The David Pakman Show - 9/12/24: Trump must step down, RFK and Romney say TRUMP LOST

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

-- On the Show: -- Doctor John Kruse, neuroscientist, author, and psychiatrist who has been working with adults with ADHD for over thirty years, joins David to analyze the Trump-Harris debate -- After showing that he cannot stay in this race cognitively, physically, and constitutionally, Donald Trump should step aside and allow Republican to replace him -- Stephen Miller, Trump advisor, absolutely loses his mind when journalist José María Del Pino asks him where he gets his information about Venezuela's supposed low crimes rates -- Donald Trump says that even Fox News hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum are too biased to host a presidential debate -- Robert F. Kennedy Jr admits that Donald Trump's debate performance was a disaster and Kamala Harris clearly and easily won the debate -- Republican Senator Mitt Romney admits that Kamala Harris overwhelmingly defeated Donald Trump in this week's presidential debate -- Republican Speaker of the House MAGA Mike Johnson pathetically tries to claim that Donald Trump won the debate against Kamala Harris by citing a Newsmax survey -- Donald Trump wants ABC News shut down and their license taken away because he lost the debate against Kamala Harris -- Donald Trump repeatedly claims that he won the presidential debate and yet appears terrified to have another debate against Kamala Harris -- On the Bonus Show: 67 million people watched Trump-Harris debate, Elon Musk threatens Taylor Swift after Kamala Harris endorsement, NFL player Tyreek Hill demands officers who pulled him over be fired, much more... 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 👕 Sponsored by Printful: Build and grow your business at https://davidpakman.com/printful 👍 Buy the FÜM Journey Pack and use code PAKMAN for a FREE GIFT at https://tryfum.com/pakman 🛡️ Incogni lets you control your personal data! Get 60% off their annual plan: http://incogni.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

. My friends, it is now obvious, especially after what we saw Tuesday night at the presidential debate in Pennsylvania, that one of the two candidates for the most powerful office arguably in the world is constitutionally, cognitively and physically incapable of serving as president, or I would argue even running a campaign appropriately. It is time to demand that Donald Trump step down for the good of the country. Republicans should be demanding that he step aside because he's just not up to the task. What we saw Tuesday was not an outlier. It was the culmination of the mental decline we've been seeing from Donald Trump for years. He was rattled.

He couldn't think on his feet. His posture was slumped and defeated. He kept repeating himself, bringing up non sequiturs that sometimes had nothing to do with the conversation or going back to things discussed an hour earlier in confusing ways. He contradicted himself. He lied uncontrollably to the point that the moderators had to step in to correct the record because the lies were so egregious and patently untrue. At one point, Donald Trump said that Haitian immigrants are eating people's cats and dogs in Ohio, sounding more like someone suffering from severe mental illness, the likes

of which we see on the New York subway platform rather than a presidential debate stage. And I don't say that to laugh or to make fun. I say this to communicate how serious this is. At another point, Trump said Democrats like abortions after the baby has been born and that those are legal in some states, which, of course, they are not. It would be murder. It's not legal anywhere. He's not connected to reality. He shouldn't be anywhere

near the Oval Office. Now, of course, these unhinged statements were not unique to the one debate at his rallies. He's constantly ranting about such bizarre subjects as Hannibal Lecter, shark battery boat electrocutions and of course, Saudi Arabia are a deep, deep Saudi Arabia and Russia will repeat. Right. Another thing that Kamala Harris exposed in Trump for the American public this week in real time is that Donald Trump is easily manipulated, which puts the nation at risk. Kamala Harris knew exactly how to defeat Trump, which was to rattle him about petty things like people leaving his rallies while he's speaking. That 81 million people fired him and it all sent him into a tailspin. Kamala Harris brought up how he inherited millions of dollars and then filed for bankruptcy

six times. And it triggered him wildly. He constantly walked into every trap that she set for him by poking at his ego and she made it look easy. She smirked and smiled and looked casual and didn't even break a sweat doing it while Trump's upper lip was just sweating bullets. How can someone so easily manipulated be trusted to lead the world's largest military or be there in rooms for difficult discussions with world leaders who will just be able to manipulate him in the same way?

Kamala Harris was right when she said brutal dictators like Vladimir Putin would eat him for lunch. At another point in the debate, Trump claimed that he won the election of 2020. Of course, Trump lost the election of 2020 to President Joe Biden. This is just a basic fact of American history. But Trump said, no, I won. Trump's failure to remember or acknowledge basic facts like these shows that he's just not living in reality.

He's living in some alternate universe where he won the 2020 election and he's president right now. And he's smart and he's good looking. And gosh, darn it, people like him. That's a fantasy world. And then we have not only Donald Trump's cognitive limitations, his personal and constitutional personality limitations, but we also have his physical health. Donald Trump is obese and he is a very aged 78 years old. He's the heaviest president since William Howard Taft. We're not making fun of overweight. We're not being fat phobic here. Trump's health is not good physically either. If reelected, he would be an obese 82 year old who doesn't exercise

by the time his second term ends. So Trump at this very important time for the country should be meeting with his family to talk about making what is admittedly a difficult decision. This is obviously complicated by the fact that much of his family hates him and he doesn't talk to his wife. But still, that's what should be happening right now. If he was in a normal relationship and had a normal family situation for the good of the country and for the good of the Republican Party, Trump should step aside, think about someone other than himself and let the Republican Party select a different candidate.

