The David Pakman Show - 9/22/23: Taylor Swift voter registration explodes, DeSantis falls to 5th place in NH

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Taylor Swift quickly becomes one of the most powerful forces in voter registration this election cycle -- 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy puts his surgeon wife, Apoorva Ramaswamy, in an impossible position over the COVID-19 vaccine -- Florida Governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has fallen to a humiliating 5th place in new polling out of New Hampshire -- Caller asks about general immigration policy -- Caller talks about Trump's mental health and fitness to stand trial -- Caller discusses the state of the economy and how much inflation plays a role -- Caller asks about Vivek Ramaswamy's followers in the YouTube comments -- Caller suggests paying off the national debt with a credit card -- Caller points out that Republicans shouldn't want any abortion exceptions if they believe it's murder -- Caller wants to debate David about libertarianism -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Newsmax flails over automatic voter registration, DeSantis donors ditching him, and much more... 🔊 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription at https://babbel.com/pakman 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 🥄 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off Magic Spoon at https://magicspoon.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

. Let's talk about Taylor Swift. I'm actually not kidding. Taylor Swift is becoming arguably one of the greatest forces for voter registration in the United States right now. I am not a fan of Taylor Swift's music. I would struggle to identify any of her songs, although maybe I'd recognize some of them. Probably I would.

But I am aware of the explosively popular tour that she was undertaking. I don't know if the tour is over. Maybe it's still going on. But Taylor Swift is doing something else. Taylor Swift is registering more voters than anyone else that I am aware of. The numbers are stunning to the point where she could become an incredible political force, maybe for defeating the authoritarian fascist wannabe Republicans in 2024. Axios reports Taylor Swift snags 35000 new registered voters.

A Taylor Swift Instagram post drove record breaking Web traffic to vote dot org this week and helped the site register more than 35000 new voters. Our site was averaging 13000 users every 30 minutes, according to Andrea Haley, the CEO of Vote Dot Org. 35000, 252 people registered to vote on Tuesday. That's a 23 percent jump from last year's National Voter Registration Day. Hundred and fifteen percent increase in 18 year olds. Hundred and fifty seven thousand eligible voters went to the site. This is these are really incredible numbers.

Rolling Stone also has a piece on this. Taylor Swift calls Swifties to action on National Voter Registration Day. I've been lucky to see so many of you guys at my U.S. shows. Swift said, I've heard you raise your voices and I know how powerful they are. Make sure you're ready to use them in our elections this year. It should not be understated that someone in Taylor Swift's position for all of the you know, some people say, oh, shut up and sing, shut up and dribble, whatever. People who complain, you know, I went to a Springsteen show. I'm a big, strong, burly Republican, but he was talking about politics and how Trump is bad. And

I want him to shut up and do the next song and whatever. Listen, you can choose to support or not support any athlete, artist or celebrity of any kind based on your political views. But it should not be understated that Taylor Swift, particularly based on the age of many of her fans, could potentially swing the election. I mean, I don't think it's going overboard to say that there is the potential there. And of course, there's the question, well, if Taylor Swift's fans are 50 percent Democrats and 15 percent, 50 percent Republicans, and she's registering, you know, one Republican and one Democrat for every two people that set that register as a result, it won't really have an impact. There is certainly reason

to believe that her fan base is going to lean more anti-Republican the way Swift herself appears to lean. Now, there's one other story or an irony in all of this. This is all only even a story because we don't have automatic voter registration in the United States. And this whole thing of I've got to make sure in many states I need to register by a certain deadline to even be allowed to vote. That being a thing is the only reason why this even matters. If we had same day registration, it would make this sort of moot. If these voter roll purges would be made irrelevant by same day registration or automatic voter registration, default voter registration in states, some states are pushing for that. This entire concept that we've got to get people registered becomes

increasingly moot. So fascinating, incredible that Taylor Swift is taking on this level of importance in the political dialogue around voting. And also it's sort of like, you know, if the U.S. had a different health care system, Breaking Bad wouldn't even have made sense as a series based on the premise. We've talked about that before. This entire concept of voter registration drives would be moot if people were automatically registered or could register on on Election Day in every state. That's not the case. And to the extent that it remains that way, people like Taylor Swift, Swift, Swift actually have an even bigger opportunity to make a difference. Vivek Ramaswamy has put his wife, a doctor, a surgeon in an absolutely

impossible, terrible position. I'm going to play a clip for you of an interview that NBC News did with Vivek Ramaswamy's wife, Apoorva Ramaswamy, on the topic of covid vaccines. Vivek Ramaswamy has now bravely come out and said he regrets getting vaccinated. I'm joking. It's not a very brave thing to say. Now, I think that it's very clear that when a poor of a Ramaswamy is asked about this, her view is now I'm a doctor. I understand the benefits of the vaccines. I suggest to my patients they get vaccinated. The vaccine is a good thing, period. She knows that saying that could cause a problem for her husband's campaign and maybe it could cause a problem for her husband's campaign and maybe it could cause a problem for her and her husband's marriage as well. So instead, she tries to hem and haw a little bit.

