The David Pakman Show - 1/10/24: Violent threats explode, Trump lawyer says immunity for assassination

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Violent political threats surge as 2024 and the election cycle begins in earnest -- Fox News and other right-wingers are going after Taylor Swift for promoting voter registration -- John Sauer, one of Donald Trump's lawyers, argues in court that a US president would have immunity even if they ordered their political rival assassinated -- Failed former President Donald Trump appears in court again, and explodes afterward, refusing to rule out violence in 2024 -- Failed former President Donald Trump bores his audience to death during a rally in Clinton, Iowa -- Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips, a challenger to President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary, has a turnout of zero at an event in New Hampshire -- Donald Trump publishes a video threatening revenge on President Joe Biden at midnight -- John Lauro, another of Donald Trump's defense lawyers, suggests that President Joe Biden could be prosecuted -- Failed former President Donald Trump has a total breakdown, posting nearly 100 dictator-like videos to Truth Social -- Whitney, a top voicemail caller, returns after a lengthy absence with an unhinged rant about Judaism -- On the Bonus Show: Twitter explodes with antisemitic misinformation, Pope's call to ban surrogacy prompts anger and disappointment, in 41 US states, richest 1% pay lower effective tax rates than everyone else, much more... 💻 Stay protected! Try our sponsor Aura FREE for 2 weeks at https://aura.com/pakman ⚠️ Try Ground News and get 30% OFF the Vantage plan at https://ground.news/pakman 👂 MDHearing: Use code PAKMAN to get XS hearing aids pair for $397 at https://shopmdhearing.com/ 🧠 Mindbloom: Use code PAKMAN for $100 off at https://mindbloom.com/pakman 🧘 PHD Weight Loss: Call 864-644-1900 and mention Pakman for a free week! -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

. Sadly, violence is going to be a big topic on today's program. Later in the show, I'm going to talk to you about arguments made in front of a judge panel of judges by one of Donald Trump's lawyers that if Trump or any president was to order the assassination of their political rivals, that it might actually be covered by presidential immunity. We are going to talk about calls for violence from the failed former president. But all of this goes back to the environment in which we now find ourselves, which is that as the 2024 election gets going, violent political threats are surging and it is becoming a I I hate to call it a legitimate part of the American political system, because how could violence be legitimate? But it is becoming

an immovable part. It is becoming an unfortunately too common part of the political system. We are going to link out to this Washington Post article called Violent Political Threats Surge as 2024 Begins Haunting American Democracy. And the article quotes among many, it quotes a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who said, quote, I believe people when they say they want to hurt us or kill us. I don't think they are idle threats. And if there is any I mean, we'll talk about the implications, how to handle the security precautions, all these different things. But if there is one theme, one motto, one slogan that we must bear in mind here. It's we need to believe the people who say they are going to do horrible things because sometimes they do it. Now, the article goes through a whole bunch of

different examples. It talks about the swatting attempt at the home of Rusty Bowers with the false report of a pipe bomb and a murder. We've talked about this swatting technique before, which is phone calls to law enforcement meant to encourage law enforcement to deploy a SWAT team or a hostage response team with fake claims. Oh, I'm being held hostage. Someone is being held hostage at this address, etc. Bomb threats causing evacuations at state capitals across the country. There was a guy arrested for threatening to kill a congressman and his children, swatting incidents involving other members of Congress, more and more threats against, for example, the main secretary of state and members of the Colorado Supreme Court after those rulings and decisions that Donald Trump shouldn't be on the ballot. Colorado Supreme Court and the main secretary of state saying, hey, Trump violated

Section three of the 14th Amendment. He's not going to be on the ballot. Death threats against the individuals involved in those decisions. One of the judges involved in Donald Trump's election subversion case, Judge Tanya Chutkin, a name we've mentioned on the show before, swatting attempts at her home, waves of threats against members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, especially after their ruling on the 2020 election, bomb threats at more than a dozen state capitals on a single day, swatting calls targeting the main secretary of state after her decision about the 2024 ballot at the Georgia secretary of state's office because of Gabriel Sterling's recent comments. So these incidents represent a trend of increased

threats and intimidation against public officials in the United States. And why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't we be seeing this? Political violence was legitimized by the failed former president when he was still president on January 6th of 2021. And as you'll see later on today, Trump leaving court yesterday after another one of these bogus gong show appearances asked when you talk about bedlam in 24, you're not talking about violence, right? You denounce violence and Trump opting not to answer that.

So what do we do in these situations? Well, the answer is different depending on whether you're an individual, whether you are law enforcement, whether you are elected officials as an individual, you need to just be very aware of what are the environments in which such violence might happen. So, for example, there are lots of protests which I might be interested in supporting ideologically, but I'm not going to these political protests in partially because I'm pretty, pretty damn busy, but partially in part because I believe they are potentially the targets of these violent right wing lunatics. So I am steering clear of that at the individual level. There are decisions like those to be made at the law enforcement level. It's difficult because the number of

these threats is such that it is difficult to fully and deeply investigate all of them in a timely manner. Eventually, fine. Yeah, we'll catch up with all of these and see if there's anything legitimate. But very often the timing is difficult because law enforcement is overwhelmed from the political side of it. Every official should be denouncing violence as a political tool and going all the way to the top of the Republican Party. Just yesterday, Donald Trump didn't do it. So, you know, sometimes people will write to me and say, David, you know, you denounce violence in some total. What about situations where violence is the only way to achieve change? And I don't deny that in history there have been moments where we can say violence was the only way here because of the level of oppression.