Will he do it? I assume not. I have some absolutely must watch video for you here. You may recall that one of the storylines that MAGA has been telling in order to make the Biden administration look bad is that it's gotten so dangerous in the United States from the standpoint of crime that dictator led Venezuela is safer than the United States. While Trump adviser Stephen Miller tried this, he was questioned in the debate spin room by correspondent Jose Maria del Pino, who reports for NTN 24, T13 and Tele 13 radio. And this is just so good. You really can't understand how good this is unless you watch it. What Jose does is he says to Stephen Miller, how do you know Venezuela is so safe? Are you saying you're basing it on the statistics about crime provided by dictator Maduro, which is a real problem for these right wingers,

because these right wingers correctly insist you can't trust the data that comes out of Venezuela or China or North Korea or Russia. You can't trust it. But they seem to be using that very same data to argue. Look at how safe Venezuela is. This is so good. And Jose triggers Steven so quickly that Stephen Miller just starts shouting at him. Watch this. This is really well done.

What will happen? All these day one, all the guests, all these criminal migrants that have been flooded in the country are going to be the first to get thrown out of here. I mean, you've seen case after case these heartbreaking tragedies. Those ones are going to get found and deported first. And look at this, this Venezuelan gang. You have a Venezuelan gang that is taking over entire apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado. And that's responsible, by the way, for some of the most heinous crimes that have happened all over the United States. The crime rate in Venezuela is down, I believe, a little bit over 60 percent over the last several years. Are you trusting the

official figures from the Venezuelan dictatorship? Let's put it this way. If you're a dictator of a poor country with a high crime rate, wouldn't you send your criminals to our open border? That wasn't my question. Are you trusting the figures of the dictatorships? Those are Maduro numbers. I am believing that it is in the interest of a criminal dictator to let his criminals out of their jails and come to our country. Do you have numbers, real numbers? The Venezuelan gangs, you've seen the CCTV footage. I have a question. Who do you think?

Answer me this. My family is from Venezuela. I know very well the situation of Caracas and many other cities. Tell me, who were the people with the high-powered rifles in the hallway of that apartment building? Who were they? They were guns from Venezuela. Right. No American community.

But I was asking to you about figures, numbers, facts. What I'm saying to you is the facts are the dead bodies. The facts are. You said that Caracas has a lowest crime rate than the USA. The facts are the mutilated bodies. The facts are the people in the morgues that are dead. I was asking you about Caracas and the numbers in Caracas. Are you trusting the numbers of the dictatorship? I am trusting the fact that Kamala Harris is letting illegal immigrants into this country who are raping and murdering children. I have been very respectful.

Why are you yelling? Do you know who Jocelyn Hungry is? Do you know who she is? Do you know how many people is experiencing violence in Caracas? Who is she? Who is Lakin Riley? Why are you yelling again? Because I'm yelling because children are being raped and I was just asking for figures and

you have not replied to me about those figures murdered. Do you know who Kayla? You trust the numbers of Nicola's mother. I'm asking again. Trust a ruthless dictator will empty his prisons and send their criminals to our country. You trust his numbers. The most dangerous gang in. I think you get where this is going.

This is so well done. I mean, I want to hug Jose because this is so well done. This is the same as here are the polls that say I'm winning. So I'm winning. Here are the polls that say I'm losing. So the polls are bogus and they can't be trusted. Now, of course, the truth is that if you go to the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, not the Maduro government, you find a violent death rate of twenty seven per hundred thousand compared to six in the United States, meaning it's about four times worse, more than four to four to five times worse in Venezuela than it is in the United States. But it doesn't matter to them.

And this is like saying, hey, look, here's the it's in the United States. But it doesn't matter to them. And this is like saying, hey, look, here's the it's when North Koreans go. Here are our statistics. There's no famine here. Here are our statistics. There's no poverty here. Oh, look, they've solved poverty and hunger in North Korea. We should be more like them. We would all be saying, wait a second. They create their own statistics. What are you talking about here? What are you talking about here? So this is really well done. And of course, it exposes the nakedly political claim from Trump that it's so bad here, thanks to Biden, that it is now safer in Venezuela. It's ridiculous at its core. But of course, if they even want to try to assert that

you're depending on the statistics fabricated by the very dictator you say needs to be removed. Donald Trump now says that even Fox News hosts Brett Baier and Martha McCallum are too left wing and too biased to host a presidential debate. you really have to understand the context here. After Donald Trump got beaten to a proverbial pulp by Kamala Harris during the debate on Tuesday, Brett Baier and Martha McCallum simply didn't make effusive praise of Trump. They didn't say it was terrible, which they should have because it was terrible. They did simply didn't say that was awesome. And they brought on on some guests who said, yeah, that wasn't so good. Guests like

Brit Hume. So Trump calls in to Fox and Friends and he says even a Fox News debate hosted by Brett and Martha. Now, it needs to be propagandist Sean Hannity or Trump brown noser Jesse Waters or Trump brown noser Laura Ingraham, who hosts the debate, or Trump wouldn't even do it on Fox. Mr. President, I know when we started the interview, you said that you felt that you won the debate last night. Your best ever. I think before the debate happened last night, the Kamala Harris people said that they would actually like to do another debate in October. And I know that last night,

Fox News offered sent letters to your campaign and her campaign offering three dates of debates moderated by Martha and Brett. One is October 9th in Arizona. Well, I wouldn't want to have Martha and Brett. I'd love to have somebody else. No Martha. Martha and Brett. I'd love to have, frankly, Sean or Jesse or Laura, you know, somebody else. Let's give other people a shot. This is very revealing.

But I didn't think Martha and Brett were good last night. I thought Jesse was fantastic last Brett were good last night. Jesse was Jesse was fantastic last night. What he said, Jesse really got it. Jesse said Trump won that debate. That was we won that debate by a lot. Now I wouldn't want Martha involved. OK, we won it by a lot.

