The David Pakman Show - 4/18/24: Biden crimes hearing goes nuclear, Mayorkas impeachment already over

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Nathan Price, an ex-Trump voter, joins David to discuss what changes his mind, whether his political principles have changed, and much more -- A House hearing about President Joe Biden's elusive "crimes" explodes, with Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin demanding Republican James Comer state which crimes he believes President Biden has committed -- MAGA operative Charlie Kirk admits that the Biden ground game is crushing the Trump ground game so far in the 2024 campaign -- Right wing ghouls in Arizona cheer after successfully blocking debate about repealing the absurd 1864 Arizona abortion law -- The bogus and vapid Republican impeachment of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas is already over -- Republican Congressman Greg Murphy reveals a new conspiracy theory so absurd and convoluted, it is almost impossible to understand -- A disoriented and confused Donald Trump has absolutely no idea how his criminal trial works, bemoaning that his lawyers cannot strike an "unlimited" number of jurors -- Alina Habba, Donald Trump's failed former lawyer, demonstrates why she is a failed lawyer during an interview with Newsmax -- Voicemail caller points out the invalidity of referring to the modern right wing as conservative given that they support none of the traditional conservative principles -- On the Bonus Show: Supreme Court effectively abolishes right to mass protest in three US states, Democratic Senate candidates rout GOP in fundraising, real-time deepfake romance scams have arrived, much more... 👖 The Perfect Jean: Use code PAKMAN for 15% OFF & free shipping at https://theperfectjean.nyc 🧦 Strideline: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off at https://strideline.com 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David 🔥 Kasual App: Get 35% OFF at https://davidpakman.com/kasual 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code PAKMAN for FREE blades at https://hensonshaving.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

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59 59 59 59 60 60 61 61 62 62 63 63 63 63 63 and said, are you guys going to impeach this guy, this guy being Joe Biden? What's the high crime and misdemeanor? Tell me exactly if any of the things you're alleging are true. Why haven't you impeached the guy? This is extraordinarily interesting video. We're going to look at it here. And the primary question that I would keep in mind as we review this is how long is long enough to figure out what

Biden actually did wrong as opposed to dancing around it with hyperbole and conjecture. Let's take a look at this first moment where Jamie Raskin just says, what's the crime? What is the crime? Number two, I would like my time restored. Number three, you have not identified a single crime. Well, what is the crime that you want to impeach Joe Biden for and keep this nonsense going? Why? Well, what is the crime?

Tell America right now. Well, you're you're about to find out what is the crime you're about to find out. Name it. Chair. Very, very soon. This is starting to sound like when Trump told us in August of 2020, we were only two weeks away from his completely new health care plan, replacing Obamacare, being signed into law despite the fact that he hadn't yet announced it. So what I'm hearing from

James Comer is that they are getting really super dangerously very close to preparing for the final stage of announcing the home stretch as we work towards a potential declaration of what the crime could potentially maybe sort of be. And if that doesn't titillate and excite you, I don't know what does. We've been waiting for years at this point. Now, at another moment during the hearing, Comer brings up that Joe Biden was supposedly bribed with nine million bucks. And Jamie Raskin asks a really great question, which is if that happened, then why don't you impeach him for him? So it's OK. It's OK for, as Tony Bobulinski said, for China to bribe Joe Biden's family with nine million dollars.

But that's the lie that's been discredited. I mean, where is your impeachment investigation? If if Joe Biden took a nine million dollar bribe from China, why aren't you impeaching him for that? Well, who says we're not? Well, I can I can invite Mr. Moskowitz to come back in. Do you want him? I can tell you who says that they're not impeaching him. James Comer. This is all a charade, folks. Remember

that we looked two, three weeks ago in James Comer's own fundraising emails. He's already saying we're not going to impeach. We're instead going to look at doing criminal referrals of Joe Biden to the Justice Department. He still doesn't tell us what the crimes are, but he's already acknowledging in fundraising emails the impeachment is going nowhere. He has already moved on from impeachment and is telling his supporters we're not going to be able to get an impeachment here because Democrats wouldn't vote to convict anyway. Instead, we're focusing on criminal referrals. Jamie Raskin brings up that endless money has been spent on this. What about the fiscal responsibility? And James Comer goes, no, we really haven't spent much on this. Mr. Chairman, what did they have? Mr. Chairman, we have spent tens of millions of

dollars. You pursuing we have not identified a single crime. You are lying. Really? We have not spent 10 million. How much have you spent? We have we haven't spent hardly anything. It's been for free. OK. All right. Well, in any event, you know what? Then we get what we paid for because you got nothing. Nothing. It is absolutely true that, listen, if you spent a bunch of money, you found nothing. And if you haven't spent a bunch of money, you've gotten what you've paid for and that you've also found nothing. And this continued. And Jamie Raskin at every opportunity exposing this vapid and pointless fiasco for what it

is and Comer increasingly upset. It's not as easy when you try to do this stuff sitting next to Jamie Raskin as it is when you're on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo. That worked very quickly figuring. I don't know what is this? What Biden? What business is the commerce in? You're talking about lots of people.

There's lots of people. I'm a farmer. I have my investigation must identify a high crime. I mean, what did I do? I'll tell you what Joe Biden did. He was a senator of the United States. Then he wrote a book, and he said he made the most money ever made in his life, millions of dollars on his book,

and he gave a million dollars away to charity. That's what his family did. That's why Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Romania, China, Russia, that's why they paid the Biden family money because of Joe Biden. None of those governments paid anyone any money. Somebody needs therapy here, but it's nobody on our side of the aisle. And then he starts slamming the gas. OK, because no, I honestly hear the mention of therapy made him start banging his hammer.

