6/28/24: Trump Biden debate goes completely haywire, talk of "replacement" explodes

Speaker A
Well, the first presidential debate of 2024 between failed former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden is over. And I have to tell you, it was not good. And I don't think it was good for either candidate. Now, I know that this is going to be displeasing to some in my audience. This is a left wing show. I'm voting for Joe Biden. He's the better choice. But if I came here and told you that it was a great performance by President Biden, not only would I be lying to you, you would then justifiably never trust me again. I call it the way I see it. And for Trump's side, he told endless corrosive lies. A total lack of fact checking combined with Joe Biden seeming confused the second Joe Biden opened his mouth, I knew it wasn't going to go well. Muting the mics was a good idea, I'll be honest, but the debate kind of made me sick to my stomach because Trump was confidently lying about everything and because of Biden's poor performance, I worry that this is a very significant net negative for Joe Biden. I was planning to, after the live stream that I did have some of my beautiful stuffed shells with Rao's marinara ricotta basil during the debate. It was tough to do.

Biden didn't look good. I'm voting for the guy, but I don't know how the debate won anybody over new to Joe Biden. It was close to a worst case scenario, I can assure you. Biden was on no drugs, that's for sure. By the way, Trump's pupils, two or three times as big as Joe Biden's, and rampant speculation of stimulant use. Again, Trump lied like crazy, but he lied with conviction and confidence, and Biden stumbled. The amount of time that Trump just rambled without even answering the question is appalling.

I'm surprised the guy even has the following that he has. But as Joe Biden started to speak completely hoarse very early in the debate, in the first ten or 15 minutes, during which many people make up their minds about what are, what am I watching here? Biden going silent and then inadvertently saying, we beat Medicare, which doesn't make any sense, and I assure you is not what he meant to say, Trump capitalized on it.

Speaker B
Continue to strengthen our health care system, making sure that we're able to make every single, solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the COVID excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with.

Look, if we finally beat Medicare.

Speaker A
Thank you, President Biden. President Trump.

Speaker C
Well, he's right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death and he's destroying Medicare because all of these people are coming.

Speaker A
So Trump clearly taking advantage of Biden, saying something he simply could not have meant to say. Trump said that what Biden has done is absolutely criminal.

Nobody point. I mean, Biden's mic was muted, as you will see here. Nobody points out, including the moderators, you were just convicted of felonies. Why are you calling the other guy a criminal?

Speaker C
What we're doing for other countries and they do nothing for us. What this man has done is absolutely criminal.

Speaker A
Thank you, President Trump.

Speaker C
Tana, this is the first presidential election, speaker one.

Speaker A
So listen, whether it's fair to say the moderators didn't point out that he's actually the felon, I don't know. That probably would have been going a little bit too far. Uh, but then very quickly, again, President Biden just seeming shaken up, not expressing himself clearly, not making a lot of sense, and Trump very clearly capitalizing it, saying, I don't know what he said and I don't know that he knows what he said.

Speaker B
What I've done since I've changed the law, what's happened, I've changed it in a way that now you're in a situation where there are 40% fewer people coming across the border illegally. That's better than when he left office. And I'm going to continue to move until we get the total ban on the total initiative relative to what we can do with more Border patrol and more asylum officers.

Speaker C
President Trump, I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said either. Look, we had the safest border.

Speaker A
It's not good. It's not good. I mean, listen, Trump's a prick, okay? But it's not good. One of the main moments that the Biden rapid response side wanted to push and promote was this moment where Joe Biden said to Trump, referring to the the troops or suckers and losers comment, that Biden's son was no loser and was no sucker. Trump just said, the story is fake.

Speaker B
My son was not a loser. Was not a sucker. You're the sucker. You're the loser.

Speaker C
President Trump, first of all, that was a made up quote. Suckers and losers, they made it up. It was in a third rate magazine that's failing, like many of these magazines. He made that up. He put it in commercials. We've notified him. We had 19 people that said, I didn't say it. And think of this. Who would say, I'm at a cemetery or I'm talking about our veterans because nobody's taking better care. I'm so glad this came up. And he brought it up.

There's nobody that's taken better care of our soldiers than I have.

Speaker A
Now. Of course, that's very much not true. But Trump continuing to push lying, saying they made up the suckers and losers thing and even demanding an apology from Trump. Biden retorting, one of your own generals said, you said it. You be the judge as to who comes off looking more confident here. This was actually sort of a 50 50 moment in my mind.

Speaker C
Wasn't that came from his son Hunter. It wasn't Russia disinformation. He made up the suckers and losers. So he should apologize to me right now.

Speaker B
Four star general standing to your side, who was on your staff, who said, you said it, period. That's number one. And number two, the idea, the idea that I have to apologize to you for anything along the lines. We've done more for veterans than any president has in american history, american history, and they now are in their family. The only sacred obligation we have is the country.

Speaker A
So listen, Biden actually is completely right about this. Biden has done so much more for military families than Trump. But Trump's defiant and he seems confident. And we got 30 minutes in without a single question about trying to overturn a free and fair election. Not a single question about Trump's 34 felony counts. Eventually, we got to that. Eventually we got to that. And this is the great example of Trump just telling lies and no real serious follow up. Trump nodding along as Biden notes that Trump has had legal problems. And then Trump just says, I didn't have sex with any porn star, which of course he did, but he just lies about everything.