So listen, he doesn't want Martha because Martha did not shower him with the effusive praise that he wanted. He doesn't want Brett for the same reason. He wants a debate moderator after complaining that the ABC debate was biased. He wants a debate moderator that is either nominally his friend like Sean Hannity or someone that sucks up to him and is so blinded that they came away from Tuesday's debate thinking Trump won or at least being willing to say he won. Trump wants one of his overt supporters moderating the debate. And when you say that Brett and

Martha. Aren't appropriate to to moderate a debate with Trump. It's extraordinarily revealing because it shows, you know, when Trump says ABC was biased, when Trump said he won 2020, the moderator said you didn't win. When he said that there are post-birth abortions in some states, the moderator said there aren't post-birth abortions. We wonder how is that considered bias? It's just true. It's like Trump said we don't humans don't need oxygen to breathe. So I have a proposal to sell all of our oxygen to Saturn. A moderator would go, oh, we do need oxygen. Actually, that's not bias. It's just the truth. The reason that that is called bias is because Trump's expectation is that the moderators will be suck ups like Sean Hannity, Jesse Waters or Laura Ingram, and will set up the entire debate to be favorable to Donald Trump.

Later in the show, we are going to see the incredible contrast that has developed in the last 24 hours where Trump now confidently says, I easily won the debate, but is also saying he's not going to do more debates. Why wouldn't you do it if you won so easily and it's so useful to you? So let's take a very quick break. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. Now we are beyond two point five million subscribers and we are onward and upward to three million. So make sure you're subscribed and we'll be right back. You can't vapor smoke inside.

You're tired of people seeing you put those little pouches in your lip. There is a nicotine The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. plane sporting events after a meal. The toothpicks stay in a convenient little tube that goes in your pocket or on your key chain. It's way more convenient than carrying around a huge can of pouches all day or a whole bunch of gum or whatever the case may be. Zippix nicotine toothpicks come in flavors like peppermint, watermelon, sweet wood, cinnamon, whiskey. If you're not a nicotine user, try out their B12 toothpicks with caffeine instead. A quick and easy alternative to coffee. Do your lungs a favor. Cut the cigarette smoke.

Cut the vape juice. Go to ZipX toothpicks dot com today. Save 10 percent with the code Pacman 10 at checkout. Just remember, you must be 21 or older to order. That's ZIPP David Pakman dot com. If you run a business or organization and want to get your brand out there or even just have your own DIY project, like maybe helping a political candidate spread their message. Printful is the perfect way to do it. Our sponsor Printful is the world's number one on demand print and fulfillment

service. Printful empowers your business or personal projects by giving you a huge range of high quality products, easy to use design tools and seamless integration with your online store. So Printful can ship directly to your customers. Or if you're just getting started, Printful offers a free tool, quick stores to quickly and easily launch a store. Whether you're beginning a new venture, scaling up your existing brand, Printful will handle everything, production, packaging and shipping. You can get your design printed or embroidered on just about anything. Clothing, coffee mugs, magnets, even unusual ones like dog collars and puzzles. And it is election season. So if you want to help get the word out about your favorite

candidate, Printful is the perfect place to do it. Get your political message printed on T-shirts, posters, flags, bumper stickers. The possibilities are endless. Get started at David Pakman dot com slash Printful. The link is in the podcast notes. That's David Pakman dot com primarily sponsored by our audience. If you've been listening, if you've been watching, if you like this show and you want to support what we do to the tune of just a few dollars a month, grab a membership at join Pakman dot com. We do an entire extra show every day for our members.

There's a bunch of other great perks you can read about at join Pacman dot com. I want to play for you a range of opinions about what happened on Tuesday night between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. We're first going to hear from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. Then we will hear from Republican Senator Mitt Romney. And then we'll hear from Republican member of Congress, Maga Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House. The first one with RFK is fascinating. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. very recently suspended his campaign, endorsed Donald Trump and said, we must elect Trump and prevent Kamala Harris from becoming president of the United States.

And then immediately after the presidential debate, he went on Fox News and he admitted Trump absolutely bombed the debate. He did terribly. It was horrible. Now he tempers his criticisms of Trump a little bit by saying the format favored Kamala Harris, like the fact that they had to talk in a quiet room to each other before something about that favored Kamala Harris and was a disfavor to Donald Trump. But when the guy that made the biggest splash he could about how he's endorsing you goes on TV and says you didn't do a good job, you know, you bombed. Listen to this.

She's been very skillfully kind of hidden and she has not done an interview. And this was really an ideal forum for her because there are these 90 second soundbites and you don't really go into the next level. And I. The funny thing about that is Trump can't even do the 90 seconds like I'm with RFK that 90 seconds per answer doesn't let you go deep. But the idea that going deeper than 90 seconds would be good for Trump is hilarious. Trump doesn't even have 90 seconds. Think that she's very vulnerable in a in a like a long form interview that she do on a podcast or in a program like this. I think this is the ideal forum for her to display, you know, her kind of skills. And I think she did that very well. And I think President Trump did not tell his

story, which is a very, very good story. I love the sort of double meaning of everything and this idea that it's the format that really favored Kamala Harris. Like what format would favor Trump? You know, an eating contest, sort of double meaning of everything. And this idea that it's the format that really favored Kamala Harris, like what format would favor Trump, you know, an eating contest, a wrestling match against a woman half his size. I don't know in what format against Kamala Harris, Donald Trump would come away the winner. Now, RFK also concedes, especially with independents, the polling is probably going to improve for Kamala Harris over the next week or so.

