The David Pakman Show - 2/21/24: Cenk Uygur returns, Biden & Newsom confronted about '24

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Cenk Uygur, Host of The Young Turks and candidate for President of the United States seeking the Democratic nomination against Joe Biden, joins David to discuss his campaign and goals -- President Joe Biden and California Governor Gavin Newsom are confronted about whether Newsom is "Plan B" for 2024 should something happen to Joe Biden -- The now-arrested Biden "informant," Alexander Smirnov, admits that Russian intelligence is involved in spreading the Hunter Biden story -- A defiant Nikki Haley holds a campaign rally to announce that she will not drop out of the Republican Presidential primary against Donald Trump until she is mathematically eliminated -- New York Attorney General Letitia James says she is prepared to seize Donald Trump's properties if he refuses to pay the verdict and fines against him -- A supposedly friendly Fox News town hall with Donald Trump, hosted by Laura Ingraham, goes horribly wrong -- Anna Perez, a Trump cultist, shares a bizarre sex fantasy about Donald Trump -- Republican Senator Tim Scott does a pathetic series of interviews sucking up to Donald Trump -- Voicemail caller satirizes and parodies recent pro-Trump callers -- On the Bonus Show: The latest allegations against Fani Willis, House starts bipartisan AI task force, Rudy Giuliani can fight $148 million defamation verdict if someone else pays, much more... 🖥️ UPLIFT Desk: Get 5% OFF with code PAKMAN5 at https://upliftdesk.com/pakman 💻 Stay protected! Try our sponsor Aura FREE for 2 weeks at https://aura.com/pakman 🧘 Attend the PHD Weight Loss workshop for FREE on Feb 29: https://davidpakman.com/phd 🥄 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off Magic Spoon at https://magicspoon.com/pakman 👍 Manscaped: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off & free shipping at https://manscaped.com -- 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 Welcome, everybody. We start today with a confrontation. Members of the media increasingly asking both President Joe Biden and California Governor Gavin Newsom, are you plan B? Is Gavin Newsom plan B if fill in the blanks were to happen to Joe Biden between now and November. Now, the fill in the blanks could be almost anything. There's the if Biden dies before the election scenario, there's the if Biden decides he is just a transitional president and he says he's going to step back, whether it's because of hypothetical health reasons, as some will put forward, or because the DNC comes in and strong arms

him and pushes him out, whatever the scenario, whatever the circumstances. This is now a story and a discussion that has gone mainstream enough that Biden himself is being asked about it. So prior to departing for California, President Joe Biden asked about it. Gavin Newsom in California awaiting the arrival of Joe Biden asked about it. Let's start with Biden being asked about this is going to California part of setting up a plan B for 2024 with Gavin Newsom. I will admit that the audio of the reporter asking the question is a little bit hard to do to hear. Are you ready? Well, I'm looking for I'm looking at you. We're looking at you.

All right. So Joe Biden just kind of writing it off as a joke, asking the reporter if he's ready as the plan B for 2024. And then Gavin Newsom asked about it. And Gavin Newsom very much prepared. He's being asked about this increasingly regularly now. President Biden's coming out to California tonight. He'll be in the Bay Area tomorrow. And I hope to be invited to his inaugural for a second term as president of the United States. So the question, of course, was what about you jumping into the race? Governor Newsom and Newsom says what he's been saying all along, which is I support President Biden.

I will vote for him. And I imagine that he will be inaugurated to a second term. Now, I have to tell you, there are people who there there's a lot of as is unfortunately often the case in these situations. There's a lot of I hesitate to use the term extremism because it's not really about ideological extremism. But there's a lot of black white on this. You have a group of people who are convinced Biden won't make it to November slash has no intention of actually being the candidate. There is a plan for it to be somebody else. The question is who. On the other hand, there are those who say you shouldn't even be asking this question. It's ageist. It's inappropriate.

Let me tell you where I fall. Joe Biden is in his eighties. Statistically, this isn't about my opinion, my desire, my my assessment of Biden as a president, which I think he's been good. Statistically, it does make some sense to say if an 81 year old dies, who replaces them? I don't think that's crazy. I don't think it's crazy to ask that question. What seems to be too much to me is to go way further and to say there's a plan to insert Michelle Obama because Biden hasn't even been in charge. It's a weekend at Bernie sort of situation for me. It's he's 81. What is the plan? And here's the reason why knowing the plan is important. And I'm not saying I need to know it, but there should be one if for whatever reason

it's not Biden. Does the Democratic Party get behind Kamala Harris? Do they get behind Pete Buttigieg? Is it Gavin Newsom? So that there is no confusion. You set up a contingency plan in advance. You have a contingency plan for if the president dies while in office. We know what it is. The vice president is sworn in. Then it goes to the speaker of the House.

Then it's I actually don't remember. Is it Senate majority leader? It's never been an issue. So I don't have that memorized. So why not have a plan when it comes to a nominee as well, particularly if the nominee is in the 80s, in their 80s? That doesn't mean that you have to buy into whatever conspiracy theories are being promoted. Here's a bonus clip, by the way.

Speaking of 24, Joe Biden asked, would you rather run against Nikki Haley or Donald Trump? And Biden just waves it off. Oh, I don't care. I don't care. And that's obviously the right answer. Any answer that if Joe Biden were to answer that by saying I'd rather run against Nikki or I'd rather run against Trump, it'd rather run against Trump. It's problematic no matter what. It's sort of like, is he making an endorsement in the Republican primary? If he answers, is he indicating who he thinks he could more easily defeat?

