Speaker 1: Welcome to this conversation on the Warning, and I am
Speaker 1: really pleased to be joined by my friend David Pacman
Speaker 1: of the David Pacman Show, one of the great independent
Speaker 1: media broadcasts and one of the first sizeable, at scale
Speaker 1: independent media broadcasts and substacks. And we're all following in
Speaker 1: David's footsteps in a lot of ways. I know I've
Speaker 1: learned a lot from him listening to them, and and
Speaker 1: have benefited a lot as we've built the Warning community.
Speaker 1: And so I'm really thrilled to welcome David here as
Speaker 1: our audience grows a little bit tonight, David, welcome. I
Speaker 1: want to I wanted to ask you, as we come
Speaker 1: up on the one hundred and seventy five day mark
Speaker 1: of all of this, how you see things in the circus,
Speaker 1: the fight such as it is, the scale of wreckage
Speaker 1: such as it is, is how I imagine it to be.
Speaker 1: Just we'll keep expanding. And so this week today, when
Speaker 1: you look out there, what what? What? What do you
Speaker 1: have your eye on as most worrisome in the moment,
Speaker 1: the thing that you look at And for me, even
Speaker 1: though I am not surprised by anything, I still look
Speaker 1: at it and I say wow, and experiencing it is
Speaker 1: different than anticipating it and feeling the anxiety and the
Speaker 1: worry and the dread is different than at It is
Speaker 1: different in its arrival and it's and it's feeling than
Speaker 1: anticipating it. So so what do you what do you
Speaker 1: see when you look at out there and well, what
Speaker 1: do you have? You're kind of oh my god, eyes
Speaker 1: you know, drawn too right now?
Speaker 2: So two categories, the authoritarianism and the economy and the
Speaker 2: economic stuff. I'll start with the economic stuff because it's
Speaker 2: sort of clearer cut.
Speaker 3: In a way.
Speaker 2: I've always been super honest with my audience, whether it's
Speaker 2: a Democrat or Republican in the White House, I'm just
Speaker 2: going to tell you what's GDP, what's unemployment? Where's the
Speaker 2: stock market? Inflation? These sort of metrics. There are a
Speaker 2: couple of concerning economic metrics, but a lot of them
Speaker 2: are actually okay ish. Now, the big one that's a
Speaker 2: concern is Q one GDP was down.
Speaker 3: We are now in Q two.
Speaker 2: Q two GDP may also end up being down, will
Speaker 2: know around July twentieth and two consecutive GDP decline quarters
Speaker 2: would be bad. But despite inflation fears inflation's actually been
Speaker 2: stable despite unemployment fears. Unemployment's actually been stable. Gas prices
Speaker 2: have been basically flat since Trump took over. So if
Speaker 2: I just do like an honest assessment of the metrics
Speaker 2: concerning signs, but some of the big indicators, okay for now,
Speaker 2: But this tariff impact is not even close to fully
Speaker 2: felt yet. I mean, it's are they on, are they off?
Speaker 2: It depends on the day. What's the Okay, So the
Speaker 2: economic stuff is concerning trajectory, okay, ish for now. The
Speaker 2: authoritarianism bucket is extraordinarily disturbing. And there are so many
Speaker 2: different aspects to this, and we can focus in on
Speaker 2: any of them. But of course there's the hostility and
Speaker 2: attacks on a free press, the ignoring of due process,
Speaker 2: the unilateral decisions, no matter what the judiciary says, no
Speaker 2: matter what it would mean to actually follow law and order,
Speaker 2: unilateral actions. Also internally within the federal government, the firings,
Speaker 2: the saying we're going to totally upend or even destroy
Speaker 2: your kneecap entire agencies, etc. I don't have to give
Speaker 2: you the full list, but sort of like bucket number
Speaker 2: two is the authoritarianism bucket. I'm way more concerned there
Speaker 2: in the immediate than I am about the economic stuff.
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean the economic stuff won't get much worse.
Speaker 1: Do you have any doubt about the trajectory of where
Speaker 1: the economic stuff goes at this point? When you look
Speaker 1: ahead a year from now.
Speaker 2: If the tariffs in their most extreme iteration are solidified
Speaker 2: and start to take effect, there's no doubt whatsoever it
Speaker 2: will be reduced hiring, higher prices, stagnant or declining, stock
Speaker 2: market continue, GDP declines. I mean, there's just no way
Speaker 2: you can do a blanket import tax and not have
Speaker 2: it trickle down the way the most basic economics, whether
Speaker 2: you follow you know, Richard Woolf for Thomas sol right,
Speaker 2: if you just put a blanket import tax on everything,
Speaker 2: there's really only one way that that can go. Now,
Speaker 2: Trump and the people around him have crafted this sort
Speaker 2: of justification, which is that may happen in the short term,
Speaker 2: but as the supply chains are on reshort or on
Speaker 2: short everything's going to sort itself out. The problem with
Speaker 2: that is a lot of these industries require eight to
Speaker 2: twelve years to reshore. Until you actually build that capacity,
Speaker 2: everything will still cost way more. And that's not also
Speaker 2: even feasible when it has to do with natural resources
Speaker 2: that just aren't necessarily found geographically within American borders. So
Speaker 2: you can't even really do that with all industries. So
Speaker 2: that's the theoretical justification. It's not a three and a
Speaker 2: half year possibility, which is what Trump has left, so
Speaker 2: we know the effect will be over the next three
Speaker 2: and a half years.
Speaker 1: One of the things when I think about the economy
Speaker 1: and I think about all of the rhetoric and all
Speaker 1: of the empty promises around, really three things to me
Speaker 1: that stand out. It's that Trump will make declarations lively
Speaker 1: that I've landed a trillion dollar deal, seven trillion dollars
Speaker 1: from the Emiratis, eight trillion from the Kataris, and there
Speaker 1: won't be a dollar of this ever ever seen. I
Speaker 1: don't think any of it is real. And when I
Speaker 1: conjecture ahead, well, what I see is a lot of
Speaker 1: impact that's coming, I think it's I think it's too
Speaker 1: late too. I think it's too late to stop it.
Speaker 1: But when Trump talks about the reshoring, the jobs and
Speaker 1: everything that that's coming back, I think this is all nonsense, right,
Speaker 1: none of it's real, you know. But I think about
Speaker 1: one are the things that clearly drives Trump crazy psychologically,
Speaker 1: and like some of Trump's behaviors, right, it's not ungrounded
Speaker 1: in total delusion, right, I mean, it's not grounded in
Speaker 1: total delusion. Right. He has a reason for his peak,
Speaker 1: and it's about Air Force one. Right. So, and I
Speaker 1: think about this and I thank god, right, or we're
Speaker 1: in big trouble, right if this country has to fight
Speaker 1: a war. And I don't. I don't have an answer
Speaker 1: to this question. Truthfully, I don't know why, right, things
Speaker 1: have gone off the rails like this in the country.
