The David Pakman Show - 8/9/23: Pathetic Trump defenses and DeSantis keeps dropping

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Producer Pat Ford fills in for David -- Donald Trump speaks in New Hampshire about stop and frisk, whether he'll debate, Chris Christie's weight, and much more -- The claim that it's unfair that Donald Trump is being prosecuted by his political opponent doesn't make sense, as it would effectively put him above the law -- Special counsel Jack Smith doesn't need to prove Trump knew he lost the 2020 election to get a conviction -- Ron DeSantis replaces his campaign manager Generra Peck with James Uthmeier, hoping it will shake up his collapsing presidential hopes -- Prosecutors are seeking a protective order against Donald Trump to prevent him from sharing sensitive information about his 2020 election case -- Donald Trump blames the US women's soccer team defeat at the World Cup on "wokeness" and says it's emblematic of America's downfall under Joe Biden -- A compilation video of Ron DeSantis getting visibly nervous when asked about Donald Trump -- On the Bonus Show: Ohio voters reject issue one, 401(k) hardship withdrawals way up, and much more... 🌎 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription (rules & restrictions may apply): https://babbel.com/pakman 🛌 Go to https://helixsleep.com/pakman & use code HELIXPARTNER20 for 20% OFF + 2 free pillows 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code PAKMAN for FREE blades at https://hensonshaving.com/pakman 🤢 Reliefband: Use code PAKMAN for 20% OFF + free shipping at https://reliefband.com 🩳 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

David Pakman Show summer vacation traveling abroad. But fear not, because we have an excellent slate of guest hosts upcoming. We have myself, we have Luke Beasley, we have Farron Cousins, who's going to be filling in for a few days. We also have Jesse Dollimore, who's going to be filling in a day next week. So it's all great. We're in great hands here at the show while David is away. I wanted to start things off today by talking about the rally that Donald Trump held in New Hampshire yesterday. He was particularly sweaty, if you notice from these video clips, while holding this rally. It must have been pretty hot up there in the Granite State. Looking at the polling, Donald Trump does have a commanding lead in New Hampshire,

just as he has a commanding lead in the whole national primary. He has about 42% of the vote right now in New Hampshire if the election was held today. And he started off by talking about some policy issues or whatever counts as policy issues these days for the failed former president, twice impeached, now thrice indicted. He started off by talking about crime, what he wants to do in the so-called Democrat cities when it comes to crime rates. And then he got into some of these culture war issues, including what he wants to do when it comes to trans people playing sports and all these different topics. So let's get into the first clip. I will direct a completely overtalled DOJ to investigate every radical DA and AG in America for their illegal, racist, in reverse enforcement of the law.

And we will bring back a thing called stop and frisk in our cities. On day one, I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender, insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children. Our beautiful children. Our beautiful children are being destroyed by these maniacs. I will keep men out of women's sports. It's very easy to do. And I will sign a law prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states. Can you imagine?

Can you imagine even having to say that? Think of it. So Donald Trump's saying that he wants to bring back the failed stop and frisk policy in the cities, even though he doesn't have control over that. That's going to be up to state and local governments to decide whether they want to bring back Stop and Frisk. But really, it shouldn't be because it's patently unconstitutional. You're searching people without cause and without a warrant.

And we know, of course, from the history of Stop and Frisk, from how we saw it fail in New York City, it leads to racial profiling. It leads to, of course, the violation of people's civil rights. And it's just not very effective. It was a failure at getting guns off of the streets in New York City. So there's really no sensible argument for it unless you're someone like Donald Trump, who's trying to portray yourself as tough on crime, even though you're the one that's getting indicted here over and over and over again. And it's a way to dog whistle to the right wing base and show that

you are willing to go after minorities and take the rights away and put them in prison. So that's Donald Trump and his position when it comes to crime. And then he starts talking about the upcoming Republican primary debate. He still hasn't made up his mind about whether he's going to participate in that debate. And he actually makes a good point, which is that he is up by a lot in the polls. So it doesn't really make sense for him to subject himself to a debate because maybe he wouldn't fare so well. Maybe the other candidates appearing on the stage next to him would look good by comparison, or they would at least look like they're on the same playing field as Trump. So if you're Trump, I get totally why you wouldn't want to participate in the debate. And he also mentions how there's entertainment value in him participating in the debate. That's absolutely true as well. So Donald Trump, not often right

about things, but here is one of the things that he actually is right about. We're so far above everybody else in the polls. They're all saying, is he going to go into the debate? And I say, I don't know if you're leading by 50 and 60 and 70 points, do you do that or not? I don't know. Should I? Okay, you ready? Poll. We take a free poll.

Should I do the debate? Well, maybe we'll do something else. You know, see, some people say yes, but they hate to say it because it doesn't make sense to do it if you're leading by so much. But they like because he can't speak without thinking first and because he can't express himself coherently and articulately, he says that this whole sun thing isn't working out for Joe, which is a particularly insensitive thing to say about the current president. And I'll get to exactly why in a second. But first, let's show this. Indict me. He's right. Great balls. But when they want to keep something, they say, oh man,

they got Hunter again. You know, at some point, Joe is going to have to say, you know, this Sun thing just isn't working out. Do you agree? The Sun thing. The Sun thing's not working out too good. All he had to do is pick up the laptop. Didn't the guy call him like 11? Pick up your laptop. Pick up your laptop. I wonder where that cocaine came from. What happened? That was the quickest investigation I've ever seen. So Trump's saying that this whole son thing isn't working out, referring to Hunter Biden. But that's very below the belt, given the fact that Joe Biden actually lost one of his sons a few years ago, Beau Biden,

who passed away from cancer back in 2015. Biden also lost a daughter many years ago in a car crash. So even for someone like Trump, this is especially below the belt. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but that's why you should be thinking before you say stuff like this instead of Trump, who just decides to go off the cuff all the time in speeches like this. And then he alludes to the cocaine being found at the White House, of course, belonging to Hunter Biden, even though there is zero evidence of that. And not only that, it just wouldn't make sense that it would belong to Hunter because the cocaine was found in an area where guests go and they visit the White House.

