florida and then eventually flown to Martha's Vineyard. Again, under false pretenses is the information that we have, that they were promised work. They were promised the solution to several of their problems. They were taken to Martha's Vineyard for what we can gather, uh, for nothing for a little more than a photo op video op. And then they were unceremoniously stranded in Martha's Vineyard. Um, what infuriates me the most about this case is that here we have 48 people that are already on, on hard times, uh, right. They are here legally in our country at that point,

they have every right to be where they are. Now, remember that that's this is an important detail. The right has been just using the blanket term illegal immigrants. These are folks, as I understand it, and as it seems like the sheriff understands it as well, and we'll see if he even explains this, who were in the process of having asylum asylum claims reviewed, meaning that at this particular point in time, these were not individuals subject to deportation for illegal immigration. This is an important detail. And I believe that they were preyed upon. Somebody came from out of state, preyed upon these people, lured them with promises of a better life, which

is what they were absolutely looking for, with the knowledge that they were going to cling to whatever hope they could be offered for a better life, to just be exploited and hoodwinked into making this trip to Florida and then onward to Martha's Vineyard for what I believe to be nothing more than political posturing to make a point. Well, look, we all know that during a political campaign, things can get nasty. Things can get out of hand. Yeah. So the point here is criminal investigation is starting and we're going to follow it very closely.

Now, this may not be the only criminal investigation into Ron DeSantis, a stunt. And I say investigate criminally in all jurisdictions where this stunt extended its tentacles. Business Insider reporting a Massachusetts state lawmaker representing Martha's Vineyard is seeking a federal trafficking probe, human trafficking probe after DeSantis relocated migrants to the island. This article, again, from Business Insider says State Representative Dylan Fernandez, a Democrat representing Martha's Vineyard, called on the Justice Department to launch a probe after DeSantis chartered two planes for more than six hundred thousand dollars in taxpayer dollars to transport 50 migrants from Texas to the island last Wednesday. Multiple criminal investigations being requested. And that is

exactly what needs to happen. Now, the truth again, I hate to have to be so apparently cynical. But much like I've said, if you're waiting for the Trump in an orange jumpsuit behind bars moment, you're going to be waiting a very long time. I don't think there is any chance that DeSantis goes to prison for what he did, particularly when he's the governor. And while the buck stops with him, the actual acts were carried out and and logistically organized by people under DeSantis. I get it, guys. The buck stops with him. And that's ultimately where it's where it should stop. If we're waiting around for DeSantis to end up in prison, I think we're sort of putting the target a bit too high. However, is it possible that this stunt and all

of the negative publicity that's coming with it? I mean, there's positive publicity as well from the right, although some on the right aren't pleased. But will the negative publicity that's coming with it? I mean, there's positive publicity as well from the right, although some on the right aren't pleased. But will the negative publicity that's coming for it from it maybe hurt DeSantis in his imminent reelection campaign in Florida, whereas we talked about on the bonus show yesterday, DeSantis is currently winning by about an average of four or five against Charlie Crist. Maybe I think that's that's the optimistic scenario. Not that DeSantis ends up in prison. By the way, if you did what was done, except it was with young girls to lure them into prostitution, you damn well could end up in prison. But this is different. This is the Republican governor of Florida. But be that as it is, be that as it may, whichever is your preference.

I think the best case scenario here is this hurts DeSantis his reelection campaign. And he's as of right now, looking like he's going to sail to that reelection. At least there's a criminal investigation. We'll leave it there for today. This is such a funny moment from Queen Elizabeth's funeral yesterday. I had no interest in the Queen's funeral. I didn't watch any of the Queen's funeral. I just don't think it's not interesting to me. I don't think it's really interesting to my audience. Very few people even emailed me. You know, we get hundreds and hundreds of emails a day and barely any about the Queen's funeral. No requests to cover it. Couple of emails

from people saying the monarchy is outdated, with which I would agree. But this is just a really, really funny moment. So global media covered the Queen's funeral, and this included Australian media. And there is an unbelievable, dare I say, Kafka esque moment where the new prime minister of the UK arrives, Liz Truss, and the Australian media covering it sort of says, we don't really know who's showing up now. We're kind of getting to the dregs. I think they use the pointy end or something like that. And then they're told, apparently in like an earpiece that that's actually the British prime minister, Liz Truss. And it's just an unbelievable moment.

Check this out. Instantly going viral. And I just love it. No, I don't identify. Maybe minor royals, members of the I can't identify them. Yeah, these could be minor royals. Unfortunately, they look like they will be local dignitaries. It's hard to see. These are just locals of some kind. Looking at the backs of their heads.

