The David Pakman Show - 4/12/23: Trump's polling collapses among independents, Gen Z hates Republicans

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Farron Cousins, host of "Farron Balanced" and "Ring of Fire," fills in for David -- A panel of appellate judges rules that January 6th insurrectionists can be charged with obstruction, which may play a role in special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into Donald Trump -- Donald Trump's poll numbers plummet among independents following his recent indictment -- Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his office humiliate Congressman Jim Jordan on the topic of violent crime -- Florida State Representative Webster Barnaby compares transgender people to "demons and limps" -- Former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis is being attacked by Trump supporters for not being sufficiently loyal to him -- Nikki Haley's campaign says Donald Trump is "more drama" and Ron DeSantis is "not ready for prime time" -- Generation Z is overwhelmingly left-wing, with 77% supporting Democrats and 21% supporting Republicans according to a Pew research study -- Fox News is in deep trouble as the network prepares for its defamation trial from Dominion Voting Systems -- More Republicans are expressing their support for bombing Mexico as a response to the fentanyl crisis -- On the Bonus Show: Only Democrats get punished for name-calling, sea levels rising faster than expected, Republicans changing law to allow DeSantis to run for president, and much more... 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman 👍 Use code PAKMAN for 10% off the Füm Journey Pack at https://tryfum.com/PAKMAN 🌞 Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp online therapy: https://betterhelp.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 to the David Pakman show. I am Farron Cousins from Ring of Fire sitting in for David Pakman today. And man, do we have a great show coming up for you. We've got more potential charges that could be filed against Donald Trump. We've got Jim Jordan getting smacked down by Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg. We've got MAGA freaks coming out in droves to attack former Trump lawyer, Jenna Ellis, all that, and much, much more is coming up. So let's jump right into it. As I mentioned, there could be a new avenue for Jack Smith, the special prosecutor with the DOJ to charge Trump with even more crimes than previously thought. Thanks to a ruling last

week, a three judge panel actually overturned a lower court judge, Carl Nichols, who was apported by Trump. Uh, Nichols had ruled that prosecutors trying the Capitol rioters could not charge those individuals with obstructing an official congressional proceeding. The official proceeding, of course, being the certification of the electoral college votes. And for some reason, judge Nichols said, nope, even though they very obviously obstructed and postponed that hearing through their actions, you can't charge them with that. So then late last week, a three judge panel voted two to one that, yeah, yeah, you can charge these individuals with obstructing an official

congressional proceeding. Now what's important about that, according to former assistant Manhattan district attorney, Andrew Weissman, is that now that this three judge panel has given permission for prosecutors to use that obstruction charge, Weissman says that Jack Smith could now, with that permission, file those same charges potentially against Donald Trump. Let me read you what Weissman had to say during an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe. This is really a gift for Jack Smith because as good as it is for the Washington DC prosecutors who have hundreds of pending cases who want to know that this is a charge they can continue

charging, Jack Smith is going to be that this is a charge they can continue charging, Jack Smith is going to be thinking about this obstruction charge with respect to the former president. There's nothing better for Jack Smith than to know that this has already been approved by the DC circuit, meaning he can charge it. And unless the Supreme court disagrees with the DC circuit, he knows that this is a rock solid legally, a legal rock solid charge that he has to prove it factually, but getting the sort of preclearance is unusual to have. And he has to be happy that the court ruled that this is a charge that will stick for

any potential charge he is thinking with respect to the former president. A lot to take in, right? Let me distill that down to its most basic components. Obviously, the first thing you have is the United States Supreme court. It's likely this will obviously be challenged and head to the US Supreme court. At which point the justices most likely given the magnitude of this, uh, you know, charge, I don't think they'll take it up. I think they'll look at that three judge panel ruling two to one vote and basically come to the decision. We don't want to wade into this. If they come to that decision, they will say,

nope, we are not taking the case. The DC circuit's decision stand. That clears the way for Jack Smith, of course, to hit Trump with these obstruction charges. If they choose to take it up, God only knows how that's going to end up, right? We have seen this court absolutely railroad legal precedent. We don't know. So there's a big question mark over that. So 50, 50 chance they take it up. Then if they take it up, 50-50 chance there that they rule that yes, you can charge these individuals. So, let's assume for a moment that Jack Smith gets the clearance, the Supreme Court either

doesn't take it up or, or rules in favor of the, uh, DC circuit and Smith can charge Donald Trump with obstruction of an official proceeding. That's a relatively minor charge compared to obviously everything else that Jack Smith is investigating. So if Smith moves forward and decides to charge Donald Trump with obstruction, it's going to be a very minor charge on top of everything else that he could potentially be charging him with. So it's basically a way to just kind of pad everything a little bit more. But I don't think that's where Jack Smith is really wanting to put all of his chips.