Plenty of people use drugs and some of those people are going to have drugs on them even when they go to the White House. So there's no suggestion that that was Hunter Biden, no proof that that was Hunter Biden's cocaine. And it doesn't matter to these Republicans. They just continue to run with that story anyway. And then Donald Trump gets into the 2020 election and the case against him and this idea that the election was stolen from him because of 2000 mules. And he doesn't even get into the points that they made in that stupid documentary 2000 mules. He just says, oh, well, you know, you just got to look at 2000 mules. You just got to look at it. And that's enough to satisfy these Republican voters. The FBI Twitter files, the DOJ, Facebook, and all of the rest, all of the rest. Look at 2,000 mules.

Look at what they did with that. Thousands and thousands and thousands of votes on tape, on camera. All of this will come up during this trial. All of this will come up. Because we won the election by a lot. Then they have this crap going on. I never even thought of this one. Trump didn't really believe he won the election.

Let me tell you, people that know me say, that's one thing I tell you. There was never a second of any day that I didn't believe that that election was rigged. It was a rigged election. It was a rigged election and it was a stolen, disgusting election. And this country should be ashamed. So Trump is pretending as though his legal strategy is going to be to prove that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election.

As if that's the approach that his lawyers are going to take. They're not going to take that approach. And it wouldn't even be a sensible one to take because even if they were able to prove that it all was rigged, it all was stolen, that wouldn't give Donald Trump the right to do the things that he did, reaching out to state officials to overturn election results, putting in place an alternative slate of electors, all these different things that he's accused of. He wouldn't be exonerated of those crimes, even if there was any merit to the points that he was saying whatsoever.

And we've gone through this already. The courts have already adjudicated this. He lost something like 60 court cases already. The election was years ago. So this idea that in this criminal prosecution, his defense is going to be just to prove that there was voter fraud and the jury is going to be so convinced by it and all these charges are going to be thrown away. It's just so outlandish. And then he goes from talking about one case of his to another. It's going to be really hard to keep track at a certain point

of all these different indictments and cases that he's dealing with. But Trump then gets into the next charge, which is expected to come his way, which is the one out of Georgia having to do specifically with calling up Brad Raffensperger and asking him to fine the 11,780 votes. And Trump, during this diatribe, makes a baseless accusation against the prosecutor investing him, in that case, Fannie Willis. They waited. And I probably have another one. They say there's a young woman, a young racist in Atlanta, say racist. And they say, I guess they say that she was after a certain gang and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or a gang member. And this is a person that wants to indict me. She's got a lot of problems, but she wants to indict me to try and run for some other office. What's going on in this country is, by the way, wants to indict me for a perfect phone call. This was even better than

my perfect call with Ukraine. So when I heard this one, it was complete news to me. And it was news to me, of course, because it was wholly made up. It's just some rumor that came about online because of Laura Loomer making up some claim about Fonny Willis having an affair with a supposed gang leader. I suppose what it all stems from looking into this is that Willis represented Mondo, YSL Mondo, who is a rapper, during a 2019 aggravated assault case and would later go on to prosecute YSL's Young Thug and 13 other defendants in a RICO case that later led to somewhat of a falling out between herself and Mondo. But there was nothing to suggest whatsoever that they had any sort of relationship or affair. But Laura Loomer decided to make up some lie about this,

tweeting, damn, Atlanta DA Fannie Willis, who is targeting Donald Trump in Georgia, is a straight up thot. Turns out she failed to disclose a previous relationship she had with a gangbanger she was supposed to be prosecuting. Baby girl belongs in a trap house, not a courthouse. So she can make this up and Donald Trump can be like, oh, well, supposedly people are saying that Fannie Willis has some sort of affair with the gang

leader. And it's one of those things where a lie can travel around the world before the truth has an opportunity to put its pants on or whatever the exact phraseology is. And finishing up with this rally held up, held in New Hampshire yesterday, we have Donald Trump attacking Chris Christie. For what reason? His weight, of course, because that's the only thing Trump can seemingly go after Christie on. No, no, Christie's he's eating right now. He can't be. Sir, please do not call him a fat pig. That's very disrespectful. Don't call him. See, I'm trying to be nice.

So Donald Trump going after Chris Christie there for being overweight. Apparently he can't come up with any new material on the guy. So just taking that fat pig insult from whoever said it in the crowd, if anyone said it in the crowd. And I got to say, out of all the Republican candidates, my sense is that Christie is the one that irks Trump the most because he's been the one candidate that's been willing to go after Trump directly and effectively. And he's also good at getting down in the mud. He's able to do something that none of these other candidates are able to do, which is to actually, you know, talk crap and back it up, right.

