The David Pakman Show - 9/21/23: Buttigieg confrontation goes wrong, Trump cracks at Iowa speech

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Emily Monosson, a trained toxicologist who now writes about our impact on the natural environment and author of several books, joins David to discuss her book "Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic". Get the book: https://amzn.to/45ZVIOO -- Republican Congresswoman Victoria Spartz delivers what is possibly the most unhinged rant in Congressional history during hearings with testimony from Attorney General Merrick Garland -- Republican Congressmen, including Eric Burlison, attempt to "confront" Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and it goes really terribly for them -- Failed former President Donald Trump gives two speeches on the campaign trail in Iowa, both absolutely ridiculous both in content and optics -- Trump supporters are interviewed at Donald Trump's various campaign events in Iowa -- It is revealed that, despite his public statements to the contrary, failed former President Donald Trump is privately panicking about the possibility of going to prison for life -- Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Donald Trump, alleges that Rudy Giuliani groped her breasts and put his hands up her skirt -- Voicemail caller communicates his struggles to get a David Pakman Show membership -- On the Bonus Show: Republicans resigned to government shutdown, they are banning pitbulls again, Biden creating new White House office focused on gun violence prevention, much more... 🔊 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription at https://babbel.com/pakman 💸 Qube Money: Try it for 2 months totally FREE at https://davidpakman.com/money 🌱 Unsolicited Plant Talks: Save 15% with code PAKMAN at https://unsolicitedplanttalks.com/pakman 👍 Use code PAKMAN for 10% off the Füm Journey Pack at https://tryfum.com/PAKMAN -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDPSeptember 20, 2023

. We start today with two congressional hearings gone horribly, hilariously and delightfully wrong for the Republican Party. That is a mess. It's a mess with their Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy. It's a mess with their seemingly quickly failing impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. It's just a mess. We will get to Pete Buttigieg a little bit later, but we start with Merrick Garland. This was, I believe, the most unhinged rant I've ever seen

in congressional history. Now, if you want to include Senate confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, we might include Senator Lindsey Graham's completely delusional rant during the confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh right up there with what I'm about to play for you. But strictly speaking, as far as congressional hearings go, here is Republican Congresswoman Victoria Sparks on a completely out there, bonkers cuckoo for Cocoa Puff rant in front of Attorney General Merrick Garland about how there were lots of great people at the January 6th Trump riots.

Prepare yourselves. Had bad intent, but a lot of good Americans from my district came here because they're sick and tired of this government not serving them. They came with. And by the way, if you're watching the looks on Merrick Garland's face, pay special attention to that because they are really something else. If you're only listening, you'll have to either imagine it or find the video. All of the kids and there was chaotic situation because the proper security wasn't provided. That's a question that was answered.

Really? Why? Why we debated for 45 minutes on the floor and didn't stop the debate after the people broke in into the Capitol but these people came they were throwing the smoke bombs into the crowd with strollers with kids people who showed up you know FBI agents you had in my district, in my town, FBI phone numbers all over the district. Please call, call that people are truly afraid. I just want to make sure if you're not aware that you are and this is a big problem. Then people are afraid of their own government.

And I'll show you some other things. We're talking about just the system. I don't question you. Probably not a bad person. I don't question you probably not a bad person. I don't know you, but what I'll tell you, you might not be a terrible person, Mr. Attorney General. Speaker 2 Charge of the department and people right now feel, you know, I look at Durham report and I call on the fights of violations of queries of millions Americans, right? It's like KGB. But when I read Durham reports, we have this, you have a nice, you know, playbook. First, let's have a special counsel. And then you don't have

to answer any questions here. Then let's extend slow walk investigation on Hillary Clinton, on Hunter, everything is slow walk. We were very quick on Donald Trump, but you were very slow walk. Then by the time, you know, that investigation and its statute of limitation expired and all of your agents need to be tested for amnesia. No one recalls anything. OK, you probably should have as part of your hiring policy. So no one held accountable, which was egregious. What happened, you know, in that report when I read about that, I can't believe it happened in the United States of America. This is my frustration.

I'll be honest with you. Then it's very interesting, you know, regardless what it is, even people in Obama administration raise concerns. This is a delusional rant rewriting the Trump riots as people with legitimate concerns showing up, being goaded into apparent but not real criminality. As a result, I guess, of Democrats not providing security, which was not actually their responsibility to provide. And the looks on Merrick Garland's face really say it all. Now,

if we have anything to be thankful for, it's that Congresswoman Sparks said she is not going to be running for any Senate seat in 24. And she also is not running for reelection in the House. So she will be leaving. And for that, I think we can all be very, very thankful. But this is like nothing I've ever seen in the House. And the perplexed look on Merrick Garland's face really says so much. And this is the rewriting of history, looking to place blame on those who really have nothing to do. And by the way, rewriting January 6th history, Merrick Garland was not attorney general at that point in time. What any of this has to do with Merrick Garland is really an open question. Another example of this hearing gone completely wrong.

