6/20/24: Biden surges 7 points in Fox News poll, more deceptive editing

David Pakman
Let's start today talking about taxes and more specifically, what happens next year or at the end of next year, depending on who wins the November election.

Many of you wrote to me over the last week regarding some of the different tax proposals that are now being put forward. And the term proposal is a little bit generous when it comes to some of the ideas that are out there. But in a lot of ways, 2025 is going to be the year of the future of taxes. Now, why do I say that? Why does it have to be the case that 2025 will be consequential as far as taxes are concerned? Isn't it possible that whoever wins in November just won't do anything about taxes in 2025? And it's not really possible. And the reason why is that a lot of what was in the Trump tax plan of 2017 sunsets or expires at the end of 2025. December 31, 2025, a whole bunch of elements expire. And so in particular, because of that, and because Donald Trump could be back in office and could extend or even build on some of those things versus allowing them to expire, if that's what Joe Biden wants to do. And coming up with a new framework, 2025 is going to be massively controversial in terms of the future of taxes and realistically, in ways in the same way that Trump's 2017 tax plan is in effect through the end of 2025. Eight years later, what happens next year with taxes will be impactful to the tax code well beyond the next presidential term. So it will affect what happens under future presidents. No matter whether it's Trump or Biden's second term, we will have tax consequences based on 2020 five's president that will go beyond the next presidential term. Now, let's talk through some of the different things that may happen.

I've spoken before about qubit. That's the qualified business income deduction as well as the salt limit, salt being state and local taxes. You don't need to understand each of these elements deeply to have a general understanding of what we're talking about here. Qubit, the qualified business income deduction, is a sort of haircut of up to 20% for people in certain types of businesses that was added under the Trump tax plan, while on the other hand, there was a limit placed on how much in state and local taxes you could deduct. The effect of this was it was beneficial for many business owners and it was not good for many of the people who live in higher estate tax states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, California, if Biden wins, almost certainly Trump's qubit goes away, and then the salt limit also goes away, unless it's extended. And it's not completely clear yet what Joe Biden plans to do about that. You also may recall that Donald Trump lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. That was technically made permanent. But almost certainly, if Biden wins and then is responsible for a new tax framework, that corporate tax rate level will go up, and Biden has talked about 28%. Also important is that if Joe Biden wins, people like Elizabeth Warren will probably get a voice. Elizabeth Warren is one of the most left wing senators in the US Senate. I know many people in my audience hate it when I say that she's a neolib, she's a centrist. Now, if you go by voting record and stated political positions, I believe that the only senator to the left of Elizabeth Warren is Bernie Sanders.

And Elizabeth Warren has many ideas. She wants new taxes for corporations, she wants new taxes for billionaires. And realistically, if President Biden is reelected, Elizabeth Warren will, at least to some degree, have his ear, and some of her ideas may be integrated into what Joe Biden ultimately proposes. Now, Joe Biden has also discussed some of his ideas for taxes for 2025 if he wins. His general framework is he wants to renew the elements of Trump's 2017, taxes that help lower the tax burden on those earning under $400,000 a year. But he plans to allow the expiration of those that lower the tax burden of individuals earning or households earning over $400,000 a year. As I mentioned, Biden's budget includes a 28% tax on corporations that's lower than where it was before Trump, which was 35%, but it's higher than the 21% that we have right now. Trump would keep all of those things that he put in place in 2017, and he's floated a whole bunch of other ideas. Now, it's important to mention that Trump floats different ideas depending on who he's speaking to. He had this closed door meeting with a bunch of CEO's. That's where he seemed confused. And a lot of the CEO's were stunned at Trump's inability to focus on anything and just randomly jumping from anecdote to anecdote. But in that meeting, to the extent that Trump has any idea what he was talking about, he was talking about bringing down the corporate tax rate even more, from 21% to 20%. A small change, but continued reduction in the corporate tax rate.

Now, that morning, before speaking to the CEO's, Trump spoke to House Republicans and with House Republicans, he floated a completely different idea, which is, let's get rid of the entire us income tax system and just put tariffs on foreign goods. And like, that's it. Which makes no mathematical sense, it makes no moral sense, it makes no political sense. It's a really whacked idea. But the point here is, Trump's proposing a lot of different things depending on who he's talking to.

And then over the last month, Trump has sort of signaled support for a number of different corporate tax rates, even though he told the CEO's he would push it down from 21% to 20%. He also has said, what, about 15% as a corporate tax rate? We don't really know what he wants. And it kind of remains a mystery because he'll say twelve different things to ten different audiences. Needless to say, we talk about Supreme Court consequences to this election.

Massively consequent, consequential option one, if Biden wins, is very likely.