But this is painful to watch. Take a look. So Vivek said that if he knows now, if he knew now, if he knew then what he knows now about the covid-19 vaccine, that he would not have taken the two shots that he took. If you knew then what you knew now, would you take COVID-19 vaccine? That's a great question. And I think the most important thing for me as a surgeon, when I think about recommending things to my patients is their autonomy. I think of my responsibility as telling them, this is what I think are the benefits.

This is what we know about this. This this whatever we're recommending, this is what I think are the benefits. And these are what we know are the risks. This is what we don't know. And for every person, that's a different decision. So for my. So so far, this is a non answer that I mean this is just generic like hey doctors talk about risks and benefits and ultimately decisions are made by patients. OK, well, let's see if we get an actual answer. Young, healthy husband. That's a different decision than for me when I am taking care of patients who are cancer

survivors and they trust me to, you know, be in their airway every day. It's a very different discussion. And I think giving people that autonomy is the most important part. Gotcha. So you. But remember, the question was not about should patients have autonomy. It's Vivek said if he knew then what he knows now, he wouldn't have gotten vaccinated. What about you?

Let's try again. What basically? I'm an airway surgeon. I so I at that time, I think we I had to do what I had to do. Awesome. You immigrated here to the. So listen, are there doctors who genuinely are skeptical of the benefits of the vaccine or have questions about the risk reward? Of course there are. I mean, you look at the number of doctors in the world and in the the risk reward? Of course there are. I mean, you look at the number of doctors in the world and in the United States, I'm sure there are

anti-vax doctors. I'm sure there are 50 50 on the vaccine doctors, whatever. What I'm seeing here is a woman put in a really terrible position, which is she knows all about the benefits outweighing the risks at any age of the vaccine. She understands that she understands that she wants to avoid saying something that will humiliate her in the medical community. But she's got Vivek Ramaswamy, her husband, running around out there having to try to kowtow to the sorts of people who are furious with Trump for developing the vaccines. And she's trying to figure out what to say. And that's what I see

as the look on her face right here. You might see something different and then that that's absolutely possible. But this is a really difficult position that Vivek Ramaswamy has put his wife in to the extent that it's a difficult position. She handled it basically as well as I think anybody could. But a very interesting moment. And, you know, once Vivek Ramaswamy is off the campaign trail after he loses the primary, maybe we'll she'll be more comfortable giving the real answer, which I would bet even not as a betting man, I would bet almost anything is her perspective. Humiliatingly, Ron DeSantis has fallen to fifth place in the Republican primary in the early and important state of New Hampshire. Folks, this guy's campaign is almost dead. It's it's actually shocking that

DeSantis's campaign is dying this quickly. Take a look at this new poll. So we're on the 538 website. We're talking about the New Hampshire primary poll from UNH in partnership with CNN. And you look at it and you go, OK, Trump's at thirty nine. He's leading. Got it. That makes sense. Wait a second. Second place, Vivek Ramaswamy at 13. Oh, well, after that, it must certainly be Rhonda. Oh, no. Third place is Nikki Haley at 12. And fourth place is Chris Christie at 11. And in fifth place is Ron DeSantis at 10 percent, just ahead of Tim Scott's six percent showing the DeSantis campaign is imploding and everybody has some explanation for what's going on. His ground game in blue states or purple states is no good.

OK, well, maybe that's part of it. He's so uncharismatic that people are just realizing they don't like the guy. That's probably part of it as well. He's unwilling to actually criticize Trump in the way that he needs to. Well, maybe. I don't know. Also, there's a lot of voters who don't want their candidates criticizing Trump or it's a combination of things. But it is looking terribly for DeSantis so terribly he may get knocked out of this primary before there is even a single primary ballot cast. I'm not saying it's likely, but it is certainly possible. If we look at the national numbers, Trump continues climbing. That's the purple line at the top of the screen. And DeSantis continues to decline, going from 31 percent

in January all the way down to 12, all the way down to 12. That's a loss of nearly two thirds of his support. Meanwhile, Vivek Ramaswamy holding steady right around seven and a half, Nikki Haley holding steady at five, Mike Pence holding steady at four yesterday. No, Tuesday, Wednesday. Now I don't remember. Earlier this week, I asked folks in the audience, at this point, do you believe anyone can beat Trump in the primary? Tons of you emailed me.

Every single person who chose to email me said Trump's got this wrapped up basically unless he dies or something completely even unpredictable, unimaginable were to happen. I increasingly think the same thing. I don't see a path for anybody else at this point. Trump's got almost 60 percent and we are now two months from the first votes, three, three months, I guess we would say from the well, three and a half months from the first votes. I have a very tough time imagining that this is going to go any way other than Trump dominates this thing.

