David Pakman - A Good Faith Debate with a Progressive
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 5 minutes
Words per minute
181.67957
Harmful content
Misogyny
17
sentences flagged
Toxicity
35
sentences flagged
Hate speech
48
sentences flagged
Summary
David Pakman is a progressive commentator and host of the David Pakman Show on YouTube. In this episode, we talk about his views on issues such as the transphobic treatment of women in the prison system, the need for women to have equal pay for equal education and health care, and the role of the state in society.
Transcript
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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.
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And so that's a particular case where I would say it makes sense for them to be in a women's prison. Yes.
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Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.
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And this is the show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.
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Our brilliant guest today is the progressive commentator and the host of the David Pakman Show right here on YouTube.
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It's so great to have you on the show. Listen, we'll get right into it.
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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.
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We want to have a constructive conversation with you.
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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.
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And we're really keen actually to hear some of your thoughts and why you think what you think.
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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?
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That's how I describe myself as a sort of standard progressive in the northern European mold.
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There are people who say I am a communist socialist and I'm definitely not.
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There are people who say I'm a centrist establishment shill, which I'm definitely not.
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I'm just uncontroversially sort of like a northern European social democrat.
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Right. So what does that mean exactly? What do you want?
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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?
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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.
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But there are some of what we would call special cases.
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And these might, depending on who you ask, include health care.
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They might include education and other what we call public goods.
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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.
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And in order to fund those public goods, we would use taxes.
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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.
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Things like health care, for example, which is pretty much what we do here in Britain.
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I think where some of the controversies might start to come in is the cultural side.
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What does it mean to be culturally progressive?
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Well, I think one of the issues is that these are not necessarily major issues for folks like me.
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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.
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So I guess what I want to say is there's a lot of what I believe are fabricated culture wars.
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I can speak to the United States and because that's where my knowledge is.
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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.
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Many Trumpists were never voters before Trump, so it doesn't have to be Republicans.
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But the American right wing has given up on policy.
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They don't really talk about immigration reform.
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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.
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And so I don't have a huge interest in defending some of those aspects.
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For me, I have cultural views, uh, but they, they're not the primary, um, sort of, uh, element of my politics.
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I mean, uh, give me a question about a particular issue and I'll give you my opinion.
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I'll let Francis ask some questions and then we'll come back to the culture side of things.
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So let's look at, so we're looking at economics.
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Let's, let's look, let's really delve into, into the economics of it.
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So what would you say when it comes to a fair amount to tax an individual?
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So for instance, in the UK, I think over 50, if you earn over 50,000 a year sterling, you
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get taxed 40%, which I think is too high personally.
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And I think if you're taxed over a hundred K, then you get 50%, which is a very high taxation
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And if the effect of tax rates are probably even higher.
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So in the United States, uh, there's the federal taxes and then some states have a state income
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Um, my view, first of all, before we even talk about changing the tax rates is that tax
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So I think the U S spends way too much on a military and defense.
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There are guaranteed contracts given where we just replace weapon unused weapons.
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And then the government just keeps buying and buying, uh, the tentacles of a military
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bases around the world to me is totally overblown for the safety and security of the United
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So before even talking about changing the current tax rates, I think that money that's
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already coming in should be used in a very different way.
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And maybe you wouldn't even need to change tax rates at all.
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Now, if changes were to be made to tax rates, um, I would like to see some higher brackets
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The top tax bracket in the U S starts, I actually don't have the numbers in front of me, but it's
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around half a million dollars a year in income.
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To me, the difference between someone making $500,000 a year, $5 million a year and a billion
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And so I think we need more tax rates and you know, maybe it would be at $2 million a year
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right now, the top tax rates, 37% just for context.
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So you guys know maybe, uh, at 2 million bucks a year, you go to 39% and maybe at 20 million
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I mean, you know, I'm not in the mindset of, we need a 90% top tax rate or anything like
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I just think we need some higher brackets because what you have in the U S is that the very,
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very richest, not the 1%, not the 0.5%, but like the 0.1% pay a lower effective tax rate
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But, um, again, you know, but there might be the belief that people like me are talking
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And that's a great answer because sometimes I think people on the right mischaracterize
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the left as, and you know, there'll be people on the left who are like this, who are just
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They need to have all their wealth taken away from them.
