6/4/24: Fauci triggers MTG, Melania completely missing

Speaker A
Well, a hearing was held in the House yesterday trying to get Republicans to rehabilitate conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 pandemic. They dragged 83 year old doctor Fauci out to try to make him some kind of criminal. And Marjorie Taylor Greene was so triggered by Doctor Fauci remaining cool, calm, and collected that she blurted out, you belong in prison.

You have to see this.

I don't even know what they're trying to do, to be totally honest. I get they're furious about the fact that the experts, like scientists and doctors, continue to be seen as the authorities. And Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan are not seen as the authorities on medical issues. I get it that they're mad, but Marjorie Taylor Greene turning this entire hearing into a circus, you have to see this. It is almost difficult to watch.

Speaker B
Mister Fauci, you were quoted on CB's Face the Nation saying it's easy to criticize, but they're really criticizing science because I represent science. Do you represent science, Mister Fauci?

Speaker C
I am a scientist who uses the scientific method to gain information.

Speaker B
Yes. You said you represent science. Do you represent science, Mister Fauci? Yes or no? Yes or no?

Speaker C
No. That's not a yes or no answer.

Speaker B
Yes, it's a yes or no.

Speaker C
I don't think it is.

Speaker B
Okay, well, we'll take that as a you don't know what you represent, but this, as director of the NIH, you did sign off on these so called scientific experiments. And as a dog lover, I want to tell you this is disgusting and evil what you signed off on. And these experiments that happened to Beagles, paid for by the american taxpayer. And I want you to know Americans don't pay their taxes for animals to be tortured like this. So the type of science that you are representing, Mister Fauci, is abhorrent and it needs to stop.

Mister Fauci, you also question there, you.

Speaker A
Might notice, you know, representing science as a perspective is not saying I speak for all scientists. It's sort of like if you have a panel and you have a christian pastor there, the christian pastor is there representing the christian view. It doesn't mean the pastor speaks for every christian. You're there in that role. And the most remarkable thing about all of this is that Marjorie Taylor Greene is still a member of Congress. At another point she tries to say, I will refuse to call you doctor. You are Mister Fauci here. And I guess saying that he belongs.

Speaker B
In prison, especially when the NIH and these government agencies, most powerful agencies in our country, are recommending medical suggestions and advice and making up guidelines like 6ft distancing and masking of children. Do you think that's appropriate? Do the american people deserve to be abused like that, Mister Fauci? Cause you're not doctor. You're Mister Fauci. In my few minutes.

No, I don't need your answer. I want to talk about this right here.

Speaker A
Mister chairman.

Speaker B
Objection.

Speaker A
Objection.

Speaker B
I reclaim my time. I reclaim my time. Mister Raskin.

Speaker D
Lady.

Speaker A
Mister chairman of order, just in terms of the rules of decorum, are we allowed to deny that a doctor is a doctor just because we don't want him to be a doctor?

Speaker B
Yes, because in my time, that man does not deserve to have a license. As a matter of fact, it should be revoked, and he belongs in prison.

Speaker A
That was the first reference to Marjorie Taylor Greene, representing, of course, the party of law and order and due process wants to throw a doctor in prison because she doesn't like him. And then later telling doctor Fauci directly, you belong in prison. Debasing herself in the most pathetic and humiliating way possible.

Speaker B
You know that what this committee should be doing, we should be recommending you to be prosecuted. We should be writing a criminal referral because you should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. You belong in prison, Doctor Fauci.

Speaker A
Speaker one, that sounds like law and order to me, doesn't it? So, Marjorie Taylor Greene, taking the lion's share of this pathetic line of questioning. But there was another very interesting moment where Congresswoman Malia Takis tried to pull the conspiracy theory out of a hat. That doctor Foushee has earned a ton of money from the pandemic. And when she tried to confront him about it, it does not go well at all.

Speaker E
Speaker one, Doctor Fauci, how much have you earned from royalties from pharmaceutical companies since the pandemic began in 20210?

It says NIH scientists made 710 million in royalties from makers.

You're saying that you did not receive any of the $710 million on Covid?

Speaker C
I received, I think $122 for an e, for an monoclonal antibody that I made 27 years ago.

Speaker E
Okay, so just in general, though, how much have you received? Not. Not related to Covid. Just in general, how much have you received in royalties between 2021 and 2023?

Speaker C
I think none.

Speaker E
Okay, so somebody received the 710.

Speaker C
Somebody did, but not me.

Speaker E
You didn't receive any royalties?

Speaker C
Okay, I mean, I see no royalties associated with COVID I mentioned.

Speaker A
Yeah, I said no, I want to.

Speaker E
No, I just said I'm on the.

Speaker C
Record and I want to make sure that this is clear that I've developed a monoclonal antibody about 25 years ago that's used as a diagnostic that has nothing to do with COVID And by.

Speaker A
The way, aren't these the people who represent the party that says you should get paid when you do stuff of value? I mean, it's the saddest part of all of this is that there is a conversation to have about what went right and what went wrong when the pandemic came forward. Sam Harris some months ago had a very interesting episode where he said, hey, listen, now, with the benefit of hindsight, bleaching our bananas didn't really make any sense. We didn't know that at the time. Now we do. But we were all working with limited information as quickly as possible to try to save people.

And thus, when you make some mistakes with no real downside, or even with some downside that you then figure, then figure out and fix, we are all in an ideal world working together as a community to preserve life and do what's best. And instead of having the real conversation, they come forward in this. How much money did you make? You belong in prison. I don't even consider you a doctor and this sort of thing. They are truly pathetic people.

There are just a couple other clips here. Here's one with Jim Jordan again. Jim Jordan just trying to attack Doctor Fauci.

Speaker D
Speaker one, why was it so important the virus not have started in a lab?

