7/1/24: Political world on the brink after Trump Biden debate

This episode delves into the aftermath of a controversial debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, examining their performances and the broader political implications.

1. Biden's debate performance was poor, potentially affecting voter turnout rather than voter preference.
2. Trump also performed poorly, which could influence his favorability among swing voters.
3. The episode discusses the potential impacts of replacing Biden in response to his debate performance.
4. Factors other than the debate, such as economic conditions and incumbency, are likely to be more influential in the election outcome.
5. The episode invites listeners to reflect on the strategic decisions within the Democratic Party regarding the nomination process.

1: Opening Analysis

David Pakman introduces the episode's theme by discussing the post-debate political landscape, emphasizing the mixed reactions to Biden's performance and its implications for the election. David Pakman: "We have an extraordinary situation right now in the 2024 presidential election."

2: Competing Narratives

Pakman presents two conflicting narratives about the impact of the debate, inviting listeners to contemplate which narrative resonates more truthfully with them. David Pakman: "The first narrative is that Biden cannot possibly win after such a disastrous debate performance."

3: Polling and Public Reaction

This chapter deals with public and polling reactions to the debate, discussing how these perceptions might influence the election. David Pakman: "The average voter seems to have come away with the impression that both candidates were bad."

1. Stay informed: Follow multiple news sources to get a well-rounded view of political events.
2. Engage in discussions: Talk about political events and their implications with peers to foster a deeper understanding.
3. Reflect critically: Consider the reliability of the narratives presented by media and politicians.
4. Participate in polls: Engage in polling to contribute to public opinion metrics that can influence political strategies.
5. Vote: Regardless of the political climate, exercise your right to vote as it remains the most direct way to influence governmental change.

-- On the Show:

-- Absolute chaos takes over the political world after President Biden's poor debate performance against Donald Trump, but MAGA world's assumption that the race is over is premature

-- President Biden owns up to his terrible debate performance during a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina

-- President Biden sets a fundraising record, raising more than $33 million since the debate against Donald Trump

-- A shocking new report from Axios claims President Biden is only really functional between 10am and 4pm

-- A new poll finds 72% of voters believe President Biden should drop out of the race because he is not fit to run

-- Donald Trump's top suck-ups are confronted by our correspondent Luke Beasley at the debate in Atlanta, Georgia, and it does not go well for them

-- Trump's dementia suspicions go mainstream after President Biden's terrible debate performance

-- Donald Trump speaks to empty chairs while slurring endlessly at a rally in Chesapeake, Virginia

-- Audiovisual evidence is presented arguing that Donald Trump soiled himself during the presidential debate against President Joe Biden

-- Voicemail caller says that even if President Biden has dementia, he's still voting for him over Donald Trump

-- On the Bonus Show: Democrats fear Biden replacement could backfire, Oklahoma orders schools to teach the Bible in every classroom, far right leads first round of France's parliamentary elections, much more...

People

Donald Trump, Joe Biden

Companies

None

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

David Pakman
Welcome everybody. What a weekend. We have an extraordinary situation right now in the 2024 presidential election. There's no other way to say it. There are competing narratives for how to understand the impact of last week's very poor debate performance by President Joe Biden. And I'm going to be completely honest with you. If what you are looking for is a frenetic, feverish and unhinged black or white perspective on what's going on, this is not the show for you. If I were doing it for the clicks, I would either be telling you it is obvious that Biden must get out right now because he can't win and anyone else could.

Or I would be telling you it is obvious that Biden must stay in until the end because no one else has a shot.

I'm not going to give you that here because that would be dishonest. I will be honest with you. I don't know which of the two competing narratives is right, and to some degree it's impossible to know because all of them are based on predictions about what will happen in the future. You can't be right about a predictive statement until we've assessed the outcome in the political world, which will not happen until November. So I will give you the two competing narratives, and then you can think for yourself and tell me at info at david pakman.com which narrative resonates more with you. But I will warn you that there is a risk if you want to hear that one of the two competing narratives is right, and the only one you can find that comfort by tuning over to whoever where I've already been seeing, just reflexive, 110% confident in one or the other narrative, telling you whichever story you want to hear. Now, the reality is that it is not that clear. The first narrative is that after Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance last week, Biden cannot possibly win.

He messed up too badly. It's obvious that he just cannot do it physically. Biden should either drop out of the race or will face certain defeat in November against convicted felon and civilly liable rapist. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a different argument, which is that while Biden's debate performance was indeed terrible, it doesn't fundamentally change the race. Election forecaster Alan Lichtman is partial to that explanation, where he says that really, what determines the outcomes in elections like these are not debates, but factors like incumbency, whether there are foreign wars, the US is engaged in, the state of the economy, and so called other keys that Lichtman has developed and it is true that the debate doesn't change any of that. In addition, the debate had lower viewership than debates in the 2020 election, and so even the impact of the poor poor performance may be smaller than many think. Maybe most importantly, Biden not doing well in the debate is not a very good reason to go and vote for a convicted felon rapist for president instead of Biden because of a bad performance. Now, the bad performance might depress turnout.

We have months until the election, so we just don't even really know. So this gets to whether it makes sense to replace Joe Biden on the ticket and understand the chaos of that, but it is not an impossibility. The question I have, the only question I care about, is, does it help defeat Trump to replace Biden on the ticket?

The answer is not yet clear.

Whatever you think about Joe Biden, somehow he has managed to maintain a strong economy, improve upon a bunch of problems in the country, repair relationships with allies that were destroyed, relationships under Trump. Why would you vote Trump based on a bad debate performance by the guy who has fixed many of the things Trump broke? Additionally, it hasn't been discussed because Biden's performance has been understandably front and center. But Trump's performance at the debate was a disaster. And this is an interesting, you know, I did borderline panic after Thursday's debate. Swing voters who were holding devices where they would go, I like what I'm hearing. I don't like what I'm hearing. Those swing voters showed that Trump's favorability plummeted in the debate every single time he opened his mouth. And so a lot has been made rightly about Biden's disastrous performance.

