The David Pakman Show - 8/28/24: Tim Walz fake dog scandal, Trump says prison for flag burning

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard completes her conversion to MAGA shill as she endorses Donald Trump for President -- Trump's recent behavior raises the question of whether he is deliberately trying to lose the election against Kamala Harris -- Reports are that Donald Trump is thinking about restating and reinvigorating his campaign -- They're going after Tim Walz for a supposedly fake dog in the latest fake scandal gone wrong -- Donald Trump doesn't seem to know or realize that his own campaign wants his microphone to be off when he isn't speaking during the possibly forthcoming debate against Kamala Harris -- At a scary event in Detroit, Michigan, Donald Trump says he's like to imprison people for a year if they burn the American flag -- Fox News and Newsmax, as well as other right wing media, are increasingly struggling to pretend that Donald Trump is sane -- Donald Trump gives what might be his worst interview ever to Shawn Ryan -- New signs that Donald Trump is considering dumping JD Vance as his running make, choosing instead Robert F. Kennedy Jr -- Voicemail caller is cancelling his Membership for an interesting reason -- On the Bonus Show: Jesse Watters says generals will "have their way" with Kamala, Arizona police endorses Trump but not Kari Lake, and much more... 🍷 Naked Wines: Use code PAKMAN to get 6 bottles for $29.99 at https://nakedwines.com/pakman 🚚 ShipStation: Use code PAKMAN for 60-day FREE trial at https://shipstation.com 🌳 MyHeritage: Discover your family roots for FREE for 14 days at https://davidpakman.com/myheritage 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.com/pakman 🖼️ Aura Frames: Use code PAKMAN for $30 OFF & free shipping at https://auraframes.com/pakman 💪 Athletic Greens is offering FREE year-supply of Vitamin D at https://athleticgreens.com/pakman -- Become a Member: https://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/davidpakmanshow -- TDPS Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow -- Pakman Discord: https://www.davidpakman.com/discord -- David on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave a Voicemail: (219)-2DAVIDP

Speaker 1 Welcome to the show. The conversion has been completed. The last true liberal, Tulsi Gabbard, has finished her conversion, has kissed the ring. Yes. And she has endorsed Donald Trump for president. I know that there is a slice of a sliver of my audience that doesn't like it when I remind them it's not ninety nine point eight percent of you, but it might be zero point two. You fell for it. You fell for it back in 2020 and you fell for the whole Tulsi's the only real left winger thing.

And I told you it's a scam and a grift and she's terrible and you're getting bamboozled. And now she's endorsing Donald Trump and she's doing the anti-vax stuff and she's doing the anti-trans stuff. So here is Donald Trump at a borderline deranged event in Detroit, Michigan, telling us Tulsi is here. And then we will hear her talk about how she is going to do everything she can to make sure Donald Trump becomes president. And today I'm honored to officially welcome another true American patriot, a 17 year veteran

of the Hawaii Army National Guard, a four-term Democrat congresswoman, very, very popular, the former vice chair of the National Democratic Party and a 2020 Democrat candidate for the United States presidency. You know, she was a very good candidate. Every time she ran, she was good. She did well. She decided to leave. She couldn't. She didn't do it anymore. But she is very special. And I didn't know this, but she was a lieutenant colonel. That's not bad. Lieutenant Colonel. Not bad. I didn't know that. You know, I just found out. I said, put it. Remember that if you support Trump, your service is to be praised. If you don't support Trump, your service is to be diminished and ridiculed. Very important way to support the troops down.

You got to put that down. That's bigger. That's better than all the other stuff I read. But now she's a special person. She's got great common sense, great spirit. She loves our country and she loves the people in this room. Tulsi Gabbard. Tulsi, please. Please. Speaker 1 There it is. Thank you very much.

So we're going to play tool C explaining what she's doing. A couple of things. Number one, I really do appreciate all the people who have put their ego aside and they've written in saying, David, you were right. I feel so stupid. You were right out all along. What on earth was I doing? Getting tricked by Tulsi Gabbard. But more importantly, because this is not this is a show to some degree about patting

myself on the back, but not exclusively. So I don't want to just do that for the whole hour. I'm kidding. But the important thing is there are real Republicans who continue espousing Republican values and positions that have realized Trump is toxic and they are voting for Kamala Harris, not because they agree with her on everything, but simply because they realize Trump's toxic and bad for the country and the world. Republicans are trying to make it seem like, hey, Democrats are crawling all over themselves to come

and endorse Trump as well. The difference is that Tulsi Gabbard doesn't have any Democratic beliefs at this point. So it's very much a false equivalency. And OK, so let's listen to Tulsi here. Whether you're a soldier, you're an airman, a marine sailor or a coastie, he keeps us in his heart in the decisions that he makes. Right. We saw this through his first term in the presidency when he not only didn't start any new wars, he took action to de-escalate and prevent wars. He exercised the courage that we expect from our commander-in-chief in exhausting all measures of diplomacy, having the courage to meet with adversaries, dictators, allies, and partners alike in the pursuit of peace, seeing war as a last resort.

The truth is, as we head towards our decision as a country in November, the same cannot be said about Kamala Harris. In fact, the opposite is true, And we're living through this reality today as this administration has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts and regions around the world. Note that this administration doesn't have us facing any wars and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before. This is one of the main reasons why I'm committed to doing all that I can to send President Trump back to the White House, where he can once again serve us as our commander in chief. It's actually nauseating. It's vomitous. Tulsi is vomitous.

