The David Pakman Show - 8/22/23: Thursday Trump arrest is happening, DeSantis reminds us why he's losing

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Rachel Bitecofer, election forecaster and author of the forthcoming book "Hit 'Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game," joins David to discuss the upcoming 2024 election, the primary elections, and much more. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3QPMGiP -- Donald Trump voters say they trust Trump more than their own friend and family in a recent poll -- Donald Trump will be arrested for the fourth time on Thursday, this time in Georgia -- Donald Trump's bond will be set at $200,000 at his forthcoming 4th arrest -- Jason Miller, adviser to Donald Trump, says that, unless something changes, Trump will not be participating in any debates this election cycle -- Kayleigh McEnany, former Press Secretary to Donald Trump, says that Trump's decision to skip debates is a huge mistake -- Ron DeSantis gives another pathetic interview, reminding us why he is losing badly -- Former Vice President Mike Pence and former Donald Trump Chief-of-Staff Mark Meadows may have destroyed Trump's only legal defense in the classified documents case -- Voicemail caller asks whether David regrets his now-infamous tweet about the shooting at a school in Tennessee -- On the Bonus Show: Ron DeSantis wants to strip Disney employees of free passes, mortgage rates surpass 7%, 3 dead after drinking milkshakes tied to listeria outbreak, much more... 🌎 Bank with Atmos to fight climate change! Open an account at https://joinatmos.com/pakman 🥄 Use code PAKMAN for $5 off Magic Spoon at https://magicspoon.com/pakman 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David 🩳 SHEATH Underwear: Code PAKMAN for 20% OFF at https://sheathunderwear.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

Speaker 1 For years now, the world of sociology, psychology and anthropology, to a certain degree, have been exploring the question of how far does the cult of Trump go when it comes to the nature of the individuals that make it up? We know that this is a group seemingly very willing to be grifted and scammed and cheated by their great leader. And that is very much in line with many cults and many cult leaders. But one of the areas that has been explored a little bit less until now is the question of do Trump cultists choose Trump over their own family and friends? This is something that if you've studied cults, if you read about Jim Jones or David Koresh or Charles Manson and of course others, you come to a point where you realize

that the cultists eventually choose the cult leader over their family and over their friends. And we have a fascinating, if not extraordinary, extraordinarily distressed, distressing and depressing new poll about Trump supporters. And indeed, Trump voters say that they trust Trump more than their own family and their own friends. Newsweek sums up the CBS News YouGov poll out just two days ago, saying that former President Donald Trump supporters say they hold him as a source of true information over their family, friends and religious leaders.

Take a look at some of this data. Top answers among Trump voters. Who do you feel what they tell you is true? Seventy one percent of Trump voters say we feel what Trump tells us is true compared to only 63 percent of Trump voters who say what my friends and family tell me is true. Fifty six percent believe conservative media figures are telling them the truth. And interestingly, only 42% of Trump voters believe that it is religious leaders that are telling them the truth. This snapshot, and of course, every poll is only a snapshot.

You can ask every question different ways and you will get different answers. We know all of this. But this snapshot is important insight into why Donald Trump will almost certainly win, certainly win the 2024 Republican primary nomination, despite the fact that he's bailing on debates, despite the fact that he has been indicted four times and at least plausibly is going to be convicted of criminality that he participated in while president and in the aftermath of being president of the United States. This is a cult and it really needs to be studied as such. And you know, we've interviewed cult experts on the program a number of times called experts that come from the field of psychology or sociology or researchers or whatever the case may be.

And one of the regular reactions that I get from Trump supporters after we do these interviews is they say, David, I'm not in a cult. I'm not in a cult. And it's wrong for this individual to say that I am. Now, I don't want to get into one of these kind of vicious cycles where if you're not in a cult, you might deny being in a cult. But if you are in a cult, you often also deny being in a cult. That's one of the primary features of being in a cult, which is you've been convinced that it's not actually a cult. So we can't really take as a super important data point that many Trump followers write

to me and say, I'm not in a cult. It's just that, you know, Joe Biden's a criminal and he's been replaced by a look alike, all this different stuff. One of the really important reactions from Trump followers is beyond denying that they are in a cult to simply to try to justify why the cult leader is so great. And that is a really common thing. Again, if you've read about any of the major cult leaders prominently in the 20th century, David Koresh, Charles Charles Manson and Jim Jones, this is very common that often it's I'm not in a cult or it's not a cult quickly replaced with talking about

how great the cult leader is almost saying it makes sense that I'm so devoted in this way. If we want to understand the polling data, if we want to understand how has Trump gone from 51 to 57 since the indictment started, it doesn't make any sense. You have to understand the cultish reaction from followers to what is going on. And this poll explains it extraordinarily clearly. We now know that Donald Trump will be arrested on Thursday in Georgia. I did everything right and they indicted me. That's right. Donald Trump plans to turn himself in Thursday at Fulton County Jail. It is an important detail that this is not the arraignment. This is Trump's surrender. Trump will have a separate court date for the arraignment and as such, differently than the arrests that have taken place so far,

this one is happening at a jail. By the way, Fulton County Jail is a jail that has been the center of controversy over the last couple of years where inmates have died in custody. Fulton County Jail is not just like a random jail we've never heard of. Fulton County Jail itself has been the subject and center of news over the last couple of years. Putting that aside for a moment, CNN reports former President Donald Trump plans to turn himself in and be processed at Fulton County Jail Thursday following his agreement earlier Monday to a $200,000 bond and other release conditions. We are going to get to the release conditions separately. So I'm not going to address that in the immediate. What I want to address in the immediate is Donald Trump's post to Truth Social Central about this forthcoming arrest. Donald Trump posting, quote,