It's there's no good reason for Joe Biden to answer that question. And I don't care. Seems to make perfect sense. So is there a contingency plan for Joe Biden is a very reasonable question. The conspiracy theories, they're not for me in maybe the least surprising bit of news related to the Hunter and Joe Biden criminal investigations and impeachments and all of it that I could imagine the arrested supposed informant Alexander Smirnoff now admits that Russian intelligence has been behind the Hunter Biden story. Why does this keep happening?

Why once again are we in this situation? Axios reports the FBI confidential source charged last week for allegedly providing false information about President Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, implicated Russian intervention, according to court documents. Alexander Smirnoff, 43 years old, admitted that, quote, officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about Hunter Biden per the government's memorandum in support of his detention. Prosecutors alleged in the filing that Smirnoff told an FBI handler the Russian intelligence

service intercepted several phone calls placed at a hotel by prominent U.S. persons the Russian government may use as compromise in the 2024 election. They argued against his release, alleging Smirnoff was, quote, actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November. I'm going to be honest. I started to get suspicious about this entire story when they introduced the blind computer repair guy as a supposedly central figure in the laptop story. The blind laptop repair man who couldn't confirm who actually brought him the laptop, I guess because he's blind, but knew to go to the most important authority on such matters. Rudy Giuliani with the laptop after digging through it for files.

That is so ridiculous at its face that that's when I started getting suspicious about this story. And if you zoom out a little bit, you know, did we really need to hear about this related to Alexander Smirnoff? The idea is that the son of a former vice president and supposed multi multi-millionaire from all of his deals with Ukraine and with China, his only option to get his laptop fixed is to go to some hole in the wall, Delaware computer shop with incriminating files on the laptop and risk them being found, as opposed to the fact that the Bidens would have someone they can call for tech support who would be sensitive to the potentially sensitive documents on their laptop. No,

he just goes to the blind hole in the wall computer repair guy who happens to be able to get Rudy Giuliani to come take a look at the hard drives on a whim. None of it really makes any sense. And so I understand that some will react to, well, listen, Smirnov was arrested for making up the story. And now you believe him that Russian intelligence was feeding him some of the story. Why would you now believe a guy that lied? Supposedly things get very real once you get arrested. OK, and there's no reason now after being arrested that he is going to make this up doesn't really make sense to me. So obviously, any time you mention the word Russia, you've got a huge contingent of people on the right and a smaller contingent of people on

the left who go, no, these are obvious lies. You can't believe it. These aren't trustworthy people. Anything Russia related is just trumped up. OK, well, let's follow the documents and let's also consider how ridiculous this entire story was from the beginning. I want to hear from you. Do you believe this or do you not believe that Russia appears to have been involved in this entire Hunter Biden fiasco? Do you believe this or do you not believe that Russia appears to have been involved in this entire Hunter Biden fiasco? Do you believe that now Alexander Smirnov has some reason to lie when he's already been arrested for the things that he said that weren't true? Let me know your thoughts. We will certainly do a follow up.

We'll take a quick break and be right back. When I'm doing any kind of my work, prepping for the show, whatever it might be, I love a standing desk, an adjustable desk that can go up or down for sitting or standing. It gets the creative juices going. It's good for your health. There's really no substitute. And the one I've been using for years is the one from a company called Uplift Desk. I love it so much. We asked them to become a sponsor. I've tried multiple standing desks from different companies. Uplift Desk is the only one

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The Bonus Show. And we've got a bunch of other great perks. You can also use the coupon code. Save democracy 24 all one word, all lowercase. Save democracy 24 to tee up a nice little discount off of the cost of a membership at join pacman dot com. A defiant Nikki Haley trolling much of the Republican establishment yesterday announcing a speech about the future of her campaign for noon in Greenville, South Carolina, Fox News and others immediately thinking she's she's going to drop out. This is it.

Nikki's going bye bye. And Nikki Haley announces that despite pressure from the RNC, despite pressure from the failed former President Donald Trump, who is a civilly liable rapist, which with multiple civil findings against him and 91 felony counts that he is up against, despite pressure from him, she is not dropping out. This was pretty well done because so many people thought this is it. She's dropping out and she did. I'm fighting for what I know is right. And I don't care what the party leaders and political elites want. I'll keep fighting until the American people close the door.

That day is not today. And it won't be on Saturday. Not by a long shot. Wow. The presidential primaries have barely begun. Just three states have voted. Three. That's it. After this weekend, we'll be at four. That's not a lot. In the 10 days after South Carolina, another 21 states and territories will vote. People have a right to have their voices heard, and they deserve a real choice, not a Soviet style election where there's only one candidate and he gets 99% of the vote. This is so fantastic. Not because she's going to win. She's not unless Trump dies or drops out or is forced out.

She will not be the nominee, but it is going to force Trump to keep bleeding cash endlessly to devote time to attacking Nikki Haley. And Trump increasingly lacks the cash with which to fight here because of all of the legal problems that he is facing. So I think that this is fantastic. Nikki Haley takes on the issue of whether the whole point of this campaign was to be vice president. And she says it's seeming pretty clear that's not the case, isn't it?

