The David Pakman Show - 3/5/24: Biden says Trump won't concede, Ted Cruz could actually be defeated

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Lev Parnas, author of the book "Shadow Diplomacy: Lev Parnas and his Wild Ride from Brooklyn to Trump’s Inner Circle," joins David to discuss how he came to be in Donald Trump's inner circle, and more. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3SXKtkO -- Thom Hartmann lays out the secret plan for how the fascists could win and take over in 2024 -- President Joe Biden understandably believes that Donald Trump will not concede if he is again defeated in 2024 -- As wages continue to climb, Fox News has now rebranded it "wage inflation" and is putting a negative spin on it -- Yet another poll suggests that Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz could be defeated by Democratic challenger Colin Allred -- Fox News interviews a diner guest who says she would not vote for women for President -- Failed former President Donald Trump is asked about policy during a Fox News interview and delivers a garbled and incoherent response -- Donald Trump is so incoherent and confused during a bizarre statement after the SCOTUS decision about Colorado that even MSNBC cuts away -- Voicemail caller is shocked and appalled that David is wearing turtlenecks, including in March, on the show -- On the Bonus Show: CDC drops 5 day COVID isolation, billionaire Mark Cuban backs Joe Biden in 2024, most voters are totally unaware of Donald Trump's dictator threats, much more... 🖼️ Aura Frames: Use code PAKMAN for $20 off at https://auraframes.com 👂 MDHearing: Use code PAKMAN to get XS hearing aids pair for $397 at https://shopmdhearing.com/ 🧻 Reel Paper: Code PAKMAN for 30% OFF + free shipping at https://reelpaper.com/pakman 💵 Ridge Wallet: Get up to 30% off until April 1 at https://ridge.com/pakman (Sponsored by Ridge) 🧦 Strideline: Use code DAVID for 15% off at https://strideline.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 I want to start today with the secret plan, or is it really a secret for how the fascists could win in 2024? Now, I'm not making up that title. That's the title that is assigned to Tom Hartman's article that he wrote, which many of you have written to me about and I think is worthy of some discussion. And what this article does and we'll link to it, and I encourage you to check it out. What this article does is it effectively points out what are the steps that Republicans this is now bigger than Trump. This is Project 2025 type stuff that it would be great for Trump to be the horse pulling this wagon. But Republicans are willing to have a different horse or even a mule or a donkey pull this wagon if it comes to it. Now, as Tom Hartman

points out in this article, and I'm not going to read the article to you, but I'll tell you what the plan is that is pointed out here. As Tom Hartman points out in this article, he wrote the vast majority of this plan before the 2020 election. And he writes that so many people came to him, whether they had tears in their eyes or not, I don't know, and said, listen, they're not really going to try this. This is not something we have to worry about. And of course, we now know based on what happened on January 6th, they did try a bunch of it and they may try to do it again. So what is the path forward?

There's basically three major steps. The first step is Republican. This is predicated, first and foremost, on Republicans controlling the House of Representatives at the time that the next president would be sworn in. So first and foremost, it would be, OK, how do Republicans get control or retain control of the House as of January 2025? And the first one there is, well, we have an election in the House coming up in November. Republicans may just win it, in which case they will have control of the House in January to carry out the rest of this plan.

Or they may not. But you could have a situation where MAGA Mike Johnson refuses to swear in enough Democrats over so-called irregularities such that Democrats don't take control of the House in January, even if they should. So that's step one. One way or another, whether they win it or whether they don't, they could figure out a way to retain control of the House of Representatives for the purposes of preventing Joe Biden from being sworn in in January of twenty twenty five. Similarly, then they could prevent the certification of the election if indeed Joe Biden wins. Now, obviously, if they genuinely win control of the House

and Trump genuinely wins, well, they don't need to do this stuff, but they could they have a path to retaining control of the House if they were not to win it. And they have, at least in theory, a path to preventing the certification of the election. They could do this thing where they send it back to the House of Representatives. Each state gets one vote. Republicans control a majority of the states, even though Democrats will almost certainly win the popular vote. We're talking about something different here. We're talking about each state getting one vote.

And Republicans would at least theoretically in this plan, as Tom Hartman points out, have the votes to vote and say, hey, we vote for Trump. Trump gets 26 out of 50 or whatever the number ends up being. And Trump is president. OK, what would the next step be? The next step be would be what Steve Bannon refers to as the deconstruction of the administrative state. What Vivek Ramaswamy has casually talked about will fire half of federal workers. This is an agenda 47 and this is in Project 2025. These aren't my ideas. These are things they've said they want to do. And this is

where they fire tens of thousands, half more than half of federal government workers, not the political operatives. Right. I understand that when a new president wins, they choose the secretary of state. Republicans don't just leave the Democratic secretary of state from the last administration. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about career bureaucrats, often nonpolitical individuals, even at a personal level, never mind at a professional level. That's another element of Project 2025 in which they say, oh, just like the the standard regular bureaucratic workers, we are going to replace them with activist mega people

who are going to do whatever it is we decide we want to do to either effectively cripple certain departments or take apart a kneecap and take apart the ability for other departments to actually get anything done. So this is the three step plan that Tom Hartman has outlined for how the fascists could win in 2024. Now, Tom predicted that they would try this before they tried it. And fortunately, they didn't succeed this time around. They have the benefit of knowing where they fell short in 2020. They have a potential path also to retaining. Forget about retaining the Oval Office, retaining the House of Representatives, even if they were to lose that. And the difficulty

in preventing this, that it's all based on technicalities and loopholes. Now, lawyers often don't like technicalities or loopholes. Either the letter of the law allows it or the letter of the law does not. The problem is that so much of what is kind of at stake here or so much of what this all depends on is that I continue to believe that the founding fathers and the framers of the Constitution didn't account for someone with the willingness of MAGA to do what they've tried to do, would ever be able to get into a position of power such that they would actually be able to try to do it. And so that's really the scary part.