Speaker B
Number three, the crimes that you are still charged with. And think of all the civil penalties you have. How many billions of dollars do you owe in civil penalties for molesting a woman in public, for doing a whole range of things, of having sex with a porn star on the night while your wife was pregnant?

What are you talking about?

You have the morals of an alley cat.

Give me a minute, sir.

Speaker C
I didn't have sex with a porn star.

Speaker A
Now, of course Trump did. That's the case. And that is the sort of lie where, listen, do you think your followers are stupid? You obviously did that. It's not relevant to foreign policy. It's not relevant to a lot of policy. But it's so blatantly dishonest. And it's the type of thing that Trump gets away with, as disgusting as it is. After defending some of the January 6 rioters, Trump said that it is Republicans Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney who should be in jail. And this was a better moment for Biden, pointing out you're the only convicted felon of all the people.

Speaker C
We're talking about the unselect committee, which is basically two horrible Republicans that are all gone now out of office, and Democrats, all Democrats, they destroyed and deleted all of the information they found because they found out we were right. We were right, and they deleted and destroyed all of the information. They should go to jail for that. If a Republican did that, they'd go to jail.

Speaker A
Thank you, President Trump. President Biden, I want to give you a minute.

Speaker B
The only person on this stage is a convicted felon is the man I'm looking at right now. And the fact of the matter is he isn't. What he's telling you is simply not true. The fact is that there was no effort on his part to stop what was going on.

Speaker A
So a better moment for Biden, although again, his voice doesn't sound super strong. And then maybe factually the best when we think about the economy really mattering in the way people vote. Arguably the best sort of injection of a fact by Biden was pointing out that Trump was indeed the first president since Herbert Hoover who lost jobs in the country, net compared to when they took office. That was true.

Speaker B
President Biden, well, look, the greatest economy in the world, he's the only one who thinks that. I think, I don't know anybody else who thinks he had the greatest economy in the world. And, you know, the fact of the matter is that we pride ourselves in a situation where his, his economy, he rewarded the wealthy, he had the largest tax cut in american history, $2 trillion. He raised a deficit larger than any president has in any one term. He's the only president other than Herbert Hoover who's had lost more jobs than he had when he began, since Herbert Hoover.

Speaker A
So, listen, we are scraping here for some of Biden's best moments, but I do think that probably was one of them. And it was relatively close to the start of the debate. So what's my takeaway? I think it's a good thing that this debate is months in advance of the election. Uh, I think President Biden can recover. Trump lies the whole time. His people believe it, but I don't know that it really helps him win. Over anybody new. Biden's performance may just kind of not really excite people into going out and voting. And it really is a shame because everything coming out of Trump's mouth is b's. I think he had six lies in his first answer, but he doesn't sound like he lacks vigor or confidence in the way that he talks. Trump talks in a clearer and more authoritative tone, and there are people who will absolutely be impressed by that. So I do believe the message has to be you're voting for an administration, not just the man. Think about who Biden has around him and the great things they've done. Compare it to who Trump had around him last time and who he'll have around him next time and the things he openly says he wants to do. So not matching Trump's energy, not getting thoughts out quickly enough. President Biden, Trump steamrolled right through with his totally baseless, fact free message, unimpeded, essentially, and we now have to wait and see what is the impact. As I told you on the Thursday show before this debate, the real clear politics average had Trump plus 1.5, and the 538 2024 election forecast had it 50 50.

Let's give it a few days, let's give it a week, let's give it a month and see where we land.

This is as honest as I can be with you about what I see. Biden obviously the better candidate. Biden obviously the better person. Biden obviously not the criminal, but not the the debate performance that certainly the Biden team was hoping for. And unfortunately, much closer to the performance that the Trump team was hoping for. Let me know what you think info at david pakman.com with your thoughts.

Remember project 2025? One of the reasons we really don't want Trump to win. And if you're wondering what project 2025 is, I wrote a free white paper. You can go to david Pakman.com project 2025 to check it out. Absolutely no cost.

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And I'll also get access to the daily bonus show with additional insights and discussion by signing up at join pacman.com. talk of replacing Joe Biden on the democratic ticket has exploded after last night's debate performance. The question we will discuss soberly and without hyperbole is whether that is warranted or whether it is going a little too far, a little too soon. But there is no shortage of examples here. Jon Stewart went live with a Daily show episode last night after the debate, and he said this cannot be real life. And he was horrified by what he saw from President Joe Biden in last night's debate. CNN's MJ Lee said that when she went to a Capitol Hill debate watch party with other democratic lawmakers, it was grim. It was very, very grim. Here's what she explained.

MJ Lee
Yeah, I want to bring in senior.

Speaker A
White House correspondent MJ Lee, who covers the Biden campaign, how they're seeing this to tonight.

Yeah. What are they saying?

John King
Yeah, well, Anderson, obviously a ton of Democrats, voters, elected officials were tuning in tonight, really nervous and really desperate for President Biden to give his a performance.

And after his performance, it has really set off panic. There was one democratic congressman I was in touch with who was on Capitol Hill at a watch party party with a number of other lawmakers. And that moment early on in the debate where President Biden was talking about the national debt and seemed to lose his train of thought, paused for several seconds and then gave a confusing answer. He said that when that happened, the entire room was just completely silent and in shock and that this member's own reaction was that he wanted to jump off of a bridge.

