The David Pakman Show - 7/10/24: Biden replacement talk flatlines, Trump polling gain flatlines

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Allan Lichtman, political historian, author, and professor at American University in Washington DC, joins David to discuss his "Keys to the White House," whether the June 27 presidential debate has any bearing on his model, and his prediction for the 2024 presidential election -- Prominent Democrats, including Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Hakeem Jeffries, Gavin Newsom, and others take the definitive position that President Joe Biden is and will be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024 -- Exploring the strong argument that it is Donald Trump who should drop out of the 2024 presidential race -- A confused, soaking wet, beet red Donald Trump delivers an unhinged rally to a sycophant crowd in Florida -- Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss gets under the skin of a Fox News host by taking every opportunity to attack Republicans and Donald Trump -- Joe Biden has appeared more orange in recent appearances -- Donald Trump's national polling gain since the June 27 presidential debate appears to have flatlined, at least for now, at 1.8 percentage points -- Stunning new polls show Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton defeating Donald Trump in hypothetical 2024 matchups -- On the Bonus Show: Why 538's election forecast hasn't moved much post-debate, House passes Republican bills aimed at blocking dishwasher and fridge efficiency standards, Trump didn't invite Nikki Haley to the RNC, much more... 🖥️ Malwarebytes: Get 50% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://malwarebytes.com/pakman 🥦 Lumen lets you master your metabolism. GET 15% OFF at https://lumen.me/pakman 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code PAKMAN for FREE blades at https://hensonshaving.com/pakman 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman -- 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. Hope you're doing well. You've been paying attention to the statements of prominent Democrats over the last 24 to 48 hours. It's becoming increasingly clear that prominent Democrats are rallying behind President Joe Biden as the continued presidential nominee into November. Is this a good idea? Is this a bad idea? Is Biden the best possible candidate? Is the candidate is Biden the only reasonable candidate at this point in time? We don't have the answers to all of these questions.

But what we can see is that with a few exceptions, I think it was nine out of the hundreds of Democrats in the House of Representatives, with few exceptions, Democrats in elected office after speaking to Joe Biden, after speaking to the DNC, after conferring with each other, seemed to have decided at this point, for as long as President Biden says he's running for reelection, we're going to get behind him. Is that the right strategy? I don't know. We'll talk about it in a moment.

Let me give you some examples. Here is Senator Bernie Sanders, who says until he hears otherwise, Biden is the nominee and Bernie is supporting Joe Biden. And you do believe that that is President Biden? Right now, President Biden is the Democratic nominee. Until I hear differently, I will support him. And I do believe that if he makes it clear that he is prepared to stand up for working people, take on powerful special interests, yeah, he will win the election.

And if he does not run, would you support the vice president if he is, if he gets behind right now, Biden is the Democratic nominee, period. Senator Bernie Sanders. All right. So Senator Bernie Sanders making that point. What about Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? And the reason, by the way, that I'm starting with Bernie and AOC is that they are in a sense, or at least they used to be, although now now all of a sudden some of the progressive left has turned on them saying they sold out. Bernie in the Senate and AOC in the House have been the sort of progressive torchbearers for years now in many ways. And this is what they are saying.

Of course, there are those who hear this. They say they've sold out. They've been strong armed. They've been bribed. They've sold out. They've been strong armed. They've been bribed. They've been OK. Maybe they've just decided it's probably not a good idea to talk about replacements while Joe Biden is saying, I'm not going anywhere. Maybe what helps us win is just appearing to be united behind Joe Biden, whether they

are or are not. And we'll talk about that in a moment. Here is AOC has spoken to the president over the weekend. I have spoken with him extensively. He made clear then and he has made clear since that he is in this race. The matter is closed. He had reiterated that this morning. He has reiterated that to the public. Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race and I support him. Now, what I think is critically important right now is that we focus on what it takes to win in November because he is running against Donald

Trump, who is a man with 34 felony convictions that has committed 34 felony crimes and not a single Republican has asked for Donald Trump to not be the nominee. And we will talk about that in a moment, by the way. I'm here to win on this democracy. I'm here to win in November. And what's critically important is what the president, I believe that the president needs to do. And I have communicated this, what the president and the White House should do in order to make sure that we win in November. And that is making sure that we pivot and working and increasingly commit to the issues that are critically important to working people across this country. How are we going to expand Medicare? How are we going to expand Social Security? How are we going to provide relief to people's rents

and mortgages? And if we can do that and continue our work on student loans, secure a ceasefire and bring those dollars back into investing in public policy, then that's how we win in November. That's what I'm committed to. And that's what I want to make sure that we so AOC making it clear and then on down the line, we'll look at a couple others here is Hakeem Jeffries, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives speaking CNN's Manu Raju. Biden staying as your Democratic nominee. Yes, I made clear the day after the debate publicly that I support President Joe Biden and the Democratic ticket. My position has not changed. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, also congresswoman from Florida, DNC chair at one point, says

that this is all about defeating Donald Trump. And it appears that it is Joe Biden who is going to be at least theoretically in the position to do that. Do you think Joe Biden is the only one that can beat Donald Trump? I think Joe Biden will beat Donald Trump. He has beaten Donald Trump before. And and Donald Trump is an existential threat that the antidote to whom the antidote is Joe Biden. All right. So Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

And then lastly, and critically, very interestingly, because in the immediate aftermath, I mean, during the presidential debate and in the immediate aftermath, immediately the thoughts of many in terms of this hypothetical Biden replacement turning to California Governor Gavin Newsom, nauseating to some but thrilling to others, a polarizing figure for sure. Here is Gavin Newsom asked about the post debate course correction of Biden, and he says he likes it. Governor, the best campaigns, the winning campaigns always right the ship. What is your message to voters out there, regular people, not the pundits, not the talking heads who saw President Biden in that debate and thought he was too old?