There are legal implications. There are questions about consequences. And so the first thing we need to do is still it's about communicating to the voters what is at stake. If the voters don't understand what's at stake, this isn't going to be activating for them. And so in a moment, we'll get to Joe Biden's latest comments about whether he thinks Trump will concede on the bonus show. We're also going to talk about the reality that most Americans don't even know about Trump's dictatorial ambitions. The stuff we talk

about on this show, we have to remember people who listen to The David Pakman Show or watch this kind of content. You're in the minority in terms of an awareness of what it is that these people are saying that they are going to do in a new survey. Most Americans don't even have an idea that Trump has talked about doing this stuff. So we will get to that on the bonus show. Awareness is step number one. Now let's get to Joe Biden. Joe Biden gave a very interesting interview to The New Yorker.

This is one of these long form interviews that presidents don't frequently give. It is wide ranging. It follows Biden through different elements of being president. And it's interesting in a number of different ways. But I want to focus in on one aspect of this. As Axios summarizes, Biden says Trump wouldn't concede next time. Quote, losers are never graceful. And this is this is important for a number of different reasons. Biden now sees this as personal for Trump. And I believe that's absolutely the correct lens through which this

should be seen. There is no real reason, as Trump has said. I mean, it's not wrong when Trump says, I didn't really need this in my life. I could be just having fun right now instead of what he's doing, which is running for president while facing four criminal trials, while losing the right to do business in New York and being found civilly liable for rape and liable for fraud and having five hundred million dollars in sum total between the two find the two verdicts in in fines to pay. It is obviously personal for Donald Trump, and it's personal in that it's ego driven, it's narcissism driven, et cetera. So Joe Biden is saying it very clearly. This is personal for Trump. Losers who are losers are never graceful and Trump will contest it no matter what the result is. He'll do anything to try to win.

He'll do anything to try to win. Now, it doesn't take a genius to realize that Trump is, of course, going to do this. And Joe Biden also points out another important aspect of this, that people, including the media, corporate media in particular, have become numbed by it. And so sometimes people will write to me and they'll say, David, why are we covering that again? Why are we covering that again? Trump is alluding to this sort of authoritarianism. We're covering it again because we need to resist becoming desensitized to it. I've said that as someone who covers this stuff every day, I've become desensitized to it to a degree.

And that is how Trump could get by with trying to steal this thing using the methods we outlined earlier that came from Tom to Tom Hartman. So I'm really glad that Biden is pointing out that people have become numb to it. And let's just think of history. Right. Of course, he's not going to concede in 2024 because he still hasn't conceded in 2020. He's acknowledged that Biden has become the president. But he says at every rally we won it and we won it by a lot. He still says he won the popular vote in 2016. I mean, think about that.

Democrats lost in the sense that Hillary lost to Trump electorally in 2016 and Trump still can't accept that she did win the popular vote. So it's not even really an audacious prediction for Joe Biden to say to say Trump won't concede in 2024. It's just history will repeat itself. Trump didn't accept the results of 2016 from the standpoint of the popular vote. He didn't accept anything about the 2020 results and he's not going to accept it in 2024. Let me put it a different way. Does anyone

actually believe for a moment that there are circumstances where Trump would just say, hey, you know what? I lost. They got me. I lost. And Joe Biden is going to be the president, and rightly so, because if Biden wins by a little bit, Trump will say, oh, it was on the margins and they stole it by rigging this, that or the other thing. And if Biden wins by a ton, Trump will say that's not even plausible. They went too far. Obviously, nobody could win by that much. So no matter what the results are, Trump's not going to accept it.

The Republicans have a plan that involves Project 2025 and some of these other elements to try. I mean, it's no dark. What am I trying to say? You don't have to get very conspiratorial when the plan, as far as Project 2025 is concerned, is out in the open and they tried it in 2020. It's just they're going to try it again and hopefully they won't succeed. But there's not even an element of conspiracy here when it's just we think they'll try it again and we've got to be prepared to prevent them from doing it. Let's take a break. We have so much to talk about today.

And by the way, I mentioned on the bonus show last night that I'm going to the White House this week to meet with Kamala Harris. And I am stunned by the reaction from folks. Truly, truly stunned. We'll say more about it. There will be more time. Let's take a quick break. We all know that person who loves taking photos, but they have hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands in the case of some folks I know of pictures just wasting away on their phone. You can put them to good use with a unique, stylish digital picture frame from aura frames. I got these aura frames for my parents and preloaded them with pictures of the baby and my parents love it. And I can add more pictures from wherever I am. And they pop up on their frames. It's so easy to see why Aura has been

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selling frame. The info is in the podcast notes. Terms and conditions apply. I ran into a family friend the other day who is a big fan of our sponsor, MD Hearing. She's tried several hearing aids, but has settled on MD Hearing. MD Hearing specializes in FDA registered rechargeable hearing aids at a fraction of the cost. And MD Hearing's brand new XS model is their smallest ever. And it costs 10 percent less than the price of a hearing aid at a brick and mortar hearing clinic because they get rid of that extra markup. MD hearing was founded by an ENT surgeon who saw how so many of his patients needed hearing aids, could not afford them. So he made it his mission to develop a quality hearing aid that anyone could afford. My family friend uses MD hearing, loves how they have audiologists on staff

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They will take any metric that they would cheerlead if it was a Republican president in the Oval Office and they will act all concerned and say this is so terrible and this is so bad. And the latest is wage growth. I know it's really hard to believe that they would do this one. But the latest is that on Maria Bartiromo's program, they are making the case that wage growth is bad and they have rebranded it wage inflation. As we know, the word inflation has negative connotations no matter what in Republicansville. When we as more nuanced interpreters of economic data understand that it's all about balance between economic growth and wage growth and price growth.