When it comes to, uh, Trump and Trump's used to being the only one that's able to do that because of Christie's background, because he's also from the New York area, he's able to dish it out just like he's able to take it. And I'm sure that, uh, Trump is not so happy about that, but also Trump doesn't have to take him too, too seriously right now because Christie isn't polling too tremendously in the polls. He's at what, like four or five percent at this point. So Trump doesn't really have to concern himself too much with him.

He'd rather focus on Ron DeSanctimonious as much as he can. So that was the rally in New Hampshire yesterday. It was a complete failure, as always. All right, let's go to a break and we'll be back with much more of The David Pakman Show right after this. I've had such trouble finding a great razor where I am not cutting myself or getting those nicks on my skin, which are so common with the cheap disposable razors. You have to meet our sponsor, Henson Shaving. Henson actually manufactures parts for the International Space Station and the Mars Rover, and they are bringing that exact same precision engineering to the shaving

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You'll get 20 percent off plus free shipping when you go to Relief Band dot com and use the code Pacman at checkout. That's relief B.A.N.D. dot com. Then use code Pacman to get 20 percent off and free shipping. The link is in the podcast notes. Welcome back to the David Pakman show. I'm producer Pat Ford filling in today while David is on summer break. So one of the arguments that Donald Trump has been making in response to the two federal cases against him is that these charges are politically motivated. It shouldn't be allowed under the Constitution. The Supreme Court should strike it down because you can't have one political opponent prosecuting another. And that is because it's the Biden Justice Department that's bringing about the charges.

So effectively, we're some sort of third world nation or we're Marxist or something like that. And Trump can't be prosecuted by his political opponents. You got to drop the charges. Well, I wanted to spend some time today talking about how that argument, that defense is a tremendously weak one. Now, the go to response that I've been hearing from many members of the left, and we've been expressing this on this show as well, is that the Justice Department operates independently of political influence. They try to ensure a fair and just process at all times. After all, the attorney general and other top officials in the Department of Justice are appointed by the president, sure, but they are also confirmed by the Senate. And aside from

the highest ranking officials who get swapped out every administration, most agents stay on for longer than just one term. So you're going to have people of all different political persuasions working within the Justice Department to, saying which charges he wants to bring or not. There's just no evidence to show that that is the case. This is all being done independently. But furthermore, we have to go into how there's really no scenario, essentially, in which Donald Trump could be prosecuted by the federal government and he and his supporters would view it as fair and apolitical. And that's because Donald Trump is a major political figure. Obviously, he is the head of the Republican Party. Effectively, he is their most recent president. He's the person who's trying to become their president again. So any Democrat who's in office, doesn't matter if it's Joe Biden or anyone else,

is going to, by definition, be a rival of his. It doesn't matter if it's Biden or Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom or whoever. They're going to have had some words with Donald Trump at some point, and they're going to be not on good terms. There's going to be bad blood between them. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be able to prosecute him, even if Trump did commit crimes just because they happen to be of a different political party. So every single possible Democratic president would be someone that doesn't like him and someone that he doesn't like. So, OK, according to Donald Trump and according to Trumpists, Trump can't be prosecuted by a Democratic president. Well, what about a Republican president? Wouldn't that be fair?

So let's say Ron DeSantis defeats Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, wins the presidency, and then there's an investigation into Trump under a potential DeSantis Justice Department. Well, guess what? You can make the exact same case under that scenario, right? Because Trump and DeSantis will have had this long, drawn-out primary that was hugely contentious. They would become enemies. They already are enemies at this point. And Trump could just say, look, DeSantis is trying to retaliate for the brutal primary that we had. And he's trying to prevent me from challenging him again for the nomination in 2028.

So this is unfair. This is political. You can't have a political opponent in Ron DeSantis prosecuting me. So it can't be another Republican who's critical of Trump. It can't be a rhino or anyone who's really ever run against Donald Trump in a presidential race. So it's going to be hard to find who exactly is going to be the right person to be able to prosecute this guy. And then if it was Donald Trump who became president while the criminal prosecution was taking place, he could presumably just pardon himself and bring an end to the investigation or just fire the people or try to fire the people who are in charge of investigating him as we have seen from him in his first term with the Russia investigation, what he tried to do over and over again.

And so we don't know if he'd be able to, of course, effectively pardon himself because that's an open matter at this point. The Supreme Court is going to eventually have to rule on that issue. It's uncharted territory at this point. But assuming he could pardon himself, well, then under any of these scenarios, whether Trump was president, Democrat was president or Republican was president, he would just be able to get off on the charges. He would never be able to be held accountable for anything because he could be bailed out of trouble and come up with some sort of excuse for why this is unjust.

So can't be prosecuted under any circumstance. And that's why it's just so ridiculous when you have people like Joe Rogan go out there and say that this is the sign of America being in a banana republic because Trump is being investigated by his political opponent, or you have Marjorie Taylor Greene, Charlie Kirk saying that this is Marxism or whatever the case may be. Just know that there is really no alternative. The alternative would be that Trump is literally above the law. He could

never be prosecuted for anything whatsoever. He'd be able to get away with whatever crimes he'd like to commit because charging him under any circumstance would be political. So hopefully I think this can provide you with some tools for how to defeat this political prosecution argument that we've been hearing from Trump and other members of the right. He seems to have committed multiple, multiple crimes. And it's obvious, right? It seems like this can easily be proven beyond reasonable doubt. And he's getting charged left and right. That's why these charges are being brought about because he actually seems to have committed the crimes, not because there's a political targeting taking place here. The second federal indictment against

