Primary Topic
This episode delves into the political dynamics within the Democratic Party as they decide to rally behind President Joe Biden against Donald Trump, analyzing the broader implications of their unity and strategy.
Episode Summary
Main Takeaways
- Major Democratic figures are publicly reinforcing their support for Joe Biden as the 2024 Presidential nominee.
- There is a strategic avoidance within the Democratic Party to discuss potential replacements for Biden to maintain party unity.
- Contrast in party dynamics, where Republicans remain unwavering in their support for Trump despite numerous legal and ethical issues.
- Critical analysis of media's role in shaping public perception and political narrative.
- The episode underscores the importance of electoral strategy over individual popularity in political success.
Episode Chapters
1: Opening Remarks
David Pakman introduces the episode's focus on Democratic support for Joe Biden amid speculation about his replacement. He mentions key figures' statements reinforcing Biden's candidacy. David Pakman: "Welcome, everybody. Hope you're doing well."
2: Democratic Unity
Discussion on how Democratic leaders are supporting Biden, with specifics on Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's remarks. Bernie Sanders: "Until I hear differently, I will support him." Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race."
3: Media's Role
Analyzes the media's influence on public perception and the political narrative surrounding the presidential race. David Pakman: "This is not a show that is an arm of the democratic party."
4: Strategic Implications
Pakman discusses the strategic implications of maintaining or changing the Democratic nominee and the potential consequences for the party's success. David Pakman: "Democrats in elected office have realized what definitely hurts us is Biden saying, I'm staying in and us saying he should step down."
Actionable Advice
- Stay Informed: Regularly follow reliable news sources to understand ongoing political developments.
- Engage Politically: Participate in discussions and campaigns to support preferred candidates.
- Critical Media Consumption: Analyze media reports critically, recognizing biases and perspectives.
- Vote: Exercise the right to vote based on informed decisions.
- Promote Civic Discussion: Encourage open and respectful political discussions in your community.
About This Episode
-- On the Show:
-- Allan Lichtman, political historian, author, and professor at American University in Washington DC, joins David to discuss his "Keys to the White House," whether the June 27 presidential debate has any bearing on his model, and his prediction for the 2024 presidential election
-- Prominent Democrats, including Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Hakeem Jeffries, Gavin Newsom, and others take the definitive position that President Joe Biden is and will be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024
-- Exploring the strong argument that it is Donald Trump who should drop out of the 2024 presidential race
-- A confused, soaking wet, beet red Donald Trump delivers an unhinged rally to a sycophant crowd in Florida
-- Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss gets under the skin of a Fox News host by taking every opportunity to attack Republicans and Donald Trump
-- Joe Biden has appeared more orange in recent appearances
-- Donald Trump's national polling gain since the June 27 presidential debate appears to have flatlined, at least for now, at 1.8 percentage points
-- Stunning new polls show Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton defeating Donald Trump in hypothetical 2024 matchups
-- On the Bonus Show: Why 538's election forecast hasn't moved much post-debate, House passes Republican bills aimed at blocking dishwasher and fridge efficiency standards, Trump didn't invite Nikki Haley to the RNC, much more...
People
Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Donald Trump, David Pakman
Companies
None
Books
None
Guest Name(s):
None
Content Warnings:
None
Transcript
A
Welcome, everybody. Hope you're doing well. If you've been paying attention to the statements of prominent Democrats over the last 24 to 48 hours, it's becoming increasingly clear that prominent Democrats are rallying behind President Joe Biden as the continued presidential nominee into November. Is this a good idea? Is this a bad idea? Is Biden the best possible candidate? Is the candidate, is Biden the only reasonable candidate at this point in time? We don't have the answers to all of these questions, but what we can see is that with a few exceptions, I think it was nine out of the hundreds of Democrats in the House of Representatives, with few exceptions, Democrats in elected office after speaking to Joe Biden, after speaking to the DNC, after conferring with each other, seem to have decided at this point, for as long as President Biden says he's running for reelection, we're going to get behind him. Is that the right strategy? I don't know. We'll talk about it in a moment. Let me give you some examples. Here is Senator Bernie Sanders, who says until he hears otherwise, Biden is the nominee and Bernie is supporting Joe Biden. And you do believe that that is.
B
President Biden right now, President Biden is the democratic nominee.
A
Until I hear differently, I will support him. And I do believe that if he makes it clear that he is prepared to stand up for working people, take on powerful special interests, yeah, he will win the election. And if he does not run, would you support the vice president?
C
If he gets behind?
A
Right now, Biden is the democratic democratic nominee, period.
Senator Bernie Sanders. All right, so Senator Bernie Sanders making that point, what about Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez? And the reason, by the way, that I'm starting with Bernie and AOC is that they are, in a sense, or at least they used to be. Although now all of a sudden, some of the progressive left has turned on them, saying they sold out Bernie in the Senate and AOC in the House, have been the sort of progressive torch bearers, uh, for years now in many ways. And this is what they are saying. Of course, there are those who hear this. They say they've sold out, they've been strong armed, they've been bribed, they've been, okay, maybe they've just decided it's probably not a good idea to talk about replacements while Joe Biden is saying, I'm not going anywhere. Maybe what helps us win is just appearing to be united behind Joe Biden, whether they are or are not. And we'll talk about that in a moment. Here is AOC has spoken to the.
C
President over the weekend. I have spoken with him extensively. He made clear then, and he has made clear since, that he is in this race. The matter is closed. He had reiterated that this morning. He has reiterated that to the public. Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race, and I support him. Now, what I think is critically important right now is that we focus on what it takes to win in November, because he is running against Donald Trump, who is a man with 34 felony convictions. That has been, that has committed 34 felony crimes. And not a single Republican has asked for Donald Trump to not be the nominee.