Here's Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany, who brought up to Garland, why haven't you investigated the naked bike ride in Madison? To which, again, the look on Merrick Garland's face is just what are they? What are they talking to me about here? I'll close real quickly with this. There is a world naked bike ride in Madison, Wisconsin, just a couple months ago. And I sent you a letter two months ago asking if you had a problem with that because it exposed a 10 year old girl by the race organizer, the bike organizers to pedaling around Madison, Wisconsin, naked. Right. Do you think that's a problem? And why did you not answer our letter from two months ago? Now, Merrick Garland was handed a note while while

he was being berated about the naked bike ride. Boy, would I love to know what's on that note that was just handed to Merrick Garland. I'm sorry, I'll have to get asked the Office of Legislative Affairs to get back to you about this. I wrote you a note about a naked bike ride where a girl was exposed and you didn't write back to me, sir. What do you know about that? I quite frankly, I don't know anything about it. I don't know anything about the naked bike ride in Madison.

This is what the Republican Party has become debased and delusional, dilapidated for sure. And drastically weakened from what it once was. Who can even respect in theory what these Republicans are trying to do in these hearings? And if you think this was bad with Merrick Garland, just wait until you see what happened with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. One of the things that I think is great about Pete Buttigieg, and this was the case when he was running for for the Democratic nomination in 2020, but in particular, it's been the case as Joe Biden's transportation secretary, is that not only is he really good at facing down adversarial questions, whether it's media or Republicans in hearings, he's exquisitely

well prepared. Just it's just a practical thing. He is extraordinarily well prepared. A Republican member of Congress, Eric Burleson, brought up this totally bogus private flights thing to Pete Buttigieg, where there's been criticism from Republicans about, oh, he flew private. And of course, the vast majority of his flights are commercial flights. But more importantly, secretaries often fly private and by private.

It's government planes. They're not chartering luxury private jets. They're flying on government planes. It's just what it is. Republicans do it. Democrats do it. Pete Buttigieg is so well prepared for this. And by the way, a bonus points for those who noticed and emailed me about Burleson pronouncing Buttigieg his last name is Buddha Chuch, which is just like an extra little cherry on top. Listen to this secretary, Buttigieg. Since taking Buttigieg the role, you've traveled quite a bit, including private flights. How often do you take private flights? So I assume by private flights, you mean the use of government aircraft assigned to my

agency and I knew this might come up. So I brought some numbers. Uh-oh. Since getting this job, I have taken 600. These are estimates, give or take a couple. But I've taken 638 flights. And any of those commercial? Say that again? Any of those commercial? 607 of them were commercial.

I'm going to back that up just because I stepped over him about to say that 10 were on private. So what is that, like 95 percent, 97 percent? 607 of them were commercial. 10 of them were on military aircraft such as Air Force One and 21 of them were on FAA aircraft representing about 3 percent of the flights. What was the there was a freedom of information request made your office to reveal the costs of the travel. Have you provided those costs? Again, remember that this really is a non story. Every transportation secretary has costs to their travel.

It's it's he's Burleson is trying to find some smoking gun, but he's just the secretary of transportation. That's all that's going on. He travels around and there are costs associated with that. I have to check back with the office to see how on the traffic. But I can tell you that, yeah, we're going to complete as I understand all four months and you've not you've not provided the financial numbers for that travel. OK, again, I can check on the status of your request, request, but I can also... You'll commit to providing that information? We will always comply with FOIA.

But I appreciate the chance to discuss this because I can't help get the sense that some people want to make it sound as if I don't travel most of the time on commercial aircraft, which of course is untrue. Yeah. I think I think the irony for most people in my district is that they're being told that they're going to have to convert to electric vehicles to reduce their carbon footprint. And yet not everyone gets to travel the way that you do. Just once again, the way I usually travel is in economy class aboard an airliner like everybody else. When we do it differently, it's often because it will save taxpayer money. I want to get on. You know, it's one of these total non sequiturs. The fact that it makes sense to move towards electric vehicles because you can centralize rather than distribute the pollution all over

the place, eventually move to clean sources for the electricity and on a per mile basis, electric vehicles are more efficient. That's true regardless of how much Pete Buttigieg travels. And these people have nothing. They have nothing. So they're grasping at straws. Here's another just incredible moment from this hearing where Pete Buttigieg, I don't even remember who this was. Pete Buttigieg talks about climate change and some Republican talks about, yeah, like, for example, now we're going from summer into fall. And it's so stupid that you can tell it takes three attempts to explain to Pete Buttigieg what the guy is saying, because it's so dumb. Listen to this. What I can tell you is that climate change is real.