former President Donald Trump revolves around the idea that he attempted to steal the 2020 election. So that has led some to mistakenly believe that the prosecution's job now is to show that Trump understood he was trying to steal the election and that he knew that the election wasn't actually stolen from him. Therefore, if he legitimately thought that he won, even if he didn't actually win and there's no proof to show that any of the allegations that he's making make sense, as long as he can show and demonstrate that he legitimately does believe this, you can't convict him, right? Because there was no deceit taking place. But the truth is that special counsel Jack Smith can convict Trump on all the charges without proving that Trump knew he had lost the 2020 election. And that's crucial because proving Trump knew that he lost the election would be a tough bar to clear as you're going to someone's state of mind, which would be especially hard to prove beyond the reasonable doubt. It's like one of those things why perjury is so difficult to prove in many situations, because how do you know that someone knew in their heart of hearts that they were lying? It's incredibly difficult to prove. Now, there are allegations of Trump being aware

that Biden had defeated him and his statements being lies are included in the indictment, but they are not necessary for the prosecution to be successful here. To be clear, Trump at least should have known that he legitimately lost the election because he was told over and over again that he lost by people like Mike Pence, by Justice Department officials, including Bill Barr, by the Director of National Intelligence, by the Director of Homeland Security, by many White House attorneys, by his campaign staff members, by so many courts and judges, by state level officials, etc, etc, etc. Basically, everyone on the planet was telling Donald Trump that he lost aside from Mike Lindell, Rudy Giuliani, and Sidney Powell. There's also testimony from Alyssa Farah,

who is a former White House aide, who claims that Donald Trump said privately, can you believe I lost to this effing guy referring to Joe Biden? And then there's also Cassidy Hutchinson, who is a top aide to former Trump chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who says that Trump said to Meadows, I don't want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. So they can bring all this evidence, but Jack Smith must still prove that Trump acted with criminal intent, which is different from proving that he knew that he lost the election. As we know, the actions alleged in the indictment include things like pressuring state election officials, attempting to send an alternate fake elector's slate, seeking endorsements for election fraud claims, trying to prevent the certification of electoral

college votes, and supporting an angry mob during the certification process on January 6th, 2021. If Smith can prove that Trump engaged in these actions, it doesn't matter whether Trump believes that the election was stolen from him or if he was attempting to steal it because he thought that that was the righteous thing to do. All of that stuff becomes a moot point. You can't try to steal an election just because you thought you won it. That call is not yours to make. It's up to election officials and it's up to the courts to determine that the law also doesn't require proving why trump committed the crimes his belief in a stolen election is irrelevant to the

actual charges it's like how if you murder someone because they looked at you the wrong way or if you murder someone because they stole your car it's still illegal regardless right maybe one situation is slightly more justifiable than another situation, but murder is still against the law in either scenario. Maybe it helps the prosecution establish a motive to note your state of mind and all these different things. It could be helpful to prove it to a jury or something like that, but you're guilty of murder either way. And the motivations and the aggravating circumstances will play a role when it comes to sentencing. But regardless, you're going to be found guilty of the crimes that you're charged of. But we're not even at that sentencing stage yet.

Obviously, we're far from it. First, we have to establish whether Donald Trump is guilty or not guilty. And as to whether I think Trump actually believes that he won the election and it was stolen from him, I'm really not sure at this point, because early on in the immediate aftermath, I thought, okay, there's no chance that Donald Trump actually believes this. This was his plan all along. And it was his plan also in 2016, that if he lost, he was going to go out there and claim that the election was rigged to save face. And that suggests to me that he knows that he's full of crap. But on the other hand, Donald Trump is a narcissist, right? He is an

egomaniac. And this is typical behavior of narcissists that you're able to convince yourself of things to save your shallow ego. It's the one coping method that you have just to lie to yourself over and over and over again. If you lie to yourself over and over and over again. And if you lie to yourself over and over and over again, for some people, that's going to be enough to convince them of even the most outlandish things like this idea that there was voter fraud that overturned the election results. So at this point, the jury's still out over whether Donald Trump actually believes that he lost the election legitimately or won the election legitimately. But the jury is also out when it comes to this specific case. And this specific case is not going to be dependent on his state of mind so much. It's

not going to be dependent on whether he actually believes that he won or lost the election. It's really just about whether he committed the actions, the alternative slate of electors, the pressuring of officials, inciting the mob, all of these different things. That's what's going to be most important here. All right, we're going to go to another break. We'll be back with more of the David Pakman show right after this. So summertime is in full swing. It's hot. It's humid. When you get sweaty, many of us know all too well what it means when you wear traditional underwear. It's the sticking, rubbing and chafing. It is not pleasant. That's why our sponsor Sheath Underwear has been a game changer for so many people. Sheath Underwear is ergonomically designed with a pouch in the front. Keep everything

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Sleep dot com slash Pacman. Then use code Helix Partner to zero to get 20 percent off and two free pillows. The info is in the podcast notes. Ron DeSantis' campaign is in shambles, and he's decided to take a different approach, to shake things up a bit, and he's doing so by firing his campaign manager, hoping that that will bring about a solution to his problems. His campaign manager, Janera Peck, has been ousted, and this marks the third major overhaul of Ron DeSantis' campaign operations, even though he's only been running for president for a little over two months. So he's averaging a major overhaul every three weeks or so, which is

not a good sign. Janera Peck will transition to the role of chief strategist within the campaign's new structure. In her place, James Upmeyer, who previously served as DeSantis' chief of staff in the governor's office, will take over as the new campaign manager. James Utmeyer confirmed the impending changes, stating that the transition will take place as soon as possible. And the decision follows mounting budgetary constraints and staffing adjustments, which saw a third of the DeSantis team departing. That's never a good sign when you see a bunch of people leaving a campaign. You want the team to be growing.

