5/16/24: Stocks hit new record, Trump PANICS about RFK at debates

This episode primarily discusses the implications of recent record highs in the stock market under President Joe Biden's administration, and Donald Trump's responses to the economic situation as he prepares for the upcoming debates.

1. Stock markets have reached record highs under Biden, contradicting Trump's dire predictions.
2. Trump's economic claims are often contradicted by actual market performances and historical data.
3. Economic indicators like inflation rates and unemployment levels are currently favorable.
4. Trump's rhetoric around the debates and potential opponents reveals political strategy rather than economic insight.
5. The episode highlights the importance of separating political rhetoric from economic reality in public discourse.

1: Stock Market Analysis

David Pakman discusses the recent surge in stock market indices, analyzing how this contradicts Trump's predictions of an economic crash under Biden. David Pakman: "Stock market record high after record high under Biden's administration shows a stark contrast to the doomsday predictions made by Trump."

2: Trump's Economic Rhetoric

Pakman critiques Trump's inconsistent statements on the economy, highlighting how they serve his political narrative rather than factual accuracy. David Pakman: "Trump takes credit for economic successes during his tenure but refuses to acknowledge any positive outcomes under Biden."

3: Debate Preparations and RFK

Exploration of Trump's reactions to RFK potentially joining the debates, illustrating his strategic positioning and public messaging. David Pakman: "Trump's statements on RFK joining the debates are strategically vague, reflecting his uncertainty about political positioning."

1. Educate Yourself on Economic Indicators: Stay informed about key economic indicators like stock indices, inflation, and unemployment to understand the actual economic climate.
2. Critically Evaluate Political Statements: Analyze political statements critically, especially those related to the economy, to distinguish between factual information and political rhetoric.
3. Follow Diverse News Sources: To get a balanced view of the economic landscape, follow a variety of news sources.
4. Participate in Economic Discussions: Engage in discussions about the economy to better understand different perspectives and their basis in reality.
5. Vote Informed: Use your understanding of the economy to make informed decisions in elections and public policy support.

-- On the Show:

-- Federico Finchelstein, world-renowned expert on fascism, populism, and dictatorship and Professor of History at the New School for Social Research, joins David to discuss his new book, "The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy." Get the book: https://amzn.to/3wJL5TW

-- The stock market hits yet another all time high under President Joe Biden, acutely panicking the MAGA right wing

-- Debunking the false notion held by some that Joe Biden and Donald Trump are effectively the same

-- President Joe Biden's challenge of Donald Trump to multiple presidential debates appears to have broken the brains of right wing commentators

-- Debating Joe Biden could massively backfire for Donald Trump

-- Hugh Hewitt's softball interview of Donald Trump goes horribly wrong as Trump is unable to behave coherently

-- Donald Trump appears terrified at the possibility that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could make the debate stage alongside Trump and Biden, but a review of the facts makes this seem very unlikely

-- Voicemail caller's mom is descending into a conspiracy theory spiral

-- On the Bonus Show: Target scales back LGBTQ+ merchandise ahead of Pride month, more Americans falling behind on credit card bills, crew trapped on Baltimore ship seven weeks after bridge collapse, much more...

People

Donald Trump, Joe Biden, RFK

Companies

None

Books

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Guest Name(s):

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Content Warnings:

None

Speaker A
Well, how about that stock market, ladies and gentlemen, MAGA in shambles as stocks yet again hit an all time high. This is a new episode, unless it's a rerun. It's just that once again, under the stewardship of President Joe Biden, stocks have hit an all time forever high. Here is Fox News on Fox Business, reluctantly acknowledging what it is that is taking place here. And it is remarkable, I have to say, a new record close for the Dow. The Dow up 342. Record close for the S and P and the Nasdaq.

Speaker B
My goodness, all sorts of records breaking today.

Speaker A
It must be that because they know Trump is coming back, they are buying stocks. And that's what's driving up the value of stocks, right. No matter how much you or I credit a president with the stock market numbers, we were told by Trump that under Biden it would crash like the 1929 depression. And it didn't. They are the liars. And so we're going to have a conversation in a moment about how much do presidents have to do with the stock market? You all know me. You know, I don't play politics with debt and deficit. You know, I don't play politics with gas prices. You know, I don't play politics with the stock market. Presidents have some influence over these things, but not massive, but importantly, they, the MAGA, right, are the ones who told us it will all collapse under Biden and it didn't. Now, I do want to remind you, Trump, when he was president and the stock market did well, he gleefully took credit for it. Gleefully. Now, of course, he doesn't give Biden any credit. Now. It's, well, stock market is doing well, but it's because voters believe I'll be back and therefore they are confident. There's no evidence of that whatsoever. But here is Trump gleefully taking credit for stock market performance when he was president of the United States.

Speaker C
For the last long period of days, the stock market, meaning companies, have been hitting new highs. The stock market has gained almost $3 trillion in value since the election on November 8, a record last week, the stock market to record highs, highest ever, boosting the pensions, your pensions and your retirement accounts and those of hardworking Americans. The stock market reached yet another all time in history, all time high today.

Speaker A
All right. So you get the point. Clearly, clearly, clearly taking credit for the stock market when he was president. Now what were Donald Trump's predictions in 2020 about what would happen if Joe Biden were to win? Well, let's examine that, speaker one, because.

Speaker C
They will destroy this country our country will go into a depression the likes of which we have not seen since 1929 and maybe worse. So keep backing them. But you know, it's wrong, and I really do believe it's only habit. That's the only reason you can be doing it under my continued leadership.

Speaker A
So predictions that it would be like 1929 all over again, it has failed to happen. Inflation is down. Stock market record high after record high after record high GDP, very healthy. Unemployment record sustained lows. So what is Trump now predicting about 2024? If Joe Biden were to get elected?

