TRIGGERnometry - David Pakman - A Good Faith Debate with a Progressive

00:00:00.000 If you have a trans woman that is biologically male and has a penis, but is slight in size and has a very feminine appearance, by all statistical likelihood, they are far less likely to assault someone in a women's prison than they are to be assaulted in a men's prison.

00:00:20.900 And so that's a particular case where I would say it makes sense for them to be in a women's prison. Yes.

00:00:30.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:36.660 I'm Constantine Kishin.

00:00:37.880 And this is the show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:43.420 Our brilliant guest today is the progressive commentator and the host of the David Pakman Show right here on YouTube.

00:00:49.760 David Pakman, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:51.400 Thank you for having me.

00:00:53.000 It's so great to have you on the show. Listen, we'll get right into it.

00:00:55.980 And I'll say this for our audience, what I've already said to you off camera, which is we're really grateful to you for coming on the show.

00:01:02.400 We want to have a constructive conversation with you.

00:01:04.940 And I really acknowledge you for coming on our show because I think a lot of people who are progressive might think that, you know, Francis and I are these two right wing nut jobs, which we're definitely not.

00:01:14.320 And we're really keen actually to hear some of your thoughts and why you think what you think.

00:01:18.620 So very much with that in mind, if did I describe you correctly as a progressive commentator, is that a fair, fair way to describe you?

00:01:26.100 That's how I describe myself as a sort of standard progressive in the northern European mold.

00:01:33.500 There are people who say I am a communist socialist and I'm definitely not.

00:01:38.240 There are people who say I'm a centrist establishment shill, which I'm definitely not.

00:01:43.200 I'm just uncontroversially sort of like a northern European social democrat.

00:01:47.660 Right. So what does that mean exactly? What do you want?

00:01:52.040 So this is a form of capitalism, right?

00:01:54.920 So strictly speaking, if we if we start with a sort of just black, white, is my view a view that it falls under capitalism?

00:02:02.720 The answer is yes. And social democracy is a well-regulated form of capitalism where we say there's lots of good things about capitalism and about markets directing resources in many areas.

00:02:16.020 But there are some of what we would call special cases.

00:02:19.140 And these might, depending on who you ask, include health care.

00:02:22.680 They might include education and other what we call public goods.

00:02:25.820 And in those cases, we don't want to let the free market or a supposedly free market, as is often the case, direct resources.

00:02:36.200 And in order to fund those public goods, we would use taxes.

00:02:40.420 You're still allowed to make a ton of money.

00:02:42.660 You can still become very wealthy, but we would use some of the top wealth to say, let's fund these special areas that we would say as our exceptions to free market capitalism.

00:02:57.640 Things like health care, for example, which is pretty much what we do here in Britain.

00:03:01.180 I find that all entirely uncontroversial.

00:03:03.540 I think where some of the controversies might start to come in is the cultural side.

00:03:08.460 What does it mean to be culturally progressive?

00:03:10.700 Well, I think one of the issues is that these are not necessarily major issues for folks like me.

00:03:19.660 And so one of the things I try to do is not delve too deeply into opining about positions where defending positions which are not mine.

00:03:33.360 So I guess what I want to say is there's a lot of what I believe are fabricated culture wars.

00:03:39.580 I can speak to the United States and because that's where my knowledge is.

00:03:42.760 In the United States, there have been in the absence of policy for what I call the American right wing, which includes the Republican Party, but it also includes right wing people who don't really care about the Republican Party.

00:03:55.960 Many Trumpists were never voters before Trump, so it doesn't have to be Republicans.

00:04:00.920 But the American right wing has given up on policy.

00:04:04.400 They don't really talk about taxes anymore.

00:04:06.800 They don't really talk about immigration reform.

00:04:08.800 They take a cultural approach, um, and part of that is framing the left as being obsessed with identity politics and all these different things.

00:04:19.660 These things exist on the left.

00:04:21.240 They're not really my cup of tea.

00:04:22.880 And so I don't have a huge interest in defending some of those aspects.

00:04:27.760 For me, I have cultural views, uh, but they, they're not the primary, um, sort of, uh, element of my politics.

00:04:35.960 Do you mind if I ask you what they are though?

00:04:38.800 Sure.

00:04:39.600 I mean, uh, give me a question about a particular issue and I'll give you my opinion.

00:04:43.460 Okay.

00:04:43.780 I, I've been talking for too long.

00:04:45.080 I'll let Francis ask some questions and then we'll come back to the culture side of things.

00:04:48.040 Okay.

00:04:48.620 So let's look at, so we're looking at economics.

00:04:53.060 Let's, let's look, let's really delve into, into the economics of it.

00:04:56.360 So what would you say when it comes to a fair amount to tax an individual?

00:05:02.660 What is your opinion on that?

00:05:04.460 An individual of what income?

00:05:06.080 And so, oh, that, that's a good question.

00:05:09.080 So for instance, in the UK, I think over 50, if you earn over 50,000 a year sterling, you

00:05:15.400 get taxed 40%, which I think is too high personally.

00:05:20.160 And I think if you're taxed over a hundred K, then you get 50%, which is a very high taxation

00:05:26.180 rate.

00:05:27.040 And if the effect of tax rates are probably even higher.

00:05:29.160 Yeah.

00:05:29.300 So I can speak.

00:05:31.340 So in the United States, uh, there's the federal taxes and then some states have a state income

00:05:37.260 tax.

00:05:37.900 Some don't.

00:05:38.620 Um, my view, first of all, before we even talk about changing the tax rates is that tax

00:05:46.520 money is dramatically misallocated in the U S.

00:05:49.820 So I think the U S spends way too much on a military and defense.

00:05:54.700 There are guaranteed contracts given where we just replace weapon unused weapons.

00:06:01.100 They're sort of given like an expiration date.

00:06:03.380 And then the government just keeps buying and buying, uh, the tentacles of a military

00:06:08.800 bases around the world to me is totally overblown for the safety and security of the United

00:06:14.300 States.

00:06:14.640 So before even talking about changing the current tax rates, I think that money that's

00:06:20.460 already coming in should be used in a very different way.

00:06:23.700 And maybe you wouldn't even need to change tax rates at all.

00:06:27.420 Now, if changes were to be made to tax rates, um, I would like to see some higher brackets

00:06:35.340 created right now.

00:06:36.840 The top tax bracket in the U S starts, I actually don't have the numbers in front of me, but it's

00:06:41.400 around half a million dollars a year in income.

00:06:44.680 To me, the difference between someone making $500,000 a year, $5 million a year and a billion

00:06:52.720 dollars a year is very different.

00:06:55.080 And so I think we need more tax rates and you know, maybe it would be at $2 million a year

00:07:02.020 right now, the top tax rates, 37% just for context.

00:07:05.180 So you guys know maybe, uh, at 2 million bucks a year, you go to 39% and maybe at 20 million

00:07:13.320 bucks a year, you go to 42%.

00:07:15.800 I mean, you know, I'm not in the mindset of, we need a 90% top tax rate or anything like

00:07:20.140 that.

00:07:20.320 I just think we need some higher brackets because what you have in the U S is that the very,

00:07:25.760 very richest, not the 1%, not the 0.5%, but like the 0.1% pay a lower effective tax rate

00:07:33.740 than people who earned less.

00:07:35.340 That doesn't seem right.

00:07:36.980 But, um, again, you know, but there might be the belief that people like me are talking

00:07:41.020 about 60, 70% tax rates.

00:07:43.080 I'm not talking about that.

00:07:44.360 Okay.

