Primary Topic
This episode dives into current political dynamics, focusing on President Biden's job creation strategies and RFK Jr.'s unusual medical revelation.
Episode Summary
Main Takeaways
- Biden's administration is credited with significant job creation despite facing political opposition and economic challenges.
- RFK Jr.'s bizarre claim of a brain worm eating part of his brain draws skepticism and concern about his capability in political office.
- Misinformation and political strategies about voter fraud are critically examined.
- The episode highlights the role of AI in future job markets and the implications for workers.
- Discussions on economic policies are intertwined with healthcare and immigration issues.
Episode Chapters
1: Job Creation under Biden
Pakman discusses the Biden administration's impact on job creation, contrasting it with the Trump administration's failures. He uses specific examples like the Microsoft AI center to illustrate significant initiatives. David Pakman: "Biden has succeeded where Trump failed in job creation."
2: RFK Jr.'s Brain Worm Incident
The segment focuses on RFK Jr.'s claim of a brain worm and its implications for his political image and mental fitness. David Pakman: "RFK Jr. claims a worm ate part of his brain, raising doubts about his suitability for office."
3: Voter Fraud Myths
This part tackles the falsehoods around voter fraud by undocumented immigrants, emphasizing the lack of evidence and the political manipulation of this issue. David Pakman: "There's no evidence that undocumented immigrants are voting, despite Republican claims."
Actionable Advice
- Stay Informed: Regularly check multiple sources to understand political claims and policies.
- Participate in Elections: Engage in the electoral process to influence job creation and economic policies.
- Educate on AI Impact: Learn about how AI and automation will impact job markets and prepare accordingly.
- Fact-Check Political Claims: Use reliable fact-checking services to verify political statements, especially during election cycles.
- Support Transparent Policies: Advocate for policies that promote transparency and accountability in government.
About This Episode
-- On the Show:
-- Dr. Elizabeth Landsverk, dementia and Alzheimer's disease expert, joins David to discuss cognitive concerns about former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden with regard to their age and brain function
-- President Joe Biden is on the offensive against Donald Trump on the issue of jobs on the heels of a major announcement about an AI center on the site of Trump's failed Foxconn deal
-- Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson feels that illegal immigrants are voting in elections, despite acknowledging there is no proof
-- A worm at a part of Robert F. Kennedy Jr's brain a few years ago, but his campaign says it will not affect his ability to be President
-- Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's attempt to remove MAGA Mike Johnson from being Speaker of the House fails miserably, with Republicans booing her relentlessly
-- After a disastrous week of failed PR for her book, Republican South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem starts canceling her television appearances
-- A confused Donald Trump asks for help at Mar-a-Lago when asked whether his campaign can accept cryptocurrency donations
-- Donald Trump openly celebrates the criminal rioters from January 6 at a bizarre event
-- Voicemail caller is in hysterics over RFK Jr. having a literal brain worm
-- On the Bonus Show: Georgia appeals court grants Trump's request to consider Fani Willis disqualification, Taliban affirms stoning as punishment for adultery, most FTX customers will get all their money back, much more...
People
Joe Biden, Donald Trump, RFK Jr.
Companies
Microsoft
Books
None
Guest Name(s):
None
Content Warnings:
None
Transcript
Speaker A
I want to start today by talking about jobs. We both have some sort of tepid news about jobs today, and also some extraordinarily good news about jobs related directly to the Biden administration. And I think it's important to keep in mind that when you have a record of very high level of job creation, at some point it's going to slow down. This is sort of the way the economy works, and there is a lot of focus being put on an apparently negative headline that I think is very important to contextualize. So let's. Let's take a look at this kind of in pieces. First and foremost, weekly jobless claims have jumped to 231,000, and this is the highest since August. Now, a lot of this, remember, is in the way you write a headline. The numbers are jobless claims total to seasonally adjust to 231,000 for the week ending last week. That's up 22,000 from the week before, and the highest number since August 2023. Now, bear in mind that that's about the last nine months. And President Joe Biden has now been president for more than three years. So there is a lot being made out of, uh oh, this is the worst number for new jobless claims in nine months.
But the bigger picture is really an extraordinary record of job creation, to some degree buoyed by the recovery from the pandemic that is completely external to the Biden administration, to some degree buoyed by global business cycles and things that have nothing to do with Joe Biden. It's really important that this is not a show where I play the political football with the jobs and with the debt and with the deficit and with gas prices. Presidents have some to do with this, but a lot of it is much bigger. But the important takeaway here is that we had a republican party and a republican candidate in Trump and a right wing movement in MAGA that for all of 2020, we were told, if Biden wins, the economy will end. You will have a 1929 style depression. No one will be working. The stock market will be in the toilet. You will have no indoor heating, no indoor cooling. I mean, you'll have to flush toilets ten to 15 times. None of these things happened. Save the power flushing by Trump. We know that for whatever reason, and it's the documents or whatever, he's flushing toilets ten to 15 times. But other than that prediction, none of this stuff has come true. And while the big picture job creation record is very good, there we are seeing that not every month can be a record. Now, let's move to some very interesting jobs news that relate to this as well.
