The David Pakman Show - Trump’s Fox meltdown, Karoline Leavitt’s money & pneumonic plague

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

-- On the Show: -- David Crowley, Milwaukee County Executive and Democratic nominee for Governor of Wisconsin, joins us to discuss the campaign -- Recent election victories and high Democratic turno...ut point to major potential Republican losses in the upcoming midterms -- A laboratory worker in Russia dies after accidental exposure to a dangerous strain of pneumonic plague -- Donald Trump singles out CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins during a live rally and encourages the crowd to boo her -- Donald Trump criticizes Fox News on social media after the network fails to broadcast his recent Ohio rally -- Former British cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg corrects Tucker Carlson on economic statistics and NATO history during an interview -- Financial disclosures reveal that Karoline Leavitt's household held stock in major technology companies and defense contractors -- A Fox News news segment features a guest named Gabe Poirot who claims to have visited heaven and met religious figures in person -- On the Bonus Show: Karoline Leavitt gets a job at Fox News, California will tax private ICE detention centers, Trump gives out Tom Cotton's cell number over a Daylight Saving Time disagreement, and much more... 📜 Trust & Will: Save 20% on your estate planning at https://trustandwill.com/pakman 👂 MDHearing: Use code PAKMAN to get a pair for just $247 at https://shopmdhearing.com/ 💻 Try Aura free for 14 days at https://aura.com/pakman 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman 💡 Outskill: Grab your free seat to the 2-Day AI Mastermind at https://link.outskill.com/PAKMANDEC1 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter: https://davidpakman.substack.com -- Get David's Book: https://bit.ly/m/attention -- Send David a text: +1 (646) 531-4333 -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- David on Bluesky: https://davidpakman.com/bluesky -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow (00:00) Start (01:12) Polling points to Republican losses (08:25) Lab worker dies from Russian plague incident (19:06) Trump targets journalist at crowd rally (26:44) Trump fumes at Fox News over missing coverage (32:41) Conservative challenges Tucker Carlson (43:20) David Crowley interview (1:00:45) Financial filings reveal Karoline Leavitt's assets (1:07:30) Fox News guest claims vision of heaven Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:37 but there is a big warning sign in the polling. If Democrats ignore it, they do so at their own peril. Donald Trump is singling out CNN's Caitlin Collins at a rally, supporters bloodthirstyly booing her, and then Trump loses it when Fox commits the ultimate betrayal. They didn't cover his rally. Tucker Carlson interviewed someone who actually knows what he's talking about, and it went, It went exactly as well as you would expect really poorly. We also have stunning financial disclosures from Caroline Levitt.
Starting point is 00:01:06 They involve Trump's own media company and an absolutely terrifying story out of a Russian laboratory involving possible pneumonic plague. Finally, Fox interviews a man who says, I met Jesus and he's 5-11 and has a ton of testosterone. We will discuss how polite society should interpret such claims. All of that and more today. Republicans are facing a historic destruction, which could be a generational catastrophe in the midterms that are now four weeks plus one day away. But hold on a second.
Starting point is 00:01:56 You might be saying, David, sir, isn't it possible the polls are overstating democratic support? Isn't it possible that this isn't going to be quite as good for Democrats as some of the polling suggests that it might be? The answer is yes, very much so. So how could both be true? How could Republicans be facing a generational defeat and actually the polling might not be as good for Democrats as it suggests? Well, if you look at the polling and betting markets and momentum and Trump's approval and consumer
Starting point is 00:02:29 sentiment about the economy, it is the case. that Republicans may lose like they have not lost in generations. But at the same time, if the polls are overstating Democratic support by even a little bit, it would be a very different scenario. Let me explain. If the polling is overstating Democratic support by a little bit, Democrats probably still take the House, but they take it by less than expected. And control of the Senate is a lot more uncertain. We have already seen some big polling misses this year. Now, let me talk you through them and then I'll tell you what we can apply and extrapolate and what we can. Start with Wisconsin. Today, we'll be speaking to the ultimate or eventual winner of that Democratic primary,
Starting point is 00:03:15 David Crowley. But for a long while, Francesca Hong, who was the Democratic socialist running for governor there, looked like she was cruising towards the Democratic nomination. And you had these late polls which said, wow, Francesca Hong is leading by 18. She's leading by 25. And then people voted and David Crowley won. Now, it was very tight. Crowley only won by about half a point. But depending on which poll you looked at, a candidate who looked to be winning by 15, 20, 25, lost. So the polling was not right there. But that's a primary poll. We'll get back to that. We had Michigan. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic primary, but the polls in that last month said he was winning by 13 over Haley Stevens. He won by a single point. In other words, El-Said's results underperformed the polling by 12 points, which is crazy. Now, what's the caveat? The caveat is these were mere Democratic primaries. Democratic primaries are notoriously. difficult to get good polling for. So that wouldn't prove that Democrats are being systematically
Starting point is 00:04:29 overestimated in the general. And in fact, you could say there's evidence pointing in the other direction. If you look at actual Democrat versus Republican special elections, we've seen Democrats flip 13 Republican held state legislative seats since Trump came back to office. Republicans have flipped zero Democratic seats. And in comparable special elections, the average result shifted more than five points away from Republicans and towards Democrats compared to the previous general election. And three quarters of those districts move towards Democrats. Some of the individual results are incredible. So if you want to want the case that no, no, no, the Democratic polling is really good. It's strong. In Arkansas, Democrat Alex Holiday won by
Starting point is 00:05:16 15 in the district Republicans one by two. That's a 17 point swing. In New Hampshire, Democrat Bobby Budman, one by four in a district Republicans previously won by 14. That's a swing of 18 points. In Florida, Democrat Emily Gregory won by more than two points in a district Republicans won by 19. That's a 21 point swing. There's an example of Brian Nathan who won by more than nine points in a Republican district. And Louisiana, where Democrat Chasity Verrett Martinez got 62 percent of the vote.
Starting point is 00:05:52 and Trump had won by 13. So put it all together. Is there real evidence of a Democratic wave? Yes. It's not just polls. It's Democrats winning special elections. Democrats flipping Republican seats outperforming previous Democratic results. But this is the important thing. Number one, special elections have lower turnout than November elections. People showing up in special elections are the most motivated voters. So they can tell us about enthusiasm. They are very motivated, but that doesn't tell us that that's what the electorate will look like in November. And polling has shown us this year that candidates supposedly ahead by 15 or 20 might only be ahead by one or they might even lose at the end of the day. So two things can be true at the same time.