The exact same stuff he was predicting in 2020, none of which came true.

Speaker C
Banned people from coming in that weren't good. The Biden administration is running on the fumes of the great success of the Trump administration. They're just running on the fumes of what we did with the tax cuts and the regulation cuts. Without us, this thing would have crashed to levels never seen before.

And if we're not elected, we will have a depression the likes of which you haven't seen since the depression of 1929.

Speaker A
Well, he tried that in 2020, and we voted Biden, and it didn't happen. And he's trying it again in 2024. Only the most ignorant voter or the most devoted hardcore cultist could fall for the exact same lie again. Right? I mean, in a sense, it would be the third time because Trump made similar predictions in 2016 if Hillary Clinton were to be elected. So let's be really honest about this. We don't, because they are ahead of their skills keys on this, saying it'll all crash under Biden. All we need to do is say, hey, it didn't crash under Biden. You were wrong. But if we want to be a little more thorough, if we want to be a little more rigorous, we can acknowledge that a lot of the conditions that impact the stock market don't have much to do with who's president of the United States. For example. Global economic conditions. You've got international economic trends and trade relations, geopolitical events that is way beyond what the american president controls directly, corporate earnings.

To a great degree, corporate performance and profitability drive stock prices. And while certainly regulation in some general sense, which can be dictated by the federal government, affects that, the big picture is that corporate performance affects the stock market, and it doesn't have much to do with the president. Technological advancements, when you have innovations and disruptions and they lead to market shifts and. And new growth sectors, that's a big part of where the stock market goes, and it doesn't have much to do with who is president over the long term, certainly presidents cumulatively will affect that. Market sentiment, investor confidence, and market psychology. Certainly it has something to do with the opinion of the health of the environment that the president has a hand in, but it is bigger than the president. And then, of course, you've got natural disasters and all sorts of other things. Now, presidents can control, okay, tax policy, tariff, fiscal policy that influences market conditions to, to, to some degree, regulatory changes. If a president introduces or repeals regulations that directly affect entire industries, that can influence investor sentiment and thus influence stock prices. A trade policy.

What do we do about a trade agreement? Do we stay in it? Do we cancel it? New trade agreement or tariffs that can affect international trade and market stability. Government spending, changes in federal spending on infrastructure or defense or social programs can stimulate or slow down economic growth. And as far as that goes, Joe Biden's administration has actually been helpful to the stock market.

And then, of course, through the Federal Reserve, monetary policy can influence the stock market. But a lot of these things, the global economic conditions, they don't have to do with the president in the direct way that Trump wants us to believe. But all we need to remember is Trump said Biden would be so terrible that everything would crash.

Nothing crashed. It is new high after new high after new high. It's maybe time to stop believing the things Donald Trump says about the economy. Listen, I don't. We have to have maybe a tough conversation here. I don't really think it should be tough. I think it should be informative.

I am worried that there are young people. I don't know that, I don't want to say young voters because I don't know if they're going to vote. But it seems as though there are a bunch of young people that are getting sucked in to wrongly thinking that there's no difference between Trump and Biden. And we saw how dangerous this was in 2016. People who said Hillary, Trump, they're both sides of the same coin, establishment, whatever, elites, I don't care who wins. Well, Trump won. Got three Supreme Court picks. Now we've got no more Roe v. Wade. Right. The, the impact was very, very real. And so I'm going to give you an example of something that there's a streamer who goes by the name. Some people know him by Hassan Piker, some know him by Hassan Abi. Others know him as Hassan Destiny Piker II, who knows what his name is at this point. And he put out an excretion on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, in response to the news about the forthcoming debates between Trump and Biden, where he said sarcastically, I, for 01:00 a.m. Excited to watch 280 plus year old men yap about a bunch of issues they almost completely align on with regard to policy, while acting as though they're miles apart from one another. Now, listen, I like Hassan to the extent that we used to be in touch.

He doesn't return my calls anymore. He's too big for me now.

That's, by the way, it's very true.

But I think that this narrative is very dangerous. And I think Hasan, apparently, as people in his audience who believe this stuff, it is of critical importance to understand that Trump and Biden are miles apart from each other on so many critical issues. Now, I will get to the similarities in a moment, but we need to make sure young people who, by the way, I don't even know if they vote. It's not even clear that they're going to vote. But they really need to understand what's at stake here. I'll give you some examples. Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 election results and become president despite losing.

Biden respects the democratic process and the outcomes of elections. That is not a small difference. And however, many right wing or far left wing people want to convince you that he would have loved to become president even though he lost. But he didn't really do that much wrong. This is a critical difference between Trump and Biden. Trump supports stripping bodily autonomy from women.

Biden doesn't support that. That's a big difference. Trump supports taking away the health insurance of tens of millions of people. He tried to do it when he was president. Biden doesn't support that. That's a big difference. Trump wants to round up immigrants, put them in camps, and do expedited deportations, even ignoring legitimate asylum claims.

Biden doesn't want to do that. That's a major difference. Trump supports the speedy execution of drug dealers after China style sham trials.

Joe Biden doesn't do that. He doesn't want to do that. He respects due process and the rule of law. Trump wants to withdraw from NATO, maybe form an alliance with Russia and say, I don't care about any of our global responsibilities.

Biden doesn't want to do that. That's a big difference. Trump would let Gaza be destroyed and everyone in Gaza be killed, whereas Biden has urged restraint to Benjamin Netanyahu and has even said, if you do x, we're going to cut the military aid. That's a big difference. Trump downplays climate change and wants to roll back environmental regulations. Biden acknowledges climate change and supports environmental protections. That's a major difference. Trump enacted tax cuts primarily benefiting the wealthy and big corporations. Biden supports a tax policy that would benefit middle and lower class folks. Trump promotes deregulation of industries, letting them do whatever they want, financially or environmentally buying. Biden supports regulating businesses to protect consumers in the environment. That's a big difference. Trump appointed conservative judges to the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary, and it led to Roe v. Wade going bye bye. Biden would appoint judges with a more respectful view of women's bodily autonomy and other issues. Trump criticized and tried to do away, tried to do away with the Affordable Care Act. Biden has made some small expansions to it and wants to do more. So this entire they are the same thing. They're both old white guys who are wealthy. This is a losers game.