Speaker C
Wasn't so important that the virus not, we don't know.

Speaker D
We know it was important to someone in the Biden administration. So much so that the top people at Meta, the top people at Facebook are asking, why are we getting all this pressure to face Burke? I like that, to downplay the lab leak theory. And we have an email from June of the same year, June 4, 2021, saying the same thing. It was certainly important to somebody.

Speaker C
Well, what does that got to do with me?

Speaker D
I'm asking you because you're the expert on the coronavirus. I'm saying, why was the administration, why was the administration so pushing not to have the lab leak theory as something that was viable?

Speaker C
I can answer that. I've kept an open mind throughout the entire time.

Speaker D
I've kept an open mind. Doctor Fauci open mind that.

Speaker A
So Jim Jordan just trying to catch Fauci on something. And then here is Congresswoman Lesco trying to catch Fauci again with some emails that they don't actually have.

Speaker E
Three days later, on February 4, 2024, participants on the conference call authored a paper, proximal origin, which was sent to you for editing proximal origin pushed the natural origin theory. On April 16, 2020, the NIH director, Doctor Collins, emailed you, expressing dismay that the nature medicine article, which was based on proximal origin, didn't suppress the lab leak theory and asked you for more public pressure to suppress the lab leak theory. The very next day, in response to Doctor Collins request to suppress the lab leak theory, you cited the Nature Medicine article, which discounted the lab leak theory, from the White House podium. My question to you, sir, did you cite this article at the White House because the NIH director asked you to suppress the lab leak theory?

Speaker C
I did not do that in response to anybody's suggestion to suppress anything. It was in response to a question that someone asked at the podium, and I did not edit any paper as shown in my official testimony. So you said about four or five things, congressman, that were just not true.

Speaker E
Well, we have emails to speaker one, by the way.

Speaker A
I don't know why he called her congressman, but it's just a little weird aside.

Speaker E
There proven.

Speaker C
Well, you don't.

Speaker E
Thank you, and I yield back.

Speaker C
I now recognize Mister Mfume from Maryland for five minutes of questions.

Thank you very much, mister chairman. And by the way, no, we don't have it.

Speaker A
Yeah, they don't have the emails. As usual, they're obsessed with emails that they don't actually have. So a pathetic attempt to assail the character and career of an 83 year old doctor. These people truly are pathetic. Look at the enemies that they pick.

We have an incredible situation that's taking place globally right now.

The world is preparing for Donald Trump to win in November, and potentially for an intermediate violent period during which bad actors like Putin may seek to cause even more global chaos. There is an article in the Atlantic, and I apologize that it's not really very, very visible here. What Europe fears by McKay Coppins.

And this lays out a terror sort of situation that many of our allies are developing plans for.

Here is McKay Coppins on MSNBC laying it out. This is truly horrible stuff, and there's a lot to say about it. Let's listen and then discuss fears of.

Speaker B
Losing their most powerful ally. That has translated into a pathologically intense fixation on the us presidential race. Europeans are bracing for an America that behaves like any other transactional superpower. Several officials expressed fears that Trump would turn America's NATO membership into a kind of protection racket, threatening to abandon Europe unless this ally offers better trade terms or that ally helps investigate a political enemy.

Speaker F
So I report in this piece that the german foreign ministry is making contingency plans for the outcome of the american election in 2024. And they have plans for a Biden reelection. But I will tell you that most people in Germany and really most of the officials across Europe I spoke to do not believe Biden will be reelected. They believe that Trump is going to win.

Their plans for Trump's return involve trying to figure out how he will destabilize a wide range of issues, from Ukraine to NATO to climate change to tariff policy.

And they're also trying to figure out who his confidants are, how they can get close to them. But this is what's really striking to me. They're also making plans for a third scenario in which basically, there's a sustained period of uncertainty about the outcome of the election, accompanied potentially by widespread political violence in the US. And their fear is that in such a moment of vulnerability, that would be when Vladimir Putin or some other adversary decides to roll the dice and attack NATO or do something really provocative because they believe that America would be paralyzed.

Speaker A
Now, let's talk about this, and I encourage you to read the article. We're going to link to it.

There is asymmetrical risk in these scenarios. So on the one hand, even if you aren't convinced, the most likely outcome is a Trump victory and or some kind of violent period during which Trump loses but tries to seize control and there's violence on the american streets. The risk associated with that outcome is so great to our allies that it makes sense that they be prepared and they are preparing. What do we do if Trump wins? In terms of what he'll, what will he try to pull the US out of NATO? Will he turn his back on the US's ally? What will Trump do? So it's a high risk scenario. So you prepare for it. And then what if there is this pseudo lawless period, even if Trump loses, where violence is unleashed on american streets? And even if, I don't think that's the most likely outcome, the potential downsides to such a scenario are so great that it would make sense to be prepared. Now, people are arguing, based on this interview and based on the article, are they just preparing for every scenario, or are they expecting this scenario? There are american allies that expect Donald Trump to win. Now, we've already laid out the case. I don't, I don't have any more to say. I think it's going to be close. I don't have any predictions. It'll, it'll come down to under half a million votes in three to five states. So, yes, Trump may win, Biden may win. But there's two sides to this. Number one, if the United States does elect Trump to the Oval Office once again, how will I, our allies, react in terms of their relationship with us, those relationships?

To say they were strained is an understatement when Trump was previously president. But the second part of it, and this is the part with some real risk, how will our adversaries seek to cynically take advantage of such a chaotic period in the United States? And that's exactly what this great reporting by McKay lays out. How are our allies preparing for our shared adversaries to behave if indeed Trump were to win, or there were to be some kind of violent I don't like to use the term interregnum, but some kind of violent intermediate period between the Biden first term and whatever is to come next, they are taking it very seriously overseas.

