The David Pakman Show - 7/9/24: Biden says he's staying in, Parkinson's conspiracy explodes, Trump softball interview

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Cenk Uygur, host of the Young Turks, and Rachel Bitecofer, political strategist, debate whether Joe Biden should drop out of the presidential race following his poor debate performance -- Joe Biden sends a letter to Democrats explaining why he won't drop out of the presidential race -- Rumors speculate that Joe Biden has Parkinson's disease following reports that a Parkinson's doctor has visited the White House eight times -- Donald Trump calls in for a softball interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity -- Donald Trump Jr. says that Joe Biden will resign or drop out on Friday -- On the Bonus Show: Trump's VP search in its final days, Kristi Noem's social media accounts disappear, RNC releases its first platform since 2016, and much more... -- 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

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53 53 53 53 53 We are going to take a look at the letter. And then I also want to talk about some of the aspects of it that make more sense and some that make less sense. President Biden sending this letter to fellow Democrats. And he says, now that you have returned from the July 4th recess, I want you to know that despite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end and to beating Donald Trump. I have had extensive conversations with the leadership of the party, elected officials, rank and file members and most importantly, Democratic voters. I have heard the concerns people have their good faith, fears and worries about what's

at stake. I'm not blind to them. Believe me, I know better than anyone the responsibility and burden the nominee of the party carries talking about how he previously carried it as well. But he says that he is going to stay in. I can respond to all this by saying clearly and unequivocally, I wouldn't be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to defeat Donald Trump in 2024. We had a Democratic nomination process and the voters have spoken clearly and decisively. I received over 14 million votes, 87 percent of votes cast

across the entire nominating process. I have nearly thirty nine hundred delegates making me the presumptive nominee by a wide margin, adding this was a process open to anyone who wanted to run. Only three people chose to challenge me. One fared so badly that he left the primaries to run as an independent. Another attacked me for being too old and was defeated. The voters of the Democratic Party have voted. So a couple of different things here. First of all, up front, some of the people who email me don't seem to realize I have no power over whether Biden stays or stays or goes like absolutely none. All I can do here is talk about the dangers of Trump and I don't want Trump to

win. So this is a letter Biden wrote, much like when I reported polling about Biden. This is the letter Biden wrote. I'm not a player in influencing any of the outcomes here. The letter is definitive and one can make the argument and we will see later what our panelists think. One can make the argument that it makes sense to be definitive at this point in time. The other thing I think is important to mention is that when Biden says only three people chose to challenge me, you know, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. It's sort of like if I said if it weren't for Biden, Marianne Williamson would be the

nominee. No, no serious candidate challenged Biden because Biden was the incumbent. If it weren't for Biden running, if it were an open primary, Marianne Williamson would not be the nominee. There would be other people running and they would have defeated the three people who did run. That's my belief. That's my opinion. But it's the one part of this letter that doesn't make a lot of sense. So we are going to continue. Now you you will see they are moving on from Biden, something with the brain.

They're moving on to Biden Parkinson's. And we're going to get to that in a moment. But at least for the time being, Biden being definitive and saying I'm staying in the race. The new Biden health story is about a Parkinson's expert who visited the White House, according to some reports, eight, 10 or 12 times. The implication is that President Biden has Parkinson's. We don't have evidence of that at this point in time, but we will address it substantively. We can't ignore. We can't ignore that in 2016, they also were saying Hillary has Parkinson's. Just it's Hillary not having Parkinson's has no bearing on whether Biden has Parkinson's. But they did this with

Hillary. It's important to mention the story in The New York Times and elsewhere is that a Parkinson's expert, a doctor, visited the White House eight time in eight months. The concern, of course, was is that doctor visiting because there is something Parkinsonian happening with Joe Biden. We had questions about this during yesterday's press briefing with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Here's how that went. I'm not going to share people's names from here, but the president, I can tell you, has

seen a neurologist three times as it's connected to the to a physical that he gets every year that we provide to all of you. And that's a very basic direct question. Wait, wait, wait. Hold on, hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Wait a second. Eight times or at least once in regards to the president specifically.

Wait, hold on a second. Not what you should be able to answer by this point. Wait, no, no, no, no, no. No, wait a minute. Ed, please. A little respect here, please. So every year around the president's physical examination, he sees a neurologist. That's three times, right?

So I am telling you that he has seen a neurologist three times while he has been in this presidency. That's what I'm saying. I am telling you that he has seen them three times. That is what I'm sharing with you. Right. So every time he has a physical, he has had to see a neurologist. This is the crux of what they are saying, that the visits, as far as Biden is concerned, were just a neurologist as part of his team for his annual physical. Now, three times in three years is different than eight times in eight months. And the White House subsequently releasing a letter, which you can check out, which writes that this is not about Biden having Parson Parkinson's, that this is a very well respected neurology consultant. He visits and the White House medical unit is in charge of many, many different people and oversees the health situations of many people. It's not just the president of the United States. So allegation

they're hiding Biden Parkinson's defense. That's a doctor who consults with us. There's a thousand people that are sort of under the purview of care of the White House medical unit. And there's nothing to see here. Do I know for sure the answer? No, I don't. But here's what I can tell you. If President Biden has Parkinson's, so what? It makes no difference to me. It would do nothing to dissuade me from voting for him. The progression of Parkinson's disease and these related Parkinsonian disorders, they really vary, but they are typically slow to progress in the early stages. The first three years you're talking about stiffness and sometimes mild tremors, minimal impact on daily activities. Almost everyone in the first three years

can perform whatever tasks they were previously performing. You then get into the middle years, three to seven years where symptoms get worse. It can take 15 years to get what would be called late stage Parkinson's. So would it be a big story if the White House were hiding that Joe Biden has Parkinson's? It would. It would. Does it have any bearing, any bearing on how I would vote in November? Absolutely none. And as a reminder, they did Hillary Parkinson's as well. Now they're doing Biden Parkinson's. I don't know the truth. The White House has put out a statement, but it doesn't change that. I'm voting Biden over Trump in November if those are the options. If this would even hypothetically change your vote. Well, I want to hear from you. You also get access to our entire archive of every episode dating back a really long time and plenty of other awesome membership perks.

