The David Pakman Show - 4/3/24: RFK's strange path to victory, another admission of no Biden crime

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Rachel Bitecofer, political strategist and author of the new book "Hit 'Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game," joins David to discuss the state of Trump vs Biden 2024, the claims of a racial realignment, whether we should be panicking about polling, and more. Get her book: https://amzn.to/3TXX4Gp -- Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s absurd path to the presidency includes winning California, a state on which he is not even on the ballot -- Republican Congressman Don Bacon admits that there is neither a crime, nor a "high crime or misdemeanor" that can be connected to President Joe Biden to justify impeachment nor criminal charges -- Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace continues to tell corrosive lies about crime in the United States which are completely at odds with all of the facts and data -- Bret Weinstein stuns his own wife and podcast co-host, Heather Heying, into silence, with the abrupt claim that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is "gay" -- Michigan Republican Congressman Tim Walberg suggests nuking Gaza, reminding us of the stark contrast between President Joe Biden's position on the conflict and that of MAGA and Republicans -- Republican Congressman Mike Turner completely humiliates himself when asked about Donald Trump selling Bibles for $60, opting to instead talk about Easter eggs -- Voicemail caller asks David how likely a civil war is if Trump wins, or if Trump loses, in 2024 -- On the Bonus Show: iHeartMedia helping Ted Cruz campaign, conservatives targeting no-fault divorce, and much more... 🧦 Strideline: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off at https://strideline.com 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code PAKMAN for FREE blades at https://hensonshaving.com/pakman 🩳SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Speaker 1 I want to start today with a wild new statement from independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., candidate for the presidency of what is his mathematical path to becoming president of the United States? Many of you already know that there is no such path, but at least theoretically, what is his path? And I want you to really think about the unserious nature of what we're going to start with today. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on television and explained, even though he's not even on the ballot in California yet.

OK, it's April. He's not even on the ballot in California. He believes he's going to win California outright as well as it's a full slate of electoral votes. I believe it's fifty five. And this is going to serve. This is a joke, but this is going to serve to illuminate that the best case scenario for RFK having an impact is that he helps Donald Trump become president of the United States. The worst case, it's just a total humiliation and he accomplishes nothing. He's not going to win a single state.

Best case and really best if you're him, I guess, and you want to have some kind of importance, but it's really the worst case for the country. He helps elect Donald Trump. So listen to this. Really listen carefully to what he's saying. And then we're going to look at some of the numbers. Assume you're confident that you will end up on the California ballot right now. You're not on the California ballot.

I also assume you will need all of the state's 55 electoral votes in order to win the presidency. I could. Yeah, mathematically, I could do that. But we intend to win California. But we're you know, we're doing something a little different. Remember, we intend to win California. You know, we're doing something a little different. Remember, we intend to win California. There are six states where we've started our own party, because as it turns out, if you do that, you need fewer signatures. So if we do it the regular way, we need 245,000 signatures. But by starting our own party, which is We the people party, we only need 75000 people

to switch their registration from Democrats. We the people are Republican. Are we the people? I think we have about 15000 now and we have till I think the end of May to get them. So we're very confident that we'll get on here. We're not on the ballot. We're doing different things in different places. In some states, I'm part of a party. In some states, I'm completely independent. I don't remember the exact vote signature thresholds, voter signature thresholds. But our path is that

I'm going to be the next president of the United States. Now, I am for involving third parties. I think we need campaign finance reform. I think we need to set limits under the duration of the election. I want a single transferable voter rank choice voting system that's going to make it so that you can vote third parties confidently without worrying that you're actually going to help the worst. Can I want all of those things? It's April of twenty twenty four. It's going to be Biden or Trump.

And Robert F. Kennedy is helping Trump. That's it's just like that. Now, just to be thorough here in terms of how outrageous this is, let's start with California. We have polling from California. Biden is winning California by as much as 19, even with RFK in the poll. Like for example, if we take it, take a look at this Emerson poll. This is the most recent Emerson poll that we have. It's Biden, 51, Trump, 32, Kennedy, six.

Kennedy, as he has explained, needs 34 to win. You can have a scenario where it's Kennedy, 34, Biden, 33, Trump, 33. That's he's explained that that's the lowest threshold with which he could win. So in order to get from six to thirty four, because remember, Biden's already got fifty one in California. That's where he's polling. Trump's at thirty two in California. Kennedy six for Kennedy to go from six to thirty four. He needs to take twenty three points from Joe Biden. That's almost half of Biden's support. How can a single person in the audience explain to me or please explain to me how RFK isn't even on the ballot? It's already April. He's not even on the ballot. And he's going to win California

by taking almost half of the current Joe Biden supporters. It's just demented. It doesn't make any sense. He's only on the ballot in Utah. He reportedly has the signatures to qualify in Nevada, Hawaii and New Hampshire. So let's just take New Hampshire, for example, like just to be a little more reasonable, if he does have the votes to get on, this is now New Hampshire polling. If RFK really does have the votes to get on the ballot in New Hampshire right now in the recent Marist College poll that has Kennedy, it's Biden 44, Trump 41, Kennedy 12. So this is like a little more reasonable. California is just it's impossible. This is a little more reasonable under RFK's explanation. He needs to get to 34. He's at 12. He needs to get to 34.