And a lot of people, including Ron DeSantis at the top of the list, end up humiliated. Really an incredible story. What we are seeing right now in American politics and when the story is is complete, whether that's in November of 24 with Trump's loss or I guess in January of twenty twenty nine with the end of Trump's second term in office, that's a scary thing to think about. Whenever the end of the story is told, we are going to have some serious reflection to do. I think that's where we will leave it. We have such a great program for you today. I'm glad you're with us on the Friday show. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube, youtube.com slash the David Pakman show. Some exciting things happening there. Zypix brings you a convenient alternative to smoking and vaping and the vape clouds,

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And we will start with Evan from New Hampshire today. Evan, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? So I am going to be engaged in research in psychology on immigration. And so I'm interested to hear from you. What do you think the general purpose of immigration should be in the US? I don't know that there needs to be one purpose. In other words, you can make an immigration case economically.

I think it's a very solid case. You can make an immigration case in terms of attracting the best minds and a sort of whatever would be opposite of a brain drain, like a brain growth thing. You can make a sort of ethical and moral case for immigration in terms of protecting people from an asylum standpoint to conditions that are antithetical to what we believe are the most important values and sort of a humanitarian case for immigration. You can make a national security and foreign policy strategic case for immigration in some

cases. I don't know that we need to say there is one purpose of immigration. Of course, I think that that's a new nuance and a viewpoint, as you can have, is there's so many different ways you can go without a question to you. What is like an ideal system look like just generally not you don't need to like tell me the specific parts in the policy. Well, I think the ideal system conceptually is not that different from the system we have with some critical differences, including that we finalize a specific permanent policy for those who were brought here when they were minors by

their parents undocumented. We've got to figure that out. We need to include in we need to add to the policy we have if we're going to continue sort of prosecuting undocumented individuals in the way that we do. We have to shift some of the focus to visa overstays and get it not necessarily off of the border, but equalize with the border to some degree. I think it's hypocritical not to. We need to add as a component actually trying to address the conditions in the source countries of undocumented immigration that make people want to come here in the first place. That would be one of the best ways to address undocumented immigration. So I think the conceptually much of the system we have works execution wise.

Elements are broken, but we've got to deal with the reasons people want to come here in the first place. Well, thank you very much for your time. So my pleasure. Have a lovely day. You to Evan from New Hampshire. Great to hear from you. Why don't we go next to Janelle from San Antonio? Janelle,

it's been a little while. Great to have you back on the program. What's on your mind today? Hi, David. It's nice to be back. Pleasure. I just I had a question or a thought, I guess. Do you think that the Democrats should take advantage of the fact that Hunter Biden did do something illegal with his, you know, purchasing a gun. And I try to change some gun laws. Well, there's two perspectives on that. One perspective is this is an opportunity, I guess, for Democrats to try to do something about gun safety regulations. The other aspect to this is that many of the Republicans that are now attacking Hunter Biden for the gun purchase actually don't believe that what he did should even be illegal

to begin with. So it sort of makes them hypocrites. I mean, what I can certainly tell you is I don't know that because of any one case of this magnitude, like what Hunter Biden did, that it proves what gun safety laws should or shouldn't be. So I actually I don't really want this one case being used to do anything in particular. We should be evaluating what is right and what makes sense. Big picture. Speaker 5 OK, I understand. I just it was a thought. Speaker 1 All right, Janelle in San Antonio. Great to hear from you

again. You too, David. Bye. All right. There goes Janelle. Sounded busy today. Janelle. Very, very busy. Let's try Tiffany from Orange County. Tiffany, welcome to the David Pakman show. So great to have you. I think you're did you call before and ask? I hope I'm not misremembering, Tiffany. Did you call last time and ask whether Vivek Ramaswamy will make Botox more accessible? Yeah, that's me. That was welcome. That was an incredible viral moment. Can you bring back up after free turns? I'm just in the middle of something right now. Oh, my goodness. Oh, you're so busy. OK, let me move you back. I'm so sorry to have interrupted. Oh, boy. All right. Let's go to Mark from San Antonio. Mark from San Antonio. I hope you're not too busy to participate in the show today.

Absolutely not. I've paused what I'm doing to talk to you. Welcome, Mark. Welcome. Well, it's great to be back on. I just want to say I think I first encountered you in 2018 while I was driving for work. I was driving around thinking that surely someone has discussed our absurd president's major mental health issues. I pulled up YouTube and searched and, you know, lo, there you were with videos with Dr. John Gartner. And I think I became a paid member soon after. Thank you. I would honestly love for you to have him or Dr. Bandy Lee back on to discuss maybe what his

level of mental health issues will do to him, you know, as he sees mounting indictments and legal pressure or even just like an analysis of the broader cult like psychosis from Trump supporters and what they see on a clinical level. Yeah, that's a really interesting idea. That's content or if you don't see the benefit. I'm always just trying to be equipped with the facts over feelings. Yeah, it's not that I'm trying to move on from the idea of Trump's mental health issues. It's that right now I don't want to do.

