The David Pakman Show - 8/9/24: Trump press conference a clinic in brain fail

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Donald Trump holds a rambling press conference, with lowlights including comparing his crowd sizes to those of Martin Luther King Jr. and spitting out an apparent tonsil stone -- CNN and MSNBC cut away from Donald Trump's press conference -- Republicans react to Trump's unhinged press event -- Kamala Harris continues to grow her lead on Donald Trump -- Voters are increasingly concerned about Trump's health and cognitive abilities -- Trump's attacks on Kamala are backfiring -- Some Republicans are endorsing Kamala Harris -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: The Friday Bonus Show with Producer Pat 💾 SoftwareKeep: Use code PAKMAN for 20% off at https://davidpakman.com/softwarekeep 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 👍 Buy the FÜM Journey Pack and use code PAKMAN for a FREE GIFT at https://tryfum.com/pakman 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code PAKMAN for FREE blades at https://hensonshaving.com/pakman ⚠️ Try Ground News and get 40% OFF the Vantage plan at https://ground.news/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

. Well, struggling and fumbling for anything to get his campaign back on track. Failed former President Donald Trump announced a major press conference yesterday at his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, and it ended up being a press conference at which he rambled incoherently, seemed visibly disoriented and at one point appeared to shoot a tonsil stone out of his mouth, which we will get to in a moment. In this first clip. I can't believe this.

He's asked about Josh Shapiro and he gives such a generic response. If you listen closely, you might notice he has no idea who Josh Shapiro is. Of course, the governor of Pennsylvania, who was the final alternative to Tim Walz in Vice President Kamala Harris's choice for running mate. Listen carefully. I don't believe Trump knows who he's being asked about. You're not leading with Jewish voters in your home state of New York. With that being said, what do you make of Kamala Harris not picking Josh Shapiro as a VP? Well, I don't know. I know Josh Shapiro. He's a terrible guy and he's not very popular with anybody. I think that this this election maybe is better than Josh Shapiro

would have been. But I think other than Josh Shapiro, I think she had some good choices. But Josh Shapiro is not one of them. He's caused a lot of damage with a lot of people. And I don't notice he doesn't say Pennsylvania. He doesn't say governor. He doesn't say who was damaged by Josh Shapiro. I do not believe he knows who Shapiro is. He doesn't say governor. He doesn't say who was damaged by Josh Shapiro. I do not believe he knows who Shapiro is. He would have been better. I think he would have been maybe the equivalent, maybe not as good. But they had some people that they were looking at that were good, far superior to her. They actually had a story where they had everybody, including they had like 10 people that she was looking at. All right.

So anyway, now he gets off of it. I don't think he knows who Josh Shapiro is. Hey, David, what do you think about the possibility of, you know, King Jumanji being passed over as a candidate? Jumanji is terrible, has damaged so many people, not popular with anyone and just so many better choices than Jumanji. He has no clue who he is being asked about. Moments later, I'm sorry, this is so disgusting. Trump appears to shoot a tonsil stone out of his mouth or some extremely thick white

saliva. This is the strangest stuff. We're playing the video zoomed in here. Foreign matter just coming out of this guy's mouth and potentially the tonsil stone that's been giving him that absolutely terrible breath. Trump struggling to hear the House having daily press briefings? Who? When your White House has daily press briefings, do you commit to that? Will you repeat that, please? Your White House. Will you?

Would you repeat what she said? You have to speak up. This room is very loud. When you're elected, will you commit to your White House having daily press briefings? Do you hear her? Will you commit to doing daily press briefings if you're elected daily press briefing? Why would I do that? Oh, man.

I mean, you couldn't script a more deranged press conference than this. The topic of the January 6th riots came up and Trump took it as an opportunity, I guess, to court black voters by saying he got better crowds at the riot than Martin Luther King. I never see the picture of the crowd, the biggest crowd I've ever spoken. I've spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody's spoken to crowds bigger than me. If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people. If not, we had more. And they said he had a million people, but I had twenty five thousand people. But when I look at the exact same picture and everything's the same because it was the fountains, the whole thing all the way back

to from Lincoln to Washington. And as you can imagine, black voters just flocking to Trump after they heard this as a historical note, historians say the march on Washington had about two hundred and fifty thousand or more attendees. And the Associated Press estimates that the Trump pre riot rally speech had about 10000 attendees. We have another one of these examples as we try to deduce what Trump's confusion is about asylum. And I'm increasingly convinced that Trump thinks seeking asylum is the same thing as coming from an insane asylum, also known as a psychiatric hospital. I've been trying to figure it out for a while, and I think that's the confusion Trump is experiencing. Why is it that millions of people were allowed to come into our country from

prisons, from jails, from mental institutions, insane asylums, even insane. And so that's a it's a mental institution on steroids. That's what it is. When you see the people that are coming into our these are institutions that are being emptied out, not in South America, all over the world, including South America. Speaker 1 So I know that there is a lot of skepticism that Trump is confusing asylum seeking immigrants and insane asylums. And I was skeptical at the beginning, too. But the more he talks about this, the more I think it's a very real possibility on the topic of when he said Kamala Harris used to be Indian but became black. He was asked about it and he said, actually,

you have to ask her about it. Mr. President, Kamala Harris's father is Jamaican American and she went to a historically black college. How is she only recently decided to black? Well, well, you'll have to ask her that question because she's the one that said it. I didn't say it. So you'll have to ask her. And I very much appreciate that question. But you'll have to ask her that question because she's the one that said it. I didn't say it. So you'll have to ask her. And I very much appreciate that question. But you'll have to ask her.

