The David Pakman Show - 10/22/24: Scary numbers from Georgia, they're predicting violence

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Bob Woodward, Associate Editor at the Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize winner, and author of the new book "War," joins David to discuss his work and his writing. Get the book: https://amzn.to/4eUeEmF -- Donald Trump appears to have taken a clear lead over Kamala Harris in the state of Georgia -- Michael Flynn, former Trump National Security Advisor, predicts there will be violence if Donald Trump is not declared the election winning by November 6, 2024 -- Republican Liz Cheney admits that there are ashamed Republicans who will secretly vote for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump -- In Concord, North Carolina, a cult crowd chants "Jesus" at Donald Trump -- At a rally-gone-wrong in Greenville, North Carolina, Donald Trump terrifies the audience with incomprehensible rants about rocket ships and balls of fire -- MAGAs react like triggered snowflakes after David posts to Twitter -- On the Bonus Show: Central Park 5 sue Trump, FTC rule banning fake online reviews goes into effect, Jill Biden says it was the "right call" for Joe Biden to drop out of 2024 campaign, much more... 🖥️ UPLIFT Desk: Get up to $300 OFF and 4 free accessories at https://upliftdesk.com/pakman 📈 Manifold: Get free Sweepcash when you sign up at https://manifold.markets/pakman 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David ⚠️ Ground News: Get 40% OFF their unlimited access Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 📰 Subscribe to The Washington Post for just $0.50/week at https://washingtonpost.com/pakman 🥄 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off Magic Spoon at https://magicspoon.com/pakman 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code PAKMAN for FREE blades at https://hensonshaving.com/pakman ☕ Beam melatonin hot cocoa: Use code PAKMAN for up to 40% OFF at https://shopbeam.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- Pakman Discord: https://www.davidpakman.com/discord -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave a Voicemail: (219)-2DAVIDP

Welcome to the show. Let's just going to tell you, hopefully without people flipping out at me, what's going on in Georgia and how this might affect the election. Nothing I am about to say is meant to demoralize or dissuade anyone from voting, but to point to what may be an outcome we don't want and then to think about what we could do to prevent that outcome. Here is what's taking place in Georgia. No matter which polls you look at, no matter which polling average you look at, Donald Trump appears to be clearly leading in Georgia, a state that he lost in 2020. Every individual poll recently has Trump leading

Georgia. It's not an outlier right wing poll. It's every poll. In fact, the headline that got a lot of attention this morning was that in one particular poll, the Atlanta Journal Constitutional Constitution poll of Georgia, Trump was plus four. And that is indeed the case. A reasonable response would be, OK, well, Trump's winning that poll. But what about other polls? And indeed, when we start looking at the different averages, you see that in the real clear politics average in Georgia, it's red all the way down. It's insider advantage. It's Quinnipiac.

It's the Hill. It's the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The right leaning Trafalgar Group poll actually gives Trump the smallest lead of these polls. And you have to go all the way back to September to get a Wall Street Journal poll that has Harris winning. By the way, the Wall Street Journal polls increasingly in many states seem to be the outliers. If you don't look at the Wall Street Journal poll, you're all the way back to mid September for a poll that has Kamala Harris leading Trump on average now leading by two point five two point five in Georgia.

Even if we look at the five thirty eight polling average, which I know some in my audience prefer, you see that they also have Trump ahead, not by two point five, but rather by one point five. Why does Georgia matter? Why do we care about Georgia? Well, by itself, maybe we don't care about Georgia. If we look at the map from 2020 and you just flip Georgia from blue to red with its 16 electoral votes, it doesn't change the outcome. If Kamala Harris loses Georgia to Trump, but everything else remains the same, she's fine. She wins not by as big a margin as Joe Biden won electorally,

but she wins with 287 electoral votes, 17 more than the 270 that you need. The issue, of course, is that if Trump does win Georgia by two or two and a half, you have to wonder what else falls. Trump's lead currently in Arizona is close to two. And if you flip Arizona and Georgia, Kamala Harris still wins. That's the good news. But she is left with only a six electoral vote margin of breathing room that starts to get pretty close. Now, I'm not ready to flip Nevada. Trump's lead in Nevada is less than one. I'm not ready to flip Wisconsin. Trump's leading by only zero point four there in Michigan. However, Trump is leading by one point two. And as you can see, if you flip Michigan, it's over and Trump wins. Democrats know this. Democrats are very active in Michigan and hopefully that doesn't

happen in Pennsylvania. Trump is leading by less than one. He's leading, but by less than one, I'm certainly not ready to flip it. So the point here is Georgia flipping. If you assume Arizona flips does not mean that Kamala Harris loses this election, but it leaves no margin for losing just about anything else. I mean, again, in the scenario where Arizona and Georgia flip, that's the scenario on the screen. Even if Trump does get New Hampshire, which he probably won't, but even if he did, because that's only four electoral votes, Kamala Harris still wins.