But now they call it wage inflation. And if wages keep going up like this, it's going to be very bad. These people have no shame. This would make North Korean propagandists blush because it's so pathetic and brazen. Let's listen to it and then we'll talk about it. But what's troubling about the slow jobless rate is the rapid rate of wage inflation that's now running at four and a half percent. Now understand what he's saying.

He's saying what's terrible about low unemployment. Is that it's pushing wages up. The idea is what the idea is, if there are fewer people looking for jobs in order to attract workers, you need to offer a higher wage. It's basic market economics. In other words, because the demand for jobs is lower, as most people are employed, you have to raise the price of labor that you offer in order to attract people. OK, but tell us why it's bad.

Chances are, if the economy continues to grow at a rate of roughly two percent or faster, we are going to see a further tightening of the labor market. And with that, even faster wage growth. And that's going to be bad news for inflation, especially consumer services price inflation. If we want to get get inflation under control, we've got to get wage growth down to something close to three percent. There you go. So we've got a real problem in this country. So many people are employed and wages are up and GDP is up. It's just bad. That's the argument he's making. He's saying, listen, the economy is growing

and unemployment's low and wages are up. And we've we've got a real problem on our hands here. Now, this is the classic thing about economic indicators. They all have to be contextualized and in equilibrium. And so this is why we talk about let's raise the minimum wage. Why do I say raise the minimum wage? Well, I look at the market and I look at the minimum wage on an inflation adjusted basis hasn't kept up the minimum wage on a purchasing power parity adjusted basis hasn't kept up the minimum wage on a productivity adjusted basis hasn't kept up and the minimum wage on a purchasing power parity adjusted basis hasn't kept up. The minimum wage on a productivity adjusted basis hasn't kept up. And the minimum wage on a cost of living a justice basis hasn't kept up.

There is no metric that I've found that suggests the minimum wage is set where it should be. It needs to be significantly higher. So then these Republicans come in and they go, well, if more money is better, why not set the minimum wage at one hundred bucks an hour or two hundred or a thousand? Next thing you know, everybody will be making a thousand dollars an hour. And of course, no serious social Democrat progressive like me is calling for that because you can't justify 100, 200 or a thousand dollars an hour as a minimum wage based on any metric. They go ideological, whereas we say, OK, so we go back to 1968. We adjust wages. Minimum wage for inflation should be about 20 bucks an hour.

We adjust for productivity should be about 21 bucks an hour. We look at markets and we say, what does it need to be to to match cost of living? And well, in some cities it needs to be probably in the low 30s. In other parts of the south and cheaper areas at 16 dollars an hour, you could probably say it's a cost of living adjust. And we say, here's the data that that's all we want. It's not about raise it indefinitely. And so you can take any metric. Obviously, if the economy were only growing at one percent and wage growth, for whatever reason, was at 20 percent, we would say that's out of whack. That's not sustainable. That's a problem. But what we have in the United

States right now is healthy GDP growth, inflation that has come down by one metric to two point eight percent year over year. We have low unemployment. We have wage growth. We have high job creation. So you would expect that you're going to have some GDP growth, some inflation, some wage growth, and hopefully it's all going to be sort of in sync. That's not an analysis you're going to get on Fox News. And so now the new thing is scary wage inflation is happening. When two years ago they were complaining wages aren't going up fast enough under Joe Biden. Sure, unemployment may be low, but they are low quality jobs and people aren't making more money. Well, now they are. And now there's too much wage inflation and it's going to be bad for the economy.

These are pathetic people. But when your only source of news is Fox News, you don't know any better. We have a genuine opportunity to remove from the United States Senate a despicable, disoriented, disheveled and frankly, a bad guy. I'm talking about Republican Senator Ted Cruz. We have yet another poll that suggests that Colin Allred, the Democratic challenger to Ted Cruz, a Texas state representative, really has a shot at defeating the guy. Newsweek reports Ted Cruz stung by new Texas poll.

Let's look at those polls. The University of Texas at Tyler Center for Opinion Research poll says that Ted Cruz is in a dead heat against his opponent, Colin Allred, 41 to 41. Now, it doesn't take a math genius to realize that that only represents 82 percent of the electorate. And there's another 18 percent that is either undecided, not planning to vote, voting for someone else, writing in who the hell knows. But the fact that we are now under eight months away and Ted Cruz is in a dead heat and the fundraising is going pretty damn well for Colin Allred. These are all good signs. This is not the only poll that suggests this, although some of the

polls look far, far better for Ted Cruz. There is a national public affairs poll from about a month ago of 800 likely voters that also has it tied at 44 to 44. And then there's an Emerson College Nextar poll. It's now to a month and a half old, which says Cruz plus one Cruz plus two. I'll be totally up front with you. There are also other polls that have Cruz just absolutely crushing. There's a poll that says Cruz is up 14. There's a poll that says Cruz is up 10. So what's the takeaway here? The takeaway here is there's an opportunity to remove Ted Cruz. We've done this before. Last time Ted Cruz was up for reelection in 2018, we said, hey, look, I mean, it's not looking awesome for Ted Cruz. It's in play. Let's make him spend some money. Of course, Ted Cruz ultimately did win. There is no guarantee,

but it's important when we think about key and critical races for me to just remind you this is a race that you can get yourself and get yourself involved in. It's by no means, on average, a blowout for Ted Cruz. And there's really an opportunity to make some important change. Imagine it's really a trifecta if you remove Ted Cruz. Number one, Ted Cruz is a disgusting, despicable person, and removing him would be great for that reason. Number two, a Democrat winning in Texas and having a Democratic senator from Texas would also be a major, major thing in this push to turn Texas blue or at least to turn it purple. And number three,