I simply do not believe that the United States is at that point. And I know that there are people in the audience, some, some on the right, some on the left who believe that, uh, uh, there are forms of violence being carried out by governments, whether they are racist or whether they are classist or whatever the case may be. We are using violence in a different way there than literal physical violence. And I simply do not believe that we are at the point in the at the in the United States where physical violence is required in order to achieve our political objective. So that is why I denounce it.

I'm not blind to the idea that you could have a situation where there is no choice but for violence. We are not there. And by the way, a lot of the people threatening the violence and doing the violence or certainly not denouncing it are those in privileged positions. So it's not looking good for 2024. I wish I could start with something that was less pessimistic. But you see the reports. You see what we're talking about here. It's hard not to be scared. And by the way, they are now going after individuals simply because they want to

register people to vote. If you want to think about the impact of that on the political system, well, let's discuss that next. Let's talk about Taylor Swift. What, David Taylor Swift? Yes. You may recall that back in September I did a story entitled Taylor Swift is registering more voters than anyone. And what I said at the time was that statistically speaking, if you look at the margins of victory in 2020 in some states and you look at which

were very small and you look at the number of people who follow Taylor Swift and who are registering to vote thanks to her encouragement, it's not impossible that Taylor Swift's voter registration activism could turn a state in 2024. Fox News doesn't like this. And many right wingers are furious. They are going fully, fully, fully against Taylor Swift, suggesting that it may be a psyop. Some suggesting that she's a lesbian, which, by the way, I don't know what being a lesbian has to do with voter registration. Maybe they can explain it to me. Take a look at this segment from Jesse Waters program yesterday interviewing a former FBI agent. They do not like that Taylor Swift is registering people to vote. And such, you know, immeasurable amount of followers. She can potentially single handedly

swing voters. Yes. Because of just the amount of followers that she actually can influence. So the answer is yes, Jesse. Yeah, because when she posted the link to the vote dot org, it's like hundreds of thousands of young Taylor Swift fans all of a sudden registered to vote. The fear is palpable. People are seeing what Taylor Swift says and they are registering to vote. What a tragic situation. We must stop this. Who got to her from the White House or from wherever? Who makes that initial handshake? Is it the binder? Well, the administration has what they consider a perception optics management team, and those are professionals that go out and identify those people who may be unsuspecting,

whether with knowledge or without knowledge, to do these type of campaigns. Now, she doesn't even know what she's doing. She may, without even being conscious of it, realize what she's doing. Oh, she's telling people register to vote. Sounds pretty straightforward, actually. It is possible that Taylor Swift, quite frankly, does not know that she is being utilized in a covert manner to swing voters. But the bottom line is that the Biden administration is savvy, identifying how many followers and how many voters potentially she can influence with either right information or misinformation. She certainly can swing the voters.

Yeah. And that is absolutely terrifying to these right wingers. Now let's be super, you know, it's not conspiratorial to recognize that if this were some right wing country singer, Fox News would be singing their patriotic praises for supporting democracy and civic participation. Their reaction would be very different if they suspected that whoever was saying, hey, go register to vote was going to be useful to the right. And by the way, this is what happened with RFK Jr. OK, when RFK Jr.'s candidacy was seen as bad for Biden and

good for Trump because RFK was running as a Democrat against Joe Biden, he was on Fox multiple times a week talking about how great he is and how the Democratic Party is doing him so wrong. As soon as RFK Jr. said, hey, you know what? Instead of running as a Democrat, I'm going to run as an independent. And as soon as the polling showed, hey, this guy is taking at least as much support from Trump as he is from Biden. One attack interview from Sean Hannity and then down 90 percent in terms of the attention that Fox News is giving him. So this isn't about the principle of, oh, celebrities registering people is bad. No, no, no, no. The perception that this is bad for Trump is what they're worried about. And all you need to remember is that one side knows it

benefits from lower turnout. Republicans know that they benefit from lower turnout. And just think of the math. It's very simple math. One Republican tactic is make it harder to vote early, reduce voting hours, reduce polling places. Imagine that you calculate, you know, if we work to close polling places in Georgia, we can dissuade 40,000 people from voting, 25,000 of whom are Democrats and 15 of whom are 15,000 of whom are Republicans. By doing this, we help Republicans by 10,000 votes. Right.

