5/31/24: Trump convicted on all 34 counts, now a felon

Jake Tapper
Welcome everybody. It's a new day in the United States of America. And I can now present to you civilly liable sexual assaulter and convicted felon. Failed former President Donald Trump. It really happened. The twelve jurors found that the evidence was sufficient when comparing it to the law, applying principles of law and order and due process.

Here is Jake Tapper on CNN. 34 felony counts. 34 guilty verdicts for the failed former president.

Donald Trump
Count one is guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Another felony charge. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Count 34, guilty. Donald Trump found guilty. On all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, all 34 are found felonies. Donald Trump has now been convicted, right, of 34 different felony crimes.

Jake Tapper
Wow. Trump joining his campaign chairman, and let me see if I can remember, deputy campaign manager, former national security advisor, foreign policy advisor, a variety of consultants and different lawyers. I guess as, as felons, when almost the entire world celebrates you being found guilty, other than your sycophantic, brown nosing followers, you're not living your life the right way. 34 counts, 34 felonies, all guilty. Sentencing will be on July 11. The range here for what Trump could be up against starts at just mere probation and goes all the way up to four years incarcerated. Four years incarcerated. Now, the assumption is Trump will not see the inside of a cell.

The truth is, when you look at falsifying business records, if you just look at people convicted of falsifying business records in the state of New York, when you look at the more serious instances, and this is 34 instances, right? This is pretty serious. Usually they do get jail time. Usually they do get some, some time locked up. When you look at the reality that Trump didn't even respect the process enough to stay awake for it, when you look at the fact that Trump has shown no remorse whatsoever, which is something judges consider in sentencing, when in fact it's the opposite of remorse, Trump attacked the judge every single day, showing that it's not even possible that he thinks he did anything wrong. It's the judge who did something wrong. If we don't have a two tier justice system, if Trump, Trump is treated just like any other defendant, he probably would get some time incarcerated. I'm not saying I expect that, but if he were a different, non former president, that's what we would, we would expect. Sentencing will be July 11. And of course we will cover that now on some specific questions that have come in and this is, to some degree, uncharted legal territory. Trump's now a convicted felon. Can he even vote in the upcoming presidential election? So here's my understanding of that. Trump lives in Florida. He would be voting in Florida as long as he stays out of prison in New York state, he would be allowed to vote in Florida. New York, the way Florida goes by the state in which you were convicted, New York law only removes the law, the right to vote for people convicted of felonies when they are incarcerated.

Florida would then say, well, if that's New York's law, if Trump is not incarcerated in New York, then we allow him to vote in Florida. As long as he's not sent to prison, he can vote for himself in November. Can Trump hold a security clearance?

It's unclear. It's. I don't have an answer. I've read conflicting legal opinions. I don't know if Trump can hold the security clearance, which you need to be able to do to functionally be president of the United States. Can Trump have a real estate license in Florida? I'd. Or New York? I don't know the answer to that. It's not totally clear.

Trump was already running on a platform of dictatorial retribution and revenge. That's only going to increase now. And the american people can decide, do they want that? And there are some really stark contrasts. Now in November, do you want to vote for the guy who thinks the winner of the election should be president? Or do you want to vote for the guy who believes the loser of the election should still be president, as Trump tried to do in 2020? Do you want to vote for the convicted felon or the guy who's never even been indicted? That's a very stark contrast. Do you want to vote for the guy who did not weaponize the justice system against his opponent, or do you want to vote for the guy who promises to weaponize the justice system against his opponent, that being Donald Trump? There has been a reaction from some of now that Trump was convicted, he's going to win. This helps Trump, and I have two reactions to that. Number one, I don't think that that's the case at all. Based on the polling I've seen, the conviction hurts Trump a little bit. It should probably hurt him more. Based on the polling, it hurts Trump a little bit. But more importantly, we don't deliberately miscarry justice because we suspect there's enough completely insane people in this country that they're more likely to vote for Trump if he's convicted, those people may exist I don't think they're a large number, but that wouldn't be a reason to deliberately miscarry justice. But on the fact, I struggle to believe that this actually helps Donald Trump.

So 34 guilty verdicts. What was Trump's reaction? Let's talk about that next.

Moments after being convicted on 34 felony counts, now facing up to four years in prison, Donald Trump looking shell shocked and stunned, mumbling and stumbling out of the courtroom. I was looking for Melania. Standing by her man. I didn't see her.

But here is Donald Trump's statement, really disoriented and clearly shell shocked by what took place.

Donald Trump
This was a disgrace.

This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt.

It was a rigged trial. A disgrace.

They wouldnt give us a venue change. We were at 5% or 6% in this district, in this area.

This was a rigged, disgraceful trial that the real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people.

And they know what happened here. And everybody knows what happened here.

Jake Tapper
All right.

Donald Trump
You have a sore spect da.

And the whole thing. We didn't do a thing wrong.

I'm a very innocent man. Very, and it's okay. I'm fighting for our country. I'm fighting for our constitution.

Our whole country is being rigged right now. This was done by the Biden administration.

Jake Tapper
Just so everybody knows, everything he's saying here is a lie in order to.

Donald Trump
Wound or hurt an opponent, a political opponent. And I think it's just a disgrace. And we'll keep fighting. We'll fight till the end and we'll win because our country has gone to hell. We don't have the same country anymore. We have a divided mess.

We're nation in decline, Syria's decline. Millions and millions of people pouring into our country right now from prisons and from mental institutions, terrorists, and they're taking over our country.

Jake Tapper
We have, Trump's just been convicted on 34 felonies. This is what he's talking about.

Donald Trump
A country that's in big trouble. But this was a rigged decision right from day one with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case. Never.

And we will fight for our constitution. Constitution. This is long from over. Thank you very much.