But I think we are now getting to the pointy end, as they say, of the was I'm just told that was Liz Truss, the new prime minister in the distance that we could. And I love the little add on of in the distance, like she's so far away from the shot, like way, way, way over there. It could have been anybody. It just happens to be Liz. Liz, someone had to tell us that that's who it was. It is truly an unbelievable moment. And, you know, there's no big point here other than how funny this is, other than this is all such a charade. It is all just such a charade. And of course, everybody should get to have whatever service and funeral and whatever that they want and that the family wants and everything. We're not trying to deny that to anybody. But the entire pomp and

circumstance around this funeral has just been something else. And this just sort of the cherry on top. Minor royals of some kind. It's the dregs. It's the bottom of the barrel. Oh, it's the British prime minister. Very far away, out in the distance. All right.

If you if you're curious about that clip, you can you'll find it on our Twitter at David Pakman show. You can also follow me on Twitter at the Pakman. We're going to take a quick break. We have a lot of very important things coming up on today's program. The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. less than the industry average. They have gummies, oils, flour, topicals. I'm a fan of Sunset Lake CBD coffee, which uses Rainforest Alliance coffee beans. Many people are trying CBD for stress or pain. Maybe you're someone who likes to take a couple of CBD gummies before bed for sleep. Well, now you can actually take it every time you want to, because Sunset Lake makes it so affordable without sacrificing quality. If you already love CBD or you want to give it a try, go to Sunset Lake CBD dot com.

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That's P.A.K. M.A.N. All you do is pay five dollars for shipping. All right. Let's discuss some of the goings on of the last 24 hours as Joe Biden has continued to not really make a big deal out of himself one way or the other, but just kind of like be a very calm presence as president of the United States, doing some things that I like. And then certainly there are things I would like Joe Biden to do that he has not done, but it's just sort of

been very normal feeling. The failed former president, Donald Trump, has been doing interview after appearance, after declaration, showing truly how sick he is at this point in time. And the first example of this that I want to look at is an interview that Donald Trump gave yesterday to Newsmax. These interviews are these would make North Korean news anchors blush. These would make Russian propagandists say, oh, no, this is even too much for me. Here is a statement. Trump is completely scrambled.

His brain is completely scrambled, where in the same 50 seconds he says that he built the wall, but that he would have built the wall if he had only had three more weeks and also quite telling that increasingly Trump is not doing interviews with Fox News. He's doing them with Newsmax. And that's all part of the sort of downfall of Trump. And we'll talk more about the data behind that claim in a moment. Mr. President, you know, another issue that the Biden administration is really completely messed up. Yeah, the border. And it's just totally messed up, guys. Now what you have is Governor Ron DeSantis is taking offensive action. He's taking some of the immigrants and putting them in Martha's Vineyard. Really an incredibly important thing that DeSantis did. I think that the border is such a disappointment because

we had the safest border. We had the best border in the history of our country. We built the wall and then I built additions to the wall, which could have been finished in three weeks. I built he built the wall. Now, remember, the wall was defined as a wall across the entire border. He says we built the wall and then we could have finished it within three weeks. Wait. So did you build it or did you not? The majority of it and everything we said we were going to get done. And then they came to me and they wanted to know if we could do an extra hundred and fifty

to two hundred miles. Yeah, they came to me with tears in their eyes and they said, sir, we need another hundred miles. No, listen, the promise that Trump made was a wall across the entire southern border by the end of his first term. By different accounts, something like 90 to 100 and something miles were added. And of course, it's a wall that could be defeated with about $100 worth of parts from a Home Depot or a hardware store.

Donald Trump then said that the video of the search warrant being executed at Mar-a-Lago looks like a military coup, which is interesting language from the guy who tried to execute a coup. President, we keep hearing about video recordings at Mar-a-Lago that would have captured the raid. Have you had conversations about releasing that footage? Right. Yes, we have. And they would rather have me not do it because of the safety of the FBI agents that swarmed the place. Right. Trump's really concerned with keeping the FBI agents safe.

I don't think they wanted to swarm it. If you want to know the truth, I have a great relationship with people in the in in the FBI, but they didn't. We are very precise. And, you know, it's not a pretty picture either. It looks like a military coup. It's not a pretty picture. You know, they didn't want they wanted to.

But the safety of the people that are on the footage is very clear. And for the safety of the people that are on the footage, they would they've asked us not to not to put it out. But, you know, it's very interesting that reality doesn't have any bearing anymore to the extent that it ever did. Right. Anymore. When these right wingers talk about things in the real world. Right.

For a very long time, the January 6th riot coup insurrection attempt, call it what you want. It was peaceful and it was beautiful and it was a great thing. And then all of a sudden it was, well, no, it was violent, but it was on Tifa. And then it was, well, no, it's a it doesn't really matter. It's just whatever they can say at the time. And now something that was very peaceful, the FBI shows up with a signed search warrant. FBI director signed off on it. Attorney General Merrick Garland signed off on it.