Go to join Pacman dot com. Join Pacman dot com. Today I want to welcome to the show Rachel Biddecoffer, political strategist, author of the new book, Hit Him Where It Hurts, How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game. And Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, author of the book Justice is Coming and also a former candidate for president of the United States. I really appreciate both of you being here. I enter the conversation genuinely agnostic about is the best way to defeat Donald Trump, Joe Biden staying

in the race or not. Half my audience is furious because I'm not taking one position. The other half is furious because I'm not taking the other position. I want to learn from the two of you and see if we can get to some kind of answer here. Rachel, let me start with you. Help me make sense of it. Does Biden have a path to victory? Is he the strongest candidate to defeat Donald Trump in November at this point?

Yeah, I mean, I'm going to come to the answer from political science background. I used to teach and lecture and research on presidential campaigns, including presidential nomination campaigns. So my focus is really focused on the structural complexity of switching our nominee in July. Obviously, if it was a clean slate answer, is Biden our best candidate? Clearly not, right? I mean, I had two strategic objectives for the debate that I thought were both very critical. Republicans had used social media effectively over four years to brand him as not all there or whatever, Dementia Joe, right? And I said he needed to show in the debate that he is perfectly fine. Step one, fail. And then the second thing was that he needed to say the words Project 2025, because the reality that I understand is that almost no Americans that need to know what Project 2025 is know what that is today. And until we have saturation of average swing voters in the swing states, people who don't read or watch news at all, they know what Project 2025 is. We're in dire straits. So I

wanted Biden to achieve both of those strategic goals, and he did neither, right? For me, though, the replace Biden thing is flawed, or at least the premise of it is very, very dangerous, because when you talk about moving the nominee, we have 159 field offices going in these seven swing states. There's 11 field offices operating right now in Virginia. The organizational advantage that the Biden campaign team had through the incumbency advantage was the one thing that like made me sleep at night, understanding that the polling over the summer would not reflect the vast majority of people who are going to vote because they do not pay attention to any politics and will not pay attention to it until after Labor Day. So it is very, you know, the answer is,

should we have a different nominee? Yes, in a perfect world, we would put a new nominee and everyone has their fill in the blank for that. And if it's not Kamala Harris, like big problems, folks, because that's the sitting VP. You don't switch over a sitting VP without isolating their voters. And in this case, of

course, Kamala is the first female Black president or vice president. So it would be a double whammy because it would isolate not just any voter, but it would be the core base voter of the Democratic Party. So it's very complex. The filing deadlines start in August. August 1st is the first filing deadline. It's for Pennsylvania. So we really only have a couple of weeks to sort it out. By the time the convention happens, most of the filing deadlines will have been passed. So it's something that either changes this week or it really is going to be very complex. All right. Let's hear from Cenk. So a few things there, Cenk. Number one, you had previously mentioned to us we were thinking of having this conversation a couple of days from

now. And you said, I don't even think Biden will be in the race at that point. I'm curious whether you still feel that. Number two, if there is a replacement, Rachel saying the only real choice is the vice president, Kamala Harris. Curious whether you agree on that. Feel free to respond to anything Rachel said. Yeah.

So let's take it one at a time. So number one. Joe Biden's going to drop out of this race. The only question is when. And so I need people to focus on how disastrous it gets the later it is. So in a sense, Rachel's right in that it gets harder and harder as we go along, as you hit those deadlines, as you hit the convention. Past the convention, you think it's not even possible. It is possible, but he would basically have to step down from the presidency, and he will. He will definitely step down at some point. Why?

Because, first of all, his numbers are catastrophic. So I appreciate that Rachel's honest and recognizes that he was a zombie in the debate. He was awful, didn't make a single point that he needed to make against an incredibly weak opponent like Trump. And so, OK, but the debate performance is just the indicator. It's like the tip of the iceberg that lets you know the iceberg is there, but it's not the iceberg. The iceberg is the numbers, but now there's a second iceberg, which forces the hands of the Democrats, which I'll get to in a second. But the main iceberg is the underlying numbers. So, first of all, his top number is disastrous.

New York Times and other places have him at losing by six. This time in 2020, he was winning by nine, and he barely won the Electoral College at that point. So that's a 15-point difference. He had a 52% approval rating back then. Right now, he has a 36% approval rating. That's a 16-point difference. That is insurmountable.

Totally, literally insurmountable because it's never happened before in American history. No incumbent for any federal office has ever been in the 30s this late in an election cycle and come back to it ever. The best politician that has ever existed has not been able to do it, let alone Joe Biden, let alone Joe Biden in this state. So it's over. He's definitely going to lose. So that's point one. And so if you're Blue Maga and you say, hey, I want to go down with the ship and I love leadership and I would rather obey and lose to Trump than defy leadership and have a chance of beating Trump. OK, well, you know, you made that bet and you can lie in it. But I, unlike a lot of Democrats, actually really, really want to beat Trump. If you really, really want to beat Trump, there's no argument for keeping Biden, none. But now the second iceberg is even more important, David, because the Republicans made one ad and then they stopped

