5/24/24: Massive doc dump in Trump's bedroom, Fox host confused and disoriented

Speaker A
Well, there were even more documents, not on the toilet, but in his bedroom. Donald Trump's attorneys found more classified documents in his bedroom at Mar a Lago. And this all happened months after the FBI served the search warrant at Mar a lagoon related to the classified documents case. This is all, we're learning this now because of newly unsealed court documents. There's an 87 page opinion by US District Judge Beryl Howell, which, who oversaw the grand jury related to that case. And what we learned is that the FBI served the search warrant in August of 2022. And this was, of course, as we now know, after months of the National Archives trying to get these boxes of classified materials back from Trump. And we now know that, uh, Donald Trump actually worked not to return these documents, but to hide them and to obscure their location and so on and so forth. And the reason that we learned this is that Howell, uh, in the opinion, cites the finding of additional classified documents. And she ruled, you know, uh, the additional documents that were later found are fair game for the prosecutors to ask about. It's a technical finding, and it's a, it's a, it's a question of, can documents later turned over be part of the subject matter about which Trump and others are questioned? And the answer is yes. Normally, those documents would be shielded by attorney client privilege because it was Trump's lawyer that found and subsequently returned those documents. But the little wrinkle in this, what we found, is that the documents were in Donald Trump's bedroom.

And this is all part of the bigger story that Trump and lawyers have insisted. Trump turned over everything he knew he had right away.

The truth of the matter is that Trump didn't. Trump used Mar a Lago employees to try to hide and shield and obscure these documents and to keep them. And underlying all this is, well, could Trump have believed, wrongly, that they had turned everything over? We know, of course, because of the picture of the documents in Trump's bathroom, which we have now on the screen, that Trump must have, I assume Trump uses the bathroom. He must have known that there were documents in the bathroom. And then now, of course, because there were documents in his bedroom, it is further evidence that it is not even remotely plausible that Trump genuinely believed in good faith that they had turned over all of the documents. So Trump's attorneys eventually turned these records over.

This was much later. This was January of 2023. And as, as we have so many conflicting stories intertwined here, if Trump had declassified these documents, it would be a different conversation. But Trump didn't declassify the documents, we know he didn't. Trump claims he did telepathically, but we know Trump knew he didn't because there are recordings of Trump saying to people, this stuff is secret and waving it around and saying, I shouldn't be showing it to you, but I'm showing it to you anyway. So Trump even is on recording saying, I didn't actually declassify these things. Does this change the broader scope of the entire story? Trump knew he had the documents. He knew the FBI wanted them back. He worked to obscure and hide them. No, it doesn't change that. It does give us the additional detail that Trump had documents not only in his bathroom, but in his bedroom. And the imagery and the visual aspect of this continues to be as cartoonish as anything else. I have a question for you. Have you ever seen a Fox News host this confused? I'm going to play a clip for you of Lawrence Jones talking about oil and gas imports and exports. This is from decoding Fox News.

And he just seems so disoriented and confused about how things work. And it's actually a really good opportunity to explain some things about oil and gas and so called energy independence, which is a term that's often repeated. I don't even know that the average person knows what it means. So I, my hope is this will be really instructive.

Let's start with the clip. Here's Lawrence Jones talking about oil and gas, and he's just, he's visibly confused and doesn't know what the hell is going on.

Speaker B
Yesterday we had AFP on, and they are going to about 30 to 40 different gas stations, and they're paying for the gas to get back to when Donald Trump was there to show Americans what life was about. But they did some analysis on why the gas prices are going up. And it's all tied to the green energy policy of Joe Biden, 27 billion toward the greenhouse gas reduction fund, $20 billion to the, now, if you're, if.

Speaker A
You'Re hearing this and saying, man, he sounds confused. He sounds like he's just reading stuff he doesn't understand. You're absolutely correct.

Speaker B
The green has gas reduction fund $20 billion to the automobile companies to buy EV friendly vehicles. By the way, people are retired turning those cars. A, and number two, we just had lots and lots of rental cars companies that they got rid of them because no one wants to buy them.

Speaker A
So, so he's trying to argue that the reason for supply demand shifts and oil, which leads to gas prices because gasoline for vehicles is refined from oil. It's because of Biden's Green New Deal, which isn't a thing, right? I mean, it's like, okay, in the infrastructure, the Inflation Reduction act and the infrastructure bill, they have elements that relate to EV's and green energy. But, but the Green New deal was never passed. It's people are buying EV's, but then returning them, and things are being shipped and all the supply demand.

Do facts matter at all? Now, I want to briefly explain the entire energy independence, oil and gas thing that's going on.

They love to argue that Biden has dramatically changed the status quo with regard to oil in the United States. And they usually point to gas prices to try to prove that they go, well, gas prices are up. Gas prices were way up then, they were down. Now that as we head into summer, they're going up again. There's a seasonality to it. If you really want to compare gas prices now to when Trump was president, you also need to adjust for inflation. Put that all aside for a second.