Right. I would suspect that the polling over the next week is going to show, you know, probably a slight drop in his support, particularly among independents as people migrate. You know, because I love that, you know, when you're losing one of your newest and most prominent campaign surrogates who says you lost and the polling will improve for your opponent. It's not good. It's not good.

Neil Cavuto brings up how Trump keeps repeating that he won every debate poll and RFK basically acknowledges these are like meaningless Internet polls. He says and it's common a couple of times today that he he won the debate and all the polls show that he won the debate. I haven't seen a single one to show that. What did you think of that reaction? Well, I have seen those polls. You know, they're not there. They're polls that you see on, you know, on the on the Internet. And and a lot of them probably have have statistical problems with them. I love the understated nature of calling them statistical problems.

Here's a statistical problem with Newsmax. 90 percent of the people that watch Newsmax are potentially mentally ill. I mean, it's so there could be a slight statistical anomaly when you pull Newsmax's audience and 90 percent of them say that Trump won the debate. And it's that these are people who are completely in the tank for Trump and find Fox News to be too liberal. One more clip. Here's RFK saying that Trump's problem was that he got distracted, that he has a really good argument for being president, but he was baited by Kamala and therefore failed to make that argument. But he got distracted.

And I think it's unfortunate because he you know, I think he really had an airtight, tight argument for his presidency. But he was not able to make that case to the American public. I just love that. I love that Trump has an open and shut case. I mean, he's got a bulletproof case for why he should be president. Unfortunately, Kamala tricked him into shouting about cats and dogs and arguing that there are abortions after the baby is born.

And it really is a shame because he's got a great argument for being president. But instead, he was screaming about Haitians eating pets. When RFK after endorsing you says it was bad, you know it was bad. All right. Republican Senator Mitt Romney admitted it was a disaster for Trump at the debate. Kamala Harris was intelligent and she was capable. She has a point of view that may be different from that of Mitt Romney. But Trump did really, really poorly. And I don't think it'll come as a shock to most of my audience that Mitt Romney, despite being a Republican, has decided, especially with no

more races to run and with his retirement upcoming, he has no reason to obfuscate at all. Trump's a disaster. And here is Mitt Romney's reaction to the debate. This was a classic President Trump performance in the case of Kamala Harris. Most people didn't know her terribly well, other than a few clips that were not flattering that you might see on the Internet. And people saw, oh, actually, she's an intelligent, capable person who has a point of view on issues. And she she demonstrated that time and again.

Now some people reacted to this by saying, oh, Romney is actually being condescending. He's saying it would have been logical to assume that Kamala Harris is not capable and is not intelligent. That's not what I hear him say at all. I hear him saying there were people who, after hearing Trump talk about her now for weeks and yet not seeing much of her, might have wrongly assumed she would come out looking incompetent and unintelligent. But that's not at all what it was. I didn't find that he was making that kind of implicit attack on Harris at all.

And here's one more from Mitt Romney. You know, I don't think that the debates typically move the needle on a permanent basis very much for one candidate or another. There are a few exceptions to that. But in last night's debate, I thought President Trump prosecuted his case as he wanted to. I think the Vice President was able to demonstrate that people's questions about could she answer questions from the media or not, those were answered well.

She spoke well and clearly, and I think she prosecuted her case well. I think there was no surprise it came from from President Trump. This was classic President Trump performance in the case of Kamala Harris. Most people didn't know her terribly well. All right. So now we're getting back to the part we already saw. Listen, I think Mitt Romney is generically right here. And the point I want to make to you, you know, every time we have one of these, quote, sane

Republicans willing to tell the truth and it's an outlier and we calculate, is it because they have a personal issue with Trump or they just have nothing to lose and they're willing to tell the truth? The view that Mitt Romney is expressing here, I believe, is the view of most elected Republicans. It's just that there's very few willing to say it. And I would argue that that's even more despicable if Republicans were simply dumb in the sense that they watched the debate and they thought Trump won. OK, I mean, listen, you can't fault someone for being dumb. I mean, maybe you can, but the whole point is, OK, they just they're just wrong. They're confused. I think it's far worse that I'm sure most Republicans, maybe not Marjorie Taylor Greene, right, but most Republicans saw the debate. They saw the drubbing that it was by Kamala Harris of Donald Trump. But yet they still go out and they say, oh, he won. Trump actually was the one that won. I think that

that's worse than simply wrongly believing that Donald Trump did well. So there's Mitt Romney. Now let's talk about Mike Johnson as an example of a guy that I believe knows Donald Trump totally screwed up Tuesday's debate, but simply lies for political expediency and says that Trump did well. We go to Maga Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House. Mike Johnson went on Fox Business Network and he insisted Trump won. Trump won. And he cites these bogus polls from Newsmax and from other websites, websites trafficked almost exclusively

by Trump supporters. Take a look. Action to the debate last night. Well, I tell you what, President Donald Trump is the reigning presidential debate champion. And even though the contest was three to one last night, he clearly prevailed. I looked at seven or eight polls this morning, viewer polls. I mean, Newsmax had him winning ninety three to one last night. He clearly prevailed. I looked at seven or eight polls this morning, viewer polls. I mean, Newsmax had him win in ninety three to six. C-SPAN had him sixty five, thirty five as the victor. The Daily Caller says it was seventy three to nine, something like seventy three to eight. They gave 19 points to the moderators because they were so lopsided for the other side. Fact checking only Trump and allowing her to skate through that. This is not serious, OK? Isn't there isn't

this guy a Christian? Isn't there something in Maga Mike's Christian religion about not bearing false witness or something like that? So this is an example of a guy that I don't believe for a second thinks Donald Trump won that debate. He is just lying. And of course, as we've talked about before, these instant online polls, which are either rated by one side or the other, or are made up of an audience that's exclusively partisan to one candidate or the other candidate. As we get the serious polling results, it seems as though by about a two to one margin, like 66 to 33, roughly, people believe that Kamala Harris won that debate. That's still crazy that one third

of the audience might wrongly think that that was a debate won by Donald Trump. But let's put that aside for a moment. Mike Johnson is the epitome. He is the bottom of the barrel of the Republican that knows Trump is a disaster, knows Trump's been as knows that Trump has been a disaster for the Republican Party, knows that Trump lost the debate and is still willing to go out there and say, I looked at Newsmax dot com and the people who voted in that poll say that Donald Trump won. That is a very different sort of person than Mitt Romney. So those reactions from RFK, Mitt Romney, Maga Mike Johnson later on in the show, we are going to talk about what might be next with regard to presidential debates this cycle.

