Transcript
David Pakman (0:07)
Welcome to the show. We start today with news about Kamala Harris's political future. This is a big deal. This could essentially set the stage for what will happen in 2028 with the Democratic primary and ultimately for who becomes the next President of the United States. So here's what's going on. Former Vice President Kamala Harris said she's not running for governor of California. And this is hugely important and consequential. It was assumed Harris is running for California Governor. Gavin Newsom is term limited out. Harris was set to do it. There was reporting that it was a done deal. Every understanding was that if Harris ran that she had an unobstructed path, certainly to the Democratic nomination. It's sort of a different kind of primary setup in California, but the idea being that she had an unobstructed path to the final ballot for governor of California. Now, by not doing it, the natural question is whether this is a setup to run in 2028 for president in the forthcoming Democratic presidential primary. Now, I'm going to tell you up front, I'm then going to back it up. But I'm going to tell you up front, I think that if this is her plan, it's a bad idea. And I don't think it's a bad idea because Harris couldn't do the job. I met her in March of last year. She's formidable, she's intelligent. She could do the job. I don't think that it's a bad idea because she's not competent. She is highly competent. That that's not the issue. The context here is one where what is the natural next step for Harris becomes a question. And it seems that to some degree she might feel as though going from VP to governor is a step down. And so that her only even potential future for going further up would be to run for president in 2028. She put out a carefully worded statement where she said, for now, my leadership and public service will not be in elected office for now. And then she adds that she's going to work on helping to elect Democrats in the midterms and in the forthcoming months. She's going to tell us more about her plan. So if you just say, take the names, take the history, take everything we know about Harris Biden in the last four years, take it out of there. Just look at what she's saying. You would say, oh, that's a pre campaign positioning. That's someone setting up to open the door to say, I am entering the Democratic primary. So, so let me say again, Kamala Harris, when I met her, was extraordinarily sharp, extraordinarily competent, able to talk about AI, immigration, foreign policy in an unscripted way, in a way that Trump can't do and Biden can't do. This is really not about qualifications. This is based on what we saw in 2024. I just don't think Harris can win a general election in 2028. What she is doing is intelligent in a sense. She's avoiding a messy state level race in California, which ultimately might be a political downgrade from VP to governor. Not everybody would agree, but in some sense she stays on the national stage, she's going to go to the fundraisers, she can go to the Met gala, she can do overseas speaking events. She keeps her name in the mix, but she doesn't get tied down to being the administrator of California. And my critique here is really not about anything Harris is doing, per say. This is the whole political operation around her. If you look at her 2024 campaign, it was this campaign style really rooted in the old guard of Democratic politics. The first couple of weeks were good, but you all have heard me say it a bunch of times now. Then it got heavy on consultants, it got away from the instinct of what was working. Safe messaging, slow reaction time, not engaging with the media ecosystem in a modern and contemporary manner. And she ultimately struggled to define herself and build a clear coalition. Her hesitation to distinguish herself from Biden in any way, because it would be seen as an implicit criticism of the president that she's serving under, certainly made it more complicated for her. But even despite some of the unique circumstances of 2024, I struggle to see her campaign as a fluke. I think that that's the campaign that she would run, even if she weren't already VP and taking over for Biden. In these sort of unusual circumstances, there's like a structural weakness, not in Harris as a candidate necessarily, but in the broader Democratic playbook that I think would certainly be applied again. If you apply that playbook in 2028, it's a major problem. Now, on the other hand, you've got Gavin Newsom clearly testing the waters. He launched his podcast, he's showing up in early primary states, he's staying very, very visible, and he has his own liabilities, which we'll talk about in a moment. But he does seem to understand that the political terrain has changed. I'm not saying you have to like Gavin Newsom better than Harris on policy or personality, but just looking at how they're operating, he seems to Understand that the political terrain has changed. And the fact that Kamala Harris is stepping back from a governor's race that would be on her home turf, that she almost certainly would win, to me, shows she sees a better, more prestigious option. And it's hard to imagine what that is other than running for president in 2028. But unless there's like some kind of major strategic overhaul around her, completely different type of team, completely different type of messaging, different media strategy, I think Kamala 28 is a replay of Kamala 24. Now the risk, of course, for Democrats is making the same sort of miscalculation more than once and assuming that experience which she has, and on paper, electability, which she of course has, is going to win you a campaign. And we already saw that that simply doesn't work. So I think the really the bigger question for the Democratic Party, which I know you all know, I am very pessimistic about this Democratic Party right now. The question for the Democratic Party is, is the party, the party control cadre. I don't even know what to call it. The politburo, for lack of a better term, is it really ready for something different? Now, I am not ready today to pick anybody or to tell you who I think should run or make an endorsement or anything like that. But I do think that among those who are rumored to be thinking about it, there are a lot of better options than Kamala Harris. I mean, if you say, David, would