because they were like, oh no, if we keep going, Biden will withdraw. And they desperately want Biden to stay in the race because it's a guaranteed victory for them. And not just for Trump, but for all of Congress, because the ad they made was against Bob Casey. And they had Bob Casey hugging Joe Biden and wearing a Biden hat. And they said, how long did Bob Casey know about Joe Biden's condition? But he lied to you and he keeps lying to you to cover up for Joe Biden. Those ads are super effective. They're going to annihilate the Democrats in Congress. They're going to run that ad against every Democratic congressman and every democratic senator and it's totally going to work

you know why because eight out of ten americans think that joe biden is not mentally healthy enough to be president so you're not going to convince eight out of ten americans that these people aren't lying to cover up for joe biden they're because it's not just that joe biden's incredibly weak and he gets attached to the Democrats, that's already terrible. But it's that they're all part of a cover-up while pretending and lying to the American people that Joe Biden is mentally healthy

when eight out of 10 Americans think that he's not. And if you're a blue maggot and you go, no, I heard from Joe Scarborough, he's a dynamo behind the scenes. And I believe he's great. Look, it doesn't matter what you believe. This is what people have to understand. And this is why I said trump would win in 2016 even though i hate trump you can't judge it from your perspective if you love joe biden that doesn't matter at all what matters is is he going to win or not what do the majority of Americans think. And now that jury's in, eight out of 10, it's already over.

So what will happen is if Biden stays as he is, the egomaniac narcissist that he is, and he's the mad king, and he burns down the Democratic Party, at some point post-convention, for example, they'll realize, oh, now all of our poll numbers are three to five points lower. We're going to lose every purple state, every swing district, and we're going to lose some non-swing districts because now Biden's losing three to six non-swing states. Then they're going to panic. Then they're going to throw Biden overboard. They're going to pay Kamala. And then at that point, you can't just say he's not the candidate anymore. He would have to step down from the presidency. Then they panic and put in Kamala Harris as the president and Kamala Harris is the candidate. But by that time, it's

probably way, way too late. So pick your poison. If you don't push him out now, you are risking the biggest disaster the Democratic Party has ever seen in our lifetime. OK, Rachel, for a while. So I'll get to Kamala Harris in a second. So, Rachel, I mean, weigh in on the math that Jenk is laying out, which is plus nine four years ago, minus six now 15 point swing. If that's true, it seems ironclad. Yeah, Biden's numbers are absolutely wretched. Right. But one thing that Jenk didn't touch on that I want to point out is that the fact is, I've studied, you know, as an empirical political scientist, presidential campaigns, you don't get a lot of them. It's a pretty small model, right? N34, N36, because so many of them serve two terms, but I've still studied it empirically. And, you know, the fact of the

matter is we've never had an ex-former president run against an incumbent president. OK, so some of the things that you see with the Biden numbers are the difference in 2020 and 2024, basically, of incumbency being the in party versus the out party. If we were the out party, I'd be in the Caribbean right now on vacation because it's summer. I wouldn't have to worry. We're definitely going to win. Everything would be great. OK, the problem here is I want to talk one thing about what Jenks brought up here, that he's convinced Joe Biden is going to drop out and that, you know, and that their effort and effort of some of other people, especially the media to kind of pound him, pound his narrative, especially his hidden health narrative, that's going to be the new birtherism um that's no wait don't say that

rachel hold on let me finish my thought thank you okay so um you know with all of that stuff like we we have to um we have to remember if joe biden leave office, okay, if we don't get him to quit, if he doesn't disappear, if he doesn't decide, by the way, that he wants to leave, and then gift all of the campaign infrastructure, all of the campaign money, and all of the machine over to Harris, which is why another reason it has to be Harris, then, you know, the people are going to pay is not Joe Biden. Joe Biden doesn't give two hoots if he wins or loses, obviously. Right. I mean, he said, oh, as long as I gave it my old college try. That's because Joe Biden, like many of our elites, are going to get on airplanes and fly out of here if Donald Trump wins.

OK, it's the rest of us that are going to be here. And so, Cenk, if you're wrong, and you can't get him to leave, and he is your only horse, and it is your only thing separating, like, we're talking about mass deportations of brown people. We're talking about loyalty oaths of Muslims. It's all on Trump's website, laid right out there in his own words. This is what we're going to do. Project 2025 is about how we have the power to ignore the Constitution to do it. These are facts. That's what's coming for our most marginalized community members, Black community, trans community. So given those stakes, what I am personally, at least for me, what I can control is me. I am mission focused. If Joe Biden stops being the nominee, I will work to elect whoever the replacement is. But if he is the nominee, I'm not going to try to dig a hole deeper and deeper and deeper by doing the Hillary Clinton pileup that we did in 2016, 2.0. Okay. I want to hear from Cenk on that, on one, the Hillary Clinton pile up that we did in 2016 2.0.

OK, I want to hear from Jenk on that on one, the Hillary Clinton pile up and to your reaction to what Rachel said about the medical Biden story. Yeah, so first of all, I jumped in there because don't don't compare eight out of 10 Americans who believe that there's something wrong with Joe Biden's. I'm not saying that that's not true. I conceded that point right in the beginning of my first statement what was the birthright but but but here's the thing what you're talking about is how they'll weaponize it that's all i care about too and where we liberals i'm not saying you but everybody i everybody else for me it feels like is constantly like oh biden, Biden's got this. He's got that. We got this and we got that. And it's going to kill us. And I, all I look, when I look at the

Republican party right now, especially Donald Trump is I see weakness, weakness. Okay. Donald Trump. Yes. Joe Biden, America doesn't like Joe Biden, but you know who they really don't like is Donald Trump. So when, you know, Jake, when you're pulling up those approval ratings, you got to pull up Donald Trump's, right? I mean, it's the same thing because it's not the, in Trump's case, a little bit more as the man. It's the time period that we're living in. We're living in historic highs of tribalism. All right, let's let Cenk react to that now that you've clarified, Rachel. Okay, so there is no birtherism. He is in mental decline, and eight out of 10 Americans are not wrong. So now that we've established that, so you're telling me about all the dangers of Donald Trump and all of his weaknesses. Well, sister, I couldn't agree more.

