The David Pakman Show - 9/27/23: Judge orders Trump's business dissolved for fraud, Biden joins picket line

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

-- On the Show: -- President Joe Biden joins striking UAW workers on the picket line and delivers encouraging remarks to them -- California doubles taxes on guns and ammunition to pay for school security -- A judge rules that Donald Trump committed fraud in his business dealings and orders the dissolution of the Trump Organization -- Failed former President Donald Trump absolutely loses his mind over a judge's ruling that his business has to close -- Liberal Fox News host Jessica Tarlov brings up Donald Trump's cognitive glitches from the last two weeks and her right-wing co-hosts are not happy -- 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign is collapsing as he has now fallen behind Nikki Haley in recent polling -- Fox News slashes ad prices for tonight's second Republican presidential debate as advertisers and viewers both seem increasingly uninterested -- Donald Trump melts down, slamming Fox News as the friendship crumbles -- Voicemail caller says David is deaf, dumb and blind, and that it is "obvious" that President Joe Biden "sold us out" to China -- On the Bonus Show: Hunter Biden sues Rudy Giuliani, FTC and 17 states sue Amazon on antitrust charges, Kevin McCarthy wanted Bob Menendez to resign until he was confronted with George Santos, much more... 🔊 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription at https://babbel.com/pakman 💸 Qube Money: Try it for 2 months totally FREE at https://davidpakman.com/money 😁 Zippix Toothpicks: Code PAKMAN10 saves you 10% at https://zippixtoothpicks.com 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code PAKMAN for FREE blades at https://hensonshaving.com/pakman ✉️ StartMail: Get 50% OFF a year subscription at https://startmail.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDPSeptember 20, 2023

. President Joe Biden yesterday became the first sitting president in history, as far as anybody's been able to dig up to join striking workers on a picket line, certainly at least from an optics perspective, one of the most pro labor actions of any sitting president. We'll discuss the record in a moment. Obviously, we can talk about words and we can talk about actions. We can talk about optics versus legislation.

And we will. But a very interesting moment, of course, in contrast with Donald Trump not being welcomed by the U.A.W. workers because Trump is not actually pro union. Trump will still go to Michigan today. Listen to this. Trump's going to Michigan to try to associate himself with the union fight by visiting a non union shop. It's completely bonkers.

Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs stuff. But Joe Biden showing up and telling the workers, you guys save the automobile industry. The matter is that you guys, you a WC saved the automobile industry back in 2008 and before. Made a lot of sacrifices. Gave up a lot. And the companies were in trouble. But now they're doing incredibly well. And guess what?

You should be doing incredibly well too. Wall Street didn't build the country. The middle class built the country. You didn't build the middle class. That's a fact. So let's keep going saying you deserve what you earn and you deserve more. This is a decidedly I'm on the side of the workers move by Joe Biden and the contrast with someone like Trump hanging out at gold plated Mar-a-Lago with people who can afford to spend 10 grand to sit at Trump's table or even at the next table over.

The contrast really could not be more stark. The president of the U.A.W. United Auto Workers, Sean Fain, also, as far as he knows, a historic moment with Biden being the first sitting president ever to do what Biden did yesterday, joining strikers on the picket line. Oh, no. And this clip is glitching. We've had trouble with this clip all day. It's just I think Antifa might be running the clips. Let's see. The first time in our country's history that a sitting U.S. president has came out, stood on the picket line. And more from Joe Biden about the importance of labor and workers and the idea that despite the fact that

the workers often don't get the credit, it's the workers who actually built the country through their work. Here is Joe Biden once again. And let's get back to winning solidarity for all of our members and economic and social justice for all of our members. Let me say many times, Wall Street didn't build the country. The middle class built the country. Millions built the middle class. That's a fact. So let's keep going. You deserve what you've earned and you've earned a hell of a lot more than you get paid now. All right. So this is not nothing.

It's notable, but it is not policy. That's a fair criticism. One can look at this and say, all right, well, no sitting president has ever done this before. And Joe Biden did. And that's very nice. And Joe Biden is praising the workers and saying we built the country on your labor and saying you've earned what you've been paid and you deserve to be paid even more. That's fine. But this is not actually policy. That's fair. What has Joe Biden actually done when it comes to policy to support labor? Well, first of all, we shouldn't diminish the platform that a president has. So the idea that words are nothing when you're the president, we have to get away from that.