Jake Tapper
All right, so there is Donald Trump, defeated, shell shocked, stunned, blaming everyone by him but himself, and then wandering away from the microphone. I've been looking around for a statement of support from Melania Trump, supporting and defending her beloved husband. I was not able to find it. So Donald Trump now will wait until July 11 to have a sentence levied upon him. In the meantime, Trump supporters just losing their minds outside of the courtroom. Within seconds of the conviction of now convicted felon, civilly liable sexual assaulter and failed former President Donald Trump. Within seconds of the verdict, Trump supporters outside the courthouse losing their minds. There is some explosive and extreme language here. These are really agitated people. Some of these videos from NBC, some from Freedomnews TV.

They were so emotional, they were unable to maintain any level of calm or whatever. Take a listen to this. And psychopathy possible here.

Donald Trump
Just killed our country. You just let them mother, you're all owned by China. Welcome to China owns. You're Alvin Bragg. You're Alvin Bragg Rodriguez. Officer Dillon is rolling in his grave. Rolling in his grave. Officer Dylan is rolling in his mother grave.

Wait until we start to spin on you like Columbia University. You just wait.

Jake Tapper
There you go. So levying a number of vague and generic threats during an NBC News report just outside the courthouse, the reporter actually mentioned just feet away from her, another group of people was, I mean, listen, I don't know what to call it other than just losing their minds. Listen to this. And the visual is an important component here.

C
You can hear the crowd here. There's a lot of Trump supporters out here that you can hear are very worked up. As I was reading the verse, speaker.

Jake Tapper
One, I love the phrase that they're, that they're worked up. I don't know why I find that to be funny because it's, it's both one of these. It's an understatement and it's an overstatement with regard to the sort of like validity. Validity and soberness of the way that they're, they're worked up. Yes, it's true. They are definitely worked up.

C
Very worked up. As I was reading the verdict, I could hear the crowd emotion growing behind me. I'm only a couple yards away from the area that you can see on your screens right there. Sort of the first amendment area, if you will. It's just a stone's throw away from the press area. Yeah, it's been growing as the day went on. It's growing after they heard that this verdict was coming in.

Jake Tapper
A lot of emotions as she's describing this, there's a guy visibly shaking and holding a free Father Teresa.

C
Signs running very high in this city right now. Again, this is the presumptive GOP nominee in the middle of an election year for things that he did, that the prosecution said he did to try to corrupt the last election. A just remarkable scene playing out right here in lower Manhattan.

Jake Tapper
I just. I just can't with this stuff. Here's another part of that earlier group saying that they will threatening to tear apart the courthouse.

Donald Trump
You gonna vote for a traitor?

Jake Tapper
By the way, there's this guy in the black shirt yelling, you're the f word. Slur for a gay person. He's wearing a shirt that says gays for Trump. So I don't. I mean, you know, it's like, with all of these things, there's five layers. We could analyze it, and it. None of it makes any sense.

Donald Trump
Speaker two. Out of here.

You're a p. You hear me? You're a little shrively.

That's what you are. That's all you are, is a. Yeah, run. You're not even a man. We're gonna eat you. We're gonna eat you and your family.

So proud of you.

Jake Tapper
All right, so. And then lastly, here is, you know, just more reaction. People really, really upset. I guess that's the way I would say it's over.

Donald Trump
You're all dead.

All right?

Jake Tapper
And NYPD PD, they're just kind of like, can we just calm down, please? Is it possible for everybody to calm down? Okay, so tensions running very, very high. Let's now hear from Donald Trump's lawyer. Trump's defense attorney, Todd Blanche, gave a series of unhinged and unintelligible interviews last night on CNN, also on Fox News. One particularly funny moment was when Todd Blanche was asked on CNN by Caitlin Collins, you know, Trump said there were all these great witnesses, defense witnesses, that would have completely exculpated Donald Trump. But you didn't call them. Why didn't you call them? Todd Blanche's explanation is completely ridiculous. Listen to this.

Donald Trump
When he was leaving, one thing he brought up were the witnesses who were not called. And he was saying that there could have been witnesses that would have helped make the case. We never saw Keith Schiller, Allen Weisselberg, some key figures here who got brought up a lot. Why didn't the defense call any of these witnesses?

Jake Tapper
Well.

Donald Trump
Cause we happen to live in America, and we don't have the burden of proof. And so there's not.

That's not the point. That's a question that is a loaded question that should not be asked of a defense attorney or a defendant. The question that we asked the jury, and they ultimately obviously got passed, is why the prosecution didn't call those witnesses. Right. You as a defense attorney, you don't go into a case saying, I'm gonna fill the holes of the prosecution. Right. And Keith Shiller and some of the other witnesses that were not ultimately called, in our view, should have been called.

Should have been called by the prosecution. And we, we asked the jury to take a hard look at that.

Jake Tapper
What on earth is this guy talking about now? Later he admits Trump was involved in guiding strategy.

Your hope is that you're going to win the case for your defendant by pointing out to the jury that there were people not called as witnesses by the prosecution.

It's not your job to fill the holes of the prosecution. Well, but maybe it's your job to expose the holes of the prosecution. He's saying the prosecution should have called the witnesses. That would have been useful to my client. That would have made the defense better, but we didn't call them. What is this guy talking about now? The reality is, the answer for why they weren't called is the same as why Trump didn't testify. There was no way to put people under oath and present a coherent alternative explanation for the facts, period. Now, if you're wondering why the defense was so screwy, here is Todd Blanche on Fox News saying Trump was making decisions about legal strategy. Speaker one, how involved was Donald Trump.

Donald Trump
In his own defense? I mean, what do you think?

I mean, very involved. And he's a, he's, he's a smart guy. He knows what he's doing. He jokingly said to us a lot. Sometimes he wanted to be the litigator. You know, he wanted to be the one that was actually arguing because he's a smart guy and he knows what he's doing. We made every decision together. We did. And there were things that he was frustrated with. You know, the judge, several months ago, there was a, we wanted to be able to argue, reliance of counsel that we were, to some extent, President Trump was relying on his lawyer.