You want to show that people are eager to come and work for you, even if the pay isn't great because they believe in the cause. They believe that you can win. But instead, we are seeing significant shrinkage over at the Ron DeSantis campaign. Some individuals familiar with the campaign, speaking anonymously, expressed that Peck's removal was anticipated and should have actually occurred even earlier. It also comes not long after the campaign had ensured her job was safe, which goes to show that that statement never really means anything when political campaigns or other organizations, businesses, etc. say something like that. I wonder also how much Peck had to do with the decision to host the presidential announcement on Twitter Spaces because that was a complete disaster.

It was a debacle. They trusted Elon Musk and Twitter resources to be able to handle that event. And we know that it crashed over and over and over again. And there was this total failure to launch situation. And even if it didn't have all those tech issues, it still would have been an incredibly boring way to kick off a presidential campaign because it's an audio only platform that basically is just like doing a Zoom conference call with your co workers. It was just terrible idea to do that. So James Upmeyer has a track record of working closely with Ron DeSantis, having served as his chief of staff since October 2021 in Florida and previously working as the governor's general counsel.

However, the downside to him is that he is a legal guy and he doesn't have the expertise running campaigns. So it's great to have a friendly relationship, sure, but that doesn't mean necessarily that you're the right person for the job and you typically experience in that specific field. And you also want someone who's not just going to be a yes man because that can get you in trouble. Now we know that DeSantis has a money problem right now. At first, he seems like he'd be able to get all the money that he wanted because he'd have a bunch of billionaire dollars coming his way. But once these billionaire donors realized that he wasn't faring so well in the polls and that he wasn't really seeming to stand any sort of shot at beating Donald Trump, they decided to get rid of their support for him,

start to pull those funds. And this whole thing can become a self-fulfilling prophecy to some degree because now, because those billionaires have given up hope on him, he has less money to able to run the campaign effectively. And that can hurt him even more when it comes to the polling, losing even more ground. During a retreat held in Utah, Junera Peck attempted to reassure donors and supporters by acknowledging the campaign's overspending in the early stages. As a result, the campaign plans to now adopt a leaner, insurgent approach so that they will cut back and operate within their means after not doing so at the very beginning, I'm sure they wanted to spend a lot of money at the start, thinking that it would generate a bunch of traction for them, and then they could build off of this momentum, and then they could have more donations coming in their way.

But instead, it's been the exact opposite of what they planned. In recent times, DeSantis has opted for smaller campaign events, some in collaboration with the Never Back Down Super PAC, and has engaged in interviews with mainstream media outlets, including NBC News. This marks a change in the stance that they have been taking before, which was to boycott mainstream media networks and to not go on shows hosted by networks like CNN and MSNBC and these different platforms that they write off as being liberal propaganda. It really never seemed to make any sense to not be going on those mainstream shows because

ultimately you want to become not just the Republican nominee, but the president, right? So you have to have some sort of mainstream appeal and you can't just write off the liberal media and ignore them completely. You have to go on the Sunday morning talk shows. You need to go on those media tours, events. You need to go on those middle of the day CNN time slots. You've got to do podcasts and right wing shows and do it all right because you want to have widespread appeal. And what else are you going to do? Right.

Go to these little poorly attended campaign events? You got to go on media appearances too and get your voice heard in front of thousands, if not millions of people. When questioned about his campaign's challenges, DeSantis expressed a preference for being underestimated, suggesting that his determination to overcome obstacles and achieve success are an asset of his. I think in that case, that may be Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum actually have the best shot at winning this thing because they are tremendously underestimated. They certainly are underdogs right now, each polling at around 0%. And after all, America

loves a comeback story. So I don't actually believe DeSantis when he says that he is just a-okay with being the underdog currently in this race. Looking at the polls, David went over them yesterday, so I won't rehash it too much, but DeSantis peaked at around 30% in their Real Clear Politics average not long ago, but now he's down to around 15%. So I bet he was hoping at this stage of the race to have raised his support by 50%. I bet he hoped to have gone from, let's say say 30% to 45% once he actually started running. Instead, he's gone down 50% from 30% to 15% in the polls. And that is just sad.

Even more sad is when you look at the prediction markets. I find this hilarious when you look at a predicted, you can see where people are actually putting their money and who they're betting on to become the next president. DeSantis is in fourth right now behind a guy who's not even running for the presidency and doesn't even plan on running for the presidency. So you have Joe Biden at the very top of this thing, and then you have Donald Trump. And then in third place, you have Gavin Newsom, the California governor, who has said explicitly he's not running for president. He would have considered it had Biden announced that he was not going to run for a second term.