Well, I think you're doing just that. They're riding the ship. You saw the rally in Wisconsin. You saw the work that he did this weekend. I just left Pennsylvania. I had seven stops in Philadelphia. We were in Pittsburgh. I was all over Michigan.

And they're doing everything they need to do to reach out directly to voters, to meet with people where they are. A lot of calls, a lot of calls that have been leaked, for better or for worse, a lot of outreach. And I think they're doing exactly what they need to do. What about those high-profile Democrats, some in Congress who are saying he does have to be replaced at the time? It's just the overwhelming majority of Democrats that are not saying that. Overwhelming majority of Democrats that are not only saying they have his back, but are actually demonstrating that by supporting him being out in the campaign trail. I've seen a bunch of them over the last few days, over the weekend, over a holiday weekend.

They could have dialed it in. They could have stepped back, but they stepped up and they're continuing to fight. So we're so listen, here's the bottom line. Save a few exceptions in terms of the public facing message. Democrats are saying Biden is our guy. I don't believe for a second that they all think Biden is the best candidate. And if they were choosing today, if Biden were not the incumbent, I think the vast majority would not say Biden is the guy that I would seek out. But that doesn't

matter, because ultimately this is a question of how do you defeat Donald Trump? Now, I continue to get dozens, hundreds, dozens of emails and hundreds of comments overall from people that on the one hand are furious with me, that I would even mention that there is discussion of replacing Joe Biden, that I'm hurting Biden by even mentioning that that's being discussed. This is not a show that is an arm of the Democratic Party. I don't know how many times I can explain this. If you're looking for a show that will calculate what is published because the goal is to be aligned with the DNC and the Democratic Party, that is not this show.

The discussion about replacing Joe Biden went mainstream and thus I would be doing something dishonest and I would be I would be doing a disservice to all of you if I pretended that didn't exist. And also it would be a very strange thing to do, given that this is also a media analysis show and it's a story in the media. So I'm hearing from people who say, David, even discussing the fact that some are saying replace Biden, you're hurting the movement. I talk about what's going on and the discussion about replacing Biden is going on. On the other hand, I continue to hear from furious audience members who say, David, the fact that you are hemming and hawing and not saying replace Biden now is hurting the movement.

You should be saying get Biden the hell out of there right away. Well, as I've said before, this is a show where I just tell you what I think and what I think is that the this is a show where I just tell you what I think and what I think is that the case is quite unclear. And I don't know that yesterday's debate between Jank Juker, Juker and Rachel Biddecoffer, by the way, resolved any of that lack of clarity. But here's what does seem abundantly clear. Democrats in elected office have realized what definitely hurts us is Biden saying I'm staying in

and us saying he should step down. That definitely hurts us. And I think that they are right about that. If the goal, if the end point is preventing Donald Trump from getting four more years, denying him the situation in which he could implement Agenda 47 and Project 2025. That's the important thing. It seems a bad idea is having Biden publicly saying I'm staying in and other Democrats saying get out. If Biden does get out, if you pressure him privately, for example, and he gets out, well, that's a different story. Then you change your public messaging. But if the goal is to defeat Trump, Biden and Democrats publicly arguing about whether he should stay in seems very, very bad. Now, let's get to why aren't more people

calling for Trump to step down? I alluded a couple of days ago to wanting to talk about why hasn't Trump been called on to step down? I don't know what should happen with Joe Biden, but he says he's not dropping out. And as we just looked at, prominent Democrats are saying we're behind Joe Biden. The one guy who absolutely should be gone by now is Donald Trump. The difference is on the Republican side, they could not care less what Trump has done, what's going on with Trump cognitively. As long as they defeat Democrats, they don't really care anything about their nominee because

they have absolutely no standards. You know, you have all these newspapers and op eds saying Biden should drop out after the debate. Most of those newspaper op eds didn't say Trump should drop out after being convicted on 34 felony counts. They didn't say Trump should drop out after being found civilly liable for sexual assault, which meets the New York definition for rape. They didn't say he shouldn't even be a candidate after he incited a riot on January 6th, 2021.

You know, Trump believes the Constitution is fine until for his benefit, parts or all of it should be suspended. That should be immediately disqualifying. It should instantly lead to calls from every major newspaper and media outlet that Donald Trump stepped down and most of them have not. So we have to accept that 40 percent of the country is OK. I mean, listen, it's not only that they're OK with what Trump is outlining. They want it. You go to Trump rallies where you hear Trump supporters say, I'd rather a dictator Trump than a democratically elected Biden. But you supported the Constitution. I thought you supported due process and law and order. And now they support whatever is convenient for them.

And so one of the concerns I have in general right now with the lack of lack of focus on Trump's disastrous debate performance and the obvious reality that it is Trump who should step down is that it's a dynamic that perpetuates itself because you have the best analogy I could think of is people are acting as though we have a properly refereed boxing match. But there's a candidate who took a knife out and stabbed his opponent. But some of us keep pretending that we have a properly refereed boxing match here. And so we're saying, well, you know, Biden's performance wasn't so good. And what about replacement? Or as I said before, I don't know strategically. All I care about is strategically. I don't know strategically

whether keeping Biden or replacing Biden gives us a better shot at defeating Trump. Replacing is chaotic. Keeping maybe is a problem. We'll talk to Alan Lichtman later today about it. But what we can't keep doing is analyzing Biden one way when the entire Republican and MAGA apparatus around Trump has zero standards, because if they had even an iota of standards, they would have all already called for him to drop out as opposed to just, you know, the occasional Republican who has nothing, no, no campaigns left to run like Mitt Romney, who's willing to say, hey, this is not for me. This isn't good for the Republican Party.