But if any one of the other critical states falls, Pennsylvania, for example, that would not be good. Certainly, if you look at Michigan, that would not be good. Wisconsin, that would not be good. Certainly, if you look at Michigan, that would not be good. Wisconsin, that would not be good. All of those scenarios are very bad. The only exception would be Kamala Harris can afford to lose Nevada in this scenario. She would still win. But with exactly the 270 electoral votes that she would need. So what does this mean? This means we must activate in Georgia phone bank door knock. What about donating? You know, I, I hate the system we have. I really do. So I always feel a little weird about saying donate, donate. I've never made a political

donation in my life. I've chosen that my activism far more than I can do with money I can do through the show. So to go out and say, donate money, it's the system we have. The candidate that raises more money tends to win. But given what's going on in 40 percent of the country being unable to afford an unexpected 400 dollar expense, it would feel a little weird to come on here and say, donate, donate money to Kamala. But certainly that is a tool that is in the playbook. But phone

banking, door knocking, participating and get out the vote, all critically important. And we must discuss now as we look at the map again, I don't want to anger anybody, but you're not children. I mean, there's some children in the audience, but most of my audience is adults. I don't want to anger anybody. But what is the way the ship is being oriented right now is towards a smaller margin of victory for Kamala Harris than Joe Biden had in 2020. If Kamala Harris is to win most if I were a betting man and I'm not, I would bet that her margin of victory is smaller than Biden's. These smaller margins of victory, 282 electoral votes, 287 to 76, maybe even exactly 270. If Harris loses Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, which she may, these extraordinarily slim margins of victory are far more likely to result in the V word

that we've been dreading now for years, violence. And I want to talk about that next. Usually when we say you're being alarmist, we say it as a bad thing. You're more concerned than you need to be about something. You are being alarmist and it's a bad thing and it would be better if you weren't alarmist. It's time to sound the alarm with regard to violence from MAGA's, MAGA Donians and MAGA Potamians in just a few weeks, either on Election Day or the day after. I have a clip for you of Donald Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn,

predicting that there will be violence on November 6th if Trump has not been declared the winner. Now, I don't want to put words in his mouth, so I'll play it for you. I don't think he's saying there will be violence regardless, but it does seem as though he's saying if it's close, if we don't have an answer to the as to who won by November 6th, that's a scenario where we are likely to see the maggots go violent. What happens if there's a steal and you can define that any way you want. Yeah. Does the election get certified? Does the army get involved?

Are we looking at civil war? I think that there's a couple of scenarios. Yeah, I think that there's a couple of scenarios. I mean, there are scenarios. So, you know, these are hypothetical possibilities, right, or probabilities. And if we are arguing on the 6th of November, the day after, if there's a big argument about, well, the, you know, we're not sure who won yet, the count isn't here yet, you know, these various states don't have their numbers in, I actually think that'll

be a really bad spot. And I do think that people are going to, I feel like people are going to go to those locations where there's counting and there could actually be violence because people are going to be people are so upset after 2020. And what is very clear in terms of a fraudulent election in certain states and they're just now understand what he's saying here. He's not saying if the results are X or if the results are Y. He's saying if we don't know who won every state by November 6th, that is a scenario for likely violence because people are upset about the so called fraud in 2020, which, of course, you know, didn't happen. What he's talking about is if it takes a little while to get it right. Now, I know people love to put point to, oh, you know, France does

it all in a single day. OK, well, France doesn't have 50 states across. What do we have? Are Alaska and Hawaii in different time zones? If so, you know, we're talking about many time zones here, five time zones. France is different. OK, would it be great to get it all done? Sure. Is it the end of the world if it takes in a state where it's really close to November 7th to make sure we got it right or November 8th at the outside chance? I don't think it's the end of the world, assuming we get it right. And I also know of no reason to believe that if it takes longer, it's because it's being rigged for Kamala Harris.

And this is a critical disconnect with every single one of these conspiracy theories that they come up with about the ballots and the time it takes to count. Even if you could prove that there was some kind of fraud going on because it takes one, two or three days to get a final count, you you after proving that there is fraud, you have to prove that it's fraud that helps Kamala Harris and hurts Donald Trump. And of course, they've not even proven that there was fraud, never mind that the fraud helped one particular candidate.

So Michael Flynn is starting to prepare people for if it's really close and we don't know the results of every state, then that is a scenario in which people may get violent. And we have to just be honest. It'll probably be really close. This the most likely scenarios I've outlined so far based on the polling are that Kamala Harris, if she wins, will win with roughly the same states Biden won with in 2020 minus a couple of states. She would if you said, David, give me the most likely outcome today. It's a map. It's the 2020 map with probably Georgia flipped to Trump. Likely Arizona flipped to Trump and maybe maybe a state like Nevada. Harris still wins in that scenario, but with a smaller margin than