So if that's the action you can take, 10,000 votes that you can help your candidate by with the closure of early voting places is much more useful if there's only 900000 registered voters versus a million. It's simple math. Ten thousand is a larger percentage of 900000 than of a million. So if you can hold down voter registration, the 10000 vote gift that you can generate with early polling closures helps your candidate more. It's simple math. They know it. They're terrified of Taylor Swift. I'm not a fan of her music,

but I think what she is doing is absolutely fantastic. Yes. Register to vote. What's what's wrong with that? And then decide who to vote for. And implicit in all of this is the assumption that the people who register to vote based on Taylor Swift's activism are more likely to vote for Biden than for Trump. Now, I don't know if that's true. It seems totally plausible that it's true, but I don't know that to be true. They seem convinced that it is the case, which is why they are so terrified by the activism of Taylor Swift. We're going to take a very quick break. As I said at the top of the show, unfortunately, violence of different kinds is going to be

a theme on today's show. And we will pick it up with that theme right after this short break. one solution that I use to keep all of our accounts safe. Aura will scan the dark web for your personal info, email password, social security number, and we'll alert you if it's found and we'll help you take steps to fix it. You'll get alerts about suspicious credit inquiries. Aura will monitor bank accounts and home and auto titles to help protect you against fraud. And Thank you so much for joining us. device controls. You can try aura for free for two weeks at aura.com slash Pacman. Your login credentials might already be floating around out there somewhere. It takes just a few seconds to use the aura free trial to find that out. That's a U R a.com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. So much of the news media that we consume is corporately owned with all kinds of financial and political interests that influence the reporting.

And our sponsor, Ground News, takes every source for every news story, breaks down who owns the media outlet, shows you how the story is being spun across the political spectrum. For example, I'm looking at this story about Republicans in Congress trying to pass a law to keep Palestinian refugees out of the US. Ground News shows us here the great article that The Hill wrote about it. But besides that, only right wingers are reporting about it. Fox News, Breitbart, Washington Times, probably because it's something their readers will love and will eat up. Ground News lets you see how Breitbart's headline for the story is twisted to bash Joe Biden. This is an extraordinary tool for comparing coverage,

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I it it's it's beyond belief. Even by the standards of the last seven years. It is beyond belief. Donald Trump's defense lawyer, one of them argued, and we have the audio now, argued that if Donald Trump were to order seal team six to assassinate his political rival, it would quite possibly be protected by presidential immunity. We are having a conversation in front of judges in the United States as to whether the president's immunity extends to ordering the killing by the military of political rivals. This is how far we have fallen. A report from Matthias Hammer, U.S. president could have a rival assassinated and not be criminally prosecuted, Trump's lawyer argues. This was during a hearing yesterday.

We will see Trump's statements after the appearance during which he seemed to allude to violence. It's violence all the way down during a hearing at a federal appeals court yesterday. Trump's lead lawyer, John Sauer, made a sweeping argument for executive immunity, saying that only a president who has been impeached and removed from office could be criminally prosecuted. Therefore, Sauer argued Trump should be shielded from criminal prosecution. Judges asked, and we will listen to this. Does this extend to if a president orders SEAL Team six to kill his political rival? And the lawyer says if he's not impeached for that, he can't be prosecuted for that either.

This is where we are in 2024. Take a listen to this. Order SEAL Team six to assassinate a political rival. That's an official act in order to seal Team 6. He would have to be and would speedily be, you know, impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution. But if you weren't, there would be no criminal prosecution, no criminal liability for that. Chief Justice's opinion in order against Macklison and our Constitution and the plain language of the impeachment judgment clause all clearly presuppose that

what the founders were concerned about was not I asked you a yes or no question. Could a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution? If he were impeached and convicted

first. And so your answer is is my answer is qualified. Yes, there is a political process that would have to occur under the structure of our Constitution, which require impeachment and conviction by the Senate in these exceptional cases. As the OLC memo itself points out from the Department of Justice, you'd expect a speedy impeachment and conviction. Let me be really clear about what this guy is saying. This guy is saying that if Trump ordered Biden killed. And for whatever reason was not impeached for that, he would be immune from criminal prosecution. January 2024 from the lawyer for a president under 91 felony charges. It sounds like this is exactly the way Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un explained it to John Sauer, doesn't it? Now, when I heard this, I thought to myself, they are really putting forward an argument that a president can order

a rival killed. As long as he's not impeached, he's not criminally prosecutable and he's doing it while Trump is the political rival of the sitting president, Joe Biden. Joe Biden has an opportunity to do something really funny right now. Go on TV, sign an executive order giving Trump the death sentence by seal team six, fold it up, put it in his pocket and say, I'm just going to hold onto this for the time being. Let's see what happens with the immunity case for Trump, because if it turns out Trump's immune, I can sign this order for Trump's death sentence and I'm immune as long as I don't get impeached for it.

This is insane. This is insane. And I, you know, there are so many directions we could go with this. And the mere fact that this is a conversation that's being had in a court of law is the world sees this and they say, what has happened to the United States? What has happened where not only is the former president under 91 criminal felony indictments for the things that he allegedly did, and it sure looks like he did a bunch of them, but one of the defenses is that presidential immunity includes the assassination of other

people. What has happened to the United States? But I want to take a step back from that for a second. They are arguing on the one hand that Trump is completely immune when it comes to everything he did as president, while they are arguing for the prosecution of Joe Biden. And how could it be that if Trump is completely immune for everything he did as president, that Joe Biden is not likewise immune? Are they not thinking what is wrong with these people? Probably too much to fit into a one hour show. That's where we are. Trump's lawyer saying he's not impeached. He's immune for ordering assassinations.