But I've known her for a long time. I actually contributed to her campaign a long time ago because I was a developer. I contributed to lots of campaigns of Democrats, Republicans, and some were liberal and some were conservative. But you'll have to ask her about that. But to me, it doesn't matter. But to her, from her standpoint, I think it's very disrespectful to both, really. Whether the she is the fact that Kamala Harris is biracial is disrespectful to both races. When she was born, she implicitly disrespected her black half by being half Indian, and she disrespected her Indian half by being half black. You know, as many of you know, I am Hispanic and Jewish and notoriously Argentinians are furious that

I'm Jewish and Jews are furious that I'm that I'm Argentinian. God help this country if he becomes president again. Wow. Trump asked. Then we went on to anatomy. Trump asked about his recovery from the assassination attempt. He wrongly I mean, it appears wrongly. He wrongly says he was hit in the earlobe. He wasn't hit in the earlobe, but he says he was pretty, pretty much recovered. Yeah, I'm a fast healer. It's a hell of a shot, but I'm a fast healer. Yeah, pretty much.

Pretty much recovered. Do you have any hearing damage? No, it didn't hit that. I got very lucky. It just it just hit the lobe, as they call it. Yeah, a little bit. Not much. Yeah, he he's touching, of course, the top of the year.

That that's not the lobe. I mean, it's just not, you know, I know that there's confusion about what sorts of statements or statements of fact and what's opinion. You know, they have a lot of opinions about climate change and about covid and the opinions depart from facts. I guess maybe they believe that it's a matter of opinion whether the earlobe is at the top of the ear or at the bottom of the ear. But he was not from everything we saw. Again, unless they've been lying all along, there was no indication he got hit in the earlobe. Now, the only real bit of news from this press conference was that Trump claimed that he is tentatively on board with three

presidential debates against Kamala Harris, which sounds awesome. I think it's very important to have debates. And we've agreed with Fox on a date of September 4th. We've agreed with NBC, fairly full agreement subject to them, on September 10th. And we've agreed with ABC on September 25th. Wow. So we have those three dates and those networks, they're very anxiously awaiting that date and those dates. So we have September 4th, September 10th, and September 25th. We have spoken to the heads of the network and it's all been confirmed, other than some

fairly minor details, audience, some location, which which city would we put it into? But all things that will be settled very easily, very I think it'll be very easy. So that's great. And I say, do the three debates. Let's do the competing cognitive tests between Trump and Kamala Harris. Let's do it all. And then finally, finally, Trump asked about his very light campaign schedule and he simultaneously answers by saying, I'm not campaigning because I'm winning by so much.

And also I'm campaigning a lot. He's answers. I guess he's it's sort of like a pick your own adventure. If you want to go with I'm not campaigning, here's why I'm justified in not campaigning. And also you're lying and I'm campaigning. You have not had a public campaign event for nearly a week now. Tomorrow you'll be in Montana, which is not a swing state. Some of your allies have expressed concern that you're not taking this race seriously,

particularly at a time where there is enthusiasm on the other side. Why haven't you been campaigning this week? Because I'm leading by a lot and because I'm letting their convention go through and I am campaigning a lot. I'm doing tremendous amounts of taping here. We have commercials that are at a level I don't think that anybody's ever done before. Plus in certain cases, I see many of you in the room where I'm speaking to you on phones. I'm speaking.

Yeah. How dare you suggest I'm not campaigning? I am absolutely campaigning all the time in all these different ways. And by the way, of course, I'm not campaigning. I'm leading by so much. Why on earth should I campaign a disastrous press conference re leading to questions again. Can this guy even make it to November? And it was so rambling and so deranged that networks started cutting away. Let's talk about that next. Networks, I guess, felt they had no choice but to cut away from Donald Trump's mangled and scrambled, swollen, orange and sweaty press conference during which he claimed to have bigger crowds on the riots than Martin Luther King had, during which he appeared to shoot a tonsil stone

out of his mouth and during which he said it's disrespectful for Kamala Harris to have parents of different races and ethnicities. Networks started cutting away one hour into this absolutely abortive attempt at a press conference. CNN dumped it to start fact checking, which is quite a quite a tall task to have that right. Our Second Amendment is a very important right and it has to be protected. All right. There is a lot to fact check there.