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 becoming the leading alternative to smoking and to vaping. The point of fume is to satisfy the hand to mouth fixation of some of these bad habits,

which makes healthy change feel even easier. The fume device is sleek. It's sophisticated. You can fidget with it. There is no nicotine here, only natural ingredients like plant extracts and oils. There's no electronics. There's no vapor. There is an amazing selection of flavors from the popular crisp mint to the adventurous black licorice and cinnamon hearts. Fume is delicious. It's subtle. You can keep using it without feeling overwhelmed. So start your journey today. Go to tryfume.com and use the code Pacman to get a free gift with your journey pack, which includes a fume device, three core flavors of your choice and a cleaning kit. If you are struggling to get rid of that bad habit, that's try FUM dot com.

Then enter the code Pacman for a free gift. When you buy the journey pack, the info is in the podcast description. Did you know that countless commercial databases and people search sites are storing your personal information? Thank you, David. offer some protection. But in the US, the data is widely accessible. Even the FBI will buy this information from companies to spy on people without a search warrant. Our sponsor, Incogni, provides a solution. It takes just seconds to sign up and Incogni will send removal requests to all of the major data brokers, legally compelling them to get rid of your data. Incogni keeps you informed

throughout the process. You'll get real time updates who has complied, which ones are still pending. They'll handle follow ups. They'll handle appeals on your behalf. And this will save you hundreds of hours. Very few people have the time or resources to do this on their own. This service can also reduce the number of spam calls and emails you get since many solicitors and scammers get your information from these very same sources. Go to Incogni dot com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman for 60 percent off. That's I.N.C.O.G.N.I. dot com slash Pacman for a huge 60 percent discount. The link is in the podcast notes. It's great to welcome The aftermath of this presidential debate earlier this week has

been very interesting from a political perspective. The consensus has been Donald Trump had a bad debate night. And of course, this can happen without any sort of interesting analysis with regard to behaviors, conditions, disorders, et cetera. I'm curious your general sense based on the conversations we've previously had. Did you believe Trump struggled Tuesday night because of anything other than Kamala Harris simply being more prepared and kind of pushing his buttons? I think Donald Trump struggles all the time with being coherent, with remembering what he said, with remembering that he shouldn't to looking unhinged, temperamentally unstable, inconsistent in his answers. So so much if that's exactly what you're asking. Yeah, I know to some degree.

I mean, let's talk about some of the specific things that were observed. There were times where Trump would kind of struggle to stay on topic. He would ramble and then he'd realize I actually have some more time to fill here. So then he would wildly change topic to immigration or the country being destroyed. Is that is there you've talked about ADHD before with regard to Trump? Is that anything related to ADHD in your mind? Yes. with regard to Trump. Is that anything related to ADHD in your mind? Yes, I think those are central elements of ADHD, that being readily distracted,

having trouble staying on track with a topic, being pulled in by distractions in your own mind or things you see on the stage. It's probably good that there wasn't a live audience because Trump would be responding to specific faces, gestures, sounds he was hearing there. So these have been ongoing, pervasive, excessive for his age characteristics of his behavior that we've seen. And one of the things we talked a lot about three months ago or two months ago when we talked before is his use of stimulant medications to control and limit some of these ADHD behaviors. And that was apparent, again, within the first minute of his presentation. OK, so debate. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. As a layperson, one of the things I noticed within I don't know that it was the first minute

because I was kind of getting myself settled with my laptop and different things. Certainly within the first five or 10 minutes, I noticed that while Kamala Harris was speaking, Trump's eyes would sometimes go from almost seemingly kind of shut, especially the right eye to wide open. And then they would be going side to side in a very noticeable way. And people that I was seeing on Twitter, et cetera, were commenting about what is he looking at? What is going on there? Is that related to what you're talking about regarding stimulants with the stimulants?

I'm talking more specifically about pupillary dilation, which we don't have any voluntary control over. I mean, where he's looking, where he's directing his gaze, some of that's probably involuntary, some of it's conscious choice. But his pupils, he has no, he can't say, I want my pupils to be bigger right now. And his pupils were huge in contrast to his behavior. And I mean, what was striking to me is he stood there still in front of his lector. And in every other speech, not just the rallies where there's different energy and excitement, but in interviews and press conferences, every time you see Trump, he's moving his head,

he's twitching his body, he's pursing his lips. And to actually see him, and again, if you're not looking for it, you might not have noticed it, but it was striking. He was standing like a normal adult, which he isn't able to do when he's not medicated. And again, it's the triad of people's dilated movements being less than a third of what they are at his baseline, and the coherence of his speech. So lots of people noticed, you know, the times when he wasn't coherent. And by coherent, I don't mean truthful. I don't mean logical. I mean, does this sentence have any connection to what was before it? And although he's still way below a normal adult for his age on medication, when he's not on medication, he's much more incoherent. He's much more jumping from topic to topic, throwing in a sentence that