A
And we will talk about that in a moment.
C
By the way, I'm here to win on this democracy. I'm here to win in November. And what's critically important is what the president, I believe that the president needs to do, and I have communicated what the president and the White House should do in order to make sure that we win in November. And that is making sure that we pivot and working and increasingly commit to the issues that are critically important to working people across this country. How are we going to expand Medicare? How are we going to expand Social Security?
How are we going to provide relief to people's rent and mortgages? And if we can do that and continue our work on student loans, secure a ceasefire and bring those dollars back into employment, investing in public policy, then that's how we win in November. That's what I'm committed to. And that's what I want to make.
A
Sure that we, so AOC making it clear. And then on down the line, we'll look at a couple others. Here is Hakeem Jeffries, a democratic member of the House of Representatives, speaking CNN's Manu Raju Biden staying as your democratic nominee.
B
Yes, I made clear the day after the debate publicly that I support President Joe Biden in a democratic ticket.
My position has not changed.
A
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, also congresswoman from Florida, DNC chair, at one point says that this is all about defeating Donald Trump. And it appears that it is Joe Biden who is going to be, at least theoretically in the position to do that.
C
Do you think Joe Biden is the only one that can beat Donald Trump?
I think Joe Biden will beat Donald Trump. He has beaten Donald Trump before. And Donald Trump is an existential threat that the antidote, to whom the antidote is Joe Biden.
A
All right. So Debbie Wasserman Schultz. And then lastly and critically, very interestingly, because in the immediate aftermath, I mean, during the presidential debate and in the immediate aftermath, immediately, the thoughts of many in terms of this hypothetical Biden replacement. Turning to California Governor Gavin Newsom, nauseating to some, but thrilling to others. A polarizing figure for sure. Here is Gavin Newsom asked about the post debate course correction of Biden, and he says he likes it. Governor, the best campaigns, the winning campaigns, always, right. The ship. What is your message to voters out there, regular people, not the pundits, not the talking heads, who saw President Biden in that debate and thought he was too old?
D
I think you're doing just that. They're riding the ship. You saw the rally in Wisconsin. You saw the work that he did this weekend. I just left Pennsylvania at seven stops in Philadelphia. We were in Pittsburgh. I was all over Michigan. And they're doing everything they need to do to reach out directly to voters, to meet with people where they are. A lot of calls, a lot of calls that have been leaked, for better or for worse, a lot of outreach. And I think they're doing exactly what they need to do.
A
What about those high profile Democrats, some in Congress, who are saying he does have to be replaced at the top?
D
Yeah, it's just the overwhelming majority of Democrats that are not saying that. Overwhelming majority of Democrats that are of not only saying they have his back, but are actually demonstrating that by supporting him. Being out in the campaign trail, I've seen a bunch of them over the last few days, over the weekend, over a holiday weekend. They could have dialed it in, they could have stepped back, but they stepped up and they're continuing to fight.
A
So we're, so listen, here's the bottom line. Save a few exceptions in terms of the public facing message, Democrats are saying Biden is our guy. I don't believe for a second that they all think Biden is the best candidate. And if they were choosing today, if Biden were not the incumbent, I think the vast majority would not say Biden is the guy that I would seek out. But that doesn't matter because ultimately, this is a question of how do you defeat Donald Trump? Now, I continue to get dozens, hundreds, dozens of emails and hundreds of comments overall from people that on the one hand, are furious with me, that I would even mention that there is discussion of replacing Joe Biden, that I'm hurting Biden by even mentioning that that's being discussed. This is not a show that is an arm of the democratic party.
I don't know how many times I can explain this. If you're looking for a show that will calculate what is published, because the goal is to be aligned with the DNC and the Democratic Party. That is not this show. The discussion about replacing Joe Biden went mainstream, and thus I would be doing something dishonest. And I would be, I, I would be doing a disservice to all of you if I pretended that didn't exist. And also, it would be a very strange thing to do given that this is also a media analysis show and it's a story in the media. So I'm hearing from people who say, David, even discussing the fact that summer Singh replaced Biden, you're hurting the movement. I talk about what's going on, and the discussion about replacing Biden is going on. On the other hand, I continue to hear from furious audience members who say, David, the fact that you are hemming and hawing and not saying replace Biden now is hurting the movement. You should be saying, get Biden the hell out of there right away.
Well, as I've said before, this is a show where I just tell you what I think, and what I think is that the case is quite unclear. And I don't know that yesterday's debate between Cenk Uygur and Rachel Bittocker, by the way, resolved any of that lack of clarity. But here's what does seem abundantly clear.
Democrats in elected office have realized what definitely hurts us is Biden saying, I'm staying in and us saying he should step down. That definitely hurts us. And I think that they are right about that. If the goal, if the end point is preventing Donald Trump from getting four more years, denying him the situation in which he could implement agenda 47 and project 2025, that's the important thing. It seems a bad idea is having Biden publicly saying, I'm staying in and other Democrats saying get out. If Biden does get out, if you pressure him privately, for example, and he gets out, well, that's a different story. Then you change your public messaging. But if the goal is to defeat Trump, Biden and Democrats publicly arguing about whether he should stay in seems very, very bad. Now let's get to why aren't more people calling for Trump to step down. I alluded a couple of days ago to wanting to talk about why hasn't Trump been called on to step down.
I don't know what should happen with Joe Biden, but he says he's not dropping out. And as we just looked at, prominent Democrats are saying we're behind Joe Biden. The one guy who absolutely should be gone by now is Donald Trump.
The difference is on the republican side.