So we do need to, in some sense, shift the focus back to Trump's disastrous debate performance. The disaster that is Trump as a candidate and nominee, the criminality, the scofflaw nature of everything that he's done in public life for the last 40 years. It's not the only thing that must be done. You've got to run a good campaign. You need to be united behind your candidate, all of these other things. But if we want a direct path here to disaster, it's failing to point out, hey, you know, oh, but does Biden vote? By the way, it seems the story was was completely baseless. Biden's early stage Parkinson's. Yeah. Who cares? The opponent's Trump. So what? Biden, early stage Parkinson's.

He can still be president. That doesn't make a difference. Biden stumbled and got confused during the debate. Right. But we've got the civilly liable rapist, convicted felon who wants to suspend the Constitution when it's inconvenient to him. I'll stick with Biden. We've got to make that contrast. Now, after the break, we're going to try to do that. We all know someone who's been the victim of identity theft or accidentally downloading a virus and it costs time, money, maybe your personal files. And what I've used for years to keep my devices safe from malware is malware bites. I've been using this for years and years before they ever became a sponsor. And it's because malware bites is just the standard. It gets great scores from the independent cybersecurity labs. It's almost always the

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I try to be a good boss. I try to do everything right. I did everything right. And they indicted me. Anyway, coupon code Save Democracy 24. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. A confused, soaking wet, beat red Donald Trump had another series of brain failures while attacking Joe Biden's brain during a rally essentially at his own house in Doral, Florida. Biden with 18 public events this week, Trump just home golfing finally holds a rally, can't even be bothered to leave his house. My favorite moment, Trump referring to himself in the third person while reading the teleprompter. They make fun of Joe Biden reading teleprompter instructions. Trump getting confused instead of saying says, says, say is and then refers to himself as

President Trump. It's bizarre. It's a bizarre, confused moment. See if you can understand it. Energy dominant again. Yes. Oh, yes. And quickly says President Trump. Yes. Oh, yes. And quickly says President Trump. OK. And that was basically the theme and M.O. of this entire rally. Trump challenging President Biden to another debate. So tonight I'm officially offering Joe the chance to redeem himself in front of the entire world. So Marco and Byron and everybody, here's what we're going to do.

You guys can be referees if you like. Let's do another debate this week so that sleepy Joe Biden can prove to everyone all over the world that he has what it takes to be president. But this time it will be man to man, No moderators, no holds barred. Just name the place any time, anywhere. So a very, very warm day in Florida and Trump absolutely soaking wet. Looks like he's greased up for a boxing match. It's wild. Despite trying to distance himself from Project 2025 this week. Donald Trump saying that he will round up millions of Latinos into detention camps. And of course, this is a classic part of Project 2025. And on day one, we will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in the history

of our country. We have no choice. Yep. That's the plan where despite saying that President Obama was going to put everybody in camps, it is actually Trump who's going to put migrants in camps for subsequent deportation. The roundups will start. This is straight out of Project 2025. So despite Trump claiming he has no idea about it, no clue, no connection, he's certainly supporting a lot of the things in Project 2025.

In addition to challenging President Biden to a debate, Trump challenged President Biden to a golf match right here. Under Owls Blue Monster considered one of the greatest tournament golf courses anywhere in the world, one of the great courses of the world. It will be among the most watched sporting events in history, maybe bigger than the Ryder Cup or even the Masters. There you go. So Trump, I guess just because he's been playing so much golf, thanks. I don't know. We can solve this election by golfing. And then the anecdotes really started to show the evidence of Trump's crumbling brain. Trump with a story about a beautiful waitress who's

just as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. And then somehow that leads him to talking about Chris Christie's obesity. It's a very strange moment. But to be frank, many of us have come to expect this sort of stuff. That's supposed to be a little bit Democrat territory, but we're leading in Nevada and a waitress came over, beautiful waitress. And I never like talking about physics. She's beautiful inside because you never talk about a person's look ever. You never mentioned the other day. I got very angry. Some man called Chris Christie fat. And I said, sir. And then he said he was a pig. I said, sir, Chris Christie is not a fat pig. Please remember that he is not a fat pig. Please take it back. And the guys look at me like, really? Now we have to defend people. You can't call people fat. See, this makes much more sense to vote for than Biden, because Biden got confused at the debate.

Right. Then you see this stuff. You go, wait a second. I'm not an idiot. Why would I vote for this instead of Biden? It makes no sense. Trump refreshing his Hannibal Lecter rant. I continue to believe that Trump might think of Hannibal Lecter as a historical figure rather than the character played by the great Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs. I am getting the growing impression that Trump thinks Hannibal Lecter is a historical figure. Did anyone ever see the lovely movie Silence of the Lambs? Did you see it? Did you ever hear of Hannibal Lecter? He was a lovely man. He would love to have you for dinner. He will take you. You had many people for dinner.

Well, we have a lot of people coming in. They always say, oh, that's terrible, the Trump would say. He is rambling about Hannibal Lecter. No, I'm not rambling. We are allowing people from insane asylums and mental institutions into our country by the tens of thousands. And they're closing them down in other countries. You know, the cost savings. All right. So Trump with his Hannibal Lecter rant and then chillingly and they get this is a reminder of what's at stake in this election. It we you can't forget it. Trump says that if he becomes president, he will take over the city of Washington, D.C.