00:07:45.360 And that's a great answer because sometimes I think people on the right mischaracterize

00:07:50.160 the left as, and you know, there'll be people on the left who are like this, who are just

00:07:54.120 like all rich people are evil.

00:07:56.500 They need to have all their wealth taken away from them.

00:07:59.960 And obviously that's a mischaracterization.

00:08:02.460 Where do you stand on, uh, the Democrats and people and that political party?

00:08:08.500 Would you say that you're pro Democrats or are you one of those people on the left?

00:08:12.140 Like we we've had a lot of them on, like the Aaron Martes, the Jimmy Dawes, who are very,

00:08:16.060 very distrustful of the Democrats.

00:08:19.060 And actually in many cases, see them as worse than the Republicans.

00:08:22.820 So if it's with respect, I will give my views in the absence of a comparison to the individuals

00:08:29.660 you just listed.

00:08:30.660 Is that fair?

00:08:31.660 Okay.

00:08:32.660 I have never been a registered Democrat.

00:08:34.500 I don't really care about political parties beyond, I will be glad to vote for Democrats

00:08:42.300 if they're the better option in a particular election.

00:08:45.520 So in 2020, the options were Trump and Biden.

00:08:49.240 Biden was the better option and he happened to be a Democrat and I voted for him.

00:08:54.040 But my view about political parties is they are essentially like a corporation that wants

00:08:59.260 to justify its own existence.

00:09:01.760 Part of the way that they justify their own existence is in opposition or in contrast to

00:09:06.760 the other party.

00:09:07.760 Certainly, I, I, the politics of the Democratic Party are much closer to mine than the Republican

00:09:13.320 Party.

00:09:14.320 But I don't really care about the Democratic Party as an institution.

00:09:17.820 And what do you make of populism and the rise of populism?

00:09:21.860 Do you see that as a problem, which I do, and this is, I mean, I don't know where I would

00:09:26.540 identify myself now, but this is, this is my opinion.

00:09:30.180 I think a lot of populism was created by the left, by the more progressive elements of left

00:09:36.260 wing politics and politicians, essentially turning their back on working class people and

00:09:41.520 not representing them, certainly in my own country in the UK with the Labour Party.

00:09:46.680 So I completely disagree with that analysis as applied to the United States.

00:09:51.400 But the problem I have with populism is that populism fundamentally is rhetoric more than

00:09:59.340 it is policy.

00:10:00.780 And so when I talk about social democracy without explaining policy, there's a pretty well established

00:10:09.440 set of policies that go along with that, some of which I might agree with and some of which

00:10:13.820 I might disagree with and what works in Sweden may not work in Denmark or might work in the

00:10:18.460 United States or it might not.

00:10:20.460 The pernicious part for me about populism is that it's fundamentally a rhetoric and rhetoric,

00:10:26.600 particularly in a country with such educational problems as the United States, such lack of

00:10:31.340 media literacy and critical thinking can be used by bad actors to convince people to support

00:10:37.540 really bad candidates. Trump used a version of populist rhetoric. He was trying to screwing

00:10:44.100 us the working class. I'm going to fix it, etc. The problem with populist rhetoric absent of really

00:10:52.020 clear vision of policy is that you put in someone into power based on their rhetoric and all of a sudden

00:10:58.980 the solutions they propose are wacky. Like, for example, Tucker Carlson is a propagandist on Fox

00:11:05.460 News who uses populist rhetoric. But all of a sudden when you say, well, what's a solution?

00:11:14.660 Well, you've got to prevent Antifa from taking your house or brown people from Mexico are taking your

00:11:21.700 job and we've got to stop that. So a lot of the same rhetoric we hear from the left and right that sounds

00:11:27.460 populist is used in different ways. And so for me, I take more of a policy oriented approach of social

00:11:33.700 democracy and I'm not big on populist rhetoric myself. Okay. Well, before I come to the cultural

00:11:41.380 stuff and maybe the immigration point you make as well, you mentioned that you thought that Joe Biden

00:11:46.580 was the better option at the last election. Yeah. What have you liked about the Biden administration?

00:11:53.140 And are you still of the view that that was the right choice in terms of voting for Biden?

00:11:56.980 The two, from the two options, it was the right choice. I mean, to, to speak candidly with you,

00:12:02.580 gentlemen, Donald Trump was a humiliating embarrassment. I mean, just the, the promises

00:12:08.900 he made, none of them were kept. You know, he was going to build a wall. He didn't build it. He was

00:12:14.180 going to solve the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Jared actually was going to solve it. His son-in-law,

00:12:20.100 as you know, it hasn't been solved. He was, I mean, there was a look,

00:12:23.380 there was a lot of progress on that. Would you concede that?

00:12:26.980 I don't, well, what progress was there?

00:12:29.460 Well, the Israeli foreign minister turning up in Saudi Arabia. I mean,

00:12:32.580 all of that stuff and better relations between the countries in the region. Did you not feel

00:12:36.660 that that was some progress? What changed materially though?

00:12:42.500 Look, maybe let's not spend too much time on it.

00:12:46.580 Let me put it this way. Did anything change materially?

00:12:49.620 I think it's quite a difficult situation to change materially in the course of a four year

00:12:53.780 presidency, but. So it didn't, that's fair. Okay. We agree. It didn't change materially. They did do

00:12:57.940 some optics things. You know, there was a flight like from Tel Aviv to UAE, but I think we're on the

00:13:03.060 same page. We can't, I, neither one of us can identify anything that changed materially. Is that

00:13:07.620 fair? Um, I, I w what I would say is I think some progress was made in a very difficult situation.

00:13:16.180 I don't claim that the situation became dramatically different and we are now

00:13:21.780 like way, way towards a solution. And also I think I'd also concede that it's not an issue I know

00:13:26.740 enough about to have a proper discussion with you as well. That's fair. Let's let's, well,

00:13:30.740 we can table it on that, on that basis. Um, no, listen, I mean, as far as Joe Biden,

00:13:35.940 Joe Biden's not exciting to me, you know, I'm a, I'm a progressive social Democrat. So Joe Biden's not

00:13:40.500 exciting. He did some good things. So he did a third COVID stimulus at a time that I think it was

00:13:46.420 necessary, extended a pause on student loans, got a pretty good infrastructure bill passed,

00:13:52.900 got us out of Afghanistan, which I think was a great thing. I think that that was a quagmire,

00:13:58.660 but be, oh yeah. Oh my God. I mean, we were there 21 years.

00:14:02.020 I agree with you with a quagmire point, but did you feel that the way that was done went well?

00:14:08.020 I think it went as well as it would have gone no matter who did it.

00:14:11.300 Wow. Interesting. I mean, when asked, Trump was asked, what would you have done differently?

00:14:18.660 And he literally couldn't articulate a single difference. So at least Trump was going to do it.

00:14:24.580 And he, another failed promise, Biden did it. And when Trump was given the opportunity to articulate

00:14:30.660 how he would have handled it differently, he couldn't name a single difference. So let me,

00:14:35.700 in the most factual way possible, I've not heard Trump explain what would have gone differently.

00:14:43.220 And therefore I have no basis on which to assume it would have. Is that fair?

00:14:48.100 I suppose it is. The question for me is, I, I, I mean, I struggled to imagine it going any worse. So

00:14:57.620 I kind of feel like there is a possibility that the preparations could have gone better. Is that,

00:15:02.260 do you think that's unfair? I have a struggle to imagine it could have gone better. So like,

00:15:07.620 I think where I land is it went the way I expected, you know, and, and it was correct ultimately to get

00:15:13.140 out. Okay. Please carry on. I interrupted you. Um, by talking about whether you're happy with the

00:15:19.620 Biden president. Yeah. I mean, it's like, listen, um, he's doing exactly what I expected. You know,

00:15:25.140 I didn't expect him to do anything on cannabis decriminalization and he's not, and I didn't

00:15:31.940 expect any, at least in the first two years immigration reform and we're not getting it.

