The David Pakman Show - 7/15/24: Trump shot in the head, survives by an inch, country in chaos

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

-- On the Show: -- 20-year-old Republican Thomas Matthew Crooks shoots Donald Trump in the head at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and Trump survives the assassination attempt with a grazed ear -- Republicans immediately blame the usual suspects for the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, including Joe Biden, DEI, wokeness, and more -- After 8 years of spreading violent rhetoric and inciting violence, Republicans pretend to be shocked and surprised at someone trying to kill Donald Trump -- Many quickly declare that the 2024 election is over on the basis of Donald Trump being shot, assuming this means Trump will easily defeat President Joe Biden in November, but is this accurate? -- Conspiracy theories surrounding Donald Trump's assassination attempt spread like wildfire -- President Joe Biden goes no-holds-barred on Donald Trump at a recent rally speech, declaring that "Trump r*aped her" in reference to Trump's sexual assault civil suit from E. Jean Carroll -- The US Secret Service is widely criticized for what some call their failure to prevent the shooting of Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania -- Alex Jones said a few months ago that killing Donald Trump is the "best case scenario" for getting his agenda implemented -- Voicemail caller says that after Trump was shot, he is now definitely supporting Trump -- On the Bonus Show: The aftermath of the Trump shooting, exploring what happens now with this week's Republican National Convention, and updates about David's book 💪 Alpha Progression: Get 20% OFF your 1st year or month at https://alphaprogression.com/pakman 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 👕 Leisure of NYC: Use code PAKMAN for 15% off at https://davidpakman.com/nyc 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David 🩺 Wild Health: Get 20% OFF your membership at https://wildhealth.com/pakman 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com  -- 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

. Welcome to the show. The former president of the United States, Donald Trump, suffered an assassination attempt during a political rally campaigning for his twenty twenty four presidential run in Butler, Pennsylvania. These are the sorts of events that fortunately happen very infrequently in the United States, although more frequently historically than in many other countries. And we will talk about that so much happening at once. But one of the real differences here from prior assassination attempts is that we are in an environment of social media. And so instantly when this happened, the video was everywhere. Former President Trump, OK, reportedly a bullet grazing his ear.

We will take a look at the video here as this took place. Confusion briefly and then relatively quickly, everyone realizing this is not part of the planned event. Take a look. Take a listen. If these are not images or audio that you have yet seen or heard, that's a little bit old that chart that charts a couple of months old. And if you want to really see something that said, take a look at what happened.

If you're only listening at this point in time after Donald Trump reached up to his ear, which was bleeding, he was sort of brought down behind his lectern by security, believed to be all Secret Service agents. There is sort of audio that you hear about. We're down. We're moving. Eventually they moved Trump off stage. And by this point, the shooter is down and that they are ready to move. And then you will see as Trump gets up pumping his fists, asking to put his shoes

on. Wow. And Trump pumping his fists there and sending the crowd into a tizzy. It is impossible in five minutes to break down the facts, the political environment, the cultural implications, what went wrong as far as security goes, the story about the shooter. It's simply impossible. And so we're going to take it a step at a time, which I think is the only way that we can do it. Thomas Matthew Crooks is the name of the shooter. It's simply impossible. And so we're going to take it a step at a time, which I think is the only way that we can do it. Thomas Matthew Crooks is the name of the shooter. We don't normally name shooters in general in the United States shooting sort of environment on this show, particularly in mass shootings. This is a different situation and the shooter's history,

including name confusion about other people sharing the same name as part of it. So I don't see any other way to avoid doing that. 20 year old Thomas Matthew Crooks, a registered Republican wearing a demolition ranch shirt. That's a YouTube channel that does firearms stuff described by former classmates, including Max Smith, as definitely a conservative, is indeed the shooter. He was killed on site, laying down on a rooftop some distance from the stage at which Trump was speaking. How did he get access to that rooftop? Why did it take so long to neutralize the threat? Questions that are being asked that we will get to questions that are also leading to significant conspiracy theories? I want to address one other aspect, and I want to make clear that my goal here is to

tell you what we know. And if there are specific claims that are being made where the information is still incomplete, I will tell you that as well. There is a claim circulating that despite being a registered Republican and being described crooks as a conservative, there is a claim floating around that in 2021 he made a 15 dollar donation to a progressive cause through Act Blue. Now, that may be true or it may not be true. If it's true, the weird thing would be Act Blue reportedly doesn't accept donations from those under 18. And he would have been under 18 at the time. On the other hand,

it has been widely reported that there is a Thomas Crooks, not Thomas M. Crooks, just Thomas Crooks, an older man also from Pennsylvania, and that that's the individual that made the 15 dollar donation. Quite frankly, I don't think it makes too much of a difference one way or the other. But this is something that is currently under dispute. It is a situation here where we really need to consider the environment in which this is happening. Now, as President Biden said when he addressed the nation, we don't yet know the specific motive for why this individual did what he did. There are reports from classmates that he was bullied for a long time. Trump's a bully.