That's why I'm pulling all my hair out and why for the last year, as David knows, I've tried so hard to get a different candidate. Why are we voluntarily losing to this guy? How pathetic is Democratic leadership that they told us, oh, we're geniuses. Don't worry. Let us anoint. Let us pick. We picked Hillary Clinton. She's guaranteed to beat Donald Trump.

Well. No, voters picked Hillary Clinton, dude. OK? What's that? I wrote a whole book, an academic book on it. The voters picked Hillary Clinton. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not the superdelegates yeah so all right look i've been through this debate 200 times right so mainstream media picked hillary clinton and joe biden and so they uh said that she was great

the anointed one they counted the superdelegates before they even voted they made it seem like she had a huge lead the dnc laundered money through the states to give it to hillary clinton they scheduled the debates on football nights very little of them if you don't think that the dnc wanted hillary clinton and joe biden to win in 2016 and 2020 you're kidding yourself no one i didn't say that i'm just saying that at the end of the day the voters yeah at the end of the day after you rigged the entire process through all the media and then they got rid of superdome against and bernie still lost yeah yeah okay i don't want to get into the 2016 debate okay let's i know you don't because i gotta tell you i'm i no no no let

me speak let me speak okay so bottom line is in 2016 you guys were wrong. You were wrong. You said Hillary Clinton was a great candidate. No, hold on. I let you speak. The only way you could have any hope here is to keep interrupting me. So in 2016, did Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump? I said she wouldn't. And I said, please, let's pick a different candidate so we could beat this moron. But you all said no. Hold on. Let's let Cenk finish. Let's let Cenk finish his thought. He did. I want to just remind people that he spent the whole cycle. You'll be able to make that point, Rachel. But let's let's lay it out. Every time we say pick a stronger candidate, for God's sake, look at the polling. Bernie

was up by 12 points against Trump. I'm not re-litigating Bernie. That's gone. That ship has sailed. And at this point, we're not going to pick a progressive. Those are Biden delegates. They're going to pick an establishment candidate. I'm not here to fight old fights. All I'm saying is Democratic leadership has been wrong all the time.

Please snap out of the hypnosis of believing these morons. There's very stupid average people who are like, oh, who pays my checks? Hillary Clinton picked me at the DNC. I will support Hillary Clinton. Joe Biden picked me to run the DNC. I will support Joe Biden. They're self-interested. You think they can't read a poll? You think they can't? They don't have eyes and ears. They didn't see that debate they're sticking with them not because they want to beat trump because of their own self-interest joe biden hired all those guys at the dnc the entire campaign would be fired tomorrow if joe biden stepped down and jill biden obviously is a massive egomaniac who thinks she's the president so that his inner circle's a disaster he's the most selfish man I've ever met. I don't mind if Trump wins.

It's not that big a deal to me. If Trump wins, when you see my question now, can I ask you a question? Let me just finish this point and I still haven't gotten to comment. I mean, I've heard your establishment. Well done. You'll ask the question in a moment. Rachel Jenks wrapping up his thought here. All right. Okay, guys, you only if you stick with Biden, it is a guaranteed loss. If you go to another path, whether it's Kamala Harris or another, don't worry, super establishment, very corporate Democrat. Okay. You haven't, you actually have a chance to beat Donald Trump.

If you pick someone other than Kamala Harris, all of a sudden we go from massive underdogs to favorites. We would be favorites. We'd gain about 10 points. Please don't throw away this election. Please don't put Trump back in charge. Rachel, the one thing you're right about is, look, I'm Muslim. You wanted to ban all Muslims from the country. I hate Trump. I don't know why you want to give the election. All right, let's let Rachel respond to that. And also, Rachel, in your response and take it however you want, address the 10 point gain claim that Jenk makes as well. I'm happy to do that. It's going to be a lift, guys. It's always going to be a lift. Here's

one thing that Jake has to confront all the polling with the replacement people, same data. Okay. It's the same data. I mean, I've seen poll after poll. Harris, Biden, whoever, Buttigieg, Whitmer, whatever it is, all compared to Biden's numbers, basically the same. Why? Why? Because it's not about the candidate. It's about the brand. Okay. We've got a bad brand and voters are associating that brand with all of our candidates. Okay. So there's that. Again, if I could wave a magic wand and I could put, let's say my dream ticket, Gretchen Whitmer and Josh Shapiro into the nomination thing, I would be in the Caribbean right now. I'd be like, things are going to be great. I don't operate in wouldn't it be great land. I operate in reality land, okay? And in reality land, to do that, you have to isolate Joe Biden voters. If you skip Kamala too, you're isolating both the Biden and Kamala base. Good luck organizing and winning because those are the core organizational like gas of the party okay i want to wrap around why you've been doing media no offense i've been working on campaigns and

elections i actually destroyed my whole career to go do that and took a massive pay cut do a lot of my work pro bono in 2022 this leadership that he just eviscerated as do nothing, terrible leadership, modified enough of the strategy electorally that we were able to go in and blunt their red wave. It wasn't a miracle, okay? It didn't just happen. It happened because of work like Jamie, from Jamie Harrison, from me, from others who are working on the strategy. So it's very easy from the sidelines to be like, don't you just want Trump to win? I have a disabled son. I'm going to have to flee over the whip him out even though you already have the operation going in

these fields in these swing states and switch him and still be in a better position to win and the answer to that is i don't know okay i know any one of the replacements that are discussed but again kamala is the only feasible replacement, would eviscerate Donald Trump on the stump. I know that, okay? But they each bring with them their own set of negatives. And perhaps the most important negative is how media behaves. Media is very predictable. That's why I cover it in my book so extensively. If we put a new candidate in, the DC Beltway isn't going to just magically stop. They're going to start hounding that new nominee about whatever it is their weakness is.