That means he needs to pick up 22 points so he could take 11 points from Biden and 11 points from Trump to get to 34. It's very difficult to to imagine he would he would even do that. But at least there is a path. Right. He still needs to take a quarter of Joe Biden's support and almost a third of Trump's support. And this is a state where it's less insane. The California story is just totally delusional. So my prediction is RFK doesn't win a single state, but he might just take enough of the Biden vote to flip a couple of states to Trump and make Trump the next president of the United States. If you're comfortable writing him in or whatever and toying with that possibility, then you

have a different moral and ethical code than I have. And that I mean, people have different moral and ethical codes. I can't knowingly take any action, any action that makes it more likely Trump gets four more years. So I'm voting for Joe Biden. Not perfect, but a very solid presidency with a very solid economy and dozens of important accomplishments. That's what I'm doing. Your moral code is different. Your ethical code is different. You may make a different choice. Republican Don Bacon is admitting there's no evidence that Joe Biden committed any high crime or misdemeanor. It doesn't make any sense for criminal charges. It doesn't make any sense for impeachment. The dominoes are now starting to fall and whether they will eventually all publicly say we're not

going to impeach the guy. I don't know. In fundraising communications, some Republicans are already admitting they're not going to impeach Joe Biden. But we'll talk about that in a moment. Over the weekend, this is Republican Congressman Don Bacon joining NBC News's Kristen Welker and saying, I said I would look at this to impeach. You need a high crime or misdemeanor. We don't have any high crime or misdemeanor. Good for him for being honest, at least. Take a listen. Bunch more to get to. So let me turn to impeachment. You said back in December, quote, once we realize there's not a high crime or misdemeanor, we should move on. Has that moment come in your view? Well, right now, the lawyers in the committee that I talk to say there's not a specific

crime. And you need that for a high crime or misdemeanor. Now, now, by the way, it's funny that he needed to talk to lawyers to figure that out, because even when you ask those who are convinced there's crimes, even they can't tell you what crimes were committed. So it's funny. I'll I'll check with a lawyer, but I don't even hear from my colleagues what the crimes are that have been committed.

I think the investigation was, it merited an investigation, put the facts out, let the public look at it, make a determination. And I think it's, it's good to be transparent, especially we're in election year. So let's put the facts on the table. But when I talked to the lawyers on the committee staff, they say they're at election year so let's put the facts on the table but when i talk to the lawyers on the committee staff they say they're at this point there's not a specific crime that's been committed so is it time to drop it is it debate i got it based on what you're saying is it time to drop it i don't know if it's times right now but i do think we're probably nearing the conclusion of this investigation yeah and i think it was important for the American people to see that, yes, there was $24 million

in foreign money that the family raised and all the L.C.'s that the money was moved around in putting LLC. I like that. Not hidden. L.C.'s. Listen, it's when when you are told there isn't a specific crime, you don't really need the word specific, right? It's like there's a broad crime.

There's a broad crime we can't quite name. And that's not anywhere in the criminal code. It's a it's a general crime. Well, but you have a specific crime. No, no, no. It's not a specific crime. It's just like a general. It's overarching crime.

He could just as well have said the lawyers have told me there is no crime, no specific crime. There is no crime, no specific crime. There is no crime. It's been 14, 15, 16 months of this investigation formally and years informally. And what this investigation seems to have accomplished is to completely clear Joe Biden 40 years in public service, supposedly some kind of mafia boss style leader, while at the same time being so demented, he doesn't know what day it is and they can't find a

single specific or general crime. When will it publicly end? I think we all know the answer. It won't publicly and officially end until after the election. But if you look at what they're saying in fundraising emails, you know, they know it's over. James Comer, we talked about this before. James Comer, who runs these investigations, runs some of the committees, publicly says

we've got bribery, we've got this, we've got that in private fundraising emails. He's already saying the impeachment is not going to work. Even if we impeach Biden, Democrats in the Senate won't convict. Let's do criminal referrals. Send me some money to make sure I get reelected and I can make that happen in the next presidential term. So in private, they may have known from the beginning there was nothing here. They certainly know it now. They're starting to admit it to their donors publicly. Don Bacon still says, well, I don't know about ending it, but we're certainly not finding any crime. So we will just

wait and see. It's starting now as we get closer to the summer and closer to the conventions. It's starting to become the sort of thing that could start turning voters off because it's so brazenly brazenly transparent and overtly political with zero substance whatsoever. It may start hurting Republicans. That's the one thing that could get them to publicly say it's over. Now we're going to get focused on fixing the economy, which is doing quite well, fixing crime, which is down, you know, fabricating other issues rather than Biden's a criminal.

We'll watch it closely. We'll take a break. And speaking of crime, we'll talk about that next. I often struggle to find a good pair of socks that fits right and is comfortable. Our sponsor, Strideline, have developed the most comfortable socks on Earth. They have it trademarked. And it's true. They really are that comfortable. I love my stride line socks. Stride line has spent years developing extraordinarily comfortable, functional socks that you just have to try to understand. Every stride line sock gives you zoned cushioning, direct compression with a contour fit and hydrophobic moisture wicking to prevent the rubbing and the smells. Stride Line is also officially a partner of the NFL, MLB, NCAA and Major League Soccer.

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They will be going up slightly when the new website launches. But you can lock in today's rates with a discount by signing up at join pacman dot com and using the code save democracy 24. I'm going to play a very short clip for you of Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace, I believe, setting a record for lies per second about crime in the United States. As I'm sure my viewers by now must know, because we've covered it so many times, crime is down in the United States, as I'm sure my viewers by now must know, because we've covered it so many times. Crime is down in the United States.

The murder rate is down. The violent crime rate is down. Hate crimes against Jews and Muslims are up. That's true. But that's mostly perpetrated by the right, even though it's the right who's claiming, oh, these that democratically run cities. So we're going to play for you all that Republicans have left. They've lost on economics. They have nothing to offer on foreign policy. They're persecuting Joe Biden, despite Biden clearly having committed no crimes.