Jake Tapper
Yeah, imagine losing all 34 counts for your client and then acting like you and your client together were these brilliant legal geniuses who strategized together. You just lost everything. It's, it's, it's the blind leading the blind here. And imagine Trump wanted to be the litigator. Trump couldn't even be put on the witness, on, on the witness stand in, in his own defense because he would immediately perjure himself and have absolutely no way of explaining the facts in a way that doesn't actually further incriminate him. And we're to believe that Trump would have been able to represent himself as an attorney? It's absolutely absurd. It seems as though we got a very deserved verdict here and now. We wait and we see what is the sentencing on July 11. Let's take a very quick break.

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Um, quick break. Back after this.

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it doesn't cost a lot of money and it can cost even less with the coupon code. Save democracy 24 let's hear from some of the great people in our audience. We do this on Fridays. We do it via discord and you can find our discord at david pakman.com discord. Why don't we start today? And this is only where we're starting. Who knows where we will end? Let's start with Andrew from Utah. Andrew, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today?

Donald Trump
Hey David, thanks for taking my call.

Jake Tapper
My pleasure.

Donald Trump
My question has to do with christian nationalism and kind of how the right has continued to push further out and be a bit more bombastic in their attacks.

I grew up in Utah. I grew up Mormon and lds, and statistics that have come out lately show that even Mormons are now becoming a majority in the state. And the state is starting to push away from being religious in general. And I just wonder your thoughts on if the reason the right has become more pushing with, like, the christian rhetoric, anti abortion whatnot is because they are kind of like, almost like a cornered animal, and they kind of have no choice at this point either to lash out or just to give up.

Jake Tapper
You know, I'm not sure if that's the case. And I see conflicting data on Mormons in Utah. I see as low as 42% or as high as 61%. So it's actually unclear to me whether Mormons are a majority. And I don't know if some of that has to do with folks who are from Mormon families, but maybe are not officially in the church. I just don't know. But let's assume it's between 40 and 60%. It's certainly a significant portion of Utahns. Utah. Utahns. I don't know if that's the right way you say it. Um, I'm not sure if the christian nationalism fervor from people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and others comes from them feeling like this is their last shot at it and their backs are against the wall, or if they see an opportunity because of the rise of MAGA. It's very much unclear to me what it is. What I do know is that it's a major, major risk that we have to do everything we can to shut down as quickly as possible, primarily not because of any opinion of mine, but simply because it's not the basis on which this country was founded.

Donald Trump
I agree. Yeah, I definitely think it needs to be out of politics, and there definitely needs to be that wall of separation of church and state. Just feels like they're doing everything they can just to tear it down while they continue to kind of fall a little less. I mean, I know you've probably seen the statistics of the rising of the nuns or the non religious are probably one of the highest group that's growing right now as far as in those circles. Would you agree?

Jake Tapper
Absolutely.

No doubt about it.

Donald Trump
That's all I want your thoughts on. Just if you felt like that was a thing, or if you don't feel like that's happening.

Jake Tapper
No, I do. And, you know, the other thing also is that there's. Sometimes the religion surveys don't do a good job of getting at separate separating organized religion from some generic spirituality. And from what I'm seeing generic spirituality which doesn't necessarily have to believe in anything supernatural, that seems to be increasing in certain parts of the country in a way whose effect is not yet totally clear to me. So I think there's definitely changing dynamics here, Andrew.

The christian nationalism is part of it. The nuns who are spiritual is also part of it. We'll see where we kind of land in five years, you know?

All right, Andrew from Utah, great to hear from you very much. Appreciate it. Let's go next to Jackson from Minnesota. Jack from Minnesota, welcome to the program.

What's going on with you? What's on your mind today?

Uh oh. Jack from Minnesota, please.

And last chance for Jack from Minnesota.

Donald Trump
Oh, hello, hello, hello, hello.

Jake Tapper
You're on the air. Jack, hello. You're on the air.

Donald Trump
Oh, my goodness. Sorry. I have, I had a spasm. I kept saying hello repeatedly.

It happens. Anyways, how goes it? How you doing?

Jake Tapper
It's going well, Jack. Thank you.

Donald Trump
Okay.

I wrote this down because I'm really bad at speaking.

So this is on the topic of this year's election in November.

I know you're not a fan of dipping into the conspiratorial, so do forgive me.

But from what I think, I know the FBI and, like, certain intel agencies, like the Pentagon and stuff like that, many current and former military officials, all, most of them, I would say. I heard a lot of them say this. They express, like, great concern, like, about, like, a Trump presidency. Most notably Mark Milley. He literally called Trump the Fuhrer.

So what do you think of these communities and their opinion on Trump? And do you think they have, like, a vested interest in him losing for the sake of national and international security? Or would they just accept a person who stole countless top secret documents right back into the White House?

Jake Tapper
I think they would show a couple different things here. First of all, I take very seriously the Trump defectors who say, this guy's a danger.

You know, we did a piece recently reminding everybody that there are all sorts of allegations made in the media against Joe Biden, and we don't have a single defector or whistleblower from Biden's administration that says any of this stuff is true, that Biden's not really in control, that someone else is making the decisions, that he's demented. He doesn't know what day it is. And yet, with Trump, we have dozens of defectors and whistleblowers from inside the former administration. So I take it very seriously and I believe them. And also because most of the people who work for the federal government are essentially career bureaucrats who are not overtly political. I think that if Trump does win, they will say, hey, I, me staying maybe helps to prevent him from doing the worst stuff that he wants to do. If I leave, they do replace me with a loyalist. So I think it's less about will they tolerate it. They will say, wow, I'm going to stay to try to fight against the stuff that Trump is going to try to do.