Can you believe it? I'll be going to Atlanta, Georgia on Thursday to be arrested by a radical left district attorney, Fannie Willis, who is overseeing one of the greatest capital M murder and capital V violent crime disasters in American capital H history. In my case, the trip to Atlanta is not for quote capital M murder, but for making a perfect phone call. She campaigned and is continuing to campaign and raise money on this witch hunt. This is in strict coordination with crooked Joe Biden's DOJ. Remember, there is not a shred or iota or scrap or crumb of evidence of that. It is all about election interference. Donald Trump then continuing. This has been

become old hat for Trump. Yes, getting arrested has become old hat, but also attacking prosecutors and investigators has become old hat for Trump also attacking prosecutors and investigators has become old hat for Trump. Trump continuing to troth relentlessly, quote, The failed district attorney of Fulton County, Atlanta, Fannie Willis, insisted on a two hundred thousand dollar capital B bond from me. I assume, therefore, that she thought I was a, quote, flight risk. I'd fly far away, maybe to Russia, Russia, Russia, share a gold domed suite with Vladimir never to be seen or heard from again. Would I be able to take my very understated airplane with the gold Trump affixed for all to see? Probably not. I'd be much better off flying commercial.

I'm sure nobody would recognize me. It's incredible. Trump is casually admitting he's a flight risk. He's he's casually saying, not only do I have a plane, I could also probably more easily get away to Russia if I just flew commercial. He casually admits it. And of course, this only reinforces our understanding that the bond actually does make sense. And if anything, the bond was set too low. Trump to be arrested Thursday.

You know, I will be covering it live. Mugshot is expected. Potentially Trump's height and weight to be taken. A very exciting day. They're indicting him. That's true. But let's now talk about the bond conditions. Donald Trump's bond for his forthcoming Thursday arrest, the fourth installment of Trump gets

arrested. The bond will be set at two hundred thousand dollars. ABC News reports Trump's bond set at two hundred thousand dollars in Georgia case warned about social media threats. This is a very interesting bond agreement and we're going to talk about it. Now one question that many of you wrote to me asking was, why is he even getting bond? This is an individual, the subject of four criminal trials.

We will discuss that in a moment. OK, ABC News reporting a Fulton County judge has set former President Trump's bond at two hundred thousand dollars in District Attorney Fannie Willis's election interference case. Trump and the other 18 defendants have been given until Friday at noon to appear at Fulton County Jail for processing. The former president said Monday evening on his social media platform he intends to surrender in Georgia on Thursday. In addition to Trump, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee set bond Monday for attorneys John Eastman and Kenneth Cheese, bro. That's quite a name at one hundred thousand dollars for Ray Smith at fifty thousand and Scott Hall at ten thousand dollars. They are expected to surrender earlier. OK, all the defendants bond agreements include a provision that they, quote, shall perform no act to intimidate any person known to him or her to be a code offended or witness in this case or to otherwise obstruct the administration

of justice. This is critically important because Donald Trump arguably in the other cases has already violated this bond condition. Donald Trump posting online about if you, you know, I will go after those that are going after me, believed that that refers not only to prosecutors, but also to individuals who may testify simply doing their duty, testifying in criminal cases to which they are called. And the judge here seems to be preemptively outlining that if Donald Trump does that, it may indeed be

considered a violation of bond and Trump could be jailed, which would be quite a situation to see. Trump's bond agreement says that includes no direct or indirect threat against co-defendants or witnesses. The above shall include but are not limited to posts on social media or reposts of posts made by another individual on social media. Again, so critically detailed. One of Donald Trump's I hesitate to call it a strategy because I think that that gives him too much credit for actually strategizing. But one of the things that Donald Trump will often do on truth central and on other platforms to the extent that he's on other platforms is he won't straight up say the thing himself, but he will retweet some lunatic. It could be Dan Bongino or whoever saying the crazy thing. Trump will retruth it or in the days of X, he would reseed it. But it was Twitter at the time. Now it's X. OK, whatever you want to call it.

But the idea is Trump will simply signal boost the threats or the intimidations or whatever the case may be. And in this bond agreement, the judge is specifically saying, don't do that. Don't do that. Now, let's get to the question of why Trump is getting bond at all. Many of you wrote to me and said, David, you know, on Trump's already getting special treatment. Trump wants to talk about the two tier justice system, arguing that it is Republicans and Democrats and he is a Republican is being treated so unfairly. We all know that's not true. When it

comes to the two tier justice system, the one we know exists is one for wealthy elites and people in positions of power and everybody else. And it could be argued that Donald Trump is already benefiting from that two tiered justice system as a powerful, wealthy former federal elected official. In so far as if you or I had four pending criminal cases at the time of the fourth one, particularly when you're talking about a RICO case that we would not necessarily be given bond at all. It is true that whether there is bond given at all in RICO cases depends on circumstances. How severe are the charges is a consideration.

Is the individual seen as a flight risk that might get bail denied? Are they a danger to the community? What is their past criminal record? There is judicial discretion as well. The other argument that's being put forward about the specificity that is in this bond agreement, not only can't you post to social media related to witnesses or the trial or whatever, you also can't re post. This could be preparing to revoke Trump's bond if they can set bail and they can

get Trump to acknowledge that he will abide by the conditions and then he violates it. It could be argued that this is all a pretext under which Trump's bond could be revoked. I don't think that there is any conspiracy here from the judge to throw Trump in jail. I think the judge understands what Trump is likely to do, and that includes attacking prosecutors and maybe trying to intimidate witnesses and is making it abundantly clear that he's not going to tolerate it. We are going to watch this super closely. The next 48 hours are going to be wild. First Republican debate tomorrow night. Trump won't be there.