And it's important to mention, you know, who cares about policy? But by endorsing Trump, Tulsi is aligning herself with someone who epitomizes many of the forces she used to rail against when she sort of was on the left, I guess, although like kind of not really. She was really kind of more one of these libertarian pseudo contrarian types. It was always kind of a grift, I think, is what what what we landed on. And you know, the Trump administration, unprecedented levels of corporate influence, which at one point Tulsi said she was against Trump's cabinet resembling basically just like a group of industry people.

The foreign policy has not been non interventionist, which is what Tulsi Gabbard championed at one point. Escalation in Yemen, assassinating Iranian general, which almost led to a war. If you want to talk about that very transactional approach to international alliances without any feeling of responsibility or commitment as the United States. So put aside the fact that the Trump rhetoric also targets marginalized communities, of which Tulsi Gabbard in some sense is a member on every level, on every level. She is highlighting this broader trend in American politics where anti-establishment rhetoric, no matter where you start on the political spectrum,

ends up being a gateway to right wing populism. If you just say I'm anti establishment, no matter what that means or whether it even makes sense in this particular case, you often end up in this echo chamber of the right. And it doesn't matter if it starts on the left and right, because when it comes to the so-called anti establishment stuff, the lines actually get quite blurred. So there's an irony to Tulsi's endorsement of Trump. There's certainly a betrayal of the progressive values she claimed to uphold, which I don't know if she really believed. And it's really a cautionary tale at the end of the day about how the Bernie is never going to do it right. We know what Bernie really believes. He said it. He abides by it. Bernie is not a guy that we're going to say, oh, my goodness,

he did a 180. Now he's supporting Jordan Peterson and saying no. But with people like Tulsi, with Trump, who got into politics late in the game, the principles they claim to espouse often end up just being whatever they find to get them attention. Tulsi got attention one way that went away and she found a new way to get attention, which culminates in endorsing Donald Trump. Pathetic and disgusting. I want to raise a question and have us think about it a little bit. Is Donald Trump trying to lose the election? In a few minutes, we're going to talk about the supposed restarting of Trump's campaign. It's crazy to be in a situation in almost September where you have to restart a presidential campaign. But put that aside for a moment.

Is it possible that Trump just doesn't want to do this? But for ego and narcissism reasons, he can't just say, hey, you know what, I'm dropping out or whatever. So he's kind of just trying to lose. The Independent has an interesting article. Trump aids desperately trying to stop him golfing and focus on the election as critics say he's, quote, lost his a critic says he's lost his mojo. This article, as I'm sure you can imagine, outlines how Donald Trump seems to be phoning it in. He's running a

low energy campaign. It's undisciplined. He's the few rallies he's holding often end up being in places where he's going to win easily like Montana. It just doesn't make any sense. We should at least consider that Donald Trump is miserable and sees the threat that Kamala Harris poses to him. And he's kind of given up and he's going to mostly play golf and promote, you know, Melania's latest book or whatever stupid thing and is actually kind of hoping that he loses. But he'll say he won. And that's a critical part of considering whether this is a strategy. Almost every single political and election expert we've spoken to says Trump's going to claim he won even if he loses.

And the fact that he still claims he won the popular vote in 2016, which he didn't, and the fact that he still claims he won in 2020, even though he didn't, and the fact that he's already saying the only way Democrats can win in November is if they lose. All of that does suggest he's going to claim victory even if he loses. So maybe the face saving way to be able to spend his remaining years playing golf at Bedminster and Mar-a-Lago rather than mired in political muck at the White House is to stay in this thing, but not really campaign and just let Kamala Harris defeat him. That's the premise that I raised to you here. But I also want to talk about the news. It's it's again, it's a crazy headline. I also want to talk about the news that Trump is going to start campaigning again. Let's discuss that next.

There's a hilarious new report. It's stunning to me that this would be a headline ever, but particularly in nearly September of an election year. There is a CNN piece about how Trump is he's really thinking about starting to campaign again. Wow. He must really be into this. Right. So I'm going to play this story from CNN for you with the caveat, with the caveat that what we are evaluating

here is, is this really something Trump is going to do? Or is this actually more of a sign that Trump wants to lose? As we discussed earlier, let's take a listen. All hands on deck for Republicans in the Trump campaign, sources tell us, as the Trump team shifts strategy to try to cut off Kamala Harris's momentum. Obviously, the Democrats are on a sugar high. Everybody's acknowledged that. And I think that that gets real after Labor Day. If you look over the history of all presidential election years, I mean, that's when people really begin to pay attention. So the rhetoric and the little bounce they get out of the out of the convention is always expected.