This might be so silly. You tell me if it's silly. Trump's embroiled in four criminal trials, lawsuit, all of these different things running for president. I don't want to mistakenly let's say I bring Dr. John Gartner back on to do another analysis of Trump's cognitive state and mental health based on recent interviews or whatever. I don't want anything to suggest that Donald Trump might be unfit for trial and completely worthy of the full criminal punishment that may be assigned to him. And one of the things I would worry about

is the idea of Trump's mental health issues being seen as an excuse to his criminality. And I know that that's not actually what any of these experts would be saying. I just don't know that it's the right time to focus on that because we really need to be laser focused on Trump's alleged crimes. That being said, Mark, I think that having some experts on cults and psychologists come back in and analyze the evolution of the Trump cult and the average mega cultist in 2023 going into 24 would be a really good idea. And that actually I think that's a great idea and something we should do. Yeah, I mean, I separately I mean, this might be an absurd question.

Do you think that at some point maybe his legal counsel will try to argue some kind of psychosis in the moment or anything like that? You know, I talked about this earlier this week on the show, and one of the things that I sort of came to as a conclusion is. I don't think Trump's imagine that Trump won that Trump's lawyers wanted to make the case that he's not fit for trial. Trump's ego and narcissism will never allow him to go that route. I just don't think that that's the case.

I also believe Trump is completely fit to stand trial. Trump's confessions in public and all of these behaviors, they're a result of Trump's narcissism and ego, not of not understanding the consequences of his actions. And so he is absolutely fit to stand trial. Oh, I agree. Well, otherwise, you know, I just want to say your show has been really, really important for me in developing better, you know, more fact based arguments, you know, including

with my very conservative dad. You know, I'll say with regards to a Trump versus Biden rematch, I know this is anecdotal and we talk about this all the time. Yeah. With the voters moving on from him. But my dad can't stand Trump. And in 2020, he just let President Blank and he said he'll do the same if he's on the ballot in 2024. I mean, he can't be the only one that's just done with it, even if they'll never bring themselves to vote Dem on a ballot. You know, but that said, he is a very educated guy with a poli side background and can debate policy. I mean, you know, think like George F. Will style. Yeah. You know, whether I think he's incorrect or not with his policy positions. But, you know, he was a die

hard Tucker fan and turned him off months before he was kicked off the air because he just felt he was disseminating nonsense and especially as racist and race baiting content, you know, which my dad is firmly against, even as a conservative. Well, very clear. If those are your views, you're probably not the type of Republican that's voting Trump. So interesting anecdote, Mark. Thank you. Well, thank you, David. All right.

There goes Mark from San Antonio. Great to hear from you. Let's go to Justin from New Jersey. Justin from New Jersey. Welcome to The David Pakman Show. What's on your mind today? Oh, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Welcome to The David Pakman Show. What's on your mind today? Oh, can you hear me? Yes, I can.

Actually, I was I was watching your show yesterday and it was about Trump supporters that left the voicemail and also made me interested because they were talking about how the economy's not doing well and stuff like that and i kind of agree but uh not in the issues that they're saying like there's no like jobs or anything but like the kitchen table issues like food's more expensive uh just things like that uh like things like you just deal with on a normal daily basis, gas, water. I don't know what's your opinion on that. So, Justin, I it sounds like there's a lot going on in the background and your audio is sort of mediocre. I think what you were saying is you agree that the economy isn't doing well, but it's less about the unemployment rate. It's more about the prices of things. Is that right? You're basically

saying it's like inflation, essentially. Yes. Yeah. So listen, I think that it's fair to say because the numbers bear it out, there has been more than the typical historical amount of inflation for several for a long period of time in the economy over the last two years. What we are seeing is that inflation has come down quite notably. That doesn't mean we have deflation. Remember, people have to remember when when inflation comes down, it means prices go up, but not by as much. So I think that that's absolutely the case. And so there's two sides to it. There's inflation is down significantly under Biden, but prices of most things are still high relative to where they were

a few years ago. And you have to look. So inflation is one indicator that we look at and you have to look at it holistically, even accounting for inflation. It's tough to say that this is a bad economy, but it is absolutely an economy where things are costing more than they used to. And for some people, it is not easily affordable to go and buy food, buy gas, et cetera. That's absolutely the case. Speaker 3 And I think that it like a lot of it's just trickle downs from not trickling down, but because gas is high, a lot of other things are getting expensive. Yes. And it's just. I don't know, I see a lot of things that just even like to like

even a year ago, it's just double in price, like concert tickets. Speaker 1 Well, concert tickets are a different sort of product. Concert tickets is interesting. I don't know that concert tickets have doubled. Like what band has doubled their price? Speaker 2 Not not specifically a band in specific, but for example, I lived in the New Jersey area. So Philadelphia Eagles, the Giants, usually the tickets would go for around eighty dollars when I was a kid. But most of these tickets are like one sixty, almost two hundred dollars for like regular seats. OK, so here's the thing about that, Justin. First of all, what you're telling

me is anecdotal. I don't know that that Eagles tickets have doubled, but let's imagine they have because sports tickets. It's not a luxury good, but it's certainly not a necessity. Often when sports tickets go up in price, it's considered a sign that the economy is doing well because people pay for sports tickets typically out of their disposable income. And so if prices have gone up for sports tickets, we would normally consider that a sign the economy is doing well. Wow. Thank you very much. Just something to keep in mind. All right. Thank you. All right. Justin from Jersey, thank you so much for the call.

