The David Pakman Show - 3/26/24: Court saves Trump for now, campaign promises soldiers at polling places

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Bill Scher, Politics Editor for the Washington Monthly and co-host of the online show "The DMZ with Matt Lewis," joins David to discuss Trump vs Biden polling, the future of this presidential race, and much more -- Fox News hosts are stunned that other networks have journalists with standards when discussing the blowback to NBC's hiring of Ronna McDaniel -- An appeals court saves Donald Trump, reducing his bond more than 60% and gives him 10 more days to come up with the money -- Trump reposts to Truth Social a message likening him to Jesus during his court appearance -- Failed former President Donald Trump snaps at a reporter during an unhinged post-court press conference -- The Biden-Harris campaign releases a hilarious statement about Donald Trump's nutty press conference -- Karoline Leavitt, Donald Trump's current campaign press secretary, says the campaign will deploy "soldiers" and "troops" to polling places on election day -- Donald Trump's first felony trial is scheduled for April 15, just weeks away -- Voicemail caller is still furious that David supposedly "blocked him on Instagram" -- On the Bonus Show: Truth Social will start trading publicly, Florida's new social media ban for minors is examined, Candace Owens exits The Daily Wire after months of feuding with Ben Shapiro, much more... 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code PAKMAN for FREE blades at https://hensonshaving.com/pakman 👍 Use code PAKMAN for 10% off the Füm Journey Pack at https://tryfum.com/PAKMAN 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.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

. Welcome everybody. Hope you're doing well wherever you're listening or watching today. You may not be stunned to hear that Fox News anchors were completely stunned and perplexed by the fact that on MSNBC and NBC, there were anchors who, in expressing some modicum of journalistic integrity, had the gall and the audacity to say, hey, we don't think Ronna McDaniel should be working here. We covered this yesterday. Former RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, after working alongside Trump to try to set up a fake slate of electors in order to steal the 2020 presidential election, which Donald Trump did not win.

After all of that, she quit the RNC, got hired at NBC as a political analyst. And then a number of NBC hosts, Chuck Todd, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and others expressed that they don't think Ronna McDaniel should be there. This came as a total and complete shock to Bill Hemmer and others on Fox News. They just they can't believe that you would see this sort of insubordination. It's shocking that some people might have some principles that they publicly express. Listen to this. Ronna McDaniel, former head of the RNC, apparently was hired by NBC. Apparently. I don't know if she's gonna keep her job or not, but apparently their heads were blowing off yesterday. This is a little bit of what

happened on what, Meet the Press and then Morning Joe a bit earlier today. I have no idea whether any answer she gave to you was because she didn't want to mess up her contract. She has credibility issues that she still has to deal with. Yeah. Is she speaking for herself was because she didn't want to mess up her contract. She has credibility issues that she still has to deal with. Is she speaking for herself or is she speaking on behalf of who's paying her? We weren't asked our opinion of the hiring, but if we were, we would have strongly objected to it for several reasons. We hope NBC will reconsider its decision. It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on Morning Joe in her capacity as a paid contributor.

Turn this around. If somebody said this at Fox News, they'd be walked out the door. Yeah, this is unbelievable. This is enormous insubordination. The highest standard is that we behave the way the bosses want to behave. It's stunning insubordination. How dare they allow this? You would expect something like this from Joe Scarborough.

He's a far left opinion commentator. But I was really, by the way, Joe Scarborough is a former Republican congressman. If Joe Scarborough is now far left, is anyone on the right would be my question. Appointed to hear Chuck Todd, someone who is a journalist, comment on this in that fashion. Here is what I would ask him as a journalist. Look, you're a journalist, Chuck Todd, by the way. Now, Kayleigh Maganani says she's a journalist. What?

What? Everything is backwards. Who at your network at NBC or MSNBC represents the forty six point seven percent of the country that tells real clear politics average. When you look at all the polls, we support Trump. I couldn't find and I look today a single person on their roster that represents that really half of the country. Ronna McDaniel, I saw her hiring and I was like, good for them.

She does represent that wing of the party. We need the insurrectionist election stealer wing of the party represented. Otherwise they're taking my freeze peach. But if you can't accept her, who would you accept? Who would you accept? I also I was thinking the same thing, but like if you have a problem with your employer, like you do that publicly, I would I would never I would never do that. If you have a problem like that, but they are so willing to to stick with their ideology and to be so rigid in it that they are willing to do that to their employer.

They are so rigid and willing to stick to their ideology. There's another interpretation for that. They aren't going to be bamboozled into shutting their mouths. They probably did express discontent privately. NBC still hired Ronna McDaniel. And now they're in the position of jeopardizing their own integrity by having to pretend to do the stupid little interview with Ronna McDaniel like she's a normal person rather than an insurrectionist anti-democratic force in the MAGA wing of the Republican Party. So they are going public.

Yes. Now, maybe they'll get fired. That's their problem. NBC could take the side of Ronna McDaniel and say we're firing Chuck Todd and Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski and Rachel Maddow. Yesterday had a segment on this. We're firing all of them and we're going to keep the insurrectionist here. I doubt it. And what those individuals are doing and it doesn't mean that they're perfect. It doesn't mean NBC is perfect. If NBC were perfect, they never would have hired Ronald

