The David Pakman Show - 12/7/23: Final 2023 debate a total disaster, Fox town hall exposed

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Eric Swalwell, Democratic Congressman from California, joins David to discuss the nascent impeachment effort targeting President Joe Biden, the 2024 election, the expulsion of former Congressman George Santos, and much more -- The final Republican presidential primary debate of 2023 goes terribly wrong -- 2024 Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie turns on Republican voters amid a chorus of boos during the final Republican primary debate of 2023 -- Fox News's post-Trump town hall "focus group" is exposed as completely staged with fake supposed "Democrat voters" -- College Presidents from MIT, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania say that calling for the genocide of Jews on their respective campuses is not necessarily banned -- According to former Trump staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin, Donald Trump wanted one of his own staffers killed after supposedly leaking a story about him -- Lara Trump, Donald Trump's daughter-in-law, says that President Joe Biden is running for re-election as a way to avoid going to prison -- Six fake 2020 Donald Trump electors are indicted in Nevada -- Voicemail caller does not want David to speak during his debate broadcasts -- On the Bonus Show: Dem lawmakers unveil bill to give prisoners right to vote, psychologists say they can't meet demand for mental healthcare, NCAA President wants college to directly pay some student athletes, much more... 🔊 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription at https://babbel.com/pakman 🌱 Ounce of Hope: Get 20% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://www.ounceofhope.com/ 🖼️ Aura Frames: Use code PAKMAN for $30 off at https://auraframes.com/pakman 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 🧠 Try Brain.fm totally free for a month at https://brain.fm/pakman ☕ Beam melatonin hot cocoa: Get up to 50% OFF at https://shopbeam.com/pakman 🧻 Reel Paper: Code PAKMAN for 30% OFF + free shipping at https://reelpaper.com/pakman 👍 Use code PAKMAN for 20% off the Füm Journey Pack at https://tryfum.com/PAKMAN -- 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

Speaker 1 Speaker 1 Last night was the final Republican primary debate of 2023, the final debate before the voting starts. We streamed it live. It was so great to see so many of you. And the incredible thing about last night's debate, that it was simultaneously the best debate and the worst debate. Last night's debate was the best debate in that we saw what I believe to be the true colors of so many of the candidates. Vivek Ramaswamy thinks the voters are really stupid and is now

feeding them conspiracy theories that he obviously doesn't believe brazenly just trying to win. Chris Christie, increasingly indignant about the fact that the electorate he's trying to appeal to has no interest in considering how it might be a bad idea to elect a guy who might spend the rest of his life in prison and is facing 91 criminal charges. It was really an incredible show of what these candidates are really like when they know this is it. And unless Trump dies, they're not going to be the nominees. So let's go through some parts of this. Very little of this really qualifies as debate. It's one liners arguing conspiracy theories and yelling over each other. That's what it was. But I want to review it with you. There are some interesting moments. Here is Vivek Ramaswamy generating some of the largest

applause of the night by pushing the obviously debunked conspiracy theory that January 6th was not just Trump is getting violent, but rather some kind of inside job. And the crowd goes wild. Donald Trump attempted to take on. And if you want somebody who's going to speak truth to power, vote for somebody who's going to speak the truth to you. Why am I the only person on the stage, at least who can say that January 6th now does look like

it was an inside job that the government lied to us for 20 years about Saudi Arabia's involvement in 9-11, that the great replacement theory is not some grand right wing conspiracy theory, but a basic statement of the Democratic Party's platform. So look at that just full on, full on Q and on. I mean, he forgot to mention that the moon landing was fake or that Paul McCartney died and was replaced with a similar looking left handed bassist 40 years ago or for 50 years ago. I don't even know when that supposedly was.

I'll be honest. I don't think Vivek believes any of this stuff. I don't think he's stupid Vivek believes any of this stuff. I don't think he's stupid enough to believe any of this stuff. I think he believes the voters he needs to appeal to are stupid enough to believe this stuff and pushing great replacement and all of these different things. Vivek Ramaswamy also argued that Nikki Haley is too pro trans. She's not anti transgender enough. He mentions Dylan Mulvaney and the entire Bud Light situation and then actually holds up a sign. Vivek wrote a sign about Nikki Haley. What a pathetic display. We're talking about that transition. And Nikki Haley's

campaign launch video sounded like a woke Dylan Mulvaney, Bud Light ad talking about how she would kick in the years at the first. She said that only Nikki Haley struggling not to grin at the stupidity of that one. But but here it goes off the rails. A woman can get this job done. That's what she said after the third debate. When I criticized Ronna McDaniel after five failed years of leadership of this party and criticized Nikki for her corrupt foreign dealings as a military contractor, she said that I have a woman problem. Nikki, I don't have a woman problem.

You have a corruption problem. And I think that that's what people need to know. Nikki is corrupt. And now that caught Nikki Haley's attention because she she tried not to even look at Vivek the entire debate and she did a pretty good job. But then all of a sudden, Vivek is holding up a big white legal pad and that got her attention. And she looks over and Vivek has written Nikki equals corrupt on the on the notepad. And the crowd doing a lot of booing his his pointed obsession with Nikki Haley was not particularly well received by the crowd, to be perfectly frank.

