The David Pakman Show - 5/30/24: Lauren Boebert losing badly, Trump supporters in tears

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

-- On the Show: -- A deep dive into whether audiences actually learn anything about the truth from debates, or whether they are primarily performative events meant to entertain and titillate -- President Joe Biden is directly addressing the reality of what happens to the Supreme Court if Donald Trump wins in November -- A reporter asks President Biden a question so dumb, even Biden is stunned by it -- Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is losing her 2024 Congressional race by 14 points according to a new poll -- Donald Trump wrongly claims that Judge Juan Merchan said that the verdicts in his criminal trial do not have to be unanimous, which they of course do -- A sad, low energy Donald Trump arrives in court so depressed that it even shocks his own lawyer, Todd Blanche -- Fox News host Shannon Bream calls out Donald Trump's spokeswoman Alina Habba for wrongly claiming that President Joe Biden is behind Donald Trump's indictments -- Supporters of Donald Trump's break down in tears outside the New York City courtroom where a jury is deliberating -- A British tourist wanders by the New York City courthouse where Donald Trump is being tried and is visibly shocked at how stupid Trump's supporters are -- MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell gets something right, correctly assessing that watching 24 hour news all day is terrible for mood and can make people depressed -- Voicemail caller asks whether David films the entire show in one single 60 minute take -- On the Bonus Show: Trump verdict would likely move only a small number of votes, key Republican calls for "generational" increase in defense spending, US health secretary says agreement on global pandemic response treaty is close, much more... 🍽️ CookUnity: Get 50% OFF your 1st week with code PAKMAN at https://cookunity.com/pakman 📰 Subscribe to The Washington Post for just $0.25/week at https://washingtonpost.com/pakman 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.com/pakman 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David 👖 The Perfect Jean: Use code PAKMAN for 15% OFF & free shipping at https://theperfectjean.nyc -- Become a Member: https://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow/ -- Pakman Discord: https://www.davidpakman.com/discord -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave a Voicemail: (219)-2DAVIDP

Speaker 1 Welcome, everybody. I am thrilled to tell you that President Joe Biden is finally talking about the imminent Supreme Court disaster under Donald Trump. Now, I'm not going to take credit for this, even though last week I did a detailed segment about exactly the ways in which another four years for Trump means two Supreme Court picks and potentially MAGA control of the Supreme Court through 2050. I know that there are Biden staffers that watch the show, but I'm not taking credit for this because so many people have been sounding the alarm about this. Here is Joe Biden yesterday in Philadelphia, and he is

laying it out. What is at stake with the Supreme Court if Trump wins? And overall, we appointed 200 black judges of the federal, I mean, judges of the federal bench. And guess what? The next president, they're going to be able to appoint a couple of justices and I'll be damned. Look, if in fact we're able to change some of the justice when they retire and put in really progressive judges like we've always had.

Tell me that won't change your life when just Trump justices are already cutting voting rights, overturning Roe decimating affirmative action and so much more. We're going to let that happen. We can't. No, we really can't. So listen, we talked about this in 2016 and some people didn't care and some people didn't believe it. And we were right. We would have Roe v. Wade right now if Hillary Clinton had won in 2016. There's no way around it. And as I said last week, if Trump wins, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito will realize they can retire. Trump will replace them with

right wingers. And this will make it so that Trump will have chosen five out of the nine Supreme Court justices. He will pick two justices that are young enough to be on the court a long time. Amy Coney Barrett's 52 right now. Neil Gorsuch is 56. Brett Kavanaugh's 59. If Trump gets two picks and picks people in their late 40s or early 50s, we could have five Trump picks on the Supreme Court, none older than 63 at the end of Trump's term. When you consider that Clarence Thomas is in his early 80s, you could be talking about 20 plus years of a Maga court. We're going 20, 28, 20, 32, 20, 36, 20, 40, 20, 44, 20, 48. We could be talking about Maga Supreme Court 2050 2050. 2050, even in 2044, Brett Kavanaugh would still be younger than Clarence Thomas is right

now. Trump will have been long in heaven. Baruch Hashem, as I said last week, statistically, and we will still have a MAGA Supreme Court. So we really need to take this extraordinarily seriously, extraordinarily seriously. And there are people who I know it doesn't matter what I say. But if you're thinking about toying around with third party or maybe I'll stay home or what about Jill Stein or RFK, I can't tell you what you should care about and what your ethics and morality should be. But when I think about MAGA Supreme Court 2050, it's very quickly obvious.

Oh, I can't mess around with any of this stuff. We can't I can't take any action that's going to put Trump even a single vote closer to two more Supreme Court picks. Now here's one extra clip from Joe Biden's speech in Philadelphia, which I thought was a very good speech overall. And again, and it's clearly unhinged. He calls insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol patriots, patriots. If reelected, he wants to pardon, quote, every one of them. Let me ask you, what do you think he would have done on January 6th if black Americans had stormed? Think about this. What do you think would have happened

if black Americans had stormed the Capitol? I don't think he'd be talking about pardons. It's the same guy who wanted to tear gas you as you peacefully protested George Floyd's murder. The same guy who still calls the Central Park Five guilty, even though they were exonerated. He's that landlord who denies housing applications because of the color of your skin. He's that guy who won't say Black lives matter and invokes neo-Nazi third right terms. We all remember Trump is the same guy who unleashed birth ism. The birth of the lie against Barack. So listen, the Trump people we may hear from a couple of clips later later on today immediately saying, oh, you know, this was a totally staged crowd and nobody there really supports Biden.