00:15:37.060 So, you know, my, my, I try not to become jaded or cynical, but basically I I've seen from Biden

00:15:42.980 exactly what I expected. Okay. You mentioned Trump being a humiliation and look, uh, uh, you know,

00:15:49.700 neither Francis or I were pro Trump. Um, I thought, I thought he raised some important issues,

00:15:55.860 by the way, uh, you know, in immigration, not, not, not being least of those, we can have a

00:16:00.660 conversation about that maybe later on. But, um, if, if Trump was a humiliation, perhaps in the way

00:16:06.920 that he talked and you, you mentioned some of the promises that he didn't deliver on the optics of the

00:16:12.820 Biden president presidency, do they, do they not make you cringe somewhat when he's shaking hands in

00:16:18.300 midair with people who aren't there and forgetting things and all of that? Beautiful. So are you guys

00:16:23.920 open to a good faith conversation about that? Absolutely. Okay. Okay. So let's go piece by

00:16:29.700 piece. Um, does Joe Biden sometimes lose his train of thought? Absolutely. Absolutely. There's,

00:16:35.740 there's no question about it. And he's close to 80 years old. If you compare Joe Biden today to Joe

00:16:41.140 Biden, when he ran circles around Paul Ryan in 2012, it's not the same guy. I have no problem saying

00:16:47.600 that that's absolutely the case. No argument whatsoever. The shaking hands with midair video

00:16:53.740 was a total joke. And I'll tell you the story about it. The weekend that that story, you know,

00:16:59.200 the, the shaking hands with midair, but I looked at the clip on my phone and it was a very short clip

00:17:04.580 where you just see Biden stopped speaking. He turns to the side and he goes like this. I said,

00:17:09.480 oh my goodness, this is, it is, this is terrible. Biden, he seems worse than Trump. When Trump came off

00:17:15.740 of his plane and his car was right in front of him and Trump wandered off and was brought back

00:17:21.040 by the arm by a secret service agent. And they said, here's your car. That lit that's worse than

00:17:25.660 when Trump had Rudy Giuliani sitting right across the table and said, where, where's Rudy?

00:17:31.220 And maybe I'll ask Rudy to say a few words. Well, thanks. Thank you very, very much,

00:17:36.260 Mr. President. First of all, congratulations on what is in fact a historic start of an administration.

00:17:42.240 I've never seen so much done in so short a period of time.

00:17:47.740 This, that Biden clip looked that, um, and I was going to report like, guys, this, something seems

00:17:53.620 wrong with Joe Biden. And then I found like a, the actual full frame instead of the square Twitter

00:18:00.520 video. And you could see what happened after. And Joe Biden had people to his right and to his back,

00:18:07.280 right. And to his back. And, and he literally finished the speech and turned and said something

00:18:12.340 to the people, to the right. And then he turns back and he does the exact same thing. And then

00:18:16.840 to the other side and does the exact same thing. So that was a non-story for me. It was a complete

00:18:22.860 non-story. I hear you. Yeah. David, I'll, I haven't done enough research and I'll admit it readily

00:18:28.160 that I don't know whether that's accurate, but I'm happy for the purpose of this discussion to accept

00:18:32.740 that. Fair. But would you accept that Joe Biden mentally is not at his peak? I think you already

00:18:39.260 have. I already have. Yeah. So is, is that not a humiliation? Well, when I say a humiliation,

00:18:46.860 I go by what is global opinion of the United States? That's my, because I'm one guy, right? And so

00:18:54.500 what, what is, so I want to say, what does the world think? And we know because of global Gallup studies

00:19:01.880 and global Pew studies and others, that opinion of the United States as an, as a country of the

00:19:11.220 U S's ability to lead of the president of the United States, it was in the toilet to use a phrase.

00:19:18.660 Trump likes, you know, to flush 10 or 15 times opinion was in the toilet under Trump and it has

00:19:24.520 recovered dramatically under Biden. So I try to take myself out of it and just say, what does the world

00:19:29.920 think? And there's a couple of exceptions. Russia liked Trump better than Biden. Again, this is not

00:19:36.020 rhetorical. It's just the opinion polls. Russia did like Trump better than Biden. I think Turkey

00:19:42.660 liked Trump better than Biden. And for some, this may be wrong, but I think I have Nigeria in my mind

00:19:49.020 liked Trump better than Biden. But other than that, empirically, our global reputation has

00:19:55.760 recovered dramatically under Biden. So that's my standard that I use.

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00:21:46.900 Trump was never the problem. He was a symptom of the problem, which is that a large part of the

00:21:52.420 working classes and the Rust Belt in particular felt alienated by the Democrats. They felt they

00:21:58.120 weren't being represented by them. And that's why they voted, which shows that there is a real problem

00:22:04.740 amongst that part of the left that they can't connect with the working classes because the

00:22:10.640 working classes don't feel that they have their best interests at heart.

00:22:14.420 So I would say a couple of different things. I would say there is absolutely a problem with the

00:22:19.400 Democratic Party that it is not doing enough for the working class. I, again, I'm not a Democrat.

00:22:25.940 I don't care about the party. I gladly concede that. What I see as the problem with Trump

00:22:31.940 is more. I agree with the idea that Trump was a symptom rather than the problem. But for me,

00:22:41.060 the problem was if Trump doesn't have people who fall for his obviously false promises and complete

00:22:48.520 lack of understanding of any issue, if people don't fall for that, Trump's the crazy guy yelling in the

00:22:54.600 New York subway. Right. The danger comes from the fact that in the United States, there are so many

00:23:00.520 people who are either not engaged with politics at all that when a celebrity pops up, they go,

00:23:07.280 that sounds kind of good. I know who Trump is. Or they're so they lack knowledge of issues to such

00:23:14.760 a degree that when they hear Trump say, I'm going to fix trade by putting tariffs on China and nobody.

00:23:22.080 Trump doesn't even understand that it's American companies that pay the tariffs. And all Trump

00:23:26.200 starts saying, look at how much we charge China. And then his followers go, we charge China so much.

00:23:32.260 And it's like, guys, it's the American companies that pay the tariffs. So when people don't understand

00:23:38.280 stuff, they fall for people like Trump. And that to me is the problem, because without the cult members,

00:23:45.980 you don't become a cult leader. You need followers to be a cult leader. And so I agree with you that

00:23:50.960 Trump is emblematic as a symptom rather than actually being the problem. But my perspective

00:23:56.680 is a little bit different as to why. David, can I in the spirit of a very good faith,

00:24:02.940 but honest conversation, please can I feed back to you what it sounds like you just said from where

00:24:07.960 I'm sitting? Yes. Which is Francis was saying to you, there's a large portion of the American public

00:24:13.440 who are so alienated by some of the rhetoric on the left that they they went to they had to resort

00:24:19.900 to voting for Donald Trump. That's his argument. And what you said is, no, that isn't really the

00:24:25.240 problem. The problem is Americans are ill educated and quite stupid and fall for for Trump's bombastic

00:24:31.140 statements. That's what it sounds like. Did I hear you right? It's a combination of both.

00:24:37.100 OK, now here's one thing. But isn't that sorry, David, just to finish this point. Isn't that always

00:24:42.500 the case, though? I mean, it's not like the public got massively more stupid and ill educated in the last

00:24:47.120 four years. Right. Or the last six years. So, well, people have always been. I don't know about that.