McDaniel to begin with, you could argue. But they are speaking their minds and it is beyond the pale, according to these Fox News anchors. It's quite a it's quite stunning to see the reversal of morality that is taking place there. We'll see what happens with Ronna McDaniel. An appellate court saved Donald Trump. Remember that thing about the two tiered justice system? Trump continues to benefit from it. A court has saved Trump, dropped his bond more than 60 percent and has given him 10

additional days to come up with the money. It's important to mention, as we look at the New York Washington Post's coverage of this, important to mention that both sides are considering this a win. Remember, Trump previously faced a requirement to post a nearly half a billion dollar bond to stop the New York attorney general from starting to seize his assets. And the deadline was yesterday. Trump went to court yesterday. We have coverage of the press conference he gave afterwards, the things he was trothing, posting to Truth Central while he was there. But the bottom line is that the appeals court said Trump will be allowed to post one

hundred and seventy five million dollar bond rather than the four hundred and fifty million. And he is going to have 10 additional days to come up with that money. So two sides to this. On the one hand, Trump and his acolytes are saying this is a win. They got it reduced 60 percent. They got more time. Now Trump can raise money, find money, go to Russia for money. Who the hell knows what he plans to do? On the other hand, Letitia James and others are saying this is a win for them because even the appellate court in giving Trump 10 more days and giving him the reduction is still saying you have to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars and this isn't going to go away. I think that most important takeaway here is yet again, eight years of this stuff of Trump claiming he's

the biggest victim in the world treated so unfairly to tier justice system, which is bad for Republicans. And yet it is Trump who continues to benefit from the two tier justice system. Because remember, if you as a normal person had ninety 91 felony counts against you in four different jurisdictions, do you think you'd even be out on bail or do you think you'd be sitting in jail, rotting, waiting for the trials to start, especially if you owned a private plane, which, of course, by owning the plane, you no longer are any random person. You're someone special. But that is an example of the two tiered justice system benefiting Donald Trump.

If you or I regularly violated clear and deliberate unquestioning gag orders, don't attack my staff, don't attack court personnel, don't attack the plaintiff. If we violated gag orders this regularly, do you think we would suffer no penalties the way Trump has suffered no penalties for all the times he violated the gag orders? No, that's Trump benefiting from the two tier justice system. It's not Democrats and Republicans. It's rich, powerful guy with top notch lawyers and everybody else. And then here, does anybody get 60 percent off and more time to come up with the money?

Some people get extensions. Some people get reductions. But we're talking about a reduction here to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. So even though both sides can claim this as a win, in reality, it is a major win for Trump, who, by the way, spent all morning insulting the judge on Troth Toilet. I'm sorry, on Troth Central, which we'll get to in a moment. It is a win for Trump. The question is, does he even have the hundred and seventy five million? He insists he does, although his lawyers said in court filings that he doesn't. But does he

now have the ability to make this new lower bond? We will wait. We will see. He's got 10 days. So let's take a quick break. We'll get to what was going on in and out of court as this was all happening yesterday morning and afternoon. In just a moment. I've had such trouble finding a great razor where I am not cutting myself for getting those nicks on my skin, which are so common with the cheap, disposable razors. You have to meet our sponsor, Henson Shaving. Henson actually manufactures parts for the International Space Station and the Mars rover, and they are bringing that exact same precision

engineering to the shaving experience. It hurts when you shave because blades extend too far and thus they wobble slightly. But with their aerospace grade CNC machines, Henson is able to make metal razors that extend just zero point zero zero one three inches. That's less than the thickness of a human hair, which means a secure, stable blade with the vibration free shave. It also has built in channels to evacuate the hair and the cream. No more clogs, no more rubbing your thumb on the razor to get the hair out. I use Henson at home. Shaving is a great experience. Now, Henson wants to be the best razor, not the best razor business, which means you only need to buy the David Pakman Show David. shaving dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes.

Lest anybody forget, the David Pakman show does have a fuller experience for our members. You can get the full experience when you sign up at join Pacman dot com. You'll get this show with no commercials, the bonus show access to the members only soundboard. Invitations to members only town hall events and so much more. You can use the coupon code Save Democracy 24 to sign up at join Pacman dot com. And of course, you can also get the new children's book selling like hotcakes. I must say, think like a voter at David Pakman dot com slash book. Donald Trump, while he was sitting in court yesterday being told we are going to reduce

your bond from four hundred and fifty million to one hundred and seventy five million dollars and give you an additional 10 days while in court posting to Truth Social Central that he is sort of like Jesus Christ. I know. I know. It's all wild. Trump posting and we'll put it up on the screen received this morning. Beautiful. Thank you. And it is a message from someone else quoting who knows what. It's ironic that Christ walked through his greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you. But have you seen this verse? Psalm 109, 3, 8 and KJV. They have also surrounded me with words of hatred and fought against me without a cause

in return for my love. They are my accusers, but I give myself to prayer. Thus, they have rewarded me evil for good and hatred for my love. I can never syntactically parse this nonsense. But the point here is someone said to Trump they are praying over him daily and many people are. And much like with Jesus Christ himself, who they were persecuting while trying to take his property. They are persecuting Trump while trying to take his property. He is like Jesus. And Trump absolutely likes it. Going on to attack the judge relevant here, saying, quote, Judge Anger on has refused to obey the decision of the appellate division relative to the statute of limitations. This is a confrontation between a

judge and those that rule above him. A very bad situation in which to place New York state on the rule of law. And Garan has disrespected the appellate division. And it's very clear and precise ruling. He should be made to do so. And at the same time, release the gag order. This is the fifth time in this case that he has been overturned a record. His credibility and that of Letitia James has been shattered. We will abide by the decision of the appellate division and post either a bond equivalent securities or cash. This also shows how ridiculous and outrageous and Garan's original decision was at four hundred and fifty million. Then he engages caps lock and says, I did nothing wrong.

And New York should never be put in a position like this again. Businesses are fleeing. Violent crime is flourishing. And it is very important that this be resolved in its totality as soon as possible. Thank you. And then lastly, adding on once again, obsessed with the property value of Mar-a-Lago, quote, Judge Anger on and Letitia James should be forced to explain why he ruled that Mar-a-Lago was worth 18 million when in fact it is worth 50 to 100 times that.