Two conservative justices, Alito and Clarence Thomas, are replaced with Biden picks. That's a great thing. On the other hand, if Trump wins, Alito and Clarence Thomas retire with the safety and knowledge that Trump will replace them. And then by the end of Trump's next term, we end up with five of the nine Supreme Court justices having been selected by Donald Trump. So massive Supreme Court consequences. Massive consequences. As far as taxes are concerned, I don't really expect deep tax policy discussion at next week's debate. Most people will be watching to see whether either candidate soils themselves or forgets how to speak. That's really the overarching story about next week's debate. But it's at least conceivably possible that we'll get some discussion about tax policy next week. And that'll be interesting to see. We have an extraordinary polling situation to discuss in a Fox News poll. We have now seen a seven point swing away from Trump and towards President Joe Biden. And Fox hosts are panicking, downplaying it as still within the margin of error or just questioning their own networks polling. But this is a big, big deal. Take a look at this. Here are the results as you can see. If we go back several months, you see that it was at one point Trump 50 and Biden 46. We now have a huge reversal where Biden is up to 50 from his low of 44, and Trump is down to 48 from 50. We can say, oh, it's still close. And it is. We can say it's still within the margin of error. And it is.

But the point here is that as the number of undecideds has declined and as we go from 85% certainty, as you can see, there was one point in this poll where it was 44 to 41. 44 plus 41 is 85, leaving 15% unsure. We're now at 50 48. This now is representing a much larger share of the electorate, 98% saying, I know who I'm voting for. And we have seen a seven point swing in the direction of President Joe Biden in this poll. Brian Kilmeade doesn't really like it and he's reassuring in this segment, the Fox News audience. It's all within the margin of error. And then hilariously, he reads exclamation point off of his teleprompter. This is really weird because they always say, oh, Biden has cognitive decline because once he read the word pause off of his teleprompter, which was only meant to be an instruction, where here's Brian Kilmey doing exact same thing, reading exclamation point off of the teleprompter.

Speaker B
The clock. I'm sorry, did you want to say something?

David Pakman
All that flooding, devastating, terrible.

Speaker B
The clock strikes midnight. And RFK Judy hopes of being on stage with Trump and Biden dashed. As Fox News polls show it's neck and neck with Biden and Trump, but within the margin of error, exclamation point.

David Pakman
There you go. Within the margin of era, exclamation point. Very, very exciting when you read teleprompter directions for delivery. So Brian Kilmeade, of course, reassuring, reassuring his audience that this is all within the margin of error. Here is Bret Baier on Fox News, jumping in and also addressing that this is a significant shift in polling.

Bret Baier
Good evening, I'm Bret Baier. We are releasing new Fox polls right now about the presidential race. President Biden gets his best result this election cycle in the head to head against former President Donald Trump. He leads 50 to 48. That is within the margin of error. President Biden hasn't been ahead of former former President Trump in the poll since October 2023. He trailed Trump by one point last month. Again, all within March of era, a very tight race when listing extremely important issues to their vote. Registered voters in this survey citing the future of democracy at 68%, the economy at 66.

David Pakman
So the future of democracy being the most important issue to a plurality of voters is not a good sign for Donald Trump. Now, Frank Luntz has a different view. Focus group, right wing focus group guy Frank Luntz has a different view. He put out a tweet or we might call it an excretion, where he said, quote, there has been no big shift in polls following Trump's New York verdict, and that itself is a big story. The first presidential debate later this month, June 27, will have a much bigger impact on voters than the New York City trial. Now, where I think Frank is, he's giving an opinion, which is fine. We've looked at this historically. Debates rarely make a big difference. The counterpoint is that the stakes are very high in next week's debate, not because the audience is itching to know what sort of foreign policy changes each candidate will make, but because so much has been made of Joe Biden's apparent to some cognitive decline that they are setting expectations that Biden is essentially going to be unable to debate. He will be nonfunctional. And on the other hand, there is a growing corporate media narrative, rightly so, finally, about Donald Trump's cognitive issues. So there actually is a lot riding on next week's debate.

It will only be consequential if someone's performance is so bad, so bad, that it forces a number of voters to say, I simply cannot vote for that person based on what happened at the debate. When it comes to policy and substance, rarely do debates really swing elections in any significant manner. So we'll see if Frank Luntz is right. A major seven point swing in a Fox News poll. And we will be live with the debate. We're going to have a correspondent in the spin room at the debate. I mean, we're planning some real coverage next Thursday, so I hope you'll join me starting at 08:00 p.m. eastern time. It'll be a big night. Let's hear from a sponsor or two and then the show will continue if I have anything to say about it.

One of our sponsors today is better help. I have long been an advocate of psychotherapy. Whether you have an ongoing issue, a particular temporary situation that's causing stress, I think most people can benefit from spending time with a therapist. Give betterhelp a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist anytime for no additional charge. There are so many benefits to doing therapy online. It'll work on your schedule wherever you are. No more waiting rooms and sitting in traffic or having to take 3 hours off of work to get down and back for a 45 or 50 minutes session. Get it off your chest with betterhelp. Visit betterhelp.com Slash Pacman show today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help.com Slash Pacman show the link is in the podcast notes the weather is warming up. We're outside more maybe we're trying to get in shape for summer. If you're in need of a science based no B's workout program that's easy to follow and will give you results you feel good about, look no further than our sponsor, Alpha progression. Alpha progression was recognized not once but twice as Apple's app of the day. It's just a great value. It has an easy to use interface, it's totally customizable based on your needs, and it has a 4.9 star rating in both Apple and Google app stores from tens of thousands of reviews. Alpha progression is the app for anyone looking to maximize muscle gain.