Now, I'm not blind.

I acknowledge that in a broad sense, Republicans and Democrats in Washington operate within the same political system. They often serve the interests of established power structures and influential interest groups. I acknowledge that. But this overarching reality doesn't negate the substantive, tangible, monumental policy differences between Trump and Biden. And they impact people's daily lives in a real way. Health care, immigration, environmental protection, justice. And we have to recognize that and not fall into these losers traps of that two old, 80 year old guys who all want the same stuff. Very, very dangerous and factually vapid assertion to be making friends. Don't let friends have brain rot. All right? So work with me to prevent the brain rot from spreading. Hey, Memorial Day, we are going to be doing a one day membership special. We now are getting, we've got the debates scheduled. The conventions are coming. We are scaling up our coverage, including live coverage, support the work that we do, and we're going to offer an insane best of the year membership discount on Memorial Day. If you've been thinking, and David, I kind of like you. I kind of don't like your hair. I don't really like, love your shirt. But at the right price, I might consider becoming a member. Get on my newsletter at david pakman.com. And then on Monday, Memorial Day, you'll get an email telling you how to avail yourself of this bonkers membership discount. I hear our lawyer and accountant beating on the door to the studio right now saying, david, don't do it.

It's too big of a discount. We're going to do it. We're doing it on Memorial Day. Get on my newsletter, and then you'll get all the info on Memorial Day.

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Speaker C
Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad.

Speaker A
If Alex Jones doesn't like it, I'm curious as to how great of a thing it is. You tell me where you fall on that, you can use the coupon code savedemocracy 24 to get a sizable discount. The challenge set forth by President Joe Biden to debate Donald Trump, which has now been accepted by Trump, has broken the brains of so many on the right wing they now have to completely recalibrate. Wait a second. If Biden's demented and doesn't know what day it is, but he's challenging Trump, there must be something here that we're not understanding. Maybe this is all part of some way to trick Trump into getting into a debate moderated by left wing bomb thrower Jake Tapper on CNN. Or what's going on, it must be rigged in some way.

Maybe the simplest explanation is the most accurate, which is Biden believes we should have debates, and he feels equipped to debate Trump. So he challenged Trump. Now, we'll get to the details of the debates in a moment, but I do want to give you a little bit of a tour through some of the right wing apoplexy of the right last 24 hours related to this. Here is, for example, Donald Trump's daughter in law, Laura Trump, claiming the, the upcoming debates are rigged. It's all rigged. Think about what's rigged. The election's already rigged.

The stock market is rigged to make Joe Biden look good. The debates are rigged to make Joe Biden look good. Everything's rigged. Nothing is real.

Laura Trump
Well, I think you're correct. But you know what we've always also called for, and what Donald Trump has said is that he wants more debate. So he said, yes, I'll do this one in June. I'll do the one in September. I'll do the one in October. But let's do one in July. Let's do one in August. Let's do one every single month leading up to this election. Because.

Speaker A
Right. The fact that Trump wants even more debates must mean that everything that Biden wants to do is rigged.

Laura Trump
Speaker one, we need these two men on a stage. We need to be very clear about the direction we want this country to go. We need to hear from Donald Trump about his vision for the future of this country, how he will give this country back to the people, how he'll fix.

Joe Biden has put us in, and Joe Biden has a lot of questions to answer. So we want to see more of them on a stage, not less. And you're right, it's rigged so heavily in Joe Biden's favor, but everything always is. You've got Hollywood against Donald Trump. You've got the music industry against Donald Trump, mainstream media despite that, and even the judicial system at this point, he is beating Joe Biden in every poll out there. It's amazing to see. So if Joe Biden shows up on June 27 and doesn't come up with an excuse like he has to wash his hair or something, I have full confidence that Donald Trump will outperform him.

Speaker A
Speaker one yeah, of course. That is very much not something that is a foregone conclusion. And we'll talk about that in a moment. But remember that it is all rigged unless we do well. If we do well, it's fine. Otherwise it's rigged. It couldn't possibly be that you just lost an election. It couldn't possibly be that Trump's just guilty of what he's accused of. It couldn't possibly be that Biden just performs well in a debate. It has to have been rigged. Sean Hannity had quite an episode last night, and I mean the word episode in both ways, an episode of his show and sort of like a mental episode. We know, of course, that Sean Hannity has been attacking President Biden's mental acuity significantly leading up to today. And he is suggesting that Biden is, of course, going to be on some kind of drug. Stimulants will be a factor. This is a favorite of Republicans. Every time Biden shows up and just kind of like, is fine, they go, he was all hopped up. He was sped up on something.

Speaker B
Oh, ok. Well, that's the person you want to moderate. Biden's list of demands will also be in effect. And I have no doubt that jacked up Joe will probably return to the stage after a heavy dose of old caffeine, Red Bill, or whatever he took before the State of the union. That was weird.

Don't expect a, that was weird.

Speaker A
So as we've talked about before with mental health professionals, having caffeine before a big speech, it's not exactly cheating, if you know what I mean. And by the way, taking, having a cup of coffee before a speech or a debate isn't going to hide the serious dementia that these people claim Joe Biden is suffering from. Here's a really weird moment from Hannity's episode where he seems to suggest that Biden agreed to debate Trump in order to avoid debating Trump under circumstances that I guess would be worse for him or something like that. These little conspiracy theories, you really have to focus in order to follow them.