These these are pathetic people and these are very much not serious people. They all know this is going nowhere. This has a number of purposes. Number one, they've accomplished nothing, nothing, and they bring nothing to the table. So they're trying to play serious investigators, trying to prevent government corruption from stealing your dollars or whatever. And that's Joe Biden allegedly getting money from places he's never gotten money. So this is a way that they counteract the fact that they've done absolutely nothing.

Number two, this is in service to Donald Trump. They realize Trump lost in 2020 and he lost significantly in the electoral vote and the popular vote. Now, of course, because of the way this works, it came down to one hundred and two thousand votes in three states. But they recognize the starting point is that 2024 is a rematch of a race that Trump lost in 2020. Since then, Trump's approval has come down. He's been charged with 91 felony counts in four criminal indictments. He's been found civilly

liable for rape. It's not great when you start with having lost four years ago and now it's the same race being run back with the same candidates. So this is also in service to Trump. If we can find something or at least make it seem like we're getting close to potentially finding a piece of something when it comes to Joe Biden, they try to even the playing field when it comes to Trump and Biden, even though you really can't do it when you look at the facts. And number three, there is an egocentric element to this as well, where people like James Comer, who insists he's not looking for attention, is regularly holding hearings that go nowhere and appearing on Fox News and Newsmax and who who knows wherever else, making the same vague,

unsubstantiated proclamations in order to get attention and to make it appear as though he is doing something to make himself worthy of reelection in November. Because remember, every member of the House is up every two years. I believe James Comer's seat is almost certainly safe, but also there's a personal stake that he has in this. So nice job by Jamie Raskin. There's, you know, every another month has gone by and they still have no specific high crime misdemeanor or criminal act that they can point to. Charlie Kirk, a MAGA operative known for trying to indoctrinate the youth into MAGA Potamian thinking is acknowledging they are getting crushed in the ground game.

Joe Biden is opening offices and hiring people, whereas Donald Trump is laying off staffers and closing down offices. He is not telling us something we didn't know, but the fact that he's willing to acknowledge it publicly is still notable. So here's Charlie Kirk on the Charlie Kirk show on Real America's Voice where this airs. It's still a mystery to me. I've still you know, I've been looking under my furniture to see is this where it airs? I don't know where it airs, but it's the Charlie Kirk show on Real America's Voice.

Here he is saying there is a major problem here with the ground game in this campaign. We are struggling right now as a movement to open up the necessary field offices to compete against Joe Biden. We had Citizen Kane on here. And this is, you know, the Trump campaign is working really hard to fix Rana's mistake. Susie Wiles, Chris La Savita. They're doing a great job of trying to fix what Rana left them. But here are the numbers and the numbers are worth reporting. In the state of Georgia, Joe Biden has 14 field offices. In the state of Pennsylvania, Joe Biden has 14 field offices.

In the state of Michigan, Joe Biden has 20 field offices. In the state of Wisconsin, Joe Biden has 44 field offices. In the state of Arizona, Joe Biden has eight field offices. In Nevada, Joe Biden has two field offices. Between all of them, Joe Biden has 450 full-time people on staff in nine states and all nine out of nine swing state directors. Now, based on all of our data, we do not believe Donald Trump has a single field office in any one of those states yet open. I'm sure they're trying to fix that. And he has five staffers. So Joe Biden has 450 people. We have five and two out of nine of the swing state directors have been hired. Now, thankfully, we at Turning Point Action, we have well over 100 people now chasing ballots in Arizona trying to close that gap, trying to close that gap.

And that does not count Joe Biden's advertising advantage. It does not count his ability to control the mainstream media. I said this and people laughed. I said six months ago, Joe Biden is a formidable candidate and people laughed. I said it's because of the infrastructure around him. All right. So there's certainly the possibility that Charlie Kirk is overplaying the disadvantage at which the Trump campaign finds itself in order to motivate people. There's no it's logical to be cynical when it comes to someone like Charlie Kirk. But there is a lot of controversy about all aspects of this.

Now, one of the reasons that we believe a lot of the field office numbers are zero for Trump is that when Lara Trump became co-chair of the Republican National Committee, Lara Trump, Lara, Lara, Laura, when she became co-chair of the RNC, she reportedly closed a bunch of these field offices saying they don't believe they need them. Donald Trump doesn't believe they need them. However, that's since been denied. So honestly, I don't know the truth of why the numbers are allegedly zero field offices in some of these places. But a lot of this does have to do with fundraising or lack thereof. We know that when we look at cash on hand numbers, they are way better for President Biden than they are for Trump. We know that Trump has significant expenses when it comes to legal fees and all of the stuff that he's embroiled in

right now. So all of this is to say nothing other than the level of organization for Biden seems to be orders of magnitude better than the level of organization for Trump. But but we should never understate the potential enthusiasm gap which could exist. The enthusiasm gap might favor Biden because I'll give you an example. I don't go around putting Biden stickers on my car. I don't put a Biden flag on the boat that I don't have or any of this stuff. But I am absolutely committed to voting in November to prevent four more years of Trump and to give Joe Biden another four years to try to continue the good record with the economy that he has built. So I may not be rah rah cult like commitment guy the way a lot of these Trump people are.