Starting point is 00:06:42 There is an opportunity for a historic Republican defeat, but the outcome is not guaranteed. So my recommendation, my humble recommendation as a mere podcaster is, is when you see Democrats up 10 or 11 on a generic ballot, the response shouldn't be it's over. We won. That's great. It should be it's possible. If you want the historic destruction of the Republican Party that these numbers suggest is possible, you have to go out and vote. I have to go out and vote and we've got to make it happen. And so that is the message here. It is possible. It is doable. But my expectation is that this is going to be tighter, especially. especially in the Senate than some of the polling suggests. I had this great event, beautiful event
Starting point is 00:07:29 over the weekend with Jessica Tarloff, who is a Democratic pollster and analyst PhD. And she agreed. She says that it is clear that the momentum is on the side of Democrats, but the degree to which that's true is ultimately going to determine what happens in these elections overall. And it will probably be tighter than the most optimistic polling is suggesting. So it only means we have to vote. We shouldn't look at the polling and go the polling is straight up wrong. It's that the polling represents an optimistic scenario of Democratic enthusiasm in November mirroring or matching Democratic enthusiasm in these special elections. That's the way I would put it. Is that hopium? Is it unrealistic? Well, no.
Starting point is 00:08:22 it's just it's the reality that in these special elections you get the most motivated voters and that is going to extend that democratic uh lead or margin and when you introduce introduce introduce more people into the electorate including people that habitually vote but they're not like particularly electrified maybe by this election it stands to reason that you can't apply the same level of enthusiasm to the general midterms than you could to the special elections that's all so now we turn and we go out and we make it happen. All right. This may be one of the scariest stories I have ever done and I am not being hyperbolic. I hope that most of what I'm about to tell you could happen does not happen because this is terrifying. A 28 year old lab worker in Russia. Do you know anything
Starting point is 00:09:13 about Russia? Well, a 28 year old laboratory worker has died after breaking a test tube, which reportedly contained live ursinia pestis. Now, if you're saying, wait a second, ursinia pestis, that rings a bell. That rings a bell from biology class. That is the bacteria, not virus, critical issue. That is the bacteria that causes plague. And the concern is that she died because after breaking the test tube, she developed pneumonic plague. This is dark ages level shit, Literally. This is the most dangerous form of plague. Now, it is not that easy to get accurate information from Russia. Russia's in the middle of a war with Ukraine. There's a lot of wacky stuff going on. So it has not been definitively confirmed. But there's this group that monitors
Starting point is 00:10:05 infectious disease at Boston University called Beacon. And they say this is what it looks like, but we need more information. But the response in Russia has been extraordinary. The accident reportedly happened on or around September 25th. Now, let me tell you what they, they call it an anti-plague research facility in the Akutsk region. Now, we'll get back to it being an anti-plague facility because that's a whole other thing. Four days later, the worker was hospitalized with severe pneumonia. She ended up on a ventilator and then she died, believed to be October 1st, maybe October 2nd. Now, authorities identified 197 other people who were potentially, potential contacts who may have been exposed to what is potentially pneumonic plate.
Starting point is 00:10:52 189 of the 197 were hospitalized for observation. A hospital was partially quarantined. Russia's chief sanitary official went to Rikutsk and security forces were escorting ambulance. This is a massive mobilization. As of October 2nd, none of the quarantined individuals reportedly had symptoms and we really wanted to stay that way. Now, let me remind you for those who may have forgotten, there are three forms of plague. You've got bubonic plague. This is the really famous one. This spreads through infected fleas. It causes these super painful swollen lymph nodes called bubos. And those, it's a, it's a very nasty
Starting point is 00:11:37 thing. Okay, but that one is less deadly than pneumonic plague. You then have septicemic plague. This is when the bacteria gets into the bloodstream and multiplies there. And you can have spontaneous bleeding out of your orifices and a lot of other horrible stuff. Okay. We then have what we're talking about here, pneumonic plague. That is when Yersinia pestis gets into the lungs. And it's different than bubonic plague. It can spread person to person through respiratory droplets.
Starting point is 00:12:12 And this is a terrifying statistic. There's no other way to say it. If you get pneumonic plague untreated, it basically kills everybody. There may be random situations where people survive, but untreated pneumonic plague basically has a fatality rate close to 100%. Dysopian. Insane. There is another side to this.
Starting point is 00:12:35 And this is the good news. It is bacterial. We have antibiotics. If you get antibiotic treatment, plague is treatable. is treatable. And with pneumonic plague, the key is within hour, you've got to do it within 24 hours, but within hours of developing symptoms, you've got to get treatment. You've got to get on antibiotics. Now, this raises questions about what happened in Russia. If this worker broke a vial that contained live plague, was the accident immediately reported? Was she given preventive antibiotics?
Starting point is 00:13:05 Beacon says a known laboratory exposure, normally you give everybody prophylactive antibiotics. We don't know. Why wasn't she given that or was she and it didn't work? This is the terrifying scenario. There's a book Biological Warfare out right now by Annie Andrews, I believe. No, hold on. Is that a candidate? Biological.
Starting point is 00:13:28 Annie Jacobson. Annie Andrews is a candidate. Yes. Annie Jacobson, which is about this. this and it is believed that Russia is doing research into weaponizing plague with additional characteristics. Why would labs work with something like this? There are legitimate reasons, diagnostics or vaccines, biodefense. But the thing is Russia has a really disturbing history here because the Soviet Union used to operate these huge illegal bioweapons programs. The US has
Starting point is 00:14:00 assessed that Russia has inherited elements of that. And even though they don't admit it, They are continuing to do this biological weapon research. Now, that doesn't mean that this lab was developing bioweapons or that this is some kind of modified, a typical pneumonic plague. We don't know that. We don't know that this was even on purpose. I should mention the U.S. and other countries also are suspected of doing the same thing, which is you say these are defense labs and they are research.
Starting point is 00:14:34 searching stuff that is offensive. Now, I don't have specific evidence of an illegal offensive bio weapons program in the U.S. or in Russia, but this is a game that's played. No, we're working on, we're working on defense. We're working on vaccines. Okay. There are two things that make this really unsettling right now. Number one, Russia's waging a major war against Ukraine. So we're talking about a potential accident involving a really dangerous pathogen in a nuclear armed country with a history of doing bio weapons work currently engaged in a massive war, a war they expected to win quickly and have not been able to. No evidence this involved a weapon.
Starting point is 00:15:13 The context matters. And then there's the American side. Trump's president. During COVID, remember, what about injecting bleach? The U.S. response under Trump during COVID was really bad. Testing failures, medical supply failures, coordination, messaging failures, all of it. Trump's handling of COVID arguably is why he lost. reelection and some other elected officials, one reelection because they handled it well.
Starting point is 00:15:40 So imagine another rapidly developing infectious disease emergency where accurate information is critical, competent governance is critical, and we've got Trump. Now, hopefully we never get anywhere near that. Hopefully this ends with just this one tragic death in Russia. Every other contact remains healthy and we learn what happened. I don't think it's the time to panic, but we are dealing with a disease that can spread between humans and it approaches a 100% death rate without treatment. So this is a story we're going to be watching very closely. And it is terrifying, but it doesn't make sense to panic. And to the extent that we can believe the information from Russia, hopefully they will soon
Starting point is 00:16:21 be able to say that the nearly 200 people that were brought in for observation have all been given the all clear and none has developed what is believed to be pneumonic plague. Most of us understand estate planning is really important, but it's one of those things that we just put off. We just do. And our sponsored trust and will makes it a much more approachable process with affordable attorney designed estate plans that you can create in as little as a half hour. They'll walk you through creating a will or a trust.