We will take over the horribly run capital of our nation in Washington, D.C., and clean it up, renovate it and rebuild our capital city so that it's no longer a nightmare of murder and crime, but rather it will become the most beautiful capital anywhere in the world. Right now, if you leave Florida, let's go, darling. Let's look at the Jefferson Memorial. Let's look at the Washington Monument. Let's go and look at some of the beautiful scenes.

And you end up getting shot, mugged, raped. We're going to take over our capital and we're going to run it tough and smart and we're going to beautify it. So Trump really with some scary ideas about what he's going to do. And then, of course, as usual, as is often the case lately, about 100 degrees, people waiting to get in with no shade, limited water and Trump complaining about the temperature at the rally. You know, it's only one hundred and three degrees out here. So, you know, they built all these. They call them, sir, we have many water spots. I said, what about one for me? Do I have one? I don't have one, Marco. They gave water

spots. Everybody has a quarter water spot where water comes out. You get they don't have anything for me. I'm being drenched up here. There you go. All right. And he is absolutely soaking wet. And then lastly, Donald Trump claiming that his son, Don Jr. has a great wife. It just so happens Don Jr. is not married. So hard, so smart, has a great wife, a great wife, as says Don. Oh, you like Laura, right? All right. So he says Don Jr. has a great wife. Don Jr. is not married. So a confused rally. But a reminder, we cannot forget that whatever you think of Biden's performance at the debate

and it wasn't good. Right. I don't deny that it wasn't good. He didn't tell the the the hundreds of lies that Trump told. But it wasn't a good performance. Whatever you think about it, this is the alternative. I'm certainly not voting for this. I have some great video of Democratic Congressman Jake Aukin Klaus. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, really showing how it's done on Fox News.

You can hear the Fox host audibly sighing because no matter how he tries to frame questions in an unfair and biased way, Congressman Akin Klaus uses every opportunity to hit back at MAGA, to hit back at Trump, to hit back at Republicans. This is very interesting to see. The context is polling about the race, the presidential race. This is really good stuff. And it just starts to frustrate Fox News host John Roberts in the most delightful way that that race is a lot closer. So would it be better to put up a different candidate? The most important polling is Americans opinions about Donald Trump. He's

historically unpopular and for good reason, because they saw what the disaster of his first term was. And we know that there are Haley voters in the heartland who are desperate to vote for anybody besides Trump. And we have to have a message of law and order to appeal to those voters. I mean, the Republicans are trying to defund the FBI. They're nominating a convicted felon. They're trying to surge machine guns onto our streets and in our schools.

This is not a party that respects. Did you hear that sigh from John Roberts? He doesn't like it. Jake, you're supposed to be attacking Biden. The rule of law. Yeah. With respect, Congressman, I mean, I keep asking about Joe Biden. You keep talking, talking about Donald Trump, but there are questions about Joe Biden or questions about who can beat Donald Trump because because Donald Trump is the threat to democracy right now. Do you really think Joe Biden can beat Donald Trump? Or would Kamala Harris be a better person to do that? Would Gavin Newsom be a better person to do that?

Do you think after that debate performance, this is the guy you want running for president? Every one of those names that you just mentioned can beat Donald Trump. And the reason why is because Donald Trump is unpopular. He's actually probably the most unpopular national politician of modern American history because voters don't want to see their tax returns have a little partisan affiliation box they have to check next year. They don't want their social security checks to come with strings attached. They don't want forced deportations of their friends and their neighbors who are trying to become American citizens. They don't want to see him supplicating himself in front of Vladimir Putin like he did in 2018. There are a lot of Democratic and

independent voters who want to see somebody with the mental confidence to run. And increasingly, they don't think that's Joe Biden. The opinion of Pennsylvanians, of Michigans, of Wisconsinites is absolutely vital. Don't disagree with you there. And that is going to be the challenge ahead of the top of the Democratic ticket is to make a strong and sharp contrast against what Donald Trump is offering. This is not just about the past and about the record of accomplishments. This is about the future as well. And Democrats have a much more compelling vision of the future than MAGA Republicans do really, really good stuff. And I'm going to play one more clip for you. And again, this was on a cake. Can Biden win question and just doing a really good job here. The Biden campaign strategy was to talk about Donald Trump and

make this election all about Donald Trump. And now this election has become all about Joe Biden. Is that an election he can win? 14 million Democratic primary voters think he can win it. And the Democratic Party should walk humbly before it contravenes the will of our voters. Unlike the Republican Party, we respect free and fair elections. And what unifies us as a party is knowing that Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy. And my challenge to my. So Jake Auchincloss doing a really good job to the point of frustration for John Roberts. And I think this is the right balance between recognizing the importance of the opinion of voters and also remembering that

the alternative is Trump. And so when you go Biden's debate performance was really bad. What's going on with them? The contrast to that has to be, OK, the alternative is Trump. And that's a really scary contrast. Let's take a very quick break. Get the free Project 2025 white paper at David Pakman dot com slash Project 2025. I've had such trouble finding a great razor where I am not cutting myself or getting those nicks on my skin, which are so common with the cheap disposable razors. You have to meet our sponsor, Henson Shaving. Henson actually manufactures parts for the International Space Station and the Mars Rover, and they are bringing that exact same precision engineering to the shaving experience.

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Then enter the code Pacman to get the hundred blades for free. That is a three year supply. That's H E N S O N shaving dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. It is great to welcome back to the program today, Alan Lichtman, who's a professor, a political historian, author and professor at American University in Washington, D.C. Professor, we looked at your recent appearance on CNN, which I found very interesting. You told the hosts that they were complicit to some degree in sort of reestablishing the idea that maybe Trump is a viable alternative to Joe Biden on the basis of the debate. Before we get to the debate, generally speaking, do debates make a difference in the framework you've established and used for decades now to predict the outcome of presidential elections?