Judge signed off on that now is a violent military coup. And Trump kind of continued playing this up when he talked about how violated Melania felt when the FBI ruffled through her dresses and maybe other things of hers as well. I'm wondering how Melania felt about the raid. Yeah. By the way, a really hard hitting question from I believe this is Rick Grenell, who's like a former Trump staffer doing the interview. I guess he works for Newsmax now. Who knows?

Really incisive journey. How did Melania feel about what happened? Well, she felt very violated. Right. This is a terrible thing. They go anyway. Trump would know about women feeling violated right to a closet. They go through her dresses.

Who knows what else? And it wasn't left the way it her dresses, by the way, they didn't go through her scarves. They didn't go through her blouses. But those dresses, they were right up in there. Found it. OK. You know, they didn't exactly. I didn't I didn't walk into mine and say, oh, this is exactly so nice the way they put it back. I think it's a disgrace that a thing like this could happen. Yeah. And again, we didn't do anything wrong. I didn't do anything wrong.

There was nothing done wrong. You take a look at the presidential records act. That's what you have to go by. I guess he's sure he didn't do anything wrong. And maybe it's because of something related to the presidential records act. Remember this, this really is a big deal for the FBI and Justice Department to take this step. You know that they were really confident that they knew exactly what they were looking for. They knew exactly what Trump was supposed to have turned over and that they were crossing every eye and dotting every

T as Sean Hannity said. This this narrative just doesn't it's not believable. I mean, that's what I'm told. And you said you negotiate, you try working it out. And if you don't, I guess there's a procedure if you can't work it out. Yes. And it's you know, they're making they're trying to make such a big deal because what they want to do is politicize everything.

Yeah, of course, it doesn't appear that that's the case. It appears as though the FBI gave Donald Trump a lot of time to return the things that he took and they had reason to believe he hadn't returned it. And they were 100 percent correct. Lastly, here is Trump still complaining about the FBI being in his bedroom. You have that happen. And then they do a raid on the house of a former president who is very popular. I mean, I did get more votes than any

sitting president in history. No city president even came close. It's it's almost like he's saying you can't raid a popular former president. You should only be able to raid an unpopular one. And they did a raid on my house. And it's, you know, not the same. You walk in and you say these people were in here and in your bedroom and they were in and Barry's room and Melania's room. I mean, when you think how terrible it is, it's terrible. It's just absolutely terrible. And then absolute last clip during this very same deranged and sick interview. Trump's delusions about his own power continue.

He says if he were still the president right now, he would meet with Putin and he would get that invasion of Ukraine ended. To President, it's Rob Finnerty. I don't think it can be overstated. Inflation was one point four percent on your last day in office. Gas was two thirty nine a gallon. Quite a difference. Twenty months later, speaking of Russia, Vladimir Putin wanted to showcase Russian strength

in Ukraine when he invaded in February. Mr. President, the opposite is happening. That is clear. If you were in the Oval Office today, how would you do more to engage directly with Vladimir Putin to try to get him to stop this war? Well, I'd talk to him. I'd meet with him. I mean, there's no communication with him, with Biden. Obviously, there's not a lot of communication between Biden and these leaders. These leaders are pretty brutal, and they're communication with him, with Biden, obviously there's not a lot of a lot of communication between Biden and these leaders. These leaders are pretty brutal and they have people that you have to know how to deal with. And we dealt with them well with China.

We took in hundreds of billions of dollars of tariffs from. Now remember that China doesn't pay the tariffs. American companies do. What's really funny about that is that when Hillary Clinton said this, really, it wasn't a great thing that Hillary said when Hillary said, you know, I went to Wall Street and I told them, cut it out. And everybody laughed at her because it's so silly. Oh, you told Wall Street to cut it out. I'm sure right away they're going to cut it out. Trump's basically saying the same thing here. He's saying, listen, I would have met with Putin. I would have told him, stop it.

Just stop it. That's it. It's pathetic. And increasingly, Trump's visibility is coming on fringe networks like Newsmax. Not that Fox News isn't fringe, but it's at least in terms of cable subscriptions, more mainstream. But Trump increasingly relegated to more bizarre interviews on smaller and smaller platforms. All right. I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but I do want to show you just a couple of other clips. You know, yesterday I played a part

of a very strange interview where right wing actor John Voight, who seems pretty scrambled himself, I must say, John Voight was interviewing Trump and Voight started weeping about how good of a person Donald Trump is. We now have more clips from this truly bizarre interview. And in this clip during this John Voight interview, Donald Trump tosses a word salad that I can't even describe as a chop chop. It's more of like a it's just it's confetti is all it is. Check this out. It had to be, you know, approached and changed. You took that on and you made it into a great golf course.

Right. And I think it's one of the most. Donald Trump's heroic golf course restoration is incredibly impressive to John Voight. Asmatic golf courses in the country now, Dural, because of you. So I have that to thank you for. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm just very grateful for your presence in so many

areas. First of all, I think it's so nice the way you expressed that. Even the slight little tears that come. You're just a fantastic person. And I really want people to come together. I want the United States to be one in there. By the way, Trump said he loves that people cry over how great he is. That's what Trump just said. He loves the tears that Jon Voight shed over how great Trump is.