has no connection to the previous ones. So that being scattered, that being unable to track himself, that being distractible are all hallmarks of ADHD, as is the hyperactivity. Yeah. You commented about Donald Trump's hand gestures in our last interview. What was your assessment of that with regard to Tuesday's debate? So in the first. Half hour of the debate, I was actually counting again, and it wasn't just

hand-marked. I'm counting any movement that's more than about four inches. And he was making less than 10 movements a minute, which may or may not sound large, but at his baseline, he's usually moving 40, 50 movements a minute. So he did get looser as the session went on. And I think some of it is either conscious, you know, attempting to control, but also we know stimulant medications do decrease hyperactivity in those with ADHD. And I thought this might seem a tangent, but I think Donald Trump actually owes his life to his ADHD. That might sound outrageous, but with the recent assassination attempt two months back, his head is always constantly in Moana's body. He was a moving target. He gives credit to the chart that he looked at for that one second when the bullet came.

But if you look at his head, any minute of that rally presentation, there's no 10 second interval where he's still. So he was a moving target for the shooter to begin with, and he was in motion when the bullet came. So I think it'd be nice of him if he finally acknowledged his ADHD because it saved his life two months ago. One of the storylines has been that all of the debate prep that Trump did went out the window. And, you know, part of the prep involved not taking the bait from Kamala Harris on things like crowd size and his rallies and whatever the case may be.

And he seemed almost constitutionally unable. It very much agitated him. Every time she would get one of these lines in, he would start kind of talking more loudly. You started to see the sweat from his upper lip, et cetera. Does that seeming sort of throwing out the window of all of the prep that he did tell you anything relevant? Yeah, there's two angles there I'd like to comment on.

One is that he did acknowledge more prep work this time than he has for other debates. But one of the characteristics, that's one of the defining symptoms of they're bright enough, get by in school, but where's your homework? Oh, I didn't do it. You know then the other part of it is how well can he follow it. And again, people think this is all an aspect just of narcissism that he knows best. So he's not going to listen to anyone. But I think he's not that stupid that he knows that blurting things out, going ballistic about eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio, probably doesn't help him except with his base. But as you said, he is constitutionally unable to stay on track, to follow advice, to follow particularly a sequence of commands. If you have just one thing he has to keep in mind, maybe he can do that. but people with ADHD are particularly challenged by keeping a sequence

of tasks in order. And one other aspect with ADHD, we often focus on the cognitive dimension, the attention, the tracking things, but an intrinsic part of ADHD, particularly the hyperactive form of ADHD, which he displays, is emotional regulation or lack of emotional regulation. So for people with ADHD, emotions do tend to come up more strongly, more forcefully, and they have less ability to channel, redirect, control them. And we've been seeing this. I mean, one of my favorite parts of the debate back with Hillary eight years ago was when Hillary questioned his temperament. And he went ballistic. I have the best temperament of anyone. I have a wonderful temper.

I mean, there was no self-awareness and no ability to control his emotional reaction. In past debates, Trump often is extremely sniffily. Now I don't mean that he has congestion necessarily, but I mean that often in between sentence parts he'll breathe in like that and you hear it and then he will sort of continue it. It's almost integrated into his speech patterns. This debate, I didn't notice that he was angry. He exhibited other sort of behaviors, but he was not doing that sniffing. Anything about that that we should think about? I mean, there's been lots of chatter and Howard Dean way back eight years ago got sort of

dinged for commenting that maybe Trump is snorting cocaine or and there's been talk about whether Trump snorts Adderall. Now, when I talk about Trump being on stimulants at certain points that we can be clear of, I'm clear that I don't know what specific stimulant. It's a powerful one, clearly, and I don't know how he's taking it, whether he's swallowing it as he should or sniffing on it. And in fact, I sort of gave an offhand comment in one of my writings that rather than riffing on his sniffing, we should actually be supporting his snorting. Because the message is that taking the stimulant medications

makes Donald Trump a more functional, organized, less impulsive, more responsible, normal-like human being. And he knows that. That's why before important debates, that's why before important State of the Union speeches, he takes a stimulant. But again, other people commented to me. I mean, first, I got lots of texts, look at his pupils, look at his pupils, because people remember that, you know, they knew he was. And I, you know, several other people noticed as you did that he wasn't sniffing as much. Does that mean he's changed the mode of how he takes his medication? It's possible, but I put that in the level of conjecture. I just simply don't know.

When it comes to Kamala Harris, the contrast sometimes will make it harder to focus on the specific in the sense of, for example, in the June 27th debate. So much attention was on Joe Biden's struggles in that debate that the fact that Trump's performance was a disaster didn't really get that much attention by comparison. And similarly, in Tuesday's debate, compared to Trump, Kamala Harris seemed so focused, not a glimmer of sweat, sometimes smirking calmly, sometimes laughing, et cetera. If we focus in just on Harris, what did you see? I mean, I saw, again, in contrast to someone with ADHD I would say I saw someone who appeared like a normal adult

who could figure out ahead of time the general things that she wanted to say who could execute them in live time who could respond with genuine emotions to what the other person was saying or not saying. And I agree with you about the contrast between the two, because lots of people said, oh, this was Trump's worst debate, because defenders were saying that.

You know, this was an off pan, one off. But if you look back at how he performed during the debate with Biden, and about the only attention that was directed to him was the fact checkers who said almost 90% of his statements were verifiably false. He was still off track. It was just compared to Biden, he didn't notice his incoherence as much. So I don't think if you just objectively pulled out Trump's portion of the debate two months ago and this recent debate with Harris, that there's actually that much difference in terms of whether he stayed on track or whether, you know, yes, she needled him and she directed him off track numerous times skillfully.

