5/17/24: How is anyone still undecided? Mitt Romney off the deep end?

Speaker A
Welcome, everybody. Many of you have been asking me this week, David. Now, with these debates scheduled between Trump and Biden, who could possibly be undecided at this point? In other words, in what world are there people who have no idea who they're going to vote for or don't know, and they need to watch a debate during which, by the way, the format won't allow any deep discussion of any topic. How is it that people are waiting around for that in order to decide who they're going to vote for, particularly when the competing visions between the two candidates are so stark and in such relief that what is there to figure out? Either you support democracy or you don't. And that's basically it in terms of how one would vote. Now, I generally agree with you. If you've been paying attention, how could you possibly be undecided? But some people haven't really been paying attention. Now, here's a clip from two days ago from the viewer. And here's former Trump aide Alyssa Farah Griffin, who I think is mostly like an anti Trump Republican at this point in time. She says that the debates between Trump and Biden will be a really great way for Americans to figure out who, if they're undecided, who to vote for. Here's what she had to say. I think it's critical that they do have these roadblocks in place. Yeah. Cutting off the mics is the most important, or it can just descend into absolute chaos. And I'd remind folks, I've been for debates always, I understand he's ridiculously unfit for office, but this is for the Americans, whether we understand who are not, who are undecided, still, they need to see it, they need to hear it.

They need answers to questions. I think it's good for democracy and speaker one. I think now I'm for debate. I want these debates to happen. These debates should happen. Are we going to learn anything about policy from the debates? No. If you're wondering what are the competing visions from Trump and Biden on, I don't know, education policy, you're not going to get that information in the debate. If you're wondering about competing visions on health care and how would they implement their views on health care, you're not going to get it in the debate. We have two competing visions. That's true, but they are simply not mediated by direct exchange. And we talked about this yesterday on the show. Should the candidate who won the election become president? If you think the answer is yes, then you should be voting for Joe Biden. If you think that no, it's okay for the loser to become the president, well, then Trump is probably your guy. Nothing is going to happen in the debate that's going to change that.

Trump doesn't want women to have bodily autonomy, and he's thrilled that Roe v. Wade was taken away. Biden has a different perspective. Nothing that can be said in the debate is going to change that. But the truth is, of course, more complicated. There are still undecided people. Even if people like me who host a political show, or folks like you who listen or watch political shows, we're all in the minority in the sense that we are and have been paying attention for a while. There are undecided people mostly because they don't follow this stuff all the time. You think about the average person you meet at a Trump rally.

They're not undecided and certainly not in the sense that the subject matter of the debate could change their mind. But if you go into, I'm just picking random states. You could go to any state. But if you go to Georgia and Michigan and Arizona and you find folks who, politics was never the foremost thing in their lives growing up, and they have busy jobs and they have kids and families and all these different things, and you say, hey, have you been following what's going on in the competing visions on healthcare between, they'd say, no, I really haven't. I don't know. I haven't been paying much attention. And for those people, the optics of the debate are what will most matter. So a better thing would be, how can anyone who's paying attention be undecided? I don't know that you can be. It's really wild to me. Now, I do get some calls from people who say, listen, I'm following this stuff. I'm just furious with Joe Biden, for example, over Israel, Gaza, and I don't know what I'm going to do yet. That's different. And again, I also don't think that's going to be mediated by the debates. But I am always for debates.

The format doesn't lend itself to deep discussion. And this is what gets to the asymmetrical risk.

It's not going to be about the substance of the debates, and it's not even going to be about good performances. Good performances at the debate visually probably just help you keep your existing level of support.

But if either Biden or Trump really mess up, I'm talking serious brain glitch stuff where it seems like they don't know what's going on, that seems to be the biggest risk to me at this point in time. Let me know what you think. Let me know what in the debates really has the potential to change the trajectory of the election. All right. I have clips of an MSNBC interview that Senator Mitt Romney did. Now, in this interview, Mitt Romney says some very reasonable things. I find Mitt Romney to be one of the more reasonable republicans. And he also says that if he were Biden, he would have pardoned Donald Trump. Now, I want to be really careful. Romney is not saying he thinks Trump is innocent or anything like that. He is saying he believes Biden would benefit from pardoning Trump and it would make him look like the bigger guy. I reject this idea, but let's go clip by clip. In this first clip, Romney clarifies and makes clear he will not be voting for Donald Trump in November. So what choice will you make?

Mitt Romney
Yeah, I'm not announcing that here and now. I'm not going to be voting for President Trump. I made that clear.

I know for some people, character is not the number one issue. It is for me when someone has been well determined by a jury to have committed sexual assault, that's not someone who I want my kids and grandkids to see as president of the United States.

Speaker A
All right, so on values alone, Mitt Romney will not be voting for Donald Trump. But it's more than that. This is outgoing Republican Senator Mitt Romney. He says that when it comes to support of democracy, just the basics of how do we select who is president and what does it mean to win and lose.

Also on that note, he can't support Donald Trump. Speaker one.

Mitt Romney
Look, there's no question but that when you have a person running for president who is not willing to say, I believe the outcome of an election, that's a threat to democracy. And when you weaken our judicial system, when you weaken the FBI, these are things that strike at the heart of democracy. And that's one of the reasons we're fighting as hard as we are to shore up these institutions.

Speaker A
All good so far. All good so far makes perfect sense. It is Mitt Romney saying, hey, I'm a Republican, but I'm putting country over party. You can't try to stay in power when you lose. You can't try to undo the pillars of democracy, NATO alliances, all this other stuff.

And then we get to what is maybe the most controversial part of this interview, which is Romney saying, if I were Biden, I would have pardoned Donald Trump.

Why? Let's listen. This week, leaders in the Republican Party went up to that trial, stood outside the courthouse and attacked our legal system.

How does that make you feel about republicans right now?