But because Biden is running for a second term, Newsom is not going to challenge him. But apparently the voters and people who are putting their money where their mouth is believe that Newsom has more of a shot at becoming the next president than DeSantis does, who actually is running a campaign, which is just pretty pathetic. And ultimately, I don't think that the switch at the campaign manager role is going to make a difference. And really what you got to do is replace the candidate, right? Because DeSantis has shown that he is not ready for prime time. He doesn't have what it takes. He doesn't have the fight in him to go after Trump. He's not willing to go after Trump directly, and he just doesn't have the charisma to win over voters. Will he make it to the actual voting stage of this primary? I think that remains to be seen. And at this rate, it really wouldn't surprise me if he drops out

before even the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries take place and Trump essentially then will be handed this thing on a silver platter. The company Zoom, known of course for its video even the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries take place and Trump essentially then will be handed this thing on a silver platter. The company Zoom, known of course for its video conferencing service, is maybe the business that benefited the most from remote work and the changes that were brought about to our society because of the pandemic. As everyone was using Zoom to talk to their friends and talk to their family because we couldn't see people in person. And businesses were using it to do their meetings. Schools were using it to conduct classes and courts were using it as well. But now in what may be a telltale sign of what's going on with remote work and what's

to come over these next few months and years is that they are calling their employees back into the office. Zoom is asking it's 7,400 workers who live near the office to report to work twice a week. So they're going to be adopting a hybrid approach. A company spokesperson said, quote, we believe that a structured hybrid approach, meaning employees that live near an office need to be on site two days a week to interact with their teams, is most effective for Zoom. As a company, we are in a better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate and support our global customers. So this story is less about

Zoom specifically and more about the direction of remote work, since if they, a company that benefited the most from this, are saying we're going to go back to the office some days of the week, then certainly plenty of other companies are going to be doing the exact same thing. And indeed, we've already really seen quite a bit of that. Other companies that have told their workers to come back into the office, at least part-time, at least in a hybrid system, include Amazon, Apple, BlackRock, Chipotle, Citigroup, Disney, Goldman Sachs, Google, IBM, JP Morgan, Meta, Redfin, Salesforce, Snap, Starbucks, and Uber. Now, there is some idea that this has to do with worker productivity and companies believing that workers are more productive when they are physically in the office. Now, when it comes

to this matter, you can find studies that show that remote workers are more productive, and you can find studies that show that workers are less productive. At this point, I'm not sure if we'll ever be able to fully know if we can conclusively say whether remote workers are more or less productive, because many of us have been doing the remote work thing for three years now. Plenty of other people have been doing it for longer, but so many people started doing it three years ago when the pandemic began. And if we haven't figured it out after three years, I'm not sure if we'll ever be able to figure it out. Now, I can see the argument for both sides, right? Because if you're

not physically in the office, and if you don't have someone watching over your shoulder, if you don't constantly have people checking in with you, maybe you'll be incentivized to just do the bare minimum. But on the other hand, if you have the computer at your home, and you can constantly just go and check in on an email, even if it's 7 o'clock at night or you can start work a little bit earlier because you don't have to worry about the commute and getting ready as much, maybe you are more productive. So I think it's probably a case-by-case basis, but we don't seem to have any sort of conclusive data on that. I've heard of for why companies want to bring workers back into the office is that they're looking for a creative way to cut labor costs without having to fire people, without having to lay people off. The idea being that there were too many workers that were added on during the pandemic because there was a whole bunch of spending going on and so many companies were growing at that time. But now that interest rates are so high and it's harder for companies to borrow money,

they're strapped for cash, they need to cut back where they can and doing so with labor is an effective way to do that. But layoffs can be hugely expensive because of unemployment benefits, because in some instances there's severance pay you got to pay out. And they can also come with damage to the brand. It can come with damage to the stock valuation of the company because there's this sense that maybe they're on the decline. There could also be a loss in morale at the company. So what these companies are doing is saying, look, everyone needs to come back to the office at least a few days a week, knowing that a certain percentage of the workers won't be

willing to do that and they'll quit on their own and try to find a new job. And then you don't have all those negative consequences that I just laid out, but you're still able to downsize. Ultimately, I think it's too bad that society is going back in the direction of going physically into the office, even if it is under a hybrid system. I think it's been proven that many of these jobs can be done remotely and that it's better for people's work-life balance and it saves people time and money on their commute. You got to figure if you drive an hour one way to work and then drive an hour home and you're working eight hours, well, you're actually working 10 hours more. So, and you're also spending money to pay for the gas and everything like that. So effectively,

you're getting paid less and all these different things. Whereas if you work from home, you don't have to worry about all that stuff and you get to keep more of your paycheck. So effectively, you're getting paid less and all these different things. Whereas if you work from home, you don't have to worry about all that stuff and you get to keep more of your paycheck. So there will ultimately be jobs that remain fully remote. I'm sure of it. And people who are seeking that out specifically will probably be able to find it still. But it's unfortunate when people get used to remote work and actually enjoy it. And they've been doing it for years at this point, and they're asked to go back into the office. As for me, I love remote work. I would be okay with a short commute, maybe a little walk or something like that. But I do think that it's an excellent perk to be able to work from home. And I do think that I'm more productive because I'll

just hop on the computer at any time I want to when something comes up, when something pops into my mind, rather than having to save it for the next day when I get back into the office or the studio in our case. I know some people don't like remote work. They want to be surrounded by other people. They like the social setting. They like getting out of the house and all that stuff. And I understand all that. I just feel as though I can get that in other aspects of my day-to-day life. It doesn't have to be from work itself. So that's my position on remote work. I hope that it's more here to stay, but certainly many companies out there are asking people to come back to the office. All right, we'll go to one more commercial break and then we'll be back with