So we're just going to run through things here. He said that Kamala Harris is in favor of, is not in favor of giving Israel weapons. She made it very clear, her campaign did this morning, that she is not in favor of an arms embargo of Israel. He said that no one died on January 6th. People were killed. We know that Ashley Babbitt, three others died from medical emergencies. One officer died immediately after having been pepper sprayed. And the day following, there were four officers who died of suicide in the months after. He talked about how there's a constitutional issue for how Kamala Harris was chosen by the Democratic Party. That's not true. The Constitution doesn't govern how the party selects its candidates.

He also talked about the border, said 20 million people over the border. That's grossly exaggerated. He could have just gone with the actual number. It's not a great number. He chose 20 million. But actually, crossings are down for the last four months, the lowest they've been in three years since the president. All right. You get the point. So CNN dumping and fact checking and then MSNBC also cutting away. And it's it's just unbearable. Only Fox News could tolerate

Federal Reserve or the chairman. Yeah. And so about an hour into this press conference with Donald Trump, we are going to continue to listen and we'll let you know if any news is made here. But I think it's important, again, after giving him an hour to do some fact checks. And let's start with the fact that people were killed on January 6th. Two rioters were killed and, of course, several officers in the wake of that riot. Biden did not weaponize the DOJ against Donald Trump. Kamala Harris did pass the bar. She was the attorney general of California. He said she wants to take away people's guns. She just named a running mate who was a gun owner and a hunter. She said Josh Shapiro, who was not named as her running

mate, was not popular. In fact, he is for as long as polls have been taken on favorability of Pennsylvania governors, the most popular governor ever in that state. But that that's not fair to Trump because he didn't know who Josh Shapiro was very clearly when he was asked about him. So listen, everybody sees what's going on. The network saw it. They gave the guy an hour plus at the end of the day, which is way more than he probably deserved. But maybe most importantly, Republicans are seeing what's going on.

And that's what I want to talk about next. Widespread reporting now finds that Republicans are growing concerned about Donald Trump's mental fitness. It's about time. Vanity Fair article by best Levin. Republicans think Trump is having a nervous breakdown over Kamala Harris. The ex-president is definitely missing Joe Biden right about now. Now, I encourage you to check out the article and it explains the number of different

Republicans, including Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and once one time Trump official who described what's happening with Trump talking about Kamala becoming black and spelling her name Kamabala and all of this stuff. He says it is a public nervous breakdown. This is a guy who cut through the Republican Party like a knife through butter. This is a guy who cut through the Republican Party like a knife through butter. This is a guy who pummeled a semi-conscious president in a debate and literally out of the race. And now this is a guy who cannot come to grips with a competitive presidential race that would require discipline and effective messaging.

And we're seeing a candidate and a campaign absolutely melt down. The article outlines many other Republicans and Republican strategists and advisers that are equally concerned. It is not only Vanity Fair noticing this Rolling Stone with an article. Unhappy Trump is freaking out over Harris's crowd sizes. And no matter what Trump says publicly at this deranged press conference, he said something like he got bigger crowds on at the riot rally on January 6, 21, then Martin Luther King had in Washington, D.C. Of course, it's completely untrue, but it reflects a an insecurity of Trump's that crowd size is a proxy to enthusiasm. It sometimes is. It sometimes

isn't. It really depends on the circumstances. For example, in 2020, Trump talked about Biden can't win because my crowds are big. Biden just wasn't doing mass rallies because of the pandemic that was going on. So I don't even agree with Trump that the rally crowds alone are indicative of anything. But there's no doubt that right now we have Kamala Harris regularly filling venues that Trump can't fill, including in Philadelphia. Kamala Harris out raising Trump when it comes to money and Kamala Harris increasingly out polling Trump plus nine among independents. A new national poll has her plus eight.

There is reason to panic. And Trump behind closed doors reportedly panicking about the crowd size issue. And then finally, Salon Dotcom. Tim Walz is normal. Dad energy is causing MAGA to come unglued. And then once again, the fact that Tim Walz is just a normal guy. He's a relatable guy. He's a veteran. He's a gun owner. He likes farming. He is is sort of in line with rural America culturally and in other ways that is also panicking them. So three things are going on. Trump's panicking that the race is competitive. Trump's panicking about Tim Walz and Tim Walz is obvious favorability that trounces J.D. Vance or shady Vance, as we might call him. And then thirdly,

the crowd size issue is really terrifying. Donald Trump. We need those cognitive tests. Let's do it. After all, Trump is the oldest major party presidential nominee in American history, in American history. Let's do the debates. Trump claims three are scheduled. Let's do the cognitive tests and let's continue to track the polling for now. For now, this is looking increasingly ugly for the failed former president. Let me know what you think.