00:24:52.960 I mean, I don't know how much you follow American education, but I think let me put it this way.

00:24:59.500 It's beyond me to deeply dive into that specific niche of this discussion. But I think there are many

00:25:08.900 who would make the case that actually the American public on average has become less educated over

00:25:15.720 time. OK, let's I don't want to argue with that. But wouldn't wouldn't you accept that these movements,

00:25:23.040 these right wing populist movements? We also had this here in the UK with Brexit. And it's an issue

00:25:29.380 that probably you I don't want to assume, but you may know less about it than we do. And certainly we

00:25:33.920 would say in this country that the same arguments were made. These are stupid, racists, whatever

00:25:40.380 people. But actually, if you speak to a lot of people who voted this way, which we didn't,

00:25:44.780 neither of us did. But if you speak to those people, their concerns were not based around ill

00:25:50.420 education or whatever. But it was there were some issues that they were raising that were not being

00:25:56.140 reflected in the public debate that were dismissed. And certainly from our perspective,

00:26:01.300 it seemed like there were some parallels with the United States. So it's not that people got more

00:26:07.100 stupid or less educated. It's more that their concerns were being more and more ignored by the

00:26:12.160 left wing parties. And they were desperate for some kind of way out, which is why they voted for

00:26:17.680 Brexit and which is why they voted for Trump. That's absolutely valid. And I have no qualms with that.

00:26:23.600 That's what took place. I think the reason I'm skeptical to accept that the reason for Trump was

00:26:30.520 that Democrats have abandoned the middle class is that more Democrats crossed party lines to vote for

00:26:39.060 John McCain in 2008 than the number that crossed party lines to vote for Trump in 2016. And so I hesitate

00:26:49.140 to say that that was the particular reason because the numbers don't bear it out.

00:26:54.840 No, but I believe it. OK, sorry to interrupt. But the thing is, you said yourself what Trump did and

00:26:59.820 what Brexit did is it brought a lot of non voters out of the shadows, if you like. So exactly. So what

00:27:05.820 what actually happened is these people who stopped voting for the Democrats and for Labour years and

00:27:11.360 years ago because they felt like these parties stopped representing them. We have a Labour party here in the UK

00:27:17.160 that stopped representing working people, they would argue, a long, long time ago. And finally,

00:27:22.860 a movement came along that actually represented them. So it's not the McCain Democrats we're talking

00:27:28.240 about here. We're talking about people who are non voters for decades, perhaps, who are now back in

00:27:33.480 the fold because they're finally seeing someone represent their views. That's the argument.

00:27:38.200 So that's an empirical question, which I don't have the data in front of me to say. I've not seen any data

00:27:45.120 that suggests that 20 years inactive Democrats are who came out to vote for Trump. That's it's you're

00:27:52.660 making that assertion. I can't deny that that happened. I've just seen no evidence. And unfortunately,

00:27:58.080 without the data, it's hard to engage with it any further.

00:28:00.740 Okay, so that's fair enough. So David, what do you think as a person on the left, when it comes to

00:28:10.100 globalisation? Because in many ways, you could argue that globalisation is a positive, you know,

00:28:15.480 we get things, goods cheaper, etc, etc. But also as well, it means that we don't produce enough at

00:28:22.400 home, we've lost our manufacturing bases, you know, and that means that you then have towns which

00:28:27.800 become disenfranchised because they have no factories, manufacturing, etc, etc, and then

00:28:33.520 creates the types of areas that will vote for a right wing populist such as Trump.

00:28:39.920 Yeah, I'm, I am basically with you 95% of with what you just said, the last piece, and it logically

00:28:47.740 leads to people voting for Trump. Let's put that aside for for now, at least, and maybe we can come

00:28:52.800 back to that. So my view on globalisation is as follows, you know, generally speaking,

00:28:58.060 I am in favour of specialisation, you know, at a basic economics, macroeconomic level, I understand

00:29:04.880 the reason why we would have circumstances where one country doesn't just produce everything, you

00:29:10.800 know, we there's trade, I believe trade is a net positive, I believe specialisation is a net positive.

00:29:16.020 I think the problem I have with a lot of the conversation about domestic versus import, when

00:29:22.920 it comes to a number of different products, services industries, is that there's a sort

00:29:28.600 of naivete where both Republicans and Democrats in the United States love to say, we're going

00:29:33.800 to bring it back home, it's going to be made in the USA, we're going to bring it here, we're

00:29:37.300 going to be independent, this type of thing. And the truth is that through cumulative economic

00:29:43.580 policy decisions over 30 or even 40 years dating back to, you know, Ronald Reagan, the United

00:29:50.080 States has chosen and I mean chosen again, not what one person didn't decide this, but

00:29:55.740 the cumulative effect of decisions has been we would rather get stuff from other countries

00:30:02.200 and be able to buy it for less in the United States rather than manufacturing here. And maybe

00:30:10.480 this would create some jobs, but everything would be a lot more money.

00:30:13.980 So I often say, you know, cheap tchotchkes from China are a really important thing in the American

00:30:20.980 economy. And so when Trump would say we're going to make it all domestically or when Biden

00:30:27.120 says we're going to make it all domestically, number one, these are like multi decade projects

00:30:32.360 to to change supply chains on a lot of these things. And there's not sort of like a just

00:30:38.040 upfront thing where like everything's going to cost more.

00:30:41.880 And most Americans don't want that because you know, half of Americans can't afford an

00:30:46.040 unexpected $400 expense. So I'm totally fine with the basic framework that even if you just

00:30:53.320 account for geographical and climate differences, like you're most countries can't produce everything.

00:31:00.620 And the honesty that I wish were part that's missing that I wish were part of the discussion is

00:31:06.640 we can start bringing supply chains back home and isolating, et cetera, but everything will get way

00:31:12.220 more expensive. And then whoever's in power will get blamed for that too.

00:31:16.460 Yeah, it's you're never going to get a simple solution to a very complex problem. But don't you

00:31:21.860 think what happened when with and look, it depends where you stand on whether the virus was creating

00:31:29.780 a lab in Wuhan and all of that, and the answer, it might be that when you don't agree with that?

00:31:35.780 Well, I'm just saying, do we have any evidence that it was created in a lab right now?

00:31:40.980 I mean, there are some people who believe very credible.

00:31:44.100 There's people who believe the earth is flat. What I'm saying is, do we have evidence that that is the case?

00:31:48.780 Yes. We have a very prominent scientist saying that that's the case. But let's not have this

00:31:55.100 argument. It's just tough to allow that to be placed as an aside, you know?

00:32:00.160 Okay. We hear that you disagree with that assertion. Can we?

00:32:02.940 Fair. Yeah.

00:32:03.660 Yeah. So, but what I was saying was the fact that if you have people who you are in hock to or produce,

00:32:12.460 for instance, with China, they produce a huge amount of antibiotics. Do you not think that it would

00:32:17.980 be better from a security point of view to then have that back in the United States,

00:32:23.020 for example, or to have that with countries who you are allied to?

00:32:26.540 I'm completely sensitive to that logic. In many ways, that's perfectly logical. Yeah.

00:32:32.540 Okay.

00:32:33.420 Okay.

00:32:34.140 I think we just also have to be honest about the effect it could have on price.

00:32:38.780 Oh, sure. It's going to cost more, but sometimes you have to pay more for security.

00:32:42.940 I don't disagree.

00:32:43.740 Look at Germany and Russian gas right now. And again, don't need to get into that.

00:32:47.660 Agreed.