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Where do you stand on, uh, the Democrats and people and that political party?
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Would you say that you're pro Democrats or are you one of those people on the left?
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Like we we've had a lot of them on, like the Aaron Martes, the Jimmy Dawes, who are very,
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And actually in many cases, see them as worse than the Republicans.
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So if it's with respect, I will give my views in the absence of a comparison to the individuals
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I don't really care about political parties beyond, I will be glad to vote for Democrats
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if they're the better option in a particular election.
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Biden was the better option and he happened to be a Democrat and I voted for him.
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But my view about political parties is they are essentially like a corporation that wants
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Part of the way that they justify their own existence is in opposition or in contrast to
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Certainly, I, I, the politics of the Democratic Party are much closer to mine than the Republican
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But I don't really care about the Democratic Party as an institution.
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And what do you make of populism and the rise of populism?
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Do you see that as a problem, which I do, and this is, I mean, I don't know where I would
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identify myself now, but this is, this is my opinion.
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I think a lot of populism was created by the left, by the more progressive elements of left
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wing politics and politicians, essentially turning their back on working class people and
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not representing them, certainly in my own country in the UK with the Labour Party.
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So I completely disagree with that analysis as applied to the United States.
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But the problem I have with populism is that populism fundamentally is rhetoric more than
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And so when I talk about social democracy without explaining policy, there's a pretty well established
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set of policies that go along with that, some of which I might agree with and some of which
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I might disagree with and what works in Sweden may not work in Denmark or might work in the
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The pernicious part for me about populism is that it's fundamentally a rhetoric and rhetoric,
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particularly in a country with such educational problems as the United States, such lack of
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media literacy and critical thinking can be used by bad actors to convince people to support
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really bad candidates. Trump used a version of populist rhetoric. He was trying to screwing
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us the working class. I'm going to fix it, etc. The problem with populist rhetoric absent of really
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clear vision of policy is that you put in someone into power based on their rhetoric and all of a sudden
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the solutions they propose are wacky. Like, for example, Tucker Carlson is a propagandist on Fox
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News who uses populist rhetoric. But all of a sudden when you say, well, what's a solution?
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Well, you've got to prevent Antifa from taking your house or brown people from Mexico are taking your
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job and we've got to stop that. So a lot of the same rhetoric we hear from the left and right that sounds
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populist is used in different ways. And so for me, I take more of a policy oriented approach of social
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democracy and I'm not big on populist rhetoric myself. Okay. Well, before I come to the cultural
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stuff and maybe the immigration point you make as well, you mentioned that you thought that Joe Biden
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was the better option at the last election. Yeah. What have you liked about the Biden administration?
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And are you still of the view that that was the right choice in terms of voting for Biden?
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The two, from the two options, it was the right choice. I mean, to, to speak candidly with you,
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gentlemen, Donald Trump was a humiliating embarrassment. I mean, just the, the promises
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he made, none of them were kept. You know, he was going to build a wall. He didn't build it. He was
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going to solve the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Jared actually was going to solve it. His son-in-law,
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as you know, it hasn't been solved. He was, I mean, there was a look,
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there was a lot of progress on that. Would you concede that?
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Well, the Israeli foreign minister turning up in Saudi Arabia. I mean,
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all of that stuff and better relations between the countries in the region. Did you not feel
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that that was some progress? What changed materially though?
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Look, maybe let's not spend too much time on it.
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Let me put it this way. Did anything change materially?
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I think it's quite a difficult situation to change materially in the course of a four year
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presidency, but. So it didn't, that's fair. Okay. We agree. It didn't change materially. They did do
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some optics things. You know, there was a flight like from Tel Aviv to UAE, but I think we're on the
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same page. We can't, I, neither one of us can identify anything that changed materially. Is that
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fair? Um, I, I w what I would say is I think some progress was made in a very difficult situation.