Donald Trump
Speaker one, that's fair. There, there is another thing. Like, like Trump did say he was going to, like, suspend the Constitution or he was do, going to do things that were, you know, well, what Trump.

Jake Tapper
Let'S be clear, Jack. What Trump said was he believed that in order to right wrongs that don't exist. Right. That the election was stolen or whatever, that it would be justified to suspend parts of the Constitution to do what he says is the right thing. Now, it's completely nuts that he said that. He didn't just generically say, I will suspend the constitution, period. But he tried to sort of say there would be justification for that.

Donald Trump
Speaker one. Okay, but let's just say he, he, he does that.

Jake Tapper
Yeah.

Donald Trump
Due to his justifications. Doesn't that mean the military comes in because they have an oath to the constitution? Right.

Jake Tapper
You know, you're making a lot of sense. I don't know what happens if Trump suspends the constitution. That that's okay. I, it's a scary scenario, and I wouldn't be able to tell you for sure what happens. I'm hoping we defeat him and it's not something we have to find out.

Donald Trump
I agree.

Jake Tapper
All right, Jack from Minnesota, thanks so much for the call. I appreciate it.

Donald Trump
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Jake Tapper
All right, there goes Jack. Let's go from Jack to Jackie from California. Jackie, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? What are you thinking about?

Donald Trump
Hi. Can you hear me?

Jake Tapper
Yes, I can, Zachary.

Donald Trump
Sorry. It's my first time calling in and using discord.

Jake Tapper
So you're doing great so far.

Donald Trump
Thanks.

So I was just curious about, I noticed when people call in the ratio of men to women, it seems to skew that. Your audience definitely seems to be more male based. And I was curious if you had the analytics on who your audience mostly made out of.

Jake Tapper
Yeah, Jackie, this has come up. My show, and shows like this one, even when they have a female host, like the Young Turks within a Casparian, they skew mail. They skew mail. And it's, depending on the platform, it's like a 65 35 sort of thing or sometimes even 70 30 mail depends on the platform. And I think there's a lot of speculation as to why that is the best explanation I've heard. And, you know, I, it's worth what you're paying for it, Jackie, which is nothing, is that at the platform level, women seem less likely to get political commentary from YouTube and podcasting it. There's, it seems that it's sort of like a structural thing, but beyond that, I don't really have anything other than the numbers, you know?

Donald Trump
Yeah, yeah. That, that's kind of what I, what I figured.

Jake Tapper
Let's try Jefferson from Austin and see if we can avoid a three in a row call bungling.

Jefferson from Austin, Texas, welcome to the show.

Donald Trump
Hi, David. Thanks for having me again.

Jake Tapper
My pleasure.

Donald Trump
I saw your item just this morning, actually, about the new bill in Texas on the books to make elections so that any candidates have to win a majority of counties in Texas, effectively making it basically impossible for Democrats to win.

Jake Tapper
Yes.

Donald Trump
And the consensus seemed to be that among legal minds that this was not going to be a legal, this was a measure that couldn't be found legal. Do you have any other detail about that? No.

Jake Tapper
I mean, it very clearly seems to violate one person, one vote, saying, hey, not only do you need to win the popular vote in Texas to win a statewide office, you also need to win a majority of the counties. Now the funny thing is, if that violates one person, one vote, then so does the national electoral College, which, by the way, I agree violates one person, one vote because it makes votes in different states worth different amounts. I don't have anything new since we reported the story, Jefferson, other than it really doesn't seem that it would be legal. And hopefully they don't even waste time and resources trying to do it.

Donald Trump
I would hope so. If by, if it somehow gets, gets passed, I guess the real hope at that point would be that first the state supreme court would have to go. Well, I guess I don't know if there's anything necessarily in the Texas Constitution that it would be in violation of or if it would take a lawsuit to the United States Supreme Court to have that potentially struck down or.

Jake Tapper
Yeah, I don't know the lawsuit process that would be required. I'm hoping that Republicans realize this is idiocy and they don't actually vote to try to do it. That's my hope, as do I.

Donald Trump
Appreciate your time, David. Thank you.

Jake Tapper
All right. Thanks. Jefferson from Austin, Texas. Always great to hear from you. Let's go next to ty from Iowa. Ty from Iowa, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today?

Donald Trump
Hello, David, can you hear me?

Jake Tapper
Yes. We're not on speakerphone, are we?

Donald Trump
Oh, I'm using a blue yeti mic.

Jake Tapper
Oh. All right, well, let's do the best we can with it.

Donald Trump
Okay. Well, I was on here, I think, I don't know, a month ago, and I'm so sorry. I forgot. Like, not forgot, but I basically said, I'm gonna vote for Biden. But I didn't say that I was. I agree with him on everything. And you said, like, what? And I didn't hear that. So I guess just, it mostly has to do with the palestinian conflict. I mean, so I was really on the side of Israel, you know, from the start, because. And I thought it was kind of weird when people were supporting Palestine when Hamas did something so bad. But then I look into the deaths of how many Palestinians have been killed. I think it's like 30 something thousand. You know, now I kind of see where people are coming from, but I definitely still think people should vote for Biden just because I just. I don't think Trump would handle it any better. Probably would handle it worse, you know, so.

Jake Tapper
Right. That what you're saying makes a lot of sense to me, Ty.

Donald Trump
Yeah. And I was actually in Atlanta, like, on April, on 420, actually, because it was record store day, and there's someone in line that was giving out little pamphlets and they said, this is an alternative to Biden, where you can vote for socialist Party or something like that. When they came up to me, I said, well, you know, I really don't want another Trump presidency, so I'm just going to vote for Biden.

Jake Tapper
Yeah. What did they say?

Donald Trump
They just walked off and just went.