Understanding of the greatness of this country and wanting its future to be magnificent for the new generations to come. Right. And and that means the world will go toward peace. So I I say to the folks, I say, let's stay in hope. Let's appreciate our country and let's appreciate those who are capable of turning the tide and bringing us back to the greatness that we were given by our founding fathers so well I want to thank you and we love the country the country's in trouble it's got to be solved fairly quickly yes There is no choice but to solve the problem, but it's a big problem. It's a big problem. And I hope it continues forward.

And we love Israel and we hope everything's going to be OK. A lot of good moves have to be made or it's not going to be OK. We say God bless you and good luck. John, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you very much for this time, Mr. President. Yeah. What an unhinged and disjointed word salad, just attempting to throw bouquets at each

other, but kind of failing. Here's I played a short part of this clip yesterday where John Voight cries over how great Trump is. Here's a little bit of a longer bit of context on that. And they tell a story. You went went into the place and you checked on a place. And whenever somebody you come to anywhere, everybody says he knows everyone who works in every one of his facilities. Now, I know you have places all over the country. You went into the place and said, is Sally so-and-so working here today? You went in

and said, yeah, have her come see me. And you went to one of the offices. And she came in and you said, here you have a little bit of a difficult. And she said, well, I have some cancer issues. see, I'm getting emotional. See, this is from the, you keep saying the champ, you can't watch the champ without crying. Well, I can't, I can't go through this story without

crying. And you said, I'll take care of, let me take care of the of the whatever it's going to cost. You know, I want to take care of you. You're valuable to me, whatever that is. I mean, that's who you are. By the way, I know that Voight doesn't necessarily mean it in a literal sense, but you're valuable to me. That's exactly the theme of how Trump sees his own supporters. I've told you all this before.

Trump cares about his supporters to the extent that they're useful to him, even though really they're the folks that he spent his entire rich life trying to not be around. And this is all just so bonkers. I've tried to research this. I was not able to find any evidence that Trump paid for anyone's cancer treatment. I saw on video that Trump made fun of a disabled reporter that we all saw that we know took place. We saw the video, this story about Trump paid for someone's cancer treatment. I was able to find no proof of it. OK, very quickly, Trump's approval has plunged to its lowest in a year. Now, I'm going to show you what the number is.

And the number is actually kind of scary. Newsweek reports Donald Trump's approval rating plunges to lowest point in over a year. This is based on an NBC News poll, 54 percent negative approval rating and 34 percent positive for Trump. OK, Trump had the same 54 percent negative in August, but a slightly higher positive of 36. Trump also had 36 positive in May and March, 37 in January. OK, doesn't matter. So there's two things going on here. Number one, clearly, to some degree, the country is reacting to the absurdity of what this man has become. It's a joke, complete and total joke. And

more and more people have moved away from Trump. That's a good thing. The scary thing is how insane is this country that more than a third of the country still approves of Trump, who has now been out of office for 20 months, who has apparently done so many things that go against the fundamentals of what this country is based on, both in spirit and in practice when it comes to the law, humiliates us regularly and himself on the world stage still as a former president. And more than a third of the country, when says, I think I think Trump's great. I highly approve of Trump. Yeah, he's fantastic. And there is a there's an excerpt from a book written after World War Two that describes how just ordinary Germans in Nazi Germany descended into a state where there was relatively high approval of Hitler and his Nazi regime. And you can Google this. It's the University of Chicago

has an excerpt from it. The book is they Thought They Were Free. The Germans, 1933 to 1945. The book is by Milton Mayer. And there's an excerpt called But Then It Was Too Late. And it talks about the slow descent into. Yeah, I mean, I guess I do approve, even though if you if we now went back six years and described what Trump is now, you wouldn't say, would you approve of that? You wouldn't get 34 or 36 percent approval. You wouldn't. But there's this slow descent, slow descent into madness. One other piece, I think, is a good idea to read if you want to understand what's going on, is by Alex Shepard in New Republic. It's called Donald Trump is more

deranged than ever as his approval ratings sink. The president is more and more unhinged and more willing to indulge his most dangerous followers. And that's very relevant to, you know, we saw this QAnon moment during Trump's Ohio rally over the weekend. Also extraordinarily dangerous. That article, which we will link to instructive and informative and very, very scary. Let's take a quick break. We're going to be right back after this. I often have a very hectic schedule and I don't always have the time to plan the exact nutrition of all of my meals. But our sponsor, Athletic Greens, just makes it easy to make sure I'm getting the nutrients I the David Pakman show host. one small scoop of AG1 a day. I know I'm getting the nutrition and nutrients that I want that support all of the things that are important to me. The only alternative would be to take 20