Cruz is a major, major ally. Despite the fact that Trump called his wife ugly, Cruz now has kissed the ring completely. And Cruz would be a major ally of Trump if Trump were to win. Removing that alliance would be a fantastic thing to do. So if you're thinking about races to get involved in, either from a donation, door knocking, phone banking standpoint, Ted Cruz's race, where he is challenged by Colin Allred, would be a good one to consider. A Fox News diner guest went off script saying women should not be president. And it was so cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs that even the anchor had to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. How about maybe we don't say that? I love this stuff. Fox News loves doing this dog and pony show where they go to a diner and they go really early in the morning. This particular one happened at about quarter past or quarter past six, as some people

like to say in the morning. This was in Allen, Texas. And they go and they interview people. The idea is we're just hearing from the average person. Now, I don't know that middle age plus folks who are in Texas diners at 6 a.m. are necessarily your average voter. But OK, let's put that aside for a moment. The question was, what do you think about Michelle Obama saying she's not going to run? And this woman just says, I wouldn't vote for any woman, including Nikki Haley. She seems menopausal. We don't need a menopausal woman as president of the United States. And it's too much even for the Fox host. Check this out. NBC just reported that Michelle Obama has said she will not run for president. Thank God. Yes. He said, I would love the reaction from from a woman in the crowd.

And I wouldn't vote for a woman. And especially, you know, Nikki Haley, I'm just going to say this. She's probably menopausal. We don't need that. OK, she said, how about we vote for people regardless of their gender? Just the right person for the job for America. Yeah, and it's kind of thanks so much. Well, that's kind of interesting because everyone speculated that she was going to run except her. Look at how Brian Kilmeade just completely runs over the fact that your average voter,

by the way, if she's saying I'm not voting for Nikki, that's a Trump supporter, right? That's a maggot or a Magaddonian, a Maga, Potamian, whatever you want to call them. Brian Kilmeade just runs right over and goes, yeah, interesting stuff. You know, a lot of people thought a lot of people thought Michelle would be running, but turns out she isn't. What about the woman who said no women as president, especially if they're menopausal. And I have to admit, I don't know enough about menopause to know what even the argument would be specifically against a menopausal woman not holding elected office. These people are involved in lines of thought that don't even occur to me. But when even the Fox host has to go disregard what that woman said,

you know that it's completely off the rails. Let's take a break. Make sure that you're subscribed to the YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. That's a forward slash. We'll take a break and we'll be back with much more right after this. For years now, I have been using a Ridge wallet. I've had a Ridge wallet at this point way before they became a sponsor. They are celebrating their 11th anniversary. A Ridge wallet can hold up to 12 cards plus your cash and it stays flat and comfortable in your pocket. So much slimmer than anything I've used.

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first order and free shipping. That's R.E.L. Paper dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman for 30 percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. Today, we welcome to the program Lev Parnas, former associate of Rudy Giuliani's and Donald Trump's and co-author of the book Shadow Diplomacy, Lev Parnas and his wild ride from Brooklyn to Trump's inner circle. Lev, it's so good to have you on. You know, just just to start with, I know many in my audience are familiar with you,

but but not everybody may be. How did you first even end up in the conversations and in the room with Trump and Rudy Giuliani? How does that happen? I mean, it shouldn't have, but it was after, you know, I built over several years of very close relationship with Donald Trump. Then I started building a relationship with Rudy Giuliani. I had nothing to do with Ukraine. It was all had to do with mostly my ambition to get ahead in the business world and making big connections and also getting caught up in the cult mentality of that mega movement that Trump was leading. So then one day, it was an evening in the Grand Havana room.

We were sitting there with Rudy, like usual, having drinks in the evening and cigars. And he got a call from one of his investigators, Bart Schwartz, started telling him information about a whistleblower he had in Ukraine and started giving information about, you know, the Manafort, the Black Ledger, and started talking about Hunter Biden working for Burisma. When Rudy got off the phone, he came and sat down with us and started, like usual, like he would always do, and tell us what he had the conversation about.

At that time, me and Igor, obviously, because of our relationships and our businesses in Ukraine, we knew everything that was going on. And then so. So we started telling Rudy whatever we heard in Ukraine. And at that time, Igor whipped out the video, that video where Joe Biden says, get rid of the prosecutor or I won't give you a billion dollars. Right. And at that moment, we looked at that video and that was it. He looked at it and said, we got it,

or we got you, something to that effect. And two weeks later, we were at the White House. We were supposed to be having a Hanukkah party, but under the disguise of the Hanukkah party, Rudy decided to go to the White House with us and have a private meeting with Trump, where he filled him in about our relationships in know, relationships in Ukraine and that we would go because our mission started by finding Victor Shulkin. Rudy asked me if I could find Victor Shulkin. And I said, absolutely. OK, so hold on. Let's let me let's take a couple pieces. Just this is an incredible story. So just super quick. How did you meet Giuliani even to begin with? I met Giuliani at obviously all the Trump

events. So we would say hello, goodbye. But one day I had a meeting with an associate of Giuliani's and his name was John Sale. He wanted to become this state attorney for the state of Florida. And he was recommended to me by somebody. Somebody recommended me to him because of my relationship with Trump. Got a good word for him. And at our meeting, he asked me about a company, you know, what I do. And I told him about a company that had that was called For Guarantee. And he thought that Rudy would be a perfect fit and wanted to make the marriage. And so he made the official introduction for the for us, for the company. OK, so the way that the Ukraine quid pro quo stuff started was Rudy gets a call and then turns to you and says, hey, Joe Biden tried to push out