Because to me, what I'm reading into this is that if you can charge any of these people involved in the events of January 6th with obstructing an official government proceeding, that is something that Jack Smith can then use as a bargaining chip against any of the individuals who may not want to cooperate fully with the investigation. Maybe we want to plead the fifth. Maybe we, we don't want to come talk to you. Maybe we want to challenge these subpoenas. Of course, we've seen all this happen so far to no avail on the part of most of the people that have been subpoenaed, but this would give Jack Smith a really great bargaining chip because it's a fairly simple and easy charge to prove.

And it's also something that most prosecutors would not want to waste their time pursuing. But if he can take that and dangle that potential charge in front of any witness that may not want to fully cooperate and say, listen, you don't have to tell me everything. You can plead the fifth if you want, but I just want you to know that here in my back pocket, I have obstructing an official government proceeding and I can charge you with this. It's very obvious that your involvement on that particular day led to the postponement of that electoral college vote and that is illegal. So I don't want to hit you with these charges, but I am more than willing to do it if you do not cooperate.

Now, some people may hear that and think, wow, that kind of seems a little, little underhanded, but trust me, it's not. Things like this happen all the time in criminal prosecutions and investigations across the country every day. When you can find those little smaller charges, you know, the obstructing government proceeding, obstruction of justice, by the way, is usually the bargaining chip that prosecutors will use to get people to testify and come forward with information, basically offering an immunity deal, right? Like I'm not going to charge you with this as long as you give me all of this. It is very common. And to me, that kind of seems like the most likely avenue that Jack Smith would pursue if he gets the clearance

to bring those charges. That's not to say that he's not going to go ahead and tack that onto Donald Trump, because I do believe that's something you could do just to, you know, stretch out whatever else you got. Why not hit him with everything? And that is probably what would happen if he's able to do this again. It's going to depend on the Supreme court. That's one of those wait and see moments that I know none of us like, but that's where we stand right now. Could be a new charge against Donald Trump.

Could be a bargaining chip either way. The wind's at his back, right? Jack Smith holds all the cards right now. So let's see what he does with it. But I will say one other thing, speaking of indictments and Donald Trump and criminal charges and all that, new polls have come out this week, multiple new polls showing that the indictment from last week is not helping Donald Trump at all. Now, shortly after the indictment, about a day or two later, Donald Trump got on Truth Social and, you know, he attacked the prosecutors as he's been doing. But he also mentioned in one of those posts on Truth Socials, my, my poll numbers have gone through the roof. And to an extent with the Republican base, they absolutely have. But if you're just going to cherry pick the data, then sure, you can pretty much use it

to prove whatever you want to prove. So you got to look at the bigger picture, which is something Donald Trump doesn't want people to do because his approval rating ever since those indictments came down has tanked four points dropping from an already historically low 29% all the way down to 25%, according to a new ABC news Ipsos poll. But what's more important with this polling data, along with other polling data that recently came out from CNN, is that independents are the ones who have effectively turned against Donald Trump. Let me read some of these numbers for you here. According to the ABC poll, 54% of independents say that Trump should have been charged with a crime. 57% say that he intentionally did something illegal.

Now it is a little weird that, that those two numbers are not equal, which means you have more people, more independents saying, yes, he definitely did something illegal and he did it illegal on purpose, but you only have 54% that say he should have been charged. So there's a three, a 3% gap there that makes no sense. So 3% of independents think, oh yeah, he totally intentionally broke the law, but he shouldn't be charged. So that's a little weird. Again, you would expect those numbers to match up, but they don't. But either way, you have a majority of independent voters. And that's the key that do believe not only that Trump should have been charged, but that he definitely intentionally did something illegal.

The CNN numbers are even worse for Trump. 62% of independents in the CNN poll approve of the indictment. Of course, Democrats, Democrats, I don't know why I said that awkwardly. Democrats overwhelmingly support it. Republicans overwhelmingly reject it. So what does this matter, right? Trump's approval rating goes down four points, obviously very bad for him as he tries to run for president, but it's the numbers with the independents that are important because yes, Trump's poll numbers within the Republican party, they're doing great. They're doing better than they have in the last

year. The problem Trump faces is that he hasn't attracted any new voters. And that's the key. See, Trump cannot win a general election with just his MAGA base. He can win a primary with it a hundred percent, like no question about that. And right now, based on the numbers, it looks like he may be cruising to an easy victory with that. But when it comes time for the general election, he's repulsed the independence. He's repulsed the moderate Republicans. Right-wing groups have already been holding focus groups since the indictments came down. And sure, there's plenty of them who say, nope, this has actually made me more likely to vote for Trump.