And there's no young people. Basically, all the things that were true about Trump's rally in the Bronx, they wrongly said about Joe Biden's speech yesterday in Philadelphia. And as I said before, I don't know what's going to happen in November. It's up to us. What happens in November will be determined by what we do. But when I look at the crowd in Philadelphia yesterday, both in terms of racial diversity and young people, it certainly doesn't seem to me that all minorities are fleeing to Trump and all young people are fleeing to Trump. It certainly doesn't seem that way. So a very good speech from Biden in Philadelphia. I'm genuinely glad he's talking about the Supreme Court thing, even if many people really don't care about it or are telling themselves that it won't be that bad if Trump

gets two Supreme Court picks. And then when Joe Biden was getting ready to depart Philadelphia, maybe this was when he arrived. One of the dumbest questions we've ever heard from a reporter. I want to talk about that next. Yesterday, President Joe Biden was in Philadelphia. We already looked at his speech. We talked about his discussion of what happens to the Supreme Court if Donald Trump becomes president. And when Biden and a bunch of other folks were standing by Air Force One yesterday, a reporter yells out, will you be serving your full four years or handing over power? Now, I honestly don't know whether the reporter is asking about whether Biden is going to serve the full four years of this term or whether Biden is going to serve the full four years of his next term if he were to get one. I don't know. But Joe Biden reacts in a very funny way

and says, are you OK? Did you fall on your head or something? Because of the question that the reporter is asking. Let's take a listen to this. And then I want to talk a little bit more deeply about the Biden conspiracy theories. Will you be serving your full four year term or handing over power to Vice President Harris? All four years are handing over. I can't hear you. Can you approach? All right. So so Biden asking the reporter who asked about him turning over power to Kamala

Harris, are you OK? You're not hurt, are you? I don't know if you fell on your head or something like that. You know, we all understand the world and we know that when you're in your early 80s or in your late 70s and obese as Donald Trump is, there is a statistically nonzero risk that's higher than if you're just 22 years old that you will pass away. Right. We understand actuarial tables. We know how life insurance works. We understand these things.

OK, we get it. But they've been doing this for years now. Oh, in 2020, Biden's not going to make it to the convention. He's going to have to hand the nomination over to somebody else. Oh, well, OK, he made it to the convention. Biden's not going to make it to these 2020 debates against Trump. He's just not going to make it. Well, OK, he made it.

He won't make it to Election Day. He did. He won't make it to the inauguration. He did. He won't make it to the State of the Union. He did. He won't make it to the inauguration. He did. He won't make it to the State of the Union. He did. He won't make it to the midterms. He did. And we've been told over the last year Biden's not going to make it to when the primaries start in 2024. And he did. Well, now it's that he's not going to make it to the debate with Donald Trump. That's now just

weeks away. Well, I think he probably will. I think he's probably going to make it. And this is one of those great examples where when you confront them with the reality, as I did to Will Kane on Fox News last week, I told Will Kane, I think that this Biden cognitive decline and frailty stuff isn't working for the right, because every time you set the bar so low, every time you say he won't make it past this and he does and it actually is helping Biden. But you go, oh, I was expecting something so terrible from everything I'm hearing. This guy doesn't know what day it is. And he made it again and he gave a hundred minute speech. And it all seems to be sort of like, OK, I think that they actually hurt themselves with this stuff. And I like Biden's reaction of just kind of laughing off the entire thing. Very bad news for radical and repugnant reactionary Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert or Lauren Boebert.

There is very stiff competition that she is going to have to beat off if she hopes to stay in the Congress because she is losing in a new poll by 14 points. Newsweek reports Lauren Boebert, 14 points behind Democrat opponent in Colorado poll. Isn't this absolutely delightful news? The Newsweek article reads House Republican Lauren Boebert is 14 points behind potential Democratic rival Ike McCorkle in a hypothetical matchup for the fourth congressional district, according to a survey conducted on behalf of his campaign. So let's be honest. This was a poll done by the Democratic opponent. Hopefully we will soon get, you know, some other pollster not associated with either campaign. The poll finds that McCorkle

would get 43 percent of the vote against 27 percent for Boebert, with another 33 percent of the vote undecided. Wow. In December, Boebert, who represents the third district right now, announced she wanted to stand for the state's traditionally more conservative fourth district in a surprise move. She said she was looking for a fresh start after a difficult year. But critics argued she was just worried about losing to Adam Frisch, who she barely beat. Remember, it came down to 500 votes in November of 2022. So listen, this is not a perfect survey. It's a relatively small sample. It was carried out by Ike McCorkle, who is her opponent. But the point here is it is very much to be determined whether Lauren Boebert's candidacy is viable in the state of Colorado. It has been scandal after

scandal. And she is not Teflon Don. She is not Donald Trump. And the degree to which she can just weather scandal after scandal and humiliation after humiliation really remains to be seen. Now, if we can remove Lauren Boebert from Congress, we will have removed two thirds of this hydra, this this this triumvirate of MAGA ism. It was Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's still in and she's easily going to win in November by everything we know. But last time around, we got rid of Madison Cawthorn and we may be able to get rid here of Lauren Boebert. This is all very, very good news. And then we get to the broader questions, right? Like, for example, if Trump does lose in November.

And if Boebert loses and MAGA gets the wind taken out of its sails, is this it for MAGA? And if it is, does some remaining last gasp of MAGA become integrated into the Republican Party, sort of the way the Tea Party did? Remember, in 2010, oh, the Tea Party, this is going to totally overshadow the Republican Party, kind of evaporated. Some Tea Party people got absorbed into the Republican Party and the Tea Party people made the Republican Party a little bit more crazy. Does MAGA get totally outcast in a more formal way or do some of them get integrated into the Republican Party? But MAGA as a defined political movement goes away if Trump loses and Boebert loses and some others.