He also pushed this. Nikki Haley has eight million bucks and she bought a bigger house and she's obviously corrupt. You know, it's pretty rich for Vivek Ramaswamy to be talking about corrupt self enrichment. I mean, listen, the truth is, Nikki Haley was worth about a million bucks when she left the Trump White House, and now she's worth about eight million dollars. It's been almost six years. She had two pretty successful books.

She probably made three to four hundred thousand dollars from each book. She now gets 50 to 150 K per speech. And the stock market has done well. You can argue that all of these people in some way are sort of corruptly or cynically benefiting from a system that's good for them and bad for so many others. But Vivek Ramaswamy is not the guy with however much money he has to point and say Nikki Haley having eight million.

And we know exactly how she has the eight million that that's the problem. Just totally out of school. And a lot of these attacks falling flat. Chris Christie was not having any of the stuff last night. OK, you say that you do this and you do this at every debate. You go out on the stuff and you say something. All of us see it on video. We confront you on the debate stage. You say you didn't say it and then you back away. And I want to say, I'm not done yet. Well, this is. Now look. This is the fourth debate.

The fourth debate that you would be voted in the first 20 minutes as the most obnoxious blowhard in America. I want to say something else. We're now 25 minutes into this debate. Right. And he has insulted Nikki Haley's basic intelligence, not her positions, her basic intelligence. She doesn't know regions. She wouldn't be able to find something on a map. All right. So here, Chris Christie came sort of to the defense of Nikki Haley.

Here's the thing, OK, we can say a lot of things about Chris Christie and we'll talk about Christie specifically later. He's the only guy on the stage, not not actually there for second place. He's the only guy on the stage, not at least loosely auditioning to be Trump's VP. And for that, I respect him. Ron DeSantis couldn't answer a single question directly. Five, six, seven yes or no questions. He wouldn't answer a single one of them. And Chris Christie called out Ron DeSantis because he just won't answer simple questions like,

is Trump fit to be president? He just the question. The question was very direct. Is he fit to be president or isn't he the rest of the speech is interesting but completely non-responsive and if we were in a courtroom they'd strike the answer and say governor desantis no they would say you're a smart man no they would no they wouldn't strike the answer because you're not answering you just don't like you have your you have no is he fit or isn't he no i don't have my thing we don't use my thing. He's the thing. Is he fit or isn't he? You're talking about him being 80 years old.

It doesn't mean that somebody couldn't get elected. That's one of the people that... Governor DeSantis, let him finish. No, Governor DeSantis, let him finish. Ron, I think we have an opportunity to do somebody who is in the prime of their life. We don't have to worry about all this stuff with Ron. Stop, DeSantis. We can get it done, so we'll do it. I'm going to come to you. Finish. Look, father time is undefeated. I don't know how he would score on a test, but I know this.

We have an opportunity to nominate someone and elect someone for two terms who's going to be spitting nails on day one and for eight years deliver We should not nominate somebody who's almost 80 years old. He's afraid to answer. No, you have to either you're afraid or you're not listening. No, it's not. All right. So you get the sense. Ron DeSantis just not answering. Is Trump fit to be president or isn't he? The entire debate had a big kind of like pandering to the crazy right wing aspect to it. Here's one example where they brought on this total lunatic, Tom Fitton, who is is believed to be one of Trump's unindicted co-conspirators in the entire trying to steal the election thing. And they had him pretend to be an unbiased observer and ask a question. This was insane. Take a look at this. Oh, no, we've got a

glitchy video. I'm going to get it back for us when the videos glitch. OK, National Committee, we've got questions for you about the Justice Department and our election system. Here's Tom Fitton with Judicial Watch. Governor Christie, this one's for you. President Trump and many of his supporters claim federal law enforcement agencies have abused his civil rights for the last eight years by, among other things, spying on him and now prosecuting him while having treated Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden with kid gloves. A recent Gallup poll shows that Americans think more highly of the US Postal Service than they do the FBI. So anyway, it's just a completely ridiculous person to. It's almost like having Lara Trump say, hey, we have a question for you from a concerned voter. And then Lara Trump's face pops up. And then lastly, everybody going after Nikki Haley for obvious reasons. She's actually the one who has even a remote chance in hell of challenging Trump

in even a single state and everybody going after her for her donors. And she just fought back and said, you guys are jealous of me. You want the donors. I got off the board. I love Boeing. They build good commercial airplanes. They build airplanes for our Air Force. I am proud of them. They employ a lot of people in South Carolina. But that's why I left the Boeing board. There's nothing to what he's saying. And in terms of these donors that are supporting me, they're just jealous. They wish that they were supporting them. But I'm not going to sit there and. So I think Nikki Haley did a pretty good job of trying to stay above the fray. Everybody was going after her.