I'm used to people questioning my intentions, so I'll make a few things clear. Some people used to say I was running because I really wanted to be vice president. I think I'm pretty well settled that question. Other people say I'm trying to set up a future presidential run. How does that even work? If I was running for a bogus reason, I would have dropped out a long time ago. The rest of the fellas already did that. They had their own plans. I don't judge them, but I'm still here. Nikki Haley also saying she doesn't feel a need to kiss the ring and she is not afraid

of retribution from Donald Trump. Look, I get it. In politics, the herd mentality is enormously strong. A lot of Republican politicians have surrendered to it. The pressure on them was way too much. They didn't want to be left out of the club. Of course, many of the same politicians who now publicly embrace Trump privately dread him. They know what a disaster he's been and will continue to be for our party. They're just too afraid to say it out loud. Well, I'm not afraid to say the hard truths out loud. I feel no need to kiss the ring.

I have no fear of Trump's retribution. I'm not... I'm not looking for anything from him. My own political future is of zero concern. I think this is super interesting. And Nikki Haley promoted this brilliantly. She hyped it as a major statement about the future of the campaign, which understandably makes a lot of people think she's dropping out because she has no mathematical path to the nomination.

She's not winning even her home state. She got Fox News and others to carry this thing live. And then she just attacks Trump and says, I'm not going anywhere. Now, if I were a Republican, I would say this is terrible. They are extending something that is getting very ugly. They are making candidates spend money against each other rather than focusing on November. This is all bad for Republicans. But I think the Republican Party is is a completely abortive political party. So that's why I'm enjoying it. And I think that this is a delightful thing to see Nikki Haley at one point tearing up about the reality that her husband can't be there because he's deployed overseas.

Speaker 4 I wish Michael was here today and I wish our children and I could see him tonight, but we can't. He's serving on the other side of the world where conflict is the norm, where terrorists hide among the innocent, where Iran's terrorist proxies are now attacking American troops. This is Michael's second deployment. It was hard for us to say goodbye to him the first time. And of course, in the background of this is the reality that for the most part, Nikki Haley has supported policies that result in military personnel being deployed overseas

to all sorts of different places. That irony is not lost on me. It doesn't diminish whatever she's feeling personally. And I obviously am not in line with just about any policy advocated by Nikki Haley, other than the fact that she's pointing out Trump's dangerous and incompetent. But this was an interesting speech. The strategy and framing of the speech was quite effective and good for Nikki Haley for staying in. I think it hurts Trump. And that's something I'm very happy about. Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, says she is prepared to seize

Donald Trump's buildings if he can't or won't pay the 350 plus million dollar civil fraud fine assessed to him last week by Judge Arthur and Garan. Quote, if he doesn't have the funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court and we will ask the judge to seize his assets, said James in an interview with ABC News. She said she was, quote, very confident with the strength of her case on an appeal, which Trump says he will make and says that Trump's 40 Wall Street skyscraper would be a specific property that she could look at seizing. Quote, We are prepared to make sure that the judgment is paid to New Yorkers.

And yes, I look at 40 Wall Street each and every day suggesting that that is a property she would seize. And then with the idea that some have been pushing that this is a victimless crime, she says, quote, financial frauds are not victimless crimes. He engaged in this massive amount of fraud. It wasn't just a simple mistake, a slight oversight. The variations are wildly exaggerated. The extent of the fraud was staggering. If average New Yorkers went into a bank and submitted false documents, the government would throw the book at him. And the same should be true for former presidents. She was also asked about Trump's claim that as a result of this, everybody's going to leave New York. Business

will be over. Tourism will be over. She said last I checked, tourism is up and Wall Street is doing just fine. I don't know that this is ultimately going to get to Trump's assets being seized. But boy, would that be a sweet ending to this particular case as the criminal cases get going? There are those who are now making this personally about Letitia James. I don't see any reason to do that. We have the facts of the case. We have the findings of the case. We have a fine that's been assessed. Trump has gotten not just not just some due process, but the full totality of it. He is able to appeal if he wants. It does appear as though he is going to have to front at least a bunch of the money here of the civil fraud fine.

If he wants to do that, that's the way things work. He doesn't get any special treatment, or at least he shouldn't. And we are going to follow it very closely. The failed former president, Donald Trump, had a what was slated to be a very easy and friendly town hall event on Fox News last night. It was hosted by Fox host Laura Ingraham. And I have to tell you, she didn't do anything special. She asked some very basic follow ups and Trump completely imploded, crumbling, crumbling in front of her. Supposedly, this was going to be a propaganda piece for Donald Trump to make him look good. And Trump damaged himself and imploded time and time again. Let's take a look at some of these moments.

Here is the topic of mail in voting coming up. And Trump says it's fraud. And Laura Ingraham points out Florida has mail in voting and you won in Florida. Is it really fraud? And Trump just looks confused and disoriented. How are you going to make sure that mail in ballots and voter fraud, which we heard from a lot of people in line, was an issue front and center. They're very concerned about mail in voting. So forget the past. What are you going to do to make sure we don't have problems

going forward? If you are in voting, you automatically have fraud. If you have. Well, there's mail in voting in Florida. That's right. If you have it, you're going to have because you don't have it when you go into a voting place like you go into one in a properly run state. They look at you. They give you give voter ID. You give all sorts of identification. I mean, it would be very hard to cheat in a mask. Laura Ingraham keeps saying, well, Florida has voter ID and you won, but you won. And Trump just goes, that's right. And here's why it's all complete and total fraud.