President Joe Biden yesterday touted a Microsoft artificial intelligence center, excuse me, on the site where Trump's Foxconn deal went completely wrong. This is a major investment expected to create 2000 permanent jobs and 2300 temporary union construction jobs to, to build the center. This is really a big deal because it's, in Wisconsin. It's a critical election state. It's a critical state where there is some high tech in Wisconsin, but it is not the state known for high tech. And so this is a big deal in a number of different ways. Joe Biden appearing there and then also giving an interview to CNN's Aaron Burnett, during which he is going for the jugular against Trump, saying, I'm doing it. Trump promised it. He failed. I've never failed. I'm creating jobs. And I think this is an extraordinary way to head into the election in November. I'll explain why in a moment here.
Speaker B
Where we are for Foxconn, he promised 13,000 jobs and only about 1000 of those actually exist right now. So I know you're promising more than 2000 union construction jobs and that 100,000 people are going to get trained in AI here.
Why should people here believe that you will succeed at creating jobs where Trump failed?
Speaker A
And the funny part is, I mean, we'll let Biden answer it in a moment. The answer is because Biden has succeeded at doing it and Trump failed. It's, the proof is simply in the numbers.
Speaker C
He's never succeeded in creating jobs and I've never failed.
I've created over 15 million jobs since I've been president, 15 million in three and three quarters years. And secondly, Microsoft is a serious player and they're very much engaged in making sure that they pick this area as sort of the home base for their AI initiative in the nation and they're going to do it. And just like, and by the way, well, I shouldn't. Gwendolyn Trump is, he started off with the golden shovels, you know, for the groundbreaking here, for the groundbreaking and talked about this being, you know, the 8th wonder of the world.
When has he ever done anything? He said, I'm not being facetious. Think about it. He started off, he lost. Other than Herbert Hoover, he's the only other president lost more jobs than created in his four year term.
He's the way he managed the end of the, his last year when.
Speaker A
So listen, I am with you that this does not exactly reek of effervescence and vigor. I'm with you. But this is a powerful message because when you look at the polling, economic issues are at the top for voters going into November. Now, some of these are indirectly economic issues, like, for example, health care is at the very top in terms of issues that people care about.
It is, I don't even know that indirectly health care is an economic issue because in the United States it's primarily tied to jobs. And if your job doesn't provide you with health care, health insurance, then you either need to go into one of these marketplaces and pay for it. It's economic. Inevitably, it's an economic issue.
And so I think that it is very smart for Joe Biden to focus in on issues that are ranking high on voters list of important issues and issues on which he is strongest. And this is absolutely one of those issues. Now, let me go a little bit further because I do want to be thorough and I think it's important not to have this. You know, every president loves to talk and every elected official loves to talk about bringing jobs back and getting more manufacturing jobs in the United States. And they're, they're now talking about even reindustrialization, no matter who is in the Oval Office.
We really do need to have a broader conversation about the big picture fiscal feasibility of actually bringing back manufacturing to the United States and this idea of reindustrialization because there are a lot of difficulties. We can bring back manufacturing and supply chains to the United States. Most people wouldn't actually want what it would mean. If you start manufacturing in the United States, stuff will be more expensive. There's higher labor costs.
Two, as an economy, we decided 40 years ago, implicitly, by outsourcing manufacturing to other countries, you individually might say, no, I'd rather pay more and have the local jobs. Maybe I would, too. But as an economy, we have decided that there is a skills gap. If we were to bring, if we decided we want the higher prices and the domestic jobs, let's bring it all back. We would probably have a shortage of skilled workers in certain manufacturing areas because for decades now we've said we're going to outsource those jobs.
Global competition. There are other countries other than the ones we are currently manufacturing in, which might be able to offer some kind of in between, where some aspects might be done domestically but not the actual manufacturing. And so it may prove more difficult than simply deciding we're bringing the jobs back. So my point is there is a lot more to this idea that every elected official says, we're going to bring jobs back smarter seems to be to create new jobs. The artificial intelligence center is interesting because this is a new type of job. The manufacturing, the construction jobs will be there temporarily building the facility. So it's important to remember that there's a lot of lip service paid to this, bringing back manufacturing jobs. I think that if you told a lot of Americans exactly what it would mean for prices on everything, many Americans wouldn't be so thrilled with it. We hear a lot about facts over feelings. Facts don't care about your feelings from republicans. And we now have Maga, Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, who is putting forward a bill to ban non citizens from voting, saying we don't have any evidence, but intuitively we know that illegal immigrants are voting.
He feels like illegal immigrants are voting, but we have no evidence of that. And in fact, it's already illegal for undocumented immigrants to vote. I'm going to play a clip for you. This is the epitome of the bottom of the barrel. It's just what we feel. Stuff from Republicans. The question is hard to hear, but you're going to hear Speaker Mike Johnson say, we know intuitively that undocumented immigrants are voting. I don't really have any evidence, but we just know it.
Speaker D
Basically saying.