Speaker 1: But to some degree, I think it's why Trump has
Speaker 1: wound up as a demagogue in there. And it's that
Speaker 1: somebody obviously told him in twenty sixteen that there's a
Speaker 1: new Air Force one coming, right, And it's twenty twenty five, right,
Speaker 1: and there's no new Air Force one?
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: He can't comprehend, right, why over right? The ten years? Right?
Speaker 1: The planes not ready? Right, there's two planes and two
Speaker 1: seven forty sevens. They can't get them ready over a decade.
Speaker 1: And I think it's like he wants it, and I
Speaker 1: think he cares about the stuff he wants, but it does.
Speaker 1: But it's a legitimate question, right, White Boeing can't make
Speaker 1: these two planes right over the over the ten years.
Speaker 1: So when we talk about this reshoring business in the
Speaker 1: way that Howard Ludnik talks about it, I think it's
Speaker 1: I think it's all madness. But we'll see how it
Speaker 1: plays out. People will feel it. The economy, as we've
Speaker 1: talked about before, is not something that you lecture to people.
Speaker 1: It's about how they feel about their security, about prices,
Speaker 1: about wages, about jobs, about opportunities. So really ominous signs
Speaker 1: in the housing market across the board. I'm real worrisome things,
Speaker 1: but I have to I have to tell you there's
Speaker 1: there's nothing for me right now that is more troubling
Speaker 1: than the appearance of federal agents with night vision goggles
Speaker 1: on in the middle of the day on commercial airliners.
Speaker 1: Is their coast playing Navy Seal and Delta force when
Speaker 1: they're at the bottom of the federal law enforcement barrel
Speaker 1: right the dregs of the pack, and it's unacceptable. The
Speaker 1: long rifles, the throwing of flash bangs in San Diego,
Speaker 1: the masks, the costumes in the United States of America.
Speaker 1: And when I say there's nothing more disturbing to it,
Speaker 1: the possible exception is the lack of outcry over it
Speaker 1: by the leadership of the Democrats in Washington. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you think I'm on if I'm unfair on that,
Speaker 1: but but when you see these guys, and I mean guys,
Speaker 1: it's mostly guys heavily tattooed, mass up the blood type
Speaker 1: on the on the velcrode patch, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: standard operating procedure for a special operator in Iraq. They
Speaker 1: used to tape it around there, tape it around their boots,
Speaker 1: and so none of this is necessary if you're raiding
Speaker 1: restaurants in Washington, DC or suburban San Diego. But but
Speaker 1: what do you make about it? It's it's so obvious
Speaker 1: to me, right that it's about instilling fear, and and
Speaker 1: that this is very deliberately uh moved to turn federal
Speaker 1: law enforcement into that proverbial jack booted government thugs, a
Speaker 1: storm trooper force. It's just unacceptable, And I don't know
Speaker 1: how you feel about it, but I'm real curious to
Speaker 1: hear you.
Speaker 3: No, I feel the same way.
Speaker 2: It's the sort of twentieth century authoritarian playbook of shock
Speaker 2: troops and making people afraid, and it's sadly, I wish
Speaker 2: it weren't a playbook that we were so familiar with
Speaker 2: and that had been studied so extensively during the twentieth century.
Speaker 2: I think the other thing that comes out to me
Speaker 2: to not repeat what you said, which I mostly agree with.
Speaker 2: There's another aspect to this, which is I have a
Speaker 2: chapter in my book, and I talk extensively on my
Speaker 2: show about how I don't find that much value in
Speaker 2: engaging with this movement on their so called first principles
Speaker 2: and on the theoretical philosophical level, because as soon as
Speaker 2: it's inconvenient to their immediate goals, those principles are abandoned.
Speaker 2: And you see that happening here. You limit the power
Speaker 2: of the federal government, well not when you have others
Speaker 2: that you want to achieve, and we've seen this so
Speaker 2: many times, right, keep the government out of business, regulation,
Speaker 2: keep the government out of people's lives. As soon as
Speaker 2: it becomes counter to their immediate goals and what they've
Speaker 2: been able to convince the core of their base that
Speaker 2: would be good for them, those principles immediately go out
Speaker 2: the window.
Speaker 3: And so what was the.
Speaker 2: Value in actually debating the principles with them? Because they
Speaker 2: don't even believe them beyond just having something to say
Speaker 2: as soon as it becomes inconvenient.
Speaker 3: And this is just another reminder of that.
Speaker 2: Because every aspect of this they claim to be the
Speaker 2: constitutional conservatives, they claim to be for law and order,
Speaker 2: they claim to be for limited federal power. All of
Speaker 2: these things go out the window because now they've got
Speaker 2: a new project, absent a serious policy approach where maybe
Speaker 2: we'll talk about the big beautiful bill, but that's the
Speaker 2: only real thing that is even on the table. So
Speaker 2: absent that, they go, let's abandon all of those stated principles.
Speaker 2: Here's how we're going to execute this immigration, whatever you
Speaker 2: want to call it, and all those principles no longer matter.
Speaker 1: When you look at the Republican Party. I mean, so
Speaker 1: when I hear you talking about the party, the Republican Party,
Speaker 1: to me, it's so far gone at this point. And
Speaker 1: I've talked about this for ten years, and the trajectory
Speaker 1: of this is just beyond dispute, and I just want
Speaker 1: to put myself in agreement with you. It's that the
Speaker 1: Republican Party became a hollow party, principal less, and as
Speaker 1: a principal less party, it became susceptible to MAGA and
Speaker 1: to trump Ism. And there were a lot of conservatives,
Speaker 1: such as they were, but we now understand it was
Speaker 1: most performative group think that this is the lane I
Speaker 1: have to operate in or swim in, however you think
Speaker 1: about it, in order to advance myself. But but all
Speaker 1: of those people at whatever level have made accommodations to
Speaker 1: Trump into MAGA. And what happens in every instance when
Speaker 1: fascism comes to power, this is a fascist regime. There's
Speaker 1: no dispute about that at this point. Is that it's
Speaker 1: conservatives who bring them to power and a coalition, and
Speaker 1: the first thing that happens is the fascist completely devour
Speaker 1: the conservatives, right, so there is no conservative party. I
Speaker 1: talk about this with with the warning audience you know
Speaker 1: from you know from time to time, is that it's
Speaker 1: really hard to understand what these numbers mean, right, A billion,
Speaker 1: a million. And the best way that I've ever heard
Speaker 1: anyone explain it is that if I say to you,
Speaker 1: let's talk again in a million seconds, that's in twelve days.
