The David Pakman Show - 8/1/23: Biden bribery falls apart, DeSantis fails interview as Trump panics

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

-- On the Show: -- The conclusion to David's interview with Vivek Ramaswamy, entrepreneur and 2024 Republican presidential primary candidate, who joins David to discuss his campaign, how he plans to defeat Donald Trump, how he would defeat Joe Biden if he were to be the Republican nominee, and much more -- The much-awaited Devon Archer testimony related to Joe and Hunter Biden completely flops -- Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor investigating Donald Trump, says that charges -- whatever they are -- are ready to go -- Florida Republican Governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis implodes during an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier -- Donald Trump is clearly panicking, now predicting that his third arrest will happen "any day now" -- Failed former President Donald Trump has reportedly spent $40 million on legal fees, and his PAC is running out of money -- Law professor Paul Collins says that Donald Trump may die in prison if he is unwilling to strike a plea deal -- Donald Trump is reportedly furious over a song referencing "prison" playing as he came out on stage at a recent event -- Republican attendee at Donald Trump's recent Lincoln Day dinner speech says Trump's speech was "low energy" -- Voicemail caller was very much not impressed with Vivek Ramaswamy's interview with David -- On the Bonus Show: Judge dismisses Donald Trump's lawsuit against CNN, abortion providers sue Alabama to block out-of-state travel prosecution, Twitter's "X" sign taken down after complaints, much more... 🌎 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription (rules & restrictions may apply): https://babbel.com/pakman 🚲 Lectric eBikes! Shop for your new electric bike at https://lectricebikes.com 👂 MDHearing: Just $149.99 each + free charging case. Use code PAKMAN at https://mdhearing.com 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman 🍜 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off immi ramen noodles at https://immieats.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

My favorite way to enjoy the nice summer weather is on my electric bike from our sponsor, Electric E-Bikes. It's super fun. You can go up to twenty eight miles an hour with tons of torque, fully foldable for easy storage, ships fully assembled and they have affordable financing. Go to L.E.C.T.R.I.C.E. Bikes dot com. The link is in the podcast notes. We start today with what many Republicans thought, believed, said was going to be the

smoking gun, the final nail in the coffin of the Joe Biden bribery, fraud, crime scandal. This was going to lead to Joe Biden's impeachment and conviction, removal from office, criminal charges. Joe Biden was going to be in prison before you know it. It all hinged on the closed door testimony of Devin Archer, a business associate of Hunter Biden. It is really important to understand as we go through this, that on the one hand, we can look at whether certain allegations, if true, expose impropriety on the behalf of Hunter or Joe Biden influence peddling,

for example, using a position of power to impress individuals to try to secure business deals or whatever. That's one question we then go to. Was there anything even allegedly criminal here? And one of the extraordinary takeaways based on what we've been told by both Democrats and Republicans about yesterday's Devin Archer testimony is that we are no closer to any allegations that are evidence based of criminal behavior by Joe Biden. Now, let me tell you what exactly it is that happened. Devin Archer is a business associate of Hunter Biden, and Devin Archer is a business associate of Hunter Biden. And Devin Archer gave closed door testimony yesterday. There's an article by The Hill that summarizes it. And the entire debate focuses on what is being described as the illusion of

access. The allegations that were made by Devin Archer were that Hunter Biden sometimes sought to impress business associates or potential business associates, business partners with the illusion of access to Joe Biden. That is very different than access to Joe Biden. And it is certainly very different than Joe Biden as vice president or former vice president or candidate or whatever the case may be, working in any tangible way to give anything of value of any kind to the individuals that Hunter Biden is trying to do business with.

And what the incredible takeaway here seems to be, according to Congressman Dan Goldman, a Democrat, is that the testimony of Devin Archer behind closed doors yesterday actually seems to be exculpatory for Joe Biden, that even as Hunter Biden would sometimes allude to this illusion of access to Joe Biden, that there was actually no such access. Maybe there were he hopped on speakerphone and said hello, but there was not even testimony. And remember, just because there's testimony doesn't mean it's true. It doesn't mean it's immoral. It doesn't mean it's criminal. We're not even at that standard. There wasn't even testimony that

Joe Biden was involved in any of these business dealings. Had there been such testimony, we would then be in a position to evaluate. Was there even any possible crime? We have none of that. Now, you don't have to take my word for it. We don't actually have the testimony because it was behind closed doors, but you can go through and read the summaries of it. The biggest indicator that this is not the smoking gun that Republicans hoped and maybe to some degree believed it would be is that James Comer, the Republican who is in charge of the House Oversight Committee, went on Sean Hannity's propaganda Fox News show last night. And when Hannity asked him and said, do you think this is it? Do you think this is the

Biden, the Biden bribery bombshell that we've been waiting for? Do you think you can actually prove that James Comer is able to offer nothing other than I sure hope so, which is not exactly confidence inspiring legal bravado. Take a listen to this. Speaker 3 You believe that this is now officially the Joe Biden bribery allegation? And do you believe that you will be able to prove that, Jim Comer? I sure hope so. And I do believe that there's a lot of smoke and where there's smoke, there's fire. We just heard testimony today that Joe Biden had lied to the American people.