But I am very committed to doing everything I can to make sure Biden gets reelected and Trump doesn't. We don't know exactly the way the enthusiasm gap is going to go. But if fundraising is a proxy to enthusiasm, that does not look good for Trump. And if door knocking and field offices are a proxy to engagement for the Trump campaign, that's also not looking particularly good. So they know they're potentially in trouble. All of that, all of it doesn't matter if we don't get out and vote. And that's exactly what we should plan to do. We all know how tough it can be to find a pair of jeans that fits right and looks good.

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to save about 50 percent off of the cost of a membership. Right wing ghouls in Arizona cheered yesterday for blocking even debate on maybe doing something about this antiquated, absolutely draconian. Do I dare say dark ages is that are we still allowed to say dark ages abortion law in Arizona that dates back to 1864? Here is video of these ghouls aroused and titillated by denying even a conversation 1864 is well suited to 2024. There they are cheering that there isn't even going to be a conversation about what to do about this 1864 law, if anything, they need to be punished in November at the ballot box. And I'm going to talk about those numbers in a moment. But we have some of the information on this. Axios reports Arizona House again blocks repeal of 1864 abortion ban. Senate leaves the

door open. The Arizona Senate took a concrete step towards repealing the pre-Roe abortion ban, but House Republicans continue to block similar efforts, leaving the fate of the 1864 law in question. Razor thin margins, 30-30 in the House, 16-14 in the Senate, illustrate the tensions that have resurfaced over the issue since the Arizona Supreme Court reinstated the pre-Roe ban last week. Three Republicans in competitive districts joined Democrats to support repeal. Attention goes back to the House, where the Republican speaker has vowed to continue to stymie the effort. I want to remind you about the numbers in Arizona in 2020.

In the presidential election in Arizona, Joe Biden won forty nine point four percent to forty nine percent. Arizona came down to ten thousand four hundred and fifty seven votes. I need ten thousand four hundred fifty seven votes. Give me a break. That is an extraordinarily small margin. We have to blow them out in November and they need to be punished electorally for this. Now, I want to be crystal clear. I am not even pretending to allude to any kind of physical punishment. OK, I know that there are going to be one out of a thousand people who watch this who are going to say, David, aren't you advocating for violence? No, I'm advocating for an electoral blowout in November. That's what they deserve.

Now, if you want to talk about physical injury and pain, what this 1864 law will impose on Arizona women does actually include the real possibility of physical harm. It does do that. And we need to make sure that I mean, listen, more people today than at any point in the Roe v. Wade era in the United States believe abortion should be legal in most circumstances. That's not what the Arizona law says. The Arizona law says something very different. It doesn't even include exceptions for rape and for incest, although it does carve out a potential exception for the health of the mother in certain situations if it can be demonstrated to the satisfaction of, I guess, whoever was making the law in 1864. Right. And we know who that was. So we do need to ensure that they are punished here. We have

seen small punishments come in ballot referenda since the repeal of Roe v. Wade. We saw some of those results in the special or off year elections of 2023. But this is absolutely imperative. And listen, hopefully it makes it so that this is not the razor thin election that we saw in 2020 in the sense of one hundred and thousand or one hundred thousand or so votes in three states being the determining factor in Joe Biden's victory. In the meantime, Republicans have no idea what to do except to talk about impeaching people.

They impeach Mayorkas and it's already over. Let's talk about that next. This may be the most short lived impeachment in American history. Republicans impeached Joe Biden's secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. They very somberly delivered the articles of impeachment to the Senate a couple of days ago. We talked about it yesterday. And just like that, the impeachment is over. The New York Times reports Senate dismisses impeachment charges against Mayorkas without a trial. Democrats quickly swept aside the articles of impeachment, accusing the homeland security

of refusing to enforce immigration laws and breach of public trust, calling them unconstitutional. Here is the moment in the Senate where this took place. All Democrats voted in favor of dismissing this. I believe all but one Republican voted against. And there was one Republican. I forget who it was. Maybe Lisa Murkowski, who voted present on this vote. Senate will be in order. On this vote, the A's are 51. The names are 49. The point of order is well taken. Article Article two falls. Speaker 1 OK, so based on that, I guess there were no present votes.

Maybe there was initially a present vote. I read that. But 51 49 party line vote. The impeachment of Mayorkas is over. Now you might be saying, well, why not go to the trial? Why not do the entire thing? This is so without merit. This is so empty and devoid of any substance that I appreciate Democrats in the Senate saying we are not going to waste taxpayer money. We are not going to waste

Senate time. We are not going to. I don't even know if it would have been covered, honestly, by corporate media. But we are going to save corporate media the distraction of covering an impeachment trial destined to go nowhere because there is nothing to it. There is it's sort of like when you pour water on cotton candy and next thing you know, it's gone. It's gone. I appreciate that they are doing this. We all know this was going nowhere and it is yet another failure of the Republican Party. What are they going to say to justify their reelections and elections in November? We know part of it used to be the economy is terrible and we will fix it. That's not flying anymore because everybody can tell the economy is not terrible and it doesn't exactly need fixing.