But some Republicans say this sealed the deal. I'm not going to support him. So even the people who came back to support Trump after saying, no, I'm done with him. Wait, no, I'm going to support him. So even the people who came back to support Trump after saying, no, I'm done with him. Wait, no, I'm going to come back. Those aren't new Trump voters. Those are previous Trump voters who are just coming back into the fold. So they voted for him in the past and now they're saying they're going to vote for him again. So that doesn't count as a new gain for Trump. That's why these numbers are important. We have to fully analyze them and realize what they're telling us. And right now they're telling us that those true moderates,

the independents, the swing voters out there in America, they want nothing to do with this guy. They're sick of it. They're saying he's too caustic. He's too bombastic. He's got too much baggage. I mean, he's not due back in court until December, but under New York state law, the prosecution has to be ready to go to trial within six months of issuing the indictments. So even though he's not due back till December, at that point, the prosecution legally has to be ready to go. So we could get a trial during the Republican primary. We could get a trial before the 2024 election, and that's not going to play well with those moderates and independents. Because we're also talking about a New York jury. Donald Trump is not well-liked up there. So he doesn't stand a very good chance of being successful,

maybe on appeal, but probably not with initial trial. And the independents are already sick of him. They're ready for him to go away. His poll numbers continue to get worse, no matter what he says. He's in trouble and he knows it. We have to take a quick break. I am Farron Cousins. You can follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. I'm at Farron balanced and subscribe to the ring of fire, YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the ring of fire. We'll be right back with more on the David Pakman show. The weather is about to start warming up, and that often means sweating and chafing and sticking. Sheath is the men's underwear that once and for all puts an end to all of that nonsense. Our sponsor, Sheath Underwear, has designed unique boxer briefs with an ergonomic compartment built to keep everything separate and dry and cool and

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That's S.H.E.A.T.H. underwear dot com slash Pacman code Pacman for 20 percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. Now let's move on here. I got to talk about Jim Jordan, right? Chairman of the house judiciary committee, Jim Jordan has, uh, well, he's really stepped in it. I mean, he's already in over his head. He's got these weaponization hearings that even Fox news has said have been a complete dud. Jesse waters asked a couple of weeks ago, where are the bombshells? You've been having these hearings, not just Jim Jordan, but the other Republicans. You've given us nothing. But Jim Jordan is hell bent on making Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg pay for taking on Donald Trump. So this week, Jim Jordan announced that he and his judiciary committee, they're going

to take a little field trip up to New York city on April 17th. And while they're on their little field trip, they're going to hold what they're calling a field hearing to talk about the absolutely out of control crime rate in Manhattan. And they're going to, of course, try to tell us that Alvin Bragg, instead of taking on the former president, needs to be taking on all these, all these darn shoplifters out here and the muggers and the, the spray painting vandals. That's the real crime in New York City, not this fraudulent business transaction for a multi-billion dollar corporation. No, no, no, no, no, no. We don't worry about that,

Alvin. You need to go get the guy trying to steal Tylenol from Rite Aid as Eric Trump pointed out about a week ago. So Jim Jordan heading to New York to tell us how bad crime really is. But here's the thing. After this was announced, Alvin Bragg's office issued a statement that said if chairman Jordan truly cared about public safety, he could take a short drive to Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Akron, or Toledo in his home state, instead of using taxpayer dollars to travel hundreds of miles this way. Now, the reason that this aid to Alvin Bragg released this statement saying, hey, if you want to look at crime, go look at your home state, go look in your backyard, is because, as Business Insider pointed out, Columbus, Ohio, which has a population of approximately people, closed out 2022 with 15.4 murders per 100,000 citizens, 15.4 murders per 100,000

citizens. New York city, on the other hand, closed out 2022 with a murder rate of 5.2 murders per 100,000 citizens. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that mean that right in Jim Jordan's backyard, the murder rate is almost three times the murder rate of New York city. Now, yeah, I mean that, that kind of seems like what that means. So Jim Jordan, as Alvin Bragg's office said, you, you want to talk about the murder rate? You want to talk about people getting killed out of control crime? All you have to do is go home. Why don't you worry about your own backyard and not about New York city? Now the crime rate

in New York, and of course in California, we have heard Republicans talk about that ad nauseum for, for over a year, really. It was a big, big thing in the lead up to the 2022 midterms. Then, then they stopped talking about it after the midterms because I guess crime doesn't exist once elections are over. But now that Alvin Bragg is prosecuting Donald Trump, we have had Republicans across the board, not just in Congress. I know my governor down here in Florida, Ron DeSantis, while trashing Alvin Bragg brought up the crime rate there. So y'all want to talk about crime rates? Let's talk about crime rates. Let's talk about the fact that in New York city, it is true that property crime has increased. Property crime, of course, being vandalism, theft, burglary, things like that. However,

the murder rate, the violent crime rate that includes non murders, but other violent crime assaults, um, of, of multiple kinds has decreased. Now let's take a look at my state of Florida down here. Now, in Florida, property crime has gone down in the last few years. So we're not seeing as many burglaries and muggings and, you know, vandalism as they are in New York city. But what has increased by double digits down here in the state of Florida is the violent crime rape, uh, rate, excuse me. So here in Florida, you're less likely to have somebody break into your home and steal your stuff than New York city, but you're more likely to be killed or beaten to a pulp or maybe sexually assaulted.