It'd be nice if everybody on the left took it as seriously as they are taking it. Let's take a quick break, hear from a sponsor or two, and then we'll be right back.

Every romantic relationship has periods where people get busy, struggle to find time to connect, or find new ways to connect. And that's why our sponsor, paired, has been such a valuable tool for so many people. It's the app for couples who want to strengthen their relationship every day. Paired gives you personalized questions or quizzes or games to stay connected, deepen your conversations, and have fun. The best part is you can't see your partner's answer until you answer. So it's a safe space to have an open and honest discussion about the relationship. No faking it or pretending, just genuine connection to keep the spark alive. My girlfriend and I have used paired. Even if you've known your partner for years like I have, I still feel like paired helps me learn new things and stay connected. Whether you're just a few dates in or you've been together a long time like me, find the time to connect with your partner. Nourish the relationship. Head to paired.com Pacman to get a seven day free trial and 25% off if you sign up for a subscription that's paired.com Pacman for a seven day free trial and 25% off a subscription. The link is in the podcast. Notes one of our sponsors today is better help we all carry around different stressors, big and small. Therapy is a safe space to get things off your chest and figure out how to work through whatever is weighing you down. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give betterhelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, suited to your schedule.

Betterhelp lets you tap into a network of over 35,000 licensed, experienced therapists who can help you with a wide range of issues. Just fill out a brief questionnaire, get matched with a licensed therapist, and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. With Betterhelp, you get the same professionalism and quality you expect from in office therapy, but on your schedule and from wherever you are. Visit betterhelp.com Pacman show today to get 10% off your first month.

That's betterhelp. H dash e dash p.com Pacman show. The link is in the podcast notes did you know that Americans pay twice as much for their wine as the rest of the world? The reason is because of laws that date back to prohibition that ensure the right of wholesalers to make a big margin. It's actually insane, which is why I love our sponsor naked wines so much. Naked Wines is a subscription service that seamlessly connects you to the finest independent winemakers on the planet, so you get a case of the market's best quality wines, however often you'd like, for a fraction of the price you'd normally pay in stores. How does naked wines do it? Naked wines connects wine makers and wine drinkers directly without the middleman, allowing for vineyard to your door delivery at up to 60% off of what you would pay in store. My girlfriend likes white wine. I like red. Will split a case that has both, which naked wines makes very easy to do. You can customize your subscription precisely to your taste. So go to naked wines.com pacman. Click Enter voucher in the top right and enter Pacman for both the code and the password to get six bottles for just $29.99 with shipping included, that's $100 off and under $7 per bottle. That's naked wines.com pacman. Then enter Pacman as both the code and password for six bottles for $29.99, with shipping included. The info is in the podcast notes the David Pakman show is primarily made possible by our viewers and our listeners through something called the membership program.

All other revenue sources are algorithmically based and subject to the whims and vagaries of social media platforms. Memberships on our website are not, and this is why they are, such a critical component to doing what we do. I invite you to sign up at join Pacman.com and you can, of course, use the coupon code Savedemocracy 24. If you would like to do that, lots of great benefits, including the daily commercial free show in audio or video format, as well as daily bonus shows and so much more. Read about it and sign up at join pacman.com. we have massive breaking news in what will potentially be the next criminal trial of convicted felon and civilly liable rapist failed former president Donald Trump. And it is that the Georgia criminal trial, maybe the most serious one, depends on your opinion, is scheduled to start in October. Now, there, there are two sides to this bit of news. It's very important to understand. A USA Today reports Georgia appeals court sets Donald Trump case for October, likely delaying trial past election. And what is so critical about this is that on the one hand, there's the reaction, oh, great, it'll start before the election. Sure.

The problem is it will almost certainly not be done before the election. That is a complicated trial with a number of different components and many different charges and so on and so forth. And between jury selection, the trial deliberations, it will essentially guarantee, and this is if there is no further delay, it essentially guarantees that Donald Trump's Georgia criminal trial will not be resolved before the presidential election. We then, of course, have the case overseen by the federal case over seen by Judge Eileen Cannon. That one seems to be delayed indefinitely. And with the third of the three remaining criminal trials not yet scheduled, it is unlikely. This is the reason this is such big news, is that it now becomes unlikely there will be any other trials completed or verdicts rendered on Trump before this election. And so what that means is that the 34 criminal counts for which Trump has already been convicted last week in the New York hush money falsifying business records trial, that will be it. As far as the influence of completed criminal trials on Donald Trump's presence on the ballot in November, that is a big deal.

Now, of course, if he had acquittals forthcoming, you might say, well, it would be good for him to have more of these trials done before the election. If you expect convictions, then you would say, well, it would be better for Trump not to have them. But as it is, we are not expecting any additional verdicts before the November election. And so we are going to, of course, see what happens in the debates. We are going to see what Trump's presence is like on the campaign trail, but that is going to do it. Now, the New York Times reports Trump almost certainly won't go on trial in Georgia this year. Here is why this making the argument that it's going to be delayed even further, saying, with a one page order. The Georgia Court of Appeals Monday made it all the more likely Trump will not face a criminal trial before facing off against Biden. The appellate court's order, tentatively set October 4 for oral arguments over whether Fawney Willis, the DA, should be disqualified, suggesting that the matter will not be resolved in time for a trial to start. So this actually goes further, which says they are only going to start oral arguments as to whether Fonny Willis will even be disqualified.