Speaker A
All right, so obviously that's not a good reaction, wanting to jump off of a bridge. CNN's John King says and believes, I'm sure that this is a game changing debate, but more importantly, that it is causing panic in the Democratic Party. And I believe that it is.

MJ Lee
This was a game changing debate in the sense that right now, as we speak, there is a deep, a wide and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party. It started minutes into the debate and it continues right now. It involves party strategists, it involves elected officials, it involves fundraisers. And they are having conversations about the president's performance, which they think was dismal, which they think will hurt other people down the party in the ticket. And they're having conversations about what they should do about it. Some of those conversations include should we go to the White House and ask the president to step aside?

Other, the conversations are about should prominent Democrats go public with that call because they feel this debate was so terrible. They do say in moments in the debate later, the president got better and got his footing. But then at the end, even his closing statement was a little halting the contrast between the two candidates, let me be clear. None of them, and a lot of Republicans don't think Donald Trump had a great night. Donald Trump broke the fact check machine more than I can count tonight.

Speaker A
And I am going to get back to the Donald Trump aspect of this, which is an important one. MSNBC's Nicole Wallace after the presidential debate also said she's on the phone with people having a conversation that goes up to and including even today. Should Biden step aside?

John King
Yeah, I mean, I, I was on the phones for some of it after that became clear. And there is a conversation happening inside Biden's circle and certainly a much more frank conversation happening inside the democratic coalition. And I think there will be stories of a lot of concern about the performance tonight. I, and I think what conversations happening?

Speaker A
What do you mean?

John King
I think people are talking. I think the conversations range from whether he should be in this race tomorrow morning to what was wrong with him. I mean, he has a cold that came out. Our own Kelly O'Donnell reported that a few minutes in.

Speaker A
But exactly what you're COVID test about a cold.

John King
Right.

So those things were, I mean, the reason reporters were reporting on the cold was because of what you articulated. I mean, the voice was very, very soft.

Speaker A
We noticed the soft voice. So Nicole Wallace saying there are conversations about whether to stay in this race. And then interestingly, former Barack Obama advisor David Plouffe. And by the way, the fact that this conversation is happening on MSNBC goes to the absolute moral depravity of what's happening, happening over on the MAGA, Fox News side, which I will get to. But also on MSNBC, former Obama adviser David Plouffe said this is an emergency. David Plouffe is with us. David, I know you have been talking to some muckety mucks in democratic politics, including what we gingerly call the donor class.

What was your personal, David, plus, take on what you saw tonight. And what are you hearing from the people you've been speaking with?

Well, I think consistent with your reaction, Rachel, and others on the panel, it's kind of a DeFcon. One moment.

I do think Lawrence and Chris give a very important caveat. Listen, I've been deeply involved in presidential campaign debates. Some went well, some didn't go well. The only thing that matters and you won't really know for three or four days is how the voters that will decide this election will react.

I would also add, I have deep suspicion that Donald Trump with swing voters bombed as well. And that's the tragedy. And we're going to get back to that. So listen now, as we are in the next day, there is a bunch of this sort of like, ok, we may have overreacted last night. It wasn't that bad.

If you read a transcript of the debate with Biden's pauses and stumbles removed, Trump lied the whole way through, did not put out a vision that is positive or good for the average american, whereas Biden on most of the facts was right and he has policy to defend. That is absolutely true.

And also, Trump lied with confidence and Biden seemed confused. But obviously on policy, it's Biden all the way. But right now, that's not the conversation that's being had. If you look at the New York Times op ed page, there's a bunch of people who are saying it's time for him to go. Take a look at this. Thomas Friedman wrote a piece, President Biden is my friend. He must bow out of the race. Frank Bruni wrote a piece, Biden cannot go on like this. Patrick Healy wrote a piece, top democrats on Biden's debate. Bad to worse. Emperor has no clothes, don't ask.

So it's a very difficult thing to parse because if you ask me, I am saddened and appalled by the performance, but I'm not going to vote for the habitual liar, civilly liable rapist, convicted felon who's wrong on every policy, obviously. But what about the average American? And we don't know the answer to that. Going into last night's debate, the role, real clear politics, average, as I've said, was Trump plus 1.5.

Where does that go in the next two, three, four weeks? The five hundredthirtyeight forecast for the presidential election had it at 50 50. Where does it go in the next couple of weeks? I am not yet ready to say this does end Biden's campaign. In a sane world, it wouldn't. And this gets me to the next thing. No, we're going to get in a moment to what was happening over on Fox News. Okay? Notice that the, the democratic side and the supposed liberal media of CNN and then also MSNBC, which, which is editorially center left, they're all saying Biden's performance was bad. They're all reporting on what is happening behind the closed doors of the Democratic Party. That's very different than what you see from right wing Mediaev. Trump had a disastrous performance and they are all completely ignoring it. And so that's just another reminder of the sort of morality and ethics difference that takes place here. A single disastrous debate, and it was disastrous. Doesn't change that Biden has been a massively successful president. It doesn't change that Trump is a convicted felon, rapist, liar. But what do you do now? And you have to figure it out before the convention. There's this nightmare scenario that's being discussed about what if this goes to a contested convention and someone tries to fight Biden for the nomination with procedural maneuvers? That's, that's a guaranteed loss for whoever is ultimately the democratic nominee. If there's seriously going to be a discussion about a replacement, it has to be done peacefully.