They could not care less what Trump has done. What's going on with Trump, cognitively, as long as they defeat Democrats, they don't really care anything about their nominee because they have absolutely no standards. You know, you have all these newspapers and op eds saying Biden should drop out after the debate. Most of those newspaper op eds didn't say Trump should drop out after being convicted on 34 felony counts. They didn't say Trump should drop out after being found civilly liable for sexual assault, which meets the New York definition for rape. They didn't say he shouldn't even be a candidate after he incited a riot on January 6, 2021. You know, Trump believes the Constitution is fine until for his benefit parts or all of it should be suspended. That should be immediately disqualifying. It should instantly lead to calls from every major newspaper and media outlet that Donald Trump stepped down, and most of them have not. So we have to accept that 40% of the country is okay. I mean, listen, it's not only that they're okay with what Trump is outlining. They want it. You go to Trump rallies where you hear Trump supporters say, I'd rather a dictator Trump than a democratically elected Biden.
Thought you supported the Constitution. I thought you supported due process and law and order. And now they support whatever's convenient for them. And so one of the concerns I have in general right now, with the lack of, lack of focus on Trump's disastrous debate performance and the obvious reality that it is Trump who should step down, is that it's a dynamic that perpetuates itself.
Because you have, the best analogy I could think of is people are acting as though we have a properly refereed boxing match, but there's a candidate who took a knife out and stabbed his opponent. But some of us keep pretending that we have a properly refereed boxing match here. And so we're saying, well, you know, Biden's performance wasn't so good. And what about replacement? Or as I've said before, I don't know, strategically. All I care about is strategically. I don't know strategically whether keeping Biden or replacing Biden gives us a better shot at defeating Trump. Replacing is chaotic. Keeping maybe is a problem. We'll talk to Alan Lichtman later today about it. But what we can't keep doing is analyzing Biden one way when the entire Republican and MAGA apparatus around Trump has zero standards. Because if they had even an iota of standards, they would have all already called for him to drop out. As opposed to just, you know, the occasional Republican who has nothing. No, no campaigns left to run like Mitt Romney, who's willing to say, hey, this is not for me. This isn't good for the Republican Party. So we do need to, in some sense, shift the focus back to Trump's disastrous debate performance. The disaster that is Trump as a candidate and nominee, the criminality, the scofflaw nature of everything that he's done in public life for the last 40 years. It's not the only thing that must be done. You've got to run a good campaign. You need to be united behind your candidate.
All of these other things. But if we want a direct path here to disaster, it's failing to point out, hey, you know, oh, does Biden, by the way, it seems the story was, was completely baseless. Biden's early stage Parkinson's. Yeah, who cares? The opponent's Trump. So what? Biden early stage Parkinson's. He can still be president. That doesn't make a difference. Biden stumbled and got confused during the debate. Right, but we've got the civilly liable rapist, convicted felon who wants to suspend the constitution when it's inconvenient to him. I'll stick with Biden. We've got to make that contrast now, after the break, we're going to try to do that.
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E
Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves as bad.
A
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F
Energy dominant again. Yes, oh, yes, and quickly says President Trump.
A
Yes, oh, yes, and quickly says President Trump.
Okay. And that was basically the theme and mo of this entire rally. Trump challenging President Biden I to another debate.
F
So tonight, I'm officially offering Joe the chance to redeem himself in front of the entire world.
So Marco and Byron and everybody, here's what we're going to do. You guys can be referees if you like. Let's do another debate this week so that sleepy Joe Biden had can prove to everyone all over the world that he has what it takes to be president.
But this time, it will be man to man. No moderators, no holes barred. Just name the place. Anytime, anywhere.
A
So a very, very warm day in Florida, and Trump absolutely soaking wet, looks like he's greased up for a boxing match. It's wild. Despite trying to distance himself from project 2025 this week, Donald Trump saying that he will round up millions of Latinos into detention camps. And, of course, this is a classic part of project 2025.
F
And on day one, we will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in the history of our country. You have no choice.
A
Yep, that's the plan. Where despite saying that President Obama was going to put everybody in camps, Obama it is actually Trump who's going to put migrants in camps for subsequent deportation. The roundups will start. This is straight out of Project 2025. So despite Trump claiming he has no idea about it, no clue, no connection, he's certainly supporting a lot of the things in Project 2025. In addition to challenging President Biden to a debate, Trump challenged President Biden to a golf match. I guess you would say.
F
I'm also officially challenging crooked Joe to an 18 hole golf match right here on Doral's. Blue Monster, considered one of the greatest tournament golf courses anywhere in the world. One of the great courses of the world.
It will be among the most watched sporting events in history, maybe bigger than the Ryder cup or even the Masters.
A
There you go. So Trump, I guess, just because he's been playing so much golf, thinks, I don't know, we can solve this election by golfing. And then the anecdotes really started to show the evidence of Trump's crumbling brain. Trump with a story about a beautiful waitress who's just as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside.
And then somehow that leads him to talking about Chris Christie's obesity. It's a very strange moment, but to be frank, many of us have come to expect this sort of stuff that's.
F
Supposed to be a little bit Democrat territory, but we're leading in Nevada. And a waitress came over. Beautiful waitress. And I never like talking about physics because she's beautiful inside, because you never talk about a person's look ever. You never mention it. The other day, I got very angry. Some man called Chris Christie fat.
And I said, sir?
And then he said he was a pig. I said, sir, chris Christie is not a fat pig. Please remember that. He is not a fat pig. Please take it back. And the guy's looking at me like, really?
No. We have to defend people. You can't call people fat.