Thursday, Trump will turn himself in to be processed at Fulton County Jail. The next 48 to 72 hours are going to be something I hope that you'll be following along with me and make sure folks make sure that you are subscribed to the YouTube channel. Three million of you watched our videos in July and did not subscribe. that you're like me and you love the nostalgia of enjoying a bowl of cereal sometimes as an adult, check out our sponsor, Magic Spoon. Magic Spoon is the breakfast cereal with the crunchy, sweet goodness you love, but with zero grams of sugar, more protein and only four to five net carbs. So it's perfect if you're doing low carb, if you're doing keto, if you're like me and you just don't want to eat a bunch of sugar. Magic Spoon has delicious flavors to choose from

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The link is in the podcast notes. Let's discuss some of the statements from the I don't know what to call them, the sycophants, the current and former brown nosers of the failed former President Donald Trump. We're going to start with Jason Miller, Jason Miller, Trump adviser, social media guy. Honestly, at this point, I don't know what this guy's job is. Jason Miller appeared on Newsmax to address the question, did Trump mean he's skipping only the Fox News debate or did Trump mean he's skipping only the Fox News debate or did Trump mean he's skipping all of the Republican presidential debates or even all debates, period?

If he were to be the nominee, we just don't really know. But the belief at this point is when Trump said, I will not be doing the debates on truth central, he was referring to all Republican primary debates. Here is Jason Miller asked about this on Newsmax, and he seems to be saying unless something changes, Trump will not be at any of the Republican debates. Great to have you here. All right. So it's still going to be a busy week for Donald Trump. He's skipping the first primary debate.

What do you think? Does this mean, Jason, he's going to skip the other debates? Do you think he's made that decision yet? And will it just depend on how big his lead continues apparently to go, according to this latest poll? Well, great question. Right now, it would take President Trump's posting on True Social at face value. He said he's not doing the debates. And so until he says something differently, I would assume he's not going to be participating. And I think what this is really going to put the spotlight on this week is the fact that this DeSantis reboot 4.0 is not going so well. We see the CBS national numbers with President Trump leading 62 to 16. The Iowa numbers out this

morning have President Trump leading 42 to 19. And DeSantis takes his first opportunity after this big reboot to attack Trump voters with his whole listless vessels comment. And if he's gonna be channeling Hillary Clinton, I don't know, maybe he takes another step and following the debate memo his super PAC did, he tries to show emotion by channeling Bill Clinton and has some of the fake tears come down. Yeah, well, we'll see what happens. Yeah, we will see what happens. So every indication there that Trump is not going to be doing any Republican debates.

Now Trump's own former press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, says that this is a mistake and we're going to get to that in a moment. But to some degree, listen, we can speculate all we want. We can say, oh, well, you know, Fox News would really love to have them and the ratings and then the other candidates would like to have them there so that they can directly attack him or draw. Whatever analysis we want to make, whatever analysis Kayleigh McEnany makes, which we will look at in a moment, it's hard to deny the numbers and the numbers are absolutely

stunning. Donald Trump is now polling an average of 56, an average. And Jason Miller is right. The latest CBS News YouGov poll has Trump at 62. DeSantis has lost more than half of his support and is now down below 15. And then you've got in a distant third Vivek Ramaswamy at the highest he's ever pulled 7.1 percent. It is really difficult to look at these numbers and say that Trump is on the verge of losing control of the nomination because he's not going to be at the debate. Now, we can apply some super simple math and say, all right, listen, if there are call it to just listen, there's 10 debates. I don't know how many debates there's going to be. Trump's leading DeSantis by 41. If there are 10 debates, DeSantis needs to close the lead on Trump

by an average of four points per debate. Do any of us believe that that's something Ron DeSantis is going to be able to do? Or if you are of the belief that it is Vivek Ramaswamy that is poised to take over. OK, well, Vivek Ramaswamy is losing to Trump by 40, I'm sorry, by 48 or something along those lines. So he has to close by five points per debate. Now, the counterpoint would be, you know, David, he doesn't really have to do all of that. All he actually has to do is get himself in a position to win like an early primary. And then we'll see what happens and go from there. OK, I still don't see it likely that he's going to be

able to do that. Now, one other thing I want to look at, there are those who are saying. The numbers in August of 2015. Also, we're very different than the numbers that ultimately were the final vote of the Republican primary, sort of saying it's very early and things can change. Well, let's look at that. I want to remind you that if we go all the way back to August, let's go back to the exact date, August 22nd of 2015. On August 22nd of 2015, Donald Trump was polling 22. Jeb Bush was polling 11. Ben Carson was polling 10. Walker, I forgot his first Scott Walker was polling eight.

Ted Cruz, seven. Marco Rubio, seven. The numbers were way tighter in the 2016 primary at this point in time. And Trump did ultimately still win. It is true that Ben Carson gave Trump a run for his money and actually tied him by November of 2015. And then it was all Trump.

This is a very different scenario where Trump is already more than 40 points ahead of the next closest candidate. So am I open to the possibility that something could happen at debates without Trump even being there that puts someone else back in a position of contention? Sure, it could happen. It could happen. Do I think it's likely? No.

Is it possible that Donald Trump will be so enmeshed in muck and mire of his criminal trials that he just like, quote, won't be able to campaign? Maybe. I just don't even know that the guy needs to campaign at this point. He really seems to have this thing all but wrapped up. So that's where I'm seeing the numbers. And for all of the mistakes Trump is making, he seems to be well in control. Let's now look at what his own former press secretary had to say.