I don't have the answer to that. What I can tell you is it's almost June. We're basically five months and a few days from this presidential election. Step one is defeat Trump. Step two is defeat as many of these extremists in their districts as possible. And then step three will be now that we've avoided this disaster of four more years of MAGA. Now, let's see what the Republican Party does. Does it go back to the sort of Romney McCain style? Does it go back further to something else? Does it become something totally new? I don't know. I'm terrible at predictions,

but I do know what the immediate next step is. And it involves voting in November. unlike other meal subscriptions, Cook Unity is the first ever collective of award winning chefs delivering locally sourced culinary marvels to your door every week. Every meal is handcrafted by chefs. It's made in local micro kitchens, not those large production facilities. And the real kicker is that it's actually more affordable than many other meal subscriptions. There's no cooking. The food is ready to go. The food arrives fresh, never frozen. And I absolutely loved trying out the recent chili roasted shrimp. I've tried a half dozen or so different meal subscriptions over the years. And what sets Cook Unity apart really is just the quality of the dishes. It's clear that each recipe was developed by a professional chefs. These are not those monotonous, boring meals you get from some

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full price if you want. It's a very reasonable price at join Pacman dot com. Donald Trump wildly and wrongly claimed that the verdict in his first criminal trial does not have to be anonymous. Per the judge, one Merchan. This is, of course, completely wrong. Trump put out back to back posts saying, look, the judge is saying the verdict doesn't even have to be anonymous, anonymous, unanimous. Did I say anonymous before?

Now I'm actually going back. Unanimous is what I'm talking about. Of course, a guilty verdict has to be unanimous. What doesn't have to be unanimous is what the underlying predicate crime was, because this is the law in the state of New York. I will explain it. I will explain it. Donald Trump posting to Truth Central, quote, It is ridiculous, unconstitutional and un-American

that the highly conflicted radical left judge is not requiring a unanimous decision on the fake charges against me brought by Soros back D.A. Alvin Bragg, a third world election interference hoax. And what's really funny is in trying to prove this, Trump posted a Fox News clip. But if you look at the Fox News clip, it actually says on the right of the screen, we have it up on the screen right now. Jury must be unanimous for any guilty verdict. So this is the source of all of this is a tweet from Fox News's John Roberts, who tweeted yesterday, quote, Judge Merchan just told the jury that they do not need unanimity to convict. Four could agree on one crime, four on a different one and the other four on another. He said he would treat four four four as a unanimous verdict. Now, this is so misleading. A white collar crime professor, Randall Eliason, tweeted, folks,

this tweet that's making the rounds is very misleading. The lack of unanimity refers not to the charged offense, but to the underlying crime the defendant sought to conceal with the false business records. That's the law in New York. And the defense didn't disagree. This is like the Biden plan to have Trump killed thing. Someone is confused about something. They put out a tweet, they put out a troth, they put out an excretion on X. And next thing you know, it is the truth. This is totally fabricated. So here's the law in the state of New York. The jury doesn't need to unanimously agree on what the underlying crime was that Trump was

trying to hide. They do need to be unanimous that the defendant made false business records with the intent to conceal a crime. Four of them might think the crime he was trying to conceal was a four of them could think the crime he was trying to conceal was B. That's what this is about. But of course, to convict, they need to unanimously agree that he made false business records. This is not controversial. This is not unique to this case. This is the law in New York. And if Trump's lawyers had a problem with it, they would have said, hey, we have a problem with this. Trump's lawyers know that this is the law. And so they also didn't disagree. They, of course, need to be unanimous that he did the crime he's charged with,

but they don't need to all agree as to what Trump's intentions were in terms of the crime he was trying to cover up. So as usual, the lie spreads very quickly. The correction. Most of these magas seem to not even hear about it, quite frankly. But there was something about Trump yesterday that was different. And as the jury deliberates, as we speak right now, this is a different Trump. And I want to talk about that next. A very different mood was visible with Donald Trump as he arrived yesterday and then left the courtroom as the jury started to

deliberate. Trump seemed sad. He seemed depressed. He seemed down. And he seems to sort of be acknowledging that he may just be getting a conviction here. And then the question will be, what will the punishment be? He issued the following statement after just 13 minutes of jury deliberation, saying that even Mother Teresa wouldn't be able to beat these charges. And his lawyer, of course, standing still like a statue, as he always does. Mother Teresa could not beat these charges. These charges are rigged.

The whole thing is rigged. The whole country's a mess between the borders and fake elections. And you have a trial like this where the judge is so conflicted he can't breathe. He's got to do his job. And it's not for me that I can tell you it's a disgrace. And I mean that Mother Teresa could not beat those charges, but we'll see. So listen, what I'm hearing there is I'm really sad and scared and I'm about to be convicted and I don't know what to do now with regard to even Mother Teresa couldn't beat these charges. There's two interpretations of that. The

interpretation I have is if the facts were exactly the same when it came to Mother Teresa, if we had evidence that Mother Teresa had falsified documents in order to commit a campaign fraud so that she would be able to cover up her previous affair with a porn star that she determined would be disadvantageous to her campaign for the presidency, I would hope that if the facts were all the same, that the outcome would be the same because you are judged by a jury of your peers based on the actions that are demonstrated under oath by witnesses during a by those who testified during a trial. So in that sense, I would hope that whatever is the right and true verdict against Trump would also apply to Mother Teresa.