And that is a precursor step to even going to the actual trial. And with that perspective, there is no chance in hell that this trial arguably even starts before the election. So this is where we are. The wheels of justice grind, sometimes more slowly than we would want. That's true. But it does not change the broader case that Trump still has an uphill battle to winning this election. We will outline that after the next break, which we're not going to take quite yet. President Joe Biden has reportedly now taken to referring to Donald Trump as convicted felon in private events, most recently telling a group of donors that something happened in 2020 with the election where Trump snapped. And that's a direct quote. NBC News reports Biden calls Trump a convicted felon who snapped after the 2020 election. The president also called Trump, who was found, guess, guilty last week, quote, unhinged. This is all from an event in Greenwich, Connecticut. What a nice place where Biden said, quote, for the first time in american history, a former president that is a convicted felon is seeking the office of the presidency. But as disturbing as that is, more damaging is the all out assault Donald Trump is making on the american system of justice. You know, I like this, and I know that there are people on different sides with regard to what involvement, if any, even as far as discussing it should Joe Biden have in the criminal trials and tribulations of Donald Trump. I liked early on that Biden didn't comment on Trump's criminal trials.

And in fact, there were a lot of right wing media types on Fox News and elsewhere who were upset. Biden's the president. He's not going to say anything. Well, hold on a second. I thought you didn't want Biden involved. They both were saying Biden is involved by directing these prosecutions, and at the same time, he's not even willing to say a word about the fact that they're prosecuting a former president. I liked the fact that he wasn't talking about it, but I believe that now. Talking about Trump as convicted felon is smart, and I hope he starts to do it publicly rather than just in private fundraisers because it really listen, there is the effect that it will have sort of generically on voters. Do I want to vote for a convicted felon or not? And it is true that there are some magotypes who are at least saying, I'm energized by this. I'm more likely to vote for Donald Trump now that he has been criminally convicted, because now I, now I have proof that the justice system has been weaponized against him and so on and so forth. But there's another aspect to this.

When Biden says he's a convicted felon and he snapped in 2020, he, in a sense, is providing cover for Republicans who voted Trump in 2020 to be able to give themselves permission to say, you know what, it's okay that I don't vote for Trump this time. I'm not betraying my country. I'm not even necessarily betraying the Republican Party. It's just that he snapped. The 2020 election broke him. His cognition. Something has declined dramatically since the 2020 election. He looks terrible. He sounds terrible. He's not making any sense. He's openly aspiring to become an autocrat and an authoritarian and dictator wannabe. It's okay for me to vote for someone different, even though I see myself as a Republican. So I'm not saying that all of that is going to happen just by Biden saying he's now a convicted felon and he snapped after 2020. But one of the things we've talked about extensively when it comes to deprogramming cult members, getting people out of a culture is you don't want to humiliate and attack them for the fact that they are in the cult and say, you're pathetic, get out of this cult.

One of the most important things is to create an environment of empathy and welcoming, where they feel like, hey, you know what? If I do make a different choice, if I do get out, if I choose to leave the dear leader and vote for someone else, I'm going to be welcomed rather than made fun of and told, I told you so. This is so critical to getting people out of cults and whatever little effect Joe Biden can have on that by saying he snapped in 2020, I get it. There's Republicans. We have different views about taxes. We have different views about foreign policy and education, fine. But he snapped in 2020, and he's dangerous and he's a convicted felon now. We can't put him back in. If it even takes a little slice of Republicans and gets them to say, I'm still a Republican.

I'm going back to the republican party in 2028, but I'm giving myself license this time not to vote for the guy. Then I believe that it is a good idea. Let me know what you think. Infoavidpackman.com we'll take a quick break and be right back.

For a long time when I had a computer problem, I'd go on YouTube and Reddit and try to figure it out, and it seemed like the advice that is given 95% of the time is download malwarebytes and that'll clean everything up for you. So I have been using malwarebytes in real life for years, long before they became a sponsor, simply because malwarebytes is way more than just an antivirus, it catches things other antivirus programs miss. With malwarebytes, you have comprehensive, real time protection against malware, spyware, otherwise malicious attacks that could jeopardize your privacy and personal data. It can detect and remove existing malware already on your devices with its best in class free scan, which is something traditional antiviruses lack. And now you can get identity theft protection as part of a bundle to keep your family's personal information safe. With live monitoring alerts, recovery assistance, and up to a million dollars in identity theft protection, malwarebytes has a special deal they're doing just for the David Pakman show. You can get any malwarebytes subscription for 50% off. That's half off@malwarebytes.com. pacman that's malwarebytes.com Pacman to get half off your subscription, the link is in the podcast notes stop letting governments and corporations control what you can access online. Use private Internet access a VPN which changes is your ip address so you can make it look like your computer is anywhere in the world, and this gives you access to all sorts of content you wouldn't normally be able to get in your home country.

Our sponsor, private Internet access, is the only VPN fully optimized for streaming and large file sharing, and it is the only VPN to demonstrate legally and technologically they do not record your Internet activity. With private Internet access, I can watch argentinian soccer matches not normally available in the United States. I can watch a whole bunch of great shows on the UK and australian versions of Netflix and Hulu. Imagine turning on your Netflix and having hundreds of new big name shows you can watch. You can use it on all of your devices with just a single account, including your tv. Private Internet access is so easy, your great grandmother could use it. You just download it and click one button to turn it on. That is it. Get private Internet access for 83% off. That's just two oh three a month, plus four extra months for free.

Go to pia vpn.com. david, the link is in the podcast notes.