They don't have anything. So they yell about the border and they yell about crime being up. Try to find anything that's true that Nancy Mays says in this video. You're seeing since Joe Biden took office, crime skyrocket all around the country and especially in big cities. You see illegal immigrants coming in, beating up our cops and being taken out without without bail, let out of jail without bail, giving the middle finger to America and our men and women in blue and in uniform. You're seeing crime skyrocket. You're seeing fentanyl cases skyrocket.

We're letting China, we're literally allowing China to import deadly drugs like fentanyl into this country, and it's killing our children and killing our citizens. We're allowing Joe Biden to to have the cartel seek drugs into the country, smuggle people into the country illegally. Like, it's just OK to do that under Joe Biden. It's not OK. We're a nation of laws. We should follow them. All right. None of that is OK. We're a nation of laws and we should follow them. I guess that's true, even though so many people like Trump and his cronies get to break the law all the time and so far no consequences. Everything there is a lie. Now, before we get into the substance, there was one point where there was a Twitter or

X community note saying, hey, this isn't true. What Nancy Mace is saying, crime is actually down in the United States. Suspiciously, that community note was quietly removed. So even on X, it was correcting her lies. And all of a sudden that community note was quietly removed. So even on X, it was correcting her lies. And all of a sudden that community note is gone. Now, let's go through a couple of these different things. Crime is not up. Crime is down. We've reported on it extensively. NPR violent crime is dropping fast in the US, even if Americans don't believe it. Remember, facts don't care about your feelings. The facts are all sorts of crimes are down. They are down in all different

parts of the country. Now, anecdotally, can you find some type of crime that in some part of the country is up over some particular period of time? Sure. But the trend for decades in the United States has been violent crime is down. Property crime is down. Murder is down. All of that is down, down, down. Secondly, she makes other assertions, including, for example, that immigrant crime is way up and immigrants are committing all sorts of crimes. The implication always is immigrants commit more crime than natural born citizens. Undocumented immigrants commit more crime than natural born citizens. Neither of those claims is true.

And it's obvious why there is some degree to which there is an entitlement and a security that natural born citizens feel that both legal and illegal immigrants do not. If you know you're here in the country illegally, you're incentivized to stay off the radar of law enforcement because you know that if you have any violation, you get a speeding ticket, you steal a candy bar, whatever the case may be. It's possible. It depends on where you are and what the rules are on. Show us your papers. But it's possible that some tiny infraction jaywalking will lead to the discovery that you're in the country illegally and possibly deportation. So we know

that both documented and undocumented immigrants commit crime at lower rates than natural born citizens. If you really want to reduce the crime rate, start deporting natural born citizens. That's the statistical reality. And thirdly, Nancy Mace claims you can you're just allowed to do whatever you want. China now is allowed to bring in fentanyl or fentanyl, as they often call it. That's not true. China's not allowed to bring anything in. Of course, there is fentanyl, as they often call it. That's not true. China is not allowed to bring anything in.

Of course, there is fentanyl being brought in. There's also precursor chemicals that are being flown in. It's not coming across the border. Precursor chemicals are flown in and then the fentanyl is manufactured here in the United States. Talking about the border doesn't really do anything about that. There's all sorts of other realities when it comes to fentanyl. And then lastly,

of course, the idea that the border is open and everything's allowed under Joe Biden. It's these are all complete and total lies. There's a couple of different problems here. Number one, Republicans keep telling these lies and many of their followers fall for them. Number two, many of the platforms and media outlets, Twitter being a great example, they aren't doing a good enough job of flagging that these are lies. There was briefly a community note, which is like a Twitter fact check that shows up saying crime is down and it's gone. I don't have an explanation as to why it's gone on these Nancy Mace videos, but it is

gone. We can speculate. I ultimately don't know the answer, but crime is down. And again, remember, because crime is down, because the economy is doing pretty well, because Joe Biden has done some great things on infrastructure and lead pipes and water quality and negotiating insulin and inhaler rates and all these different things. All they have is lies. The border under Biden's wide open crime is up under Biden.

The economy is terrible. So on and so forth. None of those things are true. You can like the guy or not Biden. You can think he's done enough or not Biden, but they have only lies with which to attack him. And that really tells us a lot. Hey, this is just bizarre. Brett Weinstein of the Dark Horse podcast and owner of other such wild claims as 17 million people have died from the covid vaccine, which I will clarify, there is no evidence that that is true. He stunned his own wife and co-host into silence by wildly claiming out of nowhere that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is gay. That I I know it's what? And even his wife was so taken aback that she was she was stunned into silence.

I'm sort of stunned into silence myself, to be honest, because it is so sad. I some people kind of lazily say covid broke some people's brains. But whatever you think about Brett's views on covid and vaccines and whatever, there's not necessarily a functional connection between beliefs about covid and just blurting out Trudeau is gay. It's just all so strange. So let's take a look at this. And I don't know.

I'm going to get I know I should just play the clip, but let me give a disclaimer. OK, a pre disclaimer. I don't know if the defenders of Brett are going to write to me and say, David, what Brett's saying is actually brilliant. It's actually some kind of satire. It's a high minded joke that I just don't have the intellectual or cognitive capacity to understand. Maybe you're right.