When Trump used his words to attack workers, it was something even if it wasn't policy. And when Joe Biden uses his words and the bully pulpit to support workers, that's also something. So using the platform to advocate for labor rights and encouraging state and local governments and private companies to adopt pro labor practices coming down on the side of striking workers, that is actually not nothing when a president does it. But look at some of the policy from the Biden administration. None of it's perfect, but the bipartisan infrastructure law expected to create hundreds of thousands of what are often known as blue collar jobs. That's a big deal. The Inflation Reduction Act and what

it does to foment and create renewable energy jobs, which, quite frankly, if we look 10 to 12 years down the line, are going to be even more widespread than they are today, probably better paid and arguably will better prepare workers for jobs in other industries going forward. That's a really big deal. Executive order requiring federal contractors to pay at least 15 bucks an hour. Unfortunately, this week that's now being held up that it may get taken out by by courts, unfortunately. But Joe Biden tried it. He did put that executive order in place, appointing pro-labor officials to key positions. A great example is a former Boston mayor, Marty Walsh, a secretary of labor. Biden supported the protecting

the right to organize act, also known as the pro act, which was passed by the House in 2022, 2021, ultimately stalled in the Senate. The pro act would strengthen labor laws, make it easier for workers to form unions and bargain collectively. This is real stuff. There's a White House task force on worker organizing and empowerment, which is working on how can we encourage while also protecting workers from blowback if they try to organize or bargain collectively. So I don't know that I'm yet ready to say Biden is the most pro-labor president, at least in the modern political era. I don't know that I'm ready to say that to you today with peace and love, but it's certainly getting very close and it's getting more and more difficult

to find a more pro-labor president than Joe Biden. Is it enough? It's never enough. Could he do more? You can always do more by the standards and expectations set over the recent 40, 50 years. Is this pretty good? Pretty pretty, pretty good overall. Yeah, it's pretty good. And Joe Biden showing up the picket line is the latest. And you really do love to see it. California has doubled taxes on guns and ammunition to pay for school security.

I don't know if people are expecting what I'm going to say to you today, but I am not that big on this being the way in which we try to curb gun violence, limit access to dangerous guns for dangerous people, etc. We'll talk about what was done in California. I'll tell you sort of like the good and the bad. The Guardian reports California doubles taxes on guns and ammunition to pay for school security. Gavin Newsom, the governor, signed a law that adds an 11 percent state fee to the existing federal taxes for arms sales. The federal government already taxes guns and ammo at either 10 or

11 percent, depending on the type of gun. What Newsom is doing is adding another 11 percent at the state level. This makes California the only state with its own tax on guns and ammunition, according to the gun control advocacy advocacy group, Brady. OK, so let's talk a little bit about this. First of all, it is terrible and depressing and dystopian that we need so much money to keep schools safe. The idea here of, well, schools are a place where kids are in danger. So let's put an 11 percent tax on guns and ammo in order to make schools safer. The fact that we need to do so much to keep students safe is extraordinarily depressing. It's not today's conversation, but it's a reality that should not be ignored. Now, let's talk about some of the

counterpoints to doing this counterpoint. Number one that I've seen floating around is this is a plain old money grab. It's politicians saying, hey, here's a way we can get some more money and do it in a way that's politically advantageous. All right. I'm not super compelled by that. I mean, it you could say it's a money grab to do something specific, useful and which just about everybody, I think, agrees with, which is keeping students in school safe. They may disagree about how to do it. Is it reducing access to guns or is it locking the doors? As Ted Cruz said, well, we may disagree about how to do it, but I think everybody agrees that keeping kids in school safe is valuable. So money

grab to do something we all think should be done. Another counterpoint is this is something that will disproportionately affect low income people because it is the low income folks who will be less able to afford guns and ammo with an additional 11 percent tax. The wealthy, the elites, whatever, they'll just keep buying the guns and ammo and pay another 11 percent. It's not going to affect them. I think that that is absolutely the case. And that is often the case when you look at this sort of legislation. The big soda tax from Bloomberg in New York City. Well, now the poor people will just spend more per ounce by buying two medium sodas instead of what it'll disproportionately

hit them. Not shocking. That is often the case. Another counterpoint is this is going to be appealed and ruled unconstitutional. And that's quite possible. I, I would not at all be surprised. You know, we we've seen when Joe Biden, one of the iterations of Joe Biden's student loan debt relief, Pat and I both saw it. And based on what legal experts were also saying at the time, we said, I don't know that this is actually going to stand up. And it didn't. And likewise, there are legal experts saying it's not really clear that this is going to stand up. And this gets me to the real issue. Does this disproportionately affect the poor, low, middle income people much more than it affects wealthy people who just are going to keep doing

the exact same thing because the 11 percent doesn't affect them? Of course it does. That's true. Is this also potentially going to be ruled unconstitutional, struck down? Yes, that is certainly possible. And so my view in general on this is whatever you believe about gun ownership, constitutionality, whether you should be allowed to have semiautomatic automatic weapons, shoulder mounted RPGs, grenades, Apache helicopters, tactical field nukes, whatever your opinion is about what people should be allowed to have. I don't fundamentally believe that the way to control access to these firearms is through

the artificial barrier of attacks to make something artificially more expensive. If people can own guns, your right to do so shouldn't be primarily dictated by the amount of tax that's placed on it. Now, I know that we can look at cigarettes and say, hey, you know, with cigarettes, you raise the taxes more and more and more. It just gets unaffordable. And at a certain point, people are going to stop smoking. And I don't deny that whatsoever. The gun conversation is a little bit different, in part because of the Second Amendment argument. My preference would be if it's going to be tax based, make it based on a percentage of

your income. The problem is, how do we define income? Is it just wages? Because the very wealthy don't earn money through wages. They earn money through dividends. So is it then adjusted gross income? Well, based on which year and it's sort of a minefield, but at least if you want to go the tax route, it would be worth exploring.