A
See, this makes much more sense to vote for than Biden, because Biden got confused at the debate, right? Then you see the stuff. You go, wait a second. I'm not an idiot. Why would I vote for this instead of Biden? It makes no sense. Trump refreshing his Hannibal Lecter rant. I continue to believe that Trump might think of Hannibal Lecter as a historical figure rather than the character played by the great Anthony Hopkins in silence of the lambs. I am getting the growing impression that Trump thinks Hannibal Lecter is a historical figure.
F
Did anyone ever see the lovely movie silence of the lambs? Did you see it? Did you ever hear of Hannibal Lecter? He was a lovely man.
He would love to have you for dinner. He will take you.
You had many people for dinner. Well, we have a lot of people coming in. They always say, oh, that's terrible. That Trump would say, he is rambling about Hannibal Lecter. No, I'm not rambling. That's who we're. We are allowing people from insane asylums and mental institutions into our country by the tens of thousands, and they're closing them down in other countries. You know, the cost savings and all right.
A
So Trump with his Hannibal Lecter rant, and then chillingly, and they get, this is a reminder of what's at stake in this election that we, you can't forget it. Trump says that if he becomes president, he will take over the city of Washington, DC.
F
We will take over the horribly run capitol of our nation in Washington, DC, and clean it up, renovate it, and rebuild our capital city so that it is no longer a nightmare of murder and crime, but rather it will become the most beautiful capital anywhere in the world right now if you leave Florida. Oh, let's go, darling. Let's look at the Jefferson Memorial. Let's look at the Washington monument. Let's go and look at some of the beautiful scenes, and you end up getting shot, mugged, draped. We're going to take over our capital and we're going to run it tough and smart and we're going to beautify it.
A
So Trump really with some scary ideas about what he's going to do. And then, of course, as usual, as is often the case lately, about 100 degrees, people waiting to get in with no shade, limited water, and Trump complaining about the temperature at the rally.
F
You know, it's only 103 degrees out here.
I, so, you know, they built all these, they call them, sir, we have many water spots. I said, what about one for me? Do I have one? I don't have one, Marco. They gave water spots. Everybody has a, call it a water spot where water comes out, you get, they don't have anything for me. I'm being drenched up here.
A
There you go. All right. And he is absolutely soaking wet. And then lastly, Donald Trump claiming that his son, Don Junior has a great wife. It just so happens Don Junior is not married so hard.
F
So smarteendeze has a great wife. A great wife, as does Don.
Oh, you like Laura, right?
A
All right. So he says Don Junior has a great wife. Don junior is not married. So a confused rally, but a reminder, we cannot forget that. Whatever you think of Biden's performance at the debate, and it wasn't good, right? I don't deny that it wasn't good. He didn't tell the, the hundreds of lies that Trump told, but it wasn't a good performance. Whatever you think about it, this is the alternative. I'm certainly not voting for this. I have some great video of democratic congressman Jake Auchincloss. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, really showing how it's done on Fox News. You can hear the Fox host audibly sign, because no matter how he tries to frame questions in an unfair and biased way.
Congressman Aken Kloss uses every opportunity to hit back at MAGA, to hit back at Trump, to hit back at republicans. This is very interesting to see. The context is polling about the race, the presidential race. This is really good stuff. And it just starts to frustrate Fox News host John Roberts in the most.
E
Delightful way that that race is a lot closer. So would it be better to put up a different candidate?
G
The most important polling is Americans opinions about Donald Trump. He's historically unpopular and for good reason, because they saw what the disaster of his first term was. And we know that there are Haley voters in the heartland who are desperate to vote for anybody besides Trump. And we have to have a message of law and order to appeal to those voters. I mean, the Republicans are trying to defend the FBI. They're nominating a convicted felon. They're trying to surge machine guns onto our streets and in our schools. This is not a party that respects speaker one.
A
Did you hear that sigh from John Roberts? He doesn't like it. Jake, you're supposed to be attacking Biden.
G
The rule of law.
E
Yeah, with respect, congressman, I mean, I keep asking about Joe Biden. You keep talking, talking about Donald Trump.
G
But there are questions about Joe Biden or questions about who can beat Donald Trump because Donald Trump is.
E
Do you really think, do you really think Joe Biden can beat Donald Trump? Or would Kamala Harris be a better person to do that? Would Gavin Newsom be a better person to do that? Do you think after that debate performance, this is the guy you want running for president?
G
Every one of those names that you just mentioned can beat Donald Trump. And the reason why is because Donald Trump is unpopular. He's actually probably the most unpopular national politician of modern american history. Because voters don't want to see their tax returns have a little partisan affiliation box they have to check next year. They don't want their Social Security checks to come with strings attached. They don't want forced deportations of their friends and their neighbors who are trying to become american citizens. They don't want to see him supplicating himself in front of Vladimir Putin like he did in 2018.
E
There are a lot of democratic and independent voters who want to see somebody with the mental confidence to run, and increasingly, they don't think that's Joe Biden.
G
The opinion of Pennsylvanians, of Michigans, of Wisconsinites is absolutely vital. Don't disagree with you there. And that is going to be the challenge ahead of the top of the democratic ticket is to make a strong and sharp contrast against what Donald Trump is offering. This is not just about the past, about the record of accomplishments. This is about the future as well. And Democrats have a much more compelling vision of the future than MAGA Republicans do.
A
Really, really good stuff. And I'm going to play one more clip for you. And again, this was on a Kate can Biden win? Question. And just doing a really good job here.
E
Strategy was to talk about Donald Trump and make this election all about Donald Trump. And now this election has become all about Joe Biden. Is that an election he can win?
G
14 million democratic primary voters think he can win it, and the Democratic Party should walk humbly before it contravenes the will of our voters. Unlike the Republican Party, we respect free and fair elections. And what unifies us as a party is knowing that Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy and my challenge to my republic.