Biden in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, which could be the deciding states, it will probably be really close. The polling at the most says that there's a two point gap in Georgia. In Nevada, it's a smaller gap. In Arizona, it's a smaller gap. It really could take until November 6th, maybe the 7th at the maximum you would think by the 8th, we would know Michael Flynn is saying that's unacceptable and there will be violence. I'm not going to put up with it anymore. I do believe that the left will have plans to possibly have a, what I call these, these false actions, right? Where they have their, these paid activists who get out there on the streets and start problems, start, you know, start out of outcomes. And I think what we have to do

is we have to be ready for anything. We have to be ready for those outcomes. I pray that that we have a fair election. Right. I don't see it, but I pray that we do. So this is the line. I just don't think we're going to have a fair election. Right. I don't see it, but I pray that we do. So this is the line. I just don't think we're going to have a fair election. And I've imposed an arbitrary deadline of November 6th, by which if we don't have clarity as to the winner, we are going to deploy violence. Now, Flynn says we have to be they have to be ready. He says we as they we have to be ready. We have to. And I'm going to tell you something that maybe some in my audience will disagree with, although I think most will agree with.

If Kamala Harris loses this election, I don't want her to be president. If if the will of the American people as dysfunctional, deranged and dilapidated it would be, is that Donald Trump be president of the United States. I have no interest in crowbarring Kamala Harris into the Oval Office. I want the actual winner to be the president of the United States. It would be terrible if it's Trump. But if that's what the people decide, it's what it has to be. And then we have to figure out what to do in 2026 and in 2028. But that is not their approach. Their approach is if I win, it's fair. And if I lose, it's rigged. And so obviously overwhelming

the vote to such a degree that they can't steal it is the ideal scenario. Should that not happen legally and from a law enforcement and security standpoint, Democrats better be damn well ready for what they have up their sleeves. I spend a lot of my day in front of screens and sitting for long periods has been linked to poor heart health, bad posture, diabetes. The list goes on. And this is one of the many reasons I started using an uplift standing desk many years ago, long before they became a sponsor. I stand when I'm doing work uplift standing desk many years ago, long before they became a sponsor.

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And I would love it if you grabbed a membership the David Pakman show host. Every time someone signs up for the bonus show, Alex Jones sheds a tear, one tear of sadness that progressive independent media is establishing itself more solidly. Consider signing up at join Pacman dot com. And for just about two more weeks, you can use the coupon code save democracy 24 all one word, all lowercase to save about 50 percent off of the cost of a membership. Yesterday, Vice President Kamala Harris, of course, the Democratic presidential nominee, did a series of events with former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney.

Oh, David Cheney. Cheney proves Kamala is actually a right winger. No, Liz Cheney has been able to do something that is really difficult when people are in government, but is easier when you are out of government, which is to say, hey, you know what? I'm going to put my party aside for a second. And even though I have an R next to my name and Trump has an R next to his name nominally, I am going to vote for what is best for the country. Liz Cheney and Kamala Harris don't agree on policy. Liz Cheney is disgustingly anti choice.

Kamala Harris is pro choice on economics. They couldn't be more different. I could go on. But Liz Cheney has decided it's better for the country. And of course, she believes it's better for her party long term if Donald Trump doesn't win in November. So Maria Shriver hosted an event with Liz Cheney and Kamala Harris. Liz Cheney said something super interesting. You know how we've heard of these secret Trump voters. Oh, I I know that Trump is best for the

country, but my family's all Bernie supporters, so I can't tell him. So I'm going to secretly vote for Trump. OK, I mean, maybe that exists. But Liz Cheney is suggesting that there's something else, which is that there are Republicans sick and tired of Trump and that they can quietly go and vote for Kamala Harris. They don't have to tell anyone. And Liz Cheney believes that there are millions of Republicans who will do this on November 5th. And so I think that we are facing a choice in this election. It's not about party. It's about right and wrong.

And and I certainly have many Republicans who will say to me, I can't be public. They do worry about a whole range of things, including violence. But but they'll do the right thing. And I would just remind people, if you're at all concerned, you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody. And there will be millions of Republicans who do that on November 5th. So now a fair criticism is Liz Cheney lost a Republican primary in Wyoming by 30 points. She has no idea how Republicans are planning to vote. But I don't think that that would be a totally fair criticism because I think she knew she

was going to lose. She knew exactly how Republicans were going to vote in Wyoming after she was targeted by Donald Trump. You don't have to tell your partner. You don't have to tell your kids. You don't have to tell your parents. You don't have to tell your coworkers how you voted. They can't find out.

They don't have access to that information. So maybe she's right. And it's interesting that she is saying this is a phenomenon. I don't think she would make it up. She's in touch with Republicans. I think she probably has a sense of it. Whether it's millions, I don't know. Now, Kamala Harris also had a number of interesting statements that she made during this event

with Liz Cheney, hosted by Maria Shriver. And she pointed out she pointed out the degree to which Trump's own former officials have pointed out that he is completely unfit to lead. You know, I've said many times I do believe Donald Trump to be an unserious man. But the consequences of him ever being in the White House again are brutally serious. And take it from the people who know him best, his former chief of staff when he was president, two former defense secretaries, his national security advisor, and, of course, his vice president, who have all in one way or another

used the word that he is unfit to be president again and is dangerous. Listen to the report that what his former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a general said about him, that he is fascist to the core. And these are people who were in his administration who worked closely with him in the Oval Office. And now Trump has written all of them off as woke generals, soldiers he doesn't respect and people who just weren't the beauties that he believed they were when he hired them, which of course directly undercuts his claim that nobody hires better people than he does. Finally, another interesting moment from this event.