But you don't ever hear the media talking about that, do you? No. What do they talk about? They talk about the runaway crime rate in New York city, in the blue States. Well, I got news for you media, the highest crime rates in the country. Most of them out of the top 25 take place all down here in the South. And what does the South have in common folks? Yeah, we're all red States down here. The highest crime rates in the country are taking place in red States run with an iron fist by Republicans, but Republicans don't ever mention that. And the media does such a poor job of pushing back on these narratives that blue states are out of control with crime, that they miss the fact that you're more likely to be the victim of a crime in a red state than you are in a blue state.

And that's why I love that Bragg's office has pushed back on Jim Jordan. They've pushed back on him repeatedly, but this is a big one. The murder rate in Jim Jordan's own district is far higher than it is in New York city. But Jim Jordan is going to waste our tax dollars. He's going to waste everybody's time going to New York. What? Trying to find victims of violent crime? Are you hoping to roam the streets like a vigilante? You know, maybe you're going to pull a Batman and beat up somebody trying to take a woman's purse from the street. I don't know what Jim Jordan's going to do, but I do know that based on everything we've seen Jim Jordan do this year, it's probably going to backfire and make him look like a total idiot.

Now I talked about Florida for a moment and I got to talk about something even more disturbing down here in the state of Florida. On Monday, a Republican state legislator here in Florida by the name of Webster Barnaby, during a hearing on a transgender bathroom bill that will make it a criminal offense for a transgender individual to use the bathroom of the gender that they identify as. Mr. Barnaby went on a bigoted, disgusting tirade against transgender people. So we have the clip of it. Here he is again, this man is Webster Barnaby. He is a Republican state representative here in Florida. Take a look. I'm looking at society today and it's like I'm watching an X-Men movie with people that when you watch the X-Men movies for Marvel comics, it's like we have mutants living among us on planet Earth.

And, you know, some people don't like that, but that's a fact. We have people that live among us today on planet Earth that are happy to display themselves as if they were mutants from another planet. This is the planet Earth. Where God created men, male and women, female. I'm a proud Christian conservative Republican. I'm not on the fence.

Not on the fence. Not on the fence. There is so much darkness in our world today. So much evil in our world today. And so many people who are afraid to address the evil, the dysphoria, the dysfunction. I'm not afraid to address the dysphoria or the dysfunction. The Lord rebuke you, Satan, and all of your demons and all of your imps who come and parade before us. That's right. I called you demons and imps who come and parade before us and pretend that you are part of this world. Webster Barnaby, Republican representative here in the state of Florida. The words that he used, like you're from another planet, you're a mutant, you're a demon, you're an imp. All of those words are meant to dehumanize other people. He is dehumanizing, taking away their very personhood of transgender individuals here in the state of Florida. Now, of course he issued an apology. Oh, he's sorry that he said it. No, you're not. You're absolutely not sorry

that you said it. You're sorry that there's backlash on it. You meant every word you said. You wouldn't have done that. You wouldn't have doubled down on it. You wouldn't have repeated yourself over and over if you didn't mean it. And I got to bring up, of course, too, as a X-Men fan, his invocation of the X-Men there actually proves that he, he doesn't know anything. The whole point of X-Men is that these individuals are, are treated differently. They are looked down upon by society because they are different because they were born different. And they are the subject of, of prejudices. They are the subject of laws restricting their very existence. All of that takes place in the X-Men comics. And this guy, Webster Barnaby, doesn't have the wherewithal to understand that he's the bad guy in the

X-Men comics. He's Reverend striker and he doesn't even realize it, but that's who he is. Sorry. It's not Reverend striker, but he hates these people because of who they are. And he's pushing like every other Republican in the state, this bill to ban transgender people from using public restrooms. Of course, again, completely ignoring the irony of saying, guess what? We're going back to the days of segregation. These certain people who look a certain way can't use the same bathroom. Have you thought about that folks? Have you actually sat down and realized that

we're heading back into the days of segregation? We're not moving past it. We're not learning from our past mistakes. And Mr. Barnaby, granted he was born and raised in England. He only moved to the United States in 1991. So even though he was born in 1959, he didn't experience the segregation that was taking place here in the United States at the time. I'm sure as a naturalized citizen, he, he knows about it. He had to have studied it. He is aware of what this country once was, and now he's about it. He had to have studied it. He is aware of what this

country once was. And now he's part of the group trying to take us back to that. For the record, I've looked and looked and looked. I cannot find a single instance where a transgender person has been accused of assaulting someone in a public restroom. Do you know why? Because they're going in there to use the bathroom, right? You're out and about, you're shopping. Hey, I need to go relieve myself. You go in there, you do your business, you wash your hands and you leave. That, that's it. That's it. And we're saying that that is too much. That is too much of a, of a privilege to extend to transgender people. They're just trying to exist.

