← The David Pakman Show
The David Pakman Show
4/16/25: AOC's crowds and polling explode while Trump adviser is escorted out
01:01:52
-- On the Show: -- Mark Bankston, attorney at Farrar and Ball best known for his takedown of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, is now representing Mauricio Garcia, a man falsely labeled as a "neo-Nazi mass shooter" by major media outlets, and joins...
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- [00:08]
David Pakman
Well, we have a very interesting situation developing in MAGA country. Bernie Sanders and AOC are pulling massive crowds in some of the reddest of red states. Not a joke, not an exaggeration. This is just real on the ground turnout in deep red states. Idaho, Utah. Bernie and AOC are getting tens of thousands of people to come out and show up at rallies in places that Trump won by 30 and 40 points. Here's Bernie at the latest fight oligarchy rally, this one in Folsom, California, talking about the turnout and talking about what it means as far as he's concerned.
- [00:58]
Bernie Sanders
So in this pivotal moment in American history, what I have discovered as Alexandria and I go all over this country, we are seeing unbelievable turnouts. We were in Idaho.
- [01:12]
David Pakman
Idaho.
- [01:15]
Bernie Sanders
We had 12,000 people coming out in Idaho. Most conservatives say the country. We have 20,000 people. It's salt Lake City, a Republican state. And I think what the American people, Republicans, independents, Democrats, are saying, sorry, Mr. Trump, we don't want your oligarchy. Sorry, Mr. Trump, too many men and women have fought and died to defend democracy. You're not going to take us into authoritarianism. And sorry, Mr. Musk, we're going to create an economy that works for us, not just for you. So, brothers and sisters, I recognize that the oligarchs have enormous power. They have unlimited amounts of money, and they are extraordinarily greedy. They want it all.
- [02:21]
David Pakman
All right, so now Bernie goes into his. His discussion of oligarchs, which is relevant, but just not to our story here. AOC talking about the exact same topic at this same rally, which is that Trump country. It seems like this is our country. She says, I hear.
- [02:41]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Thank you.
- [02:44]
Caroline Levitt
Thank you. Thank you.
- [02:45]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Thank you all so much. You know, I heard that they were. That someone started flying a plane with a ban that said, this is Trump country. It sure don't look like it today. I don't think this is Trump country. I think this is our country.
- [03:11]
David Pakman
It is also not lost on me that while on the one hand, Bernie Sanders has made it clear he sees himself as too old to run for president again. I mean, when he was asked about 20, 28, he said something like, you know, I'm going to be almost 90 years old, making it clear he's not running, but a lot of people are talking about, what about aoc? And concurrent with these rallies, record crowds, red states firing people up. Concurrent with these rallies, we have new data and I'm not going to do this to you for the next three and a half years. Don't worry, but because it's relevant to our discussion today we have new Data. Average of 2028 Democratic primary polling, significant bump for AOC. You've got Kamala Harris at 3031. And to some degree it makes sense, even though I don't believe that Harris should be the nominee in 28. If we have many choices, the sort of default path, in a sense, 30% and then 70% support for people other than Kamala Harris. And at the top of that non Kamala Harris list is AOC at 11%. Just, just a fraction of a point ahead of the former Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buddha Judge. So very interesting to see that as well. Zooming out a little bit from the Dem primary kind of side of things. I think it's just too early to talk about that. The energy and the crowds at these events do represent a problem for Trump, but they also represent a problem for the Democratic establishment. Because if there is a narrative that the corporate media loves to push, it's that rural America belongs to the right. The rallies are blowing that myth totally out of the water. They are suggesting they don't prove, but they suggest that progressive populism, when it's loud and when it's unapologetic and when it's focused on economics rather than contrived cultural issues or litmus tests, the true progressive populist message can really compete anywhere. So it's not about culture wars. These, I don't know if you've noticed, but these rallies have not been about woke versus anti woke. They've been about jobs and health care and housing and just who's fighting for you? Is it the oligarchs? Is it Elon Musk? Or is it not? And the events don't mean that a Bernie or AOC would win in Idaho. Trump's base runs deep in those areas, that it's a mostly Republican state. But what it does mean is that the idea that MAGA owns rural America is a lie. The notion that progressives can't show up in red states is a lie. The myth that working class people will never turn out for left wing economic ideas. Untrue. And even just chipping, chipping, chipping away at Trump's base could flip some swing districts. It could expand the Senate map by a seat or two. And importantly, it could redefine the way in which Democrats can compete. Because there are many who I believe incorrectly assume that the only way for Democrats to compete in anything but the bluest areas is with these sort of like play to the middle corporate centrist Dems. And while that is true in some places, it's clearly not true in many others. And so these rallies are serving a number of important purposes and we'll see how far they go. You know, things aren't going that well at Trump's Pentagon when the guy who exposed a secret back channel with Elon Musk is getting escorted out of the building for telling the truth. And that's exactly what happened. Let me tell you what's going on. Guy named Dan Caldwell, top adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, was physically removed from the Pentagon after he was caught up in an investigation into a classified leak. But what actually happened here is not about Caldwell being careless. It's that he accidentally exposed the real scandal. He is going to be fired because Caldwell outed and exposed the fact that Elon Musk arranged with Pete Hegseth to get a top secret briefing at the Pentagon. Trump and his chief of staff didn't even know about it. And as usual, in Trump world, the person who ends up doing the right thing is the one who's punished. So here's what this is really about. Elon Musk and Pete Hegseth coordinated to get a private Pentagon briefing on top secret national security