The David Pakman Show - 8/16/23: Trump melts down over indictment, GA governor trashes his defense strategy

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Farron Cousins, host of Farron Balanced and Ring of Fire, fills in for David -- Donald Trump goes bonkers on Truth Social reacting to news of his latest indictment -- Georgia Governor Brian Kemp criticizes Trump's criminal defense strategy of attempting to prove the 2020 election was stolen -- The latest Trump indictment contradicts the timeline of events put forward by Mike Pence -- The co-conspirators indicted in Georgia alongside Trump can either flip on him or risk being sent to prison -- Georgia officials say that Donald Trump won't get special treatment when he's processed and arraigned and will need to pose for a mugshot -- Ron DeSantis's friends and allies expected that his presidential campaign wouldn't go so well -- Trump advisers expect Donald Trump will continue to attack the judges presiding over his criminal cases -- A right-wing group is suing Target over its stock price losing value for "going woke" -- Senate Republicans are worried about Mitch McConnell's declining health -- On the Bonus Show: Trump facing 700 years in prison, climate activists score a win in Montana, Sean Hannity suspects Republicans are getting too extreme, and much more... 🌎 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription (rules & restrictions may apply): https://babbel.com/pakman 🌱 Ounce of Hope: Get 25% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://www.ounceofhope.com/ 🌎 Bank with Atmos to fight climate change! Open an account at https://joinatmos.com/pakman 🧴 Thanks to our sponsor Geologie! Use code PAKMAN70 for 70% off at https://davidpakman.com/skin 🛡️ Incogni: The first 100 people to use code PAKMAN will get 60% off at http://incogni.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

Welcome to the David Pakman show. I am Farron Cousins from Ring of Fire. I'll be sitting in for David for the next few days while he is taking a much deserved break. Unlike Congress that of course is also on break. They haven't earned it. David has. And folks, we've got a lot to talk about today. We've got Donald Trump's reaction to the indictments in Georgia.

We've got Mike Pence kind of getting caught in a lie. Thanks to material revealed in that Georgia indictment. We've got Ron DeSantis' downward spiral getting so much worse and tons of great content coming up in the bonus show as well. So without further ado, let's get right into it. First up today, obviously Monday evening, late Monday evening, the indictments in Georgia came down. Everybody'd been waiting for them and they're pretty significant. But what's even more significant of course, was Donald Trump's immediate reaction that by the way, spanned not just Monday evening, but bled all the way into Tuesday as well. He basically had a multi-day meltdown over these indictments and

considering the charges against him and the 71 and a half possible years in jail he's looking at, I think he kind of should be as nervous as he appears. But first and foremost, Donald Trump went on Truth Social and he posted this. So the witch hunt continues. 19 people indicated tonight. Okay. Including the former president of the United States, me by an out of control and very corrupt district attorney who campaigned and raised money on, I will get Trump. And what about those indictment documents put out today long before the grand jury even voted and then quickly withdrawn sounds rigged to me. Why didn't they indict two and a half years ago? Because they wanted to do it right in the middle of my political campaign witch hunt.

They didn't indict two and a half years ago, just in case Trump happens to stumble upon this broadcast. The reason they didn't invite you, indict you two and a half years ago, just in case Trump happens to stumble upon this broadcast. The reason they didn't invite you, indict you two and a half years ago is because they didn't have everything they needed. They hadn't conducted an investigation. I don't know if you know this man, but that's actually kind of what the justice system is supposed to do. You know, yeah, you can have an inkling that crimes may have been committed, but you use that inkling to gather evidence. If the evidence leads you somewhere, you launch a full blown investigation. And that is of course what happened in the state of Georgia. They couldn't indict you two and a half years ago because they hadn't gone through the actual process. They had to gather the

evidence. They had to round up the witnesses. They had to talk to the witnesses. They had to get their hands on documents and emails and text messages, which thanks to a report from CNN over the weekend, we now know that they do in fact have all of those wonderful things tying your legal team directly to the individuals that Sidney Powell sent down to the coffee County supervisor of elections office, where they then copied material from the voting machines. That was just Donald Trump's first freak out. Then after the freak out on Truth Social, he then decided to do what he does best and raise some money off it. So shortly after the tirade on Truth Social, Donald Trump then got on his email, sent out a fundraising blast telling his supporters quote,

the fourth act of election interference on behalf of the Democrats in an attempt to keep the white house under crooked Joe's control and jail his single greatest opponent of the 2024 election. Now, listen, I don't know how to, how to tell you this, Donald, but you're not the greatest threat to Joe Biden in the 2024 election. The greatest threat that president Biden faces in his reelection attempt at this point is Democrats staying home. That is absolutely the number one issue that president Biden will have to overcome because on the left, according to the most recent polls, there's not a ton of enthusiasm for president Biden. He's not exactly out there burning it up with impassioned speeches. You know, he's, he's a little slower in his speaking manners these days.

He's not getting as animated and Democrats, according to the polls are not energized. And if they're not energized, they run the risk of not voting. And that is the biggest threat to Biden's reelection. Not to mention the fact let's talk about the election interference claim. Okay. Trump is obviously the Republican front runner, but if this were like all of these indictments, right? All four of them assume for a second that Donald Trump is not just making this up out of thin air. Let's assume that each and every one of these was in fact a Democratic effort to prevent Donald Trump from being the Republican nominee. Do you know what happens if Trump is not the nominee?