Mitt Romney
Yeah, I think it's a terrible fault for our country to see people attacking our legal system. Thats an enormous mistake. I think its also demeaning for people to quite apparently try and run for vice president by donning the red tie and standing outside the courthouse. Its just, id have felt awkward were I one of those individuals.

But I can also say I think President Biden made an enormous error. He should have fought like crazy to keep this prosecution from going forward. It was a win win for Donald Trump. If Donald Trump is exonerating, is that.

Speaker A
Joe Biden's job or is that the, shouldn't there be separation?

Mitt Romney
I've been around for a while. If LBJ had been president and he didn't want something like this to happen, he'd have been all over that prosecutor saying, you better not bring that forward or I'm going to drive you out of office.

Speaker A
But I'm pretty sure you support having separate but equal branches of government.

Mitt Romney
I do. But I also, let me tell you, I mean, you may disagree with this, but had I been President Biden, when the Justice Department brought out indictments, I would have immediately pardoned him. I had to pardon President Trump. Why? Well, because it makes me President Biden the big guy and the person, I pardoned the little guy.

Speaker A
I, listen, Mitt Romney is making a point. This is his opinion. Okay? His point is if you as Biden, if you're Biden and you pardon Trump, you're the one with the power. You're the graceful president saying the country doesn't need this. I'm bigger than this. We're bigger than this. And Mitt Romney's argument is it would help Joe Biden. I think he's completely wrong.

If Joe Biden pardons Trump, a bunch of would be Biden voters become very angry with him, very, very angry with him. And Biden probably hurts his cause with normally democratic voters. And on the other hand, you think that there is a part of the Trump culture that would say, hey, you know what? Biden pardon Trump.

I'm going to switch my vote from Trump to Biden. No, they would go, great, he's pardoned now. He doesn't have the trials interfering with the campaign.

I'm still voting for Donald Trump. So I think Mitt Romney is wrong on the calculation. Now, to be clear, Romney is not saying I would pardon him because I think it's wrong to prosecute former presidents. He's not saying I would pardon him because I believe he's innocent. Fine. But I think Mitt Romney's calculation here is completely, completely and totally wrong. Biden pardoning Trump does not help him with Trump supporters and it hurts him with his own base. If you disagree with me, please let me know. One more Mitt Romney clip I want to look at from yesterday. Mitt Romney was asked by CNN's manu Raju about the string of republicans that are showing up like lapdogs to Donald Trump's criminal trial to talk about how great Trump is to attack the judge, to attack the judge's daughter and to do Trump's bidding for him. And Mitt Romney was willing to say, these are, it's completely demeaning. What these Republicans are doing is completely demeaning. The entire thing is demeaning. And again, on this, Mitt Romney happens to be correct. What do you mean? What about these people, Republicans going to.

Speaker C
The courthouse in Manhattan with the red.

Speaker A
Ties and the dark suits and saying.

Mitt Romney
The case is, you know, I think it's a little demeaning to show up in front of a courthouse and particularly one where we're talking about an allegation of paying a porn star.

It's really, really difficult to watch.

Speaker D
Why is it difficult to watch?

Mitt Romney
Well, you know, there's a level of dignity and decorum that you expect to people who are running for the highest station in the land.

Speaker A
Not anymore.

Any expectation of dignity and decorum has gone in the toilet with Donald Trump literally and figuratively.

Mitt Romney
Going out and prostrating themselves in front of the public.

To try and apparently curry favor with the person who's our nominee is a little embarrassing.

Speaker A
It is embarrassing, and it's a long list of these Republicans willing to debase themselves. Vivek Ramaswamy has been there, and Mike Johnson and Tommy Tuberville and Byron Donald's. And I can't even think of the fullest. Doug Bergam was there.

I know. I'm missing so many of the, of the lapdogs that have shown up. It goes on and on. And it's more than merely demeaning. It arguably violates the gag order that Donald Trump is under. And it's orchestrated by Trump, who reportedly was actually writing down the things he wanted his lap dogs to say. It arguably illegally circumvents the gag order under which Trump is operating and could be argued to be obstructing justice by its so doing. So. Romney is right. He's not even saying it forcefully or strongly enough. And to be honest, I don't even know if the showing up in the in New York thing is part of the reality show to try to become tribes Trump's vice president, or if it's more about currying favor more broadly, as Mitt Romney says, for some kind of other cabinet position. I don't know what it is, but it's demeaning and it's humiliating. And they should be ashamed of themselves. They're not. They're thrilled with themselves to even be near Trump. JD Vance was another one.

They're thrilled to be doing it, but they should be completely ashamed of themselves. A Monday, Memorial Day. We are doing our first only and maybe final big membership blowout before the election.

We need to grow our level of direct support.

Facebook and Instagram have killed political content. Tick tock is killing left wing political content. It's a nightmare out there. We estimate half of 1% of our audience supports us directly. We want to grow that to 1%, which solves every problem we have. And on Monday, Memorial Day, we'll be doing a one day membership special with a huge discount, hoping to set the new single day record for new members. If you'd like to be notified about this membership discount, if it sounds interesting, simply get on my newsletter at David Pakman.com in today's insane media landscape, to stay informed and prepare for the show, I turn to trustworthy publications of record like the Washington Post. No one can beat the Washington Post track record of investigative journalism and speaking truth to power. And now the Washington Post is a sponsor of the David Pakman show. Did you know? The Post offers a cool feature for audio lovers like you. You can actually listen to articles in addition to reading them, so you can tackle your to do list and catch up on the news at the same time. And if you thought the Washington Post only covered politics, think again. You name it, they cover it. Climate and culture, crosswords and cooking. The Washington Post helps you discover a world of surprising stories, important insights, and actionable advice. It's important to me that this show only be sponsored by a reputable news organization like the Washington Post, and my audience needs to stay informed. You really need a daily newspaper to read online to do that.

So we're partnering with the Washington Post to give anyone in my audience a subscription for just fifty cents a week for the first year. That is 80% off their typical offer. Go to washingtonpost.com pacman. The link is in the podcast notes.