Speaker B
Well, you know, even announce this thing. They probably were all discussing it knowing that, oh, well, we just agree he'll have to do what we say. It's going to be Joe's way or the highway. What he's really trying to do here is ultimately maybe he's really cowering away from any real debate. Either take my chosen liberal network with my chosen moderator with all my rules, or I'm not going to debate secretly hoping that Donald Trump insists on basic fairness so they can duck and dodge and cower and hide and say, see, we tried to debate.

Let's see, the american people, they deserve a fair debate.

Speaker A
Yeah. So I guess what Hannity is saying is Biden's idea to get out of debating is to try to set up debates that will be unfair. So that Trump will come in with a bunch of demands which won't be exceeded to, and therefore the debate won't happen or something like that. Interesting.

Might be easier just not to talk about debates because both of the candidates at different times have said, I don't know whether we're going to debate. Uh, but Hannity's got a more complicated explanation. Hannity says there should be no teleprompters. I've never seen teleprompters during a debate. But Hannity feels like it's a relevant thing to mention, though.

Speaker B
And while we're at it, there should be no notes, no teleprompters, Joe, in other words, Joe, you don't get giant cheats, cheat sheets telling you where.

Speaker A
Ok, so of course, there have never been teleprompters at debates that I'm aware of. And in terms of notes, at just about any debate, the participants, I'm not even talking just presidential here. Just in debates in general, you're usually given a pad of paper and a pen and you can write whatever you want on it. Oftentimes it's used as your opponent is speaking. And maybe they make three points you want to rebut. You make those three, you write those three points down, or it's called notes, folks. You make your own notes.

To say that that is some form of cheating. To give both candidates a pen and a piece of paper seems strange. And then Hannity also has a bunch of specific demands. He wants moderator mics to be muted after questions. He doesn't want networks to be allowed to put things on the screen. Hannity is almost like becoming the producer of these debates.

Speaker B
I would add that moderators, mics, they need to be muted also right after a question. Why? Because it's obvious the liberal media, they'd love to be two on one versus Donald Trump. No, that can't happen. Nor should networks be allowed to put anything on the screen but the names of the candidates because they might try to hurt Donald Trump that way.

Speaker A
Speaker one. Yeah. What Hannity is referring to is he doesn't want any live fact checking up on the screen. So, for example, if Trump does one of his verbal diarrhea inkblots, where he tells six lies in 15 seconds about the stock market and about his crowd size and about what the law says about x, y, or z, what Hannity doesn't want to see happen is something pop up and fact check Trump's lies in real time and Biden's fact check them both. I have no problem with it. And lastly, here's Laura Ingraham. Laura Ingraham says all Trump has to do to win these debates is stay calm and Biden will seem crazy. So all Donald Trump has to do is stay calm and stay calm during the entire debate and let Biden rant and rave because Scranton Joe is looking and sounding meaner and more petty by the day.

And then Trump, by comparison, he easily appears presidential, cool, confident, and, yeah, possessing a lot of common sense. There you go. So that's Laura Ingraham's advice. Just stay calm and then let Biden give Biden enough rope to hang himself with, essentially, is what she's saying. So that's the right wing view. Now, what I want to talk about is how could these debates backfire for Trump, but for either candidate? So listen, a lot is being made out of who takes the biggest risk with these forthcoming presidential debates that have been scheduled now, I have to admit that the facts of these debates are changing very quickly. It seems. The thing that is solid is that the first debate will be June 27 on CNN. Will there or won't be? Be that, will there or won't there be another debate on Fox News? It's not completely clear yet. Trump wants it. It's not clear whether Biden's going to do that. We just don't know every detail and the details are changing pretty quickly. But at least for now, it seems that June 27, which is just about 40 days away, we will have the first debate on CNN. So what are the risks here? Both sides seem to think that only the other side has the risk. In other words, there are Biden supporters who say this is risky for Trump because Trump could show up, be wildly triggered, continue to go down this, whatever's going on with his brain direction, and end up sort of sending the message to some of his current supporters. Man, Trump seems nuts. I'm not going to vote for him.

On the other hand, you have Trump supporters and some right wingers who say Biden can barely string a sentence together. It's really risky for him to show up because if he doesn't take the right stimulants, by the way, this is all nonsense. But this is what they say. If Biden doesn't take the right cocktail of stimulants, he's not going to be able to speak and he risks really alienating his supporters or whatever.

I think that the, there is risk to both and listen at this point with one president who is up for reelection as an incumbent, Joe Biden, another candidate, Trump, the presumptive republican nominee who's been president already and ran for reelection and already is on campaign number three. These are known entities, and we'll get later on in the show or tomorrow to the concept of how could anyone possibly be undecided at this point? But that's a factor here. These individuals are so well known, so well known that it's not going to be about, I'm going to watch on June 27 and listen to what their tax policy and education policy would be and vote for the guy whose policy aligns more with mine. That ship has sailed. And so there is asymmetrical risk to both of them. If they perform well or well enough, they probably just maintain the support they have. If somebody glitches or has a real problem on that stage, they damage themselves and potentially hurt their chances at winning by dissuading a portion of the electorate. Now, here's why I think the risk is greater to Trump than it is to Biden.

This happened already in 2020. It happened with the state of the union by focusing on the supposed serious dementia of Joe Biden.