Victor Shokin. We have a whistleblower in Ukraine who's saying all sorts of stuff. We think we got him. Let's go and tell Trump about what we think we have. How does Trump react? Trump reacted very excitedly after his speech at the Hanukkah party. He came back where he had the Secret Service had us wait at the Red Room. And when he came in the Red Room, he approached me and looked at me and told me that Rudy says really good things. And to keep up the good work, put a thumbs up and basically gave me a pat on the back and we started taking pictures. And then when we left, when Trump left, Rudy said that, you know, good luck on your mission. And, you know, this is important to find Shokin. Speaker 1 Okay. So at this point, did you have experience in this sort of like blend of private investigation?

I mean, I don't even know what discipline this is, but you had not done any of this stuff. Speaker 5 Oh, absolutely not. I mean, I was at a Hanukkah party talking about I mean, I still when I was in it, I couldn't believe it. It was so surreal. I mean, I'm at the White House, right? The president of the United States, Giuliani. We're talking about, you know, the vice president's son

in another country. I mean, it all sounded surreal, but it was so real at the time. At the same time, you know, it was just something I felt that needed to be done to save the country at that time. Speaker 1 So you got swept up in the emotion of it, of wow, Trump thinks I'm great and I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to go to Ukraine. I'm going to find this guy. We're going to impact. We're going to bring down Biden. You were swept up in it. One hundred percent. I mean, I was in one hundred percent. OK, so practical question. As you start doing all of this stuff, you go Ukraine. Are they like who's even booking your flights?

And I guess what I'm trying to get at with this is are are you just kind of sent off and told, get over there, do what you need to do, send us some receipts, or are you actively working with people from Giuliani or Trump's team every step of the way? Well, it's a great question, but it was the way it was set up was it was a combination. We were not getting paid by Trump or his administration. Giuliani at the time wasn't getting paid by Trump or his administration. It was all hands off. But most of the expenses either were being taken care of by ourselves or other donors, wealthy Republican donors that were part of the team or other wealthy oligarchs from Ukraine or Russia that were part of the team or other wealthy oligarchs

from Ukraine or Russia that were part of the team basically to get big of this information. So our bills were being paid by lots of different people that were had the same interests in mind to get this information. Are there even conversations sort of about like how you would be compensated for this and what this sort of I mean, I use the term consulting. It's a very loose term, right? As you say, it's like, what were you even really doing? Is there a conversation about what you charge for something like this?

Well, it wasn't money. See, in that world, it's not about dollars and cents to buy connections. Got it. So basically, our prize at the end of the day for being loyal was, A, I thought I was really going to get the Medal of Honor. It was talked about by Rudy and certain people on the PLT team after this. But also having these contacts and having a business, an oil and gas company, and having the presence of Ukraine, Russia, I mean, you know, United States in basically your pocket. You can write your own check and do any type of business. So it wasn't about making some money for that trip or for that.

It was more like saving our country. But at the same time, you know, you're around the most powerful people in the world. So whatever you want to do, I mean, it's automatically, you know, you're going to make lots of money. So there's like a sort of pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, if all goes right, so to speak. Correct. Okay. But again, it started with the pot of gold, but it turned into basically like a war, like we joined the military. The mindset changed. So for the year that we were heavily, where I was in Ukraine almost every day and we were traveling all over the world doing this, it had nothing to do with money at that time. It was the opposite. I mean, we had we basically disregarded any opportunities we had

because it was more like we were it was us against them. Yeah, we were in a war mentality and we had to win. But it was understood, obviously, that once it was over, that obviously we would have those relationships. So there's a period of time between when Rudy gets the call, shows you the video and says, let's go tell Trump about this. And we show him that point. We showed him we showed him the video. You showed him the video. Right. There's a there's a period of time that elapses between the start of this and when Trump ultimately says to Zelensky, hey, what about investigating Biden if you want the foreign aid? Talk to me about in that interim period. You go to Ukraine. What do you find? What is ultimately relayed back to Trump? How does that

kind of ultimatum happen? And thank you for asking. That's why I wrote the book, because there was so much that happened, David, that, you know, one interview or one article could never get the viewer and especially what they did with the first impeachment, where the senators didn't call any witnesses and basically let them get off scot-free. A lot of people don't realize what happened. It started way before Zelensky. The first pressure and the very first quid pro quo that I was sent to give was to President Poroshenko. I met with him and had a three-hour meeting where basically I was told to tell him that Donald Giuliani from Trump to tell Poroshenko to start an investigation and announce it to Joe Biden, Hunter Biden,

get rid of the, not get rid of, but come out and make an announcement about the U.S. Ambassador Maria Ivanovich saying that she was interfering in Ukrainian politics. And in return, Trump would support Poroshenko in those elections. Now, let me interject one question here, because this has been a subject of debate. Do you think they cared whether they did the investigation or they just were concerned about announcing it so that it would look bad for Biden? And that's the most that's the most important question. It was all about just starting an announced investigation. Got it. Remember, they didn't they didn't and don't trust Ukrainian

officials because they feel they're all corrupt. So they were they were scared that if an investigation would actually occur, that it could be bought off or paid off or turned into and it would backfire in their face. Let's say Hunter got cleared. So they didn't want that. All they needed was just an announcement that there was an investigation. And I remember Rudy saying something to effect to Lutsenko, the attorney general prosecutor for Ukraine. When he said that we have, you know, Hunter Biden and Joe Biden broke the laws in Ukraine that we don't know how to prosecute.