You know one of the odd things that goes on in bathrooms in the United States, uh, oh, where is this going? Is, you know, when I moved to the US from Argentina, there's really no bidets in the United States. The bidet is just a part of life in Argentina. And why would you make a compromise in the bathroom? Why not have the elevated level of comfort and cleanliness, which is now easy and affordable with our sponsor, hello Tushy? The hello tushy bidet cleans everything with a fresh stream of water, two times better than alternatives like paper. You just spray and pat. It cuts down toilet paper use by 80%. It saves you money. It reduces paper waste. So a hello tushy Bidet really pays for itself in under a year, attaches to your existing toilet. You don't need an electrician. You don't need a plumber. You install. It takes eight minutes or less. Super easy. I got one and it is fantastic. And with over 100,005 star reviews, every bidet comes with a 30 day risk free guarantee. Twelve month warranty. Stop wiping and start washing.

Hello Tushy is offering my audience an exclusive limited time offer of 15% off your first bidet order plus free shipping. Go to hello tushy.com Pacman and use the code Pacman. That's 15% off all bidets at hello tushy.com. Just enter promo code Pacman at checkout. The link is in our podcast notes. See site for details.

The David Pakman show continues to be an audience supported program. We do depend on your support and we try to make it fun. When you sign up at join pacman.com, you get access to a daily extra show called the bonus show. You also get commercial free audio and video streams of the show, access to a sound board just like the one I have here.

Speaker D
We're doing a class action lawsuit against all machines.

Speaker A
Exactly. And so much more. Sign up at join pacman.com. You can use the coupon code savedemocracy 24 to get a discount. Let's go to discord and hear from some of the people in the audience. You can find our discord at david Pakman.com slash discord. We're going to start today from Aiden in Watertown, a website member. Thank you so much for that, Aidan. Welcome to the show. What's going on? What's on your mind today?

Hi David, can you hear me? Yes, I can.

So my question is about Project 2025. Obviously that's what they want to put in for Trump when he for their hopeful president. Now, it doesn't seem, does it seem weird? Would it be weird to think that they, if they lose, would just make it a project 2029 and not completely scrap it if he were to lose. Well, the question here is, what do we think the Republican Party will look like if Trump loses? And so your question really can only be answered with another question, unfortunately.

But the truth is we don't know the answer, because if Trump does lose. If Trump does lose, to what degree will this be it for MAGA Trumpism? And different people have different answers about that. There are those who believe that even if Trump loses, as long as you still have this MAGA contingent in the House, primarily, maybe a little bit of the Senate, but involving some of the governors around the country, then Trump MAGA Trumpism may continue. There would be an appetite for some kind of project 2029, as you suggest. The counterpoint, the more optimistic one, I guess, would be, if Trump loses, and especially if democrats are able to take control of the House, then maybe this is it for mega Trumpism. And although pro, the Heritage foundation would love to keep pushing on something like Project 2025 beyond next year, they may not have the constituency to be able to do it. I don't know the answer. It's just a. It's a predictive question. What do we think happens to MAga Trumpism if Trump loses? The first step is let's defeat him, and then we can figure out the rest. Speaker one. Yeah, no, I agree, and I hope it doesn't turn into 2029 when he does lose, but certainly not. And then my other question is, have you figured out what your Tesla replacement is going to be? Is it going to be the Kia ev nine or a Rivian or a Volvo or something along those lines? You know, I've not figured it out. I've not figured it out. I did test drive Irivian, and it has a number of advantages over my Tesla, including ride quality and general build quality, the feel of it, but I don't know.

The Volvo ex 90 is very interesting, although there have been a number of delays, and at this point, I don't know when it's really going to be available. So I have nothing to report at this time.

All right, well, I hope to hear what you choose eventually. All right, thanks, Aidan. Good to hear from you. You as well. Bye. All right, Aidan from Watertown, let's go next to.

Oh, I don't know. How about Tyler from Maine, also a website member? Thanks, Tyler. I appreciate that.

Tyler
Hey, David, can you hear me okay?

Speaker A
Yes, I can.

Tyler
So I was having a conversation with somebody about gas prices recently, and, you know, to the extent that the president or the current administration affects those things went through kind of the litany of like typical, you know, Keystone pipeline, global supply, domestic production, et cetera. You've covered all that stuff pretty well.

Their last retort was just, well, gas prices.

It's a futures commodities market. So if there's a Democrat in the White House, prices are going to go up regardless because people think that they're anti energy and act accordingly.

What's your take on that argument?

Speaker A
I'm not sure I totally understand. Give me the economic mechanism that they're asserting is at play here, just the.

Tyler
Fact that it's almost like a betting market, basically, and that having a democratic administration in the White House, they're going to be more regulatory, they're going to do things that negatively affect oil production. And so prices go up based on the fact that the market will be more difficult for oil production companies to exist in at some future date.

Speaker A
I mean, listen, I think that generically it's true that Democrats are more interested in moving on from fossil fuels in as many areas as possible. And so it's probably true that if you got uninterrupted democratic administrations, they're going to have a faster off ramp from using gasoline to power vehicles.

Are four more years of Joe Biden definitively going to bring higher gas prices? I don't think there's any evidence of that. I have not seen any evidence that in general, the things that democratic presidents do lead to higher gas prices on average, rather than republican presidents. So I just think that. Okay, sure. In some long term sense, if you start saying, here's our off ramp from selling new internal combustion engine vehicles, here's our off ramp from heating homes with oil, et cetera, at some long term, as we get off of those, it's true that they may get more expensive, but increasingly people won't be using them. But I just don't think that there's any historical argument to say gas prices in general are higher under democrats. I've not seen that data.

Tyler
Okay. Appreciate it. Thanks for the answer.

Speaker A
All right, Tyler from Maine. Great to hear from you. Why don't we go next to Colin from Charlotte, North Carolina. Colin, welcome to the show. What's on your mind today?