Speaker 1: If that conversation goes bad and I say let's make
Speaker 1: it a billion seconds, that's thirty three years. A trillion
Speaker 1: seconds is thirty three thousand years from now. That's the
Speaker 1: difference between a billion and a trillion. And this big,
Speaker 1: beautiful bill monstrosity adds trillions of dollars to the debt.
Speaker 1: Now you have a supposedly once conservative party's making the
Speaker 1: argument there should be no attention paid to any deficit,
Speaker 1: any debt spending. We should get rid of all limits
Speaker 1: on the debt spending. So it's not a conservative party.
Speaker 1: It's an extremist party. It's a radical party. And it's
Speaker 1: the greatest welfare party in American history with the amount
Speaker 1: of money that it's transferring regressively from the American people
Speaker 1: to the wealthiest human beings who have ever walked on
Speaker 1: the face of the earth. And at the core right
Speaker 1: this bill can properly be described has never so much
Speaker 1: been taken by so many, by so few, for the
Speaker 1: benefit of even fewer. And it's an extraordinary it's an
Speaker 1: extraordinary moment. But the most disturbing one to me is
Speaker 1: the plain use of force that appears to be escalating
Speaker 1: on the orders of Stephen Miller, who's directing this from
Speaker 1: the White House. I think it's abore it that he
Speaker 1: be named he's unelected, he's extreme, he's belligerent, he's not
Speaker 1: confirmed to anything. His policy is being directed out of
Speaker 1: the White House. He is wreck and cabinet secretaries that
Speaker 1: whole constitutional offices with statutory responsibilities for the execution of
Speaker 1: the laws within those offices that are that are routinely
Speaker 1: being broken. Uh. And so we have an enormous problem, uh,
Speaker 1: with with all of this right now? What what what
Speaker 1: are you looking for a Democratic leader or some governor
Speaker 1: or some somebody to go out and to say and
Speaker 1: where should they say it? Well, in a perfect world, well,
Speaker 1: what what? What does? What? What do you see happen
Speaker 1: right for for somebody in this country to step forwarded
Speaker 1: and and call this out? Well, that's really the question
Speaker 1: to be and what needs to be said.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, that's the question I've been bringing to that.
Speaker 3: That's my concern too.
Speaker 2: And just opposing Trump and trump Ism is not enough.
Speaker 2: That's clear that has failed as an approach for the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party. And so over the last month and a
Speaker 2: half two months, I've interviewed everybody from Senators Corey Booker,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobashar, Governor's Kathy hokeel Phil Murphy from
Speaker 2: New Jersey Today, Gavin Newsom, I'm asking all of them
Speaker 2: some version of that question, and if I'm honest, I'm
Speaker 2: getting glimmers of things that sound interesting and make some sense.
Speaker 2: But there is not a cohesive strategy right now, and
Speaker 2: so I am very worried about twenty twenty six and
Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight. I mean, I think certainly, if some
Speaker 2: portion of the tariffs become a reality, if some version
Speaker 2: of the big beautiful bill passes and it has the
Speaker 2: economic impact that we expect, there is going to be
Speaker 2: plenty to vote against in twenty twenty six, There's no doubt.
Speaker 3: But it's just it's been shown to not really be enough.
Speaker 2: And one of the great shortcomings of the Harris campaign
Speaker 2: last year, I believe, was that to take two issues,
Speaker 2: immigration and crime. My view as an individual is I
Speaker 2: think the immigration issue is real and distorted and overblown
Speaker 2: in the way that the right was talking about it.
Speaker 2: I think the crime issue is nationally crime has been
Speaker 2: declining for thirty years, violent and nonviolent. But just telling
Speaker 2: people who see crimes in their community that doesn't make
Speaker 2: them feel like they're being heard, and they felt dismissed
Speaker 2: by Kamala Harris, and it's one of many reasons, but
Speaker 2: ultimately she lost. So my concern is I don't see
Speaker 2: a cohesive message right now beyond the obvious this is
Speaker 2: really bad. We've seen that this is really bad doesn't
Speaker 2: necessarily win you elections it wanted in twenty twenty. I mean, this,
Speaker 2: this is really bad did win in twenty twenty because
Speaker 2: Trump was in power, Biden was going to swoop in
Speaker 2: and put a stop to it. Okay, so barely, but
Speaker 2: it did win. But it's not a winning strategy long term.
Speaker 2: So I don't know. I hope that there's some soul
Speaker 2: searching going on.
Speaker 1: Who do you find really impressive in the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: right now from a potential leadership perspective.
Speaker 2: So there's a few different ways to answer the questions.
Speaker 3: So one category is.
Speaker 2: Who is growing their notoriety in a positive way right
Speaker 2: now and is demonstrating they have some cachet by being
Speaker 2: able to get crowds going, right, So you've got these
Speaker 2: Bernie AOC events. Bernie has made it clear he's not
Speaker 2: running AOC. I don't know if in twenty twenty eight
Speaker 2: AOC is the future of the Democratic Party, at least
Speaker 2: not yet, but she's certainly generating enthusiasm, which I think
Speaker 2: is really interesting, more pragmatically although less exciting certainly than
Speaker 2: AOC Bernie, who seemed to be able to generate the
Speaker 2: most excitement in person. Right now, are people like Josh Shapiro,
Speaker 2: I think is super interesting, Gretchen Whitmer, although she's had
Speaker 2: some pr issues with these Trump photo ops, which I
Speaker 2: spoke to her about, and I think there's two sides
Speaker 2: to that. I think Gretchen Whitmer is interesting in terms
Speaker 2: of her political skill, but I don't know if it's
Speaker 2: the right sort of fit.
Speaker 3: Somebody like a John ossaf is boota j.
Speaker 2: Edge too much bane, capital consultant type to be the
Speaker 2: right guy, but I think he's extraordinarily intelligent. Gavin Newsome,
Speaker 2: I think, is someone whose name keeps coming up because
Speaker 2: he's so liked and disliked, which I think can be
Speaker 2: a real problem. Although I think he's very slick, and
Speaker 2: sometimes some ways he comes off as too slick and
Speaker 2: too rehearsed and prepared. So there's lots of people that
Speaker 2: have elements that I think are interesting, but I don't
Speaker 2: know that there's like a necessarily obvious person right now.
Speaker 1: If you could script what the Democratic leader comes out
Speaker 1: and says tomorrow, what do they say to the country.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's a little difficult to answer it
Speaker 2: because depending on what body they are is, whether it's
Speaker 2: a governor or someone who works in the House or Senate,
Speaker 2: or someone who's a former elected official, what an Obama
Speaker 2: can say tomorrow is very different than what like Hakeem
Speaker 2: Jeffries can say, or what Chuck Schumer can say.