In the United States, we are and have been energy independent under Joe Biden by their definition. Now, let me tell you what their definition is. Their definition is they go, okay, how much oil do we drill in a year, and how much oil do we use in a year? That's their definition. Now, I don't even know that that's a great definition of energy independence, and you'll understand why in a moment. But their definition is, are we, are we producing as much oil as we consume as a country, but we are still importing oil and we are still exporting oil. Why are we doing that? If we produce as much as we use, why are we doing that? And the, the bulk of the explanation is that there's different types of crude oil, which is the source material that is refined into gasoline, and it has different characteristics. The two main categories are light sweet crude and heavy sour crude. Why is it called sour versus sweet? It's literally about the taste, and it's about sulfur content. I believe if you touch it to your lips, you will notice that the light sweet crude is sort of sweet, and the heavy sour crude is sort of sour. In the US, we are mostly getting light sweet crude out of the ground.

We are not set up to refine light sweet crude in the US. Our refineries are set up to refine heavy sour crude, but that's not what we get out of the ground. Now, you might say, well, why? Why are we set up that way? Refineries specialize. And because historically, we were importing light sweet crude from other countries. Our refineries are set up to refine light sweet crude. So we pump out, I'm sorry. We refine mostly heavy sour crude. We are set up to refine mostly sour crude. So when we take all the light sweet crude out of the ground, we have to export it so that it can be refined elsewhere. That's what is going on here in the United States. Do you think Lawrence Jones understands this? Do you think the average Trumpist, or even Trump himself, understands this? Or would it be better to just say, the reason we're seeing all this stuff go on? The reason we're importing and exporting, the reason that much of this actually depends on global markets, which the US is only one of many players in. It doesn't have to do with people buying and returning electric vehicles thanks to something Joe Biden did, which he didn't actually do. I don't think they have any idea. But you already, if you understand this concept that we are energy independent in terms of usage versus production, but the reason we don't refine the stuff we use, as we don't have the right type of refinery, you already know more than the average. Forget about the average Fox News viewer. The average Fox News host appears to know.

At this point in time, there is a terrifying new threat from former Trump propagandist Steve Bannon that goes to the real, systemic, terrifying risk of Trump winning and instituting Project 2025. Here's Steve Bannon on his war room program saying, you should be afraid of a Trump presidency because there is going to be accountability.

Revenge is what he's talking about. There is going to be accountability for those who oppose Donald Trump. We mock your. We mock your fear. We want your fear.

It's going to be accountability.

We are taking apart the administrative state. We're going to destroy the deep state, and we're going to hold everybody responsible that put this republic in the situation it's in today.

Accountability. Responsibility.

And that will come with authority.

The authority of Donald John Trump as 47th president of the United States.

This is what they're talking about. Okay. We are preparing a white paper on Project 2025 where we will put really, you know, I can do as many clips about it I want on it as I'm. Until I'm blue in the head, but we're gonna put something down in black and white, in written form.

What is in Project 2025? What are the systemic, near and middle term and longer term risks of instituting it? And what does it mean for people who just don't want Trump. They don't like Trump. They have a different set of political beliefs. If you believe Joe Biden, if you believe not, not Joe Biden, if you believe Steve Bannon. Rather, what it includes is revenge against those who oppose Donald Trump, brought on by the authority of Donald Trump.

If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what will, to be perfectly honest. So that white paper is forthcoming. We have to believe them when they tell us what they're going to do. I don't know what choice we have. Let's take a very quick break here from a sponsor or two. Remember that Monday, Memorial Day, that one day membership promo will be live. If you want to take advantage of a one day membership special, our first membership drive of the year, and get a discounted membership, all you need to do is get on my newsletter at David Pakman.com. you'll get an email Monday morning telling you what to do to get that discounted membership. So quick break right back after this.

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So please, let's go to Dan from Chicago, who is a website member. I very much appreciate that, Dan. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind? Let's hear from people via discord.

Speaker C
Oh, David, can you hear me?

Speaker A
Yes, I can.

Awesome.

Speaker C
I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on Michael Cohen saying that he took, I guess, more money from the Trump organization than what was intended and what the impact is going to be on the Trump trial.

Speaker A
Speaker one. Yeah. If I understand correctly, correct me if I'm wrong, Dan. Basically, Michael Cohen admitted that he skimmed 30 grand. He did not. He took an extra 30 grand in reimbursement or didn't reimburse an extra 30 grand. Something along those lines, right?

Speaker C
Yeah, exactly. Kind of.

He, he shorted paying out this other firm.

Speaker A
Right.

Speaker C
Allocated money.

Speaker A
Speaker one, listen, it's dishonest. It's theft.

And the question here with Trump on trial is, does the jury believe that the entire thing is not criminal because Michael Cohen skimmed 30 grand? I don't know the answer to that. On the one hand, Cohen has already been tried for his involvement in this whole thing. He was convicted.

Now it's Trump.

Cohen testified under oath. If Cohen lies, he could be charged with perjury. Trump, while claiming outside of court that this is all nonsense, refused to testify and be put under oath, despite saying that he was going to. There were about a dozen other witnesses other than Michael Cohen who corroborated basically the entire story. There are dozens of ledger entries and canceled checks and financial records that corroborate the entire story. And from understanding what went on in the trial, it seems pretty clear that the crime that is being charged was committed. So it certainly doesn't look good. There's no doubt about that. Whether a jury will say Trump's not guilty because Michael Scoan, Michael Cohen, skimmed 30 grand. I just don't know.

Speaker D
Right.

Speaker C
And I would imagine that the, sorry, the defendants would, tried to paint Michael Cohen as now not untrustworthy, that you can't necessarily believe what he says. And I'm curious, you think they did a good job of painting him untrustworthy? I know he can't necessarily hear what's going on.