Trump also, again, looking very tired and sad and depressed, not happy that actor Robert De Niro showed up at the court the previous day and said very negative things about Trump. Trump didn't like it. And then they have a protest of Robert De Niro. Yes, there is a fool. He's a broken down fool standing out there. He got he got maggot. He got maggot.

Yes, he got a big dose of it. He got a dose of maga outside the courtroom, did Robert De Niro. Remember, you could be the best actor in the world. You could be the best basketball or football player in the world. You could be the best guitarist in the world. You could be the best basketball or football player in the world. You could be the best guitarist in the world. And as soon as you cross Trump or even levy any criticism of him, you're terrible. You're washed up. Your movies are no good. You're picking technique on your guitar is no longer worthy of admiration, whatever. You are terrible as soon as you speak against Trump. So listen, Trump is sad. Trump is depressed. Trump is scared. He's clearly been warned. You should at least be mentally prepared that you could be convicted here. And what's happening with

regard to the claim that Biden is orchestrating all of this is that it's becoming so transparently untrue that even Fox News hosts are calling it out. Let's talk about that next. Yesterday, Fox News anchor Shannon Bream interviewed Donald Trump's former lawyer and I guess current spokesperson Alina Haba. Alina Haba tried saying Biden's orchestrating all of this. Biden's running all of this stuff. And Shannon Bream said, there's no evidence of that. There's no evidence this is connected in any way at all. And Alina Haba doesn't like it. She doesn't like being confronted. And you know what? Whatever Shannon Bream's record is overall, good for her for at least confronting

Alina about this because he's got to distract the American people. Listen, but the Biden administration is not responsible for this trial. How can you say the Biden administration is not responsible for this trial? It's a state trial. It's Alvin Bragg. Whether you think there's a political motive for him, it's not connected to the DOJ. I mean, the feds passed on these election charges. Uh-oh. Shannon, you should look at how many logs they have of state officials, Letitia James, Fannie Willis, visiting the White House and then tell me that this is not a Biden trial. I don't care.

Feds passed on this case is the point I'm making. The feds passed on this case. Also, DA Cy Vance passed on this case years ago, and then it came back. And Brad passed on this case. You know when it came back? When he decided to run for office. So tell me how that's not an indication that Joe Biden, who just sent his campaign down here with Robert De Niro yesterday, isn't a part of this. Frankly, any question that

we had of that was squashed yesterday. And if you have even more concerns about whether he's involved in this, look at the fact that he is publicizing, literally publicizing for tonight to have a speech if a verdict comes out. That's a sad state of affairs. Meanwhile, our country is falling apart. He's got bigger fish to fry. So Shannon Bream's just like, yeah, but this has nothing to do with that, right? Triggering Alina Haba, Trump immediately raging, taking to Truth Social, attacking Shannon Bream, the host on Fox saying, I never knew Shannon Bream was so naive in her interview with my representative Alina Haba.

Shannon just suggested that Crooked Joe was not involved in my show trial. How stupid. Not only is he involved, he's virtually leading it and all of the other trials as well. OK, again, there's no evidence of any of this at all, period. And nobody on the Trump side likes it when they are questioned. Here is Alina Haba claiming that Donald Trump has the country on an upward trajectory of morality. Another claim that Shannon Bream is like, what are you talking about and saying, whoa, this is not America.

This is very un-American and we can't survive another four years of this. So if you want to look at it that way, sure. But I don't think countries need to hit rock bottom. I don't understand why we couldn't have continued on an upward trajectory of American morals, of the Constitution. I'm not sure why we had to hit this low point, to be honest. But if that's what gets President Trump back in office. But, you know, when you talk about things like morals, people will say this is a case about a former president. Somebody was running for president, paying off a porn star who alleges that she had a relationship with him. I mean, that sparks a whole other conversation about morality, who's running the country. Obviously, voters in 2016, it was not a problem or they factored in what they knew about the Access Hollywood tape and other things.

And they were comfortable sending President Trump to the White House. They've had four years to think about the way he performed now, four years of President Biden. But some of them will always now have this vision with President Trump that these kinds of dramas and things will be just part of his package, part of what comes with him as president. It's called extortion. Extortion is something that happens with people when Alina Haba really does not like being confronted and criticized. And then lastly, Alina Haba says, how can anyone wake up and say, I'm going to vote for Joe Biden? It's un-American Americans. We have people that were Biden supporters. I can't imagine how or why, but they're now waking up and saying, whoa, this is not America. This is very un-American and we can't America.

So her argument is that even Biden supporters, as they see the prosecution carried out about Donald Trump against Donald Trump, they say this is not America. I guess I'll vote for Trump. It makes no sense whatsoever. And we take calls all the time. We get thousands of emails. Not a single Democrat has gotten in touch with me to say, hey, I'm a Democrat, but because they're prosecuting Trump, I'm going to vote for Trump. Not a single one. If you know anyone like that, please get them to write in. I want to hear from them. It's getting warmer out there, so make sure you're prepared. Unfortunately, for some of the gentlemen, the weather warming up does have a downside and it's the sticking We'll be right back. front, keeping everything comfortable, dry and fresh all day long. No more moisture chafing.