But it has gone less discussed that Trump's performance turned voters off significantly. Now, in addition, imagine Biden does drop out. There won't be another primary, which means that the Democratic Party insiders will decide who is the nominee instead of the voters. I don't know if that's a winning strategy. I don't know whether voters who are sort of like, yeah, Biden's performance wasn't good, but Trump I really hate, and we really need someone who at least has shown that the country is stable under their leadership. All of a sudden, democratic party insiders pick a new candidate. Does that turn off some democratic voters? I don't know. I, I'm not doing this rhetorically. I don't know. Now, one other thought I have on step aside, and maybe Biden will, maybe he will not.

Calls for Trump to step aside. Make just as much sense. The rapist, convicted felon, should step aside and allow the republican party to nominate a more normal candidate.

That's just as legitimate as Biden. Step aside. The difference is it doesn't seem that MAGa, which controls the Republican Party, is going to have any of that. Now, we also need to discuss the polling story, which is a factor, I believe, that the only real thing that will get Biden to drop out of is sustained worsening polling since the debate, in addition to family advice for him to drop out. Now, the reporting from Sunday is that the family advice so far is to continue fighting. But we will see whether that changes and the clear consensus of just your everyday american. Because remember, I'm steeped in this stuff. You're steeped in this stuff by virtue of the fact that you listen to this show, that you watch this channel on YouTube. We follow this stuff in a way that the average voter does not.

The average voter seems to have come away with the impression that both candidates were bad, but for different reasons. And it's not clear that the debate swayed a significant number of them either way, particularly in the swing states that the election is likely to come down to. So I can really see both sides here. Ultimately, I have zero influence over whether Joe Biden steps aside or not. I'm going to do what I can to prevent a Trump presidency. The numbers so far don't make an awesome case that someone could step in and do better than Biden. And at the same time, the performance was very bad. And it's not a crazy thing to say that maybe there is someone who is more functionally ready to do this. Although the fact that the country has been so much better off under Biden than under Trump does certainly undercut that fear. So that's where we are right now. That's where my thoughts are now in the rest of the show.

We will get into some of the actual polling reaction. We will get into Biden's public reaction to the debate. We will get into Trump's public reaction. We will get into what right wing media is saying. We're going to go to all elements of this. And first, let's go to Joe Biden's reaction to his own poor debate performance.

The day after President Biden's not good debate performance, he did a rally in North Carolina where he owned up to the debate performance.

Now, these are true Biden loyalists in the crowd.

There was no problem filling the crowd with Biden loyalists, and they certainly seemed excited about the possibility of choosing Biden over Trump. Now, I don't really vote for candidates based on debate performances nor how loud people are at rallies. So the thing I'm interested in, in this video I'm going to play for you is Biden just owning up to it was bad. It was not good.

Joe Biden
Close to this.

I know I'm not a young man.

Well, I know I don't, folks, I don't walk as easy as I used to. I don't speak as smoothly as I used to. I don't debate as well as I used to.

But I know what I do know.

I know how to tell the truth.

I know, I know. I know right's are wrong and I know how to do this job.

I know how to get things done.

And I know, like millions of Americans know when you get knocked down, you get back up.

David Pakman
So listen, this is as, this is the best possible lemonade you could make from the very sour lemons that were given to or given by President Biden on Thursday night. There's a couple realities here.

This was a much better speech than Biden's performance at the debate. You'll notice it says that it was 01:32 p.m. when Biden did this. We have new reporting from axios that Biden is perfectly functional between 10:00 a.m. and 04:00 p.m. and that outside of that time, there are problems. We will get to that reporting later. What I can tell you is I don't vote for candidates to debate.

I vote for them to be president.

And if you hadn't watched that debate, and I showed you a transcript of it, which didn't include the bumbling and the stalling and the losing of his reign of thought, but it just contained the words you would have seen a Joe Biden who mostly told the truth, accurately representing his records president, and a Trump who lied through his teeth, sometimes six times in a single minute. And if I showed you the economic metrics from right now and said whoever's president with these metrics, you think they're doing an ok job, most people would say, yeah, they are. So the best Biden can do right now is own up to the performance, which he has done. He's tying getting back from the debate to the kind of resilience that he's shown in his personal life. And this is sort of the best that he can do. So I don't know what is going to happen over the next couple of weeks as there are conflicting pressures and increasingly conflict between Biden and some of his closest advisors on what he should be doing, and family is involved in that, and there's a whole mess that's going on.

I don't know ultimately what should happen, but I will work to prevent Donald Trump from being president. Work to prevent Trump from implementing Project 2025. Which as a reminder, we have a free white paper on Project 2025. It's completely free. If you want to understand what Project 2025 is and why it's so critical to prevent Trump from winning such that he's able to implement it, go to davidpakman.com.

project 2025. Uh, 15,000 people have downloaded this twelve page white paper already, completely free. I don't know where we will be a month from now. I'm completely upfront and honest with you in saying that. But as far as what Biden is doing publicly facing, given the lemons, I think this is the best possible lemonade he could be making out of it. Let me know what you think info at david pakman.com so I have a friend, I'm not going to say who has a cat. I'd go over to his house and the cat's food would stink. Let's be honest. I would sometimes feed it a couple of times and I would just dread it because of the smell of the food. If you're still feeding your cat that low quality stuff, check out our sponsor, Smalls. Smalls cat food has protein packed recipes made only with preservative free human grade ingredients that you'd find in your fridge. That's why veterinarians.org rates smalls tend ten out of ten for ingredient quality, and it is delivered right to your door. My friend told me their cat like smalls way more than the old cat food. I can confirm. It smells way better. Smells like something humans would eat. And that's really the point. Other cat food brands put their wallets first.