They set the bar really, really low. Remember, they set the bar when Biden debated Bernie in 2020, that Biden's not even going to be able to speak. Bernie's going to run circles around him. And like Biden did, fine. Fine enough, anyway. And then in the 2020 debates between Biden and Trump, it was same thing. Biden's not going to be able to speak. He's not going to know what's going on. He'll be disoriented. Oh, I don't know what's going on. And Biden did fine. And to a degree, Biden benefited from the bar being set so low. Same thing with the State of the union in early March. Almost the, the exact same scenario. So because the bar seems to be set so much lower for Biden, because many of the Trump supporters aren't following the fact that Trump regularly forgets where he is, who is president, who was in charge of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the names of everybody around him. Because a lot of Trump supporters aren't following that story, they may end up being more stunned if Trump has one of these falling apart moments during the debate. So I think there is downside risk to both candidates that is greater than the upside risk. But I think that the low expectations surrounding Biden probably put him in a slightly better position. Let me know what you think. We'll take a break. Certainly something that we'll follow up on.

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Today we're going to be speaking with Federico Finkelstein, who's a world renowned expert on fascism, populism, and dictatorship and is professor of history at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College in New York City. His new book is the Wannabe Fascists a guide to understanding the greatest threat to democracy. So let's start with what you call a sort of new breed within politics. And correct me if I'm wrong, some years ago, it seemed you were a little more hesitant to use some of the words that you now are using, fascism and dictatorship, to refer to this Trumpian sort of movement that we're seeing. Has there been a change? Is it now a term that you think, are these terms more accurate now as you describe this new breed?

Federico Finchelstein
Well, I mean, in history, we always analyze things in terms of process and how they go from point a to point b and so on. And when I wrote my book from fascism to populism, there was a key element of fascism that was certainly lacking in Trumpism, which was dictatorship. Now, of course, my thinking changed a lot in terms of what January 6 represented, because it was a coup d'etat, and what you see is a dictatorial aim. So in that sense, that's why, you know, I talk about wannabe fascism in the sense that we are approaching, or Trumpism is approaching fascism in ways that wasn't the case five years ago, although they were potentially there. And, you know, in my previous work, I also talked about whether, I mean, fascism returning to the fort. Now here it is way, way more powerful than it was before.

Speaker A
Can you talk a little bit about the similarities between someone like Trump or Bolsonaro with historical fascism, but then maybe a couple of the ways in which they differ, and this is something new and different.

Federico Finchelstein
Yes. Well, I mean, the idea for this book, I mean, as any other person working in a certain area, in my case, the academy, and then living life in, you know, in other realities, I'm always asked this question of what is fascism? And whether Trump is a fascist.

And in such a context, there is no time to waste on, like, I think, you know, sometimes very technical explanations, because at this point, I really value the question. And, you know, and people have other things to do better than discussing, you know, technicalities about fascism and so forth, which is, of course, my job. Now, this book, the idea of this book was translated that into a very clear explanation of why I think Trumpism is morphing from populism to what I call wannabe fascism. I mean, we can talk about other names, but for me, rather than terminology, what is important is that more and more trampism resembles the past. Now, fascism, in order to ask, to answer this question, and if you want, we can talk about this, like, I came up with really, really pushing this to the, let's say, to the limits, I came up with these four pillars of fascism that you don't have fascism without that. And then I ask in the book whether and to what extent Trumpism is approaching these four pillars of fascism.

Speaker A
What are the four pillars? I think this would be useful.

Federico Finchelstein
Yes. The four pillars of fascism are violence and demilitarization of politics. In other words, you can have that without fascism, but you don't have fascism without that. And that is the understanding of politics as, you know, as war. And the idea that the more violence, the more value you spread and you glorify, the more powerful you are. So that's the one we can return to this pillar. But that's pillar number one. Pillar number two is fascist lies and totalitarian propaganda. Of course, you can have that in other regimes, but that is a sine qua non condition for fascism. That is to say, no, fascism without lies and totalitarian propaganda. Pillar number three is racism and the politics of xenophobia, this extreme demonization of the enemy, this extreme hatred, which was, of course, foundational to fascism.

And fourth is dictatorship. That there is. Of course, there are dictatorships without fascism, but there is no fascism without dictatorship. Now, in my own explanation, in the book, I have four chapters, and each chapter is dedicated to one pillar. And in each chapter, I analyze the relationship between this pillar and three cycles of authoritarianism. And the three cycles are classic fascism. Mussolini, Hitler, let's say the 1920s to 1945, then modern populism in power, we can return to that. But that's basically authoritarians that have been fascists before or dictators, and basically reformulated fascism in a democratic key, which is to say, no more fascism, but another authoritarian form. And then in the start of the 21st century, we have our wave number three, our third wave with Trump, Bolsonaro, and others, populists that seem to be returning to these four pillars that were or had been rejected or left behind by the classic populace. So let's say, in classic populists, say, let's say Peron, jetulio Vargas in Brazil, Peron in Argentina, and others, they, you know, they left behind these four pillars, reformulating authoritarianism for a bipolar war in which democracy and electoral procedures were important. Electoral results matter. You know, Mussolini didn't care about that.

Peron did care about that. And then Trump doesn't seem to care about that. So we are returning to this idea in which electoral legitimacy is not that important. And that's why I think these are populists that are, you know, returning to fascism. And I call them aspirants to fascism or wannabe fascist.

Speaker A
In your analysis and in thinking about this third wave, as you talk about it, that includes Trump, do the attitudes and the makeup of the followers matter at all to the analysis? And I guess what I'm getting at is there seems to be, at least in right now, something sort of special or different about some of the followers of Trump in terms of the way in which they resemble the followers of cult leaders to some degree. And maybe you can speak to that. Does the makeup of the followers figure into this analysis that you do?

Federico Finchelstein
Well, it's central. I mean, it's always like, there is always a kind of combo between leader and followers. And sometimes the leader pushes followers in a certain direction. But also, we know from history that the opposite happens as well, that it takes two tango and sometimes even Trump at some point, for example, with respect to COVID and so on, he was driven by his followers. He wanted to be or go in other direction, or he didn't want to or he couldn't.