Somebody else will be. Okay. It doesn't just shut down the entire Republican party. If Donald Trump is not there, there will be another human being to fill that slot. And then that person gets to run against president Biden. And depending on who it is, they probably stand a better shot of beating him than Donald Trump does. Trump claims, and I'll get more to that claim in a moment. Cause I got, he had more meltdown on Fox later on, but he says that he is beating Biden in all the polls, all the polls. When in fact, the polling aggregates still show president Biden since March of this year, defeating Donald Trump in the general election. Trump is not the greatest threat to president Biden's reelection. If anything, Trump is arguably one of the easiest Republicans to beat. Now, I don't want to make the same mistake the Democrats

made in 2016 and assume that, oh yeah, if Trump's the nominee, he's totally going to get clobbered. No, weird things have been happening in politics for the last seven or eight years. So nothing is predictable, but we can look at the polls and we can see that Donald Trump with his incendiary rhetoric, with all of the indictments, with all of the horrible things that happened on January 6th, he's not attracting new voters. The only thing he has done is turn off moderates and independents. So he's not as big of a general election threat as he likes to think he is. But if you take him off the top of the ticket, put another Republican there, suddenly those moderates and independents turned off by Trump,

they give the Republican party a second look and they say, okay, you don't have that guy up there. Maybe I'll warm up to Vivek Ramaswamy. Maybe I do like Ron DeSantis. Hey, maybe Chris Christie's the guy for me. There's all kinds of things that can and will happen in that Republican primary if Trump is not there. But he seems to be under the impression that if he doesn't exist, neither does the Republican party. And that of course is completely untrue. Not to mention the fact that this guy is sitting here whining in this fundraising email, like this is the fourth act and they're doing, you just said a couple of weeks ago that all you needed was one more indictment to secure

the Republican nomination and possibly even secure a 2024 victory. You wanted this, you said. You told us, I think it was two weeks ago, that you want this. You said you wear these indictments like a badge of honor every time they come in. Yet every time they come in, all you do publicly is whine and cry like a baby. So don't sit there telling us like, oh, I'm a big manly guy. I can take it. I actually like it. It's a badge of honor. And then send out these emails saying, poor widow me, I need more money, please. That's not how it works. Can't be talking out of both sides of your mouth. Either you're terrified, which you clearly are, or you're totally taking it in stride. It's all fun and games. And I think to a degree,

he does think it's fun and games because he does raise a lot of money off of it. But as I said, that's not all that happened. He also, after the fundraising email, after the truth social meltdown, which again, continued all the way through Tuesday, he then did an interview with Fox news digital, where he made these outrageous claims. 19 people were indicted and the whole world is laughing at the United States as they see how corrupt and horrible a place it has turned out to be under the leadership of crooked Joe Biden, the racist and corrupt district attorney of Fulton county, which has turned out to be a murder capital of the world with among the highest violent crime levels anywhere in our country, just opened a fundraising site in order to benefit off the thing she

most campaigned on. I will get Donald Trump. Then he went on to say, uh, you know, I'm leading all Republicans by a lot and beating Joe Biden soundly in almost all polls. All right. So here's the thing. None of that's true. Let's go ahead and get that right out in the open. None of that is true, but I do got to pick it apart just a little bit here because he talks about how the country's falling apart under president Biden. We're falling apart. Now you would think if this country was in fact falling apart, descending into the kind of chaos that Trump describes, don't you think we would see it? See that's what always gets me about the MAGA folks and pretty much the entire conservative

movement at this point. They love to talk about these cities, of course, that were burned to the ground in the summer of 2020. We all remember that talking point because they still use it. There were no cities burned to the ground. They talk about the wave. They call it an invasion. Trump's used that word in the last week to describe people coming across the border. There is no invasion. In fact, border apprehensions are actually higher than they were during the Trump administration. All of these things that they talk about,

the crumbling of American society, it's all nonsense. It's all made up because that's what conservatives love to do. They love to create these fake scenarios in their heads and then get mad at the fake scenarios they created. Like you've worked yourself into a tizzy over something you imagined that's definitely not real, but they package it. They sell it to their base. They sell it to their audience. They sell it to the voters. And unfortunately, millions of people every day buy into that garbage. They believe it hook, line and sinker. If Trump says it, it's true. If these other conservative talkers say it, well, it's true. If Ted Cruz says it, it's true. If a Democrat says the other thing, well, obviously they're lying

because that's all they do is lie. Folks, look around with your own eyes. Trump says the country's falling apart. Where do you see that? Oh, sure. We've got infrastructure issues. We've got economic problems. We've got problems that have existed throughout many of the most recent presidential administrations. I'm not saying the country is perfect by any stretch, but if it were really descending into the seventh level of hell, don't you think you'd see the warning signs? Let's go ahead and refute his, uh, statement that Atlanta, the Myrtle murder capital of the world, like not even not Myrtle murder capital of the U S not even murder capital