But I think that Kamala Harris is about to be put to the real test. And that was House Speaker Mike Johnson there on the campaign trail this weekend. And this week, Trump's team is ramping up his schedule in battleground states ahead of his first debate with Harris. CNN's Elena Treen joins us now. So, Elena, I mean, look, first of all, just tell us more about how the Trump campaign is ramping up their efforts. Let's start there. Explain how Trump is actually going to campaign. OK, well, look, I mean, I think there's no question, Omar, that the Trump campaign sees what is happening with the Trump campaign sees what is

happening with the Harris campaign. They have been frustrated. We've talked about this for weeks now with the surge of enthusiasm that Harris has continued to enjoy. We actually saw a memo from Trump's pollsters that they released on Saturday saying that that kind of post-Harris becoming the candidate honeymoon that they had anticipated was going to extend beyond the convention, saying that some of the favorable polls that she's enjoying are expected to continue longer than they had initially anticipated. And really, we are seeing the Trump campaign shift their strategy because they have this new opponent. That includes ramping up aggressively Donald Trump's schedule. Remember, Donald Trump does not really travel as

much as a typical candidate. He was really holding about two rallies a week up until recently. I'm told that is changing for the next few weeks between now and November, the next two months, I should say. They are going to really ramp up that schedule. You're going to see him traveling daily many weeks, if not holding two events per day, I'm told one Trump adviser told me, I think Trump on steroids. This is going to be OK. So what they're kind of trying to say is Trump's really considering starting to campaign again. And if you look at the schedule. This that that report is like a day and a half old at this point.

He still has only two rallies on the calendar. He has a rally tomorrow at in Wisconsin and he has a rally Friday in Pennsylvania. That's it. So so far, we're not seeing two days. We're not seeing one a days. We're seeing Trump with only two events scheduled, period. And J.D. Vance with a couple of events next week. And of course, that's if he makes it that long, because we have new signs that Trump really is considering replacing him with RFK Jr. So what is this about? I don't have any idea. I'm coming to you. Does Trump's ego and his personality allow him to deliberately run a failing campaign because he's realized he actually doesn't want to do this and is probably going to lose regardless? It doesn't really sound like it. At the same time, he is not running a campaign that you run in order to win. So is it that he

has a physical limitation? And that's why I don't mean like his legs broken. I just mean there's a limit to what he feels up to doing physically. He's not a young guy. Maybe that's a factor as to what's going on. I don't know whether this guy is still in it to even try to win it. That's the question I'll leave you with. After the break, we're going to get into the wild new criticism against Tim Walls. It's very funny. The weakness of their attacks shows us how scared they are. I want you to remember that my forthcoming book, The Echo Machine, is now available for preorder on all websites and in all formats. We just surpassed twelve. We'll get to that a little bit later. David Pakman dot com slash echo or search any website that sells physical books, e-books or audio books for the echo machine by David Pakman. We'll take a very quick break and be right back. is because of laws that date back to prohibition that ensure the right of wholesalers to make

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your subscription precisely to your taste. So go to naked wines dot com slash Pacman. Click enter voucher in the top right and enter Pacman for both the code and the password to get If you run an password for six bottles for twenty nine ninety nine with shipping included. The info is in the podcast notes. If you run an e-commerce business, you already know shipping can consume valuable time and resources. Our sponsor ShipStation makes it easier. ShipStation is the multi carrier shipping solution that integrates wherever you sell online and streamlines your workflow so your business can just grow even if you're on a summer vacation. ShipStation makes it incredibly easy to automate shipping tasks and manage orders in one simple dashboard. You can save thousands on shipping with industry leading carrier discounts. You get up to eighty nine percent off on UPS, DHL and USPS to a. Thank you, David. ShipStation dot com and use code Pacman to sign up for your free 60 day trial.

That's ShipStation dot com. Use code Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. The David Pakman show does indeed depend on you to do what we do. The best way to support our work is to sign up for a membership at join Pacman dot com on every other platform where you can support us. Patreon, YouTube, Substack, every platform other than our website takes anywhere from 10 up to, in some cases, 40 percent of the money that would otherwise come in on our Web site. All but the two point nine

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This guy doesn't respect the Constitution. Here's a dozen things he said that confirm that this guy doesn't respect women's bodily autonomy. Here's 30 instances of him bragging about getting Roe v. Wade overturned thanks to the three Supreme Court justices he picked. This guy doesn't respect press freedom. Here's 30 instances of him either attacking members of the media or threatening to shut down media outlets he doesn't like. These are very serious criticisms of Donald Trump. On the other hand, you start with the criticisms of Kamala Harris. She's a DEI candidate, meaning she's only there based on presumably the color of her skin or her gender in a sort of affirmative action kind of sense. She laughs in a way that's silly. She's the failed border czar, even though she was

never the border czar. The that shows us they don't really have anything good against her. And this is now applying to Tim Walz during Kamala Harris's DNC nomination acceptance speech last week. Donald Trump put out a truth saying they called him Wall's coach, but he was only an assistant coach. Very flaccid and shriveled attack. And the latest one is that Tim Walls lied about his dog. He brought in a fake dog to claim that it is his dog. I know it sounds stupid, but this is what they're doing.

Here is an article from Gizmodo. Trump weirdos spread conspiracy theory that Tim Walz's dog is fake. If you're looking, you'll see that on the left there's a picture of Tim Walz with his dog and then on the right there's a picture of Tim Walz with a different dog. Oh, my goodness. What? picture of Tim Walz with a different dog. Oh, my goodness. What what they are talking about is that in a post about going to the dog park, Tim Walz talked about how great it was to go with Scout. But in one of the pictures, which you can see on the right here, let's see if I can pull

this up. One of the pictures which you can see on the right, Tim Walls is with, God forbid, a different dog. Well, the explanation is extraordinarily simple, which is that there's a video of this event. Here's a screenshot from the video. Tim Walls was there with his dog Scout, but a random dog came by and Tim Walls pet the dog and apparently liked the dog. And then we also have a video of the event in question. Are they bugging you? Yeah. Well, I can.