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Lest anyone forget, if you're hearing this message, you're not getting the full David Pakman show experience. Consider getting a membership at join pacman.com. it's our primary source of funding. It's the most direct way to support this program. We are not part of any large media conglomerate. We don't despite what you see in my YouTube comments, there are no older jewish men like George Soros funding this program. Nor is the democratic party, nor is anybody else, really, other than our audience and a handful of advertisers. You can sign up at join Pacman.com. there are great perks made available every day to our members, and you can, of course, take a discount. It's available to anybody using the coupon code Save Democracy 24 the humiliation on Fox News is building over their easily debunked Biden dementia video clips. We talked on Monday and Tuesday about the difficult reality that these Biden dementia viral clips are going viral way faster than they can be. Debunked and there's a really interesting segment from yesterday on Fox News where Fox News host and former judge Jeanine Pirro says, you really can't see Biden talking to anybody in the now viral and widely debunked skydiver video. This is the video that the New York Post and others deceptively cropped super narrowly like a toothpick. It's a widescreen video in which you can easily see Biden is talking to people. They cropped it so narrow that you can't see anything and, and published the story that Biden's talking to no one and wandering away into a field when in reality, Biden turned and was talking to the people that just sky dove and landed there.

So during this segment, Janine Pirro tries to say, there's no one there. I don't see that he's talking to anybody. And then Harold Ford explains, look, there are people there. So we're going to see Fox host Janine Pirro talking about this. Then the clip will go to CNN discussing the exact same video and the fact that Joe Biden is obviously just talking to people. Where's.

Speaker D
But look, if you look at the right part of the thing, there are.

David Pakman
Three guys standing to the right when they fan the thing out there. So he's the only one. Look at that guy right there.

Speaker B
Look at the guy.

Speaker D
Okay.

Speaker E
It was a pretty misleading video because what you're seeing here on the left is the New York Post. Edit that version. That's all people could see. It zoomed in. It was claiming that Biden appears to be wandering off. But when you actually zoom out, like you do here on the right, you can see the full picture from the unedited source pool cameras where very clearly he was talking to skydivers who were just out of frame as he was standing next to all the world leaders. You can see them there at the bottom. And, I mean, so that one was very obviously misleading.

Speaker B
Yeah.

Speaker D
And that one was deceptively edited. Right. To show Biden and make it appear again as if he's just wandering, staring off into the speaker, has no idea what he's doing. But that is literally what you hear in right wing media.

David Pakman
They are doing everything they can to misinform and to take attention away from the fact that while there are no Biden whistleblowers about what's going on with Biden, cognitively remember that, that this is a key thing. There are no Biden whistleblowers who are spending time with him, who are willing to actually go on record and say he doesn't know what's going on. Not, not a single one.

The real story is that CEO's meet with Trump and they say he seemed confused, wasn't making any sense, he was incoherent. He couldn't stick to a single topic. You have vote voters, would be voters. They're allowed to vote. Whether they will vote, we don't know at Trump's rallies who. You can see the stunned looks on their faces, reduced to silence and confusion as Donald Trump rants and raves and glitches and talks about sharks and electrocution and electric vehicles and the entire thing. You have reporters who have spent significant time with Trump, like Rameen Satude, who say Trump thought that he was doing foreign policy when he was at Trump Tower after he was no longer president, Trump forgot that we had sat down for an hour. He looked at me vacantly. Trump insisted that a dead woman, Joan Rivers, voted for him in 2016. The fact that despite the fact that she died two years prior, that's the story where we have specific people willing to say, I was there for this incident and that's why they are trying to misinform. Now, there's another story here as well. I know that we all generically understand.

You put something on the front page of the paper, it's wrong. You correct it in the Friday edition on page b seven, and almost no one sees the correction. We are seeing that with these stories, and we're seeing it in that the original story goes instantly viral. It's debunked within an hour with the full video. But the debunking just doesn't get the attention. It's now almost a week later, and judge Janine Pirro is insisting, despite the fact that we have the video, I don't think he's talking to anyone. Well, we see him talking to people. We see the skydivers in the video. It's obvious what's going on.

It's particularly hard for the fact checks and the debunkings to be the definitive final point when even after the debunking has taken place, they keep publishing the fake story. It would be like if the New York Times published on Monday on the front page a false story, corrected it Friday, and then spends the entire following week putting the original bogus story back on the front page. But, hey, I don't know, last Friday, I guess it was debunked, but we're still sticking with the story. So this is a real uphill battle. And I don't really know what's going to happen on the 27th during this debate.