Speaker 1 There you go. Now again, I am not someone to defend presidential candidates lying to the American people, no matter who is doing it. I also am aware that the lie they claim was told has not even been proven to be alive. The lie was that Joe Biden publicly said during debates with Donald Trump, I don't have any involvement with my son's business dealings, even if we accept as true the testimony of Devin Archer. it still doesn't even allege that Joe Biden was involved in business dealings with Hunter Biden. Even if it is true that Hunter Biden alluded to the illusion of access to his dad, that

is not Joe Biden being involved with Hunter Biden's business dealings. Even if Joe Biden got on speakerphone with someone Hunter Biden was talking to to say hello, that is not actually being involved in the business dealings of Hunter Biden. And then we go, even if he were involved in the business dealings. Number one, look at the Trump family. So it's a lot of, you know, pointing fingers, throwing stones from glass houses. But also, even if he were involved, that doesn't necessarily mean he did anything wrong either. And it is not even necessarily a crime. So this is not about me defending anything. If Joe Biden did something immoral or improper or unethical or illegal, I'd be right here to tell

you. But what is abundantly clear is that after years of investigating the same stuff over and over again, they keep making the same allegations. They are not very confident that this is actually going anywhere. They lost their witness and the papers were lost and the tapes don't say what they supposedly said. And now it's I I hope that this gets us something we can use now for a different perspective. Here's Congressman Dan Goldman saying the testimony does not implicate Joe Biden. He did describe that there were approximately 20 occasions over the course of their nearly decade long business relationship where when one of them called the other that Hunter Biden would ask his father to say hello to whomever he was at dinner.

He said there were some times when it was friends and some times when it was potential business partners or business partners. But the witness was unequivocal and stated very clearly that they never discussed any business on that phone conversations. There were niceties and there was a hello and there we talked about the weather or whatever it was, but it was never any business. And I think it's really important to remember that during this time period that we're talking about here, Beau Biden, Hunter Biden's brother and President Biden's son became very ill with cancer and died.

That was in the spring of 2015. And the witness described in vivid detail about how devastating that was to both Hunter Biden and to Joe Biden and how their communications picked up dramatically in the aftermath. Because Joe Biden was calling his son to check on him. And Hunter Biden was calling his son to check on him and Hunter Biden was calling his dad to check on him. It had nothing to do with business. OK. Also, interestingly, Dan Goldman saying that right now the only official action by President Biden in any way related to Hunter Biden's business interests was actually bad for Hunter

Biden's business interests was actually bad for Hunter Biden's business interests. There is not a shred of evidence of a single conflict of interest of President Biden ever doing anything in connection or in relation to Hunter Biden's business ventures other other than advocating for the removal of a prosecutor general who was advantageous to Burisma. Understand that the one action Biden got involved in as his in his official capacity as directed by Barack Obama was something that wasn't good for Hunter Biden's business interests. This is the smoking gun they have claimed to have. Not very impressive. On the other hand, what is very impressive are the charges that may be ready to go in Georgia against Donald Trump. Let's talk about that. If

you want to talk about the real crime family in this country. The evidence doesn't point to the Bidens. The evidence points to the Trump's Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis says, quote, We're ready to go on Trump election probe charging decisions. Now this doesn't mean they are charging Trump, although the belief is they are charging Trump. That's not actually what she's saying. But Fannie Willis is explaining that the decisions have been made. The charges are ready to go. NBC News reports Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis reemphasized her plans to announce charging decisions by September one in her investigation into efforts by Trump and allies

to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. That's the I need 11000 votes. Give me a break. Willis told an NBC affiliate, quote, The work is accomplished. We've been working for two and a half years. We're ready to go. In a letter to the chief judge of the Fulton County Courthouse in May, Willis signaled in a scheduling request that charging decisions stemming from an investigation into, quote, possible criminal interference in the administration of Georgia's 2020 election could come in early August. She asked the judge not to schedule in-person trials the weeks of August 7 and 14. The really sad thing about this, the tragic thing and justice must go forward just because of my schedule. That doesn't mean justice must must

be halted. I'm actually worried I'm going to be off on summer vacation exactly when this happens. And I have really been looking forward to these state charges. The reason that these state charges are so important are that we like to be connected to reality. We like to understand what's what's really going on. I and many others have said and explained to you that the state charges out of New York so far are completely valid and justified based on the evidence that the prosecutor has. But they are not the most serious charges. The reason we care about state charges is that presidential pardons can't do away with them. And the reason we care about the Georgia charges is that they appear to be potentially very, very serious. We will talk later in the program about

how Donald Trump has already spent a reportedly 40 million dollars on legal fees and his PAC's funding is running very dry, very, very dry. The context in which Trump may soon find himself running for the Republican nomination is one where he is dealing with three or maybe even four criminal charges. That would be a lot for just your average person not running for president. Four different charges in four different jurisdictions could be absolutely crippling for Trump. Now, Trump insists it won't take me off the campaign trail. Even if I'm convicted, I'm going to keep running. Fine. I don't doubt that that is his intention. It may change once the rubber meets the road. And so at the top level, the most important thing is that justice be served. The article from NBC News also explains that

Bonnie Willis has requested increased security and a whole bunch of other things. It really seems as though something is going to be happening here until it does. We don't know. This is the most important aspect is that speedy justice continue to be done. I also would rather not be on vacation when it happens, but that's a different story. And, you know, you got to plan these things months in advance. But any day I'm gone, we are going to have a guest host who will absolutely be covering what happened. So fear not.

Let's take a very quick break. We're going to continue with more. We'll have part two of my interview with Vivek Ramaswamy. Many of you requesting a fact check of the interview, which I think is a fair thing to request given how off the wall it was. We'll talk about that later in the week. Quick break. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube or whatever platform you watch us on.

Tick tock, whatever the case may be. We'll take a break and be back with much more. Forty eight million Americans have some hearing loss, so if you or a loved one is struggling with hearing loss, you are certainly not alone. Only one in five people who would benefit from a hearing aid actually get a hearing aid. Our sponsor, MD Hearing, specializes in FDA registered rechargeable hearing aids at a fraction of the cost.