The guy who came off looking strongest and whose name is being mentioned the most is California Governor Gavin Newsom. Some of you will be thrilled by that. Some of you will be disgusted by that. He's a polarizing figure in, in, in the progressive audience for sure.

And here he is being interviewed last night.

John King
Governor, let me just, I mean, what was your reaction to what we saw on screen?

Speaker A
Well, not only substance, he won the debate.

I'm old school. I'm old fashioned. That's what matters to me. About the lies. I was taking notes about all the lies. I ran out of paper. So Gavin Newsom sticking with on substance, Biden won and he's not wrong. I mean, listen, but Biden's got the right policies and he's got the record. And then on the topic of replacement, Newsom obviously sticking to the official word, which is you don't turn your back on a guy because of one bad performance.

John King
You were out there getting a chorus of questions about whether Biden should step down. There is panic that has set in, well, there is panic that has set in among people who have watched this debate, who are Democrats, people who are strategists, and some even inside democratic campaigns. Do you think it's unfounded?

Speaker A
Well, I think it's unhounded, helpful, and I think it's unnecessary.

We've got to go in. We've got to keep our heads high. And as I say, we've got to have the back of this president. You don't turn your back because of one performance.

What kind of party does that? It's been a masterclass, 15.6 million jobs. So Gavin Newsom sticking by Biden, and obviously he would, everyone knows he is the heir apparent. If there were to be a replacement, it's not Michelle Obama, it's not Hillary Clinton. It's Gavin Newsom. It's abundantly clear. What about Kamala Harris? Everybody inside the party is saying the obvious replacement would be Gavin Newsom. And until the moment, if and when someone comes to him and says we are ready to seriously talk about it, this is what he is going to say publicly. So is it going too far to seriously talk about replacing Biden right now? It depends on what you believe the impact on the average voter will be from last night's debate. Now let's talk about Trump's performance in more detail.

They are having a grand old time on the MAGA side attacking Joe Biden for his debate performance, which was no good. But I have not seen a single Republican able to honestly assess Trump's disastrous debate performance. Last night. Trump couldn't answer a single policy question. He lied in nearly every sentence. The fact checks were essentially an impossibility.

Democrats have been objectively assessing the bad debate performance of Biden. On the other hand, MAGA world is just pretending like there's nothing to see here as far as Trump's disastrous performance. Here they are opening the show this morning with a montage of Biden's bad moments for what I've been able to.

Speaker B
Do with the COVID excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with, look, if we finally beat Medicare.

Speaker A
Thank you, President Biden.

Speaker C
President Trump, well, he's right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death.

Speaker B
More Border Patrol and more asylum officers.

Speaker C
President Trump, I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said either.

Speaker B
He wants to get away with getting rid of the ability Medicare to everyone.

Speaker A
All right, so you get it. Fox and friends opening with the compilation radical, Repugnant Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert very firmly tweeting out, quote, I've yet to find a single Democrat able to honestly say that Joe Biden did a great job last night. Mind you, this is after an entire week of rest. Forget the election. How is he even able to carry on as president? Fox News is Sean Hannity arguing that this was the worst performance in history. Guys, in the history of modernization. Televised presidential debates. I don't think America has ever seen anything like this. I wrote down some adjectives and I'm going to just read a few of them off to you. It was the biggest train wreck of any presidential candidate ever.

Britt is right. From the minute he spoke at the opening of the debate, he sounded awful. He started with speedy talk. He looked terrible. Maybe the worst part of all of this is when he wasn't even speaking, he was staring out like an empty vessel, or vacant, to use Martha's words. He was incoherent. This is after a full week of prep, mumbling, bumbling, stumbling days.

Nicole Wallace
Confused speaker one.

Speaker A
So you get the picture. Now, again, the difference between MSNBC and CNN and Fox News is that MSNBC aired an actual honest assessment of Biden's performance, and it was a very negative assessment. Fox News, on the other hand, will never air or fact check the constant lies and the obscenity and the dis distortion and the revisionist history that came from Trump. They get a victory lap now. They do. It doesn't guarantee that they win in November. It might. It might end up with them winning in November. And for context, here is like a piece of a CNN fact check about Trump's lies, which, by the way, would have been useful during the debate, but it was negotiated that there would be no such fact check on screen.

David Plouffe
The Trump list, it is way, way longer. So deep breath. He said some democratic states allow people to execute babies after birth, an egregious lie that is illegal in every state. He said everybody, even Democrats, wanted Roe v. Wade overturned. Roe was supported by two thirds of Americans. Even more Democrats, he said every legal scholar wanted Roe overturn, abortion returned to the states. Legal scholars have told me directly this is not true. He said the US currently has the biggest budget deficit ever. No, that happened under Trump in 2020. He said the US currently has a record trade deficit with China. That also happened under Trump in 2018. He said Biden personally gets a lot of money from China. Zero evidence of this. He said there were no terror attacks during his presidency. In fact, there were multiple attacks. He said Iran didn't fund Hamas, Hezbollah, other terror groups under his presidency. Iran, in fact, did. He said Biden wants to quadruple people's taxes.