Speaker A
Yeah. I don't know whether they did a good job. I mean, here's the big thing, Dan, and I think a lot of this comes down to the closing statements. Can the prosecution articulate a vision of Trump's obvious criminality, regardless of Michael Cohen skimming 30 grand, is there enough meat on the bone elsewhere that Michael Cohen skimming 30 grand will be preempted by the prosecution's closing statements. And then for the defense, it will be given that they're not presenting any alternative explanation for what happened. Is just attacking Michael Cohen going to be enough in the closing statement to convince the jury to vote not guilty?

Speaker D
Will?

Speaker A
No, maybe, maybe as soon as next week.

Speaker C
Okay, awesome. Thanks for the call, David.

Speaker A
All right, thanks, Dan from Chicago. Great to hear from you. We are taking calls via discord. Let's go next to Paul from St. Louis, Missouri. Paul, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today?

Paul from St. Louis, Missouri, please select the correct audio device so that we can hear you.

And last chance for Paul.

Speaker E
Hey, can you hear me now?

Speaker A
Yes, I can. Speaker one.

Speaker E
Sorry about that. I've got it on push to talk, and that was a mistake.

Speaker A
Oh, no problem.

Speaker E
I just wanted to quickly tell you I've got a bone to pick with you about your coverage of Biden recently. You mentioned that, you know, Trump is running for election under the party of law and order, and they don't actually respect law and order, but, you know, Biden actually does.

I would agree with that to a certain extent, except for, you know, they've been looking for a reason to impeach him for a long time. They don't really have anything except they could impeach him right now because he bombed Lebanon illegally without congressional approval. That's an act of war. Right.

Speaker A
You know, I think the problem with that argument is that in order to impeach, you have to say high crime and misdemeanor. And unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your view, in the United States, presidents have regularly stretched and circumvented going to Congress for approval for individual acts, which some would say are acts of war. They talked about getting Bush on this when he went outside of what were supposedly the limited confines of the authorization for military force. They talked about going after Obama. I think you're going to have a real hard time impeaching a president for something that is so obviously, even if you say that it was wrong, it's so obviously and clearly a part of their official job. You know, Trump going to Ukraine and saying, please announce an investigation into Biden, even if you don't do it, that's clearly a campaign ask. It has nothing to do with Trump's official role as president. Even if, even if I accept what you're saying on the on the fabric facts. And I don't have the facts in front of me. There's absolutely no history in recent decades for impeaching presidents for such obviously official acts. So I think you would really struggle with that.

Speaker E
Thank you, David. I do have one more quick question for you, if that's okay.

Speaker A
Sure.

Speaker E
So it, I know you said you went to the White House and you met with Kamala Harris. I don't remember hearing you talk about what that meeting was about. I am still curious. Maybe there's a video out there where you, where you talk about that.

I'm not sure. Is there?

Speaker A
No. So, yes, I talked generally about it. The, so that it was an off the record meeting, which means that we can generally, like in my, in my discussions about issues, if I, if I learn something during that meeting, I can just generically kind of talk about it. But the specific content of the meeting was off the record. I'll tell you, there was nothing particularly controversial. Everybody was just allowed to ask whatever they wanted. But I think the whole point of it was for people to feel comfortable because there were other people with platforms like mine there. The idea, so that the conversation could be free flowing was this is off the record, which you're told going in. Right. So it's not like you show up and then they go, it's, do you want to come and have an off the record conversation? It was off the record. So I generically have said what I talked about was concerns about the way in which by the administration is not making their case well for their reelection. And I expressed concern and said some in my audience think that they're doing a terrible job. So that was what I brought up. But it was an off the record conversation. That's why I've not gone into more detail.

Speaker E
Sure. Thanks for that. It just, it has felt to me, and I don't know if it's since then that you are, you're, you're doing a great job covering the, the Trump trial, and I appreciate that. But I do feel like maybe you're going easy on Biden, especially with things happening in Gaza and Palestine. I really haven't seen you talk about it very much.

Speaker A
So listen, the, the meeting was in March, October 7, happened five months before that. And what I can assure you is that the degree to which I'm talking about that, because this is not a foreign policy show, has not changed at all, at all since that meeting. So just check the facts on that. Okay.

Speaker E
Well, d, thanks, David.

Speaker A
All right, Paul from St. Louis, Missouri, let's go next to Phil from Maryland. Phil from Maryland, welcome to the program.

What's on your mind today?

Phil from Maryland? Welcome to the program. Please unmute yourself.

Speaker D
Hi, can you hear me?

Speaker A
Yes, I can.

Speaker D
Okay, thank you.

So, I was actually curious. I am right now here working on doing some ESOL work. Ironberg is an ESL teacher. So I was kind of wondering about your journey of learning English.

Speaker A
Phil, you're talking about ESL, right? English is a second language.

Speaker D
Well, they've changed the terminology. It's now English for speakers of other languages.

Speaker A
Oh, so it's e s o l now.

Speaker D
Yeah. So, I'm sorry, Esau.