How did the attorney general of the state of New York force this corrupt judge to do that in order to help her narrative and why. And again, at the risk of nauseating you and myself, the judge is aware that the assessment value of Mar-a-Lago for property tax purposes is 18 million dollars. The judge didn't rule Mar-a-Lago is worth 18 million on the open market. So this was all while Trump was in court. Let's now go to what happened after court. Donald Trump snapped and was visibly disoriented, saying things that make

no sense grammatically or syntactically in a really strange press conference that he gave after leaving court yesterday, where the judge, the appellate judge, said he can pay 60 percent less in terms of the bond and get 10 additional days. Trump was asked by a reporter now that the bond has been reduced. Are you going to start putting money into your campaign, which has been going to legal fees? And Trump says it's none of your business. Take a look at this.

You mentioned the cash you have. You said on Friday, it's something like 500 million. You intend to put some of that into the campaign. Now that the bond's been reduced, are you going to start putting money into your campaign? You haven't done that since 2016. Speaker 5 Well, first of all, it's none of your business. I mean, frankly, but I might I might do that. I have the option. But if I have to spend 500 million on a bond, I wouldn't have that option. I'd have to start selling things. I don I have to spend 500 million on a bond, I wouldn't have that option. I'd have to start selling things. I don't have to sell anything because I'm a it's a phenomenal company. I built a phenomenal company. Someday they'll actually report that.

All right. So then he goes into his normal stuff. But he says to the reporter, that's none of your business. Trump then started starting to glitch, which may or may not shock you, arguing you can't have an election in the middle of a political season. You're just not allowed to do it. What's it say again? Done before in this country, you can't have an election in the middle of a political season. We just had Super Tuesday and we had a Tuesday after Tuesday already. And we had Louisiana. You can't have an election in the middle of a political season. I'm guessing what Trump meant to say is you can't have a trial in the middle of an election

season. But we know that it's always either we can't do this now because I'm president. We can't do this now because I'm running for reelection. We can't do this now because I'm president. We can't do this now because I'm running for reelection. We can't do this now because I'm no longer in office. We can't do this now because I might run again. We can't do this now because I'm running again. We can't do this now because I'm the presumptive nominee. It's always something a reporter then asking Trump, did you ever accept money from a foreign

government to pay the bond or fines or legal bills? And Trump says, no, but it would be totally fine if I did, if I want to. I don't do that. I mean, I think you'd be allowed to possibly. I don't know. I mean, if you go borrow from a big bank, many of the banks are outside of this. As you know, the biggest banks, frankly, are outside of our country.

So you could do that. But I don't need to borrow money. I have a lot of money. I have a lot of I built a great company, but I don't want to have a crooked judge named in Gorin and a crooked, horrible, the worst, the worst, I would say, without question, attorney general in the country ever. He's got the worst. Everything is everybody's just so unfair.

Now, remember, Trump says he's got all this money. He doesn't need any money. But his own lawyers filed something saying he doesn't have the money. His own lawyers put in writing and presented to courts. Trump can't come up with this amount of cash unless he starts selling properties, probably at major discounts to sell them quickly. And then they would be unrecoverable if Trump were to prevail on appeal. His lawyers said he doesn't have the money. Another misfire from Trump. He says they're going to bring crime back to law and order. What? And we'll bring crime back to law and order. We're going to

get those words law and order back because our cities are are a disaster. I guess what he meant to say. Right. I mean, we have to guess what on earth is this guy talking about because we're going to bring crime back to law and order. Doesn't make sense. I guess he's saying he'll bring back law and order and get rid of the crime. I guess he's saying he'll bring back law and order and get rid of the crime. I'm guessing here because it's really hard to know what this guy's talking about as he continues to to decline. By the way, crime is down overall. Violent crime is down overall. Property crime is down overall. Murder is down overall. It's down. Hate crimes against Jews are up up significantly.

But I rarely hear Trump mention that issue. Trump then again wrongly asserts that when his house was raided, it was illegal. And FBI, they raided my house in violation of a thing called the Fourth Amendment. Not allowed to do that. They raided my house in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. No notice, no nothing. They raided it. I can't believe it.

Everything there is a lie. No notice. They were insisting for months. Give us back the documents, Donny boy. We need those documents. And rather than comply, Trump hid the documents. It's against the Fourth Amendment. No, they had every right.

They crossed every T and dotted every I in order to get what they needed in place. We know that they waited again to to your justice system. The FBI waited months, a benefit they would not give people who were not in Trump's position of power. And of course, they had a search warrant. They had absolutely everything they needed. And then lastly, here, here is Trump asked, do you plan to testify in any of these forthcoming trials? And Trump says, I don't know that there will be any trials. Sir, back to the trial here in three weeks, do you plan to testify and are you the witch witch here?

The trial here? I don't know that you're going to have the trial. I don't know how you can have a trial like this in the middle of an election, a presidential election. And this is again, this is a Biden trial. These are all Biden trials because Colangelo works for Biden. Remember that there's no evidence linking Joe Biden to any of this. Can you imagine they take a guy out of DOJ and they put him into the attorney general's

office and then into the Manhattan DA's office to go after Trump? These are all Biden trials. So I don't know that you're going to have it. I think we're going to get some court rulings. Yeah. All right. So the question, of course, was, do you plan to testify in any of these trials? And Trump says, I don't believe that there are going to be trials. Then the first trial has been

scheduled for April 15th, which is just like two weeks from now. So by again, Teflon Don, he seems to always squeak something out at the end. Unless something changes, there will be a trial starting April 15th. Will Trump testify? I don't know. My guess is his lawyers will not want him to. All right. I don't want to spend a ton of time on this, but the Biden Harris campaign put out an absolutely hilarious statement about Donald Trump's weekend, as well as Donald Trump's press conference and everything that's going on here. And I did want to put it up just briefly here. Biden Harris campaign saying, quote, Donald Trump is weak and desperate, both as a man and a candidate for president. He spent the week golfing the morning comparing himself to Jesus and the afternoon lying about