Jake Tapper
To the next person? Yeah. Listen, this, for me, everybody has to. I can't tell you what to care about, Ty. Right. I can't tell you what your moral compass should be for me. This is not an election to mess around with anything that could get Trump elected, especially given.

Given the things he's admitting he's going to try to do. I would be very scared about the things he's smart enough not to admit, also.

Donald Trump
Speaker one. Yeah, makes sense.

Jake Tapper
Speaker one. Yeah.

All right. My friend Ty from Iowa. Great to hear from you again. Let's take the quickest of quick breaks and then come right back to the phones and talk to some more people. So hang on. One of our sponsors today is betterhelp we all carry around different stressors, big and small. Therapy is a safe space to get things off your chest and figure out how to work through whatever is weighing you down. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give Betterhelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, suited to your schedule. Betterhelp lets you tap into a network of over 35,000 licensed, experienced therapists who can help you with a wide range of issues. Just fill out a brief questionnaire, get matched with a licensed therapist, and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. With Betterhelp, you get the same professionalism and quality you expect from in office therapy, but on your schedule and from wherever you are. Visit betterhelp.com Pacman show today to get 10% off your first month.

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discord let's go to Vince from Wisconsin. Vince, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today?

Donald Trump
Good morning, David. Can you hear me?

Jake Tapper
Yes, I can.

Donald Trump
Perfect. I have two very brief questions.

My first concern is reading. So what advice would you give to people who have fallen out of reading for a while to sort of get back into it?

Jake Tapper
Number one, find a book that's genuinely interesting and doesn't feel like a chore to read. And number two, carve out, even if it's five minutes, this is all it takes. Even if you can carve out five minutes a day and say, I will read three pages a day. Just start with a book you like and five minutes a day, you just got to start. That's the only way.

Donald Trump
Okay. And what, what about, what do you do to, like, get off the phone and the computer? What advice do you have for that?

Jake Tapper
I would. I would employ something like Cal Newports. If this is a struggle for you, this is not something I really struggle with. But for people who struggle with this, I would employ what might be called the phone foyer method, where when you're home, you have some place where your charger is. It could be in your foyer. Right? I mean, most people at this point, does anybody have a foyer anymore? But somewhere, maybe it's in the kitchen or your charger's there, you plug in the phone and you leave it. And then this is the crazy thing. You walk away and you read the book somewhere far from the phone. If someone calls you, you'll hear it. You won't miss the call. If you feel like, oh, I need to look up something. Do I really need to look it up right now and walk all the way over to the phone, or can I just look it up, maybe when I'm done reading, and leave the phone connected in your proverbial foyer and only go over to it when you actually have something to look up.

Donald Trump
Okay. That's a pretty smart idea.

Jake Tapper
Yeah.

Donald Trump
My second. My second question is, when are you going to do another member's town hall?

Jake Tapper
We have to do it soon. You know, I've fallen so behind on everything because honestly, just having a toddler, that's really it. I was able to do a tick tock live earlier this week. I'll be streaming the debate with Trump and Biden in a few weeks, and in between, I want to do a member town hall. I want to do some more live streams, tick tock YouTube as well. So hopefully soon, and we'll certainly announce it when it's. When it's scheduled.

Donald Trump
Okay. So it's kind of on the radar. It's kind of in your.

Jake Tapper
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely perfect.

Donald Trump
That sounds great. Oh, thank you, David. I appreciate it.

Jake Tapper
All right, Vince, great to hear from you. Really appreciate it. Let's go to Ryan g from Colorado Springs. Ryan, welcome to the program.

Donald Trump
Can you hear me?

Jake Tapper
Yes, I can.

Donald Trump
Okay, I'm going to offer you a series of, like, hypotheticals. I know they're your favorite question, but I think they're kind of relevant. Okay, so Joe Biden is the presumptive nominee. Right? And he's not. He hasn't been certified by the democratic convention. Right.

Jake Tapper
That's true.

Donald Trump
Okay. So in the event that Joe saw. Knock on wood. Knock on wood. Something happens to Joe Biden right now and he's unable to be president for whatever reason.

How does the democratic committee go about selecting the new candidate? I know that Kamala Harris becomes the new president, but because they haven't necessarily been elected, she doesn't just automatically become the nominee. Right.

Jake Tapper
Right.

Donald Trump
Okay. So what, what is it? What is the process for the democratic convention selecting a new candidate? Do they get to, like, annoying someone or do they have, like, a.

Jake Tapper
My understanding, Ryan, is that that is an unprecedented situation and the DNC would essentially be deciding, what are we going to do it? I don't think that it's. They go to some book and they do what's in the book. I think that they would, they would work backwards. They would say, what gives us our best shot of winning in November in this outrageously difficult situation? And then they would just reverse engineer how to get to that. I don't think it's. Here's the rule. Here's. Ryan can read the three step process here and that's what they will do. I think they'll just figure it out based on what they think is best for them.

Donald Trump
Okay. And my opinion, I think Kamala would probably be the best one. At least Allen Lakeman seems to think so.

Okay. And then on the flip side, on the republican side, if something happens to Donald Trump, they would also have to do some sort of, like, process best for them.

Jake Tapper
Yeah. I mean, listen, the difference with the Republicans is they ran a real primary. And what I mean by that is when you have an incumbent, you don't run a real primary. There might nominally be a primary, but it's just like Biden got like 92% of the vote or something. And there was no, there was no serious challenge on the republican side. There was a serious challenge. So if they wanted, they could say, we're just going to go with whoever got the second most delegates, who I think is Nikki Haley, obviously, although maybe not. And I'm just like, the math of it is not in front of me, but I don't think that they would necessarily do that. I think they would also meet and they would go, okay, who can we anoint that we think gives us the best shot? I think both sides would do that.

Donald Trump
Ok. Ok. That makes sense to me. All right. Thank you so much for your time, David.