And remember, Trump also voted by mail in the state of Florida. Laura Ingraham saying to Trump, hey, you know, the whole classified document thing. Why didn't you just hand over the documents when they were requested of you? Why didn't you do it? And Trump wrongly says, I didn't have to hand them over, which is the wrong approach here. Completely the wrong approach, particularly given that Trump is facing criminal charges over there. They were requested though. I mean, they requested him. You could have just handed him over price. I was saved yourself a lot of trouble. First of all, I didn't have to hand him over. That's wrong. Well, I would have done that.

We were talking and then all of a sudden they raided Mar-a-Lago. Do you remember? They said, could you put an extra lock on the door? We showed them where they were. This is, of course, a lie. Trump was given month after month after month to turn over those documents. It was very clear the FBI didn't want to do the raid. The FBI didn't want to have to go in and do that. But Trump forced their hand. We showed him unlike being under a Corvette in a little garage with the door open all the time. We had these things locked. We were surrounded all the time by many Secret Service agents. We had Secret Service all over Mar-a-Lago. You couldn't take anything out. But what happened? And when you take a look, Biden didn't have the presidential

records act. He's at great jeopardy. Really? Biden has been cleared. And of course, it is Trump who is criminally being charged here. Trump polls the immigrants commit a lot of crime stunt, which how many times have we debunked that new category? I don't know if you've heard this, but I came up with this one. Migrant crime is crime. There's violent crime. There's migrant crime. We have a new category of crime. It's called migrant crime. And it's going to be worse than any other form of crime. You look at New York. Let me remind you, immigrants, both legal and illegal, are less likely to commit crimes than those born in the United States. This isn't one obscure study that has found this. There's a study looking at Texas arrest data from 2012 to 2018,

and it found clearly undocumented immigrants have the lowest crime rate below native born citizens and below legal immigrants among a range of felony offenses. And it makes perfect sense if you were in the United States and you were undocumented, you know that any interaction with law enforcement could lead to your deportation. You are incentivized to behave. There is research showing that illegal immigrants are 47 percent less likely to be incarcerated than native born Americans. And if native born Americans were incarcerated at the same rate as illegal immigrants, you would see way fewer natives incarcerated.

And part of this is the disproportionality in terms of prosecution that exists. And then there's a study of violent and property crime rates that was done in 200 different metropolitan areas over 30 years. And what they did was they looked at as the rate of immigration changed. How did the rate of criminality change? And as the immigration rate went up, the criminality rate continued to go down. Big picture because crime has continued to decline in the United States. So they love this one. Immigrants commit crime. Undocumented immigrants commit crime. They commit crimes at far lower

rates. I should say we commit crimes. I'm one of these legal immigrants. We commit crimes at lower rates than natural born American citizens. Lastly, here or almost last, here is Laura Ingram pointing out there's no actual evidence against Joe Biden of any of the stuff he's accused of. Trump doesn't care. According to what I read, but they say there's no evidence that Joe Biden received any financial benefit personally. And to that, you say, well, he's got a lot of houses all over the place and he's never

been paid more than about one hundred and seventy nine thousand dollars, I guess, is the top. So all Trump now has after all the allegations about criminal bribery and fraud and all of this stuff, all Trump has is the circumstantial claim that Biden never made more than one hundred and eighty grand a year. And somehow he has multiple houses. Of course, Biden made millions from writing books. And that's completely public. It's completely public. Right or wrong.

Biden made millions from writing books. And that's why Biden has an estimated net worth. I think it's somewhere around 10 million bucks. That's why. And then lastly, Trump says that the civil fraud fine levied against him is a form of what was done to Alexei Navalny in Russia. This is grotesque, disgusting stuff. The crowd's going crazy here.

But during this campaign, a huge amount of your time has been spent in court, in the courtroom in New York and so forth. Now in this New York civil fraud case, this Judge Arthur Engeron ruled against you for almost half a billion dollars, plus interest that runs every day. When I first read this, like $87,000 a day. How would you put up that kind of money? Because you have a bond to put up.

Even if you appeal, you've got to put up escrow money. That's a lot of dough. It is a bond to put up. Even if you appeal, you've got to put up escrow money. That's it's a lot of form of Navalny. It is a form of communism or fascism. The guy's a nut job. It is a form of Navalny Trump having due process, having every resource available to him, not even facing prison time in that particular civil fraud case and now having a fine levied against them, which he can appeal. That is like the assassination of Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison camp believed to be at the direction of Putin and his henchmen. This is absolutely disgusting. Trump is disgusting. Let's remember what is at stake in November. Let's all remember to vote. That's for damn sure.

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host of The Young Turks, author of the book Justice is Coming. And most recently, just like in the days after our last interview, also a candidate for president of the United States seeking the nomination, the Democratic nomination against Joe Biden. So, Cenk, I want to do this in part so that I think it'll provide the most value to the audience. The first thing is, let's talk about your eligibility. Now, whatever applies to you applies to me. In other words, I also wasn't born in the United States. I don't think I'm eligible. I think it was the intent of the founders to make sure that I not be eligible. And I think that that's wrong. So so far, I think we're on the same page. I believe you should be eligible. I think Arnold

should be eligible. I think I should be eligible if this was something I wanted to do. What is the state currently of you getting a ruling that says you are eligible to be president of the United States? Yeah. So there's a couple of different issues here. So, number one, there's the ability to run. And number two, there's the ability to serve. Yes. On the ability to run. The FEC has already ruled that ability to serve. Yes. On the ability to run. The FEC has already ruled that natural born citizens can run for president. Whether they're eligible to serve is a different question. Sorry, Jake, I hate to interrupt. You said natural born.