You know, I'm not necessarily going to say go watch this whole like two hour event. You can if you want. Don't feel don't feel obligated. But there were a bunch of interesting moments. And at one point, Maria Shriver asked Liz Cheney, are you surprised you're campaigning for a Democrat? Liz Cheney's answer is very interesting. Surprised. Are you surprised that you're out here campaigning for a Democrat? Liz Cheney's answer is very interesting. Surprised. Are you surprised that you're out here campaigning for a Democrat, campaigning for Kamala Harris

against the party that you've been a part of your entire life? You know, what I would say, first of all, is we all know everyone who watched January 6th knows, you know, what Donald Trump is willing to do. He lost the election. He tried to overturn it and seize power. And then he sat in his dining room and he watched the attack on television. He watched it. People pleaded with him to tell the mob to leave and he wouldn't.

And he watched law enforcement officers be brutally beaten. He watched it. That's a depravity that to me and and, you know, I think to anyone who's taken the oath of office makes someone absolutely unfit ever to be president again. Now. So listen, I don't think that this entire story about Liz Cheney and Kamala Harris clearly are the same on policy. Either Kamala is a right winger or Liz Cheney is a left winger or whatever. All that's going on here is that there are some basic guard rails for the way the country is supposed to run. And there are some Republicans who agree that preserving those guardrails is more important than supporting your party's nominee. That's

what Liz Cheney has figured out. And to the extent that we agree on that, good for her. You want to see a full blown cult. You want to see what happens when brain worms, MAGA brain worms infect your brain. Well, it happened yesterday in Concord, New Hampshire, Donald Trump speaking to an event for religious people, by which I mean only Christians. OK, that when Trump does a fake, it's a faith summit. Yes. OK, I get it. You're talking about Christians. Trump mentions Jesus. The crowd starts chanting Jesus. And it starts to seem like they're actually chanting Jesus at Trump himself. In our movement, we love Christians. We welcome believers and we embrace followers of Jesus. Thank you. Right. All right. So debate in the room as to whether people were generically praising Jesus or actually

saying to Trump, you are Jesus. Classic Trump pandering. You all know, I don't believe for a second that Trump's religious. He's never struck me as deeply spiritual. He concocted this religious identity just like he contrived his anti abortion stance to run for president as a Republican. Trump tells a completely ridiculous story about how it is God's hand that saved him from the shooter. And the crowd eats this stuff up like it's being ladle fed to them. And my faith took on new meaning on July 13th in Butler,

Pennsylvania, where I was knocked to the ground, essentially by what seemed like a super natural hand. And I would like to think that God saved me for a purpose, and that's to make our country greater than ever before. You know, the hand of God has a special meaning for fans of Argentinian soccer. And it's not this. This is not the hand of God story. Trump pretending to be religious is one of the more disgusting and cringy arcs of his entire political career. Donald Trump attempted to speak about Hurricane Helene and he just said it's big water, big, big water, such hell.

And it's as big a water. You know, that's as big a water storm, they say, as we've ever seen in this country. Right. Extremely big from the standpoint of water. Donald Trump also said during this event, it's a religious event, very spiritual, somber event. He says that when random people criticize judges, they should be investigated for their speech. They play the rough. They start screaming about the judges. No good. This one's no good.

And they're slow. They're lousy judges. And the judge should be impeached. And all of this crap, when you have a brilliant judge that's doing the right thing and they get and some people will fold a little bit. They'll say, hey, I'll get them off my back. Let me just give a bad ruling here or there. And some will do that, actually. But fortunately, most have courage and they understand. I really believe it's illegal what they do. And I know there's some great lawyers in there. You ought to look at it because what they do is so obvious. It's illegal to say bad things about judges, which Trump does all the

time. Judge Mershon, remember years ago when Trump was president with the Muslim majority country travel ban, that judge was Mexican-American. So he was conflicted and he hates Trump. And this judge is no good. And Arthur Kaplan and all these different things except when other people do it, then it's a crime. Then it's illegal. This is how fascists and dictators talk. He will try to carve out some way to punish people who criticize judges in his continued confusion about how the world works. Trump says wind power is bad because if it's not windy, his TV wouldn't turn on. It's terrible wind.