Speaker 3: So I think it depends on who we're talking about
Speaker 3: to a degree.
Speaker 1: Make it somebody in office today, Okay, if.
Speaker 2: They're in office today, I think that the critique of
Speaker 2: what's being done needs to be made in a less
Speaker 2: technocratic and much more emotionally salient way as to the
Speaker 2: impact both of the authoritarianism and the economic policy. And
Speaker 2: at the same time, something tangible needs to be offered
Speaker 2: as to what Democrats can do right now. Now that's
Speaker 2: difficult because Democrats don't control anything right now, and so
Speaker 2: what they've been relegated to. You know, I've spoken to
Speaker 2: some of the attorneys general and others. We've got lawsuits.
Speaker 2: Lawsuits are great, Lawsuits are slow, They're not emotionally salient,
Speaker 2: they don't directly connect with voters as to what these lawsuits,
Speaker 2: if they succeed, mean for me. So I think there
Speaker 2: needs to be something more immediate and tangible.
Speaker 3: But one of the sort of.
Speaker 2: Benefits of the fact that we're already six months into
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five is that the midterms are basically now.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, we're a year and a few
Speaker 2: months from the midterms, and so sometimes that's the most
Speaker 2: effective thing to get people focused on something defined, because
Speaker 2: generally saying we're going to do everything we can to
Speaker 2: oppose what's going on, and the next thing they try
Speaker 2: for an indeterminate period of time, not emotionally salient, not tangible,
Speaker 2: not tractable. We now have a specific scenario that is
Speaker 2: going to go one way or the other.
Speaker 3: Here are the implications. Here's the date of this election.
Speaker 2: It's sort of trite and stayed, but it's at least
Speaker 2: a date in the calendar that can start to become
Speaker 2: a catalyst for figuring out what needs to happen over
Speaker 2: these next seventeen months or however long exactly it is.
Speaker 1: How do you process what's going on between him and
Speaker 1: Musk right now?
Speaker 2: Well, I think the implosion was inevitable, and I predicted
Speaker 2: it would last at most six months.
Speaker 3: And this was not like some incredible prediction. We might
Speaker 3: have talked about it. Yeah, I think we did.
Speaker 2: I didn't have a particularly insightful prediction. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think it was obvious that at the most it had
Speaker 2: six because when you put billionaire egocentric maniacs together.
Speaker 3: Rarely does it work out particularly well.
Speaker 2: But I don't think the implosion is because Elon Musk
Speaker 2: is strongly ideologically opposed to what's in the Big Beautiful Bill.
Speaker 2: I think it's that Elon Musk sees the fact that
Speaker 2: he was involved with the bill and this is now
Speaker 2: what it looks like. I think he sees it as
Speaker 2: a liability to his businesses and to his reputation, and
Speaker 2: that that's really what he cares about. I don't think
Speaker 2: that he really gives it damn as to whether the
Speaker 2: bill comports to his philosophical beliefs about how governments should run,
Speaker 2: and I just don't think it does. I think it's
Speaker 2: a problem. I think the bill is just a problem
Speaker 2: for him, and the association with Trump has become a
Speaker 2: problem for him.
Speaker 1: There's so many people that are worried about this moment,
Speaker 1: and I think, rightfully, so and they get depressed and
Speaker 1: they get into a doom loop, and right they evaluate
Speaker 1: the reality, which is that Trump holds the power and
Speaker 1: he is applying to Congress and we're seeing the courts pushback,
Speaker 1: but they don't seem to be able to see that
Speaker 1: the pushback of the American people is also real, right,
Speaker 1: and that Trump is having difficulty doing things, and people
Speaker 1: around Trump were getting really banged up, and nobody more
Speaker 1: so than Elon Musk, and so Elon Musk, drug addled,
Speaker 1: black guy, embittered is going back to Texas and he's
Speaker 1: being interviewed this week and he's like, no, no, no, right,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about space. You're never going to
Speaker 1: have an interview again, dude, where you're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about space ever? Fifty two? Right? This is this
Speaker 1: is gonna be living if you live to be one
Speaker 1: hundred and eleven. Right, this is this is it? Right
Speaker 1: what you did? And YouTube guys, right, Trump and him
Speaker 1: are totally inseverable from one another, no matter what, forever
Speaker 1: and ever like truly they are they then right they
Speaker 1: have they are a conjoined person reading a force of
Speaker 1: one and it's definitional form. I think he's wrecked his companies.
Speaker 1: I think he's wrecked his brand, I think he's wrecked
Speaker 1: his reputation. I don't think he'll be a NASA contractor
Speaker 1: a defense contractor any of these things and in the
Speaker 1: not too distant future. And I think that's why it's
Speaker 1: so important for Democrats to start outlining not necessarily a
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty seven, but a Project twenty twenty nine,
Speaker 1: which is the plan for democratic restoration and for real
Speaker 1: restraints putting on the executive branch, real accountability. And there
Speaker 1: has to be a plan in twenty twenty seven that
Speaker 1: they articulate for oversight. And I think one of the
Speaker 1: areas that most important is oversight on privacy. The accumulation
Speaker 1: of individual data by the government of the people, by
Speaker 1: the people for the people, in handing it to a
Speaker 1: contractor like Palenteer utterly unacceptable in a free society. For
Speaker 1: us to have a digital Stasi in the United States,
Speaker 1: completely unacceptable. I think that the breaking up of the
Speaker 1: Homeland Security Department is going to need to be a
Speaker 1: legislative priority. The reform of these state security bureaus, every
Speaker 1: age and that has appeared with a mask on at
Speaker 1: some point in the near future, I see being asked
Speaker 1: a question by their superiors, did you participate in human
Speaker 1: seizure raids wearing a mask? And if you answer that
Speaker 1: question is yes, then leave your badge and your gun
Speaker 1: and the desk on your way out the fucking door,
Speaker 1: right And so there's gonna be an era of accountability
Speaker 1: for this. And you know, after the wreckage is cleared,
Speaker 1: how government deliver services, we should imagine doing it better.
Speaker 1: Then it's that it's been done. But Trump's in to
Speaker 1: do a lot of damage, and the Democrats are going
Speaker 1: to have to, I think, step into the future with
Speaker 1: an agenda that says, at a at a very basic level,
Speaker 1: that we're the reform party in this country. We're the
Speaker 1: renewal party in this country. We're the freedom party in
Speaker 1: this country. And we hear the electorate loud and clear.
Speaker 1: And the Democrats are going to have to leave some
Speaker 1: baggage behind because they have a national approval level of
Speaker 1: twenty five percent uh and they have a lot of
Speaker 1: dysfunction in in a lot of places, like for example,
Speaker 1: New York City in the country right now in this moment.