more of the David Pakman Show after these commercial messages. We've been talking this week about Donald Trump seeming to have broken the conditions of his release by making statements about Mike Pence, who's of course one of the witnesses in the case, and threatening Jack Smith. I won't go through the entire thing here, but if you remember, Trump posted to Truth Social, If you go after me, I'm coming after you, which came across as a not-so-veiled threat against the prosecutor looking into his alleged crimes. And Trump also truthed about Mike Pence's accounts of the events that took place on January 6th, which he's not supposed to do. Well, with posts like these, it's obvious that Trump is not scared straight. He may be scared, sure, but he doesn't seem to be doing anything to change his ways. He doesn't realize that he has to change his ways if he doesn't want to end

up in pretrial detention. And this presumably stems from the fact that he's never been held accountable for anything in his entire life. Well, seeming to realize that Trump is going to continually break the terms of his release on Truth Social, at rallies and media interviews, etc. And because he can't seem to keep things to himself, the prosecution is now seeking a protective order aimed at preventing him from disclosing information about the case and the evidence against him. Trump's legal team, however, is requesting a less restrictive rule be placed on him and believe that the protective order would be too harsh. Now, remember that Trump's release conditions were super, super lax, especially for the crimes that he's being accused of here.

He can still travel. He's more or less able to do what he wants to do. He just has this one rule, which is that he can't communicate directly with the witnesses. If he wants to communicate with witnesses, he has to do so through lawyers. But even that is too much for him. Apparently, now he may additionally also have this protective order. Donald Trump's legal team is contesting the proposed protective order put forth by prosecutors arguing that it is overly broad and violates his First Amendment rights. So we're back to this argument of Trump's First Amendment rights and his free speech being violated over and over and over again. Trump's lawyers propose a more limited protective order that would only prevent the

public disclosure of sensitive materials such as grand jury documents rather than all evidence. But to be honest, I don't even suspect that Trump could abide by that given the fact that he's simultaneously facing this other trial having to do with his alleged mishandling of classified documents. And that includes even sharing some of the nuclear secrets. Prosecutors expressed concern that Trump's use of social media could lead to the improper sharing of sensitive case information, potentially impacting witnesses, alluding to the veiled threats that he made this week against Jack Smith. But Trump's legal team says it was not a threat.

It was just general political speech. He wasn't trying to intimidate anyone. And so therefore, his speech cannot be curtailed. Trump's legal team has asked for additional time to respond to the protective order, but the judge denied that request. We're apparently going to hear more about all of this on Friday. The proposed protective order seeks to limit the disclosure of materials to Trump's legal team, witnesses, their lawyers, or others approved by the court. And of course, Trump whines all the time about everything, and he also whined about this specific possible protective order being placed against him. He posted on Truth Social. Let's see Smith to file for a court order taking away my First Amendment rights speech. So based on yet another radical left hoax, I'll be the only politician in American history not allowed to speak.

The never-ending witch hunt continues. MAGA. So if I had the job of defending Donald Trump in this case, and I'm sure it actually wouldn't be a job, right? Because I wouldn't get paid for it because he tends to stiff all the people who work for him. So it's more like if I was volunteering as one of Donald Trump's lawyers, I would be trying to make the conditions as narrow as possible because I would realize that I have absolutely no control over my clients. He's going to do what he wants, right? He's going to post on social media. He's going to speak off the cuff at rallies. He's going to reach out to witnesses if that's what he

wants to do. And I would be maybe more worried about him ending up in pretrial detention than he would be. But that doesn't mean that he should just be granted all these different things just because he's prone to breaking the terms of his release, right? He should be treated just like any other criminal defendant would be, which means obeying by the terms of the release and failing that, having to go to jail to await trial. Seeing how Donald Trump is already breaking these terms and it's only been, what, like a week or so, I actually do think that there's a non-zero chance

that he ends up in jail before the trial takes place because he's just so unable to control himself. And for the entirety of this trial that's going on, you know, he's going to want to be campaigning. He's going to want to be out there. He's going to be making statements against people like Mike Pence and Bill Barr and who knows who else, right? Plenty of other witnesses. There are so many public figures who are also witnesses in this case. And so it's quite possible that he's just going to say something he shouldn't say and that he could end up putting him in jail. He's already gotten plenty of special treatment already throughout the years. He clearly does not deserve one ounce more of it.

And absolutely, they should add this protective order as one of the conditions to his release. Donald Trump is bashing the U.S. women's soccer team after an early exit from the World Cup finals, blaming their loss on wokeness. The U.S. women's national team suffered a surprising defeat against Sweden in the round of 16 in the 2023 Women's World Cup. Unlike the U.S. men's team, which is basically mediocre, the women's team is one of the best out there, if not the best. They had just gone back to back in 2015 and 2019, winning the two most recent World Cups. So it's no surprise that they

came into this World Cup as favorites, if not the top favorite, the top couple of favorites to be able to win this tournament. But we know that anything can happen, especially when you hit the knockout stage of the tournament, because it's single game elimination and soccer is such a low scoring game that you never know what's going to take place. And indeed, the women's team was defeated. The game ended zero to zero. So it went to penalty kicks. And as like I said, can happen. Sweden got more of them than the U.S. did. There's a lot of attention being paid to one of the penalty shots that Megan Rapinoe took. She's one of the stars on the team and she missed the penalty shot, which had it gone in, the team would have won in advance to the next round. So