of Georgia murder capital of the world in Fulton county, where Atlanta sits. That, that is also news to me. I'm sure the people in Fulton County would also be very interested to hear that. And by the way, it's probably not a smart idea to be trashing the County talking about it being a lawless hell hole. Cause you do realize the eventual jury in that trial is going to come from Fulton County. So probably in your best interest to not constantly talk about how horrible those people are because they're the ones that are going to be deciding your fate. You know, just, just something to, to keep an eye out on the horizon. Don't trash the people that will eventually make up the jury. That's going to determine whether or not you spend the rest of your life in jail because

the charges in Fulton County alone, by the way, carry a possible maximum prison sentence of 71 and a half years. Now he's not going to get popped on all of it. He's not going to be sentenced to 71 and a half years. Now he's not going to get popped on all of it. He's not going to be sentenced to 71 and a half years, but even if he's sentenced to a fraction of that, a third of that, you're pretty much in there for the rest of your time. But I think it's safe to say based on his statements, based on what he said to Fox news, what he said in the email and what he said on true social and continues to say on true social, he is terrified and rightfully so. But I promise you the next time he goes out there and does a rally, he's going to act

cool as a cucumber. Hey, look what they did to me. Isn't it funny? Oh, my numbers are going through the roof. Oh, I've raised millions of dollars off of that. And Republicans don't care. The Maga folks out there do not care. I mean, heck a recent report came out where Maga people that give Trump money were interviewed. They're like, Hey, does it bother you that he's using this money for his legal fees? And like, no, he could use it for whatever. I'll give him more now that I know that. So they don't mind that it's all a big grift and Donald Trump is going to keep on grifting till

the bitter end. And that bitter end is probably going to come when that jury returns with their verdict. We got to take a quick break. Again, I am Farron Cousins sitting in for David Pakman, and we'll be right back...... . . . . .

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You'll get 20 percent off everything they offer when you go to ounce of hope dot com and use the code PACMAN. That's O-U-N-C-E of hope.com code PACMAN for 20% off. Info in the podcast notes. Welcome back to the David Pakman show. I am Farron Cousins, host of Ring of Fire and Farron Balanced. And I am sitting in for David for the remainder of this week. And if you want even more from me, you can follow me across social media, Facebook, Instagram, Tik TOK threads. And unfortunately I am still on Twitter slash X, but on all of those platforms, you can find me at Farron balanced. Well, folks, we've still got a lot to talk about with regard to what has come out of Georgia this week. And I think the very first thing that I want to start

with in this segment is an announcement that Donald Trump made yesterday. Yesterday, Donald Trump announced that this coming Monday at 11 a.m. Eastern time from his Bedminster golf course in New Jersey, he is going to finally release a report showing all of the voter fraud that took place in Georgia. And of course, at that point, they're going to have no choice, but to just drop all the charges against him. Now I'll read you a statement in just a moment, but I do find it interesting because Donald Trump in his freak out over, why are they indicting me now? Why didn't they do it two and a half years ago? Okay. Fair enough. Actually it's not. But if you actually have a report showing there was massive voter fraud in Georgia that would have changed the outcome of the election,

why'd you wait two and a half years to release it? And in fact, why didn't you release it today? Why didn't you do it yesterday when you actually made the announcement? Why don't you do it tomorrow? Why do we have to wait till Monday at 11 AM? If you have it, just give it to us so we can take the appropriate steps, you know, to get the charges against you dismissed. We certainly don't want to prosecute an innocent man. So if you have this report that you say you have, please release it because, you know, it seems pretty relevant. Here's the announcement Trump made. A large, complex, detailed, but irrefutable report on the presidential election fraud, which took place in Georgia, is almost complete and will be presented by me at a major news conference at 11 a.m. on Monday of next week in Bedminster,

New Jersey. Based on the results of this conclusive report, all charges should be dropped against me and others. There will be a complete exoneration. They never went after those that rigged the election. They only went after those that fought to find the riggers. That's, that's the word he uses, all caps, riggers. So I guess that's why, that's why you can't release it today because it's almost done. Like we are, we are right there at the finish line of this report. I mean, apparently, I guess they've been working on it ever since the 2020 election, you know, started in early November and oh my God, we're just like three days away, four days away. And then it'll be done.

And then of course, Donald Trump gets exonerated and then we crown him King of the United States for the remainder of his days. Right? This is so dumb. This is so dumb. Like I watched this guy make these announcements, say these stupid things. And first and foremost, I'm reminded of Mike Lindell. Lindell's got another event coming up and he teased it out two months ago. He was like, God gave me a plan, is what he said, to save the country and I'm going to give it to you in August. And he made that announcement back in June. And I have to imagine like, if God really gave you the plan, I'm sure God's like, Hey, don't sit on this because you need to save the country. So if you can go ahead and just do it now, but no, they got to get the pillow codes into the

website so people can use them and they can put them out during the conference. And Trump's thing is virtually the same. It's like, oh, we got it. We got the report. We're going to, we're going to release it, but not yet. You know, you got to sit and stew for a few days and then we're going to push it out on Monday in a big news conference from my golf course, you know, right next to Ivana's grave that apparently hasn't been mowed since they covered it with dirt, according to a daily mail report earlier this week. So lots of weirdness at Bedminster, but according to Republican Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, Donald Trump is once again, completely full of it. Brian Kemp following Donald Trump's announcement sent out this post on, formerly known as Twitter. The 2020 election in Georgia