A
So Jake Auchincloss, doing a really good job to the point of frustration for John Roberts. And I think this is the right balance between recognizing the importance of the opinion of voters and also remembering that the alternative is Trump. And so when you go, Biden's debate performance was really bad. What's going on with him? The contrast to that has to be okay. The alternative is Trump, and that's a really scary contrast. Let's take a very quick break. Get the free project 2025 white paper at david pakman.com project 2025 I've had such trouble finding a great razor where I am not cutting myself for getting those nicks on my skin, which are so common with the cheap, disposable razors. You have to meet our sponsor, Henson shaving. Henson actually manufactures parts for the International Space Station and the Mars rover, and they are bringing that exact same precision engineering to the shaving experience. It hurts when you shave because blades extend too far and thus they wobble slightly. But with their aerospace grade CNC machines, Henson is able to make metal razors that extend just 0.0013 inches. That's less than the thickness of a human hair, which means a secure, stable blade with a vibration free shave. It also has built in channels to evacuate the hair and the cream. No more clogs, no more rubbing your thumb on the razor to get the hair out. I use Henson at home. Shaving is a great experience. Now Henson wants to be the best razor, not the best razor business, which means you only need to buy it once, and it's awesome.
Go to henson shaving.com pacman. Add a razor and a hundred pack of blades to your cart. Then enter the code Pacman to get the hundred blades for free. That is a three year supply. That's Henson shaving.com pacman. Use code Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes it is great to welcome back to the program today Alan Lichtman, who's a professor, a political historian, author and professor at American University in Washington, DC.
Professor, we looked at your recent appearance on CNN, which I found very interesting. You told the hosts that they were complicit to some degree in sort of reestablishing the idea that maybe Trump is a viable alternative to Joe Biden on the basis of the debate. Before we get to the debate, generally speaking, do debates make a difference in the framework you've established and used for decades now to predict the outcome of presidential elections?
B
Debates do not directly figure into my system the keys to the White House, which have been right since I predicted Ronald Reagan's reelection in April 1982, almost three years before the election, when the nation was mired and what was then the worst recession since the Great Depression. Ronald Reagan's approval ratings were in the gutter and 60% of the public said he was too old to run again for president because he won one of the biggest landslides in us history. But aside from the keys, history shows debates have no predictive value whatsoever. Hillary Clinton won the debates in 2016 and still lost the election. John Kerry won the debates in 2004 and still lost the election in 1980. Gerald Ford committed the greatest gaffe ever in a debate when he said the eastern Europe is not under soviet domination. That generated huge headlines, and he almost won that election. He lost, but he did vastly better than the pollsters and the pundits would indicate in the wake of the Watergate scandal and the loss of the Vietnam war.
A
So a bunch of different things to ask about. I'll take them one by one. Some have made the counterpoint to your framework and position about the debates not making a difference. That never have. We had a debate in which a candidate seemed so unfit as Joe Biden seemed on June 27. And therefore, while your model maybe has been correct in the past, it doesn't account for the possibility of what happened on June 27. This is the argument that some are making about your statements regarding the debate's predictive value. Is it conceivable that that would be a novel but accurate interpretation of the impact of this particular debate?
B
Let me say this.
Every four years, someone says to me, this year is different.
Your keys won't work. You got to change your model. We have an african american run. Never had that before. The country's not ready for that. We have a woman run. Never had that before. Country's not ready for that. We have social media.
We've never had that before. That changes everything. And I have two answers to that. Number one, you can't change a model on the fly. That is a prescription for error. Number two, my model is based on history, but it's very robust.
Prospectively, it goes back to 1984. It's got a 40 year record. No other model comes close. And retrospectively, I developed the model going all the way back to 1860, the horse and buggy days of american politics, when we didn't have automobiles, jet planes, poles, television, radio. When we were in agricultural society, women couldn't vote. Most African Americans were enslaved. My ancestors from Eastern Europe, Latinos, Asians, hadn't gotten here yet. So the keys have endured enormous changes in our society, our economy, our politics, our communications. And it's the height of falling to make the presumption that something is now different, and I need to change the model. You cannot, moreover, judge a presidency on one debate.
Debates go way down on the list of what makes a successful president far more important of values, judgment, experience.
And, you know, all of those critics don't take into account an incredibly successful Biden administration. Why hasn't his so called impairment destroyed his presidency? He has more domestic accomplishments than any us president since the 1960s. It was Biden and Biden alone who put together the very difficult coalition of the west that stopped Putin from conquering Ukraine.
And unfortunately, a lot of the impressions of the debate are from the media. Most people didn't watch the debate. The vast majority of Americans or registered voters never watched. So they got only their impressions from the media, which almost entirely focused on Biden, and legitimately so. There were legitimate questions to be raised, but almost entirely ignored. The far worse, much more dangerous performance by Donald Trump. He has based his presidency on lies. He lied his way through the debate. One lie for every minute to 20 to 30 seconds of speaking time. Huge lies. Lies about the January 6 insurrection, lies about the 220 election, lies about prices going up when they only went up 25%. One 8th of that. And he said he wouldn't accept the results of a fair election and promised to govern as an authoritarian. What is more dangerous than a president who will, if elected, destroy our democracy and a president who may have issues related to age and diminished capacity? What would be worse for America?
On the one hand, Donald Trump gets elected and destroys our democracy, which he's promised to do. He's right out of the open on what he's going to do. And by the way, snuffed out the free and independent press. What the press has done is so self defeating. That's far worse than, let's say, Biden doesn't complete his second term. Harris becomes president, she follows the same policies. She is eminently qualified as a vice president, a former senator, former attorney general. And by the way, we have historical precedent for that. Harry Truman took over from FDR and today is regarded as one of our more esteemed presidents. Lyndon Johnson took over from JFK and pushed through Congress the war on poverty and the most important piece of legislation since World War two, the Civil Rights act of 1964. I've summarized american politics in one sense.