Kayleigh McEnany was Donald Trump's last press secretary. He went through a number of press secretaries during his one presidential term. The one who finished out Trump's term was Kayleigh McEnany. She is now a Fox News contributor or host or co-host of some kind. And she says Trump is making a big mistake by not participating in the debates. Let's listen to what she had to say. Obviously, Bill, on this day, we vindication is former President Trump will not be here. And the takeaway I have from that is this is a huge political

miscalculation, I would say, for him for two reasons. You give others the opportunity to shine. You give others two hours to throw lobs at you. And I know former President Trump can dance across that debate stage, can defend himself, but you're not there to do it yourself. You're counting on maybe others to step in. And I think the biggest strategic risk for him, if he becomes the nominee, Joe Biden, this is from Politico, just a flashback earlier in the year, senior Democrats' private take on Biden. He's too old is the title of the article. And they say that the Biden folks believe Trump or any other Republican nominee will be reluctant to work with the Commission on Presidential Debates, lusting the chance and risk of a head-to-head debate

between Biden and whoever the nominee is. So Biden can say, I'm going to use the Trump precedent here. I'm not showing up. My internal polls show I'm up, so why come? Well, I mean, there's a primary now. It's not head-to-head, you know, two political parties going at it.

A lot to say on this. I think it is the political event of the summer. I can't wait. I certainly wish the former president were there. I think we all would. I think it make for a more a debate with greater vigor. So listen, these are all Fox News employees. They want Trump there because it means higher ratings.

And even if it doesn't directly impact their jobs, it's still better for Fox News employees for ratings to be higher. And this is why I think Kayleigh McEnany is wrong. Are the other candidates going to attack Trump who will not be on the debate stage? Yeah, they're going to attack Trump. Will Trump be there to defend himself? No, he will not. But who is going to be watching? It is overwhelmingly going to be people that are already not voting for Donald Trump. And what I mean by that is, do you really think that the average Trump cultist, I don't know how long this debate is. Let's imagine it's an hour

and a half. I actually don't know. Is it an hour? Is it two hours? I don't know. Do you think the average Trump cultist is going to say to themselves, well, Trump's not here. Trump's doing an interview on a different channel. But instead of watching that interview, I'm going to watch a debate with eight other people who I'm not voting for. No, the vast majority of Trump supporters will not even watch the debate. So Trump will get attacked. There won't be anyone there to defend him. I mean, maybe maybe like Vivek Ramaswamy or Nikki Haley or someone will defend Trump on

the stage. I don't know. But the degree to which that debate is going to impact Trump supporters, I would argue, is significantly smaller than what Kayleigh McEnany and others are claiming it will be. Bottom line, they want the ratings because it's their employer. It's good for them. It's good for the ecosystem. Trump's not going to be there. And quite frankly, I don't think it's going to make a significant difference whatsoever. Could it lead to a realignment of the non Trump vote? Sure. Could the vague do so well and the sanctus do so bad that the Santas falls to 10 and Vivek goes to 12? Sure. Does that get either of them closer to Trump's 56? It really doesn't. It really doesn't. Not in some total. So that's

my take as of this point in time. We will see if that changes. And of course, all of these clips are available on our tick tock on our Instagram and on the YouTube channel, which I hope you're subscribed to by now. It's free. We are constantly seeing data breaches in the news. It never ends. Verizon had a breach this year, exposing millions of users data. T-Mobile had two big breaches this year, exposing the personal data of 37 million people. It's a disaster. These companies have a record of everything you do online. And after these breaches, almost anyone can access your data. The real solution is don't let the company see what you're doing in the first place. And that's why I use private Internet access, keeps my data hidden from my Internet service

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You can subscribe for two or three a month and get four extra months for free. Go to PIA VPN dot com slash David. The link is in the podcast notes. It's summertime, it's hot, you're sweating, and unfortunately for many of us, it means sticking and readjusting when you wear traditional underwear. It is an ugly thing, but there is a solution. Fortunately, our sponsor sheath is the ergonomically designed underwear with a pouch in the front that will keep everything separate and comfortable. Sheath underwear makes sure you stay dry and cool and the chafing. Everything can breathe and stay fresh and keep you comfortable. They've got a bunch of different designs, something for everybody.

The quality is great. Super long lasting. I've had mine for years. I love them year round. But if it's hot and humid, then it is a must. Their airflow mesh series can be particularly effective in the heat. I know you're going to love sheath also. You really just have to try it for yourself to really understand the difference. And my audience gets 20 percent off. Go to sheathunderwear.com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman. That's It's great to welcome back to the program today. Election forecaster Rachel Biddecoffer, also author of the forthcoming book, Hit Him Where It Hurts How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game.

Rachel, always great having you on. I appreciate your time. Yeah, it's always a pleasure to be here. Thanks. So listen, we look let's start with the Republican primary, the first debate being tomorrow. Trump gets indicted four times. He does everything right and they indict him, as he likes to say, and he gains support in the Republican primary.

DeSantis has gone from 30 to 14. OK, Vivek Ramaswamy has gone from one to seven. But does does anybody have a shot here other than Trump? Let me tell you guys a secret here, and that secret is as a political scientist, that's my background with a Ph.D. in poli-sci, my dissertation was on presidential nominations. So I know quite a bit about the structural, institutional presidential nominating system. And so when I say that nobody has been paying attention yet to the Republican primary, I strongly urge folks to believe me. Yes, David Pakman's audience is, I am, all my Beltway friends do, and the Twitter world is. But beyond that, average Americans never, the second debate will start to bring this topic into the radar of your average Republican primary voter. But generally speaking, even amongst primary voters who are more engaged than regular voters

in the electorate, most people have not really committed or spent any mental energy on this yet. So I think so. You're saying the polling does not tell us that much right now. It doesn't exactly. I would I would tell you that the polling does not tell us that much. And if you look back at 2008 at this time, then you would have assumed that Hillary Clinton would have been the Democratic Party nominee. And the reason is, is because of that front. What powers a front runner advantage is name ID. Trump has universal