They put wind all over the place. Wind kills, kills your birds. And if you want to watch television and the wind isn't blowing, you can forget it. Darling, let's watch the president tonight. I'm sorry, Esther, but the wind isn't blowing. We won't be able to. It's not exactly the most reliable source, but it is something. It's the most expensive source. Right. And of course, Trump apparently has not heard of batteries and Donald Trump has not heard of the power grid. And finally, Donald Trump taking maybe his most principled and courageous position of the year in front of this Christian

group. We will one day say Merry Christmas again. Very, very powerful words. We will again say Merry Christmas. Did anyone stop saying Merry Christmas? I certainly it's all I hear. As many of you know, when people wish me Merry Christmas, I go, oh, thank you. Happy Hanukkah. And then some in the audience say that that's not nice.

But if someone wishes me a happy holiday that they celebrate, why wouldn't I wish them a happy holiday that I celebrate? That seems perfectly reasonable. Anyway, we haven't stopped saying Merry Christmas, but under Trump, we will finally proudly and patriotically get back to it. All right. These were not even the most ridiculous political events over the last 24 hours. Let's take a break. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. Make sure you've preordered my book, The Echo Machine, riddled with words, sentences, paragraphs and even punctuation marks.

There are periods and semicolons all over this book. Make sure you've preordered my book at David Pakman dot com slash echo. We'll take a very quick break and be back right after this. From Saudi blood money to shady crypto schemes, we shouldn't overlook any of Trump's scandals. Trump barely understands the concept of crypto himself in the past, having called it a scam. And now Trump conveniently found his way into one of the least regulated markets on the planet using the platform Ground News. I can see even Fox News isn't sold on this. Their headline

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And if you're already a fan of magic spoon, I have big news. Magic spoon has turned their super popular cereal into high protein treats that are light, crispy and crunchy and tastes just like the classic crunchy cereal bars. The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. It's great to welcome to the program today, Bob Woodward, who's an associate editor at notes. 23 bestselling books, including the latest war, which we have already talked about to some degree. It's so great to have you on. I want to start a little bit with war and then maybe we'll work backwards. Two revelations that got significant attention in the book war include Donald Trump's post-presidency conversations with Vladimir Putin, as well as the realization that during the height of covid, when covid tests were scarce in the United States, Donald Trump was sending Putin covid tests to Russia. Can you talk a little bit

about how in the process of writing this book you come across that part of the story and how you think about it before the book is done. In other words, as the story is evolving, what sort of roles do these different anecdotes play in putting together the total story? Well, you try to find out more and try to nail it down and make sure. For instance, the example of sending the test equipment, it wasn't just the tests, it was and a bunch of them to, you know, off to Putin to help him. I mean, actually, they were for Putin's personal use. And to do something like that is, you know, what's in the national interest of our country? And the answer is take care of

American citizens. And so Trump is trying to do a favor for Putin and actually is. How do you balance when you are doing this research, the researching and the writing and sort of determining because politics is constantly evolving when a story is complete enough to say this is what makes it into the book and the rest will have to be for some other book? How do you know when the story is complete? Well, you when you have good sources and you've confirmed it, my standard is to look for and find people who are witnesses so they could testify in a courtroom under oath or documents or notes, some sort of contemporaneous information. And it's it's a it's why it takes a couple of years to write one of these books. How do you balance maintaining access to high level political figures, including, you know, we'll talk about your your recorded phone calls with Donald Trump, for example, that have now been the subject of other reporting. How do you balance maintaining

access, but also reporting in a critical way when critical is what's appropriate with the risk potentially of angering some of the people that you're talking to? Well, I mean, Trump is angry. I mean, I did lots of interviews with him the last year of his presidency. The book came out, that book was called Rage, about how he handled the coronavirus and showed that he was completely negligent and not looking out realize the information and the warnings he had and understanding the power of the presidency is central to being president that you ah I've got this power and in the case of the coronavirus if he had just used the information he had and look out for the public and to share that information. So do you sort of throw caution to the wind and say, well, he'll just have to be mad.

And if he never wants to speak to me again, that's what it is. But I'm just going to tell the story the way I want to tell it. Yes, of course, you you have to me again. That's what it is. But I'm just going to tell the story the way I want to tell it. Yes, of course, you you have to do that. And in let's see, one of the books, the second one, Rage, when I was talking to him, I told him, this book is going to come out and you're not going to like it. And I said, what are you, you know, a one, what are you not going to like? And I said, well, I make some judgments about you that are pretty severe. And his reaction was, okay, Bob, I'll get you on the next book. So that's interesting. So the dynamics of, and some of these audio recordings, my audience has heard the dynamics of those discussions are that he suspects or even knows that this is all

going to be a final product that he's not going to be pleased with. And that will be critical of him. And he says, I'll talk to you anyway. Well, he, he doesn't know what the outcome is and he's trying to make his case, but these calls are recorded with his permission. And so, you know, that's the standard in journalism and you can hear it on the audio recordings with, which are available where I say I'm recording this. This is for the book. And he acknowledges that one of the the most by far the most common question I got from my audience for you in preparation for this interview today is that in the in the latest book War, for example, there are revelations in the book that are of critical