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Starting point is 00:19:31 David Pakman.com, and I will have more to say about it as we go forward. Donald Trump just did something very dangerous. He singled out CNN's Caitlin Collins in front of a massive, rabid, bloodthirsty crowd of his supporters at one of these various rallies that he is doing. Rally is meant to help Republican candidates. is out as to whether that will work and encourage them to turn against her and then stood there enjoying the reaction. Now, Caitlin Collins was covering Trump's event. Trump noticed her and he decides to make her part of the show. And he goes, there she is. She's such an unhappy person.
Starting point is 00:20:10 She never smiles. I think this is actually extraordinarily dangerous and I will explain why in a moment. The fake news like CNN sitting right there. The fake news. doesn't want to run. And listen to those bloodthirsty screams. She's such an unhappy person. She's a young, nice person, but she never, never smiles. She's a very unhappy person. But the fake news media, they refuse to talk about our record setting numbers.
Starting point is 00:21:07 Now Trump knows that doing this kind of thing can lead to death threats. He knows that he's the president of the United States. His followers are bloodthirsty. And he does it anyway. And he stokes the mob and it's immoral and it's dangerous and his Republican colleagues are just shut their mouths. Now when the crowd starts jeering, he doesn't go knock it off. She's doing her job.
Starting point is 00:21:28 She's a reporter. He piles on. She's such an unhappy person. She never smiles. And the whole thing is kind of played for laughs. Now, of course, in these situations, Trump's not telling anybody to go and physically hurt Caitlin Collins. I have no evidence.
Starting point is 00:21:42 Trump literally wants someone to go and attack her or try to kill her. But that doesn't mean that what he's doing is harmless because Trump knows what happens when he singles people out. And he has one of the largest and most intensely loyal political followings in the world. It's dwindling, but the people that are still there are extraordinarily loyal, especially if you're there at this point. And he points at an individual journalist. And he identifies her. You should really dislike her. And they start booing and jeering. And it is not a reporter. that Trump just noticed for the first time. Caitlin Collins is somebody Trump's been attacking for years.
Starting point is 00:22:18 And remember the infamous CNN Town Hall where Collins repeatedly challenged him about false claims about 2020 and he eventually snapped him. You're a nasty person. And this has become a recurring thing. She's stupid and nasty. She doesn't smile. Crazy Caitlin Collins. He is fixated bizarrely on whether she is smiling enough and friendly enough and happy enough.
Starting point is 00:22:40 And these are not political critique. Trump is personally demonizing a member of the press for their work as a member of the press. Now, we have to reintroduce the term stochastic terrorism. It might sound complicated. It's not. Stochastic terrorism is rhetoric that demonizes a person or a group in a way that increases the probability someone eventually tries to do something to them, even though the speaker never explicitly orders anybody to do it, right?
Starting point is 00:23:12 If I had 100 followers and I tell them somebody is a horrible, disgusting, terrible person, probably nothing happens. If somebody has tens of millions of followers and over five years repeatedly goes, this person is the enemy, the traitor, the threat, the monster, all of a sudden the calculation changes. It's just a matter of probability. You don't know who's listening. You don't know who's unstable, although you can suspect you've got some unstable people there. You don't know who's been radicalized.
Starting point is 00:23:43 You can't predict which individual might eventually say, I'm going to take matters into my own hands. That is the stochastic part. You can't predict who. You can't predict when. But you can understand the risk on a sort of normal distribution curve that is created by constantly turning up the temperature. And Trump understands the power that he has over his audience.
Starting point is 00:24:04 We watched him demonstrate it. He points at Caitlin. The crowd booze. He smiles. And then they get even louder in their. jeers. And remember that journalists regularly are threatened just for doing their jobs. Public officials are threatened. Election workers. Podcasters like me, we are all threatened and judges, prosecutors. So when the president of the United States plants in the back of the room, these reporters, which is where they're
Starting point is 00:24:32 allowed to be, and then singles one out in front of a crowd of thousands of supporters, there is danger attached to that. Now, I'm not saying Trump ordered violence against her. And if something happened to her, this is the sort of pernicious nature. Of course, Trump's not legally responsible. I'm saying something that we should all just agree on. If you have this kind of power, I believe you have a responsibility to understand what your words are capable of unleashing. And we learned that on January 6th. Trump regularly chooses the opposite. He directs anger at specific targets that he's identifying. And he just ramps up the temperature and everybody around him goes to say, well, he never told anybody to do anything. And the most incredible part of this is the silence from Republicans.
Starting point is 00:25:21 Imagine a Democratic president pointing to Brett Bayer in the front row and getting the crowd screaming at them and going, these are nasty people that never tell you the good things I'm doing. Republicans would lose their minds. They would go that's intimidation from the president. They're the president is inciting. We need hearings. We need. When Trump does it, it is nothing.
Starting point is 00:25:44 You hear nothing other than they, they join in. Caitlin Collins is a journalist doing her job. She could get things right. She could get things wrong. If she gives opinions, those are protected. If she's doing reporting, that is protected. Trump can criticize the reporting. He can complain about her questions.
Starting point is 00:25:59 But directing a political crowd against an individual reporter is reckless and dangerous. and Trump knows what he is doing and he does not care. We have seen this build and become normalized and increasingly acceptable in the political era of Trumpism. And it would be such a breath of fresh air if we could simply get Republicans on the same page of listen. There are a lot of things that are important here. And one of those is that the press are doing an important.
Starting point is 00:26:36 important job. Even George W. Bush, who I am not a defender of, I was not a supporter of, he understood there's a reason the press is here. And you don't have to like them. But even Bush didn't direct angry crowds against specific reporters. Not because Bush was great, but because he wasn't so deeply depraved and indifferent to the suffering of others and to the endangerment of others as is Donald Trump. And it is unfortunately something that I don't think is going to change because it has been so normalized by MAGA.
Starting point is 00:27:15 Donald Trump is furious at Fox News because Fox and friends committed the ultimate sin where they didn't spend enough time talking about his wally, his cute little wally that he did. This is a very interesting moment because we've started seeing these tiny signs that Fox understands Republicans may be heading to a very bad midterm. And so they will occasionally question Trump. They'll occasionally cover Republican problems instead of pretending that they don't exist. So you can see that Fox is creating a little bit of distance just just in case Democrats crush Republicans and Trump becomes irrelevant to politics because he's just Mara Lago throwing
Starting point is 00:27:52 ketchup at the walls for the last few years of his presidency. But then you see something like this where Trump reminds everybody who's in control. Trump held a rally in Ohio on Saturday night. Sunday morning, he apparently turned on Fox News, expecting to see wall-to-wall coverage and it wasn't there. So Trump lost his mind. Quote, sad to see that Fox and Friends Sunday is not covering our packed house and incredibly enthusiastic rally that took place in Ohio last night or the ones in Alabama, Texas or Oklahoma over the past two days. These election rallies were representative of what is really happening with our great Republican Party. They were all sold out.