We've got to do something about it. Yeah, this one's called autumn, sir. So sorry, this one's called autumn right now. So, yeah, I'm sorry. I couldn't make out what you said, sir. This climate change right now is called autumn. Yes. Yeah, that's that's the seasons changing, which respectively is not the same thing as the climate change. How could there possibly be climate change? Mayor Pete, Secretary Pete, if in August it was hot and in September it's warm and in October it's brisk and then in November it's chilly. How is there climate change if that's the case? This is the level on which these people are operating. And so this is why I'm actually working right now on the chapter in my forthcoming book about how do you operate productively in the political system in a world where you can't

even get consensus with these people on what the facts are. I'm not saying we agree on the solution, but we could agree on the facts on climate change easily, you would think without necessarily agreeing on the solutions, we can then debate the solutions. These people don't even understand or refuse to acknowledge the facts. How do you operate in such a world so that that's this is a perfect example of it. As well prepared as you can be, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, and he is good at this, but a really dark reminder of the sad state of thinking and empiricism among the Republican Party. Truly a tragedy, quite frankly. Budgeting can be a tough thing for a lot of people to stay disciplined about, but our

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Why not join Pacman dot com? A great time to do it. A shiny, wet and visibly disoriented, failed former President Donald Trump, twice impeached, four times indicted, civilly liable rapist Donald Trump went to Iowa yesterday, I guess, campaigning as if he's not in the middle of four criminal trials for 91 different felonies, which could put him in prison for the rest of his life in pretending that he's just another candidate. Normal. He said some of the strangest things I've ever heard, some of which seem counterproductive

to his cause. I know that might come as a shock. Here's one example. Donald Trump at one campaign stock stock stop. He went to he went, I guess, to McCook McCake. I don't even know how it's pronounced the places he was going to. It's really something he bragged about ending Roe v. Wade, which actually hurt Republicans in the twenty twenty two midterms. But Trump's bragging about it. And as you can see,

he is just glistening here. And last year I was able to do something that nobody thought was possible. And you have to really think about this and study this because very important. We ended Roe v. Wade. You just think about. So that crowd may make me clapping, but we know that that did not help Republicans. You just think about. Because people have to get elected, we have to get elected. But I did something that for 52 years, people talked. They spent vast amounts of money in fighting it, but they couldn't get the job done. 52 years,

they fought and they fought hard. They spent large and have fundraisers every night. They couldn't get the job done. I got the job done. I got it done. And it's thanks to the three great Supreme Court justices and others on the court that I appointed. This issue has been returned to the states where all legal scholars on both sides felt it should be. That's a lie. But more importantly, what's the part that's true? It's true that it's thanks to the three Supreme Court justices that Trump selected that Roe v. Wade was overturned, was repealed. That's absolutely the case.

And I warned people about that in 2016. This is they're going for Roe v. Wade. If Trump wins over Hillary and gets to appoint justices, they're coming for Roe v. Wade. And that happened. The strange part is Trump bragging about it. And what I mean by that is if you look at the latest data we have from 2023 Gallup survey, 84 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be legal either in all cases or under certain and under certain typically means certainly until the age of viability for the fetus, if not even longer, particularly with exceptions for life of the mother, et cetera. So they are simply on the wrong side of public opinion with this.

And it's an interesting position for Trump to be in because it's sort of like with the vaccines. Trump wants to brag about his vaccine accomplishments. Yet the people he's bragging to hate the damn vaccine and have fallen for everything from microchip conspiracies to the vaccine is killing more people than COVID. So it's a difficult thing where it is an accomplishment. Is it a positive accomplishment? Is it a useful accomplishment to brag about? It's very much unclear. Donald Trump then said there must be something weird going on in his head

because he considers it a badge of honor to have been indicted. That's interesting. Every time this was in Dubuque, Iowa, radical left Democrats, Marxist, communist, fascists. Every time they indict me, I considered a great badge of honor. I did everything right and they indicted me. Right. There must be something a little strange up here because most people crawl into a corner and they die. I'm being indicted for you. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. I am. I'm being indicted

for you. That line is really something else. Now, this is an interesting refrain from Trump because later in the show, we're going to look at new reporting that Trump is privately terrified about the indictments and about the possibility that he will spend the rest of his life in prison. So Trump is lying publicly when he says, I don't worry about it at all. No, I'm fine. It's not. It's a great thing that I've been indicted. And then lastly, another completely bizarre moment. Actually, we've got a couple more is Trump again with this beautiful Hillary stuff and the beautiful Hillary stuff is getting a little bit weird as a group first. And we won and then we won the election against beautiful Hillary, beautiful, beautiful woman. So it's pretty amazing. A beautiful woman that Hillary Clinton.

One more moment from this. Here is Trump lamenting that they didn't take over in the 2020 election. This is from its Makwa Kedah, Iowa. That's the town I misspoke about earlier. It's Makwa Kedah. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. We said we're going to do. But then we could have done more.

And we had it all bought and we had the election was ended and rigged, by the way, and we didn't take over. And what they did and this is the first time I realized they were serious because I thought they were playing games. I realized they didn't want to build security. They want to have an open border. So this was maybe Trump's most confused moment where he's mixing up taking over after the election, despite the fact that he was already president. What exactly would you be taking over

combined with the border? And he mentions the word security. But does he refer to the riots or all of a sudden we're talking about the US Mexico border just completely all over the place. A very strange campaign day for Trump. I anticipate more of these. Primarily what is being blamed is Trump is just genuinely terrified about going to prison for the rest of his life. We'll get to that later. Before we do that, though, we have to talk about some of the supporters that went to these rallies in Iowa. There's something very wrong with many of the Trump supporters that showed up yesterday in Mack, Wauketa, Iowa, and Dubuque, Iowa, to support Trump's very strange speeches. Here is a moment where Trump took questions from the audience in Mack, Wauketa, and the guy in the audience. this is a cult.