having money he definitely doesn't have. His campaign can't raise money. He is uninterested in campaigning outside his country club. And every time he opens his mouth, he pushes moderate and suburban voters away with his dangerous agenda. America deserves better than a feeble, confused and tired Donald Trump. I'll be honest. I love this. This is exactly the way that they should be communicating. Donald Trump is being targeted in this message for all of his self-conscious and insecure areas. The fact that he claims to have a lot more money than he has, that he he criticized Biden for not leaving the basement all of the 2020 campaign. And they're going after him, saying he doesn't really want to campaign anywhere other than his golf clubs. He's having trouble raising money. He is pushing voters away.

I like this. I know that there are some people who wrote to me and said this is this is a change, David, in tone from the Biden Harris campaign. I think that this is exactly the change in tone that is necessary. And when I met with the vice president a few weeks ago in Washington, D.C., I and others in the room expressed wanting to see exactly this sort of thing. It was clear without going into detail because it was off the record. It was clear from the tone and tenor of Vice President Harris's response to all of us that they know the way to do this. And it was a question of deciding whether strategically it made sense. It seems they've decided it does. So I love this approach. I love that tone. This is the way you've got to go after a guy like Trump, because remember, who are we trying to get here? We're trying to get

those moderates and those people who are leaning towards Trump because they like how he's an alpha male and they like how he talks and his money and all these things go after that. He doesn't have the money he claims to have. He's the one who's sitting at his golf clubs rather than actually going out and campaigning and offering a vision that's issue based about what he's going to do. We're going to build a border that Mexico will pay for. Yeah, you said that last time you didn't do it. Biden's going to crash the economy. You said that last time the economy is doing well. They're pointing it all out. It goes right to Trump's insecurities. So I love it. You tell me what you think when you hear it. But I think it's the right direction. Breaking a deeply ingrained habit is one of

the toughest things to do. Our sponsor fume can make it easier. Not everything in a bad habit is wrong. So instead of a drastic, uncomfortable change, remove the bad from the habit. And that's, quite frankly, what Fume helps you do. Fume is an innovative, award winning device that delivers flavored air. That's it. There's no vapor. There's no nicotine, no electronics. Speaker 1 and Speaker 2 are on the air. The fume device goes in your pocket. You can carry it around. It has movable parts and magnets. So if you're fidgeting or want to, it's great for that. And it's just a useful thing to break bad habits.

And it provides that perfectly satisfying hand to mouth mechanic that many people love. Don't judge fume until you've tried it. They have helped countless people make positive changes and you could be next. Head over to try fume dot com and use code Pacman to save 10 percent when you get the journey pack, which comes with the device and several flavors to try. That's try f u m dot com slash Pacman. Use the code Pacman for 10 percent off the journey pack. The info is in the podcast notes. We welcome back to the program today. Bill Scher, politics editor for The Washington

Monthly and co-host of the online show The DMZ with also somewhat recent David Pakman show guest Matt Lewis. Bill, let's start with The Washington Monthly article. No more bloodbaths or how to avoid stupid debates over Trump semantics. So you know that this, of course, refers to to Trump's bloodbath comment about if I don't win, it's going to be a bloodbath for the auto industry because they will sell no vehicles. You know, my take on it was we should report honestly that as a formality, Trump was talking about the auto industry. But it's also reasonable to include in our analysis his references to violence as a solution to political problems and the violence he's incited in the past and that it's not problematic to include that as part of the analysis. But does that miss the bigger point about breaking down the language of Trump in this

way? Well, I mean, if you're if you're a reporter, you know, it's not your job as a reporter to approach us in a way that's conducive to Biden's reelection. So everything you just laid out would all be legitimate ways for reporters to explore the comment. The point of my article is, I think it's incumbent on the Biden campaign and others who want to see Trump lose to frame the overall, to frame Trump's entire approach to rhetoric in a way that avoids semantic debates about what did he really mean? Because if every time Trump says something, Trump speaks in word salad constantly.

So it's pretty easy for him to say something seemingly incendiary and in the next day say, oh, that's not what I meant. I meant this. You're taking this out of context. If that's the debate we're having for the next eight months, that muddies the waters in a way that I think is advantageous to Trump. So it's not really about what did he mean. And we have the advantage here of having four years of Trump as president to look back to. We don't have to speculate about what is he trying to get out of here. You might have had to do that in 2016, but we're in 2024. We know what happens after four years of a president of the United States spewing this kind of hatred, whether it's over the line or just behind the line, however you want to describe it, we know what the impact of it is. And that is literally cities burning, rioting in the streets, vigilante shooting protesters, and culminating with a literal

insurrection on the US Capitol, because the guy at the top set a tone that turned Americans against each other. So once you look at things in that framework, it doesn't matter what he meant, because what he did leads to that horrible end. And I think if you put the entire campaign through that kind of framework, you can pull almost anything he does into that framework. And again, it's not a question of the journalists trying to deliberately echo what I'm saying here. But if one team is putting things in that frame, invariably that bleeds into mainstream media coverage just as much the way Trump saying things are awesome on my watch in 2017, 2019. That bleeds into mainstream coverage, too. That's what that's what both that's what campaigns do.