name ID. And I know that in our world, it seems impossible that people don't know who Nikki Haley and Tim Scott are. But even amongst Republican primary voters who are more engaged than regular voters, they are not well known. Right. You can see this in the data on the number of Republican primary voters who are responding to surveys who say they don't have an opinion of a candidate or they've never heard of a candidate. And even for somebody like Ron DeSantis, I can get pretty high, like 30 percent. Right. So we really want to stress. I really want to stress to people. We will find out if Donald Trump is a untouchable front runner. But we cannot know that yet. Let me give one potential counterpoint that I've been seeing, which is that your analysis

is a perfect, beautiful analysis for a normal election. But we have a situation where one of the Republican wannabes happens to have been president for four years and not 20 or 10 years ago, but four years ago, that that is such a uniquely different situation that Trump's 56 is much more solid than your time based analysis would suggest. What would you say to that? I would say this, that if Donald Trump was as strong a candidate as I think people perceive him to be, he would be like Joe Biden. He'd be facing maybe a Vivek Ramsey or somebody like that, maybe the equivalent of a Marian Williams or an Andrew Yang, but he wouldn't be facing a

competitive primary. The fact that we have an open, full, competitive Republican primary with big name candidates in the fray, including Ron DeSantis and his ex vice president is is is a sign of of structural weakness behind Donald Trump. Not in other words, the fact that 40, even if Trump has 56, the fact that 44 is elsewhere, even if it's split up, is still significant given that he's a very considering what you said, right? He is the ex president and not from a decade ago, right from four years ago. Right.

So like if he was really a consensus candidate, then he would not have been challenged for the nomination. The fact that these Republicans felt comfortable and again, they're not we're not talking about freaks out on the outside. Like, you know, Robert Kennedy Jr. We're talking about big name Republican politicians being willing to challenge him openly for the nomination is a sign of weakness. So let's now talk about the debate scenario.

First debate is tomorrow night. As you said, people often don't even start paying attention until Labor Day. Trump is opting not to participate tomorrow, seemingly opting not to participate in any Republican primaries. There are some who are using motivated reasoning like Kayleigh McEnany on Fox News, who the debates on Fox News, she obviously wants the ratings to be good, who says this is a big strategic mistake for Trump. He won't be there to defend himself.

He might look weak by not being there. My view has been I don't know that Trump supporters will even watch if Trump's not there. So is this really that much of a risk, particularly at this early stage? I think so. Here's what I think. For months I have said, listen, we can't we can't say for sure if Donald Trump's going to be the nominee once we get to November and December, we've got the debates going and Iowa caucus starts in New Hampshire start to be really imminent. We're going to have a whole bunch of people who have paid zero

attention actually tune in. What's the message that they're going to hear? They're going to hear this Trump nomination is looking all but inevitable and he's a disaster in the general election, right? So like that's where the potential to see a shake-up and it might go from trump to ramison and then back to desantis over the course of these next few months right but i think what will happen let's say i'm right and trump does end up in a more competitive position than he is currently as people tune in people are going to look back at the decision to sit out these debates. Okay. And they're going to be pointing a lot of, uh, putting a lot of weight

on whether or not Trump debated. And, you know, I think Trump is making a strategic miscalculation this time. I do. And I'll tell you why, because the worst thing for Donald Trump is to present to the Republican electorate, something that feasibly looks like a post-Trump Republican Party. OK, and when you put these six, seven, eight, whatever candidates up on the stage and it's going to be anchored by Ron DeSantis because he becomes the center of the stage once Trump removes himself, then what you're doing is you're showing the electorate something that they currently don't believe is possible, right?

Right. Which is that the Republican Party can exist without Donald Trump, right? And so I don't know that – number one, I think his ratings – that's why he's not doing his interview with Tucker Carlson live, because he knows he's not going to get as many viewers as this Republican debate. And I just think it's a big strategic miscalculation based on the fact that in 16, he was the new fresh thing, right? Now you're old, stale meat. And the thing that you're trying to prevent the most is the image of a post-Trump party. And by taking himself out of that debate, it will change the entire tenor of the debate. You know, just putting Trump in it would make it childish and, you know, very reality TV instead of probably going to see a pretty serious sounding Republican debate.

And I think that's the worst thing Donald Trump wants to show. That's super interesting. That's super interesting. So let's now talk a little bit about how this relates to the general election polling, which you might just say it's way too early for that to mean anything as well. I mean, you look at general election hypotheticals, it's often, you know, Trump's ahead by a couple here or Biden's ahead by a couple here. What about against the Santas?

What about against whoever? A lot of times when you add up the numbers, there's like 15 percent that's missing in the sense of not sure or someone else or whatever the case may be. Is that the proof that this is way too early to be looking at general election hypotheticals? Yeah. I mean, with the way that my practice expertise looks at these hypotheticals is is different than probably how people look at them. I'm looking at it as a latent as a latent measurement of a measurement of latent partisanship in the electorate. Right. So like, as you just pointed out, we know that it's about

45, 45, and then there's like 10 to 15 percent that's unexplained. Right. Yep. So, I mean, it doesn't even matter which candidate you throw in there. And then, you know, if you look at the head to head, so they'll do Trump versus and then they'll do DeSantis and maybe, you know, the other a couple of the other Republicans. And it will always show that Trump's a little better. Right. You notice how in the data it will say Trump is forty four forty five with Biden. But just, you know, that's interesting. Not in every poll. There are polls that show DeSantis doing a little better than Trump. But again, it's like one to two point difference no matter where you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Well, what we're seeing and what I see when I look at that data collectively mostly is what I'm seeing is the gap of name ID. OK, so like people don't notice the people don't know Tim Scott. So like the Republicans, low information voters who are voting for Trump are hearing, you know, Trump and they're there. They remember that guy and they know he's a Republican. Yeah. And you just have that. That's all we're measuring.