Speaker E
No. So, Ayesha, on the first question, I mean, the answer is that it's unanswerable. That is the problem. States are not allowed right now to prove if somebody claims on that simple form that they're a citizen, they can vote. They're not allowed to prove whether it's true or not. We all know intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections. But it's not been something that is easily provable. We don't have that number. This legislation will allow us to do exactly that. It will prevent that from happening. And if someone tries to do it, it will now be unlawful and the states will have a mechanism to prove whether they are or not.
Speaker A
Speaker one, it is already against the law to vote or to try to vote if you are an undocumented immigrant or big picture, if you're just not a citizen, you could be a legal immigrant. If you're not a citizen, you still can't vote. And it would be against the law to try to do so. So I can translate what he's saying. We have no evidence.
We can't prove anything. We made it all up. And we, the republican party, regularly spend a lot of time on things that do not exist. Do not exist. We need a law to stop this really scary thing that we have no proof is happening. Whatsoever. And remember that we have facts on our side. It's not our feelings versus their feelings. It's multiple state governments have done investigations to find evidence that non citizens are voting. The Trump campaign hired Ken block to investigate it. We interviewed Ken Block. Ken Block said we found no evidence of it. We just, there's just no evidence that this thing is taking place. And so in order to believe that what they are telling us is true, you have to believe that despite all of the efforts to find evidence of it, and despite the fact that it's already against the law for non citizens to vote, not to mention you can't even get on the voter rolls if you're not a citizen. So what it would require for a non citizen to vote is to go to a polling place knowing which citizens haven't yet voted, and to claim that you are that citizen. There's no evidence that it's happening. And if it were happening, it would be a really stupid way to try to steal an election. It doesn't make any sense. There's no evidence of it. But intuitively, they know that it's happening. Their intuition has absolutely no basis in fact whatsoever. And remember, small government. Their principle is we are small government conservatives. Government should only be involved when it is abundantly clear that government must be involved, because there is no other solution.
You don't even have evidence of a problem, but you're passing a bill which is meant to solve a problem you can't even prove exists. This is another example of how republicans abandon every single one of their stated principles when it's not convenient. And next week, we're actually going to do a deep dive on this. Uh, we've been working on it, uh, for, for a little bit. We are going to do a deep dive on what does conservatism.
There's no conservatism left in the republican party. That's the point. But what does conservatism claim as its top line values? And is the modern republican party adhering to those stated values? I'll preview for you that the answer is no. But we're going to do a deep dive and look at all of the examples. So let's hear from a sponsor or two literal brain worms for RFK junior. An incredible story, but real. Incredible and real after this very short break.
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Sign up@Joinedpakman.com and you will very quickly. We're going to do it very quickly, too. Like Trump used to say, very, very quickly. You will get full access, including access to the bonus show and the commercial free audio and video feeds of the show. Joinpacman.com is the place, place to sign up. We, we estimate only half of 1% of our audience supports us directly. And if we could bump that up to 1% of our audience, it would indefinitely and fully subsidize the production of the show in perpetuity, making us impervious to the vagaries of the algorithm based social media platforms, which I think is a good thing. I would love to be impervious. Why not, right? I mean, these days, impervious is great. A literal brain worm ate part of Robert F. Kennedy junior s brain, but he's fine now. It's actually not a funny story. It's wild that we've been talking about metaphorical brain worms for so long, and an actual worm got into his brain.
An incredible story. The New York Times reports RFK junior says doctors found a dead worm in his brain.
The presidential candidate has faced previously undisclosed health issues, including a parasite he said ate part of his brain. And they tell the story. This goes back to 2010. In 2010, RFK junior was experiencing memory loss and mental fogginess, and there was concern about a brain tumor. Went to the doctor, doctors found a spot on his brain scans and said, it's a tumor. And he was scheduled for a procedure, uh, with a surgeon. But he got, received a call from a doctor who had a different opinion and said, I think it's a dead parasite. I think it's a brain. A worm that got in your brain and then died in your brain after eating a portion of it. Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. Interesting. The New York Times points out that as an independent candidate, he has portrayed himself as the vigorous, athletic, and relatively young candidate over Trump and Biden, which is certainly interesting, and regularly showing up and lifting weights or snowboarding, skiing, et cetera. So it is an interesting thing that he had this, this health issue, but we are told by his campaign that everything would be completely fine if he were president. Best Levin writing in Vanity Fair, everything you need to know. For one thing, his campaign says it won't affect his ability to serve as president.
And it does appear as though everything is fine. You know, we often talk metaphorically about maga brain worms.
This is literal brain worms. And Robert F. Kennedy Junior putting out a tweet about it where he said, quote, I offer, this is wild. He said, I offer to eat five more brain worms and still beat President Trump and President Biden in a debate, and then said, I feel confident of the result, even with a six worm handicap, as all of you know, I have no interest whatsoever in his campaign as someone I would consider voting for. But these tweets are genuinely kind of funny. So it's a. We're glad he's okay. He should be defeated, not because he had a brain worm, uh, but because his ideas are not so good. And all he can really hope to do, quite frankly, is help Donald Trump become president, which, by the way, some people suspect is exactly what he is trying to do. So there is the Robert F. Kennedy Junior story. When we talk about his brainworms, we are talking about literal brainworms. When we talk about a lot of the MAGA people, they are metaphorical brainworms. And this is two different things. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the reactionary and repugnant republican congresswoman, is apparently ready to go down with the ship, attempting to remove yet another speaker of the House. This time, it's Maga Mike Johnson. Her attempt to remove MAga Mike Johnson going down in flames.