Speaker A
English for speakers of other languages. Okay, well, listen, I moved to the US when I was five. I knew two words in English at that time. I knew the word stop, and I knew the word blue. Interestingly, pulling out of the airport when we arrived at JFK, I immediately saw a stop sign. And I. So I was like, wow, I'm already seeing words that I know this is going to be easy. It turned out it wasn't quite so easy, but basically it was just full immersion. When I went to kindergarten, I had a translator. You know, school starts in September. They assigned a translator to me. My parents and my translator believed that by December, I didn't need the translator anymore. Cause, you know, we're talking about a five year old, so you can pretty quickly catch up with vocabulary.

I kept the translator until February. I think it was sort of like a security blanket in a sense, where I wanted the translator. And then by February, I was up to the english level of everybody in the class, and then that was it.

Speaker D
So you didn't have to go through any, like, structured english classes or anything like that? You just learned through immersion?

Speaker A
Yeah, that's it.

Speaker D
Wow, that's pretty impressive.

Speaker A
You know, I remember this really funny moment. Phil, you might appreciate this. I remember a funny moment. It was sometime when I still had the translator. So it was like, between September in February, where there was some. I don't know what it was, but they took three of the spanish speakers, or. No, three of the kids who spoke other languages. I don't know that they were all Spanish. I think I was the only spanish speaker and three kids who did not speak Spanish, and they said, hey, we're going to do a vocabulary exchange.

You tell David some words that you want to know how to say in Spanish. And hilariously, this other kid comes up with all words that are the exact same. Like, I think he was like, I want to know how to say banana. In Spanish. I want to know how to say camera in Spanish. And I was like, they're the same words. And there was just this confusion. Does. Does David know what he's talking about? Does he not just a little funny vignette from that. That five month period in my life.

Speaker D
Oh, that's funny. Yeah. It's interesting because I'm trying to learn some Spanish to help my students. And, yeah, there's so many cognates that work there. I think that's what they're called. I should know this, considering I have a master's degree, but I always forget the terminology. But, yeah, it's really interesting. Just like, I guess since there's so much, like, latin influence in both, you know, we have a lot of the same sorts of words.

Speaker A
Yeah, I mean, listen, I think that reading other languages that are related is much easier to pick up later in life. I think the speaking is very, very tough later in life. And, you know, I mean, I took French in high school because I already spoke Spanish, and I found it very easy because it's so similar when I go to Italy or when I hear Italian that's being spoken clearly. I just understand everything because it is so similar. Reading is easy, but good luck with the speaking part, you know?

Speaker D
Yeah. Well, David, I want to thank you for calling on me. This is actually one of the few free Wednesdays I've had in a long time, so I'm glad that you could get around to me. I joined your membership about a year ago, and I love everything that you say. It's been a lot of fun to listen to the podcast on the way to work, and I just appreciate, you know, everything that you, you know, kind of just your calmer demeanor and coverage of, you know, american insanity. So. Speaker one.

Speaker A
I appreciate that, Phil. Thank you so much for the call. Speaker one.

Speaker D
Yeah, have a good day.

Speaker A
All right. There goes Phil from Maryland. Let's go next to Declan from Leesboro, and, I'm sorry, Leesburg. Leesburg, Virginia. Declan from Leesburg, Virginia, please accept my invitation to join the program. And then you'll be able to talk, and then I will respond and we will have dialogue.

Declan, please select the correct audio device so that I can hear you.

And last chance for Declan could be our first botched call of the day.

All right. Well, there goes Declan. That's too bad. Let's go to Fahim from Florida, a website member. Fahim, always appreciate your membership@joinpakman.com. welcome to the program. What's on your mind today?

Speaker F
Hey, David. Thanks for accepting the call.

So I wanted to ask you, there's a lot of people, like, on the left side of the political spectrum who are against the Israel's war on Gaza or in Hamas, that is. And a lot of those people are thinking about voting for third parties. I know you've talked about this extensively before, but it's hard to convince some of them that, like, voting for a third party is like a wasted vote or a vote like that that's making sure that Trump's gonna be in power eventually. So how do you convince those people?

Speaker A
So let me ask you this, Fahim. Is it hard to convince them mathematically, or is it hard to convince them morally? Because these are two different things.

Speaker F
I would say morally.

Speaker A
Morally.

Speaker F
Oh, okay.

Speaker A
So here has been my approach. Okay. I say, what issue do you care about the most? And they'll say, if we're talking about the folks you're talking about, they'll say, I care about the preservation of palestinian life. And I'll say, great, I care about that, too. Of the people that could be president, who do you think would do the most to preserve palestinian life? If you've heard the things RFK says about the israeli palestinian conflict, it's not RFK. If you hear the things Trump says about the israeli palestinian conflict, it's not Trump. Of the three people that could be president, it's Biden, who clearly has done the most and cares the most about preserving palestinian life. So that's the person that you would vote for, right? And then they will often. Sometimes they'll say, hey, you know what? You're actually right. That happened on a call last week where a guy said, you know what, David? You're right. That's who I'm gonna vote for. Uh, sometimes they will say, well, I can't be complicit in helping someone that even if he's better than Trump or RFK, he hasn't done enough.

So then I say, well, would you rather be complicit in electing someone who will be even worse? Because not voting or voting third party will help Trump win. If you're comfortable with that, then by all means, go ahead and do that. I'm not comfortable with that. I want the best option of the three, which is why I'm going to vote for Joe Biden. If that's not compelling to them, then I would question whether they are kind of morally blinded.