Chris Christie wasn't really Chris Christie went after on policy. DeSantis and Ramaswamy apparently becoming convinced that they need to just attack her relentlessly. I don't think it helped them. Nikki Haley will end up being the second place person is my prediction in this primary. Let's now talk a little bit about Chris Christie. Chris Christie turned on the Republican voters last night. He said some truths that are very obvious, which is it's insane to even be thinking about supporting Donald Trump. That's what the

voters are doing. And Chris Christie, with a last ditch effort here, saying this is not a good idea. The crowd booing and Chris Christie just saying to them, hey, listen, you can ignore reality if you want. I want you all to kind of picture in your minds election day. You'll all be heading to the polls to vote. And that's something that Donald Trump will not be able to do because he will be convicted of felonies before then and his right to vote will be taken away. You know, look, here's the bottom line. You can go about it all you like and continue to deny reality. But if we deny reality as a party, we're going to have four more years of Joe Biden. When I my colleagues here, the crowd booing Chris Christie in order to defend Trump, who doesn't even have the respect for the voters to show up to a single damn debate.

Chris Christie is absolutely right. He stands no chance because this is now a party overwhelmed by lunatics. But Chris Christie is right. He's now openly turning on the people that clearly don't want him to be the nominee. Here's one other moment where Chris Christie said, we're up here pretending like we might be the nominees. We're not talking about the guy who clearly is going to be the nominee. What needs to be taken on. I look at my watch now. We're 17 minutes into this debate. And except for your little speech in the beginning, we've had these three acting as if the race is between the four of us. The fifth guy who doesn't have the guts to show up and stand here, he's the one who, as you just put it, is way ahead in the polls.

And yet I've got these three guys who are all seemingly to compete with, you know, Voldemort. He or she will not be named. They don't want to talk about it. The fact is that when you go and you say the truth about somebody who is a dictator, a bully, who has taken shots at everybody, whether they've given him great service or not over time, who dares to disagree with him, then I understand why the thieves three are timid to say anything about it. So listen, Chris Christie willing to say things the others aren't willing to say.

He's still going to lose. He's completely correct. But the big thing now is Chris Christie is increasingly in a hostile relationship with the actual Republican electorate. Democrats aren't big on Chris Christie and apparently neither are Republicans. It could be a sad and tragic end to his political career on the heels of simply telling the truth. But it's a truth that Republican voters don't want to hear. If you're still trying to think of the perfect holiday gift for your friend or family member,

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the Trump town hall of two nights ago. It has now been exposed as completely staged with individuals in the panel on the focus group that have been completely misrepresented in terms of their political views. We're going to take a look at this. This there's so much here that is fascinating. There is going to be listen to everybody. OK, listen to everybody. But there is a particular person, a supposed Democrat voter who says crazy things about socialism and vaccines, which we now know is not at all what she was presented to be. So let's look at some of this and we will discuss. What did you think? I know you're a Trump supporter. I thought I thought he was spectacular last night. You know, I think the one thing that he touched on

that was big for me in terms of reassuring the fact that I'm going to vote for him was the immigration topic. There you go. I believe that, you know, when he said he'd be a dictator, I wasn't big on it. But then he reassured that is at the core of the safety of this country for the next twenty five, thirty years of my lifetime, hopefully more. Yeah. Yeah. Stephanie, you're undecided. Are you leaning a little bit toward Trump? I know you're a Democrat, but after. OK, Stephanie, I know you're a Democrat. Listen to this. Watching last night and seeing Joe Biden. How are you feeling? Many things can be true. Much of what people on this panel said are true and make me think like,

OK, maybe we would be better off. But the one topic that was not brought up was his handling of coronavirus. And I think that's something that we really need to talk about. He shut down this country. He teed up, you know, a socialist vaccination program that then led to mandates, which caused people like me and thousands of other teachers to lose our job. So I think that at the very least, we need to have this conversation, which is part of the reason that I'm making a documentary about those shutdowns. And she's doing an anti anti-vax documentary is what she's actually saying, really highlighting his role in that. So who has your vote? I'm decidedly undecided. Like,

OK, they're presenting that this is a Democratic voter. She's just not sure. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is this. This is a woman who has appeared previously on various panels and shows. And the reality is that she lost her job teaching in New York City because she refused to get a vaccine. She's made a number of media appearances as an anti-vaccine activist. She's been very vocal about the fact that Democrats are simply a no-no. The idea that this is a Democratic voter who could go either way, she might vote Biden, she might not. She's just not convinced or whatever. This is someone who has publicly made other appearances and said, quote, Democrats are an

automatic no, no for me. And for 2022, she said, I will be voting down ballot Republicans. It's all fake. It's smoke and mirrors. Wanting. Look, it's look, folks, here's a here's a Democratic voter, historically Democratic voter, not somebody who's an anti-vaccine activist making a documentary about COVID. And she might even go in the direction of Trump. This is nonsense. And Fox News has done this before and they've been caught again. And by the way, even if you look at the actual overt right wingers on that focus group, they all say things that make absolutely no sense. What do we learn from that other than Fox News is willing to brazenly and cynically assemble these things as performative television rather than as any kind of valuable insight gathering exercise into what is really in the minds of supposedly Democratic voters.