Why does she want to remove yet another speaker of the House? Well, she feels.
I don't know if there's evidence. She feels that MaGA Mike Johnson is more working with Democrats in the House than Republicans willing to work with Democrats to pass Ukraine aid, for example, something that Marjorie Taylor Greene is against. But alas, the House has blocked the resolution, and many of Marjorie Taylor Greene's colleagues on the republican side of the aisle not pleased with her. Here she is introducing the motion to vacate the speakership, and she is booed, even by her own republican colleagues. Take a listen to this.
Speaker B
I seek recognition, to give notice of my intent to raise a question of the privileges of the House.
The form of the resolution is as follows.
Speaker A
Right.
Speaker B
Declaring the office of speaker of the House representatives to be vacant.
This is the uniparty for the american people watching.
Speaker E
Gentle lady will suspend.
Order.
Order.
The gentlewoman from Georgia is recognized.
Speaker B
Whereas the House Republican conference elected Mike Johnson on October 25, 2023, after three and a half weeks of trying to decide on a new speaker of the House.
Speaker F
Mister speaker, the House is not in order.
Speaker A
All right, so long story short, she introduced this as a privileged resolution, meaning that it either must be defeated or brought up for a vote within two legislative days. And indeed, the House very quickly voting to table the resolution, to table the motion, rather. And it failed completely. 196 Republicans, 163 Democrats joining to end this nonsense. And here is that moment on this vote.
Speaker E
The yeas are 359, the nays are 43, with seven answering present. The motion is adopted without objection. A motion to reconsider is laid on the table.
Speaker A
All right, so cheers. Because it was indeed defeated.
This is the latest attempt from Marjorie Taylor Greene to, I guess, kind of like out MaGa. MAGA in some sense. MAGA Mike Johnson, of course, making every attempt to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump, even making a pilgrimage down to Mar a Lago a few weeks ago. And Trump looking a little bit, a little bit distant, I would say, from MAGA Mike during that appearance. And Trump, interestingly, actually waited to see whether this would fail or not before weighing in on it and putting out some generic statement I won't even bore you with about Marjorie Taylor Greene is great, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, listen, I think that there is an attempt being made here.
The value of Marjorie Taylor Greene in the House of Representatives is greatly diminished. There was a time before Lauren Boebert was a complete and total joke, when Lauren Boebert was only 90% of a joke as opposed to 100% of a joke. And MAGa Republican Madison Cawthorn was in the House. And there was a bit more strength between the House MAGA movement.
It genuinely did appear as though maybe Marjorie Taylor Greene was latching on to some kind of pseudo grassroots contingent, the contingent that ousted Kevin McCarthy from the speakership. But now, particularly with a diminished MAGA movement, with a diminished Trump, while at the same time splitting MAGA, because you've got the non MAGA part of the House Republicans, then you have the MAGA people that are behind Mike Johnson, and then you have this anti Mike Johnson sub maga wing. It's all kind of a mess. And just a reminder that taxpayer money, my taxpayer money, yours, your neighbors, all of our taxpayer money is going to this sort of nonsense. And so part of what's on the ballot in November, it is MAGA Trumpism more broadly. And quite literally, it's also Trump himself. But it's also very important to remember that it's this entire package of doing nothing but grandstanding at great expense, wasting my money, flushing my money down the toilet, and flushing your money down the toilet. I'm going to be voting against it in November. You vote however you want. All right? After a disastrous week of PR, Christy Nome's team, I guess, has decided. No more interviews. And Dana Bash announcing this yesterday on CNN. Take a look at this. And this little package includes a reminder of how this week has gone very, very wrong.
Speaker B
Governor Christy Noem has taken hit after hit on television this week about the story she tells in her own new book about how she shot her poorly trained dog, and about not really meeting with north korean leader Kim Jong. Un, despite saying she did over the last week. I should not have put that anecdote in the book.
I'm not going to talk about the.
Speaker A
Anecdote indicates that it happened.
Speaker D
Right.
Speaker A
Did the dark story come up in a conversation with us?
Speaker B
I talked to President Trump all the time. Did you bring up enough, Stewart? Did you bring up, this interview is ridiculous. What you were doing right now when.
Speaker A
You recorded your own audiobook, you didn't notice.
Speaker B
I'm not going to discuss about, about my meetings with world leaders.
Speaker A
I'm not asking you to. I'm asking about recording the audience.
Speaker B
Did you want to talk about something else today?
Now, Noam had been a top candidate to join Donald Trump's ticket. Here's what Trump himself said about her yesterday.