We now will go to what Donald Trump said after this hearing outside the courthouse. And again, it alludes to violence. Donald Trump appeared in court yesterday for this insane immunity hearing during which his lawyer, John Sauer, argued that if Donald Trump were to order the assassination of a political rival and not be impeached, he would be immune from criminal prosecution. After that moment, Donald Trump exited the courthouse and said there will be bedlam. There will be bedlam if Trump doesn't get his way. He was then asked, you're not talking about violence, right? Will you denounce violence? And Trump ignores it. Let's start with Trump's first statement,

promising bedlam in the mix of telling a whole bunch of different lies. Speaker 4 I think we're doing very well. I think it's very unfair when a opponent, a political opponent is prosecuted by the DOJ, by Biden's DOJ. Speaker 1 No evidence that Biden's involved. Remember, so they're losing in every poll. They're losing in almost every demographic. Numbers came out today that are really very mind boggling. If you happen to be Joe Biden and I think they feel this is the way they're going to

try and win. And that's not the way it goes. It'll be bedlam in the country. It's a very bad, it's a very bad precedent. As we said, it's the opening of a Pandora's box. And it's a very, it's a very sad thing that's happened with this whole situation. When they talk about threat to democracy, that's your real threat to democracy. And I feel that as a president, you have to have immunity. Very simple. And if you don't, as an example, if this case were lost on immunity and I did nothing wrong, absolutely nothing wrong. I'm working for the country and I worked on very hard on voter fraud because we have to have free elections. We have to have strong. He worked very hard on voter fraud because we have to have free elections. We have to have strong.

He worked very hard on voter fraud. Yeah, that we certainly know. So Donald Trump, they're promising bedlam if he doesn't get his way. A reporter rightly picking up on that and saying, you just use the word bedlam. Will you tell your supporters right now, sir, no matter what, no violence. And Trump just walks away. Thank you very much. Mr. President, you just used the word bedlam.

Will you tell your supporters now, no matter what, no violence. And there it is, Trump just lumbering away. We see the way this is going, folks, and it is absolutely terrifying. Rising violent threats, as I talked about at the top of the show, Trump's lawyer arguing he would be allowed to he would maintain immunity even if ordering the assassination of others as long as he was not impeached. Trump promising bedlam and all of this is predicated on the on the assumption that Trump believes becoming president is how he stays out of prison.

Here is more of Trump talking about absolute and total immunity. It's a very sad thing that's happened with this whole situation. When they talk about threat to democracy, that's your real threat. Oh, sorry. I guess this is part of the same clip we just saw. I don't know how I got the clips mixed up. So there is Donald Trump. And listen, when they when they say it, we just have to believe them. Just believe them. That's all I'm asking. Don't assume, you know, I said, by the way, I don't know how many of you saw this debate. Our friend Stephen Kenneth Destiny Bunnell, the second debated Alex Jones and Glenn Greenwald. I know there were other people participating, but really the debate was our friend Destiny debating the insurrection with Alex Jones and

Glenn Greenwald. Watch it. The degree I was invited to participate in that debate and I just turned it down. It's just it's just not my thing. Long story. But the preparation that our friend Destiny undertook and the vapid nature of the arguments from Alex Jones and Glenn Greenwald about, oh, it was listen, there was violence, but it wasn't that much. And they sort of wanted to steal the election, but they didn't. And so none of this is a concern to us. They're telling us what they're going to do. They are not answering direct questions about denouncing violence. All I'm asking is believe them when they tell us what they are going to do. A neon orange Donald Trump spoke in Clinton, Iowa, his latest Iowa rally now just days before the Iowa caucus and Trump simultaneously boring the audience to death and also and also telling corrosive lies about the nature of reality. Here is Donald Trump

once again, once again, raising questions about cognition, dropping one of these aimless meandering word salads. See if you can make heads or tails out of this for me. And why is he so orange? We just never get an answer because I take it. You say, you know, they say two questions they have for me. One is, sir, how do you do it? How do you take it? And the other one is, will they do it again? They better not do it again. We have a lot of good people and we're going to fight like hell. I actually say, don't worry about the vote. We're going to get plenty of votes. Just worry about securing the vote. And we used to say election day. Right. But today you have election period. You have some of these

things that go on for 55 days. There you go. Just a lot of, you know, they come to me and they say, sir, this, that and the other thing. And maybe the sickest moment in this entire event was when Trump he is not even pretending now that he supports due process and law and order. Donald Trump is now talking about release the January 6th hostages, Release the January 6th hostages. These are alleged criminals who are getting due process and who are going through the justice system. Trump is now calling them hostages and demanding that Joe Biden release them.

This is a sick, dangerous person. What they've done and they ought to, you know, they ought to do. They ought to release the J6 hostages. They've suffered enough. They had to release them. What? I call them hostages. The convictions were legitimate. The convictions were legitimate. Trump had the opportunity to preemptively federally pardon them. He didn't do it. This is due process and Trump now is calling them hostages. Some people call them prisoners. I call them hostages.