You mean naturalized, right? No, I'm sorry. I mean, naturalized. Yes. OK, yeah, that's right. And and on top of that, now we've got the issue in the Supreme Court over because of the Trump case of can the states even adjudicate constitutional law issues like this? Or do they have to put you on the ballot and let the courts decide whether you can serve or not? So that the Supreme Court imminently might come out with a decision that says the states cannot make that decision, whether it's

section three or section one of the 14th amendment. Right. So now in terms of where I am with the case and the second half of, can I actually serve? So we sued South Carolina and that's the fourth district. Uh, and at the district court level, the judge said on three occasions, wow, this is the best brief I've seen in a long time. This is an excellent case you guys have made. At the end, because he's at the district court level, he ruled against us. And the reason for that is you don't want to get overruled. And so the conventional wisdom is, and some cases are, that we cannot serve. So he went with that precedent rather than what he thinks, what it appeared that he thought was a very persuasive case. So I can tell you what that

case is now. So I am interested in starting this maybe with Schneider v. Rusk from 1964. Maybe that's an appropriate place to start. Now, I've I'm not a lawyer. Right. So I'm relying on the opinions of lawyers and things that I have read. My understanding is that the Supreme Court ruled in Schneider v. Rusk that you, treating a naturalized citizen differently by saying they can't be president by definition violates that. However, I've seen a lot of legal responses and legal opinions that say that simply doesn't apply to eligibility to run for president. That's separate. It's unique. It would need a specific declaration. What do you say about that? That part is true. So some people take it further. And so Schneider v. Russ says, for sure, naturalized citizens, natural born citizens are 100 percent the same. Discrimination against them is impermissible. Yep. But in dictum,

in just half a sentence, they say they're leaving the issue of the presidential qualification aside. Yes. Okay. So now some people take that further and go, that means that they thought that you couldn't serve. No, they didn't address it at all. One way or the other. One way or the other.

They just left it to the side. Right. Yep. So at the same time, that means that I can't say, oh, they definitely said that I could serve because they clearly put it aside. Okay. Yes. So that's where Schneider

left it. You're really, really shouldn't do this, but we're not going to rule on the presidential issue. Okay. So now that's the Supreme court. Um, our argument is because people get stuck on, well, what was the intent of the framers? What was the intent of the four? And if we, you're right about the 14th amendment and the core of the 14th amendment argument is it says in the 14th amendment, all persons born or naturalized have equal protection and due process. So if you read it in its plain meaning, there's no question that we could run for president. If you go with the plain meaning theory, right? But all of a sudden conservatives are like, I don't know if I like the plain meaning theory okay so but constitutional law is more complicated than that so then people think oh you should look to the intent of the 14th amendment framers then because the original framers become irrelevant the

amendment is what's relevant and do they really intend for naturalized citizens to be able to run for office well number one i would say, partly because think about it this way. The slaves were not natural born citizens. And it would be absurd to say that the slaves after the 14th Amendment couldn't run for president. True. Totally absurd. So I think that they actually did intend it. But there's not a lot of language from the framers that clarified one way or another in the court in the Fourth Circuit said, you're right, it is not at all clear what they intended,

at a minimum, okay? So they might have intended that, yes, you can serve. Now, but David, let me get to the most important part. And Larry Lessig, legendary Harvard law professor, made this point, and I think it's so compelling that we almost certainly went on this eventually. When the 14th Amendment was passed, women did not have equal protection or due process either. At that point, they couldn't vote. They got that right later in the 19th Amendment. Not only that, they couldn't run for office. But here's the interesting part. After the 19th Amendment not only that they couldn't run for office but here's the interesting part after the 19th amendment they could vote but they still couldn't run for office any office so what lessig says is well yes but 14th american amendment jurisprudence later

reversed that decision that those laws across the country and said women could run for office based on the 14th amendment because the 14th amendment has been interpreted as providing equal protection to protected classes like race gender sexual orientation and national origin so it's actually that's why the judge said so many times, man, this is this is a lot better case than I imagined, because no one's actually forced them to think this through. And so right now we're in the circuit court and I don't know that we have enough money to be able to execute this in enough jurisdictions to be able to win. But if I don't win, the guy that comes behind me is almost certainly going to win.

Well, so that gets me to the next. And so I think the arguments are good. I think it's abundantly clear that we need some kind of declaration. How can we be a country of immigrants? And also none of them can be president. I mean, it's just and people can say, David, you have a personal interest in this. I do and I don't. This applies to me, but I have no interest in running for president.