I'm very curious to see it, but I don't know.

Regardless of what happens, I don't know that the story in the week that follows will accurately represent what took place at the debate. So my recommendation is actually watch the debate and decide for yourself what it is that takes place. And I say this with the possibility, I mean, listen, if they're right and Trump's going to come out coherent and making a lot of sense, and Biden's going to come out incoherent by telling you to watch it and decide for yourself, there's a risk. There's a risk. You will watch it and decide for yourself that Biden seems incoherent and Trump made sense. I struggle to believe that's what's going to happen. But either way, what we want to do is watch it for ourselves. We're going to have the primary source a week from today.

Uh, I plan to watch it and judge for myself. All right, I want to do one more of these Fox News Biden dementia stories. This is so pathetic and unbelievable. And it's not just Fox News. The New York Post is doing the same stuff. The Wall Street Journal is getting in on the action with that article from two weeks ago. I'm going to play for you here. Fox News claiming that Biden forgot the name of his own secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas. And then they cut the clip. In reality, if they had played five more seconds, you would have heard Joe Biden say, secretary Mayorkas.

That's the, it's that deceptive, it's that pathetic, it's that base. So let's look at this. You're going to see clip one. Is Fox airing a video where they cut him saying Mayorkas his name. And they go, he seemed to forget Mayorkas his name. What happened is Biden stuttered. Biden has a stutter. Sometimes he stutters. People with stutters sometimes stutter.

Not mind blowing stuff. But then you will see the part that they excluded where Biden says Secretary Mayorkas. That's the story here at the White House yesterday, President Biden appeared to forget the name of his own DHS chief.

Speaker B
My name's Joe Biden. I'm Joe Biden's husband.

Thanks to all the members of Congress. Homeland Security secretary, I'm not sure gonna introduce you all the way, but all kid decide now.

David Pakman
President Biden is in Rehoboth beach.

Speaker B
I'm not sure gonna do shit all the way, but all kid aside, Secretary Marcus as well.

David Pakman
So there it is. I mean, it's not even, I was wrong by saying 5 seconds. It's more like a second and a half or 2 seconds. Yes, Biden did stutter. That's true. That that's sometimes what happens to him. And then he said, secretary mayorkas, all kidding aside, Secretary mayorkas. So this is one of the three main cable news channels in the United States, and it's not, I mean, listen, if I want to be charitable to Fox News, if ten minutes later Biden had gone back and said Secretary mayorkas and everybody tried to argue, he didn't really forget it. Maybe he did forget it in the moment. Maybe he did forget Mayorkas, his name and only remember it ten minutes later, or get to some prepared notes ten minutes later where he came across the name. We could say, nah, I don't know about that. He did seem to forget it. It was 2 seconds later and Fox News cuts it and says he forgot Mayorkas, his name. They have spent on Fox News the last two, three, four days insisting they don't peddle in what are called the cheap fakes of Biden, the deceptively edited videos arguing they're just giving it to the american people the way it is. And then they get caught making a claim that is debunked by the 3 seconds that follow the video after they cut it. Absolutely disgusting stuff. They've doubled down on the fact that they don't do this and they get caught doing it. And the tragic part is there are people who are falling for it. Donald Trump's former spiritual adviser has resigned after allegedly molesting a twelve year old.

It's a disgusting story. And of course, Trump is known to associate with a number of different, you know, I struggle ever to use the word pedophile because sometimes people will write to me and say it's not technically accurate. In some of these cases, it's a post pubescent and that technically means it's not pedophile. So fine. Trump is known to associate, was known to associate with Epstein.

He was known to intrude upon the changing rooms of minors in pageants that he was involved in. And now we have this story. The Daily Beast reports Trump spiritual adviser resigns amid allegations he molested a twelve year old. Robert Morris's resignation comes days after he seemingly admitted to molesting a preteen in the 1980s when he was 20 with a wife and a kid. This is, if you don't know who this guy is, he's a Texas mega church pastor Trump once named him as a spiritual advisor to his administration, announced he was stepping down from Gateway church. Among allegations amid allegations he molested a twelve year old in the eighties. The resignation comes days after 62 year old Morris seemingly admitted to molesting the girl in a statement to the Christian Post. In the statement, he conceded he engaged in, quote, inappropriate sexual behavior with, quote, a young lady when he was already married with a child in his early twenties. Morris did not mention the girl's age, but his alleged victim, Cindy Clemens. Cindy Clemens Shire told the religious watchdog blog the Wartburg Watch on Friday. She was twelve.

She was twelve when she was first sexually abused by Morris on Christmas Day in 1982.

I will spare you some of the details since we are, at least for the next few weeks, still on broadcast radio. And I want to be respectful to our various affiliates based on FCC regulations. But you can find the Daily Beast article in the description to the YouTube video and you can check it out. So as usual, Trump, who prides himself on hiring the best people and being friends with the best people and having the best people around him, and the entire thing was, is linked to yet another.

I don't even know that it's alleged because the guy's admitting it. And we know how old the girl was at the time.