So that is my strategic advice to the Biden campaign and to others who want to see Trump lose. But in a sense, it is an argument about context, right? Which is the words don't matter so much as the fact that the context for four years has been what you laid out. It's a differently worded argument about context unless I'm misunderstanding. Right. I mean, a frame, a narrative frame creates a context. Yes. And and what I'm arguing is you want to create that frame in a way that makes it much harder. I mean, there's always going to be a rejoinder. You know, Republicans aren't going to accept your frame. They're going to push back in some way. But. Let me take another example where Trump said that if you if you if you're Jewish, you vote Democrat, then you

hate Israel and you hate your own religion. The response from a lot of Democrats was you're being anti-Semitic. The response from Republicans was, well, I mean, I wouldn't have used those words, but he was basically right. I mean, Democrats do hate Israel these days. You're debating the meaning of anti-Semitism. Whereas if you were in my frame, Trump always pits Americans against each other, and that leads to our cities on fire. That is what happened four years ago. The meaning of anti-Semitism is not relevant to that frame. So the pushback to what I'm saying, if you're a a Republican is, hey, don't blame Trump for that. That was Black Lives Matter. And he didn't tell the insurrectionists to storm the Capitol. Well, OK, you can say that, but I'm looking around right now. I don't see my cities on fire. I've been a different president for the last four years. And things aren't like the way they were

four years ago. So you can try to claim it's not his fault, but this didn't happen under other presidents. It only happened under him. So you can try to claim it's not his fault, but this didn't happen under other presidents. It only happened under him. So you connect the dots. I was a few weeks ago invited to the White House for a pre State of the Union thing and had about an hour and 15 minute meeting with the vice president. And one of the really interesting things was it was off the record. So I need to be respectful about maintaining that. But the atmosphere behind the scenes was one where I felt like not only

are they paying attention to what's happening in corporate media with regard to coverage of this race, but they have all of the right things to respond with. And I was left wondering, why aren't we hearing some of these responses from the Biden administration publicly? Now, obviously, behind closed doors, sometimes elected officials are willing to say or maybe say things with certain language that they have calculated is not to their advantage to use publicly or whatever the case may be. But there is the impression that despite everything you write about and talk about and I write about and talk about that, the Biden administration is not communicating well the state of the economy, the contrast you're talking about when cities were burning and now they're not, et cetera. Why do you? Well, first of all, do you agree

that there is some kind of public facing issue with how this administration is communicating the state of the country now versus four years ago, the state of the economy, et cetera? And do you think that it is because they haven't figured it out or because they think it's to their advantage to communicate in the way that they're communicating? Well, look, it's obviously it's it's always easier to be the pundit sitting at home behind his laptop and sketch out a little piece of strategy. It's easier for me to do that than actually be president and run a presidential campaign at the same time when you actually have to govern the country and deal with international crises and sift through.

I mean, Donald Trump's a target rich environment, which is a blessing and a curse. There's like a thousand things you could say, but you can't do them all. So it may be in an off the record meeting, you might put forth a thing and the vice president says a thing in response. Like, oh, that one made sense.

I like that one. But how does it work in in a constellation of activity in a way that cuts through all the clutter? And so the average person who doesn't follow the news every single day is really going to feel it when there are a lot of things that go on to give it a new cycle that are totally out your control and may not be to your advantage. Right. So I don't like playing the role of I'm I know everything. And these numbnuts in the West and North are doing, you know, well, let me put it a different way.

I look at the economy by saying, here's the six to eight economic indicators that I think are the most important. They all look pretty good. Unemployment looks pretty good. GDP growth looks pretty good. Inflation's down. Stock stock market performance is good. Right. I look at all these things and I go by any objective measure, this looks pretty good. And yet I get calls from people obviously on the right, but even

some on the left who say the economy is really not doing that well. It was good under Trump, et cetera. OK, so obviously it doesn't seem to be about just presenting data and economic metrics. Certainly. Is there some what what would be the right way to communicate the state of the economy in an electorally advantageous way? Well, I've actually I've actually written about this. So and I looked at the Reagan 84 campaign as my model. And I think you might know I'm talking about the Morning in America campaign. And what I think is really, and QM, there are a lot of parallels here.

Old incumbent president running under an improved economy, but not a perfect economy. We might have romanticized this, that, well, the economy in 1984 was just gangbusters. Interest rates in 1984 were like more than double what they are today. Things weren't perfect, but inflation was down. Unemployment was down, but still much higher than it was today. So like a lot of incumbents, you have to deal with a mixed record that might be better than the way things were, but still have elements of frustration to them

and spin that away that you people focus on the half, that glass half full, not the glass half empty. And what Morning in America did was it was not a data heavy presentation. They didn't drown you in statistics. There was a little bit of it. But there was a story. There was a narrative. There was a and the story was that America coming together, going back to work. You can be a young couple and get married and be confident that you can afford a new house and build your wonderful, you know, 2.2 kid suburban American life. And it was a story that felt right, because things felt better than they did in 1980 when you had stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis was going on. But keep in mind, there was a really sharp recession in 1982 that people were coming out of, but there were still residual effects. The unemployment was still elevated and interest rates were still elevated.

So they had to lean into the positive part of it. And so I think Biden's campaign is starting to do this. I don't think they're hitting the, I don't quite yet see a narrative that is as potent as what I think Reagan did. But I think they're a little farther along in America. And there's elements to it. The Bible says we're coming together. America can do anything.

We're the greatest country in the world. Manufacturing is coming back. We're building jobs for the future. There is some of that. So I don't want to be overly critical here. But I would like to see a clearer contrast between sort of Biden's morning in America and how we are coming together and buildings in America again and nightmare in America with four years Donald Trump.