Republicans have no principles, Democrats have no spine. Republicans are uniting behind a guy who was openly indicated he's going to destroy our democracy. He said he'd be a dictator on day one. And every dictator in the history of the world when they're a dictator on day one has been a dictator forever. He's convicted felon civilly. He was found to sexually assaulted a woman, colloquially raped her, found to have committed massive financial fraud. His charity was dissolved because he was using it for his own personal gain. His Trump institute and Trump University went down under the tubes. 34 felony counts. On the other hand, at the first sign of adversity, Democrats are willing to push their incumbent president under the bus, who, by the way, was not nominated by members of Congress or donors or political operatives like James Carville. He was nominated by 87% of the democratic primary voters. And the Democrats are so foolish as to air all their dirty laundry out in public and creating an image that Trump just loves of a democratic party that can't get it together. That's in total chaos.
A
Hard to find a disagreement with that analysis. Professor Lichtman, to get back briefly to the model, if I understand the model correctly, and I believe we talked about this the last time we spoke some years ago, the model predicts the popular vote outcome. And speaker one, let me stop you, okay? Stop me if that's wrong.
B
When I first developed the model, there was no distance between the popular vote and the winner. So I didn't have to worry about that. But in recent years, the popular vote has become irrelevant, much more important for our democracy than the keys. It's irrelevant because the Democrats pile up 5 million plus votes in just two states. And you know what they are? New York and California. No comparable republican states that, you know, counts for nothing. In the electoral College, Democrats could win those states by 537 votes and still get all the electoral votes. So in recent years, I've only called the winner. And by the way, you know, from 1992 on, Republicans have only won the popular vote once.
A
Yes.
B
What year? That was 2004.
A
2004. Which, interestingly, had 140,000 votes in Ohio. Gone the other way, you would have seen John Kerry become president while losing the popular vote by about two and a half million. It didn't happen. But that would have been quite a scenario.
B
Right? But it's never happened. But we have had the scenario of republicans gaining the presidency and losing the popular vote. Donald Trump lost the popular vote by 2.8 million in 2016 and still was elected president. And by the way, I was not very popular in 90% plus democratic Washington, DC, where I teach at American University. When, against all the conventional wisdom, I predicted Trump's win in 2016. They even got a little note on the Washington Post, where I predicted his win. On their article, it said, congrats, professor. Good call. And a big sharpie. Letters Donald J. Trump, speaker one, without.
A
Going into the details of each of the keys, can you briefly tell us which keys are currently held by Trump or Biden and which hang in the balance?
B
Yeah, let me just make a small correction. Trump doesn't hold any keys.
A
Okay.
B
The keys tap into the structure of how elections really work, which is votes up or down on the strength and performance of the White House party.
A
Okay.
B
All the keys are measured against the White House party.
A
Fair two key.
B
And they're always phrased. So an answer of true favors the election of the White House party.
And if six or more are false, the White House party is a predicted losers. Only two keys have anything to do with the candidates, and they're very high threshold keys. They asked whether the incumbent party candidate is one of those once in a generation inspirational candidates like FDR and Ronald Reagan, who won all their elections in a huge landslides and converted a lot of members of the opposition. And they ask whether the challenger is not, since they're always phrased as an answer of true favoring incumbent with challenging party candidate is not one of those once in a generation inspirational candidates. With that in mind, let's see where the White House party stands.
A
Yeah.
B
Now, Biden, or whoever the nominee is, and we can talk about that a little bit more. But just Biden at the moment is down definitively. Two keys. The mandate key, because Democrats lost the midterm elections in 2022 for the US House and the incumbent charisma key, because there's no FDR. That means four more keys would have to fall to predict its defeat. And I can direct you to the most shaky keys. You know, something strange could happen, but the most shaky keys are third party social unrest, foreign military failure, and foreign military success. But if the Democrats push Biden out and have a big party brawl about who'd replace him, then I've got to change my analysis.
A
So let's talk about that. If indeed President Biden were to be pushed out, which keys shift?
B
Right. If Biden is pushed out and we have a party brawl for who to replace him. If there isn't an overwhelming consensus candidate, they lose two more keys, they lose the incumbency key, and they lose the contest key. That means of the four shaky keys, only two, not four, would have to fall to predict the Democrats defeat. And aside from the keys, do you know how many times the White House party, the incumbent party, has won since 1900, over 120 years, has won? When there's an open seat with no incumbent running and a party contest, the answer is zero.
Whereas when there is an incumbent running and no party contest, they win most of the time. That's why I have a plan b. You want to hear my plan b?
My plan b is lets presume for a moment, hypothetically, that theres so much pressure on Biden that hes forced to withdraw. What he should do to preserve the keys is resign the presidency for the good of the country, which would contrast him with Donald Trump, who was only in it for himself. Harris would then become president, ticking off the incumbency key, and shed become the consensus nominee. Biden would instruct all his delegates to vote for her, ticking off the contest key, and we'd still be in the situation where four keys, not two keys, would have to fall to speaker one.
A
Okay, let me ask you about that in a little more detail. You know, sometimes I've had conversations with my rabbi friends about certain rules in jewish law where they explain to me, hey, you know what? Here's how we do a certain thing on the sabbath. And I say to them, you know, it really feels to me like that violates the spirit of what these rules on the Sabbath were and about coffee makers or whatever, and you're finding a way to adhere to the letter. And they say the letter is really all that matters with what you just said. If Harris were, if Biden were to resign the presidency to make Harris the incumbent, and therefore you check the incumbency key, does it check it in the spirit of which that key was originally developed or does it only check the box? Nominally. You understand the analogy I'm making?