Giuliani basically told him, say, all we need to do is announce it and we'll take care of the rest. Right, right. So ultimately, when when Trump makes the the sort of suggestion, I don't even know what to call it. Hey, the money will be held up. Just announce this thing. How involved were you in ultimately Trump

making that ask? Speaker 4 Oh, well, I was the guy. I mean, I was the one sent to make that quote, quote, quote. And you got to say that happened before Trump had that call with Zelensky because this happened in May, May 11, May 12th of 2019. I was in Ukraine. Giuliani was supposed to fly into Ukraine and we were supposed to meet with Zelensky. On May 10th, Giuliani got called into the White House by Kash Patel and they told him that

Zelensky, it was a setup that there were going to be people there in Zelensky's inner circle that hate Trump, that were going to basically say that after the meeting that we came in there to strong arm them into into an investigation. So Giuliani went on that night. Laura Ingram basically said that there's, you know, people surrounding Zelensky are enemies of Trump and that, you know, we're not going to, you know, I'm not going to meet with them.

Made this whole big stink. He texted me that night because I was seven hours ahead that basically to get the hell out of there because we're cutting off all communications at that time uh all the ukrainian officials like minister of interior of like attorney general prosecutor lutsenko and everybody else got scared we're texting me and calling me saying what's going on giuliani's on tv saying that you know we're no relationship between the united states and Ukraine. Right. So I called Giuliani, asked him what to do, because these guys want to try and make it right. And that's that because that's when that was the time when Zelensky just became president elect. They still have didn't have

the inauguration. So the biggest part for him, they're planning the inauguration to have a big parade, you know, like big whooptyde-doo and have big support of America. And the number one thing Zelensky asked Trump is for Trump to attend the inauguration. And Trump told him, no, he won't do it when he congratulated him. But he will have Vice President Pence come there. And they were setting it up for a huge event to have Vice President Pence there. I'm telling you this because it's important for what happened later in the quid pro quo.

So that evening, Giuliani on May 11th told me that, listen, we're going to give him one last chance because I was supposed to leave on the 13th. He told me to tell Zelensky to meet with Zelensky and basically tell him that unless he announced an investigation into Joe Hunter Biden,

there will be no aid, military aid, there will be no medical aid, there will be no support whatsoever. And also to make it very clear that Vice President Pence or nobody important from the United States Dignitary is going to show up at the inauguration. So and he told me to be very stern and not to be too nice about it for them to get the message. I'll never forget that. So after several phone calls, I got a call from the minister of interior telling me that Zelensky is sending his chief of staff, Sergey Schaefer, Sunday morning on the 12th to meet with me to finally go over details.

At that meeting, I told him, obviously the message about not getting aid, nothing, and no support and getting rid of, you know, Vice President Pence wouldn't show up at the inauguration. He was pale white, understood, told me that they would get it done and not to worry that Zelensky wants to have a relationship with the United States and he would do what needed to be done. Right. I told that to Giuliani, but all of a sudden that day they ghosted me and stopped responding and basically went blank, the Ukrainian side. When I told that to Giuliani that they're basically not responding, he told me that now they will see what it means to mess with Donald Trump or something. Something to the effect of paraphrasing, but something where like they'll see now. Within the next six hours, Ukraine got a phone call from the United States, basically telling them the Vice President Pence is no longer showing up at the inauguration.

That was the first sign. Right after that, that's when their oligarchs that were supporting that time, Igor Kolomoisky, flew in from exile from Israel to Ukraine and went on live TV saying that he was going to kill me for interfering in Ukrainian politics. And that's how basically was the first. That's what the message was relayed to them, that they were not going to get aid. It was on May 12th, 2019. Let's pause our conversation with Lev Parnas there.

There will be much more to it and it'll be posted to our YouTube channel in full. YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. One of today's sponsors is Stride Line, the creator of the most comfortable sock on Earth established in 2009 by childhood friends in Seattle. Stride line has dedicated years to researching the most comfortable socks, and they really are. They present you with socks that are not only incredibly comfortable but highly functional for an unparalleled experience for the sports enthusiasts in the audience. Stride line will

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using the code David at Stride Line dot com. That's S.T.R.I.D.E. Line dot com. Use code David at checkout for 15 percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. We often talk about how the Republican Party in general, MAGA as a movement specifically, and Donald Trump acutely as a candidate don't even talk about policy when they do. It's vague, authoritarian, wet dreams like I'll do mass deportations with the military or something like that. We actually have an example from an interview Trump did early this morning with Fox News of what happens when he's asked about policy.

It's an incoherent, garbled response, and it's garbled for a couple of different reasons. It's garbled because Trump's speech is generally garbled, but it's incoherent because Trump is mixing multiple things together. Hamas, Israel, Iran, Gaza, Ukraine, Russia. He is speaking with enough buzzwords that your average Maga would probably say he sounds like he knows what he's talking about. But none of this makes any sense. Take a listen about your policies for a second.