Maybe this is simply too high brow of a joke for me to understand. But it appears his wife also didn't realize it was a joke, if indeed it is, because she was stunned into silence. Look at this and see if anybody can explain it to me. So the bigger point that we are seeing female strategies being deployed across a number of domains. And if you just if you try it out as like as as men pronounce it, that's like what do you get? Trudeau. I mean, like this, this is what it's it's pathetic. And I guess the context here is they're talking about some kind of alleged feminization of

liberal men or something. It's always hard to know exactly what the topics are here. And and it's not masculine. It's not. And it's not. It's not what women like. There is a wrongheaded belief. Yeah, he got by because he was pretty for a little while.

Right. He's also gay trudeau yeah this is now officially known but um but anyway care no but but the point is to the extent that there is a false story divorced yeah okay um to the extent i guess the argument is the real reason Trudeau is getting a divorce is not because of conflict with his ex-wife or whatever. It's because he's secretly a gay man. Listen, that does exist. It does exist that sometimes there are men who are in heterosexual marriages and it turns

out that they're gay and there's a divorce because they are gay and they're going to go and be with men. I scoured the Internet and found nothing other than than conspiratorial musings about this and just stunning, stunning his own wife into silence. What are you talking about? Trudeau is gay. So listen, I I want to know more about this. If someone can explain to me what I'm missing, because it's if you had told me five years ago, hey, David, on his podcast, Brett Weinstein is just going to randomly and wildly accuse the Canadian prime minister of being feminized and gay. Absent any evidence, I would say that's nothing that I would expect from Brett Weinstein. That just doesn't make any sense. He would never do that. Look, look at his body of work at this

point. And I want to remind everybody the initial way in which Brett came to public knowledge, knowledge of him went went public was when he was teaching at Evergreen State. And there was this day on which white people were told not to come to campus as part of some kind of anti-racist event. He rightly spoke out about it. By the way, it ignores the fact that as a Jewish man in in many in many circles, Brett's not even white. He's actually part of an even smaller minority group than many of the minority groups that were discriminated against white people on that day. He had a really good and substantive critique and complaint of what was going on there and

the kind of backwards nature of some of these anti racist activities gone too far. And what's happened now? I mean, Trudeau is gay. What? What? What are you talking about? It's a sad state of affairs. I'd love to know more about what went on here. And again, if I'm just missing the genius or satire weather, as many of the guys know, is the sweating and the sticking that comes with traditional underwear. It's not pleasant. But our sponsor, Sheath, designs ergonomic underwear. They've solved the problem.

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Once and for all, put an end to the back to the 20 percent. The info is in the podcast notes. It's great to welcome back to the program today. Rachel Biddecoffer, political strategist and author of the new book, Hit Him Where It Hurts, How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game. So, Rachel, last time you were on, you said something that my audience continually reminds me of and says you have to get an update from Rachel about this. So let me lay it says, you have to get an update from Rachel about this. So let me lay it out for you and we'll pick it up. When we last spoke, I think it was maybe over the summer or so. And I told you I'm looking at the polling nationally. It's concerning me to some degree. You said it's too early until Labor Day. People aren't really paying attention.

We've got to wait until early in the actual election year, etc. And now maybe polls are looking marginally better for Joe Biden. But it's not exactly a party that you look at these polls and you say this looks fantastic for Joe Biden. A lot of the vote is out there, at least theoretically, for third party candidates who may or may not end up influencing this election, depending on whether they are or aren't on the ballot. I mean, listen, I don't look at it and think this looks awesome. Is it time to worry, I guess, is the question.

Oh, God, no. I mean, you just said it yourself. You said last summer and I think it was actually a little bit later than that for the book. But anyway, you said last summer you told me, oh, it's too early. People won't even start to tune into Labor Day. Right now you're here. Here you are in March. You're like still in this mode that like the campaign's winding down.

And I did a show last week. The host started off the same way. And they said, you know, now that coming in their intro, now that we're coming into the final stretch of 2004. And I was like, whoa, whoa. Oh, wait a second. Let me clarify. You said people would pay attention.

Labor Oh, and we just lost my camera that you see me on. But that's OK. You were saying Labor Day of twenty three is when folks really would start. No, no, no. Wait, did you mean twenty four? Yes. For the presidential election. Right. Yes, please. everyone who's hearing my voice,

please read my book. Oh, my goodness. It's not because I make sales. I want to make people understand how atypically weird you are. If you are David Pakman or Rachel Bitticoffer or an audience member of one of us or both, we are not normal human beings, okay? The election, for the intents and purposes of your average voter, will not and has not started yet. It will not start until late summer. It's going to start a little earlier this year because we have both nominees. Both are incumbent, basically, nominees. And we're going to end up having a very long general election. So I think we're going to start to see these effects coming in in the summertime. But folks, normal human beings do not they don't follow any news or politics at all. And the election is definitely not coming down to the stretch for them.

It hasn't even gotten on their radar. It won't for months. OK, let me put put forward a counterpoint and tell me how you would react if we look historically at polling in April of an election year and then compare it to what happens in November. It's often pretty accurate. So therefore, wouldn't it be logical to think that what we're seeing in the polling today will reflect November? I don't know.