Jake Tapper
All right, thanks. Ryan from Colorado Springs, great to hear from you. Let's try Mark from rally, Mike, rather. Mike from rally, a website member, please save us. Mike.

Donald Trump
Hey, David, can you hear me?

Jake Tapper
Yes, I can.

Donald Trump
Well, thank you very much for letting me on.

Hopefully I can save things here. I wanted to ask you about school voucher is something that I've not heard you bring up too many times on the podcast before.

I live in North Carolina.

Our state legislature recently expanded the families that are eligible for it, and now applications for these school vouchers are up like something like 500% this year.

I have some friends and family who are big fans of these school choice vouchers.

One I talked to recently said that she thinks that they help private schools and non public schools compete better with the public schools. That just doesn't compete with me. These folks generally tend to subscribe to minimal government conservatism, and using school vouchers to artificially help other schools compete against private schools just doesn't make sense to me. I just wanted to get your opinion.

Jake Tapper
So here's my view on school vouchers. Okay, here's my view. So let me give you the nominal advantages and then we'll talk about what the cons are and whether they outweigh them in some generic sense.

School vouchers can give some people more choice. Now, in reality, a lot of times the schools that you can, you go to with the voucher don't have buses.

And it's not like, is it really choice or is it the appearance of choice? But really it's only choice for the people that are already wealthier and don't really need the voucher to begin with. With. So that's a pro, but it's a pretty limited pro.

There's an opportunity for a more tailored education, right? There might be a particular school that's more aligned with your kid's style or interests or your beliefs or whatever. So that's a possibility. There's the idea that you're generating competition by making public schools have to say, hey, it's not just you come here or you don't and pay somewhere else. You can actually take your money that would be allocated to your child and go somewhere else. We've got to be better. It's going to encourage competition.

But the reality is a lot of times to better compete, the public schools need more money, not less, and the voucher takes money away.

And there is the, I guess, possibility that there is some specialized program that a public school simply can't offer that with your voucher, you go to some other charter, a private school, and they offer it. And okay, maybe the problem is the voucher programs in every instance I've looked at, they worsen the public schools by letting someone say, hey, if I don't go to the public school, I get to take money out of it. It makes the public school even worse, which is often what these right wingers want to do. They want to take as much money out of the public school system so that it becomes terrible and it actually creates even more inequality because by reducing the funding to the school that you can go to for free, you actually make it even worse than what some of the paid alternatives could be. And so you make the quality of the education. Someone can get even more dependent on the financial situation of their family. There's also often a lack of accountability. Whatever amount of money is allocated to your child in a public school, there is oversight and there are regulations and there are standards. If you take that money out and you bring it over to a charter or a private school, all of a sudden you're taking public money, bringing it over, and now it's in a school that doesn't have the same accountability and standards as the public schools. So, you know, I could go on, but generically, the idea of saying, hey, choice is good, specialized schools are good.

Donald Trump
Cool.

Jake Tapper
Yeah, that sounds interesting. Sounds great.

There's many things about the school system we have that I think are basically just based on getting people into, like, generic factory type work, whether it's literally factory work or sort of like thinking factory work, and some people call it oppression system. I think there's a lot of problems, but I don't think taking even more money out of it and giving it to charter or private schools is the answer.

Donald Trump
I could go on about this, too, for a long time, but I think that the way you just wrapped it up there is kind of the crux of it is that I don't think that the answer to improving public schools, which is what most kids in any state are going to, is to take funds away.

Jake Tapper
Exactly.

Donald Trump
Well, thanks, David.

Jake Tapper
All right. My pleasure. There's Mike from rally on school vouchers. Great to hear from you. Let's go to Ben from New York. Ben from New York, welcome to the program. Speaker one, thanks for taking the.

Donald Trump
Thank you for taking the call. I appreciate it. Great to speak with you.

Jake Tapper
Likewise.

Donald Trump
My question is this. I've been thinking a lot about how, how we've come to this, this place where it's kind of, it's two parallel things. Number one, how the left has become. This is how I've seen it decide of principle.

Jake Tapper
Speaker one. Okay, Ben, you just glitched on the word principle. Glitching badly. Can you still hear me?

Oh, boy. Yes, I can. Okay, we lost the entire question.

Donald Trump
Oh, no, I'm sorry. Can you hear me?

Jake Tapper
Yes.

Donald Trump
Oh, I'm so sorry. Okay, how the right, the left is the side of principles and the left is the side somehow of.

The right is the side of just, they'll go with whatever aligned with that somehow has been that the left Democrats have been put with China, that there's this imagined loyalty with China and the right has, I don't know how this has happened, become aligned with Russia. And I kind of wanted to hear your thoughts on how this has happened.

If this is just a recent thing since, since 2016, since Trump and MAGA have taken over the republican party, I was really interested in hearing your thoughts.

Jake Tapper
On these pre date. You can go back and go and watch the 2012 debate between Obama and Romney, and you will see that this topic of who thinks China versus Russia is worse and who's aligned where. This was already starting to be an issue in 2012 and probably earlier, but it really took on the kind of weaponized texture that it now has because of the Russia investigation with Trump in 2016, 1718. Then Trump claiming that he's tough on China with regard to tariffs that he didn't even understand.

Then Trump with COVID blaming China and saying Biden is affiliated with China, and then Biden's going to be soft on China. So it took on these weaponized dynamics under MAGA Trumpism. But the concept of who's better, worse, who's aligned where? Russia, China, it does predate Trump. It's just gotten way worse under Trump. Speaker one, fascinating.

Donald Trump
Thank you for taking the call. I appreciate it.

Jake Tapper
Apologize for the technical difficulties. All right, we figured it out. Ben from New York, excellent to hear from you. Why don't we go next to Josh from Michigan? Josh from Michigan, welcome to the program. What's going on?

Donald Trump
Hi, David. It's good to hear you.