It needs continued improvement. It needs tweaks. We need to do better. But the idea of a disastrous economy is nonsense. So instead, they started thinking of, well, what about Biden crimes, bribery? What other crimes can we get them for? Except their investigation of years has continued to find nothing. Well, what about the border? How

about we impeach Mayorkas over the border? Except it's completely and totally bogus and it has already fallen. So I don't know what they're going to say to justify their elections in November. Something about fighting communism and Marxism, which we struggle to actually find anywhere in the United States. But they deserve to lose. And hopefully this is the next failed attempt at trying to justify their elections. I have a challenge for you today. I dare you to make sense out of this new conspiracy theory from Republican Congressman Greg Murphy from North Carolina. Greg Murphy appeared on Newsmax and he has a new conspiracy conspiracy theory so complicated and convoluted and absurd. I dare you to understand it. Now, I'm going to give you a hint before I play it.

The gist of the theory. And again, this is like I barely understand it. But the gist of the theory is that Donald Trump, secretary of the army back in January of 2021, we're going back to the Trump riots. Trump, secretary of the army, deliberately prevented the National Guard from providing security on the day of the Trump riots because he wanted chaos so that then Joe Biden would give him a job in his administration. Now, if he wanted a job in the Biden administration, why would he allow the certification of Biden's election to take place? It doesn't really make sense. I'm all my head's already spinning. But let's listen to this. And again, I challenge you to explain this conspiracy theory.

Whether it would change the outcome is really not really the discussion. The fact that the National Guard were ready, they were ready to act and they were slow whacked by the secretary of the army, apparently with some thoughts that he was going to join the Biden administration. He was invited to come to the hearing today, but he declined and he would have been under oath and he would have to ask some or answer some very, very hard questions. You said slow walked it for say that last line again. I'm sorry. Even the Newsmax host is like, wait a second. Who did what now about joining the Biden? He tried to slow walk it. The thoughts are that he possibly want to pursue a position

in the Biden administration. I don't have firsthand knowledge of that, but that's the key line, by the way. I don't have firsthand knowledge of that. We could end this entire thing right here. So one of the general working diagnoses is, as we say, the other thing is how would that what Pelosi's not to interrupt you, but how would that get him a potential position within the Biden administration? The Newsmax guy is not buying it. It's so stupid. Well, it makes it allows more and more time for the January 6th riots or whatever we want to call them to occur, to really grow and to fulminate rather than getting the National Guard there in time and stopping this. No, he slow walked it to allow more chaos to occur. I mean, that that that would certainly track.

I just don't really understand the motive. In other words, why is it that you're more likely to get hired by Biden if you allow riots that endanger his certification to be bigger and last any longer. It just doesn't maybe I just am not conspiratorially minded enough to understand this, but it's not really making any sense to me. And maybe if he had a whiteboard with pieces of string linking together different push pins or something like that, it would be clearer to me. But the key line here in this wild, wild conspiracy theory from Mike Murphy, I'm sorry, not Mike. What's Greg Murphy?

The key line is I don't have firsthand knowledge of this. And I think we can basically leave it there. Let's take a very quick break. We're going to hear from a sponsor briefly, unless you are listening to the members only commercial free version of the show. And we are going to hear in a moment from a former Trump supporter. This is going to be very interesting. Stand by. We've already seen so many data breaches in the news just this year. Roku, GitHub, Fujitsu, Nissan, many others. Cyber criminals have more tools at their fingertips than ever before. And one of the easiest, cheapest ways you can secure yourself and The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. you, which makes it harder for them to hack or to steal your identity. Our sponsor, Private Internet Access, is the only VPN I use. They don't log any of your online activity, which you can verify a number of ways, including the fact that the software is open source, super fast for streaming.

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purposes. Casual guarantees a fun, bot free environment. Join over 15 million users spanning more than 100 countries who trust casual to spice up their lives. My audience gets an exclusive 35 percent discount at David Pakman dot com slash casual. That's casual with a K. The link is in the podcast notes. Today, we welcome to the program Nathan Price. Nathan is a Republican from Ohio, a former Trump voter who is no longer supporting Donald Trump in twenty twenty four. Very much looking forward to this discussion and learning a little something here. So, Nathan,

I mean, give us the big picture. Has your identity as a voter since you started voting always been a Republican? Yeah, I've actually never voted for a Democrat before. The only time there was one time I voted for an independent candidate, but it was a personal family friend of ours. So that's like the only exception. Otherwise, I've always voted Republican since 2016 when I've been old enough to vote. That was going to be my question. Fourteen. When when were you first old enough? So the first presidential election you voted in was 2016 and you voted for Trump both times. Is that right? Yes. What attracted you to Trump? At first, I wasn't being from Ohio in 16, I really liked Kasich. He was our governor at the time, so obviously I voted for him in the primary.

I didn't really like Trump actually for a while until the convention in 16 when he gave his speech. And I agreed with most of it. I didn't agree with hardly anything that Hillary said. So I was like, all right, yeah, sure, I'll go with Trump. And then in 2020, it was pretty much the same thing. Speaker 1 When you say you agreed with most of it, it was not especially in 2020. It was not a particularly policy heavy campaign that Trump wasn't. So what was it?