Speaker A
Speaker one. Okay, so this goes on and on and on and on. This is a reminder of the difficulty of fact checking the fire hose of falsehood, the gish gallop where you just spit out ten lies a minute and it takes a lot longer to fact check that. And the Trump debate performance, if it weren't for Biden's terrible stumbles, Trump's debate performance would have been pathetically obviously, uh, if. If it had been Gavin Newsom up on that stage, Trump would have been absolutely decimated. So here's the bottom line.

Is it logical at this point to replace Biden? I think we need to see where public opinion goes before that conversation is seriously discussed. Can you just forcibly replace Biden? I think Biden would have to be part of any such decision. But one thing I can assure you if Biden were to be replaced, and Trump continues performing this way against someone who has the rhetorical skills of a Gavin Newsom, things all of a sudden look way worse for Trump. So for Trump's sake, MAGA world should be hoping that Joe Biden is the guy that remains on the ticket if performances going forward are going to be similar to this. So that's where we are. And people writing to me, hundreds. Our inbox has exploded. I put up a reaction video last night. It got nearly a million views in 12 hours. People are understandably saying, what now? What now?

I think we never benefit from panic.

We have to see, after 24, 48 hours go by what is the national conversation. We have to get post debate polling and then see what is the discussion that's happening within the Democratic Party. So we've got plenty of show left here Monday, we may start to get a sense of that. And after the 4 July holiday, we will definitely have more of a sense of it. Let's take a very quick break.

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Newsweek reports Samuel Alito's absence from Supreme Court raises questions. Okay, Justice Samuel Alito was absent from the Supreme Court two days in a row last week. The court has not provided an explanation for Alito's absence Thursday and Friday. The conservative justice's absence is notable because the court is issuing decisions before the end of its term. It could mean the court extends its term into July to issue opinions in the remaining undecided cases. Newsweek has contacted a Supreme Court spokesperson for comment via email.

Presumably they have not received such a comment so far. And as some of you know, in the coming days, the justices are expected to rule on whether former president Trump is immune from prosecution for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and whether Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, can be prosecuted for obstructing an official proceeding.

Alito has rejected calls to recuse himself from such cases, despite the fact that his wife, Martha Ann, flew flags above their homes that were controversial, including an upside down american flag and an appeal to heaven flag, both carried by rioters, on January 6. So listen, in all seriousness, if you say what's the most likely explanation?

It's probably some health thing or personal matter that they don't necessarily want to talk about. Is that okay?

I don't know. Is it morally and ethically acceptable by the Supreme Court's own rules, which are, of course, completely unenforceable?

Maybe. I don't know. But that's the most likely thing. And in a sort of normal world, where we don't have scandal after scandal and controversy after controversy involving the apparent political bias of the Supreme Court, we would say, you know, maybe he had a colonoscopy or whatever and he was just out and didn't want to announce it. I don't know. Okay.

What else is a possibility, though? In all seriousness, the most ominous, dark interpretation is that this is all connected to an attempt to delay Donald Trump's trials to the extent that it is possible. Let me explain to you how that would work. And again, remember, this is, this is all speculation. The court's not giving us information, at least not yet. So we are left to speculate. I already gave you the most likely and benign explanation. Explanation. Now I'll tell you what is making some people concerned.

Alito's absence, at least in theory, could mean that the court extends its term into July to issue opinions into the remaining undecided cases. There are only a few days left to say whether Donald Trump has immunity against prosecution.

If they say Trump does not have immunity, then the judge in DC has said, we're going to give the defense 90 days before the start of the case. So if you take July 1, you go 90 days forward. That's August, September, October 1, first week of October.

On the other hand, if this gets delayed, it could, at minimum, delay the end of that trial until after the election, and it could even delay the start of the trial until after the election.

If Alito is trying to figure out a way to delay the trial, one could concoct a scenario in which even though the rest of the justices don't have to wait for dissenters, let me put it a different way.

Imagine that the outcome is going to be there is no immunity. Trump doesn't have immunity, but it's five. Four. Just as an example.

The five are not required to wait for the four to write their dissenting opinions before issuing a ruling. They're not required to. But sometimes, out of collegial courtesy, they do.

And if, if the majority five that say Trump doesn't have immunity, he's going to have to face this trial, say, you know, Alito's missing. Let's wait for Alito to come back. And July 1 becomes July 10, for example, and then the 90 days becomes October 10. And that's really just days, weeks before a presidential election.

And the judge says, you know, that really seems to be trouble. We're going to have Trump in court on election day. I don't know. It doesn't sound right. Let's delay the trial until after the election. And then if Trump wins, then maybe they say, you know, a trial of a president elect, I don't know. Let's delay, delay, delay. And you can see the way that this would go. This is completely speculative, because even if this were all true, the majority doesn't have to wait for the dissenters to write and finalize their opinion before publishing the majority opinion. They don't have to, but they might. And so we have no idea. We have no information right now. It could be the most benign explanation I mentioned at the beginning, or it could be this much darker explanation that I'm mentioning now. Out of the roughly 500 Fortune 500 companies, zero the CEO's will be supporting Donald Trump. Zero. Out of 500 that we are aware of. Not ten, not five, but zero. The CEO of the chief executive Leadership Institute, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, was on CNBC a couple of days ago, and he talked about this. Now, before you react and you say, David, what do I care about 500 rich, mostly dudes. Why do I care whether they are supporting Donald Trump? This is all about the elites. I disagree with that, and I'm going to explain it in a moment. But first, let's hear what Jeffrey Sonnenfeld had to say.