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It is great to have back on the program, Benjamin Dixon, host of the Benjamin Dixon Morning Show, who is up to some very important work, I will say, which we're going to talk about. Ben, always great having you on. David, it's a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. So Christian nationalism, you know, sometimes there's this shorthand when when people say, well, what what is Christian nationalism mean? And you can imagine a spectrum where on one side you have separation of church and state where whatever one's religion is, it has nothing to

do with civil government. The shorthand that sometimes is used is, well, the opposite side of that spectrum is, for example, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who says, no, her Christianity should be exactly what dictates and determines how civil government should operate. Is that the right way to think about this movement? Absolutely. I think Marjorie Taylor Greene inadvertently gave us the perfect lens to which we need to understand this threat that's coming from, I would like to say, my colleagues in the Christian faith. But there is a sect of Christians who believe that their specific brand of Christianity

should be what dominates the entirety of society. And clearly that's a threat not only to those who choose not to believe or have any other belief, but it's a threat to those of us Christians who simply do not believe in the sectarianism and the tribalism of Christian nationalism. Has something materially changed since like I remember in the early days of my show, there would be the televangelists and you would see a little bit of an inkling of this Christian nationalism, but you didn't see as much over, you know, you can't be Christian and vote for a Democrat preaching politics from the pulpit. Was it there, but less overt or has something actually changed? There's it. Well, it certainly has been there the entire time. There's always been a faction of the Christian

religion that believes in dominionism, and dominionism is quite literally the best way to describe it. They believe that they have the authority to dominate society. Some of them even go as far as believing that they should do what they can to expedite the apocalypse, so to speak. That trend has always been there, but what kind of control they had inside of the Republican Party, that was a different question. And we saw back when I got started, even I got started around the Jeremiah Wright time, there was this belief in the Republican Party that they could capitalize on the evangelical vote without having to subscribe or bow down to the more zealotrous form of evangelical white evangelicalism,

to be specific. And we see now that after years and years and years of getting the votes of these particular types of evangelicals, that group has taken control of the Republican Party. Can you mention white evangelicals? Can you talk a little bit about the kind of racial breakdown of these movements? Because we've known for a while that, for example, in the Prop eight era in California, there certainly are conservative religious values in black churches.

That's right. But is there a difference in terms of the political application as it comes to Christian nationalism between some of these different groups of churches? Absolutely. I think back, I harken back to the statement from Malcolm X that 11 o'clock on Sunday mornings is the most segregated time in America. And that's because there's a fundamental difference between black Christianity and white evangelicalism.

Not so much in terms of our belief in Jesus, that fundamental belief in Jesus is the same, but you have to take into context, when black people were praying for deliverance from Jim Crow, praying for deliverance from slavery, we were literally asking God to deliver us from white evangelicals who would lynch us on Sunday morning and then go to Sunday school. So the difference really lies in the value of human life in terms of black people, the willingness to decapitate the entire message of justice. You think about the Thomas Jefferson Bible, where they completely erased any semblance of justice and the narratives of setting free the

captive. They took that out of the Bible and gave that to the slave, the enslaved person, because they fundamentally understood that that messaging would galvanize a black liberation movement, which inevitably happened anyway. You know, I got a call, I think it was last week or the week before from a self-described white progressive Christian. And this guy described his views about a number of different issues. And they were pretty conservative views. But what made him a progressive was he doesn't think any of those opinions should have any

bearing on what government does. So that's an interesting thing, because sometimes it's not about I mean, I don't know. You tell me when we talk about the progressive Christian movement, is it still conservative? But it says that that conservatism should be completely separate from how folks vote or what is it exactly? Speaker 1 Yeah, there's a wide range of beliefs in Christianity. I mean, in terms of like, so if we just talk about social issues, there's a large group of Christians who fundamentally and they use theology to support LGBTQ rights. So there is a broad range. But even in the progressive circles that hold on to conservative beliefs, there's like

you mentioned, the black community is extremely conservative on a lot of issues. But where we draw the line fundamentally is, we don't believe that our beliefs should be used to discriminate against anyone else. Whereas Marjorie Taylor Greene not only believes that those beliefs should be used to discriminate, they believe that it should be the fundamental tool by which we organize society. They don't believe in democracy anymore. They fundamentally believe in a theocratic, fascist state. And when we talk about the particular theology, it is a white supremacist, Christian nationalist theology. Hey, when it comes to like the future of the of Christianity in the context of Christian

nationalism, I think I've seen you either say or I read in some of the info you sent me that you see Christian nationalism as a threat to Christians and Christianity as as you describe yourself as a part of that movement. Can you explain that? Oh, absolutely. In the clip that's going viral now, there's a there's a particular white evangelical pastor who was disgusted with the fact that black people call ourselves Christian. And the reason for that disgust is because he hated the fact that we fight for justice. We fight for liberation. We fight for democracy. We fight for things that he feels is anathema to his particular beliefs. So there is a clear divide, in not only a divide, but we are not safe. You have to understand in anyone. I mean, I'm sure everyone can contextualize it for history like this type of

nationalism, this type of Christian nationalism was the justification for slavery. It's now being used as a justification for the bigotry that we're seeing on every front. So I don't think black Christians are safe at all. I think we are going to be targeted just as much as let's say the LGBTQ community. It's been interesting, I guess. Interesting. I don't know. There's probably a different term for it, but it's been notable that Christian nationalism has grown arguably as much as at any time in the last couple of decades during the presidency of a guy who clearly was lying about his religiosity. Like it's very, very obvious that Trump was never religious. Trump was never against abortion.