Speaker F
I like her a lot. So, you know, I don't want to comment on anybody on the list, but she had a rough couple of days. I will say that Governor Noem was.
Speaker B
Scheduled to be on this program inside Politics today. Her team reached out to us weeks ago to book her here. And we reconfirmed earlier this week she abruptly canceled last night. We want to say, governor, you are of course welcome on the program any time.
Speaker A
Also, Christy Noem canceling on Fox News because of snow, which is kind of weird, the Daily Beast reporting on that and saying that they cited a snowstorm in South Dakota as the reason why she couldn't do the interview. But at the time, Gnome appeared to already have been in New York City.
So it's not really obvious why. If you're in New York and scheduled to do interviews in New York, you can't do, you can't do them because it's snowing halfway across the country. So listen, this is clearly too little, too late. It's the right decision. There is no way out of the hole that she dug for herself. She was asked direct questions in every interview, which she refused to answer. She bailed on multiple interviews now. And as bad as that looks, I mean, listen, the press over bailing on the interviews is going to be short. It's a one day news cycle that she's bailing on interviews. She destroyed her shot at being Trump's vp by doing the interviews. So it does make sense the smart move would have been to cancel the interviews up front and not even start this nonsense on Sunday. But she also may be contractually obligated to do interviews with her publisher, uh, in, in order to promote her book, which I don't know anything about the sales numbers. I hope the book is failing. I saw some choice words in the reviews, but I hope that the book is failing, and she certainly has self destructed completely and totally. So hopefully. And. And listen, by the way, I'm not itching to hear from Christie. No. I couldn't care less what she thinks. And so I think it's a good thing that we push her out of the national spotlight because her ideas are disastrous. She's a disaster. And hopefully, this. This entire episode, it's going to put her in the dustbin of history. Okay. As a Ron desantimonious would say, speaker one, I've had such trouble finding a great razor where I am not cutting myself or getting those nicks on my skin, which are so common with the cheap disposable razors.
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Today, we welcome to the program doctor Elizabeth Landsverk, who's a dementia and Alzheimer's disease expert, a geriatrician as well. Doctor Liz, it's so great having you on. I really appreciate it.
Speaker D
Well, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to teach about dementia.
Speaker A
So, yeah, I mean, listen, let's start. I think at this point, the two major presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, have seen a number of very confident and boisterous allegations made about their cognition and their state of mind. We talked about a literal brain worm that Robert F. Kennedy junior experienced in the early 2010s as well. And maybe you'll have something to say, say to say about him. Can you give us just like a brief overview about when we are looking at individuals who we know mostly through media, television, audio, what is it you look for? What is it we can and cannot glean necessarily?
Speaker D
Well, it's a huge topic. I'll try and be brief.
When we're talking about does someone have capacity for an intervention, the question is, what is it? As a geriatrician, often I get asked, do they have financial capacity in relation to someone who's maybe financially abused, or do they have medical capacity, or can they sign a will? So if you only understand what assets you have, your house, and who you'd like them to go to, that's called testamentary. Cool.
Medical. You have to understand the medical interventions. Like, you have an infection in your leg, they want to cut it off. That means you're going to be in the hospital for a while and you're not going to be able to walk on it. Can you repeat that back? The financial is most complicated because you have to understand abstract concepts and reasoning.
And basically I'm taking this as an opportunity to talk to the home audience. And when I have someone who is acting strangely and isn't taking care of their bills, or they're getting more angry than they used to, or they're just.
Personality seems different than I asked the families to have the person draw a clock, have it say 1110, and have them calculate 25% of $22.50.
Seems really simple.
But our society is so conditioned that if you sound socially okay, we think you're okay. And I've had a number of patients where one gentleman was very successful businessman, but he drank too much and he was getting a divorce. And I could see he wasn't eating, take care of the house, he couldn't get groceries, he needed the care. And the lawyer said, well, you can't have that care because of the divorce settlement. And so they hadn't recognized the other dementia, needed the help. And so I said, nope, you've got to make sure that you've got care for him. This happens all the time. So I'm not going to point out and say Trump or Biden or RFK has got dementia, I'm going to say what I look for.
I look at function, and first I hear a lot about Trump got Obama and Biden confused. He got Pelosi and Haley confused. Those are fairly serious because these are the people that this is his job is to run for president.
And Biden got confused about meet Iran and coal.
Those are old age changes. You know, where you get the names wrong.
What I often look for is. Oh, the other bit that I remember hearing about is that Trump was talking about Gettysburg and he didn't really understand, you know, what the battle of Gettysburg was for.
Speaker A
Yeah. Let me remind the audience on that. It was sort of a seeming non sequitur about Gettysburg laced with superlatives and hyperbole, about, wow, what about Gettysburg? Sort of thing. Yeah.
Speaker D
Right. And so you want the president to be able to understand complex international situations and be able to be very focused on what's the best thing to do for America.
That said, I think that Biden has made some stumbles. He's not the most dynamic person around. He never has been. I look at the function of his programs, that they've brought back manufacturing, that brought NATO together, that they are working to protect Ukraine. He's looking, I mean, the Middle east is extremely complicated, and Hamas, who got money from Russia, attacked Israel and took hostages and killed 1100 on October 7, which is Putin's birthday.