Speaker 2 Bothered me. So that started to bother you in 20. And did it bother you in 16? Speaker 3 No, I was actually really excited in 16. And, you know, he followed through on some stuff. I really liked his foreign policy overall. Recently, his rhetoric's been a lot more isolationist, which I don't think is really safe for us. But in 20, yeah, I would it wasn't really policy focused. I wished it had been. He probably would have done better had it been more policy focused. And then it was after the election. His rhetoric just was unhinged and I couldn't support him after that. Speaker 1 Thinking about the things you say he followed through on

in that first term that you liked, what would be on that list? Well, the tax cuts, sort of. One of the big things that I really care about is fiscal conservatism and, you know, individual tax cuts for middle class. Now he kind of did that, but they're set to expire next year. And that and I don't like that because these corporate tax cuts were permanent. Yes. The stuff for the working man and the middle class, those expire, which looking back, it was kind of a kind of a grift. Well, so that's interesting. So you say you you like some of the stuff he did at the time. But in retrospect, you're realizing it was not

what it was chalked up to be necessarily. And I was in college at the time. Now that I actually live and work and the quote unquote real world, my views have definitely been evolving rapidly the last few years. Did you benefit from Trump's tax cut plan? I would. Yeah, because, you know, my husband and I were looking at what it'll look like once the tax cuts expire. It'll definitely increase what we would end up owing. But again, it's at the time I didn't benefit because I was in college. OK, you mentioned your husband. Now there has been a lot of discussion as to whether the Republican Party in general has modernized on the issue of same sex marriage or not.

There has been a lot of discussion as to what Trump, quote, really believes versus the way that he is running. Now, I'm going to give you an example. Trump has run as an anti-abortion candidate. I don't believe he's anti-abortion. He was pro-choice until he was 68. His explanation for why he is now against abortion, I just don't believe. I think it's just he says what he needs to say to get Republicans to vote for him.

What do you believe Trump genuinely believes about gay marriage and LGBT rights? I genuinely believe that he is in support of it. I kind of agree with you. And what's interesting about this is I'm not claiming that Trump is particularly enlightened on LGBTQ rights. I just think that much like the reason that he's been pro-choice his first 68 years of life, he grew up in an environment where he in the same way that I think he harbors sort of stereotypical prejudicial beliefs about Jews while not being overtly anti-Semitic in the way some are. I think it's kind of the same with LGBT for Trump, but that he's been pushed into running

a certain way. I have lots of criticisms of Trump and that he enables a lot of this. The hate, I think, is a criticism. But I'm kind of with you on what his personal beliefs are, to be honest. Speaker 1 Yeah. And it's an old episode. I don't know if it's from The Apprentice or what, but there's a years ago, there's a quote where he said, you know, some a contestant said that they were gay and he's like, you know, that's OK. He said something about like if you go to it was making a comparison, basically, like you can like

to restaurants. It was like, you know, some people like pizza and some people like pasta or something. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. That's not the type of belief that changes that late in life, is my opinion. That's why I ended up where you ended up on this. Yes. Did Trump's handling of covid give you any pause in the sense of inject bleach, hydroxychloroquine? It'll be over by by Easter of 2020. How did that play into your opinion? Well, I'm a nurse, so it was and I was finishing nursing school when all that started. I thought it was kind of it was just frankly stupid for him to have said what he said. He should not have been saying things that he doctors standing next to him agreeing that that's you know what you should or shouldn't do there was no there was no evidence that any of that was going to do anything and what i also here's what i really didn't like about the covid stuff a lot of people say now oh the democrats shut down the whole country no trump trump shut down the country he stood up there on press conference and sent out mailers in march saying everyone stay home for two weeks and it'll be over. He shut down the country. People forget that. It was him that originally

shut it down. And there was, what, 20% unemployment for just that little blip in March and April? That was entirely him. And we have been trying to recover from that ever since. I'm curious, you say in your video that we looked at on my program some time ago that you'll always be a Republican. But in a sense, the Republican Party for now seems to basically be Trump or at least enough Trump to get him the nomination. How are you feeling about the party more broadly right now? Do you see a path to getting back to something beyond Trump? Him losing him, losing and the party realizing that it was a very big. There are plenty of other competent Republicans that could have been the presidential candidate.

And unfortunately, and I don't I don't blame the primary voters because it's all Trump. He has this unique ability to con people into believing that he is a savior of some sort. Not one person is ever for his success to be president. So I think that we could move on past him and actually get back to. Now, I wouldn't want to say get back to the quote unquoteunquote old Republican party as well, I would like to, there's some policies that he brought in such a stronger immigration reform that I definitely still agree with. I don't want to go back to the more lackadaisical Republican views on immigration, the illegal immigration, I want to clarify. But I think it's going to take him having to lose big for Republicans to realize that

this is something we can't continue to do because we will continue to lose. So one of the points that I made in looking at your video and others that former Trump voters have made explaining why they're no longer supporting Trump. One of the points I made is that you and some of the others have an ability for examining your previous beliefs, the humility to say, hey, I was wrong or I was led the wrong way, sort of traits that are required in order to change your mind. And that's great. But you've already changed your mind. And the question is, what about the people that we see at the Trump rallies? What about the people that we see that see him as a godlike figure, et

cetera? Do you interact with any of those sorts of folks in Ohio? And, you know, you campaign for Trump and phone bank previously. There seems to be something very different about the way you're approaching this and the way that they are approaching it. And I don't think that they're necessarily reachable. I wonder if you think that those folks are reachable. It's interesting. I've been to five Trump rallies in the past. So it's it's interesting. I've never really actually thought about that because I don't I don't really you know, the family and friends that I have that are staunch Trump supporters, I'm not really trying to convince them to not vote for Trump because I used to be there. So I understand where they are now. I think that because I don't want to ever try to humiliate them, because then when you humiliate

anyone, then they're going to dig in their heels even more on the positions. And an empathetic environment where they're comfortable changing their mind is what you want to generate. Yes. And that's exactly why I am saying as much as I can, because it's, it's a permission structure that someone as who, who donated campaign and, you know, stuck out my neck, like I did for Trump all those years. And then if I was able to change my mind, it's okay if you want to change your mind too. You don't have to like Democrats or Joe Biden or anything, but you don't have to just go along with the other either.