So, in other words, here's the thing. We don't need a single poll to tell us what's going to happen in 2024. We know we're going to have an extraordinarily close election, which is going to favor the Democratic Party in terms of popular vote, right? But it's going to come down to whether or not, you know, a small set of Midwestern states go one way or the other, right? And, you know, and you don't need a poll to know that that's going to be a dogfight. It's going to come down to maybe 15, 20,000 votes in each of these three Midwestern states. So, you know, it doesn't, to me, the general election polling isn't, I'm not using the head-to-head for much. I'm looking at voter enthusiasm, which party is more excited to vote? Are they equally excited to vote? You know, Roe, thank God, has changed that for us. It's made

our coalition and independent leaners that vote for Democrats much more energized to participate and vote than they would have been otherwise. So like those to me, generic ballot, which party do you want to see control Congress and enthusiasm gaps between partisans are the two most important polling metrics I look for. So let's talk now a little bit more specifically about the way that this Republican primary has been shaping up and how this might link up eventually with whoever ends up facing Joe Biden, who will likely be the Democratic nominee. There's very little discussion about tax policy among Republicans. There's very little discussion.

You know, when they talk foreign policy, it's often we'll give Putin some Ukrainian land. It's kind of a weird thing to be saying, but, you know, Vivek Ramaswamy recently said that it seems that it's overwhelmingly the culture war stuff, the woke stuff, trans drag queens, books in school and hormone therapy and this sort of thing. As a political scientist, what do you think about the substance or lack thereof of what we're seeing in the primary so far? I mean, you know, the Republican Party stopped being a governing party a long time ago and has really positioned itself as a grievance politics. But what I would tell people is this,

when we get to the general election, we know what their messaging is going to be. Democrats are groomers. They want to turn your male child into a girl. You know, they want gay people to sexualize your kids. It's going to be very rhetorically red-meated, right? And so like my argument has always been we got to meet that. We can't meet propaganda with comms. We have to meet propaganda with an equally fierce propaganda system. It's about defining how those issues, these culture war issues that Republicans have have that really centered the party around, how those are a threat to each individual voters own personal freedom and health. I call it the freedom, health, wealth and safety threat frame. Can you give one or two examples of the language you would adopt if you were advising Democrats when it comes to some of these issues? How do

you fight on some of those issues rhetorically? Yeah. So the way that you do that is you want to you want to make it hyperbolic, intentionally hyperbolic and simple. Right. We want to do nuanced facts and reason. So we base our arguments and data, statistical arguments, you know, job numbers, whatever. And instead, what we want to do is we want to number one, we don't want to be defensive. So if they're attacking us on, you know, CRT in school, we want to do a counter offense, right? We don't want to be talking about how, oh, CRT is not really taught. Oh, it's actually a legal theory. Oh, it's this and that. What we want to be doing is attacking the Republicans for decimating public

education, right. For, you know, leaving our kids high and dry. So what if they respond and they go, you know what, Rachel? Damn right. We're pulling money from public education because they're teaching CRT. Right, right, right. And then you say, well, listen, you know, I wish that you were half as concerned about when our kindergartners are blown apart by assault weapons. Right. So like instead of letting them set the debate on that, I'm going to push them, pivot and attack.

And I'll be like, OK, you want to talk about kids. Let's talk about all the dead kids that you're in action on gun control has caused. Right. I mean, every parent in America is getting ready to send their kids back to school. And half of us are looking up armor plated backpacks in America. That's Republican. The Republican Party's America that they want our children to live in. Right. So if Republicans want to talk about protecting kids, it's a conversation I'm happy to have, but I'm going to push and have it on my terms. And it's going to be about kids getting slaughtered at school by Republican policies.

Offense instead of defense. That that makes sense. Exactly right. Yeah, I never like what I'm trying to get people understand is like they under and we'll talk about this in the book. I talk about this in the book extensively. They know who we are. Their strategy is based on us.

OK, so they know if they saw that they serve something up like that's like, oh, Democrats are teaching critical race theory in school that we can't help ourselves okay we're gonna spend two weeks on every talk show debating you know you know proving that it's not taught debating it talking about this you know they they know that we're suckers for the substance of debate right okay so they lay the trap on a Sunday talk show and our Democratic senator or congressperson that's usually representing us will go right into that conversation. Right. And they have set the conversation up as a branding exercise to

force us into that position on Sunday talk show. Right. And so what I'm trying to tell people is no, no, no. When they mentioned CRT in public education, you should be attacking them for letting kids die in school every single time. Like make them regret mentioning the words children every single time. We've been speaking with Rachel Biddecoffer. We almost made it through without a single bleep, but one did end up getting necessitated there. The forthcoming book is hidden where it hurts.

How to save democracy by beating Republicans at their own game. Rachel, always a pleasure. Sorry about the beat, David. Republican presidential candidate and 2020 and Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis was interviewed on Fox News yesterday, and it was a stark reminder, stark reminder of why he is losing so badly. They seem to be putting DeSantis now behind a Carrie Lake style filter that makes his skin look better. But unfortunately, it's not doing anything for the words coming out of his mouth.

He was interviewed by Fox host Martha McCallum, who interestingly is also one of the hosts of Wednesday night's Republican primary debate. They are sort of framing up the conversation as Trump doesn't want to debate the Santa specifically. I don't have any reason to think that that's the case. It seems Trump just doesn't think he needs to debate. He's winning every poll and winning every poll easily. But look at the sort of confused and strange energy from DeSantis where he just doesn't say anything anyone could possibly care about that. It's it's there's a real who cares sort of response to everything DeSantis says here, given the opportunity to criticize Trump because he don't, he won't debate me.

And he barely says a word about it. I'm gonna before I let you go. Why do you think it is? Do you have any thought on why the former president doesn't want to debate you and everyone else? You know, you'll have to ask him. I mean, I think he has, um, has a great opportunity to come out and do this. I think he owes has a great opportunity to come out and do this. I think he owes it to people.