They fill their quote unquote food with mysterious meat by products and artificial flavoring and colors and preservatives. Feed your cat the human grade food they deserve. Head to smalls.com pacman and use the code Pacman at checkout for 50% off your first order and free shipping. That's smash.com pacman for 50% off and free shipping. When you use code Pacman, the info is in the podcast notes.

Stop letting governments and corporations control what you can access online. Use private Internet access a VPN which changes 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 nothing. 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 02:03 a month, plus four extra months for free.

Go to pia vpn.com. david the link is in the podcast notes the David Pakman show is primarily made possible by our audience through something called the membership program. You can sign up at join pacman.com. you'll get the full David Pakman show experience, no commercials every day, as well as our bonus show and so many other great member perks. I've said this before. I estimate that about one half of 1% of our audience supports us directly. Okay, that's 0.5%. It's probably even lower if you include all of our platforms, but conservatively, we're talking about 0.5%. If we could grow our direct support from half of 1% to 1% to one out of 100 people supporting us directly through membership, we are completely insulated from the ups and downs of the algorithmic platforms that sometimes give and sometimes they taketh away, as we have seen many, many times. So consider signing up@joinpak.com and you can use the discount code save democracy 24 to get a discount. All right, let's now go through a number of the different cases that can be made, whether we look at fundraising or polling or whatever else about what happens now in this presidential race. First and foremost, the Biden campaign has seen record fundraising after the Trump debate. Now, I don't bring this to you to present some blindly utopian situation about what's going on in this presidential race. You all know I called it a disaster.

A million and a half people almost saw my immediate reaction after the debate. But I am also here to tell you the truth. And the truth is that we, as people who follow this stuff very closely, maybe saw the debate differently than some Democrats who, after the debate said, I'm going to donate many for the first time now, it could have been less about Biden's performance and more about seeing Trump and being reminded, wait a second, we're doing this again. A lie a minute, more like a lie every 10 seconds from Trump.

I don't want that. Now I see what we're dealing with. We're dealing with Biden, who is struggling, and a Trump who is still the horrible, authoritarian, narcissistic guy that he always was. And so I'm going to donate. So report from CNBC. Biden campaign fundraises $27 million after first debate. That was from the end of the debate through Friday evening. In addition, subsequent numbers, newer numbers from yesterday. Biden campaign raises more than $33 million since the debate with Donald Trump. Now, I hate money in politics, so why am I even talking about this? I'm talking about it because for as long as we have money in politics, raising money is a proxy to enthusiasm. If you had a candidate who said, I did a debate and no one donated to me, and you have a candidate who says, I did a debate and I had record fundraising, it's logical to presume that the candidate who received all the donations after the debate has some enthusiasm behind them. Here's Stuart Varney on Fox News acknowledging the fundraising. New fundraising numbers just in from the Biden campaign. They raised $14 million on debate day and the morning after. They say the hour right after the debate was their single best hour of fundraising since they launched the campaign last year. So that is very, very interesting information to have. The other aspect to this that I do think is important is that recall that for a year and a half now, a year and a half now, every time there is some major news story related to Donald Trump, Trump MAga and his campaign claim this is doing wonders for our fundraising.

They claim the indictments were great for Trump. They claim the conviction was great for Trump. They claimed that being found to be a civilly liable rapist was great for Trump. But then when the actual FEC fundraising data comes out, Biden's raised 50% more than Trump. In some periods, Biden raised double Trump, 100% more than Trump.

On the other hand, Biden has this debate gone wrong and there's record fundraising now. They can claim anything they want. We will confirm whether that's the case once we get the June FEC data. But let's assume for a moment that the Biden campaign is telling the truth about fundraising because they typically have in the past. If indeed we are going to judge how the campaign is going by the fundraising. It's hard to argue that with record fundraising, the debate is completely derailing Biden's campaign. So on the fundraising numbers, that's where we are on polling numbers. We will get to it in a moment. But I do want to talk about a very disturbing new report from axios. All right, listen, there are some people in my audience who aren't going to like that I am reporting on this story, but I would be doing something wrong if I didn't.

There is a new report from axios who we have cited for years and years and tend to be reliable when it comes to these sorts of stories that finally says we kind of do have whistleblowers from within the Biden administration.

And they say Biden's own functional from ten to 04:10 a.m. to 04:00 p.m. now one of the things I have previously told you is that on the Trump side, we have endless voices from inside Trump world who have said, he's unhinged, his brain's not working right, he's an authoritarian lunatic, he's horrible. He doesn't know what's going on. And up until now, we had no sourcing from the Biden side that any of the things that MAGA is saying on tv are true.

That has now changed. And I would be doing something deceptive if I didn't tell you that. So let me tell you what the allegation is. Alex Thompson for Axios has an article called two Joe Biden's the Night America saw the other one. And there is a critical aspect to this that I point you to. The article acknowledges there was this really terrible performance at the debate where Biden could barely express himself. And then the next day, Biden eased some of the concerns with a very boisterous cheering campaign rally and a teleprompter, of course.

And here is the sort of real claim that is interesting here. Biden's miscues and limitations are more familiar inside the White House. The time of day is important as to which of the two Biden's will appear.

From 10:00 a.m. to 04:00 p.m. biden is dependably engaged, and many of his public events in front of cameras are held within those hours. Outside of that time range or while traveling abroad, Biden is more likely to have verbal miscues and become fatigued, aides told axios. Thursday's debate began at 09:00 p.m. eastern. So we now have sourcing from inside the White House.

Biden does fine from ten to four, but outside of that, it's a different story.