I'm curious when it comes to the staunch Trump supporters you mentioned, what's their reaction to learning you're no longer with Trump? I've been told that I'm betraying my conservative principles. However, to me, the most conservative principle possible is preserving the institutions of our government, which Trump has very clearly stated that he has no intention of respecting. So I don't know how I could be any more conservative than by not voting for him and voting to destroy our institutions. And when you look at Biden, even if you if I want to I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but if I understand what you're saying, you see someone with whom you disagree on many policies, but where the institutions and the structures of the country are not

at risk. Is that right? We can survive bad policy. The United States has a unique ability to survive bad policy, but we can't survive bad men. And that's I think that's the principle of any republic. You can survive bad policies, but not bad men. And I'm not willing to sacrifice, you know, the cost of our constitutional republic for some vague promise of prosperity that Trump tries to make. And that perspective is the one that some of the staunch Ohio Trump supporters who you talk to are saying is a betrayal. Yes.

Wow. That's, uh, I don't even know where you enter the conversation. If that's where the starting point is. Usually I just say, hey, let let not now we're at Easter. Let's not have the conversation or whatever it may be. Have you been able to bring anyone out of the Trump cult? My dad, really, he kind of he kind of came on his own but um i i i consume news much more than he does so i'll share with him things that i read or think about and he'll be like oh i never thought of it that way he's like wow it it really it really what was lousy what he did all those years

do you remember which specific things had the most impact on your dad? In other words, was it the Sharpie on the hurricane map versus inciting the riots versus whatever, you know? I think it's just that he, he never, he voted for Rubio in the 16 primary. He never really liked Trump cause he didn't feel like he had the discipline. And I think it was after he lost the election and him just complete there. There was some I don't really it's really weird after he lost the election like that. There was something dark that happened with him and the people around him. Like, yeah, they were undisciplined and irresponsible at times, but then something really changed after that. And it's never really gone back. So whatever that was that I saw, my dad kind of saw the same thing. And he's like, we can't go back to that. Like he lost. He's a loser. I'm not going to try again. It's like Brian Jennings, who lost three times in like the late 1800s. Like you keep trying, but they still lose.

Like, why are we going to try again? When you look at Biden, what do you think are the worst Biden policies? His foreign policy. Specifically with regard to which country or situation? Well, I was actually telling this to my husband last night. He kind of gets it right, but he's always late to it. So he's getting Ukraine aid, but he gets the, you know, the anti-tank guns to them three months after they asked but he gets the, you know, the anti-tank guns to them three months after they asked for it. Yeah. You know, Ukraine asked for the fighter jets.

He gives the fighter jets to them three months after they asked for it. Now, Nathan, not to interrupt you, but doesn't a lot of that delay have to do with these Republicans in Congress where the purse strings are controlled, who are playing coy with not sending anything to Ukraine? It does. But the war in Ukraine started in 22 when Democrats had control of the House and Senate. And Zelensky was asking for that stuff from the very beginning. So he had the ability to do it, but he didn't. Now, I will agree. I will agree with you that now Republicans are also stalling it, which I completely disagree with. And it's actually really funny. You got Republicans

now that are like, we have to support Israel. And then they're at the same side of their mouth saying, oh, we don't need to support Ukraine. You can't pick and choose. It all is intertwined because China, Russia, Iran, all of this is related to each other. Yes. So you don't like the you think Biden's doing the right things, but too slowly when it comes to Ukraine. Ukraine, yes. OK. And then how about just one other Biden policy you don't like? I don't think we should have left Afghanistan. Really? So when Trump wanted to leave, you also didn't agree with leaving? No. What was the point of staying? We had, what, 2000 troops there there that little amount there was enough to keep

the powder keg from unload because ever since we left afghanistan look what's been happening in the middle east the quasi war between yemen and the houthis and saudi arabia has gotten worse we obviously see what's been happening between gaza Israel now. Iran directly attacked Israel, which never happened before for Iran to directly attack from their soil to Israel. And you blame that on on leaving Afghanistan. Yes, because it was the open to permission structure of American weakness that was unnecessary. And it was how we left to how we left was extremely irresponsible. I think we could have left, but we left too quickly because as we were preparing to leave, the Taliban was advancing closer and closer to Kabul throughout the summer of 21.

All right. Well, I mean, listen, we we disagree on this, but I'm curious, are you saying just indefinite commitment of those 2000 troops in Afghanistan? No. I mean, 20 years is a long time. There would really be no end in sight if we say just keep them there. Right. And maybe that's OK with you. When he took them out, when he did was not the best time now i i get what you're saying it maybe what i'm saying more than anything is i wish it could have been a perfect scenario where we could have kept it there without a problem but i i getting them out also was because you make a good point we couldn't have stayed there for forever but we were still on the process of leaving, knowing that the Taliban was advancing. And now that and then now that we've left, whatever we have accomplished in those 20 years we were there has been thrown away.