As you know, this president, United States, when it comes to Israel, is getting protested. Now he seems to be turning on Israel. But with a noncommitted vote that Biden's getting, they're not going to like you either because you are firmly in Israel's camp, correct? Are you on board with the way the IDF is taking the fight to in Gaza? You've got to finish the problem. You had a horrible invasion. It took place.

It would have never happened if I was president, by the way. As you know, Iran was broke. Brian, they were broke. They had no money for Hamas for his. Now remember, Iran wasn were broke. They had no money for Hamas. But now remember, Iran wasn't broke. Trump repeats that. But also he's taking two, three, four different steps implicitly when he makes these claims. If I had been president because Iran was broke, the attack wouldn't have happened. All of these are just hyperbolic statements. They were broke. This would have

never happened. And for another reason, they wouldn't have done it to me. I guarantee you that. Right. They did this because they have no respect for Biden. And frankly, they got soft. And what happened here is incredible that it should never have happened. Likewise, Russia would never have attacked Ukraine.

Now that's a classic because if it's true that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine, even though Russia was occupying parts of Ukraine while Trump was there, Trump said nothing about it. Even if it were true, it may be the case that Putin wouldn't feel the need to invade Ukraine when Trump is president because he has other ways of trying to achieve his strategic goals by cozying up to Trump. Never. You know it.

Everybody knows it. And that wouldn't have happened. This is all on Biden. Do you think the president's in the process of abandoning Israel? I do believe that, but I don't think he knows where he is, frankly. I think you could ask him a question right now. Ask him the same question. I don't think he knows what to say about many subjects. Actually, it's really the people that surround him.

It's the fascist and the communists that surround him. Yet Biden has both fascists and communists around him, which is a very interesting sort of coalition politically. You can imagine making the calls. They're calling the shots. He's not calling the shots. Mr. President, what did you feel about Kamala Harris calling for a ceasefire in in Gaza? Is that something that you support? Is that something that is totally off the table right now for you? Look, I hate seeing what's happening again. It would have never happened. Notice how he doesn't answer the question. Trump cannot actually answer a specific question. This attack on Israel and likewise Israel's counterattack, which is what it is, would

never have happened if I was president. And you know that, Lawrence, this would have never happened. And it's so horrible to watch it because, you know, if things went right in 2020, which they should have, but they didn't for some very bad and sinister reasons. This would all these people that are. Remember, the question was about a ceasefire and Trump's talking about how 2020 was stolen. That's what happens when you talk to Trump about policy. So that's why they don't talk about policy.

Very, very simple. Trump also asked by Brian Kilmeade about the fact that he doesn't really seem to have 400 million dollars, which is a multi, multi, multi billionaire. You would imagine he would have or at least have ready access through to through credit lines or other mechanisms. And Trump just kind of says, I got plenty of money, even though in court documents, his lawyers have said the only way he could even get a fraction of this money he needs for these verdicts, for these judgments would be by selling properties. Trump just kind of vaguely goes, I got plenty of money for a far pause.

Let's bring it domestic for a second. I know in about two or three weeks with your court cases, if I'm going to believe what I read in those decisions, you have to come up with something like 400 million dollars. How close are you to securing the bond or would you need for that? I have a lot of money. I could do what I want to do, but understand there's no answer there. Right. One answer would be, you know, Brian, I keep 300 million around as a rich guy, but I don't

normally have as much as I need for these bonds because it's advantageous to have the money working for me in other financial instruments. So we're going to get it. It's a short. Or he could say, you know, I actually have one point two billion in cash sitting around. So I've got the 400 million or he just can't. He just goes, I got a lot of money. Now I got plenty of money.

This was a horrible, illegal decision. This was a decision made up by a crooked judge, 100 percent crooked clubhouse judge, a disgrace with a equally crooked attorney general who campaigned. And I will get Trump and we're appealing that decision and we'll see how we do. But I'll tell you what, people are leaving New York businesses are fleeing New York because of that decision. They use the statute to go after me.

That was never used before. So you're not used before. You're not worried about anything. I don't worry about the money. He's not worried. So no answer whatsoever. And what should happen is as Trump's lawyers are making legal statements, filing legal documents that say Trump doesn't have the money, they should put forward this piece

of audio recording where Trump says, I'm not worried at all. I got plenty of money. And then they can sort out who's telling the truth and who's lying. Is Trump lying on TV or are his lawyers lying in the legal documents? You would normally think Trump's lying on TV, but the lawyers are telling the truth. But Trump instructs lawyers to lie all the time. Not all of them are willing to do it, but some are. So maybe we'll get to the bottom of it.

Trump asked about policy. What a disaster. After the Supreme Court yesterday ruled that Trump must be placed back on the Colorado Republican primary ballot, Trump made a statement at Mar-a-Lago. Now, I will warn you, if you're going to watch it, it is a little bit sort of disturbing to watch. Trump does the thing where he rocks side to side and sways and is hinged forward at the waist. It's really weird visually. But Trump was so incoherent in this one that even MSNBC cut away and MSNBC, you'd think would be incentivized to show this in its full glory. We'll get to MSNBC cutting away in a moment. But here is Trump. And

again, he seems to be conflating presidential immunity with the civilly liable rape case, with defamation, with the fraud case. It doesn't seem Trump even knows what the Supreme Court decided on. He seems completely disoriented. If you listen carefully, the president has to be free. A president has to be if the president does a good job. I did. some people would say a great job, but if the president does a good job, a president should be free and

clear and frankly celebrated for having done a good job, not indicted four times and not gone after on a civil basis and not demanded to be to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines on something that was absolutely perfect where there were no victims. Now remember, the statement is about the Supreme Court decision. The Supreme Court at some point will be making a decision on immunity. They didn't yesterday. This was about the ballot. Trump's talking about indictments.