Yesterday on the program, I presented the case to you that Donald Trump will win the election in November. And as I said during yesterday's segment, this is a thought experiment. We don't know who's going to win the election. It all depends on all of us going out and voting this fall. But the point yesterday was to show that one can make a very persuasive case that Donald Trump is going to win, that he has the clear and even obvious path to being the next president of the United States. Now, the reality is the race will almost certainly be decided by 250,000 to 500,000 votes in three to five states. And when a race is this close in a country of 340 million people, there can be no obvious prediction. Those saying it is obvious one or the other candidate is going to win are not based in fact. But as I did yesterday with Trump making the hypothetical obvious case for Trump's inevitable victory, today, I'm going to steel man the case that it is actually President Joe Biden who will win the reelection. And the goal here is to be just as persuasive and to make just a seemingly obvious a case for Joe Biden winning in November as I did yesterday for Donald Trump. So let's get into it. Why is it so clear that Joe Biden is the one who has the easy, direct path to victory in November and not Donald Trump? Well, let's start with polling just as I did yesterday with Donald Trump. The criminal conviction of Donald Trump has given Joe Biden a slight bump in the polls to the point where the popular vote polling is essentially awash.

The recent national polls are all joeing, showing Joe Biden up plus one or two, or maybe it's Trump plus one, or it's even a tie. And as far as the swing states go, Biden is down in many of them, as we talked about yesterday, but very much within striking distance, within the margin of error in many of the polls. And we now have new state polling post conviction. So we'll find out very soon how much of a role the conviction is playing. But it is certainly pushing some voters towards Joe Biden. And this is the critical thing. Remember that Biden doesn't even have to win all of the states he won in 2020 to get the 270 electoral votes that he needs to become president for four more years. Or to put it another way, Biden has a margin of error that not only does Donald Trump not have, Trump needs to get everything he got in 2020 and find more states to take from Joe Biden. And that is a much more difficult path for Trump and a much easier path for President Joe Biden to get reelected. I'll give you some examples. President Biden could lose Georgia, which he won in 2020, Arizona, which he won in 2020, and Nevada, which he won in 2020, and still win the election if he holds Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. And of course, there's a whole bunch of other combinations that would lead to the same outcome, which is Biden not doing as well as 2020 and still winning. That's a very strong position to be in. There's a new ABC News Ipsos poll which finds that a majority of independents think Trump's verdict was correct, 52%.

And that same number believed that Trump should end his candidacy altogether. That's a disaster for Donald Trump, given the starting point of he already lost 2020, and he needs to take states from Biden. Another post conviction poll from morning Consult finds that 49% of independent voters believe Donald Trump should drop out of the race, flat out on the basis of being convicted on those 34 felony counts. Very, very troubling poll for Trump. So Trump may have a real difficulty shaking off the weight of convicted felons. Something that Joe Biden has started to use in reference to Donald Trump and his criminality is going to remain on the minds of voters as we approach sentencing on July 11. And then the other three criminal trials, if we have any of them before the election. The other trials, by the way, are, in a great sense, more serious than the one Trump's already been convicted. And two, two of them relate to his efforts to try to steal the last election. One has to do with his reckless mishandling of classified documents. So if we're already seeing the influence of the first conviction, which, again, remember, even if only 15% of republicans change their minds because of the conviction, the margins are so slim in some of these states that that would make it an impossibility for Donald Trump to win. If we see further convictions, we could see an even more difficult time for voters to send Trump back to the White House. Now, I should also point out that while I don't personally expect Judge merchant to sentence Trump to prison, it still is a real possibility.

And if that does happen, I believe it worsens Trump's chances even more. I know he and some supporters are saying, you know, if they throw this guy in prison, we will all come out and Trump will easily sail to another four year term. I think that there are many voters who are not engaged in the Reddit and Twitter discussions who will say, I'm not voting for a guy who's in prison. It just doesn't make any sense. So that's polling. Now let's talk about incumbency and previous elections, because this is another reason that Joe Biden is likely to win. He has the incumbency advantage. In recent us history, it's become the norm for presidents to get reelected. Now, Trump losing in 2020 is more of an exception than it is the rule. Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, all two term presidents. We go back to George HW Bush losing in 92 as the last time. Other than Trump, for a president not to get reelected, it's very rare. We also have to consider that since Donald Trump's win in 2016, Republicans have been a failed party. A completely failed party. It's been a downhill disaster for Republicans, starting with the 2018 midterms through the 2020 election, the 2022 midterms, the off year elections. In 2018, they lost the House. After that blue wave. In 2020, Trump and Republicans lost the presidency and the Senate. In 2022, there was going to be a red wave. It didn't happen. Republicans just barely took control of the House and actually fell further behind in the Senate. And then 2023 was a very bad year for Republicans, even in red states like Kentucky and Ohio.

Ever since Donald Trump initially was voted into power in 2016, Republicans have either lost or underperformed what we would have expected. Historically, they are losers. Since 2016, why do we expect the convicted guy to turn it around after losing so many times? This is also the first time that Donald Trump's will be on the Donald Trump's name will be on the ballot in a general election.

Since the Trump riots of January 6, 2021, which, according to a Washington Post poll, 55% of Americans believe we're an attack on our democracy that should never be forgotten. All of that is a train wreck for Donald Trump. Next, we have the debates. Now, I recently told you on the program that debates typically, historically, do very little to affect the outcome of a presidential race. And that is true.

However, it is possible that this time will be different, thanks to Republicans continuing to set these ridiculously low expectations for Joe Biden, because Republicans have repeatedly fallen into their own trap of saying Biden's too old, he's too senile to speak publicly, and then Biden does fine and comes out looking good by comparison because the bar has been set so low. They said this about Joe Biden's primary debate with Bernie Sanders in 2020, which went fine for Joe Biden. They said this about the two debates that Donald Trump had with Joe Biden in the general election in 2020. Went fine. They said earlier this year, Biden isn't going to be able to give a hundred minute state of the union speech. He can't do it. And then he did so well that they switched to claiming that he must be on some kind of drug without ever being able to identify what drug would achieve what they claim the drug did. So as long as Biden does as well as he's done before, he might actually end up getting a boost from the debates as well. At minimum, there is no obvious path for convicted felon Donald Trump to perform so well in the debates that it helps him. He's counting on Biden failing, and failing badly and publicly, which so far has not happened.