Marked up hearing aids at an in-person hearing clinic can cost up to ten thousand dollars at MD Hearing. Speaker 1 hearing couldn't be happier, loves them. You take their free online hearing test. Their world class team of licensed audiologists will advise you how to set up your device. Your audiologist is there to provide ongoing support by video call or text. And MD hearings new model, the Neo is their smallest hearing aid ever. No one will even know it's there. Simply go to MD hearing dot com. Use the code Pacman to get any pair of hearing aids for just one hundred and fifty dollars each. They will throw in a free charging case. That's Amazon. Michael D is in Daniel hearing dot com. Then use code Pacman to get hearing aids for just one hundred and fifty dollars each and you'll get a free charging case. The info is in the podcast notes. Thank you so much, David. everybody. That's why I keep my routines really simple. Before I have my morning coffee, I'll

have a scoop of age one. Age one is just this tasty green nutritional supplement. You can mix it into water or other drinks or smoothies. You get 75 high quality vitamins and probiotics from whole food sources. It's just a scoop of age one. You're covering everything you would need for the day. I just don't have time to be dealing with 10 different vitamin supplement bottles or combining all these things. It's also really expensive to do that. It's just a single scoop of AG1 in the morning gives me all the vitamins that I'm looking for.

Saves time, more cost effective. You can go to drink AG1 dot com slash Pacman to get five free travel packs of a G1 plus a free one year supply of vitamin D. I've talked about vitamin D many times. That's drink a G the number one slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Lest anyone forget, the David Pakman show is a viewer and audience and listener supported program. The primary way that we do what we do is because some of you somewhere around zero point seven zero point eight percent of you get a membership at join Pakman dot com or support us through one of our other platforms. I would love for you to be one of those folks. If you

aren't already, you can go to join Pacman dot com. We do an extra show every day for our members. It's called The Bonus Show. Alex Jones hates it. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. It is what it is. We also have a whole bunch of other great perks. In addition to that, we are trying to sell 10,000 copies of my children's book on critical thinking. When we started, I thought I went to my team and I said, sir, speaking to no one in particular, I said, sir, if we sell 500 copies of this book, it would be a success because I don't

know what I'm doing. I have no clue what I'm doing here. We are at eighty five hundred copies sold. I want to get to 10000. Consider getting the children's book at David Pakman dot com slash book. If it's not your cup of tea, if you have no kids to give it to, no kids to show it to. Don't worry, you can still help by signing up at join Pakman dot com. Ron DeSantis continues to show that he is not ready for primetime. Ron DeSantis his campaign is on life support. Ron DeSantis can't relate to people in any normal way.

That's how he laughed while holding a beer at an event two days ago. And everybody thought it was really strange. He tried to save his campaign by doing a very big, prominent interview with Fox News. The interview that DeSantis did with CNN's Jake Tapper was a disaster. So he thought, I don't know, let's try Fox News. Yes, Brett Baier was friendlier, but it did not go any better at all. Here is DeSantis trying to make a statistical case aside from all of the personality things and whatever. Trump can't beat Biden, but I can. This is the argument that DeSantis is now making. Don't believe the former President Trump could win a general election against Joe Biden. I don't think so, because I think that there's too many voters who just aren't going to vote for him going forward. I saw it in Florida in my reelection. You know, I won the first time by less than a percent second time by 20. Why did people vote against me in 18 and voted for me? Twenty

two. The number one reason they gave was because of Trump, because in 18 they said that they were voting against Trump voting against me to vote against Trump, even though they didn't know much about me by 22. That was there. So I think in states like Georgia, you guys following this explanation, Arizona and there's and look, I don't put a stock in the polls, but he puts no stock in the polls, but he is exclusively citing polls. You guys talk about him. The polls that come out that put I beat Biden in Georgia. Trump doesn't. I beat Biden soundly in Arizona. Trump doesn't. Those are just the realities. And I also think in terms of the base, you need to have a cadre of personnel. If you

want to slay this administrative state, you've got to be disciplined, you've got to be focused and you've got to have people surrounding you that are going to go and support the mission. I think the former president would have very difficult time getting the type of personnel to join the administration that you would need to actually bring. All right. So as you can see, the bobbling continues and it's really it's not a medical thing. It's not like Trump making fun of a disabled reporter. This is how DeSantis tries to make his point and be personable.

It's to say things that aren't true and nod like a lunatic. None of this stuff really is true. Now, is it possible that DeSantis would do better against Biden than Trump? Yeah, that is possible. I mean, if we look at polling, it's possible neither of them might be able to beat Biden. The latest morning consult poll taken two days ago with 6000 registered voters. This is a very solid poll. Biden beats DeSantis by six, but Biden only beats Trump by three. So in one of the top newest polls we have, DeSanctimonious actually does worse against Biden than Trump. But there are other polls with other perspectives. Unfortunately, the latest Echelon Insights poll also that one has Trump beating Biden, but it has Biden beating DeSantis. So you actually have to go back quite

a bit to find polling that is better for DeSantis than it is for Trump. But listen, it's very early. So at least theoretically speaking, maybe DeSantis would do better against Biden than Trump. The problem is DeSantis has lost 42 percent of his support within the Republican primary. Donors are bailing. Trump claims people are calling him saying, sir, we'd like to give you money because the sanctus is dead. I don't know if those stories are true, but it is not going well for Ron DeSantis. The campaign is quickly imploding. He's fired more than a third of his staff total. It's crazy. Brett Bayer then confronts Ron DeSantis with this homophobic ad that his campaign ran. And DeSantis sort of says, yeah, I'm responsible, but also

like I'm not really doing everything necessarily very weak stuff. Take a listen. Called it bizarre and staggeringly homophobic log cabin. Republicans called it extreme, naive, dangerous, politically stupid. Why did you do that ad? And what do you say to people that you're subtracting not adding to potential supporters? What they hit him on was injecting men into women's competitions which he did with his beauty pageants and then he's expressed support for allowing men to use women's locker rooms and bathrooms so those are the two issues I think those are totally legitimate I don't believe in demeaning anybody and we have not done that since since I've been governor. You know, these these things get shared or whatever.