Very much appreciate it. Why don't we go next to Junie from Florida? Junie from Florida. Welcome to The David Pakman Show. Hey there, David. Do you hear me loud and clear, loud and clear? Great, great. So David, I just want to talk to you about the Vivek Ramaswamy. And I've been watching

your videos lately, and I see a lot of like praise for Vivek, even though to me, he just seems kind of like a standard right wing Republican. So in your opinion, why do you think he's getting like a lot of praise on like your channel? I see him on Majority Report channel, like a lot of praise on. Well, hold on a second. You're saying I'm praising him or like when you look at YouTube comments, people just comments like, oh, oh, oh. So here's what's going on. The people, there's a cult like atmosphere around Vivek. And so the people that like him, which is about 7 percent of those who vote in Republican primaries, they go around finding liberals talking about him and say positive things in the comments. It's one of these dramatically overrepresented things where, like in 2020, if you were,

you know, looking at Reddit, you were like, oh, my God, Bernie is going to run away with the Democratic primary. But what you saw on Reddit wasn't representative of the real world. It's the same thing with the vague. There's a sort of cult like atmosphere around him. And so his followers just they spend a bunch of time on Reddit and on YouTube leaving comments that are positive about Vivek and negative about anybody who critiques him. That's right, right. I mean, the thing that's really like surprising me, catch me by surprise, is that everything he says is just like, you know, standard, just Republican talking points. Like, like I see comments saying he's a breath of fresh air and I'm just like seeing, seeing like his policies. It's like this is like, you know, he's anti-labor. He's, you know, against, you know, a stronger border. He wants to, you know, get hard on China. I mean, this is just like modern day Republican

like talking points. And I'm just like looking at this. I'm like, this guy is not unique. He's not interesting. He's very annoying. Like that's the perfect word to describe it. Very annoying. There's new polling that shows that indeed voters find him annoying. So you're spot on there. That's for sure. That's that's right. That's right. And what do you think about the like I see one more thing. What do you think about the comparisons he gets to like Andrew Yang? What do you think? I think that they're accurate insofar as the slightly younger than normal tech business sort of guy. The difference is Andrew Yang's policy ideas were saying.

I completely agree. Like they were like unique, like, you know, you be that was unique that could like improve the lives of Americans while they could just saying stuff like, you know, trans people are bad. So, yeah, I don't know that he said they are bad, but I know exactly what you're talking about. He's been saying a lot of strange stuff. Yeah, I couldn't couldn't agree more, Junie. Well, yeah. OK, that's great. Well, yeah, Dave, that's all I really want to talk to you today. So I'll just let you get back to your calls. All right. Junie from Florida. So great to hear from you. Why don't we take a super quick break? We're going to go back to discord and

we'll talk to more people. If you still want to talk to me, just hang on and we will do our best to get to you. Stand by. One of our sponsors today is Magic Spoon, the breakfast cereal with the crunchy, sweet goodness you love, but with high quality ingredients, less sugar and more protein. Magic Spoon has zero grams of sugar. It's packed with 13 to 14 grams of protein and just four to five net carbs. So it's great if you're doing keto or low carb or if just like me, you're trying to limit your sugar intake. They have many unique flavors, so you'll never get bored. My personal favorite is maple waffle, but I grew up in New England, so maybe that's why maple, you know. They also have cocoa, fruity, frosted peanut butter, blueberry muffin, honey nut cookies and cream cinnamon roll.

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You can just tap the link in the podcast notes. Let's hear from a few more people. You can find our discord at David Pacman dot com slash discord. That's how we take calls. Why don't we go back to Tiffany in Orange County? Tiffany was too too busy to take my call earlier. Tiffany, are you now ready? Hello. Yes, I'm ready. Love it. What's going on today? You're on the air. You're on the air. Speaker 4 OK, perfect. OK. I had a question about national debt and I was wondering, do you think we could put it all in some sort of national credit card of some sort and like you'd earn points and you

can use those points to pay it off. Let's see if I understand this. We take the national debt and we put it on a credit card. And then when you use a credit card with. Well, hold on. Let me see if I can understand the idea. Tiffany, hold on. We charge the national debt to a credit card, which lets us earn points for the national debt. We then use the points to pay off a little more of the national debt. Is that the suggestion? Yeah, you got it. I don't think that will work, Tiffany. I think that that's circular and I don't believe that it will work. It's sort of like pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. Oh, yeah. OK, well, thank you so much for your time and have a great day. Things are good in Orange County. Yeah. OK, good. All right, Tiffany, great to hear from you again.

Thank you. OK, bye. All right. There goes Tiffany. Let's go next to Al from New York City. Al, welcome to The David Pakman Show. What's on your mind today? Al, please accept my invitation. And Al is gone. All right. Let's go instead to Ben from Binghamton. Ben from Binghamton.