A, an admitted child sex offender. Child sex predator. Here is Donald Trump junior with Morris. Here is Eric Trump with Morris at Donald Trump's inauguration. So only the best people is becoming increasingly difficult to believe these stories. But you know, he still got the evangelical vote.

After all, it's an evangelical pastor, so he must be a man of God when the rubber meets the road. Just disgusting stuff. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back.

Let's say you want to figure out if Trump did use a nazi slogan in a campaign video or if it's just a misunderstanding. Ground News is an app and website that gathers news stories from across, across the world and political spectrum. So you can decide for yourself. It's a great tool. I'm happy to be partnering with them for this video. Yes, Trump did in fact use a nazi slogan in a campaign video he posted and then he deleted it. On ground news, I can access almost 200 articles covering the story and see that only 17% of those are right leaning. No surprise there. Comparing coverage is interesting. Some sources on the left references language comparing him to Hitler, while on the right RT highlights his explanation of the video and Israel's are highlights that he deleted it. The ground news blind spots feature will highlight stories like this that are disproportionately covered by either political side. So you are guaranteed to see the full picture. Sign up through my link for 40% off their vantage subscription which gives you access to all of their features. Go to ground Dot news slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast. Notes I have something very different for you guys today. I am still in shock as to the cowardly nature of what a Trump endorsed MAGA Republican just did to what was going to be an interview. Let me explain to you what just happened. I think people will find this interesting. I was scheduled today, minutes ago, to interview Pastor Mark Burns. Pastor Mark Burns is a Trump endorsed candidate for the US House seat previously held by Jeff Duncan, who's retiring in North Carolina's, in South Carolina's third district.

And we were scheduled to do an interview with him today.

And we connected for that interview. And the interview was organized by the assistant or campaign secretary or whoever to Mark Burns. We connect and there's some other guy sitting in the chair, but it was just like a can you hear me? Sort of thing. So I go, okay, they're just doing a tech check. This guy stands up, and then another guy pops up and sits down, and it's this guy that I'm putting up on the screen right now. And I assume this must be some other tech check. They must be. I don't know. They want to be really sure that the microphone works. And I'm just chatting with this guy. As you can see, he's wearing a Maradona t shirt, and Maradona being an argentinian soccer player, and me being from Argentina, we sort of chat about Maradona. And we're just chatting. And I assume we're just waiting for pastor Mark Burns to actually sit down to start the interview.

And then all of a sudden, this guy goes, I'm going to be sitting in for the pastor today.

And at this point, the first time he says it, I assume he's joking.

But 1% of me thinks maybe this guy's not joking and I should start recording this, because I think that they're bailing on the interview. I think they're actually chickening out of this interview. And I was able to get two minutes, and this guy, who I guess is his communications director, insisted, you're not going to talk to the pastor. And then he goes into all sorts of conspiracy nonsense.

This. They really thought that I was going to interview this guy instead of the candidate. So I'm going to play this for you. This is the most cowardly act I've ever seen.

And, you know, when we first connected, and I could hear people in the background, I heard someone yelling about Pacman show, and pretty clearly, they were at that last minute saying, no, no, no, we're not going to let the pastor do it. So I'll talk to you in a moment about why they are right to be afraid and why it makes sense that they bailed. But check out. This is the two minutes I was able to get with this dude. And again, I started recording haphazardly because I was like, damn, this guy is serious. They're actually bailing on this interview at the last second. Take a listen to this.

Speaker D
Vacations director. I'm going to be taking care of the interview.

David Pakman
Oh, you're being serious?

Speaker D
Yes.

David Pakman
Oh, no. Then we can't do it. No, we were scheduled. Our research and everything, we were scheduled to do it with the pastor.

Speaker D
I'm sorry about that.

David Pakman
What? When was this decision made?

Speaker D
A few minutes ago.

David Pakman
Oh, is that what I heard? Something about Pacman in the background when we connected. Was that. Was it literally two minutes, like, right, two minutes ago?

Speaker D
It was a recent decision, yes.

David Pakman
Okay, and what. What happened?

Speaker D
I advised him that I would go ahead and take care of the interview, and he's got some other stuff he's got to take care of. You know, there's an election in, what, four days, and he's very busy.

David Pakman
Okay. Do you know why it got scheduled in the first place if he couldn't do it?

Speaker D
Well, I. Look, you can talk to his communications. I worked with him on his last campaign. I know the pastor very well.

David Pakman
Yeah, no, I'm just trying to understand. That's why I was asking you if you knew what happened.

Speaker D
I just told you, it's.

David Pakman
He's busy.

Speaker D
Well, he has an election in a couple days, and he's talking to voters inside the district.

David Pakman
Okay. I mean, unfortunately, you guys just really wasted our time.

Speaker D
Well, I'm happy to sit here and answer all the questions you got, man.

David Pakman
That's okay. We only talk to the candidates, but we'll let our audience know. Remind me what your name was.