They're not out there breaking laws. They're not out there doing anything wrong. They're not coming after us. They're not trying to indoctrinate us. They just want to live. And here in Florida and across the country in red States, we're saying, no, your existence is offensive to me. So I want to oppress you. We have seen this before, not just in American history, but in world history.

And it never ends well for that group that is being oppressed. But that oppression is alive and well here in the state of Florida. Thanks to people like Webster Barnaby, Barnaby Webster or Webster Barnaby. Yeah, I had it right. Anyway, we got to take another break. I am Farron Cousins in for David Pakman. You're watching the David Pakman show. We'll be right back. winning device that does exactly that. Fume is not electronic. There's no vapor or harmful chemicals. Fume is just a delicious flavored air that makes replacing your bad habit easy. Your fume comes with an adjustable airflow dial and is designed with movable parts, which is great for fidgeting, which can be great for people breaking bad habits. Look at what people online are saying.

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worked on efforts to overturn the 2020 election for which she was also punished in Colorado. This week, she posted some screenshots of messages that she has received and messages that she has seen online from angry MAGA fans who are angry at her about something that according to Jenna isn't even happening. These attacks are disgustingly sexist and crude, but I'm going to read a couple of them here. These again, these are the ones that she posted. First one of course was from Laura Loomer, who, according to Raw Story, mocked her for being, quote, disowned by Trump World and trying to ingratiate herself with Ron DeSantis' campaign by offering herself up as, quote, sloppy seconds. Trump supporter Preston Parra took a similar line of attack and accused her of being a quote,

for hire escort for Ron DeSantis. MAGA fan Alex Brusevitz referred to her as quote, Jeba Ellis before going on to describe her as a quote, D-list reject goon. So why are all of these hardcore Trump fans mad at Jenna Ellis for trying to get a job with Ron DeSantis? Well, here's what Jenna Ellis had to say about that. She said, I was called a lot of things and had a lot of less leftist hit pieces trying to destroy my credibility while I represented Trump. But I never saw a media outlet or journo use the blatant sexism and vulgarity that MAGA influencers do now. And I don't even work for DeSantis, she added. So Jenna Ellis, of course, has been the target of, you know,

liberal hit pieces as she calls them. They weren't hit pieces. They were, of course, has been the target of, you know, liberal hit pieces as she calls them. They weren't hit pieces. They were, you know, talking about your career and the things you were attempting to do. Now I'm one of those people. I went after Jenna Ellis plenty because of course she was trying to overturn a federal election here in the United States. That's definitely not something that lawyers should be doing, especially based on the fact that all of the evidence was total BS. Never launched a, launched a sexist attack against her, never got vulgar with her, just attacked her work, which is fair game. These attacks are disgusting. I don't care if Jenna Ellis is

working for Donald Trump. I don't care if she's working for Ron DeSantis. These attacks are gross and have no place in civilized discourse here in the United States, especially when the thing they're accusing her of isn't even a thing, at least not, not as of right now. So what's happened is these crazed MAGA fans have created a fantasy in their heads, right? They've created this scenario where suddenly somehow Jenna Ellis works for Ron DeSantis. And then they got mad about the fantasy they created and started attacking her for doing a thing that they think she did, but she's like, I'm not, I'm not even doing it. And honestly, who cares if she does? She's not working for Donald Trump anymore. She is a free person in this country allowed to do whatever the heck she wants to do. If Ron DeSantis

wants to hire her for his campaign, as a legal advisor, for a lawyer, he's allowed to do that. She's allowed to take it. And you don't get to launch these horrible attacks against her. If you want to go after her record as a lawyer, if you want to, you know, critique the things she says when she goes on, you know, a conservative media, do it. But once you start to get into that realm of these disgusting, horrendous attacks, that is crossing a line that these MAGA people seem to love to cross. Jenna Ellis was once their friend, but again, because they've created this weird fake scenario, now they hate her.

They're just gonna launch all the horrible attacks they can because they think she's doing something that would be very easy to verify if she was doing, right? You, you can check the campaign records. You, you can check the state records. We do have open records laws, at least at the moment here in Florida, if she were working for Ron DeSantis, it would have to be reported and you could look that up, but that's a little too much homework for those MAGA folks to do. So they would rather assume the worst, which how was that even the worst? She's not working for Trump.