Starting point is 00:28:33 with thousands of people trying to get in and are absolutely phenomenal better than ever. It's the old undercurrent at Fox News. Other networks are reporting about these rallies and really positively like crazy. Our people want to see our rallies and reports on our rallies on Fox News or they will very quickly stop watching like I am doing right now. Fox spends more time talking to communists, socialists and Democrats, often without rebuttal. And MAGA is not, to put it mildly happy. We don't like stupid Jessica Tarlov and all of the others that are forced down Maga's throats.
Starting point is 00:29:13 These rallies are the hottest thing out there. Tremendous love in these sold out arenas and nothing shows up on Fox. Also phenomenal ratings who's making the decisions. They fired Maria Bartaromo. Okay. Blah, blah, blah. This is a crazy message. It goes on.
Starting point is 00:29:27 Now here's the incredible part. Fox got the message. In about an hour, Fox and Friends Sunday was talking about Donald Trump's rally and what appears to be a haphazardly put together reaction to Trump going, why no attention about me? Take a listen. As we approach the midterms next month, President Trump rallying voters along the campaign trail stopping in Ohio yesterday with a message focused on America's workforce and AI data centers.
Starting point is 00:29:56 Brooke Taylor joins us now with those details. Good morning, Brooke. Good morning, guys. President Trump is on the campaign trails. We're about 30 days now from midterms. He was in Ohio on Saturday defending these data centers, saying that they are critical in beating China in the AI race. We're also taking historic action to ensure that big tech data centers benefit local communities.
Starting point is 00:30:20 There's so much money to be made for Ohio. You can't just turn them off. They'll go to China. We're beating China in what I called super intelligence, not artificial. But those massive facilities have also become increasingly controversial because they were all right. So listen, they covered it. 54 minutes after Trump's post, there it is, Trump's Ohio rally. Now, to Fox's credit, they don't completely surrender.
Starting point is 00:30:44 They actually are saying the stuff Trump is pushing for these bizarrely, newly named bizarre named super intelligence data centers. They're not that popular with a lot of voters. So it's not, you know, they didn't go on, totally on script from what Trump wanted. Trump goes, why no coverage? And next thing you know, there's coverage. And that's the broader dynamic. Fox tries to take a tiny step away.
Starting point is 00:31:07 Trump notices, attacks them, threatens their audience. And within an hour, they're covering the thing he said they're not covering. That is the relationship. Now, we've seen versions of this over and over again. Fox has a real problem heading into these midterms. They see Trump's approval numbers. They see Dems polling advantage. They see the special election results of the last year.
Starting point is 00:31:28 And they know Republicans could get hammered. And if it happens, Fox needs some ability to say, we told you there were problems. We questioned some of this stuff. We weren't just blindly cheerleading everything Trump did. So you see these little moments of independence. A skeptical question here and here's a poll that doesn't look so good for Trump. Maybe Trump's rally isn't the most important story on Sunday morning. But Trump doesn't allow a lot of room for that because he gets that Fox needs his voters
Starting point is 00:31:57 at least for now. And Trump knows I can turn my voters against Fox very quickly. And we saw it after 2020. When Trump was furious at Fox, he had that phase where he was like, go watch Newsmax or O-A-N. So Fox knows the danger. Trump knows Fox knows the danger. And that gives him power.
Starting point is 00:32:17 They may occasionally criticize Trump. They may be quietly preparing themselves for the possibility of a Republican midterm disaster. They might even try to create some distance so they don't go down with the ship completely. But watch what happens when Trump yanks the leash. They come running back and it is very revealing. I don't think the real story is, oh, Fox chose not to cover a Trump rally. The story is Trump noticed. He complained publicly.
Starting point is 00:32:50 He threatened their ratings. And less than an hour later, they're talking about his rally. So Fox may be trying to hedge against Trump. But Trump was able to remind them at the end of the day, I'm still in charge. And it will be very interesting to see, depending on the results of the midterms, if and how that dynamic changes after the fact. There is a reason Tucker Carlson tends not to interview smart, knowledgeable people who disagree with him.
Starting point is 00:33:19 Because when he does, it gets really embarrassing. And this happens. Take a look at this. Sackar sat down with former British Conservative cabinet minister Jacob Rees Mogg. And I don't know how else to put this. Mogg truly mugged Tucker Carlson, truly. And it got embarrassing almost immediately. They were talking about Russia and Ukraine and could this become a wider war.
Starting point is 00:33:42 When Tucker decides to explain to the British cabinet minister, Russia's economy is much bigger than Britain. So why would they attack? And the British cabinet minister goes, that's not true. Take a look at this and watch what happens when Tucker isn't the most knowledgeable person in the room, which by the way is often. So does it explain why Russia would want to pick a fight with Britain? It's got a much larger economy than Britain's by I think basic.
Starting point is 00:34:12 No, no, no, no, it hasn't got a larger economy than Britain's. It's got a smaller economy than Britain's got a larger military. There's much larger economy. It has much more wealth and resources. It's good. larger manufacturing sector. Its GDP is smaller than the UK's. GDP is not, I mean, the only measure of an economy.
Starting point is 00:34:31 It's a pretty important measure of an economy. It's one measure we can be with it. Russia is, Russia is an economic failure. That it could have a huge economy, but it's got a small economy because it's deeply corrupt. Right. And it hasn't managed to use its resources effectively. And so although the population of Russia is bigger
Starting point is 00:34:52 than that of the United Kingdom very significantly. Its GDP per capita is so much lower that the total GDP of Russia is smaller than that of the United Kingdom. It is not just GDP, but it is GDP per capita. According to the World Bank, Britain's economy is about four trillion. Russia's is about 2.6th. Britain's economy is more than 50% bigger. And when Tucker gets mugged by Reese Mogged, Tucker doesn't like it.
Starting point is 00:35:22 And this is a problem that Tucker runs into when he interviews somebody who doesn't just nod with everything he says. Tucker's whole stick is he's the guy who knows everything. And he asks the forbidden questions. Nobody is brave enough to ask. But sometimes they're not forbidden questions. He's just wrong. And it gets even worse when they start talking about NATO. Tucker goes into the familiar argument that, you know, Russia was provoked by NATO expanding towards its borders.
Starting point is 00:35:49 And therefore, they are not in the wrong. are not the aggressor here against Ukraine. And Rees-Mogg starts dismantling the story in real times. Do you believe in territorial integrity of nation states? In my own, for sure. I'm not sure the territorial integrity of someone else's state is worth risking my life for. The question is should, first of all, can you guarantee it? America did. So do you think that was wrong? Probably. Because the quid pro quo was that Ukraine would have kept its nuclear weapons. So you're saying Ukraine should have Well, there were many subsequent arrangements that were violated on all sides. No, this is the fundamental point, which we're trying to get away from.