Now let's go to what is usually the most important aspect of presidential elections, which is the economy.

By all conventional economic metrics, the economy is strong, and President Biden has a strong economy to run on. In general, presidents get reelected.

More specifically, when the economy looks the way today's economy looks, presidents overwhelmingly get themselves reelected. The stock market continues to achieve all time high. After all time high. Unemployment still under 4% for a record period of time, we have totally healthy 3% GDP growth. Inflation was high. It's now at a much more normal, roughly 3%. And so if you're looking for a country that has recovered the best from the Covid-19 pandemic and the recession that came with it, you would be hard pressed to find a place that did it better than the United States under Joe Biden. And he at least deserves some credit for that, especially when Trump said it would be an economic disaster under Biden, and it certainly hasn't been. So the goal is Biden and his surrogates have to make that case effectively to voters. And we know from people like Rachel Bitticofer and others often that critical time during which voters say, how is the economy doing and how am I going to vote? It kicks off around Labor Day, which is September, still several months away. So the numbers are in Biden's favor when it comes to the economy. He doesn't have to lie about them. He doesn't have to distort them. He does have to convince the american people that this is the reality. And recent polling doesn't show that. So there is still time. And in general, an economy. The way today's economy looks is very good for presidents getting reelected. What about abortion? Another issue that is going to motivate Democrats and many independents to vote for a Democrat is abortion.

Polls show 60% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in most cases as abortion rights are being rolled back in states across the country. With Trump cheering that thanks to him.

Thanks to his three Supreme Court nominations during his presidency, Roe v. Wade was overturned. Abortion and the right wing attacks on contraception and IVF aren't helping them. And we've seen these very surprising election results in a state referenda since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. So abortion will be on the ballot in Florida. It may be on the ballot in Arizona and Nevada. This, arguably is going to help Joe Biden even more. And then we get to fundraising. The fundraising case is one that is extraordinarily lopsided in Joe Biden's favor. Biden has raised more than $180 million from January 1, 2023, to April 30, 2024. Trump has raised 120 million during that same period. In other words, Biden is raising 50% more money than Trump.

I don't like the way that we finance politics, but fundraising is a very good proxy to voter enthusiasm. The DNC has more money than the RNC, and Biden continues to demonstrate an ability to outraise Trump over the long run, which is a very good sign. Now, we should also say a word about protest votes and about third party and independent candidates. Trump has had a tougher time dealing with protest votes than Biden during these primaries. And this suggests that whatever you're hearing, there is more discontent within the republican party than within the Democratic Party. Weeks after dropping out of the race, Nikki Haley received 22% of the primary vote in Indiana and Maryland. Needless to say, somewhere between one 6th and one fifth of republican primary voters are going out of their way to vote for Nikki Haley weeks or even months after she has dropped out. Now, for comparison, Biden contended with a campaign to vote uncommitted in Michigan over the Israel Gaza conflict. This was going to be the big protest vote against Biden, and it only got 13% of the democratic primary vote. So this shows a much greater dissatisfaction with Trump within the Republican Party than it does dissatisfaction with Biden within the Democratic Party. Now, additionally, the polling is still shifting. It is increasingly looking like the strongest independent candidate, Robert F. Kennedy junior, takes more votes from Trump than he does from Biden. The numbers are shifting, but it's increasingly looking like that.

And that is also bad news for Trump and very good news for Joe Biden. So remember, Biden won in 2020. Trump needs to do everything he did in 2020, plus take states from Biden. And RFK seems to be making it tougher for Trump to do that. So the case for Biden is very strong. I've now outlined the strongest possible argument for why Trump will win. I did that yesterday. And the strongest possible argument for by why Biden will win. I believe both arguments are compelling and fact based. And the situation we find ourselves in is that this will be a close election, likely coming down to under half a million votes in three to five states. The only way to figure out the outcome is to vote on November 5 and wait for the results.

And it really does, at the end of the day, depend on us. Now, what I want to hear from you infoavidpackman.com, is now that I've made both cases, which case feels stronger to you? Info at david pakman.com let me know. Have you seen these people search sites? It's a big data privacy problem in the United States because they publish detailed personal profiles on millions of Americans online for anyone to see, and it is crazy. They can show your address, your Internet activity, license plate number, even your political or religious beliefs. Government agencies like the FBI and NSA even buy this data to potentially use against you. Our sponsor, Incogni, is the affordable service that will send automatic data removal requests to these data brokers who are required by law to comply. Incogni even follows up with the data brokers to make sure your data is permanently gone. And Incogni keeps you updated every step of the way. I use it myself. It is remarkable what they can get done for you. I barely get any spam and robocalls anymore, and these data broker lists are where they're usually getting that information. That alone makes Incogni worth it, and my audience gets 60% off. Go to incogni.com pacman and use the code PacmAN. That's Inc. Ogni.com slash Pacman for 60% off. The link is in the podcast notes where is Melania Trump?

Dozens of you have emailed me and you've said, David, the story isn't so much that Melania is missing, it's that no one's talking about the fact that Melania is missing. And I would even add to that we have a candidate that is running unstated values that align with so called pro family conservatives. And aside from the affairs and the cheating, all these different things. The porn star, hush money and all of it.

What about the fact that he's just by himself and doesn't appear to actually be in a real relationship with his wife anymore? They don't care because they are only stated values. They aren't real values or sincerely held when they are inconvenient. So let's talk about a couple parts of this. Yes, Melania Trump is nowhere to be found.