She's gotta work somewhere. You gotta make money, right? Republicans always tell you, you gotta have a job. You can't be a lazy mooch. So why are you begrudging somebody for getting a job? None of it makes any sense. But then again, nothing in MAGA world makes any sense. And believe it or not, that is actually the message that presidential candidate Nikki Haley is also trying to convey to wealthy Republican donors. It was revealed this week that Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the UN, former governor of South Carolina, current presidential

candidate, sent a memo to wealthy Republican donors, basically begging them for money by trashing both Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump. Here's some of what the memo says. Here's what the memo says about Trump. It's increasingly clear that Trump's candidacy is more consumed by the grievances of the past and the promise of more drama in the future, rather than a forward-looking vision for the American people. No argument there. Like Nikki Haley, your campaign, you hit the nail on the head, no critiques, beautifully executed. Her attack on Ron DeSantis. Ron DeSantis essentially launched his presidential campaign with a national book tour during this period and made one misstep after another, confirming what many observers have

long suspected. He's not ready for prime time. Again, no notes. Perfect. I agree with every word that you said there, especially because the not ready for primetime thing is something I have been saying for the last two years. Then it gets even funnier. Then she goes, and then there are the others. Wait, what others? Like that's it. That's how it ends. So it's beautifully executed. Again, Nikki Haley top marks for this memo. Not that I support your candidacy, but I got to say, you said all the right things because here's what's happening. As I said, this is a memo that she sent to wealthy Republican donors. Trump is too much drama and too much baggage. He's in it for himself. Get rid of him. Ron DeSantis, he's a blithering idiot that is absolutely bumbling on the national stage. He's got no

chance. Oh, there's some other people maybe, but who are they? You don't know them. I don't know them. So give me your money. And by the way, Nikki Haley, um, in the first six weeks of her campaign raised $11 million. Donald Trump only pulled in, I think like somewhere between six and 9 million in the first quarter of this year. Now that doesn't include the massive fundraising hall that he has had since the indictment, but had it not been for the indictment where Trump, according to his campaign raised like $10 million in two weeks, Nikki Haley would be out raising Donald Trump right now. So Nikki Haley is not a candidate to just laugh off as another has been. She's actually doing well, not in the poll, you know, not where it matters,

but in the fundraising arena, she's doing pretty well. You know, she's got name recognition. She's traveling. You know, she'd been back to Iowa a couple of times. She's going out there. She's doing speeches, something that Trump is not probably because he's got to worry about all of his legal problems. But Nikki Haley right now, in terms of being a candidate, again, please don't take this as I'm saying I support her or I like anything she stands for. But if we take off our partisan blinders and just analyze the campaign itself, she's doing everything right. So this letter attacking her opponents to the donors, that's a smart move. Pointing out that she basically raised more money than Trump is a smart move.

She even said at one point, like Donald Trump had a pretty good first quarter, if you count being indicted as good. So she's going no holds barred, right? She is absolutely let's take on Donald Trump. Let me bloody him up. Let me show these donors that I am the drama free path forward. I am not out there like Ron DeSantis looking like an idiot. I'm the real deal. That is how she's pitching herself. And again, based on her pitch, based on the money that she's raising, it's pretty obvious that she is doing a decent job with this.

But there is a problem. There's a big problem, by the way, facing the Republican party. And that problem happens to be that the largest voting block in the United States, millennials and generation Z voters absolutely despise the Republican party. New data has come out from the 2022 election that tells us that 77% of generation Z voters said they voted for a democratic candidate for Congress last year versus only 21% who said they voted for a Republican. So we've got a 77 to 21% split between Generation Z voters alone. And of course, millennials, maybe not that extreme, but still overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. Those two blocks combined now make up the largest voting block in the United States, outnumbering the baby boomers, which happens to be the largest voting block for the Republicans.

Republicans also have the added, I don't want to call it tragedy, but I guess it is a tragedy of the fact that they let a lot of their followers and supporters die during the pandemic. They were out there trashing vaccines. They were out there telling people, ah, you don't have to wear a mask. That's oppression. And they saw a lot of their voters, a lot of their supporters, a lot of their core base die off because of that. And I think by the way, that is a statistic. It's a grim statistic, but that's something that most people completely ignored during the 2022 midterms. I mean, I talked about it a lot because study after study after study showed us that the COVID death rates in red areas of the

country, red counties were exponentially higher than in blue counties. That may be one of the reasons why Republicans who a year ago were predicting a 70 seat pickup in the house only have a couple seats in their majority. I think that's something that needs to be taken into consideration, especially since we still have people dying in this country of COVID and those deaths are the overwhelmingly unvaccinated part of the population. So Republicans have a problem with their voting block because they're still letting them die off. And then they got a problem with the young voters who want nothing to do with the Republican

party. And the reason of course, is because young voters, the millennials and the generation Z voters overwhelmingly support action on gun control. They overwhelmingly support taking action on the issue of climate change. They overwhelmingly support LGBTQ issues. They support access to abortion. They support all of the things that Republicans have openly declared war on here in the United States. And what's funny is that the Republicans have obviously, you know, acknowledged this, but here is what Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican national committee had to say. When we do, when we do that and we talk about economic opportunity, the things our party

stands for, we'll win those voters over. We just have to compete for them. See, here's the problem with your plan, Ronna. First of all, it's, it's completely wrong anyway. Second of all, you don't have a plan to pitch to these voters. You don't have a plan to pitch to any voters. Right now, the only plans we're hearing about from the Republican party are let's raise the retirement age for the young people. Let's make them just keep working and working and working and working. Nikki Haley has that plan. She's, she's said that in a speech recently. Republicans in Congress suggested it like, let's just raise the retirement age.