I've relayed this information to you when it comes to Trump and mental health professionals who say the nighttime events tend to go much more poorly for Donald Trump. And I likewise am taking what is considered to be a good, well sourced organization, axios, and telling you that they are saying this about President Joe Biden. Now, do I tell you this to suggest we stay home or we vote for Trump? Of course not. Of course not. Even only functioning well from ten to four.

The economy is doing well. We've repaired relationships with allies all over the world. We've had record student loan, debt forgiveness, infrastructure bill, a big pharma negotiation. I'm not going to give you the full list. The point here is it doesn't really change anything about how well the country's functioning. But we now have very specific reporting that says there is a concerted effort within the White House to keep Biden's public events between ten and four. You will notice that for the most part, that is when his public events are, and we now have to do what that what we will, and I don't know exactly what that is. Ultimately, it's going to be up to Joe Biden, in consultation with his family and advisers, who he has an increasingly strained relationship with, according to some reports.

The next question becomes, what are the voters saying about this? And that's where I want to go next. New polling says 72% of voters say Biden must go.

Biden must go.

How have these numbers changed? Well, let's discuss that.

Increasing numbers of voters don't think Biden should be running after debate with Trump, according to a CB's news poll.

The data is as follows on the question, but does Biden have the mental and cognitive health to serve as president?

Among registered voters in a June early June, 35% said Biden is fine to serve.

That number has declined to 27%. That's a decline of about 20%.

And the percentage of registered voters who say Biden does not have the mental and cognitive health to serve, that has gone up from 65% to 72%. That is the wrong direction. Now, I think it's also important to consider that the numbers aren't so hot for Trump either.

The number that believes that Trump does not have the capacity to serve is basically at 50%. So I don't know whether we call it hilarious, or whether we call it sad or whether we call it tragic, but we have both candidates with between 50 and 72% of the population saying they are unfit to serve. But I want to get to a much more important question, which is not in the polling, which is, given your view of the two candidates, who will you vote for? Because I was getting texts all weekend from friends who were saying Biden is not fit to serve, but obviously if he's the nominee, I'll vote for him, because Trump is also completely unfit to serve in other ways or in the same way, or whatever the case may be. So is this a good poll? Obviously not. Are there going to be people who say, based on this alone, Biden must be pushed out? Absolutely. Are they right? I don't know.

I genuinely don't know. Because the chaos of replacing Biden may also make it impossible to defeat Donald Trump in November. But it's a critical question to say, even if you think Biden is unfit, and understand that when you look at these numbers, there are a lot of people in this polling that believe both candidates are not fit to serve and they are going to vote. A huge swath of the country believes neither Trump nor Biden is fit to serve, and they're going to vote for someone and they're probably not voting third party. So the logical follow up is, given that you don't think Biden is fit to serve, or you don't think Trump is fit to serve, or you don't think either is fit to serve, who will you vote for? And many people are still planning to vote for one of these two candidates. So to me, this is less. It's less obvious what the case is here in terms of what should happen, but it is something we are going to continue following. As a reminder, going into the debate, the real clear politics polling average was Trump plus 1.5%.

Maybe tomorrow, maybe by Wednesday, we will have new polling on exactly that. We will see how the numbers have shifted.

So many of us are busy, we may not always have time to nutritionally plan out every meal and make sure we're getting the exact amount of this mineral or that vitamin. And that's why I like ag one, our sponsor. Ag one is the daily scoop you mix into water or your smoothie to get 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, probiotics and nutrients from only whole food sources. Just a single scoop covers me nutritionally for the whole day. Ag one is just simpler and faster and more cost effective, by the way, than fumbling with a dozen different vitamin pills and products. Ag one can support all sorts of different functions, and it promotes diversity in your microbiome. In a research study, ag one was shown to even double the healthy bacteria in your gut. Staying healthy is just about habits that are sustainable. They have to be sustainable, which is why I've been using ag one in the morning for years now. It's just easy to stick to start your own journey with ag one, try ag one and get a free one year supply of vitamin D. Three k two plus five free ag one travel packs with your first subscription. Order at drinkag one.com pacman. That's drink ag, the number one.com pacman. The link is in the podcast notes Magic Spoon has been sponsoring the David Pakman show for years now because my audience just can't get enough. And here's why. Magic Spoon has reinvented our favorite childhood cereals to taste great, but with 0 gram of sugar, 14 grams of protein, and only four net carbs, it's a high protein, keto friendly way to relive those Saturday mornings with your favorite cartoons.

But with only 140 calories a serving and without all the sugar. My favorite flavor is maple waffle. I grew up in New England. Okay, but it also comes in familiar flavors like cocoa, fruity, frosted. You can also check out magic spoon treats, which are sort of like the marshmallow treats you had as a kid. But only 1 gram of sugar, one to two net carbs and packed with 12 grams of protein, magic spoon treats are the perfect on the go snack. They come in four great flavors, marshmallow, chocolatey peanut butter, blueberry muffin and double chocolate. Go to magic spoon.com Pacman to try magic spoon cereal and treats for yourself. Get $5 off with the code Pacman. The link is down below.

We had Luke Beasley on the ground in Atlanta last week at the presidential debate, and he got some amazing interviews with some of the most suck up y of the Trump suck ups, and none of them liked the lines of questioning that they got from Luke. And I'll be honest, Luke made a lot of these guys, including Vivek Ramaswami, which I will play for you here. He made them look really stupid. Really, really stupid. And we're going to start with the fake Ramaswami conversation, and then we will get to others and different Trump suckups reacting to Luke in different ways let's start with Vivek Ramaswamye.

Donald Trump
One of the attacks against Trump is commonly he wouldn't uphold the constitution. What's your response to that?

David Pakman
My response to that is that's a lot of projection from the people who are making the accusations, the reality is he did not call for the termination.