I mean, in 2016, if you looked at polling from April, and Clinton's going to win in a landslide. Okay, so there's a counterpoint. Yeah, no, listen, guys. I mean, this is coming from well-researched political science knowledge from my PhD. I am here to tell you about 15% of our compatriots watch news okay it's actually 38 but that other half is watching fake news they're watching fox news okay so about half of the 38 percent of americans that still bother to watch any news about half of them belong to maga's cult okay and then that leaves about 15 for us you can't react to what you don't know about. We've been following all four years of Biden's administration and Trump's

criminal process. No one else has, okay? But Biden has been in the news. Trump has been disappeared in the minds of these tuned out people. And he's only now starting to re emerge as a thing. And now that camera is turning to him and people are not liking what they see. So the reason that some of us, you know, the people who really, I don't know what's going on Nate Silver. Nate Silver knows damn well that these early polls aren't predictive. And the reason you guys can tell that for a hundred percent sure is the 538 model is very polls-based. That's why it doesn't really predict very far out. It can predict next week well, but not four months out. And he can't even put the model out, okay? He can't put the model out till August, guys, okay? Because it's

so loud in the polling data. So yes, I understand that people had a very dispiriting 2023, especially within the progressive community, because the grass is always greener on the other side. But now we have almost 100 and after tonight going to have 150 million dollar war chest. Biden has a mask to take on Trump with a new nominee. None of that. It was 150 million million trying to win the nomination and that would have divided our base and people would be mad right now because their guy Buttigieg didn't win. And it was, imagine the black community if Harris didn't win. inform lay people that listen to this show aren't able or positioned to understand how important those assets are. And to answer your question, if we're in August and September and Biden's still down in polling, now keep in mind, you're going to look at all the polling. I'm going to look for likely voters and I'm going to look for weighting and modeling because right now we're

seeing massive weighting and modeling effects down in the crosstabular data that's producing crosstabs that kind of defy credulity, especially when you have an election like we had last night or two nights ago in Alabama, where we took a swing race in Alabama and won it by like double digits. Okay. So it really doesn't when, when, when like me and the polling, like the real polling people, the people who are in APO are and have to adhere to really high stringent standards. We'll tell you if I crunched a survey when I was a pollster, when I crunched a survey and I waited it and modeled and did all my shit. Oh, sorry. Can we edit that out? We'll cut that out. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. When I was a pollster,

when I waited and modeled my surveys, the very first thing I looked for were my crosstabs to see do my crosstabs look weird? Because if they do, that's suggestive that I've waited and modeled in a way that's distorting the top line. So let me just make sure people understand what we mean. There are some polls where you look at the crosstabs and they suggest a 40 point shift in black support for Trump. It doesn't pass the sniff test and therefore it should make us question the results. Is that that's what exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, there are some patterns that are so, so strong in data that you're not. And there's just no way that you're going to see an instant disruption. And we do have a racial realignment going on. It's not a racial realignment. It's actually a education dealignment. They started with white, non-college educated voters, and now they're grievance policing, politics in a way non-college. Everybody is non-college educated, regardless of race. So the point is this, guys, I'm an expert pollster. I put out a forecast or not a forecast, but an analysis in December to try to get folks to understand we can't use any of this polling

data. It could be right. It could be wrong. It doesn't matter. It's too far out for us to rely on. And then even when we do get into the summer, the work that I'll be doing with campaigns and clients and myself, I won't be looking at every poll. I'll be looking at good polls that are done with a very likely voter, not registered voters, very likely voters. And I'll be looking for methodological cleanness. Right. And, you know, at the end of the day, in September, Biden's still pulling significantly down in battleground states. Then you can get concerned. But I don't think you should have any reason to fear. In fact, there's a lot of signs that we're starting to get people as they're tuning in. We're starting to see Biden's performance increase. All right. So let me ask about a couple of specific things. We are seeing a story about cognitive decline that goes both ways, depending on who you

talk to. On the one hand, we have Trump making gaffe after gaffe, unable to speak at many rallies, confusing who's president, confusing who Biden defeated last time he ran, confusing which would be the next world war, confusing who was in charge of security on January 6th. OK, there's all of that stuff. We also have those who say, look at Biden. He looks frail. He looks forgetful.

He sometimes stutters. I've interviewed a couple of experts on this. They seem very concerned about what's happening with Trump, and they believe that what Biden is experiencing is sort of like predictable age related stuff, but not the cognitive decline that's being attached to him by some. Maybe you have an opinion on this. Maybe you don't. But from a strategy perspective, is any of this going to be salient with voters as we get closer to November in terms of who believes which candidate is most compromised cognitively? Yeah. Let me be clear with folks. It's not that you came to this opinion that Biden has senality issues on your own. This was part of a strike on my what I would

do on the other side, which is a good thing. I'm not evil, folks, because what I would do on the other side is the same thing that they did. Now, going into 2020, you guys might remember such myths as Biden's actually dead. They're just propping him up in the basement. And as soon as he's inaugurated, Kamala Harris is going to take over and you're going to have a female black president, right? And like they were convinced he'd be dead by June, remember? So like they had kind of built that infrastructure because folks, Biden was old when he ran the first time in 2020. Okay. It's not newly a thing. And what they've been doing since then is flooding the digital space because they're

very good at, if you read my book, you'll understand this better. They're very good at setting narratives and they have done such an effective job on the narrative setting about Biden's mental acumen that going into that state of the union where he really showed everybody wrong yep it was about a 20 point gap voters are more likely to describe biden's brain as as as flawed than trump okay and so what i've been telling everybody is look you've got to get trump's stuff out there we have to stop it comes it's such a flood that you a flood that our tendency has been to tune it all out and not report even the most outlandish stuff. We've got to stop that. Because if we want people to know that Donald Trump is a dangerous threat whose brain is mush, we have to tell them.

So how much we can... That's a negative that Biden has. It's baked in. They did the work for a year out. We did nothing in response until lately. That's not, I don't think we can whittle away with that much, though. I think you're going to start to see the reality of Biden as he's getting covered for campaign stuff, start to, you know, appease some of those concerns. And the State of the Union should have left no doubt as to Joe Biden's competence. But we're going to start to see that, I think, a little bit narrow. But at the end of the day, I think that, you know, it's a classic example of what happens when we sleep and they and they're busy working hard on narrative setting.