importance. How do you balance informing the public in a timely manner with saving details so that people still buy the book at the end of the day, which I think is legitimate to say, I want the book to be a success. How do you balance that? It's you want the book to be coherent and, you know, you get information and you verify it. If something is so astonishing, I will go to the editors of The Washington Post, as I have many times, and say this should be in the paper. So, you know, it's a process and I understand the confusion and the suspicion about it. But I've demonstrated many times I will get the information out there if people need it right at this moment. So in other words, just because something took place in 2020 or 2021 and we learn about it in a 2024 book, it's not that you would even

necessarily be ready to go public with some of this stuff in 2020. You've not yet done all of your due diligence. No, no. But but what really is important is you learn in 2024 what happened in 2021. Because you're describing it in this book doesn't mean you learn it that year or that month, it is a long process. And if you go through it and look at it, a lot of this has been made public, tape recordings and so forth. You can see what the process is. But I understand the curiosity, if not the suspicion about it. I want to talk a little bit about yes, Vladimir Putin, but maybe also Benjamin Netanyahu and sort of the attitude of American elected officials to those individuals.

There is a lot of speculation around with Trump, what he says publicly and what he believes privately with regard to some of these leaders. Similarly with Joe Biden, what does he really think about BB as he refers to him versus what is the policy of his administration and speculation about what would that be for Kamala Harris? What's most notable that you can share with us about the behind the scenes feelings of some of these folks relative to what is publicly said? Yes.

Let's let's take an example of President Biden and his. Private attitude, which he shares with associates, and I get the information firsthand. Biden said, that son of a bitch, Bibi Netanyahu, he's a bad guy. He's a bad effing guy. A, quote, bad effing guy. He doesn't give an S about Hamas. He gives an S only about himself. And at one point, Biden asks to an associate, an associate of his, very close, why hasn't

there been an internal revolt in Israel, a strong internal revolt about just voting Bibi out of office somehow, some way, just get him out of there. very important what Biden says to Netanyahu. You know, the perception, this quote, you know, the perception of Israel around the world increasingly is that you are a rogue regime, a rogue state, a rogue actor. In other words, he's not talking about just himself and his assessment. President of the United States, Joe Biden, is saying others perceive that Israel has become a rogue actor. Is that perception new or unique in private among American presidents, to your knowledge? is an ally of Israel. And what the way Biden has divided the baby, I will be a supporter of Israel,

but not a supporter of Netanyahu. Now the two are linked together. But in private, you see the extent of the estrangement and distrust that Biden feels for the prime minister of Israel to flip this when it comes to Putin, where publicly, particularly among the Democratic Party, there is overt disdain and contempt for Putin. Is there a favorable view? Is there a favorable view of Putin or maybe a less negative view of Putin that exists in private that is not fit for public consumption or is that not something you've come across? Uh, I, I really haven't. And um, I, both Democrats and Republicans look at what Putin's done.

Let's step back. He's invaded Ukraine. This is what Hitler did in the 1930s to Poland. It is territorial assault. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. The casualties are immense. This is the biggest war going on in the world. And you have to look at Putin. What's the motive? And I've dug back into what Putin has said publicly and what he says to others about this. Putin thinks Ukraine doesn't exist.

He's convinced that it really belongs to Russia. And you look into the documentation on this and the meetings and discussions, and it's horrific that a leader of a country like Russia would say, oh, we're just going to conduct a land grant. It belongs to us. Well, it doesn't. And of course, Ukraine, with their leader, Zelensky, is defending the country very well, get a lot of aid from the U.S. and from other Western allies. But think about it. What this is, is exactly, I repeat myself, what to say, well, back in the, God, ninth century or something like that, he has this rationale. But the world has stood up to it as have the Ukrainians. But look at the geography. If Putin succeeds in taking Ukraine,

then Ukraine would be controlled by Russia. I talked to President Duda of Poland, and he's horrified. He said, we're next. If Russia takes Ukraine, there's a 315 mile border that Poland has with Ukraine. Right. And this would be another threatened land grab. And of course, he's worried about it. But I mean, we're sick about it because this is. This is a very real threat to his country. The last thing I wanted to ask you about, you've talked about Donald Trump's lack of fitness to lead compared to Joe Biden's steady hand. I'm curious, aside from what we publicly know about that, do your extensive conversations with Donald Trump also exhibit that lack of fitness temperamentally and constitutionally? Or is your assessment really based on what he has publicly done as a policymaker?

Well, first of all, Trump would not talk to me for this book. He was quite angry. Yes. was quite angry about the book Rage, where he was quoted extensively for nine hours of interviews, and it revealed him as somebody not caring about American citizens or protecting the country. So I didn't talk to him for this book. But step back and ask the question, what's going on with Trump? And Trump is now running for president in the United States. Again, he, he may win. What does Trump represent? He represents no plan. He doesn't have plans. You need to run a government. You need a plan and you need a team. He doesn't have a team. He is, I mean, it's astonishing. He is a lone person. If he wins the presidency again, he'll find people to take cabinet offices or staff, I guess, or staff up the rest of the government. But there's no explanation of

why does Trump want to be president? He wants to be president because he's been president before. He likes being president. One of the key points about Trump, which I show in this book, is that he does not understand the presidency, does not understand the responsibility that a president has. And a president has to assess and figure out what's in the national interest, not what's in his personal interest. And this is the tragic failure of this. And quite frankly, the tragic risk that he could become president again. No team, no plan.