He's talking about indictments. He's talking about fraud. It's I genuinely don't know that Trump understands what yesterday's decision was even about. Where the financial statements were absolutely flawless, where you have disclaimer clauses. I mean, nobody's ever had a thing like this. I wasn't given a jury and I had a clubhouse judge just come up with this number on a perfect loan and very conservative financial statements. But even at that, if you look, the disclaimer says don't rely on the financial statements in any way, shape or form. I told them disregard this piece of crap paper that has no truth on it whatsoever.

So Trump clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. And he continues to argue that he should have he should have immunity because that's how presidents end up with the courage to make tough decisions. And another thing that will be coming up very soon will be immunity for a president and not immunity for me, but for any president. If a president doesn't have full immunity, you really don't have a president because nobody that is serving in that office will have the courage to make, in many cases, what would be the right decision, or it could be the wrong decision. It could be, in some cases,

the wrong decision, but they have to make decisions and they have to make them free of all terror that can be rained upon them when they leave office or even before they leave office. And some decisions are very tough. I can tell you that as a president, that some decisions to make are very tough. I took out Trump found most decisions really easy, but some were difficult ISIS. And I took out some very big people from the standpoint of a different part of the world. Two of the leading terrorists, probably the two leading terrorists ever that

we've ever seen in this world. Right. And those are big decisions. I don't want to be prosecuted for it. Another president wouldn't want to be prosecuted. Okay. So Trump making sort of a, uh, a, a sad case for why he should be completely immune. Um, Trump also describes a 20 year conflict against ISIS. I'm wondering about the dates on this one. Powerful. It was going to take four years. It took me four months, but it was a very strong dictum that I gave.

I said he gave a dictum. Oh, my God. Adam, defeat him. End it. We were fighting for 20 years against ISIS and we did it very quickly. I don't want to be prosecuted in that case. What a guy, huh? ISIS, I guess, nominally was created in 2004.

It faded into obscurity. It reemerged in 2011. You could say that like the real fight against ISIS grew in 2012 and then Trump was out of office at the very beginning of 2021. So that that's like, you know, nine years on the outside. And Trump's talking about he won a 20 year. I don't know. You know, it's all so weird.

And this got so harebrained that even MSNBC ultimately cut away with some really funny disclaimers. The role Trump haters, other than we have maybe one or two that I think can be fair. But you look at New York, what's happened? I mean, these people have tremendous hatred. You can't do this to a president. And again, I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about in the future.

Right. A president has to be free. A president has to be if the president does a good job. I did. Some people would say. So we heard this earlier, of course. But now you'll hear MSNBC cut away in their funny explanation. OK, the White House has not had any coordination with the DOJ on the prosecutions regarding

Donald Trump. This is totally separate. It's a special counsel. The special counsel decided to bring charges in terms of the funny Willis stuff. I believe that Nathan Wade testified he was making more money before he started to work for Fannie Willis down there. Let's go back to Garrett Hake in West Palm Beach and Ken Delaney, who's outside of the Supreme Court, also New York Times Chief White House correspondent Peter Baker. Why didn't he come out with a prepared statement? Why this,

why going back to the, you know, the battle days of Trump where he just comes out with a word salad and, you know, whatever comes to mind and whatever allegation he can toss out. Right. Yeah. And why indeed? Right. That's a great question, Katie, and one that I'll be trying to answer today. Yeah.

Nobody knows why the word salad. So there it is. Donald Trump reacting to the Supreme Court decision, seemingly confused about what the Supreme Court even decided and the inability to stay on topic. Really, really something else. Maybe maybe something that would be relevant if Trump actually tried to debate Joe Biden in the coming months. But we'll see if there's any plan of that. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. Very strong reactions to my wearing a turtleneck yesterday. Honestly, I don't think

too much. I just kind of have a stack of clothes and think I should really go to just wearing a black shirt so I don't even have to think about what to put on at all because it's becoming a distraction. But I don't give it much thought. I just kind of grab the next thing. But people reacting so strongly to my turtleneck yesterday, some loving it, some hating it, some thinking that I'm going to take them up on fashion advice. And it was all weird. But here's one guy who thinks it was a completely inappropriate move by me yesterday. David, I just pulled up one of your YouTube videos.

I'm always excited to see a new video from you in my inbox. And today you really pissed me off. I'm going to be completely honest. I see that you're, what is this? Is it the turtleneck that you're wearing? David, what is it? It's March 4th, and you're busting out this turtleneck? What are you, David, come on, get it together. Get it together. I just, I really wanted to express my displeasure in what I was met with when I opened up this YouTube video and it was your turtleneck.

I clicked off the video. I didn't watch it, by the way. I mean, you got the view for it. Congratulations. But I will not be returning. Yeah, listen, I don't know if some people are just not man enough to wear a turtleneck. You know, it was 44 degrees in New York City yesterday. So I don't know why a turtleneck would be inappropriate given the weather. But I like the turtleneck. You know, it was 44 degrees in New York City yesterday, so I don't know why a turtleneck would be inappropriate given the weather. But I like the turtleneck. The

turtleneck will certainly be back. We've got a great bonus show for you today. The CDC has dropped its five day covid isolation. Kind of a strange decision. Unclear that it's medically sound. We'll talk about Mark Cuban backing Joe Biden for twenty twenty four and why we care about that. And we will talk about how most voters are totally unaware of Trump's dictator threats and why that really matters. All of those stories and more at join Pacman dot com on the bonus show. We'll see you then. I'll be back tomorrow.