Speaker D
I am the publisher of the Ashley Biden diary. You guys might want to cover that over the next couple of months. The Ashley Biden diary, that's been proved to be 100% true and correct and legit in origin.

My name is Noah Fritz Noel. N o E L. Frisch. F r I s c h. All.

David Pakman
Right, well, I'm sorry, we're not going to do it, but I wish we could. You guys could have just told us no last night. You know.

Speaker D
You know what? It was recent decision. We got to go talk to the voters. If you live in the third district, I'm sure we'd be doing this right now.

David Pakman
All right, well, thanks. No, appreciate it.

Speaker D
Cheers. God bless.

David Pakman
So, listen, I actually do believe the one thing that he said there that's true is that it was a recent decision.

I think what happened here is, and we will put the email trail up on the screen for you. It's obviously clear that everybody knew we were planning to interview the pastor and not this guy.

I think that in the couple hours this morning before the interview, they looked at the fact that the last MAGA guy who showed up, Royce White, now is the subject of FEC investigations. And his discussion with me about spending money at strip clubs, campaign money at strip clubs, made the Daily show and MSNBC and the Young Turks and all these other media outlets, I think they found it likely that this was not an interview that was going to go well for the pastor, and they chickened out. I mean, truly a profile in cowardice like we've never seen. And I'll be honest, I was going to ask the guy real serious questions. He has been, Pastor Mark Burns has been pushing election lies about who won in 2020. I was going to ask him the really tough question, is Biden the legitimate winner of 2020? He probably was going to tell lies and it wasn't going to be to his advantage. He, Pastor Mark Burns wants Christianity to be the law of the land. I was going to ask him, what new laws would you like to see that are based on your religious beliefs? I was going to talk to him about, you know, the, the role that he believes the Bible should have in running government. We were going to talk about the outrageous things that he has said about so many different issues that the members of the squad should be placed under arrest. His beliefs that the Bible is literally true, that the rapture will take place during our lifetime. And if he believes that, why even bother running for Congress? What does he mean?

So this was going to be an interview where the guy would look like what he is, which is an uninformed guy who has no business being in elected office. But also, I kind of have to be honest with you guys. This guy's almost certainly going to be the next congressman from South Carolina's third district because it is a very red district and he is probably going to win his runoff election in a few days and will almost certainly be a member of Congress. So also consequential because I don't think this is the last we're going to hear from Mark Burns. So the takeaway here is hard to think. I mean, listen, we've done interviews with Republicans who have come in prepared and unprepared, but none of them has ever acted in such a cowardly way as this. And so this isn't the last we're going to hear from him. But let's remember, let's remember, who am I? He's afraid of me. Give me a break. And he's got God on his side. And I don't really, really pathetic stuff, but it's what happened. So that's why today's show is shorter than most. We.

This was the last thing we were scheduled to film today. So now to make deadline, we've got to go with a shorter show than we would normally have. But pathetic and cowardly stuff. We'll take a break. This is one for the books, that's for sure.

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Debates tend not to make much of a difference. However, because of the building counternarratives or conflicting narratives about who's the most demented among the two presidential candidates, I actually think the audience is going to be huge, and I think that if either candidate really fails to perform, it will be massively consequential. Now, how are each of the candidates preparing here? Well, we learned this morning, as ABC News reports, that President Biden is heading to Camp David to prepare for the first presidential debate with Donald Trump. It is likely going to be mock debate scenarios with people standing in as Trump. I can only assume that the people around Biden who know what to expect from Trump are going to play through scenarios in which Trump tries to interrupt, in which Trump makes various allegations. I would prepare for Biden to be hit with allegations from Trump that Biden is suffering cognitively. Biden will probably be prepped to go back very specifically with things like, my opponent thinks you need an id to buy bread, and he called me Joe bride the other day and can't even remember the name of the doctor that gave him the dementia test. I'm not the guy you need to worry about. It's my opponent anyway, stuff like that. But more importantly, my hope is, let me see how I can say this. It's very difficult to debate a guy like Donald Trump substantively because there is no substance. If your plan is, well, I'll just listen to each thing that Trump says and then try to reply directly and substantively to the specifics.

It won't work because Trump will talk over you and he'll shift to something different. So my thought on the best strategy for someone like Joe Biden here is to have, I mean, listen, it's a 90 minutes debate. The format is very restrictive. I believe there's going to be two commercial breaks, so it'll be 90 minutes minus whatever, I think, opening and closing statements. So if I were Biden, I would look at the twelve to 15 topics most likely to come up and have the strongest possible way to position your view over Trump's view and to attack Trump's view. So again, if I were prepping Biden, and I'm not a professional in this, but the way I would think about it is if anything regarding contraception, abortion, or women's rights comes up, here's how you answer the question.