So you know that I'm being totally upfront about that. So then we get to the timing and the practicality. If I understand some of the things you've said publicly, Jenk, your intention here is not to become president of the United States. Part of this is about seeing what you can do on this eligibility issue. And what can we do about, I believe, if your position hasn't changed since we last spoke, fixing what you believe is an impending problem with Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee and trying to improve circumstances and defeating Trump in November? Is that the primary goal here? Yeah. So the three goals have always been the same as day

one. So but there are it gets adapted to the circumstances of the race as we go along. So I always said goal number one was not the naturalized citizen issue. It was to knock Joe Biden out so that we would have a great candidate against Trump. I think that it's malpractice to say we should take a candidate that's polling 10 points lower than the average Democrat and run them against the existential threat against democracy. I can't believe the Democrats are contemplating it. I think that they're finally going to change their mind. I think Biden is actually going to drop out at some point relatively soon. But look, I've been right about that from day one. Now almost everyone agrees

from Ezra Klein to Nate Silver. Yeah, it turns out Cenk was right. He's not going to win. It's not even going to be close. So I'm still on that warpath. And I need Democrats to understand, please do not let mainstream media brainwash you. It doesn't hurt your team to have the best candidate it helps your team to have the best candidate i did it's alice in wonderland media switches things so that reality is on its head no he's obviously super weak and his favorabilities in the 30s literally no one running for federal office has ever recovered from ratings this low to win an election in an election year. Ever. Ever. Okay, so that's point one, and I'm still on that.

Point two is the naturalized citizen thing. It's an injustice. When I see an injustice, I can't help but try to address it. And as we just talked about, I'm very likely right about that as well, whether I win or the next guy wins. And then the third thing is to push forward progressive priorities. So in the beginning, did I have a round of one and a half percent chance of actually winning the whole thing? If I won my court case, et cetera, et cetera. If I'd gotten a series of miracles. Yeah. Do I now even have a one and a half percent chance? Probably not. OK, but something happened, David, that makes this race even more compelling now, not less compelling, even though I have I went from very, very low chance to probably no chance of winning at this point.

So the what happened was since Biden might drop out after the primaries, then every delegate becomes worth its weight in gold. So progressives would actually be crazy not to collect their delegates in one candidate. So if you get to 15% in any state, you get delegates. And if Biden drops out, he's not going to hand it to Kamala Harris. There's going to be a delegate fight, old school conventions. This is exactly what happened all the way to 1968. There's no reason why we can't do this. There's a hundred reasons why we should do this. At that point, Gavin Newsom, Pritzker, Whitmer, et cetera, are competing. The delegates, Biden delegates are not going to give it to me. There's a 0% chance of that, right?

But if progressives had 20 delegates, two delegates, 200 delegates, whatever the number is, then we can negotiate for something that we care about, something that the American people want. So we should amass our votes and our delegates under a candidate like me, and I am the only progressive left in the race now. So that's been my argument. And if I was out of the race, I swear to God, and somebody else was in, I'd say, collect all your votes and delegates under that person. It's so obvious. Please do that. Don't give away your power.

All right. So let's go through a couple of these different things. Now, I want to make it really clear. I just have an opinion and it's sort of different than Jenks. It doesn't mean I'm right or Jenks, right? We have to wait and see. Right. In other words, we are making assessments based on the information we have. Am I concerned about Biden's age and, uh, um, effervescence?

Yes, I am. Um, do I think it makes sense to have an answer? I don't know that I need to know it personally, but should there be an answer that the DNC has of what happens if an 81 year old doesn't make it for whatever reason. There should absolutely be an answer to that. There needs to be some kind of plan. I assume and I know you're saying there would be a fight. I assume the DNC would say the plan is either Kamala or it's Pete Buttigieg or it's Gavin Newsom. I assume they would have some name. I don't know what that name is, but here's where I really kind of have a different 40,000 foot view. When you look at polling in 2012 between Romney and Obama at this point, Romney on average was

up to. OK, so it's not like a blowout that Romney, oh, my God, Obama, Romney was up to. And as we know, Romney ultimately lost. If I zoom out, no matter what's going on, incumbents get reelected 75% of the time. If I look at the economic data, it's pretty good in a lot of ways. Unemployment sustained under 4% first time for this long in like 50 years. GDP numbers look pretty good. Inflation's down to about three, which is the goal. Wage growth that has actually outpaced inflation for a period. I don't have to give you the whole list, but like economy looks OK. I look at Biden's accomplishments. I see three major pieces of legislation, inflation reduction, the chips and science act. We could do the list

more student loan debt forgiveness than anybody else wants cannabis descheduled, which I think I've been waiting 15 years for that. Now, will it happen? Does he genuinely want it? Is he doing it because he knows it won't go through? We can write. OK, but so he's at least asking for that earlier today. Six billion towards updating water infrastructure. As progressive, we've been saying, look at water, look at Europe and look at the US. We got to deal with water. He's doing six billion on water to finally get these lead pipes. I could give you the full list, right? When I look at all that, I think to myself, man, that that's pretty good. And usually you get reelected as an incumbent.

I think it doesn't look as bad as Cenk thinks it looks. That's where I'm falling based on what I see. Yeah. So, David, both of those things are true. Your point of view is true and my point of view is true. So that leads people to a significant confusion. Yes. How can they both be true?

Right. Let me explain. Yeah. So, number one, on his accomplishments. Yeah. If you look at it as the low bar that we have, which is that politicians get nothing done, Democrats get nothing done. Uh, and Biden actually got 15% of his agenda done. And then you look at that 15% and those are the things

that you described. They look pretty good. And I'm super psyched about the water infrastructure, et cetera. And you can see, look as a candidate, I'm the same way as I am as a talk shows and as a regular person, I'm honest. So I'm not going to, it's not binary. It's not zero or one. The idea that Biden didn't get anything done is preposterous. No, he got those things done and they're pretty good. Right now from a progressive point of view, an average person's point of view. Yes, but we needed a lot of change and you just trashed the rest of your agenda, which was terrific and really popular. But put that aside, okay? And in terms of the economy, I give them even better grades.