OK, the guy in the audience says to Trump, do you realize that God is behind you? To which Trump almost seems uncomfortable. It's actually interesting. This is so brown nosing that even Trump seems to almost be getting a little bit uncomfortable. Almost. I want to thank you, President, for all that you've done. And a question I want to ask you is, I'm telling you, no man can endure what you have endured. Do you realize that God is behind you and strengthening you? Do you realize that?

Well, I appreciate what you're saying. I understand what you're saying, too. It's been a terrible thing in so many ways. The only thing, the great gratitude I get, I'm looking at polls now where we're 50 points, 60 points up, you know, among all these people. And we're beating Biden in all these polls. We're beating everybody. And we have had to endure. We endured a fake Russia, Russia, Russia thing for years. We endured. Understand the question was, do you president, do you agree? Do you realize God is behind you? And he's like, well, listen, we're, we're being treated so unfairly. Russia, Russia, Russia. I'm up 50 points in a poll. Trump is even uncomfortable with this level of cultish adulation. All of this stuff, all fake. And think of how bad these people were. A guy like Adam Shifty

Shifter is a real bad guy. I call him pencil neck. He's got the smallest neck I've ever seen. Do you realize God is behind you? Adam Schiff has the pencil neck and watermelon head you could never imagine. Bizarre weaponized cult. Now, here is maybe and we've seen a lot of these moments, so I don't want to oversell this. Here is this is a top five moment from interviews with Trump supporters at rallies. Right side broadcasting interviewed two different people. The first one is a woman, as far as I can tell. And the second one is a man, as far as I can tell. I know the right now loves to say, oh, how can you tell David if anybody can be anything they want? OK, this is my understanding.

There's a woman who expresses. Needs that she has. Which Trump and Republicans would deny her, but Democrats would provide her. But she still praises Trump. And then the same thing with the guy they interview. Let me explain. Right side broadcasting. Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend, Brian Glenn, asks this woman, how have Trump's policies benefited your life?

Listen carefully to what she says. What is Trump under his policies? How did it benefit your life? Are you working retired? I mean, I'm disabled. I have a broken plate in my back. Huh? And they really bummed me because during COVID, I was supposed to get my third surgery and have it fixed. And when the doctor, a very big specialist, went to fix it, he said, where's your Medicaid? So what do you mean worse by Medicaid? Well, they took my Medicaid. Huh? So I'm coming up here hoping I can get my surgery done. Wow. So wait, you're actually saying that Republican governors, we don't know the details, right? But it's either Republican governors that didn't do the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare would be to blame for

her not getting the care she needs. Or more broadly, it's a Democratic Party priority to get everybody accessible, quality, affordable health care. Trump and Republicans put together a plan in 2017, which would have led to 24 to 32 million people losing insurance. So she she's asked, what did Trump's policies do for you? And she actually says, oh, under Trump during the pandemic, I couldn't get the back surgery I needed. This is unbelievable.

Then we go to a different guy. This guy starts attacking about attacking Democrats for being socialists. Yet he says, hey, you know what? I get V.A. benefits. I get all of all sorts of stuff that Republicans say is a waste of money. It's another example. Cult Trump supporter actively being hurt by Republican policies needs some Democratic policies, but attacks Democrats as socialists. Listen to this. I just had to purchase a new car because I had a deer totaled my other one and it just everything, the cost of everything is way too high.

Insurance medical insurance as well. Well, fortunately I'm on Medicare, so it helps out a lot right there. Oh, it's useful to be on a government program that some Republicans want to take apart at the seams. Interesting. So I've got I've got my VA benefit. Oh, and you're also taken care of through the VA. Wow. Fascinating. But you love Trump and these socialist policies from Democrats are no good. Let's go back very briefly to the first woman here. She says Trump is godly. Trump is godly. Speaker 4 Trump. Chances are he could be watching us right now from his plane. What message do you have to

President Trump right now as it comes to Speaker 1 despite the fact that his policies left you without the care you needed? OK, despite that, what do you what do you have to say to the guy? I want a picture with you, sir. You are just you know what? God sent him down here. I promise you he's he's working for God. Yeah. Trump was sent down by God and somehow she ended up without being able to get the surgery she needed. That's that's strange. That's a very strange action for a God to take. This is a cult which we knew, but they vote. And it is so obvious when you speak to these folks, they would actively benefit from what Democrats are proposing, but they believe Trump is a pseudo deity.

How do we deal with that? I don't have an answer. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube. We're heading towards two million subscribers. I want to hear from you on this one. Leave me a comment. We'll follow up. Nothing transforms the inside of your home like indoor plants and not just for decor. It can be a great mood booster. Our sponsor unsolicited plant talks. UPT is the perfect place to go. They ship indoor plants right to your door. UPT supplies rare top quality houseplants and provides unparalleled customer service.