00:32:48.060 So, David, let's talk about culture. I know that it's not necessarily a big thing for you,

00:32:53.260 but in terms of some of the things we've been putting to you that we are sensitive to,

00:32:57.500 which is how culture affects how people feel about their country, about the party that they want

00:33:03.660 to vote for, about the direction of travel of their society, I would probably chart three issues on

00:33:10.540 which a lot of people in our space, which is perhaps disaffected lefties, or people who are

00:33:16.940 sort of centrist like me, or people who are right leaning, that have been concerned about and feel

00:33:24.220 are important and are not being discussed honestly in the mainstream space, let's say, right?

00:33:30.060 I think number one, certainly in the UK, you tell me what you think about the United States,

00:33:33.660 but number one is immigration. Number two is race relations and all the stuff to do with BLM and all

00:33:40.540 of that. And number three, as of late, these sort of big toxic issues is, of course, the trans issue.

00:33:47.340 Okay. So sure. Those are three issues. Yes.

00:33:50.940 Yeah. Yeah. I was going somewhere with that. I just wanted to get confirmation.

00:33:55.660 Those are issues that exist. Absolutely.

00:33:57.660 Those are issues that exist. And what I am asserting to you is there are quite a lot of

00:34:02.460 people, certainly here in the UK, and I know that in America, it's the same in some circles,

00:34:08.940 that feel very strongly about those issues. And they feel that the mainstream conversation

00:34:13.180 about those issues is dishonest. So if we start in reverse order with the trans thing,

00:34:19.340 can I, can I, it's a dick move to ask you this, but can I ask you to define a woman? Is that okay?

00:34:24.780 Yeah. So listen, I mean, I did a whole thing with this right wing guy named Michael Knowles

00:34:29.740 a little while ago. Okay. We are, you know, we were talking about the definition of a woman and

00:34:33.820 the context was, um, the Ketanji Brown Jackson hearings and her refusal to answer. And there,

00:34:40.780 I argued that makes perfect sense because they're asking in a legal context. The question is who can

00:34:45.820 bring a discrimination lawsuit on the basis of gender. And I thought she was right not to answer it.

00:34:51.020 And I made the point that depending on where you're asking the question, the answer could

00:34:57.180 actually be different. Now I'm glad to give my view of this socially, if that's okay.

00:35:02.140 Sure. Yeah, of course. So this is again, and the problem with this, and I know you guys would never

00:35:07.180 do this because you seem so honest. The problem is that sometimes this question is then used to put

00:35:12.620 someone in a corner. So I will say in advance that the definition I have will not work in every

00:35:19.500 setting. Okay. Like for example, the definition I have in an OBGYN's office may not work because we

00:35:25.500 recognize biological differences. Right. But for me, the broadest way where I think about who am I going

00:35:33.740 to relate to as a woman? It would be somebody who I identify as deliberately trying to exist in the world

00:35:44.460 as a woman. And so if I see a biological man who, and again, we, we, we have to talk about this in

00:35:53.580 candid ways, which some people might not like, but I think it's necessary. If I see, if, if I see me

00:36:00.060 with a wig on, it's not going to be apparent to me that that's someone who is necessarily trying to

00:36:06.620 exist in the world as a woman, if they go by the name David and their, their voices like mine and

00:36:12.060 they dress like me. So I'm just going to make the best faith effort I can, where if it's, if it's

00:36:18.860 indicated through a number of different cues that someone is trying to exist in the world as a woman,

00:36:24.380 I'll relate to them as a woman. That's fine. It just doesn't bother me.

00:36:27.100 Oh, sure. And in fact, I am kind of where you are in the sense that we've had a shit ton of trans

00:36:34.060 people on the show and we call them by whatever name they have and the pronouns that they they've

00:36:39.500 chosen. Right. I've got no issue with that. However, my issue is that in, and again, this

00:36:45.900 is being straight with you. I hope you don't take offense to what I'm saying. Please. In your,

00:36:49.580 in your refusal to, to give a definition that is equally applicable in different circumstances,

00:36:54.620 you're kind of avoiding the difficult elements of this, right? Well, the difficult elements are

00:36:59.580 the exactly that, which if, okay, I'm sorry. I interrupted. What? And let me, I know you know

00:37:04.860 where I'm going, but let me just give the example. So people know what we're talking about. So

00:37:08.460 we have a, a number of cases here in the UK, for example, and I know you've had some in the US as

00:37:14.060 well, where a trans woman who still has a male anatomy has been housed in a female prison and has

00:37:20.380 gone on to commit sexual assault against women in prison. Right. Okay. We obviously have had

00:37:25.340 trans women in male sport, in female sports, where they, in my opinion, have an unfair advantage.

00:37:33.580 And there are other situations in which our failure to give a clear, like universal definition

00:37:40.860 means that women in particular, in this very instance, are suffering the consequences of our

00:37:46.780 social unwillingness to be quite hard line about it. Would you agree with that? Well, there's that's,

00:37:51.660 that's what in, in a, in a court, they would say that that's a compound question and we've really

00:37:56.140 got to break down each of those. Cause whether I agree with everything you said, I don't know.

00:38:00.780 So let's, let's, I'm not even sure where to start. So, um, okay. I mean, in prison,

00:38:06.780 there was a sexual assault by a biological male housed with women. Okay. I, I don't know the story.

00:38:13.660 We have a country of 331 million in the United States. So you can find examples sort of of everything.

00:38:19.100 Um, sexual assault by biological females of other females in American prisons is really common. So

00:38:27.500 for me, what I go to is less about, you know, trans people, I think are one third of 1% of the

00:38:36.220 population in the U S I may be slightly off about that, but let's use that as a working number for me.

00:38:43.260 Every assault is bad. And the bigger issue is American prisons are terrible at keeping inmates

00:38:51.420 safe. And I apply that to men's prisons and women's prisons.

00:38:56.140 It's less, but, but you're deflecting here, aren't you?

00:38:58.780 I don't, well, but no, I don't think. And so, but let me, let me go.

00:39:01.340 Let me give you the reverse of your argument, right?

00:39:03.260 No, but I wasn't even cop shooting black people is bad, but the real problem is something else.

00:39:09.900 And we shouldn't talk about the cops shooting black people.

00:39:12.300 No, no, no, that's not the argument I'm making whatsoever.

00:39:14.700 Okay, sure. Go ahead. Sorry.

00:39:15.740 So the, the point that I'm making is because the, what you're saying is it's,

00:39:20.540 I guess it depends on what you say the other issue really is that you didn't get to the end of that.

00:39:25.100 And so I don't know whether that's the right wing argument. Black on black crime is the real thing.

00:39:29.740 Forget about cop shooting black people, right? But those are totally different things. What

00:39:33.980 I'm saying is violence in prison is a major problem. And I don't deny that an added layer

00:39:40.860 of complexity is in which prison should a trans person be. I don't pretend to have the answer in

00:39:49.100 all cases. I don't, I don't pretend to have the answer. I'm conceding it's very complicated,

00:39:52.940 but is it complicated? If you have a penis, should you be in a female prison?

00:39:58.300 Well, but not everybody who's a trans woman has a penis, but these people did,

00:40:03.180 and they were in female prisons, both in your country and in ours.

00:40:05.740 I just don't know the case. I don't know. I don't know the answer.

00:40:09.740 Should a person with a penis though, be in a, in a female prison?

00:40:13.660 It's it's, I would have to know more about how these decisions are being made. I don't know

00:40:18.220 enough about how the decisions are made to be able to say.

00:40:20.540 I mean, listen, let me put it, let me put it a different way. Let me put it a different way.