And I'm responsible for it. Don't get me wrong. But the idea that like I was sitting, the bobbling is the more he bobbles, the less sense what he's saying makes. They're like, oh, share this video. That's a rapid response thing. But on those issues about injecting men into women's competitions, that's wrong. Injecting like bleach inject.

Have you ever injected a man? We've taken a strong stand with respect to women's athletics, protecting women's sports. Super strong, protected women's bathrooms and locker rooms. And at the end of the day, you know, we can't go down this road where there's 37 different genders. Listen, once you get 37 genders, it's absolute chaos. You can really see why his campaign is failing, right? I mean, focusing in on the real kitchen table issues like the injection of men and 30 different 37 different genders. This guy doesn't have what it takes. And importantly, the the polling is not on his side when it comes to that stuff being what really matters

to most people in the same way that if you were on Reddit and Twitter in 2020, you would have thought Bernie's got this Democratic nomination wrapped up. And I said, be careful with that because you've got Democratic voters all over the country, Michigan, Wisconsin, all these places that they are not following this online narrative. They're busy working. They're not spending as much time on social media and they disproportionately support Joe Biden. Similarly, this campaign built on anti woke by Ron DeSantis, as we are quickly seeing

by his polling collapse, is not resonating even with most Republican voters, never mind nationally. That's why the polling is in the toilet. One more DeSantis clip. Bayer asks DeSantis about Republican strategists now bailing on him, saying he doesn't have what it takes, including Ed Rollins. It gets you almost start to feel bad for DeSantis, who has been around the block. Ed Rollins, longtime Republican political consultant, supported former President Trump, jumped over to you and your PAC, ready for Ron PAC, told the Rolling Stone this week this,

quote, I don't think it's the campaign's fault at all. It's his. I think he's a very flawed candidate. He's not a particularly articulate candidate. He does not come off as warm and fuzzy when you get into those culture wars the way that he has. The vast majority of people don't understand what they are. That may work in parts of Florida, but not these other places he needs to win. That's not what sells. It's harsh. But what do you say to that? This is from a guy who's obviously been around the block and who's been a central figure in your political action committee. Well, it's obviously nonsense. I mean, I came into a state that had been decided by one point for a generation. You've covered some of those races.

I govern boldly. I govern under apologetically. I delivered big results. Notice that he's not actually addressing Ed Rollins is critique, which is a good one, which is the Santas as a person doesn't have what it takes. That's tough to hear people say. There's really an attack on you as an individual. And we won by 20 points. You don't win a state like Florida that big if you're not doing things that are resonating. And I would push back. What I

hear about, oh, culture war, standing up for the rights of parents, standing up for the well-being of children. That's not some, quote, culture war that is central to the lives of tens of millions of people throughout this country. It is the right thing to do to stand with our kids. So he's continuing to insist that the culture war stuff is right. I mean, listen, at the end of the day, all you really need to do is look at the numbers and and you see that the Santas was polling thirty one in January and he's now polling

18. It's the green line down the middle of the screen. He's lost. He's closing in on having lost half of his support. If the culture war message were resonating, I don't think he would have lost nearly half of his support. It's just the numbers, my friend. So another DeSantis interview, another disaster, the campaign on life support. Donald Trump is panicking, now predicting another arrest. This is not the Georgia arrest,

although maybe it is. This seems to be the second federal arrest that Trump is now awaiting. Trump posting to his platform Truth Social Truth Central, quote, I assume that an indictment from deranged Jack Smith and his highly partisan gang of capital T thugs pertaining to my peacefully and patriotically speech will be coming out any day now as yet another attempt to cover up all of the bad news about bribes, payoffs and extortion coming from the Biden camp. This seems to be the way they do it. Election interference, prosecutorial misconduct. Of course, none of this has been demonstrated. There's not a shred of evidence of any of this. But Trump is panicking. He's almost out of money to pay legal fees, which, of course, he's grifting from his followers.

We'll get to that in a moment. But Trump also adding on truth, quote, The radical left Democrat thugs shouldn't be allowed to investigate me during and in the middle of my campaign for president. Why didn't they file these ridiculous charges 2.5 years ago? They waited because they wanted to illegally and negatively influence the 2024 presidential election, arguably the most important election in the history of the USA. We are going to take our now third world nation, airports, elections, roads, highways, borders, et cetera, and make America great again. Be strong. So a couple of different things there.

First of all, when you're posting this sort of stuff, it's not going well. It is not going well even remotely. But the framing of this entire story, as you might guess, is false. One of the really important things to understand with this new argument that the charges were delayed until such time that they would be more politically advantageous for Joe Biden. Two different things on that. Number one, if you really wanted to make the charges as damaging as possible to Trump, you wouldn't do them now. You would wait. So the first thing is, is this actually the ideal time to file charges if you're trying to hurt Trump? The answer is no. It would be, I believe, better if you're trying to make it so Trump isn't even the nominee. You would wait until we're closer to the first primary votes. However, it seems that Biden is doing quite well against Donald Trump. And thus, if you really wanted to use charges politically,

the timing to hurt Trump, you would let Trump become the nominee, then dump all the charges on him once it's Trump versus Biden. They're not doing that. So the argument that these the timing of all of these indictments is to help Joe Biden. It's not the best time to help Joe Biden. Second part of the argument that's nonsense is that Trump says they could have charged him years ago, except they delayed on purpose for political reasons. Some of the stuff Trump is getting charged for happened just months ago. And certainly in the post-presidential period, it is normal that with federal charges,

it can take 12 to 18 months to complete an investigation. Some of the stuff they're talking about is from last summer, the moving around of boxes, documents, all these different things, the aftermath of it. So it is perfectly reasonable that you wouldn't be able to get what you need in order to finalize a charging decision. Until now, none of it is true. It's almost. Oh, one other thing.