Colin
Hi, David. Can you hear me?

Speaker A
Yes, I can.

Colin
Hey, so I just wanted to bring up the concept of corporate greed. So I actually listened to a Tucker Carlson video, and I'm not typically a fan of him in any capacity, but he brought up the monopoly power that Amazon has had recently and their price fixing in the market. I was just wondering from a legislative standpoint, what are some things that we can push for or hope for that we can crack down on? Corporate greed, which I think really drove up a lot of the inflation during the COVID era.

Speaker A
In one of the classics that's often mentioned is there should be serious disincentives from doing stock buybacks. That's a common one. And the way that it would be organized, uh, probably would depend on how you want to implement it. So I think that that, uh, potentially is one way to go. You could look at taxing so called golden parachutes, but also like bonus type performance based compensation plans more aggressively.

There's a lot of different ways. But also corporate greed can sometimes mean price gouging. It's not necessarily about stock buybacks. And so price gouging would have to be dealt with in a different way. It really depends on what you want to target specifically.

Colin
Yeah, I think, I typically think of price gouging. I mean, like when, when we had the COVID era, a lot of companies use that as a guise to raise their prices. So when you think about Chipotle, right, they had record profits during that time and really they rose their prices claiming inflation. But again, when you look at their numbers, they reported record profits. So I kind of think like cracking down on price gouging would be a good thing, but to what extent it's legislatively possible.

Speaker A
I'm not sure you're right exactly. Other ideas would be like you could do executive compensation limits that are linked to the median salary at the company.

You could do, you could look at strengthening shareholder voting rights.

There are a lot of things that could be done. Look at better enforcement of antitrust law. It's a very long list and I don't know where is the political appetite to do these things, I think is the open question.

Colin
Yeah, definitely. Very tough when you, when you have two corporate parties, obviously one more corporate. But I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question, David. I'm a huge fan.

Speaker A
Thanks so much. All right, Colin from North Carolina, great to hear from you very much. Appreciate it. Why don't we go next to, let's go to Jennie o from chester Springs, Pennsylvania.

Jenny o. Welcome to the program.

What's on your mind today? What can I do for you, Jenny? Oh, please accept my invitation to join the discussion.

Oh, boy. Last chance for Jenny. I'm here, I'm here. Welcome, welcome. Hey. Now my question is, I have someone close in my life who is very into RFK and they were talking to us about how they feel. George Soros is funding everything and they're very forceful with what they say. And I didn't know how to respond. And I just wanted to see if you could give me some tips. Well, these are all different things. I mean, why do they like RFK? What's the connection to George Soros actually getting at something really important, Jenny? Oh, which is a lot of times these conversations with, with folks like the ones you describe are difficult because they're not even clear in terms of what they believe and why they believe it. So usually the place to start is to ask them to super clearly explain to you what it is they're even asserting because very often they don't know and it completely falls apart by itself. So I would start there. I don't even know that based on what you told me. I can even really give you any information because it's not really clear that they know what they believe. So I would start by getting super specific and saying, okay, tell me exactly what is it? What positions of rfks do you like? What exactly is George Soros doing it and why do you think he's doing that? And why would he do some of the things you think he's doing? Get them to tell you, and often that's as far as it gets because they can't go any further.

Got it. That's great advice. Thank you so much. Great talking to you today. All right, Jenny O. From Chester Springs, Pennsylvania. Great to hear from you. Let's go next to, oh, I don't know, how about Kenji from Iowa? Kenji from Iowa, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Speaker two.

Kenji
Thank you. You can hear me, right?

Speaker A
I can hear you fine.

Kenji
Okay, great. So I just wanted to ask if you think that, you know, the reason for the mistrust of pharma and doctors in general stems from, like, things that happened in the past with like, you know, medications that ended up being very harmful to people.

Speaker A
Like what, for example?

Kenji
I don't know. I saw that movie where, you know, this guy was taking painkillers and ended up being addicted and it transformed his brain.

Speaker A
So let me see if I know what you're talking about. Kenji, are you talking about open? Michael is like, hold on a second.

Speaker D
Hold on.

Speaker A
Kenji, take it one step at a time. One step at a time. Are you talking about opiates and opiate addiction?

Kenji
Yeah.

Speaker A
Okay. Yes. So there have absolutely Sackler family, and even going beyond that, there have been horrible misdeeds when it comes to the marketing of opiate painkillers. That's absolutely true. Now that, how does that inform your broader question?

Kenji
You know, like, is it unreasonable to, is it unreasonable for people to have a general mistrust of, like, the medical system because of incidents like this?

Speaker A
Well, I think it's more complicated. I mean, listen, I think it's important to acknowledge and be transparent about past misdeeds. And that includes unethical marketing practices.

This includes insufficient disclosure of side effects. This includes immoral testing of medications that has been done. We should acknowledge that that stuff has happened first and foremost, so, so that it makes sense for people to say, hey, what about that stuff? I think also we have to. Okay, good. What's, what's that, Kenji? Speaker one.

Kenji
Yeah, sorry. Do you think the system has done a good job at addressing these issues?

Speaker A
I think it could always do a better job. But the way I sort of think about this is when you look at what the pharmaceutical industry has done in terms of developing life saving medications and vaccines that have done wonders for public health on balance, it's sort of like, hey, are we better off with the Internet? Even though there are also horrible things that are done through the Internet, like scams and child, explicit images of children and all these different things, I think it's obvious that human humanity is better off with the Internet than without it. Similarly, if you look at everything from, you know, vaccines to aspirin, cancer medications, statins, blood pressure medications, all these different things, I think that we acknowledge all of the things that have happened to get us here that have not been good. But it's hard to deny the way in which big pharma has dramatically expanded lifespan and health span, for sure.

Kenji
All right, thank you.

Speaker A
All right, Kenji from Iowa, appreciate the call very much. Why don't we go next to Tim from Orlando, Florida. Tim from Orlando, Florida, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today?