you rather Wes Moore, governor of Maryland, who I saw speak in person recently, and he was excellent, would I want Wes Moore or Kamala Harris as the nominee? I'd say I think Wes Moore has a better shot at this. Generationally, he has a different perspective on how to run campaigns. Rhodes scholar, veteran. I think Moore is a better candidate than Harris in the abstract. I would choose Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, over Kamala Harris appeals to suburban women and independence in a way that I don't think Harris does. I would choose Josh Shapiro over Kamala Shapiro. With the rampant anti Semitism, there's no doubt that Shapiro has liabilities. There's no question. But he's not flashy, but he's widely respected. He probably appeals to moderates in a way that Harris doesn't. What about Newsom versus Kamala Harris? I think I choose Newsom over Harris. Confident, communicator, very aggressive with right wing media. The risk is he's almost too slick for his own good. He's so good at performing that I think it can sometimes come off as a little too scripted or disingenuous. I would take Andy Beshear over Kamala Harris, red state governor in Kentucky. We had him on the show recently. We know he can win in red states. He's good on kitchen table issues. He hasn't been distracted by culture war stuff. So the point and Pete Buddha Judge I think is interesting. There are a lot of people who I think strategically are more interesting than Kamala Harris. So is this a setup to run in 2028? I don't know. Certainly is opening that door. Personally, I think we simply lose. It's not. I think Harris is awesome, but I think we lose. Let me know what you think. Leave a comment Send an email info@david pakman.com if you were convinced by MAGA that it is the left that wants to track your every move, you've got to think again. I told you this was coming and it's happening. The Trump administration is launching a nationwide health tracking system and they are partnering with the very big tech companies that MAGA has been warning us about for a long time. It's Google, Apple, Amazon, CVS, UnitedHealth. There's over 60 companies that are teaming up with the federal government to create a database of your private medical history. Diabetes, weight medications, mental health record records. It's all digitized, it's shareable. It's all opt in, of course. And who is running it? It's Dr. Oz, now head of Medicare and Medicaid. We're going to look later at some of the video, but Trump stood at the White House and he said that we are finally making the dream of easily transportable electronic, electronic medical records a reality. So pause there for a second. Do you remember when it was the maga, right, screaming about vaccine passports? What about hipaa? What about my medical records and privacy government health databases? They're going to microchip or they're going to track whether you're vaccinated. And we need to be skeptical about anything like this. Glenn Beck practically fainted when someone said we've got a contact trace. During COVID RFK Jr. Said the government should never, ever, ever under any circumstances be collecting personal health Data. And now RFK Jr. Is Secretary of Health and Human Services. He's pushing wearables to monitor vitals. He's pushing this massive medical dragnet to study vaccines and autism. He wants the records and Dr. Oz wants the records. So my question is, where are the don't tread on me people now? Where is the outrage from the government overreach people that say government shouldn't have any of our records. They are silent because it's now Trump doing the surveillance. So there's no conspiracy theory here. This is official federal policy. The center for Medicare and Medicaid Services is going to maintain this system. And earlier this month they agreed to give deportation officials access to the database, including addresses. And now they want to put your full medical history on top of it. Health tech startups, the weight loss app Noom is going to be able to pull your lab tests and give you AI driven weight loss suggestions. And it's going to be based on even things that you've told your doctor. Potentially you use Apple Health Noom gets the data center. CMS will soon start recommending government approved health apps on Medicare.gov this, this is what they warned us about. Digital privacy experts are concerned. Small, genuine small government people are concerned and this is really a surveillance scheme that they've dressed up as a wellness program. And maybe the most hypocritical part of it is that the very people who were warning us about government tracking have built this system and are saying, look at how awesome this is. So you've got Trump and RFK and Dr. Oz doing what they said Foushee and Gates are going to do this. And of course Foushee and Gates didn't do it, but they are the ones doing it. And the conspiracy theorists who were warning us about Gates are now applauding and saying, this is so awesome. It's Maha make America healthy again. So listen, we were told to question authority, so here are some questions. When government joins forces with Big Tech and mines your personal health data, who do you think actually benefits? Because the government can track your private health info. They could monitor, they could profile, they could target people based on a condition or a behavior. Immigration officials already got access to the health databases and they could lead deportation efforts potentially based on these databases. Of course, with no due process, Big tech can then use the data to sell you products and ads. They can turn your health information really into a commodity. I may be given access to this stuff and say, this isn't someone that should be getting health insurance or should be charged more or shouldn't get this job because of algorithmic discrimination based on weight and mental health or whatever the case may be be. Of course, once you put this in a database, hackers can steal the information. That's always a threat. And then you could even have a future president or maybe the current one who uses the system against you and enables government abuse, enforcing mandates, denying services based on the health data. So if you were concerned when we were told it's Bill Gates doing it with vaccine microchips, which it wasn't, why aren't you concerned right now?