was not stolen. For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward under oath and prove anything in a court of law. Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair, and will continue to be as long as I am governor. The future of our country is at stake in 2024 and that must be our focus. So he's got to go with the typical Republican thing. As I talked about, you know, oh, the country's falling apart and we got to focus on that. But the important part of his message is Trump is absolutely lying through his teeth. There is no massive report because there was no massive fraud. And if there was fraud, you would think that any one of the numerous lawsuits filed by his attorneys and his allies would

have come up with it. But these people have been given every possible opportunity in many cases, sometimes too many opportunities to provide this stuff. And they haven't, there's nothing left to say. There's nothing more. Now it will be very interesting to see what Donald Trump puts out in his little final report, but I can guarantee you, it's not going to be anything that's going to help his case. And it sure as heck, isn't going to be anything that's actually going to lead to his exoneration. But one person who might be interested to hear what's going to come in that report is former vice president Mike Pence. Now Mike Pence was actually mentioned in the Georgia indictment, not as one of the indicted co-conspirators and

probably not even as one of the 30 unindicted co-conspirators, but Mike Pence was specifically mentioned in that indictment. So if Donald Trump has evidence that Georgia was stolen, I'm sure Mike Pence probably looked like a fool, like, oh no, why didn't I reject the electors? Right. But what gets me about Mike Pence being mentioned in the indictment is the fact that the mention of Pence and all of the plans they said that were told to Mike Pence completely dismantles a statement Mike Pence made this past weekend on NBC's Meet the Press with host Chuck Todd. This past Sunday on Meet the Press, Mike Pence said that he didn't recall whether or not Donald Trump or anyone in the White House had ever told him about the plan to use the fake electors. I mean, that, that's what he said over and over. Yeah. I

don't, I don't recall. He said, I don't recall that. I just remember hearing it in the public. Like, I don't know if they told me they had a fake elector plan or not. Blows my mind, right? I just heard it in the news. Here's the thing. The indictment in Georgia completely, completely tells us that Mike Pence is lying because this indictment mentioned several different specific moments, you know, date and timestamps of when Mike Pence was personally confronted in the Oval Office. They've got text messages, they've got memos, they've got handwritten notes of all the times Mike Pence was there being told about the plan, send these electors back and use these instead. Throw out the votes in Fulton County. So that way, then we win Georgia.

So we need the alternate electors. That is in the indictment. So Mike Pence's claim to Chuck Todd, I don't recall if I was ever told about the plan. That's a lie. Now I'm not suggesting that Mike Pence is in on the plan. I firmly believe that Mike Pence is obviously not in on the plan, but there's a reason, there has to be a reason why he would tell Chuck Todd, I don't recall being told about the plan. And I think the reason is because Mike Pence has been working with prosecutors, not necessarily in Georgia, but with Jack Smith, because that phrase, I don't recall, is the typical line that a lawyer will tell their client to use in a situation like that, specifically when talking to the press about pending litigation. I don't recall.

It's much better than saying no comment or saying I can't speak to that because it leaves it ambiguous. Ambiguous enough to where you're not giving away the game while you're talking to the press, but then also enough clearance to go back into court when it's time for you to testify and say, oh, now I remember. That's right. Here's the way it all happened. The Georgia indictments, again, blow Pence's statement out of the water. It's not true because they've got the documentation showing that Mike Pence had been fully aware and refused to go along with the plan for the fake electors. So the only reason I can think of why he would be dishonest or not completely honest, even with Chuck Todd is because he has to keep his powder dry.

He could be working with the prosecution. He will likely be called as a witness at the trial. And his lawyers have said, you don't want to give up the game. You don't want the other side to know what you're going to say. You don't want them to know what you've got. Prosecutors don't want you to do that. So we need you to pretend like, you know, nothing until it comes time to talk in front of that jury. That's my theory on that. Because again, his statement on Sunday, completely contradicted by the indictment on Monday. And I think there's a lot more to that than we realize. But as I also mentioned, Mike Pence being mentioned in the indictment does not mean

that he is an indicted or unindicted co-conspirator. No, but we sure do have a lot of them, right? In addition to Donald Trump, we also had the 18 others that were indicted. But what's also interesting is the 30 unindicted and unnamed co-conspirators. So add it all up. We got 48 co-conspirators and only 18 of them face charges. And now all of those 18, well, heck all of the 48 people, because charges could still come against those 30 unindicted individuals, but they all now have a choice to make. Either flip or risk the possibility

of spending a minimum of five years in prison, which is what the RICO charges in Georgia come with as a mandatory minimum sentence. So if you're convicted no less than five years in jail. So who's going to flip because that's, what's so interesting about this. They've got a lot of charges out there. That's going to be a lot of, a lot of litigation, a lot of lawyers. Typically they're not going to want to really go through that if they can avoid it. If they can narrow it down, get some people out of this very crowded field, they will take that opportunity, especially

if they're able to get information that could secure a conviction against the others. And right now, all of these 48 co-conspirators are on the clock because there will be plea deals on the table, but there's not going to be 48 of them. There's probably going to be a handful, maybe considering the number of co-conspirators, maybe a dozen, but that means that most of you will not have the opportunity and the clock is ticking. And here's the best thing about it. Each one of those individuals, those co-conspirators they're sitting there right now, wondering the same thing.