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We have an extraordinary polling situation. My friends, Kamala Harris's lead on Donald Trump continues to grow. Now I am not here to suggest to you that this trajectory will continue and that come November, Kamala Harris will have some double digit polling lead over Donald Trump. It's just not the way American politics really works right now, given the level of polarization and partisanship, given the sort of baseline support that the Republican and the Democrat will get. It's not likely that Kamala Harris's current trajectory is sustainable, which would

put her at like a 10 point lead by November. However, however, the change and the momentum is remarkable and very much worthy of looking at. We've been using as a sort of guidepost the real clear politics average of recent polls. And what this does is it says here's a list of polls that we believe are good enough to include in our average. We add them all up and divide it using a relatively simple algorithm that they have. And here's where things land and where they land right now is that Kamala Harris has achieved a half a point average lead over Trump nationally. Now, you might hear me say that and go, David, this thing is tied. What are you talking about? Half a point lead. This is no big deal. This is less

about the number and more about the momentum and also more about the rhetoric that surrounds this polling. So if we back up a little bit, one of the things that you can see when we look at a chart and the important thing to understand here is this is this is a graph of polling numbers. Red is Trump. Blue was Biden and then became Harris when Biden withdrew. One of the things that's notable is that if you look right around the Fourth of July holiday, Donald Trump had a more than three point average lead over Joe Biden, more than three point average lead. That's why there's this large space between the red and the blue lines. You see the vertical black line, which is when

President Biden withdrew. And then what you see is that the lines have essentially converged. And now Kamala Harris has taken a half a point lead. This is a swing to go from losing by three point three to winning by point five. That's a swing of almost four percentage points, almost four percentage points. If you think about a typical electorate being about one hundred and sixty million people, I don't know if that's fair. I'm kind of rough to meeting a 16 million people. Every point represents one point six million voters and thus a four percent swing suggests something like six and a half, six point four million voters that have switched. It doesn't mean individuals have switched. Some may have gone from voting Trump to I plan to stay home. Some may have gone to it from I plan to stay home to going

out voting for Harris walls. But it's in the aggregate. We're talking about a nearly six and a half million voter swing as interpreted by these numbers. This is remarkable. Now, as you can see, if you were to just say, let's just chart this decline by Trump and this increase by Harris and project out to November, you would have Harris winning by 10, 12, 14. I just don't think that's going to happen. And that's why this now becomes key in terms of thinking about what happens next. At some point, this is going to flatten. Now, the DNC is coming up soon. It is sometimes believed to be a rule of thumb, which someone wrote to me and said, David, that's offensive. It relates to domestic violence. It's sometimes considered

to be a conventional wisdom of sorts that you peak a couple of days after your convention. If that's the case, we would expect Kamala's stock to continue to rise peak Friday, Saturday after the DNC. And then what happens is the question. So we're going to have to follow and watch that. We don't know how much of this is the sort of shift that comes as a result of news and the announcement of she has become the presumptive nominee. And then she selected Tim Walz and Tim Walz seems well liked. We just have to see. There's another aspect to this, which is that Donald Trump for a long time now, and we spoke about this on Wednesday, any time the stock market would go up under Biden's presidency, Trump would say it's going up because of the expectation that I will win in November.

There was no evidence of this. Then we had a few days late last week and this Monday where the stock market declined pretty precipitously. And Trump came out and said the reason the stock market went down is because the polls show that things are a little bit better for Kamala Harris. But those polls are rigged. Of course, this was nonsense. U.S. stocks were dragged down, as were global stocks by a number of different factors, including economic news out of the banking sector in Japan and other things. It was nonsense what Trump said. But interestingly, we've had some very good stock market days this week. And as we've seen those solid stock market days this week, I discussed this Wednesday.

Kamala Harris is polling has continued to increase. So if you want to play stupid games, you'll win stupid prizes. And if we play this stupid game, the prize Trump now gets is, wow, stock market up. Kamala's polling also up. So point in time, the momentum matters. Where will this end? We don't know. But certainly the DNC upcoming, I would expect to give Kamala Harris at least a little bit more of a boost. There's a very interesting thing happening now nationally in terms of a growing concern for Trump for voters in general. And it is a concern over Donald Trump's health.

There's a Newsweek article about it. We've seen new polling about this as well. Now the natural question, if you hear me bring up Trump's health, would be, am I talking about Trump's mental health or am I talking about Trump's physical health? Because both of them seem to be declining. And the answer is, yeah, I'm sort of talking about both. Although it's sort of that Trump's mental health seems to be used as a proxy towards his physical health.

Let's see what this says here. Newsweek reports fewer voters believe Donald Trump is in good health and more think the 78 year old Republican is too old for run to run for office now that Biden is no longer in the race, according to a new morning consult poll. The results show that now that Trump is facing off against four fifty nine year old Kamala Harris, fewer voters believe he's in good health, down to 52 percent from most recently, 58 percent since Biden dropped out. More than half of all voters now say Trump is too old, up from 44 percent.

And the number of people believing Trump is mentally fit is down from 53 to 48. This is good news. It's not good news because I take pleasure in people struggling with their faculties. It's not good news for any other reason other than it is empirically the case that Donald Trump is the oldest major party nominee in American history. It is absolutely the case that if you watch videos of Trump being interviewed and speaking, going back two years, four years, six, eight, 10, 12, 25 years, you see a notable and marked decline in his vocabulary and how articulate he is and that to a degree, Joe Biden stepping aside is making that even more apparent. Now, you may have noticed that Trump is no longer talking about cognitive tests.