Did he not like Trump because of that? At the same time, if you look at the last week of conspiracy content, you will see people like Alex Jones and Nick Fuentes and others going after Trump for not openly supporting Project 2025 or because of what was allegedly revealed in the Epstein papers about Trump. That's not something that even other right wingers would like. Could that have been part of the motivation? I'm not asserting any of these motivations as motivations. What I'm saying is we really don't know the specific motivation here. It's also relevant in my mind that the shooter was 12 when Trump was elected in 2016. In a sense, the political world of MAGA and Trump ism shaped this entire guy's worldview

in the sense that he did not exist as an aware, independent thinking person, even semi rationally. Right. I mean, 12 outside of MAGA being a force in politics in the United States. And that is something that we are going to consider as well in terms of the violent rhetoric we have seen almost exclusively from the American right wing. Now I think I need to say this, even though I know my audience already knows it. Trump must be defeated by voting. I can't believe I even have

to clarify this. And I don't know that anyone cares whether I denounce anything. I completely denounce this and all acts of political violence of the sort. Doesn't matter what the motive was. None of it matters. Trump is a terrible candidate and was terrible for the country as president. And he must be defeated by voting. If you defeat Trump with bullets. Excuse me. It's not really a defeat. The reality is that when you have an authoritarian that you're trying to stop assassinating them or particular, if you try and fail to assassinate them, it actually enables them to be even more authoritarian and think about what they will now say is justified on the basis of this assassination attempt. Jonathan Chait wrote

about this yesterday in New York magazine. Trump already has spent years stoking the flames of violence, and this only allows him to do it even more. It's completely OK and coherent to say I am terrified, saddened and appalled by this attempt on Donald Trump's life as an individual. He survived by an inch. As far as we know now, if that bullet were an inch closer to Trump's brain, he would have been likely instantly killed. That's the most likely scenario. You could survive a gunshot wound to the head. Sometimes it happens. But there is a good chance that by one inch, Trump was golfing the next day rather than dead. And it's completely OK to say that is tragic and terrible. I'm glad it failed, but to still be ready to defeat Trump by voting in November. Now, there is a perspective that this absolutely helps

Trump. We will talk about that a little bit later in the show as we break down everything that happened. I hope you'll be with me for the hour. Let's now discuss who the MAGA right is blaming for Trump getting shot. I'm guessing many of you are not going to be surprised that when I say to you, hey, Trump got shot in the head, It grazed his ear by a Republican, reportedly right leaning 20 year old. Who do you think Republicans will blame? Most of you probably wouldn't be shocked to hear that it's a combination of conspiracy theories blaming Democrats, blaming wokeness, blaming D.I. when really they need to be looking at the political movement that has justified using violence to achieve political means. And that is them. OK, I denounce the shooting as I do all violence. And to blame Biden or D.I. makes no sense.

Here's Congressman. Oh, before we even get to the video, Congressman Mike Collins tweeting Joe Biden sent the orders, a disgusting, irresponsible tweet from a sitting member of the House of Representatives, repugnant and reactionary Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeting. Someone just tried to assassinate President Trump. The Democrats and the media are to blame for every drop of blood spilled today. For years and years, they've demonized him and his supporters. Today, someone finally tried to take out the leader of our America first and the greatest president of all time. Watch the video. President Trump said, fight so we will.

She is blaming Democrats and the media for a Republican shooting Trump in the midst of years of Republicans justifying violence. And she is saying we now are going to fight, suggesting there will be more violence. Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican on CNN, reacting to Donald Trump's shooting by calling out identity politics and critical race theory. It's something about how we all love our country. And I think it's generally true. Most Americans do love their country. One thing that I have found upsetting, if I can editorialize for one second, is the degree to which so many Americans claim to love their country but hate their fellow Americans.

And I'm not talking about Republicans or Democrats. I'm just, I see it everywhere, everywhere. And I'm wondering if that's something that concerns you too. It does. That's what I said. The greatest threat to our nation right now is we're horribly divided. But again, in general, we share the same goals. So why are we so divided? Well, there are political figures, there are political groups. I would argue that's what identity politics is about. That's what critical race theory is about. So there are people who are purposely trying to divide us for political advantage.

Resist it. Don't let them get away with it. And again, start talking to each other. Identity politics and critical race theory are to blame. Republican Congressman Tim Burchett went on Fox News and he said the problem is DEI because DEI led to someone. I guess he's talking about the director of Secret Service, who's a woman saying that she was only hired because of DEI.

And that's what's to blame. Same thing. How the hell did he get on top of that roof? If you look at the pictures, he didn't go through the top of the roof. There had to be a ladder or something. Somebody really dropped the ball. You've got a DEI, basically a person, a DEI initiative person who heads up our Secret Service. You know, she was working at Pepsi before this. I know she was a former secret service

agent, but still, this is what happens when you don't put the best players in. It's a. Speaker 1 So there is the suggestion that a DEI hire of a woman to run Secret Service is what is to blame here. And then we have some other examples. J.D. Vance quote on Twitter. Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs.