But but his overall coherence is overall does one sentence really follow another I don't think was particularly higher. This debate with Biden. I want to bring up the topic of as you talk about appropriateness of reactions in context, knowing many people who work in the field of mental health, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, et cetera. I know that this is generally a topic which is does one's emotional reaction or behavior in general seem appropriate for the circumstances? And one of the things I did notice was that when Harris would lay the bait down,

so to speak, sometimes Trump would shake his head. Sometimes he would smile, but it was sort of like a pained smile. And it made you wonder kind of what was going through his mind. Was he thinking about how he would respond, et cetera? Can you talk a little bit about the appropriateness of Trump's apparent reactions to the things that Kamala Harris would say? I can try to address it from the sort of the bigger topic of trying to sort out what someone else is thinking or feeling and that we seldom know exactly what they're responding to. So, for example, when, you know, the example of, do world leaders think highly of Trump or not highly of Trump?

I mean, clearly from the evidence I've heard, most of them see his ADD symptoms and his narcissism and his not being able to stay on track and view him as weak and incoherent and maybe scary because of that. But I don't know how many of them have shared any of that directly with him. I don't know if he's so devoid of insight and surrounded by yes men that nobody gives him that message and he really is completely oblivious to it, which with severe ADHD, you could genuinely be oblivious or whether it's his narcissism that it's so important to him that I have to be the strongest, most important person that, that he can't even entertain the thought that he could be less than perfect.

So, so part of what's hard is you can see a reaction we can um fairly objectively know what even emotion might i mean we facial expression of surprise is different than anger but when someone gets angry that's usually because they perceive something to be unfair and they can't do anything about it we don't know what about it that made it anger is he angry because he's being exposed as a fraud? Is it anger because he knows Kamala just scored a debate point? Is it anger because... So getting at what's really deep inside of him, I'd say we're on speculative ground and we should be clear that we're speculating when we're doing that. We've been speaking with Dr. John Cruz, neuroscientist, psychiatrist and author.

Always appreciate your insights and your time. Thanks. I've enjoyed talking with you today with elections right around the corner and MAGA willing to do anything to secure his win. I can't recommend enough using ground news to stay up to date on debates and other issues that right wing outlets will try to skew or ignore. Our longtime sponsor, Ground News, adds clarity to every news story by putting together a multitude of sources in one place. And you can compare coverage and decide for yourself. Like this story, the DNC is suing

the Georgia Election Board over Republican supported rules that allow local election boards to question and withhold election certification, potentially causing chaos after Election Day. The summary of this story on Ground News is based on every article Ground News found reporting on it. And with a simple scroll, you can see how different outlets across the political spectrum are framing the story. Voter suppression is real. And in this case, the perpetrators are elected officials who can be voted out, but only if the public understands the story from every angle. And that's where ground news comes in. Go to ground dot news

slash Pacman for 40 percent off the vantage plan I use for unlimited access to all their features. That's ground dot news slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes in the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt against Donald Trump. One of the stories that's been increasingly told is that pointing out the threats posed by Trump. Incites violence against Trump. Now, this doesn't make any sense.

It's it's absolutely ridiculous. But one of the arguments we heard made by Trump's defenders after the failed assassination attempt was, you know, they tried to kill him because of these claims that Trump is a threat to democracy or that Trump is a threat to the media or that Trump is a threat to institutions. Of course, this ignored that they was one Republican. Let's put that aside just for a moment here. But this idea that not only does it incite violence against Trump to suggest this guy is a threat in a number of different ways, but also that it's not true, is very much undercut every single week by the things Donald Trump says and does.

And we have another example. Trump was so triggered and distraught by the way that Kamala Harris made him look, quite frankly, incompetent and almost like he's having a cognitive issue and can't think when he just she goes, your rallies have people leaving. He goes, they're eating dogs and cats. What? Trump was so triggered by it that he wants ABC News shut down because he lost the debate. Trump has been demanding that ABC News be shut down because of what he says was their bias during the debate. Now, I want to remind you, you can make the argument that debate moderators should or shouldn't fact check, you can make the argument that there should be some kind of screening. I don't know for who gets to moderate, but understand that the fact checking that these moderators did was with regard to only very basic things, like, for example, Trump saying he won the 2020 election

and the moderator said you didn't win. Joe Biden won. That that's called bias goes to the absurd expectation that Trump and his supporters have about how these debates should be run. But let's put that aside for a moment. Donald Trump wants ABC to have their license taken away because he doesn't like how the debate. I mean, what's your reaction to why didn't the moderators correct her? Because they're dishonest and because I think ABC took a big hit last night. I mean, to be honest, they're a news organization. They have to be licensed to do it. They ought to take away their license for the way they did that. They are. When David Muir said you didn't win the 2020 election, Trump considers that such a travesty of journalism that ABC News should be pulled off the air. When Lindsay Davis said there is currently no state that allows post birth abortion.

Trump believes that such aggressive wrongdoing that ABC News should be pulled off the air, their license taken away, and everybody who works for ABC News should lose their jobs. This is part of why he shouldn't be president. This is the contempt for the free press that we've been warning people about. Not that we needed more data to issue that warning. We saw what happened during his first term with regard to a free press. And Trump has been threatening to take other media outlets off the air. He's talked about how MSNBC, which he refers to as MSDNC, may not be allowed to have a license if he's president again. So it's not just going back to what I talked about at the top of this segment.