He would be lost in the presidency again. Horrifying to think about. We've been speaking with Bob Woodward, who has authored 23 bestselling books. The latest is war. I so appreciate your time and your insights today. Thank you. There are two big problems with the cheap plastic disposable razors. Two thirds of people have skin irritation and then over two billion plastic razors enter our landfills

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deranged that the audience seemed visibly terrified. At one point, Donald Trump went on a long, incomprehensible rant about balls of fire and rocket ships. And then in case anyone was doubting it, he insisted, I am not cognitively impaired. I am completely fine in every way. No, Elon Musk. I said, I do. In fact, he endorsed me like so beautifully. His endorsement was one of the most beautifully written endorsements that's in between those rocket ships that go up and down all the time. I mean, how cool was that though, right? Yeah. I'm watching this thing. I said, oh, what's going on? I had no idea. I was on the phone with a friend just to make it a little bit longer story. I was

on the phone talking to a very important guy, actually. And I have the television muted. It's dead muted. And I see this ball of fire come like a 20 story building. It's coming down. Come. I say, would you do me a favor? Hold it. I've never said what the hell is happening. I thought maybe it switched over to a movie or something. And I put the phone down. Very important guy. You know what? I never picked it up. The guy was holding for like 45 minutes. I forgot he was on the phone because. And now they're all these idiots back there will say he's cognitively impaired because he put Trump recognizes that these rants come off like

cognitive decline. He's acutely aware of it. It's not a coincidence. Trump doesn't show up and say, welcome, everybody. It's so great to be here. Marjorie Taylor Greene is here and Mike Prillo is here. And I'm not cognitively impaired, though. Trump does it when his brain catches up to the absurdity of what he's saying and doing. He knows he seems like he's a cognitive mess at these

particular moments. And that's why he chooses to bring it up. But hilariously, Donald Trump is continuing to obsess about and focus on Kamala Harris and saying no one will talk about the cognitive problems of my opponent. She's a mess. She's a cognitive mess and nobody wants to talk about it. The reason that no one other than Trump is talking about the cognitive mess of Kamala Harris is because she's so obviously cognitively fine. You can make reasonable critiques of Kamala Harris. You can say sometimes she is not prepared to explain exactly how she enacts a certain policy. She doesn't seem ready to say this is something that I could and would do via executive order

or that I would have to build consensus on with the House and Senate and therefore the House and Senate election. Right. That's a criticism. Sometimes she says, here's my policy. How will you do it? It's not really clear. Fair, fair criticism. You could correctly

argue sometimes Kamala Harris goes on too long, not substantively about the idea of something and starts to lose the crowd. OK, I don't think it happens often, but like it's happened. But the idea that Kamala Harris is the one struggling cognitively, that's a really tough argument to make. Saudi Arabia and Russia. Yeah. We'll repeat you. Okay. Donald Trump bringing up that if he becomes president, the long national nightmare afflicting North Carolina will end. But under the Trump administration, we are going to take back what is ours. We will end. But under the Trump administration, we are going to take back what is ours. We will end the looting, ransacking, raping and pillaging of North Carolina and frankly, every other state

in the union. People in North Carolina saying to themselves, you're going to end the what now? The looting, ransacking, raping and pillaging of North Carolina, we we didn't think those things were happening. But if you're worried about them, Trump will end them. Trump talking about his weave, which is when he goes on a dementia rant. OK, Donald Trump has come up with a term to try to put a positive spin on completely losing his train of thought and ranting incomprehensibly like he did 10 minutes before this clip. Trump calls it the weave, and he says

that it's an incredible feat of public speaking. Speaker 4 where the hell they don't do that with anybody that I've ever heard. Right with me, they do the opposite. I give them a gorgeous, full flowing, magnificent, beautiful answer. I call it the weave, right? Oh, always get right back to the right place. But you cover a lot of territory this way. But you give a beautiful answer. And then what they do is they take pieces of it out. And all of you say, what the hell happened to my beautiful answer? They do the opposite. You know what's so funny about this? Trump wants to make the argument that when his weaves are taken out of context and you

only see a little bit of it, it sounds like Trump has dementia, but he really doesn't. The problem is that when you play the full thing like, oh, you know, if you just look at the 30 seconds where Trump talks about how big Arnold Palmer's penis was, that sounds wacky. But if you heard the whole 10 minute rant about Arnold Palmer, you'd go, wow, so articulate, incredible, prescient, on point. If you listen to the full 10 minutes, it's even worse because you say to yourself, why is he talking about this for 10 minutes? It doesn't make any sense.