Speaker D
How you doing, David?

Speaker A
Doing well.

Speaker D
Okay. That was my way to check if you could hear me.

Well, I've been listening to you for not too long. I'm a technological invalid, so I just figured out how to raise my hand on discord.

Speaker A
Appreciate that. Well, welcome.

Speaker D
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate your work. And my question is, I've heard so many callers, and I really appreciate that you do this. I think it's fantastic that you do it.

But I've heard so many callers that I'm wondering why you don't talk about vote swapping.

Speaker A
By vote swapping, do you mean that someone in one state and someone in a different state for strategic reasons. Look at, hey, I'll vote for your candidate here if you vote for mine there. That way my candidate maybe will win your state, but it won't change the popular vote.

Speaker D
Exactly. Cause I've had several, I've heard several callers come on, like a guy from New York says, I'm just not gonna vote for Joe.

Speaker A
Yep.

Speaker D
I'm going to vote third party candidate. Right. And that's great. He can vote third party candidate in New York because that doesn't hurt us at all. But where I am in Florida, for instance, I could say, okay, I'm going to vote third party, especially if Florida is going to be red no matter what.

Speaker A
Yep.

Speaker D
I could vote third party and then talk to someone in the battleground state and say, hey, you know, okay, I don't like Biden. I don't like, you know, especially some of the things happen in Israel and Palestine and stuff, but I don't like Biden, but I really don't like Trump. So I'm gonna, I want, I want the world to hear my vote, and I'm gonna vote for a third party candidate because I think there needs to be a third party or a second. A true second party.

Speaker A
Yeah.

Speaker D
Et cetera.

Speaker A
So I think the reasons why it's not bigger are, number one, I've read in some jurisdictions it may be illegal because it's a form of vote manipulation or even vote buying, like you're buying a vote with another vote. So that I. The legality is a question mark, but let's put aside the legality for a second. There's really no way to verify whether both parties actually followed through because voting is private and confidential. So it relies on a lot of trust between the specific people that are trading the votes. You can argue that it distorts results because it will make it seem as though there is a much more even distribution of support for candidates across states, when in fact it may not be the case. And then it will potentially distort the ways in which campaigns are run on that basis. I think that there are practical challenges to coordinating it. I've seen no real way to at scale coordinated, even if we could get past the verification and the legality and all of it. So I think it's an interesting idea.

I generally, you know, it's sort of like strategic voting. My view is I'm just going wherever I'm voting, I'm going to vote for whoever most closely aligns with my views, period. And it's a much simpler and cleaner thing than, let me trade you my Florida vote for your New York vote or whatever. So I think that there's a lot of different reasons why it's not taken off.

Speaker D
Yeah. And the reason why I thought on your platform, to your point, there's a little bit of an honor code. You know, you make sure you're voting who you said for, and I will. But within certain circles, if you live in a very blue state or a very red state and you have a family member that lives in a battleground state.

Speaker A
Right.

Speaker D
Who, like my brother, is in Colorado and he wants to vote for RFK. Right. And Colorado hopefully will go blue, but it may be a battleground state. Right. So that's an example. But I, but I appreciate your, your.

Speaker A
Feedback on it and I get the math of it. I get the math of it. But, you know, the reasons I mentioned are some of the reasons for the, for the limitation, I think. Tim, I appreciate the call.

Speaker D
Speaker two, thanks. Keep fighting the fight, David, thank you.

Speaker A
All right, you too. Let's take a quick break. We're going to take more calls on discord right after this. So if you're holding on to talk to me, don't go anywhere because we'll be right back onto the phones.

It's getting warmer out there, so make sure you're prepared. Unfortunately for some of the gentlemen, the weather warming up does have a downside, and it's the sticking and the readjusting and the chafing when the humidity kicks in. But our sponsor, sheath underwear, will keep you comfortable. Sheath is the underwear ergonomically designed with separate compartments in the front, keeping everything comfortable, dry, and fresh all day long. No more moisture chafing. Everything can breathe. You won't even realize how much you needed this until the first time you try it. She thunderwear is especially awesome to sleep in. It's a whole new level of comfort at night you didn't even know was possible. Many colors and varieties to choose from. You'll find something you like. They even have a line of super quality women's underwear designed with comfort in mind. Sheath has more than 10,005 star reviews, fast shipping, and world class customer service. Go to sheath underwear.com pacman and get 20% off with the code PacmAN. That's sheath underwear.com pacman. Use code Pacman to save 20%. The info is in the podcast notes.

All right, let's hear from some more people via discord. You can find our discord at david pakman.com slash discord. Let's go to Quinn from Indiana who wants to talk about the recently announced forthcoming presidential debates between Trump and Biden? Quinn, what's going on?

Quinn
Yeah, I was just curious about that announcement with the two debates, one in June and September. And I was just curious, do you think this is a good strategy for the Biden campaign? And do you think this is also a sign that the traditional debate format, where it's usually three in the fall, is going away with two and one being in? Jim.

Speaker A
So second part, is this going to be the new normal, just the candidates arranging debates with each other in networks? Don't know. We'll have to see. It's kind of a weird situation with Trump. Uh, won't know the answer to that realistically until 2028. In terms of, is this a good strategy for Biden? I think it is, and I'll tell you why.

The expectations for Biden continue to be so low because Trump and MAGA and different people insist that Biden is so demented, he doesn't even know what day it is and he can't speak and he doesn't remember anything or anyone. And then he shows up and, you know, it happened with Bernie in 2020, it happened with Trump in 2020. It happened at the State of the union a few months ago. He's always overperforming because the expectation the bar is being set so low, I think it has a chance of really going well for Biden. Well enough, anyway. And if we believe what the, what the mental health experts are telling us about Trump's deterioration, Trump may be increasingly in rough shape, particularly if the debates are in the evening, which they are scheduled to be, where Trump seems to do worse. Some people refer to, refer to it as sundowning. I think that this has a lot of potential to help Biden. Now. Big picture.