I was wondering about artificial intelligence. I've been dabbling with, like, chat, GPT, and Gemini.

And I listened to Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google.

He has recent interviews. And I feel like we're going to need a form of regulation as this stuff advances exponentially. Yeah, it's like, it's going exponential. So my question is kind of like, how, how would it, from the political sphere, how would you go about regulating? Or do you think it's necessary?

Eric Schmidt thinks that we'll have, like, bunkers with nuclear powered data centers guarded by machine guns to protect against, like, foreign adversaries and whatnot.

Jake Tapper
Well, listen, we may. Here's my thought on this. I would turn to the experts on this stuff. And one interesting book on the regulation. Like, what would be regulate, exactly? There's. There's a book called the Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleiman, and it delves into a lot of these issues, but exactly what a regulatory framework might look like. I would just defer to him because there's no way I will be able to lay out in this context since it's not my area of expertise, exactly the way I would regulate AI. But I agree with you wholeheartedly that this is happening. The idea of just stopping this seems like a waste of time. We should accept that it's happening and we should figure out how to best regulate it. Something we probably missed when it came to social media. There were people saying, no, this isn't going to happen. We're going to stop it. It's not. And then we missed properly regulating it. We shouldn't fall behind again. When it comes to AI, our ability to stay on top of it, of course, depends on our engagement with it now. But I would check out Mustafa Suleiman's book, the coming Wave, and you can even skip specifically to the chapters on AI regulation.

Cool.

Donald Trump
Thanks, David. I own that book. I skimmed through it a little bit, and that's a great recommendation. I'm also looking forward to Ray Kurzweil's new book coming out this summer. And there's a book with Eric Schmidt and the foreign guy that just died. He was like 80 or something.

Worked for Nixon.

Yeah, it's an Eric Schmidt book, and I'm really looking forward to those. And just seeing how this rapidly advancing tech will affect our political sphere and governance. And if we all even need a leader in the future, you know, the AI might be so powerful that it will make the best decisions and we'll sort of be protectorates of the state.

Jake Tapper
That's an optimistic view, for sure, Josh. I look forward to seeing what happens as well.

Donald Trump
Thanks, David.

Jake Tapper
All right, Josh, from Michigan on AI regulation, let's hear from a sponsor or two. We'll take a very quick break. And don't worry, we will take calls. Again, as many people know, I'm a white ale type of guy when it comes to beer. And even for those of us who drink responsibly, like me, sometimes you still feel it the next day and it can slow you down, especially when you start to get up there in the years, like me. Check out our sponsor, Z biotics, which is a probiotic drink created by PhD microbiologists, Z biotics breaks down the byproduct of alcohol, which is responsible for some of those feelings. The day after. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. This byproduct, not dehydration, is to blame for how you feel the next day. Z biotics, pre alcohol probiotic produces an enzyme to break that byproduct down. It's designed to work like your liver, but in the gut, where you need it most, you drink a tiny bottle of z biotics before having any alcohol. You then drink responsibly. Get a good night's sleep and you will feel great the next day. Z Biotics works for so many people. Read the reviews online. Go to zbiotics.com Pacman and you'll get 15% off your first order when you use code Pacman at checkout. The link is down below.

All right, it's time for Friday feedback. You can email info at david pakman.com if you have anything you'd like to say to me. I have a bunch of stuff to read. Some of it's negative, some of it's positive, some of it's trolling, some of it is ambiguous, some of it is delusional. Let's just get right into it. Douglas Dingwall has one of these and how did all of this happen? Sort of moments.

Douglas says Biden has destroyed the future of young people. If you want to shot at the american dream and Biden gets another term, you can kiss goodbye ever buying a home and raising a family.

Why?

What's this person talking about? How, how did Biden do these things? Which metric shows that Biden did this? What economic, economic policy was able to achieve this? They never say. Douglas goes on, David Pakman doesn't give a crap about young people or anybody else as long as he's got his. He is here because he gets paid by the DNC and other leftist organizations. I do not get paid by the DNC and I do not get paid by any leftist organization. People have been accusing me of this for over a decade. No one, no one has been able to provide any proof. Please provide that proof. Proof. And if you do, I will apologize and eat my microphone. He goes on. He gets his daily talking points and never strays from them. No one sends me talking points. That would require thinking for himself. And he's now a family man and he can't risk losing his paycheck. What else is David Pakman qualified to do if he were to lose this gig, I'd probably end up running some financial services company or a tech startup or working in renewable energy or becoming a investor in alternative energy technologies or, yeah, I don't know what I would do if I lost this job. All right, so anyway, Douglas, very, very clueless. There a number of unsubstantiated claims. Whitey.

Oh boy. Whitey says your wrong, your always the wrong. Your a delusional communist Froot loop under Trump. No war, secure border, wrong border and a solid economy. And the justice system wasn't weaponized under senile Biden. A weaponized justice system to attack political opponents Trump conservative voters, Catholics, Christians, Jews, parents and pro lifers. Biden's intentionally funding both sides of wars around the world, Ukraine and Israel, to profit off money laundering. There's no evidence for any of this, by the way. This is a deeply, deeply disturbed person.

He continues, Biden's has intentionally allowed an invasion and invasion of America to steal illegal votes in future elections. That's treason. There's no evidence of that either. Biden is illegally using taxpayers money to buy votes from spoiled rotten liberal college kids that promote Hamas, Iran, and islamic jihadism in America and the genocide of Jews and Americans. Biden has sold classified information for profit, including influence peddling through his junkie, Crackhead son and the rest of the Biden crime family.