Starting point is 00:36:29 So let me put this back to you. Please do. This is what happens when Tucker can't control the conversation. United States made an agreement with Ukraine, Russia and the United Kingdom, that the territorial integrity of Ukraine would be inviolable. What you're saying is that this treaty that was signed, where Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, was entirely pointless. Well, of course I'm not saying that at all.
Starting point is 00:36:50 What I'm saying is, what I'm saying is that there have been many subsequent agreements since, including a verbal agreement, which has been testified to by people who are present, that the United States would not expand NATO to Russia's borders. Okay, they're, they now have cut in some subtitled stuff going back to the truth about that promise, which, which is untrue, but Tucker loves to talk about it. This is an exchange that is so satisfying to watch, But it's also really embarrassing to watch because Tucker starts with this idea. You know, NATO was never supposed to border Russia.
Starting point is 00:37:27 Except NATO has bordered Russia since NATO was created. Norway was a founding member in 1949. And Norway shared this 200 kilometer border with the Soviet Union. It shares that border with Russia today. So the idea that NATO suddenly crossed some previously never crossed red line by reaching Russia's border is not accurate historically. Tucker then goes to a different claim. The West promised the Soviet Union NATO would never go east. Now, there's an important nuance here. And I've talked about this before. There were conversations in 1990 where Western officials gave Soviet leaders assurances about NATO moving eastward. That's true. James Baker famously used the phrase not one inch eastward when he was negotiating with Gorbachev.
Starting point is 00:38:13 So I'm not going to do the opposite of Tucker and pretend those conversations never happened. They did happen. But the discussions were in the context of German reunification while the Soviet Union existed. They did not produce a treaty banning Poland or the Baltic states or other countries from later joining NATO. And this is the critical distinction. It is a complicated historical argument. Tucker takes it into, but we promised Russia. NATO wouldn't go east. We pinky swore.
Starting point is 00:38:44 And we broke the promise. So therefore, Russia being aggressive and invading Ukraine is predictable. and okay. And what I love is that Reese Mogg doesn't accept the premise. And Tucker kind of starts getting uncomfortable and squirming. Now, there's one other problem with Tucker's version of history. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia repeatedly recognized Ukraine as an independent sovereign state. They signed the Budapest memorandum in 94 when Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear arsenal that was left behind. And there, no, no, matter what argument you want to have about NATO expansion. And there are arguments to have.
Starting point is 00:39:23 None of it gives Putin the right to invade Ukraine. None of it makes Putin the one fighting the defensive war. Tucker is really effective either when he is talking to someone who shares his worldview or he's talking to somebody that he can just steamroll. He'll make these sweeping assertions. Nobody is there to challenge them. You know, he raises his eyebrows. He asks how how you're even allowed to say something like this and everybody just moves on. But if you put somebody across from Tucker who knows the subject matter and is willing to go, that's not true. Tucker has a big problem. We are talking about a conservative British politician. I am not endorsing Jacob Rees-Mogg's politics. And that's what makes it so funny. Tucker found
Starting point is 00:40:08 someone from the British right who was willing and able and position to challenge these really weird apologetics for Vladimir Putin. At another point in the same conversation, by the way, Rees Mogg accuses Tucker of basically verging on defending Hitler during an argument about World War 2. And the interview is just completely off the rails. Totally off the rails. And it was going to be Tucker interrogates warmongering British establishment. And it turned into Tucker confidently gets the size of Britain's economy wrong, gets challenged on his absurdly simplistic NATO history, and looks like he's out of his depth. So this is why Tucker doesn't do this very often. It is easier to look like the smartest guy in the room when nobody in the room is even allowed
Starting point is 00:40:55 to tell you that you're wrong or has the ability and knowledge to go, Tucker, none of that crap makes any sense. Rees Mogg mugged him and it was pathetic to see Tucker squirm, but very enjoyable. You can be careful with your identity and still have it exposed. by a company you've never heard of. And that's what makes this breach so unsettling. 153 million American and Canadian driver's license scans were leaked to the dark web, mostly belonging to Americans. The scans came from IDscan.net. They process 21 million ID checks a month. The leak contains people's photos, names, birth dates, addresses, and also those infrared and ultraviolet layers that machines use to verify.
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Starting point is 00:43:48 The link is in the description. Today we welcome to the program, the Democratic nominee for governor of Wisconsin, David Crowley, a very, very important race, one that could have significant, far-reaching consequences in terms of future elections because of the importance of Wisconsin as a sort of swing state in many elections. David, great to have you on. I really appreciate your time. No, thank you so much for having me, David. Glad to be here.
Starting point is 00:44:15 Listen, where to start? You know, one of the things that I think is interesting is that on the one hand, we see this big potential blue wave coming in November. And the idea of it is very exciting to people on the left. At the same time, we have seen both polling and betting. markets sort of be wrong. I mean, in your race, the polling was very interesting because in the lead up to the primary day, you were supposedly losing by 15, 20 or even 30 points. And then you ended up winning. It was a very tight race, but you ended up winning. What is your sense of what is happening
Starting point is 00:44:53 with the distinction between what some of the polls say, what some of the betting markets say, and what's happening when people go to vote? What explains it? You know, I think that, you know, what we see across this entire country is that there's a lot of people who are upset. Upset with this Trump administration. It's upset in the direction that Republicans have been taking us. But here in the state of Wisconsin, we are a true purple state. And when I look at the polls, when I look at how people are excited about this, you know, we can't just take the polls into account in totality.
Starting point is 00:45:26 They do give us a snapshot in time as far as what is happening. But I will tell you, there's a lot of excitement. There is a lot of momentum. But as you alluded to, we know that the polls can be wrong as well. So I am not paying attention to the polls, even though we are up right now, I'm going to continue to run like we're down to a 30 seconds left to go on the clock because there's still so many undecided voters that are out there wondering who's the best candidate for them. Affordability, I think, has smartly been a huge focus of your campaign.
Starting point is 00:45:58 And you've talked about school funding, property taxes, which are quite. high relatively in Wisconsin. Minimum wage has been a topic and healthcare, et cetera. Always the question is, where does the money come from to pay for things we think are valuable? And there's a couple of options. You either have to raise money, usually by increasing taxes on somebody, or you have demand side stimulus where you say, well, if we bring in more businesses without raising rates, we will have more tax payers. So there's only like a couple ways to kind of move pieces around. Talk about your approach. Are you someone who is looking to raise taxes anywhere in order to pay for your ideas? Are you looking to cut spending elsewhere?