We should have expected it. And it's exactly what they did. All right. I can't believe what I'm about to play for you. Two days ago, friends started texting me saying, David, sir, are you watching this congressional hearing? The presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania are being asked if people on your campus call for the genocide of Jews, does that violate the code of conduct for bullying and harassment? And not a single one of them said yes. And I thought to myself, there must be missing context here. There's absolutely no way that this is what happened. And it is exactly what happened. Now, I know there are people who are going to write to me and say, David, this is actually

about Palestinians or this is about Gaza or this is about none of those things. This is about a problem that even Harvard now acknowledges what was said is a problem. OK, so this is not just people saying this was a problem and the blowback was so severe from the inability of these school presidents to say, yeah, you can't call for genociding an ethnic group on campus. You just can't do it. Look at this. Look at this. Does at MIT, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate MIT's code of conduct or rules regarding bullying and harassment? Yes or no? If targeted at individuals not making public statements. Yes or no? Calling for the genocide of Jews does not constitute bullying and harassment. I have not heard calling for the genocide for Jews on our campus.

But you've heard chance for Intifada. I've heard chance, which can be anti-Semitic, depending on the context, when calling for the elimination of the Jewish people. When you say, are people listening to this? Have we gone crazy? There are chance calling for eliminating the Jewish people. They might be anti-Semitic. They might be harassment, depending on the context. Oh, I wonder if that would be applied to other groups. So those would not be according to

the MIT's code of conduct or rules. That would be investigated as harassment, if pervasive and severe. Ms. McGill at Penn, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's rules or code of conduct? Yes or no? If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment. Yes. Now, what does that mean? What does that mean? How do you turn the speech of calling for genocide of Jews into conduct? Is she saying if they start trying to kill Jews, then it would be harassment? Well, but then it would be attempted murder, wouldn't it? What is happening? I am asking, specifically calling for the genocide of Jews,

does that constitute bullying or harassment? If it is directed and severe or pervasive, it is harassment. So the answer is yes. It is a context-dependent decision, Congresswoman. It's a context-dependent decision. That's your testimony today. Calling for the genocide of Jews is depending upon the context. That is not bullying or harassment. This is the easiest question to answer yes, Ms. McGill. So is your testimony that you will not answer

yes? If it is, if the speech becomes conduct, it can be harassment. Conduct meaning committing the act of genocide? The speech is not harassment? This is unacceptable, Ms. McGill. I'm going to give you one more opportunity for the world to see your answer. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's code of conduct when it comes to bullying and harassment? Yes or no?

It can be harassment. The answer is yes. And Dr. Gay, at Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no? It can be, depending on the context. What's the context?

Targeted as an individual. Targeted at an individual. It's targeted at Jewish students, Jewish individuals. Do you understand your testimony is dehumanizing them? Do you understand that dehumanization is part of antisemitism? I will ask you one more time. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no? Antisemitic rhetoric. And is it antisemitic rhetoric? Antisemitic rhetoric when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying,

harassment, intimidation, that is actionable conduct. And we do take action. It sounds like what she's saying is a group of students with signs saying kill all the Jews is OK as long as you don't get really close to a Jewish student with the sign, because then it's what exactly are they saying? And I know that this is going to become a partisan thing about Israel and Gaza and Hamas and all these different things. It's not about that. Imagine replacing. Are you allowed to call for the genocide of blacks on campus? Well, it depends. Depends on the context. You know, just kind of depends.

If it goes into conduct, then we would investigate it as harassment. Really? Oh, wow. Are you allowed to call for the genocide of women on the campus? It depends. It depends. You're certainly allowed to hold signs calling for the genocide of women. But if it starts to be intimidating, well, isn't the very fact that the signs are being held intimidating in and of itself? And there's this idea that it's all about the context. Not everything depends on context. OK. And and what we have is a situation where for a long time, these public statements that have been made about, you know, the George Floyd was murdered. OK. And the schools put out a statement and they denounce racism towards African-Americans. OK. Roe v. Wade is overturned. And the there's a statement put out denouncing

choice being taken away from women. These were statements which were really pretty easy statements. And you take a stand and basically everybody feels the same way. And it's all under the pursuit of some version of inclusion. And we're not going to offend and all these different things. And then all of a sudden you have a different situation where these college presidents clearly are trying to sort of walk a line where they don't want to be seen as making a commentary, maybe about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that isn't actually about that. It's just what groups are you allowed to target with signs calling for genocide on campus? We know they wouldn't allow it with women. We know they wouldn't allow it with with with blacks.

And rightly so, by the way, calling for genocide of groups. But now when it comes to Jews, well, it sort of depends. And I'm not really sure. And there's a lot of different opinions. And there was a very easy answer to give here. And Harvard is now suffering some insane blowback. They put out the following statement after this disaster where they said, quote, statement from President Gay.

There are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students. Let me be clear. Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community or any religious or ethnic group are vile. They have no place at Harvard. And those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account. And again, even this statement, it recognizes that she really messed up, but it doesn't really say it's not allowed. Well, they're going to be held to account. Account might be nothing. They're saying that the statements are vile. Well, OK, but are they allowed? This was such a failure. And, you know, I am not one of these people on the right who says higher education is liberal indoctrination and college sucks and it's terrible and we don't need it and no

one should go to college. It's much the opposite, much the opposite. And in fact, I am one of the biggest advocates of getting more people if they want access to higher education at lower costs. It's not me doing that Paul Ryan thing. The colleges are liberal indoctrination. I don't care about the politics or the party or any of it. I care about the fact that this is such a simple question.