That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination. Of course, the reality is that President Trump is a candidate who should be stopped at the cost of voting him out. That has been the message from the left. It's really wild that a 20 year old white male registered Republican gun enthusiast shoots at Trump and Republicans blame women. D.I. critical race theory and identity politics. Now, here's the reality. Trump and his followers, more importantly, including his endorsed politicians and

cabinet officials, they've all been using and spreading violent rhetoric for a very long time. The lead author of Project 2025 on Steve Bannon's podcast said it's on the left to make the revolution bloodless. The left might make it so we have to get them bloody. Trump, with years of calls to violence, legitimizing the use of violence, orchestrating January 6th and then saying those criminal violent criminals, they're actually hostages, they're actually patriots. Republicans don't really need any of the conspiracy theories that are spreading about this shooting for us to actually say, hey, look, look at the rhetoric.

They blamed Antifa when it was January 6th and Trump rioters that were doing it. Trump suggested once that the Second Amendment people deal with Hillary Clinton. They're against gun safety laws that maybe would have done something to prevent this guy from having what he had. We don't know that, but it's a possibility. There is alarming rhetoric about political retribution being acceptable and Trump talking for a year now about I don't think the American people are going to stand for X, Y, Z, alluding to violence there.

If you regularly suggest that there is validity to violence for political influence, then all of a sudden there are going to be people willing to do violence. And that has not been coming from the left. So of course, as is always the case with these situations, we have to blame the person who did the thing. But then when Republicans come out and say D.I. and Biden are the reason this happened. What about the eight years of violent rhetoric from their side? And if you ignore it, you do so because you want to bury your head in the sand and not talk about what's going on. Now, after the break, after the break, we're going to look at some of the more specific examples

of these calls to violence. And we will talk about the political implications. This is it. It's always a sensitive moment after any tragic event. And also, we're in the middle of the Biden cognitive situation, RNC, DNC presidential election, many thoughts from different people about what this does to the campaign. I'll give you mine after this very short break. Well with the arrival of the warmer weather, many of us are heading outdoors more and more and really trying to get that summer fitness going. We'll be right back. The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. from beginners to seasoned lifters looking to achieve exactly that. Each workout plan is uniquely crafted to match your personal fitness goals. And it was developed over years by veteran

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You know, Republicans are suddenly confused about why someone might get violent and decide to take things into their own hands and shoot at former President Trump. As we now know, of course, the assassination attempt failed to take out Trump, but it did lead to the tragic death of another individual in the audience injuring an additional individual. And it's important when we think about these things to feel comfortable saying I denounce and I'm against the shooting against Trump and any shooting and using violence to solve political problems or to prevent politicians from coming to power. I'm against all of it. And also, we can't ignore the extraordinarily violent rhetoric that has become casual. It almost doesn't even raise eyebrows for many people anymore because it is constant.

Just as a reminder from the last few, I guess we would say, few years. Here are just a bunch of the little jokes from Trump about becoming violent and roughing people up at rallies and the entire thing. The punch him in the face. I'll tell you, I don't know if I'll do the fighting myself or if other people will. The third group, I'll be a little more violent. If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them. Would you seriously just knock the hell? I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. I love the old days. You know

what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks. OK, and then now visually reminding us this little video that Trump said that the Second Amendment people maybe could do something about Hillary Clinton. It is critical. It is critical because now they're all going crazy. They're all, hey, you know what? I'm genuinely glad that Trump's OK, although someone else died. OK, I'm genuinely glad Trump's OK, because this is not the way to win politically. But the Charlie Kirk's and the Tucker Carlson's and it's it's hundreds of them that are now all over social media saying this is what the Democrats have sown with their violent rhetoric. What violent rhetoric? What violent rhetoric? And for every anecdotal thing you can find by searching Twitter archives for some isolated thing from someone on the left.

The right has not only carried out the rhetoric of constant alluding to violence, but they've also carried out a whole bunch of violence, including the January 6th riots, of course, near the top of that list. And so many of these other events, the pipe bomber, we could go on and on and on with the list. So it is a sort of complicated and delicate time, because how do you respond given that this now is it appears to be intra right wing violence, Republicans and MAGA and Trump talking about violence as a legitimate political tool and then a registered pro-gun Republican going out and doing

violence against Trump. We don't yet know the motive specifically as of the time of this shooting. It's Republican on Republican violence. And they just want to talk about, oh, this is Biden's fault or whatever. So it's a delicate time because particularly if you're in a position of power as a Democratic elected official right now, as is Joe Biden. You don't want to be perceived as being number one in any way, appearing to endorse what took place, which, of course, no Democrats have done. And also, you need to strike the right tone because there is a campaign going on. But we are coming together as Americans against violence. So the tone is sort of difficult to strike.