You think that generation that has known nothing but hardship and wars based on lies and pandemics throughout their whole lives, you think they want to hear that? But beyond that, what is your plan? What is your economic plan, Republicans? Can anyone watching this tell me what a Republican economic plan is and tell me who is pushing it and what it would do for the country. Anyone. The answer is no, you can't because such a thing doesn't exist. I am 40 years old. Throughout my lifetime, Republicans have had one plan. Other than outside of culture war stuff, I'm talking about one actual legislative plan. My entire life, that one plan has been to cut taxes. It's been trickle down economics my

entire life. Every time Republicans get power, the first thing they want to do is cut taxes. We've already seen the Republican majority in the house of representatives propose cutting taxes again, extending the Trump tax cuts. It doesn't work. And this generation knows it. This generation isn't afraid to call it out. They're not buying into those lies of Reaganomics and they're angry. And as long as Republicans continue to push that, they will never attract these younger generations. We have to take a quick break. I'm Farron Cousins. Again, you can subscribe to my YouTube channels at youtube.com slash the ring of fire and

youtube.com slash fair and balanced. And I'm on Twitter, Instagram, Tik TOK, and Facebook at fair and balanced. We'll be right back with more on The David Pakman Show. to someone about there is no better time than the present, but you don't have to drive across town every week and sit in a waiting room because of better help. Better help is the world's largest therapy service. It's 100 percent online. With better help, you can tap into a network of over twenty five thousand licensed and experienced therapists specializing in a wide range of issues. You answer a few questions about yourself and better help will match you with a therapist based The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. the right fit. You can switch anytime at no charge. My audience gets 10% off your first month at better help.com slash Pacman. That's better. H E L P.com slash Pacman. The link is

in the podcast notes. Welcome back to the David Pacman show. I am Farron cousins from ring of fire sitting in for David today. And if you want even more from me, you can subscribe to my YouTube channels, youtube.com slash the Ring of Fire and youtube.com slash fair and balanced. And I also host the Ring of Fire podcast every week. You can catch that on ROFpodcast.com. Fox News, as I'm sure everybody is aware, has a defamation trial coming up and so far it is not looking good for the right wing network. Late last week, it was announced that they privately settled a defamation claim brought against them by Venezuelan businessman, uh, Majid Khalil. And Khalil had been accused on Lou Dobbs program by none other than Sidney Powell herself of running a scheme in Venezuela. He helped allegedly get Hugo Chavez elected, working

with those dominion voting machines and all that other stuff. And none of it was true. It was in fact a complete fabrication. So Khalil sued for defamation and last week Fox news settled. Now that lawsuit of course is not necessarily as intense as the dominion voting systems defamation suit. And of course the other defamation suit filed against Fox news by smartmatic. However, some of the claims with that particular lawsuit that Fox has now settled are also brought up in dominion's lawsuit. So it's a big deal, especially now dominion can go to court and be like, look, jury, they just settled a lawsuit, making the same claims that we're listing here.

So that's kind of them admitting that, yeah, it was bad and we'll give you money for it. So I know Fox news wants their legal problems to go away, but at this stage in the game, if you're going to settle, you probably need to go ahead and settle all of them. That's not a good look for the network. And in a really, really surprising move last week, Fox News also filed a letter with the court, letting them know that they're going to be offering up certain hosts to testify at the trial. Those hosts include Laura Ingram, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson. The three people whose text messages have been revealed in the court filings

where they talk about how they know what they're saying is not true. They talk about firing other people from the networks, producers, hosts for telling the truth. I don't know why Fox news would say, Hey, you want to talk to these guys under oath on the stand in front of a jury, go for it. That seems like a really, really dumb move. I understand in the criminal justice system, even in the civil justice system, which is what this is. Sometimes you want the defendant to take the stand because they may be able to offer pieces of evidence or information that might otherwise not be known, right? They have their firsthand accounts. They may be able to convince a jury with their words that they didn't do whatever it is they're accused of doing.

But in the case of Fox news, Hannity, Ingram, Carlson, and the other hosts that they have offered up, we have your text messages. We have your emails. There is nothing you can say to justify that material that is already public knowledge. And that of course will be brought up in the trial. It will be blown up and shown on big TV screens for the jury to see word for word what these people said. All this does. And again, I'm still shocked. My mind is blown that Fox news is stupid enough to offer these idiots up on the stand. All it's going to do is allow the plaintiff's lawyers to walk up there, point to these statements from somebody like Tucker Carlson and say, Tucker, what does this mean? You sent this, right? Yes, I sent it. Did you mean it? Well, yes, I meant it.