You can have any view you want about what's happening in Israel and Gaza, about settlements, about Netanyahu. But when we say, well, genocide calls might be OK, depending on the context. They've jumped the shark. And I don't know if that's a term everybody's familiar with, but the blowback has been appropriate. People on the left and right disgusted about this. And hopefully we see more serious corrective statements issued. If you disagree with me, oh boy, I can't wait to see the comments. Let me know. When I'm working on the show or doing stuff on my computer, staying focused and getting in the zone is super important. It's not always easy. I would try Spotify or YouTube playlists. I'd end up actually more distracted than focused. And then someone told

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The link is in the podcast notes. Today we welcome to the program Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell, who has had a very interesting actually front row seat to a lot of different things over the last many years and glad to have the opportunity to talk. Really appreciate your time today, Congressman. Hey, David, thanks for having me on and appreciate what you're doing. One of the issues that I know is sort of a curiosity to some, but a real practical matter of importance to others. You're there every day or at least when Congress is in session, you're there. It's hard from the outside to understand to what degree MAGA is still the default controlling

contingent in the Republican Party today. There's speculation about publicly. Here's what they mostly say. But privately, they're saying this other thing. It's more like the Liz Cheney view in private. What's your best assessment as someone who's talking to some of these people on somewhat of a regular basis? To what degree are they still loyal to that wing?

There's really two wings. There's MAGA and MAGA Mike, who the speaker refers to himself as he's a real believer in Trump ism. Then there's make-believe MAGA. And these are the people that I talk to who it's very clear that their antics and tactics are performative and that they very much live election to election, primary battle to primary battle, afraid that someone more MAGA than them would come along. And these are people who, you know, I've talked to at the airports, on flights, at gyms, at

restaurants. And it gives you this kind of pro wrestling feel that for many of them, they see this as, you know, when you're in the ring, so to speak, you hit your opponent over the head with a steel chair. But when we're off camera, you can just be yourself because it doesn't really matter. It's not real to them. The problem is, is that to who they see as the fans,

I call them constituents, it is real. And, you know, we are not entertainers. We were not sent here to perform. We were sent here to govern. But Donald Trump brought that to Washington, D.C. in 2016. And I think the best example of that is George Santos, right? Only with what Donald Trump did would you believe as George Santos, with no experience in government, that you could invent a resume and a background and experience and then come to Congress and not be ashamed about it at all because you're just a part of this entertainment culture

that has taken over Washington? OK, so about George Santos, which is what I was going to ask next, as it applies to the public versus the behind the scenes, it took a number of different votes and so many different events until finally they said, OK, we're going to get rid of this guy. Did he have any genuine support behind the scenes or was it merely this guy has no business here, but here's the political calculation we're making for why we allow him to stay for the time being. So behind the scenes, no, there's, there was no support. Um, but there, there was, you know, naked power, uh, you know, it, it play, you know, ambition and power and math. And then the fact that they have a very thin majority and they already have a hard time passing

legislation among themselves. And so for Santos to leave, that would reduce the majority by that they have a very thin majority and they already have a hard time passing legislation among themselves. And so for Santos to leave, that would reduce the majority by one more person. What I think is interesting, David, and I hope my colleagues start talking about this more, and I hope you, as you think through potential impeachment of Joe Biden, talk about this more. Mike Johnson and the rest of his leadership team from Scalise to Emmer to Stefanik, the most senior Republican leaders, all voted to keep Santos in Congress under the theory that it's really up to the voters to decide his fate. Okay. Contrast that to what we're about to do in the next couple of days, which is to open an impeachment inquiry where they would want to take away the right

for the voters to decide who is president. And so I think we have to call them out on that, you know, just outright hypocrisy that, you know, it's really there's rules for them and then there's rules for Joe Biden. And if they think that Joe Biden and what they've accused him of, even if it was true, is on the level of Santos, I mean, it's still not even in the same ballpark. But they acquitted Santos and they want to convict Biden under a process that they don't even believe is legitimate because to them, the voters should decide. OK, so let's talk about impeachment. And then there's like three different things you mentioned there, all of which are interesting. But let's do impeachment first. It seems that the more committed they get to the idea that Joe Biden is a multi-decade

mafia boss style criminal genius, while at the same time not knowing what day it is. Right. The more and more committed they get to these two impossible stories, the more that the smoking gun evaporates. The latest is, well, he helped Hunter get a relatively cheap truck and Hunter paid him back. And we have a picture of the two of them with the truck and the sales guy have has anyone candidly said to you, listen, it doesn't matter what we find.