Donald Trump
A massive fraud.

David Pakman
So now Luke has the truth from Trump memorized, and he starts reading it to Vivek. Vivek doesn't care. He doesn't want to hear it.

Donald Trump
Termination. He didn't rule.

David Pakman
His regulations articles cite for me one time where Donald Trump called for the termination of the constitution.

Donald Trump
I'm reading it to you right now.

David Pakman
Called for the termination.

Here's what I believe. I'm going to answer this question before I go to the next Vivek sets up. I'm going to go to the next interview. He doesn't even let Luke fully get the quote out. This is how they do it. Luke has the quote. Trump did call and justify the termination of the Constitution, and Vivek just talks over it. That's how he gets out of actually having to contend with the math. The matter? Well, what I do believe is there's the projection of the people who do call for determination of the constitution and their behaviors want to take the decisions away from the voters. And never in american history have we seen the wielding of prosecutorial power to try to eliminate a candidate in the middle of an election while you had extrajudicial means of removing them in the ballot. I do want to start with, all right.

And then Luke is just kind of like, oh, boy. Well, that's, that's pretty interesting stuff. So really nice job. Luke had the quote. Trump did call for it. Vivek won't engage with it. He'll say, well, there's other people who really want to terminate the constitution and this other thing. And what else can I talk about then? Elise Stefanik, bomb throwing MAGA congresswoman, and Luke got her as well. This is really good stuff. Take a listen.

Donald Trump
If you became Trump's vice president, obviously, one of the things that has been pointed out, I think, on the debate stage is that Trump tried to get Pence to not certify the election results. Is that something that you agree with or don't agree when it comes to.

Elise Stefanik
Penn's decision up for the Constitution? I had concerns, and I believe that there was unconstitutional overreach in the 2020 election, as the majority of Americans agree with.

Donald Trump
Aren't courts supposed to determine that?

Elise Stefanik
It goes to the state legislatures. And in the state of Pennsylvania, they circumvented the state legislature.

Donald Trump
In terms of the constitutionality. The courts disagree with you.

Joe Biden
Right.

Elise Stefanik
Let me answer your question. 2020 people understand that this election was unconstitutional, and they understand that the attacks on democracy are by democrats who are illegally weaponizing the Department of Justice, the radical district attorney's office, who are, that's a form of.

Donald Trump
So no evidence of that. But you, it sounds like you are saying that you would go along with an anti democratic attempt to block the peaceful transfer.

David Pakman
Of course you would. That's, that's the, that's why she just wants to rattle off this verbal diarrhea.

Elise Stefanik
Before, is I disagree with Mike Pence's approach. I stood on the House floor and I stood up for the Constitution and election integrity. I stand by that position. And the american people, that's one of the reasons why they support Donald Trump, because he supports the Constitution.

Donald Trump
Speaker one.

David Pakman
Speaker one. And off she goes without even saying, thank you so much for speaking to me.

They're all not at all happy with Luke Beasley being there. And then this may be my favorite. Luke then spoke to Byron Donald's and this, I love this.

Byron Donald's didn't even have the testicular fortitude to confirm Luke's credentials. As soon as he didn't like the line of questioning, some aid off screen to Byron Donald's asks Luke if he's actually even supposed to be there, which is like, what? When you're trying to look at whether the person asking you the questions has the right slip of paper, which, by the way, Luke did, because I had the, I was invited to go to the debate and we were all set up here for a stream, and it was too last minute for me. So I had my credential given to Luke. Of course he's there with credentials. There were multiple layers of security.

And Luke, I like, goes, hey, you know, Byron can ask me if he has a question about my credentials. So take a look.

Donald Trump
One of the questions that I didn't hear an answer that was super clear from Trump on is so many people, dozens of people who left his administration very different than Biden's administration have said, this guy's not fit to be president. Yeah, it's right here. He can do it.

David Pakman
So I don't know. So I don't know how many of you caught that.

An aide to Byron Donnell off screen asks, like, do you even have a credential? And Luke says, yeah, it's right here. He can do it. Right. If Byron Donald has a question as to whether Luke's supposed to be there, let Byron ask him about it. Okay, I'll move it back a few seconds so everybody can get that.

Donald Trump
Again, have said, this guy's not fit to be president. Yeah, it's right here. You can do it.

So how do you explain that so many people in the room for the most important decision, saying, this guy can be anywhere close to the White House.

Byron Donalds
Well, first of all, let's say this. When you fire people, whether it's an administration or even out of a company, and I've noticed this in politics, political people don't think they should ever be fired, even when they're doing a bad job. A lot of times, which frustrates the american people, is political people fail and then they get promoted. And that's frankly what pisses a lot of people off. So if Donald Trump looked at people who were working for him early on and got rid of them and they have an axe to grind, I can't be concerned about, like, pens or all those people, or am I going, I.

Donald Trump
Give you a good amount. I'm going to answer.

Byron Donalds
Let me answer. Let me answer. Let me get to this.

David Pakman
He wants to, you know, the reason they do this.

He wants to run out the clock, give a single filibustering answer that's long enough that then he can go, listen, I got to move on because I've spent a lot of time with you, rather than allowing Luke follow ups, of which there would be endless follow ups, because Byron Donald's is just being deceptive with every single word here. It's a strategy they use. Some of them use it better than others. Right? I mean, he's working to prevent Luke from getting another question.

Donald Trump
Now, will you answer the question, though?

Byron Donalds
You ready? Here we go. Now.

Alejandro Mayorkas is a failure. Our border is wide open. Tony Blinken is a failure. Israel is embroiled in war. Ukraine is embroiled in war. We, Pete Buttigieg, this dude took off for a month. Nobody even knew he was gone.

Donald Trump
Don't talk about Trump's administration officials.