Speaker 1: But when when you think of everything that's going on
Speaker 1: Are you optimistic, are you are you pessimistic? Or are
Speaker 1: you kind of in the in the middle. Right now, my.
Speaker 2: Nature is to naturally be optimistic. And this is not
Speaker 2: like some Stephen Pinker stuff. But there are large broad
Speaker 2: ways in which life has gotten better on average over
Speaker 2: the last however many years.
Speaker 3: Now, that's a separate.
Speaker 2: The trajectory on that can be pretty long, and so
Speaker 2: that's a very different question than am I optimistic about
Speaker 2: the next two years, the next four years, in the
Speaker 2: next eight And I do think that the answer there
Speaker 2: is it depends I do. I am still naturally optimistic
Speaker 2: about the longer term right if we're talking about decades
Speaker 2: or longer, But the next two, four and eight years
Speaker 2: are going to depend on some pretty nuts and bolt stuff.
Speaker 3: It's not broadly theoretical.
Speaker 2: It's as we were talking about, can the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: put together something more actionable and attractive than Trump's bad again?
Speaker 2: Let's get rid of him again. The pendulum. There is
Speaker 2: a sort of pendulum swing in American politics, and we
Speaker 2: see that based on what usually happens in the first
Speaker 2: midterm after a new party takes the White House. So
Speaker 2: we know, like the math of that, the algebra of that,
Speaker 2: but that's just enough for the pendulum to swing back
Speaker 2: and forth, and it keeps swinging a little further and
Speaker 2: further to the right every time that it swings. So
Speaker 2: that's a question for the next two for six and
Speaker 2: eight years, right like the next four major elections. The
Speaker 2: technology and privacy issue that you brought up, I'm going
Speaker 2: to incline AI in that because it's so relevant right now.
Speaker 2: That's another major question mark. It's socioculturally relevant, and I've
Speaker 2: been reading a ton of that. I have friends who
Speaker 2: are college professors who have said that their work right now,
Speaker 2: the dynamic in college right now is students using AI
Speaker 2: in ways they believe will be undetectable, with professors using
Speaker 2: AI to detect student use of AI. It's sort of
Speaker 2: like turtles all the way down, as Stephen Hawking used
Speaker 2: to say. So that's like socioculturally, I think the AI
Speaker 2: question is really important, but also from a government perspective
Speaker 2: and what it means for facial recognition and pre crime,
Speaker 2: as Philip K. Dick wrote about in Minority Report, et cetera.
Speaker 2: So I think including that in one of these kind
Speaker 2: of big two to eight year considerations is hugely important
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: The two other things that are that are going on.
Speaker 1: We have this month the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary
Speaker 1: of the US Army. It occurs on Flag Day, and
Speaker 1: this is also Trump's birthday, and we're going to have
Speaker 1: a Kim johng Un parade, probably the greatest desecration in
Speaker 1: the history of the armed forces. This is taking place
Speaker 1: over here. And then the other thing that we're seeing
Speaker 1: is the dismantling of America's science economy, the linkages between universities,
Speaker 1: research institutions. And one thing that is hard for me
Speaker 1: to wrap my head around, but I accept this, and
Speaker 1: I wonder if you think I'm overstating this at all,
Speaker 1: is that I was really blown away by the web
Speaker 1: telescope when it was launched and the technology. When you
Speaker 1: think about that's it, that's the that's the that's the
Speaker 1: most sophisticated piece of technology that that human beings have
Speaker 1: ever made in all of human civilization. We launched it
Speaker 1: into space and it can literally see back to the
Speaker 1: beginning of time. It's a it's an extraordinary scientific instrument
Speaker 1: of discovery. And this was never my thing. That's why
Speaker 1: I went into politics, right You know math and science,
Speaker 1: but having an appreciation for people that are curing diseases,
Speaker 1: that are fighting cancers, brilliant people that don't get famous
Speaker 1: doing this, most of them don't get rich doing this.
Speaker 1: But this upward trajectory of progress the clear notion. And
Speaker 1: I know this, right, I'm fifty four. I know people
Speaker 1: that have died, for example, ten fifteen years ago of melanoma,
Speaker 1: that would have lived today, right, or would have lived
Speaker 1: through some other type of type of cancer. And when
Speaker 1: you look at what Robert Kennedy's doing, and when you
Speaker 1: look at what his henchman calli Means is doing, Cally
Speaker 1: Means in the subject of a Vanity Fair profile where
Speaker 1: this is the architect of the Maha Report, and the
Speaker 1: Maha Report turns out to be written by artificial intelligence
Speaker 1: with all manner of fake reports and all manner of
Speaker 1: fake citations attached to it, and Calli Means in this
Speaker 1: Vanity Fair story is identified as almost having a completely
Speaker 1: fraud joint background. He does he was my assistant back
Speaker 1: in the day. So all the things that he says
Speaker 1: he did, he didn't do. He's a fabulous, like a
Speaker 1: George Santos type character. And yet though it's been reported
Speaker 1: in Vanity Fair and this person is architecting health policy
Speaker 1: and he's a fraud. And The New York Times reported
Speaker 1: as fact two weeks ago in a profile that this
Speaker 1: guy did this, this, and that, and he didn't and
Speaker 1: they haven't corrected it. He's deeply worrying that you realize
Speaker 1: that the forward progress of human civilization scientifically, at least
Speaker 1: in this country, has come to its forward apergy, right,
Speaker 1: and it's falling back right. The science that's being wrecked,
Speaker 1: the studies being ended, the dismantling of all of these
Speaker 1: things by people who have no qualification whatsoever to do them,
Speaker 1: think require a democratic party that can speak to them
Speaker 1: and talk about the necessity of scientific progress, kind of
Speaker 1: that long arc of human progress, and to talk about
Speaker 1: it in a political context is a choice for the
Speaker 1: society because because when you have the number of rural
Speaker 1: hospitals that are going to close and everything that's going
Speaker 1: to happen in the next in the next two years,
Speaker 1: it's going to get tough for a lot of people
Speaker 1: out there, including a lot of Trump voters, you know.
Speaker 2: And one of the real tragedies of this also is
Speaker 2: that there are some characters that have gotten pulled into
Speaker 2: this whole Maha orbit who actually do have interesting things
Speaker 2: to say. I mean, I think Marty mcarey, for example,
Speaker 2: FDA Commissioner.
Speaker 3: He wrote a book in which he brings.
Speaker 2: Up a lot of really interesting things about our healthcare system.