We're doing this in twenty twenty four. Have they come to you and said we're going to do the impeachment? Or do you think anybody actually cares about whether they do or don't find evidence? I don't think they care whether they do or do not find evidence. I think what this is, is you have their nominee. They know their nominee is Donald Trump and they know that he's facing 91 felony charges across four different jurisdictions and likely will be convicted on some of those, you know, before the voters go to the ballot box in November. So you do you think so? Do you think the timeline

will work out for that timeline? Sure. The March case in D.C. would be wrapped up. Now, look, it's up to the jury. Jury could acquit him, too. They know. Let me rephrase that. They know there will be a resolution on some of these cases before the voters go to vote. Fair. And they also probably price in that he may be convicted on some of these counts before the voters go to vote. Fair. And they also probably price him that he may be convicted on some of these counts before the voters go to vote. So if that's the case, the best they can do to try and muddy up Biden would be to try and throw at Biden charges of corruption so that maybe the voters say, well, they're both corrupt.

And then Trump has a better chance at a jump ball election rather than one person has been convicted and impeached and the other not convicted, not impeached. So I think they they do see this as an effort that they have to, you know, just kind of muddy the waters, you know, to make it harder for the voters to tell, you know, who is the better of the two choices. So on the different standards for Trump Biden, there is increasingly a discussion about Joe Biden's age and so-called cognitive decline. I'm the first to admit that if you watch the 2012 debate between Paul, Paul Ryan and Joe Biden, it's a and Joe Biden. It's a different Joe Biden.

What he did in 2012 was absolutely incredible. But he's 81 years old. OK, there seems to be no similar consideration given to Trump regularly saying Obama is the president, not knowing where he is, literally saying the wrong name of the place where he's in at that moment. He doesn't know where Rudy Giuliani is. He comes down, you know, all these different things behind the scenes. Do Republicans say to you, we have some concerns here or do you think they genuinely aren't willing to see it?

They're not willing to see it. Oh, well, I don't see it at all. And I think we have to, you know, see it almost in the same look. The tactic of what you just said, of making it clear that, oh, you're concerned about Biden's age. Well, what about the guy that doesn't know where he is, doesn't know what election this is, doesn't know what world war this would be if it was to happen? You know, he's a real problem, too. Oh, and by the way, on top of that, what number is higher than 81? Ninety one. Ninety one, you know, felony counts. Oh, and by the way, on top of that, what number is higher than 81? 91. 91, you know, felony counts. I think we have to, you know, when this narrows down to a choice between, you know, two candidates, we do need to push back on that more.

I will just say personally, I was with the president last night. I saw him last night at the White House. I had a conversation with him. Looked great. Sounded great. But, yes, he's 81 years old. However, at the end of the day, if the choice is between an 81 year old with, you know, legislative achievements that have brought, you know, affordability and breathing room to our finances, have managed to, you know, global crises and has passed legislation that's going to bring down, you know, and make Medicare prescription drugs more affordable. And the other guy is facing felony charges and tried

to overturn our democracy once and would take away a woman's right to choose. I think it's clear to me, you know, who's the better choice. So we just have to, as I said, lean in and play on our terms and not theirs. When you think ahead to 11 months now to November of 2024, there are those who a year ago were saying the situation in Ukraine is ultimately going to be what that election is about. Now there are folks saying what happens in Israel? Gaza is going to be what that election is about. If I zoom out and look at the last 50, 60, 70 years of presidential elections, what I'm reminded of is in general, when the economy is pretty OK, like you don't have we haven't solved inequality, right? We still have

issues. Forty percent of Americans can't afford a thousand dollar expense without going into debt. But you look at unemployment, GDP growth, inflation coming down. If things are like they are today, 11 months from now, it's really hard to imagine how the election would be a referendum on anything but the economy. Do you agree or do you see it a different way? We can't be losing on the economy and we can't, you know, in 12, if you recall, on the question of who would manage the economy better, Romney or Obama, I believe Romney had like a slight edge, but it wasn't like

a major edge. And Obama had pulled us out of, you know, the recession of 08, 09. But what Obama did masterfully was show that, you know that Romney is going to govern only for the wealthiest Americans. And Romney reinforced that with some of the things he said about the other 48 percent. Here, Biden has legislative accomplishments that will bring affordability and breathing room. We're at near full employment right now. Compared to the rest of the world, we are leading the way in our comeback from COVID. I do believe we have to make it clear that, if Donald Trump is president and Republicans

are in charge of the White House, they are going to do everything to benefit billionaires and nothing to help working people. And that is always a message that works because it's what they do. I do think what's different than President Obama's reelect in 12 and Bill Clinton's reelect in 96 is that you have the issue here of body freedom for women. And that issue is not going away. And on the ballot is the guy who put the three Supreme Court justices who took it away. And so I do believe, you know, women are motivated, you know, to protect that right. And it may not be as important as the economy, but it's pretty close. So that that's an X factor that we've not seen in prior elections. Last thing I want to ask you about, as as we all acknowledge Joe Biden's 81

years old, when we think about the next generation of national level Democratic leaders, I've been very interested in watching Gavin Newsom. I think he has, to some degree, set the right tone when talking to some of these Republicans, although maybe he underperformed a little bit in that very strange debate with Ron DeSantis last week. But overall, I think he still did did quite well. There's a number of different names, folks that are sort of like between 40 and 55 that I find super interesting.