Literally, our cities are on fire. I like to see that more clearly done and not just like one ad or two ads, but as a consistent theme that you do every single day. So as we are entering April and now we're seven months from this election, the polling is kind of a mixed bag. A lot of the polls, you know, Trump plus Biden adds up to eighty five. So there's this other 15 percent in there that depending on who you talk to means means different things. The predictions that I'm hearing, confident predictions about it's obvious what the outcome in November is going to be strike me as so silly because it seems that the most likely outcome is somewhere between three

and five hundred thousand votes in five to seven states decide this election. That seems to be the most likely outcome. And it really could go either way as far as I'm concerned. I think if we look historically, incumbents generally get reelected when the economy is good. Incumbents are more likely to get reelected if we start with 2020, where Trump already lost and you add 91 indictments, civil liability for rape, all these other things. It's hard to imagine. Well, it's going to go way better than 2020 for Trump. But I don't really know.

So I'm curious, as we are now just seven months away, it's no longer, you know, Rachel Biddecoffer, when we were 15 months away, said, David, the polls mean absolutely nothing. Well, we're talking April now. So how do you see the polls? What do you think of the confident predictions that are being made? Give us a sense. Well, I wouldn't make any confident predictions either way. You know, seven months out, you know, things can break late. But a lot of times in presidential elections, the polling is pretty

stable all year long. But there are other cases like, say, 2004, where Bush care was pretty tight all the way through. And then it really breaks in Bush's direction after after the conventions. Right. And we have other examples where, you know, Reagan, 84 and Clinton, 96, where, again, you know, the polling, they were both ahead, you know, at this point. But there was a lag going going going a little farther back into the timeline. There was a lag between them getting credit for economic improvement and the metric showing improvement. And one more factor here, and you alluded to this. We have four cases of incumbents losing in the last 100 years, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Donald Trump. In every one of those cases, you had pretty severe economic distress cutting into Election Day, which we currently do not have.

So it would be highly, highly unusual for an incumbent to lose. I mean, it's not a perfect economy, but on the whole, this is pretty darn good, historically speaking. You can find things to nitpick about, but, you know, GDP growing, unemployment low, wages beating inflation, real disposable income, you know, growing. Incumbents get reelected in that environment. Right. So I am definitely more focused on that right now than I am about the polling. I think the polling can catch up to the metrics. What we often look at is GDP growth in the first two quarters of an election year.

So we haven't seen those numbers yet. I did look at the Federal Reserve of Atlanta, the GDP now thing, where they sort of try to track it in real time. And I didn't look at it. They upload it every week. So forgive me if I Google while I talk to you. GDP now thing where they sort of try to track it in real time. And I didn't look at the uploaded every week. So forgive me if I like Google, I talk to you. I looked at it last week. It was a two point three, which is not like a gangbusters. No, but it's fine.

It's certainly not a sign of a problem, I guess I would say. It's not. Yeah, you know, I mean, but it could change. I mean, if we had a downturn between now and June, would I be more worried? Sure, I would. OK, so now it's at 2.1 as of earlier this week. Less thrilling, I guess I would say, but still not a sign of distress. And also, and you wouldn't say want to be too high because that might kick inflation back into gear.

Yes, yes. You want things to be not too hot, not too cold. So if we were staying at this kind of slow and steady trajectory, I would feel very good about Biden's chances. Now, of course, there is this X factor, a couple of X factors. There's his age. There's the border. And there's Israel-Gaza. And I can't think of immigration as an issue, runs hot, cold all the time. I've never seen a case where immigration really determined an election. So I'm skeptical of that being the issue. Not that Biden has to, should do nothing on the subject, but I'd be surprised if that like was the thing that ended

his campaign. And Israel Gaza also, you can't find an example of an international crisis that did not involve American troops dying that determined an election. Now, if you can't find an example of an international crisis that did not involve American troops dying that determined an election. Now, if you don't mind me talking on, going on and on and on, there is one caveat to look at, which is 1948. Harry Truman, his famous comeback victory against Thomas Dewey, this is also the year where he recognized Israel. That's in May of 1948. And it was not a slam dunk decision. His own secretary of state told Truman, don't do that. The only reason to do it is political, because you want to get Jewish votes in New York. And New York was the biggest electoral college prize.

So it's not in our national interest to do this. Another Secretary of Defense said, look, 40 million Arabs are going to push 400,000 Jews into the sea. That's just the reality. Our interest here is oil. So do what makes sense to extract oil from this region, not help Jews. And Truman ignores all that and recognized Israel. But there was an arms embargo in place in the region. I mean,

at this point, the British are leaning towards the Arabs, not the Israelis. And the British tell the Truman administration, if you guys lift this arms embargo and try to arm the Arabs, not the Israelis. And the British tell the Truman administration, if you guys lift this arms embargo and try to arm the Israelis, we're going to arm the Arabs. And then the Secretary of State, George Marshall, is like, OK, Truman, like, OK, we didn't agree on the recognition of Israel, but for heaven's sake, don't get us in a proxy war with our closest ally. So Truman does not lift the arms embargo. The third party candidate, Henry Wallace, who was FDR's VP, became Truman's commerce secretary,

quits because he disagrees with Truman's approach to the Soviet Union. Wallace leaned toward the Soviet Union. He was socialistic. People call him a communist. A lot of the Jews in New York were socialists. Wallace campaigns in New York, October 1948, saying there's blood on Truman's hands, because he's not lifting the arms embargo and arming the Israelis, because they're in a war

with the Arab countries at this point. He's in Madison Square Garden telling New York Jews, Truman has blood on his hands. He is not a true steadfast supporter of Israel. Wallace gets 8% of the New York vote and Thomas Dewey wins New York by one point. So you could argue that this issue actually flipped the state away from the president. However, it so happened that Truman won a bunch

of other states that offset the loss of New York. So there's that one character that maybe, maybe, maybe if all these sort of stars align that a Middle East crisis can flip the state and people looking at Michigan, the Arab communities there to think that might happen here. But it is so rare. So it's not to be ignorant of, but I would still be very surprised that, again, and we can't even know what Israel Gaza is going to look like in November, how high it's going to be on people's priority list. So it's something to be cognizant of, but I do think it would be highly unusual for that to be a determining factor. And if it is a determining factor, probably there's a lot of other things going on that are bogging Biden down anyway.