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personal data was exposed and the data stays online forever and for anyone to access. And the number of data breaches in the U.S. is increasing by about 80 percent. It is not getting any better. That's why it is so important to use a VPN anytime you connect to the Internet, changes your IP address, makes you anonymous. The only VPN I trust is private Internet access. The only major VPN that is demonstrated in legal cases. They do not possess your Internet activity and the software is open source for the world to verify. When a company like T-Mobile or Verizon gets hacked and you were using a VPN, your data still gets leaked, but it's associated with a fake IP address, essentially not linkable

to you. Private Internet access is optimized for streaming and file sharing without the lag and buffering you get with other VPNs. And one of my favorite things about a VPN is being able to access streaming content not normally available in my country like UK Netflix. Get private Internet access for 83 percent off. That's just two or three a month plus four extra months for free. Go to PIA VPN dot com slash David. The link is in the podcast notes. Joe Biden and Donald Trump have agreed to hold two presidential debates. Both sides feel like they have something to prove. Biden's team, on the one hand, wants to show the American people that he is up to the task, despite the claims about cognition and his brain that are coming

mostly from Donald Trump and people on the side. And then on the Trump team, they are eager to have another shot at taking down the guy that defeated them in 2020, which is Joe Biden. But I want to talk a little more broadly about not just these debates and the subsequent ones if we get them, but debates in general. In general, debates are not likely to have much of an impact on the presidential race unless one of the two candidates really has a cognitive failure to such a degree that

they torpedo their chances. And as history shows, presidential debates often have very little impact on election outcomes. But I want to go even further than that and ask about whether we really learn anything about the factual basis of the world from debates. But we'll get to that in a moment. You know, as far as the impact of presidential debates, there is a 2019 study by Vincent Pons and Caroline Lepenek, which looked at 56 TV debates in various countries.

It looked at ninety four thousand respondents before and after elections to figure out, do debates make a difference? And it turns out that debates didn't sway undecided voters or prompt people with the decision already made to switch candidates. Christopher Lightson and Robert Erickson did an analysis as well of U.S. presidential election polls from 1952 to 2012 and found the same thing. And the primary reason why presidential debates don't sway elections very much is the people who take the time to watch the debates are usually politically involved already.

They mostly have their minds made up. And so this suggests that the Biden Trump debates later this year, one coming up later in June, won't have the major impact on the election that some people think unless someone really fails hugely and in an incredibly humiliating and public manner. But let's take this further and talk about debates more broadly. I want to use this as a springboard to make a bigger point here that goes well beyond presidential debates. What I want to propose to you today is that generally the live debate format is not a good path to figuring out the truth about a matter. And even more so, the winner of a debate often tells us very little about who was actually right on the facts within the debate. Debates for

mass consumption are about scoring rhetorical points for your side, coming up with gotcha moments that your opponent isn't prepared for getting the crowd if there is one to applaud and to cheer. And they are not about actually getting to the facts of the matter. And in general, our impression of who won a debate has nothing to do with who stuck to the truth or helped us understand reality any better. It's a performance at the end of the day. And the perceived winner is the person whose performance was more charismatic, had the best jabs, was the most rhetorically skilled and articulate. The winner is not the one who was correct in the argument. Now, let me give you some examples. One example is last year's proposed

showdown between Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a presidential candidate, and I guess we could call him a vaccine skeptic, and Peter Hotez, who's a scientist, doctor and an advocate in global health and vaccine ology. The two of them were invited to debate the efficacy and safety of the covid-19 vaccine on the Joe Rogan experience with Rogan tweeting out at Peter Hotez. Peter, if you claim what RFK Jr. is saying is misinformation, I am offering you one hundred thousand dollars to the charity of your choice if you're willing to debate him on my show with no time limit. Now, Hotez chose not to do the debate and responded with, quote, I offered to go on

Joe Rogan, but not to turn it into the Jerry Springer show with having RFK Jr. on. So this is like the perfect example of the spectacle of debating and how it overshadows good faith, intellectual discourse with people who are qualified to do it. Hotez is a highly qualified individual to have a conversation about vaccines. He's a doctor. He's a scientist. He does not have the background that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has in rhetoric, in politics, in public persuasion and in the performance of a debate. So this would not be the type of debate that would make sense for a general audience so that the audience would be able to draw a medical conclusion after hearing from RFK Jr. and hearing from Peter Hotez, hearing from a politician and a

doctor. So the whole framing of the conversation is for performance and drama, not for actually getting to the truth. A conversation on Joe Rogan's show would be very entertaining, but it is not really a platform to reach a decision about public health. But people tuning into it think that it is and potentially that RFK is right. Becomes a he comes across as more charming or prepared or articulate or just comfortable speaking in front of a microphone. So that doesn't really help us get to the truth. But performatively, it would be very entertaining. There are issues like vaccine efficacy that are really more conducive to being settled through the scientific method rather than public discourse. Let me give you another example, taking out something that is as confrontational or potentially controversial right now. Another example is what about the

health of a specific food eggs? Right. Are eggs healthy as part of a diet? What about coffee? The research on eggs and coffee has gone back and forth many times. So a debate at any particular point in time wouldn't really be that useful. And as new research comes out, we find that the common sense or predominant wisdom of a particular food changes over time. But having a debate with performers that argue back and forth, an online debate, for example, it'll get clicks, but it's not really going to give us anything that we aren't going to get from looking at randomized controlled trials and scientific studies and calmly evaluating the evidence rather than through a performance. So now that we've talked about what debates do, they are performative. The winner is often the most articulate person.