I think Biden did a pretty good job of it, making three public statements, one on the day that this happened and then two more statements yesterday, Sunday, one from the Oval Office, one, I think, from the Roosevelt Room or some other part of the White House. He is making it clear this is not the way we do politics. He is doing everything he can to get Donald Trump as much protection as is possible. This is not the way to win elections. He has suspended campaign ads and the entire thing. There is a practical question here as to what does happen to the campaign. And there are wide ranging opinions about how this impacts the campaign. And that's what I want to talk about next. Many are declaring it's over or it's Jover, meaning it's over for Joe after the failed

assassination attempt of Donald Trump. Many of those claiming that this assassination attempt helps Trump are focusing in on Trump as the victim, on Trump as the martyr, on the image of Trump holding his fist in the air with his ear bleeding and being escorted out by Secret Service from the shooting and then going and playing golf the next day. And he's so strong and powerful and all these different things. First of all, as far as the imagery goes, Trump just got lucky. OK, he just got lucky if the bullet were one inch over Trump's dead and that's it. No toughness would have changed that. And that's an important aspect of this to consider. That being said, it seems that at first glance, it would be obvious that

this helps Donald Trump. There are a bunch of people saying, don't talk about that, David. You'll make it a reality if you say it. I'm going to tell you again, this is not a show that is affiliated with the DNC or anything like that, where I calculate what I say for PR benefit. I just talk about what's going on. And one of the things that's going on and I saw it during my live stream about this on Saturday and I've been getting emails about it. One contingent says this absolutely helps Donald Trump.

It makes it seem as though they are they they hate him so much that they're coming after him. They want blood. And we need to now counteract that by saying, you know what, you're not going to get them and we're going to make him president. Now, the truth is, for most people who understand that Trump was a disaster of a president, this doesn't change anything. Did did even for a second it cross my mind? Oh, they tried to kill Trump. They a Republican tried to kill Trump. Now I'm going to vote for Trump. Of course not.

Of course not. And I've heard exclusively from people in my audience who say it doesn't affect my vote. But I do think generically this is probably good for Trump. I think if you want to make that case as strongly as possible, you would say that there are sort of people on the periphery, you know, right leaning folks who didn't really like Trump, who were thinking, maybe I'll vote Trump, maybe I stay home. There's probably a group of those people who say, you know what, even though Trump's not my favorite, I'm a Republican, Trump's a Republican. I'm going to show up now because I see that as fighting back against this

attempt on Trump's life. OK, that that's a possibility. There's another side to this, though. And the other side is this again reinforces chaos, follows Trump indictments, civilly liable rapist convictions. Is he going to prison? Is he not going to prison? What's good? It's chaos all around him.

And comparatively, it's very calm with Joe Biden. And you can argue that a Republican trying to kill the Republican nominee is another example of just the utter chaos that surrounds Donald Trump. Now there's another counter counterpoint, which is, David, as you talked about, a pro-gun Republican tries to kill the Republican president. That doesn't give Trump a leg up. It makes people realize the Republican Party is completely broken. It's non-functional. And therefore, this actually dissuades me from voting for Trump. I'm extremely concerned about what happens next. I don't know what happens next, but where I would leave it is you don't have to vote

Trump just because he got shot, but you can still denounce the shooting and political violence while recognizing just because that happened. It doesn't mean Trump's a better option than Biden. We will track the polling. The lead for Trump had grown to three point three after the debate. It's now down to two point seven. So 18 percent of Trump's lead nationally has evaporated over the last few days. We don't have any polling since the failed assassination attempt.

We're going to follow it. I want to address briefly the explosion in conspiracy theories about the assassination attempt attempt on Trump's life. I was genuinely concerned and a little surprised by the abundance of conspiracy theories during my live stream on Saturday as we were learning the details of what had happened. Individuals saying this was obviously staged by Trump. Others saying this was obviously staged by Biden. Where I start are a couple of different places. Are there questions about lapses in security and how this happened? Sure. We're still learning about that. We'll talk about it a little bit later on the show. Is there a motive case to be made that Trump could have

the motive to stage something or Biden could have the motive to stage or be behind something like this? As I've said before, you can find motive at least ostensibly, almost anywhere. But we don't go with motive alone, absent any real evidence. Right now, I don't see any evidence that this was a staged or planned event in any way. Let's talk about the staged by Trump to help himself. The argument for it was staged by Trump includes some combination of Trump didn't even really seem scared. It grazed his ear. We don't even really know if that was a bullet. When Trump's hand first came away from his ear, it wasn't bloody. So he got blood from somewhere. It was fake blood. Secret Service didn't immediately rush him off the stage, which they would normally do.