Interesting article from the Sydney Morning Herald. With Melania missing, her role in the post conviction Trump campaign is more uncertain. And Farah Thomas and asks, how much is she willing to put up for a man who betrayed and humiliated her? And now that Trump is officially a felon, will she appear by his side as he campaigns? Well, the answer seems pretty clear. No, Melania Trump has not been appearing by Trump's side this entire campaign.

And the details are not totally public. And to be honest, I don't really care what's going on with their relationship. You know, they sleep in separate rooms, they don't talk to each other.

I don't really care about it except for. Except for as it relates to the supposed principles that having a wife by your side represent when you are running as a Republican. And it's not new. If we go back to 2016, the evangelicals initially saw Trump for what he was, which is, you know, a serial philanderer, pro choice, pro gay rights Democrat. Quite frankly, initially that Ted Cruz contingent, and Ted Cruz saw Trump for what he was. But Trump lied to them about everything he said. You know, when I was 68, I became against abortion. And I just don't know about this lgbt stuff necessarily.

And all the. All the stuff you hear about me with cheating and all this stuff, it's all lies and fake news and whatever. And they accepted it. They either accepted it because they believed it or they accepted it because they had no choice because Ted Cruz clearly wasn't going to win. Marco Rubio clearly wasn't going to be the nominee. So they just accepted the entire thing. And of course, since then, we found out that in absolutely every way, it's hard to find the opposite of their stated christian values, stated being the key word, than Donald Trump. And now that Melania Trump is completely missing, all of a sudden, remember, remember the concerns about, you know, Tim Scott. He's. He's been a bachelor his whole life, and we think maybe he's even gay. Oh, my goodness. And he's really going to be not super viable to Republicans unless he puts a woman by his side. And eventually, Tim Scott introduced us to his supposed girlfriend and whatever, but they're completely ignoring the fact that Melania Trump is missing. Now, as far as the behind the scenes reports are that she's renegotiated a prenup multiple times and that she wants out, but she's agreed for some amount of money to at least stay, quote, with Trump through the campaign.

They don't seem to see each other. They don't seem to have any relationship whatever. So I couldn't care less about Melania being missing. At the end of the day, it's about Trump's policies and Trump's campaign. But it is just yet another reminder about how brazenly and cynically these Republicans will abandon what they claim to hold dear when it's inconvenient. And right now, what would be inconvenient would be saying, hey, you know what? All the stuff we've been saying for 30 years, 50 years, I don't know how long matters to us about a candidate. It doesn't really matter if the opponent is a Democrat, if the opponent is Hillary Clinton, if the opponent's Barack Obama, if the opponent is Joe Biden. So we certainly suspected that Melania's absence with absolutely no concern from the MAGA people is just another confirmation. Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist who really doesn't like me.

Speaker G
Thank your lucky stars every day you're not Dave Pakman, maybe.

Speaker A
Wise words from Alex Jones. He had a complete and total meltdown. Now, I am not about people suffering for the sake of suffering. I am not.

I am about due process and consequences for your actions. And Alex Jones is going through it right now. Alex Jones struggling, apparently financially. This absolutely brutal defamation suit against him has dropped down. He was close, I guess, to losing his show. And here is Alex Jones suffering a really difficult to watch meltdown during which he breaks down in tears. And I guess they're real tears.

Speaker G
I don't know, in the future telling the truth. But that's where we are. Thank you. Who's the next person?

I don't want to leave. I'm exhausted. I couldn't even sleep last night. I slept on the couch. I'm not complaining. I'm completely cross eyed, crazy exhausted, and I can't. I'm literally here, like, watching a family member die. Like, 30 years on air. 27 years is operation, 15 years in this building. And I'm literally, when I know, I leave tonight, they're going to shut us down. Maybe it's tomorrow, the next day. I just want people to know I love you. I believe in you. I believe in humanity. I believe in my grandparents, I believe in my parents. I believe in humanity. I just want to fucking stop these people.

They gotta be stopped.

So at the end of the day, we're gonna beat these people.

I try to be dramatic here, but it's been a hard fight.

These people hate our children.

Just tame our calls going, you know.

Speaker A
I actually can't tell if that's for real. It might be a source of sort of crisis acting which he claims exists elsewhere in places that doesn't really exist. That may be it. Um, you know, it's like, individually, he, he has exaggerated the risk to infowars before. So that's not really unique.

I don't know that I buy the tears. Maybe, maybe not.

But everything that is happening to Alex Jones is happening at his own doing. And by the way, a judge saved him. Once again, the Associated Press reports judge rejects call to immediately shut down Alex Jones infowars in bankruptcy dispute. A judge is already saving him, at least for now, the article reads. After a weekend in which Alex Jones warned his media company faced imminent shutdown because of his bankruptcy cases, a judge Monday allowed Jones to keep operating for two weeks while it decides whether his assets should be liquidated.

Remember that Jones and his company filed from bankruptcy after he lost the two lawsuits ordered to pay a total of $1.5 billion.

The lawsuit was over Jones calling the shooting at Sandy Hook a hoax, and the plaintiffs claimed defamation and infliction of emotional distress. So, listen, I don't know if it's real. I'm not about just going around shutting down media outlets. I'm about responsibility and consequences. As I've said it before on this program, I acutely understand the difference between giving my opinion about public figures and about targeting random individual parents of victims of a school shooting and saying, this guy faked it and that woman faked it. And this is fake. And these are crisis actors. I get the difference there. And it requires only looking at the simplest defamation statute and understanding that the bar for defamation is way higher for public people. If I talk about Trump and I get something wrong, well, that's very difficult to say. Defamation, hard to prove that he was damaged by that in any way. It's very different when you go after random private people, especially those who have suffered tragically, tragically at the hands of a mass shooter. So it's about consequences. It's not about revenge, it's about consequences. And maybe we're approaching Alex Jones actually facing some consequences. Donald Trump's new spokeswoman, Caroline Levitt, is a really bad idea. It's just, it's just a bad idea, period. She appeared yesterday on Fox News, and it is really difficult right now, given everything that is going on with Trump and his campaign, to spin some positive story, big picture about the guy.