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from renewable materials. With every purchase, you're contributing to their charitable tree planting and their ocean cleanup initiatives. You PT is a family and friend operated business in Southern California with a passion for plants. up. Pacman and use the code Pacman at checkout for 15% off. That's unsolicitedplanttalks.com slash Pacman. Get 15% off using code Pacman. The info is in the podcast notes. Today, I'm joined by Emily Monison, who's a trained toxicologist who now writes about our impact on the natural environment. She's the author of several books, including Blight, Fungi and the Coming Pandemic. Emily, great to have you on today.

Thank you for having me. So let's talk a little bit about fungi and pandemics. You know, I think in in the context of the covid pandemic, certainly in general, folks are aware of viruses and pandemics. Folks who have also read about bacterial illness or different sources for possible pandemics would have some familiarity there. But when we talk about fungi and pandemics, talk a little bit about that. Why is this less familiar to folks?

And what is the connection between fungi as possible agents of a pandemic? Okay. So I think first of all, I should clarify that, um, when people, when, when I talk about pandemics, usually it's in the book, it's most often in other species. So there are other species experiencing pandemics in humans. We are experiencing fungal epidemics. So outbreaks of emergent fungal pathogens, or at least of emergent fungal pathogens or at least one emergent fungal pathogen that I write about. And so and that is something that's been in the news quite a bit lately, which is a yeast fungus that has really frightened many public health workers. What is it that is so frightening now about this particular fungal pathogen?

So this is a pathogen that's emerged in, say, the last decade or so. So that's pretty new. It's something that for I should also clarify that it tends to impact patients who are compromised, so already hospitalized. But once it does infect somebody, it's very hard to treat. When this fungus emerged, what was odd was that it emerged in four different continents kind of at the same time. So if you can imagine if the COVID virus, you know, we know it emerged in one place at one time. And this is four different places,

all of a sudden this fungus seemed to have popped up and started to infect people. Then it's resistant, many of the strains are resistant to the antifungal medications that we have. And three, it's very rare for a fungus to be transmitted from person to person. But this fungus can be transmitted between patients. It's very difficult to clear from a hospital room. So I think it's just been a very different kind of pathogen and pretty frightening for those. And it's been spreading. So before COVID, I think there were a couple of hundred cases. Now there are thousands. And so health workers are trying to get on top of this before it spreads further. So talk a little bit about that difficulty in

clearing it. I think, again, in thinking about what is more familiar to people in our audience, we talk about cleaning and we talk about disinfecting and, and these sorts of things and what can live on cloth versus a hard to surface or, or these sorts of things. What are the properties that make this difficult to clear? So I'm not sure. So first of all, I didn't name it. This is called candida oris. Uh, so it. So it's a yeast fungus kind of yeast, but there's lots of different kinds of yeast. So this fungus seems to colonize hospital rooms. It can colonize equipment. And in the very beginning, when it was first discovered back in 2016 or around then, hospitals where patients had Candida auris, one of them had to take out ceiling tiles and remove stuff from the room because they could not disinfect the room.

That was because they didn't understand at the time that it could withstand the disinfectants used to clear viruses and bacteria from a room. So they can do better now in cleaning up this equipment. But still they find it's very hard to disinfect equipment, which is how it spread. And so it's just it's it's kind of a novelty and they're just beginning to understand it when it comes to the disease that it can cause in humans. Talk a little bit about that. So I'm not a physician, so I can't speak to the specifics. I just I it's I think it can infect your bloodstream. And once it infects the bloodstream, it can cause a lot of different problems, I think

eventually leading to sort of a shock, septic shock or something like that. Again, not a physician, but it is very hard to treat. And some of them are, there's only three or maybe three real main classes of antifungal medications. So we have a lot of different antibiotics. A lot of us know we've been through a lot of different kinds of antibiotics. When one doesn't work, you try another and another. Right. This, there's only three, I think, classes of antifungal medications. And so this fungus has been resistant to one or two or in rare cases, all three classes. And so there are physicians in the position of telling somebody that they can't

treat them because there is no treatment. So that's what's frightening about this. But again, you know, it infects the sickest of the sick and it tends to be in hospitals and long term care facilities and those sorts of places. When we talk about the effect of fungi potentially on the food system, this seems to be another area of concern. If I understand the research correctly, talk a little bit about that and whether are there particular fungi that present the greatest threat to the food system? Yeah. So there are certain kinds of fungal pathogens that are well known in agriculture.

One of the longest, best known or sort of longest running fungal pathogen is a rust that infects wheat. And that's sort of considered to be maybe one of the biblical kinds of plagues. But the fungus, what I write about is one that infects banana crops and banana plantations. And so it is one that really strikes fear into banana growers. Once it takes hold on a banana plantation, it can be very difficult to clear that because so just because of how fungi grow and that sort of thing so yeah and so in other major crops rice wheat the bananas potatoes have a fungus-like kind of organism along with other kinds of organisms and so you know the sort of apocalyptic scenario if you wanted to imagine one which I think is probably the background for some kinds of apocalyptic literature, is what happens when multiple fungi affect different all those staple crops at the same time.