Is that person going to flip on me? Is this person going to flip on me? There's a list of 18 of us, the person above me. Are they flipping? The person below me, are they flipping? Have they been offered a deal? What if this person does? What if this person doesn't? I know what this person did. Maybe I can use that as leverage. They're all having the same thoughts. I have to turn on them before they turn on me. And I think at this point, like I said, it's a given some people are going to strike a deal and there's a very limited number of them. Basically consider it the golden tickets from Charlie and the chocolate factory. You only have a couple of them out there first come first serve. So go ahead, rats start looking for those tickets. We got to take another quick break. I am Farron cousins from ring of fire and fair and balanced sitting

in for David Pakman. And we'll be right back. When it comes to taking care of my skin and hair, I never really knew how to have a daily routine. I definitely don't buy into the bogus miracle creams and stuff that's out there. That's where our partner geology changed the game for me. Geology is a 23 time award winning skin, hair and body care company that just gives you The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. off. 30% off any add on products. The info is in the podcast notes. Welcome back to the David Pakman show. I am Farron cousins, the host of ring of fire and fair and balanced. I'll be sitting in for David for the remainder of this week. And

I got one more story I want to talk about with Georgia than I promise. I am moving on actually moving a little further South. going to talk about Florida after that. But right now I got to talk about what's going to happen in the coming days in Georgia. Cause obviously Trump's been indicted, but he has not yet technically been arrested. Now Fulton County district attorney, Fannie Willis did give Donald Trump until August 25th, a very generous date in the future to go ahead and come turn himself in. But his former lawyer, Alina Haba during an appearance on Fox news this week, already expressed her outrage at the thought of him being arrested because as the sheriff of Fulton County, Pat Labatt has talked about, he's not going to treat Donald Trump any differently than any other

criminal defendant that walks into that police station. In fact, he's said, we've got a mugshot ready for you. Now that of course is a deviation from the way Trump has been treated thus far with all of his other indictments. I mean, whether it's New York, DC or South Florida, way Trump has been treated thus far with all of his other indictments. I mean, whether it's New York, DC or South Florida, Donald Trump has been taken into custody. He has been fingerprinted, but he has not been handcuffed. And more importantly, he has not had a mugshot. And Trump supporters are now trying to argue that he doesn't need a mugshot because he's the most famous person in the world. That is what Alina Haba said on Fox and Friends on Tuesday. But that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how famous you are. If you get arrested, you still get a mugshot. I mean, how many times have we seen

celebrity mugshots? People that are, prior to Trump being president, much more popular than he could ever hope to be. Everybody in the world knows who they are and they still get their mug shot taken because that's what you do when you get arrested. And this time the officials in Fulton County say he's not getting the VIP treatment. We're not rolling out the red carpet for a criminal defendant. He's going to go through the system. He's going to probably be booked alongside other people that are there on drug charges or theft charges or tax evasion, whatever it is, he's just another perp. And that is exactly how this should be handled. From day one, from that very first indictment in Manhattan, that's how this should have been

handled. But no. You know why? Because there is a two-tiered justice system here in the United States. I know that Trump's allies, his supporters, his campaign, his lawyers have all talked about how horrible this is and it shows there's a two two-tier justice system, but they're skewing it incorrectly. The two-tier justice system thus far has worked out in Donald Trump's favor. I mean, let's not pretend for a second that other individuals who took classified documents weren't immediately sent to prison pending their trial. In fact, Kevin Gastala actually pointed that out following Donald Trump's arraignment in South Florida earlier this past summer mentioned the fact that other folks that have gone through that, that have

taken classified documents to leak to the public. They weren't given the opportunity to post bond. They were sent to jail until their trial. Trump didn't have to do that. He didn't even have to get a mugshot, but I understand why Donald Trump doesn't want to get a mugshot. I understand why his legal team's probably a little perturbed that they're going to have to do that. After all, when that mugshot gets released, it's probably going to be used in every single Democratic campaign ad from now until the end of the 2024 election, maybe even beyond that, who knows. But that is going to become the focal point of the 2024 race. And I'm willing to bet there's probably plenty of Republicans running against Trump that will also be using that mugshot.

And I'm also willing to bet there will be plenty of MAGA conservatives that are also going to be using that mugshot to their own advantage. Heck, Trump will probably send it out on a campaign fundraising email and make another couple million dollars off it. If he thought he could use it for his own publicity, he'd probably slap it on a MAGA t-shirt and sell it for $75. But none of that matters. It's not about using it in campaign materials. It's not about using it to help or hurt Trump. It's the fact that that's how the system is supposed to work. He doesn't get to be above the system from the start. That skews things in his favor before

anything even happens. He needs to go through the process just like you or I would go through the same process. That is what is fair. And so far, fairness has been sorely missing from these Trump indictments. He has gotten away with a heck of a lot, a heck of a lot of stuff that again, you or I would have already been sent to jail until our trial for doing, but Trump hasn't really faced any consequences and it's time that they treat him like they would any other person that gets arrested. As promised, moving on folks, moving on down from Georgia to the state of Florida, although technically not exactly the state of Florida, but I am talking about Florida governor Ron DeSantis. It has been spectacular,