Debates do not directly figure into my system the keys to the White House, which have been right since I predicted Ronald Reagan's re-election in April 1982, almost three years before the election. When the nation was mired in what was then the worst recession since the Great Depression, Ronald Reagan's approval ratings were in the gutter. And 60 percent of the public said he was too old to run again for president. Of course, he won in one of the biggest landslides in U.S. history. But aside from the keys, history shows debates have no predictive value whatsoever. Hillary Clinton won the debates in 2016 and still lost the election. John Kerry won the debates in 2004 and still lost the election. In 1980, Gerald Ford committed the greatest gaffe ever in a debate when he said the Eastern Europe is not under Soviet domination that generated huge headlines. And he almost won that election.

He lost, but he did vastly better than the pollsters and the pundits would indicate in the wake of the Watergate scandal and the loss of the Vietnam War. So a bunch of different things to ask about. I'll take them one by one. Some have made the counterpoint to your framework and position about the debates not making a difference that never have we had a debate in which a candidate seemed so unfit as Joe Biden seemed on June 27th. And therefore, while your model maybe has been correct in the past, it doesn't account

for the possibility of what happened on June 27th. This is the argument that some are making about your statements regarding the debate's predictive value. Is it conceivable that that would be a novel but accurate interpretation of the impact of this particular debate? Let me say this. Every four years, someone says to me, this year is different. Your keys won't work. You've got to change your model. We have an African-American run. Never had that before. The country's not ready for that. We have a woman run. Never had that before. Country's not ready for that. We have social media. We've never had that before.

That changes everything. And I have two answers to that. Number one, you can't change your model on the fly. That is a prescription for error. Number two, my model is based on history, but it's very robust. Perspectively, it goes back to 1984. It's got a 40-year record. No other model comes close.

And retrospectively, I developed the model going all the way back to 1860, the horse and buggy days of American politics, when we didn't have automobiles, jet planes, polls, television, radio, when we were an agricultural society. Women couldn't vote. Most African Americans were enslaved. My ancestors from Eastern Europe, Latinos, Asians, haven't gotten here yet. So the keys have endured enormous changes in our society, our economy, our politics, our communications. And it's the height of falling to make the presumption that something is now different and I need to change the model. You cannot moreover judge a presidency on one debate.

Debates go way down on the list of what makes a successful president. Far more important are values, judgment, experience. And, you know, all of those critics don't take into account an incredibly successful Biden administration. Why hasn't his so-called impairment destroyed his presidency? He has more domestic accomplishments than any U.S. president since the 1960s. It was Biden and Biden alone who put together the very difficult coalition of the West that stopped Putin from conquering Ukraine. And unfortunately, a lot of the impressions of the debate are from the media. Most people didn't watch the debate. The vast majority of Americans or registered voters

never watched. So they got only their impressions from the media, which almost entirely focused on Biden, and legitimately so. There were legitimate questions to be raised, but almost entirely focused on Biden, and legitimately so. There were legitimate questions to be raised, but almost entirely ignored the far worse, much more dangerous performance by Donald Trump. He has based his presidency on lies. He lied his way through the debate. One lie for every minute to 20 to 30 seconds of speaking time. Huge lies. Lies about the January 6th insurrection. Lies about the 2020 election. Lies about prices going up fourfold when they only went up 25%, one eighth of that. And he said he wouldn't accept the results of a fair election and promised to govern as an authoritarian. What is more dangerous than a president who will, if elected, destroy our democracy,

and a president who may have issues related to age and diminished capacity? What would be worse for America? On the one hand, Donald Trump gets elected and destroys our democracy, which he's promised to do. He's right out of the open on what he's going to do. And by the way, snuffed out the free and independent press. You know, what the press has done is so self-defeating. That's far worse than let's say Biden doesn't complete his second term. Harris becomes president. She follows the same policies. She is eminently qualified as a vice president, a former senator, a former

attorney general. And by the way, we have historical precedent for that. Harry Truman took over from FDR and today is regarded as one of our more esteemed presidents. Lyndon Johnson took over from JFK and pushed through Congress the war on poverty. And the most important piece of legislation since World War II, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. You know, I've summarized American politics in one sense. Republicans have no principles. Democrats have no spine. Republicans are united behind a guy who has openly indicated he's going to destroy our democracy.

He said he'd be a dictator on day one. And every dictator in the history of the world, when they're a dictator on day one, has been a dictator forever. He's a convicted felon. Civilly, he was found to sexually assaulted a woman, colloquially raped her, found to have committed massive financial fraud. His charity was dissolved because he was using it for his own personal gain. His Trump Institute and Trump University went down under the tubes, 34 felony counts. On the other hand, at the first sign of adversity, Democrats are willing to push their incumbent president under the bus, who, by the way, was not nominated by members of Congress or donors or political operatives like James

Carville. He was nominated by 87% of the Democratic primary voters. And the Democrats are so foolish as to air all their dirty laundry out in public and creating an image that Trump just loves of a Democratic Party. They can't get it together. That's in total chaos. I hard to find a disagreement with that analysis, Professor Lichtman, to get back briefly to the model. If I understand the model correctly, and I believe we talked about this the last time we spoke some years ago, the model predicts the popular vote outcome and.