Welcome to The David Pakman Show. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. All right. Well, thank you so much for taking my call. This is the first time I'm calling in. I've been listening for a couple of years now. Thank you. Speaker 1 But I just wanted to call in just because I was curious about you know with election sort of ramping up election season coming up you know i was watching this this conversation that uh trump was having um and with uh i believe it was kristen welker yes and she she brought up the conversation about abortion and he just struggled and you, you know, I was thinking about it like, you know, you hear Republicans, you know, dancing around this conversation about like,

you know, exceptions and stuff. Let's, you know, if we grant them their argument that they've been making over the last couple of years about abortion being murder and all these different things. In what instance would partial or exceptions be acceptable under their pretenses? Like, it doesn't make any sense. Well, I think the but so first of all, we covered what you're talking about earlier this week. Trump ended up having to backpedal because basically Trump during the Kristen Welker interview said he'd support a 15 week blanket ban. But he thinks that the six week ban that DeSantis passed in Florida is bad. So basically it's like a nine week difference.

Trump then ended up having to backpedal and basically say something on Truth Central along the lines of I support the exceptions. I'm pro-life, you know, whatever. And then it's like he's clearly backpedaling, but it's not clear to what degree. OK, so here's the question. When they talk about exceptions, their view could be absolutely no abortion ever, except in cases of rape, incest or life of the mother, it could be five week abortion ban. So up to five weeks for whatever reason you want after five weeks only in those exception situations or if you are six week and then if you want a 15 week ban, it would be for

any reason up to 15 weeks. But from 15 weeks on, it has to be a rape, incest or life of the mother situation. That's how I understand them to mean when those exceptions come into play. If I'm understanding your question correctly. Yeah. And I mean, you know, let's even be charitable. Let's grant them the argument. OK, let's say, you know, abortion is like the most ghoulish, demonic, unacceptable thing. I would think that

the only acceptable position coming from their point of view is to never have any exceptions at all. No, that's interesting. This is this is the conflict between their supposed values and the reality of the political world, which is if we assume for a second that they genuinely believe and are correct that abortion is murder, period, and murder is bad, then there really should be no exceptions. Right. And and there are some of them who say that there are some who say even if a if if a pregnancy is the result of a rape, it is still a gift from God. And we're not going to punish the baby for that reason. And some of them are more consistent on that. And they will say the woman should be forced to carry the pregnancy to term and then adoption

or, you know, whatever other solutions they come up with. Some of them are more consistent. Now, the ones that aren't the ones that say this is murder, but I'm OK with the exceptions. There's two ways to interpret that. One is they don't really believe it's murder or two. They do. But they kind of believe that there's a political reality within which they have to work. And so they're kind of coming to a compromise the way you would on any issue. I don't know.

You know, I mean, you'd have to ask them. And yeah, I mean, just'd have to ask them. Speaker 4 00 00 00 00 Speaker 3 00 00 00 Speaker 1 And yeah, I mean, just I think, you know, it makes sense to just call them, call them on their bluff. I mean, they're just being politicians. They're saying whatever, you know, would get them the votes they're looking for. And, you know, that's just that's how you can tell that these people are not genuine. And I mean, one of the many ways. But but anyway, yeah, I just wanted to to to see what your thoughts were on ways. But but anyway, yeah, I just wanted to to see

what your thoughts were on that. But but yeah, thank you for taking my call. All right. My pleasure. Ben from Binghamton. Very much appreciate the call. Let's go next to Dan from New York. Dan, welcome to The David Pakman Show. What's on your mind today? Dan, welcome. You're on the air. And last chance for Dan, you probably have the wrong audio device selected, which is why we can't hear you. All right. A failed attempt.

Let's try a different Dan. Let's try Dan from California. I'm determined to get someone named Dan on the show today. Hi, David. a different Dan. Let's try Dan from California. I'm determined to get someone named Dan on the show today. Hi, David. Hey, I've got a I have a YouTube channel on which I do debates and discussions. I called a few months ago. Oh, are you the one who offered me 100 bucks to debate you for three hours? Well, what I said was, how much would I get for 100 bucks? I didn't propose three hours. Well, listen, yeah, OK, fair.

Yeah. So I was first of all, I was wondering if I can post my calls to your show, to my channel. So if what you're going to do, this is there's no special policy for Dan from California. So here's what the rules are as we allow them. Is that fair to explain? If you are going to just clip your call from my channel and reupload it wholesale, the answer is no, because you're essentially just reuploading my content. On the other hand, if you are going to take it and do a commentary of it on your channel or if you are recording this call from your end right now and you're going to upload, you know, your face talking to me right now, if it's your video, then absolutely,

because that's your content or you're transforming my content. But we don't allow just wholesale re uploading of our content. Is that fair? OK, yeah, I think I understand. So if I'm recording with my face this very same call, but so it looks different than I could upload that. Absolutely. That's your video, sir. OK, then I guess to go into a more contentful issue I think last time I was I was describing my position as involving no taxes and at the end of the call I think you described it as utopian libertarianism and to that I would I would just want to distinguish my view from libertarianism because a lot of libertarians are anarchists and they believe in no government at

all. Whereas I think there should be a government. It's just that it should be limited in its role and it should be funded voluntarily, not by coercive means like taxation. And as for utopian, uh, maybe that is intended to suggest it's not practical but i think it's very practical and history helps bear that out i think the closer we've gotten to sort of system ayn rand advocates of no coercion by the government the more progress there's been the late 19th century i think was the closest that any country ever has been in the united states that is to a pure capitalist society. And that was a. In this growth, there was extreme growth in progress and millions of immigrants from around the world came to our shores for more freedoms and opportunities. So I think

if we look at the facts that that helps show that it is a practical system. I disagree. So let me just make sure that now I'm not misstating. You are a non anarchist libertarian that would rely on voluntary contributions rather than forced taxation. Is that just a yes or no? If I got it right, then just a yes is fine. Yes, except I don't like the term libertarian.