00:40:27.100 And I, I don't know if the anecdotes were, were both being so anecdotal that I don't know if this

00:40:32.620 is even useful, but there are, there are many instances where I could show you a picture of

00:40:40.460 someone and describe their height and weight to you. And it would be very hard to argue that they

00:40:47.580 should be in a men's prison for their own safety. I'm not arguing for that. We've had trans people

00:40:54.700 on the show who say we need to make provisions. So the trans people are in a separate facility

00:40:59.900 where they're going to be safe from males who otherwise would potentially be a danger to them.

00:41:04.780 Right. So trans people, there's like a third prison for trans people.

00:41:08.140 That's what some people have argued on our shows. I'm not saying you take someone who identifies as

00:41:13.340 a trans woman and you stick them with men. Cause I don't think it would end well for them. So I don't

00:41:18.300 lack compassion. What I'm trying to get at with you is do you envisage circumstances under which it is

00:41:24.540 right to put a person with a penis in a female prison? Uh, I can, I can envisage a theoretical

00:41:31.260 circumstances where it's the best of the options that are available. Yeah. I mean, right now there

00:41:35.500 are no third prisons for trans people. And so if you say to me, what is more like, I mean, like,

00:41:41.660 listen, let's just be very upfront. If you have, if you have a trans woman that is biologically male

00:41:47.180 and has a penis, but is slight in size and has a very feminine appearance by all statistical

00:41:56.060 likelihood, they are far less likely to assault someone in a women's prison than they are to be

00:42:02.700 assaulted in a men's prison. And so that's a particular case where I would say it makes sense

00:42:08.300 for them to be in a women's prison. Yes. Okay. We could go, we could go around for hours,

00:42:14.620 but before we move on in the situation I outlined, do you concede that it makes more sense for them

00:42:20.540 to be in the, if the only two options are a men's or women's prison would a five, three biological

00:42:26.700 male with a penis who is outwardly feminine and, and is seen by the average person as a woman,

00:42:33.420 you're not going to put them in the men's prison. Are you? I think it'd be very dangerous to do so.

00:42:37.420 Fair. So we agree on that. That's fair. Well, well, we don't agree on that because I don't think

00:42:42.220 either of those options is acceptable and we should look for a solution rather than going

00:42:46.060 I would love another solution, but it seems like we, given the two current options, we are on the

00:42:51.260 same page. Uh, no, I, I just think both of those options are completely unacceptable to me. And I

00:42:59.180 think we need a third solution and that's why I feel strongly about it. You see what I'm saying?

00:43:03.180 I see what you're saying. I, I, but it sounds like before you realized it might not look great to

00:43:08.860 concede it that you agreed in the two options we have now, the female prison makes more sense.

00:43:14.460 Uh, I think this is where I'm going to do a David Pakman and go, I think it depends on the

00:43:19.820 individual circumstances. For example, if this person is in prison because of sexual assault

00:43:24.780 against women, I don't know that that is the right choice. Okay. I mean, maybe in that case,

00:43:29.900 they would be, we're now getting so in the weeds, but that's a case where they might be,

00:43:34.620 they might be in solitary confinement anyway, in that situation as a, I mean, we,

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00:45:24.380 Can I just say, David, I'm really enjoying this conversation.

00:45:27.980 Yeah, because I'm doing all the hard questioning. That's why you're fucking enjoying it.

00:45:31.740 But let's go on to a very thorny issue. My girlfriend is a left-wing progressive,

00:45:36.700 uh, you know, woman of color and all the rest of it. And her and I have, uh, regular ding-dongs about

00:45:42.860 this, uh, at least, uh, twice a week, which is the thorny topic of immigration. And I am pro-limiting

00:45:51.500 immigration because my argument comes from actually a very left-wing perspective, which is

00:45:58.140 demand and supply. So for instance, I remember one of my flatmates when I was in my late twenties,

00:46:04.860 uh, was a mixed race guy called Daniel and Daniel used to vote UKIP, which was a populist

00:46:11.820 right wing of the, of the conservatives essentially. And I said to him, Dan, like you're a mixed race.

00:46:18.460 Why are you voting for UKIP? And he said, Francis, because I'm an electrician, right? And ever since

00:46:24.140 freedom of movement in the European union, I've seen my wages frozen because people come from all

00:46:29.260 over the European union to come and work in London. Now I've got nothing against those people.

00:46:33.500 And in fact, if I was in their position, I would do exactly the same. But the effect for me is that

00:46:38.700 my wages haven't risen in real time because there's so much competition because London is

00:46:43.660 the place they all come to. So by limiting immigration, limiting the amount of people

00:46:49.580 who can come and work in my field, my wages will therefore rise as a result. And I personally

00:46:55.340 couldn't think of a counter argument to that particular point.

00:46:59.100 And your question to me is, and my question to you is, you know, where do you stand on

00:47:06.620 immigration and do you have sympathy for that position? Because a lot of people on the left,

00:47:11.660 and I'm not saying that you think this would go, oh, well, you know, and they mischaracterize

00:47:15.500 it as foreigners coming over here and taking our jobs. When I think we can both agree, it's more complex.

00:47:22.300 It's more complex. So again, I can speak to the United States. I've studied immigration

00:47:27.340 pretty deeply here. So the first thing is, in order to really talk about this, we have to

00:47:32.140 know the reality about some of these issues like, well, how many people really want to come to the US?

00:47:37.260 And what is the effect of the immigrant labor market on wages? And do we need more workers?

00:47:44.540 All these different things. Okay. So in Argentina, where I was born, basically the concept of illegal

00:47:52.300 immigration is, it's not really an issue. It's just like, if you go and you can find a job or

00:47:56.140 enroll in school, there's like a path to citizenship for everybody. Now, why doesn't Argentina get

00:48:00.220 overloaded? Because the economy is a disaster and not that many people want to go to Argentina. Okay.

00:48:04.700 The United States is a much better economy than Argentina for the average person. So we often assume

00:48:10.860 everybody wants to come and move to the United States. And if we just open the floodgates,

00:48:15.660 everybody would. The truth is, when you survey people around the world,

00:48:20.140 not that many people want to move to the United States. Sure, many do. But most people want to be

00:48:25.260 in the country where they live and where their family is and when they speak their language and

00:48:29.020 we're okay. So the first thing is, even if we open the floodgates completely, yes, many people would

00:48:34.700 come to the US, but it's not the world is going to come rushing to the US. So the first thing we would

00:48:39.100 have to realize is how many people really want to come here. Fine.

00:48:42.380 And how many would that be, do you think, if you just open borders?

00:48:45.980 I don't remember. I'm not an advocate of open borders anyway, but I don't remember what the

00:48:50.060 numbers are. It's been a year since I looked at this data. But when you look at many countries,

00:48:53.660 and it'll be like 10% of a country might want to come to the US, maybe a country with 5 million

00:48:58.780 people. So that's like half a million. But then how many actually would do it? Well,

00:49:02.700 it's a fraction of that. And how many would stay? And it's a fraction of that.

00:49:05.580 Well, 10% of most countries in the world, there's quite a lot of people, right?

00:49:09.740 I'm making the number up. I'm just, yeah. Okay. It doesn't matter. I'm not advocating

00:49:14.220 we open the floodgates anyway. Sure.

00:49:15.740 There should be an immigration policy. There should be a process.

00:49:18.460 That's very right wing, David. Welcome to the far right.

00:49:23.180 The second part of it would be, well, what is the effect of immigrant,

00:49:28.140 documented immigrant and undocumented immigrant labor on wages? Because there's this economic

00:49:32.860 concept where if you suddenly flood with tons of supply for something, the price demanded will

00:49:39.420 go down and wages will go down. Well, remember, we have a minimum wage in the United States.