Speaker 2 Let me stop you. Speaker 1 OK, stop me if that's wrong. Speaker 2 When I first developed the model, there was no distance between the popular vote and the winner. So I don't have to worry about that. But in recent years, the popular vote has become irrelevant, much more important for our democracy than the keys. It's irrelevant because the Democrats pile up 5 million plus votes in just two states. And you know what they are, New York and California, no comparable Republican states. That, you know, counts for nothing in the electoral college. Democrats could win those

states by 537 votes and still get all the electoral votes. So in recent years, I've only called the winner. And by the way, you know, from 1992 on, Republicans have only won the popular vote once. Yes. What year that was. Two thousand and four. Two thousand four, which, interestingly, had one hundred and forty thousand votes in Ohio gone the other way. You would have seen John Kerry become president while losing the popular vote by about two

and a half million. It didn't happen, but that would have been quite a scenario. Right. But it's never happened. But we have had this scenario of Republicans gaining the presidency and losing the popular vote. Donald Trump lost the popular vote by two point eight million in 2016 and still was elected president.

And by the way. I was not very popular in 90 percent plus Democratic Washington, D.C., where I teach at American University, went against all the conventional wisdom. Yeah, I predicted Trump's win in 2016. They even got a little note on The Washington Post where I predicted his win on their article. It said, congrats, professor. Good call. And in big, sharpie letters, Donald J. Trump.

Without going into the details of each of the keys, can you briefly tell us which keys are currently held by Trump or Biden and which hang in the balance? Yeah, let me just make a small correction. Trump doesn't hold any keys. OK, the keys tap into the structure of how elections really work, which is votes up or down on the strength and performance of the White House party. Okay. All the keys are measured against the White House party. Fair. Two key and they're always praised. So an answer of true favors the election of the White House party.

And if six or more are false, the White House party is a predicted losers. Only two keys have anything to do with the candidates, and they're very high threshold keys. They ask whether the incumbent party candidate is one of those once-in-a-generation inspirational candidates like FDR and Ronald Reagan, who won all their elections in huge landslides and converted a lot of members of the opposition. And they ask whether the challenger is not, since they're always phrased as an answer of true favoring incumbent, the challenging party candidate is not one of those once in a generation inspirational candidates. With that in mind, let's see

where the White House party stands. Now Biden, or whoever the nominee is, and we can talk about that a little bit more, but just Biden at the moment is down definitively two keys. The mandate key, because Democrats lost the midterm elections in 2022 for the US House, and the incumbent charisma key, because there's no FDR. That means four more keys would have to fall to predict this defeat. And I can direct you to the most shaky keys. You know, something strange to happen. But the most shaky keys are third party social unrest, foreign slash military failure and foreign slash military success. But if the Democrats push Biden out and have a big party ball about who to replace him, then I've got to change my analysis.

So let's talk about that. If indeed President Biden were to be pushed out, which keys shift? Right. If Biden is pushed out and we have a party brawl for who to replace him, because there isn't overwhelming consensus candidate, they lose two more keys. They lose the incumbency key, and they lose the contest key. That means of the four shaky keys, only two, not four, would have to fall to predict the Democrats' defeat. And aside from the keys, do you know how many times the White House party, the incumbent party, has won since 1900, over 120 years, has won when there's an open seat with

no incumbent running in a party contest. The answer is zero. Whereas when there is an incumbent running and no party contest, they win most of the time. That's why I have a plan B. You want to hear my plan B? Please. My plan B is, let's presume for a moment, hypothetically, that there's so much pressure on Biden that he's forced to withdraw. What he should do then, reserve the keys, is resign the presidency for the good of the country, which would contrast him with Donald Trump, who was only in it for himself. Harris would then become president, ticking off the incumbency key, and she'd become the consensus nominee. Biden wouldn't struggle as delegates to vote for her, ticking off the contest key. And we'd still be in

the situation where four keys, not two keys would have to fall to. OK, let me ask you about that in a little more detail. You know, sometimes I've had conversations with my rabbi friends about certain rules in Jewish law where they explain to me, hey, you know what, here's how we do a certain thing on the Sabbath. And I say to them, you know, it really feels to me like that violates the spirit of what these rules on the Sabbath were about coffee makers or whatever. And you're finding a way to adhere to the letter. And they say the letter is really all that matters with

what you just said. If Harris were if Biden were to resign the presidency to make Harris the incumbent and therefore you check the incumbency key. Does it check it in the spirit of which that key was originally developed or does it only check the box nominally? You understand the analogy I'm making, of course. And I hate to say it, there's no ghost in the machine. There's no spirit of the keys. The keys are scientific. OK, they are what they are. Gerald Ford won the incumbency key when Richard Nixon resigned, and he was nowhere close to

the position Harris would be in if she became president. Harris is the elected vice president, a former U.S. senator. Gerald Ford was an appointed vice president, never won any election larger than a congressional district in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and then became an accidental president when Richard Nixon resigned. But I still gave him the incumbency key. And as I said, he came way closer than anyone expected. And of course, Lyndon Johnson got the incumbency key in 64, Harry Truman in 48. So I don't adjust the keys according to some ghost in the machine. There is no ghost. Fair enough.

Let last question. Is it abundantly clear to you that the biggest mistake Democrats could make is pushing Joe Biden out when it comes to their chances in November. Democrats have already made a huge mistake by showing their lack of a spine, you know, by one sign of adversity. They're all running for the hills, disparaging their nominee, elected nominee, their elected president playing right into the hands of Donald Trump. They would play even more into the hands of Donald Trump if they pushed out Biden and then tried to get a so-called more electable candidate. You know, Democrats are very good at picking electable candidates. They've done it many times. You know, proven winners, experienced candidates

like Walter Mondale in 1964, Mike Dukakis, the great governor of Massachusetts in 1988, the great Senator John Kerry in 2004, the former first lady, U.S. Senator, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016. And what do all those candidates have in common? They all lost. For the most part, it's been the unpredictable, off-the-wall candidates who won for Democrats, like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. You know, the Democrats also have chained themselves to the polls. But I would call your attention, and you know I don't follow the polls, but this was, you know, oh, these other candidates, like Newsom or Whitmer, are more electable than Biden, right? The most recent poll came out yesterday from July 9th from the respected, independent Emerson College, had Trump and Biden 50-50, dead tie.