It's not just that pointing out, hey, this guy's contempt for institutions, a free press and democracy are a real problem. It's not just that that's not inciting violence against Trump. It's just telling you things as they are. It's that it's absolutely true. And we must talk about it. We must talk about it. Imagine if Kamala Harris said, hey, you know. I don't know that Newsmax should be allowed to be on the air. I just I just don't know. I'm not sure if I were president, I would create a team to review whether Newsmax should

be on the air. It would be 24 seven news on right wing media. Hannity would do a special emergency thing on it. Patrick Bet-David would do a so-called emergency podcast about. They would all be saying this. This is a threat and an encroachment upon a free press. And Trump regularly says ABC should lose their license because I lost the debate. MSNBC should lose their license because they whatever don't love me or whatever the case may be. If anything, we need to be talking more about the threat to a free press that Donald Trump represents. All right. So we've looked in the arc of today's show. We've looked at

reactions to the Tuesday debate from Republicans. We've looked at reaction from Democrats. We've heard from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who, after endorsing Trump, said Trump lost the debate in every way. There's just no way whatsoever that you could look at that and say that Trump won. We've seen Trump's reaction to the debate with regard to the punishment he wants to exert on ABC News, which is they should lose their license. But now what is Trump's view about the substance of the debate? Two days having gone by. Well, there's a little bit of a conflict. I want to start with some of the things that Donald Trump said on Truth Social Central. Donald Trump posting yesterday, quote, and today, people are starting to give me credit

for having a great debate. The voters and voter polls showed it. But the fake news media wasn't giving the credit that was due. Now they are seeing the results with independent voters, evangelicals and more, and saying, wow, remember, I wasn't debating one person. I was debating three. They should fire everybody at ABC fake news whose two lightweight anchors have brought disgrace onto the company. Trump continuing to post the truth social about this, where he says, quote, She lost the debate last night.

She lost it because the onus is completely on her. She's the one that one third of the American population said they don't know where she stands on things. They don't know enough about her to support her or make a decision about her. So the onus Trump, I guess, learning the word onus minutes before posting this. So the onus is entirely on her to make the case as to why people should trust her. And she failed to do it last night. Charlie Hurt, Fox News contributor. Trump is like the kid in Little League who, after days have gone by, shows up to school and says, no, we won the game. We really did because the umpire called the wrong strike. It is pathetic and childish. But. If Trump really believes that

he won, which he claims to believe, he should want to debate her again. He should want to debate her to defeat her again to give himself an even bigger advantage in November. Right. Well, apparently not. Trump saying when you win, you don't have to debate again. Huh. And we're looking at it, but, you know, when you win, you don't really necessarily have to do it a second time. So we'll see. But we had a I thought we had a great debate. Thank you very much.

What would need to change for you to agree to a second debate? Would you want different rules? Would you want a different format? Well, you know, when you when you don't win, it's like a fighter. When a fighter is a bad fight, gets knocked out or loses the fight. The first thing he says is we want a rematch. And I think that's what we're going to do. We're going to do a rematch.

We're going to do a rematch. We're going to do a rematch. We're going to do a rematch. We're going to do a rematch. We're going to do a rematch. We're going to do a rematch. We're going to do a rematch. We're going to do a rematch. We're going to do a rematch. We're going to do a rematch. when you don't win, it's like a fighter. When a fighter has a bad fight, gets knocked out, or loses the fight, the first thing he says is, we want a rematch. So we won the debate according to every poll, every single poll.

I think that, are we going to do a rematch? I just don't know. We'll think about it. Would you still do the one on NBC on September 25th? You proposed that. Are you still committed to that? I would do NBC. I'd do Fox, too. I I do Fox, too. I do Fox, too. But right now we have to determine whether or not we want to do. We had a great night last night. Now, there are reports that are characterizing what Trump just said. I would do NBC News or Fox. There are reports characterizing that as Trump agreeing to debate on September 25th. That is not at all

the impression I get from what Trump said. I think Trump is saying that in some theoretical sense, if he decides to do any more debates at all, he would theoretically agree to one on NBC or Fox if the rules are to his liking, if the moderators are to his liking. Remember, he said earlier he doesn't want Martha McCallum or Brett Baier moderating on Fox. He would want Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham or Jesse Waters moderating on Fox. So I don't hear that as Trump agreeing to a debate at all. And my prediction is I hope I'm wrong. I hope that there is another debate. My prediction and expectation is that Trump is not going to do another debate because even though he's publicly saying that he won, we have extensive reporting that people around him are actually telling him that didn't go well. People around him are panicked about the possibility of another debate. We're going

to talk about that on tomorrow's program. But when Trump says when you get knocked out in a boxing match, you immediately say, I want a rematch. Sometimes that happens. But sometimes you get knocked out and you say, my career is over. I can't do this anymore. I don't have what it takes anymore. And you retire. So even Trump's assessment on that certainly leaves a little bit to be desired. We have a fantastic bonus show for you today. We are going to talk about Elon Musk seemingly threatening Taylor Swift with forced impregnation.

This guy is out of his mind, out of his mind. Cuckoo. We were we are also going to talk about the record ratings for the presidential debate earlier this week and also about the follow up to NFL player Tyreek Hill being pulled over now demanding officers be fired. As usual, people arguing about who was in the wrong. Was everybody in the wrong? We're going to talk about the entire Tyreek Hill situation on today's bonus show. So I invite you to sign up at join Pacman dot com. You can use the coupon code Save Democracy 24 for a discount.

And also do not forget that my forthcoming book, The Echo Machine, is available for preorder at David Pakman dot com slash echo on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop dot org, Audible, Apple Music Books, podcasts, et cetera. Anywhere that e-books, audio books and physical books are sold. Forthcoming update on the number of preorders. I will see you on the bonus show and I'll be back here tomorrow.