something that I have loved every second of as a resident of the state of Florida, watching Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign go down in flames worse than the last Florida Republican governor to run for president, Jeb Bush. I think at this point, Ron DeSantis is envious of how successful Jeb Bush's campaign was compared to his. But what's really funny to me is that a report came out this week from Republicans in office, Republicans who've either served with DeSantis in his administration in Florida or Republicans who served with him in the house of representatives. And according to them, the crash and burn of DeS' presidential campaign is not surprising at all. They fully thought this is exactly how it was going to go because he's such a weird and non-personal kind of guy.

Let me read you a couple. This is, this is from the Washington Post, the overall story. Interviews with more than 30 people in Florida and Washington who worked closely with DeSantis, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe their interactions with him, indicate that expectations were lower among some who knew him closely in Tallahassee and that they always expected the candidate to be the challenge. In interviews, Florida Republicans described an aloof governor who believed in sticks and no carrots, according to a senior Florida official, and whose idea of negotiating was quote, my way or the highway, in the words of another. An insular governor who

infrequently talked to some senior members in his own cabinet, including his top law enforcement officials or other leading Republicans. A a Congressman who seemed to avoid any opportunity to make friends with others in the delegation. To put it another way, it's not DeSantis's horrendous policies down here in Florida that are tanking his campaign. It's him. I don't want to quote Taylor Swift, but he's the problem. It's him. People don't like you because you don't like people. We've all seen the videos of DeSantis and he's wiping his nose and then he's shaking people's hands and it's weird and the pudding stories are gross. But deep down, this is a guy who wants the power of being in a position like being governor or being president,

but he doesn't want to have to do the work, right? You don't want to shake the hands. You don't want to meet the people. That kind of stuff isn't his style. And look, I get it. There's plenty of people that have that kind of personality where it's like, look, I like people, but I'm not necessarily a people person. The difference is we're not trying to run for president and he is. You can't have this, you know, non-social personality and win people over. And what's funny about this is I sat right here doing fill-ins for David last August. And I predicted then because I've been watching DeSantis as a resident of Florida, but I predicted at that time, if DeSantis ran for president, he would fizzle out. And this was part of the reason. He has no personality. He's a horrible debater. When those Republican debates come up, he is going to get toasted and that may end up, you know, dealing that death blow to his campaign.

He's losing donors. He's not attracting small dollar donors. He is now third in the polls. The latest New Hampshire poll has him third. A public policy poll, national came out recently, dropped him down to third in the Republican party. He was at one point earlier this year, the front runner, he was beating Trump in some polls earlier this year. I mean, that's a distant memory at this point. And it gets even worse because according to conservative strategist, Sarah Longwell, during a recent appearance on CNN, they've been conducting Republican focus groups and Longwell pointed out that, you know, there was a time not that long ago where DeSantis's name

came up in every single focus group. If he wasn't the first one to come up, he'd be the second one right after Donald Trump. And this is what she says now in a recent interview with CNN, she says, I have to tell you, he has been getting killed in the focus groups. And it's not even that kind of criticism about him being a, you know, non-social candidate. We always ask people, who do you want to see be the 2024 nominee? And six months ago, Ron DeSantis, he would always come up. He was the first one. If it wasn't Trump, it was him. People don't even mention him right now. We've had two groups in a row where nobody's even said his name. They've said Tim Scott. They've said Vivek Ramaswamy. And he's just not even getting mentioned. There was the one guy who liked him and he said, you know, he's fine. He's fine. That is brutal, she concluded with. So he's not resonating with the voters.

And the thing right now is his personality, right? It's the weird videos we get. It's his awkward interactions with people. And DeSantis actually had better hope that that is what people focus on. Because if we start focusing on his actual policy down here in the state of Florida, then he's going to get crushed even worse than he is right now. Like it's one thing to be the awkward guy, but Republicans like your policies. But the second people start paying attention to what's actually happening down here in Florida, then he's toast. We've gotten malaria spreading. We have leprosy going through the state right now. Leprosy. We also have major insurance companies like Farmer that have said, we're out. We're not

going to represent people in the state of Florida anymore. So we're losing our homeowners insurance. We here in the state of Florida have had the fastest climbing home prices out of the entire country. We're still not the highest average home price, but we're rising faster than anyone else in the nation. All those stories about, oh, we've had the massive migration, people just dying to come into Florida. Yep. Well, that ignores the fact that we also had 457,000 people leave the state of Florida just last year alone. So things are not that great. The economic situation is horrible. In addition to the plagues of leprosy, malaria, and of course, COVID going through the state, we also have boiling seas down in South Florida, essentially. Temperatures in the water have reached over a

hundred degrees, which is now leading to coral bleaching down in the Florida Keys, destroying a vital ecosystem, not just for nature, but also for tourism. Things are getting bad. We have construction sites left abandoned because of Ron DeSantis's anti-immigration legislation. He is destroying the state of Florida and the Republicans in Tallahassee are more than happy to go along and give him whatever he wants. His fight with Disney, he came out this week and said, oh, I'm, I'm moving on and they should drop the lawsuit. Yeah, you're moving on because you're getting crushed by the house of mouse. That's what's happening. All of his other signature pieces of legislation, the anti CRT bill, the don't say gay