It's a percentage of income versus just an 11 percent. But I believe there are far better options, including options that governors can take unilaterally, maybe with less legal controversy and risk, whether it's background checks, waiting periods requiring liability insurance. OK, I am worried that this is the wrong approach because it does disproportionately hit the poor. And at the end of the day, you're not really dealing with what is and should be legal. Should it be legal to have bump stocks or certain types of weapons? Should people under age 25 or 21 have all the same access to weapons that a 35 year

old has? Those are really the most material and germane questions to the debate and saying, let's just dissuade the poorest people by putting an 11 percent tax on. Not only may it not stand up to legal scrutiny and we will see, I don't think it's the right philosophy. Is this an OK idea in the interim? I don't know. I don't know. It's not super exciting to me, but at least he's doing something. Most most states are doing absolutely nothing. Let me know your thoughts. Let me know what you think. Do you think this is the right approach, the wrong approach? Will it stand up legally? We will certainly have an opportunity to do a

follow up. We're going to take a very quick break. We will talk after the break of the directive from a judge that Trump's business be dissolved for fraud, as we often hear it called. It's an incredible story. Trump's wildly triggered by it. And we'll discuss it in just a moment. One of our sponsors today is Cube. Cube is a budgeting and banking app combined.

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But if you want to chop the price in half, not means tested, anybody can do it. Even if Howard Stern wanted a membership, he could use David Pakman membership costs six bucks a month. Yeah, well, you can make it three bucks a month with the coupon code for years for indictments. All one word, no spaces. And it's the number four, not spelled out, but the number four, four years for indictments at join pacman.com. A judge has ruled that Trump committed fraud and has ordered Trump's business dissolved like ethereal steam disappearing into the atmosphere. I don't know.

This is extraordinarily incredible stuff and it just continues to go wrong. The Associated Press reports Judge rules Donald Trump defrauded banks and insurers while building his real estate empire. What a surprise. What just it's so shocking that Trump would do this. A judge ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump committed fraud for years while building the real estate empire that catapulted him to fame and the White House. And he ordered some of the former president's companies removed from his control and dissolved. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy, huh? Judge Arthur Anger on ruling in a civil suit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia

James found that Trump and his company deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing loans. Anger on ordered that some of Trump's business licenses be rescinded as punishment, making it difficult or impossible for them to do business in New York, and said he would have an independent monitor oversee Trump organization operations. If not successfully appealed, this would strip Trump of his authority to make strategic and financial decisions over some of his own properties in New York.

Trump is having his own biz decision making ability taken away for his own companies. Isn't this just an absolute pleasure? Further reporting from The Daily Beast, Trump basically just lost the New York bank fraud case before it even started. Former President Trump had talked. Top executives and heirs were declared completely liable of persistent and repeated fraud. And the real estate empire was unceremoniously stripped of its business licenses in New York after a judge's powerful ruling Tuesday ahead of a massive trial that seeks to hit them with

more than 250 million dollars in penalties for bank fraud. A delightful little detail from this. It always seems to go wrong for lawyers who represent Trump or his businesses. The judge also ordered seventy five hundred dollars per lawyer sanctions on Trump's lawyers because they made frivolous arguments in court filings. We've been saying that for Trump's criminal trials, if his lawyers try to make the arguments that they're making in public, that Trump is making in public, I had every right because it's under the Presidential Records Act. That's not true. If they try to make that legal argument in court, it's not going to go well at all.

They're indicting me because of speech violating my First Amendment rights. No, it's in the first page of the indictments. You can say whatever you want. You can even lie about winning. But you engaged in an actual criminal conspiracy, allegedly criminal conspiracy to disenfranchise voters. That's why you're being indicted. We are going to see very quickly.

Whether other lawyers will also be sanctioned for making the bogus legal arguments in court that they've been making in public. Now let's talk about what else is going to happen here. Trump may now be sued by every single bank and insurance company that he ever presented with the inflated or incorrect data or numbers for which he was found to have acted fraudulently. Every place that he used the financial documents that were deemed fraudulent in this case by the judge yesterday are now going to come back to haunt him as every single one of those creditors and potential creditors is going to be out for blood.

This may even get to an issue with the IRS. Now let me remind you what the sort of scam is that Trump was was perpetrating here. On the one hand, if Trump needed loans or if he needed credit, he would say, look at these buildings, they're worth billions. I think he actually said Mar-a-Lago was worth one point five billion. More reasonable estimate is 300 million. So if he wants to use his properties as collateral, he says they're worth so much money. On the other hand, if he wants to minimize real estate taxes when it comes to local authorities, he says, oh, look at this terrible building.

My bathroom is stacked to the ceiling with with boxes and we flooded the surveillance room and all these different this thing's not worth anything. It's worth a little bit. So then you don't tax me quite as much. This is the gist of the scam. And I was thinking yesterday, you know, all of these allegations about the Biden crime family, the Biden bribery family, all of this stuff. A judge just ruled that Trump's family committed massive corporate fraud.