So it's always the case. Now, the important change is that after 1945, fascism was not viable as a form of power, because there were a couple of things that have changed fascism itself. But also racism. Dictatorship became toxic in certain societies. People were, have memories of the recent past and how miserable and gruesome the legacy of fascism had been. A lot of people kill, economies destroy, cultures destroy, and so on.

Political systems destroy, democracy, destroy. So at that time, you know, fascists existed, but they couldn't catch up with these authoritarian followers that they were into. Another thing. Sadly, in the present, we see a lot of people that do not care about these things, such as democracy, racism, or even the very possibility of permanent power, which is a leader, you know, without electoral results.

In short, a dictatorship.

And these, these things, I mean, that people, when people do not care about, well, I think it's, it's an, it's an opening. Provide, they provide an opening for fascism.

Speaker A
There's an interesting feature, especially right now with Trump and his followers, where he will sometimes take every side of an issue. And the feeling that it gives is, I really don't care as long as you vote for me. So, you know, a couple of examples are, over the years, he has said on health care, I would support some kind of universal program back in 2016 to we will replace Obamacare with something big and beautiful, to we will go fully for profit. Kind of doesn't really matter. Whatever the audience likes, he's willing to say on this issue of abortion and women's bodily autonomy, he's bragging about getting Roe v. Wade overturned with the idea that now, hey, do whatever you want in the states. Well, what about imprisoning women? Hey, you know, if states want to do that, what about a five week ban? What about 16 week whatever?

Where does this sort of malleability or indifference to policy fit in with this third wave of fascism that you describe?

Federico Finchelstein
Well, I mean, it is hard to, you know, to analyze these leaders, which are extremists in many ways. I mean, I mean, at the end of the day, Trump says a lot of things, but, you know, generally he goes into a far right direction. I mean, and, you know, there is a clear way in which he talks to the followers and especially to the most fanatic members of his culture. I mean, promising things that eventually often reappear in practice when he has the ability to make it so. So we see this sort of, I mean, Hitler himself sometimes, you know, will provide a kind of bogus, moderate image when, in fact, you know, people that follow him knew what he was about. So I think we need to take Trump seriously and remember that when he says he thinks, he then commits to them.

And I mean, like, the far right promises that he's making, including the possibility of a day one dictatorship, as he call it, or deportations, violence, bans and so on and so forth. So, I mean, Trump is an extreme right wing leader, and in my opinion, I want to be fascist. I mean, and it doesn't, I mean, I don't think it is as important whether he's a well read individual because neither was Hitler. I mean, like, there is a kind of problematic idea, if I might say so, of Hitler, people like Hitler being, you know, knowing a lot of things. And actually they didn't. And they were really following their instincts as Trump does.

Speaker A
What are the, does history have lessons? Or is this maybe too new, this third wave in terms of when you have this fascist wannabe tendency in a nominally democratic environment, like in the United States, where at least in theory we still have elections and the winner gets to be president, what are the best ways to resist this direction in these environments? Is it voting? Is it more than just voting? What is it?

Federico Finchelstein
Well, it is all these things together. And, you know, when fascism first emerged, it destroyed democracy from within. It used, you know, democratic spaces and democratic procedures and rules in order to, you know, distort them and once at the top, destroy them. So, I mean, it's that fascism, in fact, that does a kind of interesting thing, that fascism only thrives in democracy when fascism confronted more authoritarian leaders. And this happened in Brazil, in Romania, Hungary and other places. You know, these authoritarian leaders repress the fascists. And then you have this kind of, you know, fascist whining about freedom of speech and so on and so forth that they don't mean it, but they want to defend those rights when these rights, you know, are taken from them.

But in democracy, they, you know, everybody plays by certain rules that they don't. So they are always, always the cheaters in a democratic system, and they are always to get away with it. And, you know, and once, once they are in power, they destroy it. Now, Mussolini said, and I talk about this in the beginning of the book because I was thinking about, you know, oh, this applies to Trump. Mussolini criticized those kind of semi fascist or half fascist or, you know, what I call wannabe fascist, that they were wavering and they were not willing to commit to what fascism was about. I mean, they had this inclinations, but they never committed to the full extent. And Trump himself in January 6 showed himself to be that. He said, I'm going with you. He didn't.

And it's important to analyze why he didn't. I mean, it might be, you know, a personal explanation as well, a lack of personal courage, you know, which we see in the character always whining about, you know, small things, including AC in a room or like, you know, things that talk about a life of privilege, right. And a person that doesn't, you know, that's a very, he doesn't have a thick skin. And he's like, he's quick to criticize others and demonize others, but he's very patient with, you know, with, like, critiques.

But on the other hand, it is more structural and more important than that, that fascism doesn't, you know, cannot be achieved when you have, of course, people voting against it, of course, people talking about it, such as the conversation that we are having right now, which in a real dictatorship, we couldn't have. And I have lived under one when I was way younger.

And I know we couldn't be talking like this, or we could talk about this, but then we will be arrested or persecuted and so on.

And then, you know, so the pre press, independent in the ability, you know, independent opinions, these are things that, when they exist and when they are defended and when they are not taken for granted, provide barriers to fascism. And also, it is important to remember one thing that, and actually, that is what happened January 6, that when members, you know, of different institutions, including in the case, I mean, I think in January 6, it was very important that the armed forces sided with the constitution.

But also in other cases, such as in Brazil, for example, the judiciary.