He tried it early last week. And when we initially heard that Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee, you heard Trump say, I still think we should do the cognitive tests. I bet I would do better than her. That was an extraordinarily stupid thing to say, given that Trump says things such as Saudi Arabia and Russia will repeat. Will repeat do, uh, et cetera. Trump has stopped talking about cognitive elements altogether because it's a very bad idea and it's becoming apparent from the polling that this is a growing concern for the country. There is a desire for some new energy, that the new energy will come with from from a nearly 60 year old only reminds us of what the alternative is.

And it's been Republicans who are running on this stuff about we don't need a really old president anymore, pointing to Trump two and a half years younger than Biden as the alternative to the old Biden. But that has all been shaken up and changed now that Trump is the oldest nominee in American history. So do I think that this is going to be sort of like a dispositive make or break factor. No, I don't. But certainly and especially if Donald Trump continues to allude to I don't know that I'm going to debate.

I don't know that I need to debate on this. I do agree with Anthony Scaramucci, who said Trump's only toying with not debating to get attention, but he knows he has to debate or it will be humiliating because it will come off as him being scared. I hope he debates. It's very difficult to keep up with the latest comings and goings of it. Will he won't he on ABC, on Fox News, anywhere else? Will there be one debate, two debates, zero debates?

We don't know. As soon as something is officially scheduled, of course, I'll tell you. But it is starting to become a real concern that what happened to Joe Biden in his debate against Trump on June 27th could happen to some degree. Lesser or greater remains to be seen in a debate against Kamala Harris. I expect her to be prepared. And, you know, VP debate Vance versus Walls. I expect Walls to wipe the floor with J.D., both in terms of policy knowledge as well as charisma and just general demeanor.

So let me know what you expect as far as debates. Let me know whether you are more concerned with Trump's health since President Biden stepped aside. Info at David Pakman dot com. Many of us have bad habits we want to kick. Finding motivation can be hard, especially when life gets heavy and the bad habit seems to be what's keeping you sane. Thankfully, fume is here to help you prioritize your health in a way that will not disrupt your daily life. Introducing fumes award winning flavored air device that is quickly

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Henson can offer because of their precision manufacturing shop that also makes aerospace the David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. We've been talking about lines of attack, lines of attack that Team Trump has been trying against Kamala Harris, including before she selected Tim Walls as her vice presidential running mate and then since. And there's really bad news for Trump, which is that so far nothing is working. Trump team is panicking. This is why he's saying, I'm not going to debate. I am going to debate. This is why he's attacking her based on her laugh or DEI, essentially saying, I know from

the color of her skin that she's not really qualified to do the job she's doing. These are the sorts of attacks that are coming because Trump is desperate. Trump is completely and totally desperate. And I want to show you some of the coverage about this and what the implications might be. And the context is the conversation that I had last week with Tim Miller, a Republican strategist type guy and historical Republican who is an anti-Trump Republican at this point in time.

Washington Post has a report. Trump, with a history of sexist attacks, again faces a female opponent. Strategists and aides from both parties are girding themselves for an election steeped in allegations of sexism and racism. You know, talking about allegations makes it almost seem like anybody could hurl allegations, regardless of whether they're empirically based or not, when the truth is a lot of what we're hearing about Kamala Harris is sexist and racist. She became black.

D.I. The way she laughs, etc.. There's also an interesting report from the New Republic. Trump team panics about his attacks on Kamala Harris backfiring. Trump's allies are worried they can't control him as he attacks Vice President Kamala Harris. And then finally, from KXAN NBC, Republican pollster says Trump talking about Harris as a DEI candidate would backfire. And one of the ways we know that it seems to be backfiring is that several Fox News

hosts have even started to point out, hey, by the way, when you're calling her dumb, when you're going after her laugh, DEI, this stuff isn't working. It's name calling. We don't think it's going to be effective in defeating her. And even some Republicans are starting to agree. So let's go through it childless, at least as far as biological children, DEI, the way she laughs, failed borders are, which starts to teeter maybe on policy and then things like she's not super smart. She's low IQ.

Trump has been saying she didn't pass the bar exam on the first try, although, of course, ultimately she did and was a successful lawyer. A lot of these things are not polling well with exactly the people that Trump needs to win over suburban women, independents, et cetera. I already told you earlier this week that when J.D. Vance goes to a rally and yells out about Kamala Harris wants to take your gas stoves and Kamala Harris wants to make it so you can't have red meat anymore. That stuff isn't going to work on the people you actually need to convince at a Trump rally. It will get cheers, but you're not going to at this point get into serious corporate media reporting about is she really trying to take away beef from you?