Byron Donalds
Are you talking or am I talking?

Donald Trump
Taking a long route to it, bro.

Byron Donalds
I know on your side, Mike Pence.

Donald Trump
Let's go with just Mike Pence.

Byron Donalds
I know you guys will just use talking points, but when you get.

David Pakman
The funny thing is Luke asked the question. There's no, the talking points are Luke asks Byron Donald's a question about the Trump administration, and Byron Donald spends 70 seconds talking about Pete Buttigieg and Alejandro Mayorkas, which has nothing to do with the question. And then Byron has the audacity to go, you guys just use talking points. He's not even addressing even remotely the.

Byron Donalds
Substance of the question, the educated answer, be patient and let me give it to you.

Donald Trump
I want to hear Mike Pence, other administration officials, then I'm ready?

Byron Donalds
You go over there, and then when you ready to have a conversation, come see me.

Donald Trump
I'm ready.

David Pakman
I mean, there you go. So Byron Donald's walking away when you don't allow them. And the truth is, this happens if, when we have a member of Congress on here and they start their filibustering, if I just interrupt the way Luke beautifully did here every time and go. You're not answering the question. Wait, but what about what I asked? What about what I asked? They just end the interview. And that's exactly what Byron Donald's is doing here by walking away. Really, really nice job by Luke. And then Luke also spoke to democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. He brought up the whole kerfuffle with Marjorie Taylor Greene. And let me play a little bit of that for you. It's also very, very interesting.

Donald Trump
Absolutely. Just quick question. I'll get screamed at by my audience. So I don't ask about Marjorie Taylor Green, but I won't give you a general basic question. Instead, I want you to explain to my viewers, what do you think? Because I think it's a lot Marge Taylor Green represents about the current state of the republican party, about this MAGA contingent.

Jasmine Crockett
Yeah. So here's the deal. We only have one her because, I mean, it's just hard to be that bad, to be perfectly honest.

But we do know that she emulates Trump. She's like a baby Trump. Right? She doesn't have policy ideas. She doesn't do anything but cause distractions. She doesn't do anything but name call and pick. And that's not what it is to be an elected official. That's what it is to be an ugly bully. And that's exactly what she is. And so if we don't think that it's okay for her and her ratings around this country, her favorability, she's the lowest of all the Republicans, according to our numbers. So if you don't like it when Marjorie does it, you shouldn't like it when Donald does it either, because that's where she's getting her cues from a little bit more frequently than the everyday citizen. They get to see the strong, competent, compassion person that he is. And I think that that's what made everyone fall in love with him before. And so this is an opportunity for them to all fall in love with him again, because we know that there's only one person that can talk policy. There's only one person that has.

David Pakman
All right, so making the case there for Biden after what that point was, a disorientingly poor performance from President Biden. So really nice job there by Luke. You can check out Luke's channel at david pakman.com luke. And we got to get Luke in more of these situations because it was very, very solid stuff. All right. One of the side stories to the terrible Biden debate performance was that Trump's terrible debate performance didn't really get that much attention. And I am genuinely thrilled to see that the Trump brain story is now completely mainstream. It was not being covered extensively for a very long time, although we were covering it over the last month, we have seen more and more corporate media outlets start to talk about, hey, there, kind of maybe something wrong with Trump's brain.

And now, as the narrative may be, in addition to whatever happened to Joe Biden on Thursday, and fortunately, there are some media outlets that are actually talking about this. A few examples, CNN interviewing Nancy Pelosi, who said some health experts think Trump has dementia. Some of them have been on this program. We'll get to that interview in a moment. In the Pennsylvania Capitol Star, a commentary from Susan Demas, who said after the debate, it's clear Trump should drop out of the race. And it makes the case that Trump's brain truly is not functioning well at all. The Daily Beast with an article. Trump's mental acuity has declined noticeably in the last four years. That's, I'll say. And an article in common Dreams by Robert Reich, more unhinged and delusional than ever. Trump's mental state should be front page news. The growing evidence of Trump's dementia and paranoia poses a potential danger to the future of America. Absolutely. The case here is Nancy Pelosi on CNN making this very same case.

Nancy Pelosi
This is an opportunity for Joe Biden to go out there and show he has the stamina and the rest. And by the way, while the press, and for some reason they don't, there are healthcare professionals who think that Trump has dementia, that his connection, his thoughts do not go together. And, you know, while he may be saying we're enablers, we see Joe Biden, of course, we know how attuned he is to the issues, how informed he is. And I debate with him about legislation and not debate, but discuss it with him. He's right there. So in any case, it was a bad night. Let's not sugarcoat that it was a bad night. It was a great presidency.

David Pakman
Yeah. So I think that, as we all now know, the case that she makes there about Biden is probably a little overboard based on what we saw, but she's completely correct that it's been a good presidency, but more importantly, people are wising up to what's going on here with, with Donald Trump. And the question now in the next several weeks is, does it, does it make it into the discourse in the context of whatever it is Joe Biden ultimately is going to do? So, as we start to kind of wrap it, least for today, the story about Joe Biden here, with regard to what's going to happen, I kind of am ending, the show's not ending now, to be clear, but we're going to talk about other things. I am ending up close to where I started, which is the performance was very bad. Minimizing that I don't think helps anybody. It is also true that if you look at a transcript of the debate, it's a very different picture where Biden was the only one mostly connected to reality. Biden did say some things that weren't true, but Biden was the only one mostly connected to reality with regard to the facts of the last eight years, which roughly were the time period that came up during the debate where Trump was completely disconnected and unhinged. And that's not something that should be forgotten either. So I don't know what the path forward is. The concern and the priority is what helps us defeat Trump. And some early polling shows that if you swap Biden with x, x being Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, others, they don't do terribly, but they do slightly less well than Biden in polls that have it 46 45, Trump over Biden.