00:49:45.180 There's ways around it with under the table work, I would concede. But there is there is a minimum wage,

00:49:49.660 which is a different argument that some people are also against. But that is a lower limit on wages.

00:49:54.860 But the truth is that the studies that have been done show that, uh, immigrant labor documented and

00:50:01.740 undocumented in the aggregate has essentially no statistical effect on wages. Now I know it's

00:50:08.060 counterintuitive because it's like, well, if I can find an undocumented immigrant to work for two bucks

00:50:14.220 an hour, which in theory you can, and it should depress wages. But in a country of 331 million with the number

00:50:23.180 of immigrants documented and undocumented that we have and the fields in which they work and on and on,

00:50:28.940 it has a negligible effect on wages. Much more of an effect on wages is seen from lack of regulation

00:50:37.180 on the corporations that are doing the hiring and in some industries actually colluding to hold wages

00:50:42.620 down. So it's like, okay, well, that's a piece. Wages will collapse. Actually, they won't. So I'm,

00:50:49.500 I'm glad to kind of see where you want to kind of steer this from here. But I think one of the things

00:50:54.620 that we have to understand is a lot of the sort of, um, common sense about immigration. When you look

00:51:00.540 at it, you know, immigrants commit more crime, actually immigrants commit less crime, even

00:51:04.780 undocumented immigrants. Why? Because they know they're in the country illegally. They, they go out

00:51:10.060 of their way to stay off the radar of law enforcement makes perfect sense. Once you break all these things

00:51:15.980 down, you know, hopefully you can get to a better place to really talk about this stuff.

00:51:21.260 So what you were saying is essentially it's control of greater regulations of corporations

00:51:27.180 that will ensure better conditions for workers and better pay.

00:51:30.540 That's not what I said. What I said is more responsible for stagnant wages than immigrant

00:51:38.140 labor is the way in which corporations can work in a whole bunch of different ways to avoid paying

00:51:46.540 more. And this includes that their employees are subsidized by government programs. This includes using

00:51:53.580 third parties and contractors rather than employees. You know, we're again, getting into very specific

00:51:59.500 issues, but all of those things are far more responsible for stagnant wages than immigrant

00:52:05.020 labor. Okay. Uh, can I, can I go to the cultural side of the immigration conversation then, which is

00:52:11.980 this one really applied to the U S but I'll put it on the table just for, for our viewers, because

00:52:16.620 you guys, you're a nation of immigrants melting pot, all of that. So, uh, you know, you have a different

00:52:22.220 view of immigration generally, but particularly what you call undocumented

00:52:25.740 immigration, what we call illegal immigration in this country, which is people coming into the

00:52:31.180 country without following the immigration rules, right? Is there not a moral argument that that is

00:52:37.180 just wrong? That allowing people to come to circumvent the queue, because I'm a legal immigrant in the UK,

00:52:43.820 right? I had to follow a pretty expensive and pretty thorough process for this country to make sure that

00:52:49.100 I meet the requirements that the people of this country voted to have in place for who can come and

00:52:54.300 and live here. And there are other people who are getting in a boat and crossing the English Channel,

00:52:59.020 or in your case, crossing the Rio Grande by paying somebody $2,000 or whatever it is, um,

00:53:06.620 to come into the country that this isn't what we as the people of the United States or we as the people

00:53:12.540 of the United Kingdom voted for. And people who do this should not be allowed to come. And if they do come,

00:53:17.500 they should be sent back and forced to join the legal process, which we all voted for.

00:53:22.380 Yeah. I mean, listen, uh, my family came to the United States legally. It was a lottery system. Um, and,

00:53:29.180 uh, we wouldn't have come if we hadn't gotten it. Uh, I think the, you know, countries are allowed to,

00:53:36.220 it's not immoral to have a border. It's not immoral to enforce the border. Uh, deportation in and of itself

00:53:43.100 is not something I advocate should end. I think the areas where I have a problem include one,

00:53:51.340 uh, those who came to the United States when they were not adults because they were brought

00:53:56.060 by parents, um, and their lives are here. I don't think it's fair to send them back to a country that

00:54:02.940 they may have quite literally no connection in. That doesn't make sense to me. I think if you want to

00:54:09.500 to enforce the border and it's, you have to understand that two thirds of it is not literally

00:54:16.220 the border, it's people just coming in and overstaying visas, for example. Um, and I also

00:54:21.900 think that you have to concede. David, I'm sorry to interrupt. This isn't to trip you up at all. I

00:54:26.700 really want to hear the rest of your answer, but just on those people, can I ask you if someone has

00:54:30.620 overstayed the visa, should they be deported? Uh, yes. Yeah. I mean, I'm open to,

00:54:37.980 we have courts that adjudicate this. Okay. And there are a number of circumstances where I would

00:54:43.580 say individuals should be allowed to stay if they've, you know, if you have someone who's been

00:54:49.900 here, uh, some period of time and they've committed no crimes and they are productive members of society.

00:54:58.060 And I'm totally open to immigration judges saying you get to stay. Uh, but I am not,

00:55:05.820 the country has a right to enforce immigration law. That's what it is. You know, we have to change

00:55:10.140 the law if we don't want that. Yeah. Sorry for interrupting. I just wanted to clear that particular

00:55:14.220 point up. Yeah. Um, no, I don't mean, I don't, I mean, I guess I'm, you know, if you, if you really

00:55:19.020 want to deal with this issue, it's not about a wall on the Southern border would be my point.

00:55:24.540 Right. And you also do yourself, if you, if you're better able to understand how people are coming in,

00:55:33.020 you can, uh, make unnecessary so much other infrastructure that's currently in place.

00:55:39.820 So when you say that there are other ways to solve the problem, what is that?

00:55:46.460 Well, again, the, the majority of people, they're not coming over the border.

00:55:50.220 Yeah. So you need to deport them. We've got that.

00:55:52.780 Right. Most of them.

00:55:54.300 So the people who are overstaying the visas, unless they've been in the country for a really long

00:56:00.140 time and the immigration judge looks at their case and goes, you get to stay. Cause you're,

00:56:04.460 you know, the kind of person we want here, everybody else gets sent back. Right.

00:56:08.140 Yeah. I mean, Lee, you know, practically speaking, it's not going to happen because it's just, we,

00:56:14.220 there's not information about every single person who's in that case, practically speaking. But

00:56:18.220 theoretically there's no legal case to argue that all those people get to stay. I think that if you,

00:56:23.980 I'm open to a path to amnesty with certain requirements. And I think that what that would

00:56:31.980 be is up for debate. If someone came to me and said, okay, listen, um, if you've committed

00:56:38.060 no crime other than being here illegally and you have employment and whatever other mechanisms are

00:56:45.020 met, you're put on a seven year path to citizenship. I'm totally open to things like that. But I think

00:56:50.780 it's a tough argument for me to make that the current law should just be ignored.

00:56:55.740 Right. Okay. And then what about in terms of people who do come in illegally over the border?

00:57:00.700 Let's say what should happen to them in your, in an ideal world?

00:57:03.740 We, we already, it's already happening. I mean, they're here illegally, so they're subject to

00:57:08.940 deportation. I mean, that's, that's, that's just how it is.

00:57:11.180 Cool. That seems like a pretty sensible approach, that part of it to me, which I think we could

00:57:15.500 probably agree on. And, and the last element, because we've got about five minutes and then

00:57:21.100 we need to do questions for our local supporters and we don't want to take up any more of your time,

00:57:25.180 David, is what, what do we do with, with, with the people on, on the left who are very loud?