Is she really trying to take gas stoves? You know, the gas stove thing? I don't want to go back over it in total. But we've talked about how the Biden administration forget about the fact that they're not even trying to take away gas stoves. They wouldn't even have the authority to take away gas stoves. And even if induction is great and I can vouch for it, it really is great. These are just lies. So the problem is, how do you go after Kamala Harris in a way that will be more effective? Tim Miller's idea was you kind of just use the generic playbook that's always used. She's far left. She wants to defund the police, even though she doesn't. She's going to raise middle class taxes, even though she won't. She'll make the border be wide open, even though obviously she wouldn't just kind of

like run the normal playbook deficit this and that, even though it's Trump who blew up the deficit by record amounts. Go with that. And then if you can and they're starting to do this, also attack her vice presidential running mate as extreme, even though when you actually see his views placed on the political compass, it is all really very moderate. So a few other comments from people on the right who recognize this is very much going in the wrong direction because nothing is landing. Republican pollster Whit Ayers warned that, quote, taking shots at her race and gender would be a political liability. And in general, you know, these ad hominem approaches to running a campaign,

they can work narrowly, but backfire. Big picture, I think, is the way that I would say it, because you risk alienating. I don't even know that I want to call them undecided voters at this point because there's anyone really undecided. But swayable voters maybe would be the way that I would say it. So for now, there is significant concern on the Republican side about what is going to be the way that I would say it. So for now, there is significant concern on the Republican side about what is going to be the approach. Do we just try to win on turnout without attacking or do we have to find some line of attack? And then lastly, if indeed the debates are going to happen, Trump,

Harris and or Vance Waltz, what are going to be the approaches there? And we'll have time to discuss that. The dam seems to be breaking. We all knew that plenty of them exist behind closed doors. I'm talking about anti-Trump Republicans, but many are starting to now go public and say, I'm voting for Kamala Harris. Earlier this week, I interviewed Anthony Scaramucci, literally worked for Trump, and he said, I've publicly endorsed Kamala Harris. But there is much more to it. And there's an interesting Newsweek article. Republicans line up to endorse Kamala Harris.

The list is extensive. Now, you may not know all of these people, but these are significant individuals in the political context. Former Republican Congress members endorsing Harris include Rod Chandler, Tom Coleman, Dave Emery, Wayne Gilchrist. OK, it's a whole long list. Joe Walsh, you may know he's been a guest on the program. We also have more prominent individuals like Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney and others. What is the important aspect to this that we should talk about? There are many Republicans that we know privately have really disliked Trump all along, and they've confided in their personal contacts about that.

There have been Republicans who once they don't have anything left to run for Mitt Romney as an example, although he did express his anti Trump beliefs before he decided he wasn't running for reelection. But people like Mitt Romney or Flake and others who say, all right, I'm publicly saying I am not a Trump supporter, but I don't really have there's really no political downside. You know, I'm independently wealthy like Romney or I'm not running or whatever the case may be. You then have people like Chris Christie who have said, I'm not voting for Trump.

But recently, Chris Christie said, OK, I'm not voting for Trump, but I'm not voting for a Democrat either, at least as far as he's willing to admit publicly. The interesting thing about this growing list of Republican officials, current and former, that are straight up saying I am voting for Kamala Harris is that it not only might serve to influence some of the Republican voters into saying, hey, I have license to do it myself. And particularly in important swing states, it could make a difference. That's one reason that it's important to hear from these Republicans that they're endorsing Kamala Harris. But the other aspect to it is that it may

trigger Trump into even more erratic behavior, which has this vicious circle or virtuous circle. If you're looking at it from our perspective and we want to see that of just sending him off the deep end further and further, reminding voters how unstable he is, reminding voters how chaos and and insanity just follow him everywhere. So the important takeaway for us is that there are going to be some cynical and nakedly political actors on the left who are going to say to you the same thing they would say about Biden when a Republican would say, I prefer Joe to Trump, which is they're going to say, hey, you know why these Republicans are voting for Kamala Harris? It's not because Trump is bad. It's because Harris is actually conservative. And that's what they would say about

Biden. Of course, Biden has some Republican supporters. Biden is really right wing. It's really important that we not fall into these traps. Remember that the Biden Harris administration, as far as how they ran, I would argue the most progressive platform in 2020 of any Democratic nominee nominee. Right. Not candidate. Yes, there have been further left candidates that said I'd like to be the nominee. But if actual Democratic nominees, Biden, Harris is the furthest left of anything we've seen. But it's also how they've governed, because when you

look at all of the legislation that was passed, when you look at where government spending has been done, I've done it a dozen times, but it's important not to like take this slice of the left that's saying Republicans like Biden and they like Harris because they are actually right wing. It's important to be able to push back on that and to actually have the policy to demonstrate it. And we've done long form pieces on that before. So the list of Republicans that will vote for Harris, I believe, will only grow from now until November. The sort of actionable question is, will it influence voters? Will it make a difference?