matters. Trump and his chief of staff had no idea it was happening. Dan Caldwell, Hegseth senior adviser, made the mistake of confirming it. And just like that, he's the one who gets punished. Because we know that in Trump world, doing the right thing often gets you fired. Breaking rules is fine. Covering it up fine. Telling the truth? No, you're going to get yourself escorted out of the building. And according to Reuters, Caldwell has been placed on administrative leave for an unauthorized disclosure. They're not saying exactly what he revealed, but we know the reason. He confirmed something that they wanted to hide, that Elon Musk is getting secret Pentagon access and Trump wasn't even in the loop. Caldwell had been identified in a classified leak probe and has been physically escorted out of the Pentagon. He was previously named, by the way. This is not a water boy or someone who gets coffee. He was previously named by Pete Hegseth as the point of contact for coordinating the National Security Council ahead of US Military strikes. Not an intern, right? We didn't know him. We barely knew the guy. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is the person getting this access. Took billions in government subsidies, controls key defense communications via Starlink, routinely flirts with authoritarian governments around the world, and he is the one getting secret Pentagon briefings coordinated by the Secretary of Defense without the President's knowledge. In A normal world, the scandal would be that this was going on. But this is not a normal world. This is a world that is very much abnormal. And so the person confirming, exposing, making us realize Elon Musk is in this position, Trump didn't know. It's not even clear that he has the clearance for that. That's the individual who gets fired. And of course, this is to be. To be fair, Democrats and Republicans both will often do the same thing when there are unauthorized disclosures. When you like the content of the disclosure, you focus on that and not whether the disclosure was inappropriate. If you don't like the content of the disclosure, you focus on this never should have been made public. And of course, there is legitimacy to classification. The Signal Chat, of course, is a big explanation. But what we learned here is something that at its core, it's the difference with Signal Chat is that the content of the Signal chat potentially was a national security risk. Dan Caldwell, by confirming that Elon Musk was getting these briefings, is trying to stop a national security risk. That's the difference. But of course, he's the one who gets escorted out because they don't like the fact that this went public. And of course, it's sort of embarrassing to Trump that he didn't even have the idea that this was going on another day, another crisis. Except it's not a crisis in the Trump administration. It's just Wednesday. You know, no matter how fast time seems to be flying by, it is never too late to make some progress. If you're saving for a big purchase like a home or a car and you need credit, Kickoff can help. They are the number one credit building app. In the app store. Plans start at just five bucks a month. No credit check, no hidden fees, no interest. If your credit is under 600, you could jump 28 points in your first month. Kickoff is a smart legal credit hack with no catch, no credit check, no hidden fees and no interest. 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Payment and credit activity outside Kickoff can have an impact on your credit. Individual results may vary. You know, every time we call out Donald Trump's authoritarianism, the right calls it media hysteria. But I want to remind you that Trump admits he's looking for ways to defy the Constitution and maybe even pursue another term. Now if you don't know the bias behind your news, you might believe oh, Trump's just teasing us. There's nothing here. Go to Ground News slash Pacman and see how media bias influences more than your perception from Trump's policy and ability to understand and undermine constitutional norms. I've been with Ground News for years now because this is what they do. They expose the hidden agendas behind reporting sources and make it easy to compare coverage and understand critical issues. Even better, if I'm reading a story on another site, the Ground News browser extension will flag the source's political bias and and give me other reports on the same story so I can verify the information. My viewers get 40% off the same unlimited vantage plan that I use, so you get their top tier plan for just $5 a month. Go to ground.news/pacman the link is in the description or scan the QR code. The David Pakman show continues to be a primarily audience supported program. Get the free full David Pakman show experience, including the Daily show with no commercials, the Bonus show, access to the members only sound board on our website, and so many other things by signing up@join pacman.com I am flattered by the fact that 384 new members have signed up this month alone. You could be number 385. Check it out at join pacman.com Trump adviser Stephen Miller just had what can only be described as a live frothing at the mouth legal meltdown. It didn't happen in private. It didn't happen behind closed doors. It didn't happen anywhere other than on national tv. Stephen Miller is regularly flying off the handle now, ranting and raving and rambling about due process and illegal invaders and threatening to deport people to war zones like it's some kind of twisted game show at this point in time. Here is Miller using, of course, dehumanizing language. You can always count on him to do that. Illegal invaders. And as always, misstating what it is that has been taking place with these deportations and lack of due process, process and all of it. Take a listen to this. Sort of centered around an individual that some call a Maryland father and others call a gang banger.
- [16:03]
Stephen Miller
President Bukele's constituent. He is President Bukele citizen. He is President Bukele's resident. He is not a Maryland man. He is not a Maryland anything. He is an illegal alien from El Salvador with a deportation order from the United States. He is not legally even allowed to be in our country.
- [16:23]
David Pakman
President Illegal invaders, right? Not people, not asylum seekers, not even immigrants. These are invaders. And this is exactly the kind of rhetoric that Miller is known for. And it's exactly the kind of rhetoric that he uses when he's gearing up to maybe violate an international law or two and then pretend that it's justice. Now, then it gets even more bizarre because in the second clip, Miller starts listing random countries where they could dump people, like human luggage or a package delivery. Listen to this.