So there's a lot of really complicated movements. And what I see the team doing is trying to connect with all the players and the Middle eastern leaders and keep the war from spreading.
Speaker A
So other experts have generically said, as you're sort of pointing out, that some of the things that are publicly noticeable about Trump are more concerning to them when it comes to capacity than what they are seeing from Biden generally. Do you agree with that or not so much?
Speaker D
Well, so the things that concern me are not understanding the context of a historical event like Gettysburg, but also when he was under deposition. So what I look for is function. So depositions are great as opposed to, I guess he was noted to have 30,000 lies. So when he has a rally, whatever he says may or may not be true. So there's one kind of dementia related with alcoholism that's not for him. It's got confabulation where you just make stuff up.
But he was in his deposition, and they asked him if he had any medications or any reason he couldn't answer the questions that day, and he said no. And I've been in depositions as an expert witness, and I know the lawyers go through step by step exactly what you're supposed to say. And right in front of him, he had this long written out statement about how this was a witch hunt from Biden, and his lawyer had to go read the statement, the statement. So he didn't understand the context. So that's concerning. That if he's in a situation where, you know, it's tense negotiations that he may not be catching the cues the other.
But the thing that's challenging, particularly for Trump, is that, you know, there, and I'm not going to make a pronouncement here, I would say this is someone that should have jero psych testing, which is like four to 5 hours long, because you have to see a decline in function from your previous state. So Rudy Giuliani is an easier one, and I'm actually quite worried about him.
Here's a man who in the nineties, brought down the mob. I mean, you have to be on the top of your game to do that. And then just a year or two ago, he was having a presidential press conference at the four Seasons, a landscaping parking lot. I mean, that's concerning.
I really get concerned about him with these legal cases that he is not quite understanding everything that's going on.
And when someone doesn't understand the implications of an intervention, in this case, the legal issues, then they don't have capacity for that.
Speaker A
When it comes to. Go back to something you said about comparing to an earlier baseline.
Speaker D
Yeah.
Speaker A
As a lay person, when I see Trump's speeches from the 2016 campaign and his tv appearances from 2012 and his letterman appearance from 2005, the dynamicism, the diversity of vocabulary, there's something that seems to be gone from the way that he speaks. I can't discern whether it would be expected based on his age at these different times or whether there's more to it. What do you think?
Speaker D
Well, there can be a diminishment. You know, like, Biden is diminished relative to 20 years ago as well. So I'm not going to criticize that.
What I will say is he, I watched his campaign rally in Wisconsin or Michigan, and he was saying things like, hey, I'm only using the teleprompter 8% of the time and 92% of the time. I'm not. I'm like, well, what is that about? I mean, a regular candidate would not. And the other thing about Trump is whatever he's feeling or worried about tends to come out in a speech. And so one of the frontal lobe tasks is it has your reasoning, it has your social filters, so it keeps you from saying things you really shouldn't say.
Speaker A
So this is like an inhibition mechanism of sorts.
Speaker D
Exactly right. So he's lost some of his inhibitions.
Speaker A
Doctor Liz, you said you wanted to mention something also about RFK Junior, because he's not getting as much attention. As far as this sort of stuff goes, what's your impression?
Speaker D
Well, so, as I said, you know, I particularly look at function, you know, what did Trump do during his presidency? What did Biden do during his presidency? Although these days, I've got to say that the news media has really made things problematic in that. Like, with Trump, you know, buried Ivana in his golf course, and I looked it up. And in New Jersey, a cemetery is exempt from judicial seizure. So, you know, I talk to someone who watches Fox News all the time, and he's like, that didn't happen. I was like, no, look. So I think that our country is kind of in silos, which is definitely a problem.
RFK, he doesn't have any experience running any big things. This whole question of having a dead worm in his brain that's usually systemic and that causes inflammation.
And also, he was shooting drugs as a kid and he got hepatitis C. So that causes scarring. All of dementia is scarring. And mainly it can't be cured, no matter what the MD gurus say. But you can do things to decrease how fast it will progress.
And RFK said in the 2012 deposition that he had memory loss, long term, short term, and he couldn't work as much.
But now he's saying he's all better. So that's not how it works. It's kind of like a heart attack. You get damage to the brain, whether it's from strokes or Alzheimer's or alcohol or head injuries.
Speaker A
So if I understand correctly, you're saying that whatever damage, whatever symptoms he was experiencing from that at the time, these would be sort of permanent changes to the brain.
Speaker D
Yes. So the inflammation from hepatitis C, it's an inflammatory process in the whole body. It can cause changes in the nerves, the brain, particularly the liver and the sister sarcosis.
It looks like there's some scarring definitely in one part of his brain, and that part is just going to stay scarred. I mean, if they treated him with antibiotics, it's going to keep him from getting new infections in his brain. And so it may just be stable, but it's not likely. It would be extremely unusual that if he had cognitive problems and couldn't work very much and earn a living in 2012, that all of a sudden he would be better. I mean, now he's also saying that Ukraine needs to be denazified.