Number one. Number two, Trump's charity, the Trump Foundation, was found to be also engaged. I don't even remember what it was using the money as a personal slush funds. I don't even remember. Order dissolved as well. And so for all of the allegations of a Biden crime family, it's the Trump family whose charitable and business practices continue to end up being fraudulent or in any or in a number of other ways inappropriate.

Now there are also a couple of other stories here that I think are important to mention. Now that we're getting a lot of the information that this case is based on being released. It turns out that when Trump was asked about the overvaluation of his properties on 2014 financial statements, Trump said in the deposition, it's not illegal because I can certainly find a buyer from Saudi Arabia to pay any price. I suggest that sort of statement should open up the door to a money laundering investigation because I don't think Trump is randomly mentioning that he could get a Saudi buyer to pay him whatever he wants for one of these buildings or properties or condos or whatever the case may be.

This is the sort of thing that Trump does. He stumbles into more problems. And so when I see Trump mentioning it, it's probably worth that because I could get a Saudi buyer to pay it. If I'm an investigator or a prosecutor, I say to myself, that's an area we really need to be focusing now to believe Trump is innocent of everything that's going on here. He's not a civilly liable rapist. That was just nonsense and his business didn't commit any fraud.

This was nonsense. And also all the evidence against Trump in four different criminal trials and four different jurisdictions. It's all fabricated. You would have to quite literally believe that every prosecutor, judge, grand jury member and witness in everything is somehow part of the most incredible conspiracy we've ever heard of. OK, you'd have to believe

that to think that Trump's just getting railroaded or we apply a sort of colloquial version of Occam's razor. What's the simplest explanation requiring the fewest assumptions? And it's maybe Trump has a pattern of doing things you're not supposed to do. And that's why this is all happening. I don't know. You tell me which you think it's most likely to be. Trump, by the way, losing his mind over what happened yesterday. Let's talk about that next. Donald Trump took to truth social central with tirade after unhinged tirade after a judge deemed that Trump and his family and his business committed fraud and ordered the business dissolved with regard to existing in the state of New York. Let's start with two troughs in a row from Trump, which were republished after the decision

yesterday from the judge, Donald Trump, saying, quote, I have been unfairly sued by the Trump hating Democrat attorney general of New York State, Letitia James, over the false fact that I inflated my financial statements in order to borrow money from banks, etc. and Garan refused to allow this case to go to the commercial division where it belongs because he's a Trump hater beyond even A.G. James, who campaigned against me spewing horrible inflammatory statements which are false and defamatory. I am not even allowed a jury. By the way, there's random capitalization throughout this entire thing, but I'm not even going to bring that up because it's just there's just too much here. The fact of this case are simple. And then Trump turns on caps lock.

Number one, I am worth much more than the numbers shown on my month on my financial statements. That's almost certainly a lie, too. I didn't even include my most valuable asset, my brand. I don't know that you can get a loan using your brand as collateral. Number three, the banks were paid back in full, sometimes early. There were no defaults. The banks made money, were represented by the best law firms and were very happy there

were no victims for on the front page of the financial statements. There is a strong disclaimer clause telling all not to rely on these financial statements. The disclaimer clause tells anyone reviewing the data, including financial institutions, to do their own research and analysis. It is a non reliance clause and could not have been more clear. Additionally, to my being worth far more than is shown in the fully disclaimed financial statements, again, not putting down a value for my biggest asset brand. The company has hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and very little debt to great company,

blah, blah, blah. This is not America. That was just Trump republishing what he said before this decision by the judge. Then Trump puts out maybe the biggest paragraph I've ever seen. This is going to make Tolstoy blush. This paragraph is so bonkers long. Okay. Trump puts out a statement. The widespread radical attack against me, my family and my supporters has now devolved into new un-American depths at the hands of a deranged New York state judge doing the bidding of a completely biased and corrupt prosecutor, Letitia James, who ran for office based on a get Trump platform before even knowing anything about me. That's one sentence and it contains attacks against everybody. Everybody else is doing everything wrong. I did everything right

and they indicted me. Right. Today's action is a refutation of my status as the leading candidate for president of the United States, including with a substantial lead over Joe Biden. It's all because Trump's winning, right? It is a terrible reminder that the radical left Democrats will stop at nothing and trying to prevent me and the American people from winning the 2024 presidential election. Regardless of party, we cannot let this happen in the United States of America. As my lead in the polls over Joe Biden continues to skyrocket, these corrupt and highly political prosecutors and judges are getting more and more desperate and dangerous. Remember, there is no evidence that any of these actors are acting in a politically motivated manner.

There just has been no evidence presented of that. Trump continues. We are rapidly becoming a communist country. Really? The government is taking over ownership of all of the businesses. I didn't know that. And my civil rights have been taken away from me. They have not.