So where does she start? During the Fox News interview, she says, you know, he went to UFC on Saturday and it was really great.

Caroline Levitt
Well, our legal team has said since the beginning that there are more than enough grounds to appeal this case, and they will do that immediately, and they will appeal this case all the way to the Supreme Court if they have to. And they're 100% confident it will ultimately be overturned because this was a sham, baseless, that was only brought because the defendant's name is President Trump and we are a few months away from the November 2024 election. As for our campaign, we are going to continue to move forward. I will tell you that President Trump has never been more resolute in his fight to save this great country. He went to the UFC fight on Saturday, received a hero's welcome. Our campaign, raised 50, was a hero.

Speaker A
In front of the UFC crowd.

Caroline Levitt
$3 million. In the 24 hours after the verdict. He launched a TikTok account, 3.5 million followers.

Speaker A
By the way, he's been saying tick Tock should get shut down. Now he's on tick tock, and they're bragging about his following on tick tock.

Caroline Levitt
Already. Yesterday, across this country, you saw grassroots voters forming rallies in car parades from Huntington Beach, California, to New Hampshire, to Staten island. These were not organized by our campaign. They were organized by.

Speaker A
So listen, I don't know that saying the UFC crowd loved him and there was a car parade in California and Florida. I don't know that that communicates necessarily what Caroline Levitt thinks that it communicates. And now she is saying the fact of the convicted felon term is its own shame.

I don't think she means what we think it means, though. Listen to that.

Caroline Levitt
For every time the Biden campaign uses the shameful word convicted felon, they are not talking about inflation. They are not talking about our wide open southern border that has led to a mass invasion of illegals that are crumbling the infrastructure in every city and community across this great country.

Speaker A
She seems to be suggesting that Biden should be convicted because inflation is positive. Like, because there is inflation, Biden should be convicted. Now, here's the funny part.

When she says Biden, referring to convicted felon is shameful, what she means is that it's shameful that anyone would convict Trump in that case where he was convicted.

The way I'm interpreting it is it's shameful that the Republican Party is continuing full speed ahead with a convicted felon as their nominee. That's not what she means, but that's the right interpretation of the shame associated here with convicted felony. And finally, the sort of stuff that, you know, Duterte and Xi and Putin and Kim Jong un's PR people would blush at this sort of thing.

Caroline Levitt
President Trump, as we know, is one of the greatest debaters in political history. It's going to be a great night for our campaign.

Speaker A
And I don't recall Trump being one of the greatest debaters in political history. I struggle to remember that. So Trump kind of goes through different soviet style pr people. I don't know if Liz Harrington got fired.

Sometimes he has, you know, there's a campaign spokesperson and then there's a personal spokesperson. He had that guy, Stephen Chung, last week that we were introduced to as a new character.

I don't know how many spokespeople he has, but sending Caroline Levitt on tv seems like a very, very bad idea. We have a voicemail number that you can call any time of day if you have a message you would like to deliver. To me, here is, how do I explain this?

When we did a story last week about the people in tears outside Trump's conviction, there was one guy where I said, I don't even know if this is for real. This might be satire. He, he had a father Teresa sign. It turns out that that one guy was just playing a prank. Everybody else were bona fide Trump supporters. And a bunch of you notified me about it. Here's one call about, hey, David, watching your Trump supporters lose their minds outside court over guilty verdict. And I just want to let you know, one of those guys that is going crazy is actually a comedian from Jimmy Kimmel. And he got the man in the red hat who started screaming in the beginning of your video.

The comedian got that guy worked up. And then in 236 inside your clip, the guy who's holding the sign and looks like he's, what was it?

Free Father Teresa? He's the comedian also. Yeah. So listen, I stand corrected. Of the twelve Trump cultists sobbing and screaming after Trump's conviction that I played for you last week, only eleven of them were bona fide cultists sobbing and screaming over Trump's conviction. One guy was a comedian from Jimmy Kimmel. So life imitates art. Art imitates life. When we say indistinguishable from parody, it's really taken on a very specific and real meaning when it comes to MAGA and the MAGA Potamians and the Magadonians. So they got me. One of the twelve was not a genuine supporter of Donald Trump. We've got a great bonus show for you today. Hey, the weaponized justice system of President Joe Biden is now moving forward with the Hunter Biden trial. What? Yes. And by the way, the same weaponized Joe Biden justice system is going after Democrat Bob Menendez and Democrat Henry Cuellar. Oh, my goodness. Joe Biden has weaponized the justice system against all these prominent Democrats. That doesn't make sense, does it? Well, we will discuss all of it on the bonus show. Secondly, Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order that will temporarily shut down the border when numbers surge. Will Republicans praise him? Probably not. And the DOJ is accusing the far right epoch times of being a money laundering operation. We've been keeping an eye on the epoch times for a while and they are now in the crosshairs of the DOJ for apparent money laundering. Couldn't happen to the nicest people.

All of those stories and more on today's bonus show.

Speaker G
Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money.

Speaker A
Please.

Speaker G
Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad.

Speaker A
Get instant access to the bonus show by signing up@joinpacman.com. dot I'll see you then and I'll be back tomorrow.

6/4/24: Fauci triggers MTG, Melania completely missing

Primary Topic

Episode Summary

Main Takeaways

Episode Chapters

1: House Hearing

2: Political Implications

Actionable Advice

About This Episode

People

Companies

Books

Guest Name(s):

Content Warnings:

Transcript