- [16:57]
Stephen Miller
So for two reasons, it's completely invalid, but let's just say we wanted to honor it. We're going to say, okay, fine, yeah, we're going to honor your request not to live in El Salvador. That means he could be sent to Haiti, it could be sent to Yemen, he could be sent to Syria. I mean, those are all the options on the table under his plea.
- [17:15]
David Pakman
Isn't this so funny? Isn't this hilarious? The idea here that Stephen Miller is putting forward, this is not policy. This is a revenge fantasy. This is an authoritarianism wet dream. Send people to Haiti, send them to Yemen, which we're bombing. Send them to Syria. Engaged in civil war. Forget safety, forget due process, forget international treaties, forget the Constitution. He wants to sort of like, spin a globe and pick a place to drop people into chaos to score political points. And of course, the lack of empathy is the exact point here, because this is the architect of Donald Trump's immigration policy, the guy behind the family separations of the first season of the Trump presidency, the Muslim bans, and then now the brains, or lack thereof, behind Donald Trump's deportation plan. And he is very active in laying the groundwork to break the system from within, ignore asylum laws, Pretend that you know this is not a detail. I know that. Oh, David, you're getting into semantics. It's not Semantics. If you have applied for asylum and have been given a date to reappear and you are in the United States awaiting that court date, you are here legally, you're not here on a permanent basis. Right. This goes back to Vivek and his parents, actually, Vivek Ramaswamy and his parents. And what they are blurring in terms of the lines between here legally and here permanently. Yeah, no, I mean, listen, if you're awaiting an asylum court date, you don't have permanent residency, you're certainly not a citizen, but you are here legally up until the point at which you skip out on that court date. But they want to ignore that. Oh, these people are here illegally. Strip or ignore due process, treat immigrants like enemy combatants. And you look at enemy. The idea of who authoritarian regimes declare to be enemies. One of the ways they start is redefining who counts as a person, and then they turn policy into punishment. Miller's deranged, very much so. But he is exactly the sort of faux strength and fake alpha that Donald Trump absolutely loves. Speaking of Donald Trump, he sat down with Fox Notice. Yes, that's Spanish for news for a sort of hybrid multilingual, not particularly cunning lingual, I should say, but certainly multilingual interview, wherein it was supposed to be an easy one, a softball interview, and it went terribly wrong, as these tend to do for Donald Trump. Here is Trump waxing poetic about the good old days of tariffs. In the late 1800s.
- [20:10]
Donald Trump
There is a chance that the money from tariffs could be so great that it would replace, you know, in the old days, 18, about 1870 to 1913, the tariffs were the only form of money. And that's when our nation was relatively the richest. We were the richest.
- [20:29]
David Pakman
Now, let me translate. When Trump, you might be saying, what does he mean that tariffs were the only form of money? That doesn't make sense. I thought money was money. And of course, you're right. What Trump means is the government did not have income tax revenue. It had tariff revenue. And that's true for a period of time. Of course, at that point, America made its own stuff, rather than 50 years of choosing cheap foreign stuff over domestically produced stuff. We did not have a federal government that provided really almost anything in the way of social welfare programs as we do now. We didn't have an interstate highway system to maintain. Everything was different at that point. But Trump loves to insist that we were as prosperous as ever. By the way, we used leeches as medical treatment at the time. So I don't know why we're talking about going back to 1870, but we didn't have an income tax. That's. That's absolutely the case. Also, women couldn't vote and slavery had just ended. But that's what Trump wants to go back to. All right, really funny moment. The interviewer tries to teach Trump how to say make America great again in Spanish. And it goes about as poorly as you would expect.
- [21:50]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Mr. President, I'd like to teach you how to say let's make America great again in Spanish. So vamos. I said America grande ultra best.
- [21:57]
Donald Trump
America grande ultra best.
- [22:00]
David Pakman
America grande odrevates. I actually have it already. I have it here because this one's going to be useful. America grande ultravis O. Drivets, disaster. Interview. And that was only one of the humiliating moments the deportations came up. And what better opportunity to talk about deportations than with the Spanish speaking interviewer. Donald Trump says that he's going to make it easier on farmers and hotels who depend on migrant labor. And he talks about doing their crops. Doing their crops. Does this guy understand anything?
- [22:43]
Donald Trump
One of the things I am doing, though, is I'm also making it easier on the farmers and the hotels and everything, because you have a lot of farmers that they're not going to be able to, you know, do their crops and pick up the corn and do all of the things that they do so incredibly well. So we're making it so that if a farmer can give recommendations to people, we're going to be, we're going to be very soothing in terms of perhaps letting that farmer have, you know, they're sort of responsible, and we're going to have the farmer take responsibility. But, you know, ultimately, at some point, we want the people to go out, come back as legal. You know, we're going to send, as you probably know, we're doing a self deportation.
- [23:25]
Mark Bankston
Yes.
- [23:25]
Donald Trump
And we're going to make it comfortable for people and we're going to work with those people to come back into our country legally.