00:57:32.700 And for people like me, just to let you know, I'm a former teacher. I taught in the public school

00:57:37.820 system that for many years, and I, and I see people on the left saying, you know, oh, you know,

00:57:44.780 we need to defund the police. We need to abolish capitalism. And coming from a country like Venezuela,

00:57:50.460 I've seen what happens when you abolish capitalism. Uh, it doesn't end well. What do we do? And

00:57:56.540 obviously those people should be allowed their views, but how do we make the left more palatable

00:58:02.140 to the ordinary person and distance itself from those types of people? Because to me,

00:58:08.380 most people aren't going to vote for that. Yeah. Defunding the police doesn't poll well

00:58:13.340 among the democratic party. The people who support it on Twitter are very loud, but we have polling data.

00:58:18.620 Just defunding the police isn't super popular. Reforming the police. And I put out, you know,

00:58:23.580 a 10 point plan of how I would do it is very popular. So, uh, that was one thing. The other

00:58:28.540 thing is most Democrats aren't socialists. So I think the, the important thing for me is I'm not

00:58:33.820 interested in kind of arguing with straw men and sure there are real socialists. And there are people

00:58:38.460 who say, get rid of the police altogether. These are tiny groups. They're not super interesting to me.

00:58:43.500 I'm more interested in articulating my ideas. Okay. So let's talk about police reformation.

00:58:48.940 How would you reform the police in America? Yeah. So, um, we, I mean,

00:58:54.860 it depends on which, uh, uh, police department we're talking about. There's a big difference

00:58:59.020 between rural and urban police departments in the United States, but I think establishing a system for

00:59:06.220 at minimum required social work type training for officers should, should be a minimum requirement.

00:59:13.900 I would love to also have social workers and mental health professionals who are the first line of

00:59:19.660 response to certain types of calls. If someone calls because there's a homeless person panhandling

00:59:26.380 who maybe is overdosing, I don't know that you need a police officer with a gun to be the first line of

00:59:32.380 response there. Or maybe you send a police officer and a social worker. I think that that would be a

00:59:37.420 great thing. I think that there should be a national database of bad actors. So when you've

00:59:44.220 been discharged from your role as an officer for bad acts, it should be easy if you go to a different

00:59:50.460 state and apply for the place you're applying to look up, whether you've been, whether you've lost

00:59:56.060 a police job because of bad acts. Police unions resist that.

01:00:00.060 Speaker 1 The police unions resist that?

01:00:02.220 Speaker 1 Yes. Yes. They don't want, they don't want a national, such a national database in the

01:00:05.820 United States. Uh, that's, I think something that would be important. Um, I like, uh, mandatory

01:00:13.100 body cameras as we've seen a lot of the devil is in the details. They end up not working at key moments

01:00:19.340 or the, the file gets deleted when you want to find it. But so I, I like the idea of police body

01:00:25.420 cameras. You know, I don't remember all of my 10 points. I did this about a couple of years ago on

01:00:29.500 my show, but you know, these are some of the ideas. Now I think it's really important to say

01:00:35.100 some of the stuff I'm talking about costs money. And so in some places, the problem is police is

01:00:41.820 underfunded. And so they resort to low energy policing, which is terrible rather than really

01:00:48.300 preventing crime or dealing with, you know, there's too much of a focus on street crime in the U S

01:00:53.340 rather than white collar and corporate crime. Some of this stuff will need more money for police,

01:00:59.260 which is why I think defund as a catch-all doesn't work.

01:01:03.020 David, can I just, before we go to our final question and then the questions from our supporters,

01:01:07.260 first of all, again, thank you for coming on. I really appreciate the honest conversation we've

01:01:11.020 had. Obviously there's areas of agreement, disagreement, whatever, but I think this is great.

01:01:14.620 But I think we kind of, we got over France's point a little bit, which I do think is important

01:01:21.020 because I hear what you say, because I'm the same. Like I have right of center views and left of center

01:01:26.700 views. And I find myself embroiled with arguing with extremists on the right and the left about

01:01:30.940 stupid shit. And I probably shouldn't. And you're smart not to do that with the extremist on your side.

01:01:36.700 The problem I would say to you though, is some of their slogans, while not being popular in terms of

01:01:41.980 how they poll, have filtered through into mainstream debate and even policy. I mean,

01:01:47.900 look at defunding the police. We have seen some cities adopting policies in America of this type

01:01:53.020 and resulting in spikes in crime. Is that fair to say?

01:01:58.060 I'm not so sure about that. Who has defunded the police?

01:02:02.620 Yeah, I don't remember. I remember reading articles showing spikes in crime in some cities which have

01:02:08.300 taken a more sort of let's reduce the amount of policing we do. But I couldn't give you a specific

01:02:13.740 example off the top. Are you saying that's not happened in any city, in any major city?

01:02:17.660 I'm not aware of any place that has just flatly defunded police, eliminated officers with guns and

01:02:25.420 done whatever it is that they're calling for.

01:02:26.380 No, not completely, but reduced their involvement, reduced the amount of funding.

01:02:30.140 You know, I have read articles again about places where the sort of the environment for

01:02:37.900 police officers is such that a lot of people take early retirement or move to another state,

01:02:42.860 etc. Are you not aware of anything of that kind?

01:02:46.300 I mean, listen, there's 331 million people in the US. I'm sure there are some police departments

01:02:52.860 who have seen a decline in funding and we'd have to look at the reasons and the purpose. I just,

01:02:57.500 without examples, it's hard to speak to it. But to get to what I think is your main question

01:03:01.660 about how to address these people, the way I address it is, again, if they want to call into

01:03:07.020 my show and argue with me, I gladly will. If they run for office on some of these things I don't agree

01:03:13.260 with, I don't vote for them. And I tell my audience not to vote for them the same way I do with any

01:03:18.220 candidate that I don't agree with. And I try to keep I can't control corporate media, but on my program,

01:03:24.540 which I can control, I keep the narrative about what I think are good ideas.

01:03:29.260 Brilliant.

01:03:29.660 That's a good answer. David, with that, thank you so much for coming on. As I say,

01:03:33.340 we're going to ask you a couple of questions from our supporters for our supporters in a second. But

01:03:37.660 as always, our final question is, what is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society

01:03:43.260 that you think would really should be?

01:03:44.540 I think that we could very quickly get completely off of fossil fuels for transportation if we

01:03:53.100 really decided as countries, as governments, that we're going to do it. And I would like to see that

01:04:00.460 done. I've switched over to an electric vehicle. I've got solar panels on and on and on. And I think

01:04:06.460 that it would be great economically, climate and culturally. It would be a fantastic thing. I would

01:04:12.380 love to see it talked about more. David, it's been an absolute pleasure.

01:04:17.660 Thank you so much. If people want to find you online, where is the best place to do that?

01:04:22.140 David Pakman dot com.

01:04:23.900 And you, of course, host a very popular show here on YouTube. Thank you so much for coming on, David.

01:04:29.580 Please don't go anywhere because we're going to ask you a couple of questions. But with that,

01:04:32.380 thank you for being on the show. Thank you guys for watching and listening. We'll see you very soon

01:04:36.460 with another brilliant episode like this one or Raw Show. All of them go out at 7pm UK time.

01:04:41.580 And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go, it's also available as a podcast.

01:04:46.860 Take care and see you soon, guys.

01:04:51.420 What is the most persuasive way of convincing people who are conservative at the moment,

01:04:57.420 who lean conservative to your side of the argument?

TRIGGERnometry - May 05, 2022

David Pakman - A Good Faith Debate with a Progressive

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