That's what I want to hear from you about. You can email me info at David Pakman dot com and let me know. Will Republicans endorsing Harris move the needle or will it not matter? Right now, we are seeing candidates do whatever it takes to win your vote and how the media chooses to cover certain stories, if at all, can completely shape your perspective of those candidates. But our sponsor, Ground News, is an awesome resource at a time like this with their vantage plan.

I get access to what's called their blind spot feed that shows me stories that can be easily missed. For instance, I'm looking here at Ground News's summary about Trump distancing himself from Project 2025 amid its rising controversy, something we've been talking about. Ground News provides a great summary of the situation based on over 100 articles that Ground News found reporting on it. And Ground News provides a great summary of the situation based on over 100 articles that Ground News found reporting on it. And Ground News shows me that almost no conservative news outlets are covering the story. Not a surprise. Ground News shows us that the right wing outlets only report on how Trump is denying involvement with the

project, while the center and left outlets are actually giving context on Trump's connections to the movement of Project 2025. Every story comes with this visual breakdown of the political biases and ownership of the reporting news outlets, which is really important to know as well. Go to ground dot news slash Pacman or scan my QR code for 40 percent off the same unlimited All right. Let's get into Friday feedback. Super interesting data point to start with today. Weeks ago, before Joe Biden stepped aside and Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee. We did a poll

of our YouTube audience and said, is Kamala Harris more likely to defeat Donald Trump than Biden or less likely to defeat Donald Trump than Biden? It was basically 50 50, 50 149, 55, 45, something like that. The audience was mostly split before Joe Biden stepped aside and Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee as to whether Harris improved Democratic odds or worsened them. We redid that poll in the aftermath of Kamala Harris becoming the presumptive nominee. And the numbers are stunning. Based on one hundred and thirty three thousand of your votes, 92 percent of you, 92 percent of you believe that Kamala Harris is more likely to defeat Donald Trump than Joe Biden. Now, there's two parts to this.

The first part is how many people's opinions changed just because Biden stepped aside and Harris became the presumptive nominee. The feeling of it, in other words. But then part two is, are there empirical changes that would point more in the direction of Kamala doing better than Joe Biden? And the answer is yes, because if you look at the insane record fundraising numbers, that's a proxy to enthusiasm that suggests, hey, this might work out OK. If you look at the polling numbers in swing states and nationally improving significantly

for Harris relative to where they were for Joe Biden, that's an empirical change that suggests, hey, this actually could be better with Harris rather than with Biden. So I think it's very interesting that becoming the presumptive nominee completely upended the view of our audience on who is more likely to defeat Donald Trump, but also circumstances on the ground have changed. Let me know your thoughts. One hundred and thirty three thousand of you,

thousand of you voting. OK, let's look at a few other things now from user Ding Gratz on Reddit saying Jon Stewart was right. This was an opportunity. I didn't see it at the time. I couldn't see it at the time. But God damn, this is electrifying and absolutely surprising. Trump is in a corner and everything is coming fast at this obese, elderly criminal karma. If you're listening. OK, so an anecdotal example of someone whose view on what makes sense to defeat Trump has changed since Biden stepped aside and Kamala Harris stepped in. However, not everyone is as confident. And so we'll look at another example. Here is a Reddit post from Appman who says, can you reassure me how Kamala will mop the floors in a debate with Trump? I don't doubt it will happen, but I may not be 100 percent sure it will. I remember that Hillary did a good job

debating Trump and did her best to point out his flaws as a human. The problem is Trump can deflect any sane argument. The way he uses nonsense to accomplish this is impressive and not enough people acknowledge this. It seems we underestimate Trump's ability to bully anybody when we point and laugh at his remarks about sharks and batteries. She may have been a tough prosecutor, but I suspect Trump may be an even bigger bully. Everything Appman says is right.

And if there is to be a debate and I know we keep going back and forth, there will be a debate. There won't be. The ABC debate is originally scheduled. No, only Fox News per Trump. If there is a debate. Kamala Harris needs to come in, not only with a very specific plan for how to deal with what we know Trump's performance will be like and we've got the June 27th debate to prepare from, but she needs to come in prepared to defuse the sorts of non responses. How do you deal with the non response word salads from Trump where it's like, yeah, he's lying, but he lies confidently and it kind of impresses his base. I don't know what that plan will be. I don't know what the plan should be,

but I think we are right to be cautious about Trump's ability to just lie his way out of this sort of stuff. Kamala Harris obviously is more knowledgeable on policy. Kamala Harris, obviously, I expect would be more honest in a debate than Trump. But you need to have a plan. Otherwise, it can go very haywire very, very quickly. All right. Another instance of confidence user proof of my existence from subreddit says Kamala has this election in the bag. I'm genuinely excited to cast my vote for her. Her chances are sky high for multiple reasons. And I have a feeling she's going to beat Biden's record for most voted for president in history. I'm also glad that people like David aren't in charge of the of decision making, because then we'd still be backing Biden and then inevitably losing to Trump. It's funny because at all points, number one, I wasn't even suggesting that there is a particular

decision to be made all along. I was saying I'm going to vote based on who's on the ticket in November. My decision, if it's Biden, Trump will be that I vote Biden. If there is a decision made to replace Biden, I will evaluate who replaces Biden and then vote on that basis. This is sort of like a revisionist history suggesting I don't even know what other than other than what I said all along, which is it's seeming unlikely that Biden will be replaced up until the point at which it started to seem like a possibility, which I told you right away and half my audience was furious. It eventually became to me insurmountable what Biden had to do to stay on the ticket. And then even more people were angry at me, despite me saying I'm calling it like it is. I think he's going to have to step down.