Trump was scared that if Biden got replaced, whoever replaces Biden is going to crush Trump. So that's why he staged it. It's sort of stuff like this. A lot of it is conjecture and conjecture alone. Other elements of it can be debunked. The reason Secret Service didn't immediately get Trump off the stage, but rather hid him behind the lectern. It's pretty simple from what I've seen. It's that the shooter was still active and they wanted to

neutralize the shooter before before moving Trump. So agents surrounded Trump. Once you hear them say the shooter is down, then they move. Trump kind of disarms that one. Trump didn't really have blood when his hand came away from his ear. If you look at high resolution zoomed in pictures that have now been released, it certainly looks to me like Trump does have blood on his hand when it comes away from his ear. So a lot of these are details that if you throw them all out there, you go, wow, look, it's ten different details individually. A bunch of them just turned out not to be true. But they then go back to just motive.

Trump staged it to make himself look like the hero, the photo op with the raised fist or whatever. OK, we have no evidence of that. The other side says, you know, this would really be something Biden would orchestrate the heat on Biden for the cognitive concerns from the debate performance. The heat was getting too hot. Biden needed something to take attention away from that. So it is Biden who staged this.

Of course, that raises the question of did Biden stage it to deliberately graze Trump's ear and give him a great photo op? Because that doesn't sound good for Biden. Was was it staged by Biden and it was meant to kill Trump. But the shooter failed. Why would they pick that shooter? Obviously, it falls apart completely. And the motive story really goes both ways. You can find motive if you want to to make either case. There is no evidence of either. Right now, the evidence is another radicalized gun nut and some real questions about possible security failures, which we will talk about a little later. If it changes, I'll tell you. But the speculation, including by some relatively prominent people, seems very, very irresponsible.

Let's take a quick break and be right back. One of our sponsors today is Leisure of NYC, offering ultra comfortable fair trade men's clothing at fair prices. Guys know it can be very tough to find good boxers and T-shirts. The search is over because all boxer briefs by Leisure of NYC are made with amazingly soft moisture wicking viscose from bamboo, super lightweight like air, but it doesn't bunch up. And it's also great for the planet. Leisure of NYC also makes really great Supima cotton crew neck T-shirts. Less than one percent of men's basics today are made with Supima cotton.

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month plus four extra months for free. Go to PIA VPN dot com slash David. The link is in the podcast cast notes. Just days after avoiding being killed by about an inch during a failed assassination attempt, Donald Trump gets some good political news that Florida judge Eileen Cannon, who was selected by Trump and seen as friendly to Trump and on and on has dismissed the Trump classified documents case. Judge Eileen Cannon handed down her decision just hours ago. This is a major win, a major win for the former president. The Florida judge overseeing Trump's classified documents trial has dismissed the entire case against Trump on the grounds that the appointment of and funding for special counsel Jack Smith was illegal.

District Judge Eileen Cannon, nominated by Trump to the bench, said in her 93 page decision, Smith's appointment was unlawful and unconditional. The clerk is directed to close the case. This coming on day one of the Republican National Convention, of course, at which Trump will be formally received as the nominee and following an assassination attempt on Trump over the weekend. White House spokesman didn't really have anything to say. Trump's lawyers argued in court papers that the appointments clause of the Constitution

doesn't permit the attorney general to appoint without the Senate confirming a private citizen and like minded political ally to wield the prosecutorial power of the US. As such, Jack Smith lacks the authority to prosecute this action. It seems as though the judge agreed. The special counsel's team on it for its own defense said that the attorney general does have statutes, statutory authority to appoint what are called inferior officers and that previous court decisions have affirmed that the arguments by Trump's legal team were previously raised unsuccessfully with other special counsels. They tried this exact same argument against Robert Mueller, who ran the Russia investigation

in 2016. From here, Smith can appeal this to the 11th Circuit Federal Appeals Court. That court will certainly hear the case. We don't know. It will be expedited. This is yet another dagger in the possibilities of Trump trials going to trial before the election, never mind getting results before the election or whatever the case may be. The judge throwing it out. What does all of this shape up to mean as far as the political, the political impact,

the politics of this decision? I don't know that it's significant. We already saw that the 34 guilty verdicts don't seem to really have moved the polling very much, although some argue it moved the polling. It's just not reflected in the polling. But there is voter preferences. They are less strongly behind Donald Trump. These are arguments that are outside of the data. So it's very hard to make an argument one way or the other for that. But certainly the totality of the last

three weeks, you have to believe overall pushes Trump closer to winning in November, unless unless you take a structural approach in which you look at it and you say incumbents in general still get reelected. The economy is good. You know, this is the sort of Alan Lichtman keys to the presidency argument. I'm going to be very upfront with everybody. I have absolutely no idea. We already had an unprecedented situation. It was already unprecedented given the charges and guilty verdicts against Trump, a rematch of a previous election with the nominee being a guy who previously was president. It's all that scenario was already an N of one. Now, with the failed assassination attempt, the aftermath of the Biden debate, all of it. And then now this.