All right. So that's that narrative. Let's now talk a little bit about third party. So there are polls where Robert F. Kennedy is polling three and there are polls where Robert F. Kennedy is polling 16. You would know better than I which of these are quality and which are not. And we can we can deal with that in a moment. Increasingly, there was some question at one point about whether Biden or Trump are more hurt by Robert F. Kennedy. On the one hand, historically, a Democrat from a Democratic family, on the other hand,

appealing significantly to anti-vaxxers and elements of the right wing. So we didn't know. It's sort of seeming to me like it probably hurts Biden a little bit more than it hurts Trump. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I mean, I would expect any third party candidate on the ticket who gives a voter an out from voting for Trump that isn't a vote for Biden is bad for us. OK, given that you look at some polls and you add up the Biden and the Trump part and you get 82. Right. So there's 18

that are not there. Sometimes they specifically say, I like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Sometimes they don't. It's not clear at this point which ballots RFK Jr. is going to be on. So in some places, his name may be on the ballot and other places it may be. Well, I've got to write him in or maybe I expect him to be there. I show up and his name's not there. So then I pick between Trump and Biden. What are they going to be the dynamics of that and how might we assess the real share of the vote he could come away with? For me, the third party problem really is just assess the real share of the vote he could come away with? For me, the third party problem really is just a problem of the of the swing states. I don't give two hoots about fixing opinion in California. Right. But where it can make a difference is

in the margins. And as I I'm my first book was on the presidential election of 2016 and quite a bit of diagnostic about the third party defection. It was a clear sign that that defection was going to be a big issue because of the Bernie Sanders disaffection. And it had absolutely it absolutely elected Donald Trump the first time in Wisconsin, where traditionally you see about a 1% wasted vote. And that's what I call it, a wasted vote. It was 6% in 2016. So Donald Trump won Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, all three of them, just with a plurality. And that's because Clinton couldn't quite match him because she lost so much to that third party bucket, right? So third party voting is never good for Democrats. It's certainly not good this cycle because if we lose, we're talking about an immediate transition

into autocracy coming from Donald Trump. So the problems that people have today will seem very quaint in November of 2025, by November of 2025, if Donald Trump wins. So I'm really focused on who's gonna be on the ballot and what swing state. And those are where I'd be focusing my energy on. So now let's talk about the strategy. I continue to think, you know, we I talk to Trump people.

Our correspondents talk to Trump people. Sometimes you get them to change their minds. You know, Republicans formerly for Donald Trump or whatever, putting out interesting profiles of people who used to support Trump and no longer do. But that seems really like retail strategy. You have to spend hours or days with people to get them to sometimes reconsider. It seems to me easier to find the 40 percent of the electorate that doesn't vote. Focus on the people that are already sort of on our side and explain to them the importance

of getting out to vote. Do you agree that that's a more effective strategy, a better use of time? And how do you motivate those folks to get out and vote and about the importance of voting? So, David, the hypothetical that you pose a Trump person, a person that likes Donald Trump, is voting for, you know, Republicans and likes Trump and doesn't see any issues with the you know, there wasn't an insurrection that that person, there'd be zero utility in trying to convince them to vote not for Trump. But there's another part of that.

And that's about, you know, we could think that his 60 million votes in 2020, it's about half, maybe 60% of that coalition, maybe 70. But there's another 30% of that republican coalition that's voting for trump because of brand loyalty to the republican brand and it's a very imagistic like loyalty it's you know when i think of republicans i think limited government good on the economy low taxes those are the people there's utility to focus on and the reason, is I've alluded once already to the realignment or de-alignment of non-college educated voters, first whites, and now everybody to the right as they've been hit with this propaganda grievance strategy. Okay. But there's a second realignment

as a product of the first, as they did the stuff that did that, that made non-college people who don't have the education to ward off the effects of propaganda. As they were doing that, it caused a problem in the burbs for them. Smart, college educated, traditional suburbanite Republicans didn't like it. And you start to see them leave the party really even before Trump, but it escalates quite a bit with him and his nomination. And there's still a lot of those folks out there. So like my work as a strategist is getting campaigns to focus on that bucket and break their brand loyalty, because it's not about selling a candidate or a guy.

You have to get them to feel like the brand of voting for Republican is bad and they are embarrassed to do it, right? So there's utility there. But at the same time, as I point out in the book in which people, it's not just you, lots of people are still like, they're very resistant. Like they don't seem to be able to make this pivot. The most important thing in the book is this. No one is like us. No one knows any of the news that you know. They don't have any idea. They know there's a separation of powers, doesn't have nothing else. They know who the president is. They probably maybe know who the governor of their state is. Maybe. Definitely nobody else, though.

Like, it's so hard for us to accept that that is 90% of everybody else, okay? Right. And if we don't accept it, it's a big bad thing because what we're looking at is, oh, white, you know, all this stuff, all this stuff has happened with Trump and yet nobody cares, nobody, it doesn't seem to change Americans' mind. You cannot respond to something,

a stimulus you never see, okay? And because these folks are never seeing news and information it becomes beholden to us to go and find the tuned out right and especially the tuned out people who are busy enjoying freedom because you know they don't know it you don't know it's at the cost and it will take time to degrade but right now we're the freest americans that have ever existed especially if you're not a white male. We have more freedom than we've ever had, but it's also very fresh and on the chopping block of the opposition. And we, no one knows that. So like, if we are going to reach out to those non-voters, this is because they got suddenly

interested in climate policy. No. Okay. because they got suddenly interested in climate policy. No. OK, no. They're interested in a good time and freedom and not being involved in politics. So you have to convince them that there is a stake, that there is there is a personal threat heading to them that they should pay attention to, register to vote and stop. All right. Dr. Rachel Biddecoffer, political strategist, author of the new book, Hit Him Where It Hurts, How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game. Rachel, always appreciate your insights. Thanks for having me again.