Release the J six hostages, Joe. Release him, Joe. You can do it real easy, Joe. This guy, what he's done, what he's done to people. And of course, these are all actions undertaken by these individuals. When Donald Trump was still president of the United States. This is not law and order. This is not due process.

This is a disgusting perversion of the justice system. And out of the other side of their mouth, they say, oh, Democrats want to defund the police. They're not for do loop due process, law and order or law enforcement. When did you last hear anything from any kind of establishment or Democrat in power about defunding the police? And meanwhile, Trump is saying these prisoners, these these defendants are hostages and they should be released. Trump doing his trapeze artist act where he just flips back and forth between the economy's bad, thanks to Joe Biden, or it's actually good because people expect me to win. Here is Trump talking about the stock

market being up because of the expectation that Donald Trump will win in November. The reason the stock market's good is because every poll has us winning by a lot. And every time there's a good poll, watch it. The stock market goes up and up and up and up. And if something happened where it gets stolen because it's the only way they're going to do it, they they're they're professional thieves at the greatest. So Trump's new argument is the stock market is up on the expectation that I'm going to win. Last week, the stock market was up because Joe Biden's Fed, which, by the way, functions independently. Joe Biden's Fed is lowering interest rates in order to help Biden, except they haven't lowered interest rates yet.

They've stopped raising them. And regardless of the high rates, the economy has still been good every week. It's a different explanation. And then lastly, Donald Trump rehabilitating the gas stove lies. Donald Trump courageously taking the position that if he wins, you'll be able to cook on your gas stove. Now why you can't cook on it now, I have no idea. And you won't have to buy an electric car and you'll be able to cook on your gas stove from day one.

And if you want to buy it, you can. But you're going to have a lot of choices. You're going to have a lot of choices. All right. You're going to have, you know, you know, when I got rid of my gas stove last year, got an induction stove when they took it out. I saluted the stove and they said to me, sir, we've never been treated so unfairly with these gas stoves. Now, again, remember, Joe Biden has said the administration has said we don't even have the authority to ban gas stoves. We're just incentivizing people to get like a clean induction stove. We're doing some rebates.

It's a great thing. Cook on whatever you want. But if you thought your gas stove was going to be taken away, I don't know why you would think that. But if you thought that now, you know that it'll be given back, I guess, when Donald Trump becomes president, the crowd is delusional. The statements are delusional. And the real concern is this guy is going to win and he's going to do all of the violent things that he's alluding to. I ran into a family friend the other day who is a big fan of our sponsor, MD Hearing.

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three ninety seven. When you buy a pair that's shop MD hearing dot com, then use code Pacman to get a pair of hearing aids for just three ninety seven. The info is in the podcast notes. If you're struggling with anxiety or depression, you're certainly not alone. Millions of Americans are searching for ways to just feel better. Many feel they've exhausted every option. They don't know where to turn. If that sounds like you, then guided ketamine therapy from Mindbloom could be a game changer. Our sponsor, Mindbloom, can help you potentially feel better faster. I've been reading about ketamine therapy and ketamine treatment for a long time for depression and anxiety. We've done interviews about it on the show. There are many promising studies.

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guy. You know, I just feel terribly for him. There's a Guardian article field of bad dreams. Biden rival makes quip after no one turns up to 2024 event. Dean Phillips said sometimes if you build it, they don't come. They don't come. Of course, a reference to the movie Field of Dreams from 1989, where I guess they build a baseball field. I don't remember the I never saw the movie, to be honest. Here is Dean Phillips just by himself. He has this truck. It's like a repair truck. It's like a spin on he's from the government and he's there to fix things. And he just sat there with a coffee and nobody came to talk to him. And the reports are that it was very, very cold yesterday in New Hampshire. So that was maybe part of it.

I feel bad for the guy. I don't know. What does it say about me that I'm kind of like cringing now just in terms of an update? We do have polling from the Democratic primary. There really isn't a Democratic primary, but there are still polls in the latest poll from Emerson College. It's Biden 78, Marianne Williamson, two and Dean Phillips one. That's for Nevada. In Vermont, it's Williamson four and Dean Phillips three. In New Hampshire, Phillips does have seven and Marianne Williamson has six. And then we have South Carolina where Phillips is polling five and Marianne Williamson three. I do want to give an update to the many people who have said, David, please interview Marianne Williamson.

You're not giving her attention. You should. Her press secretary said no to us. So I don't want to like I don't want to make this a big thing. But a few months ago, Marianne Williamson wrote to me privately. I'm not going to read the email or anything like that because it was a private private email. But suffice it to say, she wasn't thrilled with my coverage of her. I don't think that's a surprise to anybody. And she has said that publicly. So I'm not

violating any confidence. She publicly has said I'm not paying attention to her. She doesn't like, okay. Uh, she wrote to me privately several months ago, two weeks ago, we got an email from her campaign PR person saying, Hey, do, do you want to interview Marianne? And we wrote back and we said, yes, we do. You know, let's, let's have her on. Let's talk about policy. What better thing? Let's engage in the dialogue. And, uh, her PR person to producer Pat, who books the interviews, books a lot of the interviews, said no. So I wrote back to Marianne a week ago and I said, Marianne, listen, you know, I heard your criticisms of me and the fact that we're not covering you and you don't like what I'm saying. We invited you on for an interview. You could be on as long as you want.