Nicole Wallace
We look back into the data and we're looking at this now. For the last four months, we've been pointing out that there are no fortune 500 CEO's who are supporting former President Trump. And that is a historic break. Going back to, you know, William Howard Taft and through Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan and the Bushes and everything, is that it's been anywhere from 40% to 60% public and financial support. It's zero now. And it was, as you know, in 2016.

And the Trump economic package frightens them. It's extremely inflationary. The tariffs, 10% across the board on all imports. That's just crazy. It leads to a 3% increase for sure in inflation and plunging in the GDP.

And then he, that's before retaliatory gestures, the increase in the deficit. He wants to cut $5 trillion of taxes with no commensurate cut and expenditures.

So these, these are problems. He doesn't believe in the.

Speaker A
But what do you say to the CEO's? There's a lot of CEO's are watching us now, probably watching you speaking, saying, but you know what, I don't like the Biden administration when it comes to the regulatory regime. Right now, I worry about the tax policy and what's going to happen if the tax, if the Trump taxes roll off in 2025 and what that debate looks like. I mean, there are folks, as you said, 70% of the CEO community, Republicans, do they turn out to be reluctant Biden voters? Do they not vote at all? I mean, what, where do you think they land?

Nicole Wallace
They'll be reluctant Biden voters? They don't.

Speaker A
All right, so listen, it's easy to say 500 rich dudes, who cares? That's not for the people. What economic policy is good for the average person is not dictated by whether the CEO's of the 500 biggest companies in the country are voting for Biden or voting for Trump or whatever the case may be. But I would push back against that for a couple of different reasons. Number one, we know about this meeting with CEO's a couple of weeks ago where CEO's left the meeting saying Trump was completely incoherent. He couldn't stick to a topic, he didn't make any sense. Something seems wrong with the guy's brain. And they seem now to be saying, we are going to vote in accordance with that, which is we will reluctantly vote Biden, even if we don't love everything he's doing for right or wrong reasons. We'll talk about that because Trump is completely incoherent. But there's a bigger story here.

Despite the fact that, yes, these are 500 rich, mostly rich, mostly dudes, who cares what they think about Trump's policy or whatever, it would be good for them, not for the average employee. It's important to understand that really, CEO's tend to support policies that predict a stable economic environment and the assumption of likely growth.

When you see not a single Fortune 500 CEO back, Donald Trump, it suggests that they see Trump as a chaos agent. They see a Trump economy as unpredictable. They aren't confident that the leadership, to the extent there will be any leadership, will actually be a stabilizing force for the economy. And an unstable economy is bad for everybody. It's certainly bad for workers. CEO's clearly perceived Trump's economic policy package to the extent Trump even knows what it is, as an unpredictable or inconsistent plan, which can be very problematic for any business that wants to make plans about investment and strategy going forward several years, CEO's support that which will bring investor confidence. And to some degree, CEO's must be looking at Trump and saying, I think if Trump wins, investors won't be confident in our business for whatever reason. But that's what they end up thinking. And therefore they recognize Trump's probably not good for our business overall. The economic direction will probably not be negative. The market stability will be reduced. And we know that historically, the data bears out a very clear case, which is you tend to see higher job creation under democratic presidents, higher GDP growth, lower unemployment, better stock market performance. It's just the facts. Now, you can say, I don't care about that. I think I would be someone, despite what you're telling me, David, that in general, those metrics perform better under democratic presidents. I think it would be better for me personally to have a republican president.

Okay, if you're honest about that, then now we have something to talk about. But the facts are the facts, and you can go back and no matter how you slice and dice it, even applying, which I don't think makes any sense, a sort of delay where you say, well, I'm going to count it, starting three months after a new president and see what that does to the numbers. It's still better on all of these metrics when you have a democratic president. So it's very easy and maybe tempting to say what is good for 500 of the CEO's of the biggest companies doesn't tell us anything about what's good for the country. But in fact, CEO's of these big corporations tend to understand that much of their success actually isn't about the specifics of what they're doing, but it's about broader market and global realities. And that is a much bigger story that can be told. And all of them are saying Trump is not the guy for us. So certainly undercuts the idea that republicans are better for the business environment.

You might generically hear from republican voters who have no business. They aren't entrepreneurs. They, you know, they're just employees somewhere. They might say, oh, republicans are better for business. Well, the facts don't bear that out. And the CEO's actually, depending on the better business environment, are all saying we're not voting Trump and what we might end up doing is actually voting for Biden. Reluctantly or not, they're saying it's the better choice for a business environment. Definitely something to think about. Also, I want to mention to you the Project 2025 white paper is now available. We have put together a multi page. I believe it is one of the clearest and most concise explanations of what is Project 2025. What are the risks and what do we do about it? If you want to learn more about it, if you want to give the white paper to someone so they can understand the risks, this is completely free. I'm selling you nothing other than a good time.

A depressing good time. The paid the white paper is a little depressing. Go to David Pakman.com project 2025. It is free. We put it together. We paid a designer to lay it out as a nice PDF. It's all out of our own pocket. Okay, because this is so critically important. David Pakman.com project 2025 download it, send it to your friends, send it to your kids. Let's make sure people know about it.

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That's Inc. Ogni.com pacman for 60% off. The link is in the podcast notes.