- [23:31]
David Pakman
Yeah. One of the things, one of the things that becomes clear when you listen to Trump talk is he has no idea what most workers actually do. We need people to be able to do their crops. We were told that there was nothing better than having a businessman president because he knows business. Turns out his businesses are not so good. And also, he doesn't really seem to understand much about what workers actually do. This is supposed to make Trump relatable, and it very much doesn't. Now, meanwhile, Trump did say we need immigrants. Some are saying that's the win. It's Surprising that he even said that. All right, and then finally Trump saying the opposite of what is true about the recent Supreme Court decision regarding those.
- [24:26]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Illegal deportations to the virus in Maryland. See or no, said Osunidos, the question.
- [24:36]
David Pakman
Was that was asked was there are still questions about the illegal. This is her word, not mine. There are questions about the illegal who lived in Maryland. Will he be returned or not? That's what Trump was asked.
- [24:47]
Donald Trump
As you know, the Supreme Court, after we get out all of the fake news from CNN and all these other people, we won that case nine to nothing. And basically that's really a decision that will be made by the government of El Salvador, because that's where I assume that's the one you're talking about. He's from El Salvador staying there and he's from El Salvador. So that's a decision up to El Salvador. But it's interesting because we won that decision nine to nothing in the Supreme Court. And if you listen to the news, you wouldn't know that.
- [25:19]
David Pakman
Right?
- [25:19]
Donald Trump
Really have no.
- [25:20]
David Pakman
Fair enough. And of course, that is very much not true. The Supreme Court says that the Trump administration must facilitate and arguably effectuate the return of that individual. But Trump is insisting, no, no, no. They found in my favor very much not true. This is an easy interview. This is an interview with not a single challenging question. And Donald Trump still manages to tell multiple lies and appear completely and totally confused. Speaking of confusion, Trump exploded this morning in a massive triggered rant, as usual, never taking personal responsibility for anything and attacking everybody that he can think of. This is not normal behavior. And this is, as we continue to cover. This is concerning even to many Republicans who see this crap and ask themselves, what is this guy doing? Let me see if I can get this framed correctly for us. Trump posting wow, fake news. MSNBC has really bad ratings. In fact, not much better than the broken broadcasting disaster known as cnn. Comcast, which also has the ailing network known as NBC, is trying to stay away from lawsuits by disassociating NBC from msnbc. But it won't work. Comcast, the owner of both, and its chairman, Brian Roberts are a disgrace to the integrity of broadcasting. Ok, so first instinct is attack media outlets I see as adversarial. Trump continuing. The United States is taking in record numbers in tariffs, with the cost of almost all products going down, including gasoline, groceries and just about everything else. Likewise, low inflation is down. Promises made, promises kept. Now, unfortunately for Donald Trump, one of the problems is that all of these claims are pretty shaky. I mean, even his claim about gas prices going down. It's pretty up and down and in fact if you look at where gas prices were, you know, just a month ago, they are up about 5, 6, 7% from there. These aren't major changes one way or the other, but the victories that Trump is claiming are very much dubious. Trump continuing Japan is coming in today to negotiate tariffs, the cost of military support and trade fairness. I will attend the meeting along with treasury and Commerce Secretaries. Hopefully something can be worked out which is good. Great for Japan and the usa. And then Trump continuing to attack. Everyone knows that Harvard has lost its way. They hired from New York and Chicago and ridiculously high salaries fees at ridiculous. He's talking about Bill de Blasio and Lori Lightfoot, two of the worst and most incompetent mayors in the history of our country to teach municipal management and government. These two radical left fools left behind two cities that will take years to recover from their incompetence and evil. Harvard has been hiring almost all woke and radical left idiots and birdbrains who are only capable of teaching failure to students and their so called future leaders. Ok, the point here is attack on Harvard because he doesn't like how they are running the show there and therefore he is going after them and their hires. Even though supposedly Trump wants the federal government not involved anywhere that is not completely and totally necessary. But he needs to get involved in what Harvard is doing then attacking Joe Biden. Sleepy Joe Biden, the worst president of the in the history of the United States has allowed millions and millions of criminals, many of them murderers and drug dealers and people released from prisons and mental institutions from all around the world to enter our country through its very dangerous by the way, wrong Danger. Wrong. It's it apostrophe s It's very dangerous and ill conceived open border. Sorry, but it's my job to get these killers and thugs out of here. That's what I got elected to do. MAGA and then sort of the cherry on top. Elise Stefanik is great. This is not a normal way to communicate and often Trump is praised for the authentic and direct way in which he's he communicates. This is not it. This is not an example of that. This is an example of someone who doesn't know what's going on, is unable to sensibly take critiques and deal with them substantively where it is all character assassination. MSNBC is terrible. Comcast is terrible. The CEO is a disaster. Joe Biden is terrible. Harvard is terrible. Bill de Blasio is terrible. Lori Lightfoot is terrible. This is a complete and total farce. And at a certain point we would hope that the American people are going to demand something different. I don't know that they will. That's the terrifying part. Millions of Americans grind or clench teeth at night and most don't even know it. If you have jaw pain, headaches, there's a great chance you are one of them. Teeth grinding is often caused by stress and it'll erode your teeth and enamel. 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It's great to welcome back to the program. Attorney Mark Bankston, partner at Farrar and Ball, may be best known to our audience for his takedown of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. And we will come back to that. Mark, I want to talk a little bit about Mauricio Garcia. Mauricio Garcia, Texas man, filed a libel lawsuit after being falsely identified as a neo Nazi mass shooter by several media outlets and some far right personalities. This was a primarily a mistake in identity situation. Tell us kind of how it all came to be sure what some of.