I guess my question is exactly back to where we were with the Taliban in control. My question is, how much did we really accomplish in the last 18 of those 20 years? And that's a question probably probably for a different day. We've been speaking with Nathan Price. Really appreciate you telling your story. And let's see if we can work together to prevent Trump from getting another four years in the fall. I appreciate you talking to me. Whatever it takes. Thank you.

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That's H.E.N. S.O.N. Shaving dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Let's do some legal discussion, if you can call it that. Donald Trump, confused and disoriented, was bemoaning on truth social that he can't just strike an unlimited number of jurors that he doesn't like for whatever reason from jury selection in his criminal trials.

A reminder, the first of Donald Trump's four criminal trials started on Monday with jury selection. They were off yesterday. Jury selection resumes today. Reportedly, seven of the 12 jurors have been seated. Now they need to select five additional jurors and some number of alternates. I believe it may even be up to six alternates, 12 and six. And we will learn more about the outcome of that very, very soon. Now, we've already heard from some of the jurors that have been removed, including one young lady who was very much not a fan of Trump, but claimed that she could still be fair and objective. So Trump takes to Truth Social yesterday and he says, quote, I thought strikes were supposed to be unlimited when we were picking our jury. I was then told we only had 10, not nearly enough when we were purposely given the second worst

venue in the country. Don't worry. We have the first worst also. Some would just call it the worst, but I guess you could say the first worst as the witch hunt continues election interference. So a couple of different things. I assume by the worst venue, Trump means Washington, D.C., with the idea that Washington, D.C. is even more Democratic leaning than the New York City borough of Manhattan. Now, we've already talked about why the case is in Manhattan, and it's because that's where the alleged crimes took place and that's where it was investigated. So it would be normal that that's where you would ultimately have the trial. Now, of course, even with Manhattan being left leaning, there are still more than enough nonpolitical folks, centrists, right leaners, individuals who can be fair that you can find 12 jurors and six alternates.

But there's a couple of different things here that are sort of disturbing about Trump's confusion. Number one, it would make no sense for strikes to be unlimited in any criminal case because then you could just indefinitely delay the trial by striking jurors. Now it's important to mention that there are limited there's a limited number of preemptory strikes, which it's just we don't want this juror. We don't have to give a reason. We just this is somebody we don't want. There's a limited number. If you can make a good challenge for cause in addition to the preemptory strikes, if you can say this individual simply cannot carry out their job

fairly here, then that is a different case that you can make. And there's a bunch of strategy between jury selection. Many of the major trials bring in jury consultants who focus only on selecting jurors. And there is a question as to what does it mean to have a fair and appropriate jury? What is a jury of one's peers? Does Donald Trump even really have 12 peers plus six alternate peers anywhere? Never mind in Manhattan, given a lot of different things, including his role as former president of the United States. And you you in an ideal world, you would be judged by a jury that is in some ways at least representative of a cross section of society. As we get those, there have been some early declarations and reporting about the makeup of this jury.

But still, we don't know everything about it. I believe that I last heard there were two lawyers on the jury, for example. Many lawyers will say, I don't want lawyers on my juries, depending on the case and the facts. Sometimes lawyers will say it is actually to my advantage to have lawyers on the jury. So all of this stuff goes to strategy. But Trump's lawyers have known since the beginning that there would be 10 strikes. And Trump's seeming confusion about this raises questions about how much Trump understands about these proceedings, how much Trump's lawyers are telling Trump about the proceedings. And of course, even if Trump's lawyers are telling him about the proceedings, to what

degree is Trump listening to or even understanding them? So Trump confused about jury selection. Now let's hear a little bit from Trump's failed former lawyer, Lena Habba, continuing to spread distortions about due process and venue and so many other things. Alina Habba is not exactly a lawyer's lawyer. I was recently at a legal conference in Las Vegas and there were some attorneys there described as lawyers, lawyers who lawyer and try cases in a way that is interesting and impressive and to be studied by other lawyers. Alina Haba does not exactly meet that standard that I can tell you. And now as Donald Trump's former lawyer and his on air and media spokesperson

of sorts, she has been doing interview after interview to try to run PR interference for Trump during this jury selection process in his first of four criminal trials. She appeared on Newsmax yesterday and she says that the reason that this trial is being held in New York is by design for political reasons. I have to assume she knows this isn't true, but let's listen to what she had to say. We're in a blue state. That's all by design. Don't get it twisted, folks. They do this intentionally, just like they bringing the one in Washington, just like Georgia. They pick these states on purpose. Now, remember. Georgia is not exactly a rip in blue state.

It is basically a 50 50 state, which Biden barely won by 11000 votes in 2020. The reason that there is a trial in Georgia is that Trump Trump is accused of crimes in Georgia. The reason that there is a trial in Washington, D.C., is that we are talking about federal crimes investigated in D.C. That's the venue. So that's where they're going to try the case. And the reason that there is a trial in New York is that that is where Trump and Michael Cohen concocted this scheme of alleged election interference with the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. It took place in New York. And so that's why the trial is being held there. Alina Haba also commenting again on reports that Donald Trump fell asleep in court. Alina, Maggie Haberman was in the courtroom yesterday and a reporter from The New York Times.