But those are the X factors here to worry about. But on the whole, I say economics are the biggest driver of these things. Those all point in the right direction. Speaker 1 Yeah. And that's all. If you look at opinion polls, economics is ranking far higher than foreign policy or Israel, Gaza as well, which I don't think comes as a shock to anybody, sometimes not even really showing up vaguely. Foreign policy is sometimes eighth and some portion of that presumably is Israel, Gaza. So that seems to be mirroring what you're saying. Yeah. I mean, well, look, it's not going to be the case that Israel is the number one issue.

No, no, no. The question is, might it be somebody's number one issue? Such that it could flip one state. Right. Exactly. And if Michigan is like on a knife's edge, then maybe Dearborn can flip the state. But if by November the economy is doing well enough where it's like, you know what, you know, Biden's really I don't need to change horses here. You know, things are going all right. And Biden's up by, you know, four or five points in Michigan that I don't think Israel guys is going to be the determining factor. All right. Bill, share is the politics editor for The Washington Monthly and also co-hosts the online show The DMZ with Matt Lewis. Bill, always a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. Data brokers are constantly collecting huge amounts of information

about what you do online, your address, phone number, email, financial info, even your political affiliation. And they sell that information to other companies. The FBI will sometimes even buy data in bulk to get information about Americans without a warrant. Your ex girlfriend, your boss, anyone out there can use the publicly available data on search sites to find information about you. It's super easy. And worst of all, these data broker systems get hacked all the time, which really puts your data at risk,

which is why you can end up getting scam calls and emails and the whole thing. The solution to all of this is our sponsor Incogni. Incogni sends data removal requests to all major data brokers who are required by law to remove the information upon request. If any of the information stays online, Incogni will follow up about removal and Incogni keeps you updated with details every step so you know what's going on and when the info is removed. What Incogni can accomplish is amazing.

I use it myself. Go to Incogni dot com slash Pacman and you'll get 60 percent off with the code Pacman. That's I n c o g n i dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman for 60 percent off. The link is in the podcast notes. Soldiers and troops at the polls on Election Day. That is what Donald Trump's current press secretary for his campaign, Caroline Levitt, is promising. What is she alluding to? Certainly it can't be actual members of the military patrolling polling places. So what is it? It's arguably something even scarier. This is something that we need to

take very seriously. The attempts at voter intimidation, what they have up their sleeves should not be ignored. We saw what they tried to do in 2020. We know the sorts of things they're going to try to do again in 2024. Here is Caroline Leavitt. Again, this is Trump's current press secretary for the campaign. Not to be confused with Trump's former White House secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, who is now on Fox News. Levitt was interviewed by Donald Trump Jr.'s wife or fiancee, I don't know, Kimberly Guilfoyle. And she says we are going to be in order to fight fraud, irregularities, cheating cheating that all non-existent things. They are going to have soldiers and troops at the polling places on November 5th. I hope law enforcement's listening because we got to be all over this. Listen to this. The momentum for the America first movement, you know, on the ground, what you guys are seeing for your ground game, how strong and unified of a place, you know,

the campaign will be going into with the convention this summer. Well, we're so excited about our recent merger with the Republican National Committee and the new leadership we have there. And both Laura Trump and Michael Whatley, our team is already working hand in hand with the staff at the RNC. So, by the way, this this also isn't it before we even get to soldiers and troops. Remember that there has been a Trump takeover of the Republican National Committee. Trump's own daughter in law now is a member, a staffer at the Republican National Committee. They have pledged total undying loyalty to President Scrumps and money is going to go to him, legal fees, et cetera. And the failed former

president is going to benefit greatly from taking over the RNC. But let's continue to the soldiers and the troops at polling places as one very lean and mean machine, as we like to call it, with one goal. And that goal is victory for Republicans up and down the ballot on November the 5th. We have the team. Now it's time to deploy the troops on the ground. We have an amazing volunteer-led effort right now in all of the battleground states, in addition to our great paid staff who will be making direct voter contact

every single hour of every day between now and November the 5th to get out the vote. A large part of this is also educating voters on the laws within their state. If you live in an early voting state, we encourage you to get out and vote early. By the way, remember, early voting, voting by mail, anything other than one day, go in one day, go in anything short of that. On the one hand, we were told in 2020 and Trump is still saying to this day that that's all fraudulent.

That's how the Democrats cheat. But officially, Republicans realize if we only allow the left to actually take advantage of all of these more convenient ways to vote, we'll probably lose. So even though it's all fraud when the left does it, they also are telling their voters, you should go out and vote early, vote whenever you can. OK, now we're getting to the soldiers cast your ballot. You don't know what can happen to you on Election Day. And then we're also investing a lot of money into voter integrity efforts to ensure that every American knows their back ballot will be cast and counted and matter. And we're going to play offense this time

around. We're not going to play defense like we unfortunately did in 2020. We're going to have soldiers, poll watchers on the ground who are making sure that there are no irregularities and fraud like we saw in the last election cycle. I love it. I cannot wait. It's going to be fantastic. So, of course, I will remind you that the irregularities and fraud that Caroline Leavitt asserts as a point of fact in 2020 did not exist. We did all sorts of interviews about this, including with Ken Block, who was hired by Trump to investigate it. He couldn't find it.