- [32:37]
Mark Bankston
You may remember that a couple summers ago in Allen, Texas there was a neo Nazi mass shooting at an outlet mall where many people, including children were killed. In the immediate aftermath of that the the shooter was identified by name Mauricio Garcia. And some people online tried to figure out who this person was and they found the wrong person. A resident of Dallas named Mauricio Garcia and started spreading his picture all over the world as though he was a neo Nazi mass murderer. And As a result, all of his friends and family had thought he was a mass murderer. His mom was getting calls from people saying, I'm so sorry your son is a neo Nazi. And you're right, it was a case of mistaken identity. But it was a little more complicated than that because the Mauricio Garcia they found was someone they thought that they could use to deny the narrative that it was a neo Nazi mass shooter. Because anybody can take one look at my client and they know that he is not the kind of Hispanic who would be a mass shooter. He is very much a Dallas area low rider Chicano who is, does no Anglo self identity whatsoever. And so they wanted to use this to deny the media story that there was a neo Nazi mass shooter.
- [33:49]
David Pakman
Can you talk about the outlets that ran with the photo and then how the reporting followed from that?
- [33:56]
Mark Bankston
Sure, sure. A lot of it really kind of began on the gutters of the Internet. The traditional areas that we see this misinformation come from, which is these sort of anonymous Twitter accounts on far right Twitter that spread into the next level of the media ecosystem, which is these right wing independent outlets that, that mainly do Internet reporting. And these are people like Tim Pool's media business. Owen Schroyer at Infowars and Steven Crowder all were in on this sort of thing. After that happened, it started to spread into even the more mainstream outlets. And when I say mainstream, I, I use that a little bit tongue in cheek because the next place it went was Newsmax. And so that's just one rung up this right wing fake news machine. What was actually surprising is to see that after it went to those places, it was also used by Televisia Univision, who has traditionally been known for being a very responsible media outlet. You know, Jorge Ramos is, is their lead anchor, maybe the most trusted media figure in the world. But a lot of people don't know that. In 2022 they merged with Televisia and their entire news department was replaced with some people who are perhaps more friendly to this right wing ecosystem that is producing this fake news.
- [35:12]
David Pakman
So give us a sense of the law in terms of what do you have to prove? I believe Texas law gives media outlets a chance to correct mistakes. Was. Is that what the law says? And was. Was that done in Texas?
- [35:28]
Mark Bankston
You have to ask the media outlets to correct and if they do that plaintiff is not allowed to pursue punitive damages, which are damages additional on top of his injury to punish that defendant. And so in this particular case it was interesting because Newsmax's report got so much negative press that they corrected very quickly. They were under intense public pressure to do so. Now there were other media outlets, for instance, Browder, Schroyer, Tim Pool, who were served requests for corrections and they did not correct. So you sort of have a mixed bag is that you have is news. Newsmax is the only one who has ever publicly acknowledged the mistake that they made. And the rest of these defendants basically just ignored my client and found themselves in the lawsuit.
- [36:15]
David Pakman
Have any of the other defendants given put forward an explanation or excuse? I don't want to use loaded language. I mean a defense, an explanation, an excuse, whatever you would want to call.
- [36:26]
Mark Bankston
It, none that the trial court found acceptable. All of the defendants moved to dismiss the case, citing their various defenses. And at that point in Texas we have what's called anti slap, which means the plaintiff pretty much has to prove every element of their case right off the bat. And the court determines if there's clear and specific evidence for the plaintiff's claims or if there are any valid defenses. In this case, there were no valid defenses found by the trial court. And so all of the defendants who, who sought to get out of the case were unable to do so. Mostly their defenses revolve around the idea that, oh, you know, we mistakes got made, what can you do? And that's just not a valid defense for defamation. If you don't act as a reasonably ordinary prudent publisher, then you can be held liable for defamation. You know, they try to make other arguments too, to try to mitigate the amount of harm that they think they did. They typically point fingers at each other. But here you really do have that classic, that classic situation that we're seeing over and over where a group, an ecosystem of far right wing accounts and media outlets collectively get a story out into the public consciousness.
- [37:39]
David Pakman
You mentioned that in the immediate aftermath, people close to your client said, I guess this guy's a neo Nazi, right? And of course, at some point, I assume relatively quickly that misapprehension was corrected. But can you talk about what are the damages that were maybe more sustained here to your client?
- [38:01]
Mark Bankston
Well, what you have to understand, of course, is that while certainly the him and his family had received some calls from, you know, people he had gone to high school with, former co workers, things like that, those misapprehensions were able to be quickly corrected. But you have to consider all of the people in his life who did not call, who may never call the family again thinking that he's a neo Nazi mass Murderer. So you. You have this one set which is all the people who. Who knew him in his life who may have encountered these broadcasts. But then you have a second set of. Think about the emotional impact it has on you when you know that millions of people across the country are looking at you as a monster, as a neo Nazi child murderer. For somebody like my client Mauricio, who's not really exposed to a lot of attention in his life, that can really mess up your mind. That. That is a really hard thing to deal with. So not only do you have the reputational damage that's occurred to him through people he know or people he may encounter in the future. Right. But it's also the emotional damage that happened to him of feeling powerless to stop this. And during this entire time, really, his life did get turned upside down. He was not well equipped to deal with this at all.