You put in Harris, it's 46 44 with one more point undecided, or you put in Newsom and it's 45 43.

The idea of the replacement of Biden as a panacea is a question mark. I'm completely agnostic. The point is we've got to prevent Trump from getting four more years. So let's take a break, then we'll see what Trump got up to over the weekend and so much more.

I love my Helix sleep mattress. I've been sleeping on helix mattresses for years now, which is why I asked them to be a sponsor. You actually take their famous sleep quiz. Takes just a few minutes to answer questions about your sleep preferences, body type, sleep position, whether you have back pain, and Helix will match you with a mattress that's perfect for you, which is really unique and helpful because a lot of people don't know where to start when buying a mattress. I certainly didn't. Their newest collection of mattresses, called helix Elite, come with a built in glacier text layer to keep you cool at night, an extra layer of foam for pressure relief, and thousands of extra micro coils for best in class support and durability. All of their mattresses ship right to your door, totally free. They come with a ten or 15 year warranty, and you get 100 nights to decide if you like it. My audience also gets a whopping 20% off all orders, plus two free pillows. Go to helix sleep.com Pacman and enter code Helix partner 20 at checkout. That's helix sleep.com pacman. Then use code Helix partner 20 to get 20% off and two free pillows. The info is in the podcast notes one of our sponsors is Zipix nicotine toothpicks. Don't you think it's time you stopped putting smoke and vape oils in your lungs? Zipix toothpicks are a convenient way to curb the nicotine cravings. Zipix toothpicks are super discreet. You can use them anytime, anywhere. Smoking and vaping aren't allowed, including flights, sporting events in restaurants.

They're available in six different flavors with options of two and three milligrams of nicotine. If you're not a nicotine user, Zipix also offers caffeine and b twelve infused toothpicks. Zipix has already helped tens of thousands of customers ditch the cigarettes. Ditch the vapes. They might be able to help you too. If you're a smoker or a vapor, give Zipix toothpicks a try. Your lungs will thank you. Go to zipixtoothpix.com today. Save 10% with the code Pacman ten at checkout. Just remember, you must be 21 or older to order. That's zippixtoothpix.com. use promo code Pacman ten at checkout for 10% off. That's Pacman ten. The info is in the podcast notes for his part, after the debate, Donald Trump is not slowing down the rallies, and they're not going any better. Trump speaking to empty chairs and slurring throughout an entire rally in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Very, very light turnout, as you can see in this image.

Empty chairs absolutely everywhere, and Donald Trump slurring his way through the speech, attempting to say landslide.

Joe Biden
We want to landslide. That's, and remember this term too big to rig, right?

David Pakman
We absolutely need to have a land schlade. As many of you know, Donald Trump has been referring to Joe Biden as Joe Bride at the Chesapeake, Virginia rally. It was Bryden.

Joe Biden
He had a news conference today because.

David Pakman
Bride news is, yeah, Briden. Briden. And then, more substantively, Trump going back to his confused rants about electric vehicles, planes, tanks, and apparently no knowledge at all of batteries. Take a listen to this.

Joe Biden
These guys, you'll never get them done. You'll never get them done. They don't have any. All they know is electric. They want electric army tanks, they want electric planes.

What happens if the sun isn't shining while you're up in the air?

Well, sir, those, you know, I told you there'd be problems, sir.

No, they want electric everything. They want electric boats. The problem, the boats, they don't float because the battery is so heavy it sinks the boat. They say, we don't care, we want them anyway.

David Pakman
Really, really genius insights, of course, on technology, as you can see. And, you know, for all the concern about Biden's brain, Trump doesn't even seem to understand electricity and batteries. Then getting to global warming as a topic, and Trump's saying global warming is nothing other than very nice warm days.

Joe Biden
That's your threat. And we don't even talk about it. We never even met. Can you imagine this guy saying, global warming is the greatest threat to our country? Global warming is fine. In fact, I heard it was going to be very warm today. It's fine, it's fine.

David Pakman
It's a warm day. That's all it is when we talk about global warming. And of course, this is appealing to the lowest common denominator. It's always important to remember that when these questions about global warming come up, just because you acknowledge climate change and that human activities on earth are having some impact on that, it doesn't presuppose or guarantee a particular solution.

Not necessarily, anyway. It would be, let's start with what the facts are, and then from there we can figure out what the solution is. But these people are so scared of whatever caricature they've been told they will be subjected to, if they even acknowledge human activities as having a role in climate change. I don't know if they think their suv's will be taken away. At one point it was gas stoves, at another point it was they weren't going to be able to have a burger anymore. Whatever it is, if they start from a place of everything I like, will be taken away if I acknowledge this is a real thing. That's how you get to appealing to the absolute lowest common denominator the way Trump is there. Trump rehashing the probable lie that he won't give any money to schools with vaccine mandates.

Joe Biden
Speaker one and I will not give one penny to any school that has.

David Pakman
A vaccine mandate or a, now, unfortunately for public schools across the entire country, if Trump is serious, which he probably is, but doesn't even know how things work, every public school has a vaccine mandate, but it's just not the COVID vaccine mandate. As I've said before, to go to any public school, there is a list of vaccines that you need to have. You're not forced to get the vaccines. It's just if you want to avail yourself of the public school, which is free, out of pocket, obviously, it's paid for through property taxes and other taxes. If you want to avail yourself of the free schooling, then there are certain requirements you have to meet. Some of them are behavioral. You can't behave in a certain way and stay in a public school. And there are also medical requirements. So I guess Trump plans to take away funding from every single public school, which as crazy as it sounds, these right wingers hate public school. So they probably would do that if given the opportunity. Trump also during this rally, surfacing the term black jobs, which was a new term to a lot of people, they're.