And she claims that that Trump fell asleep. I mean, weigh in on this. Is she wrong? And she very adamantly believes he fell asleep and he says he didn't. What are you weighing on this, please? Having not been there, Alina, please give us your opinion. It's not there. I find that a remarkable story at best. President Trump, you know, he reads a lot. I don't know what he was doing. I wasn't there. There are no. She's already lying. Trump doesn't read you. She she doesn't really know what to say. But the idea that Trump reading a lot serves as some kind of pretext to argue that it's unlikely he fell asleep doesn't even make any passing sense cameras. I wish there were, but he's been

sitting there as he's forced to at the threat of going to jail if he's not sitting there for what I assume would be a very mundane day. They are going through jury selection. There were a tremendous amount of emotions being heard yesterday. But no, look, I wasn't there, so I can't comment on that. I find that to be a ridiculous thought, though. So she wasn't there, so she can't say for sure.

But it sounds unlikely Trump would sleep at trial because he reads a lot. It's not necessarily convincing me. And then lastly, again, another one of these non legal arguments that you could never get away with in court. Alina Haba saying this trial doesn't even make sense because there was no murder here. We're talking about accounting elements. There was no murder here. There was nothing. There was somebody in the accounting department at the Trump organization while the president

was sitting in the Oval Office that booked a legal issue as a legal issue in the accounting records. And now they're making a misdemeanor felony. What is the rush? Now, remember that if this can all be chalked up to a mistake, it would suggest it wasn't done deliberately, knowing exactly why this non-legal expense was booked as a legal expense. It was booked in this way to hide the fact that it was effectively a campaign contribution that was scrolled through Michael Cohen in order to prevent Stormy Daniels from talking and potentially messing up Trump's election to the presidency, which by the way, if it hadn't

happened, we would still have Roe v. Wade. None of these are legal arguments. It's it's there's a reason why they are being made on TV rather than in court and failed former Trump lawyer Alina Haba showing us why she is a failed former lawyer. We have a voicemail line. You can call it any time of day. That number is two one nine two. David P. Here's a very, very good comment about modern conservatism.

Take a listen. Yes, David. Very, very good comment about modern conservatism. Take a listen. Yes, David. Notice you like a lot of people keep referring to the radical white as conservative. You know, the terms of mutually exclusive, I believe these radicals cannot be conservative. You should stop calling them that or anything. But thank you. Have a good day.

This is Jameson Spokane, by the way. This is a very good point. And just to be just in a little bit of my defense, I actually don't remember continuing to call or calling the modern MAGA right conservative. I've pointed out there's really nothing conservative about them. But the point James makes is a very good one. You don't have to like actual conservatives or agree with actual conservatives to recognize that there are very, very different thing politically than modern MAGA Trump Republicans. Think, for example, about all of

the non conservative aspects to MAGA Trumpism, a total disregard for Democratic norms. That is something that historically conservatives actually supported a support, an open support for authoritarianism. There is a long history of American conservatism not supporting authoritarianism. They may support lots of stuff we disagree with, but not the overt dictatorial authoritarianism. Protectionism is something that traditional conservatism tended not to support. And the tariff and trade regulations of Trumpism are very much not conservative. The populist rhetoric that Trump and his acolytes have used to try to indoctrinate and sucker in cult members, not a normal feature of traditional conservatism.

And then the extreme conspiracy theorizing. Yes, there have been some conspiracy theories among the more traditional American right wing over the last 50 years, and there have been some on the left. But the level of conspiracy theorizing that we currently see among the MAGA Trump is right is not conservative. And then you can also say, well, what traditional conservative principles are missing from MAGA Trump ism? And there are many.

I'm going to call it fiscal responsibility, so-called fiscal responsibility. I know that they often didn't adhere to it, but that the idea of even claiming to subscribe to fiscal conservatism is gone from MAGA Trumpism, a respect for the rule of law, period, not only when it's convenient. A conservative principle, whether they adhere to it is a different question. Gone from MAGA Trump ism. Respect for traditional institutions gone. Let's get rid of the FBI. Let's get rid of the IRS.

Let's get rid of the Department of Education and Commerce and all of these things. No more respect for traditional institutions and a respect for international alliances and keeping to our word, something that used to be a stated principle of conservatism. Gone. Paris Climate Agreement. Let's get out the Iran nuclear deal, even though Iran has been abiding by it. Let's get out NATO. Let's not do what we're supposed to be doing.

Let's get out. Let's demand other things from people. That's gone. That conservative principle is completely and totally gone. So it's not about arguing that the previous conservatives were great. It's about recognizing that there is really nothing conservative left about what we are seeing right now from MAGA Trumpism. Excellent voicemail. All right. On the bonus show today, the Supreme Court has effectively abolished the right to mass protest in three states. I'll tell you which three states and we will discuss it. Number two, a number of Democratic Senate candidates are out fundraising their Republican

opponents. It's not just Biden out raising Trump. It's happening down ballot. What is it portend for what's to take place in November? And the next level of deep fakes is now here. Real time deep fake romance scams are here. How to avoid falling for them. There's one surefire way, but we'll get to that.

All of those stories and more on today's bonus show, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. I implore you to grab a membership at join Pacman dot com. We're trying to grow our support from zero point five percent to one percent of our audience. Help us get there. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. Use the coupon code. Save democracy 24 if you would like to thank your lucky stars every day. You're not Dave Pacman dot com. Use the coupon code Save Democracy 24 if you would like to. Thank your lucky stars every day. You're not Dave Pacman. And take Alex Jones advice. Thank your lucky stars every day. You're not Dave Pacman. We'll see you on the bonus show. And I'll be back tomorrow with a Friday show.