He kind of contrived all these things in the run up to being the Republican nominee because Democrats weren't going to going to make him the nominee. Do you know what I mean? I don't even know how to ask the question. What do you make of that? Because you would think that you would not necessarily see the growth of this movement when the while they are simultaneously, you know, pledging loyalty to a guy who is obviously not religious.

Yeah, it's a it's a really acute case of special pleading. They are willing to ignore everything about Donald Trump because they felt like he was the vessel that could accomplish their agenda. And in so many ways, he has, right, with all the conservative appointments to the Supreme Court and through the entire judiciary. Now, with the rollback of Roe versus Wade, he has been a vessel to accomplish their ends. They did not care whether or not he was more like Satan or Jesus. That was completely immaterial to them. And I think we saw that happen in that election.

And it's also, the last thing I'll say about it is that these Christian nationalists, you will notice that they don't use the language of Jesus, they use the language of traditional values. And they get to define those traditional values. So I would argue that it's not only the result of them wanting to use Donald Trump. I believe they have the same level of faith as Donald Trump. They're in the realm of heresy based on their own Bible.

They are looking at Donald Trump as the second coming of Christ. There's a book out now that literally calls Trump the second coming of Christ. I saw that. It's a political opportunism, and they want power just as much as anything else. They want political power and economic power. When folks talk about how to fight against this movement, one of the first things that's mentioned is, hey, you know, if you're doing any kind of politics as a church, you should lose your tax exempt status. And there's this feeling among some that the best way to fight this is essentially a financial fight, demand investigations into the nonprofit status of some of these

churches and get them maybe, I guess, to lose that status, even though it very rarely happens. There's some hope that if the IRS does kind of scale up operations a little bit, maybe this is something that they would look at, although it doesn't really seem like a priority. Do you think that that's an important and viable way of fighting this? Or do you think there are other better ways? Well, actually, I don't think it is not because I disagree with the tactic. I do agree that if you are going to use tax exempt dollars to accomplish political ends, you should lose your 501c3 status. That's what the law says. However, there's nothing that you can give a Christian more than a victim narrative. If you can give them a narrative, oh, we're under attack by the IRS, their donations are going to go up.

So I don't think it's an effective strategy. I think the more effective strategy is to really extrapolate a little bit higher, because despite what any Christian believes in their individual dogma, if they consider themselves to be a person of good faith, then they understand that we're going to have to coexist. And I know that word has gotten a little kind of kumbaya-ish, but the fact of the matter is, is that there is a an alliance that has to be made between people of good faith, whatever they believe. So the IRS technique is I don't know if they want to go after that. That's fine. I think that gives Christians, nationalists more tools to complain about. So what are some of the other ways that individuals, whether they are or

aren't religious, can get involved in pushing back against this? Well, one, you could just call them out on their own frame, right? If I think a lot of times some of my friends in the atheists or agnostic community, they they they would rather challenge the frame and dismiss the possibility of God. My suggestion is call them out on their own BS, right? There's nothing about Christian nationalism that's remotely like Jesus based on the Bible, right? There's nothing, it's like Gandhi said,

though he was a bit of a racist, he had this right. He said that I like your Christ, just not your Christians. And there's no part of what is being pushed by the Christian nationalists that's even remotely kind or just or reflects the image of Christ. And even if they don't like the image of Christ, I'm not talking about our allies in the atheist community. They're just not good people. I think we can attack them on their own frame because they can't even stand up to their own their own test. Last thing I want to talk about, we saw the

Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade. It was very obvious when that happened. Like after your biggest victory, you don't stop. So so, you know, you're going to keep going now. Lindsey Graham has proposed an outright federal ban on abortion. We don't know if gay marriage might be coming next. You know, very far down, there's this idea of interracial marriage, although I don't think it's a priority. Oh, Ben, did I just lose you? Oh, we might have lost Ben. Let's see if we can get Ben back. Oh, no. Let's see if we can get Ben back. What what is it we were getting right to the crescendo of the interview. Let's see if we can get him back here. Oh, my. Would be really a shame if I wasn't able to get this question. Hmm. Something must have happened to his Internet tubes. Oh, boy. Well, listen, we were coming to the end of our time.