The conversation is going to increasingly revolve around us. And, you know, as I say in the book, voters are just not that into us, especially the like the super progressive base. Like we took the bell curve of humanity. Our policies, progressive policies are super popular, climate change, guns, whatever. Right. But not things like Gaza. Okay. Not things like, you know, student loan forgiveness or what have you. Right. We are very, very lucky if we can keep the conversation around what Project 2025 means for average Americans, because it's going to affect every single family in this country. I just randomly pointed at a page yesterday, looked it up. What is it? Eviscerates preschool lunch for poor kids.

So like, so, you know, this allegation that somehow everyone's sitting in an office in D.C. not caring what's going to happen with the election. I just want to really push back at that. It's very easy on the sidelines to like call in. Trust me, I'm still largely on the sidelines calling in. Right. Like, do this. Do that. It is very easy to make those judgments. But I want to be careful about, you know, it is not going to help us if we spend the next four months ranting about how corrupt the Democratic Party is, the Democratic National Committee is every day that you have an audience and you're not using it to freak them out about what's coming from Muslims and immigrants in this country and trans people, then you're doing the country a disservice. If you value what we do at

the David Pakman show, remember to support us on Patreon. Go to Patreon dot com slash David Pakman Show, where you can get access to behind the scenes videos, the Daily Bonus Show, the commercial free daily show. You can support the show for as little as two dollars a month. Check it out at Patreon dot com slash David Pakman show. We'll let Cenk address that. And in your world, Cenk, when is Biden replaced and with whom? Yeah, so there is one thing that Rachel and I agree on. Whitmer Shapiro would be a terrific ticket would beat Donald Trump. We're choosing not to beat Donald Trump. We agree on what would be the great ticket. We agree that that ticket would win.

We basically agree that Biden has almost no chance of winning. So what are we doing here? This is totally mad. Can I just, I'm not going to cut you off, but like, just so you know, we do agree on that. But the problem is, is like, I'm factoring as a political scientist, knowing how these conventions and nominations and infrastructure operates. I've studied it. I've taught it. I know how much infrastructure goes into the act of turning out the vote. And now we know what happens when you don't do it, right? In 2018, when they suspended all the field operations for Democrats, and we got hammered down ballot. That's why no organization.

So that organization comes, like if we get rid of them, it would be one thing if we could wipe it and everyone would be happy. But you're going to have people pissed off. So how? Yes, Shapiro and Whitmer are great, great ticket until you factor in how they got there. If they get there by pissing off Biden and Kamala voters, you're going to have big problems. All right, Jen, address that specifically. OK, there's a hundred things to address. Yeah, here we go. So, number one, you guys make it seem like there's only downsides to the new people. Oh, my God, how will they ever get an

organization set up with the same exact organization you have now, the DNC? It's not like the DNC disappears overnight. It's not like those offices disappear overnight. You just put in a new candidate. And you say, well, that's a little bit of risk. Okay, fine. Oh, they haven't been vetted yet enough. Okay, by the way, that's why you shouldn't just be anointing Kamala Harris. She hasn't been vetted enough. We should actually vet all of our candidates at the convention and pre-convention.

Okay, but you say, well, then Gretchen Whitmer, maybe she's got something we don't know. Maybe it's a little bit of risk. So that's easy to something we don't know. Maybe it's a little bit of risk. So that's easy to say. And it's true. Those are a little bit of risk, except you have to compare it to the alternative, which is maximum risk. If you keep Biden in, we all know that he's gotten I mean, what is it, a 90, 95, 99 percent chance of losing doesn't get any riskier than that.

So what are we going to go from a loss to a loss? So that's a mathematical. So, Cenk, you say ninety nine percent Biden loses. Rachel says it's 50 50. That's what the 538 model says. I mean, here's the thing. Here's the thing is that, oh, I mean, I mean, if I had a bet against you in the past, I got to warn you, I would have cleaned up. So. Oh, really? Because I've almost never I had to bet against you in the past, I got to warn you, I would have cleaned up. So. Oh, really? Because I've almost never been wrong. So go ahead. Yeah, let's do it now. Sure. What do you want to bet? The thousand bucks. I don't know. Joe Biden's going to quit.

You want to bet on that because he's not going to quit, dude. It was an easy one for you, Rachel. It's a layup. If Joe Biden stays in the race, $1,000. I say, I don't have that kind of money. I'll give you a huge advantage. I'll give you a huge advantage. I say he loses every single swing state. Come on. Okay. I mean, it's hard to bet something like that, but I'd rather do it for like, you know, a hundred bucks, something I can do a hundred bucks, 10 bucks. It doesn't matter. Okay. Man of the people there, know i don't no problem i just wanted it to be real enough stakes that it hurts both of us if we lose so that oh no here's the thing like i mean if we lose the race i mean this is why i quit my academic job i had i could have gone into think tank world they wanted to pay me a ludicrous amount of money to come sit in d, okay? And instead I'm like, no, no, no.

I gotta fix how Democrats election year because we're gonna lose in 2022. And we didn't, we held all the blue wall states. We should have lost them all. We held them all. Why? Because a good strategy, right? And so here's- That's not remotely true.