B
Of course, and I hate to say it, there's no ghost in the machine. There's no spirit of the keys. The keys are scientific, okay? They are what they are.
Gerald Ford won the incumbency key when Richard Nixon resigned, and he was nowhere close to the position Harris would be in if she became press. Harris is the elected vice president. A former US senator, Gerald Ford was an appointed vice president, never won any election larger than a congressional district in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and then became an accidental president when Richard Nixon resigned. But I still gave him the incumbency key. And as I said, he came way closer than anyone expected. And, of course, Lyndon Johnson got the incumbency key in 64, Harry Truman in the 48. So, you know, I don't adjust the keys according to some ghost in the machine. There is no ghost.
A
Fair enough.
Last question. Is it abundantly clear to you that the biggest mistake Democrats could make is pushing Joe Biden out when it comes to their chances in November?
B
Democrats have already made a huge mistake by showing their lack of a spine. You know, bye. One sign of adversity, they're all running for the hills, disparaging their nominee. Elected nominee, their elected president playing right into the hands of Donald Trump. They would play even more into the hands of Donald Trump if they pushed out Biden and then tried to get a so called more electable candidate. Democrats are very good at picking electable candidates. They've done it many times, you know, proven winners, experienced candidates like Walter Mondale in 1964, Mike Dukakis, the great governor of Massachusetts in 1988, the great senator John Kerry in 2004, the former first lady US senator, secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016. And what do all those candidates have in common? They all lost. For the most part, it's been the unpredictable, off the wall candidates who won for Democrats like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, the Democrats also have chained themselves to the polls. But I would call your attention, and, you know, I don't follow the polls, but this is, you know, oh, these other candidates, right, like Newsom or Whitmer, are more electable than Biden.
D
Right?
A
Right.
B
The most recent poll came out yesterday from July 9 from the respected independent Emerson College, had Trump and Biden 50 50 dead tie. All the other alternatives were down to Trump by six points to ten points. So this idea that James Carville and the operatives and the members of Congress know who's electable is completely contradicted by the historical record and even by the polls to which they find themselves chained.
A
All right, Professor Alan Lichtman, always appreciate your time and insights. Thank you so much for your time today.
B
Thank you, David. Send me a link.
A
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Listen, I have been talking about this for a while. You can check out my interview with the iced coffee hour guys when I was in Vegas.
What was that, a couple months, three, three months ago? Four months ago? There is an unfortunate reality where a bunch of the perception of who is healthier and robust and more vigorous comes from the color of Donald Trump's hair and the color of Donald Trump's skin. And one of the things I've been saying for a while is that if Biden used the orange clown makeup that Trump uses and dyed his hair the way Trump does, Trump also has had hair transplants, which is a whole other story. Biden would appear to be more robust and vigorous, even though it wouldn't really change anything about him. They should have thought about this for the presidential debate. Biden being orange, you know, probably at this point to start dying his hair would be too much of a change. The self tanner is probably somewhat more subtle, but I don't think that it would have hidden the fact that Biden got confused at multiple points during the debate. But in terms of the physical appearance, it would have helped. This stuff makes a huge difference. Think back to the Nixon Kennedy debate example where Kennedy was not sweating and had makeup on and kind of looked put together. Nixon, I believe the story is he had sort of a fever or a flu, which might have contributed to the sweating. But whatever precautions could have been taken did not appear to have been taken. And a lot about the physical appearance, Nixon, if I recall, had like a 05:00 shadow sort of thing. The physical appearance was a big part of it.
This is a big, big deal. Now, I wish it didn't matter to some degree. I wish we had a population where the debate is really interpreted only through what is said. And as I've said before, if you look at a transcript of the debate, even with Joe Biden stumbles, it doesn't look nearly as bad for Joe Biden. And Trump tells dozens and dozens of lies. So I don't have a problem with this. And Trump's already doing it, you know, so when you see these pictures of Biden looking more tan, what's someone going to say, oh, Biden's making himself tan. Yes. So is Trump. Trump's orange. You see Trump self Tanner all over his white shirt collars and the entire thing. This really does make a difference. If I had any criticism, it would be that the Biden campaign didn't start doing this sooner, they should have done it at the debate. Now, at this point, is it going to be a difference maker? Probably not. Probably not. But if the idea is to limit the degree to which Biden looks pale and old, and he looked very, very pale in a bunch of recent appearances before they started to use the apparent self tanner. Uh, it is going to help just on the margins. It's not going to replace being able to connect his presidency to solving many of the problems that Trump exacerbated. And the reminder that if Trump comes in, ushered in behind him will be a whole bunch of horrible ideas, including those in agenda 47 and Project 2025. Of course, that has to be top of the list. But if you can look a little less pale rather than more pale, it's probably a good thing.
Now, of course, the risk becomes that Biden ends up looking like Trump, and Trump does it to such a cartoonish degree that maybe at the end of the day, it's counterproductive. But this doesn't bother me at all. And it makes perfect sense, given that so much of this race has become essentially visual interpretations of the apparent vigorousness of each of the candidates. We seem to have reached the flatline for Trump's gain from Joe Biden's poor debate performance almost two weeks ago. We have been very closely tracking polling since the presidential debate. You may recall that when we went into that debate on June 27, it was Donald Trump plus 1.5. There it is. Since then, as I have told you, Donald Trump has extended his lead from 1.5%, five to 3.3. On the one hand, that's an increased lead of 120%. We go from 1.5 to 3.3. That's 120% growth. That's not great for Joe Biden. On the other hand, as I've already said, to have a disastrous debate performance and only be down by three is really not so bad, particularly when there's months to make up for the debate performance. But here's the other important, uh, thing to realize for days now, that lead, that gap between Trump and Biden has been 3.3. So we may. The question when Trump went from leading by one and a half to leading by two, two and a half, three, 3.3 was how much bleeding is there going to be so far?