Speaker 2: One example, which was relevant to me as somebody who
Speaker 2: had my appendix out, is that in the US the
Speaker 2: er system loves appendectomies, and that the truth is eighty
Speaker 2: five percent of them you can treat with antibiotics and
Speaker 2: it doesn't come back. You're not at increased risk for
Speaker 2: ultimately ending up with the appendectomy anyway. That's like a
Speaker 2: real tangible issue. Another one, American healthcare system loves c sections,
Speaker 2: and even though other countries have figured out even after
Speaker 2: one C section, most women are still candidates for a
Speaker 2: natural birth in the US. Very quick to see section
Speaker 2: like these are really good, interesting conversations based in building
Speaker 2: science up over periods of time that Marty McCarey wrote about.
Speaker 3: And then now you know he's on.
Speaker 2: With Margaret Brennan three minutes apart saying we can't trust
Speaker 2: CDC data and believe me because I'm using CDC data
Speaker 2: right in the same interview three minutes apart, and Margaret
Speaker 2: Brennan's head is spinning. It's the debasement even of people
Speaker 2: who actually do have interesting things to say, And as
Speaker 2: you're pointing out, also the elevation while experts are criticized
Speaker 2: experts with real expertise, the elevation to expert status of
Speaker 2: people who have no business actually making policy.
Speaker 3: It's a disaster.
Speaker 1: What do you say about it? How do you engage
Speaker 1: that issue?
Speaker 3: I try to engage it with this approach.
Speaker 2: If a thirty, forty, fifty sixty year old wants to
Speaker 2: dig in on a TikTok or YouTube stream with me
Speaker 2: about any one of these issues, I'll argue with them
Speaker 2: in the sense that I'll plead my case. I'll try
Speaker 2: to explain to them why my view is different, why
Speaker 2: I believe their view isn't informed by science. That's like
Speaker 2: the retail strategy. Though, how many people can I really
Speaker 2: argue with?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: I tie it back more to a culture that is
Speaker 2: lacking a sort of reverence for critical thinking and epistemology
Speaker 2: and debate and discussing why do we believe the things
Speaker 2: we believe? And so there's a cultural aspect, but it's
Speaker 2: inextricably intertwined with education policy, where we really should be
Speaker 2: teaching basic media literacy and critical thinking in every school,
Speaker 2: probably starting at age eight. You could make a case
Speaker 2: for six. Some people say not to middle school, but
Speaker 2: certainly in every school. And it's much harder to get
Speaker 2: people to think in this way once they've not been
Speaker 2: thinking this way for thirty forty fifty years. And so
Speaker 2: that's why I think it really is an educational issue.
Speaker 3: And I'll say one other thing about it.
Speaker 2: Sometimes when I say this, I'll hear from teachers or
Speaker 2: school administrators who say, David, you really shouldn't be blaming us,
Speaker 2: like we know what needs to happen. And I'm not
Speaker 2: blaming them because to a great degree they are construyi
Speaker 2: by the system that elected officials and sometimes on elected
Speaker 2: officials have put together.
Speaker 3: So this is not a criticism of teachers. This is
Speaker 3: a criticism of a system.
Speaker 2: That has stripped some of these building blocks of knowledge
Speaker 2: from public education.
Speaker 1: Overwhelmingly. To me, the most impressive Democrat in the country
Speaker 1: when I when i'm when I kind of look at
Speaker 1: them is Jake Auchincloss, who is the thirty eight is
Speaker 1: thirty nine forty year old Democratic congressman from from Massachusetts, and.
Speaker 3: I've had I've had him on and I find him
Speaker 3: very impressive.
Speaker 1: He's very impressive, and he knows, he knows what he
Speaker 1: wants to do and where he wants the lead. I
Speaker 1: have no idea if he wants to run for president,
Speaker 1: but you know, he's somebody that should be in the
Speaker 1: category of thinking about it and saying a lot of
Speaker 1: interesting things. That's right of a of a new generation
Speaker 1: that has some vision on some of these issues that
Speaker 1: the country's going to have to reckon with over the
Speaker 1: next over the next decade, over the next twenty, over
Speaker 1: the next twenty years. But I look at this through
Speaker 1: a bunch of different lenses, you know, and I wrestle with,
Speaker 1: you know, being pessimistic at times, you know, when I
Speaker 1: when I think about this, But I have a faith
Speaker 1: that the good guys win, and the good guys doesn't
Speaker 1: mean Chuck Schumer right. It means that the forces that
Speaker 1: support American liberty right, that we that we as a
Speaker 1: country make it through this era. But but but how
Speaker 1: does it end? Right? How does this? How does this
Speaker 1: how does this fever break? How do you see it expiring?
Speaker 1: The decompression going on where people take a step back
Speaker 1: in the country from the madness.
Speaker 2: So I'll give you my ninety percent vision, and then
Speaker 2: I'll give you my ten percent vision, less likely but
Speaker 2: probably still just as effective. So my ninety percent vision
Speaker 2: is that much the way that empires often fall or
Speaker 2: technology advances. When you're in the middle of the change,
Speaker 2: you often don't realize that the change is taking place.
Speaker 2: I think that there's examples of this for the bad.
Speaker 2: If we think back to Trump, as he likes to say,
Speaker 2: coming down the Golden escalator in twenty twenty five, It's
Speaker 2: been almost a decade, and so much has happened in
Speaker 2: this decade, and also typically from week to week, it
Speaker 2: doesn't feel like that much change, although the last two
Speaker 2: months it does because we're seeing unprecedented thing after unprecedented thing.
Speaker 2: But the idea here is I think the fever is
Speaker 2: likely to break relatively slowly, and it will have a
Speaker 2: lot of components. At some point, the Republican Party will
Speaker 2: move on from Trump. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll move
Speaker 2: on from trump Ism, and that sort of will depend
Speaker 2: on sort of what level of satisfaction the Republican Party
Speaker 2: has with Trump whenever his term ends. Either because it's
Speaker 2: been four years, or because he passes away, or whatever
Speaker 2: comes to be. So I think at some point the
Speaker 2: party will move on from Trump. They might stick with
Speaker 2: a MAGA type candidate or maybe not, but Trump himself
Speaker 2: will be gone. I think that as we see, hopefully
Speaker 2: the recognition from voters of how their vote relates to
Speaker 2: the things that happen in their communities, either through the
Speaker 2: federal government directly or governorships, etc. I think that slowly, hopefully,
Speaker 2: as the country has seen for the last hundred years,
Speaker 2: it will continue moving in what someone with my political
Speaker 2: beliefs believes is the right direction.
Speaker 3: Now, of course, there are people if.
Speaker 2: Your political views are different, you may disagree with that.
Speaker 2: If we look back one hundred years on every serious question,
Speaker 2: should we tax the very rich to ensure that the
Speaker 2: poor don't fall below a certain standard of living?
Speaker 3: Should abortion be legal?
Speaker 2: In most cases we've seen not extreme left, but a
Speaker 2: sort of move steadily to the left. So I think
Speaker 2: as that continues, and then here's the maybe part of it.