It's extraordinarily difficult to make a sober prediction as to what the likely impact of all of this is going to be. It's hard to imagine how all of this is bad for Trump. But those arguing it's obviously good for Trump may be going beyond what the facts can tell us at this point in time. So a victory legally, certainly for Trump. It will be appealed. We will see where it goes. I want to ask you a question now in the audience.

Did Tucker Carlson prove me wrong on the Trump assassination? Let me explain what I mean. Back around Labor Day 2023, I did a video called Tucker Carlson says Trump will soon be assassinated. Tucker made the prediction that Trump would be assassinated to prevent him from being president again. Here is what Tucker said at the time. What do you think the future holds?

Is it I don't know. I mean, are they going to let Trump be president? Of course. I mean, look, if they protested him, they called him names. He won anyway. They impeached him twice on ridiculous pretenses. They fabricated a lot about what happened on January 6th in order to impeach him again. It didn't work. He came back. Then they indicted him. It didn't work. He became more popular. Then they indicted him three more times. And every single time his popularity rose. So if you begin with criticism, then you go to protest, then you go to impeachment.

Now you go to indictment and none of them work. What's next? I mean, you know, graph it out, man. We're speeding toward assassination, obviously. And no one will say that. But I don't know how you can reach that conclusion. You know what I mean? Like, they have decided, permanent Washington, both parties have decided that there's something about Trump that's so threatening to them, they just can't have him. I mean, they're putting him on trial in March of next year in the J6 case, which basically consists of trying to send him to prison for the rest of his life for complaining about the last election. That's literally what it is. Again, if this were happening in Moldova, the State Department would issue an all-hands-on-deck

order to let the world know this is not a legitimate government. And yet our government is doing it. It's like it's really it's hard to overstate how bad this is. And I'm not I don't I don't know where it's going, but there's a collision that's clearly imminent. And by the way, the president is senile in a way that's impossible to deny. So listen, the problem here with Tucker's little story where he says, you know, they tried to impeach and then they indicted and then they're going to try to kill the guy.

The individual who tried to kill Trump was a pro gun Republican and not in any way related to the whole machine that they claim, try to impeach and then indict and then steal the election or whatever the case may be. So at the time, I said Tucker knows Trump is not likely to be assassinated given the protection around him. The odds of Trump being assassinated are very low now due to what appear to be some pretty grave security failures at the Butler Pennsylvania rally. By an inch, Trump was not assassinated. I also said at the time, maybe someone will try to kill Trump from

Tucker's audience, hearing him say it through the means we call stochastic terrorism. And Tucker might realize Trump could be more useful as a martyr to the cause, which happens to be what Alex Jones said just a few months ago. And we will talk about that a little later as well. So I got a few emails saying, David, you were wrong when you laughed off what Tucker Carlson said a year plus ago. You need to a part not not quite a year ago. You need to apologize.

Well, by an inch, I turned out to be right. They did try. They failed by about an inch. But in all honesty, what was I wrong? Do I need to apologize? If so, for what? Let me know what you think. We will discuss the security failure aspect. We will discuss what comes next and we will discuss those who believe actually that Trump as martyr would be better for their movement. A group of people that are increasingly displeased with Trump. That'll be after the short break. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube at YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. which is why I'm so glad to tell you about our sponsor, Wild Health, which takes a proactive

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so many people have switched to ZipX toothpicks. You can only get ZipX online. Go to ZipX toothpicks dot com today. Save 10 percent with the code Pacman 10 at checkout. Just remember, The United States Secret Service is taking a ton of heat for what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, where 20 year old Thomas Brooks Crooks was able to climb onto a neighboring rooftop, sort of shielded by some tree branches and get off a number of shots in the direction of former President Trump, grazing Trump's ear, but killing one other person in the crowd and injuring an additional person.

Now, as is often the case, you'll remember when covid started, all of a sudden everybody's an immunologist. Everybody's a virologist, ER physician. You know, it's it was crazy the number of armchair experts that we saw. We are seeing something very similar when it comes to the Trump assassination attempt. People talking about angles and Secret Service protocol, law enforcement, smoking gun videos, grassy knolls and all of it. It's really too early at this point to explain exactly what happened and what went wrong.

And there are some who argue nothing necessarily went wrong. A lot of this is protocol. There's open carry in Pennsylvania. So simply having a rifle doesn't necessarily mean everybody has their view. There's a few different things now that have come forward. One big question is how was the would be assassin of Trump did assassinate someone else? How is the would be assassin of Trump able to crawl onto a rooftop vantage point armed with a rifle and let off a number of shots towards the podium and lectern where Trump was in an area that was supposedly,

supposedly cleared? There's kind of a viral interview on BBC with an individual pictured here. If you're watching today where this guy said we saw the dude with the rifle climbing up and we started trying to signal to local law enforcement, one guy went up and the report is one police officer went up. The shooter turned and pointed the rifle at him and then the officer went back down. And as we know what ultimately ensued, the shooter was able to get a number of shots off and ultimately was neutralized, killed by snipers on another rooftop closer to where Trump was on stage.