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It's not just your name, phone number and email. It can include addresses, Internet browsing history, and anyone can access it. Scammers, stalkers, your ex, your employer, even the government, NSA, FBI who buy data in bulk and can keep tabs on the websites that people visit. I can tell you it's liberating not getting so many random calls and messages anymore and knowing the government and potentially wacky people no longer have access to my sensitive data. My audience gets 60 percent off. Go to Incogni dot com slash Pacman. Use the code Pacman. That's I N C O G N I dot com slash Pacman gets 60 percent off with code Pacman. The info is in the podcast notes. Michigan Congressman Tim Walberg is a Christian pastor.

He's a so-called good Christian, and he has a solution for what's going on in Gaza. Drop nuclear weapons. Talking about Hiroshima and Nagasaki during a sort of voter town hall sort of event. Take a look at this. We're going to look at the video in a moment. And this is just a reminder of the competing visions. And it's sort of like a if you don't like the Biden approach on Israel, Gaza, then I have a little secret to tell you about the MAGA approach on Israel and Gaza.

And we'll get to that in a moment. The Detroit News reports Michigan Republican congressman suggests nuking Gaza and ending humanitarian aid. Michigan U.S. Representative Tim Walberg suggested that nuclear weapons or nuclear, as George W. Bush liked to call them, should be dropped on Gaza, which his office said was a metaphor to support Israel's swift elimination of Hamas. Hell of a metaphor, which, of course, as usual. Oh, bloodbath was just a metaphor for

the potential problems in the auto industry from now. We know the context. We understand how he sends these not so subtly coded message to his followers. So let's take a look at the video here. And the audio isn't awesome. It's recorded from the audience. But I think we should hear all of the key parts if we listen closely together. So the question is, why are we spending money to build a port to get aid to Gaza? It's true. I was raised. We need to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. I don't think we should.

I don't think any of our aid is going to be in Gaza. I don't think we should. I don't think any of our aid that goes to Israel to support our greatest ally, arguably maybe in the world, to defeat Hamas and Iran and Russia. And probably North Korea is in there and China, too, with them and helping helping. We should be spending a dime on humanitarian aid. It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick. So listen, I think it really is not a subtle difference between the Biden approach and

the Maga and Trump approach. And I know that people sometimes write to me and they say, I'm so angry because Biden keeps arming Israel. You know, the reality is that U.S. aid and military aid has gone to Israel for decades and decades. That's not new under Joe Biden. And to expect that Biden is just going to end that isn't particularly realistic. I want to live in a reality where we deal with what is rather than what maybe we would like. And the options are I mean, listen, there's there's really two options. It's Biden or Trump. If you want to pretend for a second that there's a third option and by polling, the third option

would be Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is quite hawkish on Israel, I would argue even more than Joe Biden. So if you want to just rank who the choices are and if you're not happy because you believe that the Biden administration is too hawkish from the perspective of Israel in this conflict, then the last person you would want would be Trump and the Tim Walberg's and others. Or RFK Jr. also wouldn't be a great choice because he's also more hawkish than Biden. So you can say, well, then I'm going to stay home. All right.

Well, you're just helping Trump. You'll just help an even more hawkish person become president. OK, well, then I'll write in Cornel West or Jill Stein. Well, you're just helping Trump. Well, I'll vote for RFK Jr.. Well, if he wins, he's more hawkish than Biden on this issue as well. So I think that if people don't want to live in the real world, it's fine. And we see some of this on the right and we see some of some of it on the left wanting to live only in theory and in philosophy and in hypotheticals. There's a very real situation where it's going to be Biden or Trump or if you believe that the math would work out RFK, all of the options other than Biden are more hawkish. Biden's the guy who wants to build the port to get aid to Gaza. Biden's the guy who has asked for some restraint and has had some dissent

expressed relative to Netanyahu. You could say, well, it's not very solid. Fine. But he's at least done some of that, whereas the others have not. These are the three options. And so if you are primarily concerned with this issue in the context of the twenty twenty four election, which remember, most people aren't this this ranks ninth, 10th, 11th or options. And so if you are primarily concerned with this issue in the context of the 2024 election, which remember, most people aren't this this ranks ninth, 10th, 11th or not at all in terms of voter priorities. But if for you, Israel, Gaza is the number one priority when thinking of a president of the three options, there's really two. But let's include RFK just for kicks because he's even worse than Biden on this. It's Biden, Trump, RFK

and Biden is clearly the best on this issue. So sending them. What does it matter? Do you think that the Gazans who might totally be disappeared if Trump is president, do you think it will matter to them that you sent a message about your displeasure with Biden by staying home, which got Trump elected, which led to Trump saying to Israel, take it all out, nuke it for all we care. I don't think that that's something I'd be satisfied with. And that's the way I would be thinking about this. A Republican congressman, Mike Turner, was asked about Donald Trump selling 60 dollar

bibles as his next grift. And he misdirected and he said, I'm more concerned about Easter eggs. I'm not kidding. This is what the guy said. And I want to remind you or I guess make the point that the Republican Party grasping at straws because they have nothing is continuing to attack Joe Biden for not allowing religious imagery on Easter eggs on Easter Sunday a few days ago, even though it's longstanding policy that has more to do with the egg lobby than it does with any president. But I'll get to that in a moment. Let's start with Mike Turner.