All right, let's get into Friday feedback, where we review feedback from the audience. That comes in via email, YouTube comment, Twitter reply TikTok direct message actually, and I don't know about tick Tock. Direct message, probably not. I don't think we get any messages on TikTok. In any case, you can email info at david pakman.com if you have something to say, and it might be featured here on the show. Let's start with Marvin Williams. Marvin wrote on Facebook, you can say what you want. The truth is, under Biden, there is a real threat of war. A war that might be fought on american soil. It is a threat. A real threat. It should be taken seriously. This should be the main concern of the american citizens under Trump. That serious threat wasn't there, despite what you think about him. He might be a racist, he might be a liar, and he might even be a thief. I'll give you everything you say he is. This country was for the most part, safe from outside invaders. Prove me wrong. Well, you just asserting that there's a real threat of war on us soil under Biden doesn't make it so. And this is yet another person who has complete backwards understanding of burden of proof.

Marvin is saying we didn't have a threat of domestic war under Trump, and we do have a threat of domestic war under Biden, but they've provided no such reason to believe that. I happen not to believe that. I can't think of any reason why now we are almost about to be invaded somewhere because of Joe Biden being president. And in fact, as is often the case with these things, remember when Obama was going to put everybody in FEMA camps and then, like, Obama wasn't going to leave office and then he wasn't going to do the election? And I, of course, all of those things just happened. Everything was normal. They were running out of time, and they're running out of time now. I remember when Obama was confronted towards the end of his presidency by some guy about how he wants to take everyone's guns, and he said, we haven't taken anybody's guns and I'm about to leave office. So it just doesn't even make sense. If Biden has some plan to allow us to be invaded or if people are planning to do it, Trump might win. So anybody who's planning to invade because the country is weak under Biden is really running out of time to do it. So none of these things make any sense at all. And the burden of proof is backwards. If you believe we're about to be invaded because Biden's made our borders weak, then you have to tell me who's going to do the invading and what evidence you have to believe that. All right, let's look at a couple of these from Reddit. I jennae says observation I live in a deep red state and see next to zero Trump stickers, flags, yard signs, et cetera.

In the previous election cycle, there was an absolutely disgusting and overwhelming display of Trump swag. Where I live, douchebags would drive around in big pickups flying up to four huge Trump flags. There were huge signs on people's property, regular yard signs aplenty, verbs, bumper stickers galore, and mAgA hats everywhere. This cycle, there is next to no visible support for Trump. The loudmouths are strangely silent. There are even comments of disdain for Trump now and again. Biden swag is even more rare, but there's a small, noticeable uptick.

Is Trump support lower than the media is letting on? So as I've said before, we must take this election seriously. With the polling at face value, it's close.

Recently, american presidential elections have come down to 500,000 or fewer votes, often 250,000 or fewer in three to five states, often three states. 2020 came down to 112,000 votes in three states. We have to assume it's the way it will go because that's the way it's been in the United States lately. However, it is possible, and there are some signs that suggest, even plausible or likely, that this is going to be an absolute blowout against Donald Trump, that he lost 2020 already and he is in a worse position today than he was in 2020. If he lost 2020, how could he possibly win this time around? That's not an illegitimate interpretation of this forthcoming situation, but we must vote assuming it will be close, because otherwise we risk our own destruction along these same lines, user il TNT 42 says, are Democrats being too pessimistic about Joe Biden's chances? Of course this election is going to be close.

Yes, there's a plausible chance Trump can win. With that said, when I talk to other Democrats there seems to be a major sense of doom and gloom, as if, perhaps as if people have already accepted defeat and expect Biden to lose. There are a few things that are keeping me hopeful.

Trump lost the popular vote twice, and Biden already beat him once. Trump has done nothing between 2020 and now to grow support with independence. His base is fired up, but it's not enough. 2020 election was before January 6, and I know of several Republicans who finally turned on Trump after that. Also, seeing the support Nikki Haley got in the primaries suggests some moderates are done with Trump. Midterms and special elections have been decent for Democrats, including in battleground states. And lastly, sorry, but I don't buy for a second that a criminal conviction will help Trump now. I do fear Biden's 2020 coalition has softened, as many Dems aren't thrilled with him, but hope people come to their senses and realize what is at stake.

That's the case that I have been making. Which is, yes, the enthusiasm behind Biden may not be as effervescent and explosive as we might hope. But if you start with what Trump was in 2020 when he lost and you think about what's happened, it's not a great thing for Donald Trump.

Australian social Democrat wrote on the subreddit a message saying, progressives who oppose Biden are egotists.

There are 161 million registered voters in America. A candidate for president cannot go up to you specifically and ask what policies you would like to see in government and enact them. An election is not an uber, it's a bus.

It won't take you exactly where you want to go, but it will travel roughly near your destination. You can't go up to a bus driver and say, take me where I want to go, disregarding everyone else. In the same way, you can't expect a politician to make all the policies you want them to. And it's not okay for you to disregard all the actual human beings who will be left off in a worse condition under a Trump presidency because your privileged ass won't feel the difference. The entire point of a democracy is our leaders need to listen to the majority, not just you. You aren't the center of the world. Anti Biden progressives are egotists. You know, I I get the point this person's making, but it's not egotistical to say I don't like the policies of a candidate, so I won't vote for them. I think what this person is pointing towards is it's assumed correctly, that on almost every issue, Biden is way closer to the political beliefs of a lot of these people, saying, I'm not going to vote for him, then would Trump be or RFK speaker one? If you start from the fact that they acknowledge, I like 85% of Biden or 80 or 90 or whatever, 95, but I don't like that he didn't do more student loan debt forgiveness or he didn't raise taxes on the rich or Israel Gaza, whatever about Israel Gaza.