All the other alternatives were down to Trump by six points to 10 points. So this idea, you know, that these James Cargill and the operatives and the members of Congress know who's electable is completely contradicted by the historical record and even by the polls to which they find themselves chained. All right. Professor Alan Lichtman, always appreciate your time and insights. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you, David. your time and insights. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you, David. Staying healthy is all about sustainable habits, something you'll actually stick to, which is why I've been using AG one in the morning for years now. It's just so much simpler than messing with a bunch of different vitamin pills and products. And with just a single scoop of AG1, I get the vitamins, minerals and probiotics I want. And I'm keeping my nutritional

basis covered for the day. It's just easy. It's easy. I feel better. My energy lasts longer. In a recent research study, 97 percent of participants reported feeling more energy after 30 days of drinking AG1. In a recent study, AG1 was shown to even double the healthy bacteria in the gut. It's easy and satisfying to start your journey with AG1. of vitamin D3 K2 plus five free AG one travel packs with your first subscription order at drink AG one dot com slash Pacman. That's drink AG the number one dot com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. There is new reporting out that President Joe Biden is indeed making himself orange like Donald Trump.

Now, I know some of you will laugh. Some of you will say, David, what does this matter? This is actually related to a number of really important elements to this race, maybe unfortunately so. And I've talked about this before. So Business Insider has an article. You're not losing your mind. Biden is getting more orange. It has an article. You're not losing your mind. Biden is getting more orange.

It has comparison pictures. It has examples of Joe Biden's skin tone from his recent interview with George Stephanopoulos and the Fourth of July event and so on and so forth. Listen, I have been talking about this for a while. You can check out my interview with the iced coffee hour guys when I was in Vegas. What was that? A couple of months, three, three months ago, four months ago. There is an unfortunate reality where a bunch of the perception of who is healthier and

robust and more vigorous comes from the color of Donald Trump's hair and the color of Donald Trump's skin. And one of the things I've been saying for a while is that if Biden used the orange clown makeup that Trump uses and dyed his hair the way Trump does, Trump also has had hair transplants, which is a whole other story. Biden would appear to be more robust and vigorous, even though it wouldn't really change anything about him. They should have thought about this for the presidential debate. Biden being orange, you know, probably at this point to start dying, his hair would be too much of a change.

The self tanner is probably somewhat more subtle, but I don't think that it would have hidden the fact that Biden got confused at multiple points during the debate. But in terms of the physical appearance, it would have hidden the fact that Biden got confused at multiple points during the debate. But in terms of the physical appearance, it would have helped. This stuff makes a huge difference. Think back to the Nixon Kennedy debate example where Kennedy was not sweating and had makeup on and kind of look put together. Nixon, I believe the story is he had sort of a fever or a flu, which might have contributed to the sweating. But whatever precautions could have been taken did not appear to have been taken. And a lot about the physical appearance. Nixon, if I recall,

had like a five o'clock shadow sort of thing. The physical appearance was a big part of it. This is a big, big deal. Now, I wish it didn't matter to some degree. I wish we had a population where the debate is really interpreted only through what is said. And as I've said before, if you look at a transcript of the debate, even with Joe Biden stumbles, it doesn't look nearly as bad for Joe Biden. And Trump tells dozens and dozens of lies. So I don't have a problem with this. And Trump's already doing it.

You know, so when you see these pictures of Biden looking more tan, what's someone going to say? Oh, Biden's making himself tan. Yes. So is Trump. Trump's orange. You see Trump self-tanner all over his white shirt, collars and the entire thing. This really does make a difference. If I had any criticism, it would be that the Biden campaign didn't start doing this sooner. They should have done it at the debate. Now, at this point, is it going to be a difference maker? Probably not. Probably not. But if the idea is to limit the degree to which Biden looks pale and old and he looked very, very pale in a bunch of recent appearances before they started to use the apparent self-tanner, it is going to help just on the margins. It's not going to replace being able to connect his presidency to solving many of

the problems that Trump exacerbated. And the reminder that if Trump comes in ushered in behind him will be a whole bunch of horrible ideas, including those in Agenda 47 and Project 2025. Of course, that has to be top of the list. But if you can look a little less pale rather than more pale, it's probably a good thing. Now, of course, the risk becomes that Biden ends up looking like Trump and Trump does it to such a cartoonish degree that maybe at the end of the day, it's counterproductive. But this doesn't bother me at all. And it makes perfect sense, given that so much of this race has become essentially visual interpretations of the apparent vigorousness of each of the candidates. We seem to have reached the flat line for Trump's gain from

Joe Biden's poor debate performance almost two weeks ago. We have been very closely tracking polling since the presidential debate. You may recall that when we went into that debate on June 27th, it was Donald Trump plus one point five. There it is. Since then, as I have told you, Donald Trump has extended his lead from one point five to three point three. On the one hand, that's an increased lead of one hundred and twenty percent. We go from one point five to three point three.