Starting point is 00:46:48 Well, right now, the state of Wisconsin, we are sitting on about a $3 billion surplus. And we know that those are dollars that we can use for the short term. How do we plug these short term gaps, quite frankly, that were created by folks like Donald Trump and my opponent, mega extremist Congressman Tom Tiffany, when they cut it, you know, Medicaid and Medicare, when they gutted the ACA subsidies. And so we know we can utilize that that surplus in some capacity. But we also know that there are so many companies right here within the state of Wisconsin, billionaires, billion-dollar companies who are literally taking in all these tax breaks while folks like me and you are paying for. And we want our working families to have a seat at the
Starting point is 00:47:29 table. And so we're going to take an entire look at our entire tax code to look at what we can do moving forward to make sure that those billionaires and those companies who are making, you know, hand over fist that they're paying their fair share. But we have to take a holistic view at how we tax it's being here in the state of Wisconsin because with the Republican controls that we have had thus far, they have not been willing to move away from the status quo. And until we do that, it's going to be very hard to sustain this state. On property taxes specifically, though, they are the sixth highest in the country on average in Wisconsin.
Starting point is 00:48:05 But normally that's something that's sort of set at the municipality level. Are you interested in actually getting the rates of property taxes down in Wisconsin? And how do you do that from the state level? Absolutely. You know, as county executive, you know, we are forced to have state mandated programs that we have to deliver. Yet it never comes with any more resources. or inflationary increases.
Starting point is 00:48:31 And that's because we have a shared revenue system. Many of the fees and taxes that we collect or sales taxes that we collect goes directly to the state. And then they bring that down to local municipalities to make sure that we are made whole. But David, in the past 20, 25, past 20, 25 years, we haven't seen any inflationary increases in shared revenue. Now, we recently got a fix in 2023,
Starting point is 00:48:54 that provided a short-term fix that I'm proud to be a part of. but we need a long-term solution moving forward. And it's going to be up to the state to become willing partners to help buy down those property taxes to make sure that people can afford to live in the communities that they want to live in. And this doesn't just help out our property tax payers. And it also helps out our schools as well, making sure that our students, our schools, our teachers have the resources that they need to not just give them the students the learning
Starting point is 00:49:24 capabilities, but also to make sure that we have the support staff, the nurses, the behavior health specialists to help support those school districts. One of the areas where, and this relates to property ownership, where you've been targeted heavily is AI data centers. And in fact, your opponent is out spending you roughly last I saw two to one on TV. And you were hit hard even during the primary and now on, you know, David Crowley is like an all data centers everywhere kind of guy. Now, I looked at your actual statements on.
Starting point is 00:49:58 data centers. But I want to just allow you the opportunity to tell us, what is your position on data centers, including protecting water, who pays for the infrastructure? What about the noise pollution? What about creating long-term jobs, not just temporary construction jobs for the physical buildings? Lay out your plan on data centers. Well, thank you for giving me that opportunity because we're going to be aggressive, aggressive as it relates to protecting our land, protecting our water, protecting our air, but more importantly, making sure that local communities actually have a seat at the table. If they don't want a data center, they shouldn't be forced to have a data center, and there's no if, ands or buts about that. And when you think about these
Starting point is 00:50:41 data centers, they should be earning their way into these communities, building relationships in order to be there. And so what that means is that we need to have these guard rolls in place, right, to make sure that we're protecting all of our local communities. But that's a stark contrast when it comes down to my opponent, Congressman Tom Tiffany. I mean, he voted for the big ugly bill that gave these tech companies, billions of dollars in tax breaks to allow them to steamroll our communities. He voted for the Speed Act that wouldn't allow communities
Starting point is 00:51:12 to actually have a seat at the table. And he also was the deciding vote to put restrictions on states to be able to regulate artificial intelligence. And so when it comes down to data centers, we're going to make sure that we're holding the accountable. We're going to make sure we have a seat at the table. And again, if a community doesn't want a data center, they shouldn't be forced to have one,
Starting point is 00:51:33 and we're going to make sure of that. What does it mean to give a community a seat at the table in this sense? We read about all of these stories where the community is invited into comment, but it's basically when they're about to break ground and the permits and deals have already been signed with the municipality, which at that point, it's sort of like the train is already going 70 miles an hour. How do you get in front of it and stop it? So how would you define giving a community a seat at the table in a way that's really actionable for them?
Starting point is 00:52:02 Well, one, we have to stop all these local communities from entering into non-disclosure agreements, right? We need to have honest, open, and transparent government. And that's been the problem. You've had elected officials at the local level who may not have the resources or the information ahead of them to make an informed decision, yet they can't talk to anybody about it because they signed this non-disclosure agreement. We're going to eliminate that here in the state of Wisconsin.
Starting point is 00:52:26 You cannot bring a data center into a community or start having those discussions until the communities has been absolutely informed, whether we're talking about different types of town halls before they even enter into discussions and giving as much information as possible. But that also means that we have to make sure that the data centers themselves, these big giant tech companies, that they just can't spend this money and think they can steamroll. You have to earn your way.
Starting point is 00:52:52 You have to develop these relationships. And we have to develop trust in making sure that you're going to do. do right by our environment, but also right by our communities. I'm interested in another aspect of your campaign, which relates to sort of, I guess we would say election integrity. One of the things about your opponent, Tom Tiffany, is that he was an election denier back in 2020 and worked with Trump to try to overturn that election. Is that worth attacking him over in 2026 or have people become either desensitized to that
Starting point is 00:53:25 or it's not a voting issue where like the economic stuff is just much more powerful. What do you think about using that in your campaign? You're right, David. And we are using it. You know, I think this is one of the reasons why we want people outside the state of Wisconsin to understand why this election is so important to them, even if they may not live here. You know, people may not know, but it's our governor who actually certifies elections here in the state of Wisconsin. And when you think about the upcoming 2018 presidential election, we need to make sure that we have somebody who has integrity and is willing to sign off on our free and fair elections, no matter who wins this office. You can't trust Tom,
Starting point is 00:54:04 Tiffany. He has been nothing but a Trump loyalist who voted against, you know, certifying the 2020 election and who's continued to do the bidding of these billionaires. That's one of the reasons why they're funding his campaign to the tune of $36 million, right? And so we have to make sure that we absolutely continue to reintroduce and introduce exactly who Tom Tiffany has been, because for the past 20 years, he's gotten really good at saying one thing and doing the exact opposite. And so this will be about the people. We want folks to know that we're not going to allow anybody to buy this election. And this is why we're going to cross across Wisconsin, across the country to let folks know that we need their help and how they can donate their
Starting point is 00:54:46 time, talent, and treasured to help this campaign. And if they want to do so, They can visit Crowley for WI.com for more information. What are you hearing from those who voted in the Democratic primary but supported your then opponent Francesca Hong? In other words, what are they coming to you and saying, hey, David, in order to support you either over your opponent or just instead of staying home because I don't like either candidate, what do they want from you? What issue were they focused on as you meet with them?
Starting point is 00:55:16 You know, ever since we finished this primary, you know, we've made sure to talk to everybody who participated. You know, whether they were Hong supporters, Joe Brennan supporters, or Roy's supporters, we want to bring everybody to the table. I'll always say, if you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu. And you know what?
Starting point is 00:55:33 Democrats have been on the menu. Our LGBTQ plus community have been on the menu. Women, public school teachers, they've all been on the menu. And at the end of the day, as we began to have these conversations, and we learn more about where we are, we learn that we agree on a lot more.