They often just support people's previously held beliefs rather than really changing minds, because the truth is the audience mostly goes into watching a debate with a closed mind rather than an open mind in more cases. I now want to explore whether it benefits one's own side to win a debate or whether these are fleeting victories that don't really do much. So let's talk about some examples. Back in 2021, progressive commentator Ben Gleib went on right winger Charlie Kirk's show to debate abortion. And there was this incredible viral moment where Glebe showed Charlie Kirk a picture of a fetus and asked, is this a human life worthy of defending, meant to be a challenge to Charlie Kirk's anti-abortion views? And Glebe got Charlie Kirk to say, yes, that picture of a fetus is a human life

worth defending. And then it turns out that the picture was actually a dolphin fetus, not a human fetus at all. Let's take a look at the video. Let me even show you a photo, if I may. OK, do you truly in your heart of hearts truly believe that this is a human being? This without a doubt, without a doubt. Yes. This is a dolphin fetus. Without a doubt, a dolphin fetus is a human being. This is a human fetus. Look how similar they look, but quite different. Dolphin.

You just confirmed that a dolphin... In life, do you confuse dolphins for human babies often? So let me ask you a question. You go to SeaWorld and you're like, someone's got human babies in that aquarium. Get the human babies out of the aquarium. This was undoubtedly a terrible look for Charlie Kirk. He appeared uninformed about human development, which is important in an abortion discussion. Left wingers eagerly shared the clip of Charlie Kirk looking silly. It's extraordinarily entertaining. It's an amazing

gotcha. But did it actually tell us anything about when a fetus becomes a human life deserving of the same rights as someone who has been born? Did it move the debate on abortion forward in any meaningful way? Did it tell us anything about the circumstances that would lead a woman to choose to get an abortion versus alternatives. Of course not. It served to make Charlie Kirk look silly for a brief moment. Now, if I want to be super charitable, we could say at best that that viral moment reiterated

that many of the people that strongly denounce abortion have no idea what's going on. OK, so that would be like that's what we accomplished. Many of us already know that. Beyond that, it really did very, very little. Abortion rights have only been rolled back since that viral moment, most notably, of course, with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade a couple of years ago. Now, of course, no one expects a debate between Ben Gleib and Charlie Kirk to have an impact on the legality of abortion in the United States. But it's hard to imagine that even 100 moments like that witnessed by everyone in the country would have much of an impact on the legality of abortion. Now, here's another example of debates being about performance rather than getting to the truth. There was this sort of

showdown between left wing Cuban-American streamer Stephen Kenneth Destiny Bunnell, the second and right wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. At the surface level, the debate was about whether Christian nationalism should take root in the United States. It was very clear from the start of this entire exchange that it was really a contest of who could rile up their debate opponent the most. Milo claimed that Stephen Kenneth Destiny Bunnell, the seconds that the second's then wife, Melina, had relationships with other men, something Destiny was very much aware of since they were in an open relationship and tried to use that against Destiny to morally posture and say he's not a real man for letting

his wife sleep around. Take a look at this clip. You want to return women to chattel. You want women to be like your wife passed around town. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to take moral lectures on the rights of women from somebody who treats their supposedly their wife in what ought to be a holy sacrament as a communal sex toy. Give me a break. Give me a break. I'm not going to take moral lectures from somebody who, for all intents and purposes, may as well have a flashlight. Now, to his credit, destiny didn't seem rattled by it, but it's clear Milo did it to score points with the crowd, not to make any point about Christian nationalism. The merits of Christian nationalism have nothing

to do with Destiny's relationship. Destiny also arguably had a bad faith moment, extraordinarily entertaining during the debate, during which he just made up a statistic about black Americans being the ethnic group most likely to support Christian nationalism. He totally made it up. Milo took the bait, argued it makes sense. He came up with a totally imaginary explanation as to why on the spot. And then Destinery revealed, I just made that up.

This guy has no idea what he's talking about. Let's take a look at that clip. Just an interesting addition to that. Two researchers, Whitehead and Perry, I didn't know the stat would come in handy, but black Americans are actually the largest ethnic group in the United States to support some form of Christian nationalism, which I think is really funny after all that. Yeah. And, you know, there's the reason there are reasons for that. I mean, you know, you've got you've got people who it's mostly to do with where black people were and who was there to the funny things actually just made that up. I was seeing if you would actually try to talk us through that. But I totally made that up. Thanks, Milo.

So despite the reveal right away that he made that up about black Americans being the group most likely to support Christian nationalism, it was another one of these viral performative kind of gotcha moments. It's very engaging. It's very entertaining. It doesn't really get to the truth of the legality and morality of Christian nationalism. Now, to be fair, given the nature of this debate and Milo Yiannopoulos, it was bad faith to begin with. Right. So this isn't about criticizing individuals. The summary is debate is going to continue playing a role in public discourse. Trump and Biden are slated to debate soon unless something changes. I remain unconvinced that on issues of factual determination, debate is a useful tool for figuring out the truth. Now, let me make a couple of additions to this.

There is something else presidential debates are good for. I don't expect to learn about tax policy or education policy or foreign policy during a Trump Biden debate. But I do want to take the temperature and learn something about the two men as individuals and the way they relate to each other on a stage can give us useful information about that. So I think that that's an important caveat. And then the other thing is when it comes to debates that are about opinion, right, when it's not about what is the truth of whether eggs are healthy or what whatever else, right, when it's about opinion overtly, that's a different scenario.