So here is Tim Walls petting a dog that is not his. See why anybody having too much fun? I can see why with that face you should be the center of attention. Tim Walz petting a dog that is not his. See why anybody having too much fun? I can see why with that face you should be the center of attention. Yeah. Who gives you a heck? Oh, yeah. And then incomes scout into the video.

Tim Walz is not pretending that this other dog is his dog. Now, if you're saying to me, OK, David, I get it. It's just another stupid conspiracy theory. There's a really interesting element to this. As usual, the stories they fail to use to attack their opposition tell us so much more about themselves. And I know many of you know where I'm going with this. Trump has made it clear he doesn't understand dogs. He doesn't know what it would be like to have a relationship with a dog. He doesn't get along with dogs. Trump doesn't know what makes dogs appealing. He often references things that are bad to being like dogs. They treated him like a dog. That whole thing.

The fact that Maga is now going after Tim Walz essentially for petting a different dog than his own is a reminder that as bad as Donald Trump is with kids and with babies, he is just as bad with dogs. And while it doesn't rank highly for me, you know, the threat to democracy ranks much higher for me. I hear from dog owners regularly who say the fact that Trump and dogs just seem to clash ideologically concerns me because everyone I know who genuinely just like is repulsed by dogs. I don't know about that. There's some you know, who doesn't like dogs in some general sense.

So it's a complete and total backfire, both because it's so stupid. It's stupid because it also reminds us that their criticisms of Harris and Walz are meaningless compared to the very serious concerns with Trump and Pence. And of course, it's also a reminder that Trump has seemed adversarial to dogs for a very long time. Hey, here is something super funny. Trump was asked about the controversy regarding the microphones at his maybe forthcoming debate with Kamala Harris.

And Trump seems completely unaware that his own campaign is lobbying for his microphone to be off when it's not his turn because they believe he can't control himself and will only damage himself if he's able to utter whatever comes to mind while Kamala Harris is talking. So let's back this up a little bit. Trump held a really weird event a couple of days ago and he was asked, would you want the microphones muted when you're not speaking? And Trump kind of says, doesn't really matter to me.

I probably want the microphones. Would you want the microphone muted in the debate whenever you're not speaking? We agreed to the same rules. I don't know. It doesn't matter to me. I'd rather have it probably on. But the agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time. In that case, it was muted.

I didn't like it the last time, but it worked out fine. I mean, ask Biden how it worked out. It was fine. And I think it should be the same. We agreed to the same rules, same rules and same specifications. And I think that's probably what it should be. So listen, here's the back story on this. Trump sort of is. I don't know that it's right to say he's trying to get out of the debate.

It seems like he's just very unsure as to whether this debate could possibly help him. Usually, if you're losing, you want to debate. It's not clear whether Trump knows he's losing, but he certainly seems to know, at least from some of the things he's done and said. And one of the things that's kind of at issue is when candidate A is speaking, is candidate B's microphone on or is it off? And Trump is right that during the June 27th debate against Joe Biden, the microphones were off when the other candidates turned to speak was taking place. But there's a whole other back story that's going on here. And there's a political article, a Politico article that laid it out. Harris and Trump battle over hot mics at the debate.

The Harris campaign, I believe, rightly thinks that if Trump's mic is on during the entire debate, when Kamala Harris is speaking, Trump may not be able to resist making uncouth and crass utterances which may be counterproductive to his cause. And the reporting is that Trump's campaign is also lobbying for Mike, for their own candidates microphone to be shut off when Trump is not speaking because they question whether Trump has the discipline to keep his mouth shut and avoid sticking his foot in his own mouth. So it's hilarious that Trump doesn't seem to know or realize that his campaign is really worried about what he might do if the microphones are on. He says, we agreed to rules.

I'd kind of rather have them on. Well, your campaign wouldn't because they don't trust that you can actually behave on the topic more generally about whether Trump may back out or not. Here's what he had to say. He was incredible. And Reince was in there, but he was a little a little bit softer than he should be, to be honest with you. But when I looked at the hostility of that, I said, why am I doing it? Let's do it with another network. Right. So this is Trump's really primary argument for why he may bail on the ABC News debate, which is ABC News is hostile to me. ABC News won't have a fair debate. George Slopid, Apollos and this and this and that. At the end of the day, if Trump doesn't debate, it seems pretty clear that the harm will be

greater than whatever good it might generate. And the difference from previous situations is that as we talked about earlier in the show, we don't know that Trump really wants to win. Trump may indeed be trying to just lose claim fraud, which he suspects won't put him in the White House. And he can continue telling his supporters I did win, but they stole it while not having to be president. This is the hypothesis because Trump's doing everything one would do if they didn't want to actually win this election. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. We'll take the quickest of quick breaks and be right back. I've been tracking my family tree for a long time now, and the service I've always relied on

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Well, this week, Donald Trump speaking in Detroit, Michigan, said that if you burn an American flag, a constitutionally protected form of speech, you should go to jail for a year. And if you have to change the Constitution to make that the punishment, then so be it. Free speech and it's Democrats who are for censorship. Here's Donald Trump with an idea so outrageous all of the cultists love burning the American flag. I want to get a law passed.