Why was it then? Why was it, Cenk? Here's my countercoup. No, hold on. I didn't, I barely got to say anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let Cenk lay down. Let me address the 80 other things that were brought up.

So number one, the reason we won in 2022 is because the Republicans are super unpopular and they took women's right to choose a way. So, but that's not a Joe Biden thing. That's a, any Democrat would do better than the Republicans. In fact, all we're saying is, Jesus, just get to neutral. Just don't have a candidate that's a any Democrat would do better than the Republicans in fact all we're saying is Jesus just get to neutral just don't have a candidate that's a disaster and you'll very likely win as you did in 2022 it's not the the strength of the Democratic brand as you acknowledge yourself the Democratic brand is bad but then Rachel you don't take the next logical step. How did it get bad? It got bad because the DNC sucks.

No, it's bad. Yes, it is bad because the DNC sucks. You're right. OK, that is why I committed my career to. All right. So we agree on that point. Yeah. Yeah. OK, so it is also bad because we don't answer their propaganda. We they are talking about us. Hold on, Rachel, though. Hold on. Hold on. I'm monitoring time and I want to make sure Jenk gets his time to fully lay this out. Address the DNC issue. OK, so every time that we say, hey, can you please fix this? Like, for example, paid family polls at eighty four percent and a huge percentage, over 90% of Democratic voters, and amazingly, even 74% of Republican voters, want paid family leave. So Joe Biden, can you please introduce paid family leave?

It's a layup. And then you can go down the list, marijuana legalizations at over 70%, raising the minimum wages over two-thirds, on and on and on. And Biden just sits there and goes, nope, I'm not going to do it because my donors don't want it. And then when we say, hey, please, why don't you want to win? Then people like you turn around and say, oh, you're hurting us. Let us just keep seeking the brand with super unpopular policies for no goddamn reason when the Democratic voters

actually have incredibly popular policies. Why don't you fight for them? Why don't you get them passed? If you got two or three of the easiest layups in the world passed, or even at this late date just proposed it, it would improve your brand. If you had a better candidate, it would improve your brand. But every time we suggest improving the brand, they go, you're being disloyal.

You're a heretic. You're helping Trump. You're helping the Republicans. We should stay unpopular and have the worst candidate. How does that help Democrats? So every time you go to help, every time you go to fix, we get blamed. Well, okay, if you're not going to listen to anything we say, then okay, you're going to own the loss.

You own 2016. You picked a terrible candidate we told you and we were totally right when i told you a year ago you talk about the sidelines you kidding me i entered the race and i knew that it was desperation and i told david on this show i said of course the chance of winning is microscopic, but I'm so desperate to get a different candidate. If I just do a little bit better or Dean Phillips just does a little bit better, maybe we can get the popular Democratic governors into the race and actually win this thing. I've risked my entire career to try to make sure that we have a better candidate against Trump. And all I've gotten from the establishment guys is grief.

Why are you trying to help? I think you're helping Trump by having us pick a better candidate. No, we should pick the worst candidate there is that eight out of 10 Americans think his brain's not even working. And we should just go to the, like lambs to the slaughter. If that is a brilliant idea of democratic leadership, of course our brand sucks because our leaders suck i need you to stop listening to them it's like a form of hypnosis please trust yourselves if you're a voter and if you're a dud is screaming biden then okay go biden go harris whatever you need but just make the decision yourself instead of loaning out your brain to the morons at the dnc and the morons at

morning joe who are always wrong just look at our track records they're always wrong so last thing is there are no biden voters that you're going to alienate there's blue maga who's like oh i will do whatever the leader is but it doesn't matter because the minute you give them a new leader blue maga will just turn to that new leader and go we are now for the new leader we are for the new leader there's no biden voters the only biden voter in the country is jill biden and then we still haven't gotten to kamala harris that's a longer topic she would be better than biden but don't anoint stop anointing let the strongest democrat win what is wrong with the simplest concept in the world. Let the strongest Democrat beat Donald Trump. Let's pick the strongest. Why is this so hard? All right, Rachel, as we this is your next comment

will have to be the last one on this as we're getting to the end of our time. Talk about what you see in the next week and in the next few months and maybe the one thing I'll go back to Jenk on and I want you to address as well, Rachel, is there are some who say the debate quite literally will make no difference. It it's too far out from the election. It doesn't change the structure of the debate, doesn't change the economy. It doesn't change whether there's incumbency advantage. It doesn't change the fundamentals. How much does the debate matter?

I'd love for you to weigh in on and then we'll go back to Jenk to wrap. Yeah, look, I mean, we in our coverage, we hear it all the time, like, oh, the election's winding down or we're coming into the final stretch. Right. And I always point out to people, no, for everybody else, it hasn't started yet and you can't make it start earlier. Right. So the question was, can we? Because we had this unprecedented situation where Trump won't do the real debates, right? So we end up with this debate in June. And I, you know, as a political scientist and forecast, that's what I do, right? I thought, I'm betting we're going to see significant ratings declines because it's in June. It's

not after Labor Day. And that's exactly what we saw. We saw a huge interest drop. Some of that is also powered by the fact that nobody wants Donald Trump. I mean, we talk about how nobody wants Joe Biden, but the truth is nobody wants either of these men, right? It's a nobody wants election just like in 2016. And that's why that third party vote defection factor could be so determinative in the results. OK, nobody likes either one of these people in terms of like regular swing voter normal Americans. OK, so it's the everybody sucks election to point out. Right. All right, Jenk. So feel free to address polling. And also at the end of the day, will the debate have staying power to make a difference here? Yeah. So first, I explain on the Young Turks all the time that the reason