Speaker 2: If we can do something about how our politics is
Speaker 2: funded and how elections are run, which is a big ask,
Speaker 2: and we can go into detail about it or not
Speaker 2: hopefully elected officials will more closely reflect the political beliefs
Speaker 2: of the country because one of the things that we
Speaker 2: see time and time again due to a combination of
Speaker 2: how you raise money and Jerry maandering, if you place
Speaker 2: the American electorate on the political spectrum, the elected officials
Speaker 2: are to the right. And so if we can get
Speaker 2: elected officials more aligned with where people are through the
Speaker 2: reforms that I talk about, I think it will slowly
Speaker 2: break the fever.
Speaker 3: Now that's my ninety percent explanation.
Speaker 2: My ten percent is if Trump drops dead in like
Speaker 2: nine months, I think there's a chance that they go,
Speaker 2: that was really crazy, let's do something different here.
Speaker 3: And then jd.
Speaker 2: Vance is pushed to be like not really Trumpian that
Speaker 2: I don't believe that's the most likely outcome, but it
Speaker 2: is sort of like in the back of my mind
Speaker 2: as a possibility.
Speaker 1: I think that I think that one of the things
Speaker 1: that is going to have to happen is for there
Speaker 1: to be a lot of economic pain. Unfortunately that is
Speaker 1: both coming and is going to be help in order
Speaker 1: to in order to break the madness. But nobody who's
Speaker 1: gotten in business with Trump has ever come out of
Speaker 1: the deal happy and you know, So that's that's one
Speaker 1: aspect of it.
Speaker 2: But Steve, just on that one question, do you think
Speaker 2: the voters would blame the right people for that? And
Speaker 2: the reason I asked that is when Obama did Obamacare
Speaker 2: and offered these medicaid expansions to the states and some
Speaker 2: Republican governors didn't take the expansion, voters in those states
Speaker 2: often believed it's Obama's fault even though it was their
Speaker 2: governor's fault. So my only question on that is will
Speaker 2: people blame the right parties for that economic pain?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Right there's been such a disenfranchisement of
Speaker 1: so many places, so many states by the National Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, I don't think
Speaker 1: people will countenance the corruption and the craziness. Though I
Speaker 1: think that there's a lot of rope left to be
Speaker 1: uh let out on the tolerance piece, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't think people are consuming news like we are. I
Speaker 1: think that there's a lot of things that they're seeing
Speaker 1: that they don't like. The you know, polling reflects that.
Speaker 1: But you know, in the in the end, I think
Speaker 1: that uh, this has to play out now in a
Speaker 1: way that gets to a pretty unhappy result for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. You know, I think I think Trump
Speaker 1: is Trump is a world class demagogue. None of this
Speaker 1: is on the none of this is on the level.
Speaker 1: And he's going to break the economy and you will
Speaker 1: just have to see how people people react to it.
Speaker 1: But I but I think that Democrats have to understand
Speaker 1: that they have a lot of work to do. That's
Speaker 1: for sure, a lot of they have a lot of
Speaker 1: work to do, and that and that work is about
Speaker 1: kind of facing the reforms that are necessary. Right, So
Speaker 1: if you're if you're running against the corrupt party, you
Speaker 1: got to be the anti corruption party. You can't be
Speaker 1: the party that holds the position it's only corruption if
Speaker 1: Trump does it right without a doubt, I mean, and
Speaker 1: that's the that's the that's the key, that's the key
Speaker 1: to getting out of this. Have to be better.
Speaker 2: I do think that if Democrats can at least just
Speaker 2: take the House in November of twenty six, that would
Speaker 2: be a pretty solid potential bulwark for the last two
Speaker 2: years of Trump's presidency, and it could create enough of
Speaker 2: a springboard towards figuring some things out, as you're pointing out,
Speaker 2: and momentum into twenty twenty eight, but I don't think
Speaker 2: that's a guarantee by any means.
Speaker 1: You know. I listen, I think Democrats will take the House,
Speaker 1: and I think that they will that they will potentially
Speaker 1: take the Senate, and I don't think there's necessarily going
Speaker 1: to be a safe seat in the country. But I
Speaker 1: think that a lot of the electoral energy is going
Speaker 1: to be against the Democratic leadership and the Democratic status quo.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: I think that the DSCC is recruiting candidates to go
Speaker 1: out and to support Chuck Schumer to be leader for
Speaker 1: two more years. And I think the candidates that are
Speaker 1: going to matter in this election cycle are the ones
Speaker 1: that have the guts and the integrity Democratic side to say, listen,
Speaker 1: he's not a dishonorable guy, but he's not the right
Speaker 1: leader for this moment. He's been weak and inteffectual, and
Speaker 1: he appeased Trump for the first months of the term.
Speaker 1: And that's a reason we have all these crazy cabinet secretaries.
Speaker 1: And we would have been much better off if we fought.
Speaker 1: Schumer made a catastrophic decision and earlier in the deal.
Speaker 1: And no right my state, whether it's in Texas, whether
Speaker 1: it's a Volcana wherever the state is that know, the
Speaker 1: people there, my Democrats in our state, we want to
Speaker 1: change and and I think that driving that change energy
Speaker 1: with a real agenda. You know, for example, all of
Speaker 1: these oligarchs, and they are of the biggest tech companies
Speaker 1: in the world, have concentrated too much power and wealth. Right,
Speaker 1: There's been a concentration of power and wealth and a
Speaker 1: cruel that happens, you know every you know generational cycle
Speaker 1: I suppose, or several generational in America, maybe every eighty
Speaker 1: years or so in the history of the country. It's
Speaker 1: got to be broken up. And it's occurred before in
Speaker 1: the same philosophies that broke it up have to have
Speaker 1: to confront this accumulation of power again. And that's what
Speaker 1: Democrats have to be for. Can't be a party of platitudes.
Speaker 1: It's got to be a party of policy and fierceness
Speaker 1: in defending Americanism and so like the allergy of the
Speaker 1: American flag and raising it high and saying what we
Speaker 1: share in common, right is not racial identities. It's an
Speaker 1: American identity that's open to all of us. And I
Speaker 1: think Democrats have to get into that space as quickly
Speaker 1: as they as they can in order to be successful
Speaker 1: again as a national party.
Speaker 2: I think that's right, and I also I always caveat
Speaker 2: this by saying I don't bring this up because I
Speaker 2: think it's the most serious thing, and I think sometimes
Speaker 2: it's a problem when we pretend it is. But I
Speaker 2: think that the Democratic Party also needs to figure out
Speaker 2: how to not be republican light which has not worked,
Speaker 2: but also not to really appear to be placating the
Speaker 2: fringe left. And I call it fringe rather than extreme,
Speaker 2: because I think it is really a minority. It's a
Speaker 2: very loud minority if you spend time, especially on social
Speaker 2: media platforms. And one of the problems within the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party it's not really it's both a feature and a
Speaker 2: bug in the sense that people are doing it because
Speaker 2: they're engaged, but also it can be an electoral problem.