Everyone tells me, oh, sure, it's very hard. You burn an American flag, you go to jail for one year. Got to do it. We got to do it. They say it's not constitutional. They say, sir, that's not constitutional. We'll make it constitutional. We're going to make it constitutional. But you burn an American flag, you go to jail for one year. That was terrible. What happened at the convention in Chicago? What other forms of constitutionally protected free speech does Donald Trump want to criminalize to start throwing people in prison for their speech? Because I doubt this is the only one.

This is a perfect example of how MAGA ism MAGA Trump ism differs from the bygone tradition of conservatism. I've never been a conservative, but I can recognize that there was a point in time in which they would never say in the conservative world, the Constitution doesn't matter or we change it to suit our needs or to be able to imprison people we don't like. No, they would have said we don't do that. That's not conservatism because MAGA Trump ism is not conservatism. It's reactionary authoritarianism blended together with word salads and confusion and ignorance.

Flag burning has been a form of political protest for over a century in the United States. During the Vietnam War, it was prominent. It was a symbol of dissent. And over the years, flag burning has been employed by various groups to express discontent with government actions or the state of the nation. I have no interest in burning flags. I've never burned a flag of any kind. It's always been a divisive act. There are many people who say it's offensive or disrespectful, but lots of speech is offensive or disrespectful. And you don't go to prison for it. You don't criminalize it. And you can make the argument. I know it's so cliche that the most important or at least at least the most legally important forms of speech to defend

legally are those you disagree with because it forces you to look at the principle. This doesn't mean we go out and celebrate people who use the N word and the K word for Jews. No, it doesn't mean we celebrate it. But the point is, we say if it's legal, it's legal. And just because I don't like it, I can't make it against the law. The legality of flag burning has been challenged many times. The Supreme Court has solidified that you can burn the flag. It's part of the First Amendment. There's a bunch of different cases.

We're not going to get into it here. But this is the authoritarianism that we've been talking about during this same event in Detroit. Donald Trump taking credit for the United States military having ammunition. This is a nine year old one. He used to say when I came in after Obama, they came to me. They said, Sir, there's no ammunition. So I got them bullets. And now I guess they did. They threw them out. The funny thing is, after he got his bullets, when Biden came in, now we don't have ammunition anymore.

He never explains what did Biden do with the ammunition? So I had and you will say it, I had ammunition. We had so much. It was coming out of our gills, right? I had ammunition. I said, what the hell do we do with all this ammunition? We had so much and now we don't have ammunition again. We gave it all away to different groups, but mostly into Ukraine. OK, so his argument. So there it is. He actually does address it here. Usually he doesn't.

The reason all the ammunition he got us, we no longer have, even though the military budget continues to grow. What's the money going to? We don't know is because we gave all of the godly ammunition that he got us to Ukraine, which of course is untrue. We we gave Ukraine stuff that was due to be replaced anyway, which is another crazy aspect, by the way, of the military industrial complex. So continuing to insist that only under Trump can the military even be expected to have

or do anything in maybe the most delusional moment of this event? Donald Trump told the crowd that he's a highly sophisticated, highly educated individual who always is on the lookout for good words. You know, I always look for good words, highly sophisticated, highly educated. I like sophisticated words, but there's only one word I get. They're stupid. They're stupid people. Right. I'd like to say I'd like to say I guess you could say incompetent sounds maybe a little better. I don't know which

is better being stupid or being incompetent because they're both super sophisticated words. And that is definitely what Trump is known for. Sophistication with speech. Saudi Arabia and Russia will repeat. And then Donald Trump addressing what's happening in Ukraine. And it genuinely looks like Trump has no idea what's happening in Ukraine. Look at what's going on right now with Ukraine disurging into Russia. OK, you're going to end up in World War three and it's going to be a bad one. Trump using his earnest and somber pseudo whisper voice. It's quite fascinating how one of the best deals we've gotten as far as the military is what's happening in Ukraine. We have a situation where with no U.S. troops on the ground with equipment that, quite frankly, was starting to get a little bit old and needs to be replaced anyway, because remember, most of the donations are equipment and not money.

The U.S. has been able to help Ukraine really damage the Russian military, prevent the illegal and hostile invasion of takeover of their territory by the aggression of Russia and put Ukraine in a position where now I mean, this would have been unthinkable some time ago. Now, Ukraine is actually making some military gains. They may be temporary. Who knows? But even to be in that position when remember, in eight weeks, Ukraine will be owned by Russia. It's an insane deal for the United States in terms of holding off Russian aggression without a single soldier on the ground. Now, could it escalate?

Do we want these conflicts? Yeah, of course. I mean, listen, it's not it's not simple, but Trump doesn't seem to get the slightest bit of what's going on. Now, finally, here are two. I'm not going to play the full two minutes what's going on. Now, finally, here are two. I'm not going to play the full two minutes. Don't worry. OK, here is the start of a two minute Trump rant. The audience does not make a sound. This is the diminished, shriveled Trump not mushrooming to the challenge

at all and just trying to get some kind of traction and getting none of it. He is putting his followers to sleep. Oh, wait, hold on. Do I hear this? He ignored the pleas of the mayor and the police chief to deploy the National Guard in Minneapolis and said, you're not highly trained soldiers. You're 19 year olds who cook. That's what he said. You're 19 year old to cook.