And basically, when institutions of the state side with the constitution rather than with a wannabe dictator, I mean, fascism cannot, cannot, you know, succeed. Actually, when this didn't happen, such as in Italy or Germany, the army, the monarchy, and other instances of the state betraying the constitution to enable the wannabe fascist dictator, that fascist dictator emerged and succeeded. Last but not least, and this is important for the future, I think, is that for the near future, I think, for this election to remember is that when the center on the right sided with the constitution rather than with the right wing, far right wing fascist wannabe dictator, then fascism couldn't succeed. Fascism was enabled when conservatives supported the fascist leader with, of course, this kind of sorceress, apprentice idea of, you know, managing the leader. Of course they fail, and many of them die because of it. They were persecuted themselves. I mean, instead of siding with the democratic constitutions. Now, that's why I think, you know, it's important that as it happened before, as it happened in Brazil, as it happened before in the previous election, that whoever, you know, can defeat Trump in this case, President Biden needs to be part of a broader coalition of left, center, and right now, this is a message for everyone, including, in my opinion, the left, because this, I mean, this is not the time. I mean, there are important, you know, reasons why one could be unhappy with Biden, but Trump represents something else, including those reasons, you know, those reasons that people might be concerned about, you know, from the Middle east to whatever other instance in which they are unhappy with Biden.

It will be worse with Trump because we are talking about a wannabe fascist.

Speaker A
A point I have been making regularly. For sure. The book is the wannabe fascists a guide to understanding the greatest threat to democracy. Federico, thank you for your time.

Federico Finchelstein
Thank you.

Speaker A
Don't forget that the best way to support the David Pakman show is by becoming a member, which gives you access to the Daily bonus show, the regular show with no commercials. You also get access to our entire archive of every episode dating back a really long time and plenty of other awesome membership perks. Go to join pacman.com. Join pacman.com. Failed former President Donald Trump had a complete softball interview go completely wrong. He was interviewed by right wing host Hugh Hewitt. These interviews have essentially no pushback and are often just teeing up easy ones for Trump to knock out of the party park. And he still manages to just crumble under the pressure of, I don't even know what, I guess, 88 criminal counts across four trials and running a campaign that may not work out so well for him. You have to see this. Trump went on a confused rant about water. And as you know, Trump has long been extremely fixated on plumbing and water pressure and toilet flushing abilities and all these different things. And Trump very confused about water in the context of debating Biden, somehow he says, you know, water to Hugh Hewitt. And Hewitt looks almost as confused as Trump sounds. Listen to this speaker one.

Donald Trump
You know, water. I had a deal for water to come down from the north. They have so much water and they don't do it because they're trying to protect a tiny, tiny little fish that hasn't made it. And millions and millions of gallons of water are sent into the Pacific Ocean, routed right into the Pacific instead of coming down throughout California. It's.

Speaker C
So I've got your statement. I'm ready to go. The dates that are proposed are fine anywhere.

Speaker A
There you go. So Hugh Hewitt saying, I don't know anything about the little fish. I don't know anything about water. But let's get back to what the dates of this debate are going to be. Hewitt desperate to help Donald Trump seem like he knows what's going on. And just futile, absolutely futile. Trump once again, during this interview, attacking jewish Americans, saying they are in a rut and they can't get out of the rut statement.

Donald Trump
And how a person that's Jewish can vote for this guy who's obviously mentally impaired, how a jewish person can vote for him is beyond belief.

Speaker A
I have friends that Christians and Muslims are fine voting for a guy who's mentally impaired, but how are the Jews voting for a guy who's mentally impaired?

Donald Trump
Speaker one. They're good people. They're jewish and they're Democrats, and that's just fine being a Democrat. But I say, how do you vote for this guy? And many of them said we won't, but some say we will. It's almost like they're in a rut. They can't get out of the rut.

Speaker A
We just don't know. We, and I'm saying we, like I, as part of the, the contingent of Jewish Americans that overwhelmingly rejects the horrible ideas of people like Trump, we just, we don't know what to do. We're in a rut. And it's just so hard to figure out rather than the reality, right, which is, hey, we evaluate Trump and Biden and like, Biden's obviously the much better option. So that's who we're going to vote for. And overwhelmingly, Jewish Americans are one of the most left voting blocs that we have, along with black folks.

It's, it's more of the same stuff. Trump wildly claims that his platform, truth social, is the hottest thing right now. I don't know how that's possible. Speaker one central, it has almost no users and the stock is just collapsing. And this is so funny. Trump asks Hugh Hewitt to read his statement on the debate and Hugh Hewitt, like, doesn't have it and he starts scrambling to try to find the message and it's all delightfully awkward.

Donald Trump
Why don't you look at the statement? I just put out a statement. You should have it on your hot wires. You get everything.

Speaker A
Yeah, his hot wires should have it.

Donald Trump
I noticed you get things very quickly. I put it out on truth and truth is the hottest thing right now.

Speaker C
I will go look that up. Let me move on.

Donald Trump
If President Biden, do you want to read it? Do you want to read it?

Speaker C
Yes, I do. I'll look and see if.

Speaker A
Jason Hewitt already said I'm going to move on. But now Trump is insisting he finds his truth.

Speaker C
Send it to me on the back wire here.

I'll look for a second speaker one.

Speaker A
Yeah. So.

So then a bunch of the interview is consumed with Hugh Hewitt looking for Trump's truth troth. Central post. A really weird moment was where Trump brought up LeBron James and says he doesn't like LeBron James, he doesn't like his politics. And then he makes what some people are calling a sexual reference between LeBron and Hillary Clinton, saying that when LeBron James, the basketball player, stood next to Hillary Clinton, Hillary came up to his belt buckle and Hewitt sort of seems to like it. He smirks at that one.

Donald Trump
Well, I'm not a fan of LeBron James. I have a lot of players that I like beneath LeBron, although he's an excellent basketball player, but I don't like his politics one bit. This nation would be destroyed if you went by his politics. You remember he endorsed the great Hillary Clinton and that endorsement was a disaster. She got on stage, she walked up to him and she came up to his belt buckle. I said, that's not a good look. That is not a good look for.