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I don't claim that the situation became dramatically different and we are now
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like way, way towards a solution. And also I think I'd also concede that it's not an issue I know
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enough about to have a proper discussion with you as well. That's fair. Let's let's, well,
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we can table it on that, on that basis. Um, no, listen, I mean, as far as Joe Biden,
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Joe Biden's not exciting to me, you know, I'm a, I'm a progressive social Democrat. So Joe Biden's not
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exciting. He did some good things. So he did a third COVID stimulus at a time that I think it was
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necessary, extended a pause on student loans, got a pretty good infrastructure bill passed,
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got us out of Afghanistan, which I think was a great thing. I think that that was a quagmire,
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but be, oh yeah. Oh my God. I mean, we were there 21 years.
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I agree with you with a quagmire point, but did you feel that the way that was done went well?
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I think it went as well as it would have gone no matter who did it.
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Wow. Interesting. I mean, when asked, Trump was asked, what would you have done differently?
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And he literally couldn't articulate a single difference. So at least Trump was going to do it.
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And he, another failed promise, Biden did it. And when Trump was given the opportunity to articulate
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how he would have handled it differently, he couldn't name a single difference. So let me,
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in the most factual way possible, I've not heard Trump explain what would have gone differently.
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And therefore I have no basis on which to assume it would have. Is that fair?
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I suppose it is. The question for me is, I, I, I mean, I struggled to imagine it going any worse. So
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I kind of feel like there is a possibility that the preparations could have gone better. Is that,
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do you think that's unfair? I have a struggle to imagine it could have gone better. So like,
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I think where I land is it went the way I expected, you know, and, and it was correct ultimately to get
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out. Okay. Please carry on. I interrupted you. Um, by talking about whether you're happy with the
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Biden president. Yeah. I mean, it's like, listen, um, he's doing exactly what I expected. You know,
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I didn't expect him to do anything on cannabis decriminalization and he's not, and I didn't
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expect any, at least in the first two years immigration reform and we're not getting it.
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So, you know, my, my, I try not to become jaded or cynical, but basically I I've seen from Biden
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exactly what I expected. Okay. You mentioned Trump being a humiliation and look, uh, uh, you know,
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neither Francis or I were pro Trump. Um, I thought, I thought he raised some important issues,
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by the way, uh, you know, in immigration, not, not, not being least of those, we can have a
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conversation about that maybe later on. But, um, if, if Trump was a humiliation, perhaps in the way
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that he talked and you, you mentioned some of the promises that he didn't deliver on the optics of the
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Biden president presidency, do they, do they not make you cringe somewhat when he's shaking hands in
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midair with people who aren't there and forgetting things and all of that? Beautiful. So are you guys
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open to a good faith conversation about that? Absolutely. Okay. Okay. So let's go piece by
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piece. Um, does Joe Biden sometimes lose his train of thought? Absolutely. Absolutely. There's,
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there's no question about it. And he's close to 80 years old. If you compare Joe Biden today to Joe
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Biden, when he ran circles around Paul Ryan in 2012, it's not the same guy. I have no problem saying
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that that's absolutely the case. No argument whatsoever. The shaking hands with midair video
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was a total joke. And I'll tell you the story about it. The weekend that that story, you know,
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the, the shaking hands with midair, but I looked at the clip on my phone and it was a very short clip
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where you just see Biden stopped speaking. He turns to the side and he goes like this. I said,
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oh my goodness, this is, it is, this is terrible. Biden, he seems worse than Trump. When Trump came off
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of his plane and his car was right in front of him and Trump wandered off and was brought back
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by the arm by a secret service agent. And they said, here's your car. That lit that's worse than
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when Trump had Rudy Giuliani sitting right across the table and said, where, where's Rudy?
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And maybe I'll ask Rudy to say a few words. Well, thanks. Thank you very, very much,
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Mr. President. First of all, congratulations on what is in fact a historic start of an administration.
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I've never seen so much done in so short a period of time.