I think for both candidates, there's more downside risk than upside risk. The amount that they can help themselves with an acceptable or good performance is smaller than the degree to which they can hurt themselves if they really struggle to speak or put, put a couple words together.

Speaker one.

Quinn
Yeah, I see that. And do you also think, I think Biden mentioned this. Do you think kind of using Trump's kind of how he didn't show up to the GOP debates, do you think that hurts him because he's saying, I'm scheduling it, and you, and you avoided the debates?

Speaker A
Speaker one no, I honestly, I don't think so. I think it's just two different things. Trump not showing up to debates in the republican primary seem to have no effect whatsoever. I think skipping presidential debates, if Biden is willing to do them, would hurt Trump. But they've agreed to it. So let's see what happens.

Quinn
Yeah, I think that's my question. Thank you very much, David.

Speaker A
All right. Quinn from Indiana, thanks very much. I appreciate that. Why don't we go next to, oh, I don't know, what about, what about Dario from Mexico City? Dario, welcome to the program.

What's on your mind?

Dario, welcome. David, can you hear me? Yes, I can.

Dario
Okay, cool. Thank you. I just wanted to ask, why do you think the left and the Dems are losing so bad on the border immigration issue? And how has the right been able to make this, like, a successful issue for them recently?

Speaker A
Well, they have been telling a lot of lies about it, which is very useful. You know, the truth about immigration is the law has only changed modestly under Joe Biden, primarily with title 42. And the Biden administration is doing what it can to reunite children and the parents that have been separated at the border. Republicans are completely unwilling to actually go forward with even border bills that they want, and they torpedoed their own bill, which shows the bad faith way in which they are engaged in this discussion. It is mostly Democrats who want to do something permanent for DACA recipients. You know, you, you. If you really get into the details, it's like, whoa, that's a lot of crazy stuff. Can you give me something simpler? Yeah, here's something simpler. The borders wide open, and Biden is giving debit cards and hotel rooms to every undocumented immigrant that comes in. And by the way, the undocumented immigrants are also voting. None of that second story is true.

I mean, well, let me put it. There are resources that are designated and earmarked for undocumented immigrants as they await asylum adjudication. But the big picture story is untrue. But a lot of people have fallen for it. Now, I think that the better question is, given that Americans, many of them, have been convinced that immigration is the number one issue by Republicans. Speaker one, are Democrats doing a good enough job at dealing with that issue? And I think the answer there is definitely not. Speaker one.

Dario
Yeah, I'm just really frustrated at how much they've conceded to the right's framing on the issue and let them really control the narrative around it, especially when just like a few years ago under Trump, we were able to make immigration more successful issue with us when he was putting kids in cages and he was, and what he was doing to the doctor recipients. So I'm really frustrated with it. And, you know, I just think I've kind of noticed as like a bigger part of the right strategy. They've, yep. They, they seem to be like, working to divide the left. You know, I've generally seen the left has been like a coalition of underrepresented and marginalized communities. And now, like, they're trying to, like, show, like, you know, the, our, like, black and african american community. Like, look, they're given these immigrants free checks and housing and stuff. They're not even giving you anything like that. And like, there are like young black men that are like, becoming more conservative on immigration. So I just see that as a real problem. They're able to keep dividing our coalition like this.

Speaker A
Completely agree. And listen, this is, this is why I'm so concerned about supposed leftists who agree about almost everything, threatening to stay home over Israel, Gaza, for example, and allow Trump to become president.

The, my cautious optimism comes from the fact that even young voters are saying it's only like the 15th most important issue to them. So I'm hopeful that we're not going to self destruct.

Dario
Yeah, no, I hope so, too.

I just think, I think in general, like, the left needs to, I just feel like they need to play dirtier. You know, I can only imagine if the, you know, if Joe Biden was convicted of rape and had 91 criminal charges, what the Republicans would be saying about him. Like, I just feel like the Democrats needs to, like, do a better job.

Speaker A
Of, I mean, look at what they're saying about Biden now and he hasn't even been charged with any of this stuff you just mentioned. So. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right about that.

Dario
Okay. Well, thank you, David. Appreciate it.

Speaker A
All right, Dario from Mexico City. Great to hear from you. Why don't we go next to Justin from Georgia? Justin from Georgia, welcome to the program. What's on your mind?

Speaker C
Hello.

So I guess one thing that's definitely on my mind, I would fall into the group that is very disappointed with Biden in recent months over his, in my view, mishandling of the Israel Gaza situation.

And I obviously know Trump is much worse.

But as I've been looking at it, I feel like my personal values are more represented by the Green party.

Speaker A
Okay.

Speaker C
So, and I, but I also know I'm in a battleground state. So, like the, I'm not sure what to do if I should, like, have a vote on someone I can actually, like, believe in or really just strategically choose the slightly less bad option.

Speaker A
Well, listen, only you can make this choice. What I will tell you is I don't even think the Green party has the ballot access to, hypothetically even get a candidate to become president of the United States. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't even think it's possible. Even if everybody had the same awakening you had, I don't think that based on what's going on with the deadlines and ballot access, the Green party even could win. Do you know anything to the counter on that?

Speaker C
Yeah. So on their website, on the Jill Stein 2024 website, they have a map of ballot access, and they're petitioning.

Most states are petitioning.

Some of the largest electoral college states like California and Texas, they are on.

They aren't. They're still petitioning in Georgia. So it could be. I can't. I might not even have the option.

Speaker A
Yeah.

Speaker C
To vote.

Speaker A
I mean, listen, here's my view, Justin. You're in a critical state. Georgia was one of the three states that made it so that Trump is not president right now. So my question if I were you, I'm not you. Your view may be different. My question, if I were you would be, what actions can I take in November? And do they help Trump, or do they deny Trump the presidency? Voting for Jill Stein in Georgia makes it more likely Trump becomes president. If you can live with that, have at it. That's your call to make. Nobody else can make that call for you.