I don't think our voters, even people that appreciate what he did, and I'm actually one that appreciated a lot of what he did. He's praising Trump. Now I know some of you would say, David, this is a better politics, right? Why do they have to constantly attack each other? That's not the point. The point is not just fabricating needless sniping and what the point is. They are trying to argue voters should choose them over Trump.

And in reacting to Trump simply saying, I don't even care enough about you to debate you. DeSantis says, I'm one of the people that appreciates the things Trump did. He's praising Trump. That appreciate what he did. And I'm actually one that appreciated a lot of what he did, too. I don't think they're going to look kindly on somebody that thinks they don't have to earn it.

I started off in my life working minimum wage jobs. I mean, I was a blue collar kid. I don't have anything handed to me. What I believe in America, you work hard, you can get ahead. That's what we should be showing for people. We shouldn't be displaying a sense of entitlement. OK, Governor, I understand. Thank you very much.

Good to have. Yeah, Martha McCallum was just like an OK. Listen, there is a way to respond to this that actually projects strength and doesn't make you seem like this pathetic, flaccid nonsense that DeSantis is making himself out to be, which is, listen, Donald Trump should respect not only the people running against him, but also the millions who voted for him. He should respect them enough to show up and say, I'm going to participate in this process. It is so important. I believe my ideas and my record are so good that they will stand up to eight people attacking me at once.

Right. You you can answer this without making it a personal attack on Trump. And this goes, listen, I appreciated a lot of the things Trump did. This guy is going nowhere. It's you know, some of Nikki Haley's campaign was obviously dead on arrival. Asa Hutchinson's campaign was obviously dead on arrival. We should have realized that DeSantis campaign was also dead on arrival. Now the topic of Ron DeSantis is a reference to Trump supporters as listless vessels over the weekend also came up during his interview with Martha McCallum. Here's what he had to say about that.

So tell me a little bit about that comment that you made over the weekend and we played it in its full context. I know you felt that in some cases it was taken out of context, but if it was misinterpreted, explain to us what you meant in that. Well, Martha, every Republican voter I've ever come in contact with, whether they're strong for Trump, lukewarm or anything in between,

wants us to stand on principle when you get elected or if you're involved in this process. And I think one of the big problems with our party for many, many years is people say they're going to do certain things and then don't end up following through. And so at the end of the day, it's what are we delivering for the people that have put us into office? And in the state of Florida, I can say that I have delivered

more for America first principles than anybody else in the country. I mean, if you're wondering how on earth this relates to DeSantis calling Trump supporters listless vessels, I'm wondering the same thing. We've prohibited the CCP from purchasing land. We've cracked down on illegal immigration, expanded Second Amendment rights. We got indoctrination out of our schools. We have universal school choice and our crime rates at a 50 year low because we've done things like remove Soros back district attorneys so that it's about results. And I think what you've had, the people in Congress that I was referring to that have attacked me and trying to say somehow that that I was a rhino. They're putting entertainment

and personality over principle. Our voters want us to stand on principle and fight for them. Pretty strong, huh? Super. What on earth is this guy talking about? This guy is truly an empty vessel. There's there's just nothing there. Yay. You referred to MAGA Republicans as listless vessels. What about that? He's like, well, you know, we got rid of Soros DAs in Florida. Well, what are you talking about, dude? This is why he's lost more than 50 percent support. And then lastly, DeSantis was also asked. It's like, does nobody prep him for these interviews? DeSantis was asked about the leaked memo in which his PAC advisors, I believe it was,

suggested he go hard at Vivek Ramaswamy in tomorrow night's debate. I think the idea being the vague has seven percent. Maybe DeSantis could try to pick up some of that by going after Vivek, who has some energy. And DeSantis just goes, well, no, I didn't even really read it. It was like from the PAC side of them and just just kind of muttering to himself. So there was a memo that leaked from part of was like from the PAC side of just just kind of muttering to himself. So there was a memo that leaked from part of your campaign from the PAC side, I believe. And in it, it said that you should take a sledgehammer to Vivek Ramaswamy. Is that what you plan to do on Wednesday night?

Well, so that is not part of me. That's a separate entity. I had nothing to do with it. It's not something that I've read and it's not reflective of my strategy. So we're going to talk about what we're going to do for the country across a wide variety of issues. You know, we'll be ready. I mean, I think that with Donald Trump not being there, I don't think it's any secret that I'm going to be probably the guy that people are going to come after. I mean, certainly that's been true really since I got reelected as governor, whether it's Biden-Harris administration, the liberal media, and then a lot of these other candidates. So we'll be ready to go and we'll be standing our ground and we'll be fighting back.

I mean, maybe everyone would be going after DeSantis, but I don't know, because even if you get all of DeSantis is 14.5 percent, you're still losing by to Trump by at least 30, if not 35. So it's just not really clear. My prediction as of today, Tuesday, is DeSantis goes down in flames in this debate. He's terrible at debating. He was a disaster in his gubernatorial debate for the November 2022 election. He still won. Right. And that's much to do with the electorate of Florida. But this guy's a disaster. I expect him to go down in flames during tomorrow night's debate. Former Vice President Mike Pence and former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows may have destroyed Donald Trump's only legal defense in the classified documents case. This you have to see. And this is a really big deal. The New Republic has a great write up on this.

Mike Pence and Mark Meadows just ruined Trump's defense in classified documents case. The former president appears to be caught in a huge lie. Remember, much of Trump's attempted defense in the classified documents case revolves around Trump's claim that he declassified documents. He declassified them and they were all declassified, even though he's on tape saying this is classified. OK, but that part of his defense is I did this mass declassification. The New Republic now reports former Vice President Mike Pence and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Sunday they had no knowledge of then President Trump declassifying a large number of documents, completely undermining the former president's main defense in the Mar-a-Lago case. So understand the context here.