Like, where is that coming from?
It's a very strange year.
Speaker A
It is a very strange year, that is for sure. We've been speaking with Doctor Elizabeth Landsverk, a dementia and Alzheimer's disease expert. Doctor Liz, really appreciate your time and insights today.
Speaker D
Well, thank you. And I appreciate the work you're doing.
Speaker A
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Well, yesterday was finally the treasured day off from his criminal trial for the failed former President Donald Trump. And he's been complaining, this trial is keeping me off the campaign trail. I should be in Michigan, I should be in Wisconsin. I should be in Pennsylvania. I should be west. I should be east. I should be north. I should be south. So certainly yesterday, he went out and campaigned right, very much wrong. Yesterday, Donald Trump spent the day hosting the people who bought his NFT at Mar a Lago via non fungible tokens. He had no public campaign scheduled yesterday, but he did an event with his NFT customers at Mar a Lago. And remember the NFTs, an alleged money laundering scam, and welcoming those individuals to his home? We have a couple of clips from the event. At one point, someone asked, can we donate to your campaign in cryptocurrency? Another very juicy potential way to launder money into his campaign, right? Trump immediately says yes, but then says he's actually not totally sure and asking for help. Does anyone know if I can accept crypto?
Speaker F
Yeah, please.
Speaker A
Can we donate to your campaign using crypto?
Speaker F
Yes.
If you can't, I'll make sure you can. Well, I donate to the Trump campaign using crypto I believe the answer is yes. Is there somebody that can help me with that answer? This gentleman, I like the dash in.
Speaker A
The middle.
Speaker F
Company can help you with.
Speaker A
That, as you can see.
First of all, my company can help you with that. The guy who asked wasn't actually looking to donate any money. He was looking to help trump process crypto donations. Everybody there is grifting. Okay.
As you can see, it's of critical importance that Trump not be in court so that he can be on the campaign trail or I guess, at his home doing this stuff. Another bizarre video from this strange event.
Speaker F
Speaker two, about eight months ago, we had one of these meetings. Who is it? The last time we came to, Mara, best looking people I've ever seen.
Speaker A
Let's go.
Speaker F
I never wanted to leave. In fact, I was supposed to leave about an hour ago, and they didn't mind. You know, I have a fake trial going on with these fake news.
Speaker A
The trial is fake, the charges are real, but the trial is fake news.
Speaker C
Fake news.
Speaker F
Horrible people. They drummed up some nonsense. It's a shame for Americans.
Speaker A
Shame.
Speaker F
But we've never had better poll numbers. Poll numbers are the highest we've ever had.
Speaker A
Where notice that the truth, of course, is that Trump is increasingly underwater in some critical swing states with Joe Biden building a lead. It's just, it's just not true what he's saying, but he would love to believe it, that's for sure.
Speaker F
Beating crooked Joe Biden by a lot, both in the national polls and in the swing states. We're beating him. One I just saw today.
Speaker A
Wrong.
Speaker F
We're leading by a lot in every single swing state. That's the way we have to keep it, because he's the worst president in the history of our country. There's never been a president as bad as this guy.
Speaker A
Right?
Speaker F
Sleepy Joe did last time.
Speaker A
It's funny, someone yelling, Sleepy Joe. Trump's not using that anymore because he's sleeping at every day of his trial. And then lastly, Trump, in another one of these behind the curtain moments, pointing, I guess, like off in some balcony somewhere, on a portico somewhere at Mar a Lago, there were a couple people shaking hands or doing something, and Trump says, look, where are all my rich people? They're doing deals over there. Take a look. This is sort of like Trump's where's my african american type moment?
Speaker F
Look, I have all my rich people. Look. See those people? That guy, see, they're shaking hands on a deal. Look, they just shook hands at a $10 billion deal. They're trying to figure out how do they get advertising like that?
Speaker A
Where are my rich people? So a very, very important day off from Trump's criminal trial so that he could hang out with the people who bought his digital trading cards.
And certainly, I'm sure the judge will see this and say, you know what? It's very, very important that you have the day off to go to a Baron Trump's graduation. So a strange day at Mar a Lago.
Also a very strange. Over the weekend for Laura Trump, which I want to talk about over the weekend, there was an event, some generic republican event. You know, doesn't, doesn't even really matter what it is. And Donald Trump's daughter in law, Lara Trump, introduced him. And one of the things they did is they celebrated the January 6 criminal rioters, the party of law and order, celebrating alleged and convicted criminals. Many of these individuals have already been convicted. If you didn't know this, and by the way, if you didn't know this, I'm jealous of you. I wish I didn't know it. There is a rendition of the United States national anthem voiced by the rioters. Now they are celebrating the rioters by calling them hostages. Hostages is the word that they are using for the rioters. And in the midst of introducing Donald Trump, Lara Trump had them play the song. This is a sort of treason national anthem. And by the way, I don't know what the rules are with the national anthem. You know how you're not supposed to modify the american flag? So when you see these thin blue line flags and all of these other perversions of the flag, you're actually violating the flag code. They're very patriotic. They respect the flag, except when they pervert it with their various colors and lines and stripes. I don't know if there's something similar with the national anthem, but I like to call this the treason national anthem. They are celebrating the rioters yet another one of their principles.