Speaker A
So Trump didn't like Hillary Clinton's height, I guess, relative to LeBron James. And then lastly, you know, this is really, this Hugh Hewitt show is really a venue for this. It's a vector of disinformation. Trump now is going from claiming that there were 100,000 people at his New Jersey rally to claiming that there were 107,000 people at the New Jersey rally. By all accounts, there were ten to 15,000 people there at the Saturday rally.

Speaker C
Your 100,000 people rally, you used the term the great silent majority of Americans, which Nixon first used in 69. Did you know that? That he had used that term before, or was that very well.

Donald Trump
And I love the term because I have a big silent majority. The biggest, I think the biggest ever. We had 107,000 people at that rally. The final count just came out from, I think, the town or the fire department. 107,000 people. I expected 40, 45,000. We had. By the way, if Biden went down to do a rally, he wouldn't get 50 people.

Speaker A
Yeah. So there were not 107,000 people. There were not 100,000 people. It's been eight years now of Trump lying about the size of his crowd. The venue reportedly has a capacity of 20,000, and it wasn't totally full. The entire, like, kind of beach area, war boardwalk area apparently can have 35,000 people total, and it was nowhere near full. So now it's gone from 100 to 107,000. It's all a lie. But even a softball interview has gone horribly wrong. And now we're going to introduce the RFK factor to this entire debate story.

Donald Trump seems very worried about Robert F. Kennedy junior joining the debate. Forthcoming debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. There are a bunch of reasons why Trump would likely not want RFK Junior to be in those debates. And I'll tell you in a moment what those are. But let's start first with what Trump posted to troth, saying he said, quote, he's putting it all on Biden. He says, quote, crooked Joe Biden does not want RFK Junior in the debates because Junior is far left him. And they would be debating over the same territory like ridiculous open borders and the green new scam, both of which are killing our country. He's also sharper and far more intelligent than Joe, all making for a bad combination of ingredients. I don't care if Juno's joins the debate, but right now his polling numbers are very low. He is not properly qualified in the states and he seems to be on a downward path. Junior needs more than his name to get on the stage. So I'm going to tell you the truth about RFK and possibly debating. But first, let me tell you the real reason Trump doesn't want RFK. There is because privately Trump knows RFK is very bad for Trump. RFK is sort of like out for flanking Trump on anti vax. And so Trump's like, wait, I've been bragging that I created the vaccines, but also saying we need freedom. I don't know, this is tough. If you just want the straight up anti vax guy, you go with RFK. We know that RFK's donors are increasingly to overwhelmingly republican donors.

That's who he's appealing to. So Trump is now trying to frame RFK as a further left leftist than even Biden. But the reality is that RFK is running one of these.

I don't even know what to call it. Is it a sort of authoritarian, libertarian, populist chaos campaign?

Needless to say, Trump privately knows that RFK hurts Trump. That's why he doesn't want him on the stage. Now, in terms of being able to get on the debate stage, first requirement would be that Kennedy would need to get 15% support in four high quality national polls. He's nowhere close to that right now. In the latest, what we might call high quality national polls, Kennedy's got eleven 312 and 8812 1211. If you go back to mid April, there's a poll where RFK has 16 and a poll where he has 16 also. But from recent polling, RFK doesn't have the required 15% in even a single poll. That will keep him off the debate stage. And then the other requirement to be on the debate stage is you have to have ballot access in enough states such that you could become president, meaning you could get 270 electoral votes. RFK also doesn't have that and is nowhere close. We actually have a map here. And what you will see here is that RFK currently has access to 89 electoral votes. He's petitioned for 69 more. That would put him at 158. That still leaves him 112 electoral votes shy. You can be a write in in 66 electoral votes worth of states. That still leaves another 46. And RFK has already been rejected or withdrawn from four states worth 42 electoral votes. So I can't think of any way that Robert F. Kennedy junior gets the ballot access he needs to be on the debate stage. Never mind what he even would need to potentially actually become president. I mean, it's a. It's just absurd. It's an absurd thing.

So, bottom line, if you're hoping RFK will be on the debate stage, I wouldn't be holding my breath. If you're Trump and you don't want him on the debate stage because he's a threat to you, you can probably rest easy because I don't see any way that RFK would be joining the debate. If you see the numbers differently, let me know. We have a voicemail number. That number is 2192. David P. Here's a caller whose mom is going down the conspiracy rabbit hole. It's a sad situation. Listen to this. David Pacman, the legend. Sir, I just wanted to call with bad news of.

Donald Trump
It looks like.

Speaker A
Like my mom slowly is going towards the conspiracy theory stuff.

It's funny because every time I confront her on COVID denial stuff and the Pfizer vaccine does the. Sorry for illegally providing unlicensed COVID vaccine. A no safety data article that came out, but it's published by the same people that.

Yeah, I think I know where the. Where the caller is going. Listen, this is really a tough situation, right? Because on the one hand, you. You want to maintain a relationship with your mom. On the other hand, you're hearing her say things that make no sense based in no credible information. So what do you do? I continue to believe the middle of the road path is you don't necessarily get into huge arguments, but you ask curious questions like, why do you believe this? Where did you get that information?

Explore it in that way. I still think that's the best way to softly try to redirect some of these beliefs. All right, Monday, Memorial Day, we will be doing our biggest one day membership special of the year. If you're thinking about signing up, that would be a great day to do it. If you want to be notified about the membership special, just get on my newsletter at david pakman.com. We've got a great bonus show coming up for you today. We'll talk about target scaling back some of their lgbt merchandise ahead of Pride Month, Americans falling behind on credit card bills and what that means for the forthcoming economy and so much more. Get the bonus show at join pacman.com. We'll also be back tomorrow with a new episode.