Courts couldn't find it. Nobody could find it. So that didn't happen. I like this. This notion of this time we're playing offense. Last time we played defense. No. Last time you played offense, you tried to steal an election you lost with frivolous court cases, strong arming elected officials in a variety of states and attempting to assemble fake slates of electors to go and say, oh, Trump won our state when actually it was Biden who won it. Now, as far

as soldiers. I can't imagine that these would be literal soldiers because I just can't think of any way that actual members of the military in their capacity as members of the military are going to be deployed to polling places by Trump because Trump isn't even going to be president in November. But they are being very clear. They plan a campaign of intimidation. They are planning it. We saw the videos purportedly of armed members of the military when Vladimir Putin was incredibly overwhelmingly reelected recently in Russia with 80 something percent of the vote. What a victory for him. Right. They would love to do that. They may not be able to get away with it.

So instead, they will have whatever they can. You've got to be how many feet away from a polling place. Well, we will be one foot beyond that intimidating voters. We are going to do everything we can. They are telling us. So whether it's literal soldiers is less relevant than the fact that they plan to have a presence. The presence is to intimidate. And we have to hope. And you know what? Last time, a relatively good job was was done as far as this particular piece was concerned. We have to make sure that every state is prepared and that they aren't going to allow these intimidation tactics. They plan to use them. Let's hope that they're not allowed. It is happening. Donald Trump's first felony trial is about to start unless something

changes. Business Insider reports Trump's first felony trial will be April 15th. Trump was in court when he learned that his hush money trial would be April 15th. Now, remember, the hush money trial in New York. This is the least serious to use a term that may not be the right term. This is the least serious of the four criminal trials that he is facing. But it's still a criminal trial. The date was set during a pretrial hearing. The trial on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records is expected to last six weeks. So understand that this first trial is going to get us roughly from April 15th to June 1st. It's going to be June before trial number one is over. And then we will see when is the next trial forthcoming. Trump raged against the judge's decision not to delay the trial,

saying that it's election interference because he's running for president. Trump said he would appeal to try to push back the trial date. There is disagreement as to whether this is even something that Donald Trump can appeal, can appeal. And the date has finally been set. Trump and his legal team must appear in court each day of the six week trial of 34 felony counts. A jury is going to be asked to determine did Trump falsify 34 invoices and a Trump organization ledger in order to hide the hundred and thirty thousand dollar hush money payment to porn

actress Stormy Daniels. This was all recorded as legal fees paid to Michael Cohen. But of course, this was an attempt to hide the real point of those funds. Jury selection is going to be just before the start of Passover. And it's going to be a wild week. It's going to be a wild week. This will not be televised. This will not be televised as far as I have been able to glean as of this moment. So Trump is going to try as of this moment. So Trump is going to try to push this back. But it is beginning. It is election season and it is trial

season. And we will be covering all of it. And who the hell knows who the hell knows what we are going to expect from this? Trump wants a Hail Mary. Trump is still hoping for some way to delay the trial. And because he seems to continue getting these last minute reprieves, I am not ready to say I'm confident the trial starts on April 15th, but it's been set. The judge, Judge Merchan, is saying it's going to happen. We will, of course, follow it and let you know. I have a voicemail number that you can call any time you want. If you have something you'd like to communicate to me, there's a guy who apparently I blocked on Instagram. I don't I blocked so many people. I don't know who this guy is. He is calling multiple times a day to complain about the fact that I

apparently blocked him on Instagram. This is an individual suffering with very, very serious MAGA brainworms. Listen to this and listen to how triggering it is simply to be blocked on Instagram. Now, it may be just like a technical error and he's not even blocked. I don't know. But let's take a listen to this. David Hackman. Mr. Hackman, did you know that you blocked me on Instagram for calling you out for having to sit down with the vice president of the United States? You had to sit down with the vice president of the United States, you have to sit down with the vice president of the United States. Someone who, you know, just a few years ago would actually go against the deep state is now having sit downs with the deep state. I used to be against the deep state and now I'm sitting down with the deep state. Well, two things to that.

I have never bought into deep state conspiracy theories and the idea that the vice president is part of the deep state. I thought that the vice president was controlled by the deep state and the deep state was other people, shadowy people, people whose names we don't know. I guess I'm a little confused as to the latest version of the deep state conspiracy theory. I'm sorry. Mr. David Hackman, don't sit there and tell me that, oh, you're going to go against everything that Kamala Harris actually tells you, because you know that we're not going to believe any of that nonsense. You know what I would rather, OK, rather than saying since you met with the VP, you won't

go against anything she does. I'd rather you tell me something she did and then I can tell you I'm for or against it. That would be a more productive way to have this conversation. Mr. David Hackman, the same guy who 10 years ago used to teach this 32 year old back then when I was 22 year old and in my early twenties, used to teach me exactly how to go against big pharma. You used to teach me how to go against the military industrial complex. I taught how to go against big pharma. I don't remember that episode that I'm struggling to

remember that one, to be totally honest. Go against the CIA, go against the D.C., etc. You teach me all. I can assure you I now I'm realizing this is delusional. There are no episodes on this show where I teach the audience how to go against the deep state. So as usual, this is someone who's confused or dishonest. And to be honest, it's sounding like I was right to block this individual on Instagram, if that's indeed what I did. We will talk on today's bonus show about Florida's new ban on social media for minors. There are actually a lot of people on the left who like this, despite it being another one of Ron DeSantis is a pet bills.

We will discuss Candace Owens leaving slash being fired from The Daily Wire and what it means for that organization and the shakeup that's happening. And also, Truth Social goes public today, starting to trade on the open market. What does this mean for Trump's access to cash? What does this mean for the platform? All questions that we will endeavor to answer on today's bonus show. You can sign up at join Pacman dot com coupon code. Save Democracy 24.

And remember that you can get my newest children's book, probably the last one before my my like book book is released, although maybe we'll squeeze in one more kid's book. I don't know yet. Think like a voter, a perfect book for the election season. You can get it at David Pakman dot com slash book. I'll see you on the bonus show and I'll be back tomorrow.