Speaker 2: Is the purity testing of there's one idea that's too center.
Speaker 2: I'm staying Homer voting third party, there's one idea that's
Speaker 2: too left. I'm staying Homer voting third party the Maga Party.
Speaker 2: Once they win, it's a mess. But to win elections
Speaker 2: you have a hesitation about a Democrat, come on in,
Speaker 2: you're welcomed with open arms. And if you've got a
Speaker 2: big Twitter following, you're invited to mar A Lago. And
Speaker 2: that instinct I think would be really good to develop.
Speaker 1: On the left, there's you know when you talk about
Speaker 1: the fringe left, and it's exactly that's exactly it. In
Speaker 1: the reality of it is there's no chance the fringe
Speaker 1: left could ever take political power in America, but they're
Speaker 1: loud enough to drive demand for an extreme right. And
Speaker 1: so America was never susceptible to a dictatorship of the left.
Speaker 1: It's always been susceptible to a dictatorship of the right.
Speaker 1: And that's why that old apocryphal quote about if fascism
Speaker 1: comes to America, it'll be wrapped in the flag and
Speaker 1: carrying the cross, and it's an important element to understand.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I would make the argument that,
Speaker 1: for example, the new mayor of San Francisco is doing
Speaker 1: a terrific job, and the last mayor and the last
Speaker 1: district attorney did a lot to help Donald Trump. And
Speaker 1: you had pro crime district attorneys in some of the
Speaker 1: biggest cities in the in the country who were off
Speaker 1: the wall, and people don't want it. The open air
Speaker 1: drug markets, the sense of disorder, and so they become
Speaker 1: easily picked off by demagogic candidate like Trump. And you know,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: cohort of Democrats that are terrific at giving lectures telling
Speaker 1: people what they can think about, what they could say,
Speaker 1: what words they can use, what phrases can be used.
Speaker 1: And it may it may have an appeal to somebody
Speaker 1: out there, but there's a lot of people it just
Speaker 1: triggers their fuck you response. And the person who's capitalized
Speaker 1: on that has been Trump, And so you know, to me,
Speaker 1: it's depressingly you read stories about Democrats just commissioned a
Speaker 1: twenty million dollar study to learn how to talk to men, right,
Speaker 1: who are fifty percent of the human population, And so
Speaker 1: you just hope the party gets gets in touch and
Speaker 1: you know, can find its way to normalcy, right because
Speaker 1: there's scores of tens of millions of normal people in
Speaker 1: this country right who can look at issues authentically and
Speaker 1: honestly and clearly that range a spectrum from your moderate
Speaker 1: Democrat to your progressive Democrat that can relate to real life,
Speaker 1: real people, real situations, and look in the praise this
Speaker 1: moment in time, and I think address it with the
Speaker 1: utmost seriousness, and there's lots of examples out there, but
Speaker 1: it just hasn't coagulated into a coherence for the party
Speaker 1: as a whole, as a unit, as a leadership. You know,
Speaker 1: for instance, I have no idea why there's not a
Speaker 1: daily news conference where people go out and respond across
Speaker 1: the broad spectrum that use some humor to tell some jokes,
Speaker 1: but participate in the theater that is necessary to participate in,
Speaker 1: because at the core, we're fighting an information war, and
Speaker 1: that's what is a huge deficit I think and comprehension
Speaker 1: by a lot of the Democrats facing off against Trump
Speaker 1: is an appreciation for the nature of the fight they're in,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people are frustrated about it. I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people in my audience.
Speaker 2: Are, yeah, I know, I was same with mine, and
Speaker 2: you know, I was sort of chuckling to myself sadly
Speaker 2: when I started seeing these instances of people like Schumer
Speaker 2: and others introducing swear words in a completely very obviously
Speaker 2: calculated and contrived way, as if that might be a
Speaker 2: communication tactic to use, you know, But on the on
Speaker 2: the speaking too, men thing. I don't know how many
Speaker 2: people in your audience are familiar with Scott Galloway, but
Speaker 2: I think the way that he's been communicating is nothing's perfect,
Speaker 2: nothing's an exact model, but I think it serves a
Speaker 2: lot to just point to. Here is how someone who
Speaker 2: unquestionably fits into the MAGA definition of what it means
Speaker 2: to be alpha right, the wealth and the confidence. And
Speaker 2: I think he's tall, you know, like checking out the boxes.
Speaker 2: But he's articulating in a way that is both respectful
Speaker 2: but emotionally salient ideas of the center left. I guess
Speaker 2: we would call it, and doing so extraordinarily effectively with
Speaker 2: a disproportionately male audience, I think that that should be
Speaker 2: looked at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt. Well let me we're at our hour.
Speaker 1: We've had a good crowd here, so let me give
Speaker 1: it over to you to wrap it up, to observe
Speaker 1: any last observations that you have for the night about
Speaker 1: what's happening in the country, and to gain real pleasure
Speaker 1: to get a chance to spend an hour with you.
Speaker 3: Always the always a pleasure, you know.
Speaker 2: One just little note of what I've been hearing from
Speaker 2: my audience over the last week the whole. If X wins,
Speaker 2: I'm going to move to Canada that we started hearing
Speaker 2: back in the George W. Bush days, which doesn't actually
Speaker 2: happen that often for a number of reasons, including that
Speaker 2: it's not that easy for Americans to move to Canada necessarily.
Speaker 2: I've heard from hundreds of my viewers who during I'm
Speaker 2: not going to say it's not over the last six months,
Speaker 2: but since Trump won the first time, have moved out
Speaker 2: of the United States, and they all it's self selection biased.
Speaker 2: The ones that aren't happy don't write to me, but
Speaker 2: they all articulate the ways in which they just feel better,
Speaker 2: are more positive, and feel more stable in terms of
Speaker 2: the basic building blocks of life, even if their income
Speaker 2: isn't necessarily as high on paper having moved to fill
Speaker 2: in the blanks Latin America, You're a Asia. Heard from
Speaker 2: a couple people in Africa, and it's been interesting just
Speaker 2: to hear those stories from people about people who aren't
Speaker 2: they're not threatening, they've done it, and sort of hearing
Speaker 2: what that's been like.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable time. David Pacman, thank you very much for yours
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4: I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning. I invite you
Speaker 4: to join this community, where I promise to be honest,
Speaker 4: blunt and direct about what is happening in this country.
Speaker 4: America is in crisis. Follow and subscribe to this channel
Speaker 4: and on substack.
Speaker 1: Thank you.