What's the model you like and what are the names that you're watching right now in terms of if we think about this next wave, who should be the national Democratic leaders? Oh, man, I mean, I'm going to give you a bunch of them and I don't I may miss some, but obviously knew some. Look, Kamala Harris, you know, especially that smart on crime Kamala that we saw as attorney general and D.A. in California. I don't ever write that off either. Gretchen, that seems risky to me, to be totally honest. But I want to hear the whole list first. Yeah, well, I'm just saying that that was kind of how she defined herself. She, yeah, a reformed a city that had rising crime, was attorney general, you know, senator. And I do think that there's

a lane, especially as people are worried about public safety, you know, to have a prosecutor, but also a just prosecutor. Gretchen Whitmer. I mean, she's tough. She's smart. She's serious, but doesn't take herself too seriously, if that makes sense. And like kind of a refreshing way. And then Governor Shapiro, Governor Murphy, Pritzker leading in big states and getting big agendas done. Like some of my colleagues in the House, again, there's talent all over. Jasmine Crockett is a real rising star out of Dallas. Maxwell Frost. I learned so much from Maxwell about just what his generation cares about. And he's going to be a leader, you know, in some form, whether it's Congress or the executive branch. So there's no shortage of leaders.

And even on the 2020 field, I mean, Cory Booker, you know, still I think understands across so many different demographics what people care about. So I left a lot of names out unintentionally, but I'm excited, you know, when we do get to a 2028, you know, field, the talent that's going to be in there. And there's and the through line of all that is there were no extremists that I named, right? Like no one's trying to like do what you're seeing on the right. There's no one. There's no Vivek, you know, the Santa system trying to pull us off the cliff for some radical agenda. It's just a bunch of doers and people who want to govern. Would you consider throwing your name back into the ring in 28? Yeah, I had a lot of fun running for president. I think I have the antibodies for it. I've got three little kids

and I do everything for them that that I find to choose between being a good dad and a good candidate rather be a good dad at this point. And hey, I'm with you on that one. Yeah. So by the way, have doctors studied how your kids look so much like you? It seems like there's really an investigation to be done there. You know, my oldest son doesn't look like me when I was a little kid. He looks like me now. Right. That's the weirdest thing. And whenever my wife is out with him, she'll get stopped by someone and they'll say, is that Eric Swalwell's son? Like, we hope he grows out of it. Bottom line. Congressman Eric Swalwell, really appreciate your, we hope he grows out of it. Bottom line, we hope he grows out of it. Congressman Eric Swalwell, really appreciate your time today. And we'll be watching all of it, as I'm sure you will be. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thanks, David.

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Here is Alyssa Farah Griffin on the view yesterday explaining that after it leaked that Donald Trump went down to the bunker, which he later claimed was just to inspect it. It wasn't because he was afraid he was just inspecting the bunker. Trump said whoever leaked that should be executed. Here it is from former Trump staffer herself, Alyssa Farah Griffin. Donald Trump is telling us what he's going to do in a second term and we need to listen to it. He says in the first term, a lot of the worst instincts were stifled by two things. Him not knowing how the hell the federal government works and people saying, yo, you gotta run for reelection. Those things are not the case in the second election. He

knows how to weaponize the federal government. He's planning to fire civil servants with expertise and nonpartisan people, staff the government with loyalists. He has an enemies list, which by the way, includes the media. He came after MSNBC. He will truly go after the media in a second. Okay, listen to this. And we can't take him, we can't take him lightly because I can tell you right before I resigned, I was in an Oval Office meeting with a dozen other staffers and somebody had, he thinks, leaked a story about him going to the bunker during the George Floyd protests. And he said, whoever did that should be executed.

He's used that terminology. He's used it talking about Chairman Milley. I cannot raise enough alarm bells about how dangerous he is and how it needs to be stopped at all costs. Trump has on multiple occasions now, according to multiple former staffers and people that were in the rooms, said that certain individuals should be killed. The staffer who he believes leaked that he went to the bunker during the George Floyd protest should be executed. Mark Milley committed treason and we know how we treat people or at least used to treat people who committed treason. And Alyssa Farrah Griffin is telling us the exact same thing that I've been saying, which is let's believe the guy, believe the things that he's telling us.

Why wouldn't we believe them? And there are people who are taking this too lightly. There are people who are saying, well, he may want to do those things, but he was not going to succeed at doing them. That's not that's not a defense anymore. Trying to commit a crime and failing, trying to bribe someone, but they reject the bribe. We don't accept that as a defense anywhere else. And yet here they want to accept it as a defense. And the amazing thing is that others, including people like Lara Trump, are now projecting and reversing Trump's need to get,

as he sees it, back into the Oval Office to prevent himself from going to prison. You've got to see this next clip I'm going to show you that will explain what I'm talking about on the recent news that Joe Biden said, you know, if Trump weren't running again, I might not be running again. We talked about earlier this week on that news. Donald Trump's daughter in law, Lara Trump, appeared on Newsmax and said, well, it seems the only reason Joe Biden's running for president is to keep himself to keep himself out of prison. Now, that might lead you to say, why would Joe Biden go to prison? What crime did he commit? And the answer is we have no evidence that he committed any crime. This is actually why Trump is running.