you're seeing these wild swings from left to right all over the world, in Brazil, in France, UK, anywhere here in America, and people can't make sense of it. Do people want left wing or do they want right wing? Why do they keep changing their minds so dramatically like in the uk giant win for labor historic win uh after brexit isn't that weird right and then in france uh you had this huge the right was supposed to win and then the left one uh and so there's actually an easy explanation it isn't oh the polling is wrong or whatever. No, it's that whatever is change wins. So the party in France that won was formed a month ago and they came out of nowhere and won the entire election. And the reason is people are saying, we hate corporate rule. We hate the current system. We loathe it. So if you give me change, I'm going to vote for

change. So that pattern is so well established all across the world over the last decade. Now, what are we doing as Democrats? We're saying we're the no change party. We're going to stick with the establishment candidate who's 81 years old and can't finish a sentence instead of going for change if we stick with biden we're the non-change people they're going to vote for change on top of every other poll on top of every historic number there is it's among the reasons why biden has no chance on the other hand rachel's right about these big swings because of the abortion issue let's take the win give me gretchen whitmer give me josh shapiro give me andy beshear give me any generic democrat and for god's sake take the win why are we giving away this election

historians will look back and we'll be befuddled. They'll say, why did they choose to lose? It was the most amazing thing anybody's ever seen. They had a historically terrible candidate, and they had perfectly fine candidates they could have gone with, but no, they chose to run straight into the iceberg. So when it comes to the debate, David, people talk about debates like, oh, they're all the same. After Obama got crushed by Romney in the first debate, you know what I said?

I said, guys, this doesn't mean a damn thing. Obama's a lock to win. And I was right about that. Why? Because they're two normal candidates. Obama had an off night. Obama's incredibly smart. He's going to come back and he's going to do well in the other debates and his record's

good and he's a great campaigner. He had terrific hard-hitting ads out. So, you know, whether I agree or disagree with all of Obama's policies, he was a terrific candidate. So when you're just talking about winning, right? But now you fast forward to this debate. This debate isn't about just one debate. This debate showed Joe Biden's actual mental health mate look uh mainstream media and and morning joe's the epicenter of it they set up this play for you it's like you go into the theater and they do this play and they keep joe biden hidden he barely does any events he didn't even do the super bowl interview that's the biggest softball that's tens of millions of people and some of them that don't normally vote

every president does the super bowl interview you're giving away tens maybe hundreds of millions of dollars in free media so they kept them hidden they kept a mad king hidden and every time you came out they they pretended that the emperor had clothes on so at the debate what happened david was the american people saw with their own eyes the emperor has no clothes he was exposed so this thing is over they're not going to change their mind joe biden is not going to spring back to life and start doing where's his press conferences if i was accused of having mental or cognitive health issues i would have done a four-hour press conference i would have done 12 of the toughest interviews you've ever seen. And I would have crushed them. Any good candidate would. Joe Biden still hasn't done any of those things because he's not

capable of it. Well, listen, guys, Rachel, clarify, but we're way over time. In 12 days and Biden's been out the whole time, multiple events every day. That's true. That's true. I don't want to make sure people know Biden is out very aggressively, just not doing the thing that he's not doing. The things Cenk is pointing out, though, that's fair. Listen, guys, we must end. We could go on another 45 minutes. We've been speaking with Rachel Bitterkofer and Cenk Uygur.

I so appreciate you guys taking time to talk to me today and to talk to each other. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. And thanks for fighting with me, Jake. You can lock that hundred bucks in. I can afford that. Follow us on social media. Interact with the David Pakman show community. See exclusive content. See when we're taking calls live and stay up to date on other big show announcements. We post daily. Find us on Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Discord and tick tock. All right. Failed former President Donald Trump, now a convicted felon and civilly liable rapist, has exited hiding. Remember that Trump has been missing. He has an event at his own house this week,

but otherwise has been essentially missing since the debate, maybe by design in the sense that he's trying to let the corporate media do his bidding. He emerged from hiding sort of to call into the Sean Hannity propaganda program on Fox News. Hannity tried to get him, first of all, softball interview. Trump still makes himself look like a fool. Hannity tried to get him, first of all, softball interview. Trump still makes himself look like a fool. Hannity trying to get Trump to announce his running mate on his show. Trump says his plan is soon, but not quite yet. Let me ask you one last question, if I may.

And I know this was last minute. Thanks for thanks for calling in tonight. And I want to ask you about your vp choice um how soon do you think you'll be making that choice number one number two we keep reading that there is a short list and on the short list we hear names like senator rubio senator tim scott senator jd vance uh governor bergum um is that are those reports accurate? Are there other people maybe people aren't paying attention to? And when do you think you'll announce that? Well, you know, we started off with a lot of people who have a lot of good people,

as they call it. We have a great bench in the Republican Party. The names that you mentioned, absolutely. They're under consideration. And I haven't made final decision but i have some ideas as to where we're going and a little bit you know we wanted to see what they're doing to be honest because you know it might make a difference i don't know i'm not sure that it would but there are those that say trump's waiting until he finds out what's going to happen with crooked joe biden and we'll see what happens with biden but, you know, I think probably within the next week, week and a half, probably sometime. I'd love to do it during the convention. My people say that's a little complicated. You know, in the old days, they would announce the vice president during the convention today with modern day technology. You can't do things that you could have done