Speaker C
I have another question kind of about that.

Speaker A
Okay.

Speaker C
Do you think that if Trump loses in 2024, will he stop being relevant in 2020?

Speaker A
My answer is yes.

Speaker C
Trump cudgel of anybody, but Trump is better than Trump. So we have to vote for anybody.

Tyler
Who'S not speaker one.

Speaker A
My belief is, if Trump loses in November, that's it for Trump. And then the question is, what happens to the rest of MAGA? And my cautiously optimistic perspective is some of them will just become kind of mainstream republicans. Some of them will go back to wherever they came from and no longer be involved in politics. So I'm cautiously optimistic that the defeat of Trump in November is the first step in getting away from the entire MaGA. Trump is nonsense. Speaker one.

Speaker C
Okay, that's. That's a hopeful view.

Speaker A
Help us, Justin. Okay. Help us make it happen in November with your vote in Georgia.

Speaker C
Um, okay. But I won't be happy about it.

Speaker A
All right, there we go. Justin, thank you for the call.

Speaker C
Okay. Thank you.

Speaker A
All right, important stuff, folks. This isn't theoretical. This isn't theoretical. All right, everybody that's going to do it for calls today, let's do the right thing in November, please. We'll take a quick break and the show does continue. And if I wasn't able to talk to you today, I'll try to do it next time. We will take calls. Again, quick break. We'll hear from a sponsor or two and then the show continues.

I used to get a ton of spam calls and text messages and email spam, and I hate wasting time screening that stuff. But here's a little secret that has cut way down on spam. Our sponsor, Incogni. Incogni sends a notice to all major data brokers demanding your personal information be removed from their databases. And Incogni will even follow up with each data broker to make sure your information is gone, and we'll keep you updated at every step. Data brokers are legally required to comply if no one is sending the requests on your behalf, your personal info just stays online. It's not just your name, phone number, and email. It can include addresses, Internet browsing history, and anyone can access it. Scammers, stalkers, your ex, your employer, even the government, NSA, FBI, who buy data in bulk and can keep tabs on the websites that people visit. I can tell you it's liberating not getting so many random calls and messages anymore and knowing the government and potentially wacky people no longer have access to my sensitive data, my audience gets 60% off. Go to incogni.com pacman. Use the code pacmaN. That's incogni.com pacman. Gets 60% off with code Pacman. The info is in the podcast notes. Let's start Friday feedback right now. Why not? Remember that on the Friday feedback, we will feature emails that come in, Facebook comments, TikTok replies, YouTube responses. You never know what might end up featured. One of my, two of my favorite things are people who contact me to criticize me about my positions on things I've never discussed.

And number two, people who come call in or email to criticize me about the fact that I won't cover x even though I've already covered x. Our first example today is of that second series, Tony said. The David Pakman show not talking about democratic senator being charged with money laundering and bribery. Henry Cuellar is only one of Pelosi's favorites. Well, I hate to break it to you, Tony, but at the time that you wrote this message, I had already covered the indictment of the Congressman Henry Cuellar and his wife. I wasn't hiding it.

I didn't bury it. It was a lead story on the show. The day that the story broke, I have no interest in defending, in a partisan way, elected officials accused of criminality, when I have no reason to think that these are anything short of just investigations that turn up evidence. Much like Trump, Henry Cuellar deserves due process and his day in court. Much like with Trump, the indictments are thick and meaty, full of what appears to be evidence of criminality, and it will now be time to let the justice system do its work. So sorry, Tony, I did cover it. And by the way, the, I'm not even a Democrat. Like, to the extent that Democrats are better than Republicans, I mostly vote for Democrats. But this idea that I would go out of my way to hide some congressman being indicted when it has nothing whatsoever to do with the paramount important choice we have between Trump and Biden in November. And by the way, I don't think anyone who cares about this country is going to decide, do I vote Trump or do I vote Biden based on whether Henry Cuellar was indicted. If you know of a voter that's sitting around going, you know, I was going to vote for Biden, but then Henry Cuellar got indicted, by the way, not convicted, but indicted. Now I'm going to go out and vote Trump, who's been indicted four times on 88 counts. Give me a break. So I have no interest in hiding this stuff and covered it on day one. All right, next we go from one brainiac to another.

Here is Noel, who. Or Noel. No, it's Noel. It's Noel. Noel says, you are full of s. Why don't you move to China or North Korea with your communist friends? You should be ashamed of yourself for being a brainwashed, brainwashed piece of s. You really have your followers brainwashed just like you. So f off and get a life, you a hole.

Um, I'm not a communist.

I'm not a socialist.

I'm not a democratic socialist. I'm a social democrat. So this is sort of like asking someone who lives in Denmark and likes the way Denmarks economic system and system of government disorganized. Well, if you like communism so much, why don't you go to North Korea? Oh, no, I don't like communism. I like the system we have in Denmark. Now, a better question would be, David, why aren't you living in Denmark? And that is a fair question. And the answer is, to some degree, it's really difficult to move to Denmark. Much tougher than you might imagine.

And also, you know, like, my friends and family are in the United States, I don't speak Danish.

There's a bunch of different reasons here.

But the whole, you know, there's one thing I will say which I want to be careful in how I phrase it.

There is a group historically that has been attacked by capitalists for being the communists that are bringing things down, and a group that has been attacked by the socialists and communists for being the capitalists that are ruined. Any, everything, that group is Jews. Okay? And for those who aren't familiar with the history of anti Semitism, and by the way, I'm not even saying this email is anti semitic, but I do want to point out that one of the things that jewish folks have become and have been for thousands of years are the scapegoats. They're the scapegoats at a time when there was disease, the Jews were the dirty ones bringing the disease, the plague and other things.