- [39:12]
David Pakman
Let me play devil's advocate here. There are some who would say, listen, I'm sensitive to what Mark is saying, and it seems that there was an immediate negative impact. But at this point in time, at a national level, people have moved on from the story, and nobody in a literal sense thinks that your client was the shooter. This is the argument, right. Further, this has the potential to have a really chilling effect on independent creators who are inevitably going to make some mistakes in pursuing stories more quickly, maybe than corporate media might have the ability to do. So isn't this really a suppression of an environment of independent media that we should actually generally be supportive of? What would you say to such an argument?
- [40:06]
Mark Bankston
So. So two is I would address both of those points, which is, first, there's the famous phrase that a lie gets around the world before the truth puts its pants on. Yeah, and that's very true when it comes to issues like this. Obviously, I've handled a lot of these kinds of cases involving these sort of fake identifications, stories that turn out not to be true. And what I find over and over is, though, that in certain circles, these facts are corrected. There's a certain media watchdog sort of community that understands that these stories were wrong. For the vast majority of people, that image of my client is the image of the shooter in their minds. All these people who are exposed to that. And what's wild is that you still see it referenced online to this day. For, for a lot of us, we think, oh, these stories go away. But when you look at all of these strange little conspiracy theories or these strange little misidentifications, they stay persistent, and you still see it on Twitter. To this day, you see references to my client. Not only is there that when you talk about what is really the duty of an independent creator, and for instance, you're yourself in this very position.
- [41:14]
David Pakman
Yep.
- [41:15]
Mark Bankston
I am sensitive to the idea that there needs to be a break on the stranglehold of corporate media and how the world has been informed. I think over the last 10 to 15 years, the. That has very much happened. That is, we are, we are no longer in an era in which the independent media creator is, is some sort of, you know, in its infancy or embryonic. This is now the state of the world. More people are getting their news from sources like that than they really are from things like cable news. And so to me, I understand that mistakes happen. And if mistakes happen after, say, an independent creator follows basic, ordinary prudence in how they approach their job, then there's no cause of action for defamation there, because a mistake can be made without negligence. But when a creator is negligent, when there's affirmative facts in the record that show that they ignored things that were leading them to the truth, where they actively avoided the truth, that's a different. That's a completely different issue. And that's what we're seeing here. When you look at these depositions, and in fact, you can go by our firm's YouTube channel, you can see the depositions positions of Steven Crowder, of Univision, of Newsmax, of Infowars, and you will see that this is not just merely a situation where an explainable mistake occurred. There were several layers of, of both incompetence and willful indifference to the truth that resulted in this. And when that happens and you're making money off of the information you spread, then yes, when you falsely accuse somebody, evidently most heinous of crimes, you just simply have to be responsible for that.
- [42:51]
David Pakman
As of now, who has settled and who hasn't settled?
- [42:55]
Mark Bankston
Well, it's interesting because of course, the, the, the settlements that we'll know about are those who were actually in the lawsuit. Now, obviously, as you mentioned, we started demand process before the lawsuit starts. So this is something, a message to media outlets out there. If you settle with me before I sue you, no one will ever know you were in any trouble. No one will have any idea of what happened, because that's all confidential. No one will ever know about it. But after the suit was filed, there were several defendants who did settle. The first one of those is Tim Pool, which he, to his credit faster than any media defendant in who was sued in the lawsuit, came forward and resolved the case. Steven Crowder also resolved the case following his deposition. He had moved to dismiss the case. We were granted the ability to take his testimony. After that deposition occurred, he made the correct decision and settled the case. We're still, unfortunately, we still have Newsmax and Univision. And of course, Mr. Schroyer at Infowars has obviously no intention of settling. So we still have, you know, our two biggest corporate media defendants, Newsmax and Univision, who've decided they'd rather force this man to litigate than. Than resolve the case.
- [44:08]
David Pakman
So in reading between the lines, you're saying there are some who settled before even being named in a lawsuit that you are not in a position to name because that was the whole point of settling before the lawsuit.
- [44:20]
Mark Bankston
That is absolutely correct, yes.
- [44:21]
David Pakman
All right.
- [44:22]
Mark Bankston
And what's interesting is I think most traditional media outlets, that's the way they go when there is an actual legitimate case and it's not frivolous. Most responsible media outlets settle up and take accountability for what they did. Unfortunately, I tend to sue. Most of the media outlets I sue do not tend to fit that mold.
- [44:42]
David Pakman
Let's switch gears a little bit and follow up on something from when we last spoke to you. One of the things that has become the subject of much discussion since the verdicts against Alex Jones that you were involved in is manipulations around bankruptcy filings and auctions. And, you know, we don't have to rehash the last period of time about it, but my audience knows that there were clearly moves made to try to avoid having to pay out any money. And when I asked you what can you ultimately do to collect, you were a little cagey at the time. And you said, you know, we have ways, we have ways to do it. We now have some time that is, that has gone by. Have you found ways to collect from Alex Jones?
