Speaker 1: I'm going to show you an interview of former Trump propagandist Steve Bannon
interviewing a crazy person. Now, I don't say that lightly. One of the things in this clip
that I'm going to show you this, this is bonkers stuff. I wouldn't let children see this. It's
so disturbing. Steve Bannon interviews a woman named Mary Beth. Is that her first name? Is that
her first and middle name? Is that her first and last name? We have no idea. Her name is Mary Beth,
supposedly. And Mary Beth says she believes that the Satanic Temple
is secretly sending recruiters to school in after school programs to recruit and even grab children.
Think about that for a second. And Steve Bannon,
I guess, kind of pretends like Mary Beth is a sane person and one of the what's the point
here? Mental health, very serious issue, not to be stigmatized. We want everybody to have access
to mental health services. It's not a joke or any of it. Okay. The point here is. Much of what the
right has normalized as political discourse is the sort of stuff that really should be handled
by mental health professionals. Let's listen. Speaker 2: If it isn't in your school system,
it will be soon. So please be on the lookout for it. Like I said,
it kind of snuck up on us. We had no idea. I've told people about it. They think I'm crazy when
I talk about it. Yeah, but Google it, look for it, and definitely look for it in your school system.
Speaker 5: I would go to an after school program. Speaker 2: Are you one of the parents who have to
work and they get to stay after school. Speaker 5: On other things? And these
and the satanic people are wandering around the school hall because trust me,
they'll be looking for it. They'll be looking to grab these kids and put them in. Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: So that's very concerning to me. Yeah. Speaker 1: The Satanic Temple has infiltrated
after school programs. This is crazy stuff. And the fact that Steve Bannon has her on and sort
of pretends like this is a real concern, this is that this is a normal thing, fuels a crisis
in this country. And I want to what's it's so difficult to address this topic. We I don't want
to be disrespectful nor minimize mental illness. We also have to be clear that there are certain
things that it's not just a difference of opinion. It's not it's it's something much more pernicious
and more than that. And we have to be able to say these people have lost connection with reality.
We're not diagnosing any particular person. But there are paranoid delusions that are really,
really common here. Let me give you an analogous situation, which is actually quite sad.
A lot of people from different walks of life watch The David Pakman Show. And so we get emails. I'm
not looking at every email directly, but I'll be notified when certain concerning things come up.
And we've had everything from people who said they were suicidal and we were fortunately able to get
medical services involved and to help them. And we later heard from these people. I really appreciate
that actually, that that, you know. That my emails just didn't go nowhere, that somebody monitoring
this stuff, even if it's not me, we all sorts of different situations. There are about ten or so
instances where people were writing to me there. You know, they were writing to me as far as that
they knew, at least with what are called in the mental health field ideas of reference, which
is sort of like when people watch the show and I'm just speaking to the entire audience and
people start to believe that I'm sending them a message specifically. And this is
sometimes called ideas of reference. And the way it usually goes is we will get emails from folks
who will say something along the lines of I was able to understand based on the way David's eyes
looked while he was saying something that he was signaling me. There was one which was really sad,
which was someone thought that I was blinking messages in Morse code to them,
totally unrelated to the subject matter about which I was speaking. Okay,
that's that's like a really, really sad thing. And oftentimes these emails will be completely
intermixed with completely wacky political ideas. And I understand that it can be difficult to draw
the line between where we just have a political idea and where we go over into some kind of
mental illness. And again, without diagnosing any particular person with any particular condition,
we can have a disagreement about what the tax rate should be. And we would like mostly
say that these are these are sane conversations and we could be right or wrong about what's the
best tax rate for this, that or or that would be very clearly on one side of the spectrum.
Very clearly on the other side of the spectrum would be like, David, you're you're blinking a
message in Morse code to me. Okay. But then you start to get into stuff like Flat Earth.
And we've talked to experts about conspiracy theories and these sorts of things where.
FLAT-EARTH Yeah, it's it's an idea that's sort of like about the nature of our world. But it, it is
it's so widely demonstrated that it's wrong that it can start to kind of eke into some and then we
go into some of the vaccines that, well, this is all a plot by the deep state to inject some kind
of dormant bio weapon. And then in 2029, Bill Gates will flip a switch and all of the vaccine
that's been injected into people will turn them into zombies. Geez, that that starts to be closer
to David's blinking messages in Morse code. To me, I don't know where the line is, but one of the
real problems and challenges we have right now is that too much stuff that is at best gray area and
at worst, outright paranoid delusions has become acceptable political discussion among the American
right wing at this point in time. I don't know how we fix it. This isn't about being anti-religious.
This isn't about any. It's about being anti insanity. And we have to stop the normalization
of this stuff. And Mary Beth saying the satanic temples, grabbing children at after school.
It's pretty gray, if not on the far end of that spectrum to me. Let me know what you think