Joe Biden
Taking their jobs and they're taking the black jobs. People that have had their jobs.

David Pakman
Speaker one right. They are taking black jobs. They're just straight up taking them from people.

This is a guy, you know, if you want to make the case that Biden should drop out, I'm willing to listen. As I said at the beginning of the show, maybe he should, maybe he shouldn't. I don't know what actually sets up the Democratic Party to defeat Trump. Some polling I've seen suggests one thing. Other polling I've seen suggests something different. You know, the case to be made that it is Trump who should drop out, making no sense at any rally, not understanding any concept, being a convicted felon, being a civilly liable rapist, having absolutely no real understanding of what the democratic institutions of this country are mean and were intended to do, you can make a very good case that it is Trump who should drop out. And I apologize for the other aspect of Trump that, interestingly, not a lot of Trump coverage today. There's one other thing regarding Trump that I must cover, and I apologize in advance, but hundreds of you wrote in saying, David, please weigh in on this. Let's talk about that next. There are longstanding allegations of Trump's fecal incontinence. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. It's the story.

And there is a very strange bit of audio and video from the debate last week, during which some are claiming Trump soiled himself not only is there, you know, we have the benefit of knowing that during the debate the opponent's microphone was off when it wasn't their turn to speak. So I'm going to play for you. Trump speaking. Remember, Biden's mic is off and you see Trump pause and briefly strain.

And it does sound very, very strange.

Now, whether it's fecal or flatulent, I would not know for sure. We may need to bring on a gastroenterologist or a proctologist to tell us. But Trump does brace, pause briefly and you hear something that sounds like liquid. I let's take a listen. This, I can't believe this.

Joe Biden
He never took them away. Can't because it's too much money. It's tremendous. And we saved our steel industries.

David Pakman
Ok, listen carefully. Trump pauses and sort of braces and then it happens.

Joe Biden
He can't because it's too much money. It's tremendous. And we saved our steel industries and he never took him away. He can't because it's too much money. It's tremendous.

David Pakman
Listen, that is something Trump either farted or soiled himself during the debate. I'm so sorry that this is where we are. I am not a professional weighing in on this. I'm like everybody else trying to figure out the world around me. I certainly cannot say with certitude that Trump soiled himself during the debate, although, as many of you may recall, comedian Noel Casler is on record as saying Trump regularly would soil himself during filming of the Apprentice.

I don't know what to make of it, but that is definitely something happening in Trump's pants.

Joe Biden
He never took them away. He can't because it's too much money. It's tremendous. And we saved our steel industries and he never took them away. He can't because it's too much money. It's tremendous.

David Pakman
Make of it what you will. I don't know what it is. Let me know your thoughts info at David Pakman.com there has been an outpouring of voicemails and messages from you about what should happen now.

Now, because this is a shortened holiday week, there will be an opportunity for you to call in this week and talk to me. We've been phasing out live calls as a regular feature of the Friday show, but because it's a special shortened holiday week, on the Wednesday show, we will be providing an opportunity for people to call in and weigh in on whatever they want. We will probably take those calls sometime Tuesday afternoon, so keep an eye on the discord or the Twitter for that but at least as far as the voicemails are concerned. 2192 David P. Many, many calls about the debate. Let's listen to one speaker, one bait performance by Joe Biden. Oh, sorry. Let's start it at the actual beginning here with regards to the disastrous debate performance by Joe Biden. Now, every Republican knows how I feel every time that I watch Donald Trump speak while he was president.

The complete zero confidence, unsettledness from all the lies being told.

I'll stick with the guy with dementia, with, surrounded by competent people over the complete lying, insane, pathological, chaotic mess that will ensue with another Trump presidency, with the liars that he surrounds himself with. Yeah, so listen, the point that the caller is making and, and sort of making not exactly at the speed of light, is that if we have two candidates with brain problems here, for lack of a better term, then I'm voting for the people around Biden rather than the people around Trump. The people around Trump are absolute lunatic, criminal, borderline criminal, in some cases, sycophants and authoritarians. The people around Biden have been doing a pretty good job, and it really is that simple for a lot of people that I heard from in different ways. Here's one more.

H
Hey, David, I just wanted to share some thoughts about after Biden's performance at the debate and all that stuff.

I think after seeing Biden like that, it would be very, very reassuring if we were all just grown ups about it and they had him get a checkup from a doctor, you know, do the cognitive test, whatever that Trump likes to brag about, present it to the american people.

If there is a problem, let's be grown ups. And we realize that, yes, of course, he would need to be replaced at that time. We could make some decisions. But I know you were talking about Gavin Newsom, but one name I would really like to throw out there is Eric Swalwell.

David Pakman
All right, so listen, I think Eric Swalwell is interesting. I think Evan Newsom is interesting, et cetera. As far as the cognitive tests, I'm still where I was at the very beginning of this. Give real cognitive tests, not that wacky thing that was given to Trump, to every single candidate. I don't know that constitutionally it can really be mandated as a matter of law. It seems complicated, but I would be thrilled if every single candidate submitted to such a test, and then we can make whatever decisions we want to make on that basis. So no issue here at all. On the bonus show today, we are going to delve into more detail, into the specific scenarios of the Biden replacement that's being discussed. How would it actually work? Who would decide? What is the justification, given that no one will have voted for the replacement? And could that be a problem? We're going to talk about all this on the bonus show. Secondly, more destruction of the separation of church and state as Oklahoma orders schools to teach the Bible in every classroom.

This can't possibly be constitutional either, can it? Well, we will discuss. And also, I have been following very closely the first round of parliamentary elections in France, where there is a decided rightward swing and a significant blow to Emmanuel Macron. What is happening in France? Why is it happening? We will talk about it. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Don't miss it. Sign up@joinpackman.com.