The New York state attorney general went before a highly politicized Democrat judge who refused allowing the case to go to the commercial division where it belonged to simply rule, despite all the evidence to the contrary that I committed fraud, which is both ridiculous and untrue. All right. We don't even need to read the rest of it. It's just complete and total nonsense. Let me. Oh, but there is one thing here I think that I do want to mention, which is the last line of Trump's statement is if they can do this to me, they can do this to you. That's a really interesting line because it's true. If I lie about the value of my properties to get loans and then lie in the opposite direction to pay less in property tax, they are going to do this to me as well. It's

true. If I were to do what Trump did, they would almost certainly go after me as well for the exact same things Trump is getting prosecuted or sued for in these particular cases. And I would deserve it if I did what Donald Trump did. So not having a good one. Trump skipping the Republican debate tonight, which we will discuss more of more about after this very short break. I've had such trouble finding a great razor where I am not cutting myself for getting very short break. manufactures parts for the International Space Station and the Mars rover, and they are bringing

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need to buy it once. And it's awesome. Go to Henson shaving dot com slash Pacman. Add a razor and a hundred pack of blades to your cart. Then enter the code Pacman to get the hundred blades for free. That is a three year supply. That's H E N S O N shaving dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Fox News is the five brings up Trump's cognitive decline and the other hosts are paralyzed. You'll see them not even moving an inch as they want to blend into the background.

This is so great. We've talked before about Jessica Tarlov. She is really good at this sort of thing. She's one of the co-hosts on Fox News is the five. And she brought up examples because they're just obsessed with Joe Biden. Joe Biden, senile Joe Biden's demented. He's also the greatest criminal conspirator in history. And he does that while being completely demented and unaware of how to even tie his shoes.

OK, so Jessica Tarloff brings up examples of Trump's cognitive impairment from just the last 10 days. This doesn't even go into last month or two months ago or last year or the year before. These are just examples from the last 10 days. This doesn't even go into last month or two months ago or last year or the year before. These are just examples from the last 10 days. And if you're only listening, the other hosts are simply not even moving. They're not moving a muscle. As she explained this, listen to this based on what other world leaders and people in other countries think of America.

But you said, OK, you don't need to watch him. Let's just hear what comes out of his mouth. And I put together some of Trump's latest cognitive beauties from the last 10 days. He said you need an I.D. to buy bread. Has anyone shown I.D. to get Wonder Bread lately? He said that he ran against Obama in 2016. He ran against Hillary Clinton. He warned that Biden will get us into World War II, which I'm pretty sure we already fought and won. And yesterday, he confused Jeb Bush and George W. Bush and said that Jeb got us involved in the Middle East. And then, of course, there are his authoritarian posts on Truth Social calling for the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be executed,

saying that he's going to investigate media companies that he doesn't like. And can you imagine if Biden said, you know what, I'm going to look into that Fox News this day. Don't seem to like me over there. This may be the choice that people have. Yeah, she's, of course, completely correct. This is just the last 10 days. Here is Donald Trump insisting again, even though he said this so many times and we know it's not true.

You need I.D. to buy bread. I saw on television one of these characters. There shouldn't be voter I.D. You have voter I.D. to buy a loaf of bread. You have you have I.D. to buy a loaf of bread. You have everything. You have pictures when they you have pictures. Even what does he mean by you have pictures? I don't know. But that's true. Trump said you need ID to buy bread. Here's Trump suggesting he defeated Barack Obama. This was a bizarre moment from a speech in Washington, D.C. just a couple of weeks ago. Trump saying he defeated Obama and Clinton to which year was that? Crooked Joe Biden and the radical left have weaponized law enforcement to arrest their leading political opponent, leading

by a lot, including Obama. I'll tell you what, you take a look at Obama and take a look at some of the things that he's done. This is the same thing. The country is very divided. And we did with Obama. We won an election that everyone said couldn't be won. We beat Hillary Clinton.

You know, I used to. There you go. He beat Obama in an election that they said couldn't be won. And then he also beat Hillary Clinton. I don't remember that at all. Maybe my memory is the one that's failing. Here's Trump saying Biden's going to get us into World War Two. Listen, Biden's not that old and possible nuclear war. Just think of it. We would be in World War Two very quickly.

Super quickly before you know it, if you don't elect me, Biden's going to stick us into World War Two and it's going to get really, really ugly. And then, yes, Donald Trump also said that Jeb Bush is the one who got us involved in the Middle East, meaning invaded Iraq. That's what Trump is talking about. Or the season starts. We start in Iowa. We go to New Hampshire. We come down here.