And in those scenarios, debates may indeed be more useful and informative, although they still really do depend at the end of the day on how articulate and well prepared the debaters are. So I want to hear from you. I've participated in debates. I've moderated debates. We reviewed the debates on the show. But as a tool to get to the truth of a factual matter, I don't think they are particularly good tools, especially and this is the other part of it, because we have such a lack of critical thinking and media literacy in this country. We often have, even with arguably good faith debaters, an audience that doesn't have the tools to parse through and evaluate for themselves and fact check the factual basis of

what's being said. So I want to hear from you. Info at David Pakman dot com. What are debates good for? What are they not good for? And we'll do a follow up if there's an interest. Let's take a very quick break. We'll hear from a sponsor or two and be right back. We all know how tough it can be to find a pair of jeans that fits right and looks good. You spend hours at the mall, weeks shipping stuff back and forth online, trying to find something. Meet the perfect jean. Our sponsor, the perfect perfect gene makes great looking, perfect fitting jeans that are as comfortable as sweatpants. I wear these myself. They really are that comfortable. My perfect jeans are my favorite pair of jeans right now. The secret is a special denim fabric

that is super soft and has the perfect amount of stretch. So you can squat, do yoga, just sit around without wanting to take them off. They come in six different fits, whether you're looking for big, tall, skinny, short. The perfect gene has sizes you won't find on most other websites. And the perfect gene is giving my audience 15 percent off your first order plus free shipping. Go to the perfect gene dot NYC and use code Pacman 15. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them I sent you. That's 15 percent off for new customers. When you go to the perfect gene dot NYC and use code Pacman 15. The info is in the podcast notes. The scene outside Donald Trump's criminal courtroom in New York City has gotten increasingly

deranged as we get closer and closer to a verdict. Yesterday, Trump supporters flocking, I guess a few of them, a few of them flocking to the court and breaking down in tears, praying for Donald Trump's freedom. This is extraordinary video from Freedom News TV. They are praying for Trump's freedom. They are breaking down in tears, covered in Trump flags and MAGA hats and the entire thing. I was when I first saw this video, I was convinced that this was a joke. It was a parody. It was mere satire. But it is not the great cult leaders, Charles Manson, Jim Jones, David Koresh. They could have learned a thing or two from Donald Trump about leading a cult. This is as far as everything I've seen and read. This is very

real. And by the way, well, let's just look at the video first. Jesus and Lord. If you're only listening, everybody's sobbing, They're sobbing. They're praying to. And by the way, is it appropriate? Is it respectful to wipe your your nose with a Trump flag or is that kind of like, oh, geez. Yeah. that kind of like, by the way, crying while also texting.

All right. I think you get it. Listen, I don't know how else to characterize this other than this is severe, untreated mental illness, seemingly untreated. Let me put it that way. If if it's treated, it's not being properly treated. This is really, really serious. And so, yes, of course, it's a cult. We've gotten beyond that debate. Of course, it's a cult. But there's even more to it. There's more to it than just a cult. This does seem to be very severe mental illness. Here's another group

all dressed again. It's like you would think these are jokes, but they don't appear to be here. A bunch of guys dressed like Vikings. Remember that QAnon shaman guy who I interviewed and who was arrested? He he seems these guys seem to have been influenced by him. They're dressed in a very similar way. These guys are chanting. And again, I guess it's all for Trump's freedom. I don't know. Those these guys seem to have been influenced by them. They're dressed in a very similar way. These guys are chanting. And again, I guess it's all for Trump's freedom. I don't know.

Yeah. They're burning some kind of incense. They have face paint. They're kneeling. I mean, is this is this a parody? Maybe these three guys like we can't even tell. The cult is so severe that we can't even tell. It doesn't appear to be anything fake, but you would hope that this is just a joke. And this is every single day now in some way, shape or form. They haven't been

showing up to the courthouse throughout the trial. Now they are because we're in the jury deliberation phase. But what I want to real the point I really want to get here is that this isn't you know, I'd like a flat tax. Right? I mean, I'd like a flat tax seems so comparatively benign and shockingly as as silly as I want a flat tax is it almost sounds intellectually rigorous compared to just sobbing for Trump's freedom as the savior sent by Jesus or whatever. Compared to that, any political view. Hey, you know what? I'm for more nuclear armament. OK, I would disagree. But like, at least there's something there we could talk about. This is completely off the charts, loony bin stuff.

And there's amazing video of a British tourist walking by this. She thought it wasn't real. She thought this stuff wasn't really going on. She came to the United States for a vacation and she bumped into this. That's what I want to talk about next. This is some of the most charming but also scary video that I have ever seen. A woman visiting New York City from England walked by the courthouse yesterday where the MAGA people were supporting Trump and sobbing and anointing themselves with various substances and burning incense. She was stunned. She saw she thought it was exaggerated. She's like, these people don't really exist in the United States. They might be actors. It must be fake. So this British woman walks around outside the courthouse and realizes this is real and

she's disgusted. And when incredibly, when the crowd figured out that she wasn't friendly, they started screaming at her, swears profanity to the point where police said, you should probably leave for your own safety. They'll oh, no, we would never. Maybe for her own safety, she was advised to leave. Check this out. Disgusting people. What do you think about the response that happened?

Well, we were actually here purely for entertainment value. We're from England. Oh, God. You know, we got it. The queen, the key. We're going to get the key. We're going to get the key. We're going to get the key.

We're going to get the key. We're going to get the key. We're going to get the key. We're going to get the key. We're going to get the key. We're going to get the key. We're going to get the key. We're going to get the key.

We're going to get the key. We're going to get the key. We're going to get the key. We're going to get the key. We're going to get the key. We're going to get the key. We're going to keep going, Joe. Oh, God. Take your tea. We got it. Fuck the queen. Fuck the king. Fucking. People very angry with the British royal family, apparently, because of the presence of this one woman. Get out of here.