Donald Trump, who has been a vocal critic of the team and Megan Rapinoe for years, attributed the loss to issues he sees in the nation under President Joe Biden's leadership. I'm not joking. He accused some players of being openly hostile to America and linked the loss to what he perceives as the nation's decline under Joe Biden. Trump posted to Truth Social about this, quote, the shocking and totally unexpected loss by the US women's soccer team to Sweden

is fully emblematic of what is happening to our once great nation under crooked Joe Biden. Many of our players were openly hostile to America. No other country behaved in such a manner or even close. Woke equals failure. Nice shot, Megan. The USA is going to hell. MAGA. Trump's longstanding animosity towards the team, particularly Rapinoe, dates back to 2019 when she announced that she would not visit the White House had the women's team won the World Cup that year, leading to her being branded as unpatriotic by some. Rapinoe's outspokenness on LGBT topics, Black Lives Matter, kneeling during the national anthem, and gender equality have put

her at odds with Trump's ideologies. Other conservatives like Charlie Kirk and Clay Travis also mocked Rapinoe on social media, relishing in the team's misfortune. So according to Trump and the rest of these people, apparently it's good that the women's team lost. So they are actively rooting against America in this endeavor. To be clear, they are on the anti-America side of things. I know it's a less serious instance of it because it's sports, okay. But still, they don't want America to win when it comes to this.

But I guess we shouldn't be so surprised because these right-wingers often root against the United States, like when they display Confederate flag memorabilia, or when they advocate for overturning the results of a democratic election and effectively throwing away the Constitution of the United States. They've been rooting against America for a long time, and so here they are once again. And the reason the team lost is because of wokeness. I mean, are you kidding me? We're just going to assign woke to everything? Wokeness is such a flexible term that it can be used to apply to basically everything these days.

Of course, I don't think that being too focused on social justice topics is the reason why the women's team wasn't able to score a goal during regulation and then couldn't get enough penalty kicks. But apparently to Donald Trump and these other people who believe in this stuff, it's because they were too woke that they didn't win. And then this idea that this is emblematic of America's downfall under Joe Biden's leadership. How does that add up? Because the women's team has won championships under Democratic and Republican administrations alike for the last few decades. And we know that upsets happen all the time in sports. But you have to wonder, had the U.S. women's team gone on to win the

championship, would this have proven that wokeness was actually the way to go? Would this have proven that Joe Biden put the country on the right track? Would Donald Trump and the rest of these right-wingers be saying, oh, you know, actually, I was wrong. Because the women's national team won the World Cup, wokeness is actually justified and Biden is doing a good job. Of course, that would not be happening. So to recap, Trump and his allies are actively rooting against America, claiming the results of the game were impacted by wokeness and that it's all emblematic of America's downfall under Joe Biden.

And we're supposed to be taking these people seriously and living in the same country with them. These are not serious people, my friends. All right, I wanted to wrap up things today with something fun. We put together this compilation clip of Ron DeSantis being asked about Donald Trump and being unable to criticize him, getting nervous, refusing to go after the failed former president. And it seems to be one of the main reasons why he's unable to get any traction in this Republican primary race. We already posted the clip to YouTube, but I wanted to make sure that I was providing

you all with an opportunity to watch this thing. If maybe you don't watch the clips on YouTube and you watch the show in its entirety because we haven't broadcasted it yet. So this is going to play us out for the day. Of course, join me on the bonus show at joinpacman.com. We're going to have Luke Beasley filling in for David for the rest of the week. And we have some more guest hosts upcoming next week. But without further ado, here is the Ron DeSantis getting nervous and failing compilation.

Trump says you're disloyal. Do you feel that way? Disloyal to who? I mean, you know, politicians have to earn support. They're not entitled to support. I did a lot for him in 2016 and 2020, by the way, was happy to do it. Do you believe that Trump violated the peaceful transfer of power? A key principle that of American democracy that we must uphold. Are you in high school? Yeah. I wasn't anywhere near Washington that day. I have nothing to do with what happened that day.

Obviously, I didn't enjoy seeing, you know, what happened. But we've got to go forward on this stuff. We cannot be looking backwards. Do you acknowledge that Trump lost and there wasn't all this fraud that he talks about? Well, I look at the last however many election cycles, 2018, we lost the House, we lost the Senate, 2020, Biden becomes president. Or no, excuse me, we lost the Senate in 2020, Biden becomes president.

All right, well, former President Donald Trump, definitely thinking about you. You haven't said a lot. I know you've heard what he said. You can see this collision is coming, can't you? Well, look, Jesse, I mean, you know, he used to say how great of a governor I was, and then I win a big victory. And all of a sudden, you know, he had different opinions. And so you can take that for what it's worth. I mean, you know, he's obviously a big, a big fish. I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting

against Joe Biden. That's how I spend my time. I don't spend my time trying to smear other Republicans. I'm not a candidate, so we'll see if and when that changes. Regardless of his attacks, will you 100% pledge to support Trump as a GOP nominee? So what I would say is this. When you are saying that Cuomo did better on COVID than Florida did, you are revealing yourself to just be full of it. Nobody believes that. And you know why? Everything he said about us for years, about how strong we were, how good we were, how we've delivered for the state, those happen to be true. And now he's trying to backtrack

because he, you know, views he needs to do that. We wanted to know what your thoughts are on the rumored Trump indictment. And if you have any role in it, if charges are brought on him, will you have any role in extradition to New York? You're talking about this situation with, and look, I don't know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair. I just I can't speak to that. What's your reaction to some of those attacks? Well, Lisa, you know, if you're an if you're an office holder and you're just sitting there twiddling your thumbs and not getting anything done, no one ever says anything. You could kind

of just fly under the radar. But when you're out there leading, when you're out there setting the agenda, not just for Florida, but really for the nation, which we've done over the last few years, people see that and the people that don't necessarily like that are going to respond accordingly.