Starting point is 00:55:50 You know, we agree that we have to lower costs and make life more affordable. We know that we need more housing that's affordable and how we need more child care and health care across the Wisconsin, across all of Wisconsin to make sure that people can see a future here and how we need to fully fund our public schools. But even throughout this primary, you know, all of the candidates that were in this race, we all know that there's one ultimate goal. And that's to defeat the MAGA agenda and the MAGA congressman Tom Tiffany. And so I'm so excited about how we've been able to coales Democrats, you know, across this entire state. But we know that it's going to take more work in the last next 30 days, less than 30 days left before election day to make sure that we ultimately defeat Tom Tiffy.
Starting point is 00:56:34 But what are there issues? What are the things you're hearing from the former Hong supporters who say, hey, listen, I'm not, I'm a person of the left, not the right. But here's what I need to hear from you on in order to really think about supporting you in November. Well, they want to know my stances on public schools and making sure that we're fully funding our public schools here in the state of Wisconsin. They want to make sure that we're going to expand Badger Care and create it as an alternative to for-profit insurance so people can actually afford the health care that they need. They want to make sure that we are going to get rid of Act 10 and right to work for less so workers across this state can come to the table and collectively bargain for their fair wages, safer working conditions and better benefits, but also making. sure that we protect our young people, all of our students, all of our LGBTQ communities.
Starting point is 00:57:24 And when we start having those conversations, they realize that we actually agree on all of those things. And that's why I'm so excited as we began, you know, this final stretch towards election day. So healthcare, public education, labor protections, which seem really like these kind of kitchen table issues that are probably more prominent in state races than federal. And you, you're having productive conversations on those issues. Oh, absolutely. You know, and the one thing that I would also say, which I absolutely agree with, is that, you know, you have to have these billionaires and these billionaire companies.
Starting point is 00:57:59 They have to pay their fair share. You know, they can't continue to get all of these tax breaks or working families are struggling to put food on the table to pay for gas, farmers struggling to put diesel in their tractors just to be able to haul their, you know, harvest their products and haul those products wherever they need to go. And so there are a lot of different issues on the table. And we all agree that we have to defeat Tom. Tiffany, if we're going to move this state forward. We are watching this race and the polling really closely. David Crowley is the Democratic nominee for governor of Wisconsin. On election night, we will be keeping a really close eye on this one. David, best of luck
Starting point is 00:58:37 in the campaign. And thanks so much for talking to us today. No problem. Anytime. Thank you for having me, David. now, but most people aren't even aware how much AI can help their business and their daily workflow. Our sponsor, Outskill, is hosting a free two-day AI mastermind training this Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern, you don't need any coding or technical background. And over those two days, you're going to learn practical skills, how to use AI to automate repetitive tasks or building agents that can handle multi-step work, connect.
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Starting point is 01:01:08 Get 60% off when you go to incogni.com slash Pacman. Use the code Pacman. The link is in the description. All right. I have quite the disclosure for you. After spending her time as Donald Trump's second term White House press secretary, defending Trump, defending truth social, defending Elon Musk, defending Tesla, talking about all sorts of companies affected by the administration's policy, we have now learned that Caroline Levitt's family had money invested in many of the same companies, including Donald. Trump's own company.
Starting point is 01:01:46 It is rotten to the core. Caroline Levitt's newly released federal financial disclosure shows a brokerage account with between $1 and $15,000 of Trump Media and Technology Group stock. That's the parent company of Truth Social. The White House says, oh, the investments are Caroline's husband. Now that distinction matters. The disclosure is combining assets belonging to the filer and the. the spouse and dependent children. But Trump media is only the beginning of this farcical tale.
Starting point is 01:02:20 The account has between 50 and 100 grand of Tesla stock. It has Nvidia stock, AMD, Boeing, Occidental Petroleum, Robin Hood, RTX, which used to be Raytheon, serve robotics, US steel, ExxonMobil, all companies whose successes and failures are to a degree determined by administration policy and communication to the American public about that policy. Now, I am not claiming to have evidence that Caroline Levitt made statements specifically thinking, I'm going to see how I can increase the value of some of these investments. We don't have evidence of that. We don't have evidence of insider trading and making trade decisions based on what she knew she was about to announce during press briefings. We don't have specific evidence of that. But we have to be asking that
Starting point is 01:03:13 because it's the most corrupt administration that we've ever seen. And the government ethics official who certified the disclosure says, listen, we have not found proof of anything illegal in these disclosures. But the potential conflicts being legal are what is remarkable. Now, remember when Trump turned the White House lawn into a Tesla showroom and he praised Elon and he said, hold on, I might even have it. Do I have my, I love Tesla? No, I don't. Hold on. Oh. That's not it. Okay. I don't have my I love Tesla. He made Elon, who is already one of the most powerful people arguably in the U.S. from business standpoint, one of the most powerful people in Trump's orbit as well. And Caroline Levitt defended it and said, listen, Trump supports it.
Starting point is 01:04:00 It's an American made company. They make good products for the American people. And by the way, her family had potentially a six-figure investment in Tesla, which is the largest individual stock position listed in the brokerage account. They, of course, knew how pro Tesla Trump was at the time. Look at the rest of it. You know, you've got the administration making decisions about AI semiconductor policy. Her family owns Nvidia and AMD stock. There are defense policies and Pentagon contracts.
Starting point is 01:04:33 She owns Boeing and RTX. Energy policy. They own multiple petroleum stocks, steel and tariffs. They own U.S. steel. And then, of course, you have Trump media, which is incredible. Levitt's job was to communicate and defend Trump's administration while her household owned stock in a company in which Trump had this huge financial interest. Now, that doesn't prove her statements were motivated by knowing she owns those stocks, but this
Starting point is 01:05:00 is why we have these financial disclosures. The public gets to see what are the financial interests of the government official. Do they overlap with the official responsibilities of the government? the government official. Can they use information that they obtain for personal financial gain? Now, there's another important detail. There were no reportable transactions during the reporting period. So again, I want to be, I have no interest on this show of making allegations that are not borne out by the data. We do not have the data to suggest that there was specific timing going on based on the announcements that she was making. And this is about what did they hold while
Starting point is 01:05:41 she was press secretary. Now, it's a wealthy household. Okay, they've got three real estate businesses associated with her husband, three investment property mortgages, more than a million dollars each. They've got a bunch of bank accounts over a million in cash. So it may all have complied with the technical ethics rules and the ethical reviewer says it does. But imagine for a second that Joe Biden's press secretary was out there defending companies from the White House press briefing room while her household had hundreds of thousands of dollars collectively in stock. Plus, if the White House press secretary under Biden had owned stock in a company owned by Joe Biden, like just imagine what Fox News would have been doing. It would have been congressional hearings,
Starting point is 01:06:29 flow charts, a countdown clock. But in Trump world, it's like, listen, it's not that much money, and it might have been her husband, and it's all about power. and loyalty and it's all so blurry that you have to remind yourself, this isn't normal. This is completely and totally nuts. Now, we've spoken before about should there be rules limiting what elected officials can do with regard to stock trading. And there are some, mostly Democrats, who believe that there should simply be a ban on any elected official owning or trading stock. And the question when we get to that is, what about
Starting point is 01:07:12 all of these people that aren't confirmed and they're not elected? People that Trump just hires. Should the rules apply to them as well? What about situations where situations like this, where there is active trading going on, where it is more, where it is even clearer that it is the individual who works for the president that is involved in the day to day decisions around these assets, which she may be, we just don't know one way or the other. Should it apply to them as well? It seems naturally the answer would be yes, but it doesn't. And even though we can all look at this and go, man, this stuff kind of stinks, it appears at this point that by the letter of the law as it stands today, it is all completely and totally legal. And that's probably the bigger problem.