That's pretty he said. Your 19 year olds who cook. That's a pretty famous statement. As president, I stood with the National Guard as you saved Minneapolis, saved Kenosha and saved Washington, D.C. I saved them. If I didn't override what they wanted to do and what tradition is, those places would have been we would have lost every monument in Washington. You know, they came into Washington and they were very rambunctious. They like to pull the statues down, some of these beautiful statues. And then they hit Abraham Lincoln. I said, all right, that's enough incoherent and also lulling people to sleep. This stuff just isn't hitting the way it used to.

You know, the it I don't want to pretend as though Trump was a good substantive speaker last election or anything like that, but he at least could keep the crowd somewhat interested. But the speeches get speeches get longer and longer while he says less and less. And he seems out of his mind. And this gets us to the next topic, how the right wing networks are trying to make Trump seem like he is sane. After Donald Trump's speech to the National Guard Association in Detroit, at which Tulsi Gabbard came out and endorsed him and Trump said you should go to jail for a year if you burn the American flag, just like authoritarian craziness. Fox News and Newsmax had to try to saying wash Trump's speech. So I'm going to play

for you what they said as Trump's speech ended, of course, with the village people music. And we're going to talk about that. This is a this is a big deal. The if every reaction to Trump's speeches were that was nuts, completely authoritarian, riddled with lies, unimplementable policy ideas, it would be a very different scenario. But here is Newsmax attempting to All right. I very focused, I would say energized, part time's funny address there from former President Donald J. Trump. Very focused, energized and at times funny. Trump rambled incoherently, put the crowd to sleep for minutes at a time, suggested

jailing people for the constitutionally protected speech that is burning an American flag and expressed zero understanding of what's happening in Ukraine. And Newsmax calls the speech very focused, energized and at times funny. Fox News also saying washing Donald Trump's ranting and raving, acting as if he was consistently sticking to some themes that they're pretending like this is normal. There you have it. Former President Trump and current GOP candidate for the presidency once again wrapping up his remarks. He was speaking with the National Guard to even call them remarks is too charitable.

Association in Detroit hitting three big themes consistently crime, the economy and immigration as the campaign kicks once again. This is insanity. Now this is just one of the many techniques that partisan media will use. This is interpretive journalism. OK, this is where anchors reframe what you just saw. They make it appear more rational when Trump says absolutely insane stuff, either because he glitches or the substance is nuts. They sort of like write it off as some kind of rhetorical error, but not really representative

of the totality of what's going on. Interpretive journalism is one approach to saying washing the words of authoritarians, of incompetence, of cult leaders, etc. Other things that are sometimes done and Newsmax and Fox News will do it. Selective editing or sometimes don't even cover a story that is disadvantageous to Trump. Distraction tactics like reinforcing some of the criticism Trump's makes. So, for example, they might go, you know, Trump's criticism of this. These I don't know, these trans issues, men and women's sports or however, take something from the speech and

focus in on it to pretend as though the thing is actually substantive rather than completely and totally insane. Audience perception management is another thing, which is you bring in a focus group or you interview people before and after and sort of create an environment where it seems as though what we are seeing here is normal when it is very much not. And then sometimes there's like a contextualization of the absurd, where the absurd and wacky things that Trump says are given a little context where, you know, Trump will say something insane about crime. We should execute drug dealers after a one day trial like they do in China.

It's like, well, hold on. The reason they do that in China is these are like show trials. It's a kangaroo court. And they could instead of addressing that, they could go, you know, police chiefs in seven important towns have agreed with Trump that shoplifting is a problem or you add context to make the specificity of Trump's insanity abstract in some sense. And these are just some of the techniques that are used. It's getting more and more difficult to do. And when you sit through

these endless Trump rallies and you're exhausted, but you still are part of the cult. And then Martha McCallum pops up with a neon orange dress. I mean, just like it's so produced. And she goes, well, that was a speech about crime. And you go, it looks like news. She seems she's presentable. I see graphics. I guess Trump's speech must have been about three major themes instead of a completely insane ranting of a madman who usually talks about Hannibal Lecter and sharks. It I guess maybe voting for him is a normal and legitimate thing to do. That's the same washing challenge that is now facing them. Some of them pull it off better than others.

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I have never seen anything like this. And listen, I am with you. That crazy Axios interview with Jonathan Swan during Trump's presidency. It was bad. The Chris Wallace interview where he challenged Chris Wallace to a cognitive test and said he could do better on it than Chris Wallace. That was bad. The NABJ interview where he said Kamala Harris used to be Indian but became black. That was bad.

This may be worse than all of it. I don't know much about Sean Ryan, but he seems to be a pretty major Trump suck up from what I gathered watching this interview and right off the top for all of the weeks now of saying I know nothing about Project 2025. Trump signals that he will enact Project 2025, give himself total control by starting to purge the government of bureaucratic civil servants and putting them in, putting instead loyalists in place. He calls it holding them accountable. We know what the code means. Any government agencies have zero trust in our Congress or Senate, anything. And We have a government that's not functioning right now.