And within three days of that, he stepped down. So if you want to accuse me of anything, accuse me of something I did, which is calling it like it is at any particular moment that I was asked about it. OK, let's look at some other critiques. Here is Pink Moon Lander from the subreddit asking, why does David keep implying Trump thinks Hannibal Lecter is a real historical figure? I agree with Pacman on almost all his points about Trump, except he keeps implying there's a possibility Trump thinks Hannibal Lecter is a real person. It's pretty obvious Trump is joking and being comedic when he refers to Hannibal Lecter is a real person. It's pretty obvious Trump is joking and being comedic when he refers to Hannibal. It makes Democrats look stupid when they try to pin stuff like this

on Trump instead of focusing on real issues. I am dead serious when I tell you I can't tell whether Trump thinks Hannibal Lecter is a historical figure. He does do. When do individuals refer to fictional characters as the late great? It just doesn't make any sense. I'm not saying I'm sure Trump thinks Hannibal Lecter was a historical figure, but it's certainly plausible. Certainly plausible. Graham Berggroth from Facebook says Pacman always has glassy eyes. You know, it is true.

And this goes to as many of you know, I've been accused of having a drinking or drug problem as evidenced from me being on something during the show, according to some. And I've explained that I don't use any drugs and I drink very, very rarely. But what happens is I think I wear contacts and we have bright lights. This is not a CNN studio, so it's conceivable that the lights aren't at exactly the right height that they should be at. And yeah, I mean, look, I'm looking there and I can see a little bit of that reflection off of my contact lenses with the with the studio lights. But rest assured, I'm not high right now, nor have I ever been during the show. Colin is jumping in on the Kamala critiques and says the voice, the cackle, unelectable, unelectable based on her voice

and her cackle. I don't see it the same way as Colin. Now, Britt Owens responded by saying Kamala's voice is like caramel coffee, sweet and strong. Ah, the projection of her voice is so powerful. Yeah. Listen, whatever you think about Kamala Harris's voice or anything, it seems very clear from the polling and from the media reactions that going after her for her intelligence, her voice or her laugh are not working as effective means to defeat her candidacy does not seem to be doing anything to hurt her chances. So for their own purposes, right wingers and Trump supporters are going to have to come up with something a little bit better. Michelle Rose wants me to focus more on astrology. Michelle says, David, I know you don't follow astrology,

but you really should. There are some very illuminating astrological things happening over the next year and specifically with this election. Just floating that to you is I think astrology has really been villainized through history via church agendas. Yeah, I'm so sorry. And every time I do this, five people who like astrology write to me. I will not insult my audience with astrology and suggest to my audience that we might be able to divine something about the future of presidential election outcomes from the believed and often incorrect positioning of heavenly bodies at different points in time. I respect my audience too much to pretend that there's any there there. And at the risk of offending five people in my audience,

that's been my view for a very long time and it continues to be my view. So don't expect any astrology on this program. Gilbert Mendez writes, the media should now start talking about Trump's mental decline. Well, it is getting more attention. I jokingly said Trump is now the oldest presidential nominee in American history. Is that really what the country needs right now? It was sort of tongue in cheek. But that narrative, that retort, that talking point has wildly triggered MAGA. They hate the fact that their guy, after they spent years saying Biden's too old, that their guy, who's almost as old as Biden and is glitching regularly every time he speaks in public, is now the nominee as the oldest nominee in American history. So I do think it should be talked about. It does appear as though there is somewhat more focus on Trump's melt mental decline

coming forward, but it should continue to be discussed because it is such a prevalent issue. You can preorder my book, The Echo Machine at David Pakman dot com slash echo or by searching any audio book, physical book or digital book platform for my name and the echo machine. At the beginning of the week, we had 450 preorders. The goal is to get to 5000 preorders before the book's release. That would make it six. If we get to 5000 copies at publication date, which is months away, the book would be considered a success. And it puts us in the possible running for New York Times bestseller list. 10K would be better than 5K. But we'll talk about that as we approach.

So Monday, I will give you an update on order numbers. Please preorder the book. There are three or four different planned goodies for those who preorder and everybody will be eligible for those regardless of when you preorder. Signature elements are part of it, which are the number one thing. That's the primary thing people ask ask about. So preorder anytime. Barnes and Noble, Amazon, bookshop.org, your local bookstore anywhere.

And I'll update you on order numbers Monday. I hope that you will be joining us on the bonus show momentarily.