If anything regarding foreign policy comes up, here's how you answer the question and prep those twelve to 15 things. Because Trump isn't going to make any sense with his sort of verbal inkblot on any issue. And no matter what you say he's going to try to come back at you either with ad hominems or non sequiturs. So the way I would prepare is rather than trying to think through every possible back and forth, it's what are my twelve to 15 points that I need to hit on every important issue, democracy, women's bodily autonomy, foreign policy, taxation, inflation, whatever.

I hope that at least some element of that is the way that Joe Biden is going to be prepping. Now, what about Donald Trump's prep? There's a real problem with Donald Trump's prep, and the problem is Trump's cognitive state.

They are, there are conflicting reports about how Trump is preparing. Let's listen to this report from the New York Times. Maggie Haberman in public, his aides often.

Maggie Haberman
Downplay the prep that he does. He's been doing not standard debate prep. He doesn't have stand ins as of now for Biden in these debates.

Speaker B
ROBert so he's not doing mock debates.

Maggie Haberman
He's not doing mock debates. That could certainly change. But he's been doing what they've been describing as policy time, where they bring in different people to brief him. A bunch of senators have come in last week, Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Eric Schmidt both briefed him at the RNC headquarters after his meetings with lawmakers around Capitol Hill, which was his first major meeting with party members since he became the presumptive nominee. And they are focusing on various issues that could come up, abortion, healthcare, energy, Covid and then very specifically, and this was one thing that came up last Thursday, what Trump will say when asked January 6 related questions, particularly his statements about hardening some of the people who were arrested in connection with the violence that day.

David Pakman
So what Maggie Haberman is describing is a version of what I'm suggesting Joe Biden do, which is you've got to be ready on a number of different policy issues to know what your approach is going to be. The problem that they are experiencing with Trump, without a doubt, is Trump, number one, thinks he knows more and is better than everybody. And so he is naturally going to be resistant to accepting that the people around him are actually telling him the right way to approach these issues. Number two, Trump does not actually understand the majority of these issues. That's a real problem. When he does, the guy still doesn't even know how tariffs work. So that's certainly going to be an obstacle to actually getting all of this right. And then number three, and importantly, we know from Trump's meetings with reporters and CEO's and aides and staffers and everybody else, Trump cannot focus at all. And whether it's cognitive decline or an attention deficit issue or whatever, this is increasingly an obstacle for Trump to really be able to sit down and substantively think through a bunch of these issues. So I'm curious as to whether we will get any feedback or leaked information from, you know, I went in there, I was supposed to talk to him about X. It was essentially impossible because the guy is just does not listen. He's off the wall. He's incoherent. He doesn't make any sense. And then, of course, I'm extraordinarily curious what ultimately the results will be next Thursday. It continues to be the case that on Fox News, they are lowering expectations, not for Joe Biden as they've erroneously done in the past, but they are lowering expectations for Donald Trump.

And I want to talk about that next. Earlier this week, I played a clip for you of Sean Hannity really setting the bar quite low for Donald Trump's performance in next week's debate, arguing, listen, Biden will probably be on drugs. So if it seems like Trump didn't do that well, it's because Trump won't be on drugs and Biden probably will. They are very worried. They are very, very worried about this. To the point that last week Hannity even floated the idea that maybe Trump doesn't go. And there are people who are writing to me saying, David, there's no way Trump goes to this debate. I for now, believe Trump will go until I hear otherwise. Here is Hannity last night again, and he is doing the same thing where he tries to prepare his audience for if Biden seems to do well, it's because of some kind of drug, jacked up, juiced up, or whatever.

And also saying Biden is struggling with cognitive decline. He's doing both. Biden doesn't know what's going on, but if it looks like he does know what's going on, it's because of drugs. Grossly irresponsible from Sean Hannity, but he's desperate.

Speaker B
I don't know if he had a lot of Red Bull. I don't know if he had excedrin that has caffeine in it. I don't know if he had a caffeine pill or something, whatever. I don't know.

David Pakman
But caffeine, notably making you a good debater, of course, as we know, you.

Speaker B
Should let us know because apparently it can perform miracles. We've not seen that guy before and.

David Pakman
We haven't seen him since caffeine performs miracles for, period, people with serious dementia.

Speaker B
I'm predicting if we see it again, we're likely to see it in eight days. Now, of course, we do expect a similar jacked up performance at this debate. So be on the lookout for wide eyed Joe Biden. I think the american people now have more than enough evidence to assess Biden's ability to serve and Joe's cognitive decline being obvious and troubling.

David Pakman
Yeah, they're preparing people. They're prepared. There's no more Biden's not going to be able to do it. They made that mistake in 2020 before Biden's debate with Bernie Sanders. They made that mistake in 2020 before Biden's debates with Donald Trump. They made the mistake before Biden. State of the Union addresses in 2020. Did he do one in 2021? I don't remember 2022 and 2023 and the one just several months ago. They don't seem to be making that mistake this time because they learned when we set expectations really low about Joe Biden, when we use wishful thinking to say here's how bad it's going to be for Joe Biden, and then he does, okay, it actually hurts us. So this time they're doing something different. Instead of expect Trump to wipe the floor with Biden, they're saying very little about Trump and more about if Biden seems to do well, don't believe it, it will be because of some kind of performance enhancing drug that, of course, they never name, other than generally mentioning caffeine, which we've already explored with medical professionals, would not actually hide evidence of dementia that they claim Joe Biden has now. As a reminder, this is now becoming a regular segment on Fox News. Sean Hannity program. This is from earlier this week. We looked at this on Monday, or maybe it was Tuesday. Trump and Lara Trump, I'm sorry, Hannity and Lara Trump pre spinning the potentially bad debate performance for Trump by saying it'll be Biden's drugs that make it possible.