We haven't had that scenario, but you could imagine that would be a problem. Speaker 1 It seems that there is interest, I guess, is the way I would put it in using genetic modification to manage fungal crop disease. Genetic modification is controversial, I think, without placing any kind of value judgment on it. You know, my audience knows my view and in the experts we've talked to, there does not seem to be good evidence that genetic modification poses a health risk to humans, even though it's popular to assume that it does. Can you talk a little bit to the extent that that we know now what role genetic modification may play in making crops resistant to fungal infection?

So I think that there are there's some hope and there are scientists working on finding genes that will impart resistance on those crops against the fungal pathogen the benefit of this is that they don't need to use the fungicides which the fungi evolve resistance to very rapidly and then the question is well can't they evolve resistance to resistance to a genetic kind of a resistance that might be sort of a protein or receptor that's expressed in the plant that's been modified? And I think that there are precautions, there are ways to do this without that happening as well. And so I think that there is hope that that might be one way to protect crops from pathogens is to impart them with resistance. And some of these resistances come from closely related plants, if not sort of the same kinds of like in bananas, they can find a resistance gene in other strains of bananas and put it into the kind of banana

that we like to eat. So, you know, it's not a transgenic coming from a different organism. Yeah. One of the things I've read, and this is only going to deal with part of the problem, is that the kind of more regenerative agricultural technique of of crop rotation between more significantly different crops can be useful because as you're saying the ability of some of these, uh, fungal pathogens to affect one crop would be limited in crops that are different enough.

But obviously we know that with monoculture practices and big agriculture, this is just often not done. Yeah. Yes, that's true. Um, and not just crop, you know, in addition to crop rotation, there's also just intercropping, growing different kinds of crops within that, you know, that are could also be food productive crops. And so that can also stop something like fungus from spreading because it spreads through air. So if you have a different crop growing between blocks of crops,

a fungus might not be able to spread as easily. So there are different kinds of strategies. Can you talk a little bit about well, to contextualize this, I don't remember the name of it, but there is some mushroom documentary on Netflix that I saw like a year ago, which is fascinating. Do you know what I'm referring to? Fantastic. Yeah, it's like fantastic mushrooms or I don't remember the name of the guys. Fantastic fungi, something like that. So one of the things that is sort of explained in that documentary is this incredible ability of just, you know, a gentle a gentle wind to spread spores large distances and make

it so that all different types of fungi, mushrooms, et cetera, just grow in large swaths of land. And so when you see that, you get the sense that it would be extremely difficult to limit the spread of many of these organisms, particularly when you think about, OK, something like covid. We know about droplets and coughing and to some degree surfaces. But this idea of it's just this ethereal cloud of spores that just can very quickly cover. So is is that an accurate representation when we think about the ones that would either cause this condition in humans or that would cause blight to spread when it comes to crops? Is that accurate?

Is that how we should be thinking of how easily these things spread? So partly accurate. And so, first of all, most of those like in the most fungi are not harmful. Of course, point to make. So we are. And just to clarify, so yeasts don't tend to spread like that by producing spores and spewing them all over the place. So that isn't

one concern. That's not a worry with something like Candida auris. But for those that are out in the environment, like the ones that impact agricultural crops, yes, many of them spread by spores. I have one scientist, I can't remember the number, it was like bazillions of spores over a crop that's infected with this particular fungus. And so, you know, it's they can travel across oceans, you know, depending on the types of spores, they can travel miles. We are breathing tens of thousands of spores probably all the time. It's just that most of them aren't bothering us. Yes.

Yeah. There are fungal spores everywhere. Last thing I want to ask about when it comes to bacteria and viruses, there are all sorts of discussions about weaponizing such organisms in order to create bio weapons, to use them in war, to do all sorts of horrible things. Do fungi lend themselves to such a threat and manipulation? Is that or is there something about them that doesn't makes it so that we don't need to have that as a concern? Well, that's something that I have never thought about before in terms.

Really? No. And I haven't come across, reading it in my first thought when you said that is you could do that, but it would be how would you control it? Speaker 2 Right. Well, that's what it seems like. It would make it so volatile because of the spores that get blown, blown everywhere. It seems as though it would be extraordinarily, extraordinarily difficult to target or control in any way. Speaker 1 I would think that's true. I mean, some of the problems with these crop fungi is that they are global. They don't just stage in one country or one region.

They tend to spread around the world, you know, because we carry spores wrong. Growers carry spores around the air, carry spores around. So I think that would be a tough thing. But I can't answer that question. I haven't really. Yeah, I mean, I'm not trying to give anybody any ideas. It's just more a curiosity given given where we are, you know, in twenty twenty three with the sort of global circumstances that we that we have. OK, we'll leave it there. We've been speaking with Emily Monason. One of her books is Blight Fungi and the Coming Pandemic. I really appreciate

your time and insights today. Well, thank you for talking to me. Many people know how hard it is to break bad habits, and sometimes you have to replace a bad habit with a better habit. And that is exactly what our sponsor fume helps you do. Fume is not a vape. I don't advertise vape stuff. There's no nicotine. There's no Thank you so orange, vanilla. Importantly, it just gives your hand something to do. It's a device that feels good in your hand or in your pocket. You can take it anywhere. And 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 finger something to do, even if it's in your pocket. Check out the reviews online. You'll see so many people Thank you so much, David. journey pack, which comes with the device and several flavors to try. That's try FUM dot com.