- [45:27]
Mark Bankston
Yes, we have. Unfortunately, the. The bankruptcy was a very long process and not productive in most of the ways that you would want it to be because you don't have the most cooperative and easy to work with defendant. But that bankruptcy process was very successful at sequestering and holding secure monies that were held by Free Speech System, the parent company of Infowars. And during that process, the, the court appointed trustee has been able to collect quite a large pool of money. That money is going to be liquidated and paid out to the families. And that's a fairly substantial amount of money, obviously nowhere close to their verdict size. But there is already that. That pot of money is already there. There was some. Your Viewers may know that the parent company of the Onion has made attempts to purchase the IP of Infowars and take over that intellectual property. That deal is still very much in the works. That. That unfortunately couldn't be worked out in the bankruptcy itself, but that is also still in the cards. And finally, there are Alex Jones's personal assets. And one of the big fights that we had in bankruptcy that we were successful is Alex Jones was found that he could not discharge those debts through bankruptcy. So now we're in a position where we need to physically collect on Alex Jones outside of the bankruptcy system. We've just exited the bankruptcy system. Now the Connecticut plaintiffs who filed suit after us, as well as my Texas clients, have all now joined together in a joint collections against Jones. And that's going to be playing out over the next six months or so. You may have seen that the. The Connecticut case, in fact, was recently affirmed by the Connecticut Court of Appeals. And so that judgment is final. And what you're going to be seeing now is the disbursement of the company's money, as well as coming after Jones for whatever we can squeeze out of him personally. It isn't the result that everybody probably wanted when they saw the verdicts. Right. But we always took this case with sort of a question mark of whether you'd be able to collect against Jones at all. It's oftentimes very difficult when you have a single individual, just a rich guy, to try to come after his money under, under lawsuits because they have so many protections and exemptions from being collected.
- [47:42]
David Pakman
Now, as he continues to create content and presumably generate revenue, does his ongoing revenue become part of your collection process, or is there sort of a date at which. Okay, what he does from this point forward is beyond the reach, or how does that work?
- [48:02]
Mark Bankston
No, everything that he's making for Free Speech Systems right now, that's all fair game. That's all going into the, the, the accounts of the business. Now, the moment when it happens, and it will happen at some point when, when Jones, you know, Free Speech System shutters its doors and he tries something new. Now we're actually going after Jones's personal income. That can get a little more complicated. But the things that Free Speech is doing right now, yes, it's. It's. That money's there for the plaintiffs. And so at some point he will make that transition. That's going to happen. We understand that it's not a practical thing to say. Alex Jones is never going to be part of public life anymore. Already he's been significantly defanged his reaches. Infinitesimal is what it was. And he's been broken psychologically. He's not an interesting person to watch anymore. There's, there's. He doesn't have the same cultural influence or anything anymore because he's, he's broken and uninteresting now. But, but he is still making a marginal amount of money. And that, of course, is going into the pot as well. But there will come a day in which which Jones will probably be trying to make a lot less money and make it in much more secretive ways. And so some of the challenge for us over the coming period is to obviously go find some of that money. But, but as a result, ultimately, what you can say over the past couple of years now, since the verdict is that every attempt that Jones has made to ultimately slide out from this, this verdict and have no responsibility, those have all failed. And so he's. He's run out of Runway. That's just all there is to it now. And so these next six months should be a pretty, pretty downhill slope into getting this case resolved.
- [49:42]
David Pakman
We've been speaking with attorney Mark Bankston, involved in a number of cases really relevant to the independent media space. Mark, always great to talk to you. Thanks so much.
- [49:53]
Mark Bankston
Thank you so much, man. It's been really great being here.
- [49:56]
David Pakman
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- [51:59]
Caroline Levitt
The Democrat and media outrage over the deportation of abrego Garcia, an MS.13 El Salvadorian illegal alien criminal who is hiding in Maryland, has been nothing short of despicable. Based on this sensationalism of many of the people in this room, you would think we deported a candidate for father of the Year. That's because unfortunately, many in this country care more about this quote, unquote, Maryland father, illegal alien, Ms. 13 gang member than a Maryland mother and an American citizen who was brutally murdered at the hands of a different illegal alien.
- [52:33]
David Pakman
Now what you just. A different illegal alien? What? Why is that relevant to the deportation of this individual?
- [52:44]
Caroline Levitt
Of course I am referring to Rachel Morin. And if you didn't see, yesterday, a Maryland jury found illegal alien Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez guilty of murdering Rachel Morin in August of 2023.
- [52:59]
David Pakman
Now importantly, that has nothing to do with Abrego Garcia, nor has any proof of gang membership been presented. In fact, a judge ordered that he not be deported, partially because he might be subjected to gang reprisals if deported. Now, I want to also remind you those facts are less relevant than the question of did he get due process? Because as I said before, father of the year or father of the weak or terrible father. None of that is relevant to denying people due process and Abrego Garcia was not given due process. Peter Doocy asks, would it be legal to deport citizens to Central American prisons? Why is this relevant? Because Donald Trump has said, I want to look at deporting American citizens to El Salvador, something which we have already researched and seems to be plainly unconstitutional and against the law. Here was the answer from Caroline Lovett. Deporting American citizens to Central American prisons, is it legal or do you need to change the law to do it?
- [54:11]
Caroline Levitt
Well, it's another question that the President has raised. It's a legal question that the President is looking into and he talked about this yesterday when his meet with his meeting with President Bukele in the Oval Office. He would only consider this if legal for American Americans, who are the most violent, egregious repeat offenders of crime, who nobody in this room wants living in their communities, deporting.