So explain to the jury what this means. That is not going to end well for Fox, like a hundred percent, not going to go their way. And speaking of other things, not going Fox news as way, they also recently tried to prevent Rupert Murdoch from having to testify at the trial. They argued in front of the judge and said, listen, judge, Rupert Murdoch, he already sat for hours and hours in the deposition. It's on video that gets shown during the trial too. Uh, so he doesn't, he doesn't need to come testify. Plus he's old traveling is hard for him. And the judge actually ruled against that saying, listen,

Rupert Murdoch has been traveling all over the world recently. And now suddenly he's too old to come to Delaware to testify. No, I don't buy it. I'm not going to go along with it. Also last week with this lawsuit, Fox news went to court and asked the judge to bar certain topics from being discussed at the trial. One of those topics was the Capitol riot. Fox's lawyer said, Hey judge, we don't want any

discussion during this trial of the Capitol riot. No mention of the Capitol riot. January 6th basically doesn't exist in terms of this trial. Oh, and also we want you to ban any mention of the death threats that Dominion voting systems employees have received. Now, to a degree, I understand that the Capitol riot really doesn't have anything to do with the defamation of Dominion. Okay. Those two are not linked. So I get why you should say we shouldn't talk about it. I just also find it weird that you specifically want to bar. It makes me think you got something else up your sleeve, but the death threats against dominion employees, that's literally relevant to the case. Like that is a lot of what the case

hedges on is the harassment that these workers suffered because of your lies. Not to mention, as dominion pointed out in a counter filing, people don't want to come to work for us because they're afraid they're going to get killed because of the lies that you've spread about our network. So yeah, that hurts our business, which falls under the category of a defamation claim. Fox is in trouble. Fox is in big trouble. Are they in financial trouble? Not really. It's going to hurt them. Yeah. Cause they're going to end up paying out a lot of money. Probably not the total 4 billion that the two lawsuits combined are seeking, but they're going to pay out hundreds of millions

of dollars. Like I think that much is pretty much a given at this point, but the credibility that the network is suffering, that's going to be almost impossible to overcome. And what I mean by that is they're not going to lose the audience they already have. Those people are Fox news viewers. They still believe Fox did nothing wrong. Those people aren't going anywhere. What they're going to have trouble with is when their very old audience dies off, there's not an audience coming up behind to replace them. That's the credibility problem. So in the short term, Fox will be fine. A couple years down the road, however, they're going to be in serious trouble. And finally today, speaking of serious trouble, how do you feel about going to war in Mexico? Not war with Mexico folks, but Republicans are warming up to the idea

of using the United States military to take on those nasty drug cartels down in Mexico. Let me read you this from Politico. In recent weeks, Donald Trump has discussed sending special forces and using cyber warfare to target cartel leaders if he's reelected president and per Rolling Stone asked for quote battle plans to strike Mexico. Representatives Dan Crenshaw and Mike Waltaltz both republicans introduced a bill seeking authorization for the use of military force to put us at war with the cartels senator tom cart tom cotton of arkansas said he is open to sending u.s troops into mexico to target drug lords even without that nation's permission and lawmakers in both chambers have filed legislation

to label some cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a move supported by GOP presidential aspirants. So labeling drug cartels as, uh, uh, terrorist organizations basically gives the government a lot more leeway to send in us troops without of course, having to go through getting all that authorization from Congress, officially declaring war. If we can just slap a broad label on them, we can kind of kill whoever we want to kill. And that is unfortunately the way that our government is set up in a post nine 11 world. Here's the thing. This really isn't about the drugs. It's not, believe it or not, it's not about the drugs. What this is about is being able to bomb a sovereign nation,

to shoot whoever we want to shoot down in Mexico by claiming they're a drug smuggler. Now imagine if you will, a caravan, let's call it a caravan of people approaching our Southern border. And then folks on Fox news and Republican politicians and candidates tell us, we know a lot of these people are, are smuggling drugs. Suddenly you're able to apply that terrorist label to these so-called caravans and you can send one missile. You send a drone down there to take them out. That's what this is about. It's not about the drugs, folks. It is not about the drugs.

It is about getting that label so that they can use the military force so that they can attack migrants so that they can attack asylum seekers all by claiming, Nope, they, they had drugs. They were smuggling drugs. We'll never know. Right? I mean, we'll never be able to fully find out if they did or didn't have drugs. And that's the plan.

That's what this is about. This is about a show of force on our Southern border, not deep in Mexico, but on our Southern border giving the United States, the Republican party, the ability to kill anybody that they don't want in this country. That's all the time we have for today, but we've got a great bonus show coming up for you. I am Farron Cousins from Ring of Fire. Thank you so much for watching today. I'll see you again tomorrow.