Yeah. How are you going to gain the trust back of the American people within the government? And are we going to see anybody held accountable? Yeah. The answer is yes. On the second, they're going to be held accountable. They've got to be held accountable. What they're doing, they're destroying this country.

They're crooked people. They're dishonest people. What Trump is talking about here, it's really important not to mistake because they always speak in code. They always speak in cold code. Sean Ryan says he doesn't trust the government, doesn't trust government departments or agencies. These are departments and agencies mostly staffed by career bureaucrats. They're not political actors.

Do they vote in their personal lives? Sure. Probably they should. Nothing wrong with that. But they work for Democratic and Republican administrations. They're career bureaucrats. And Sean Ryan says he doesn't trust them, that it's broken. Trump agrees and says they are going to be held accountable.

Also, Trump's tie is tucked under his crotch. I know people will write to me and say, David, you didn't mention it. Trump's tie is tucked under his crotch and it looks crazy and the tie is too long. But who cares when Project 2025 is what's on the line here? Donald Trump, again, with another version of what his current position is on Roe v. Wade, says Roe v. Wade was bad. He got it out. And it's thanks to his Supreme Court picks that Roe v. Wade disappeared. This is relevant because it's, of course, true, even though now that they also recognize that the anti-abortion stuff is killing them electorally,

they are pretending like they aren't so anti-abortion, every legal scholar, every Democrat, every Republican wanted it. Roe v. Wade. You've heard this was legally very, very bad place to have it in the federal government for a lot of reasons. I got it out. Three great justices that I put on voted, plus three other, in my opinion, great justices and they got it out. Every single woman and every single person who knows a woman or has ever met a woman or was born to a woman should remember what Trump just said in November. And of course, there's some of this playing both sides. You know, as Fred Trump, the third told us, right, there's really no sincere ideology here. It's what does Trump think will help him win? And what Trump thinks will help him win is when

he's being interviewed by some Trump suck up right winger like Sean Ryan. You go anti-abortion. And when you realize that you're losing ballot referenda and it will hurt you, then you go, oh, like J.D. Vance said over the weekend, we would never veto. I'm sorry, we would veto. We would veto a federal abortion ban. We wouldn't allow a federal abortion ban. It's whatever he can say at the time to get elected.

But that arguably makes him more dangerous, not less. Trump brought up that only a stupid or mentally ill person would say what Trump said about members of the military, that they are suckers and lose multiple times where the media is misconstrued. Some of the things that you say about veterans, the latest being. Supposedly you calling veteran wounded veterans that have been shot or wounded suckers and losers. Yeah. A made up story was made up by a magazine. And I think it was The Atlantic, which is a radical left magazine. And as soon as I heard it, I said, that's a terrible thing and you don't get rid of it.

You know, they make these things and they just use it and use it. The opposing side,'s a terrible thing and you don't get rid of it. You know, they make these things and they just use it and use it. The opposing side, they know it's false. I had 26 people that said that never happened. Who would say it? Who would say it? Nobody would say it. A stupid person or a person that's mentally ill. Well, maybe Trump is right. A stupid person or someone who's mentally ill or maybe just a bad person, an ungrateful person, someone who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth or something like that. So listen, Trump's lying. Trump said it not only about those who are wounded, but about those who were killed.

We have public statements where Trump has said essentially the same thing he said about the late Senator John McCain. I prefer my war heroes who weren't captured. So the thing Trump Trump is accused of saying in private tracks perfectly with things that Donald Trump said in public. And of course, many of the people Trump is listing who said he never said it weren't in the room when it supposedly happened. And John Kelly is on record very clearly in a very trustworthy way, saying he said it. I was right there. Speaking of John Kelly, speaking of John Kelly, Trump says that he was a terrible, stupid person. I'm actually unsure

whether this is a duplicate clip in part. Let's see. But they make up stories. And then one guy who's a very sort of a low life guy. He is a low life. They got one confirmation and twenty six people said it never happened. But the low the one confirmation was a guy that I fired, a terrible, stupid person, actually. Yeah. So anyway, you know, every time Trump talks about all of the people he hired who were stupid and he had to fire, it directly undercuts his claim that he knows how to hire and is the best at hiring and only hires the best people.

Certainly not the case. And finally, Trump going after climate change. The biggest risk today, you know, when I hear these poor fools talking about global warming, they don't call it that anymore. They call it climate change because, you know, some parts of the planet are cooling. You know what's funny about that? For 25 years, Republicans have been saying they used to call it global warming, but now they call it climate change for marketing reasons.

But it's been three decades that the term climate change has been identified as more accurate because as Trump says, won't he? He unknowingly is actually repeating the science. We're talking about increasingly erratic weather, record highs, record lows, etc. But they love this line. They used to call it global warming, but that didn't work. So they switched to climate warming.

It didn't work. So they finally got it right. They call it they just call it climate change. They used to call it global warming. You know, years ago, they used to call it global cooling. In the 1920s, they thought the planet was going to freeze. Now they think the planet's going to burn up. And we're still waiting for the 12 years. You know, we're down almost to the end of the 12 year period. You understand that we're these lunatics that know nothing, they weren't even good students at school. They didn't even study it. They predict they said we have 12 years to live and people didn't have babies because they said we only have another. No, no. It's so crazy. But the problem isn't the fact that the oceans and 500 years will raise a quarter of an inch. Notable environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has endorsed this man with those views that he just gave, I would argue, the most disastrous interview that Donald Trump has ever given in a political context.