My question to Ben was going to be, do you expect to see the churches, the right wing churches get even more extreme now that they sort of won in a way on overturning Roe v. Wade? Are they just going to be pushing for more and more extreme things? But we'll have to save it for next time. Benjamin Dixon has been joining us until we lost him, host of the Benjamin Dixon morning show. We will link to all of his stuff. He's doing great work fighting Christian nationalism. And we will take a quick break and be back right after this. The summer is over.

Busy season is back in full force. Who has time to meal prep and cook and clean up every single day? I don't. And that's why I turn to Splendid Spoon, our sponsor. Splendid Spoon delivers delicious, ready to eat plant based meals right to my door. I'm not vegan, but I like increasing my plant intake. And Splendid Spoon is the perfect way to do it. Thank you so much for joining us. and light soups. So much variety, vegetables, legumes, healthy fats, whole grains, spices from all over the world. One of my absolute favorites are the green smoothies. So much great stuff in them. Get started today and get one hundred and twenty dollars off your first three boxes at Splendid Spoon dot com slash Pacman. That's S.P.L.E.N.D.I.D.S.P.O.O.N. dot com slash Pacman for one hundred and twenty dollars off. Click the link in the book about how extreme the American right wing movement is getting.

There's this sort of like on campus right wing group called Turning Point USA. Charlie Kirk is one of the sort of more publicly known people associated with this group, Turning Point USA. They have now jumped fully into this sort of conspiracy QAnon Alex Jones fray to the point that at a recent event called Defeating the Great Reset, the Great Reset is a favorite idea, I guess we would call it, of people like Alex Jones and Steve Bannon and those types. Charlie Couric actually interviewed Alex Jones. This was at one point sort of like I never considered them this, but considered by the right a very mainstream right wing group just indoctrinating college students into basic conservative economics and this type

of thing. It is completely over the hill, insane at this point in time. And I'm going to play for you a clip here of Charlie Kirk making a really big deal of me. Listen, after all, it's just Alex Jones. It's just a conspiracy theorist. This is the great thinker that Turning Point USA is bringing to its attendees. It's it's sad, but also scary in that it shows how extreme this movement has gotten. Speaker 4 A special remote guest for you. Now, I only ask this since we're doing the remote guest

while I'm while we're talking, I just want to make sure our guests can hear everything we're saying and all that. So I was told by everybody, it's not the President Trump, but it is going to make you guys wait till you see this. All right. Wow. Must be pretty good. In fact, this man is more hated by the media than Donald Trump. And that says something, OK, which is so if you're going to talk about the great reset, then you have to have, which, by the way, I don't know why you would, but someone who's the most banned man in America, Alex Jones, joins us. How exciting. We're now going to get the truth. Standing ovation to the guy who said something about gay frogs and that Sandy Hook was fake. So, Alex, whoa, Alex, welcome remotely.

I was told by all the people like, oh, you can't have Alex at your event, which makes me just want to have Alex even more. Anything that people say is bad is actually good. That's fundamentally conservatism. Sometimes and I want to be reactionary conservatism. Sometimes things that people say are bad are actually just bad. Alex, you wrote a book on the Great Reset. The Great Reset. Why did you write the book? Well, I saw Steve Bannon yesterday and he's absolutely right. And I love the title.

Yeah, they are now including Alex Jones in official Turning Point USA events. Here's what I hope you will glean from this. These are considered the thinkers among the right. These are considered the thinkers among the right. Here's one more clip where Alex Jones talks about cows biblically. Let's let's zero in on the food thing, Alex. In particular, they are fascinated with getting rid of meat. Talk more about that, but also talk about the other implications of getting rid of meat, testosterone levels, maybe replacing it with this synthetic nonsense that Bill Gates just happens to also be an investor in, by the way, super crony capitalist.

Talk about why they're so incredibly focused on eradicating meat from our planet. What's going what's going on with us? Yeah. Tell us. Well, if you go back to Genesis, anybody should go read it written three thousand plus years ago by amazing Jewish scribes. I'm so not anti-Semitic that I'm going to call the Jewish scribes amazing. Inspired by God. I mean, in the first chapter, they just keep talking about cows and meat all day long and saying that's the real symbol of freedom. Now, Moses said later, we're not going to worship the golden calf. That's idolatry. But they were worshiping a golden calf. Let's let's this this guy is truly pathetic. And I want to tell you

what the real scam is here. The real scam is this entire movement pretending to care about the Bible. We talked with Ben Dixon about this in the last segment, and he says these people aren't even really Christian. This was the moment at which point it became clear that the five, six years that followed were going to be Republicans pretending to care about the Bible. You mentioned the Bible. You've been talking about how it's your favorite book. And you said, I think last night in Iowa, some people are surprised that you say that. I'm wondering what one or two of your most favorite Bible verses are.