It could be 15 minutes. It could be 40, whatever she wants to do. And your public relations person turned us down and she didn't even write me back. So for those people emailing me saying, why won't you interview her? Why won't you? We've offered her an interview. It could be a double length interview or single. We could whatever she wants. And her PR person turned it down and she didn't respond to me. So please stop emailing me about that. She's welcome to come on here anytime. And we tried to do it. We are once again, I hate that we're back to violence.

I hate that we're back to the weaponization of the political system. Later in the show, we're going to look at a bunch of really strange videos that Donald Trump published back to back to back to back to back yesterday. But two days ago, Donald Trump published a particularly disturbing video close to midnight Eastern time, and his eyes almost completely swollen shut, as it often is. And in this swollen state. Trump says that revenge on Joe Biden is something that we should expect and that should be coming. How many times does he have to say this before we say, hey, maybe this is a bad idea?

Take a listen to this. Take a look. And he has to be careful because that can happen to him. Also, the next president, whoever that may be, has a statute of limitations that go back six years. That's a long time, Joe. You have to be very careful. We have to guard and protect our country.

These are overt, plain threats to Joe Biden about what Trump will do if he becomes president. If he doesn't get the immunity he seeks in court, we have to do what's right for our country. You don't indict your political opponent because he opposes the corrupt election, which, you know, was corrupt. Everybody knows it was corrupt. The American public knows it was corrupt. You don't indict your political opponent. Now, implicit in all of this, of course. Is Trump's assumption, Trump's claim, Trump's assertion that Joe Biden in any way has directed the various indictments against Donald Trump? And of course, there's no evidence. I did everything right and they indicted me. Right. If I truly believe in law and order. Now, I know that the right loves to kowtow to this idea. The right loves to use the phrase

law and order, law and auto. Sometimes Trump says, um, I actually support law and order. And when I say that, I mean it. If anybody has any evidence that Joe Biden directed or weaponized the justice system against Donald Trump, I will be the first to denounce it and to call for consequences, whatever the appropriate consequences should be. But no matter how many times Donald Trump says it, it doesn't make it true. Now, the subject of presidential immunity is complicated. As we talked about earlier in court yesterday, one of Donald Trump's lawyers argued that if Trump weren't impeached for ordering an assassination of his political rivals, he would be immune criminally from that. That's crazy.

The judges did not seem super swayed by it, but there are a bunch of different aspects to this. One question is, does the president have immunity from civil suits for official acts as president? The answer appears to be yes. So you have to break this down in parts. Trump takes an action as president, not criminally prosecuted, but someone sues him civilly. He's protected from that. The Supreme Court has made that decision previously. Trump presidents can't be sued for actions taken while president. That's that's the laws. We understand it right now. There is no immunity for acts outside of the official duties. If you as president is like if you look at Clinton v. Jones, Paula Jones from 1997. The Supreme Court ruled a sitting president can be sued in federal court

for actions taken before he became president, even while president. So that's another version of this. You do an action before your president. You now are president. You can be sued during that time. Three criminal prosecution while in office. This is where there is current ongoing debate. Can a sitting president be indicted or criminally prosecuted while in office? The Department of Justice has a policy that they don't indict sitting presidents. It's never been tested. It's never been affirmed by the Supreme Court. We are dealing with that right now. Certainly we have impeachment and removal as a mechanism of holding a president accountable. One of the arguments now being made is immunity is total if you are not impeached and convicted on that impeachment.

That has not been tested. That is an assertion that one of Donald Trump's lawyers made yesterday in court, but it has not yet been tested. And then we get to post presidency liability. Once a president leaves office, they are no longer protected by presidential immunity. They can be prosecuted. That one seems abundantly clear. And so far, nobody has successfully challenged it, meaning you used to be president.

You no longer are. You do stuff while you are no longer president. You can be indicted for that, whether you can get, you know, a fair jury of your peers and the practical questions of venue. And those are all things that are complicated and are being sorted out. But that is our best understanding right now. And Trump's broad claim, total immunity, immune at all times, et cetera, goes beyond what the justice system has so far determined. Now, in terms of the threat against Joe Biden, it's shocking to me that there is a single person still willing to vote for this guy. You know, if you really hate Joe Biden that much, if you really hate student loan forgiveness that much and low unemployment

and growing GDP, if you hate all that stuff so much, I could understand just staying home. But voting for Trump at this stage of the game, when he is not only becoming as dictatorial as we have ever seen, but also seemingly spiraling downward when it comes to his cognitive situation, it's shocking that anybody would vote for the guy, but they will. So we have to vote. If you could use a little help meeting your weight loss goal for 2024, give our sponsor Ph.D. weight loss a call. They've been doing some amazing things for people. They make the weight loss journey simple. They do one on one coaching with their certified team of compassionate, encouraging dietitians. Ph.D. weight loss helps real people get results through lifestyle modification based on protocols from successful clinical trials.