Speaker F
Okay, I see.

I think that's a helpful answer. And that could help a lot of people, like, see where I'm coming from. At least I got.

Speaker A
Yeah.

Speaker F
Thank you for taking my call, answering my question.

Speaker A
David Fahim from Florida. Great to hear from you. Let's take just a very quick, quick break and hear from a sponsor or two, but we're going right back to discord, and we'll talk to more people. So if you're waiting to talk to me, just hang on a moment. It's important to me that any supplement I take is of the highest quality and freshness. And that's why I've been turning to ag one for years. Unlike other vitamin brands, ag one conducts relentless testing for purity and poor potency. It's tested for 950 contaminants and banned substances. While the industry standard is usually to test for only ten, ag one is NSF certified for sport, one of the most rigorous, independent quality and safety certifications out there. And the whole reason I drink ag one is it just is simple. It simplifies everything. It's a scoop a day. I get my vitamins and my minerals, and that's all I need. And the probiotics in ag one are something I'm particularly glad is there. So ag one just replaces the vitamin bottles, the digestive aids, all of the things that you might otherwise be taking individually. It's quicker, it's more cost effective than buying everything individually. You can go to drinkagone.com Pacman to get a free year supply of vitamin D and k, plus five free ag one travel packs. That's drink ag, the number one.com pacman. The link is in the podcast notes.

Let's go back to Discord and talk to a few more people. You can find our discord at david pakman.com slash discord. Let's go to Janelle from Baltimore. Janelle, welcome back to the program. Great to see you. Great to hear from you. What's on your mind today? And please unmute yourself. Janelle.

Speaker G
Sorry about that. Hey, can you hear me?

Speaker A
Yes, I can.

Speaker G
Okay. Hi. How you doing?

Speaker A
Doing well.

Speaker G
I have a question.

I don't know a lot about the financial stuff. I listen to you talk about the stock market and stuff, and I'm like, well, I have no idea what you're talking about, but I just. I just listen to you because I agree with you on other political things. So I'm taking your word for it a lot of the time.

Speaker A
Okay.

Speaker G
But anyway, my question is about, uh, like, finances and stuff and what the. What the top 1% plan is here, because, like, maybe you can make that clear. They're making everything more expensive. Rent housing products, costs of services are going up, up, up, but, but paychecks are not going up so well.

Speaker A
I don't know what you mean by the plan necessarily, Janelle. I think what you're getting at is if the cost of everything continues to increase relative to wages, eventually everything will break. Is that sort of what you're getting at? Speaker one?

Speaker G
Yes, we're looking at a collapse if something doesn't change.

Speaker A
Yeah, I don't disagree with you, but I would push back a little bit that that's what's going on because we've now had a period in the United States where wage growth has exceeded inflation. So in a literal sense, that has been turned around to some degree. Now, that doesn't fix a whole bunch of problems. You can still end up in bankruptcy because of medical expenses. In many developed western nations, that can't happen. That's a problem that's got to be fixed. Cost of living in big cities is totally out of step with wages. So in order to work in the big cities, you often have to move outside and now you've got to commute and the commute costs money. So there are a ton of problems. But I also think it's important to recognize that we are seeing wage growth that exceeds inflation on average. That doesn't mean everybody is in the situation, but on average we are seeing wage growth exceed inflation right now.

Speaker G
Well, that's good to know.

Yeah, because I was just starting to wonder if they knew things were going to collapse so they were just like cashing in and before they had to get out or something.

Speaker A
Speaker one? Well, I think you're giving a little too much agency, first of all, that the bottom limit of the top 1% is not the people that are like controlling many of these markets. It's still people who are doing well. But it's important to talk about that. The bottom of the top 1% is, I don't think the folks you're thinking of necessarily, but I think the bigger issue here is a lot of these systems that need to be fixed are bigger than any one group of people. No matter what you'll be told about, you know, the, the Illuminati or the Bilderbergs or whatever, these are bigger systems that often we need to elect a bunch of people at federal and state levels and then allow them to go and carry through the policy changes that, that, that we elect them in order to enact. It's bigger than just like a small group of wealthy people controlling stuff, if that makes sense.

Speaker G
Okay. Well, that's good to know. Cause it's starting to feel right around here. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker A
I understand. I understand. Well, Jenelle, we're going to keep an eye on it. I appreciate the call.

Speaker G
Okay. Thanks for explaining.

Speaker A
All right. There goes Janelle from Baltimore. Let's go next to Rose from Oregon. Rose, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today?

Speaker H
Hey, Dave. Happy Friday.

Speaker A
Thank you.

Speaker H
I was wondering if you think maybe that the recent rise in fuel prices are a move by big oil to modify perception of the president, and they're going to hold out until November.

Speaker A
You know, I haven't seen exactly, I admit here that because I have an electric vehicle, I don't always follow gas prices super closely. What I'm seeing is gas prices are down over the last month from about 369 to 355. So it's pretty, pretty modest. Here's the thing, Rose. We have a situation, and then I'll get to the specific question you're asking. We have a situation in the United States where gas prices don't accurately reflect the total real cost, including the externalities of a gallon of gas. If you go to Europe, gas is more than twice the price, and you can argue that in Europe, the price more accurately reflects the true cost of gas and that that's what we should be paying here in the United States. And if we were, we would see a dramatic shift to electric and super high mileage, gas powered vehicles and so on and so forth. But the truth is, on an inflation adjusted basis, 350 a gallon isn't very high. A lot of people are still thinking of nominally, 350 now is the same as 350 in 2019.