Speaker B
Speaker one, the former president, you know, took on the challenge. I don't think he'll regret it. However, the Joe Biden that we're talking about tonight I don't think will be the Joe Biden we're going to see on debate night. I think the Joe Biden we see on debate night is going to be the guy that we saw at the State of the union.

He's going to be all hyped up, hyper caffeinated, whatever it is. It's interesting that 70% of the country does like the idea of drug testing. I like the idea. They do it to athletes. They do it to horses and horse racing. Why not do it to presidential candidates? I like the idea.

70% of Americans apparently agree with me. However, what do you expect for the debate?

Speaker E
Yeah, well, this is nothing new, of course, the cards have always been stacked against Donald Trump since the day he came down the escalator to announce he was running for president as a Republican.

David Pakman
I love how they continue to talk about Trump coming down that gaudy, gold plated escalator like it was some kind of phoenix rising over the horizon for a new day in America, when it was actually the speech at which Trump said, many Mexicans who come to the US are rapists. And was it the same day that he mocked the reporter with a physical disability? No, no, no. That was at a rally. That was a different. It's hard to keep track of all of it. It was so long ago. So, listen, fascism thrives on the idea that your enemy is illegitimate. They can't possibly win fairly, and that's what this is about. If Joe Biden appears to have won in 2020 based on voting, it was actually illegitimate and it was stolen and it was rigged. If Joe Biden appears to perform well enough in a debate in 2024, it's illegitimate because it's drugs. And so, you know, we kind of laugh about it. They never named the drug. They kind of mentioned caffeine, but don't really explain exactly how it would work. But this is actually not only desperate, it's dangerous. It perpetuates these big lies that there is an entirely rigged system, which in reality would be one where Trump wins every election and wins every debate. Instead, this projects real weakness, although it convinces some people who hear it and then go, you know what? The election was rigged. Biden couldn't win other than with drugs. It actually projects weakness, because instead of preparing for a solid performance by Trump, they're preparing for a solid performance by Biden, which they will dismiss with cheating, which it's.

This is the critical thing.

It's been four years since 2020. Biden can only win a debate on drugs is the same as Biden can only win an election by cheating. It's the same playbook. It's the fascistic playbook at its core. They can't win on the merits. They can't engage in fair debate. They lose the battle of ideas, so they lie and they manipulate and they distort in order to say the entire system is rigged against me. You can't trust anything you see or anything you hear other than what I tell you, and those are verbatim words that Trump used, remember, when he was president. Do not believe what you are hearing and what you are seeing. He wants to be the ultimate source of truth, a classic. A classic with historical authoritarian figures. We have a voicemail number. You can call it if you have a message for me, that number is 2192. David P. Here's a caller who doesn't like me. I'll just present it that way. Take a listen, David, I think you're.

Speaker B
A very sick individual, and I really hope that you can go and get some help because you are a total, total disaster.

This is Ambrose Atkington, and I'm not a supporter of anyone, but to hear you talk, you are really sick.

David Pakman
Speaker one.

I wish they would tell me. And by the way, the show playing in the background while he leaves the voicemail is a classic. A lot of these people who really don't like me, they, they don't pause the show. It just plays in the background while they're on the phone. I wish that this guy could give me more direction and tell me in what way am I very sick and a disaster and a disgusting individual. So at least I could go and explore it and maybe make some changes. Hard to really not exactly a motivational self help voicemail because it doesn't give me direction as to what to do. All right. On today's bonus show, thank your lucky stars.

Speaker D
Every day.

David Pakman
You're not Dave Pakman, right? A new law will require every Louisiana public school classroom to display the ten Commandments. How can this possibly be legal? How can this possibly be constitutional? Well, they have an answer to that. We'll discuss the answer and evaluate whether we think it's a valid answer. Congress has voted to advance nuclear energy development in the United States.

What do we think? And lastly, Donald Trump's influence over the Republican Party has taken a little bit of a hit because a Virginia election surprise has thrown a wrench into the entire thing. We'll discuss it, all of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Sign up at join pakman.com. remember to leave a review on iTunes or Spotify for the podcast, a little free thing you can do to help our audio podcast. I will see you on the bonus show. And we'll be back tomorrow with the Friday show.

6/20/24: Biden surges 7 points in Fox News poll, more deceptive editing

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1: Introduction to Tax Policies

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3: Consequences of Deceptive Editing

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