Then use code Pacman for 10 percent off the journey pack. The info is in the podcast notes. A new report reveals that Donald Trump is privately panicking that he may spend the rest of his life in prison publicly. Trump is insisting that he doesn't even think about it. He said this in one of the speeches in Iowa that we looked at earlier. But now new reporting from Rolling Stone reveals Trump is very much afraid. Rolling Stone report Trump privately frets he could be headed to prison. Would he be sent to a club fed style prison or a, quote, bad one? Would he have Secret Service protection?

What would they make him wear? Those are the questions Trump is asking his lawyers as trials loom. If you're not even thinking about spending a day in prison, you don't ask your lawyers, what will they make me wear in prison? By the way, I don't know which idea is funnier, Trump in an orange jumpsuit in prison or Trump in his suit in prison. Both have their comedic elements to it. You can read this report.

We will link to it. Very, very good reporting by Rolling Stone. Critical paragraph now out of office sources close to Trump and those who have heard him ask these questions about a hypothetical sentencing, tell Rolling Stone that it's clear the gravity of his mounting legal peril is getting to Trump, regardless of whether the former president can admit to it in public. I have to tell you, this actually suggests Trump is more connected to reality than he pretends.

What I mean by that is this is the logical fear that any normal person would have. If I were Trump, I would be terrified that I'm going to spend the rest of my life in prison. You look at the number of counts that he's facing. Ninety one felony counts, I think, is the number. You look at the possible punishments for those counts and you look at Donald Trump's age and how long homo sapiens tend to live. Almost any sentence is a de facto life sentence for Trump, period. That should be terrifying. This also confirms something else that we've known, which is that Trump lies about absolutely everything publicly. Let me tell you what I mean. Trump specifically has said publicly, I'm not at all afraid of going to prison. It's not happening. I'm not worried about it.

He said it in Iowa yesterday. I played that clip for you earlier. He specifically said to Kristen Welker during that bonkers interview on Sunday, I don't even think about it. We now know that this is also a lie. Remember this moment? Let me ask you this, Mr. President, I did the political. I just want to hear from you on this.

I want to know what's in your head when you go to bed at night, do you worry about going to jail? No, I don't really. I don't even think about it. I'm built a little differently, I guess, because I have had people come up to me and say, how do you do it, sir? How do you do it? They said, sir, you've been treated so unfairly. And then they saluted and I'd offered to pay for his groceries. I don't even think about it. All right. So that is a lie. And the additional theme that we're learning about here is as if we needed to learn about it again. If Trump says something publicly, it's almost always a better shot to just assume it's not true. You'll you'll likely end up closer to the truth

if you internalize the opposite of what Donald Trump says publicly. Bottom line, Trump should be afraid. I still don't think the most likely outcome is Trump goes to prison. And I know every time I say it, people say, David, why, why, why is facing all these counts? I think the most likely outcome is consolidation of charges, some kind of agreement in which if there is a sentence, it's house arrest. And I've said that many times. I think it's more likely than ever before that Trump will be end up in prison. But I still don't think it's a likely outcome. But Trump should be worried. I'll admit it. I'd be terrified if I were Trump.

These are very serious charges for different criminal trials. Ninety one felony counts with with sentences that are absolutely no joke. But at the end of the day, this is Trump's doing. This is all Trump's own doing. He was given multiple chances to avoid all of this. Many of these criminal charges are related to actions that Donald Trump premeditated and conspired to premedicate with staffers. Some of this stuff could have been avoided. For example, the documents case, Trump was given months to give the documents back. He was warned by lawyers. If we don't give them back, they're going to come here and execute a search warrant, what some people call a raid.

So many opportunities at so many stages of this game. It's a sick game, isn't it? To avoid this. And so Trump is the one that is to blame for it. But you know what? He should be terrified because it is a terrifying situation for any normal person. Maybe Trump is more normal than we thought. I don't know. Rudy Giuliani has now been accused of groping a woman's breasts and sticking his hands up her skirt. It is just getting worse and worse for Rudy Giuliani. First, he completely humiliates himself through his support of Donald Trump and pursuing bogus voter fraud claims. He then pursues those bogus claims in hearings of different kinds, has uncontrollable public farting episodes, and then potentially even becomes the first person to transmit covid by flatulence to Jenna Ellis, which is a medical wonder that we will have to

leave to the doctors to figure out. Then he puts his law license at risk and I think even gets disbarred in some places. Then Rudy Giuliani gets criminally charged. Then he doesn't pay his lawyers. His lawyers sue him for almost one point four million dollars in unpaid legal fees. And now he is accused of groping Cassidy Hutchinson. That's the person that is in question here. Cassidy Hutchinson is the same former Trump staffer who testified under oath that Trump lunged at a secret service agent and was furious that they wouldn't take him to the riots or whatever else the case may be.