But think about the actual price inflation and wage increases we've seen since 2019, before the pandemic. On an inflation adjusted basis, 350 a gallon is a very reasonable price. That's number one. Secondly, I have no evidence right now that there is any sort of conspiracy to affect global markets such that it will hurt Joe Biden in November. And to be honest, $0.15 plus or minus, which it's argued that sort of the unilateral manipulations that anyone could make, we're talking about a temporary ten to 15% delta on gas prices. I don't know that Biden wins or loses over a 15% change in gas prices. So I just, I'm not saying what you're suggesting is impossible. I just don't have any evidence for it. Speaker one.

Speaker H
Yeah. I just feel like here in Oregon, we were hovering a lot closer to $4, and then we've been rolling closer to like 460.

Speaker A
Well, I think West coast gas is more expensive. It's always the case. That's true.

Speaker H
Speaker one, I mentioned it just because somebody that I work with is a conspiracy theorist and they just sort of, sort of like mentioned it. And so that's always my pulse as to what's going on in the thing.

Speaker A
About that is you have to go a layer deeper and say, okay, so who benefits from Biden losing that also controls oil markets.

Speaker H
Well, I think, you know, if we look at like the saudi family and how much they love Kushner and the gang, then that's definitely one market to look at.

Speaker A
Sure. Then that's, that's the obvious one I would go to at this point. From everything I've been reading about the saudi royal family, and I've read a number of books about the saudi royal family. Now, whatever sort of personal relationship they have with Jared Kushner, I think is counterbalanced by the fact that they want to be in business with the United States and to some degree they want to be in a normalized situation with Israel, and they benefit from keeping things calm and working with a stable person, which they see Joe Biden as being. So I would even question the motive aspect that the saudi royal family would definitely want Trump over Biden. And once you question that, then the entire thing kind of falls apart.

Speaker H
Well, I would hope so. I have a second part to my question, which is predictions, which I know you don't love to do, but do you think that rolling towards November, we'll see any more dreamless rollouts? Like we're seeing marijuana being rescheduled, there's been student debt relief. Do you think that we'll see anything else as we lead up to the election as a way to sway public opinion?

Speaker A
I have no idea. I think that it is likely that Biden will try to do one more, more notable legislative thing in September ish. But I don't have any guesses as to what that would be.

Ok. All right, Rose, thanks. Great to hear from you.

Speaker H
Thanks, David.

Speaker A
All right. There goes Rose. Always great to hear. Let's go next to Andreas.

Andreas, I guess, from Munich, currently in Denver, Colorado. Andreas, welcome to the program.

Speaker I
That's correct. Hey. Hey, David. How's it going?

Yeah, I just had a question about this. I'm a business owner, so I vote republican narrative. I guess so. I moved here like a year ago out to Colorado, and, you know, I meet people, made friends, and some at some point came up with, yeah, they vote Republican because they are business owners. So I was wondering, is this one of those typical, you know, misconceptions that the Republican Party is good for small business owners? Because as we know, right, watching your show, that blue states generally do better economically. So is this, you know, what would be a good counterargument? Like to ask those.

Speaker A
This is great. There's a lot of counterarguments to this. And so here's a couple different things. First of all, the business environments in blue states overall tend to be better than the business environments in red states. Part of this has to do with blue state economies being more diverse and having more different key industries. And when you have more industry diversification, as blue states tend to do, it's generally a better business environment and an environment to have a small business. But what I would really focus on, aside from the fact that it's better for small businesses when it's safer, and in general it's safer in blue states with lower crime, it's better for small businesses when the customers have money. In blue states, on average, incomes are higher. When you have progressive income tax, you have more people who can afford your services. If you cut taxes in a way that disproportionately benefits the rich, yeah, the rich will have more money.

But for the most part, most services that small businesses offer.

Let me, let me put it this way. If you had a bunch more money as a rich person, you're not necessarily going to spend a bunch more money in every sector. The amount of groceries you're going to buy, if all of a sudden you get a lot more money and you're already wealthy, is not likely to change very much. So the economy of the blue state is more conducive to raising the number of people that can afford to go to your smoothie shop or to a. There's a new one that opened up near me. It's a, it's a korean. It's like a doughnut. Hot dog. It's like a hot dog that's wrapped. It's like a corn dog. But what's around it is a doughnut. You know, the number of people that can afford to go get that five or $10 item is going to be greater as a share of the population when you have a little bit less inequality and a stronger social safety net. So I would just challenge them. You know, Colorado is a blue state. Find an example of a red state that has a higher per capita income and a better business environment, and that is actually better for small businesses. It's not actually the way the country is existing right now.

Speaker I
Yeah, good points. They usually counter this, again with saying, oh, yeah, it's low regulations in red states.

Super channel term, of course. Right.

Speaker A
But I mean, it's just such a generic claim. You know, for so many types of businesses, the regulations that really matter is how difficult is it to start the business. And we know that in countries where the bureaucracy is such that you basically have to bribe someone to get a business going, those are often bad business environments. On the other hand, you have places like, you know, Norway is notoriously, it's straightforward, it's a non corrupt process. It's clear what you people trust the system when it's easy to start the business, that's a very, very good thing for businesses. And that's, you know, that's more specific than generically regulations. Most businesses won't be affected by regulations in the way that a lot of these people think.