He was on Face the Nation. He was asked, what do you think about this? Trump's selling 60 dollar bibles and he goes, I don't really know anything about it, which is obviously a lie. But here's the real problem. You mentioned it is Easter Sunday. You said you've been to church this morning. I got to ask President Trump this past week unveiled what he calls the God bless the USA Bible. Right. Which not only has the words of scripture in it, but also the text of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and a few

other things. Do you think it's appropriate for the former president, for the likely Republican nominee to be selling such a product? You know, I haven't really seen that. I've heard some people talk about it. I think I'm more concerned about the White House restricting the ability of children to put religious symbols on Easter egg Easter eggs for the Easter egg roll at the White House. You know, I'm by the way, do any of us believe he hasn't heard or seen that Trump is selling Bibles? It's impossible to believe that. I'm glad that CBS gives people the right to express their religious freedom.

I can't imagine that we're certainly in a situation where the Biden White House is restricting, especially that of children, their ability to express their religious freedoms. OK, well, you wouldn't buy a so so a copy of this Trump Bible, would you? I'm not writing a check for that. OK, he's not going to buy the Trump Bible. Let me explain to you what he's talking about with Easter eggs. By the way, he didn't answer the question. He's obviously lying that he hasn't seen the Bible. He's just a dishonest guy. But here's what this is about. Fox News and The Daily Caller and other right wing outlets have been claiming that the Biden

administration banned religious themes from the Easter egg contest at the White House. Now, it is true that if you look at the promotion for this Easter egg decoration contest, it says the designs, what you paint on the Easter egg must not include anything questionable, religious symbols, overtly religious themes or partisan political statements. OK, it's true. That's what it says. It says you're not allowed to do that. The American egg board, because remember this event, it's not it's not anti religious. What's going on with these eggs? It's pro corporate. The egg board, which sponsors this event at the White House, says we've had that guideline

language in there for decades, 45 years. I think they've been doing this and it's because they don't want to wade into political, religious or controversial content with the Easter eggs and then having to say, well, the winner this year had a religious design on the Easter egg or the winner did not have a religious design. But some of these others did. And the fact that they didn't win the idea that by, you know, for a demented president who doesn't know what day it is, it's amazing the degree to which they believe Biden is

involved in everything. Biden chose that trans visibility day was going to coincide with Easter. Well, no, he didn't. It's not. It's March 31st. Since it's been created, it's been March 31st. It's just a coincidence. The Biden White House decided just to piss off Christians.

We're going to ban religious symbols from the egg painting contest. Actually, it's the American Egg Board, which has decided 45 years ago since they started this event that they don't want religious or overtly political symbols. And it's because they just don't want controversy. That's all it is. This is the egg lobby, which loves this event, and they don't want anything controversial. That's the bottom line. And it is pathetic that absent any real substance with which to attack Joe Biden, this is what

they're relegated to. Biden put Trans Day of Visibility on Easter just to anger Christians. Biden banned religious designs on Easter eggs. The border's open. Crime is up. All lies. This is all they have. It's all they have because at the end of the day, things are going pretty OK under Biden's America. That's the reality. We have a voicemail number. That number is 2192. David P. I'm getting more and more voicemails about the potential for a civil war. Let's listen and let's discuss. Speaker 4 Hi. I'm just wondering what you think about. I just I feel like no matter what happens in November,

someone's going to try to start a civil war by someone mega. Either Trump is going to tell them to do this or Joe's going to win and they're going to do it. What do you think something like that would look like? Thanks. So listen, I know that there are some right wing provocateurs that have been talking about civil war for years. And if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

And because they've decided a civil war is coming, they will point to almost anything and say, see, here's the evidence that a civil war is coming. I'm choosing to remain cautiously optimistic. You know, people ask me, David, do you think if Trump wins, there will be an election in 2028? I do. I think if Trump loses in 2024, he'll still try to steal it. I think he hopefully will not succeed. But if Trump wins in 2024, I do believe there will be election an election in 2028.

What are the circumstances going to be? What will we have to go through to ensure that that election takes place? That's a different question. But I believe there will be an election in 2028. What are the circumstances going to be? What will we have to go through to ensure that that election takes place? That's a different question. But I believe there will be an election. I also don't believe that there is going to be a civil war. And that doesn't mean that there aren't people in the in the country who, if Trump loses or a few wins, may try to execute such a civil war. But I don't think they're going to be able to get away with it. I don't think they're going to be organized enough to do it. And ultimately, I think actually that domestic law enforcement and if necessary, National Guards are going to put down such an attempt for a civil war. The bigger concern to me is what you might call a shadow civil war carried out by a Trump administration where it wherein they execute Project 2025, they

start firing tens of thousands of bureaucratic workers across federal government agencies and replace them with extremist political ideologue, mega loyalists to turn everything from the IRS and the Department of Education and embassies and the Department of Commerce turn it all into essentially a tool of MAGA Trump ism extremism. That's the real shadow civil war. It's not a civil war in the sense that the civil war was won. That to me is the real concern. We have a great bonus show coming up for you today.

Make sure you sign up at join Pacman dot com. Remember that the newest of the children's book Think Like a Voter is now available at David Pakman dot com. Remember that the newest of the children's book Think Like a Voter is now available at David Pakman dot com slash book. Get the book for a kid, for a local library, for a class. It's not a political book, no political message in the book other than vote, which sadly, is it political now to say, hey, voting is good. Maybe it is. David Pakman dot com slash book. We'll see you on the bonus show. And then we've got Friday, the Thursday show rather coming up tomorrow.