Trump also says you really shouldn't be able to investigate me when I'm running for president or if I'm the nominee or whatever. When Trump was president, the argument was he's the president. You shouldn't be able to investigate a president. You shouldn't be able to charge a president or any of it. Then it was, well, he's a potential candidate. Now he's an actual candidate. If he wins the Republican nomination, it will be you can't investigate the guy who's the actual Republican nominee. And if we are so unlucky and unfortunate that Trump becomes president again, it will again go to, oh, no, no, no, no. You got to wait till he's 85 and out of office or however old he would

be before you can actually investigate or charge. No matter what's going on, it's the wrong time. That's their argument. Trump has spent 40 million dollars on legal fees and his pack is going broke. Now, first of all, billionaire needs your help. Small dollar donations, average of 30 bucks to pay his legal fees. What? I thought the whole thing was he didn't need money from anyone. Oh, but the deep state is coming after me. I need your money now. All right. Trump is openly fundraising from his followers, who many of them can't really afford to donate to begin with. And he's using the money for his legal fees. Reuters reports former U.S. President Trump has spent 40 million dollars on legal fees in the first half of 2023. Now, this is not just lawyers. This includes others associated with the

defense to some degree as well. But this is absolutely bonkers amounts of money. Is it legal to fundraise in this way and then pay your legal fees? Listen, I'm not a lawyer. From what I'm reading, it seems it probably is legal to do this. Seems it probably is legal to do this. The bad news for Trump is that they're almost broke on the basis of these legal fees. New York Times reports after paying lawyers, Trump's PAC is nearly broke. Former President Donald Trump's political action committee, which began last year with one hundred and five million dollars, now has less than four million dollars left in its account after paying tens of million dollars in legal fees. The dwindling reserves in Trump's pack called Save America have fallen to such levels that the group has made the highly unusual request of a 60 million dollar refund of a donation it previously sent to a pro Trump super PAC.

That pack is called Make America Great Again, Inc. And if you're confused, like, wait, so there's the Trump campaign. There's the Save America PAC. There's the Make America Great Again Inc. Super PAC. Yes, this is part of the problem. This is part of the problem of this entanglement that exists between all of these different organizations. There's donations involving gifts to Jared Kushner's dad, Charles. It's crazy.

We couldn't possibly unwind all of it. And it's part of the real problem with campaign finance in the United States. But the most important point here is he's running out of money. He's fleecing his supporters for tens of millions to pay his legal fees for his alleged crimes. And they are running out of money, which is an incredible thing. Where will he be financially in Q3 and Q4? I don't know the answer, but it looks very bad. Everybody loves a good bowl of instant ramen every once in a while. Hard to beat the convenience, usually not the healthiest option. The taste is often very so-so, but that's only because you haven't tried me, which is a different kind of ramen. Our sponsor, Emmy,

makes ramen noodles. You can actually feel good about low carb, only five net carbs, 18 grams of fiber for digestive and gut health, 22 grams of protein. So you're satisfied and fueled, The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. used to in the Japanese restaurants. It comes in six delicious flavors, all vegan, creamy chicken, spicy red miso, spicy beef. Emmy is an awesome alternative when you need a quick snack. It'll keep you from reaching for the junk food. It's as easy as any instant ramen. You just pop it in the microwave. Go to Emmy eats dot com slash Pacman and use code Pacman for five dollars off. That's I am M.I. It's dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman for five dollars off. The info is in the podcast notes.

Let's continue our conversation now with twenty twenty four Republican presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy. We'll pick the conversation up here. I have to talk to you about woke and wokeness. You wrote the book. It's in the title. One of the things I'm interested in when it comes to the anti woke movement and woke as a cancer or a problem is that there's about a half dozen or more polls that show that wokeness seems to be the predominant perspective.

If you look at the whole country, I won't give you the full list, but just so we put a couple here, there's one poll from Pew, which finds that about six in 10 Americans say on the issue of going far enough, the right far, the right distance or not far enough on making trans people feel OK, not discriminated against understanding their issues. Sixty percent say we've hit the right note or we actually have not gone far enough. There's one from the Hill about 60 percent of the country is against any restrictions on drag performances. This is the sort of thing I'm talking about. You maybe you will dispute the numbers.

Maybe you won't. But those are some of the data I'm working with. Doesn't it seem as though the anti woke idea is maybe overplaying a hand that might do well in some parts of the country but won't win a national campaign, as evidenced by what Ron DeSantis is seeing right now, losing 42 percent of his support in the primary. Speaker 1 So I want to say something which I've said before, but it doesn't seem to matter, but I'm going to say it anyway. The media seems to be the one that uses a label of anti-woke to describe my campaign. I am running a campaign to revive national identity. And at the

time I wrote Woke Inc. You know what people criticized the title back then? People said, nobody knows what this word is. So at the time I wrote the book, that was actually the chief criticism of the title. And unlike many on both the left and right, I will define exactly what it is that I view as a symptom of a deeper malaise in our current. I thought you were going to define woke itself. No. So, well, wokeness is a symptom and I will define the symptom, but it is also a deeper cancer. And wokeness is a worldview that says that there are certain invisible social relationships between us grounded on oppression or oppressor relationships and statuses of people based on race, gender, and sexuality. That you're either oppressor or oppressed based on those genetic

attributes, that there are invisible societal injustices resulting from them, and that we have to be awake, alert to those injustices and then correct for them left or right. I think that that's a neutral definition that describes at least what we're talking about. I have a different one, which is much simpler, which is simply becoming woke, is becoming aware that there are problems in our society bigger than any one person's circumstances. That's how I define it. And I know it's very different from what you're saying. That's a that's a slightly different definition and one that is set up for more people to agree with it. But I think that but I think but I think that that's not – respectfully, David, that's a definition that on its own does not support the specificity of policies that follow from it, right? Racial quota systems and boardrooms.