Also raising questions of why is Trump talking about this for 10 minutes? It doesn't make any sense. Also raising questions of why is Trump talking about this? If I were Trump, after having been accused of raping a 13 year old, after having been found liable for a sexual assault, I would not be talking about rape. But for some reason, Trump is talking about the women. You remember when I first ran, I used a certain word rape. Everyone said, oh, he used the word rape or rape. But for some reason, Trump is talking about the women. You remember when I first ran, I used a certain word rape. Everyone said, oh, he used the word rape or rape. The percentage of women that are raped on the trip up. I won't say it, but you won't believe the number. It's just a horrible thing that happens all because these people, they made it. They're basically saying, come up, we'll give you education.

We'll give you this. You give you can stop it all in one day. You can stop it all in one hour. You can close that. So I built the wall hundreds of miles. I then ordered 200 miles more. We could have had it up in three days. It flips up.

All right. I think you get it. If I were Trump, I wouldn't be talking about rape personally. Later in the rally, Trump went full Q and on a Q and on loves the idea that Democrats are trafficking children for sex. It's this kind of goes back to Pizzagate and the whole thing. Trump continuing the Q and on stuff. And he says it is Kamala Harris, who is one of the big traffickers. She's responsible

for more human trafficking than any person in history. There's never been a problem in human trafficking in history like this one. And she's responsible. If Kamala gets four more years, you will not have a country left. You're not going to have a country left. You'll have 200 million people pouring in from all parts and mostly prisons and lots of other places that you don't want to hear about immediately upon taking the oath of office. I will launch the largest deportation program in American history. There you go. So Kamala is responsible for human trafficking at records, at record levels, and Trump will do mass deportations to fix it.

And then finally, no good Trump rally is done until a strangely orange hued Trump starts doing the double jerking dance. Absolutely terrifying, completely and totally. And if you're wondering at this stage of the game, nearly November of twenty twenty four, who still goes to a Trump rally? Well, it's the same people that are attacking me on Twitter. I want to talk about that briefly next. Many of you know, because you follow me on Twitter and you see I almost never tweet that I'm almost completely off of Twitter since Elon Musk purchased it and destroyed every

aspect of it. There's just really nothing there for me. So very infrequently, I will put a tweet down just to see what sort of response I get. And so yesterday I decided to do this just to take the temperature of what's happening on Twitter or X as it's now called. So I put up a tweet or maybe better said an excretion, as they are now called, where I said it's wild how after accusing Kamala Harris of faking working at McDonald's, Donald Trump went and faked working at McDonald's. Donald Trump went and faked working at McDonald's. The responses

even surprised me. I'm just going to highlight a few of these. And my question to you is, when did the Magas become such easily triggered snowflakes where if you levy any criticism about their cult leader, they just lose it all the way up to starting to use slurs against you. So here are some of the responses. One individual said to me, you were better before the TDS took you. TDS, of course, being Trump derangement syndrome. I would argue it's the cult members who have been deranged by Trump, where they can't even consider or acknowledge that they're following a madman. But I'm the one, I guess, who has the problem homophobic responses where one person said

you look like a backdoor kind of male. So yeah, it figures, you know, as many of you know, I have been the target of homophobic attacks really as long as I've been doing this show. I've always considered myself an ally of the LGBT community. And I guess as a result of that, and maybe some people say they write in and they say, David, it's the fact that you comb your hair that is making them attack you for homophobic reasons, which I don't really get. But that's what I've heard from a few people that I've been dealing with this for a long time.

It's almost like they think that if I were gay, my opinions would be less valid, which is not an altogether new concept for the hard right. Another response. You do know that was the whole point, don't you? Just kidding. Of course you don't. If you were capable of picking up irony, you wouldn't be a progressive. It's really funny when you look at the state of right wing comedy like we did yesterday.

Jim Brewer hopping around on a stage and hitting his microphone. When you look at the state of right wing comedy, it's funny to be told that it's the left that can't pick up on irony. And of course, there was nothing ironic about Trump appearing at a McDonald's. Trump's argument is Kamala Harris didn't really work there. She lied about it. I care about workers. I am the every man.

I will show up and work. And of course, none of those things are true. Another response was simply you're such a beta pussy. It's astonishing. Hard to respond to this one. Certainly. The left has no sense of humor at all. Your life must suck. And finally, when everything else fails, you go to making fun of people who have medical problems. Finally, Sundan Teddy wrote to me, you, sir, are retarded. So a sampling of responses from the people that are still on Twitter, reinforcing my belief that this is not really a platform.

I want much to do with it all on the bonus show today. The Central Park five are suing Donald Trump over his comments about them from during the Philadelphia from Philadelphia. The FTC's rule that bans fake online reviews goes into effect. I want to dig into this because I I have a lot to say about online reviews and I know people in the audience have written to me about this as well. And finally, Jill Biden now says in no uncertain terms, it was the quote right call for Joe Biden to step aside and drop out of the 2024 campaign. Does she give details

as to why she believes that to be the case? We will discuss it on the bonus show. Sign up and join Pacman dot com. I will see you then.