Law and order, due process, respect authority, respect the courts, respect the justice system, another one of their principles, which they abandon like that when it's no longer convenient. The treason national anthem. About a year ago, the j six choir and my father in law, Donald.
Speaker D
Trump, worked together to release a song.
Speaker A
That made liberals cry because it was number one on the guild war charts. Does anyone know of a single liberal who cried because of this? If there were any tears, it would be tears for how low the country has sunk with this perversion of a, of a political party called justice for all. And today I'm going to present him with his billboard award. With all of you, would you please?
Right?
And as you see, there is Trump hinging at the waist, as he often does.
Speaker F
I was asked to do that by some great politicians and great friends. And this is like one of the J six hostages.
Speaker A
They actually say he's celebrating alleged criminals and convicted criminals by saying they are actually the victims.
Speaker F
And I said I'd do some beautiful words on that song.
And it went to the number one song above Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus for almost six months.
And it was an amazing tribute to them. And whenever we played, I didn't like, play it now, if you could, is it possible to play that song?
Speaker A
It's the treason national anthem. And Trump is standing there with his hand over his heart and just kind of, you know, hinging back and forth like he often does.
Speaker F
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
Speaker A
God bless the United shesh.
By the way, how awkward is it that Trump just stands there, hinged forward the entire time, right.
Speaker F
And to the republic for which it stands?
Speaker A
Speaker one. All right, so you, you get the picture there. So listen, we are going to do a segment about all of the principles that these people ascribe to themselves, but they have actually abandoned completely and totally, of course, law and order. And as you see that here, defending alleged and convicted criminals, therefore, law and order, until all of a sudden, it's inconvenient for them. And inconvenient for Trump. Respect for institutions until those institutions are completely and totally inconvenient for them. Debt and deficit, oh, we've got to keep the debt low and blah, blah, blah, until they get into power and they completely and totally blow up the debt and the deficit. Personal responsibility, until all of a sudden they are attempted to be held responsible for something that they did. So we're going to go through all of this in a segment next week, but no surprise to anybody that we continue to see the defense of alleged and convicted criminals and an attack on the justice system that is prosecuting Trump, while at the same time saying it is the Democrats and the left who are the lawbreakers, and it is the left and the Democrats that ignore due process and law and order. More of the same. We have a voicemail number. That number is 2192. David P. Here is a caller who just can't take the RFK brain worms situation. Take a listen to this.
Speaker E
All right, I know you have like 3000 of these voicemails, but please, I hope to God that you hear mine. But here's the thing, dude, have you heard that RFK has literal brain worms or did or whatever.
I had never heard that term before until I started watching your show. And then to see on CNN this morning that RFK has worms in his brain, just, you can't make this stuff up. Absolutely amazing. I sincerely hope that you comment on it. All right. Have a good one.
Speaker A
Yeah, we did. We, I commented on it earlier and, you know, a ton of people wrote to me about it. We're talking about a serious medical issue. Like I simultaneously, I, as a thing, we don't make fun of conditions and medical issues on this show. And also the fact that he had a brain worm when what we talk about in politics colloquially is people that are afflicted by so called brainworms. I understand the irony. I understand that there is something there that is of interest to people. But the story just taking off and dozens of emails coming in about it. So we did talk about it earlier in the show. All right. We have such a great bonus show for you today.
Most of the customers of FTX are going to get all of their money back after the entire Sam Bankman freed catastrophe. They are mostly going to get their money back, which is a great thing.
Secondly, the Taliban has confirmed we will punish adulterers with stoning, especially women.
What does this do about the perception that some have about the Taliban, which, by the way, I will talk about why people have the perception they have. But the Taliban, affirming yes on stoning for adulterers. And a Georgia appeals court is going to, has granted Donald Trump's request to consider the dismissal of Fonny Willis from his criminal case.
A lot of things seemingly going well for Trump from the legal standpoint. This week, we will discuss what this means for the charges against Trump in the state of Georgia, which are otherwise considered to be very, very serious.
Make sure you have access to the bonus show by signing up at join pacman.com speaker one oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad, right? And you can use the coupon code, save democracy 24 to get the bonus show and all of the other great member benefits at a discount. And remember that you can get my, whoops, this isn't, I held up the wrong book. You can get my latest children's book. You should see the book I accidentally held up. You can get my latest children's book. Think like a voter. A perfect gift for an election year at David Pakman.com slash book. Make sure to leave a review. And finally, I am also writing a weekly written piece, taking one idea from the show that week, turning it into a written piece that you can share with those who prefer to read rather than watch. It's free. Just get on my newsletter at david pakman.com. And of course, you can also choose to support the written work directly by grabbing a substack Premium newsletter subscription. So much going on. I'll see you on the bonus show. I'll be back here tomorrow.