50 years ago very easily, but probably a little before the convention, but not much. It could even be during the convention that we'd do it. I'd love to do it during the convention. I think it would be a very interesting buildup and important for the convention. It would make it even more exciting. It's going to be amazing in Milwaukee. If you announced it right now on this show, I think it'd make a lot of news. I'm just saying, well, if I did it, I'd love to do it with you. All right. So Hannity wants the announcement. Remember that Trump now we know has lied many times about this because six, nine months

ago during a town hall on Fox News, he said, I've already selected the person. They don't know. I haven't announced it, but I've already selected the person. Then Trump went back. I haven't selected. It's been narrowed down. The field has been expanded. I don't know if Trump even knows what's going on with his VP pick joining, by the way, joining Sean Hannity in his dire predictions. Trump says we are going to have a terrorist attack on American soil and they

seem eager. I hate to say it, but they seem eager. Well, the one thing you haven't said tonight that you always say is that it's 100 percent certain that we're going to have a terror attack. And I agree with you on that. It's 100 percent certain. I mean, we're letting I pray. I pray I'm wrong. I pray to our country at a level that we've never seen before. How can you be 100 percent sure that there is going to be a terrorist attack unless you're involved? Right. And I'm not alleging that Hannity or Trump are involved, but they insist with this thing. How can you be so sure about something like that, a predictive claim like that, unless

you know something we don't? And that would be a very scary scenario, of course. At another moment, Trump just seeming unhinged, ranting about World War Three and how the military does things for him. Speaker 4 semi running things because he's not running things. The people that surround the Oval Office, the people that surround the Resolute Desk, the beautiful Resolute Desk. They're really running things in Washington, I suspect, and it's very bad. And, you know, he got them into the warfare and lawfare, many different terms you can use,

but basically going after your political opponent using the Justice Department, using local DAs, using local attorney generals, going after your political opponent using the Justice Department, using local D.A.'s, using local attorney generals, going after your political opponent. Nobody's ever seen anything like that. And you know, there are those I just read an article that it was up. It's been a positive for me, but it's not a positive. It's very unfair. It's fighting an unfair battle.

But he's the one that got us into that. And all these lawsuits you see and everything else, that's all Biden inspired, meaning Biden people inspired. Remember, there's no evidence of that at all. And it's, you know, very sad. I think it's a very sad time for our country. We're not respected anywhere in the world. He's not respected. And our country is in very serious trouble. And I'll tell you what, if we're not careful, we're going to be right in the middle of World War Three. And that will be a war like nobody's seen before because of the weaponry. The weaponry is a whole lot different than two army tanks going up against each other. This is a whole different world. A lot of predictions, 100 percent chance of a terrorist attack here on U.S. soil. We're absolutely going to be in World War three. This is ugly stuff.

This is supposed to be an easy interview. And he shows he simply can't keep it together or handle any topic substantively. And then Trump, if you want any sign of how poor the moderation was during the presidential debate, it's Trump saying the moderation was good. It was weak. I didn't know exactly what was happening. It was strange. I do have to say that the CNN, Jake and Dana, they were really they were pretty good. They were they really they were. I thought they were fair.

They were fair in the questions, I thought, to him, to me. But and part of the reason, of course, that Trump perceived the moderation as fair is that it was negotiated, that the moderators would not interject with fact checking and there would be no visual fact checking on the screen. And to Trump, that's a really great thing because he got away with at one point six lies and something like eighty five seconds. So Trump coming out of hiding to do a softball interview with Hannity and reminding us, you know, I'm going to do an op ed maybe tomorrow, maybe maybe Thursday.

What day is it? I don't even know. What week is it? I'm going to make a commentary this week that for all the discussion about Biden, Trump should have already dropped out. And one of the things we shouldn't forget is that whatever your opinion is of President Biden's debate performance a week and a half ago, and my opinion is it wasn't good. Trump's debate performance was atrocious and is uniquely disqualifying to him as being

president of the United States. So that's Trump. Let's now go briefly to Don Jr. Donald Trump Jr. claimed on his Rumble show triggered. I know he claimed on his Rumble show triggered that he has heard that Biden will be resigning Friday. My question is, is it likely that Don Jr. is the guy who would know this? But let's listen to what he says first. This week, Biden says he's not going anywhere. Now, I don't know if I believe that. I've heard from a couple people

that are insiders. Let's call it the big money lobbyist types that, you know, he's going to he's going to resign on, you know, or he's out on Friday. I don't know if that's accurate or not. We'll find out soon enough. So we'll see. But he has sources that Biden's getting out Friday. Now, you know, the other funny thing about this is that there are so Bill O'Reilly made a claim about this, all sorts of different people. One little aspect of this I want to mention. There are folks with these predictions interchangeably talking about Biden's dropping out of the presidential reelection campaign versus Biden is resigning dropping out of the presidential reelection campaign versus Biden is resigning the presidency of the United States. I would love it for some of these

folks to actually be questioned. Of course, they're rarely in a in a scenario where you can question them, but I would love for them to be asked. Wait, just so I understand, are you saying Biden is removing himself as a candidate for reelection or are you saying Biden is resigning the presidency because they're talking about these things interchangeably and they are very different things now important to mention, important to mention. There are those and this came up during our panel today who believe that if Biden doesn't announce I'm not running for reelection before the convention. It will be too late. And if and when Biden ultimately does drop out, he will have to resign.

Why he would have to resign, I don't really know. But that's another hypothesis that's floating around. So does Don Jr. know something we don't know? Or is this another one of his made up ramblings hopped up? If I've ever seen it, you be the judge. We have a great bonus show for you today. We will talk about the search for Trump's VP. We will talk about the mysterious disappearance of South Dakota Governor Christine Ohm's official social media accounts. Where did they go? Why is her Twitter gone? What's going on? And we will also discuss the first Republican platform since

2016. It's been released. It's a doozy. It's filled with a lot of what you might expect. Get access to the bonus show by becoming a member at join Pacman dot com and get that free Project 2025 white paper. Now, 30,000 downloads. It's nuts. Crazy. Excuse me. I'm getting all choked up because of the white paper. You can get the white paper for free at David Pakman dot com slash Project 2025.