bill, major portions of that legislation of those pieces of legislation have already been overturned by the courts. So he doesn't actually have the electoral victories or the legislative victory, excuse me, that he thinks he has. So he'd better pray that people only focus on how weird he is because when they start looking at his record, then he becomes an even worse person than just being the guy that he's putting with his fingers. Listen, I am Farron cousins. You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Tik TOK threads and X at fair and balanced. Find me on YouTube at youtube.com slash fair and balanced and youtube.com

dot com, excuse me, slash the ring of fire. I'm sitting in for David Pakman and we'll be right back. Did you know that anyone in the world can very easily access a ton of data about you online? Data brokers collect huge amounts of data about everything you do on your phone, your computer, where you go, what you look at. But we recently learned that government agencies like the FBI have also been buying a ton of this data from data brokers just to keep track of people without needing a court order. Criminals can also use the information to target you.

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is amazing. I use it myself and my audience gets 60% off. Go to incogni.com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman. That's I N C O G N I.com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman for 60% off. The info is in the podcast notes. Welcome back to the David Pakman show. I am Farron Cousins, the host of Ring of Fire and Farron Balanced on YouTube. I am sitting in for David today, as well as for the remainder of this week. Now I've talked a lot, obviously about Donald Trump's legal problems because you know, it's kind of biggest news in the country right now, but here's one thing I want to talk about as well, outside of Georgia, of course, but

Donald Trump last Friday, as everybody knows by now was told by judge Tanya Chutkan that, uh, she's not going to put a muzzle on him. You know, she's not going to grant the full protective order that the DOJ was seeking, but she did mention that she's going to be monitoring. She's going to be monitoring what he says online. And of course, after that, Donald Trump then spent the weekend attacking the judge. And according to his own advisors, he's not going to stop. Even though the judge specifically said, if it appears that you're out there attacking potential witnesses or trying to taint the jury pool, I have no choice, but to go ahead and grant an early trial so that we can get this done with, and you have less

time to intimidate and taint the jury pool. And Trump's advisors are basically saying, yeah, he doesn't care. He's going to do it anyway. Here's what some Trump advisors said in an interview with CNN this week. One of them said he'll share what he feels is necessary. And if she has a problem with it, she will address it. She kind of did address it though on Friday. Don't know if you were paying attention to that, but that seemed pretty real.

And of course she did say, if you keep it up, we're just going to have the trial as quickly as possible. And you're probably not going to like that. Another aid said anyone who thinks they're going to control what he posts on truth or what he says in media interviews, they're sort of kidding themselves. I agree with that. There is no way to shut up Donald Trump. I know a lot of us would love it if the guy would just shut up. But at the same time, the one thing that man is never going to do

is stop talking. Even when the smartest thing in the world for him to do is to just shut up, he's not going to shut up. It's who he is. It's what he does. He's going to keep running his mouth. And at this point he's doing it to his own disadvantage with that upcoming trial. Another aid said what she said in the filing wasn't a hard and fast rule not to post it any about anything specific. It was pretty generic. It just didn't seem like there was a lot of teeth to it. Oh buddy, that sounds like a challenge. That really sounds like you're begging for the judge to come in and be like, oh, okay. You don't think it has any teeth? Oh, I wasn't specific enough for you? Well, how's about this? You see, the judge has a lot of, uh, freedom to do some things here.

Uh, one of the things that she already suggested possibly doing was, uh, granting the DOJ's motion for a very early trial. The DOJ of course, Jack Smith wants to have the trial begin on January 2nd, a motion that by the way, Trump has already trashed on truth social saying how only a lunatic would want to have it the day after new year's like, nope, everybody's back to work that day. No longer a holiday, get it done. But that's what Jack Smith wants. And judge Chuck can already said, yeah, you keep pushing this. You keep intimidating people or trying to taint the jury pool. And, uh, we're going to have a real quick trial here. And of course, that's probably

not going to work out in Trump's favor. If he ends up getting convicted before January 15th, which by the way, is not only the day of the first caucus, the Iowa caucus for Republicans, but that also happens to be the day that his next trial is set to begin and that will be his second defamation trial from E. Gene Carroll. So he would basically be going right from the massive criminal trial into the defamation trial. And he could be going into that defamation trial as a convicted criminal, but it finishes up before the primaries and caucuses, which if he's not convicted would work out in his favor. But this whole issue with Shutkin saying, listen, if you keep doing this, I'm going to move the trial up. His lawyer, John Loro actually did

address that in court. And he said, I can assure you that my client will abide by the integrity of the process, but he also can't be subject to some kind of contempt trap, contempt trap. That's what the judge is setting out for him. No, no, no. The judge isn't setting a trap. In fact, I had done segments on my own channels where I use that word and I regret it because it's not a trap. What the judge did was basically dig a giant hole. And then the judge said, Donald, here is a hole. It's a bad hole. You don't want to be in this

hole. And the hole is right here. So you need to avoid the hole. You go around this way, you go around that way, but don't fall in the hole. And his advisors are out there saying, oh, he's going in the hole. Yeah. He's he's, he's already like, uh, he's taken off his jacket. He's about to jump head first into the hole. He can't see where it ends, but he is totally going in the hole. That's not a trap. That is basically her saying, please don't jump in the hole. And Trump's already taken his shoes off about to hop right in it. If it's a trap, it's a trap that he set for himself with his comments. And he's still walking right into it.