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This, that Biden clip looked that, um, and I was going to report like, guys, this, something seems
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wrong with Joe Biden. And then I found like a, the actual full frame instead of the square Twitter
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video. And you could see what happened after. And Joe Biden had people to his right and to his back,
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right. And to his back. And, and he literally finished the speech and turned and said something
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to the people, to the right. And then he turns back and he does the exact same thing. And then
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to the other side and does the exact same thing. So that was a non-story for me. It was a complete
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non-story. I hear you. Yeah. David, I'll, I haven't done enough research and I'll admit it readily
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that I don't know whether that's accurate, but I'm happy for the purpose of this discussion to accept
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that. Fair. But would you accept that Joe Biden mentally is not at his peak? I think you already
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have. I already have. Yeah. So is, is that not a humiliation? Well, when I say a humiliation,
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I go by what is global opinion of the United States? That's my, because I'm one guy, right? And so
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what, what is, so I want to say, what does the world think? And we know because of global Gallup studies
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and global Pew studies and others, that opinion of the United States as an, as a country of the
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U S's ability to lead of the president of the United States, it was in the toilet to use a phrase.
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Trump likes, you know, to flush 10 or 15 times opinion was in the toilet under Trump and it has
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recovered dramatically under Biden. So I try to take myself out of it and just say, what does the world
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think? And there's a couple of exceptions. Russia liked Trump better than Biden. Again, this is not
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rhetorical. It's just the opinion polls. Russia did like Trump better than Biden. I think Turkey
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liked Trump better than Biden. And for some, this may be wrong, but I think I have Nigeria in my mind
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liked Trump better than Biden. But other than that, empirically, our global reputation has
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recovered dramatically under Biden. So that's my standard that I use.
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No. In Russia, you skin bare with your bare hands and wear it. Obviously, this is for men only.
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Women and small children are allowed to use knife.
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It's made out of bare. Babushka created it for me using nothing but her own bare hands.
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forward slash trigger to find out. And do you not think that the problem with Trump,
00:21:46.900
Trump was never the problem. He was a symptom of the problem, which is that a large part of the
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working classes and the Rust Belt in particular felt alienated by the Democrats. They felt they
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weren't being represented by them. And that's why they voted, which shows that there is a real problem
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amongst that part of the left that they can't connect with the working classes because the
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working classes don't feel that they have their best interests at heart.
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So I would say a couple of different things. I would say there is absolutely a problem with the
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Democratic Party that it is not doing enough for the working class. I, again, I'm not a Democrat.
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I don't care about the party. I gladly concede that. What I see as the problem with Trump
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is more. I agree with the idea that Trump was a symptom rather than the problem. But for me,
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the problem was if Trump doesn't have people who fall for his obviously false promises and complete
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lack of understanding of any issue, if people don't fall for that, Trump's the crazy guy yelling in the
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New York subway. Right. The danger comes from the fact that in the United States, there are so many
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people who are either not engaged with politics at all that when a celebrity pops up, they go,
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that sounds kind of good. I know who Trump is. Or they're so they lack knowledge of issues to such
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a degree that when they hear Trump say, I'm going to fix trade by putting tariffs on China and nobody.
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Trump doesn't even understand that it's American companies that pay the tariffs. And all Trump
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starts saying, look at how much we charge China. And then his followers go, we charge China so much.
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And it's like, guys, it's the American companies that pay the tariffs. So when people don't understand
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stuff, they fall for people like Trump. And that to me is the problem, because without the cult members,
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you don't become a cult leader. You need followers to be a cult leader. And so I agree with you that
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Trump is emblematic as a symptom rather than actually being the problem. But my perspective
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is a little bit different as to why. David, can I in the spirit of a very good faith,
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but honest conversation, please can I feed back to you what it sounds like you just said from where
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I'm sitting? Yes. Which is Francis was saying to you, there's a large portion of the American public
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who are so alienated by some of the rhetoric on the left that they they went to they had to resort
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to voting for Donald Trump. That's his argument. And what you said is, no, that isn't really the
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problem. The problem is Americans are ill educated and quite stupid and fall for for Trump's bombastic
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statements. That's what it sounds like. Did I hear you right? It's a combination of both.