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The info is in the podcast notes. All right. Let's just sort of like complete our coverage of this insane court appearance yesterday involving Donald Trump and his lawyers demanding presidential immunity. We've looked at two of the three parts. Part one is the argument made in court that if Donald Trump or a president were to order a political rival assassinated, they would be criminally immune if they were not impeached. Only if they were impeached could they be held criminally liable. Part two was Trump coming out

of this event and saying, oh, it's going to be bedlam if I don't get immunity, etc. We now go to the next part. We heard from a different Trump attorney, John Loro, who argued that it is actually Joe Biden who could be prosecuted as Donald Trump stands there and sways back and forth. Here is Joe Lauro saying Biden is interfering with Trump's presidential run. And thus it is actually Joe Biden who could be prosecuted, which is extra funny because if the argument is that presidents are immune based on what they do while their president, how on earth could Joe Biden be prosecuted regardless of whether he did the thing they're accusing him of?

It's so funny. I don't think they get how funny it is. In fact, Joe Biden could be prosecuted for trying to stop this man from becoming the next president of the United States. Not only is this a ridiculous thing to say, it ruins the immunity argument they just made in court. They just went into court and said presidents are immune criminally no matter what they do while they are president of the United States. And by the way, Joe Biden as president could be criminally

prosecuted for this thing we claim he's doing, even though he's not actually doing it. Are Trump's lawyers as delusional and incompetent as he is? Or are they simply doing what Trump tells them? Or is it some other combination of the two? I genuinely do not know the answer, but this is not exactly the A-plus legal team. And by the way, any legal team that includes the things that Alina Haba says in public can't possibly be the A-plus team. I do hope that they got a retainer up front because we know how much difficulty lawyers often have collecting from Donald Trump. But at some point, they're going to have to pick one or the other. Presidents are completely immune criminally when they do

things as president. And that applies to both Trump and Biden or they are not. And therefore, you've got to stop arguing that immunity situation. Now, as we know, in the legal profession, there is this common I don't think it's a trope, but it's this common wisdom, conventional wisdom, we might call it. If the facts are in your favor, you argue the facts. If the facts are not in your favor, you argue process that the process is somehow flawed. It's not totally clear which approach Trump's lawyers are going with because they're lying about the facts and they're also lying about the process. And they are also saying that the facts and the process should be applied differently to Joe Biden than it is to Donald

Trump. You be the judge as to which approach they're taking. I really hope that it doesn't work, but that remains to be seen. The truth social platform is struggling mightily. We have recently learned about the degree to which truth social central. Yeah. Is, uh, uh, struggling when it comes to user activity, but truth social is also struggling when it comes to the finances. And as I have said before, a free speech platform for the sake of being a free speech platform is not that exciting, compelling, or titillating a proposition to most users. And in the same way, when you hear here is a show that is just it's a free speech show. Oh, OK. Sounds pretty boring if there's really no other reason for existence.

If there's no other reason for existence than to be a free speech show. And quite frankly, that's what's going on with truth social and it is failing. However, this did not stop the failed former President Donald Trump from posting video after video, after post, after video, after video, after video, after article, after post, after video over the last 12 or so hours. And I want to focus in on three specific videos here because of their relevance and the importance to the following 10 and a half months that we face here in the United States, which will have both global and domestic impact. The first is the claim from Donald Trump that President Joe Biden has already rigged the 2024 election.

Does he cite any evidence? I'm not going to spoil it for you. Let's see. But the argument is Biden's already done it. It's already rigged. 2024 will go down as the year of great and fully coordinated illegal election interference. Will it? By crooked Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt president in the history of the United States. Right. DOJ, FBI, AGs and DAs throughout the country. But despite it all, in the end, there will be a big

and glorious victory for those brave and valiant patriots who want to make America great again. We will win and we will win like never before. And we will turn our country around. Thank you very much. Yeah, he'll turn the country around instead of stock market up. We'll have stock market down instead of unemployment down. We'll have unemployment up instead of GDP up. We'll have GDP. What exactly is he going to turn around? But this is exactly what we saw in 2020. And this is why it's so scary. In the summer of 2020, before that election, Donald Trump started making very similar claims. It's been rigged. Everybody's involved. A.G. Biden, this, that,

the other thing. And then he almost stole the election after inciting a violent insurrection. It is not prudent, in my opinion, to assume that it will fail in 2024. And I'm going to be saying this a lot between now and then, because these are the stakes he's already making even earlier than in 2020. He's making the same allegations about what Democrats are supposedly doing absent any evidence. Trump then moves on in another one of these late night videos on Truth Central to the issue of presidential immunity. And Trump argues, if I can't have presidential immunity, nobody can. And so I will have Joe Biden arrested. This is a dangerous autocrat. I don't know. I don't know where all the bells are that I can ring to remind you of how dangerous an autocrat this dude is and how dangerous he will be as

president. Here he is saying and you stick with it, OK? It's worth sticking with it. If I don't get immunity, nobody does. And that means Joe Biden's getting arrested. Everybody agrees that if I'm not entitled to presidential immunity, which I should be doing the affairs of state, I'm doing the affairs of the president of the United States and doing it well. We wouldn't have any of these problems if I were president. But if I'm not entitled to immunity as president, every other president would get that. Then crooked Joe Biden would not be entitled to immunity. OK, I mean, listen, I'm so far. There's no special treatment for one president or another.