As the article explains, Jack Smith indicted Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents. Trump's main argument is that as president, he could declassify whatever he wanted. His allies argued he had a standing declassification order, which meant anything removed from the Oval Office was like magic declassified. Trump himself claimed he could declassify things just by thinking about it. But where we are now is that two of the people closest to Trump when Trump was president, his own vice president, Mike Pence, and his final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, have no

idea whatsoever about the fact that Trump was declassifying anything, declassifying anything. Let's take a look at a little video of Mike Pence on ABC's this week over the weekend and knowing what you knew about how that White House operated. If there had been such a broad order, wouldn't his chief of staff have known about it? You know, I would expect so. But again, you know, I sure hope we're not getting back into the lane of leaks from the Justice Department about these cases. You know, the special counsel is currently working on investigating Joe Biden's pattern of retaining classified materials. We haven't heard a peep out of that. And I know there's discussion about them making arrangements for. OK.

He's trying to obfuscate. Pence is trying to talk about, well, what about Biden's classified documents? But the main point here is Pence says if there were a declassification order, I would have known about it. I would have known about it. I would have heard about it. There would have been a rumor about it. And Mike Pence is making abundantly clear there was no declassification order. We then go to Mark Meadows. This is from Newsweek.

Donald Trump's ex chief of staff, Mark Meadows, may have struck a major blow to Trump's defense in the classified documents case after reportedly telling investigators he couldn't recall Trump ever attempting to declassify sensitive materials before he left office ever, ever, ever. Not a single time. I think there is a bigger picture. Story that we all need to understand. Many of the defenses that Donald Trump has put forward in public to the first indictment and to the second indictment and to the third indictment and to the fourth indictment, which we are in the process right now of getting

Trump booked and formally arraigned on many of the defenses that Trump has put forward in the media and that his TV lawyers have put forward in the media are not defenses that would work in a court of law. For some, the problem is that the defenses are not actually a refutation of the crimes. So we've talked about examples like this before. Trump saying, oh, the entire classified documents thing is not criminal. It's actually governed by the Presidential Records Act. From what every serious legal expert has written so far, that's not a valid defense for court because it is simply not the case. It is not the law. It is not coherent with

what the law actually is. So if you go in and you try to argue that in court from the legal experts I've read, you just lose immediately. It's just it's a losing argument. And it's important to understand that many of the things Trump says he probably doesn't even really understand himself. He doesn't know that they're not actually defenses to the crimes he is accused of. So one of the most interesting aspects of this from a legal perspective is, OK, we've heard the TV arguments. We've heard the trial by media arguments that Trump and his allies have made. They are not going to work as legal defenses in a court of law.

If it gets to that point, what will the legal defenses actually be? You know, in the second federal indictment, it was I genuinely believed I won and they're prosecuting me for what I said. And that violates my First Amendment right. It's plainly on the first page of the indictment. You can say whatever you want. You can even lie about winning. That's not why you're getting prosecuted. It's the criminality of trying to

put in place fake electors, et cetera. So I will be very interested to see what arguments are made in a court of law. If any of these cases actually get that far, what do you expect? Let me know in a comment. We have a voicemail number, that number you can call any time of day. We feature one voicemail on each show. Here is someone coming out of the woodwork to ask me, hey, David, any regrets about that controversial tweet about the Nashville school shooting? Take a listen to this. Yeah, David, I'm sitting here looking at a tweet that you wrote about the Covenant Presbyterian School in Nashville that had a shooting, and you thought it was a funny comment to make a joke about

the children not praying enough, and that is the reason why they were massacred. And I'm just wondering if that's. If you think those were those comments were sensible or if you regret making those comments, because at the end of the day, your viewpoints on religion or not, some pretty harsh words that you've spoken. And I'm just wondering if that's something you regret saying. So no, I don't. In fact, what I regret is deleting the tweet. I explore this in some detail.

When I was interviewed on the Lex Friedman podcast, my only regret with regard to that entire episode was that I essentially chickened out and deleted the tweet, partially because family members were starting to get threats from right wing lunatics. Of course, anyone who knows me knows I was not blaming the children who were killed for not praying hard enough. The point of the tweet and my audience understood it, and this is why I regret deleting it. The point of the tweet was, of course, that there are politicians who say thoughts and prayers are enough to

prevent shootings and school shootings. The shooting happened at a Christian school. If there is prayer going on anywhere that would be protective against school shootings, you would think that it would be the case at a Christian school that there is prayer. And obviously, thoughts and prayers don't prevent shootings. That was the point. I regret deleting it.

I regret deleting it. You can't undelete it. And that is where we are. We have a fantastic bonus show for you today. OK. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. In his continued obsession with Disney. Ron DeSantis now wants

to strip Disney workers of free passes. He says he's not he's over the whole Disney thing, and yet he wants to strip Disney workers of free passes. Secondly, mortgage rates are now over 7 and this housing market is getting insane. What could this do to the economy? 7%. I'll tell you some personal stories, mortgage related. And lastly, three people are dead after drinking milkshakes tied to a Listeria outbreak. Where did this happen? I'm going to tell you about some of the Listeria notifications I've gotten about produce I purchased. This is a whole thing which we will discuss on the bonus show.

How do you get access to the bonus show? David Pakman membership costs six bucks a month. True. It's normally six bucks a month for a membership. You can get 50 percent off by using the coupon code thrice indicted, which we will update to reflect Trump's fourth indictment very soon. And you'll get instant access to the bonus show. It's a beautiful thing, folks.

It really is. I'll see you then. We're here tomorrow. Live debate tomorrow night. Live Trump arrest on Thursday. It is a crazy week. And I'm glad that you're here with me. you you