So that's one aspect to this that we don't have an answer to at this point in time. Why were agents not deployed on every nearby rooftop? In other words, shouldn't the rooftop that was used to buy the shooter, shouldn't that have been manned by snipers or agents anyway? Now one of the things that's already starting to happen is that Secret Service is shifting the blame to local police. And so this is another aspect of this was the mistake to rely on local police. Some individuals zooming in on the snipers that were on the rooftop near Trump that ultimately

took out the shooter, saying that seems to be local police. That doesn't seem to be Secret Service. I don't know that that's been proven. So a couple of different things here. The list of alleged mistakes is long rooftop, not secured, no snipers on that roof, local police not reacting to people pointing. There's a guy there with a gun on the roof. The police officer reportedly going up and then retreating questions as to that.

It is being asserted. And again, when it's so early, we have to be careful about what we say. It is being asserted that the snipers that ultimately did take out the shooter saw him far earlier than they engaged him and were not being given permission. Is that true? It will all come out in some sense, in some sense, when you're talking about protecting a president or former president. And this is the absolute highest level of security that anyone is capable of. By definition, the fact that this happened represents a failure. So that is that that is not an untrue statement to make. On the other hand, a lot of the specific claims and statements that are being made are being

made absent an investigation that that really should be done. And part of all of this is inextricably wrapped up with the conspiracy theorizing. The fact that we don't yet have answers to all these questions is creating more conspiracy theories. The interview with the BBC, the guy on BBC, this gentleman, immediately when he said, you know, we were yelling to law enforcement saying, look, look, look, and law enforcement didn't do anything. That initial claim made a lot of people say, see, it was staged. Law enforcement knew about it. So they stood down when, in fact, what it seems like happened is one officer went up, had a gun pointed at him from someone on a roof and

immediately went down because they believed rightly or wrongly that there was nothing that they could do at that immediate point. We just don't know yet. We just don't know yet. But I would resist the urge to theorize conspiratively beyond what the evidence tells us. I want to show you some video here from the Alex Jones show. And this really goes when we when we look at some of the conspiracy theorizing about motive with regard to the attempted assassination on Trump, when we go to who benefits from a successful or failed assassination against the former president five months ago. Alex Jones and Infowars guest Ivan Raiklin talked about how assassinating Trump would be beneficial because it would open the door to sort of retaliate retaliatory assassinations of a deep state list that includes Biden.

In other words, Ivan Raiklin here and Alex Jones seriously said the way we might be able to kill Biden would be by Trump getting killed first. This is five months ago. Take a listen to this. And then just just remember, this is all in the context of who do we believe benefits, who does benefit. OK, take a look. A message directly to every single person on the deep state target list. My assessment, Ivan Raiklin's assessment that if you assassinate any political presidential candidate, whether it's RFK, whether it's Trump, guess what? America will do the following immediately. They will respond in kind and they know who you are because we've created the list.

So if you go to those measures- And that's a major Rubicon. They should know that. Immediately. You're going to see immediate response. And there are only a few buildings in Washington, D.C. that they will probably do that. Well, I hope that's not the case. But these people are crazy. And having said that. If they do that. Option two behind Trump is going to be so much better for us and so much worse. I was going to say, if they think about that now and now they really get into it, their

belief is. Trump's OK, but he's not great. And Alex Jones has been been increasingly displeased with Trump. Now they get into if we get Trump out of the way, it may actually be better for our movement, whatever that movement is. Kill him. That's best case scenario from a sick level, from a sick level, beating him. Oh, please kill him.

Which I don't I mean, but it's so good after that. Oh, it's going to be the best cleansing and the fastest cleansing that we've ever seen in my lifetime. I get, I, I assess with almost certainty with the highest level of confidence that if they assassinate Trump, it is so game over for them and it's going to be so fast. So this is another, we're starting to put pieces together when we learned that it was a Republican who shot Trump. Well, it must somehow be the fault of the left, despite the fact that it's been the right pushing violent rhetoric for eight years or longer. But is there any

plausible explanation for why a Republican might want to go after Trump? Well, it's the same stuff that we've been hearing from Alex Jones, from Nick Fuentes. When out when Trump goes, I don't know anything about Project 2025 and they get furious. They go, what? We want Trump to put in Project 2025. He's not going to. Here is an example that has nothing to do with the left. This is rhetoric from the right Republican shooter. Republican presidential candidate has nothing to do with anybody on the left that plausibly explains what their view is. Now here's one other clip from this whacked show.

They play the so-called deep state target list. And you'll see if you're watching the list of the people they really like to target includes Biden, Hakeem Jeffries, Mike Pence and others. And remember, the whole idea here is if they kill Trump, it becomes open season on the people we really want to kill. And I got that remember that deep state target list that I introduced you to last time I was on the show. I got a quick video that goes in a little bit more detail if you want to play that.