I think the economy is amazing. Is it amazing for the average person? No. But that's not on Biden. Biden, Obama, Trump, Bush, they all have the same thing where the rich get even richer and the middle class continues to struggle. But within that context, Biden did a pretty good job. No, a really good job of keeping unemployment low and bringing down inflation. And he doesn't get

enough credit for that. Okay. So, okay. Then you're wondering, Jake, what the hell's your problem? It sounds like it's definitely a little bit better than the average democrat at a minimum right yeah not as good as a progressive that i would want that pushes for paid family leave higher minimum wage uh lower drug prices etc uh okay and and if we got into the weeds of those policies i think i can convince a lot of you that it doesn't it's not anywhere near as good as it looks, even though it's an improvement on what we had. Okay, but all of that is not the issue. The issue is whether he's going to win or not. So if you said to me, Joe Biden's definitely going to win, I'd get out of the race right now, and I wouldn't say another word about the election.

Okay, not because I think Biden's great. I think Biden's monstrous in some ways i mean we talked about the upside that in my opinion the downside among many other things is he's letting israel massacre people in gaza and he doesn't care at all slaughter after slaughter after slaughter and joe biden's like who cares how does it affect my politics okay but even that i'm saying i'm willing to live with that because i think trump would end democracy i'm not willing to live with that because I think Trump would end democracy. I'm not willing to live with it. I'm going to fight Biden 200 percent on it.

Right. Right. But but Trump would end democracy. So I take Biden win, but he's not going to win. So let's go to the Romney thing. So it's actually not true. I've looked at that graph a thousand times because people keep saying it as if it is. Obama once dipped to around 43%. That's I think around the lowest he ever got, right? But he dipped there and then he bounced

back up. Whereas Biden has gone straight down on his popularity and dipped all the way to 33%. An incumbent in the 40s has a very low chance of winning an election. An incumbent in the 40s has a very low chance of winning an election. An incumbent in the 30s has a 0% chance of winning. It's literally never happened before, not just for a president, for any federal office. So as much as you might love Biden, as much as you might think, oh, they're being so unfair to him, he did a good job with the economy. It doesn't matter. What matters is, is he going to win or isn't he?

Let's pause our conversation with Jenk Uyghur there. The full interview will be on the YouTube channel today. wherever you want. And it's waterproof so you can use it in the shower. For guys who want to be full grooming experience, go for Manscaped Performance Package five point O, which comes with the lawn mower trimmer, but also the ear and nose trimmer and some essential aftercare products like the crop soother after shave lotion and crop preserver anti chafing deodorizer, plus two free gifts, Manscaped's Boxers 2.0 and the Shed 2.0 toiletry bag. Manscaped is trusted by over 10 million men worldwide, including me. There are only a couple of products like this on the market. Manscaped is the one you want to go with. Whether you're shopping for yourself or a guy in your life.

Go to Manscaped dot com and use the code Pacman for 20 percent off and free shipping. That's M.A.N.S.C.A.P.E.D. dot com. Then use code Pacman to get 20 percent off and free shipping. The info is in the podcast notes. All right. We're going to take a quick drive by a cultsville before focusing in on some Tim Scott statements about the state of the Republican primary in a moment. I'm going to play for you something extremely disturbing. Again, probably a don't let kids

watch this one sort of moment because this is extremely weaponized cult membership. This is a right winger who hosts a show called Wrong Think named Anna Sanchez, and she shares a bizarre, almost like a Trump sex fantasy. And again, as if we really needed another reminder of the level of cult that this is, this is really vile, vile rant. This is rancid. It's feted, feted, rancid stuff from Anna Sanchez describing how Trump is essentially a I'll just let her explain it to you. I've interviewed him once and then I met him once at an interview and we talked about trannies and then I told him he was my first crush, which is true.

I used to watch The Apprentice all the time with my parents. And I told them, I was like, I'm going to marry Donald Trump. And my parents were like, OK, like you're a kid and this man is like 50 years older than you. And I was like, you don't understand. Right. What we have is different. I was like delusional. I'm not even kidding. This is totally true. And I had a poster of him in my room. At least she admits there was a delusional element to this. I told him that I've told the story like eight even kidding. Like, this is totally true. And I had a poster of him in my room. At least she admits there was a delusional element to this. I told him that I've told the story like eight thousand times, like you don't need to hear it again.

But I love telling it because it's just funny. And that day was like the craziest day of my life. I sat there. I had lunch and I apologize. I might have I might have wrongly said Anna Sanchez in the introduction. This is Anna Perez. I'm sorry if I've said the wrong name with him. And he was like, whatever you want, like, I recommend this. It's not on

the menu, but you guys got to try it. You guys got to try it. Such a nice guy. And he kissed me not once, but twice. He grabbed my face. He grabbed me by my face. Some people would consider it sexual assault. And, you know, I don't know. Just like I almost fainted. And I don't get starstruck because, you know, I've met a lot of famous people working in this industry. But that was one moment when I was like, it really made me, I don't know. It just really was, everything came full circle in my life. It was very exciting for me. Okay. So, but don't tell Melania, obviously. Just kidding. She probably would not care. Wow. So that is what it is like to be in a

cult. It is a complete separation from reality and social norms and ability to critically think about what's going on around you. And again, part of this, what's the point of this? The point of this is just remembering to different degrees. These people are cult members like like Anna. And there's no hey, do you know the effect that Trump's tariffs on China really had? That's not going to get you anywhere. Right. It's laughable. The idea that you would present some fact like that and be able to have any kind of productive conversation with these folks. So we've got to make them politically irrelevant. We have to vote in such large numbers that people like this who see Trump almost as a deity in front of whom she almost fainted.