If you really listen to the absurdity of what he's saying. Good for Sean Ryan for getting him to do it. I don't know that the intent was to get Trump to look as absolutely batshit. You know what? But he did it. He did it. Congratulations to him. We have our next signal that Donald Trump is at least thinking of replacing his failed vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Over on truth central, Benny Johnson, with whom I appeared on the Piers Morgan program, put out a post that includes a picture of RFK Jr. and Trump and the text, the strongest anti establishment ticket in American history.

Donald Trump re truth that at least showing that he would consider entertaining the replacement of J.D. Vance. Now let me give you the pros and cons of replacing J.D. Vance with Robert F. Kennedy Junior as I see them. And if you have anything to add, you can email info at David Pakman dot com. The pros of getting rid of Vance and putting in RFK would be broader appeal to some degree geographically and maybe better at attracting some independent voters because J.D. Vance really has brought Trump nothing with regard to the electorate. Maybe RFK would help bring a sliver of Democrats,

although it seems that there's really no Democrats that were supporting RFK at the end there. The strength of the outsider image of RFK because he's not currently in government, although like, you know, the Kennedy family are not exactly political outsiders. But at the same time, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has kind of abandoned his family's political views. You would mobilize the anti-vax people. But the reality is they're probably mostly voting for Trump already. However, and I'll be frank with you here. there is a left wing anti-vax contingent as well. And I don't know if they like RFK Jr., but if they do, it's possible that replacing Vance with RFK might coalesce some of the left wing anti-vaccine vote and get him to vote Trump. I don't know.

You would definitely get a bunch of corporate media coverage, because if at this point Trump were to say, J.D., you're out, RFK Junior, you're in. That's such a major story at this stage of the campaign that would get them a huge amount of media attention. RFK would get absolute like first rate corporate media interviews. There'd be some serious value in terms of media. And then, you know, you add some charisma. RFK is a better speaker than J.D. Vance. He's more charismatic than J.D. Vance. He knows a lot more about how to talk about political issues than J.D. Vance. So those are really the pros of

replacing J.D. with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Now, what are the cons? Well, you kind of come off like a loser who is terrible at hiring people, can't really make decisions that you stick with. And of course, that's true about Trump. He's terrible at hiring people. He's terrible at selecting people. We just in the last segment, we're looking at how Trump now says John Kelly was a terrible pick for chief of staff, but he said that he's the best at hiring people. So you do concede you made a mistake if you replace J.D. with RFK. The policy differences are nuts. And we just looked at one. Trump talks about how climate change is completely made up, whereas if I understand his most recent view correctly, RFK Jr.

is still an environmentalist who I believe accepts the science on climate. You could end up really frustrating the Republican base. If you replace J.D. Vance with RFK, you appear desperate, which Trump probably is at this point because this whole campaign is going so terribly and there's a major, major potential potential to backfire completely. So if I were a betting man, I still think J.D. Vance does not get replaced. It seems quite obvious that Donald Trump is certainly considering it. I have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. This is no joke. Here is a caller who is canceling me because we made the very difficult but extensively considered decision a month ago to get off of radio and TV and expand the show on online platforms. Here is a caller

who is saying bye bye to financial support. Yeah, I'm just calling to cancel my subscription. And the only reason I'm canceling is because he dropped out of Free Speech TV. So that's the reason. I do enjoy the show, but not so much as to see him desert the good people and the good efforts at Free Speech TV. So I will see if I can cancel this by. All right. So listen, we've had several dozen folks who have indeed canceled memberships because we made the decision that the future of this sort of media is digital. We were being, as I told you months ago when we made the decision, we were being restricted and held back by the 57 minutes and 30 seconds a day that we were

expected to deliver to our radio, television stations, free speech TV. I believe that the show is significantly better now. We've done episodes that go an hour and 15 minutes, an hour and 20 minutes. We've done 75 minute panels. We've done all sorts of different things in just this one month that we couldn't possibly have done before. So everyone has every right to support me for whatever reason is relevant to them and to stop the support for whatever reason is relevant to them. What I do want to say to the audience that's still here is that I believe that the show is better than ever. Thanks to that change that we made, we can absolutely maintain and even grow our financial base to continue doing more and doing it better. And you can sign up and replace that guy. Right. I

mean, hopefully someone will say, hey, I don't like that. I like the show. I like the direction. I'm going to sign up at join Pacman dot com to replace that guy that bailed and the dozens of others that did. So please consider signing up at join Pacman dot com. You can use the coupon code Save Democracy 24. And I will mention once more, preorder my forthcoming book, The Echo Machine, signed book plate available for everyone who preorders. You can go to David Pakman dot com slash echo or order on any physical book store website. You can ask, oh, by the oh, let me mention another thing. I heard from folks in Pennsylvania, D.C. and San Diego that they just called up their local bookstore and said, hey,

this book's coming out next year. I'd like to preorder it. Just about every bookstore will do it. And there you can actually support your local bookstore. You still get all the freebies. It's just a matter of having a receipt that you can send in. So consider calling your local bookstore. Go to David Pakman dot com slash echo Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Audible, Apple. All it's everywhere. OK, let's push towards 2000 preorders. I'll update you next week on where we stand and I will see you on the bonus show.