So far, it seems that the gain for Trump from the debate has flatlined at 1.8 percentage points, which is hard to think of as a complete and total disaster. Now, let me give you some counterpoints. If you're already losing, going in, falling behind by any more is bad. Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. While being up in some of these polls, Biden is down, albeit just a little. That doesn't sound good at all. Another counterpoint would be that people are forgetting that a sort of toss up situation means democrats lose because of the electoral college. Democrats. Or if you look at 2020, Joe Biden had a seven to 8 million vote win in the popular vote, but ultimately only ended up winning the electoral college, thanks to about 115,000 votes in three states. That's very, very close. If Trump's winning the popular vote, it's over for Biden. That's an interesting counterpoint as well. The counter, counter counterpoint to all of this is big picture. Trump lost 2020 and has had a horrible four years since.
So there's just no place that he could possibly make gains. Well, swing state polling might suggest something a little bit different. A couple other numbers that I think are important to look at again, the day of the presidential debate, the 538 2024 election projection had it 50 50.
Everything that's happened in the last 13 days since the debate has pushed Trump to 51 and Biden to 49. We will discuss on the bonus show today why there has not been a bigger swing there in the Nate silver projection. It's basically flat, not a big move at all. And so if indeed this is the kind of extent of the damage that the debate did for Joe Biden, it's really not altogether terrible. There is one other new aspect to polling that has to do with Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton that is interesting enough that I want to discuss it on its own. There are some stunning new polls post debate which show that both Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump if the election were held today. Uh oh, David. No, no, no. This is a very risky conversation to have, given what happened in 2016. Well, we just follow what the data show us. And this is a very interesting article from Politico. A top democratic pollster has a survey showing President Joe Biden still in contention against Donald Trump, but at further risk of losing, with other leading Democrats now surging ahead. Listen to this. This poll finds Biden behind Trump, 42 for Biden, 43 for Trump.
Interestingly, Kamala Harris is now ahead of Trump 42 to 41, and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton is ahead of Trump 43 to 41. The poll also tested other potential democratic tickets and found one, headed by Clinton with Harris as vp to be the strongest. Clinton. Harris leading Trump 43 40, which is four points better than Biden. Harris. So what should be our takeaway from this? It's probably not what you think the takeaway from this polling isn't, to me, that Biden should be replaced. It's confirmation that this is really an election of four more years of Trump going back to Trump or not, and going with whoever is the democratic nominee. Now, it's not literally whoever. There are certainly unknown Democrats that you could put in who would do more poorly. But the fact that you can put in Kamala Harris, the fact that you can put in Hillary Clinton, and the numbers are really close to the numbers with Joe Biden tells me that this is essentially a coalition that, to different degrees, is interested in preserving, just an uncontroversial democratic administration.
Whoever is at the top, because it's more about the coalition than it is about Biden, which is something I've been saying. If Biden is demented, if Biden is Parkinson's, if you accept the most severe of all the conspiracy theories that have been floated, somehow he's managed to have an extraordinarily successful presidential term. And the idea is whether it's Kamala Harris, whether it's Hillary Clinton, whether it's Joe Biden, it's the people around them that ultimately are really going to be the difference makers and those who are making things happen. And so to some degree, we can look at this poll and say, uh oh, this could be trouble. There's a lot of people who are polling as well as Biden. Or even better, we got to get Biden out. The counterpoint to that, and I do think that it is a relevant and important counterpoint, is that there is an understanding among the democratic electorate, much of the independent electorate, a small sliver of the republican electorate, there's an understanding that any of these Democrats would be uncontroversially fine, nothing crazy or terrible would happen. Is it your perfect ideal set of political positions? Maybe not.
Maybe nothing. But as a contrast to saying, well, Biden messed up at the debate, he's definitely showing signs of age related decline.
Let's put in the civilly liable rapist, convicted felon, antidemocratic lunatic. No, that doesn't make any sense. And so you can interpret this polling in a lot of different ways. Ultimately, ultimately, this is going to be about who comes out to vote. We need to get people thinking about project 2025. We need to get people remembering what it was like when Trump would humiliate himself in the country every day during COVID and holding those Covid press conferences during which he would suggest, what about injecting bleach? What about a cleaning? What about, does a flu vaccine prevent Covid? Remember that beauty? We have to remind people that that is the alternative. And from there forward, hopefully make the case that, you know, would we pick Biden out of a hat today? Starting from scratch? We can acknowledge the answer is no while still recognizing if it's Biden Trump. The answer is obvious. And if you need a reminder, just a primer on the Project 2025 component, you can get my free white paper, now downloaded by more than 32,000 people. The success of this thing, it's off the charts. You can find the free twelve page white paper. Listen, it's twelve minutes if you read one page per minute, this is not a big lift. And it'll tell you so much of what you need to know about Project 2025. Find it at david pakman.com slash Project 2025. On the bonus show today, the House has passed some republican bills aimed at blocking dishwasher and fridge efficiency standards. Trump's obsession with plumbing has now extended to other Republicans.
We will talk about the snub of Nikki Haley to the Republican National Convention, but she's still encouraging her delegates to back Trump. What a pathetic figure in american politics. And we will also take a deeper dive into the Fivethirtyeight presidential forecast. Why hasn't it moved much post debate from 50 50 to 5149? We will explain it all when I am joined by producer path on the bonus show. Sign up@joinpackman.com to get instant access. I'll see you then, and I'll be back here tomorrow.