It just they just have to not matter politically. That's the bottom line. Tim Scott did a round of interviews over the weekend. I meant to get to this Monday and then Tuesday and it just got pushed. But I don't want to let these clips go by the wayside. Tim Scott has become a sort of self humiliating yes man essentially around Donald Trump, similar to Vivek Ramaswamy, similar to others who have dropped out and have kissed the ring. And he was he being Tim Scott was asked on CBS a very good question. Should the Republican

National Committee be paying Donald Trump's legal bills? Is that something that makes sense? Just why? Why? Why would that be when it's based on alleged criminal wrongdoing by Trump? And Tim Scott opts out instead by sucking up to Trump. Comes to former President Trump. Senator Scott, do you believe the RNC, the Republican National Committee, should be involved in paying his legal expenses, which are mounting? I can only tell you that without any question, when you look at the two tiered justice system that we have just reinforced, I think it's important for us to note that without any question, the American people are very concerned about how that would impact their lives.

Speaker 2 This is this is the Trump thing where he says, if they can do this to me, they could do it to anybody. We know they can do it to anybody. The question was, would an elite like Trump actually be held accountable? And so Tim Scott's doing the same thing. And by the way, not answering the question, their issues are very clear. By the way, the American people are more focused on their future than Donald Trump's past with their more focused on is making sure that our southern border is secure. We're looking at almost 10 million illegal crossings by the election. The American people are asking the questions

about legal challenges. The American people are asking questions about economic challenges. There you go. So basically, the American people care about other things. And also Trump was unfairly persecuted. So I guess in Trump ish ism, which I think is what Scott is speaking there, he's saying, yes, the RNC should be paying Trump's legal fees. Tim Scott was also asked, should Trump stop calling Nikki Haley bird brain and Tim Scott Demers? Speaker 3 You're speaking of name calling. You say focus on the issues.

Should former President Trump stop calling Ambassador Haley Bird Brain? Well, I think her son should stop calling me. Judas Iscariot. So there's lots of things that we can talk about, but let's just keep our focus on the American people and why it's so important for us as elected officials to focus on their issues. So even on the slinging of ad hominems at Nikki Haley, should he stop calling her bird brain?

Even there, he won't answer. And then switching from CBS to CNN. Here is an interview with Jake Tapper, where Jake Tapper says, would you have certified the election on January 6th if you were in that position? Tim Scott also doesn't like this question. Your fellow vice presidential hopefuls, Elise Stefanik and J.D. Vance, have both said that they would not have certified Joe Biden's electoral college victory if they had been

vice president on January 6th, 2021. If they had been in Mike Pence's place, would you have? I'm not going to answer hypothetical questions, number one, and I didn't know that I was a vice president hopeful. Thank you very much for letting me know where I am on the scale. I'll simply say this, that having four more years of President Donald Trump means that we will have low inflation, low crime, we'll have record low inflation, low crime, will have record low unemployment. We saw that happen for the first time. African-Americans seeing unemployment under 6 percent Hispanics for the first time, under

5 percent Asians, under 3 percent. All right. So you get the you get the whole thing. The question was about the crux of maintaining democracy. And he's listing unemployment numbers. Tim Scott, truly pathetic. He wants to stay close to Trump. He's desperate. He sees this as his opportunity. What sort of role might he get in a forthcoming Trump White House? And he is willing to throw every bit of morality and ethics into the toilet, flush it 10 to 15 times to stay in your Trump.

Hopefully he feels a little bit of shame while doing it. That's my hope. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. OK, this voicemail is satire. OK, this is a parody of the people that call me and attack me. This is this one's just and say, I'm going to eventually vote Trump or what will happen to me when Trump went. So this one's satire, but it's well done. David poopy pants, man. You love your Biden, don't you just love that man? That 99 year

old looking piece of garbage that doesn't know what he's talking about. Love that guy. Don't you? Well, that's unfortunate because he's not going to win. Trump's going to win the big T-Rump. Yeah. The chosen one by the good Lord, Jesus Christ. How are you going to react to that when that happens? Powell, JK, go Biden. Peace, brother. All right. There it is. Yeah. Surprisingly, I didn't realize it was a joke until the very end, because that is actually what a lot of these Trump people sound like when they call me to go, David, you're really going to suffer when Trump becomes president and progressive independent media explodes once again. And all of your shows do really well.

It's really going to be terrible for you. And by the way, Trump might also lower your taxes. I am voting for Joe Biden, maybe despite the best interests of progressive independent media, because it's the right thing to do. And that's all I would ever consider doing. We've got a great bonus show for you today. We'll talk about the allegations against Fannie Willis in Georgia. We will talk about the new AI task force and what they're up to. We will talk about the future of Rudy Giuliani's defamation appeal and so much more when I am joined by producer Pat on the bonus show. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. Don't miss it. And we'll be back tomorrow with a new show.