Starting point is 01:08:00 Fox News interviewed a guy named Gabe Perrault who says, that he personally went to heaven and met Jesus. And he reports to Kaylee McAnney on her show. Some really specific information. Jesus is about 5-11, very masculine and has testosterone just completely off the chart. So listen to this. And then I want to talk about it. 18 days you were in that coma. You had this experience. You came face to face with your Savior. and then you woke up. How has your life been different since that experience? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:08:37 Now with every single person I meet, I tell them of the love of Christ and that he did it all for them. And he died and rose again. And also I love how, you know, all these other testimonies, they didn't meet a female Jesus. They didn't meet a soft or a passive Jesus. Jesus is a man. And especially in America, he's been misrepresented.
Starting point is 01:08:56 And especially even, you know, there's so many cultural things that present him as if he's some just tolerant guy. It's not the Jesus I met. He's a lot. But he's not a lion angry against me. He's a lion angry for me. He's a Mustang on my behalf. He did it all for me. And what did he look like when you saw him? Pure fire. He was 5-11 like six. Massive hands and a huge feet yet as tall as eternity. Hit like an ocean of love. Yet his eyes were
Starting point is 01:09:24 burning white and red at the same time. And I mean, talk about testosterone like a Mustang. I'm telling you he's he's the lion of Judah and there's a roar. His testosterone was 1600. So let me give you some context. In 2021, when Gabe was 20, he crashed an electric skateboard going about 30 miles per hour. And he suffered a catastrophic injury. And he says he flatlined. He was resuscitated. He was unconscious 18 days. He was initially in a natural coma and then in a medically induced coma. And during this period, he says that he left his body, saw his friend praying over him, traveled through what he describes as a living light, went to heaven and met Jesus who was 5.11. He says Jesus showed him people's prayers and time as a physical object. And now we have this description of Jesus. So here is my question. And I want to try to be delicate here. Okay. Why is the starting assumption that any of this happened outside of his brain? Now, I'm a question. I am not diagnosing a mental illness. I am not diagnosing that these are the sequel A of a brain injury.
Starting point is 01:10:42 Like I'm not sure. But there is a difference. And also, you know, religious belief generically is not indicative of mental illness. Like there's a difference between I believe that there is some greater power here that I don't understand. And you might even say, I have come to believe that the greater power. something I call Jesus. I don't know. Like that's starting to go beyond for me. But I met Jesus. He was 5-11, very masculine with Mustang level testosterone. That starts to get a little specific as if these are
Starting point is 01:11:17 real events. And this guy had just suffered catastrophic brain trauma. He was resuscitated. He was unconscious for 18 days. The brain must be relevant here. And near-death experiences are real in the sense that people report vivid experiences and they tend to match, interestingly, what is sort of in the fictionalized literature of this stuff, you know, leaving their bodies and a tunnel with a light and a deceased relative or a religious figure giving you a tour of heaven or whatever. What of course has never been established is that these experiences demonstrate someone left their body and traveled to another dimension. And there's something else that I noticed watching this guy.
Starting point is 01:12:02 And I feel terribly about the injury that he suffered. It's great that he was able to survive it. He has an unusual delivery. It's a very strange cadence. It's a very strange kind of way of speaking. Is this related to a brain injury? I have no idea. I'm not pretending to be able to diagnose someone from a Fox News interview.
Starting point is 01:12:19 But there's no medical documentation that I've been able to find, which would make me say what he is describing is a representation of what happened in the real world. in any way. And we know that these traumatic brain injuries can produce changes in speech, changes in processing speed, changes in emotional regulation, social communication. So I'm not saying his belief about Jesus is from a brain injury. What I am saying is if you suffered a devastating brain injury and you report extraordinary perceptions that are beyond the measurement of human tools around the time of that injury, I would be thinking of the injury is pretty important to the context. Now, there's this other thing that I think is important to mention, which is that
Starting point is 01:13:08 people reporting about experiences with Jesus, the details always seem to validate the experience. And what I mean by that is, you know, American Christians have been told their whole lives, Jesus is male. And so Gabe goes and meets Jesus and he goes, Jesus is, Jesus is definitely male. And we're supposed to, I guess, believe, or the idea here is the fact that Jesus was male in his experience proves all the stories about Jesus are right. Of course, the simpler explanation is that he's been culturally conditioned and everybody has to expect a male Jesus. So when you have a brain injury or whatever, Jesus is male that that's sort of like it. That wouldn't be very surprising. They seem to act as though that's independent confirmation.
Starting point is 01:13:55 It probably just demonstrates our brains have in them cultural imagery that we've absorbed our entire lives. And that like, that's kind of it. You know, people from different religious cultures tend to interpret near death experiences through their own traditions. And what you typically see in near death experiences from people from, you know, Shinto or Hindu is they don't go. It was a guy that looked like Jesus that I saw during my near death experience. They see something that matches the stories they have been told.
Starting point is 01:14:28 And that seems that that seems to be to be expected. So there are two kind of different statements. I felt like I experienced something akin to my belief about Christianity. Okay. Well, no, all right. I met Jesus and he was 5-11 and he was, you know, just raging with rock hard testosterone. I believe he experienced something. I believe that he experienced something that feels real to him, I think it was undeniably profound for his experience. But when the experiences around resuscitation and catastrophic brain trauma and 18-day coma, I would first go to maybe what was going on medically is the most relevant explanation rather than Gabe's story establishes the heightened testosterone level of Jesus Christ.
Starting point is 01:15:25 I don't know. I'm thinking out loud here. I want to hear from you. What do you make of these sorts of stories? We have a phenomenal bonus show for you today. Caroline Levitt has shockingly gotten a gig at Fox News. California is making history by taxing ICE detention centers. What will change?
Starting point is 01:15:44 And Senator Kennedy, the Republican, bashing. Trump for giving out fellow Republican Senator Tom Cotton's phone number. All of that and more on the bonus show today. Sign up and get instant access at join packman.com. And also on October 20th, we will be doing a one day membership drive. The final membership drive before the election, it will be a massive, girthy discount off of membership on that day and that day only. If you want to be notified when that discount is live simply get on my newsletter at substack dot david packman dot com

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