When it was capitalists who wanted to say, well, who is bringing us down? It's. It's those socialist, communist, lefty Jews like Einstein and, you know, whoever else. And then similarly, now we see this more from the left. You have some of these socialist and communist groups saying it is jewish capitalists that are ruining everything with their plundering and blah. So it's become a very, very good catch all for whatever is bad right now, including both when it's the bad capitalists, it's the Jews, and when it's the bad socialists, it's the Jews. So it's very common that I get attacked on this show by those on the socialist left for being a capitalist and by the capitalists for being a socialist or communist. I'm just a social Democrat. And, you know, if I spoke danish, maybe I would look into moving there. It's a beautiful place where I've been, and I would have loved to have stayed longer. All right. From the subreddit skate cloud posted does anyone think a Trump v. Biden debate will be a contest of who glitches out more? So there's been plenty of videos of Trump glitching out and going off on nonsensical rambles. But there's also been plenty of times where Biden goes into random tangent or loses his train of thought. In Biden's defense, at least last elections debates, he did a good job of steering away from Trump's craziness, but I think he's lost a step even since then. These might be the most stressful debates to watch in history, but should make for entertaining tv, perhaps.

Yeah, I mean, listen, I don't think that if there, if there are Trump Biden debates, I don't believe for a second that they are going, that the impact they have will come down to who has a really interesting tax plan that they explain. I don't think the debates are going to come down to education policy.

They are going to be about who looks more disoriented or confused and the level of glitching. I mean, I think, I think that essentially that that post is correct. And if you see it differently, by all means, let me know. OC Gal says Fox News cuts away from Trump when they see him struggle.

This is why many of his supporters say that they have never seen him stumble with his speech. Yeah, there's a degree to it. I mean, listen, right side broadcasting and rumble. And some of these right wing channels and platforms do cover Trump speeches. They just never mention. When Trump starts glitching out and making up these words, let me see if I have one here. Saudi Arabia and Russia will repeat.

Yeah.

So they just don't call attention to it. You, you will see the short circuiting on those platforms. They'll just never mention it. All right. Dominic Johnson says we should replace Biden at the convention.

You know, people have written to me with this idea before.

I don't know how else I can explain to you that when you have a presumptive nominee, he's easily won, blowing people out of the water.

Write in campaigns, he's even winning. Biden is, he's the incumbent.

And then at the convention you announce you won't be nominating the guy who won so easily, and instead you're going to replace him with who? And how would that even be a democratic process? I guess you could say, well, if the delegates vote differently, ok, but those delegates are pledged to Biden. Biden won them.

That's chaos. And I don't think it's a recipe for victory. I don't think we get closer to defeating Donald Trump by forcibly replacing Joe Biden at the convention. Call me crazy. Katherine Berger says Trump's slurring is getting so much worse in the last month. I'm just astonished. Yeah, it is. And listen, to the extent that we've had experts on the show weigh in about what's going on with Trump.

They both predicted if Trump has what we believe he has, he's going to get worse. It's going to be more and more frequent. And as I've said before, it used to be that every few months Trump would kind of forget who's president, for example, and then it would be like once a month and then it was every couple of weeks, and then it was every week. And now it's every single single time Trump speaks, seemingly after noon local time.

He's making no sense. So it does seem to be getting worse.

If there are debates, I wonder how bad it'll be by then. Stephen says, I'm a lifelong Republican, but I will also be voting for Biden to put an end to Trump and MAGA. I applaud Jeff Duncan standing for decency. He is showing courage and sanity. You know, we interviewed Jeff Duncan before on the show, republican lieutenant governor of Georgia. We are trying to get him back on. I think it would be a very interesting conversation. And indeed, he said he will be voting for Biden. All right. No B's says, why isn't the medical community not speaking out? I think what I think what this person means is, why isn't the medical community speaking out? I'm going to read it that way. Why isn't the medical community speaking out against his post birth abortion lies? There should be a very outspoken public campaign from the OB GyN society about this. Yeah, listen, OB GyNs, in a sense, have spoken out about these post post birth abortions and the day before the due date abortions. And Ob gyns have said very clearly, it just doesn't happen. It does not happen that a healthy woman with a healthy pregnancy comes in to the office the day before the due date and says, I decided I don't want to have a kid. Please give me an abortion. And so, sure, we can have the discussion about should it be legal and who should regulate that and what requirement should there be and should politicians decide whether it's legal or not. We, we can do that. We've been doing that.

But the idea that women are coming in the day before their due date, forget about the post birth stuff. I mean, that's just, it's absurd. Lies the idea that women just say, yeah, you know, everything's fine, I'm fine, the fetus is fine, everything's good, I just don't want the baby. Ob Gyns have spoken out and they've said it's simply not happening in anything that we would approximate other than the most extenuating circumstances. And the ones I've heard have even said in that situation, we would say, hey, why don't, why don't we just give it a day, have the baby, then we'll talk about adoption or other things. Even pro choice ob Gyns have said that. Now, can you find some doctor somewhere that will, with no concern whatsoever, just say, oh, you're due tomorrow, you want an abortion? Sure, you probably could find that. I'm sure right wingers will say David, but what about XYZ story? I'll look into XYZ story. But the big picture we've heard from the doctors that deal with this is that it is simply not happening, and it makes those lies even more pernicious. Email me info at david pakman.com if you have anything you'd like to say or weigh in on, remember it may be used on the show. Become a member at Join pacman.com. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel. And remember that my newest, newest, newest children's book, perfect for an election year, think like a Voter, is available at david pakman.com book. Get a few copies, send them to friends, send them to foes. It'll really explain to kids, why are we voting and why does it matter?

We will see you on the bonus show and I will of course, be back on Monday.

5/17/24: How is anyone still undecided? Mitt Romney off the deep end?

Primary Topic

Episode Summary

Main Takeaways

Episode Chapters

1: Opening Thoughts

2: Romney's Interview Analysis

3: Debates and Democratic Processes

4: Call-ins and Listener Interaction

Actionable Advice

About This Episode

People

Content Warnings:

Transcript