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OK, now here's one thing. But isn't that sorry, David, just to finish this point. Isn't that always
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the case, though? I mean, it's not like the public got massively more stupid and ill educated in the last
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four years. Right. Or the last six years. So, well, people have always been. I don't know about that.
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I mean, I don't know how much you follow American education, but I think let me put it this way.
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It's beyond me to deeply dive into that specific niche of this discussion. But I think there are many
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who would make the case that actually the American public on average has become less educated over
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time. OK, let's I don't want to argue with that. But wouldn't wouldn't you accept that these movements,
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these right wing populist movements? We also had this here in the UK with Brexit. And it's an issue
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that probably you I don't want to assume, but you may know less about it than we do. And certainly we
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would say in this country that the same arguments were made. These are stupid, racists, whatever
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people. But actually, if you speak to a lot of people who voted this way, which we didn't,
1.00
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
1.00
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
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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
1.00
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.
0.91
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?
00:32:03.660
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
0.95
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.
00:32:34.140
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.
00:32:43.740
Look at Germany and Russian gas right now. And again, don't need to get into that.
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.
1.00
00:33:50.940
Yeah. Yeah. I was going somewhere with that. I just wanted to get confirmation.
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,
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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?
0.90
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
1.00
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
1.00
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
1.00
00:37:20.380
gone on to commit sexual assault against women in prison. Right. Okay. We obviously have had
0.95
00:37:25.340
trans women in male sport, in female sports, where they, in my opinion, have an unfair advantage.
0.99
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
0.77
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.
0.90
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?
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00:39:03.260
No, but I wasn't even cop shooting black people is bad, but the real problem is something else.
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00:39:09.900
And we shouldn't talk about the cops shooting black people.
0.97
00:39:12.300
No, no, no, that's not the argument I'm making whatsoever.
0.95
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.
0.99
00:39:29.740
Forget about cop shooting black people, right? But those are totally different things. What
1.00
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
1.00
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?
1.00
00:39:58.300
Well, but not everybody who's a trans woman has a penis, but these people did,
1.00
00:40:03.180
and they were in female prisons, both in your country and in ours.
1.00
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?
1.00
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
0.99
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
1.00
00:40:54.700
on the show who say we need to make provisions. So the trans people are in a separate facility
1.00
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.
0.98
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
1.00
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
1.00
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
1.00
00:41:56.060
likelihood, they are far less likely to assault someone in a women's prison than they are to be
0.98
00:42:02.700
assaulted in a men's prison. And so that's a particular case where I would say it makes sense
0.97
00:42:08.300
for them to be in a women's prison. Yes. Okay. We could go, we could go around for hours,
1.00
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
0.99
00:42:26.700
male with a penis who is outwardly feminine and, and is seen by the average person as a woman,
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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.
0.99
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.
0.89
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,
1.00
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,
00:43:39.500
now we're really getting too narrow, I think. Sure. Yeah. Hey, KK, do you believe in spring
00:43:46.860
cleaning? Yes, but only when my wife does it. In Russia, men who clean are executed for not being
00:43:52.460
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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.
0.98
00:45:31.740
But let's go on to a very thorny issue. My girlfriend is a left-wing progressive,
1.00
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
1.00
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
1.00
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
1.00
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?
0.65
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
00:49:15.740
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,
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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
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00:50:08.060
counterintuitive because it's like, well, if I can find an undocumented immigrant to work for two bucks
1.00
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
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00:51:04.780
undocumented immigrants. Why? Because they know they're in the country illegally. They, they go out
1.00
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
1.00
00:51:38.140
labor is the way in which corporations can work in a whole bunch of different ways to avoid paying
1.00
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
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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
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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
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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
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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,
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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
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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.
00:55:54.300
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
1.00
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.
01:00:02.220
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
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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.
1.00
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
01:02:26.380
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.
01:03:29.660
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
01:03:44.540
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?
01:04:23.900
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.
01:04:51.420
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?