I prefer the term objectivist, which is the names of Ayn Rand's philosophy, objectivism. OK, so you prefer a different term, but am I right that what you're describing is non-anarchist, voluntarist libertarianism? Yes. OK, so we're not going to be able to go into all of these elements today, but so that the audience can research and investigate for themselves, the problems with what you're talking about are free riders, coordination difficulties, extreme inequality, inconsistency and unpredictability of funding, emergencies and unexpected events, what you do about public goods

and externalities, as well as trust issues. Now, I know you will disagree with me. And every one of those elements from that list could be an hour debate, which we're not going to have because we don't have time for. But for people in the audience who want to explore what you are suggesting and why I think it's totally impractical, that would be the list of problems I have with it. Is that a fair list for people to investigate at least? The list went by pretty quickly, but just to single out one of them, the issue of wealth inequality, I think, is a non problem. I don't think there is an inherent problem with people having different amounts of wealth or income. I think what's relevant is how they get it.

So if they get their wealth by coercion or by. But Dan, I'm talking about something else. The problem I'm pointing out is. Not only in the type of system you describe with voluntary contributions in terms of funding services and whatever, you will end up having dramatically more influence and priority for those who contribute more, often by virtue, not because they just want to contribute more, but because a lot of people don't have much to contribute and therefore it becomes a feedback loop of increasing inequality, even in access to simple things like public services.

And I believe that that's bad. I agree that inequality before the law is bad, like if you have different rules for rich people and for poor people like in the feudal times, you know, we have the king or the nobility, which has special privileges. But your capitalism, there are there are no special privileges. Everyone is equal before the law. That doesn't mean they have equal wealth, but it means they have equal rights. No one has right. But in a voluntary system of the sort you describe, it will also inevitably get them priority and greater access to things I believe should be public services. So Dan, we're going to leave it there because we've got so much going on.

But I do appreciate you calling in. Thanks for taking my call, David. All right. Dan from California. You'll see the call on his channel that I can almost certainly assure you. All right, folks, thank you for calling in. We're going to take a break. the David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. Let's get into Friday feedback for the week.

Oh, so many things to discuss. Remember, if you'd like to have your comment, question, criticism, suggestion featured in Friday feedback, you can email info at David Pakman dot com or you can leave a comment on any of the other platforms where we publish our content. Sometimes we will. We'll dig deep into the tick tock comments, the Facebook comments and sometimes find some gems. Here is our first message today from the barrel night who says some therapists should be kind and come offer this demented channel free therapy because Lord knows you people need it. Well, you know what? If we had a functional health care system, we wouldn't need a therapist to come and offer the therapy for free.

It would just be accessible and affordable to all. Yeah. You know, I'm not going to. I don't know that I need to delve too deeply into this. Suffice it to say, therapy is a logical suggestion to many of the messages I receive weekly in my inbox or see on YouTube from some of our more extreme followers. I'm very much pro therapy. And if that message can remind anybody in the audience, hey, maybe therapy would be right for me, then. Well, well, well served moment on the show. Terrence Hurley wrote in and said, I mean this gently out of curiosity, not condescending

means. Are you wearing a hearing aid or is that just a high end custom earpiece for your recording? Oh, so people might be referring to this thing over in my right ear. This is how I hear the clips on the show and the callers. If I were to use big headphones, I think it would just take up so much space on on camera that that would be weird. I just don't like the huge earmuff headphone look. And if I were to listen to the clips out of a speaker, a physical speaker, my microphone would then pick up the audio.

It would create an absolutely toxic feedback loop like at some of Trump's rallies. And I don't want to do that to anybody. But I think, Eric, they're not like they lived up. I used to check it every week. Are they buying? Are they buying? I respect everybody too much to do that deal that included the largest agricultural product. OK, so we're keeping Antifa away from our audio, as often happens at Trump rallies.

It is a very high end earpiece. It's from Switzerland. It's a beautiful earpiece. And and I love it. All right, let's get into some more things. Solis Wolf wrote, I'm a progressive and honestly, I'm still excited for voting for Joe Biden in 2024. Wish we could have Bernie, but the threat of fascism is too dangerous to play with right now. Yeah, listen, you know,

we all have much more in our lives, hopefully, hopefully anyway, some of the people who email me maybe don't, but we all have much more in our lives than just like who's the president. OK, so the way I see it, we need to prevent fascistic authoritarian dictator wannabes from becoming president. That means no Trump, no dissent demonious or whoever else it would be. And to the extent that we need to prevent that, it seems to me that voting for Joe Biden right now seems like the most logical step voting for Cornel West, writing in Cornel West or whatever. It seems like it could only make it more likely that Trump becomes president. And so I'm glad to see this. And I do think most of my audience gets it. And it's a point that no doubt I will be making again between now and November of 2024.