The fact that a company cannot list on NASDAQ unless it has a certain number of quotas filled by racial minorities or sexual minorities on its board. That is a much more specific instantiation that closely tracks my definition of wokeness than a general definition that there are just vaguely some things wrong in the world that are systems that don't result from individual behavior. Well, okay, that's a big leap to get from there to racial quota systems, especially when actually in that very rule, and I'm just triple clicking on that just to get specific, but it is not an outlier. It is an example of what we see pervasively where people then came back and said, well, how about veteran status or disability status? To which the government, the SEC and the NASDAQ said no, because that would reduce the

desired forms of diversity on that board. So we are talking about very specific instantiations of a culture that we can't just very specific instantiations of a culture that we can't just elide in the form of a general neutral definition that there are some unfair systems that we need to correct for them. That's not the essence of the claim that alone would support the range of policies that we see. And so I think we have to owe it to ourselves to at least be specific and get on the table where I'll give Ibram Kendi at least some credit for being specific when he expressly says, the right answer to past discrimination is present discrimination. The right answer to present discrimination is future discrimination. Those are his words, not mine. You have to take

people like Ayanna Pressley at their word. We don't want any more black or brown faces that don't want to be a black or brown voice. I know that's a little bit uncomfortable to smoke out because it makes a lot of my friends on the left that's a little bit uncomfortable to smoke out because it makes a lot of my friends on the left uncomfortable because they don't want to agree with those exact statements, even though they do want to agree with the more neutral definition of wokeness that you provided. But we have to smoke that out where there are policies that directly track what the leading advocates of this movement have said in their own words. That's not me putting words in anybody else's mouth. And I think we just have to own that up and get that on the table so we can actually have an honest, clean hearted debate

about it. Yeah. What's interesting about that is it's, you know, the the exam. Most of the examples you're coming up with as someone on the progressive left are not examples I would defend. And simultaneously, it sounds like you're also not denying that when it comes to the way we treat people, when it comes to the questions asked in these polls about wokeness, when it comes to trans controlling books, drag shows, et cetera, I'm not hearing that that's actually the fight you really want to have, which if that's the case, I like that. I think that that's good. Yeah. Well, here's here's the one fight on that narrow issue that I do care to have is as it relates to kids. OK, so so I believe, you know, and what I'm about to say is controversial

to some, but I'm going to share my view. And I think it's grounded in history, in fact, and my true perspective. I think the gender dysphoria, especially in kids, is a mental health condition that and should be treated as such. And for most of our history, all the way through the DSM-IV, and I believe the DSM-V has been viewed that way. When a kid says that their gender does not match their biological sex, that is usually evidence that something else is wrong in their life, and we should get to the bottom of that. I do not believe it is compassionate to affirm that kid's confusion. I believe that is cruelty. I believe 20 years from now, we will look back at allowing kids to undergo genital mutilation and chemical castration in the way that we would also judge

Iran for doing the same thing. In Iran, if you're gay, you know what they do? They make you undergo genital mutilation and sex change. I think many gay kids are going through the same thing today because of the trans fixation in really American culture right now. I met two young women, Chloe and Katie, both of whom badly regret decisions they made to undergo double mastectomies and in one case a hysterectomy as well as chemical castration. They will never, chemical intervention, they will never be the same again either. I think that is barbaric and for the same reasons that we do not allow kids to get a tattoo before the age of 18, we should not allow kids to undergo genital mutilation or chemical castration.

Now, of course, you can get a tattoo before the age of 18 with parents permission. And that's what many, many want to see. Actually, many states you can't. And I'm not aware of any such states, but I take I take your word that there are some where that's the case. I mean, listen, on that issue and we're out of time and I'm going to let you go because I know that that that you have a lot of things to get to on that issue. I do want to say that in every state I'm aware of the issue of gender dysphoria in kids does start as a behavioral health intervention. I think the question becomes and I don't have an I don't pretend to have an answer to this question at this time. How far is it OK to go beyond that?

I am with you that I don't yet believe we have the full 2020 hindsight on the one thing I will leave with you on this, too. And you seem like I appreciate your reasoned approach here to having a conversation, something I don't always get, is if gender dysphoria is such a condition of suffering, and I believe it is in the rare instances in which it occurs, why on earth are we now going out of our way to create more of it? By purposefully weaving in the possibilities for gender confusion at ages where literally, and there's good evidence to back this up, when there's one case of gender dysphoria in a school, it spreads. You could do the R-squared math on this, right? It's like, you could compare that to COVID, the spread of COVID, and you can epidemiologically model this

stuff. Yes, this is actually having an effect that we're going out of our way to create a condition that we say creates more suffering. I'll give you one example in New Hampshire, where I travel frequently. The state just shot down a piece of legislation. All it said was, if a kid in school identifies as a gender different than their biological sex, the parent has a right to know. And over a lot of activism and opposition, they shot that bill down, which is odd because the whole premise is that kids are at heightened risk of suicide, in fact. And so a parent doesn't have the right to know if their kids showing up in school with the condition that the whole premise for the movement was the kid is at higher risk of mental health condition or suicide.