Do they have that? Yeah, they do. Guys, do you have this video? It's two minutes and 31 seconds. Well, let's roll it. Here it is. Ha ha! Ha ha! Smelly for video. There are the you got the receipts. So it's Biden, Comey, John Brennan. Now, basically what we're looking at here is a list of video with the snapshots of the

Twitter accounts of the the Bill and Hillary Clinton of our deep state target list where we're going to go after every single digital piece of evidence. It's a crazy list. It's hard to even keep up with it. Senator Lindsey Graham is on the list of residue that they left on the Internet. Shard decks to showcase their seditious conspiracy. There's the treason category. There's the sedition category. Again, those that unmasked Flynn, the thirty nine of them that have Twitter accounts, the fifty one that provided cover for the Biden criminal syndicate laptop.

OK, so let's you don't need to see this entire thing. You know, they've got John Bolton. Everybody's on this list of the people they really want to kill. What's the point here? The point is, absent any real evidence that this was an event inspired by the rhetoric of the left, which has not been violent or in any way related to that. Is it even plausible that there would be a reason that a Republican would want to eliminate Trump? Is it plausible? We're not saying the reason is this worldview that we got from Alex Jones and his buddy

here. The answer is yes, there is. There is a large contingent of the right that believes Trump is not enough. What they really want, that Trump is actually an impediment to getting what they really want in power, that in a sense, Trump is like a patsy where you might be able to use him for some things, but not for others, and that there's some real better way of going about this. That is a view which on conspiracy sites and places that are upset that Trump claimed not to know what Project 2025 is. They've drawn a line to why it would be good for them as right wingers to eliminate Donald

Trump. That's the important message we anxiously await. If we can figure it out, knowing the real motive of the man who tried to assassinate Donald Trump. We have a voicemail number and that number is two one nine two. David P. Here is a caller, one who is a sort of off and on, on again, off again, off again, on again, regular caller who says, you know what? The fact that they tried to kill Trump. This actually makes me now really want to vote for the guy, which makes very little sense. But I'll play it for you.

Congratulations, my friend. Congratulations. After yesterday's debacle and problem and horrible events against Trump. I spent the last five hours with Trump supporters at an intersection next to my house. Why? I got some free flags, stickers. Heck, I even got some free food. And you know what?

I'm going to start going to all of these get-togethers where they start, you know, doing all the flag movements and all that stuff in the intersections. And I might start going to rallies if it's next to my house. I'm not going to travel because I can't afford it. And yeah, yesterday's events have finally converted me to a MAGA. Okay. Tell me why. So now I'm a MAGA.

I'm a MAGA, my friend. I'm a MAGA. I'm a Trumpist. I'm a maggot. My friend, I'm a maggot. I'm a Trump. I've become a Trump. I have finally been moved to the right. I wonder how far right I'll become. I don't understand why a Republican trying to kill Trump makes this guy more of a Republican.

I just it's I'm not understanding. But maybe he'll explain. Maybe I'll start becoming some weird fascist or something. I mean, all these words have really lost any value, any meaning because they use them so freely and so loosely. But yeah, I spent. Close to five hours and it was fun, bro. It was really fun.

And Biden has zero zero percent chance of me voting for and no matter how you try to spin it. The funny thing is, I'm not trying to I'm trying to figure out why this guy says a Republican trying to kill Trump has made me not want to vote for Biden. And now I'm definitely going to go more right wing. I wish you could explain it. This was a plot against Trump because they couldn't silence him. They couldn't destroy him financially enough. So this is the last option, the last option.

So congratulations. Your argument and the argument of the left has moved me further to the right. I don't know what the argument of the left is when it comes to a Republican shooting Trump. I just don't get it. So listen, that's an example of someone who has no idea what's going on. They are morally confused. They are ethically confused.

They don't know anything. They're just like, I don't know, I'm a maggot now. But the problem is. Even if it makes no sense what he's saying and it makes no sense what he's saying, there may be other people who react in exactly the same way and how we counteract that, what we do about that. I don't really know. So on the bonus show today, what happens with the RNC?

The Republican National Convention starts today. What happens with political campaigning, which has in a sense been suspended the RNC this week? So Trump's not campaigning. Biden said he was suspending campaign campaigning for the has in a sense been suspended the RNC this week. So Trump's not campaigning. Biden said he was suspending campaign campaigning for the time being as well. Campaign ads and so on and so forth. What happens after the Trump shooting? What becomes the new normal in this environment?

We will discuss all of that and more on today's bonus show. Also, I'll give you an update of what's going on with my book forthcoming, which has been unbeknownst to me. Now I know about it, but unbeknownst to me, released on Amazon and elsewhere for preorder. with David Pakman dotcom slash project 2025.