Bernie, how you liberal. All right, bro, she's out. And we enjoy watching Trump on the TV and we cannot. It became unsafe. It became unsafe for her to be. It is unbelievable. So listen, this is what I'm trying to explain when I tell people I get emails from foreigners and they go, David, we don't even understand what's happening in your country. We just we just we don't understand. When I talk to friends and family in other countries and they say, are there really MA they say, are there

really mega people like are there really people who support this guy? Oh, yeah, they're out there. They're anointing themselves with oil. They're burning incense. They're sobbing and praying for Trump's freedom. They're screaming horrible profanity at a British woman who's just like, what's this all about? Let's see what this is.

They can't believe that this is a political movement with any following whatsoever. And so when I explain, you know, under Trump, we were globally humiliated. Global opinion was in the toilet under Trump because people look around around the world with few exceptions. I think Russia, Turkey, Turkey and one other place kind of liked Trump. Every other country. Trump's a disaster. This is what I'm talking about. That's the look of a stunned British woman who is like, what the hell is going on here? And it is a sickness. It is a cult. It is all of these things. Let's do our own praying. Actually, you know, better than praying would be just voting. Let's do our own voting in November to end this movement once and for all. Hey, Mike Pillow got something

completely right. And I want to respect that. OK, Mike Pillow was on the Tim Pool show recently. I should explain. Mike Lindell is the CEO and founder of my pillow. We sometimes call him Mike Pillow and we sometimes call him just pillow. He said something that he is absolutely right about on the Tim Pool show. And I'm going to play it for you here. And it has to do with media consumption and being proactive and out there and where the hope is. I tell people quit watching, you know, media. And even, you know, if I see people depressed out there, I'd say, a lot of them, well, I watch Fox day in and day out. Well, they're not going to tell you the hope.

It's mostly depressing. Here's what's going on that's bad, that's bad. And I like to tell people, here's where we have the hope here. Here's what's going on here. People come, and you combine what's going on right now that's so sad is with the open borders and the fentanyl pouring in. People that are losing hope are turning to addiction. OK, so now he's getting into other stuff. But his point is a very good one. I know people who have cable news going all day. I know people who watch hours of cable news every single

day. It really isn't good for you. And there's so much scholarship on what about it isn't good. The bias towards negative stories. Yes, that's true. The fear and rage porn and getting people angry. That's not good. The reality that with most of the stuff you hear about, you can't do anything about it. That's also potentially a depressing element of this. So I've been recommending a healthier media diet for a long time. It's best to consume news like what just facts by reading it from reliable sources, Associated Press, Reuters, Washington Post, where there's like just regular reporting. Read your news. Recognize you don't actually need to know everything that's going on in the world. And there's a whole bunch

of stuff that you can have zero impact on and it will just make you depressed. That's OK to realize that. It's OK to realize that. Read history, philosophy, economics, inform yourself more broadly about how things work rather than 24 hour news and then pick some commentary you like for the community aspect. Maybe it's this show. I admit, if you think of a media pyramid, media consumption pyramid, almost like one of those food pyramids, this sort of thing that I do should be at the top. You should be well versed in critical thinking. You should then, you know, read history, philosophy, economics, science. Read news reporting and then fill it in by saying, hey, you know what, I do want to connect with like minded people to some degree,

David Pakman show or whatever else. But, you know, I do 50 minutes a day of content. We're not looking for hours of this stuff because I agree with Pillow. Now, I don't think the solution is whatever hope he's offering on his website or his counseling center or whatever else that I don't agree with whatsoever. But he is getting to something here. Twenty four hour news is toxic for you. It's unhealthy for you. It will depress you. And Mike Pillow is right about that. So finally, something, I guess, that we agree on, although I think we probably disagree about the solution, but good something, I guess, that we agree on, although I think we probably disagree about the solution, but good for pillow. I think that this is a message worth spreading. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. Here's a very

specific question from a viewer about how we produce the show. David, do you do the entire show in one one hour uninterrupted single take? Great question. No, I don't. This show is basically four pieces. The show is on the radio. The show is on TV. And so if you've ever listened to the radio or watched watch TV before, you know that there are commercial breaks, pauses, sponsor messages. And the way we have the show formatted in that platform on those platforms is with three breaks, sort of like at quarter past half past and 45 minutes into the show, which leaves four segments, kind of like four quadrants around a clock. And so that's the way it's recorded.

It is all one take. You may or may not have noticed that there are some content creators where you see all these jump cuts because they'll record one line and then record another line. And then there's a cut, cut, cut, cut. This is it is all one take, but it's split into a single take of four different segments, each roughly, you know, 12 to 17 minutes or something like that. And that that adds up to the hour. That's the way we do it.

It's always the way that we've done it. All right. We have a great bonus show for you today. Polling suggests that whatever the verdict is from the current jury deliberations into Trump's criminal allegations, that it won't move a lot of votes. We'll talk about that polling and what it might mean. There are key Republicans saying they want massive increases in defense spending. Wait a second. We already spend the most. Why do they want to spend even more? It has everything to do with our adversaries. I'll tell you what they say

and whether it makes any sense. And lastly, we have learned that we are close to a treaty on global pandemic response. We all know if Trump's president and we need to invoke the treaty, Trump will just say, I don't like it. We're bailing. We all know that. But it is still interesting that we are finally getting close to a global pandemic response treaty that is bigger than just the United States. Deeply needed for sure. All of those stories and more on today's bonus

show. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. Remember that you can also get more written content from us by signing up for our sub stack newsletter, which you can do at David Pacman dot com. You can also support that project by becoming a sub stack premium member. And of course, all of it, all of it made available on YouTube at YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show, where we are very proudly and strongly pushing towards two and a half million subscribers, which they said it couldn't be done. The sanctimonious couldn't do it. But we are pushing in that direction. So I will see you on the bonus show. I will be back tomorrow with the Friday show as well.