That's one hundred and twenty percent growth. That's not great for Joe Biden. On the other hand, as I've already said, to have a disastrous debate performance and only be down by three is really not so bad, particularly when there's months to make up for the debate performance. But here's the other important thing to realize for days now that lead that gap between Trump and Biden has been three point three. So we may the question when Trump went from leading by one and a half to leading by two, two and a half, three, three point three was how much bleeding is there going to be so

far? So far, it seems that the gain for Trump from the debate has flatlined at one point eight percentage points, which is hard to think of as a complete and total disaster. Now, let me give you some counterpoints. If you're already losing going in, falling behind by any more is bad. Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 while being up in some of these polls. Biden is down, albeit just a little. That doesn't sound good at all. Another counterpoint would be that people are forgetting that a sort of toss up situation means Democrats lose because of the Electoral College Democrats. Or if you look at 2020, Joe Biden had a seven to eight million vote win in the popular vote,

but ultimately only ended up winning the Electoral College, thanks to about one hundred and fifteen thousand votes in three states. That's very, very close. If Trump's winning the popular vote, it's over for Biden. That's an interesting counterpoint as well. The counter counter counterpoint to all of this is big picture. Trump lost twenty twenty and has had a horrible four years since. So there's just no place that he could possibly make gains. Well, swing state polling might suggest something a little bit different.

A couple other numbers that I think are important to look at. Again, the day of the presidential debate, the 538 2024 election projection had it 50 50. Everything that's happened in the last 13 days since the debate has pushed Trump to 51 and Biden to 49. We will discuss on the bonus show today why there has not been a bigger swing there in the Nate Silver projection. It's basically flat, not a big move at all. And so if indeed this is the kind of extent of the damage that the debate did for Joe Biden, it's really not altogether terrible. There is one other new aspect to polling that has to do with Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton. That is interesting enough that I want to discuss it on its own.

There are some stunning new polls post debate which show that both Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump if the election were held today. Oh, David, no, no, no. This is a very risky conversation to have given what happened in 2016. Well, we just follow what the data show us. And this is a very interesting article from Politico. A top Democratic pollster has a new survey showing President Joe Biden still in contention against Donald Trump, but at further risk of losing with other leading Democrats now surging ahead. Listen to this. This poll finds Biden behind Trump, 42 for Biden, 43 for Trump. Interestingly, Kamala Harris is now ahead of Trump, 42 to 41, and former Secretary of State

Hillary Clinton is ahead of Trump, 43 to 41. The poll also tested other potential Democratic tickets and found one headed by Clinton with Harris as VP to be the strongest Clinton Harris leading Trump forty three forty, which is four points better than Biden Harris. So what should be our takeaway from this? It's probably not what you think. The takeaway from this polling isn't to me that Biden should be replaced. It's confirmation that this is really an election of four more years of Trump going back to Trump or not and going with whoever is the Democratic nominee. Now it's not literally whoever. There are certainly unknown Democrats that you could put in who would do more poorly. But the fact that you can put in Kamala Harris,

the fact that you can put in Hillary Clinton and the numbers are really close to the numbers with Joe Biden tells me that this is essentially a coalition that to different degrees is interested in preserving just an uncontroversial Democratic administration, whoever is at the top, because it's more about the coalition than it is about Biden, which is something I've been saying. If Biden is demented, if Biden is Parkinson's, if you accept the most severe of all the conspiracy theories that have been floated, somehow he's managed to have an extraordinarily successful presidential term. And the idea is whether it's Kamala Harris, whether it's Hillary Clinton, whether it's

Joe Biden, it's the people around them that ultimately are really going to be the difference makers and those who are making things happen. And so to some degree, we can look at this poll and say, oh, this could be trouble. There's a lot of people who are polling as well as Biden or even better. We got to get Biden out the counterpoint to that. And I do think that it is a relevant and important counterpoint is that there is an understanding among the Democratic electorate, much of the independent electorate, a small sliver of the Republican electorate. There's an understanding that any of these Democrats would be uncontroversially fine. Nothing crazy or terrible would happen. Is it your perfect ideal

set of political positions? Maybe not. Maybe not. But as a contrast to saying, well, Biden messed up at the debate, he's definitely showing signs of age related decline. Let's put in the civilly liable rapist convicted felon, anti-democratic lunatic. No, that doesn't make any sense. And so you can interpret this polling in a lot of different ways. Ultimately, ultimately, this is going to be about who comes out to vote. We need to get people thinking about Project 2025. We need to get people remembering what it was like when Trump would humiliate himself in the country every day during covid and holding those covid press

conferences during which he would suggest. What about injecting bleach? What about a cleaning? What about does a flu vaccine prevent covid? Remember that beauty? We have to remind people that that is the alternative. And from there forward, hopefully make the case that, you know, would we pick Biden out of a hat today starting from scratch? We can acknowledge the answer is no. While still recognizing if it's Biden, Trump, the answer is obvious. And if you need a reminder, just a primer on the Project 2025 component, you can get my free white paper now downloaded by more than thirty two thousand people. The success of this thing, it's off the charts. You can find the free 12 page white paper. Listen, it's 12 minutes if you read one page per minute. This is not a big

lift and it'll tell you so much of what you need to know about Project 2025. Find it at David Pakman dot com slash Project 2025 on the bonus show today. The House has passed some Republican bills aimed at blocking dishwasher and fridge efficiency standards. Trump's obsession with plumbing has now extended to other Republicans. We will talk about the snub of Nikki Haley to the Republican National Convention, but she's still encouraging her delegates to back Trump. What a pathetic figure in American politics. And we will also take a deeper dove into the 538 presidential forecast.

Why hasn't it moved much post debate from 50 50 to 51 49. We will explain it all when I am joined by producer Pat on the bonus show. Sign up at join Pacman dot com to get instant access. I'll see you then. And I'll be back here tomorrow.