Are there more lies or grammatical in spelling errors here? I think there's eleven lies and twelve grammatical or spelling errors. So that is really something for a single paragraph message. Karen says, I think a debate will help more people realize that Biden and the Democrats have policies and platforms and Trump and the Republicans have none except revenge. You know, Karen, I wish that that's what a debate would help people realize. I worry that people will watch the debates and actually not learn anything about that, and it will just be about who had the one liners, who had the zingers, who made the other candidate look the stupidest. But there are still people writing to me saying Biden will be dead before the debates. These are the same people who were saying he'd never make it to January's inauguration in 2021, mind you. Here's Anthony Cazanelli, who says Biden won't make it to the debates. He's going down and will be replaced. Mainstream aren't running cover for him like you are. There are signs he's getting pushed out. David Biden isn't likable. His standup comedy sucks. It's not funny or entertaining. We have issues in this country and people aren't in the mood for comedy from our president. You know, in 2020, they said Biden will never become the nominee. When he became the nominee, they said Biden won't make it to the debates against Trump. Then they said Biden won't make it to election day. Then they said Biden won't make it to inauguration day. Now they've said Biden won't make it to the State of the union, Biden won't make it to the 2024 primary, Biden won't make it to the convention.

Biden won't make it to the debates. Biden won't make it to election day. I will grant you that statistically, from an actuarial perspective, if you are in your late 8th, late seventies, or early eighties, the chance that you die is higher than if you are 37 years old. I grant you that statistically, that is true.

Beyond that, all of these people have been making the same prediction for five years, and they've been wrong every time so far. And the idea that there's a plan to replace Biden, there's just no evidence of that. No evidence at all. We did a poll on the David Pakman show, YouTube channel, about the topic of performance enhancing stimulants. Trump has accused Biden of using stimulants.

Many people who know Trump have accused Trump of using stimulants.

120,000 of you voted. Think of that. 120,000 of you voted. 46% of you believe that Trump is the only one on drugs.

8% of you believe Biden is the only one on drugs. 28% of you believe that both Trump and Biden are on drugs. And 19% of you believe that neither are on drugs.

I don't even know how to interpret these results other than to say, among my audience, 36% total, about a third of my audience believes Biden is on some kind of drug. I think the next question would be, which drug?

Which drug? Douglas, again says, David Pakman is the ultimate drama queen. To David, everyone except him is unhinged. A rant, a humiliation. This one is tragic. You know, maybe you need a little humiliation in your life. It might make a man out of you. Well, Douglas, it doesn't seem to have worked with you, so I question whether, uh, whether it would work with me.

And just one more from Douglas. We're including a couple of these just to show you how this guy's just completely obsessed. Douglas coming back and saying David Pakman is calling Mitt Romney reasonable, but there is no way in hell paid leftist propagandist David Pakman would ever vote for him. David is just trying to portray himself as reasonable. Well, it's always, what are my options between Obama and Romney? I voted Obama.

That's true. Between Biden and Romney.

I'm. I would vote Biden if it were Trump versus Romney. I'm voting for Mitt Romney every single time if that's the choice. So I would never vote that. Who are the options? Who are the options? Douglas goes on to say Romney is jealous. He never achieved anything near what Trump did. If Romney were the republican candidate, David Pakman would be slamming him. That's what David gets paid to do. He gets his talking points, he runs his mouth. He's far from an intellectual. All right, well, listen, if it's Romney versus Trump, I'm voting Romney. That I can tell you Sam Johnson says on the topic of purity tests, there's nothing wrong with having a purity test. This kind of thinking is why third parties don't get as many votes. You should always vote for the candidate whose policies you agree with, not this lesser of two evils crap. Listen, everyone can use whatever system they want to determine who to vote for.

I don't impose my system on Sam or anybody else. When someone calls in and says to me, david, I'm so mad at Biden for what he's doing in Israel and Gaza, let's assume the caller even knows what's going on there. Half of them don't, but let's assume they do.

They say, I'm thinking of voting for Jill Stein.

Some people would say, I only am going to consider whose policies are closest to mine. That's the only thing I will consider. If Jill Stein's policies are genuinely closer to yours than Biden's, then under your standard, you would vote for Jill Stein. Fine.

Other people would have a different view. Some people might say, I look at who really has a shot and figure out who's better among those options, because Jill Stein's not going to be the next president of the United States. Oh, I'm looking at the polling. I'm looking at common sense.

The next president will be Biden or Trump.

I don't want Trump to be president. So I am going to vote in accordance with making damn well sure that that doesn't happen. And thus now the Jill Stein vote is no longer the right vote. Because if I vote for Jill Stein, that denies Biden the margin or could deny Biden the margin he needs to defeat Donald Trump, I might be helping Donald Trump. Some people are comfortable with that. So you know, when Sam, the, there's nothing wrong with purity tests. Well, you know, Sam, you don't get to tell others whether there is or isn't something wrong with purity tests. You don't get to tell others what the right rubric is for determining who you want to vote for. People can decide for themselves. And it sounds like with Sam, Sam doesn't care if his actions get Trump elected into office. Other people do care. Many of them have been calling me, in fact, and we've been having pretty productive conversations disabusing them of this idea that, oh, I might write in someone or vote Cornel west or whatever. Now, as it happens, as it happens for me, when I look at the candidates this year, it's an extra easy choice because I agree with Biden the most. Look at the way Biden is legislated, the most progressive presidential term in how long Jill Stein's alliance and friendship with Putin, where she sits at a table with Putin and repeats those talking points. It's not interesting to me. It's not. Well, I just love Jill Stein and I have to vote for Biden. I look at Jill Stein and I look at Biden and RFK and Trump.

Biden's the one I agree with the most.

And I want to deny Trump the presidency. It's really easy for me. It's really that easy. So figure out what is the goal of voting for you and use that to then determine what the right choice is and what the way I figure it out may be different from the way Sam figures it out. All right, info at david pakman.com dot. We've got a great bonus show coming up for you. Make sure you're signed up@joinpakman.com. otherwise, I'll see, see you back here on Monday.

5/31/24: Trump convicted on all 34 counts, now a felon

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