You know, the beauty was when I came here, everyone thought Bush was going to win. And then they took a poll and they found out Trump was up by about 50 points. Everyone said, what's going on right here? They thought Bush because Bush supposedly was a military person. Great. You know what? He was a Miller. He got us into the he got us into the Middle East. How did that work out? Right. Right. But they all thought that Bush might win Jeb. Remember Jeb? He used he used the word Jeb. He didn't use the word Bush. I said, you mean he's ashamed of the last name? And then

they immediately started using the name Bush. If Joe Biden said these things, it would be a week of coverage for each one on Fox News and on right wing media. And Trump does it every few days. And we're supposed to pretend everything is normal and he has an idea what's going on. It is wild stuff. And Jessica Tarlow doing a good job. I mean, she's up against that's a hostile environment there on the five on Fox News. And she is genuinely good at this. I as I've said before, I don't know her broader politics. I don't know if she's a progressive or a standard center left Democrat, or I don't know a thing

about her other than she's really good in these situations. And you can see the palpable discomfort on the faces of her co-hosts. We're not supposed to be talking about Trump's cognitive issues. We're not supposed to be talking about the fact that Trump is referencing events from 70 years ago as potentially being in the future. If Biden did that, it would be off the wall. And that's what's going on with Trump. Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign is collapsing. He has now fallen behind Nikki Haley. Vivek is no longer in third place in an average of recent polls, and it really couldn't happen to a nicer guy. I don't know if I mean that.

As we talked about over the last week or two, Vivek Ramaswamy is incredible collapse happening before our very eyes. It turns out that he got birthright citizenship that he opposes being legal. It turns out that he got a minority or identity based scholarship from the Soros family, the type of scholarship he opposes. It turns out that he Vivek Ramaswamy's company used the H1B visa that he opposes 29 times to hire people from other countries. So it's an insane level of hypocrisy that basically comes down to if it's convenient for me, then it's fine. And if it's not, then it's bad. And now the polling has really taken a turn for the worst for Vivek Ramaswamy. Let's take a look at it. Vivek Ramaswamy now polling an average of five point one.

Now, you might maybe you're not remembering exactly where these numbers were not long ago. Vivek Ramaswamy actually got to almost eight, eight point one. He actually surpassed eight. He has has now lost about 35 percent of the support he once had and has fallen behind Nikki Haley. Haley is interesting because there are some Republicans, I would concede that they are the slightly less crazy Republicans who believe that it is Nikki Haley, not Ron DeSantis, not Vivek Ramaswamy or anyone else. There are some Republicans who believe it is Nikki Haley who has the best shot not only at defeating Trump, but at defeating Joe Biden in a general election. I don't know that they're wrong.

They actually may be right about that. But Nikki Haley is now in third place. And if Ron DeSantis is decline continues, he may fall behind Nikki Haley before too too long. Few other little things to notice. Trump peaking at fifty nine. He's now down to fifty six, but still doing better than ever. Overall, DeSantis bottomed out at twelve point four. He's gained a couple of points back up to forty fourteen point four, but really in this same range where they've both been since about the middle to late August.

But the real change here is a notable decline for Vivek Ramaswamy and a notable climb for Nikki Haley now in third place. Now let's ask a historical question. It is September 27th of the year before the election. If we go back in history and say what was going on in primaries on September 27th of 2015 of 2007 of other years, how often does the primary polling on September 27th tell you who ultimately becomes the nominee? It's a great question because it's a fact based question. Well, if we look at September 27th of 2015, Trump was winning the primary and he ultimately became the nominee. So for the 2016 election on this day, the polling did tell us

who would ultimately win in September 2011 in the Republican primary, Rick Perry was a front runner in many polls, admittedly with a smaller lead than he once had. But it was Mitt Romney who ultimately became the nominee in the 2012 primary. So in 2012, the polling on this day did not tell us who would ultimately be the nominee. We go back to 2008 in September of 07. Rudy Giuliani was leading the Republican primary polling. But as we know, ultimately, it was the late Senator John McCain who became the nominee. So that's two out of three were on the Republican side. September 27th, the polling did not indicate who would eventually be the nominee. Looking at the

Democratic side, if we look at September 27th of 2007, Hillary Clinton was leading and ultimately Barack Obama became the nominee. So the Democratic polling September 27th for the 08 election did not predict. And then we go back to the 92 election where Bill Clinton was ultimately the Democratic nominee in September of 91. Bill Clinton was not leading the polling. So two important takeaways. Number one, polling on September 27th of the year before the election often does not correctly predict who is ultimately the nominee.

The difference is Trump's lead is so massive right now and he's a former president and the electorate does not seem very interested in really coalescing around anybody else. I don't see anything right now that is likely to deny Donald Trump the nomination. After the break, we will talk about the lack of interest in the Republican presidential debates, the second of which is tonight. But that's another factor. The fact that the debates are not getting strong ratings further suggests there is very little appetite here in anything other than crowning Trump as the Republican nominee from the Republican Party.

Big picture. So we're going to jump into what's going on with tonight's debate after the break. I'll be streaming it. And remember that you should be considering, OK, considering subscribing for free to the YouTube channel. We have surpassed one point nine million subscribers. We are approaching two million subscribers, a number reached by only two other left wing YouTube shows, The Young Turks and Brian Tyler Cohen. We want to be number three. Three is not bad, right? Right. OK, we'll take a quick break and be back with much more after this.

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The link is in the podcast notes. Fox News is slashing ad prices for tonight's second presidential debate. It's a fire sale. If you're looking to advertise tonight, I'll give you the pricing in a moment. This is actually as much of a political story as it is a media story, and I will explain why in a moment. Semaphore reporting Fox slashes ad prices for second debate as primary turns into snoozer. The article explains advertisers paid a premium for airtime during the first presidential debate on Fox News. But it looks like they'll be getting a major discount for round two tonight.