Like a complete idiot. You can't fault the judge for that. You can't say that it's a contempt trap. He did this to himself and moving on into other news, because this is just the kind of story that absolutely makes my blood boil. Trump advisor, Stephen Miller is running this new conservative legal group. Uh, it's called America first legal. Now, recently they filed a lawsuit alleging that, that Bud Light was, you know, kind of using unfair labor practices because of their whole equality and inclusion teaching. And that violates, they say, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. But they're back at it

with a new lawsuit. This new lawsuit is targeting Target for being too woke, not necessarily for being woke, that you can't sue for being woke. What they're suing for is the company's pride month that they're alleging tanked the company stock prices and cost investors billions of dollars. They say billions of dollars lost for the target stockholders because of the pride month displays in target stores. Let me read you this from the lawsuit itself filed yesterday, by the way, these false and misleading statements about pride month promotions calls targets shareholders to unknowingly support targets board and management in their misuse of investor funds to serve its divisive political and social goals and ultimately lose billions. And those false statements are when targets share a board, I guess, told shareholders,

don't worry, the pride month displays, aren't going to hurt our stocks. And they say that was false. Here's the problem. You can't sue over that. And this lawsuit is going to get laughed out of court. And here's why. Let me explain this to you very easily. If I make a statement that at the time can neither be true nor false, but then later

turns out to be false. I did not lie. Here's a good example. When I finish this show, I'm going to go mow the grass. Now let's say that when I finish the show, unbeknownst to me, because I'm in a studio with no windows, it started pouring rain outside. Well, obviously I didn't know that was going to happen. I can't mow the grass. Does that mean I lied intentionally to make you think I was going to do something that I had no intention of doing? No, it does not.

And honestly, that is the best possible analogy for what happened with Target stock. Yes, it did lose value. Yes, it coincided with pride month. Can you link their pride month displays to the drop in stock prices? According to legal experts, no, you can't. And even if you could, making a corporate wide decision that ends up making the stock go down, isn't something you can sue for. Yes, the shareholders have the, or excuse me, the board members have the fiduciary duty to do what's in the best interest of the stockholders. However, they cannot always accurately predict what's in the best interest for the stockholders. And therefore they cannot just be sued willy nilly. Anytime the stock takes a dive, that's not something you can do.

That's the course of regular business. And if this group was run by people that had actual, you know, real legal experience, they would know that you can't sue for this. What they're suing over is the fact that they don't like the fact that some companies are being inclusive. They don't like the fact that some companies are saying, you know what, you're welcome here. That makes them angry. And it makes me angry that they get angry about that. People have a right to exist just because you don't agree with their lifestyle. It's not something you would like. That doesn't matter.

They're human beings. They have the right to exist and live the life that they want to live. But apparently that's too much to ask for conservatives and rounding things out today, Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, according to a recent report out earlier this week, Republicans in the Senate are growing increasingly concerned over the fact that Mitch McConnell's health is apparently much worse than any of us thought. Now we all know recently, Mitch McConnell had the issue where he froze up during the press conference. He seemed perfectly fine later in the day. But then after that story came out, other stories,

not after the story came out, after we saw it happen, other stories came out where people said, oh yeah, by the way, he's taken a lot of falls this year, including a recent one, 14 days prior to that, where he had a pretty significant fall. And now according to these Republicans in the Senate, he is completely aloof when they're having conversations and he doesn't know that people are talking to him or around him. Now, one Republican who spoke to Politico said that during a recent lunch, Mitch McConnell was sitting there, they're all sitting around kind of like a high school cafeteria, I guess, you know, and they're, they're talking, they're talking

legislation, they're talking jobs, they're talking all kinds of stuff. And Mitch McConnell had no idea any of it was taking place. Now, one Republican Senator has now suggested to McConnell's staff, maybe you should get him a hearing aid. But here's the thing. Obviously, if it is just a hearing issue, that's not something that disqualifies him from the job at all. But even if he had lost his hearing, he would still notice that people are talking, right? You, you're going to see the movement. You're going to see that people are gesturing and motioning to you. That doesn't suggest to me that it's a hearing issue. This sounds based on what they're saying in the report, this sounds more like a cognitive

issue that maybe he's not even fully aware of what's going on around him anymore. And if that's the case, the public deserves to know about this. This guy's been in the Senate since I was two years old. And if he can't do the job, then it's time for them to get him the heck out of there and replace him with somebody who can. Listen, that's all the time I have for today. As I said, I will be back the rest of the week. If you want more from me, go to youtube.com slash the ring of fire, youtube.com slash fair and balanced Facebook, Instagram, Tik TOK at fair and balanced. I'm Farron cousins. I got a great bonus show coming up for you today, but thanks for joining me. I'll talk to you tomorrow. you you you