I wouldn't want to get into it because to me, that's very personal. You know, when I talk about the Bible, it's very personal. So I don't want to get into it. I don't want to get into verses. I don't want to get into it. By the way, notice how articulate Trump was, even just how much more articulate Trump was even just a few years ago. It's a lot to you that you think about or cite. The Bible means a lot to me, but I don't want to get into specifics. Even decide a verse. No, I don't want to do that. Old Testament guy or New Testament? Probably equal. I think it's just an incredible.

Are you a pancakes or a French toast guy? Both are good. Both are really good. The whole Bible is an incredible joke. Very much so. They always hold up the art of the day. I say my second favorite book of all time. But I just think the Bible is just something very special. It's super special. And Donald Trump is not going to say any any more about it. These are the exact type of panderers that Ben Dixon was just warning about in the last segment who he is fighting against. Really scary stuff. All right. This is this is sad news. Our good friend who has filled in for me before, Jesse Dollimore, announced yesterday that he sadly has cancer and he has a whole video message about it to his audience. And he explains that he went in for and this is there's a Twitter thread that you can look

at. He went in for a colonoscopy late last week and yesterday he was told that he has colon cancer and there's a mass and it is a Dino carcinoma, does not yet know the stage or the prognosis, but believes that it's not stage four, meaning it hasn't spread to other organs. Jesse's going to need surgery. He is going to then learn, is it stage one or two, in which case that's hopefully the end of the journey. Or as he writes, if it's three, then he would start chemo. There's a lot of uncertainty. And we are all pulling for Jesse as as I tweeted to him yesterday. I was just on a call with Jesse because we were working on some stuff. And Jesse has super graciously filled in for me in the past last summer. And he's just a really nice guy. The thing about Jesse is that

the nice guy that you see in his clips is really Jesse. And it's horrible news. And I know that lots of our other friends in the progressive media community are rallying around Jesse. There's no ask here right now. I'm just telling you all about something in the community that's going on. That's that's horrible. So feel free to send Jesse a tweet. We're, of course, wishing him the best or, you know, you can leave positive vibes over on the video clip that he did about this or really just whatever. But we send Jesse our best really sad news and we hope to have good news from Jesse about treatment and prognosis sooner than later. All right, Jesse, everybody here is pulling for you. If you have something you want to say to me and there's

never an easy transition out of out of a cancer diagnosis. If you have something you want to say to me, you can leave a voicemail at two one nine to David P. The Eggman actually called in. We could use a little levity. The Eggman called in. And, you know, we did this story yesterday about how Mike Pillow says he's suing the FBI, suing everyone. And of course, we all know how silly these lawsuits are. Eggman says, you know, think about it. If you're Pillow's lawyer.

Or lawyers and you know, he's got 300 million dollars, you'll sue whoever the hell he wants you to sue. Take the money and run. This is the Eggman's perspective on that. Hey, Dave, imagine you're a pillows lawyer, one of his lawyers. You're at this meeting at Hardee's or Arby's, wherever they go. And he says, maybe KFC, the FBI, and we're going to sue the president. The lawyers are like, how do we take this man's money?

He has 30 million dollars, billion dollars worth of money, but still not do the ridiculous things he wants. How do we placate this man? His lawyers are telling him, sure, we'll sue the FBI for you, Mike. Write the check. Write the check. So his lawyers are getting loaded, probably laughing their asses off at his insane request. It may be. God, imagine the waitress in that meeting is probably smarter than all of them put together. So. Yes, Shalom, of course. And very, very soon we will be at

Rosh Hashanah, Eggman and Eggman, Eggman, Steve Eggman. No, the Eggman. Yeah, I think Eggman may be on to something with Trump. It's sort of the opposite. With Trump, lawyers don't want to represent him because he'll often just never pay them with pillow. Assuming pillow pays, lawyers will probably be willing to do whatever pillow wants. Sue the FBI. Sure. Sue the Secret Service. Sue the CIA. Yeah. Why? Why not? Let's sue everybody if they can actually rack up money from pillow. Eggman may well be on to something on today's bonus show. We are going to talk about the first in the nation law protecting children's online privacy. The law is out of California. We will describe it

and we will discuss it. For those of you who listen to the first season of the Serial podcast, Adnan Syed has been released from prison. And what that means, if you did not listen to Serial the first season, you would know. But I will I will explain all of it on today's bonus show. I think it'll be a really interesting conversation. And we are also going to talk about the Illinois plan to end cash bail and the end, the criminalization of poverty. It is not a perfect law. It's not. But we don't want to let the perfect become the enemy of the good,

to quote the great Ted Kennedy. And we will discuss that on today's bonus show. You can sign up at join Pacman dot com. If you missed yesterday's one day membership special and you would like to take advantage, just email in info at David Pakman dot com. Ask for the coupon code and it shall be sent to you so you can take advantage of it. We will see everybody on the bonus show in a moment or otherwise back here on the podcast tomorrow.