Some of four reviewed the rates the network shared with a prospective ad buyer for both the first and second Republican primary debates. For the first debate, the cost of a single 30 second spot topped four hundred and ninety five thousand dollars. But the same 30 second spot during tonight's debate would cost just over two hundred thousand dollars. That is a dramatic decline in prices. Another ad buyer did not share the rates for ads during the first debate, but confirmed Fox was charging 225,000 for ads during the broadcast immediately after the event and $125,000 for 30 seconds spots during the broadcast before it. Uh, the max says max from semaphore says the drop in debate ad rates reflects the drop off in drama during the primary.

There was incentive for advertisers to buy ads for the first one, which drove record prices. Reports some historical prices. It was the first time audiences would see many of the candidates. And until days before, Trump was still publicly toying with the idea of showing up as non Trump Republican candidates fail toying with the idea of showing up as non Trump Republican candidates fail to gain traction. There's less incentive for advertisers to pay those same record rates sans Trump.

These debates just aren't big time TV because the GOP primary race has become a snoozer. One ad buyer told semaphore. So let's discuss this. Is this as simple as no Trump, no care? Well, it's possible. Or is it more like the polling is so lopsided that the guy who is obviously winning won't even be there? So why does this even matter? And who is even going to watch? And the answer is it's sort of a bunch of these things together. If we look at the polling, again, we just looked at this before the commercial break. Trump is just dominating Republican polling. He is now leading by an average of 42 points

ahead of Ron DeSantis, who can't even get his campaign going. Nikki Haley has now surpassed Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy has lost about 35 percent of his support. So this is an insanely lopsided primary. But there's also a political interpretation here. Yes. So the debate will be boring because Trump won't be there or I don't really care about these other candidates. So I'm not going to watch or I already know who I'm voting for.

Maybe so I'm not going to watch all of those things or possibilities. But there's another aspect to this. There isn't an appetite among enough of the Republican Party to seriously consider going in a different direction than Trump. That what does it matter what happens at the debate? Why? What difference does it make? Fifty eight, nearly 60 percent of the Republican electorate seems to steadily be committed

to Donald Trump at this point. You know, we're past Labor Day, which is one sort of milestone that some political folks like political forecasters like Rachel Biddecoff or say until Labor Day, the polling really means nothing. Well, since Labor Day, Trump's lead has only grown. So now it's starting to mean something. Well, you've got to get into November, December for the polling to really mean something.

That's fine. But what you have to understand mathematically is the closer we get to the first votes being cast, which I actually don't remember when that is. First 2024 Republican primary votes. What is the date of that? It looks like the first one is going to be. Well, it's harder to find this information than you might imagine. When is the first one is going to be, well, it's harder to find this information than you might imagine.

When is the first one? It must be January, right? Iowa caucus, January 15th and the New Hampshire primary, I guess some at some point in January in order for this to go a different direction. The number of points per day that Trump needs to lose grows. If Trump's winning by 40 and there's 80 days till the first vote, that means someone needs to close on Trump by one point every two days. That's already a lot.

Once we get to 40 days out, if Trump's winning by 40, now someone needs to close in on Trump by one point a day. So with every passing day that Trump's lead doesn't shrink or in fact, it's actually growing, it becomes mathematically less and less likely that something different is going to happen. Now, what's the counterpoint to this? The counterpoint is I'm looking at it to sort of linearly. And what can happen is that in just one early primary, maybe it's New Hampshire, maybe it's Nevada. I don't know. Trump doesn't do as well as expected and that there's a momentum shift overnight that isn't reflected in my sort of linear analysis of the polling.

Yes, of course, that can happen, but it becomes less and less likely as we see very few signs of life from a Republican electorate that seems to already be checking out of the debates, either because they've made up their mind or they don't plan to vote or they don't care or they're supporting Donald Trump and Trump's not going to be there. So something could change with every passing day. It becomes less and less likely. The other backstory to what's going on with Trump and these Fox debates, which, by the way, I will cover live tonight to the extent that Fox News doesn't shut me down, is Trump increasingly

attacking Fox News as an entity. Let's talk about that next. Trump used to like Fox News to the extent that Fox News treated Trump the way he wanted to be treated. Trump now feels that Fox News is disloyal, that they want someone else rather than Trump to be the nominee, that they're not praising Trump enough, whatever. And he is now increasingly furious with Fox sending out a three troth screed yesterday. Central, right, where he attacks all sorts of things on Fox News. Let's take a look at this latest shot across the bow against right wing media from Trump. Quote, Did Stuart Varney of Fox Business, who's hosting the upcoming job application? That's the way Trump refers to the debate, a job application. Did Stewart ever apologize for probably purposely mixing up my poll numbers with

Ron DeSanctimonious, making it look like he was winning when in fact he is being crushed? Varney took a lot of heat, but I still haven't heard the word sorry. Maga knew anyway they didn't have to look at a fake Fox post. Trump continuing to weaponize his anger against Fox News, saying, quote, I watched Fox and Friends this morning and it is totally unrecognizable. All they do is gush over job seeking candidates that are 50 points plus down to your favorite president or speak endlessly about people that will never run and without cheating could never win. And whatever happened to Steve? No wonder their ratings are way down. MAGA and then Trump with a coda to this three truth screed against Fox saying, quote, Fox News was our voice. But sadly, that voice has developed a serious case of laryngitis. So here's the bottom line.