Great. Awesome.

Speaker I
Thanks, David. Now I'm prepared for my next discussion.

Speaker A
All right, Andreas from Germany, now running a business in Colorado. Great to hear from you. All right, everybody, let's take a break. Hear from a sponsor or two, then we will come back with more. And I will take calls again. It'll just have to be next week. 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.

all right. Let's get to Friday feedback for the week. You can always email infoavidpackman.com if you have something to say. But you can also make a comment on YouTube or maybe on TikTok or Sunday Facebook message. It all might end up featured on the Friday feedback segment. Let's start with Irma Parham, who on YouTube said with Trump dominating, David seems to be running out of talking points. This is one of those like, what are you talking about? I have no clue what you were talking about. We have a situation where anybody making any prediction about November other than it'll probably come down to a few hundred thousand votes in two to five states.

It's not based in the data that we're seeing. I don't know what Trump is dominating. It's negative media headlines all the time. Shakier and Shakier polling as the economy remains pretty damn good at the end of the day. So I am certainly not in a position to say I'm confident Biden will win. And in fact, part of the reason I'm not confident Biden will win is in a sane country, Biden would be winning by 40 points. The fact that he is not, and the fact that Trump almost won in 2020 and Trump did win in 2016, we know this is not a sane country. This is a sick, sick country, which I describe in great detail in my forthcoming book, the Echo Machine. More information about that soon.

So I don't know where Irma gets her confidence about Trump, but I think it is very, very much not based in fact. Now, here's someone who wants to make a mathematical case for Biden losing. DM Walker wrote on YouTube. Biden is in serious danger of losing. And if he loses, it will be because the blue, no matter who crowd, actively refused to do the job of citizens in a democracy by applying pressure to get him to stop doing s that alienates voters. His swing state polls are garbage. Considering who he is running against, he should be up by 30%. I agree. I swear to the putrid beating heart of this dying empire, if I could snap my fingers and swap all the goddamn liberals for half as many committed leftists, we could finally accomplish something for once in this country. And this individual points to a real clear politics average that has Trump plus 1.1, a five way real clear politics average that says Trump is plus 2.7, and a top battleground average that says Trump 3.6. So first of all, I wasn't able to find those numbers anywhere. And I don't even think these were the numbers a few days ago when this was written. Doesn't matter.

The point here is. The point here is I can't imagine looking at the situation and saying that blue, no matter who, are the problem.

When I look at the situation, it seems to me that when Biden is so obviously infinitely better than Trump, blue, no matter who, first of all, barely even exists. I don't know who that is. It's certainly not me.

If you look and you see tens of millions voted for Trump last time, there's probably a couple million people willing to throw a vote away on Jill Stein or Cornel west.

There's a few million more willing to go RFK, even though they're so confused about is it RFK on the left or on the right? Who won? What's his position?

It's very difficult to look at the way the electorate is currently broken down and come away thinking that let's forget about blue, no matter who, but those who recognize Biden's the best candidate, and that's who I'm going to vote for. Like, that's where I am. There's no cultishness, there's no deification. I don't think Biden's perfect. I think Biden, he'd better be prepared for these damn debates or he risks a real problem. And I have ideas as to the way that the approach that he should taking me.

But he's clearly the better candidate, and so I'll vote for him. I would not be looking at blue, no matter who, for the problem electorate right now. That's for sure. Okay. Jeff win says Trump's rally in New Jersey yesterday had 100,000 people there. Sleepy Joe had a rally in Wisconsin and had 100 people. Bye bye, Sleepy Joe. So first of all, Sleepy Joe. Trump sleeps every day in his criminal trial.

How can anyone with a straight face call him Sleepy Joe at this point? Secondly, Trump's rally had, like 15,000 people. Trump made up the number 100,000.

These people fall for it. They don't even understand. A fully packed boardwalk would be 25,000, and it was half empty. The venue itself had a permit. It wasn't anywhere near 100,000. It just does. Facts don't matter to these people. But as I've said before, Biden is not primarily supported by cult members, so they don't really care about rallies. I've never been to a rally for anyone I've ever voted for, ever.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't mean I don't recognize that my support for whoever should be steadfast and critically clear.

I don't have any signs. I don't have any bumper stickers. I don't have a boat on which I put a flag, but that doesn't really tell us anything. So I would take a different approach.

Nick Weiner commented about the recent medical professionals, including Doctor Liz, who weighed in on what's going on with Trump cognitively and said sarcastically, hey, unbiased, completely honest doctor, who are you voting for? I have this funny feeling it's not Donald Trump. So weird. Wonder why I feel this way. You're so unbiased and honest. Am I wrong? This just makes me want to vote for Trump more. The lies on top of lies on top of lies have an effing real unbiased doctor on, bro. Just once. It's so cringe. You know, the funny thing is, why is it assumed that if I brought on a doctor who said Trump has no cognitive issues and Biden has many. If I could find such a doctor, why would that be an unbiased doctor in the mind of Nick weiner? Like I? Why?

It's. What you mean is bring on a doctor who agrees with you. And by the way, I must say, if you don't even like Trump, but you're going to vote for him because you don't like that a dementia doctor said something's wrong with Trump.