It says there's something else going on here. Yeah, I expect we talked about one of those laws recently. I expressed the same concern, which is I understand the two forces here, the idea of what we don't necessarily want to, quote, out a child that is not ready or maybe outed into an unsafe home environment on the one hand, the other side being exactly what you're saying. So I think all of these issues are more complicated than than both. David, before we rock and roll, before we rock and roll on this, but just a synthesis of this conversation, I just feel, you know, I'm on a mission to lead not a political party, but a nation. And I will I will share with you a commitment that I'm willing to make. And I hope

that that provides some inspiration to people who disagree with me on many issues like yourself. I hope I hope you're not about to offer me press secretary. You know, we have to get to know each other better before I make that offer. But maybe you're on the short list. I don't know. But here's what I'll say. Yeah. Okay. I think that we all need to do better of smoking out the best argument for the side that we actually disagree with to contend with that, not with some caricature of it. And so I, for my part, believe that I'm doing that in this campaign. And if you spot an instance where you think I'm not, then get that on the table. But what frustrates me, and it does frustrate me, is that I see a lot of, and I know this world, man. I came from it.

I graduated from the top of my class at Harvard. I've been through Yale Law School. I'm working at a hedge fund in New York. Let's just get real here. I know you. We haven't met before, but I know you in some sense of the word. You're not unfamiliar to me. And what I see amongst even my peers is a form of laziness. I think I'm saying this out of respect and not an attack in a constructive way. I saw a little bit of it in the start of this conversation, right? Where you're going to be able to smoke out a version of that which can be caricatured, but these are our fellow citizens. And their concerns come from a deep place where if you can do a better job of articulating and smoking out where that concern comes from, then we have an obligation to do it. And that's what gives me my motivation in this race, where people will say, somebody live in 50 miles radius of

where I am in central Ohio today and say, well, they say the first amendment applies to tech companies. They're rubes because they don't know that that only applies to the government. Actually to double click on that and say, you know what, there's something to that intuition. And it turns out if a private actor is doing what the government actually implicitly go to them to do, then the First Amendment does apply in every instance to be able to say that there's when there's something of value there, don't just sweep that under the rug and reject it, smoke it out. And then let's have that real debate. I think that's a trans case. I'll do the same. I am the same. I got to do. I'm with you in general. I think three times now you've deliberately blurred very different types of issues.

We have a real situation in this country where a whole bunch of people think Trump either one or is currently the president. It's very different than tech and First Amendment. We've got to leave it there. That is a disagreement we have about the similarity between those situations. I want to I could talk to you for another hour. I want to be respectful of your time. Thank you, man.

Vivek Ramaswamy. He's running for president on the Republican side. Really appreciate your time. Thank you, my man. Summer is in full swing. No better time to get out and explore my favorite ways on my electric bike. It's just great exercise like a regular bike. But you can go further.

You can see more. Thank you so much, David. also has upgraded hydraulic brakes, five level pedal assist, providing intuitive and smooth acceleration and a twist grip throttle for pure power at the tip of your fingers. All of their e-bikes are packed with advanced features. The LCD display is super bright, seven speed gearing, a removable battery that you can charge indoors. That'll go up to 65 miles on one charge. Thank you so much, David. ships free and fully assembled. So what are you waiting for? Start your journey at electric e-bikes dot com. That's L.E.C.T.R.I.C. E-bikes dot com. The link is in the podcast notes. Law Professor Paul Collins is warning if Donald Trump is genuinely unwilling to take any plea deal in all of these different criminal cases he is facing and potentially new ones coming soon, he may, quote, die in prison. Now, mathematically, we knew this, but it is at

least theoretically becoming a more practical reality. Newsweek reports Trump may die in prison if he doesn't strike a plea deal. Former President Donald Trump may die in prison given his age if he is found guilty and doesn't strike some kind of a sentencing deal. This is per Paul Collins, legal studies and poli sci professor at UMass Amherst, my undergraduate alma mater. In a new superseded indictment unsealed Thursday, DOJ special counsel Jack Smith unveiled three additional charges against Trump. This now adds to the 37 counts from Jack Smith and another 30, including 31

counts relating to willful retention of national defense documents, classified documents, etc. In an article published Saturday, Collins told Salon the new charges against Trump are shocking and add further fuel to the obstruction of justice charges, indicating that these are very serious. Quote, If the government can prove this aspect of the case, it will be exceptionally difficult for the former president to mount a defense. These are serious charges. And if the former president is found guilty and does not strike some kind of a sentencing deal, he may die in prison given his age. Now, we've talked before what Trump is facing. If he were to get the maximum sentence running consecutively, if he were found guilty on every

charge, you're talking about, you know, at this point, what is it, 700 years in prison or something like that? I don't think there's any serious legal expert who believes Trump is going to get anything like that. But you do have to understand that even if you think more optimistically, if they have the goods, let's imagine for a second they have the goods and they've got Trump with the they have evidence that Trump really did these things. If you account for a plea deal in which a bunch of charges are removed and a bunch of charges are consolidated and then a sentencing deal in which everything is the sentence is to be served with all charges

concurrently rather than consecutively. Like you think about every best case scenario, you still could be talking about eight to 10 years and Trump's relatively older and not very healthy. It's a life sentence of sorts, at least hypothetically. The math really does check out. The question is more about is that really the trajectory of this entire legal fiasco? We just don't know the answer to that. And I'm certain that if Trump went to prison, they'd put him in the best, most beautiful

prison where the warden would come to Trump daily and crying, saying, Sir, it's crazy what they made me do to you. And everybody would be sad. And I'm sure it would all be like that. But it wouldn't take that long of a sentence to be effectively a life sentence for Trump. That's what Collins is pointing out here. And there would be a lot of firsts here, right? I mean, first president indicted, first president to be impeached twice, first president to be indicted twice, first to incite a riotous insurrection, potentially, potentially the first president to die in prison. He wanted to be remembered.