- [54:35]
David Pakman
Yes. Donald Trump's famously adept legal mind is looking to it very, very strongly. And then Caroline Levitt confirms that Donald Trump's belief is he can abuse the power of the presidency. Take a listen.
- [54:56]
Mark Bankston
The president has long said that it.
- [54:57]
David Pakman
Would be an abuse of power for a president to direct prosecutors to investigate him. Last week, President Trump explicitly directed the Justice Department to scrutinize Chris Krebs to see if it can find any evidence of criminal wrongdoing. How is that not an abuse of power to direct the Justice Department to look into an individual, a named individual.
- [55:22]
Caroline Levitt
Look, the president signed that executive order. It's the position of the president in this White House that it's well within his authority to do it. Otherwise he wouldn't have signed it. And he signed it, and that's his policy.
- [55:33]
David Pakman
Now, understand that there is not really an answer there. There is not a denial. There's not an explanation of the legal basis. It's just Trump's doing it. He's doing it. And it's different when Trump does it. You know, remember, when the president does it, it's not illegal. From Richard Nixon. Well, Trump's version is when President Trump does it, it's not illegal. But when other presidents do it, it is against the law. This is where we are right now as a country, and it's regrettable and it's deplorable, but it's dangerous because it was Abrego Garcia recently, and now it's Christopher Krebs. But when is it you? And that's the terrifying aspect of this. Marjorie Taylor Greene held, I guess what you would call a town hall, and it went horribly, horribly wrong. One man was tased and another individual screamed that Marjorie Taylor Greene is a butch body bigot. At least three people were removed from the event. Here's a guy who was taped. All right, so there's a lot of wrestling going on. I'm going to pause it before the tasing, just because I think showing the tasing would be not good in terms of the clip actually being shown to people on various platforms. I think it would be deprioritized if we actually show the tasing, then another protester, as they were being escorted out, yelling, you butch body bigot. At Marjorie Taylor Greene. It's kind of hard to hear, but let's see if we can.
- [57:21]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
That are not just living at the border. Ladies and gentlemen, they're all inside the interior of the United States.
- [57:27]
David Pakman
Gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, states, all inside.
- [57:33]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
The interior of the United States. You can head out. The protest is outside. Thank you very much. Protest is outside.
- [57:45]
David Pakman
There you go, you, you butch body bigot. Now, personally, I'm not a fan of body shaming. I want to make that very clear. Sometimes if you're a disgusting and deplorable person and treat other people in disgusting and deplorable ways, the consequence can be that you will then be treated in an equally disgusting and deplorable way. Not a fan of the body shaming, to be clear, but it is something that I've read in medical journals can sometimes happen to people. We then had another protester with a sign that said jail for insider traders removed from the town hall. Very raucous environment.
- [58:22]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Live in a place where I am one of the members of Congress that usually has the highest amount of death threats. As a matter of fact, as live in a place where so you could.
- [58:38]
David Pakman
Kind of see that person being pushed out. And then finally, Marjorie Taylor Greene dealt with a question about Trump being physically or mentally unwell. She did not like this question. Okay, listen.
- [58:52]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
What are you doing to protect us in the 14th district from the damage and extreme hardship of Trump's tariffs, gutting of Social Security and Medicaid, Doge gutting our government with a chainsaw approach and the utter destruction and ignoring of our Constitution and rule of law? He is not well, physically or mentally, and he's making nonsensical orders based on his. His whim of the day.
- [59:22]
David Pakman
Pretty good question, I have to say.
- [59:25]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
How are you going to reign him in to protect us? Oh, poor Christina. Poor, poor Christina. Well, I'm sure, Christina, you think that you're pretty smart, but the reality is you are being completely brainwashed by whatever source of news you listen to. The facts are this. No one has lost their Social Security. No one has lost their benefits. Criminals have lost it. Yes. Fraudsters have lost it. Yes. And illegal aliens have lost it. Yep. And if you want to defend those people where you hate our country and you hate America, what am I going to do? I am going going to stand by my president, I am going to support my president, and I am going to fight for his agenda with everything I have in Congress.
- [60:17]
David Pakman
And that is what is called a cult member. The cult grip is strong with this one. You know, we've been covering that. Republicans are increasingly reticent to hold town halls because they get protested and they end up looking like absolute fools. This is a prime example of that. And after seeing this, I understand why they don't want to do the town halls. On the bonus show today, we are going to talk about a Maryland senator who is traveling down to El Salvador to see exactly what is going on with Abrego Garcia. Is he even alive? Is a question that's increasingly being asked. Secondly, Trump wants to give money to some migrants to self deport. We will discuss it. And finally, for the first time in a very long time, Republicans are less trusted than Democrats on the issue of the economy. We will discuss all of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Remember that my book, the Echo Machine, now a New York Times best seller, if you can believe it, thanks to you, continues to be available everywhere books are sold. If you've bought the book, please remember to review it. We are now where are we on Amazon? We are at 853 reviews. We would love to get to a thousand. And I will say more about, oh, I did more interviews, by the way, related to the book. You can find them all@david pakman.com press. So I'll see you on the bonus show. I will see you back here tomorrow. What a day.