Here's what's going on in right wing media right now. If you aren't unflinchingly, unanimously, belligerently pro Trump 24 seven about everything all the time. The man can do no wrong in your eyes unless that's your perspective on Trump over the airwaves. You are disloyal and you are a traitor and you're not worthy and you're supporting losers like the Sanctus. OK, and that's the way it is for much of Maga and certainly for Trump at this point in time. This isn't unique when it comes to media, when it comes to people. If you as Kayleigh McEnany, Trump's former press secretary, she has made some, I don't even want to call them anti-Trump statements.

She's a pined that Trump made some mistakes. She opined that when Trump what was it? Trump did something. I don't remember what it was before. After one of the arrests, she said, I think this is bad strategy. It's not even I don't like Trump. It's I think this is bad strategy. And Trump turned on her. So with Trump, any departure from a cult like adulation is disloyalty. And you're on his mean list or whatever the case may be. One thing you can count on from Trump is that he will always end up throwing people that were loyal to him under the bus as soon as they express even maybe like, oh, Trump might be approaching this the wrong way. Now, along these same lines, Trump is going to skip the second Republican debate tonight. This

one is on Fox Business. The first one was on Fox News. I will still cover it. And what I'm looking for in tonight's debate is, number one, what is the relationship of the other candidates to Nikki Haley? Not because Nikki Haley's polling has surged so much. It's gone up, but it's modest. She's still polling only about six percent. But she is being discussed by Republican elites, for lack of a better term, as the one candidate that really could take down Trump. Is this going to place her as is this going to place a bullseye on Nikki Haley for the other people on the stage? Secondly, what do other people on the stage tonight do in terms of how they relate to Vivek Ramaswamy?

Vivek Ramaswamy came out firing in the first debate. Since then, his unfavorables have gone way up. People find him annoying in many polls. That's the number one term applied to Vivek Ramaswamy. His polling is down about 35 percent. So I'm curious, are the other candidates tonight, rather than engaging with Vivek Ramaswamy, are they going to mostly ignore Vivek Ramaswamy and treat him sort of like as an annoyance, treat him like that annoying fly that landed on Pence back in 2020, 2016? I don't remember what what it was rather than giving the vague the attention that he wants. And in addition to that, does Ron DeSantis come up with any way to seem like anything other than the most uncharismatic man, certainly on that stage, if not in American politics today?

Is there anything he can do? Remember, personnel personality transplants still aren't a thing, as Donald Trump said a few weeks ago. So can Ron DeSantis do anything to stop the complete and total hemorrhage of his polling support? I will be live starting at 8 p.m. Eastern debates at 9 YouTube, Twitch and Facebook. Join me because otherwise it'll just be me with a microphone watching the debate and that'll be really bad and humiliating.

OK, so join me tonight. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. Here's a guy who doesn't like me. That's the way I will introduce this. Mr. Pacman. Yes, obviously you have been living under a rock. Your guess dumb and blind. OK. And you're totally biased to claim there's not a shred of evidence against Joe Biden. Oh, well, I'm sure then you'll present the evidence, right? For improper use of his influence. He is treasonous.

He has sold us out to China. Evidence. It's obvious to who. And there's testimony that he was lying about knowing nothing about his son's, quote unquote, business dealings, which really that's a euphemism for influence, criminal influence peddling. The term testimony may be a little strong. There's conjecture and innuendo.

I recommend. You straighten up and get rid of your ridiculous bias. Thank you. My name is David Castle. I'm 80 years old and I know how to think for myself. I know how to observe. Good. Well, I find it funny when people say something is obvious and then present absolutely no

evidence whatsoever. It's so obvious to anyone that Joe Biden is running a corrupt crime family. He's also totally demented and doesn't know where he is, but also a criminal mastermind. Oh, all right. Well, present a little evidence. Is it is it rude for me to ask? Open your eyes. You know, it's like when Trump was asked.

What is Obamagate? Can you explain what what Obamagate is? And Trump looked at the reporter in the press room and said, you know what it is. Don't give me that. You know what it is. Asking for evidence. Give me a break. Sad. Very sad. We have a great bonus show for you today. We will talk about Hunter Biden suiting suing Rudy Giuliani. We will talk about Amazon being sued for antitrust. And we will talk about how Kevin McCarthy wanted Bob Menendez to resign until someone mentioned, well, then shouldn't George Santos resign as well?

At which point McCarthy said, oh, actually, everybody should have their day in court first. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. We will see you then sign up at join Pacman dot com. It's a great day to do it.