OK, he would certainly be remembered if he became the first American president to die in prison. And of course, I never say lock him up. I don't do I don't engage in these violations of law and order and due process. We're at the point at which Trump is entitled to his day in court. Let's give him that. And then we can look at the following elements of what would happen, including sentencing if and when that time comes.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves like them and start shouting, lock them up when that's not where we are. Law and order, due process. We actually believe in it. Speaking of Trump in prison, Trump is reportedly furious about a song that played from Brooks and Dunn when he went out to give his speech the other day, an Iowa campaign event. This is wild, wild stuff. I'll play the clip for you first. And you're going to hear lyrics that talk about going to prison. This is just perfect. All right. So a lot of confusion in the room.

So what is this about? Whiskey riff reports Trump reportedly furious after Brooks and Dunn lyrics about going to prison played during Iowa campaign event introduction. Talk about terrible timing. Yesterday, all of the Republican candidates attended the Iowa Republicans Lincoln dinner, giving speeches as they attempted to win over voters. That's not all that they were here to talk about. There was an awkward moment, thanks to Brooks and Dunn. Trump is the front runner, et cetera, et cetera, facing legal trouble, indictments, et cetera. He probably didn't need a reminder of the looming threat of prison time

as he walked on stage. Trump generally takes the stage, as many of you who have watched my live streams know, to Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA. But everybody at the GOP, Iowa GOP event had the same intro music only in America by Brooks and Dunn. Unfortunately, it does have the lyrics. One could end up going to prison. One just might be president, which is quite ironic. And it reportedly infuriated Trump. I originally thought this is like some kind of, you know, they're trolling him.

But every candidate went out with that music. It's absolutely perfect. And the fact that it is so triggering to Trump is an endless delight. But sadly, it wasn't Antifa or someone trolling Trump. Speaking, by the way, of how poorly Trump's speech to those Iowa Republicans went. This is so funny. They on Forbes interviewed an Iowa Republican voter leaving Trump's Lincoln Day dinner. This is the one where the candidates got 10 minutes to lay out their policy platform. As you know, Trump doesn't really have a policy platform and he doesn't know anything about policy and he ends up in these weird talking point comas about I did everything right and they indicted me. I did everything right and they indicted me. And I won 2020 by even more than

2016. Whatever. Here's a young voter who found Trump's speech to be very low energy. This is really funny. Other than that, I thought Trump was a little bit he was just a little bit low energy. I was surprised. And of course, she is absolutely correct. Here is Trump. All of Trump's speeches lately have been low energy. I mean, this is basically it's Trump droning with occasional clapping your freedom. Exciting stuff. Thank you. Thank you. And this is it. Even, you know, he just seems depressed. A crowd full of people cheering still doesn't move the guy or excite the guy in any way. He does seem low energy. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank. Thank you very much. Thank you. And I had such a nice life before this was I had the greatest life. But you know what? I would do it again. A lot of people say, would you do it again? I said, absolutely, because this country has such potential. We're going to make this country greater than ever. Anyway, hard to imagine why there's empty seats at Trump rallies recently. So at least one young voter not exactly finding Trump to be bringing the energy. That being said, this still seems to basically be what the Republican Party wants and what the Republican Party plans to vote for to represent them in November of twenty twenty four, likely against

President Joe Biden. Listen, you can't fix everything. You can't save everyone. Personal responsibility. If this is what they want, this is what they're going to get. We have a voicemail number. It is two one nine two. David P. Got a ton of emails about the interview. Part one yesterday. Part two today with Vivek Ramaswamy. Many of my viewers not impressed with him.

Take a listen to this. Hey, David, I just finished your interview with Vivek. And I can honestly say I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk so much and say absolutely nothing. The incessant babbling of convoluted topics and not denouncing Trump at just adamantly denouncing Trump. This guy is an absolute joke. So listen, I agree. Some people wrote to me and said, David, you didn't push back enough here. You didn't push back enough there. To the extent that I failed in the interview, I take full responsibility.

And what I mean by that is Vivek Ramaswamy is such a good filibuster. And he makes it difficult to interrupt. I was able to interrupt him a couple of times when he started his lists. They limit the amount of time you have and then they filibuster. And I agree that I did not do a good enough job in some areas of saying, let's break this down piece by piece because he's better at not letting people do that. And so what some have requested is that I do a breakdown of some of the claims he made without the time pressure of his staff saying, you got to get off, you got to get off, you got to get to your next thing.

If that would be interesting to people, I would be glad to break down the claims he made about trans kids, about supposed genital mutilation, about the Hunter Biden laptop, Burisma, all these different things. And if it would be useful to calmly go through that, I'm glad to do it. It is difficult. I'm blaming no one other than myself. It is difficult in real time with a compressed timeline and a filibuster who's so good. It can be difficult to make every interruption and confront on every single point the way I would like to do. But we would have the opportunity to do it and really do kind of like a postgame if it's interesting to people. So let me know if that's something you would be interested in. On the bonus show today, a judge has dismissed Donald Trump's big lie lawsuit against CNN.

That one's not moving forward. It's another legal defeat for the failed former president. Abortion providers are suing the state of Alabama to block the prosecution of people who travel out of state for an abortion. Critical, important lawsuit. And we're going to discuss it in detail. Twitter's huge X sign has been taken down in San Francisco. Remember Elon Musk renaming Twitter X and then putting up this big, bright sign. It was so bright it was disturbing people. I have a story related to bright lights pointed directly at my window, actually,

from my recent trip to California, which will relate to this. We will discuss that. But another loss for Elon Musk. All of those stories and more on the bonus show. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. The coupon code for now is indicted again. If and when the third indictment comes down, the coupon code will become thrice indicted. I don't know. We need to figure out what the coupon code will become thrice indicted. I don't know. We need to figure out what the coupon code will be. But that all being said, sign up at join Pacman dot com. Help us get to 10,000 copies shipped of the children's book on critical thinking. You can find the book in paperback and in Kindle at David Pacman dot com slash book. I will see you on the bonus show. We're back tomorrow.