If there are reasons to say that immunity is relevant with Trump, then we would say Biden has the same immunity for the same actions. Now, for different actions, we may be talking about a different story, but so far he's not saying anything too crazy. He left office. He would be, I assume, prosecuted for the horrible job he did in Afghanistan. What killing soldiers? Leaving Americans behind, leaving billions of dollars worth of military brand new, beautiful military equipment that I bought in the hands of the Taliban and basically surrendering.

And there was no reason we have to deal through strength. But notice, by the way, that very interesting cut they just threw in there. This is because Trump struggles to record these in one take very unnatural cuts. All of the horrible things that he's done allow. How the attack on Israel, which would have never happened, the attack on Ukraine, which would have never happened, the possible attack on Taiwan, which possibly will happen. The possible future attack is Joe Biden's fault. Losing our energy independence.

By the way, that's a lie. The U.S. produced more oil and natural gas in 2023 than any other country and then the more than the U.S. in any other year. Just lies, lies all the way down. But maybe most of all, for purposes of immunity and going after Joe Biden is allowing millions and millions of people to pour into our border. Yeah. Millions and millions of people came in through our border under Trump as well. But it's only Biden who should be prosecuted for that coming from jails and prisons, coming

from mental institutions and insane as well as. And terrorists coming by the thousands. If I don't have immunity, then no other president would have immunity. And Joe Biden certainly wouldn't have had immunity. All right. Well, he has an example, have immunity for all of the money he took from Russia or for all of the money he took from China. Remember, there's no evidence of that as well. So listen, you get the picture. I would be fine with us saying today Trump doesn't get immunity and Biden doesn't get immunity. I think that this plays in Biden's favor because there's no crimes I'm aware of for which there is evidence that Joe Biden committed.

So if we want to all agree right now, neither of them gets immunity. We'll play it right down the middle. I believe that that's absolutely fine. Trump also in these really strange vlog style videos arguing that Mar-a-Lago is worth 900 million to 1.8 billion dollars. Wow. This is just a small piece of Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, probably the most expensive land anywhere in the world. A New York state judge named and Gorin values it at just $18 million in order. Remember that that is the real estate tax assessment of the property, not the market value to help his and racist AG James Letitia James, a racist and a corrupt person. It's a horrible case. It's a rigged case against me.

So they say it's worth $18 million when in fact it's worth 50 to 100 times that amount. No jury, no victim, only profits. All right. So anyway, Trump, it's worth 50 to 100 times that amount. No jury, no victim, only profits. And all right. So anyway, Trump says it's worth nine hundred by his math, somewhere around one to two billion dollars. He says it's the most valuable land ever anywhere. In case you are curious, if you want to talk about the most expensive land in the world. Usually we talk about Monaco number one, Hong Kong number two, London number three, New York City number four and Tokyo number five. You might notice that

West Palm Beach or Palm Beach or wherever Mar-a-Lago is, is not on the top five or the top 10 or the top 20 or the top 30 or the OK, you get it. It's not up there in terms of the most valuable land anywhere. This guy's unhinged. We need to move on where Trumpism goes to the dustbin of history. Let's make it happen in November. Many of you expressing concerns that one of our longtime regular callers, Whitney or Whitney, as some know her, has not been heard from in a while. And I admit I was also concerned. I don't know if it's been months or close to a year since we last heard from Whitney. But I want to both reassure, but this also may be concerning to folks. She is back, but she is still focused on Judaism and it's all a little bit scary.

So just I I'm going to play the latest voicemail from Whitney. There were so many people concerned. This is sort of like a proof of life video. Some of the things she says here are very aggressive. I just want to warn everybody, OK, but Whitney is back. Whitney is OK. So I wanted to reiterate that there is real Jewish people and the world and by real Jewish people, I mean, your reputation. There are people who have like you have mocked for years who

look a certain way and they're the people that the Nazis want to kill. Speaker 1 I feel the passion. The anti-Semitism has grown and it has gotten out of control. I feel the passion. Speaker 4 It goes without saying you're going to hang. Get a life, mother. Get a real life. Speaker 1 All right. So as some of you know, there is a performative aspect to some of these voicemails. But if anybody's worried, oh, my goodness, how is this a job? If anybody was worried about Whitney, we now know that you either don't have to worry or I don't know. I don't know something else. But always, always great to hear from Whitney. And that's one of her characters. She calls in with a number of

different characters. We have a great bonus show for you today. And that's one of her characters. She calls in with a number of different characters. We have a great bonus show for you today. By the way, Whitney's right. Speaking of anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic disinformation exploding on Twitter will tell you why. We will talk about the pope's call to ban surrogacy. What? What? Why? And we will also talk about how in 41 U.S. states, the richest one percent

are paying a lower effective tax rate than everybody else. Is that the way the system is supposed to work? I think the answer is no. We will discuss it when I'm joined on the bonus show by producer Pat. Bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Join Pacman dot com is the website where you can sign up. You can use the coupon code. Save democracy 24 to save big.

I'll see you on the bonus show or I'll be back here with you tomorrow.