That's a painfully stupid and blind reason to vote for Trump.

Like you, we, you have bigger problems if a doctor's medical opinion is going to make you vote for a guy you don't even really want to vote for. Something's wrong. Something's wrong. Skate Cloud says on the subreddit. Are any of you finding yourself disagreeing with both extremes about Israel, Gaza, for example? I don't think ignoring Hamas is a good option, nor do I think bombing the place to oblivion like Israel is either. It seems like both the more left as well as the more right wing side of things disagrees with this take. What influenced me to post this was on a pro Israel jewish rights page. The comments were slamming Biden for halting weapons shipments to Israel from concerns they will use it to bomb Rafa. Also seems Biden will be hated no matter what he does with this. What are your, what are your thoughts? For me, this issue is not about far left, right or whatever. It really defies political spectrum. There are people ostensibly on the political right who support Israel for reasons that relate to, you know, apocalyptic rapture stories of Christianity. There are those on the evangelical right. I'm sorry, on the political right who don't support Israel because they're blatant anti Semites. You've got people on the left who see every story as a story of whichever population I believe to have darker skin must be the objectively oppressed one. And therefore, I'm going to say that it's just like the struggle for lgbt rights or whatever. There's people on the left who don't care about this.

I would not break it down in this way. What I would break it down to is there is so much ignorance on this story, and it allows for people to formulate completely alternate histories about what is happening in the region and what has happened in the region. I'm not even presenting my version here. Right. I'm trying to. I'm keeping myself out of it. You can find a hundred different histories of what got us to where we are today in that situation, and it allows people to kind of pick your own adventure and tell themselves whatever they want. So there is disagreement that I have with lots of people on the issue, but I don't think it's as cleanly political left and political right. Okay, Shader says, what the hell is wrong with you people? Joe Biden has ruined the futures of millions of young people who are never going to achieve the american dream of owning a home and raising a family.

As usual, Shader does something that many people do, which is they make wild claims like Biden has made it so no one will own a home or raise a family, gives us no evidence of how Biden did this at all and doesn't want to engage any further. I will engage with this substantively if you tell me exactly what Biden has done to make it impossible for people to own homes and raise families. What has Biden done to make that a reality? You let me know and I will deal with it.

Thundercricket on Reddit says, could David or anyone else explain why it's important to vote for Biden if you're not voting in a swing state? Don't get me wrong. I'm very much against another Trump presidency. And while I certainly have my criticisms of Biden, since it's going to obviously be between these two men, I want Biden to get a second term. That being said, with how the electoral college works, I don't see why those who agree with me but live in a decidedly blue or red state shouldn't vote third party if it better aligns with their values or even abstain from voting. I hope David or his people will see this and respond. Well, let me explain it to you. It's a very good question. If you live in states that Biden, for example, will easily win, California, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, why vote for Biden? Why does it matter? Vote for someone else. So there's a couple different things to keep in mind. Number one, Republicans are going to claim fraud, and it is easier to claim fraud with a smaller popular vote margin. Imagine, hey, he barely won California, and you expect us to accept that Biden won Georgia. Now, ultimately, it's not going to be the deciding factor. But if what you're suggesting is as long as Biden wins by one vote in every super blue state, if he gets the swing states, we don't have to worry. That is just handing yet another argument to the people who are going to create legal havoc by claiming that Joe Biden actually lost. Number two, political momentum.

The more decisive your victory is in terms of the electoral college and the popular vote, the more momentum you can claim to have, the stronger mandate you can claim to have, and hopefully, the more that you are able to get done. Again, if, if this is an exercise in saying, let's reduce Biden's popular vote victory, as long as he wins electorally, who cares if the popular vote victory is really small?

Okay, well, you're just taking away momentum and you're taking away the perception of a mandate that is probably there because Joe Biden likely will win the popular vote easily. The question is electoral number three, you can really screw up future election planning and strategy by creating artificially low margins in blue states. It can change the classification of states in future elections. It can cause the misdirection of resources.

For me, my approach is really clear of the people that are running vote for the person you think is the best candidate, considering if there is someone that represents an existential threat as well. For me, on all these bases, it's just, oh, I think Biden's the best candidate. So I'll vote Biden. That's it. And playing these games where we go, oh, every super blue state vote for third party and then they'll send this signal but make sure Biden wins. And then we got to deal with them saying, well, where was the margin in California? It's not for me. It's not for me. Okay. Lastly, Hayden wrote in, and Hayden says to me, do you have any idea how much of an effing moron you are? If you can't see that that pedophile piece of s Biden is ruining this country, stop with your b's on YouTube. Drop the cognitive dissonance, pull your head out of your ass and join us in reality, you insufferable dip s, I would love to engage with this. Hayden, if you can give me a couple of examples of what Joe Biden did that ruined the country, let me know and I will address your views head on. All right, remember that Monday, Memorial Day, we will have our one day membership promo, biggest sale of the year for memberships on the new website. If you'd like to be notified, just get on my newsletter@davidpakman.com. and also remember that you get the bonus show every single day when you sign up for a membership. We'll see everybody on the bonus show and then back here Tuesday. We're off on Monday for the holiday.

5/24/24: Massive doc dump in Trump's bedroom, Fox host confused and disoriented

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