The problem for me is, well, you're going to help someone dislike even more.

And it's less about egotistical thinking, the way this individual points out, and more about illogical thinking. The getting on the bus to get close to where you want analogy is still a good one, but I think it's less about egotism.

Jeremy Bezier wrote on Facebook, I think he's been lying for so long, referring to Trump, I think he's been lying for so long, he physically can't tell the truth anymore. Look at him. When he tries, he seems uncomfortable. I suspect it causes him actual pain. I think it's more complicated. People like Trump, it's not that they can't tell the truth.

They lose a connection to what the truth even is or means.

Pathological, narcissistic liars often lose connection with what the truth means. I wouldn't be surprised. There are things Trump says that he knows he's lying, but there are others where it's kind of like, I think he's convinced himself of that. You know, black unemployment was the lowest under Trump. Well, that's not true. It was lower under Biden. But I think Trump probably does believe that. And if you confronted the numbers about Biden, he'd say, well, these numbers are doctored or whatever. It's all wrong. But I think he probably has convinced himself of that. On the other hand, it is also a case that there really haven't been consequences to Trump for lying. And so when there aren't consequences, whether you believe your own lies or not, why wouldn't you keep telling them if it, if you perceive it to be useful?

Creflo half dollar says on YouTube. So now Pacman and resistance liberals are cheering right wing immigration policy when Biden does it. Blue Maga really is a cult. Now this is totally deranged. So let me tell you what this is about.

Recently, Republicans came up with a bill for border security, and then Trump said, no, no, no, don't do it. Don't go for it. I need to keep this as a problem which I can then try to solve when I become president. So republicans end up turning against their own border security bill. Joe Biden then went and signed an executive action where if the number of undocumented crossings or asylum seekers gets to a certain level, they shut down the border and say, you have to apply for asylum in your country, and then only come over if approved. Okay?

I did not say I love this law. I love this executive order. In fact, I was clear. I said, this doesn't get at the root of the problem. I understand the political strategy of Joe Biden throwing and going, hey, I can get done something you guys want, and you guys had the opportunity, but you failed. And now I'm getting it done. I acknowledge the political strategy, but I said in the segment where I covered it, go and check, fact check me. I said, this doesn't deal with the problems that force people to want to come to the United States undocumented. This doesn't deal with the asylum seeking scenarios of violence and everything else that tell, say to people, make people say, hey, I'm going to try to go to the United States. It doesn't deal with visa overstays. It doesn't deal with the fact that we really need way more immigration judges able to quickly adjudicate asylum claims at the border. I was very clear. I'm not cheerleading this. This is just a bone to throw to Republicans of, hey, hey, you guys want to do this now you've got it. Come up with the next reason why you won't vote for Biden. But I don't think it's good policy by itself. And if you want to include, I've said before, if, if we can get comprehensive and permanent immigration reform done by throwing them a bone of building some border wall, do it. Okay.

But it's got to be part of a comprehensive plan to permanently deal with a bunch of these different issues. Tim, Brett Hower says, we don't have a history of presidents committing so many crimes while in office. We don't have a history of presidents trying to block a voting result. They love to complain about how unprecedented the cases are, but ignore how unprecedented the actions are. Yeah, you know, people like Eric Trump and Jason Miller and all the people that surround Trump online and elsewhere, they love to say they've never done this to a president before. We've never seen a president charged, indicted, convicted.

Right, okay, fair.

But we've never had a president who did the things Trump did. So any sensibly thinking person knows your outputs are based on your inputs. If your inputs are presidents who don't commit crimes, your output will be presidents who don't get convicted. If all of a sudden you say, well, we're going to do something different, we will have a president that commits crimes, well, then it would be logical that the outcome, the output of this math equation is a president that gets themselves convicted. So they love that one. They think it's really a clever one, but it's not. We did a poll at the David Pakman show YouTube channel which said in the long run, Trump's conviction will 41% of you said Trump's conviction will be a major deciding factor in 2024 election. 41% of you, 25% of you believe Trump's conviction will hurt Trump somewhat, but not enough to be a decision maker in the election.

18% of you said that Trump's conviction will activate his base and end up helping him. And 16% of you said that it will be essentially a non factor. So what's interesting about this is that a plurality, 41%, believe that Trump's conviction will be the deciding factor in the November election. On the other hand, 59% in total, believe that whether or not it has some impact, it won't ultimately be the deciding issue in the election. Very interesting. That's based on, wow, look at that. 123,000 of you voted in our poll. Check out the next poll on the community tab at the YouTube channel, which I hope you are also subscribed to.

Thanks to everybody who wrote in info at david pakman.com dot. Remember that you can get all of my children's books, including the newest one. Think like a voter@davidpakman.com.

book check it out. Become a member. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. We'll see you on the bonus show.

6/28/24: Trump Biden debate goes completely haywire, talk of "replacement" explodes

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1: Opening Analysis

2: Reaction to Biden's Gaffes

3: Media and Party Reactions

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