Space Force commander wrote in saying Republican Party of Responsible of Personal Responsibility Playbook number one, accept no responsibility. True. Number two, blame others. Absolutely. And number three, steal credit for someone else's work. Reminds me of a certain failed former president. And it really has become I actually don't know where that came from. More Trump audio trouble. Remember, they have their stated principles and they very quickly abandon them

when it's no longer convenient or politically expedient. Studio DSR writes, support whomever your favorite candidate is during the primaries. But after the primaries are over, we all must set our differences aside and rally behind the nominee. And let's not kid ourselves. It's going to be Biden to refuse to support the nominee in the general is childish and self-centered, the equivalent of taking your ball and going home. We all have to be adults here, take our lumps and do what's needed to defeat the real enemies of democracy, Trump and his minions. You know, this is a very good point.

Some of you who follow me on X, the former Twitter or on threads or elsewhere, saw that I announced that I am now officially under contract and writing a nonfiction book for adults, not a kid's book. And one of the things that already in my early writing and planning of the book that I'm not struggling with but having to deal with is, of course, the assault on America's democracy is going to be in the book. It's a major story of 21st century American politics. But the question is, to what degree do I need to know how the story ends in order to complete

the book? And while the story of history never ends, knowing who wins in November of twenty twenty four is a big piece of this. And Studio DSR is right about setting our differences within the left side. I'm scared of how the story ends and hopefully we'll have more information about that before I'm done writing my book at minimum. So at least it can tell close to the complete story. Dude, what wrote on our subreddit? This is interesting. Dude, what wrote Trump was the president we needed. Hear me out. Trump did what he said he would and shook things up. He got more people to pay attention to politics, especially

the younger ones. He's so awful that it kick started the next revolution. We are going to wake up in twenty twenty nine after Biden's second term to a lot of the change we thought Obama was going to bring. We will wake up again in twenty thirty two with the Republican Party that has finally mostly shed its extreme flank. The Democratic Party will consist of more progressives. The Overton window will finally have shifted left. Trump was not a good president. He was not who we wanted, but he was who we needed to finally inspire true change.

At least I hope so. This is. A very optimistic interpretation. I think there is another side to it. The other side is look at the Supreme Court that now will be right wing nuttery, potentially for a generation. That's because Trump defeated Hillary Clinton and picked three Supreme Court justices. They've repealed Roe v. Wade.

And look at all the other damage the Supreme Court did. The damage to America's reputation around the world to some degree has been repaired, but Biden by Biden, but not completely. And it's going to take a very long time to fix that in the same way that many people got involved in politics because of the insanity of Trump. Lots of people also became so disaffected by politics that they have opted out. And so I think it's a very interesting perspective to say Trump's presidency, while disastrous, inspired so much activism and engagement. It also is not totally the case. High voter turnout. Yes, but still almost half of the country choosing not to vote.

So I think there's two sides to that story. I think it's very interesting, but I think there are two sides to it. Connie commented on Facebook. So have they taken the guns from sound minded citizens yet? They're coming for your guns. Yeah, we've heard that for 30 years. Still hasn't happened. My bet is the two beer drama will still be a Republican fantasy in 30 years. And James added guns, gas stoves and now beer. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Connie and James are correctly pointing out this is the rinse repeat Republican fear mongering. They're coming for your guns. They're coming for your guns. They still haven't come for your guns. They've been saying it for how long? Columbine before then. They haven't come for the guns. We briefly had an assault weapons ban. Great. They're coming for your gas stoves. They came for mine. But that's because I called and said,

please pick this thing up. I'm switching to an induction stove. But that's a different story. And then now, oh, Joe Biden wants to limit you to two beers. They have no policy. They've failed to win the hearts and minds of voters on an increasingly large number of issues. So they go to fear mongering. Remember that right wingers have larger fear centers in their brains. They react to fear mongering much more than we on the left. And so that's why they're doing it. Human being for America commenting on YouTube and says Trump 2024. Stop hating the only person alive who can save our country, our children and the embodiment of the American dream presented without comment and without punctuation, because that's the way it was written. No, there are people they call in, they write to me, they say stuff like this, who truly

believe Donald Trump is the only person who can save the world to those people. I say, what are you drinking? What are you smoking? I don't know what else I would say to them. It'd probably be tough to have conversations with them. How do you deprogram that? Truly, how do you deprogram that? I don't know the answer. We have a tremendous bonus show for you today. Sign up at join Backman dot com. Get a discount. Use the code four years for indictments. Get the bonus show, the commercial free audio feed, the commercial free video feed, the David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. for a decade. They go up when the new website launches. Take advantage. Sign up today. Lock in

a decade ago's prices for life before those prices go up very modestly. I should have. All right. Still, I'll see you on the bonus show.