Here's a report from The Guardian. OK, this is this is wacky stuff. Ex-Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson claims Rudy Giuliani groped her on January 6th. She describes Rudy like a wolf closing in on its prey on the day of the January 6th riots, describing meeting with Giuliani backstage at Trump's speech near the White House before his supporters marched on Congress to try to overturn the 2020 election. So this was on the day of the Trump riots. Hutchinson says the former New York mayor turned Trump lawyer put his hand under my blazer, then my skirt. This is this is vile. I feel his frozen fingers trail up my thigh. He tilts his chin up. The whites of his eyes look

jaundiced. My eyes dart to Trump advisor John Eastman, who flashes a leering grin. I fight. This is tough to read. I fight against the tension in my muscles and recoil from Rudy's grip filled with rage. I stormed through the tent on yet another quest for Mark, seemingly referring to Mark Meadows. These are extraordinarily disgusting allegations, which if true. I mean, listen, at this point, what's Rudy's defense? I was wasted at the time. Should we expect him to try that? Rudy Giuliani's drinking issues, a well-known subject of concern among Trump staffers in

terms of the timing of Rudy Giuliani's public appearances and so forth, so on and so forth. At the end of the day, these are extremely unsurprising allegations. And the only, you know, do I even need to do my normal caveats? Allegations are not evidence, certainly not of guilt in a court of law alone. You have to adjudicate things. Is there even the allegation that that this is going to become a criminal complaint? We have no idea. This is what someone says happened. But remember when I said at the end of Trump's term, it is going to take years for us to learn the full story of what happened in the Trump administration. It turns out that we were right.

Now I'm not immune to the reality that the timing of us learning about many of these things is when people have a book to sell. Cassidy Hutchinson has a forthcoming, and she opted to include these details in the book rather than to mention them earlier, which is absolutely her right to do. But it certainly will raise questions from some about whether this is all at least time, not that she's necessarily making up the allegations, but that it is timed just to make her the most money that is possibly going to be made. Horrifying and disgusting allegations about a guy who when I hear it, I don't go, no, Rudy could absolutely never happen. There's no way. There's no way Rudy. No, could never be. It's sort of like, oh, yeah, that could

absolutely be something that Rudy Giuliani did. So the latest series of allegations against Rudy building on allegations that he asked for money in exchange for pardons. Remember when we interviewed John Kiriakou on the show about that? And it's just an endless list for a guy who has truly suffered quite a fall from grace. By the way, I got I said yesterday or the day before, I feel a little bit bad for Rudy Giuliani about some things, not about this. You grope someone and put your hand up their skirt. That's just you. You just messed up. You did something that is likely criminal. And I don't feel any empathy for him on that. But on some of these other things, I said something tickles my empathy nerve with Rudy. Half of the people who wrote to me said,

David, I feel the same way. There's something about Rudy as a sad character. The other half said, David, no, I don't feel even an iota of empathy for Rudy. He's terrible. He did this all to himself, period. So the audience divided on any level of empathy for Rudy Giuliani. I'm experiencing zero empathy on the basis of these latest allegations from Cassidy Hutchinson. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two David P. Here's a question. What substances, if any, do you believe this caller is on at the time of this phone call? Take a listen. I don't know. It's an answering machine. Yeah. Well, I try to go to join Pac-Man dot com and there ain't no way I can join it because you ain't got no Pac-Man. You ain't got no Ms. Pac-Man. You ain't got nothing to do with Pac-Man.

All you be doing is talking about Donald Trump. And I love him because he looks like Pac-Man. That extended throat noise towards the end of the call really is what gets me. So anyway, a lot of questions raised by that phone call, certainly. And I will leave it to the audience to evaluate for themselves. It's really hard to know what to add to such a phone call. But I always appreciate engagement from people on the other side of the political aisle. We'll leave it there. What a bonus show we have for you today.

Listen to what we're going to discuss today when I'm joined by producer Pat. Number one, Republicans seem to be resigned to being the villains in what may be, as far as they are concerned, an inevitable government shutdown. Yes, we're talking about it again. We're doing it again. We're doing it again. We're doing the whole routine again. Why? I don't know. They just, I guess, are determined to do it again. Number two, they're banning pit bulls again. How will it work? As many of you know, I think this is one of the stupidest things. And I'm going to tell you what this is really about on the bonus show. And number three, the Biden administration is creating a new White House office focused on the prevention of gun

violence. What do they plan to do? What do they plan to investigate? And will this yet again be attacked by the pro-gun, more guns in more places, right wingers? All of these stories and more on today's bonus show. Don't miss the bonus show. The bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. A David Pakman membership costs six bucks a month. Well, it costs three bucks a month if you use the coupon code for years for indictments

at join Pakman dot com. Sign up. I will see you then. But we still have one more show this week. All is not lost. We'll see everybody tomorrow.