We have reports about that, which I will remind you of. But first, take a look at this clip. Here's Lara Trump saying Biden is running to avoid going to prison. This is what we call allegations being confessions. It's very interesting to hear Joe Biden say that I guess the only reason he's decided to run is because of Donald Trump. Well, is that because he thinks that Donald Trump might investigate his family even further? You know, you look at this situation with Hunter Biden, I think a lot of people might draw some correlation there

and say, well, maybe the only reason that Joe Biden is trying to hang on to power is because his family depends on him trying to continue the cover-up that we know has happened for the Biden crime family. It's very interesting. This is nothing new. This is part of the politics that we see here in the United States of America. OK, this is really a case of projection of allegations being confessions. The idea that Biden is running to keep himself out of prison is particularly funny for two reasons.

One, there's no reason to think Joe Biden is going to end up in prison because we still have no evidence that he committed any crimes. There's there's no there's not even evidence that crimes have been committed in the orbit of Biden, never mind that Biden himself was involved. But do you remember this? Do you remember the report? Trump thinks running for president again is his get out of jail free card, his get out of jail free card. The real person who thinks maybe I can stay out of trouble if I run for and become president again is Lara Trump's father in law. And as usual, the things they claim Democrats are doing are the things they are doing themselves. Oh, remember summer of 2020 Democrats are going to try to steal this election.

Joe Biden is going to try to steal it even though he's going to lose. Trump tried to steal it even though he's going to lose. Trump tried to steal it even though he did lose. These are all confession allegations, projection all the way down. And there are starting to be consequences for a lot of the people that got dragged down by the 2020 fiasco. That's what I want to talk about with you next. Six of the fake Trump electors in Nevada have been indicted and rightly so. CNN reports Nevada grand jury indicts six pro Trump fake electors who acted as fake

electors in a scheme intended to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 election win, according to the state's attorney general. The indictments make Nevada the third state joining Michigan and Georgia to bring charges against those who served as fake pro-Trump electors after the 2020 election. Remember, the idea here was as follows. Biden wins. Therefore, Democratic electors say we cast our electoral votes for Joe Biden. What Republicans in multiple states have done, we believe now at the direction of Trump and Trump's inner circle, Rudy Giuliani was involved and so were others. What they did was they said, hey, let's get Republicans to come together,

sign papers claiming to be the electors and try to get the electoral votes in the column for Trump rather than in the column for Biden, despite the fact that Biden won and Trump lost. They are arguing. They are indicting us simply for what we said. I did everything right and they indicted me. Right. These people are not being indicted for what they said. They can be of the opinion that Trump won. It's not a crime. Even if they are lying, you can go out and lie and say, I believe Trump won. That is also not a crime. Even if they are lying, you can go out and lie and say, I believe Trump won. That is also not a crime. The crime is attempting to disenfranchise the voters through a criminal conspiracy to defraud. That's what we're talking about here. Every single one of these people

should be indicted, but it's got to go higher. And that's why the Trump criminal trials are so important. They're going to insist their free speech rights have been taken away or whatever the case may be. They have not. They get to say whatever they want. They get to mount a full defense. That's all fine, perfect, no problems whatsoever. But it can't stop. These people aren't the brains of the whether there are brains at all is a question. But these are not the brains of the operation. They were coordinated. This doesn't happen in Michigan, Georgia, Nevada and elsewhere by accident. This was a coordinated effort. The Georgia case and other criminal cases are going to be critical in answering the question,

will we hold the organizers accountable? I'm reading about the history of the mafia in the United States. Rico, which Rico statutes were a mechanism through which you were able to start going after the orchestrators, the people who benefited and orchestrated from the criminal conspiracy, even if they weren't boots on the ground for it. That's the framework we're talking about for going after Trump and his cronies. We've got criminal trials coming up. We'll see if he's ultimately held accountable. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two.

David P. Here's yet another caller who stumbled across my live stream of last night's Republican debate and didn't like when I said things. Yeah, you need to stop the from a candidate to try to talk and put me from people. You are an ass. Speaker 1 Yeah. So listen, watch it somewhere else. I will do whatever the hell I want on my live stream.

And if people don't like it, they can leave. And if people like it, they can stay. When we broadcast debates, I interject when I feel like interjecting. It's minimal. It's ideally timed not to interrupt. But that's the way I do it. If you don't want to hear from me, then you can watch it on a different channel. People thinking they're going to tell me how to run my stream. Give me a break. Obviously, I take general direction from what people want. But the whole point of streaming these things is watch it with

me and I will give you my opinions. If you don't want my opinions, you can take your click elsewhere. Geez. Oh, we've got a great bonus show for you today. Democratic lawmakers have unveiled a bill to give prisoners the right to vote. This is a major issue. It touches so many different aspects of enfranchisement, voting, democracy. We will discuss it. Psychologists are saying they cannot meet meet the growing demand for mental health care. I will tell you a little bit about some of my friends and colleagues who are in the field and what they are experiencing right now from this incredible demand. And the NCAA president wants colleges to directly pay some student athletes. Good idea. Bad idea. People on both sides of the question. All of

those stories and more on today's bonus show. Sign up at joinpacman.com. Get instant access.